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What's the point of Talon currently?

Ultîma·3/21/2018, 4:03:03 PM·24 votes·6,049 views

Title. Ever since his rework, Talon lost a considerable amount of reliability in his kit in favour of added roaming potential thanks to the new parkour mechanic. This change essentially deleted him from the game.

To list a few things, other assassins have: Better mobility Kayn’s wall traversal isn’t gated by the length of an obstacle whereas Talon cannot jump over the thick part of the wall by the tribrushes. Kayn can change directions while going through walls whereas Talon’s parkour forces him in a linear animation once it’s initiated. Kayn isn’t locked out of his mobility after going through a wall, whereas Talon has to wait a ridiculous amount of time to re-use his mobility on the same surface. Kha’zix and Rengar gain a massive speed boost + stealth/invisibility from their ultimates. This advantage is granted to them for a very generous amount of time. Zed’s shadow blinks allow him to outplay and turret dive far, far more easily than Talon ever could.

More reliable assassination potential Every other assassin’s damage is frontloaded, allowing them to burst targets instantaneously once they gets on top of them. Talon is reliant on his 3-hit passive the same thing, which butchers his ability to perform in his intended role. Talon is considerably more all-in than other assassins, who often have a built-in outplay, survivability or reset mechanic in their kit. Talon’s best case scenario is to trap someone in the jungle and use a nearby wall to escape, something he cannot do as a solo laner.

Basically every AD assassin can do Talon’s job better than he can. Zed has fantastic outplay mechanics, and can solo lane far more safely. Talon wishes he had Rengar and Kha’zix’ all-in potential or their ability to jungle. And for someone who’s niche is supposed to be “the roaming assassin”, he does so extremely poorly by comparison of the other assassins who benefit from massive speed boosts, stealth, or blink mechanics. Moreover, as a solo-laner who often competes with mages, the roaming mid roster is considerably better at applying side-lane ganks and pressure than he is.

Talon honestly seems like the same feast-or-famine machine that he used to be in the past, and either rarely or never seen in proplay unless he’s buffed to a completely broken state. His kit feels really shallow, and doesn’t allow for the same kind of expression of skill that the other assassins have. Is there ever going to be something done to give him more satisfying mechanics that compete with the other characters of his class?

67 Comments

Poske3/21/2018, 4:07:45 PM13 votes

I do agree that Talon doesnt have a niche

Outclassed by zed in mid

He needs his Aoe damage back in some form

Shiznyte3/21/2018, 4:35:48 PM6 votes

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/PFtPonqK-talon-rework-vs-old-talon

this is an older post I made comparing Old Talon to New Talon. I agree Talon currently is in an awkward spot. They slowed down his missle speed, toned down his AoE damage, but gave him more single target burst and escape. He's pretty much a sub par Zed in terms of killing one person and getting out alive, but he isn't strong enough to be a Kat AoE assassin with his damaged where it is and how Slow his W and R move now. The best thing Talon has going for him is a level 2 all in, and the ability to run away in the jungle to piss people off who chase him.

Craft Zeppelin3/21/2018, 5:07:24 PM6 votes

I really miss the old ult, that sound effect was terrifying like a guillotine blade coming down.

Evil Yasuo3/22/2018, 3:17:04 AM5 votes

I'm so glad you guys are bringing attention to this.<3

To me, if multiple blade user is taken now as a theme, I think Talon should be the guy who uses razor sharp ass blades that make people bleed. I think he should get outplay potential to raise his skill-to-use cap like Zed or Lee, etc. No champion's theme should be roaming because ALL champions can roam and for the most part, do it really well! To me, his E occupies such potential for a laning ability that could make him that much more of a champion. I just feel he needs an ability that can make him less predictable.

Lets bring an emphasis to bleeding from sharp blades for his theme. Or alternatively, his theme could be AOE assassin.

P.s. now I think his Q should be changed too seeing as Irelia has the same ability but faster, more stylish, it resets, it's just BETTER.

ChaddyFantome3/21/2018, 4:27:59 PM4 votes

The problem is more the game changed around Talon than him not being good at anything.

Talon has way more multikill potential than most other assassins and can deal more consistent tamage overall thanks to his Passive. He can get from A to B better than any champ in the game (Save cammile who's E is basically Assassins Path but better in >_>) and he has faster burst than someone like Zed all things considered.

The issues are damage is too high, so he blows up to incidental damage almost accidentally right now, making it hard for him to do anything. Phase Rush sucks, and Stormraider's was an important repositioning, chase, escape and trade tool for him. He got hit hard by its gutting.

Everyone else in the game rotates faster now, so he has less time to escape, etc.

The first thing Talon needs is for them to fix all his damn bugs. Tired of my Q doing the melee version from range when i want my gap closer. I don't mind it when i get the gapcloser instead of the melee Q as much so if they cant fix the bug, adjust the ranges.

Fix the bug where sometimes his auto attack animation just freezes for no reason and you can't proc your passive. It's incredibly tilting.

Fix the bug where sometimes his passive just doesn't get popped on auto attack.

Fix the bug where sometimes your Ultimate stealth doesn't actually stealth you, as well as the one where it cancels itself for no reason.

And fix his E bug where he randomly kickflips back to his original position sometimes when jumping over terrain, especially towers.

Id take these over any real changes first. We can talk about anything else after.

Talon is strictly better than prerework in nearly every way outside of being faceroll.

SwiftCrane3/22/2018, 6:29:03 AM3 votes

Don't play talon so can't weigh in on how he plays, but I just want to say that when comparing champions, its important to compare abilities to the same champion throughout.

Someone like velkoz - a decent champ could easily be compared to a few champs like so:

His CC is much worse than TF/Annie point and click stun His range is much worse than Xerath His mobility is much worse than Ahri His passive is much worse than Veigars passive

etc.

It doesn't mean he's a terrible champ, it just means champs excel in different areas and have weaknesses in others.

Kayn's mobility might be more controllable/possible to go back, but:

It has a MUCH longer cooldown so you can't get as far, its harder to escape It has an indicator on where he's coming out and he therefore can burst you down with less time to react

Someone like zed has a lot less burst as he generally has to hit projectiles and ult takes time Talons ult also gives him speed and invisibility, albeit not as much as other champs, but kayn's ult isn't very good in comparison (since we started comparing to him)

It also gives him AOE damage which is pretty decent

I'm not saying he's strong/weak/good/bad... Just saying that its much more complex than comparing his unique abilities to different champions' abilities.

Edit: hit*

Risen293/22/2018, 12:07:41 AM3 votes

I was planning to post something similar, as a former Talon player who wishes he was still viable. All AD assassins are in bad shape, but Talon has some unique flaws that would keep him hindered even if other factors holding back assassins in general were improved.

  1. You are forced to choose between your engagement tools to reach the target, or having the damage to actually kill them once you get there. No other assassin is forced to make this kind of choice that is so conflicting in design and goal. If you use your R or Q to close the distance, then you probably won't have the damage you need to actually kill them, defeating the point. But good luck closing the distance, alive, without them. Another problem is that you can't use your R as an escape anymore, but you're forced to use it as an initiation to proc your passive.

  2. Your damage isn't really all that worthwhile even under ideal conditions. For all the hassle you have to go through to get to the target, and proc a melee Q and hit with both waves of R, it really doesn't feel significantly better than other assassin damage to justify all this situational hassle and forced delays in executing your burst damage.

  3. He use to only be good after his rework because better lethality, and better early damage, made it easy to get a lead and snowball. Without that he doesn't scale well.

  4. His kit was designed with an over-reliance on using E to gap close and escape, yet he cannot jungle - where this ability could actually be put to good use for ganks and clearing. As a skill it has limited applications when played from a lane.

  5. His kit was gutted of it's range in the rework. Half the farming and poke range. Half the engage range. This makes him not very viable as a mid laner. So after the rework he ended up mostly toplane. He use to only be good top lane because of early level kill pressure. Take that away and he's not really good at top lane either, because tanks can shrug off his harass and not succumb to his kill pressure. Right now he kind of muddles through either top or mid but he's particularly well suited to either role. He only ends up in one of those places by default because you can't play him anywhere else. It's really just a matter of asking yourself which lane you think you'll get punished least in, or might actually have a chance of getting an early kill.

  6. Still just as feast or famine as before. Arguably more so, because now it's harder to farm when behind and harder to secure kills to start the feast. Reworked Talon is just as dependant on scoring an early kill and roaming for ganks as he was before, but because people complain about getting killed and snowballed on this is nerfed, taking away Talon's one and only win condition. He doesn't actually do anything else if he doesn't snowball. He has no team utility. He can't be played from behind effectively. He can't use his roaming to split push if he's behind because bruisers are immune to his burst.

I am not sure how you'd really tweak his kit without making him too powerful. Allowing full damage for a ranged Q would be a good start, because outside of top lane matches or flashing in on a ranged opponent it's never really a viable option to trade your gap closer for more damage.
Changing the way his W works could make him more viable mid lane.

But the main change I'd like to see if for his passive to proc on jungle monsters, so he might have enough clear speed to be viable in this role.

Risen293/22/2018, 3:56:26 PM2 votes

That 2 seconds it takes for passive damage to kick in is an eternity when trying to take down an adc that can put off enough attacks to massively outheal your passive damage in that time.

You definitely won't kill the adc if you have to use you R and Q as gapclosers.

SmallieBiggz3/23/2018, 2:52:16 AM2 votes

As a Talon main with at least 400-500 games in his rework and his pre-rework. I feel that in the early game your getting poked out by champs he used to counter. You have to play way to aggressive against good players with minimal reward. You can't freeze a wave on Talon because it does nothing for your kite. Your dot damage can be avoided if the player is good enough to flash the aa. People usually camp the hell out of talon now. If you got nothing done in lane but your bot lane feeds your game is over. Basically, if you roam and your laner just waits for mid game and farms, and you went even. Your entire game is over because at a certain point your scaling doesn't mean anything. They run 2 to 3 tanks and cc you out of the game. You get 2-3 man ganked even if you're not ahead. Funny thing is Fizz will 100-0 with just his ult if you don't have flash or a wall to hop. Your basically screwed and I feel people complain about his level 2 too much. There is no real items he can build to counter hard ap scalers. Not to mention most players can avoid his w range because its not that long. Once your w and q are on cooldown its like playing a shit version of an ADC. Your E is complete shit as well as it has a 2 to 3 second delay before you can jump a wall. Literally flash is better than his e sometimes.

Z3Sleeper3/21/2018, 6:05:41 PM2 votes

Instantaneous burst with a heavy, short duration DoT to finish off enemies that somehow survive it.

Look up the flower combo. Talon's combo is only as long as his rake takes to return.

Q -> R (midQ) -> Auto -> W -> leave.

Or W -> Q -> R (midQ) -> Auto -> leave. (typically requires flash)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbtHIFyHclY

3411235456523/21/2018, 6:54:54 PM2 votes

According to ADC mains , talon is the most balanced assassin and other assassins should be like him.

Shaydrox3/21/2018, 10:15:54 PM2 votes

He feels mediocre lategame primarily because his target access is difficult to use. Whenever I play Zed I can at least W -> R for an easy way to get to my enemy. Talon cannot do this, which sucks badly for him. His base movement speed is too low to dodge skills as easily as other assassins, his Q range is too easy for enemy adcs to counter. If he got buffs on these two points he would be fine for sure, but it's hard to tell if it will fix him completely.

On a side note, the lvl 2 kill potential is retarded. If he weren't so weak otherwise this damage spike would get nerfed.

Modl Ryden l3/22/2018, 12:58:46 AM2 votes

His range on his gap closer (his Q, I wouldn't really count his E) is too short in comparison to other assassins. Additionally his E provides no combative utility whatsoever and it's too commicky. It's like having another passive.

BroLane3/22/2018, 2:37:17 AM2 votes

He feels weak. And I love playing him. He gets bursted down way too easily while not having that much burst himself. He's my favorite assassin, and it makes me sad to see him this weak. I don't want to play Thresh or Sej every game, man.

LetMeCarry19833/22/2018, 10:10:39 AM2 votes

What's the point of Talon currently?

To frustrate me by providing someone for my team to feed.

Zedex3/22/2018, 5:14:24 PM2 votes

I miss his old E...Sure, the lucky roams can be nice, but now whenever I play Talon I feel like we've returned to Season 3-4 where there was 0 reason to ever pick Talon because Zed did every thing he did better.

Now its "Every assassin" does what he does better. He needs a real gap closer, not his short range Q.

Acheron163/22/2018, 4:42:44 PM1 votes

The problem is that his 3-hit passive doesnt do enough damage for the counter play it gives.

If you not only have to stack it, personally detonate it with an AA, but that damage is also a bleed, then the damage should be pretty damn high, since that gives the opponent plenty of time to Flash, Barrier, Heal, Zhonya's, etc.

SangreDeNoche3/23/2018, 1:24:18 AM1 votes

New Fiora Lite.

YuGiHo3/22/2018, 4:43:20 PM1 votes

he has allot of base mr now.