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The inherent conflict in Olaf's Ultimate

MrBuffington··6 votes·596 views

Heyo,

So Olaf's free week just ended, I'm not sure how many of you enjoyed playing him as I did, but I was sad to learn that Olaf doesn't fare too well in this increasingly mobile meta. However, one of the most glaringly damaging things about Olaf is his ultimate, namely that he loses his bonus resistances when he ults, yet gains bonus attack damage. There are some spells that function similarly, where a passive bonus is lost when the ability is on cooldown, which does create some interesting decisions of when to use the spell, however, Olaf's ult seems to have a more dire conflict.

Olaf's ult is typically used when engaging a fight; the immunity to cc helps him get to the back line unperturbed. However, losing resistances also makes you more prone to death, and therefore less inclined to fight. Because of this, the spell becomes something of a glorified spell shield, used to escape cc instead of engaging into a fight. Olaf diving a team with his ult on basically becomes a suicide bomber without a bomb, as he can be kited or bursted rather easily.

Thematically, it doesn't make sense either. When a Viking becomes enraged, you think he becomes more powerful, not easier to kill. What I think would be an interesting change is to either keep the resistances on Olaf during his ult, and/or give him bonus movement speed, perhaps as a function of his health loss, during his ult (ie. gains 0.5% movement speed for every 1% health lost). This is consistent with the idea that Olaf is a champion that gets stronger the weaker he is, and also let's him compete better vs the mobility creep.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Thanks

9 Comments

Lumus Avatar5 votes

I like the movement speed idea. I understand that losing the resistances makes engaging with the ult scary, but it doesn't necessarily clash with theme or reality: He is raging and becomes unstoppable (immune to cc) but he is recklessly charging in with little regard for physical safety (reduced defenses in exchange for increased offense). I think this theme works really well, as a theme.

But, as I said, I agree with you on the movement speed buff. Either a static buff that lasts the ult's duration, or, as you suggested, increases with injury.

I watched several Olaf players attempt to engage with the ult, especially smart in situations where they were charging into a team fight against Morgana or Lux who can stop him in his tracks. But he would be quickly dispatched as ranged poke, skill shots, AOEs would reduce his HP to dangerous levels before he was even in range to toss his axe! Combining the ult with the AS and LS buff ability makes him very survivable without the defenses, but you have to be in melee range for that to work.

Summary: You're right, it is bad as an engage if you have to charge over any great distance to reach the opposition. I do not feel the loss of defenses clashes thematically or realistically. I think a speed boost would help without breaking the ult.

MrBuffington2 votes

I guess it does make sense (Reckless Swing also deals damage to himself, so the recklessness is somewhat a part of his kit). I just imagine, since his ult is called Ragnarok, that he's sort of going out in a blaze of glory; if he must die, he should be at least better equipped to do what he set out to do (get to the back line and kill the squishies).

Lumus Avatar2 votes

Agreed. At least it does, as you stated, make a great tool for disengaging.

67chrome1 votes

Olaf diving a team with his ult on basically becomes a suicide bomber without a bomb, as he can be kited or bursted rather easily.

Eh - he's like a Maokai or Leona diving into a team fight more than a suicide bomber. You do need to think ahead, but you should be tanky enough you're not 100% dead when you screw up.

As for kited and bursted - Olaf is immune to CC while he's ulting. That makes him exceptionally difficult to kite, especially when you consider Olaf can apply CC to things in that state. Champions like Ashe, Veigar, Varus, Syndra, Kog'Maw, and Morganna that are heavily reliant on CC to kite are not going to have a good time. Only way you can kite a raging Olaf is by A: being faster than Olaf, which means never getting hit by an Axe ever, or B: You can make walls like Anivia.

Concerning bursted easily - methinks you're building Olaf wrong. You should get a lot of tank on the Viking, otherwise his CC immunity is meaningless. It doesn't stop the best type of CC, death. If you build heavy defense on Olaf you can be a massive pain, forcing summoner escapes, repeatidly nuking foes in the face with true damage, slowing foes down repeatidly and closing the distance while you shrug off their desperate counterattacks.

If you build heavy offense, you're just to slow and frail to catch up to opponents and survive long enough to make use of his ultimate.

MrBuffington1 votes

...Maokai and Leona have gap closing roots; Olaf can only run or flash into his target, and his only CC is a slow. They also have strong defensive steroids, Maokai with his flat damage reduction on his ult, and Leona with her shield. Olaf loses his resistances when he ults.

Pretty much all the champions you mentioned suffer from the same thing as Olaf; being immobile in a very mobile meta, which is why many of them aren't played very much either. Syndra has very high burst and can chunk Olaf for most of his health before he even gets in range; Kog'Maw also outranges Olaf by a ridiculous amount, not to mention he typically builds Triforce, giving him increased movement speed from the Zeal and Phage. Morgana can just as easily black shield herself and run away. Also, Olaf's ult only lasts a few seconds, so either he gets CC'ed and poked out from range or he has enough time to barely get in range before his ult wears off and he gets CC'ed.

I build jungle Olaf with Feral Flare into full tank. Perhaps I should have phrased it better; Olaf's problem isn't getting insta-gibbed the way a squishy would; it's getting into a teamfight and doing something meaningful before getting killed or chunked too low. The problem Olaf has, I think, is getting people to fight him; unless he has a lot of room to chase and chain axes together, he has no way of closing a gap unless you're fighting people who want to 1v1 you and die. By the time you chain enough axes together, unless the person is woefully out of position, they're often under their turret again or back with their team. He's a lot like Mundo, except with no speed buff on his ult, and no way to just get into a team and cause AoE chaos the way Mundo does. He also has a lot less survivability than Mundo.

YouLostMe1 votes

I agree that this is a problem for Olaf. It especially brings to mind what Zileas once said about "feeling bad" when using an ability. A good example is Kunkka from DotA, because you want your ship to hit enemies for the CC and you want it to hit allies for the move speed boost. Regardless of which one you maximize, you won't get 100% effectiveness and you'll be left feeling like you could have done better even if your play was the most optimal one possible.

Olaf gives me that feeling too, because resistances and mobility and crowd control immunity are good for getting into the back line. When dueling in lane you'll feel like you might have done better if you switched out your resistances for CC immunity and AD, and when in teamfights you'll feel like you might have done better if you had dived without your ult up.

MrBuffington1 votes

Yea, this is the principle that I found this ability conflicted with (I forgot who said it though, thanks!). There are many other examples of this, like Ezreal's W (do you use it to give yourself/your team AS or do you use it for extra damage?), which some Rioters have said is in need of improvement. Thanks for the response!

Wheatloaf1 votes

The reason they made his Ult like this is so that he has some form of weakness. "Hey guys, let's kill the guy who's CC-immune before he runs us over! Oh yeah, he has an asston of extra defenses, too!" Not exactly what you want to have to tell your team. My advice for Olaf is to try to do your best Evelynn impression and flank those mofos. Either that, or get someone else to initiate for you. Champions like Olaf aren't meant to start fights; they're meant to smack the crap outta people who think they can win them.

MrBuffington1 votes

Right, which is why Olaf has trouble now, sine he's outclassed by so many champions. Evelyn has perma stealth plus an AoE slow to initiate plus spam able AoE hate spikes plus a speed boost that resets with kills and assists.

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