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My thoughts on Quinn

Linkwithasword·7/18/2017, 10:50:49 PM·5 votes·1,652 views
http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Quinn_0.jpg

Quinn Quinn is a champion who, although I only got her around eight days ago, I feel as though i can see a lot of problems with her from both a gameplay perspective and from an Identity perspective.

Looking into her gameplay, Quinn's issue is that she is reliant entirely on her ability to assassinate (which happens to be the only thing she is useful for in combat for the most part) using only two abilities due to her having two non-combat abilities in the forms of her W and her R. Because of the fact that she either Can burst someone with either AA -> Q -> AA or AA -> E -> AA or some variation of either of those combos, there is either very little counterplay because she can just instantly kill you (like here where she was literally able to run through lane to kog'maw and kill him before he could even move to react). The other option for how she works is if she cannot kill someone in one combo (Passive -> AA -> Q -> AA -> E -> AA), and if this is the case then she is largely a completely worthless champion because she cannot jungle (her ganks rely on her burst and movespeed), she cannot top (her lane presence relies on her harassment in lane and her ability to zone enemies out of CS, and even though she can do that without her burst, what she cannot do is do what she does best after laning phase in top lane and become a roaming assassin to create map pressure and force enemies into thinking they have a numbers advantage when they do not. She cannot mid without her burst because she cannot do the galio thing where she has the utility to pull it off without burst, she makes for an awful support because her kit has no real utility aside from a disrupt, a displace, and her Q's Nearsighted, and her ability to ADC is practically nonexistent with her current kit because she gets outranged and out-harassed by any other ADC.

To sum up, from a gameplay perspective her current kit only works when she is broken, because she either can oneshot people before they can react, or she cannot oneshot people before they can react, and she can't effectively do anything else if she can't (or at least not anything that would be done better by champions like Tryndamere Tryndamere and Jax Jax), because of this i feel she needs a rework

In my opinion a lot of the issues with Quinn's gameplay comes from Riot not really seeming to understand what Quinn is. What i mean by this is that they seem to have wanted her to be an ADC, but the kit they gave her was half-ADC and half-assassin whilst being balanced around being ADC, making her not reliable enough to be good as a mid-laner, not built well enough to be an ADC, and without the utility to be a reliable jungler, which forced her into the role of "top lane bully who destroys juggernauts in lane and only can work late game if there are juicy squishies to be popped and towers to be dropped", which is not the role she should have (as evidenced by her lore as "assassin/scout who works in conjunction with her birdy to kick some ass" and Riot seeming to want her to be either an ADC or an assassin.) Equipped with that knowledge, one can begin to work out what her issues are, and how they can be solved to make her a better champion who can exist in the meta without certain items (looking at you, lethality) being broken.

Quinn's abilities:

P - Bird marks a target every now and then with a harrier proc, attacking the marked target does a lot of extra damage. Q and E also apply harrier marks to what they hit.

I actually really like her passive and think it should stay with some slight tweaks. If she wants to be an ADC and deal steady, sustained damage, then make the damage lower, make the marks last for less time, and reduce the cooldown on the passive, making it proc much more often if you can hit them fast enough, turning it into much less damage at once, but much more in prolonged fights where you can pop harrier marks much more often. If instead she wants to remain an assassin, keep it the same (maybe reduce damage slightly) because as it is, it is a great passive for assassins.

Q - Throw bird in skillshot line; does AoE damage where it hits and gives the first target hit a Harrier mark.

This ability's concept is alright, but i can't help but feel as though i am basically throwing Valor like a rock and hitting the enemies in the head. If you want her to be an ADC, make the ability a narrower skillshot, lower the damage (120%AD scaling at max rank is a bit much given it's already high base damage) increase travel distance, and make it give vision where it goes (so it can be used to check drag, baron, bushes, etc.). If instead you want her to be an assassin/splitpusher, keep it the same because as it stands, similarly to her passive, it is good at what it does for the purposes of assassinations.

W - Big circle of vision on massive cooldown (also passive attack speed/move speed steroid whenever you pop a passive mark)

This ability's passive is cool and i would like it kept, move it to her actual passive and have it scale with level, but as cool as the active is, it has to go one way or the other. If the desire is to make Quinn into an ADC, have it give her the double the attack and movespeed steroid her passive now gives her for proccing passive and allow this ability to bring her attack speed up to 2.5/2.75/3/3.25/3.5 if the percent buffs would do so in the absence of the attack speed cap of 2.5, but now give it for free for the next 2-4 seconds whilst negating the passive steroids (so you can't get triple the steroid by activating W and then popping a harrier mark), this way her sustained damage and damage to towers goes up (giving her a solidified identity as a splitpushing ADC with incredible sustained damage). If instead the desire is to make her into an assassin, things become a bit tricky, and perhaps keep the concept similar, but instead rather than give vision of a massive circle, give vision of the two enemies on the map with the lowest actual (not percent) hp, tagging them with a debuff that reveals them for the next 1/1.5/2/2.5/3 seconds, that way it tells her where to go if she is looking for a good assassination, but not revealing the dangers surrounding said enemies and thus forcing her to sort of scope out the scene and either infer, predict, or walk up and discover what said enemies are doing and if she can get away with a quick assassination, in addition to this it keeps in with her theme of "working together with flappy bird to kick ass"

E - Be the queen of badass and leap towards an enemy, delivering a swift kick in the face before jumping back a distance from them

Honestly, I love this ability, as long as she is an assassin, and think if Riot wants her to be an assassin, they should keep this the same, and if she is an ADC, perhaps let her decide which way she leaps away from the enemy, (instead of going the direction she came from, she goes a direction of her choice (think in terms of camille dash but instead of any terrain, it is any enemy).

R - Call your bird cab to deliver you to your enemies.

I have a love-hate relationship with this ability, on the one hand i adore the ability to move from base w/homeguard and move at 1500 MS, but on the other i recognize it is more or less useless in teamfights and to be honest i don't really know what to do with the ability, perhaps i she wants to stay as the roaming assassin, Valor could swoop down after a brief (1.5/1/.5 second) channel and then after another channel (2/1.5/1 second, increased by up to 3/2.5/2 seconds based on how far she goes) and carry her somewhere of her choosing within the range of the ability (range would scale with level of ability). But as for fixing it for Quinn as an ADC, I have no idea.

To conclude, those are (in the eyes of a bronze pleb) the changes that should be made to Quinn, if you agree, disagree, or would like to discuss it further please feel free to leave comments

42 Comments

30cmOfTrueDamage7/19/2017, 12:44:27 PM3 votes

In order to make Quinn a unique and interesting champion that's also really fun to play, first Riot must fix her theme and focus ** on the teamwork ** between Valor and Quinn. Quinn cant fight alone. Valor cant fight alone. Together? They are super strong.

Items, buildpaths or early/late game power spikes **dont define ** a champion. Thats just the result of her kit and game play. Example: let's say she got Reworked again and she isnt strong early. People will go like:this isnt Quinn, Quinn should be strong early, Quinn should be a lane bully. NO. Quinn will feel like Quinn if she has Valor helping her, she will feel like Quinn if she has a roaming element on her kit AND not because she cant bully the poor rangedless opponents in top lane which is the only lane she can be viable.

Quinn shouldnt focus around roaming as the main objective of her kit. That's what makes her obnoxious and weird. Instead Riot should focus on Valor-Quinn bond, their teamwork. They are also scouters. Roaming is a PART of scouting. So there should be somewhere a roaming element, not focused at it.

Riot must find at least one primary lane. All reworked champions have one. She isnt unique because she doesnt have one. Quinn must have a strategic role in the game. Just roaming the map taking towers and pushing waves are not enough. Maybe she can roam leaving nests of vision around the map or leaving traps for her to ambush her opponents gaining increased ms when someone's trapped.

She also has a marksman kit with assassin elements which is obnoxious. She doesn't have the amazing kiting capabilities of Vayne/Luciam for a short ranged marksman and she doesn't have the slippery escapes for an assassin like Talon/Zed. That continues to my next and final point.

Finally, give her a real ultimate. Let it be an assassin ultimate or a duelist ultimate or even a team fighting ultimate. I wouldn't even mind Quinn becoming a late game monster if they somehow made them work together.

KoKoboto7/19/2017, 11:42:00 PM3 votes

Fuck top lane Quinn.

To me Quinn is the marksmen that kills marksmen. That's what her old play style was and how you could play her effectively. Her strengths were dueling and diving/assassinating while her weaknesses were wave clear and consistent DPS. She could hit the front line but she was mediocre at it. She shined when finding opporunities to go from back lining to back line diving and picking off squishies.

Looking at her lore and stuff we got today her theme should stay some what the same. She has good skills, a bit of up close beat em up skills and stuff. She's agile and fast. She's a good tracker and knows how to track fools down (her skill in diving back line squishies). Most importantly though, she's good but she is excellent with Valor her other half. Some fast, some dueling, some assassinating, some tracking, more Valor, is what she should have when reworking her.

When reworking Quinn I think the roam identity should be completely dropped.

  • Roaming isn't a unique mechanic. Literally any champion in the game can roam just by walking around the map mid laner walks bot, top laner goes mid, bot lane goes top. Other champions have more interesting ways to roam like Shen, Aurelion Sol, Corki, Evelynn, Kha'Zix, Taliyah, Twisted Fate, Ryze, Galio, Talon. All of them have unique mechanics to their roaming for the most part but Quinn's is just bonus movement speed. THAT'S ALL SHE HAS. BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED HAH HAH HAH.

  • It's a hard to balance mechanic. A lot of these champions with kits specific to roaming have had many balance implications. Twisted Fate way back in the day. Taliyah when she could clear the whole wave level 1 and just go bot lane 24/7. Corki right now being a pretty good lane bully while also having great roam potential. Galio super strong laning with a arguably better version of Shen ult. Shen because Shen. And the list goes on. By creating a roam based champion Riot needs to give the champion the ability to roam. This means high damage to wave clear, mobility to roam AND crowd control to make sure the roams work out. You put all these mechanics on a champion and you're bound to get some people complaining about them. And note all the roam champions I've listed have been complained about a bunch. Aurelion Sol and Evelynn might be exceptions because they are a bit harder to play, same with the new Ryze.

  • Roaming needs to be made distinct from other champions. All the champions I've listed have unique ways in which they roam, the biggest similarity is with Shen and Galio but both of them have pretty different play styles that make up for it. Also Galio can be played better with divers while Shen is better for protecting that one squishy. Riot having created all these unique roam mechanics has left Quinn with a really boring ult that is just movement speed.

  • Quinn's roaming is the least interesting out of all the reworks. This relates back to the previous point, sure she is distinct but she's also the most dull when it comes to roaming. Old Quinn could roam and had good roams but it wasn't core to her theme, it was just something you could do if you were smart about using Tag Team. Tag Team had more restrictions placed on it and more strategy behind the ability. You had this high cooldown ability that gave you 20 seconds to work with that completely changed your play style and role. Quinn players felt rewarded for using this ability well and it was it really got the blood pumping fighting as Valor and getting into the heat of the battle and all that. The new ultimate has little strategy behind it other than basic game knowledge. The ability has no cooldown and is on permanently until you cancel it meaning you don't gotta worry about losing the ability unless combat. It also made for pretty toxic interactions as we've seen with lethality Quinn, roaming mid than going straight back to lane with little repercussion, relates back to the second point on hard to balance. Overall it's unhealthy.

  • Last point. Valor carrying Quinn looks fucking stupid. I could understand for a carrying for short while but what we got now makes no fucking sense.

I'll also look at Quinn's abilities.

Harrier is nice and for Quinn players its what we got. Her auto attacks already feel powerful in comparison to other champions and her harrier also feels great to use. It also gives Quinn the sense of combing her abilities and auto attacks which is nice. However I think if we want to rework Quinn we're gonna have to change this ability.

Blinding assault is overloaded and takes up a lot of Quinn's power budget. It's a staple part of Quinn's gameplay but I think this will also need to be changed somehow. Also we've all said this before but it kinda looks like Quinn is hurling Valor at the enemy :P Dissecting this ability a bit:

  • Long Range
  • High damage, low base 120 base but, 120% total AD scaling in AoE
  • Nearsight pretty much hard CC against a lot of range champions
  • Applies Harrier mark (effectively giving her all the benefits of Heightened Senses as well)

The ability is nice but it just does too much when I think about it and eats up a lot of her kit. I love this ability and I think it is core to defining her play style and retaining her ability to duel / assassinate but it needs to be changed somehow. I just wanted to establish the flaws in this ability because although it's really core to Quinn I believe it's going to have to change for her rework to be brought to fullest potential.

Heightened Senses. I've come to love this ability but maybe it's just because I love Quinn too much. The ability shows the communication teamwork between Valor and Quinn and is probably the only one that really shows that now. The ability gives her a lot of nice utility but also reveals her location which has always been a major downside, kinda like using a scrying bloom today. When you decide to max the ability also impacts how Quinn scales into the game. Leveling this ability dictates whether you're gaining more movement speed in combat and more attack speed, which is interesting. The feeling that "hey I could max this or that first" is nice to have compared to a lot of new champions that just go the same ability max order every single game.

I'll finish the rest when I get home. [Edit] Finals so yeah...

Vault is one of Quinn's most iconic abilities that has many uses. People that don't play Quinn see this ability as suicide but those that take the time to master Quinn and know the ins and outs of when to do stuff make great use of it. Wall hopping is probably one of the most satisfying things to do in this game and using it in a battle feels even better. Cancelling channels, timing it with enemy dashes, and just getting up close and personal is how this ability made Quinn skillful and unique. Out of her abilities I think vault should be changed the least if at all.

Ultimate... well I think I explained why her new ultimate sucks enough so I'll go and describe her old ultimate. If vault made Quinn unique than tag team made Quinn unparalleled, remarkable, distinct, and other other words that mean unique but more unique. I've already mentioned how you could go from backline to backline so I'll talk about other stuff. The ability in general felt very smooth to use, had a smooth cast animation for the swap out that didn't hinder using abilities right away. Felt impactful when using it and you noticed the results instantly, it felt like an ultimate ability. Moving as Valor just felt better overall and looked smoother as well with his wings out gliding around. People who mastered Quinn knew about all the different purposes for Quinn's ultimate. To name a few, roaming, diving, kiting, repositioning, and just naming them doesn't do the stragegies or knowledge required justice, it was more than just diving or kiting. I have some many memories using the old tag team but if I begun talking about them I wouldn't be able to stop.

Now looking at ways to rework and stuff.

One thing Riot has done with reworks is move parts of kits to different places and adding new abilities. With Warwick they basically combined W and E into W and gave him a new E with his howl and also updated his kit.

For Quinn I think they should do something similar and here is some ideas I have and also this is where I begin to flop:

  • Her current ultimate should be scrapped entirely and never see the light of day again.
  • Harrier, , Blinding Assault, and Heightened Senses need to be changed in some way.
  • Blinding assault moved to passive.
  • Harrier removed. New slot on Q, Vault and Heightened Senses remains the same.
  • Heightened Senses moved to passive.
  • Harrier and blinding assault combined.
  • Heightened Senses and Harrier combined.
  • Blinding assault updated, vault stays kinda the same, new slot on W for a new ability

And that's all I got for her rework. I've posted some other ideas before so maybe I'll make another post. Idea making for me is bad, I don't know a lot about how birds fight with people so I'm at a loss here on ways to implement Valor in the best ways.

i cant move wtf7/20/2017, 12:44:56 AM2 votes

I'd be cool with her passive taking over her ultimate, so something like "If Quinn remains still for 3 or more seconds, valor suspends her and increases her move speed by X amount." Then her ultimate could be something else entirely.

HalcyonDweller7/19/2017, 12:07:34 AM2 votes

I really like Quinn thematically, and in general she is pretty fun to play. But like you, I have a love hate relationship with the non-combat ultimate. She has two non-combat abilities when you consider the ultimate and the W, and that makes her a lot less interesting to play than other champions which actually get to use more than 2 abilities in combat.

xkillertenzo7/28/2017, 9:26:25 PM1 votes

She seems like a Roaming type of Jungler. She isn't played that much ever since her massive nerf.

Asayake 5150glow7/18/2017, 11:37:18 PM1 votes

Quinn is a splitpushing, roaming, skirmisher who can be played as a slightly subpar ADC (low range makes teamfighting riskier than an ADC would like, although E's self peel helps a ton and R helps with rotating) or a slightly subpar assassin (terrible teamfight assasination, also not as slippery as many of the others).

You said that Quinn is useless if she can't burst her target - that is wrong. Quinn has an up to 80% attackspeed boost on her W which gives her very good DPS. Alongside this she gets an up to 40% movespeed boost, meaning she can kite with exceptional ease. She can possibly sustain those buffs for a solid 6 seconds. Bork and crit items make her auto attacks hurt, meaning her DPS isn't bad at all. If she is unable to burst you down, she can still do heavy DPS. If her DPS isn't enough to mow you down, as most ADC's aren't early game, she has a ton of self peel as in the powerful movespeed boost I mention early, the ability to cause Nearsight giving her the ability to kite ADC's with auto attacks (that's the only way Quinn wins a duel with traditional ADC's with a DPS build after midgame), as well as her E which displaces her target and places her at her max attack range away. These tools make it very difficult for a toplaner to heavily damage Quinn, especially as her E is capable of interrupting dashes when timed properly. And all the while, Quinn is using her 80% attackspeed boost to shred through any toplaner's health.

You might think that Quinn is too squishy for her to reliably fight tanks and bruisers, and generally, you'd be right. That is, until you factor in The Black Cleaver, giving Quinn an entire 400 health, and making it much more difficult to burst her down. Not only that, it gives even more movespeed with it's Phage passive, and the 20% CDR means more kickflips (E) and blinds. The armor shred, combined with Bork, also gives her the ability to take out tanks early-midgame instead of needing a full (expensive) crit build. It also gives her the surviability to farm safely until those items are gotten.

What she does better than Jax or Trynd is that while Jax and Trynd will generally win statchecks against their peers, Quinn excels by not taking those statchecks. Played properly, against a tank, juggernaut, or not very mobile fighter, Quinn will take minimal damage. It's not about whether Quinn can outstatcheck the Darius, and as Jax or Trynd you would probably lose until a certain point in the game, but Quinn can kite Darius from the very beginning and never loses the ability to do so.

What she also does better is she can be your ADC, as building Jax and Trynd full damage as you could Quinn would leave them far too vulnerable as they need to jump into the middle of the enemy team. Her bot lane isn't too great, but with a tanky jungler or support there is nothing wrong with being an ADC top lane! Yes others outrange her, but her mobility and self peel keep her good. You can still assassinate, except you're no longer limited to squishy targets - once you get items, you see their tank farming alone? Ult, go after them, SHRED them, and ult away without getting caught out!

Lastly, she has amazing roaming and can gank much more effectively due to her ult, not being tied down to a Teleport cooldown, and not needing to leave lane for several minutes.

As for roles, Quinn top lanes quite effectively, and while champions like Quinn should fall off, they haven't really done so the past few years. That's because she transitions into a great splitpusher, assassin, or marksman. She's also great at extending her lead to other lanes with her ultimate.

She can jungle because her range partially makes up for her lack of gapcloser, and E's displacement all but guarantees a Q hit. Her E+auto+Q+auto, the simplest of burst combo's, also does a very high amount of damage early game, and W movespeed means she can stick afterwards. After level 6, Quinn's ganks are great. Botlane is a bit more iffy, as she is squishy, so if she flanks she will often end up dying to the enemy duo unless she can burst one of them down. Against bursty lanes like a Syndra or Riven she also has to be careful, but so does any other assassin/carry jungler. Her E also locks down her target long enough (half a second, basically) for the laner to follow up with their own damage or CC, but even without that Quinn still packs a punch.

She can mid alright but is far more focused around roaming (as well as early aggression, her pre6 is stronger than many mages, especially if she is able to dodge skillshots). She is not very good at it due to her waveclear not being that great, so champions with high waveclear will end up pushing you in, and Stattikk Shiv alone cannot clear a wave unless you get a lucky crit. That being said, being able to roam both top and bot is HUGE, and even a single successful gank can do a ton.

Making her W more powerful in the way you suggest would be utter lunacy. It's already very powerful, and I've found myself going W max in the past for a DPS playstyle and build, and finding that it worked very well. Q max does a lot of damage, but it's only burst, it's skillshot reliant, and it's mana consuming. She doesn't need insane DPS to melt people like a Kogmaw does - her E, movespeed, Q, and Cleaver make that so.

Many of your problems seem to be from focusing on a single playstyle (assassination) and attempting to play other playstyles without itemizing for it. Quinn's crit DPS, while not the best, is still very good, with her passive scaling off crit and her self peel making it much harder to lock down the teams primary source of DPS. Her tankshred/duelist build gives her insane 1v1 potental along with early sustain and survivability (lifesteal makes poking so much better because you can lifesteal away the minion aggro and other damage).

Elkington VI7/31/2017, 10:39:27 PM1 votes

I agree that if Quinn isn't killing someone near instantly than she's not worth picking over the many champions that can. If Riot doesn't want her to insta burst targets than they either need to increase her utility or give her more reliable ways to avoid being focused. Personally, I feel increasing her utility would make her a more healthy and less binary champion. She needs more non-damage oriented ways to make plays, more things that reward strategic foresight and decision-making, which would also be in line with her role as a scout.

I feel Quinn should be more of a utility marksman, similar to Ashe, but designed around solo-laning and/or jungling. She'll always be in a strange spot as long as damage is the only thing she provides to a team.

Quinn is one of the few (if not the only) champion(s) I do not enjoy having on my team and I don't think that's a good thing. I am completely unbiased, but I would rather have a Teemo than a Quinn, because at least he offers map control/vision and can completely stop pushing/snowballing with his shrooms. He's more useful to a comp than she is behind or fed.

**tl;dr Quinn needs more utility. Given her roles, she needs to bring more to a team comp other than damage. She needs a concrete reason to be picked over other champions in the same roles. It's the only way she'll ever work without removing Vault from her kit. **

Joxcab7/19/2017, 4:23:02 PM1 votes

Her current pattern of abusing Lethality items as ranged is an extremely unhealthy and toxic playstyle. But even I have to admit she's not that good with crit.

Make her more actually involved in teamwork with her bird and shift her to Crit more.

Crit is just as unhealthy as Lethality on ranged, but eh, that's another separate argument.

And it's not like Riot will remove the Crit cancer any time soon anyways.

Octavia7/19/2017, 7:41:09 PM1 votes

but on the other i recognise it is more or less useless in teamfights

How is Quinn's ult useless in team fights? That's a pretty ludicrous statement.

Naching7/20/2017, 7:05:19 AM1 votes

She is very good 1vs1 She is very poor 5vs5

The good thing is that she can help others lines with her R.

So a very good chance if you and your team did very well before the teamfights start.