"Caitlyn is weak mid game"

MunchCrunchLunch·Dec 27, 2016·73 votes·4,884 views

has 52% winrate at every single point of the game.

I had 13 caitlyns in my last 20 ranked games. I don't even get 13 lee sins in 20 games.

balance her please. she shouldn't be such a generalist pick.

there is a problem when both your winrate and playrate go up at the same time. remember when riven got buffed? her winrate actually went down when she had higher playrate. because not everyone can play the champion to its potential.

she shouldn't be able to bully other carries basically useless for the rest of the game and still outscale them if they catch up. caitlyn is better than tristana late game. why is that? I doubt anyone can argue that.

if you think that IE runnans caitlyn is not better than at least half the adc roster at that point then something is wrong with your reality.

https://champion.gg/champion/Caitlyn/ADC

48 Comments

MLDzXnRRRDec 27, 201619 votes

Runaan is broken item. Twitch 3shotting the enemy team with this. Such balance.

IA9hRfpP5qDec 27, 20168 votes

{quoted}

Runaan is broken item. Twitch 3shotting the enemy team with this. Such balance.

--Silver Runaan-- Change: Runaan now applies Silver Bolts to all targets. Vayne imprudent fools Vayne tumbles in vayne "We've considered that Twitch applying his venom but vayne not applying silver bolts was not fair, after all the poison arrow come from the same crossbow and vayne's bolts come from the same crossbow".

MLDzXnRRRDec 27, 20163 votes

[{quoted}](name=Whitney Houston,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cVe8Nz1O,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2016-12-27T16:49:17.798+0000)

--Silver Runaan-- Change: Runaan now applies Silver Bolts to all targets. imprudent fools tumbles in vayne "We've considered that Twitch applying his venom but vayne not applying silver bolts was not fair, after all the poison arrow come from the same crossbow and vayne's bolts come from the same crossbow".

It's not a troll item even now, if you don't switch targets.

DarkSunSovereignDec 27, 20161 votes

Actually, IIRC, it used to work like that, but that interaction was so toxic it was removed. Along with Lucian's interaction with Sword of the Divine, it's the only time an interaction between a champ and an item has been removed.

Ruin LanceDec 28, 20163 votes

actually it used to make it so that her silver bolts didn't work at all if there were any more than 1 target being attacked since it can only be applied to 1 target.

Ariel the CruelDec 27, 201617 votes

she shouldn't be such a generalist pick.

I disagree. Caitlyn's niche has always been and should continue to be: safety. She is the safest ADC and enjoys a decent early game. Safety will always be valuable, meaning she will always be a generalist pick.

The problem right now is her damage. She puts out way too much for her niche. Runaan's is giving her passive too much up-time and traps deal up to 250% bonus headshot damage - which can crit.

Her balance point among ADC'S is trading damage for safety. That's why she has no steroids. And that is why she has been viable in every meta and comp. If/When Riot gets around to her, I hope they keep this in mind.

DoozkuDec 27, 20163 votes

I thought Trist's niech was safety. Use the jumps to reposition and your ult to peel.

Ariel the CruelDec 27, 20165 votes

She has some safety, but (traditionally) low range early and long cooldowns meant she was about as safe as Sivir with Spell shield. Trist's big thing was early game pressure and 6-item late game where range advantage meant her and Kog were gods. Unless you went AP assassin build, in which case she acted like a ranged Katarina mid game and sucked late game.

Compare Trist's dash and ult to Cait's dash, slow, traps, and all-game range.

DoozkuDec 27, 20162 votes

I mean late game she's almost unkillable. Any assassins or divers will get ulted, and she can jump away. Since when was Trist early game pressure? She's definetly the king of late game safety. Late game Trist outranges Caitlyn aswell.

Ariel the CruelDec 27, 20162 votes

Since when was Trist early game pressure?

Her jump gave her good all-in damage, W passive pushed waves hard, and AS steroid let her chunk towers (She was the best tower chunking ADC until Jinx came along).

Her base damage being on the jump is also what caused her to fall off mid game. Jumping onto someone in a team fight is suicide. Her range and massive AS steroid are what made her a monster late game.

Her ult had a significant cooldown and jump wasn't much better unless she got a kill/assist reset. Leaving them as "oh shit" buttons.

The rework shifted her power a bit but the same dynamic is still there.

elon wątrobaDec 28, 20161 votes

Prerework trist was a lane bully.

DoozkuDec 29, 20161 votes

I mean we aren't talking about prework trist.

NarasimhaDec 27, 20161 votes

Trist is more of an objective pusher. Her E passive lets her push waves well and her E active + AS steroid means she can burn down towers easily. The escapes are more to get out of bad situations when shes caught pushing

MelledoneusDec 28, 20161 votes

Tristana gets rewarded for using her jump aggressively, since it explodes bombs and gives resets for kills and detonating bombs.

The DeckownerDec 27, 201613 votes

remove runnan and caitlyn passive interaction will do the trick.

RebonackDec 28, 20166 votes

Change Headshot stacking from an OnHit effect to an OnAttack effect. That would remove the abusive Hurricane interaction. If that leaves Cait too weak, she can get adjustments elsewhere.

ValyrianBladeDec 27, 20165 votes

{quoted}

has 52% winrate at every single point of the game.

I had 13 caitlyns in my last 20 ranked games. I don't even get 13 lee sins in 20 games.

balance her please. she shouldn't be such a generalist pick.

there is a problem when both your winrate and playrate go up at the same time. remember when riven got buffed? her winrate actually went down when she had higher playrate. because not everyone can play the champion to its potential.

she shouldn't be able to bully other carries basically useless for the rest of the game and still outscale them if they catch up. caitlyn is better than tristana late game. why is that? I doubt anyone can argue that.

if you think that IE runnans caitlyn is not better than at least half the adc roster at that point then something is wrong with your reality.

https://champion.gg/champion/Caitlyn/ADC

Having a 52% win rate across time stamps doesn't prove she has a weak mid game.

It merely shows that she has a sufficiently strong early game to get a big enough lead 52% of the time that her mid game weakness doesn't matter.

52% is a perfectly reasonable win rate. Plenty of Champions in other roles sitting at 54% and higher. 30% play rate is also fine for an adc - when 2 of 18 are in every game that's an average of over 11%. When the kalistas are in the dumpster and players follow the fotm 30% is pretty low actuality. We went most of s5 with BOTH ezreal and Lucian at over 40% pick rates.

Also - the longest range adc is the MOST LOGICAL generalist pick. She has a range advantage on everyone. That's pretty general. She dictates every Lane - that's the definition of a generalist.

DragmoshDec 27, 20162 votes

Both Lucian and ezreal were overpowered at the time, and both were nerfed.

ValyrianBladeDec 28, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Both Lucian and ezreal were overpowered at the time, and both were nerfed.

Yes exactly, so caitlyn is no where close to that and isn't op or in need of nerfs...

If we see her climb to 54% win rate and 40% play rate maybe it's time to panic.

JasiwelDec 28, 20161 votes

I think this post sums it up. I don't think Cait is OP, maybe a bit more oppressive than she should be for game health's sake. I don't think it's a range or trap thing, but a Headshot damage issue. It could use a little tweaking, mostly because it's ultra-accessible and does a lot of damage early, then later when she has Infinity Edge.

yoshi2790Dec 27, 20163 votes

Caitlynn isnt even in the top 20 champions of winrate.

http://euw.op.gg/statistics/champion/ --> place 40 http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/nl/champions/stats/by-winrate --> place 34 http://champions.pickban.com/ --> place 72 http://current.lolalytics.com/champions/ --> place 37 http://champion.gg/statistics/#?sortBy=general.winPercent&order=descend --> place 22

What exactly are you complaining about?

SithesisLordDec 27, 20167 votes

Now do take note of the champion at 21st place in champion.gg.

That´s right. Rammus.

The fact that Caitlyn is being played a lot, banned very little and finding extreme success despite the fact that high play rates should reduce winrate by a considerable margin is the issue here.

We can all trace it back to the Marksman update. And Runaan's becoming a crit item. Coincidentally, Caitlyn stacks headshot passive even faster with Runaan's and the passive itself scales with crit. Couple that with the fact that her traps cost way too little mana and have very little drawbacks other than being on a high CD when all charges are spent, and she's just ripe to become broken.

Heck, we can trace it back to the removal of mana potions to explain some balance issues nowadays. Namely Jayce.

'Member when mana dependant champions actually had to pay attention to what they were spending mana on?

Jayce doesn´t even build Muramana. And he used to be a champion who had the potential of going OOM within one full rotation, maybe one and a half if he was played safely in regards to costs.

But back on track, if Caitlyn had some parts of her kit similar in some way to Jhin, she'd be a lot more balanced. The ammo counter is just too good and healthy of a mechanic to not be on champions like her.

RivuoDec 27, 20163 votes

Then you look at her mid game chart and you see that big dive.....

KlavierDec 27, 20163 votes

The thing about Caitlyn is that she's an easy champion to play. She's always been a safe pick. The transition from early to mid game is really important to determine how cait will be performing in mid game. If she gets kills and a lot of cs in the early game she can skip her mid game weakness, that's why many of you may say her mid game is not weak. But don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying she's not strong atm.

The thing I don't understand about Riot's position about Caitlyn is that long time ago, before her mini rework, her passive couldn't charge with towers because she was too oppressive, I don't know why riot reverted that nerf in the first place. Also, they have to look into the traps issue because it's also too oppressive. To be honest I think they only have to into those 2 things.

NodirjonSattarovDec 27, 20162 votes

they need to remove the special runaans interactions that several ADCs have. Jinx rockets, Caitlyn headshot every 2 autos, Twitch passive/ult, Tristana aoe, Ashe Q, Kalista spears, Kog'Maw (though hardly anyone plays Kog'maw).

edit: either remove those interactions or provide every ADC with a unique interactions. I'd like 3 axes when I play Draven, please and thanks.

Champion SkinDec 28, 20161 votes

they need to remove the special runaans interactions that several ADCs have. Jinx rockets, Caitlyn headshot every 2 autos, Twitch passive/ult, Tristana aoe, Ashe Q, Kalista spears, Kog'Maw

Not all of those are special interactions? Twitch passive - on-hit Twitch ult - Range extension Kalista spears - on-hit Kog'maw - on-hit (?)

Chief MayonnaiseDec 28, 20163 votes

Honestly of all those mechanics, the only one that seems fishy is caitlyn's stacking. The rest of those mechanics make sense because they are onhits. At first glance, I would expect caitlyn to gain stacks every time she auto attacks, not every time she lands an on hit.

Asayake 5150glowDec 28, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=General KogMaw,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cVe8Nz1O,comment-id=0009,timestamp=2016-12-27T22:51:14.324+0000)

they need to remove the special runaans interactions that several ADCs have. Jinx rockets, Caitlyn headshot every 2 autos, Twitch passive/ult, Tristana aoe, Ashe Q, Kalista spears, Kog'Maw (though hardly anyone plays Kog'maw).

edit: either remove those interactions or provide every ADC with a unique interactions. I'd like 3 axes when I play Draven, please and thanks.

I've seen a lot of Kog tops recently... strange, right?

NodirjonSattarovDec 28, 20161 votes

can't play him anywhere else i suppose. he suffers from the contagious 4 man botlane gank and cant be played ap anymore. his jungle clears are terrible if you jg wit him. i guess toplane is the most safe since you can maintain the wave pretty easily and have pretty good ward coverage

LankPantsDec 27, 20162 votes

http://www.op.gg/champion/caitlyn/statistics/adc http://na.op.gg/champion/caitlyn/statistics/adc http://euw.op.gg/champion/caitlyn/statistics/adc

I see a distinct mid game drop off, she falls bellow 50% mid game on all 3 of the large servers. OP.GG gives better data than champ.gg as well, in fact Riot has confirmed that champ.gg's data is basically rubbish.

That doesn't fit your narrative though, does it?

Serika ZeroDec 28, 20161 votes

riot is less trusted than champion.gg

Sire HippingtonDec 28, 20162 votes

Not saying cati isn't a problem, but the side you linked actually shows that midgame is actually her weakest part of the game. Her **overall **power is clearly to high, but the power-curve is about the same it's ever been.

Off Meta EvanDec 28, 20162 votes

The issue is that they wanted to get out of the Rush IE into PD meta... only to make the game into a rush BF hurricane meta, or a rush IE static meta if you're vayne. SO MUCH VARIETY, OH BOY. honestly i think i liked it better when it was IE into PD because at least those items back in the game only offered raw damage and no real utility, (static and hurricane offering REALLY good wave clear.) it also meant that vayne actually had a bad laning phase cause BORK inherently didn't offer nearly as much damage as IE or PD.

BlackHorizon38Dec 27, 20161 votes

if ya can't beat em, join em. I've been playing cait for awhile now, even alot before her rework...and the one time I completely totally lost lane was against a meta yas and blitzcrank bot. Miss Fortune is pretty op now too.

WhitakkerDec 27, 20162 votes

MF is really only optimal when she has a comp that can maximize her ult's effectiveness

My Waifu VanillaDec 27, 20161 votes

Eh, she's still really good against the bot lane comps that support MF was picked against: double squishy. I have a few gifs of me on like 75 bonus AD just 100-0'ing someone bot lane in ~1 second with just Q crit+ult because of how much damage you do early game.

Yeah late game is more ult reliant, but she has the potential to straight up end the game before then much like Draven by simply making the game a 3v5 with a good support.

5000000000000000Dec 27, 20162 votes

Technically yes, she's optimal with a teamfight comp, but she's still good without it. She's got a decent burst.

chipndip1Dec 27, 20161 votes

BUT SHE'S NOT BAN WORTHY RIGHT GUYS?

Rockm SockmDec 27, 20161 votes

The item build path removed any weakness in adcs like CAIT.

Tristana was gutted after pros rushed shiv to get her to her powerspike faster and safer.

Now, half the adcs rush Runaans, IE and a second CHEAP attack speed item. That is all the damage the rest of the game. All they need is runaans and bf sword and mid game ready.

They need to remove her passive scaling with crit. The headshot rework gives her great burst and all in potential as well.

YuGiHoDec 28, 20161 votes

Tristanna is a weak mid game adc and no redeeming quality's till late game. and cait kinda is too but her lane phase is so dominant your mid game will probably weaker than hers as a result, thats what cait does she makes you weaker than her. catch her alon and she dies tho so i think its fair

ErockandrollDec 28, 20161 votes

She's good early game due to her range advantage. She's good late game, due to her AD, AS, crit chance build. (The best late game scaling build on almost any ADC really)

The problem with her mid game power low, is that she way to good access to her trap line, as you are able to max her traps by level 9. Giving her just as good ability to siege.

h5LYF41LamDec 28, 20161 votes

why are you blaming the players its all riots fault for ruining lucian,from the most popular adc to 48% win rate good job to riots balance team taking away 20% of his damage on his q.

TwitchInMyPantsDec 28, 20161 votes

IE + Runaans isn't midgame. Midgame is 1 item spike progressing towards lv9, the reason she's considered weak midgame is that any carry with 1 big item has more contribution than she does damage wise. She's pretty dependant on comboing crit items but her range makes it so that damage difference typically won't matter. That and the fact she gets 5 traps instead of 3 (which is the most insane rework when she was already viable) means she's able to zone easier than ever so her midgame weakness is really hard to exploit. The best picks against her are characters like Jhin, Jinx, Twitch and Vayne that have tools to keep her at a zone or can match her range while outdamaging her. But all of them have to deal with her bullshit early game and MAYBE can outdo her midgame.

VesemirDec 28, 20161 votes

It is mid game. If you don't farm like a potato.

ZILLAGULADec 28, 20161 votes

Boards is finally getting a bit more clever!

ModKnightsKemplarDec 29, 20161 votes

I hate her so much.

Those traps are SO annoying to play against when it's a good caitlyn. I often beat her anyway, but it's just... not fun. At all.

dim2aDec 29, 20161 votes

If so many people hate her.... why is she sitting on 4.5% ban rate? And I never played her, but I kinda like laning vs. her as support, poke is insane, but the challenge is clear: survive early game, and then you're fine (assuming competent adc of course, but if he isn't, opponent doesn't matter that much).