Why Tryndamere is so... frustrating to play against?

YumaS2Astral·Jul 28, 2015·62 votes·14,746 views

Seriously... He is incredibly frustrating to play against, and is the number 1 example of how a champion, despite not being OP in terms of needing urgent nerfs, can be toxic and disgusting to play against.

I have seen a Tryndamere on the enemy team kill the Rumble on my team at level 1, just because he got three crits in a row, Rumble just couldn't keep up with that damage, and even though he flashed, Tryndamere had flash too, so... Why a champion is allowed to win a lane based on pure luck, and so early?

And if that wasn't enough, there is the fact that no matter what you do, Tryndamere can towerdive you easily with his ult, and zone you with the fact that he can land a lot of crits.

And lastly, he can take a tower alone easily, no matter how much damage you do to him, he can just press ult and buy enough time to be able to take the tower down. It is worse if you are playing a tank, since you will then not do enough damage to stop him.

Everytime I am playing against Tryndamere, I see myself forced to babysit top lane, otherwise Tryndamere will just go all the way at taking out my inhibitor.

Why Tryndamere is allowed to have such a toxic playstyle? At least other splitpushers can be stopped and they don't easily cheese you at level 1...

122 Comments

DreadlocksJul 28, 201537 votes

Everyone will be too busy crying about Vayne to talk about Tryndamere. :)

CancerNoobUselesJul 28, 20153 votes

[deleted]

DreadlocksJul 28, 201528 votes

"you are so idiot" case /closed. =]

CancerNoobUselesJul 28, 20153 votes

{quoted}

"you are so idiot" case /closed. =]

you main vayne nuff said

DreadlocksJul 28, 20157 votes

I dont think ive even played vayne in the last 2 months.. lol

CancerNoobUselesJul 28, 20151 votes

[deleted]

Celeste BenalJul 28, 201527 votes

{quoted}

well you are an idiot anyway for saying vayne is less toxic or overpowered than trynda

Toxicity level rises.

And dat summuner name...

DreadlocksJul 28, 20152 votes

Mad players be mad :)

ZylotheWolfbaneJul 28, 201524 votes

It's pretty simple actually. Why is Tryndamere so frustrating to play against? Because he's so blatantly one dimensional. Every skill he has on his bar is simple, direct, and is extremely easy to use properly.

His passive is just "When will Tryndamere randomly start winning lane?" And that becomes far less possible as he builds fury. Unless you have strong harass that lets you stay out of his auto-range, he will just crit you and start winning lane. Otherwise you just poke him to make him burn fury on sustain, which makes the lane... even at best.

His dash is just 'Time to get in melee range for that crit to win lane.' or 'Time to piss the jungler off and just dash back to my tower.' Making it extremely difficult to run from him, kite him, or chase him.

His shout is just a "Are you AD? I win this fight. Are you running? Better flash or you die." That simple. Any AD champs that try to fight have their damage TANKED from his shout, and if you're trying to escape from him, he'll slow you VERY heavily and you better flash, ghost, or have a dash on your champ.

His ult is just "Time to not die for a bit." And is the EASIEST ult to turn fights around with. Because if you're fighting Trynd, but are getting low yourself, he'll just hit ult, kill you, then use his sustain and be fine unless your teammates are also focusing him.

Essentially it comes down to problems similar to old Ryze, (Or even new Ryze, one could argue) where it's extremely direct, and simple, there's far less skill to him than anyone else, so it comes down to raw numbers. Does Tryndamere have higher numbers than you? He will always win. Does he have even numbers than you? He will PROBABLY win because he has very little chance of flubbing anything on his 'combo'. Are his numbers lower than yours? He'll PROBABLY lose because he has very little to do AGAINST you as much as he does too you when he's ahead.

I Main SwainJul 28, 20158 votes

you're overestimating tryndamere and assuming people cant work around his abilities. yes, he's frustrating but honestly thats 90% because crit chance is a thing.

DragnoftJan 12, 20181 votes

Hahahahaha yeah he's completely broken and that's why it's SO GOD DAMN funny to play wid him, I mean i learned all the secrets for him to become the strongest possible champ and i almost never lose lane, I legit feel bad for the ppl i'm up against i mean not even the turret can protect u from DIS sexy crit god

O Fallen ScholarJul 28, 201511 votes

What's annoying is that his design is so one dimensional right now. You either die in every team fight or split push endlessly to prove some use to your team. That's pretty much what Tryndamere is all about nowadays.

A Miss FortuneJul 28, 20156 votes

Tryndamere is so frustrating for a few reasons.

Tryndamere's entire kit aside from his ultimate isn't that strong, don't get me wrong his passive by no means is weak, though it isn't exceptionally strong and a good player will abuse it.

If Tryndamere gets fed or just gets ahead of everyone else early game, it gives him the room to teamfight very well since he can instakill people with his passive, Q passive, and also be extremely hard to kill him with his heal, ultimate, and he has so much potential to disengage and engage. If Tryndamere doesn't get ahead, he'll most likely end up splitpushing the rest of the game and never even leave top lane. This can be very annoying since Tryndamere is one of the best duelists in the game, so he will either end up killing whoever tries to stop him, or use his powerful disengaging ability to simply escape and just precede to splitpush after he recalls.

The champion is really toxic and frustrating to play against, because no matter what he will still be a threat to your team. If you make a mistake, he can easily instakill your 10-0 ADC or Mid laner in a duel, and even if you do defeat him, he can still continue to splitpush because of how fast he kills minion waves and how easy it is for him to take turrets. If you feed him early game, he'll be able to teamfight and just crit everybody for 1,000 damage every auto attack. The champion has counterplay to it, but you have to put SO much more effort into just trying to duel him than Tryndamere has to put effort into the entire game combined.

One thing is that the champion isn't just annoying for your team to fight, most Tryndameres will hurt their team by splitpushing and not doing a single thing outside of top lane.

RAT IN GAME UwU Jul 28, 20155 votes

You pick tanks against him or people with even more level 1-2 power and you wreck him out of the lane. The common misconception of new top laners, or just ones that aren't good, is to immediately rush at their opponent and all in them right away

YumaS2AstralJul 28, 20155 votes

[{quoted}](name=DW iRek,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dYmBnT44,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2015-07-28T15:38:41.325+0000)

You pick tanks against him or people with even more level 1-2 power and you wreck him out of the lane. The common misconception of new top laners, or just ones that aren't good, is to immediately rush at their opponent and all in them right away

The problem with picking pure tank top laners, is that even though Tryndamere may not be able to kill you, he can do the strategy of taking out the tower with his ultimate helping him in not dying... and you will be unable to stop him because you don't have enough damage to do that.

RAT IN GAME UwU Jul 28, 20151 votes

{quoted}

The problem with picking pure tank top laners, is that even though Tryndamere may not be able to kill you, he can do the strategy of taking out the tower with his ultimate helping him in not dying... and you will be unable to stop him because you don't have enough damage to do that.

that's such like... a low ELO thing to do though, no one cares about him higher up, because players understand how detrimental dying is in a game, yes you can rush a tower that is low and take it with ult, then die and forfeit gold and experience...but if you die like 6-12 times trying to rush 3 towers from full health, you've lost your team the game

Sir YamazukiJul 28, 20158 votes

[{quoted}](name=DW iRek,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dYmBnT44,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2015-07-28T17:49:27.165+0000)

that's such like... a low ELO thing to do though, no one cares about him higher up, because players understand how detrimental dying is in a game, yes you can rush a tower that is low and take it with ult, then die and forfeit gold and experience...but if you die like 6-12 times trying to rush 3 towers from full health, you've lost your team the game

You realize the whole feeding split pushing was a high elo strategy (Singed)? It worked so well Riot had to nerf it. There's a difference between dying, and dying for a cause. A tryn dying for an inhib, or a turret, will always be worth, especially since it usually results in 2+ people being sent to stop him while his team is on the other side of the map taking drag, baron or another tower.

I Main SwainJul 28, 20152 votes

actually he cant. just because you're a tank, doesnt mean you have no damage by ANY MEANS. honestly, i cant think of any top lane tanks that cant deal any dmg to tryn

doombotMECHAJul 29, 20152 votes

lots of full tanks can't outpace his lifesteal

ShinTwistJul 28, 20154 votes

Is complaining about champions literally all you do here? It's all I see, is complaints. Sure, Tryndamere is annoying, but some champions will be annoying.

He's allowed to have this play style because it has existed for a long time, and people play and enjoy him, that's why. There is no reason to ruin the fun of people play Tryndamere for people who don't. The pre-existing playerbase of the champion should be first priority when making decisions regardng that champion.

I don't like him, but Riot shouldn't change him.

ChaoticPineconeJul 28, 20155 votes

Except riot nerfs all champions that are annoying to be less annoying - fiora, teemo, singed, veigar, annie, blitz, etc

ShinTwistJul 28, 20152 votes

A practice they have long since outgrown. And not a particularly good practice to begin with.

AutoreactiveCD4Jul 28, 20157 votes

They're testing changes on teemo for the reason of making him less annoying. I realize that changes to automatically mean nerfs but they're still doing it.

And I actually do think it's ok to change champions so they're not as frustrating to play against. Think about it this way: Hypothetical current champion makes it so his lane opponent can do next to nothing in lane, not through smart play but just a toxic kit. Is it ok for this one player to say "no you can't have fun this game" just because of his champion choice? If riot can change a few things to make this champions kit less toxic, but still have make them recognizable should they do that?

ShinTwistJul 28, 20152 votes

Lemme start with saying I partially agree with you. BUT:

Making Teemo less "annoying" also means "not an early game lane bully", which is something Riot seems to be removing from the game, because I guess denying hypercarries the ability to reach their 'late game fantasy' is somehow bad.

They have my tacit disapproval.

And I actually do think it's ok to change champions so they're not as frustrating to play against. Think about it this way: Hypothetical current champion makes it so his lane opponent can do next to nothing in lane, not through smart play but just a toxic kit. Is it ok for this one player to say "no you can't have fun this game" just because of his champion choice?

This example is hypothetical because barring an extremely unlikely or specific kit interaction, this doesn't exist in league, and even so, if it exists for only a small number of the possible 15800+ lane match ups (yes, there are that many), it's still fine, and destroying the kit of a champion people already enjoy for other people is simply bad customer service. It implies the opinion of people who don't care about the content you enjoy is more important than yours, someone who enjoys said content.

There are two sides to this. The onnus is on Riot to not release a champion who interacts in this way to begin with, if they don't, people can't grow attached to the champion. They have to produce a good product. It's like, literally their job.

And to their credit, (with the noted exception of Kalista -_-;) I can't think of a champion that's been released with a kit that operates this way since like, the original 40, and again to their credit, they have been trying to gradually move away from that sort of problem without completely destroying the kits of said champions.

I am not a fan of reworks, especially not reworks made to benefit people other than the people who play the champion being reworked. Some are good, Ashe's was good, for example. Some are awful. Zilean comes to mind. Some completely delete the champion people loved and replace them, which is sad. Karma fans are STILL upset.

Here's my hypothetical; say you main and love a champion who is unpopular. Someone like Shaco, who I main. You know they're not exactly the least frustrating, but you love them, you love how they play, you love their aesthetic.

Now imagine the boards start circlejerking about how your champion needs a rework, you know that other than being annoying your champion is fine. In Shaco's case the only true anti-pattern in his kit is his passive, which isn't usually what people are annoyed by anyway. But your favourite champion gets queued up to be completely destroyed, your fun is taken away, and it's done so on the altar of the fun of people who never cared about Shaco.

How does that feel as a customer/player?

AutoreactiveCD4Jul 28, 20152 votes

As far as I know they’re keeping teemo’s blind and passive poison, so he will still be a bully in lane. And yes I dislike that lane bullies are being faded out. I hope that riot finds a way to keep lane bullies in the game, but not make certain ones stupidly over bearing.

These hypotheticals have existed in league and are rare now yes. I was drawing inspiration from 3 particular champs. Yorick, Mordekaiser, and Darius can be overwhelming to many champions, especially melee ones. Riot has put in effort to help Darius with his late game full reset but they know to not touch his laning phase and for good reason.

Riot should think before they release yes. They’ve admitted that Vlad was a mistake on their part. They also have the responsibility of keeping the game healthy and some champions have kits that go against their philosophy of what is healthy. Sometimes, they have to make some people upset to keep more people happy too, that’s business. People are going to disagree and that is perfectly fine.

Ashe was a good rework but I do have a bit of salt on it. They take away skarner’s permaslow but put one as Ashe’s passive…Yes they have explained reasons behind it but none of them made much sense to me. So yes Riot is not perfect. I recently commented a bit on Karma’s rework somewhere else and yes they definitely dropped the ball in many ways with her.

Reworks sometimes are just to modernize a champ’s kit and buff them outside of what makes them iconic. MF’s rework changed very little about her but gave enough to make her more playable in the current state of the game. GPs gave him one new ability and changed how his w heals to match more with other current champs and added mechanics to his ult.

For your hypothetical: I'm with you there, I play craptons of Teemo. But I know Teemo needs changes because certain aspects of him are stupidly frustrating. 10 minutes shrooms being #1. I'm also kind of excited for these changes though. Shorter shroom life means that I have to be smarter about my shrooms and the bouncing could give me more creative ways to use them. And the passive becomes less cheesy, which is the only real use it had anyway.

I know riot has stated that they want to rework shaco in some way. If they follow through keep in mind the big things you like about shaco and make them listen.

ShinTwistJul 28, 20151 votes

Frankly, I just don't see being able to throw his shrooms as being able to balance out the loss of half their duration, due largely to the 1.5 second timer before they arm. Offensive uses are out, as is placing them in places in lane your opponent is protecting; they'll just break them. You still can't place them many places you couldn't before, placing them is less risky I guess, but you get less protection overall from them, as a Teemo player myself I do not like the changes. :(

Alas, I guess.

Also, much to my relief they couldn't find a way to change Shaco that satisfied him, so he'll likely stay the same. I just am not sold on the idea of reworks. If a large rework is necessary, just make the new kit a new champion, the new Fiora is an example of this. Their kits are completely different, the only thing they have in common is a theme.

It really sucks that they remove content that many players love to appease players who don't.

TheFirstGokunJul 29, 20152 votes

If you loved old Fiora's ultimate, or thought it was balanced, I despise you. It was fun for you, but everybody else loathed you and you know it. Untargetability and ridiculous damage with Hydra is not fun for the enemy team. Now she has:

A new, more interactive passive
The ability to escape with her dash
The ability to parry all damage and crowd control for a split second
Crowd control
An ult which feels SO good to pull off, for both you and your team, without being ridiculously toxic Riot has done nothing but add with the rework, taking Fiora's boring and toxic elements and making her fun and involving. If they made a new champion, people would still play old Fiora only for that disgusting ultimate instead of for the strong dps and dueling ability she should have. New Fiora does what old Fiora was supposed to do, but better and more fair. What's wrong with that?

Stiv1234Jul 28, 20154 votes

the number 1 example of how a champion, despite not being OP in terms of needing urgent nerfs, can be toxic and disgusting to play against.

More like number 2, #1 is still Yasuo .

ChaosThiefJul 28, 20155 votes

Fizz ?

Kalista ?

Annie ?

Marinaras TrenchJul 28, 20152 votes

nope still Yas

ElJanitorFrankJul 28, 20155 votes

Yasuo was shitty when he first came out. He was pretty balanced, and no body knew how to play him.

So they buffed him about the time people started learning him, and THAT is when Yasuo became overpowered.

Don't getchur history confused, now.

A Miss FortuneJul 28, 20152 votes

People thought Bard was absolute trash until people started learning to play him.

Stiv1234Jul 29, 20151 votes

Read the post, I said hes incredibly obnoxious to play against while being rather weak in terms of power.

ElJanitorFrankJul 29, 20151 votes

Facing players who were mechanically deficient at the champion they were playing was obnoxious? Yasuo players were bad, nothing more or less. He had such a different kit everybody didn't play him well. How does that translate into obnoxious?

Stiv1234Jul 29, 20151 votes

Facing players who were mechanically deficient at the champion they were playing was obnoxious?

Yeah, exactly that. His kit is so toxic it doesnt even matter how good he is.

ElJanitorFrankJul 29, 20151 votes

We're talking about the past here, not right now. And Yasuo had a winrate at about 30%. That is in no way 'toxic'. He wasn't getting kills, he wasn't getting farm, he was getting destroyed.

And right now I'd say he's pretty balanced. He has clear work arounds, presently.

Stiv1234Jul 29, 20151 votes

And Yasuo had a winrate at about 30%. That is in no way 'toxic'.

Him being weak still does not make him less annoying to play against. His windwall, double crit, shield, skillshot immunity, and gank synergy are just infuriating mechanics. Even if he sits at 1% winrate. Those parts of his kit have been there since his release, and I hope he will get a rework in time so he can be actually strong.

ElJanitorFrankJul 29, 20151 votes

Well, let me go through the list, then.

Windwall. Yes, this could be annoying no matter how bad the yasuo is, but it has a long cooldown and a short duration, it's a minor annoyance.

double crit. That's obviously pretty useless if he's losing games.

His shield makes him irritating to lane against, sure, but it's not that bad. You just need to auto him once and it's gone.

Skillshot immunity? You mean the windwall we already talked about?

His gank synergy only applies to knock-up gankers, after he is level 6, IF you get hit.

Almost everything you stated didn't matter at release. All of these are minor set backs in the game, and almost every Yasuo player was too mechanically deficient to use them at the time. Any of these applied properly will probably win you games, since he's losing games, they aren't being applied properly.

And right now, I think Yasuo is in a great spot. He isn't particularly weak at the moment, he isn't overpowered. I would say Yasuo is balanced.

Stiv1234Jul 29, 20151 votes

His E makes him immune to skillshots in lane. For the ganks if he has something like Malphite MonkeyKing as a jungler, you can do absolutely nothing to avoid dying.

Of course, it is always a matter of perspective and opinion which champions one finds annoying, but Yasuo is really one of those that I have found to be hated by most midlaners.

steampigJul 28, 20154 votes

[deleted]

OhthePiplupJul 28, 20154 votes

You ignored all he said though,

He wasnt talking about him being OP, or UP, he was stating how he is just not fun to fight against, and he is one-dimensional, and his entire hit is about early game getting lucky with RNGesus, then splitpushing all game

YumaS2AstralJul 28, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Such is Fate,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dYmBnT44,comment-id=00070000,timestamp=2015-07-28T18:22:47.115+0000)

You ignored all he said though,

He wasnt talking about him being OP, or UP, he was stating how he is just not fun to fight against, and he is one-dimensional, and his entire hit is about early game getting lucky with RNGesus, then splitpushing all game

The only reason why Tryndamere is not OP is because there are some champions Vayne Riven Ryze (insert a champion with Sated Devourer here) Fizz that are far more OP at the moment.

Plus, you mentioned Akali, but... do you realize that all Tryndamere have to do to kill Akali even with her shroud is to purchase one of those things: item 2043 item 3364

ShinTwistJul 29, 20152 votes

Tryndamere is better than every champion you listed except Vayne atm, lol. Ryze gut gutted, Riven can't carry late and has a lower winrate despite having far more mains playing her, Fizz is 'meh'.

Oh, and he counters Riven in lane, hard, so she in no way is "keeping him down".

SaltyToplaneGoatJul 29, 20154 votes

1.) Crit roulette early

2.) Plays almost the enitre game PvE and gets rewarded for it

3.) Bullshit ult.

TotalJerkJul 28, 20153 votes

Because he hard counters yoloQ

WolfChasesJul 28, 20153 votes

Tryndamere and Blitzkrank are the definition of a NOT OP champions that are toxic to play with. Same as Tryndamere needs a lucky crit to win the lane, Blitz needs 1 out of 100 grabs to win his lane, and considering how his hitbox is broken, and close to no cast time on that Grab, he's a master zoner after lvl 2.

As a guy who plays LoL for ~3 years, I would rather play against 10 good Thresh players than against 1 average Blitzkrank.

DeusVultJul 28, 20153 votes

Because of 2 reasons

A: His Passive gives him free crit, up to 35%, which is insanely strong at level 1-3 and strong all game. Landing crits early in the game when opponents dont have armor/sustain is huge to winning a lane and it means that most people cannot fight him.

B: Safety on his ult. Its 5 seconds of not dying, no matter what you do. Tryn can kill a tower, run away, it doesnt matter, it is still 5 seconds. Which makes it hard to kill him since he can just ult and run away.

If it were up to me, I would make it so that his passive is the same, but his crit chance/damage is the same as Ashe's, were he deals more damage every auto, but he cannot crit. So, with just his passive, if it were full, his basic attacks would deal 135% of his AD. And as for his ult, the duration would be shorter (like 1.5/2/2.5 seconds), but if he lands auto-attacks, he can extend it to 5/5.5/6 seconds.

JheraJul 29, 20152 votes

Yes his gameplay pattern is terribly one dimensional in that he can only try to win lane and just split push for the rest of the game. If he doesn't succeed at it he becomes completely useless to his own team. With the Fiora rework Riot themselves have said that they want to start to have more teamplay elements even to 1v1 heavy champions meaning that when they finally get to Tryndamere's gameplay rework he will probably be a healthier champion for the game overall.

No idea how long that could take though...

Silents429Jul 28, 20151 votes

He isn't inherently bad, he is just old.

And a Tryndamere faces many problems that he can cause, the random crit thing is annoying to be against and to play with, his ult while in my opinion holding him back from any buffing, is easily stopped by CC.

His only means to get into a fight is a short dash and a slow, but I mean, Come on we know the type of game League is, not hard to get away from him.

In lane pick a bruiser or tank, he destroys other fights but loses to anyone with some HP and CC.

Champion SkinJul 29, 20151 votes

Well for the most part Tryndamere is actually a better Nasus Tryndamere has better mobility (to get away when split pushing or to get in range to enable him to use his damage) Tryndamere scales really well with gold/CS And has some decent utility in his AoE AD reduction (+ potential slow)

(Though of course Tryndamere get screwed over by attack speed slows and he isn't perfect or better in all ways... but on paper he seems to be pretty much as good or better then Nasus)