Boards›Gameplay

Slows are almost useless againts champs with dashes......

xxxMadLionxxx··25 votes·2,201 views

Just hear me out. I think this is one reason immobile champs, especially mages with no hard CC are so vulnerable. A lot of champs have at least 1 slow, but the slowed status itself is almost useless against champs with 1 or multiple dashes.

Hence mobile champs get a hidden strength that not many even consider. They are almost immune to slows in close combat.

I say this because I took MF into combat. I use my E several times to get a fiora off me. However, it was almost useless as she simply dashed onto me multiple times. And she does so much damage that it only takes 1 or 2 lunges to kill me. I know I'm ranged and she is melee, but my point is, slows are almost useless against champs with dashes.

Again, just to empathize, this gives them a hidden strength that I don't think is really taken into consideration in terms of balance between immobile and mobile champs. Dashes should be used to get in range or dodge/escape, however, if you get hit by a slow, your dash should not equal almost complete immunity to that slow. You should be affected by that slow even if you dash.

So, is it possible for immobile mages/champs to access an item/keystone, that makes slows affect the range of a slowed champ dash/flash?

Would that be op?

I mean, this is another reason why Yasuo is so strong. Free multiple dashes = complete immunity to slows.

42 Comments

The Sword Saint11 votes

Slows are meant to be used to kite big slow tanky fighters, not nimble high mobility people like fiora, riven, yasuo. You need hard cc for that. generally hard cc is less useful against tanky guys because they can absorb hits while stunned and come out fine due to their tankiness (not to mention that they are likely to buy merc treads and take tenacity mastery if your team stacks hard cc).

Meanwhile the highly mobile champions tend to be squishy enough that they can get killed or bursted down in the duration of one stun. Slows tend to be longer lasting, easier to apply, and more available for most champions then hard cc (you can even itemize for slows with ryleis, iceborn, randuins, frost queen, frozen mallet, deadmans plate, red buff, etc. unlike with hard cc), and so they are more effective against big tanky immobile guys who would shrug off an ahri charm for example but would get stalled forever by ashe arrows.

Basically, different kinds of cc are better vs different classes of enemies. Just like how you shouldn't expect a silence to do much to stop a late game adc, you shouldn't expect to use a slow to peel off a mobile champion or a stun to peel off an immobile fighter or tank. you wouldn't focus fire your magic damage on an mres stacking tank or your attack damage onto an armor stacking tank, why focus your slows onto a mobile champion or your stuns onto an immobile tanky champion?

Sure there are exceptions for the sake of variety, but there are other tradeoffs that theoretically balance things out. Immobile squishy champions tend to have something extra going for them to make up for their vulnerability to hard cc - lux has massive range, brand has ridiculous damage and a low cooldown stun, velkoz can kite an entire team simultaneously, ashe has long range hard cc as an adc, mf has her ult which can win a teamfight if used at max potential, etc.

xxxMadLionxxx1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Sword Dancer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=e9ET3BBE,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2015-12-14T17:38:56.596+0000)

Slows are meant to be used to kite big slow tanky fighters, not nimble high mobility people like fiora, riven, yasuo. You need hard cc for that. generally hard cc is less useful against tanky guys because they can absorb hits while stunned and come out fine due to their tankiness (not to mention that they are likely to buy merc treads and take tenacity mastery if your team stacks hard cc).

Meanwhile the highly mobile champions tend to be squishy enough that they can get killed or bursted down in the duration of one stun. Slows tend to be longer lasting, easier to apply, and more available for most champions then hard cc (you can even itemize for slows with ryleis, iceborn, randuins, frost queen, frozen mallet, deadmans plate, red buff, etc. unlike with hard cc), and so they are more effective against big tanky immobile guys who would shrug off an ahri charm for example but would get stalled forever by ashe arrows.

Basically, different kinds of cc are better vs different classes of enemies. Just like how you shouldn't expect a silence to do much to stop a late game adc, you shouldn't expect to use a slow to peel off a mobile champion or a stun to peel off an immobile fighter or tank. you wouldn't focus fire your magic damage on an mres stacking tank or your attack damage onto an armor stacking tank, why focus your slows onto a mobile champion or your stuns onto an immobile tanky champion?

Sure there are exceptions for the sake of variety, but there are other tradeoffs that theoretically balance things out. Immobile squishy champions tend to have something extra going for them to make up for their vulnerability to hard cc - lux has massive range, brand has ridiculous damage and a low cooldown stun, velkoz can kite an entire team simultaneously, ashe has long range hard cc as an adc, mf has her ult which can win a teamfight if used at max potential, etc.

Thanks for reading. You brought up a very good point about slows being effective vs tanks and not assassins while hard cc is better for assassins and not so much tanks.

However, my suggestion was to have a item/keystone available that would help immobiles against the likes of rengar/zed using there built-in slows.

I'm not saying a slow should be effective against a dash as soon as the game starts and available without any customization/condistions. I'm saying allow me to purchase an item/ or get a conditional keystone, that improves how effective my slow is against dashes/flashes similar to item 3116 .

It would be like howitem 3036 and item 3033 do the same thing but one is better at tanks and the other for adc.

Perhaps they can split item 3116 so that one adds 40% slow to aoe spells (as is on live), and the over applies a better slow against dashes/flashes.

SolusInCadere3 votes

I play (used to play, apologies), a lot of supports, and this always frustared me. I asked myself this question:

A zed appears behind my ADC via his ult. What can I do?

and not many champions can do much, atleast not without ultimiate. That's becuase slowing, or even rooting, won't do much. That's half of Nautilus's CC for crying out loud.

I will turn to Yasuo for a solution: his dash speed is increased by MS, and therefore he dashes significantly more slowly when under the effects of a slow. If they were to implement the latter part (reduced dash speed when slowed), I think that would help a lot.

Edit: Yasuo is NOT immune to slows. He is the except to the rule

Hello I am Bird1 votes

He will be with the new buffed Warlords...

Ralanr2 votes

MF doesn't have a dash. She has a speed boost.

DeathBurst6 votes

He was saying that MF's slow was useless against Fiora dashes.

Ralanr6 votes

Derp. I'm a dumbass.

FurretHasAGlock1 votes

{quoted}

Derp. I'm a dumbass.

I heard my name? XD

Joe Mana4 votes

[deleted]

Hello I am Bird2 votes

OHHHHHHH SHIT item 3902 item 3902 item 3902 SHOTS FIRED item 3902 item 3902 item 3902 item 3902 item 3902 SHOTS item 3902 item 3902 FIRED item 3902 item 3902

FurretHasAGlock1 votes

{quoted}

"dumbass"?

Indeed.

DeathBurst2 votes

It's not hidden, there has already been threads about this, and people talk about "Mobility Creep" (tm) for that reason.

Adding a keystone aimed against mobility, I don't know. It's pretty original, at least. I hope a Red stumble on this post to give us his/her opinion.

Critmaster Garen2 votes

well yea. thats why kallista is so stupid. slows barely affect her.

that and release kallista was even worse in that your own movement speed buffs had 0 effect, as she was always carried the same distasnce from you at the end of a jump. meaning running at her faster just caused her to jump further.

Transgressor2 votes

See here's why you're objectively wrong:

Dashes have nothing to do with the actual movement speed of a champion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but like 90% of dashes are fixed distance no matter what. Pragmatically, a champion's movement speed is what allows them to get into position and is a constant variable, whereas dashes usually cost a resource and ALWAYS cost a cooldown. And this allows you to slow an enemy and even if they dash, you can still catch up to them and mawl them, because they are gated by a cooldown before they can dash again. And by the time the cooldown is over, they are far too slow to get into position to do anything.

Secondly, it's not up to you or anyone for that matter to dictate how dashes are used. You're given a tool, and you make what you need of it when you play. They are not ment to either go in or go out; they have numerous uses, not the ones you just want them to have. Let's bring up and example: you play Nasus and XinZhao comes to gank. He dashes with his E and blows everything on you, but you're Nasus, so you Wither him and his movement speed slows down. He's losing the trade and starts falling back but his speed is crippled and you dunk his ass because DESPITE YOU BEING UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT HIM COMING IN, you kicked his ass because he had no way of going back out.

It's not the dash you take advantage off, it's the window of time between the dash's target that you're exploiting; the enemy is far too crippled to get into a position good enough to dash again. Even a Leblanc can be crippled and shit-on. Yasuo is strong for different reasons and not so much to his THEORETICALLY infinite mobility. He can dash for as long as there are enemy units nearby, and to get from one enemy unit to another he needs to walk there, good luck doing that when you're 90% slowed.

There's only one champion in the game with legitimately conserning mobility, Kalista. And despite that, you can still cripple her because her mobility is gated by her attack speed and movement speed. Both of which can be crippled with abilities AND items, many of which are built to synergize for that reason.

Lastly, the most absurd thing I read was this: "mobile champs get a hidden strength that not many even consider. They are almost immune to slows in close combat". This is stupendously wrong. Literally all the hypermobile champions in the game are squishy as all fucking hell, and can be EXTREMELY punished for making mistakes and positioning badly. Immobile mages on the other hand, might lack escapes, but they have the power and CC to punish whoever does the wrong thing at the wrong time.

It's up the the player to utilize the tools they have to make the best out of each situation, and that requires game knowledge, nothing to do with slows and dashes. What you should worry about is mobility with untargetability because untargetability practically renders your slow ineffective, but only 3 champions have thisFizz Zed MasterYi.

Axis the Dragon1 votes

Shaco and MasterYi , to a certain extent as well - Shaco can use ult and Yi can use Q for windows of invulnerability

Transgressor1 votes

Shaco is still there and can be hit with spells and AoE, appart from that very tiny window of time from popping the clone. I personally think it's not as big of a deal compared to the rest of of his cancerous kit.

As for the Yi, you're correct, I'll edit that in thank you very much.

Axis the Dragon1 votes

Np

Though on the other hand, Yi's ult makes slows useless on him anyway

4NoxiousHours2 votes

Are you asking for slows to affect dashes? like if a champion is slowed their dash speed is reduced?

xxxMadLionxxx1 votes

{quoted}

Are you asking for slows to affect dashes? like if a champion is slowed their dash speed is reduced?

I'm saying a slow should affect the range of a dash upon purchasing an item likeitem 3116 or using a new conditional keystone

Abyssphere1 votes

{quoted}

I'm saying a slow should affect the range of a dash upon purchasing an item likeitem 3116 or using a new conditional keystone

What happens with targeted dashes? If someone is jumping to you and you slow them, does their dash fail? Do they need to get closer to you than usual to click on you and jump?

Reducing dash speed I think makes sense, but reducing distance covered, probably not. Would be too confusing for champions with targeted dashes.

Dominick Destine2 votes

{quoted}

Are you asking for slows to affect dashes? like if a champion is slowed their dash speed is reduced?

That would be perfect, yes.

Anidan1 votes

That's one of those things that would to feel better to use against someone, but receiving that would feel like utter shit to play against. There's two sides of the coin here, and Riot tends to favor the player receiving the CC in most cases. Plus that would make Frozen Mallet a huge counter to a champion like Kalista for almost no reason at all beyond 'players don't like them'

That said, I agree. Make slows reduce dash speed, please. I want to counter Kalista with Frozen Mallet and kill her even more dead with Ashe.

Dominick Destine2 votes

"Feel" is meaningless.

What matters is how effective the skills would be.

Sightless663 votes

"Feel" is meaningless. What matters is how effective the skills would be.

Uh.... no. Just no. You can easily have a mechanic that feels better than another one while being much stronger. Similarly, you can nerf a mechanic in multiple different ways, with some being more frustrating for players than others. The very basic idea of balancing a game like this is finding the way to give characters similar effectiveness while also finding the least frustrating way to nerf and the most interesting way to buff them. That's.... kind of game design 101.

That's why this idea is terrible. It is more frustrating than is necessary for the level of power change that it would cause.

Dominick Destine2 votes

{quoted}

Uh.... no.

Uh yes. What matters is objective power, not subjective "Feelings".

Sightless661 votes

Power can be increased or decreased by multiple means, some of which will be more or less frustrating or fun. You have to deal with that anytime you're not just changing a number. That's what design is. Make a mechanic or change a mechanic, and you have to answer the question of frustration vs fun.

My Waifu Vanilla1 votes

Kallista's passive is already rekt by ms slows isn't it?

Anidan1 votes

Who cares? WRECK IT HARDER!

Sorry, my anti-Kalista was showing for a second there.

TheProAndrew1 votes

do u imagine a LeeSin dashing slowly? epic

Sightless662 votes

So, is it possible for immobile mages/champs to access an item/keystone, that makes slows affect the range of a slowed champ dash/flash?

It wouldn't necessarily be overpowered, but it would be really, really bad design because it messes with skill ranges on a moment-to-moment basis. Range is one of the most important factors in how a skill feels. Knowing how far a dash will go is extremely important. However, if you allow slows to affect it, then you're pretty much denying anyone any ability to know what their skill will do at the moment they use it. That's extremely frustrating. It would be arguably one of the most annoying things in the game, and it would kill off a huge amount of fun in playing those champions (to a larger degree than pretty much any power-related change would).

Think about how often you get slowed during a teamfight and by how many different people and with how many different slow percentages. How is anyone ever going to keep track of what exact slow percentage they have on them at any point in time and correlate that with how it will affect their skill range? It would just be an unnecessary aggravation.

If you want to balance power between mobile and immobile champions more, than I'm all for that, but this is a terrible solution for that problem. The problem it introduces is way larger than the problem it solves, and it introduces more frustration into the game than it removes. That's not going to work.

Weiner the Pooh1 votes

Just FYI Fiora's dash speed is based off of her move speed so if you slow her and she dashes her dash will be slower

Woodakoodashooda1 votes

I have always been aware of this. Slows are generally useful for chasing down fleeing targets rather than retreating from pursuers. Most dashes force an enemy to engage on a target and that's usually going to be a champion. Additionally, most dashes do not render a champion untargetable, allowing for you or your allies to get off an ability or attack on the dashing enemy (I've killed many Tristanas in mid-dash as several different champions). Most dashes have a cooldown in between them and positioning yourself so that you can take advantage of that gap is imperative to your success. Most dashes utilize mana or energy; so, take advantage of this fact in the early game to ensure the offender is kept shut down. Enemies with dashes are usually squishy and highly susceptible to CC outside of slows; if you've none of your own then do not initiate a fight against them. Dashes generally deal a large amount of damage; so, keep your distance as best you can unless you're the tank in which case, do not engage without your team.

Sire Hippington1 votes

Thats not fully true. Most champs with gapcloser are hurt alot by slows if the timeing is right. Only if the distance tehir mobillity tool offers is sufficient to achive whatever they want to achive it actually helps vs slows. ike if you get slowed and all you want is to get into towerrange, and your dash gets you their. But if you are to far away from the tower, the slow will make it hard for you to cover the last bi of ground after/befor the dash. If you ever got withered by nasus as riven, you know that have tons of dashes does not mean that slows won't be able to screw you, as you still need to do alot of walking befor and after the dash the onyl exeption is kallista, and only if she does have a target in range, as she has no downtime and thus never has to walk at all.

Connecting the dash **speed ** to MS could work though, as dashes could use some interaction with slows since they certainly are an advantage vs slows, just not nearly as massive as you make it look like. A jax jumping at 10% speed because of zileans slow would look pretty rediculous though...

But reduceing the range would just feel very frustraiting on the other end. Range is something that needs to stay constant on abillitys, alot of the 'learning a champ' part is getting a feeling for his ranges, knowing how close you have to get, and especially in the playing against caes, knowing how far you can stay away. Also, one could make the counter argument that those champs don't profit much from ms-buffs for the same reasons, and thus make their range go up if they get aditional ms.

Only Play Darius1 votes

Mobility is still a problem, and personally I think many champs with reliable wallhops (so Yi/Diana etc. don't count) aren't quite paying for the power that the ability to jump across map terrain brings. However, as far as the slows/mobility interaction, I think Riot's made good progress. The removal of slow stacking has been an underappreciated change that has helped immobile champs not get completely shut out of fights. Also, the addition of juggernaut items which mix damage and defe se have helped fighters (the class most affected by slows) survive all the damage they are forced to take while slowed, and giving them rewarding damage once they do manage to reach their target.

There's still work to be done, but Riot's done well so far.

Slamurai Jack1 votes

Most dashes are actually affected by slow. I know that Yasuo's dash, Fiora's dash, and Kalistas hops are all slowed by MS slows. Not enough that simply slowing them will be enough to get away, but it still does affect them.

forist1 votes

Or you could just position better. Try playing some fiora to learn her dash range, then abuse your own aa range advantage. But seriously aiming your skillshots properly is part of playing a champion well. If you aim your cc correctly fiora shouldn't be able to dash out of it, or should get baited into dashing into it.

UrPalAl1 votes

That's for balance reasons. You're supposed to use hard CC for squishier targets, and slows for more tanky and less mobile targets. They're balanced around this.

charcharmunro1 votes

It's funny, actually, how we all rag on CertainlyT for making hypermobile champions, but Kalista and Yasuo are the only two characters whose dashes are weakened when slowed.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

I know a lot of people have wanted to reduce dash distance according to how much someone is slowed. I don't see why not, other than Ashe existing.

Goosetard1 votes

Super simple change to nerf mobility and stop mobility creep: Slows reduce the range/length of dashes.

Llanite1 votes

Dash is meant to counter slow, so yes, slow is useless vs dash.

The same logic why root doesnt stop adc from blowing you up. It's not meant to stop them.

Teridax681 votes

Even hard CC is less effective to some degree against champions with gapclosers, since bar some exceptions (mainly knockups) champions will still dash around while the CC timer ticks down, thereby reducing the overall time they spend disabled. I agree that mobility and CC don't interact as well as they should be, particularly since most forms of crowd control are difficult to land, even more so on champions mid-dash (Kalista, in particular, becomes immune to slows while attacking enemies, for the reasons you mentioned), and I think dashes need to be affected by CC. I disagree that slows should affect the range of gapclosers, as that would significantly mess up muscle memory, especially with respect to wall jumping, but I think slows should instead reduce the speed of dashes, and immobilizing CC should knock enemies out of dashes, which should map better onto regular movement.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by xxxMadLionxxx

So with Rylies at 20% slow and blue buff no long gives 15% AP,... can we buff back the ap items?
Gameplay184 comments
240
votes
Honestly, seeing the Akali rework makes playing immobile champs seem unfair.
Gameplay182 comments
197
votes
Does Zed really need a slow?
Gameplay202 comments
164
votes
Zed needs a leash range to jump back to his shadows
Gameplay70 comments
126
votes
Playing immobile champs in this game feels like shiit.
Gameplay110 comments
117
votes
Static shiv is way better for ADC that Luden Echo is for Mages.
Gameplay88 comments
114
votes