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Tristana and the ADC Meta

Chilly Willies·8/31/2014, 9:53:27 PM·5 votes·1,545 views

I wanted to start a discussion about Tristana and how she compares to the other AD Carries in the current meta. This is not a post to say NERF HER NERF HER but maybe to discuss how to make her more healthy and to provide counterplay. I will do this by comparing her kit to another popular AD Carry in the current meta. Let's start with Jinx. Jinx is a carry right now that is very strong. She has safe harass, long range poke, and global presence. Now, considering that, why is she healthy?

Because most of her kit is skillshot based. Let's compare that to Tristana who has NO skillshots of any kind and has more Attack Range than any other AD Carry in the game at Level 18. Now, why is this unhealthy? Because she pays no cost for it. Back to our Jinx comparison, Jinx has drawbacks to her Fishbones, she loses the Attack Speed buff from her Minigun and she pays mana. While she does has strong early AoE Harass, let's compare that to Tristana. Tristana's E, Explosive Shot's passive effect does AoE damage without paying mana or losing attack speed. I think you might see why that is a problem. Now, let's talk Tristana's mobility and how it compares to other popular AD Carry picks. Let's take Lucian, for example. Lucian's E gives him a small dash in any direction. Why is that okay? Because after they took away the slow removal on it, it has counterplay because it also has a long cooldown and it moves him a relatively short distance. Let's compare that to Tristana. Tristana's Rocket Jump lets her jump, correct if I am wrong, 800 Units in any direction. It even deals damage when you land there. Why is this a problem? Because it provides little counterplay. Yes, Lucian can use his E to trade effectively and dodge harass, but he cannot use it to escape freely. Also, on top of this, Tristana's free disengage and engage skill even resets on kills and assists. Seriously? So basically Tristana gets free flashes about every 20 seconds, and on top of this they reset. So she can just jump into a fight, get a kill or assist, and then just escape almost freely.

My suggestion? Make Rocket Jump a 500 Unit movement, and make it so kills/assists only half the cooldown. Or, another idea, make it like 400 Units at Level 1, and have it scale towards almost the original amount at max level. Also, make her Explosive Shot passive a toggle, like Ashe's Frost Shot. Make it cost a little mana or have a few seconds of cooldown.

TLDR: Tristana is not a champion I want nerfed to the ground persay, but things need to happen to provide counterplay. She is even safer than Lucian Pre-nerfs, and she has been around much longer than him. I made this topic because Riot is talking about "Competitive Diversity" in their Patch Notes, but yet Tristana seems one of the few viable AD Carries right now due to her way safe playstyle.

Also, please don't downvote just because you don't want Tristana changes.

15 Comments

Worgslarg9/1/2014, 12:06:46 AM3 votes

Imo just make her passive a toggle, attacks deal aoe damage, scaling with ad, but cost mana per hit.

She doesn't need a free ignite.

Essilyn8/31/2014, 11:46:26 PM2 votes

She does have the half a second or so wind up time for her rocket jump. It also has a fairly long cooldown in comparison to Lucian's free E.

For a rocket jump adjustment, I could see giving it some sort of Kassadin Rift Walk limitation of increasing her windup time by an extra 0.5 seconds per jump after the first one.

As for her E, the passive portion involves shrapnel blast only with killing blows, which has the potential to be detrimental for her already lackluster early game when she's pushed out really far without the tools to effectively trade. It doesn't really compare to Jinx's rockets which she can technically spam during a teamfight (which she shouldn't unless the situation was dire) and deal massive continual AoE damage.

For an actual possible idea to combat her extremely long range in conjunction with her amazing kit, the only idea I can think of is her passive being adjusted so that she has a debuff that decreases her attack range up to a set number of times, which at max level would lower her attack range to a mid-range level ADC. That would require her to be more cognizant of her positioning, she hits people and as her range lowers, she moves in, and jumps in to secure kills.

Deep Terror Nami8/31/2014, 10:18:31 PM1 votes

Trist's Explosive Shot can't be a toggle because it has an active component. The DoT/Mortal Wounds, remember?

MrBuffington9/1/2014, 2:46:19 AM1 votes

So I wrote a three part comment here in addition to many other comments on that thread, so I won't repeat myself here just to save space. Long story short, Tristana has long auto attack range, sure, but understand that that is her absolute range; unless she dives you with rocket jump (very, very risky, since it's a long cooldown), she can't do anything to anyone outside of 710 range of her. While great as auto attack range, she has no ~900-1400 range skill shot like most ADCs have, she has no ability to deal damage to anyone outside of her range, unless, of course, she jumps into a fight. The way you play against her is either abuse her lack of range, or punish her for using her dash aggressively, and don't let your team get picked off and reset on. AP Trist is useless unless she can instagib someone (and she also falls off hard late game), and AD Tristana needs a bit more time to deal the DPS.

Her lack of skillshots is actually also a weakness. Sure, she can't miss her spells, but honestly, skill-shots aren't hard to hit with enough practice, plus it means all her spells are single target (unless you're getting hit with E passive splash or something). She can only deal with one target at a time, and having her jump away even is a way to get her out of a fight; she has fewer options for engaging again once she jumps away, or ults someone away when her jump is on cooldown (again, it's a 20+ second cooldown for most of the game). Additionally, she has no tools to check brushes or give much meaningful utility to a team, and her damaging spells have to AD ratio associated, meaning they fall off hard later in the game; her main damage source is just auto attacking people, just like every other ADC.

If I can put your suggestion in perspective; Graves and Lucian both have ~400-500 range dashes, both of them can have their dashes back up in about 3-4 seconds if built correctly (Youmuu's + Ionian Boots + Runes and Masteries), due to the cooldown reduction passives associated with each skill. Vayne innately has a ~300-400 range dash (I forget the exact range) that she can use every two seconds. Tristana has one dash, albeit twice the range, but can only use it once every 20 or so seconds, unless she gets a kill/assist (much more difficult than simply autoing, as the aforementioned three champions do). Jinx similarly gains a huge MS boost with kills, assists, AND tower kills; she also has more of a kit to boot. More-over, it has a decent cast time, meaning she can get CC'ed out of her jump (which can be easy to predict when Tristana with a little experience).

The greatest strength of her kit is actually her Q; Tristana deals 99% of her damage with auto attacks, all her spells fall off (damage wise) late game.

Lord Graves III9/5/2014, 10:57:44 PM1 votes

Don't cut power from the things that make Tristana Tristana.

Rocket jump resets are part of that. When used as an escape it has a long cooldown, but used aggressively it puts tristana in danger but also is fun to do, fun to watch happen, and high skill cap. Also, it isn't nearly as good as a flash. ;) Don't pretend it is.

Tristana's free disengage and engage skill

Nothing is free. To say otherwise shows lack of understanding. Tristana doesn't have 800 AA range. Without her jump she might have it. Her Rocket Jump and all parts of it have a cost. It isn't free. What it IS is really really strong. Nothing is free though.

The things that make trist who she is are her stomp the yard resets, her long range AA, her knockback ult, and her minion exploding E passive.

What are the parts that aren't really fun, but are really strong? HER E ACTIVE!!! Explosive shot active is incredibly strong but is neither satisfying nor important to her identity. E + an autoattack is a nasty brutal trade. What if E was just a toggle like you said?

I propose Tristana loses her active E and in exchange E's explosion on kill gets stronger. Perhaps even an AD scaling. This removes the Grievous Wounds which is a plus, it removes her big brutal boring lane trade, and frees up power for her high risk rocket jump or her high interaction Explosive shot splash. The big problem is that it needs differentiated from Jinx's Fishbones. A mana-per-autoattack toggle that gives AOE to autoattacks is sort of Jinx's thing. While Trist E would have a base damage, it likely would not splash unless the target dies, which is a huge drawback (or could be a huge gameplay draw if it's damage was seriously relevant against champions). I don't know if this is enough.