The Tragedy of Talon: an End to Silence [Patch 4.17]

The Tragedy of Talon: an End to Silence Note: this was intended to be an argumentative essay, but there is a TL;DR section at the bottom This is a slightly shortened version of the original discussion, which is linked here: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4878817

I type this on behalf of all Talon players, and all enlightened League players in general, not just because I love Talon and his excellently-conceived design as a merciless, cowled assassin unmistakably reminiscent of the Thief: The Dark Project and Assassin's Creed video game series, and pays homage to members of the Defias Brotherhood from the World of Warcraft universe (you know what I'm talking about), or that he plays an irreplaceable niche role as a badass, self-made renegade brought up straight from the gutters of Noxus (in League lore) and as an AD melee burst anti-mage in the Fields of Justice, but because I strongly feel that if I did not type this extended, argumentative eulogy for the Blade's Shadow which blurs mournfully before your weary eyes tonight, then I would not be doing justice to Talon, or to Riot, or to the good players and faithful fan base whose passions dwell within the rich and growing culture that is the League of Legends.

Every champion has an identity. For Lux it is her snare and her laser, and that obnoxious, high-pitched giggle of hers she uses to taunt your team from across the river when she knows you put your trinket-ward in the mid brush before the minions have spawned. For Ahri it is her Charm, and her irresistibly coquettish, foxy appearance that aligns so well with the Korean (Kuhino) / Japanese (Kitsune) folklore myth from which she was derived (ie a cunning fox spirit who transforms into a beautiful woman and uses her powerful charms to seduce men and steal their souls, or eat their livers, whatever). For TF, it is his gold card (and his notorious blue card), and his nearly global presence due to his ultimate, and his suave demeanor as a sly card shark and disreputable hustler. For Kassadin, no doubt it is his unparalleled mobility; his ability to rift between dimensions, through which he can circumvent the time space of our realm. He also used to be the King of Silence, but that got stripped from him for obvious reasons, as soon as Riot started paying particular attention to low-risk, high-burst assassins with disables. I can go on and on about each and every champion, but nevertheless I have digressed with this vague, and arguably baseless platitude. The point I'm trying to make here is that that silence (albeit 1 second, which has been the weakest of all silences on assassins, until the silence-purges left Talon as literally the last man standing) is key to Talon's kit, and fundamental to his identity.

When I look up to that heartless facade, half-veiled beneath that dark cowl of his, with that aloof, unyielding gaze of his; that mean, grimacing cold expression cocking over a razored shoulder, I know this man is indeed going to cut my throat, and make short work of my body before discarding it in the gutter. I know I better stay more than 700 range of him, lest I can survive the first second of his auto-Q-rake-ult combo, pop my Zhonya's, and make short work of him instead. But even then, come mid-to-late game, this guy gets less and less scary (and more of a joke) as pink wards and upgraded sweepers become increasingly prevalent while the match progresses. And even then, if you have champions on your team that can easily reveal stealth like Lee Sin, Lulu, Corki (I believe his phosphorus bomb works), and Twisted Fate, then Talon's so-called "great escape" becomes laughable. Even a good area-of-affect slow or disable applied quickly upon the general area from which Talon disappeared with his ultimate will completely cripple his ability to escape within the mere 2.5 seconds of invisibility he has, at max.

The removal of Talon's silence on his Cutthroat [E] is a crime and a tragedy in the least, and, unfortunately, most likely to become a reality next patch (4.17) because of a long series of unfortunate events. It is true that we live in an imperfect world where, by way of the unstable dynamics of patch-making and in-game balancing, and the often irrational caprices of complainers in the League community forums, bad things happen to good (benign) champions. Today Talon is a perfect example, and he will forever be remembered as the cowled renegade who died for what he lived by, allegiances set aside. Rest in peace, fair Talon, for there you shall be cutting the throats of over-mobile riftwalkers, voluptuous fox-ladies, and annoying blonde girls, or whoever crosses you in general. In order to better understand Talon's tragedy, however, one must first delve into his dark past, starting with the origins of his creation back in Season 2 during the notorious League of Cleavers.

Arguably, Talon started the whole AD assassin business, and it didn't take long for players to realize that a melee champion with heavy burst and a gap-closing silence could be run effectively in the mid lane. Soon enough, Talon's primary role as a fighter in the top lane shifted to his niche role as an anti-mage assassin for the mid lane. However, he was not alone in his department and was never a primary pick, chiefly because he was far inferior to other picks, i.e. Kassadin and Leblanc, in the business of silencing and assassinating. If Kassadin was standardized as a 10 in the business, LeBlanc was a 9 and Talon was probably a 4. So, in order to rectify the defense of Talon's silence, one must take a closer look at the more extreme cases, which basically set the stage for Talon's persecution. With those two I begin the sorrowful trilogy of radical cleansings, which I like to refer to as the "silence-witch-trials."

One could say it all started with the Voidwalker. Kassadin, like many champions who erupt in outrage upon discovery seemingly overnight, was a sleeper-pick champion by the start of Season 3. From what I can recall he wasn't a common selection until people began to realize how overpowered his ultimate was, in conjunction with the rest of his kit. The unparalleled mobility and slipperiness provided by his Riftwalk is what made Xpeke of Fnatic in EU famous for his single-handed backdoor assault on the Nexus against SK Gaming during the IEM Global Challenge Katowice, back in early 2013. Save for his vulnerability in lane prior to level six, I believe most summoners would have agreed he was by far the most unfair, over-mobile, low-risk, zero-counterplay mage-assassin in the game. Talon is nowhere near that level, and never will be. To clarify the differences, a consistent ban rate of 99%+ (Talon's is only around 20%, at max) screamed aloud for Kassadin. And still, when I recall those times merely a year ago, I can't help but feel Riot was a tad bit slow in responding to the outcry. Personally, what I find most disturbing is that when they finally did get around to Kassadin (after months of embittered complaints about him being stuck in ban-jail), instead of targeting his ultimate, which I would attest to be the greatest concern most players had against the Voidwalker, Riot decided to kill his silence, a thematic aspect inherent to Kassadin that is no doubt fundamental to his identity as an anti-mage (SILENCE!). It seems he can never again live up to his former title as the King of Silence, since the only way he can make his enemies "null and void" is by killing them, which is what every champion in the game is able to do in some way or another. Aside from now, this was perhaps one of the darkest days of patch-making and balance changes made in League, and no doubt many Kassadin followers were infuriated by this decision, to kill his identity rather than to moderate his overpowered mobility and free-floating escape mechanics. Had I held more respect for the Voidwalker (no thanks to his preposterous mobility), I might have composed a eulogy for him as well. But again, I digress.

After Kassadin was neutralized at the stake (through some bizarre rework), who was next in line to stand accused for witchcraft? You guessed it - all eyes quickly turned to the Deceiver. LeBlanc was for sure a witch in eyes of most players, and despite how squishy she is and how horrendous her late-game relevance becomes if she does not get ahead, LeBlanc could not escape the shackles of persecution. Yet, her silence was admittedly unfair and offered low-counterplay to most mid-lanes, considering the fact she could pop in and out of an engagement with a poof of smoke. Her double-distort combo granted her god-like mobility and slipperiness that was far too evocative of the late Kassadin, and to add to the silence, which could be extended up to 3 seconds with a well-timed Mimic, her chains were just ridiculous. Bjergsen made an appearance with her soon after his recruit into TSM in the North American LCS, and after his stunning performance, both he and LeBlanc went wild with popularity. And, of course, quickly followed after were the bans, so when the Deceiver rose up to first place on the ban list (almost Kassadin status), the reality of her doom became more than just smoke and mirrors. Soon Riot came to the general understanding that the player base had gotten sick and tired of hard silences combined with overmobililty, low-risk and low-counterplay mechanics. That fatal cocktail became instrumental to LeBlanc's demise and, along with Kassadin, she was swiftly added to the exorcism pyre.

And now Talon's arms are bound to the stake, his pyre logs drenched with oil, and the torches are being lit. Once the logs are set ablaze, I hope, unlike the former two, that upon release his soul will ascend to cutthroat heaven. He will always be remembered as the stoic martyr who lived and died by what he believed in (other than the blade)- the last stand for silences on assassins as a unique and appropriately thematic means for counterplay against mages.

I attribute Talon's high win-rate (~53%+) to a small but dedicated player pool, and not the so-called "unfair elements" of the champion's ability kit. Talon is, and always has been, a relatively unpopular champion with a cult following; his pick rate has remained stagnant at about 5%, and only recently rose to above 8% during its flavor-of-the-month spike after his appearance in the NA LCS. In other words, Talon is, and has always been, a champion played by few, but those who are passionate enough, and know how to play him, play him well. Names like Vapora Dark, KillaKast, and Insoy quickly rise to one's attention if they start investigating the feasibility of maining Talon. They, I attest, are shining examples of how any champion, even a second-rate assassin like Talon, can be played to the highest level if enough time and passion is devoted towards mastering his (or her) play style. I subscribed to the creed of Talon back in Season 3, after I bought him and tried him out during the Aatrox patch, when his price reduced to 4800 IP. I immediately fell in love with the guy. He was perhaps my most treasured dark-horse weapon to pull out against squishy mids during ranked queues.

If Talon can be played well, why is he so unpopular? It's quite simple: Talon's high-risk and low-escape skillset makes him very unattractive for the competitive landscape of higher-leveled play. Assassins like Zed, Fizz, and Khazix have a way easier time demolishing their enemies, and then jumping out of the scene like nothing ever happened. Talon does not. The current meta favors assassins with escapes and on-demand gap closers, a category in which Talon is crudely lacking. Other than his ultimate, which isn't even a gap-closer, and his one-directional, long-cooldown Cutthroat (which is chiefly an engagement tool), Talon is really left with few options when cornered. To put things further into perspective, both Kassadin and LeBlanc are paragons of this slipperiness and hypermobility that Talon is not. But enough of that, allow me to try and sympathize with the enemy's point of view (and I've played plenty of AP mids myself, my two most favorite are probably Ahri and TF).

How to deal with Talon - are you kidding me? Talon is one of the easiest champions to mock and defecate on in lane, especially by any decent mage whose abilities well exceed 700 range (thinking of you, Ziggs and Xerath). Even the big-name squishies he supposedly counters, such as Ahri and Lux, can easily make a fool of him by harassing him all day long with their low-risk skill shots and poke abilities, and thus deny him farm while still threatening an easy kill with a well-aimed Charm or Light Binding. And even then, once you've picked up your Seeker's in lane to rush towards an early Zhonya's (hard counter to Talon), in about ten or fifteen minutes he'll have nothing on you. No counterplay? Ha! One can argue that by picking Talon (and I've come across many Talon-haters in my time), you've effectively countered yourself because he is so exploitable in lane, and becomes complete trash as the game progresses, if he does not get ahead. It is way too easy to lock him down in a team fight, and to make sure he becomes very irrelevant, very fast. Talon was made to be a binary, unidirectional all-in champion whose only methods of diplomacy are extremely rigid: either kill or be killed. Indeed, what makes him so well conceived as a champion is how his play style fits his character almost perfectly - high risk and high reward - as is his motto, to live and die by the blade. One plays Talon because they feel confident in their ability to take risks, and to exploit the weaknesses of squishy AP mages who heavily depend on their skill shots.

Let's be honest: his passive is garbage. It's basically an empty slot to my understanding, because frankly 10% increase damage on his basic attacks doesn't mean **** compared to a percentage of one's missing health like Zed's Contempt for the Weak, or the unconditional 10% true damage on each auto from Corki's Hextech Shrapnel Shells - and unlike Talon he is ranged! If Talon is going to make it to you, he better do more than just 10% extra damage with his autos, in addition to it being contingent on you being slowed, snared, stunned, or suppressed. His Mercy passive has been, by far, the saddest thing about Talon for the longest time since his feather clipping in season 2. The rest of his kit is fine, and actually quite scary if you chain his abilities in quick succession. For these reasons he probably has more initial AD burst than Zed, although the latter definitely has better sustained single-target damage, not to mention far superior outplay potential with his Living Shadows.

There's no turning back once you've pressed E, and that one second of silence was designed to give Talon a brief window to act before getting bursted or locked down by whatever nuke or crowd-control abilities the enemy has in store for him. Needless to say, that silence is the only edge he has against mages. Without it, he is virtually helpless against any mid-laner, and, unlike his foster-sister, he has no resets or damage reduction or escape mechanisms to get him out of a scene after making a play. The damage from his ultimate, Shadow Assault, is often needed to secure the kill, and even then, it hardly guarantees a slick escape for the reasons I stated earlier, unlike a swift Shunpo over the wall to an ally or ward. The silence was made to compensate for these deficiencies in Talon, and is perhaps the sole reason why you would ever consider him over Zed or Khazix as an AD mid.

Recommendations? Well for the reasons I've just discussed, I still strongly feel that the removal of his silence is unjustified and that, as of now, Talon is a balanced champion with high-risk and high-reward binary mechanics. However, for those of you who are still adamant about getting at his silence, I will concede to a compromise regarding his kit, despite Talon's non-compromising nature. There are many ways to solve this purposed "zero-counterplay" aspect of Talon without removing his silence. This can be accomplished very easily, to introduce plenty of counterplay to Talon yet allow him to retain his identity as that silencing rogue. The problem of "no counterplay" chiefly arises not from the silence itself, but more so from how he delivers the silence instantaneously upon his arrival behind his victim. As for Kassadin and LB, both had ridiculous mobility and low-risk escape mechanics in addition to a nearly-instantaneous, on-demand silence, with Kassadin's Null Sphere being a point-and-click projectile and LeBlanc's easy Sigil of Silence + Distortion combo being almost the same - both could be landed in quick succession within a split-second interval.

Now, let us think of other champions with hard disables in their kits, such as stuns and knock-ups, who are clearly seen as being "not overpowered" or "having counterplay," and see how we can apply the logic and fairness of their designs into Talon's kit. Xin Zhao, who I believe is very similar to Talon in his design and play style, has a 1-second knock-up on his 3-Talon Strike, which is contingent on him performing two basic attacks, and then the third auto on whoever he plans to suspend briefly. Kennen (also an underrated sleeper champion in my book) requires that he accumulate 3 Mark of the Storm stacks from his passive. Annie also requires 3 stacks from her Pyromania passive before her next spell stuns. All of these champions' disables require some sort of build-up mechanism, either through stacks or combos, before the stun/knock-up can come to fruition, allowing ample time for the enemy to perceive the disable before it happens, and respond to and/or mitigate it. And, of course, Ahri's Charm, Lux's Light Binding, Xerath's Shocking Orb, Brand's Sear (with the Blaze passive), and Syndra's Q-E combo are all linear skill shots, and as such can be dodged or flashed, however difficultly.

To fix the current problems with Talon, what needs to be done in the near future (as soon as possible, I'd argue) is a rework of his passive and of his kit that is to include some mechanism of contingency for his silence, rather than it being instant and on-demand. Also, his passive Mercy is way too ineffective and outdated for today's standards, for most champions these days having way more complex and sophisticated passives like Yasuo's Way of the Wanderer and Azir's Shurima's Legacy. If power needs to be taken out of the rest of his kit to justify a modernization of his passive, then so be it.

Here is an example of what I believe to be an excellent reworking of his passive, highly reminiscent of Kennen's passive, which fits Talon's renegade nature so well, and would allow the incoming changes for his Cutthroat to be justified:

Mercy (passive): Talon's spells and basic attacks apply stacks of Mercy whenever they damage an enemy. Mercy stacks persist for 5 seconds after the last application. Upon reaching 5 stacks (cannot generate more than 5), Talon's next basic attack or Cutthroat against the target will deal an additional 35/75/115 (+55% bonus AD)(+5% target's missing health) physical damage and silence the target for 1.5 seconds. Afterwards, they will be immune to accumulating further stacks for 5 seconds. [levels 1/7/13 for damage]

(Note: I focus on the number 5 here because Talon has five daggers trailing from his cloak, like the 9 stacks needed for Ahri's Essence Theft passive in relation to her 9 tails)

There, problem solved. Talon still retains that silencing, Assassin's Creed theme akin to his image as a merciless, cutthroat renegade, and there is much counterplay to be made against him before he manages to accumulate 5 stacks on an enemy champion and perform a basic attack or E. The % Missing Health damage bonus also attributes well to the executional, "mercy killing" aspect of Talon, who is indeed merciless. The numbers for the bonus damage I estimated based on other Champions' ability mechanics of a similar scheme, but these values can be tweaked if need be. Whether this model, or a similar model, is adopted into another part of his kit, either way his Silence needs to be reworked within his kit in such a manner that it is not instantaneous and on-demand, so that it can allow for so-called "fair counterplay."

And, of course, the other option Riot can perform to retain his silence would be to lower the damage ratios of Talon's abilities so it becomes substantially harder for him to one-hundred-to-zero an enemy champion at early levels in lane. However, from my past experiences nobody likes it when a champion gets straight-on bludgeoned by the nerf-bat, and this would be perhaps the most unfair and least fulfilling means of preserving Talon's identity as an all-in champion with a silence.

And, in the end, even with his instantaneous, 1-second cutthroat silence Talon is still, and will always remain, a secondary or tertiary choice, if even, more like a quaternary pocket-pick for mid in the LCS. As an AD mid, Zed outclasses him in almost every department, save the silence and AOE burst. And even then, Talon's high-risk, all-in nature makes him very unattractive for competitive play, which is why you don't see him very often, even if Voyboy managed to shed some light on the Blade's Shadow. XWX tried to carry with him once later in the NA Summer splits to copy that, but his team lost lanes and had poorer objective control than the members of EG, and he became ineffective in his attempts to carry LMQ largely because of Talon's horrendous late-game. Yet, these weaknesses are almost entirely overlooked, since everyone is so fixated on that one-second silence. What has happened will come to pass; Kassadin got gutted (quite brutally), and so did LeBlanc, now it's Talon's turn.

Alas, while I have occupied you long enough with this two-hundred-kilobyte-wasting eyesore of mine, I will not sit by in silence (no pun intended). I will stand for what I believe in because I believe this is the right thing to do; and that many devoted members of the League community, Talon players or not, would concur with me in this tragedy. If Talon's silence must die, than at least it will die with a voice.

**TL,DR (and I can totally understand why you chose to skip to here): ** • Let Talon keep his silence. It's core to his identity, and it's really all he has. • If it is deemed absolutely necessary (because of the current public sentiment against "low counterplay" disables on assassins), rework Talon's silence in such a way that is not instantaneous and allows for counterplay; e.g. design a build-up mechanism like Kennen's passive that results in the silence, or (I would much less prefer this option) lower the damage ratios of his kit so it's not as easy or him to 100-0 other mids. • For mercy's sake, rework that passive! It is far too outdated. • Please be easy on Talon in general. He's gone through such a rough upbringing after his conception, release, and wing clipping in Season 2, and has more or less been left in the darkness ever since. Now that he's finally seen the light, partly thanks to Voyboy and the Koreans, I’d like to see him grow as a staple figure in the League of Legends landscape with a unique and thematic play-style, and not suffer from the relentless witch trials of Season 4 that are persecuting him as the only assassin remaining with a silence.

P.S: My heartfelt condolences to those who equally felt the gravity of what was written in the PBE notes for the incoming Patch 4.17. Don’t worry, though, I’m sure one way or another justice will be done to Talon, and he will end up as a better (and healthier) champion on the Rift than ever before! I have faith in Riot, and the League community.

-The Brotherhood shall prevail!