How about a Teemo Rework?

Well, the title much says everything. One of the oldest League champs totally needs not much of a visual, but skillset rework. Or maybe a total update or relaunch, if it comes to that.

I am not one of those whiners, who only cry about graphics part (No, I like it when Riot do visual Reworks, but that's not the only thing to care about in this game, right? right?), I actually come up with a skillset update idea here.

So, the actual skillset we have now for Teemo is simple: You have 2 active damaging abilities, one of which is placeable trap, and other is a click-to-target homing missile, which does plain damage and blinds the target for a really brief duration. The third damaging gameplay element is passive ability, which powers your AAs with magical damage on-hit + magical DoT. Some diversity here brings the passive, which actually is plain stealth (with all these mobile champs coming up and many new CC mechanics on Teemos main top lane, AA speedup does not have much room to be appropriately realised). With your passive, you can trap your enemies down, but only when: a) they were weaker than you on the lane phase and have no ecapes (which is rare) b) you are supported by some third-party CC, which is an obligation for your ally jungle to focus top lane, which is not healthy maintaining other lanes. the Speed up buff on W is pretty inconvenient - it's being leveled up on the third level and after that just because at some point you must.

So, the main gameplay for Teemo in offense - harass the enemy with AA, preventing any counterplay with your Q if they rely on AAs as well (which is also rare right now, and that's why Teemo has mainly disappeared), and in defense - hug the tower and try to down the enemy by making their minions blow up mushrooms near them, or you have no chance eiither snowballing or surviving.

This is pretty boring, narrow, and Teemo hardly has few champs by now he directly counters. What I want is to bring some fun into his gameplay, make him more viable and surviving, give him some escaping window against mobile enemies and maybe some more risk-reward sequence, because, you can agree - his skillset is very safe and pretty much boring. So...

Let the Riot Balance Team (if it comes up to this (#mywetdream)) to work on the numbers, for the sake of balance. I will only describe my skillset mechanic here, so you could picture it. And now...

Here is my idea, ladies and gentlemen!

• Passive - Camouflage -> Ajunta Poison (Lore-based name, the poison he uses for his darts)
• Teemo's every enemy hit either by his AA or abilities apply one Ajunta Poison stack for 3 seconds.
• Tickrate of the poison: 2 ticks per second.
• Damage per second: 4 (+1 per level) (+ 8% AP);
• Total Damage Over Time: 12 (+3 per level) (+ 25% AP);
• Stacks up to 3 times: Total Damage: 36 (+9 per level) (+75% AP);

So here's the point - Teemos current passive becomes pretty much useless up to the middle and late game, when all the teams do is teamfights, and is just overpowered in duels and lane phase (Ashe Syndrome I call it). Skipping a bit forward, I thought of current E as an unbalanced skill at all, because of it's early-middle game craze and late game weakness, so i just moved it to Passive and applied to the whole Teemo's damage. This allows enemy avoid tons of damage with only 1 AA from Teemo, while also allowing Teemo to punish those who get too close and fail to get him, because, stacking up by three, it should do more damage than current E, also taking into account that abilities also apply the stacks.

• [Q] - Blinding Dart -
• Targeting: Click-to-Target -> Skillshot
• New: Applies Ajunta Poison stack to the enemy hit.
• Missile speed: Increased (I don't have exact number)
• Range: 580 -> 750 units.
• Cooldown: 8 -> 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 seconds.
• Blind Duration: 1.5 / 1.75 / 2 / 2.25 / 2.5 -> 2 seconds.
• Magic Damage: 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260 (+ 80% AP) - 50 / 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 (+ 60% AP)
• Cost: 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 mana -> 90 / 95 / 100 / 105 / 110 mana

Over here I focused on saving the save-ability (...) of this ability (.......). Well, yeah, pretty much so, but reducing the chance of it working by implementing the skillshot mechanic, and also adding that lacking element of sustain damage the whole Teemo's kit has now, and also removing this 100% safe harass element. In the skillset overall Teemo will have even more escapeability, so chill before you write "Q UNDERPOWERED!!!1111" in the comments before you read the whole skillset, guys :D

• [W] - Move Quick -> Scouts Dexterity
• New: Passive: Teemo receives 9/12/15/18/21% less slow from slowing CC effects.
• Active: + 20 / 28 / 36 / 44 / 52% MS for 3 seconds -> + 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80% MS boost, that decays over 4 seconds
• Halves the duration of the movement-impairing effects currently applied on Teemo (slow, snare).
• Cost: 40 mana -> 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 mana.
• Cooldown: 17 -> 24/23/22/21/20 seconds.

The point here was not to nerf Teemo's mobility (it actually came to it, but there's a lot item compensation out there now), but to increase the usefulness of the ability and reward for activating it in the right moment. Right now most Teemos use it whenever they please, and do not actually get much profit from it, especially when there is such a low mana cost and lots of CDR. Here, you have to think if you really need to use such profit right now, or save it for later chase, without a free passive movement speed boost that makes Teemo fly around the map with Hecarim's E speed (especially with all these new items).

• [E] - Toxic Shot -> Cunning Scout
• Passive: Camouflage: Teemo enters stealth after 2 seconds of no taking damage or taking action.
• Breaking out of stealth by taking action, being damaged, moved or revealed will give Teemo 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25% bonus AS.
• Active: Stinky Ambush: While stealthed, Teemo can activate the ability, causing a poison explosion around himself.
• On activation Enemies in the area of 600 unit explosion are taking 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+ 45% AP) magic damage.
• New: Too Much Poison: Enemies that already have 3 stacks of Ajunta Poison get stunned for 1 second if hit by Stinky Ambush.
• Activation of the Stinky Ambush doubles Camouflage AS bonus for 4 seconds.
• Cost: 100 mana
• Cooldown: 15 seconds.

Here, you can see I added some creativity. The active part is new, the passive is just moved from the old passive and altered to at least reduce Ashe Syndrome. You can see that damaging Teemo now also reveals him ,which is pretty much logical. The active part is a bonus - a third activatable damaging ability, that blends with his ambush the enemy and nuke him from the back playstyle, but now it costs mana and you also should choose the time carefully. So I worked out this one to deprive Teemo of his free intimidating tool on the lane while vs. melees, reducing its effect while not investing anything. But when you're up to the serious game, there is a serious profit to gain.

• [R] - Noxious Trap -
• Damage Over Time -> Double Ajunta Poison damage
• Stealthing: 1 -> 1,5 seconds
• Arming: 1 -> 0,5 seconds
• Immediate Damage: 200 / 325 / 450 (+ 50% AP) -> 75 / 150 / 225 (+ 50% AP)
• Slow: 30 / 40 / 50% -> 10 / 15 / 20% per Ajunta Poison stack.
• Vision - Reveals all enemies affected on activation for 5 seconds
• Traps last: 10 -> 8 minutes
• Charge Receive Time: 35 / 31 / 27 -> 30 / 25 / 20 seconds
• Cost: 75 / 100 / 125 mana -> 100 mana

Don't just look on the main damage and panic. I gave teemo some other cool tools and total rebalance, so... The point here was more re-directing abilities use, more than rebalance. Now this ability is not only a long-term non-dash orientated enemy ambush tool. Giving it less duration, damage and slow has a point because now it relis on stacks applied - no more riskless and effortless distant kills just because of one mushroom, as well as no more uselesness in the close-range. More planning, more implementing areas, as soon as you have more tools to operate with. I have removed vision because it was overpowering shrooms passive value. But because of that I have empowered the activation value of a trap - 5 second reveal is enough to calculate the affected enemies path and chase them down until they recall or heal.

As soon as I am non-english speaker, I am just running out of words and energy here. This is my idea in general, don't judge my language pls, I know sometimes it's unclear, repeating or just poor-written, but I would really appreciate your help on this tho.

Thanks for reading, hope you liek the idea!