Possible direction to make Jayce more compelling to play as and less oppressive to play against
Introduction
Current Jayce play pattern is to gain an advantage while in Cannon Form (CF from now on), poke the hell out of enemies until you can finish them with Hammer Form (HF) or either have safe trades with the Q-E HF combo and thus giving small chances to counterplay and lane interaction especially in toplane where most of melee and less mobile champions dwell.
This play style is what brought Jayce into an everlasting series of iterations where he was either too fragile and not dangerous enough to be a treath or to be an oppressive bully.
We have faced something similar with Nidalee some months ago and she got a small rework to make her helthier and more in line with her shapeshifter fantasy. That's what I'll be trying to make for Jayce too in this thread with small suggestions that won't have numbers in them because I really suck at them and I'd rather talk about what mechanics should be involved.
Jayce fantasy
He is the defender of tomorrow and a cocky ars... I mean a proud inventor and fighter, he is mostly depicted as the Hammer weilder but we all know that 80% of the time he is on the rift his stance is the CF. This happens because no matter the increased defense stats he gets in HF he is still a piece of paper and doens't have the time to set up a fight longer then his Q-E combo. I want to make him more reliant on ebing in melee to deal damage while CF would me more a finisher/utility form.
That's why I'll be making 3 major chages (that are waiting for feedback because I'm no master in balance).
Cannon Form
- Q base damage nerfed, gets to deal bonus damage depending on target % missing hp (Acc. Gate still amplifies them both).
Hammer Form
- Q doesn't slow but gives Jayce a shield either based on his bonus AD or HP.
- E doesn't do damage based on targets max HP but gets to massively slow (or either stun) enemies if the hit a wall (ala Vayne).
- R (CF-->HF) doesn't make him deal magic damage on next AA but adds an additional effect to the next HF skill used (Q gives a bigger shield, E gets either a stun or a 90% slow if hitting the wall, W speeds up Jayce movements speed).
Conclusion
That's the end for now, reading feedback and new ideas might be implemented in future edits. Thanks for staying with me, I hope you enjoyed the read and have a good day/evening.