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LB could be fine as is if you didn't try to push the kite-mage thing stream of nerfs

Catastrop·6/23/2017, 4:01:33 AM·2 votes·285 views

It's as the title says, I feel the whole kite-mage vision you wanted for Leblanc would have been more successful had you not tried to push her in that direction after the rework. Now, as I far I know, maybe you had the kite-mage fantasy planned from the very start with the rework, but from my perspective it certainly doesn't seem that way. I think a big reason the Leblanc rework kind of flopped was because she started out as an assassin when the update hit live, but since she toed the line of assassin/mage in an unhealthy way, you decided to go with the easier route as a mage but didn't address the left over assassin parts of her kit.

Her passive is an assassin's in all aspects. It does nothing for her but give damage, however that damage is gated by a hefty 1.5 seconds that makes playing her in her current state clunky and rather unsatisfying. Mainly because she doesn't quite have the survivability to get the damage without putting herself at more risk than is worth the reward. So she needs to rely on spell vamping gimmicks and artificial ratios to stand a chance of having a favourable trade against targets that aren't depressingly melee. Not only that, but the nerf to her W was rather misguided and without any clear vision imo. I understand the idea of a skill completely dedicated to mobility, had Leblanc been a melee champion, it would have worked. However she's a ranged champion and all this change does is make her extremely uninteractive, as she'll just W away from any sign of aggression until she's farmed enough to start point and clicking people into grey screens. The previous iteration of the skill was objectively healthier, as it encouraged her to actually get into the fight and give her enemies a window of opportunity to actually fight back. I'm not saying the skill was perfect, but it wasn't as bad as the current version. Then there's her chain. Really that should have gotten it's length nerfed, simple as that.

Honestly, and I cannot believe I'm saying this, but you should have taken a few notes from the Ahri rework(who even am I at this point?). It's another assassin who was subsequently reworked as a kite-mage and it was absolutely successful. Like Ahri, she should have had her damage redistributed across her kit. Some damage would have definitely needed to be shaved off, aside from that, some power shifts might have proved more successful. For example, lowering the cook time of her passive to 1 second and trimming some of the damage off would have been a good start. As well as nerfing E's tether to be a bit less than W's range. I'm surprised this wasn't done, as the point of a kite mage is to still fight from a somewhat dangerous range and using their mobility to outplay enemies for the kill. All Leblanc does currently is fight from just below max E range(which is deceptively far) and give enemies little windows of opportunity to actually fight back and blow you up with point and click damage.

That's really all I've got, it's late, it's raining and sleep sounds really appealing. I realize I'm probably not at liberty to talk about balance, as I've neither played Leblanc in a while nor the game as much in general because of real life obligations, so there's a chance a lot of what I said has no ground to support it, However I thought I'd just get it out there, since I heard the balance team is considering another Leblanc rework in the future.

Okay wow, I did not realize I'd typed this much, this must be an eye sore, I'll have to edit this later.

2 Comments

ZapMyHeart6/23/2017, 5:22:13 AM2 votes

If they shifted her power to Q (like her original kit) and R, but took out power (her W), I believe she would be in a better place.

Switching Q from a point-and-click single target move to a skillshot makes her less frustrating to play against, but at the same time, allows more room to buff up the damage and gives more options as well. Whereas, removing damage from W, gives more options as well.

Sample Kit:

Passive: LeBlanc's damaging skills mark enemy champions for 5sec, amplifying damage taken from subsequent abilities by 10%.

Q: Skillshot that deals damage. Simple and easy.

W: Damage component is removed, making it a pure mobility skill.

E: Same as before.

RQ: Changed to a point-and-click single target skill. If enemy champion's healthbar is below a certain threshold (15/25/35%), deals additional true damage and refreshes mark timer.

Reasoning: Making sure her enemy's health is below the threshold makes her more poke-reliant on her Q before she can all in, giving enemies counterplay. However, if her enemies are relatively low on HP, they better watch out! She needs to be more reliant on landing that marked Q in order to assassinate her target if she wants more damage as well. Subsequently, a well fired Q does open up a lot of her potential, as she can now pick and choose who to destroy.

RW: LeBlanc becomes temporarily invisible for 1.5sec, leaving behind a clone, and dashes to target spot. During stealth, LeBlanc gains increased MS. Any abilities casted will break the stealth. Clone's HP matches LeBlanc's and lasts for up to 10sec. Clone can be controlled and mimics any abilities casted, but deals no damage. RW's Dash pad is only seen by the LeBlanc player.

Reasoning: I wanted LB to match her theme of being sneaky, hence the reason for leaving behind a clone. Plus, it matches her splash art as well. Removing the damage component opens up more defensive/utility-based options for her.

RE: Same thing.