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Are the Tahm Kench changes being made with top lane in mind?

Veraska··12 votes·2,921 views

Hi there, I have some questions and seeking clarity about our big fat frog (cat fish? Salamander?) Friend Tahm kench and I wanna know if the changes have his solo lane or jungle viability on mind.

Passive and ult passive changes, so we lose the bonus health ratios on his damaging attacks from his ult and get total health ratios on his attacks (and maybe Q) so this could be viewed as an early game boost, it loses out after 3200 health at lvl 11 so that's a bummer

W no longer applies passive damage, this nerfs it's offensive power without nerfing it's support quality

The E changes confuse me the most, the cooldown is super low now Andre shield doesn't decay but the gray health returns and the shield amount and duration have all been nerfed, the low cooldown is confusing because it's not a spell you want to cast often, as you want to hold it until you can get the most out of the shield, at least I think so.

R active is buffed, reducing the delay on the teleport and the opponents reaction time by .5 but also reducing the channel duration by a lot, not necessarily a big deal since 15 seconds was silly but does make me think this is more for duo laners then a solo kench

So yea with a stronger early game but worse scaling with good, and nerds to his W and E I'm thinking these are all being made with support kench in mind and riots just kinda saying we're done supporting solo lane kench which is fine I got to mastery 5 on him back when he was super busted and haven't really touched him since the R nerfs, maybe I'll finally learn to play him support or something I dunno

Any thoughts? How do you all feel about the changes and how they impact his play (solo play or support)

45 Comments

SOLOQSUPERHERO7 votes

Uh, anyone else feel like these are nerfs?

Blakiepug2 votes

{quoted}

Uh, anyone else feel like these are nerfs?

I do. :( I really don't understand why these changes are being made. I just want my Kench to be viable!

SpecterVonBaren5 votes

Because they are. They're only a buff for him levels 1-5 after which everything is a nerf.

But on the brightside we no longer need to put any points in his R.

Profirix1 votes

They are more of a mixture of changes (buffs and nerfs). The reduced passive damage will be a buff to early game and nerf in the late game since you have to stack it up 3 times before you get the full 3%. It makes his Q poke much less powerful. The shield change is actually a nerf. It might be a buff for that instant shield block but a significant nerf to his lane sustain because the return-heal is actually getting an overall nerf.

resumed3 votes

god i hope not

thats what made him so fucking useless as a support

TNHA Baritone2 votes

It needs to be because honestly he became oppressive everywhere he went. I don't want him in my bot lane (as a support main)

Friendly Ram2 votes

Idk about the changes. So what are they removing from his w?

The 2nd Horseman1 votes

The percent of Tahm's health damage.

Oleandervine2 votes

Kench's W doesn't deal passive damage in live. That note regarding it is in reference to the new Passive, so it's not double dipping and dealing the damage from 3 stacks of Acquired Taste and the damage Devour already does. There is absolutely no change to W, just clarity on how it operates with the new passive. As for E, the shorter cooldown now means that you can build gray bars faster after your shield pops. The gray bar only builds while E is off cooldown. They adjusted the shield to not be stupidly OP with the nowner shortened cooldown. Overall, I think these changes are great for Kench.

1374344 votes

Tahm's live W applies the bonus magic damage from his ult passive. The changes on the PBE means it no longer applies any bonus damage, as he is not hitting them with his tongue like his AAs and Q.

His W will also no longer apply stacks as well (when hitting an enemy with a minion you ate). That is not a huge deal for top unless you are going against a range champ though.

Blakiepug1 votes

{quoted}

Tahm's live W applies the bonus magic damage from his ult passive. The changes on the PBE means it no longer applies any bonus damage, as he is not hitting them with his tongue like his AAs and Q.

His W will also no longer apply stacks as well (when hitting an enemy with a minion you ate). That is not a huge deal for top unless you are going against a range champ though.

^This. The update remove quite a bit of power from Tahm's W which is his primary feature as a champion.

Vistha Kai2 votes

But Fizz barely gets a 2 seconds longer CD on his troll poll after 3 years or so.

The 2nd Horseman2 votes

Yeah but Fizz dies if he poles into a team and doesn't kill someone. Tahm walks in spits the carries over a wall then walks out unless the enemy team decides to use something to hold him done for a 8 seconds toad slapping. Mind you I really like Tahm but their turning him into a wall of blubber with little to slow (slow as in how long it takes to work) cc.

doubleguac1 votes

It's removing power from his W, but not a lot.

He's being changed as part of the support update. These changes are obviously aimed at support TK.

The change has no impact on W's ally-cast, which is the primary use of W as a support.

The majority of W's swallow damage was always the massive %health anyways.

The biggest impact is to the minion spit mechanic. This mechanic honestly felt like a trap most of the time, though, anyways. The spell costs too much mana and has too long of a cooldown to justify using it as a mediocre poke skill, in most situations.

If they want to keep the minion spit mechanic at all, they should honestly reduce the mana cost and maybe the cooldown if you cast it on a minion. Or have it apply a slow or MR shred or something. Removing more damage from it is just going to make it that much more useless.

Blakiepug2 votes

To be honest, I do not like the direction of these changes at all. Personally, I think that Tahm's early game is already quite strong and the late game is where he actually needs the help. Now Tahm will feel utterly useless late.

I love my big catfish to death but I had to stop playing him in ranked because when it comes down to it he just doesn't offer anything to a team fight other then damage absorption and just gets outclassed by many other supports since winning games has essentially meant winning team fights with season 6.

Also, as a side note, Tahm's winrate is not particularly high right now. According to champion.gg, in the support role he is ranked with the 3rd lowest winrate only beating out Taliyah and Nunu.

zlumpy1 votes

Tahm has a really high amount of counter play against certain late game champs from what I've seen.

He can remove tryndamere from a fight both at the beginning and later when he pops ult. He can carry an ally really far with a devour flash combo that then lets the eaten player use THEIR flash to go even further. He can always save an ADC if he isnt stunned or silenced. He can prevent one ally from eating a big AOE ult. Removing a super bursty AP mage can be done relatively fast. If the enemy team relies completely on 1 hero to make their team fights work he can stop that pretty dang well.

I think the biggest problem right now for Tahm is his ult. most of the people I play with dont seem to know that I can taxi cab them in/out of fights (although out tends to be a lot tougher to do) and it gives a gigantic inbound to enemies so it has to be done well out of sight unless you are brining in someone that it wont matter if they see you coming( Malphite comes to mind :D)

Plus the ability to eat someone while running to prevent a skill shot/extra dmg added on to Zed ult is pretty fantastic in my book. He is one of the best anti assassin champs in game right now.

fun fact: you can devour a friendly anivia egg and carry her away letting her rez in the safety of your fishy guts!

oh and tahm can kill scuttle absurdly fast so always do that if you like to roam as support

Blakiepug1 votes

{quoted}

Tahm has a really high amount of counter play against certain late game champs from what I've seen.

He can remove tryndamere from a fight both at the beginning and later when he pops ult. He can carry an ally really far with a devour flash combo that then lets the eaten player use THEIR flash to go even further. He can always save an ADC if he isnt stunned or silenced. He can prevent one ally from eating a big AOE ult. Removing a super bursty AP mage can be done relatively fast. If the enemy team relies completely on 1 hero to make their team fights work he can stop that pretty dang well.

I think the biggest problem right now for Tahm is his ult. most of the people I play with dont seem to know that I can taxi cab them in/out of fights (although out tends to be a lot tougher to do) and it gives a gigantic inbound to enemies so it has to be done well out of sight unless you are brining in someone that it wont matter if they see you coming( Malphite comes to mind :D)

Plus the ability to eat someone while running to prevent a skill shot/extra dmg added on to Zed ult is pretty fantastic in my book. He is one of the best anti assassin champs in game right now.

fun fact: you can devour a friendly anivia egg and carry her away letting her rez in the safety of your fishy guts!

oh and tahm can kill scuttle absurdly fast so always do that if you like to roam as support

The problem is it takes 3 stacks before you can eat someone and his w has a pretty long cooldown so while you say he can remove tryndamere from a fight twice, in reality he will be lucky if he can remove tryndamere once. Team fights aren't lasting long enough in the current meta for his w to even come off of cooldown. Plus think of all the damage you will endure before you can even get the 3 stacks off. From my experience, there are very few team comps for which Tahm can excel in the late game and I often find my wins come from getting my adc and other teammates very far ahead early so that we don't need cc to win teamfights because in the end Tahm just can't bring the cc.

And yeah, eating Eggnivia is pretty cool. :3

zlumpy1 votes

I don't normally have the 3 stack problem everyone keeps talking about tbh. I usually lead with a quick max range tongue snipe. If the enemy doesn't flash/use flash like ability getting in range to get 2 AA is usually pretty easy, especially if you eat an ally and use the speed buff to close (granted now you cant devour them right away) bjt by that point I can now land a Q for a max taste stun since it has a pretty fast CD especially at higher ranks. About this point is when you can devour again. You then mama bird the devoured individual to the (hopefully they didnt just abandon you) hungry baby bird team mates.

As far as hectic team fights go I try and AA the enemy that is being the most disruptive/hyper carrying as hard as they can and then devour them. You can still AA nearby hostiles in range and that guy is now gone for a few seconds.

The biggest problem with Tahm atm isn't Tahm. It is the fact that je sees so little play that most people don't know how to properly cordinate with him. Its pretty funny when you save someone at lvl 18 in a long match and they are still surprised you did when you have been doing it all match. Also look at how many people just walk away from Tahm when he ults. They would rather walk all the way to lane rather then let you taxi cab them into the lane/fight faster. That I just don't understand. By the time I finish typing to someone to click me it is uaually too late and the benefit is gone. If Tahm needs anything he needs click clarification or to be able to devour someone and have the W CD reset as soon as he gets yo the intended destination so he isnt wasting it.

If trolling is tye c9ncern there well...the game usually isnt balanced around trollling, it is mostly balanced around high elo/pro play. Otherwise Bard would have a completely new ult by this point. Same goes for Poppy.

Blakiepug1 votes

{quoted}

I don't normally have the 3 stack problem everyone keeps talking about tbh. I usually lead with a quick max range tongue snipe. If the enemy doesn't flash/use flash like ability getting in range to get 2 AA is usually pretty easy, especially if you eat an ally and use the speed buff to close (granted now you cant devour them right away) bjt by that point I can now land a Q for a max taste stun since it has a pretty fast CD especially at higher ranks. About this point is when you can devour again. You then mama bird the devoured individual to the (hopefully they didnt just abandon you) hungry baby bird team mates.

As far as hectic team fights go I try and AA the enemy that is being the most disruptive/hyper carrying as hard as they can and then devour them. You can still AA nearby hostiles in range and that guy is now gone for a few seconds.

The biggest problem with Tahm atm isn't Tahm. It is the fact that je sees so little play that most people don't know how to properly cordinate with him. Its pretty funny when you save someone at lvl 18 in a long match and they are still surprised you did when you have been doing it all match. Also look at how many people just walk away from Tahm when he ults. They would rather walk all the way to lane rather then let you taxi cab them into the lane/fight faster. That I just don't understand. By the time I finish typing to someone to click me it is uaually too late and the benefit is gone. If Tahm needs anything he needs click clarification or to be able to devour someone and have the W CD reset as soon as he gets yo the intended destination so he isnt wasting it.

If trolling is tye c9ncern there well...the game usually isnt balanced around trollling, it is mostly balanced around high elo/pro play. Otherwise Bard would have a completely new ult by this point. Same goes for Poppy.

As simple as you make the scenario in you introduction sound, it really isn't that easy. This is ignoring the fact that during a team fight other enemy champions will be around in which case you will be taking damage going in and will not last long enough for your W to come off of cooldown before you die (especially with the massive damage and armor penetration that exists within the game right now). Plus the enemy team will most likely have crowd control as well and all of a sudden getting to their backline as Tahm is all of a sudden a lot harder than you make it out to be. The problem isn't catching out enemies who are on their own, Tahm already excels in this. The problem is when it comes time to team fight he doesn't have much to offer other than being a big blubby wall.

zlumpy1 votes

*Shrugs I'm usually not the only tank/initiator on a team. Pretty hard to focus Tahm if an ally has a good aoe engage/cc/disperse. Also Tahm probably has one of the longest lasting non invuln life spans atm due to the volume of hp he has paired with a well timed E shield. Sure you will be knocked over in a stiff breeze after the shield is down but hopefully by that point your team has done its job and blown some people up. And tbf if all my team suffered was my death to get even 2 of the enemy that is probably a win, possibly even a game altering one at that, for my side. Too many people forget a good tank sacrifice initiate that results in a massive wipe is about the most devastating thing a tank support can do to an enemy. Why do you think so many people hated Leona and kept crying for nerfs on her? She got and wrecked up the joint dats why!

The 2nd Horseman1 votes

Plus Tahm can be the funniest thing in team fights. I mean do you want me to list all the devour synergies he has? Drive-by Tahm, Galaxy Tahm, Snoop Frog, Fiddle me till I croak, SIONara Frog, Thunder Toad, Monkey-Frog, The man who turned into a bird then a catfish, and boy I hope their are more. (Feel free to ask for any clarification on the listed names)

zlumpy1 votes

Does kalista tahm have a name? Because chucking a fish frog at the enemy so he can devour them and bring em back is hilarious.

The 2nd Horseman1 votes

I'd probably call it the fisherwoman, or amphibious acquirement.

Chicken Sailor2 votes

Honestly these changes are disappointing. Going by win rates Tahm is already trash tier at both top lane and support. I've been maining him almost since his release as a top laner but after these changes I think he will just be a complete joke in solo lanes. It's a shame because he has my favorite lore/appearance/voiceover in the entire game. Guess I'm going back to Gangplank.

shamation1 votes

rip tahm top, lets just watch as his winrate drops below 40%. changes to his % dmg passive are the real problem, thats where most of his power lies. now that they changed it, hes actually gonna be super shitty. i consistently mained him since december, and he was fine after the 3 nerfs a couple months ago, but riots just finishing him off now. pew pew

Chicken Sailor1 votes

I still have pretty great success with him top lane but yeah after these nerfs I feel like he's going to be useless.

The Letter H1 votes

As a kench main, I really hope riot will re-add his constant movement speed buff when he W's an ally to compensate for all his previous, and upcoming nerfs. Seeing these changes hes probably only going to be played support now, if played at all. I wish I had a pbe account to try out these changes to judge its true effect on support Kench. Yes these changes buff his early game, but his late game will become awful and thats where he really needs help. Most of his power is in his %damage ult passive. Now that they reduced its damage and switched it to Q hes gunna suck. R.I.P.

DorkunedAuras2 votes

Honest, that move speed buff was stupid.

It was bad enough tahm could eat an ally out of CC and a crapton of damage, but also run away super fast was too much.

You should at least be able to catch the tahm, give some counterplay to the situation.

Profirix1 votes

Everyone seems to forget that he has to trade his ability to lock an enemy out of a fight with the ability to pull a single ally from the fight. And this is on a long cooldown. You can use it once, maybe twice in a teamfight and thats it. He offers absolutely nothing else. His laning phase is relatively good, but after that, its really just feast or famine.

DorkunedAuras2 votes

It's on a 10 second CD, and I know you have more than 0 CDR given how prevalent it is. You can pull any ally and still have opportunities eat enemies. Besides, negating a pick on a fed ADC is game changing. If zed ults in and does 0 damage, well the ADC has free reign to eat everything now.

Profirix2 votes

First off, its more than 10 seconds until you maximize it (which is usually second). Also, CDR is actually fairly difficult to get on a tank. Its a little easier now that Warmoggs has 10% cdr on it. Unless you buy Frozen Heart, Warmoggs, and Eye, you usually only end up with about 20% CDR in your builds. Keep in mind that I am referring to a support's budget.

DorkunedAuras1 votes

I was referring to top lane kench, where come teamfights you're both lvl 13 with W maxed and have a few items, including some CDR.

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

Back when Tahm Top was a thing you usually only ever got 10% cdr from Spirit Visage. Unless you buy an item with no health, you don't much cdr on Tahm.

The Letter H1 votes

It takes 3 seconds before you can spit someone out by recasting W so why not in that 3 seconds enable speed in any direction, allowing counterplay once he slows down.

Or, if you reactivate W again in that 3 second period have it so that he gains a speed boost for 3 seconds, and then the extra speed goes on cooldown for 60/50/40/30/20 scaling down on level.

zlumpy1 votes

Isn't his auto attack considered his tongue as well? I feel like stacking the taste will work exactly the same as before.

Profirix2 votes

It applies to his auto attacks and his Q.

zlumpy1 votes

Right. I think all this Tahm nerf PBE is a massive misunderstanding of how is taste stacks are applied. A lot of people are reading it as Q is the only way to apply the stack. Which would be such a collasal nerf he would be pretty much unplayabe, BUT thats not what is happening.

Profirix1 votes

Even still, you have to auto at least twice in order to get full damage. Possibly good for solo lane Tahm, terrible for support Tahm. He doesn't trade like that as a support usually.

zlumpy1 votes

Support tahm dmg is mostly loaded into devour and his q early game and late game he is more of a map dominance fight control hero with peridodic burst. If you want early game dmg use the massive aoe off of devour shots to throw enemy minions at the other team. Rank 1 is like 100 magic dmg in a really big aoe that has no range indicator. The enemy just has to know how far you can poke from which many do not. And if someone decides to fight you after getting hit you start with 1 taste stack, hit them with q as they close at medium range for 2 and the last one is from an AA which should leave you with around 3 seconds low rank w to devour again? Not sure since I max W as fast as I can for maximum consume time.

Profirix1 votes

Its mana cost is too prohibitive to level first and use for poke, plus it has a relatively long cooldown for a poke ability that has other functions. It's why Tahms win rate is highest with a Q max first.

ForgottenLuck1 votes

I like to play tk as sup so i kinda hope they are keeping that in mind

Shrek Luigi1 votes

As someone who mainly plays TK in the toplane, I'm not adverse to these changes because he currently can farm with 100% safety and start murdering people by the time he gets a small but effective core build up. Can't comment his performance in other posituons except maybe jungle, but he is impossible to trade against once he starts to power up, and has very little risk in lane. IDK I'm no Tahm Expert--he just seems like a very low-impact pick who can survive anything but do almost nothing except peel or pray to snowball.

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

His passive won't work on minions anymore so his farming will be trash all game.

roflcopterssssss1 votes

guess now you only lvl your ult at lvl 6, 17 and 8

SpecterVonBaren1 votes

Why even bother taking it at all? Unless you're duoing with someone it's not like you can get anyone to ride with you in a timely fashion unless it's to get back to lane quicker.

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