Boards›Gameplay

The Warwick Mistake

SIlverHellion·12/11/2014, 9:32:20 PM·54 votes·6,587 views

I have been a Warwick main since early season 2. I started playing him heavily when I used to watch Guardsmanbob stream way back when, and have mained him as AP mid, hybrid top, AS jungle, every build and path you can imagine I have played many Warwick games as. Constantly dealing with abuse throughout, whenever I win lane and do well the enemy team trashes for playing such an "easy" character, if I do poorly or start losing, team would trash me for playing Warwick a "useless" jungle or "weak" top lane. He has always been one of my favorite characters, next to Cho'Gath, I love the tankiness he offers, how he literally pounces on the enemy carry and forces people to fight him since running will do no good.

This is the second time that Warwick has become a common pick and strong just because of items, and this is not how Riot should play it with just nerfing him. The first being with the new FF before it was nerfed heavily, it made many jungles a problem, with Warwick being at the brunt of it. FF was nerfed, and was needed to be nerfed, and as the other jungle items came up on par Warwick slowly dropped back into a state of anonymity, which I was very happy with, I got my main back without bans or other people picking him as the FOTM.

I am not sure the way Riot is going with the new smite and items, but nerfing Warwick because of them is not the way to go. This has been done multiple times with multiple characters whenever an item comes along that seems tailored specifically to that play style, and it has NEVER worked. Balancing a character around an item will make that character useless without it, you are stagnating build paths, making it so that the only way to play Warwick is the way that the item allows. Nerfing base ult damage and W duration hurts tank Warwick, not building damage and just using W to beef up your team's ADC while locking down the other teams. Warwick now exceeds with one build path, while every other is the same as it has ever been. A way should be found to make that build at the same strength as the others, rather then collectively bringing them all down until his strongest build has the power that Riot feels it should.

First post on the new boards, and I have not even seen a Warwick since the changes, so I can offer no constructive ideas as to how to make the appropriate changes to not murder all build paths but one, so let's see if we can start a discussion up on how to do this.

110 Comments

BakugoBestBoy12/11/2014, 9:58:34 PM50 votes

Nah WW needed a nerf, I mean now his ult only does 350 base damage at max rank, that's a little over half of a Lee Sin Kick, I think they should nerf him again so Lee Sin doesn't get insecure or anything. Can't have that...

Edit: Was it really that hard to tell this was a joke? God Ive gotta stop using this forum. Regardless the whole thing about WW is retarded, yes, imagine that, a champion that builds like an assassin can 1 shot you. Who the fk saw that one coming. All of LoL is just a bunch of whiners, me included.

Link127512/11/2014, 9:47:47 PM33 votes

Honestly Warwick was just fine before Season 5 rolled in. What needed nerfing was the devourer enchantment.

The Whamboozler12/11/2014, 10:13:00 PM15 votes

Whether you like him or not, you have to admit his ult is VERY obnoxious to play around. A targeted lockdown still that procs on-hits 5 times. Yeah, the new item is what broke him by making his ult not only lock you down for it's duration but MELT your health... but it's still very bad design and not much fun to be perma-zoned. If it's gonna lock you down for so long AND be unavoidable it needs to do very little damage or be difficult to set up in some other way. A good counter-example is malz, who needs to put his pool under you and if possible release a voidling to really blow you up with his ult, unless he's hugely fed. Also keep in mind malz is far squishier than WW usually is and lacks his massive sustain. He has the advantage of range tho, so that balances out.

The smite/WW ult combo right now is disgusting not just because it hurts so bad but because it's PAINFULLY easy. Click one button to ult and one to smite. You don't even have to smite first to set it up, you can smite mid-ult and you'll only lose a little damage. WW's ult needs a rework badly. I don't mind it having good damage AND good CC if you can play around it somehow. Making it a skillshot or only having it proc on hits on people at low health or something to make it an execute. It needs counterplay of some sort, that's all. Nerfing the item to reduce warwick's power hurt all the other junglers who use it too, and even at it's reduced power warwick STILL uses it best.

I agree with you on one thing though. Nerfing his ult's base damage made it MANDATORY on him, and that's bad. They just need to tweak how his ult works a bit and it can have it's old damage back and then some. If it's going to stay a point-and-click skill that can't be evaded or played around... yeah. It needs to be thrown in the dumpster somehow. Either in damage or perhaps with a HUGE increase in cooldown.

Anonagon12/11/2014, 10:51:33 PM12 votes

Nerfing an item effects the balance of all the other champions who use the item. If a champion is overpowered, even if it is because of one item, the champion should be nerfed if everyone else is balanced with the item. I'd rather have Warwick's build path be stagnated than have a cool item be useless on everyone but him.

Krazikarl12/12/2014, 1:51:13 AM9 votes

I think that the point that the OP was making was simple and correct:

WW was originally a good and interesting champion to old school WW players because he was very flexible. Yes, in some ways he was very simple. But in other ways he was not - he could be built a lot of different ways, and do a lot of different things. He could be a bruiser, he could be really tanky, he could be a quasi mage, he could be an assassin. This made him interesting as a champion.

Because of how Riot decided to nerf him, he is no longer interesting. He can only realistically do 1 thing without sucking - be an assassin ult bot that relies completely on a very simple smite/ult combo that abuses certain items. That's not interesting even to old school WW players.

Surely there were more thoughtful ways of nerfing him (I find that Riot often seems to put little thoughts into a lot of these nerfs). My first thought would have been to take away the 5 free hits property on his ult, while increasing the base damage. That way you reduce the effectiveness of on-hit cheese builds that have come up with season 5, but still keep the damage of other builds about the same. After all, WW was in a good spot last season, so if you could return him to that state, he would be fine.

2pudge1cup12/12/2014, 1:02:00 AM9 votes

Riot shoulda just put a cooldown on the on hit magic damage jungle item or made on hit procs in WW's ult commensurate to his attack speed.

Unfortunately, this is riot, and they never nerf the right thing.

You'd think by accident they wouldn't screw up once in a while.

Grunt66612/12/2014, 3:47:11 AM6 votes

Wasting your time Riot is stupid and bad at balancing. WW OP due to poorly thoght out jungle changes in preseason for 2 weeks, they nerf 3 of his abilities actually gutting what is already a medicore champ that honeslty cant cut it anyways.

meanwhile lee sin pick or ban in j8ungle for 3 straight YEARS dominating pro scene as well.....get nothing remotely what WW just got for being OP for 2 weeks in theri test jungle..... it is seriously a testiment to what a joke riot games is.

Ragingfangs12/12/2014, 12:25:15 AM6 votes

No It was not really a deserved nerf. Its not like wick himself was op it was ritos items that made him. before the new jungle stack magic damage item wick was no really op. He suffered a nerf once s5 came out and now he is getting more.

Yoella12/12/2014, 6:16:09 PM3 votes

I hated WW when the devourer enchantment came around but.. you're actually right. WW should not have been nerfed to fit around the item, either the item should've been nerfed or WW should have been evenly changed in order to prevent abuse with devourer. Or maybe a damage cap. I dunno. I'm no expert I just write stuff on the internet.

ADC Bard12/11/2014, 11:10:34 PM3 votes

item 3153 item 3718 item 3091 item 3043

press R

kek

NeoScout12/12/2014, 4:00:13 AM3 votes

I'm just afraid of his rework, I love him as is

Auryiel12/12/2014, 5:24:57 PM3 votes

Remove the on-hit part of his ult Balance accordingly There, it's done

Rate of Decay12/12/2014, 4:58:17 PM3 votes

His ult applies five on-hit effect. With BotRK, you are doing 5*8=40% of targets current health IN ADDITION to the base 350 (+200% AD)

Now add 10% of target's max health from the active of BotRK. Combined with WW's increased move speed from Blood scent so you can't get away.

Combine that with one Q swipe and you have a guaranteed kill on any champ except the main tank, oh and it's a 700 range flash if that wasn't enough.

This champ forces 4 of the 5 enemies to rush Quicksilver Sash which puts the other team behind 4.5k gold.

Explain to me how this is not OP?

Maybe reduce the flash range or at least make is slower so the other team has some time to CC the WW.

Honestly, almost every game this week there has been an extremely fed WW. All the WW player can't be that good.

Seriously.

DoubleDammit12/11/2014, 11:23:09 PM2 votes

And to clarify Warwicks ult, it does the BASE DAMAGE of the ult + any on-hit effects (his passive, BotRK, Wit's End, Devourer, Black Cleaver, etc) 5 times WITHOUT adding in damage of his basic attacks, the base damage accounts for basic attacks.

Silents42912/12/2014, 7:48:00 PM2 votes

As a fellow Wickwar main since S3

I always hated how once FF came out It was the only BuildPath that really worked for Warwick, I hate how now, FF 2.0 is the only real working buildpath for him. I hate how he gets nerfed from that 1 item that also gets nerfed.

I miss the my champion who could have any item on him and make a grand use of it. They could have at least attempted to compensate for these changes. Like reverse the cooldown nerf on his ult, maybe less damage but we get to use it as often as before.

They either need to make some temporary solution for him til his rework, or they better high tale that rework that was brought up by riot back in January.

People are mistaking good sustain for good clearing. Warwick can clear the jungle and leave full health, but he clears it slowly, by the time you finish your clear the enemy has gone back upgraded there machete, cleared more camps or ganked. You just end up behind.

Anyone who can't counter Warwicks ult is either stupid or wanders alone when they are against a warwick, He REALLY isn't hard to stop.

Need Gold 4 Tent12/12/2014, 3:04:50 PM2 votes

Red Devourer or WW, one of them needed a nerf, and TBH it was more WW, not so much the items because it was pretty much only WW who was abusing it through his ult (it was strong on yi/xin/irelia and friends but not really abuse strong). Nerfing both was too much on WW though, especially because of the double hit WW took from it.

Saminus Maximus12/12/2014, 4:20:48 PM2 votes

Honestly this is similar to the nerf to pantheons attack speed after they already made it so he cant solo drag anymore. The nerfs were overkill. They nerfed ww hard, nerfed his synergy with the offending item hard, and nerfed devourer hard too. Ww pre patch 4:20 was fine, now he's been gutted into unviability.

doubleguac12/12/2014, 5:04:29 PM1 votes

WW was, in my opinion, overpowered in solo queue before S5 started. He was floating under the radar as an insanely strong, very reliable pick for a long time. I used to ban him all the time (people complained about it, but I couldn't stand seeing him in games). As horrible as seeing him in blind pick was, I'm glad that he went FotM, because now people don't hassle me when I ban his ass.

Honestly, in my opinion, he should be reworked. He's frustratingly low on counterplay, he's, in my opinion, extremely boring to play as and play against, and he really doesn't feel like a werewolf at all. He's a low mobility CC bot--I can't imagine a kit that fulfills the fantasy of being a werewolf less.

Josh173512/11/2014, 11:30:44 PM1 votes

Then you go WW ap mid 1-2 d rings nashors and lich bane and realize something is very very wrong with this champion. the lich bane is for complete 100-0 nashors will let you Q back off for 2-3 seconds R-Q-Ignite for kills all day their mid can literally do nothing about it and of course building ap wiht your Q any harass they try to throw at you bounces off