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Sylas - Pros and Cons

Cats Are Food·1/11/2019, 6:51:50 AM·14 votes·10,969 views

Back for a few minutes to basically outline the things I like about Sylas, and the things I really don't like about him. It helps that Reddit is weird at this time of night, and I can't sleep.

Sylas - The Vintage Player's Dream

Pro: Why do I call him that? Because we have a lot of experience with all of the ultimates. We've tinkered around with, played with, and abused ultimates from the original 40 until now. Myself, even on this account, I'm at least Mastery 4 with every champion on the roster.

God it will be fun with a cherry picking of ults every game.

Con: He adds damage onto a lot of ults that shouldn't really HAVE damage. At least when those champions are played how they are meant to be. Their scaling is intense for precisely this reason, and Sylas is simply designed to abuse the holy hell out of this.

Sylas - Yet Another AOE Burster

Pro: Wave clear is going to be easy, and his farm is very likely to be intense every game. Split pushing will be masterful, with ease.

Con: Yeah, just what the game needed. More AOE burst.

Sylas - The Jack Of All Trades

Pro: With his ability to snag ults, namely those that make you tougher, he will be able to gap fill pretty much anything his team needs simply by jacking the ultimate from specific champions. Need a tanky champ? Steal from Jax or Cho. Need more damage? Steal Zed's.

Con: This will make him either a solid ban, or a solid pick, in every single game until he's nerfed into oblivion. The last thing players want is a functional 5v6 mechanics wise.

All in all he seems like he is a fun concept, but he's right down the same path RIOT has mindlessly carved for the past few years. He is a champion who can 'do it all' while still killing your team.

But the biggest Pro of all? Imma Veigar ult a Veigar.

18 Comments

hotarse1/11/2019, 10:52:19 AM12 votes

You're doing this wrong: Pro: Con: Sylas

Targon1/11/2019, 3:18:23 PM4 votes

One thing that really bothers me about Sylas (apart from his ultimate) is his W - Kingslayer. The damage portion is an execute while the heal portion against champions is somewhat of a get out of jail free card. This ability will feel like crap to play against.

Irelia's old E (the one where if she had a higher % max health than you, she'd slow you, and stun otherwise) was admitted by Riot to be horrible gameplay design which punished you if you were trading well against Ireli. IMO, Kingslayer is very similar, and later in the game it promotes the "counter play" of having to burst Sylas down instantly or he will get a maximum of a 500 + 80% AP health heal when fighting you.

Eternal Torment1/11/2019, 11:16:48 AM4 votes

Basically Pro points are that he is going to be the top ace pick if you aren't a master at something specific

And con's are that he exists.

Based on what you said because 2 out of your 3 cons are complaints about his design in itself.

GelsominoKiller1/11/2019, 2:11:21 PM4 votes

I wouldn't be so damn worried about him being the next unfixable kalista / Camille / Akali / irelia, if his base kit wasn't so ridiculously overloaded.

Stealing ults is probably the strongest ability in the game, and thus a lot of sylas power budget should be allocated there.

Curiously enough, Sylas kit is seemingly designed to be self sufficient even without an ultimate. All his abilities are very strong, to the point I would expect some kind of "enabling" ultimate next to it (like Jax, Riven, Aatrox etc), and not such a powerful tool.

7deadLeeSlnz1/11/2019, 2:48:43 PM2 votes

You can not really make a reliable list in such a short time period. He was released 3 days ago on the PBE. Riot themselves with their mass and reliabilty of information need weeks to assess where he stands balancewise. At this point no one knows how to play this champ. No one knows his weakness, strenghts, how to play with or against him. People are trying him out and still explore what he is capable of doing.

Daddy Ants1/11/2019, 12:03:17 PM2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Cats Are Food,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=eoLTKxh2,comment-id=,timestamp=2019-01-11T06:51:50.071+0000)

God it will be fun with a cherry picking of ults every game.

The playmaking potential with Sylas R is huge.

Imagine late game, you're in a game deciding teamfight and you steal the enemy Malphite, Amumu or Soraka's ultimate.

Good use of that ability can win you a lot of games.

 

Good usage of Hijack will be the difference between a good Sylas player and a great Sylas player.

the shy top1/11/2019, 9:50:07 PM2 votes

It's not really pros and cons is it? More like what's overpowered and what's broken.

BlueBilberry1/28/2019, 2:08:59 AM1 votes

Given that ultimates are supposed to be game changing skills, it seems weird to have a champion that can steal ultimates and just spam the heck out of them. This champion needs to be taken back to the workshop (perhaps along with most of the other champs released this past season).