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Viktor nerf in a wrong place

333lom··8 votes·4,005 views
8/5 PBE Update

Viktor PBE changes:

Viktor's Hex Cores

Prototype Core AP per level lowered to 1 from 3 Now grants 10 mana per level

The Hex Core Mk-1 AP per level lowered to 3 from 4 No longer gives 20 flat ability power No longer gives 150 mana Now gives +15 mana per level

The Hex Core mk-2 AP per level increased to 6 from 5 No longer gives 40 flat ability power No longer gives 300 mana Now gives +20 mana per level

Perfect Hex Core AP per level increased to 10 from 6 No longer gives 60 flat ability power No longer gives 500 mana Now gives +25 mana per level

I am aware that there are big reworks that are currently a very big problem, but I have a need to point this out - we knew that a nerf bat would hit even this formerly (unfortunately) obscure character, since he has been picked in the bloody LC$. But this nerf is in a wrong place. His early game is weak, and this nerf will make him even weaker, forcing him to either get lucky and stemroll in the late game, or fail hard. Yes, he will fail hard if he happens to have a bad early and mid game, because he's a champion heavily dependent on gold, not levels like some. And the loosing team always has less gold, you all know that. Not only that, his mana problems will return, forcing him to invest more of that hard earned gold into mana regen instead of ap. I've played a lot of games with him and I know just how hard his early can be, especially if he's laining against an assassin, much worse an energy-based assassin. He can't farm very well without an augment, and now with that same gold he gets much less ap in early. Now, he invests 1000 gold and gets what? only 3 ap per level? In early?

28 Comments

Jasiwel7 votes

Riot needs to leave Viktor alone. These changes will seriously screw over any chance he has at having a competitive early-midgame. He already has to rush Augment 1 for the Laser Augment - he's going to have to rush to Augment 2 before being able to buy anything of value. It's going to make the problem worse. These changes ARE outright nerfs because the AP and Mana gains rely on his being heavily leveled regularly ON TOP OF NEEDING HIGH INCOME REGULARLY. On top of that, he only gains 12 more AP by level 18 with these changes....that's so negligible by lategame it hurts.

I'm sure RIot is trying to get every Viktor player away from needing to rush Augment 1 and Lazer, but that should indicate Viktor has a lot of weaknesses by going any other path beforehand. For example, if he rushes Armguard against Zed then he gains nearly negligible survivability and his waveclear is still inferior. His ability patterns and mana costs make mana regen not favorable on him, so his Augments naturally are hist best choice. HIS REWORK WAS DESIGNED THIS WAY. A champion SHOULD be reliant on his passive because it's a part of his kit. I don't see the logic in these changes Riot, I simply do not.

junglerboy163 votes

Viktor actually has a phenomenal lane phase in case you didn't know, between his potent Q trade and his long ranged E harass, he's actually lane dominant in most matchups. These are more targeted at enticing Viktor to actually get his last hex core augment since at max level it gives 12 more total AP and un upgraded it is actually much weaker. This nerfs Viktor for before his first back, and is a net gain of about zero during mid game, with a slight late game buff.

These changes are fine and just help him be a bit more distinct (now he's not just "good" at all phases of the game, but has a slightly more distinct weakness early and powerhouse late game like he's supposed to).

333lom3 votes

I have played a lot of games with him. A lot. I know exactly what kind of laning phase he has. It's either that you don't know how to play against him, or each time you've run into him, you played against a Vik main. Three shots with a laser, and he's already dangerously low on mana. Q is reliable only in certain matches. W should be saved for gank prevention only. But who cares, at least I hope people will finally stop playing Viktor again now. His early will be so rubbish, no newbie will be able to pick him up.

junglerboy163 votes

No, I play as him, and I can bully almost every matchup (outside a few very strong bullies), like I've been able to do since before his rework last year.

Arcyvilk2 votes

Umm... You are level 22? Link your main account or noone will take seriously whatever you say...

Erockandroll2 votes

{quoted}

Viktor actually has a phenomenal lane phase in case you didn't know, between his potent Q trade and his long ranged E harass, he's actually lane dominant in most matchups. These are more targeted at enticing Viktor to actually get his last hex core augment since at max level it gives 12 more total AP and un upgraded it is actually much weaker. This nerfs Viktor for before his first back, and is a net gain of about zero during mid game, with a slight late game buff.

These changes are fine and just help him be a bit more distinct (now he's not just "good" at all phases of the game, but has a slightly more distinct weakness early and powerhouse late game like he's supposed to).

Hasn't always been that way. Prior to the rework, he had no late game cause his hex core was completely slot ineffeciant. It's possible that they gave him this lategame by reworking his hexcore, and forgot to reevaluate his power spikes.

To me, it feels like Riot want's the Hex core upgrades. (if upgrade early) to be more for the Augments rather than the raw stats. And we all know how powerful Victor gets after just one hex core. Augmenting his E and multiplying his wave clear. While simultaneously making sure he upgrades his hex core completely in the later stages of the game. It feels like their tunneling his build options a bit more around his hex cores, while trying not to completely gut him.

junglerboy162 votes

That's not entirely true. Before the rework, Viktor had a weaker late game than average, but by a small margin. he also hit late game far more quickly as well since he scaled so fast due to only needing about 14,000-15,000 gold to hit full build as opposed to the average 16,000-17,000. He always hit full build first, and most Viktor players used that to their advantage to turn an early lead into a crushing early Viktory.

I do agree with your theory about the reason for these changes though.

7ha7guy7772 votes

How many augments is Viktor "forced" to rush with this change? He gets 180 AP and 450 mana at 18 compared to 168 and 500 but losing the base ap may make it harder to justify buying anything else before finishing the hex core.

Arcyvilk2 votes

Actually it's the other way around. Since HC no longer gives flat AP, rushing it is no longer justified. You can literally sit on E upgrade indefinitely, even till level 15 when Perfect Hex Core breaks even with the live instance.

Miraweave1 votes

{quoted}

Actually it's the other way around. Since HC no longer gives flat AP, rushing it is no longer justified. You can literally sit on E upgrade indefinitely, even till level 15 when Perfect Hex Core breaks even with the live instance.

On the other hand, it makes the mark one hex core totally fucking worthless in terms of gold efficiency, which means that you're either forced to take a gold disadvantage by buying it and not getting nearly as many stats per point of gold as your opponent, or rush an item that's actually worth the money you spend on it and have an incomplete kit.

Arcyvilk2 votes

That's why I'm starting to think that rushing E upgrade won't be viable anymore. Because of lower AP it will only destroy your own farm in early stages of the game leaving the casters on like 10 HP. Rushing the whole PHC is a bad idea as well because of its level scaling.

I believe it would be better to rush another item now - for example Luden's, the passive won't be so useless anymore, working a bit like the mini E upgrade - and then going E upgrade. Prototype HC providing mana now would help a bit with the lack of mana item. But I need to do the more precise math.

Arcyvilk1 votes

OK, I did the math. This is a table showing how much AP you need to oneshot casters with or without Hex Core; the point was to justify if rushing anything else than E upgrade could be more efficient.

http://i.imgur.com/TOTRZym.png

Thresh Outta Fux2 votes

Seriously Riot?

You can nerf Viktor but you need to put him behind quite a few champs.

Say... Vi Riven Ahri Irelia Leblanc Shyvana Fizz

Syndra

If we want to get into nerfing obscure champions, Syndra takes the cake. She's got a fucking Sona-ranged stun as a basic 14s cooldown ability which requires ZERO effort to hit.

To be honest, I was perfectly fine with those nerfs, I'm a safe player. But then I realized the mana BS you're trying to pull.

Can you stop nerfing mana/mana regen? Fuck off mate.

Arcyvilk2 votes

I sincerely don't know what should I think about these nerfs...

On the one hand - I love Viktor and, in my honest opinion, he doesn't deserve nerfs. His obnoxious burst is balanced by lack of CC, range or mobility that is so easy to abuse. Can anyone enlighten me why noone cried about how OP he is half a year ago? Or why people abused me for picking "shit champion" when I could go OP Xerath or OP Zed? Literally nothing, besides a few bug fixes, changed since his rework. NOTHING. Then why suddenly he received so much hate?

On the other hand, soloQ mirrors LCS hype. At least in higher elo there is a tremendous amount of people banning (he bears 22% ban ratio right now in Plat+ division) or picking him just because FotM. I was able to pick Viktor every time I got mid all the way from Silver to Diamond; now I am basically not able to play my favourite champion anymore (got to play him in soloQ exactly 9 times during the last two months) and I am forced to watch all these petty meta humpers that pick the champion not because they love the champion, but because a few Korean pros won a LCS game as Vik. And it makes me furious. I hate that attitude and I hope that all these guys will dissappear in a cloud of ashes after the nerfs.

Now about the nerfs themselves. I was actually prediciting Hex Core nerfs. The thing is, that in 5.13 patch the core AP items got changed and HC was left untouched. That indeed made Viktor a bit stronger than before, especially combined with the additional 5% AP from the reworked Rabadon. Let me copy what I wrote in another thread on another forum

When max-maxed, Hex Core gives 168 AP. Even before that point the item is insanely strong, especially when combined with the buffed Rabadon. Let's say you've got both Hex Core mk-2 and Rabadon at level 13. It's 5500 gold "build", giving by itself (120+105)*1.35=304 AP. When we take all stats into consideration, we have 5500 gold "build" with stats worth of 7202.8 gold without even taking the two ability upgrades into consideration. Congratulations, we just saved the NLR+Amplifying Tome worth of gold and still have more AP from that.

Everyone knows how beautiful Viktor scales with AP. When we'll take also the standard runes/masteries/Doran into consideration (what leaves us with ~380 AP overall with two items build) we can clearly see that the very existence of Hex Core just dooms him to powerspike a bit harder than other midlaners, even when he isn't going the glorious Rabadon rush build.

So I understand why their nerfs address particulary Hex Core; however, I don't think they did it good. If they did it right, they would just put it on par with other AP items changes so he reaches the state before the 5.13 patch. But that nerf is... Well. It's bad.

Firstly - his early game isn't as good as people make it out to be. Sure, he has his shield. But he doesn't have range. He doesn't have CC nor mobility. It's so easy to abuse. Early game junglers, that are out of meta anyway, make his live living hell. There are a lot of matchups where going into AA range is just, let's say euphemistically, a very bad idea, sometimes lethal even. E upgrade allowed him to farm safely from range what was sometimes his only way to defend himself against likes of Fizz or LeBlanc. Now rushing E upgrade will make him more harm than good. Any of you heard about Ahri's Q syndrome? Yeah, that's exactly the fate that Viktor will meet. Leaving the minions with ridiculously low HP so last hitting them in any way becomes impossible. Since only two of his basic abilities deal damage he will lose around half possible CS in unfavored matchups and he won't be able to do literally anything about it.

It seems that I wrote a huge wall of text so I'll stop here. I'll just add that I miss the times when you met another Viktor and could be completely sure that he is a main. It didn't happen too often but the amount of roleplays made was unbelievable. And now? It's only FotM. I hate to see my beloved champion nerfed but well... I'll take it if it only will elliminate all the pathetic meta humpers.

333lom1 votes

I literally agree with everything you wrote. That's why I named the thread as the nerf in a wrong place. If he had to be nerfed, he could have been nerfed in a different way, not here in his early game where he's the weakest already. If his upgrades depended on levels, the nerf would have been much easier to take. But they're not, they're dependent on gold. If you don't have enough gold to buy them, you're out. His upgraded E is the only way he can farm safely, and it didn't occur to me that problem with leaving minions with 1hp and being lost like that. This could be a serious problem.

Assassins are being buffed again. And he's getting gutted because people saw him in the LC$? Nobody even knew his name several months ago. Nobody complained. It takes nerve to play him against a mobile-energy based assassin or a long-ranged mage or a hyper mobile mage or whatever, without going 0/10 even now, and after the nerfs it'll be only for the mains.

But I'll take everything, if that means that he'll fall back to the dark pit of oblivion. Him being picked in the stupid LC$ is the only reason all of this is happening. If Riot balance team could just read what you wrote here.

Arcyvilk1 votes

I believe that nerf follows Riot's most recent tendence to emphasise weaknessess and strenghts. His early game was rather on the weaker side, so they decided to push it even more.

I made a thread regarding Vik nerfs on another forum and people's suggestions were terriffying. They suggested lowering the lazor speed, shifting the instant ult damage to DoT or nerfing his ratios because "burst too high". When I acknowledged what other players think about Machine Herald I got to the conclusion that Riot actually considers him a pretty balanced character. They didn't change the way his abilities work so they consider it OK, nor his ratios, so they are OK with the burst (let's be honest, insane burst is his niche). They decided to nerf Hex that got ommitted in 5.13 patch so it's kinda needed to put it on par with other AP items. I just wonder if there isn't better way to nerf it, for example changing its price (now, as NLR costs 1250 gold he is no longer forced to endlessly save gold for consecutive power spikes, so making the first upgrade 100-200 gold more expensive would be justified in my opinion. Hmm... Or maybe not, it would make saving against bad matchups insanely painful... No, no, take it back :D) or shifting the flat AP to AP per level; or even better, shifting flat mana to mana per level... It would be nerf as well but a bit less hurtful.

Miraweave1 votes

As someone who mains Viktor I'd be the first to tell you that he needs a nerf. It's not because he made it to LCS, it's because he's been incredibly strong for months and people are only just catching on. That said, I agree that the nerf is totally wrong. Viktor's problem is that his midgame is obscenely strong, and this comes mainly from the fact that the base damage on his Q scales with his level instead of the spell's rank, unlike almost every other ability in the entire game. The result is that for a bunch of the game, Viktor effectively gets an extra maxed ability on top of his E, which makes his midgame damage pretty stupid.

Make his Q damage scale with rank instead of level and his midgame should be more reasonable. If he still needs nerfs after that, then maybe they can touch the hex core a bit.

Arcyvilk1 votes

But don't you think that nerfing his greatest strenght would make him pretty mediocre? His early game is weak, his late is very risky because of his range and lack of mobility, so nerfing his mid game would remove the thing he thrives at. That would leave him with three stages of the game where he really isn't much better in comparision to other champions. Everyone needs the strengths to be viable.

Ostok2 votes

Viktor Viktor player here, 1000 rankeds with him last season, went to top 20 world(lolskill), totally agree with all you have said, I have noticed too much this stupid nerf. This is the first comment I have ever written in the lol forum, I am so sad about this, your ruining viktors gameplay riot, keep doing that and even less players will play this wonderful champ. Regards. ( sorry about my English, still need improving)

333lom1 votes

Hello, sorry it took so long for me to reply. Thank you for writing this. Even the people that main him, like you and me, agree that the nerf was too much. His early game is pathetic now. Some people say "whatever, his late game is great" but very few games ever reach late game. And if he falls behind in early game, he's useless later. I've noticed I can't outdamage almost any mid lane opponent now in early, and I always have to play passively if I don't want to get killed.

kJs1 votes

Top Lane Viktor here we go.

Ser Garland3 votes

{quoted}

Top Lane Viktor here we go.

I can imagine the Beefy bruisers beating the hell out of him now.

kJs3 votes

but... but...

No where Viktor here we go...

bosselot1 votes

welp time to go back to playin good ol support viktor Viktor

SwapShadows1 votes

so many bads trying to talk like they even remotely know anything about viktor.

Any good midlaner will abuse viktors terrible early game, if he even dies once in lane it could spell him getting his augment upgrades ridiculously late.

straight4free1 votes

As a former Viktor main, he needs the nerfs. The original hexcore should not have any AP in my eyes, just makes his laser hurt that much more early game.

LadyRenly1 votes

I can count on one hand how many Viktors I've played with that defied my "viktor stereotype".(going 1/9 and being absolutely useless)

Arcyvilk1 votes

I did some math regarding oneshotting the caster minions, here's the conclusion

http://i.imgur.com/fme8jDm.png

This is a perfect scenario, ie. you don't lose even a slight bit of experience what is impossible since you have to back for that Hex Core; hence the level 7-8 are not marked green, because the damage is just at the edge. That means that oneshotting caster minions with the PBE changes will be possible not earlier than at level 9.

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