Xin Zhao 6.3 buffs vs 6.4 Nerfs

BigIdea·2/27/2016, 8:08:49 PM·37 votes·4,653 views

6.3 buffs: W - Battle Cry newHEAL RATIO Now additionally scales with 0.2 bonus attack damage newRAGING FIRE Now passively causes every third attack to critically strike for 25/37.5/50/62.5/75% bonus Crit Damage for that attack

E - Audacious Charge COOLDOWN 14/13/12/11/10 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds at all ranks

6.4 nerfs: W - Battle Cry HEAL RATIO 0.7 ability power ⇒ 0.4 ability power ATTACK SPEED 40/50/60/70/80% ⇒ 40/45/50/55/60%

Why not just tone down the exact 6.3 buffs that were given to him? A bit confused by the decision to keep the buffs and nerf other aspects of W. Wouldn't nerfing the buffs most directly address what made him too strong in the first place?

48 Comments

La Barbotte2/27/2016, 11:20:26 PM32 votes

because riots cant admit they fucked up

Nyhver2/27/2016, 9:19:55 PM8 votes

I believe the standard riot ideology supporting such changes is "Instead of reverting the nerfs, (/changes) we want to shift power in meaningful, different ways to address issues"

Which I don't particularly approve of

jawd552/28/2016, 1:01:14 AM6 votes

Riot has stated before (dont have source or quote) that when they nerf or buff they are looking to move a champion towards a specific direction that they feel is good for the champion overall. Reverts/partial reverts like this dont happen often because they just move the champion from point A to point B and back again instead of continually moving forward in champion development.

Madra2/28/2016, 12:34:02 AM5 votes

You can bet that if Xin Zhao was released today, he would have no AP ratios. Giving Xin Zhao an AD ratio on his heal and a mini-crit on every third hit brings him in line with more recently released champions, The AP ratios are kind of a hold over from an older era.

FantasySniper2/28/2016, 2:02:44 AM5 votes

Yes and no.

Before 6.3: His kit's scalings didn't really mesh properly with his playstyle, so you either went AP for the sustainability in fights or AD for the damage, yet no matter what you still needed attack speed and durability to have either of those benefits after your initial burst. Enter Guinsoo's Rageblade, which actually made him viable because it offered all the necessary stats for his offense in one item, but he still was not viable enough compared to the rest of the champion pool.

After 6.3: His kit now has a much better innate scaling with AD and he leaped up the tier list. Guinsoo's Rageblade was still core, so when you got the bonus damage on top of the bonus healing, combined with Warlord's Bloodlust that still worked on the guaranteed crit, it made it very difficult to oppose him if a smart Xin ever got ahead.

6.4: By nerfing his ability power bonus, it shuts down AP builds that made his healing insane. The nerf to attack speed was almost nothing, but it was likely in response to his synergy with Warlord's Bloodlust, which was still called for even after they changed its interaction.

Overall, the changes to how his kit scales were necessary to update him.

Nahui2/27/2016, 8:41:26 PM4 votes

Because his interaction and attack speed gained from devourer and most notably rageblade makes it so he can achieve too much attack speed without really building into it. Now, to achieve a shit ton of attack speed, he may need to invest more gold into it instead of relying on a short cooldown ability.

Heckin Support2/27/2016, 9:50:19 PM4 votes

Because Riot will never admit they're wrong and revert something completely.

LadyRenly2/27/2016, 10:22:28 PM4 votes

they should have gotten rid of his AD scaling on healing completely and stop gutting his AP scaling

Dealth2/27/2016, 10:51:29 PM3 votes

The reason they did the buffs was the make AD Xin Zhao viable, but after they did that Rageblade Xin Zhao became OP so they nerfed his AP to tone his scaling with Rageblade down.

Bear Gauntlets2/28/2016, 12:33:21 AM3 votes

Because the buffs he got weren't all that bad or difficult to deal with. When he got rageblade and sated, then stacked up before the fight, THEN his healing and attack speed was a problem.

MrBuffington2/28/2016, 12:41:54 AM3 votes

I think the goals of the buffs were to make Xin (slightly) more interesting to play; after that they would try to balance him. The intent, just from my speculation, is that they want Xin to have a bigger pay-out from his 3 hit passive (the added ratio on the heal, and the crit), but make it more difficult for him to reach that pay-out (AS nerfs), so it feels more satisfying to land but also the enemy has something to play around

The problem with this is that Xin is still a ball-of-stats champion, where if he's strong, he's overbearing, and if he's weak, he's very underwhelming. Riot can eventually fix Xin's nature with a series of these smaller mechanic changes (basically a 'rework' spread over a series of patches), but I think the best option is still to rework him from the ground up.

Twitch Chat2/29/2016, 5:29:46 AM2 votes

i'd like for xin to get a rework or at least to have a viable build path other than devourer rageblade cheese king build

Tribbles Foxfolk2/28/2016, 12:49:06 AM2 votes

{quoted}

6.3 buffs: W - Battle Cry newHEAL RATIO Now additionally scales with 0.2 bonus attack damage newRAGING FIRE Now passively causes every third attack to critically strike for 25/37.5/50/62.5/75% bonus Crit Damage for that attack

E - Audacious Charge COOLDOWN 14/13/12/11/10 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds at all ranks

6.4 nerfs: W - Battle Cry HEAL RATIO 0.7 ability power ⇒ 0.4 ability power ATTACK SPEED 40/50/60/70/80% ⇒ 40/45/50/55/60%

Why not just tone down the exact 6.3 buffs that were given to him? A bit confused by the decision to keep the buffs and nerf other aspects of W. Wouldn't nerfing the buffs most directly address what made him too strong in the first place?

Because Riot can't admit they made a mistake and they have to nerf whatever they buff in a different area when it inevitably goes wrong.

SwiftKitten882/28/2016, 2:43:49 AM2 votes

i know the feeling.. why do they completely rework something when the obvious fix is to just lower a number they have already

they did it with nids traps when they let her jungle

nid traps did 10% hp capped at 200 vs monsters

then riot was like "OMG THIS IS OP VS MONSTERS NOW THAT NID CAN JUNGLE!!! LETS COMPLETELY REWORK THE TRAPS!!!" instead of you know.. lowering the cap vs monsters that was ALREADY THERE... [zombie-brand-facepalm]

Valhalla Rising2/28/2016, 3:17:54 AM1 votes

I think they are openly attempting to change his playstyle into mroe of an ad/as(possibly crit as well) instead of ap/as.

in otherwords they want to kill ap xin.

The Bearded Bard2/28/2016, 3:20:39 AM1 votes

They want his primary build to be AD, not AP.

Can't really blame them considering he's a spear toting physical damage dealer.

Jasiwel2/28/2016, 4:25:10 AM1 votes

It's a model of progression that Riot follows. Whenever they make changes to a champion, they would rather continue going in that direction than outright repealing those changes when they cause a champion's success/failure to drastically fluctuate. It's a mentality to improve design decisions rather than simply marking their being a "failed" scenario.

Samflash32/28/2016, 6:16:36 AM1 votes

They just threw that buff to find a reason to nerf AP Xin.

Not that i played him like that anyway

Hybrid2/28/2016, 7:09:31 AM1 votes

People in Riot are so selfish cuz they can't admit that the buff in patch 6.3 was unnecessary and it was a wrong decision. So in 6.4 they ruin this champion and kept this ''every third attack to critically strike'' cuz Riot never does wrong moves or fail.

Cosmic Warper2/28/2016, 7:35:52 AM1 votes

It's because rageblade is the real problem. Rageblade gives Xin way too much healing and attack speed. I'd honestly rather see rageblade get a huge power shift/ nerf, but I guess this works too. Xin should be itemizing AD attack speed items ( BoRK, PD, Youmuu's), but at the moment rageblade is so overtuned that they all pale in comparison to it.

Jakra2/28/2016, 9:36:48 PM1 votes

Or you can remove the buffs outright, because he didn't need them.

mike in the box2/29/2016, 1:12:52 AM1 votes

xin did not need the 6.3 buffs but strait up nerfing them is not the right call. LOL is a game where you need to consider more then just power level but play patters. Riot in 6.3 was trying to do more then just buff him, but change his play pattern. well it worked and now they need to tune his power level,

Saianna2/28/2016, 2:59:22 AM1 votes

Rito hates AP Xin.