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A 17-Page Color Coded Shaco Rework -- Looking for Intelligent Feedback from the Community

AD Ezreal··91 votes·29,037 views
Shaco Rework v1.0

I've spent the last couple months working on a Shaco rework because I adore the character, the massive amounts of outplay potential he has, and the fact that he thrives on thinking ahead. At this point I consider the first draft complete, and I am ready to get feedback from other design and balance minded players.

I'm looking for answers to the following questions in particular (but please feel free to bring up other topics): -What needs to be changed? -What seems to strong or too weak? -Are there any special case interactions I seem to have overlooked? -What concerns do you have? -What do you think works? -What seems like it will be fun? -What seems like it will be frustrating? -What sub goals did I fail to address properly? -What do you think the new AP Shaco will be like? -Do you have any additional thoughts or ideas?

I do want to note that I got a lot of feedback and several ideas from the user Workshop Shaco, and his rework, which contained the first iteration of his new passive in particular.

Thank you for your time and thoughts on the matter. :)

Edit: So far the response has been very positive. I'm honored to see that people find this to be a solid rework, and there has been some great feedback so far. If you find the rework to be worthwhile, please consider sharing it with friends, because the more opinions and viewpoints I can get, the better job I can do with revising!

118 Comments

TotalJerk21 votes

17 pages

Heh...

HeWolf3 votes

Dank.

ZGM Dazzling12 votes

how cool would it be if Riot took this rework and put it on the PBE for a bit to test it out

COUTS5 votes

[{quoted}](name=ZGM Dazzling,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=fMr8ZwvM,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-10-27T02:30:50.294+0000)

how cool would it be if Riot took this rework and put it on the PBE for a bit to test it out

"Sure, man, let me just translate these 17 pages into code only to remove them a couple days later"

  • Riot NoOneEver
Saianna10 votes

When i though about shaco rework I came up with this idea:

Both Shaco and his clone trow Shiv poison at target enemy. Clones shiv deals 1/2 of damage.

That way it'll be harder to see which one is fake.

Elisai2 votes

Dude... You're a fricking genius...

AD Ezreal4 votes

Thank you for the suggestion. I did consider having the clone mirror everything about Shaco except for his damage, but ultimately I wanted the clone to still be possible to deduce. To put it simply, it keeps the counter play there. Shaco can be a tricky dude, but players have to think and play smart in order to live up to that trickery. I think that holding on to abilities in order to not give away which is which should stay.

Saianna1 votes

Falmagaar, I'll be honest with you. I didn't read your whole rework idea. Amount of text scared me. All i did was just sweep on changes to his abilities & passive.

There are 2 things I wanna say:

  1. IMO(!!!) Shaco belongs to easy to play champion. Your rework slightly cplicates how hw works. Not that it's bad.. But do we want a mechanic that lots of people dislike? What I mean is Shaco in your vision gets power from waiting, or not using shiv.. Not sure if that's the way you want him to be tbh.. Those who haven't understood how to play him will yell "UP", while those who mastered him will definitely be "OP".

  2. From what I always seen Shaco, he's kind of awkward champion. Either pure AP or AD he will never do better than mages or AD-assassins in the role you've picked him. When build as AP his damage comes only from E, when AD then Q.

I might be incorrect but with what I said in mind your rework idea favours Shaco AD more. Could you think on a way to make Shaco AP working aswell? Whenever I played Shaco it was AP. I love AP Shaco.. Even though he was nerfed.. I really don't want him to be gone :)

AD Ezreal1 votes

What I mean is Shaco in your vision gets power from waiting, or not using shiv.. Not sure if that's the way you want him to be tbh.. Those who haven't understood how to play him will yell "UP", while those who mastered him will definitely be "OP".

This is currently true with Shaco now. Most players are bad with Shaco, and only the people who have played many games with Shaco are successful. Currently Shaco needs to save his E anyway. The passive permaslow from his E only works if his E is not on cooldown. So I'm not actually changing this about Shaco.

From what I always seen Shaco, he's kind of awkward champion. Either pure AP or AD he will never do better than mages or AD-assassins in the role you've picked him. When build as AP his damage comes only from E, when AD then Q.

I also don't want AP Shaco to be gone, but I altered where the damage in his kit is, so that he is less reliant on his opponents making mistakes, and more reliant on outplaying or tricking/scaring his opponent. I have made it to where AP Shaco does more damage with Q, and AD Shaco does more damage with E, so that seems in line with what you want. There is a slight damage buff on E with AP Shaco as well. AP Shaco will also be able to more reliably explode his ultimate (which is a lot of damage for AP Shaco), and gets stronger boxes in the early/mid game and more utility for the mid/late game. His boxes now have a new laugh mechanic that can be used to lure opponents into Shaco if used properly.

Almost all of his old tricks are here to stay.

Saianna1 votes

If so, then I'm happy with your rework :)

DrugsForRobots6 votes

Upvoted for Shaco. I am impressed with the amount of effort you've put into this, it's nice seeing another Shaco main who cares so deeply. You highlight a lot of Shaco's problems and his strengths. This alone makes your post a nice reference work, so kudos. You also quote some Reds but I would link to their quotes or at least indicate who said what just for clarity. ;)

That being said, here are my thoughts (brace yourself for some constructive criticism):

Your new proposed passive (Manic Attack) works, and I can see the flavor behind it. However, I don't think it is a particularly elegant design. It is full of ratios (including some referencing his other abilities) and per level scaling as well as a slow and move speed buff. It seems overloaded to me, and may or may not be too powerful (you say 'bonus' damage, so I assume it stacks on top of the normal auto damage) even with a damage cap.

For his Q you've reduced the mana cost, which is nice, but you've nerfed the stealth hard. I will agree that stealth is unfun to play against, and can be downright unfair sometimes, but I don't think this is the way to 'solve' that issue. As it stands, with your proposed change he wouldn't have much time to get into position for an attack. You aren't adding counterplay for his opponent so much as hamstringing Shaco. :( Also, you should note, that the 3.5 seconds is exactly the amount of time it takes to travel from river brush to top / bot lane brush while still stealthed with basic Boots.

With his W, you've given it a longer duration, which is approve of, but it might be too long. You box limit does offset this somewhat. You've added an AD ratio, which while I don't think makes sense thematically, I won't belittle. You give some QoL buffs with the AoE negation / damage reduction. Not bad. The laugh radius is some neat counterplay, but even then your version his boxes still suffer from the same low counterplay as they do currently. His opponents just happen to be walking by and then they're feared. Nothing they could really do about it. No real response, no telegraphing, no reaction time. Nothing, unless you consider spending 100-250 gold as 'counterplay', that is. Also, you've got this (IMO) forced interaction and 'synergy' with his boxes marking his target so his E can deal bonus % health...?

So now his E. Something many proposed Shaco reworks scrap entirely or comment on needing it to change. I agree it probably should be changed. The word 'poison' is... problematic. You give it an attack speed slow instead of the minion blind, so that's OK I guess. There's that weird interaction with his boxes that I don't get but maybe it's just me. You've bumped up his base damages which I think he needs and gave him a stronger slow to count for his permaslow being gone. Let's talk about that for a second. His permaslow, while 'unfun', is very important. It lets him stick to his target and, more importantly, it lets Shaclone stick to his target. Micro'ing the clone isn't the smoothest feeling in the world as it is, and it's already easily kiteable being naturally slower than Shaco, and worse still, you can't get it to peel for you or anyone with this change.

And finally, Shaclone. Poor guy has an even lower leash radius and he doesn't stick around nearly as long. ;( On the bright side, you've given him a nice QoL buff that would enable wall jumps with Ulti, so I approve of that change at least. I don't care for the % health damage on the explosion (why must everything be % health these days?) and the blind, while helpful (what buff wouldn't be helpful?), doesn't strike me as necessary or flavorful, though I guess it could be. Also, you've nerfed the explosions base damage, which was already unimpressive. And for some reason you won't let Shaclone blink back to Shaco in a puff of smoke (as though he used Deceive) which could be / is one of Shaco's best tricks! Having Shaclone appear out of nowhere to join a fight or explode in someones face is brilliant. Having explode on Shaco's death, while helpful, doesn't seem to encourage skill (to me). 'I know you messed up and died but at least you took someone with you (maybe) because #Mechanics #ProPlays.' You also say (I'm paraphrasing) "Having Shaclone be unable to leave Shaco's leash radius means his escape is as far away as possible (?) and encourages skill on behalf of the Shaco player (??) and offers increased counterplay (?!?)" I'm sorry, but I can't imagine how. I mean, I'm trying to workout, with the mental impression you've given me, different scenarios that play out like you seem to imply they would and I just can't think of how this is a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Shaco having more counterplay to his kit, but I don't get how this does that. Also, one more neat thing about the way Shaco currently works on Live - say you're approaching Drag Pit from blue base. If you've already used your ulti (like in a teamfight or skirmsih or w/e) and Shaclone is following you, you can send him away, jump Dragon wall with Q, and have him reappear beside you to help with dragon.

Man that's a lot of text. But wait, there's more!

If you haven't read it already, I recommend reading the Reddit post The Real Tragedy of Shaco. Dude's message is a strong one, and one worth considering. You love Shaco, that much is obvious, but do your changes help him for the better? Or do they push him toward being just another Zed, Rengar, or Talon? That's what I fear. You also see, on every post about Shaco, a few players saying 'No, don't change my Shaco! Q.Q ". They've got a point. We must be careful (as Riot has been) with changing him too drastically, as we could effect the way he plays with even minor changes. Not that that's a bad thing, but it is something to keep in mind.

You ask a lot of questions, and I wish I had time to answer them all, but then I'd be the one writing a 17 page paper on Shaco. Plus I have to go soon.

I do want you to consider something, though. You've approached 'fixing' Shaco from a mechanical point of view, it seems. What about his thematic? His flavor? Who is Shaco really? And more to the point, what should Shaco be? Have you ever considered it deeply? Or has our Jester fooled you as well all these years...

I'll leave you with this. You can be the judge. I'm curious to know what you think. It seems like a reasonable argument to me. Maybe it'll help inform your designs as well.

Stay frosty, -DFR

AD Ezreal2 votes

Thank you for this well thought out criticism. I really appreciate the compliments, and I think there are some great thoughts here (even the more critical ones). In particular I want to address some of your concerns and questions. I might have to split my response into two answers though because I need to take a break from responding to comments soon (the reddit post about this made it to the front page).

Manic Attack: I agree that the solution seems a bit inelegant, but I based the ratios on some of Riot's newer champions (like Fiora), who have similarly complex ratios. In game the ratios wouldn't look nearly as messy though, and the reason the slow and speed buff are there is because the permaslow is completely gone.

Deceive: I understand your concern, but I actually think the stealth nerf is significantly less extreme than you're imagining (I could be wrong though). It is an intentional nerf to his early game, and nerfs are going to be the hardest thing for Shaco players to accept. Even I hesitated to put it in his kit, but I think it addresses several problems too well to ignore it. Keep in mind that mid and late game Shaco will have the same amount of time to set up for a kill as before. I don't think this tarnishes his identity to hard. After all, the worst it gets is 1 second off. That just means a little more critical thinking before going in.

That's an interesting point about the boots and the brush, because a lot of Shaco players, even high level ones, don't seem to utilize that. But it's something that I feel can be worked around, and something I want early game shaco to have to work around. His early game is a major problem, and I do feel that in order for him to be in a truly healthy place, that aspect needs to change so that he can receive buffs in more important areas. Simply put, Riot for years has considered Shaco too unhealthy to give much attention to besides a complete rework. (Although I'm very excited for the newly announced QOL buffs---I can't even believe it!)

Jack in the Box: You might be right that the duration is too long, I feel that the only way to determine whether or not that is correct, though, would be to test it in a game situation.

The idea behind the laugh radius is that the opponent won't be walking along and suddenly get feared. The laugh radius is significantly larger than the activation radius, so what will happen is opponents will be walking along, hear the laugh, and then have a decision to make: Do I turn around now, or do I push forward? Because they don't know exactly where the box is, they just know it's... around. And where there is a box, surely Shaco is not too far?

I love the fear that this has the potential to inspire in the enemy, and I think that absolutely keeps Shaco's theme in mind. I believe this is just enough counterplay. The enemy has a warning that it's coming, and they have a choice to make. Then Shaco can see which choice they have made, and choose to respond accordingly.

As far as the mark goes, that was Workshop Shaco's idea. He adamantly wanted some %max health in the kit, and suggested putting it on a box mark. Ultimately, I think it adds some high-skill damage in the kit, and requires that Shaco make a decision on when to use his E (because the mark doesn't proc if E is on cooldown), so I'm okay with it. I can see why it seems out of place though, and will consider changing it or removing it all together. Workshop Shaco really wanted %max health in the kit though...

Two-Shiv Poison: About the attack speed slow, I was thinking poison darts, as in the darts that tranquilize, or cause slowed/impared movement. I agree that the permaslow is necessary in Shaco's old kit, but recall that his new passive slows, and gives Shaco a small speed boost. Because it has the potential to be on a fairly low cooldown, my hope is that this move, paired with his increased damage and new ult, and a stronger E slow will be enough to compensate.

Hallucinate I'm normally not a fan of % health damage, because it promotes the possibility of champions who can build tanky and still do a lot of damage. One exception I have though, is executes on assassins. I think % missing health on an assassin makes perfect sense. It rewards them for getting a target low, and makes sure they can accomplish their job. And on the other hand, if Shaco doesn't get his target low, he isn't rewarded nearly as hard. Note that, while I did lower the base damage on this move, the overall damage is a net buff if the target gets low.

I will definitely consider having the clone reappear on the edge of the based on what you have said. I'll be honest, I actually didn't know that his clone vanished in a puff of smoke if it extended past the leash radius.

Your confusion about the counterplay leads me to believe that you might have missed the interaction between the Shaco Q passive, and his ult, which is a huge change. That should explain what I meant by his escape--you leave his clone, we'll say in raptor pit, while you Q over the wall to assassinate the enemy. The skill would be micromanaging the position of your clone so that it doesn't leave the radius. Did they flash away? Better move your clone with you as you move to chase, otherwise it will get caught on the wall and explode. The counterplay comes from the fact that there is no explosion timer to worry about. Now the detonation is forecasted by Shaco disappearing in blue smoke. It is at this moment that the opponent has time to react (counterplay). Since the leash radius detonation thing is still currently a part of my rework, I imagined scenarios where blitzcrank pulled the clone out of Shaco's radius to destroy it.

I like the blind because it gives Shaco outplay potential. Someone once said the thing they like about Shaco is how much outplay potential he has. And the fact that it's not flashy. It's cold calculated outplays that don't require much mechanical skill, but requires thinking ahead. And I think that a blind fits that description pretty well.

And I am making the assumption that, when you can detonate the clone at will, chasing for the time to run out isn't nearly as necessary. And really, I have always considered the damage from his ult explosion to be way more unreliable than it needs to be.

Theme Shaco's theme and overall feel is actually something I considered pretty deeply, so I'm pretty disappointed to see that fact didn't shine through. I do want to preserve his identity, but in some ways I want to make it less extreme, and in others, more extreme.

I want Shaco to still be a champion that requires high-skill and critical thinking. That's why many of his damage buffs only come if you've done things right. (The W mark, the ult only doing bonus damage if you live). That's why Shaco still can gank early, and clears his first buff with no significant damage (super important for at least one early gank). That's also why there are new meaningful choices in his kit. Use E for the slow, or save it just a little longer in case the enemy runs into my JitB a few feet away? Explode the clone now for the blind, or wait a little longer for the extra damage?

I also want Shaco to be a complete trickster with interesting utility. That's why his ult gives him new tricks, and why I preserved as much about the boxes as I could, and made them last longer so that traps could be set up well in advance. That's also why his late game Q eventually goes up to 3.5 seconds of stealth--he's still a late game uncatchable mosquito as some call him. Especially since his traps will last longer.

I also want Shaco to be a character that plays mind games with his opponents, and inspires fear. That's why I made him, in general, a bit stronger (I mean, it's hard to be scary when you're wimpy), and part of why I added the laugh radius to the JitB. Everything else is roughly the same.

What I don't want is for Shaco to keep the reputation of being a cheese champ that only succeeds by fighting opponents who don't know how he works, or when he is coming. In my opinion, AP Shaco suffers from this problem big time. But also, his early ganks sort of fall under the radar in this aspect. Smart opponents know to stay back in the early game. If Shaco can't successfully gank early, he runs into problems. I want to put more power into Shaco's hands, so I discouraged too many early ganks in order to give more power to his midgame. (Right now with his early game being so strong, he simply can't have a strong midgame--his snowball potential has to be stopped somewhere because it's too easy for him to stay ahead with only a minor advantage otherwise.)

In general my goal was to take away as few of his tricks as possible, and add a few new ones. I see now that this ult radius thing probably messed that up a bit, so I want to see if I can bring those tricks back. Other than that, what tricks have I taken away?

That's enough for now. You did ask me to look at some other stuff, so I will get back to you, but for now I need a break from all of this typing!

DrugsForRobots1 votes

Upon giving it some more thought, I think the best things you bring to the table (so far) are:

  1. Having Deceive have some kind of inherent counterplay for his opponent. You opt for reducing the stealth duration, but I'd rather see it be a 'can be seen within melee range' sort of thing, similar to Evelynn. There's no reason Shaco should be able to stroll through an enemy team to make his escape, even if it is hilarious.
  2. Having his JitBs have some kind of audible FX indicating they're there. You imagine them giggling quietly in anticipation, I'd like to hear some creepy music.
  3. Having gated or conditional damage and meaningful choices / trade-offs. Power that he actually has to work for. This sort of thing is the reason we've seen so many 'three consecutive basic attacks' on so many champions recently. Not saying Shaco needs that exactly, but something of the sort would be nice.
  4. Having some form of execute to punish low-health enemies. Personally, I'd like to see him stun them - forcing them to laugh as he casually autos for the win. Think of the flavor!

Things I think you should reconsider:

  1. That passive could be cleaner. Also, in thinking about it more, it doesn't feel very inspired. A lot of Shaco reworks I've seen have something very similar. You even admitted to adopting Workshop Shaco's idea. Not a bad thing, but still...
  2. You know how I feel about that % health damage on his boxes and E interaction. His ult having it might be nice, but one instance is plenty.
  3. Speaking of his E, I commented on his passive permaslow, why it's good, why it's needed. Despite removing that, I think you actually give him more sticking power / chasing. Being able to apply a 40 - 60% slow every couple of seconds, even if it decays, doesn't really fix his problem of being able to run you down without mercy. In tandem with his new passive, he punishes you even harder now for running. The lose-lose situation is summed up nicely in the post: Shaco: A Problem & A Plea.
  4. All these passives. I know the purple text is suppose to be ideas / suggestions but you do have like 7 different passives across his kit.

Question: Does clone get a Manic Attack as well? If yes, that's probably OP. If no, it would make it evident which Shaco is real rather quick.

Also, you cap his boxes at 3 initially. I know you wanted to reign in Shaco's early game a smidge but as a 'special case interaction', it affects Shaco's ability to leash for his teammate if he is supporting. Currently I can drop 2 boxes at frog /golems and then have another 2 at red / blue ready for our jungler. It is truly a godly leash. I'd hate to have him lose that.

Another 'trick' of his was being able to run right down a lane (Q'ing from behind outermost tower) and gank. With such a short stealth duration, this technique is no longer possible. I know you want to encourage thinking and not just facerolling but sometimes the direct approach is warranted.

As a friendly reminder, I want to say that good design tends toward the simple but that that doesn't preclude complexity. You've made him 'stronger' but I'm not sure he's really healthier (for some of the reasons above) or smoother / more stylish (again, for some of the above reasons). You should notice that the stuff I listed as 'the best things' are all rather general from a design perspective. The devil (or in this case, Shaco) is in the details, but good design is good design.

Being only on v1.0, I don't think it is perfect by any means, or even that Riot should (or will) adopt any such changes. What is important though, is letting them know what we, as Shaco players, would like to see from them. QoL buffs and bug-fixes and maybe a bit of extra utility are paramount. We should assume a more conservative stance when it comes to altering any of his abilities, as the Reds have been. As such, I'm curious to see how your 'rework' (this isn't something so mere as an update) changes.

One more thing, I'd like to know your thoughts on my proposed Shaco changes. Just humor me? ;P Maybe there's something in there you can take inspiration from, mix and match, or what-have-you.

EDIT: 11K views! Dude you should be some kinda happy at the very least. Guess it proves that the Boards and LoL community do appreciate hard work.

AD Ezreal1 votes

Thank you for your comments. Of all of the people who have given me feedback, I consider yours to be the most valuable by far. Before delving into your most recent thoughts, I just read the two things you linked to. The first you linked to, The Real Tragedy of Shaco was interesting. I think ultimately /u/eatinslothzzz and I agree, especially with this statement he made:

My real hopes for the rework are that they remove some of the antifun and toxic parts of his kit, while preserving his core feel, while adding newer updated dynamics to make him harder mechanically but also more rewarding.

I think this is the heart of what I was going for, whether or not I was successful in my aims. However.. I find LivesByProxy's argument to be very compelling. I'm confused by why it link's to Workshop Shaco's rework, because I think both of our reworks fail to completely address LivesByProxy's case.

I will of course consider all of the points you made, but again, I always like to present my initial thoughts:

Things you think work:

  1. The more I think about this, the more I think Deceive works as it is, actually. Just, coupled with his stupid way too high initial burst, it doesn't work because there's no counterplay after Shaco has appeared. I think the hilarity of Shaco being able to run through a team is a big part of what is so fun about playing him. It can be ridiculous what you can get away with. His lack of escape absolutely makes up for this in my opinion. That's part of why I made his new escape unreliable compared to other assassins. It can't be a kill and an escape. One or the other.

  2. I LOVE the idea of having the JitB play music (I'm a music composition major, so how could I not??), but it must be very quiet, and very short excerpts. This will be in the next version for sure.

  3. I like this too, but I think some of my ideas could use some work, haha.

  4. At one point E was a stun, but then I remembered the dangers of a point and click stun, and got rid of it (although I removed the flee mechanic from boxes entirely at that same point). I wonder though; should the enemy be laughing, or should Shaco and his allies have the last laugh?

Things you think don't work:

  1. I agree that the passive could be cleaner. For example, there is a movement speed buff and a slow. Slows and speed buffs essentially accomplish the same thing. Except slows make the enemy susceptible to attacks from allies, while speed buffs empower a single player. This is a fault of mine right now, I haven't decided which would be better. Slows are more frustrating, but if this support idea holds merit (I think it definitely does), it seems like the way to go rather than giving Shaco a speed buff.

As far as how inspired it feels, I use this word too, but I'm not quite sure what you mean by using it. I think the general idea works nicely, and it is clearly inspired (this is where I am confused by what you mean) by how Shaco's kit currently works. I do think it works thematically. It does focus on the demon part, rather than the jester part, though. I don't think that's a bad thing, as there are plenty of places in his kit where we can emphasize the jester part. I think of it like this: Shaco really does seem like a guy who thrives on killing. It seems he finds the world so absurd that he makes it his goal to poke fun at the absurdity, getting excited whenever there is a chance to cause chaos. But perhaps Shaco enjoys being the bystander when he can, so he can witness the madness more clearly. Is there a way I can have this passive empower Shaco when he is alone, but empower allies when they are nearby? Or would that feel too similar to Kha'Zix's isolation mechanic?

I had another thought as well, purely from a balance perspective, not thematically. Part of Shaco's problem right now is how much % increase in AD can fluctuate in gold value. The more items you have, the more damage % increase does. It's extremely snowbally. So instead of that, I'm thinking % increase of base AD. Way more consistent across the board, way cleaner to calculate damage from game to game.

  1. Ultimately I agree with this, I can't see why I would keep it in at this point.

  2. You're probably right about the overtuned slow/speed. However, I think this Shaco Plea fails to consider the fact that Shaco is almost all AA's, and that most enemies he faces are going to have more powerful abilities than Shaco has. In my experience, Shaco can't actually assassinate at all through the mid game if he is even with anyone else.

  3. Yup. Some of them actually aren't real passives, like the Q + R interaction for example. It doesn't actually have a passive effect at all. I will be tuning his amount of passives down, regardless.

Answer: No, but the clone would appear to have the buff.

Also, you cap his boxes at 3 initially. I know you wanted to reign in Shaco's early game a smidge but as a 'special case interaction', it affects Shaco's ability to leash for his teammate if he is supporting. Currently I can drop 2 boxes at frog /golems and then have another 2 at red / blue ready for our jungler. It is truly a godly leash. I'd hate to have him lose that

The boxes do a little more damage, and the cooldown and activation time is shorter. If you're standing at the leash, it should work out so that you'll be able to place one right as the other is dying so that you can still not take damage.

Another 'trick' of his was being able to run right down a lane (Q'ing from behind outermost tower) and gank. With such a short stealth duration, this technique is no longer possible. I know you want to encourage thinking and not just facerolling but sometimes the direct approach is warranted.

Yeah, and I am considering just leaving it how it is, hoping that the rest of the changes will put him in a healthier spot overall.

As a friendly reminder, I want to say that good design tends toward the simple but that that doesn't preclude complexity. You've made him 'stronger' but I'm not sure he's really healthier (for some of the reasons above) or smoother / more stylish (again, for some of the above reasons). You should notice that the stuff I listed as 'the best things' are all rather general from a design perspective. The devil (or in this case, Shaco) is in the details, but good design is good design.

Agreed, for sure.

One more thing, I'd like to know your thoughts on my proposed Shaco changes.

Wait, you're LivesByProxy?

Some of these ideas are very good just by scanning, others concern me. I have run out of time for right now, but I will read through this much more thoroughly soon, then reply with all of my thoughts. Very interesting to see the E toggle. Believe it or not, that was one of the first ideas I had in my rework but I scrapped it for fear of having nothing in the game to compare it to (I didn't know how to gauge it's power). Can you add me on this account (with whichever your main account is)? I would like to continue this discussion on here, but it would also be nice to have you available for chat any time.

AD Ezreal1 votes

Here is what I think:

If you are LivesByProxy, I would like to collaborate with you further on a rework that combines the best of our ideas, finds a way to make them work harmoniously together, and perhaps adds a few new things.

Here is my proposal. Feel free to disagree or make other suggestions:

Passive: Your passive, with the alteration of Shaco + team laughing if they get the kill.

This passive benefits all forms of Shaco, and would probably be fun, so I don’t see any reason not to go with it at this point. It has flavor for sure.

Deceive: Your idea of deceive with a few alterations: The main one being that Shaco can cast deceive on allies to split the invisibility timer between himself and said ally (1.75s each) (maybe removing CC from the ally?). I like my Shaco isolation idea, as it keeps AD and AP Shaco as they currently are.

I think we should alter your cooldown reduction idea to support using it on allies. I like it, it’s as if Shaco’s ability to make someone vanish impresses his audience (the enemy team), and he benefits from that. Maybe it should revolve around his own teammates as well?

Jack in the Box: My JitB idea, with a few exceptions: We will combine your music idea with my cackle idea--it will play music briefly upon a wider range being entered. I want to change the maximum amount of boxes I proposed from 3/4/5 to 4/5/6.

I am considering giving JitB 2 health. Enough for 1 person to destroy the box early game, but enough to prevent accidentally destroying them late game.

Sleight of Hand/Two-Shiv Poison: I’m not sure where I stand on this. I think it needs to be discussed. They actually just changed Shaco’s jungling passive to what I suggested (with slightly tweaked values), and I want it to stay.

I think there is some potential in your new passive, but I think there will ultimately be a ton of backlash for getting rid of how the old backstab passive worked. If we are going to rework it, I think it should stay close to how it is now. Maybe we can find a happy medium between your suggestion and the live version of Shaco.

I’ll have to think more about the toggle. Like I said, I had this idea before and ultimately scrapped it, but I’m more than willing to reconsider. My friend had an idea where Shaco could have a pretty strong ability, but that if he wasn't careful he could wind up harming his teammates with it. I might look into that idea more, especially relating it to poison and juggling knives.

Also, I think a better title for this ability would be “Juggling Act”

Hallucinate: Hybrid of our ideas. The clone vanishes in a puff of smoke upon reaching the leash edge. It mirror’s Shaco’s movements by default. Holding R only moves the clone. It prioritizes Shaco’s target. The leash radius is visible to Shaco when the clone is up. The clone does a little less base damage, but some % missing health damage (less than I originally proposed), and if the clone AAs with 5 or less seconds left, it explodes automatically.

Mana costs: You are in favor of keeping his mana costs roughly the same, but I am in favor of an overall reduction so that he can keep up a little with current characters, who practically don’t have to worry about mana (Shaco still would, just not as much).

In my opinion these changes are the best of our kits. It adds counterplay to boxes without completely altering AP Shaco’s box playstyle, it keeps AD Shaco mostly the same, it makes support Shaco viable, and it gives all 3 forms of Shaco more teamfight capabilities with a potential Q cooldown reduction, and more utility with stronger/faster boxes, a new deceive support capability, and a more reliable and controllable ult. Not only this but it addresses Shaco’s snowball/feast-famine issues by having less % damage overall, makes Shaco have to think harder before Qing in, and removes his permaslow. I think if we work together we can finally solve Shaco!

DrugsForRobots1 votes

I certainly wouldn't mind collaborating. I have PhotoShop and was already in the process of making an infographic (inspired by ChrisEdgeworth's Gangplank Rework) when I saw your post. I do have one caveat: we should reach out to some of the top tier Shaco's like Pink Ward, Shaclone, Beautiful Korean, Chinese Jester, Wereshrew, Loli Lancer, QMoneyAKAQDollas, Perfects, and... all the others I'm forgetting... and see what they think - assuming they would respond.

I will be back to comment more on this later, but it's late and I should be sleeping.

And yes, LivesByProxy is one of my many aliases. ;P

About finding a happy medium:

Killing Joke: I'm glad you think so! :D I wouldn't mind it triggering his allies laugh automatically, but it might be extraneous since they can spam /laugh. Also, purely a bells and whistles matter.

Deceive: I had initially considered having Shaco stealth his allies briefly (like ~.5-.75s) if he uses Deceive right on top of them, but felt it might make Q overloaded / too strong. However, I can still see it, and think it makes for an interesting ability. Currently no champion can stealth other champions, so this would make Shaco even more unique. One thing though: I would like to see his puff of smoke be slightly larger / more animated. Remember many, many patches ago when they updated Rumble's Flamespitter particles because the old ones 'looked like meatballs?' Shaco could use a similar change, and a slightly larger cloud would be more counterplay. No cleanse though, that's OP.

The way I have his Deceive's cooldown quirk worded is to try to communicate the flavor of actually deceiving them (with his disappearing act.) I'm not sure what you mean by having it work with allies. Could you do a mockup of how it would read?

Jack in the Box: Counter proposal: it giggles upon being placed (which it currrently does on Live), plays music while waiting, cackles when sprung / while attacking. I'm not opposed to a box limit, though I think having its cooldown and box duration timer creates a sort of natural limit. Your v1.00 box's 'consecutive cooldown' seems weird to me. It seems to punish him for placing traps late game, though I suppose your duration is much longer balancing it out.

Honestly I don't know what to do about the box health situation. I've seen 'hit points' like wards / Zyra plants, 'AoE / Dot / Magic Immunity', scaling health per lvl / rank / with AP / etc, much higher armor / m.res values, and all of the above combined. I guess 2 hit points would be enough, but idk. x.x

Juggling Act: First off, when did they change his 'jungling passive?' It was still the random miss chance on minion / monsters last time I looked.

Secondly, I don't know why people would be mad D: it's almost exactly his Live Backstab passive on his E, with a conditional. I agreed with you that it should be stacks to keep him in line with Vayne, Vi, Gnar, etc. but then I realized that all of them 'consume' the marks to grant an effect. As such, E can't be stacks, as the way it is intended is, if the condition (two consecutive backstabs) is met, all subsequent backstabs deal the bonus damage at a value slightly less than his current Live Backstab (until he switches targets and / or the slow expires). Maybe it could still be stacks, that grant a burst of damage + MS, but that's almost exactly like Gnar's W and pushes Shaco's kit toward overload.

Also, I don't think friendly fire would be good for the game. It's bad enough having bad Bard Ulti's and Tahm's running around. Also, I find the word 'poison' to be problematic, as poison in this game implies a magic DoT effect that interacts with Cassie's E. I think the toggle would be the best way of letting clone 'throw knives' as well as giving Shaco some interesting synergy with on-hit effects even better now (I think). I also have the clause about 'applying spell effects' to keep the feeling of his current E and certain build options alive.

Hallucinate:

The clone vanishes in a puff of smoke upon reaching the leash edge.

Hopefully to return to his side, right? :D

It mirror’s Shaco’s movements by default.

Similar to LeBlanc clone? Could be great if done correctly, coding might be an issue. You did say 'mirrors' so I imagine if you go right, clone goes left.

Holding R only moves the clone.

As opposed to pressing R to enter a movement command? Or holding R and Right-Clicking to only move the clone? Both feel clunky to me. Then again, the trick to micro'ing the clone for me has been to use MB3. This one simple change is huge. Used to be you had to go into LoL files and add a line (hopefully not against the EULA >.< ), IDK if this has been changed allowing you to do it via in-game options menu.

It prioritizes Shaco’s target.

Wouldn't that make it turn around (if you were trying to mind game them by making clone run away while you AA) and run toward his target?

The leash radius is visible to Shaco when the clone is up.

Nice QoL buff that he should've had long ago.

The clone does a little less base damage, but some % missing health damage (less than I originally proposed), and if the clone AAs with 5 or less seconds left, it explodes automatically.

Is % missing health on explosion or its autos? Also, I could see the 'if clone AAs with X seconds left, it explodes.' Another alternative, if it autos a champion with X or less life, it explodes.' There are probably other ways to have a similar effect too. It would fix the 'punishing Shaco for using clone' deal my idea suffered from.

Mana Costs and General Stats: I'm in flavor of his mana costs being reduced, though not by too much. Also, with the upcoming changes to mana items, he will be mana hungrier than ever if his costs stayed anywhere near their Live values.

Personally, I'd like to see his AS increased just to emphasize that he's agile. Maybe the base value or per level growth, but some additional AS would be nice.

I want to believe you're right about solving Shaco. The problem of his feast or famine status is indeed his % damage on his passive (he has to be purposefully undertuned due to its nature). And QoL buffs, bug-fixes, utility buffs, and increased counterplay inherent in his abilities would push him up to the current standards of 'balance' (hopefully). Maybe Riot will take notice.

AD Ezreal1 votes

I'll condense both of my replies into one so we can stay slightly more organized.

Killing Joke: I still think it might be frustrating, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Dying in a game in general is a little bit frustrating.

Deceive: I think the 'visible within x units' thing is a good solution, after further consideration. This is how stealth works in Team Fortress 2 (bumping a spy reveals him), and I think the stealth in that game feels very fair. I have one alteration I want to include though. I would like it if Shaco is immune this this effect for the first 1 second (maybe a little longer) of his invisibility. This will allow him to juke through enemies at the beginning of his escape, but will still demand he has good positioning in fights.

We can discuss different ways for Shaco to trigger the mark for himself later. Right now I'm still in favor of the isolation idea because:

  1. It keeps AD/AP Shaco's burst as similar as possible to his live kit, while keeping the support idea in place. I think changing it completely will result in a lot of push back from Shaco mains.
  2. It goes with the idea that, while Shaco likes to be the bystander of Chaos, he has no problems committing to a kill if he knows he's the one that has to make it happen.
  3. Requiring Shaco to hit twice just to do 1 crit worth of damage is too much counterplay for a main source of melee damage, even if the invisibility part of it is a little unfair.

I'm still willing to consider the E AA reset though, and any other ideas we might come up with.

Jack in the Box: I see the reasoning behind the Jack in the Box changes, but I think it's still a massively under powered ability without some changes, the main one being that it would need a much longer cast range, and probably a wider detection range.

However... I think that this big of a change doesn't stand a chance at being approved by the established AP/AD Shaco players. It removes the ability to outplay by planning ahead. Instead of true traps, they are more like hazards, if that makes sense.

In my opinion there are 4 things about Shaco you need to leave as close to possible in order to preserve Shaco's playstyle: backstab, invisibility, the fact that there is a clone, and the way JitB works.

That being said, perhaps your idea can still be worked with? Perhaps there could be an interaction of some sort that brings back their old functionality in certain instances. Like if Shaco is in a box's detection radius, they instantly trigger or something like that. The goal here is to keep AP Shaco's box functionality as close to live as possible.

E: I definitely think the E toggle is at least on the right track, if not the ideal solution. I'm not opposed to making the backstab harder to land, but I think it's way weaker than it is in the live version (unless allied hits are included), because the % damage increase is way lower on top of the additional difficulty.

I also think we should consider other bonus damage types aside from sheer % increase. Less snowbally things.

I also don't want Shaco's E to be a skillshot. I know there is a strong push back against that anyway.

Hallucinate: I'm a little confused by what you mean about true sight interacting with stealth champions without completely gimping them, unless there was a proposed change to stealth that I missed. It seems like your suggestions would increase the amount of gimp, as the clone would simply last longer than in the live version of the game. I wonder if maybe true sight could somehow buff shaco in some ways (perhaps if he is a jester, he somehow thrives in the spotlight?), and nerf him in the more obvious ways (stealth ruined under true sight)?

That's a good point about the true sight of turrets though. Although, I think Riot is really inconsistent about how they deal with turret damage. Like... Jinx shreds the living crap out of turrets, while most ADCs don't come close to her damage output. Twisted Fate is the same way with other midlaners. Both make live Shaco's turret control look like a joke. And pre-rework Fiora did the same thing, and Riot didn't ever address the issue before reworking her. Anyway, that's more of a rant.

Response to your In Closing: Is Assassin/Support a distinction that is already taken? I can't think of who it would be.

Personally I don't care about the distinction, I just worry about how it will be perceived. I imagine reading "Support / Assassin Shaco" will instantly irk many Shaco mains. I do want to mention that I think his ability to be an assassin should be at least on par with how it is in the live version of the game.

Honestly, once we reach a conclusion, I think we should do an info graphic, a wiki page, and a google drive page. Each have their strengths and weaknesses, and I don't mind putting in the work to present this the right way.

Your one caveat was actually part of my plan all along. When I first contacted Workshop Shaco I told him I wanted to do a rework, post it online, get feedback, and contact the top Shaco players and keep reiterating until found a solution that most or even all relevant Shaco mains approved of.

Right now I do know that Chinese Jester thought Workshop Shaco's rework was super broken, but I think he was fixated on the Workshop Shaco passive. I know he only skimmed over Workshop Shaco's rework (and misinterpreted some details), as I saw him do it on a live stream. I think he thought mine was broken as well because the passive was more or less the same, but I don't think he really read it.

Pink Ward commented on the Reddit page for this rework, but it was pretty clear he hadn't read the rework, and didn't intend to because he thinks Shaco is fine. I tried to tell him that Riot is obviously going to rework Shaco at some point, and that he should want to be proactive about making sure they do it right, but he never responded. I still think it's possible to get him to look at it future reworks, but I think it will take some convincing.

DrugsForRobots1 votes

Deceive: A brief 'intangibility' a la Phantom Dancer might work. Wordiness might be an issue.

JitB: it's unfortunate but you're right about the potential backlash. ;-; You're also right about keeping Shaco's boxes (and thus, himself) as close to his Live functionality so as not to alienate the Shaco mains out there. If it is possible to, like you suggested, have the 3-sec delay on spring, while also having some means to trigger it at a moments notice, I would be thrilled. One of the issues that's always annoyed me about boxes is how they'll spring immediately for a passing butterfly and pew-pew twice before getting stomped. But then again, that immediate spring and instant fear has saved me many, many times.

TSP/Juggling Act: I agree that raw % bonus damage isn't the coolest kind of power out there, in addition to it being OP or UP depending on how well he's doing. You mentioned % missing health damage on his ult, maybe that should be here? Or something, idk, we'll figure it out.

Hallucinate: I meant that, for example, Eve's Dark Frenzy, should have a clause that grants her some kinda bonus while under true sight (makes sense right? Of course a succubus/vampire/BSDM-chick would 'freak out' while under true sight). Shaco, too, should receive some sort of compensation. I also thought the flavor of 'it is an illusion / hallucination (I know the two are distinctly different) that is 'dispelled' by true sight' was neat. You mention "Shaco getting the spotlight" I think that has merit and flavor. What I'd like to see is some kind of extra subtle utility versus, say, 'Shaco gets bonus AD, AS, and MS' or something similar.

A Support / Assassin: You're right that most Shaco mains would get annoyed about him being labeled a Support / Assassin. I suggested the Support / Assassin classification on the Wiki and people were against it, despite me saying, "but you can still play him in the jungle as an assassin virtually the same! It's just an issue of rebranding!" And after checking, apparently no one is labeled as an Assassin / Support, though Nidalee was at some point (they must've changed it at some point).

Infographic: Pretty pictures and colors go a long way toward attracting an audience. I am concerned about 'wordiness' as I said. Presenting a wall of text scares many away, and others just skim (I've noticed several who admitted as much on your post here.) Also, I think it should be presented as a champion 'update'. The word 'rework' implies something more extreme. I also am looking at the GP, Ashe, Trist, etc. champ updates to try and mimic Riot's style.

So the quesiton now is: what next? Season 6 will be upon us soon, and every day that passes is one step closer toward's Shaco's actual update. x.x

AD Ezreal1 votes

I will make a hybrid proposal of our reworks based on everything we have said so far. Once I'm done, I will pass it on to you for suggestions, comments, ideas, concerns, changes, etc. From there we will reiterate over and over until we come to a conclusion on a complete kit. Just so you know, my general rule of collaboration is that, if there is a source of disagreement, something isn't right and needs to be redone. In other words, if only one of us dislikes a part of the kit, we need to either explain why we like it so the other agrees, or scrap the idea and look for a new solution.

After we have the complete kit, my suggestion is that we send the kit to established Shaco mains/players for feedback/consideration. From there, we will post on here and Reddit again with the intent of getting attention from Riot.

By the way, I also have a talent writer friend of mine working on some lore for Shaco, and I'm having him consider everything you said on your Support Shaco proposal. We'll be able to give him feedback and tune it up like we will be doing with the rework.

And since you asked in a post you edited, Shaco's E on the PBE now reduces monster attack speed. It goes from 20-30% throughout the game. And honestly, I think it's a little over tuned (because it keeps large monsters from destroying his boxes quickly), but I'm ecstatic that they appeared to have looked at my suggestions (my suggestion was 15% throughout the game). It might be a coincidence, but the change appeared on the PBE 2 days after I posted the rework.

Anyways, until I get Shaco Rework v2.0.0 done, please feel free to message me in game any time with any ideas or anything else you would like to talk about (I'm closing this tab now, and rarely log on to the boards, so if you respond here, make sure to message me in-client to remind me to check). :)

AD Ezreal1 votes

Ok here are my thoughts on your proposed Shaco changes:

Killing Joke: Honestly, I'm not sure what I think of this right now. I think it has a lot of potential as a solution, but I need to think about how it synergizes with everything else.

I'm worried that a passive like this will be extremely frustrating. When you're at low health, counter play is at its most important, so it's strange to imagine that once you get low health, you're locked out of doing anything. I wonder if the health threshold should be a little higher. At the same time though, maybe it's okay for an assassin to have something like this. If you're low and you get caught, you should die.

I do like the flavor. I would add this though: Champions who participate in killing the affected target within 5 seconds laugh, but are not stunned. (So that your team has the last laugh, as I previously mentioned.)

Deceive: Enemy champions can see him if he is within 75 units... Hm... I have seen similar proposals, but I wonder about this. Shaco is already a champion that needs pretty much perfect movement, because he lacks an escape in battles. This seems to only demand more of him without compensating in another way (such as giving him an escape).

I like that you moved away from pure % damage. If I hadn't used Workshop Shaco's idea for a passive, I probably would have opted for something more like this. Another potential damage modifier I want to consider is % base damage. It's more consistent across games, but I do think some snowballing is okay. I just want to explore the idea and see what conclusion I can come up with.

I like the mana cost reduction, but I'm not sure I get the Deceive cooldown reduction. If I did the math correctly, with no CDR, Shaco would get a .65 second reduction per champion, which means the most he could ever reduce the cooldown to would be 9.75 seconds (I know I'm not considering CDR right now). I'm not sure what the purpose of a minor reward for a successful escape in this way is. I think the opposite mechanic would work much better, maybe not thematically, but in terms of what Shaco needs. If the cooldown was reduced for each champion that sees him when he reveals himself, he would have a faster escape based on the likelihood of his survival.

I like the juggling act the vulnerable target mark gives, but I'd like to consider a few things:

  1. If no one is near Shaco, I would like the target to automatically get crit (it would be the opposite of Kha'Zix's isolation mechanic, because it only matters if Shaco is isolated).
  2. Shaco gets a 50% attack speed buff for his next attack. Not sure about this idea as much, but I'll explain later on.
  3. 1.5 seconds is realllyyy short. Braum's Concussive Blows lasts 4 seconds per reset, to provide some perspective.

Jack in the Box: Right now I definitely prefer my proposed solution to the JitB over yours. Here's why:

The 1 second fade is good. I prefer the 1.25 second fade, but an instant cast like in my rework though.

I really like the music idea (did we essentially come up with the same idea of having an audio cue? Interesting!), but pairing a warning with 3 seconds of reaction time seems like a really bad idea. Assuming you have an enemy who listens, I don't think the JitB would ever hit the enemy. It would only be a zoning tool, which isn't a good thing in my opinion.

I'm also not in favor of the in-range box destruction mechanic thing. More on that later as well. Funny enough, I would have labeled this part as a passive and gotten criticism for having too many passives, lol.

Sleight of Hand: Passive: I'm not sure what I think of the passive. It seems difficult to proc. Does this only apply to Shaco, or does this buff his allies too? I want it to buff his allies. Maybe this is where % base damage can come in.

What about this? Shaco's basic attacks from behind mark the target. Any allied basic attacks from behind on a marked target increase the stacks. After 2 stacks, the bonus damage happens.

Toggle: I think it's interesting that I had an extremely similar idea. It just made sense to think of this based on the fact that he throws his melee weapon anyway.

How long does the slow last for the toggle?

Others brought up this point on your rework page, but I'll bring it up too. The mana cost for this ability is very high. For the sake of comparison, Jinx gets 1 AA at the cost of 20 mana, while Kayle gets 10 seconds of AAs for 45 mana. On the other hand, Shaco gets 1 AA for 45 mana. I know you said you want Shaco to have to have to conserve mana, but ultimately I think League of Legends is moving away from this idea. New champions and reworked champions always have less mana problems than older champions. What I would like to see instead is another thing for Shaco players to juggle, perhaps a decently long cooldown for toggling back and forth (on top a smaller mana cost)? Although I think the best solution I can think of (from a fun perspective) would be a simple Jinx-like toggle/cost, and maybe a reduction in how effective the slow is once multiple auto attacks have been used.

Hallucinate: I think the true sight thing is interesting, but it ultimately further polarizes Shaco's power in relation to whether or not there is a pink ward.

I'm also not sure about punishing Shaco for landing an AA with the clone, although I see what you were going for with the idea. The problem is that the clone won’t slow anymore. I have an idea for this.

I really like the idea of the clone doing full damage if Shaco is hidden. I like the clone vanishing in a puff of smoke as well.

Overall Impression: There are some really neat ideas in this kit, but I have two massive concerns:

Firstly, as a support kit, this seems pretty ineffective. The only potential disengage in the kit is a flee that is very forecasted, and takes 4 seconds minimum to use. It also requires prediction to even be used as a disengage. There is a stun, which is good, but it's only usable in situations where Shaco is making a pick (which would result in him getting a kill rather than being a support), or really close fights where Shaco doesn't need to tank damage.

So here is what I see in his kit as a support: -An unreliable hard CC move -A risky damage buff -A pretty situational hard CC move -A reliable slow -Damage -Vision control

Here is what I don't see: -A heal or shield of any kind -Allied buffs -Reactive disengage or peel (this could be fixed by reverting some of your box changes) -Strong AOE crowd control -Reliable enemy displacement -Any sort of ally displacement (I have an idea for this) -Turret protection

Secondly, this removes AD and AP Shaco, or at least completely changes the playstyle. This would alienate 99% of the Shaco player base, which I am not okay with, and I don’t think Riot would be either.

That being said, I actually think that approaching Shaco as a support is a really good idea, but it needs to be done in an opposite fashion. Rather than a Support/Assassin, he should be an Assassin/Support, if you see what I mean.

DrugsForRobots1 votes

Going to explain some of my rationale real quick (I have been meaning to do a 'Champion Insights' on that Wiki post).

Killing Joke: I could see it being frustrating but I think the flavor and subtlety of such an 'execute' warrants its existence. Any Shaco rework that doesn't feature him forcing his opps to laugh is missing a huge opportunity IMO. (Sona makes them dance, why shouldn't Shaco make them laugh?) It also doesn't change what Shaco will be doing that much (as far as I can imagine), since he will primarily be AA'ing - something I noticed that you recognized and wanted to keep. Also, one particular saving grace is that he must use a melee attack to trigger it. He has to get in the danger zone himself.

I wonder if the health threshold should be a little higher.

The way I've worded it on the Wiki and envision it, the attack that would drop their health below the threshold triggers the stun. So if Champion A's threshold is 100 HP and Shaco hits them for damage that would go below that value, even if he only puts them at 99 HP, they'd be stunned. If the threshold were higher, it would trigger sooner, guaranteeing you'd win the fight that much sooner (I'm pretty sure that's how it would play out). As far as synergy with his kit, this new passive, in concert with his Q, W, and R, all give him a means to get his backstabs in.

About him having the last laugh, I don't have a problem with this, although its more of a 'bells and whistles' deal. Plus you and your teammates could just spam ctrl+4. EDIT: Riot won't even do global Karthus quotes whenever he uses Requiem! Bells and whisltes Riot plz x.x

Deceive: The 'visible within X units' is something I think all stealth champs should have (with variable X's) because it would demand good positioning. (i.e. If Vayne tumbles on top of you during Ulti, you should see her, and she should die.) As far as the cooldown aspect, most Shaco reworks propose some kind of reset. This was my answer to that. It has a longer cooldown if you Q from out of sight (for those early ganks), but lets you dance around your opponents late game, keeping them at arms length.

I only increased his modified crit damage a little bit, while letting it scale better with AD. The main selling points for how it now works are that 1. he has a short window with which to strike (only stealthed 3.5s) and 2. he must AA again to actually apply the 'burst', and has an even shorter window for doing so. So much of counterplay seems to be reaction time. I hope these changes give Shaco's opponent some. Not too much though. Also, now his allies can crit, which means he no longer has to build IE (though he still can for tons of damage), you can leave that for the Marksman.

You also mention three different ways that might help Shaco trigger the mark himself. One I was thinking about was to let his E reset his AA timer upon activation (trying to keep the feel he currently has of pressing E as part of his burst rotation). I'm open to ideas, but I think this would be a clean way of doing it.

Jack in the Box: I like your mix'n'match changes in your other reply and I'll comment on them there, though I stand by the 3 second delay upon spring. I Imagine it to countdown similar to Fizz Ult and Zilean's Bomb, so it would look super cool and allies would see it. It also gives you and team time to decide whether or not to jump in, where to be, what to do, etc. Also, consider that Ekko's W operates on a very similar time frame. I also imagine you applying the slow and kiting them when they enter the boxes AoE, giving it time to trigger.

The 'box replacement destruction' was purely for lane shaco not being so mana hungry, but I have no problem removing this. As far as the audio cue I was pleasantly surprised to see you have it, haha. It seems only natural, and something Riot would realistically implement, and is a genuine source of counterplay. Plus, in a stand off / teamfight with abilities and SFX going everywhere, who's going to hear it? ;)

Sleight of Hand: No issue with calling this 'Juggling Act', which is something I considered, I only felt it was too 'on the nose'. It is intentionally difficult to proc. He has to work for its power, but it gives his enemies a better choice than his previous Backstab passive. Shaco's unique weakness is that you must (or should) stand and fight him. Face your fear. It really should be stacks like you said to keep him uniform with Vayne, Vi, Gnar, and the others. The flavor is obviously reminiscent of his Backstab and Two-Shiv Poison (had to preserve their spirit). Having his Backstab be tied into his E feels like something Riot would do, and makes sense to me.

Mana costs can change, I have no problem with that, though I do think they should cost some mana. I also think their should be a moderate cooldown upon toggling off (to mimic his current E in function). The slow for the active toggle, and the passive, is 2 seconds (keeping with Two-Shiv's memory) and the passive is stronger than the active because it is harder to apply (unless they're running, duh).

I'm not surprised you thought of it, I went through more than a dozen iterations myself before settling on this, including making it a skillshot and letting him reactivate to throw a second dagger. I don't think it destroys AD or AP Shaco, and while it does change how they play, I think it is a minor change overall. AD Shaco already Q's in, W's, AA, AA, AA, use E to finish. AP Shaco just's Q's and E's around dropping boxes when he can. This change should make AP Shaco less BS to play against (a point and click nuke? I thought we were talking about skill here!) whereas now he has to attack-move like an AD Shaco would. It also gives AP Shaco a (even better) reason to build things like Nashor's Tooth and Wit's End and Lich Bane. AD Shaco can now crit from range, but is less effective than any Marksman. They both have to kite as well now.

The interaction this ability has with the clone is also the cleanest way I can think of making his ability. So often I see 'Let Shaclone mimic Shaco's spellcasts, like Zed'. This would probably be OP and I don't want Shaco to be like Zed. :( I also have the clause about Shaco and clone not attacking structures at range. Again, this is to keep him as close to how he currently operates. The only thing I don't like about this ability is that Shaco loses his QE trick whereby he can press QE in rapid succession, throwing his knife without breaking stealth. (It's same as Cait's EQ combo in principle.)

Halluciante:

I think the true sight thing is interesting, but it ultimately further polarizes Shaco's power in relation to whether or not there is a pink ward.

My thinking was that all champions utilizing stealth should have ability quirks that effect or interact with true sight so that they aren't completely gimped by it. In addition, everyone seems to wants some sort of detonate button, but giving Shaco such power outright seems foolish to me. The interaction with true sight was intended to dampen Shaco's splitpushing power a smidge, while also meeting both of the above issues. Your opponents effectively have the button - whether or not they press it (or hand it to you) is up to them. ;) And I see what you mean by 'punishing' Shaco for using clone (since it will die sooner).

Glad to hear you like the 'Shaclone is stronger when Shaco is invisible' idea. I think its a solid QoL buff. Also, the disappearing in a puff of smoke at leash range is ZeroSobel's idea. All credit to him.

In Closing: I can see how this kit isn't the best for supporting. He could offer more obvious buffs / utility to his allies. I look forward to exploring that balance with you. Also, while he would probably be more accurately described as an Assassin / Support (a utility assassin), the Support / Assassin is a class-combo that doesn't exist in the League as of yet and a truly unique niche that is unoccupied. I want Shaco to have that title (the claim of being the one and only, the premier Support / Assassin of the League) but it is entirely one of branding and not critical to the health of Shaco or the game.

RisenDarkKnight3 votes

Seems really cool overall. A couple comments/questions: How does the new w passive work (7% max hp damage on a target marked by his boxes if E is off cooldown)? Does he get one auto attack for max hp damage or ever auto until he casts E? If only one (which would make sense), when can he next use the passive? Does he need to cast E or does it have an internal cooldown? (If it has a seperate cooldown it should be listed somewhere visible to shaco in game). Also, I'm going to assume the damage is capped against monsters. Also, can he boxes mark multiple targets if they are hitting different people allowing shaco to chose who to assasinate? Secondly, I worry he'll be a little too complex now. Most champions can be picked up somewhat after a couple games but I feel like people won't even understand his whole kit after 5 games now. I also feel like he will be difficult to balance with such a high skillcap (see Yasou, Azir, new Gankplank). He may be OP at high level play while too weak for Bronze/Silver level players or at least players who have played less than 25 games with him. Anyway, I hope Riot checks this out and uses most/all of your ideas in the shaco rework!

AD Ezreal3 votes

Great questions, and valuable feedback. The new W passive would be consumed upon hit, and would have a per-unit cooldown. Shaco would be able to mark multiple targets, but would need multiple boxes to do so, as the boxes will only mark the first target hit. I added this all into the document for clarity. This is why feedback is so useful--it helps me figure out what I've forgotten to address, or need to clarify. :)

I think the complexity is worthy of concern. Shaco has been in a "high skill or lose" sort of place for quite a while now, though. By that I mean that the play style required to succeed with Shaco alienates newer players. That's why one of the more subtle goals of the design was to make Shaco a bit more consistent with other junglers: better early clear, less need/incentive to rely on early ganks, healthier power curve, less reliance on items, etc. Still, I would guess that it would take hundreds of games to master the character, and at least 25 games to grasp a majority of the potential of his kit. If this game had more champions that could be played for hundreds of hours, and still leave room for players to grow and learn about the champion, I think that would be a great thing, and worth the risk of potential balance issues. It would add so much replay value for veteran players, and it would add more outplay potential, which I think is one of the most rewarding parts about this game.

Thank you very much for taking the time to offer your thoughts on the matter, I really appreciate it.

DeadPuddle3 votes

LOT OF FEEDBACK INCOMING

I disagree with most of the problems your listing. none seem to apply to shaco.

Stifling in lane (overpowered early game)

How? in AD form he does burst damage but is squishy and doesn't trade well in prolonged fights

In AP form you die if you follow him onto his boxes.

Uncatchable split pusher

So is zed, split pushing can be countered by simply being in the pushing lane under tower. it's not a good strategy as your relying on your enemys to react stupidly. if they react correctly you occomplish nothing.

Can lay traps that murder you without a chance to counter

Oracles lens turns boxes off

Assassin who can’t team fight

Only half true, yes he's squishy like any assassin is but the issue is you can counter his back line dive with pink ward and hard cc. His problem is invisibility being easily countered with a 100 gold item. its either really strong if he's invis or a massive vulnerability is he's seen, this is something wrong with the invisibility mechanic more so then shaco himself, riot need to add a damage reduction buff to champs while there invisible so even if there caught there not punished to the point of being one shot.

Permanent slow

Used to stick to a target, given his backstab damage this is needed, not a problem.

Ambusher who can’t be countered

Pinks, sweepers, warding deeper

Poor mid game

Agreed but why is his mid game poor? this is how to target an issue and solve it. is it his boxes having no scaling HP? does his mid game damage fall off if hes not snowballing?

Can’t carry well if fed

Again your pointing out an issue but not finding what's causing it.

Uncatchable if played correctly

This is actually a problem. The devs justify his squishy HP by how elusive he is. but pinks and oracles 100% counter this removing his strength and leaving him with only his balanced weakness.

Your Sub Goals

Lower early snowball potential

Now you're deciding what you want to do as a goal which is good but I don't see anything that describes what makes shaco snowball that your going to target

Increase dueling and assassination potential without making Shaco overpowered

Dueling and assassination are two totally different things, you can't increase them both at the same time.

Dueling is a back and forth damage trades with auto's and abilities, champs like fiora, Jax, Master Yi, Tryndamere are all great at dueling, they do consistent damage with no massive burst and use abilities to disrupt opponents damage output to give them an advantage.

Shaco isn't designed for this in any way. Q puts you in position for burst backstab damage. His W drops a box to deter enemy's from chasing him or to shut down an escape route, His E is more burst and the passive slows targets during gank's (the enemy is running full pelt at this stage and is NOT trying to trade damage but escape from the gank) and his ult allows you to gank up on an enemy or escape unwanted situations. I'm not going to discuss building him as a bruiser because that's simply not where he excels. you can stick armor on talon and make him a bruiser but it's not as strong as a full assassin build now is it.

Increase counterplay

You want to increase his counterplay? he's already rendered almost completely useless by pink wards and knowledgeable players who know how to spot the clone, that's everyone in plat and above btw. this is the exact issue with shaco atm. Players in low elo get crushed by him because they don't know how to counter him and he's pretty useless in high elo because players do. you give him buffs and he's balanced for high elo but snowballs like mad in low elo. he needs to stay at the same level of counter play but have LESS negative results when he is counter played (ie a pink spot's him and he's one shot, players ignore the clone and kill the real shaco)

GETTING INTO THE CHANGES

YES fix the shaco bugs

MANIC ATTACK

30% + 5% per level + 30% AP + Deceive passive + backstab bonus & slowing the target 2.5% per level for 2 seconds & gain movement speed 2.5% per level for 2 seconds

GOD THIS IS A LOT TO GO THROUGH. For context I have to compare it to the old crit

Old Shaco 40% - 60% - 80% - 100% - 120% commonly scaled between level 8 - 13

New Shaco 30% - 35% - 40% - 45% - 50% - 55% - 60% - 65% - 70% - 75% - 80% - 85% - 90% - 95% - 100% - 105% - 110% - 115% between level 1 - 18

Stacked on top of that is + 30% AP (which I can't understand because full AP shaco's don't like to dive in for auto attacks and play him as a trap mage throwing daggers using his Q for escapes)

Stacked on top of THAT is the decisive passive (5% more damage per level) now i can throw this into the mix at the approperate levels we have

New Shaco 30% - 40% - 45% - 50% - 55% - 60% - 65% - 75% - 80% - 90% - 95% - 105% - 115% - 120% - 125% - 130% - 135% - 140% between level 1 - 18

My thoughts.

This is a horrible idea. So you carved out the damage from his Q, changed it to a flat damage buff instead of crit, made it more commonly occur with a reset mechanic. the result a ridiculous snowballing machine. Shaco's 20% backstab damage is part of the reason he snowballs and also starves. If he's fed its a 20% bonus to the great damage he's doing with his bought items, if he gets no kills its a 20% bonus to squat, he does little to no damage without items so the bonus is also bad. you've amplified that kit issue 10 fold. not only that its flat % bonus damage. so what happens if he crits??

check this out. let's say he's level 10 with a ravenous hydra and an infinity edge and crits with a backstab

Old Shaco 85 from his level + 155 from items * 250% from crit + 20% from backstab = 600 + 120 = 720 damage

New Shaco 85 AD from his level + 155 from items * 250% from a crit + 90% from his passive + 20% from backstab = 600 + 540 + 120 = 1260 damage

You honestly think that jump in damage is balanced??

What about if he's fed and has a trinity force too.

New Shaco 85 AD from his level + 155 from items + Trinity * 250% from a crit + 90% from his passive+ 20% from backstab = 600 + 480 + 540 + 120 = 1740 damage for a single auto. yep thats balanced :p

Q: Deceive

Cost: 90 / 80 / 70 / 60 / 50 mana 65 / 60 / 55 / 50 / 45 mana

You said he was too strong early and you just buffed him early. now he can Q for days.

Passive: If Hallucinate is active, Shaco can hold R then press Q to vanish in a puff of blue smoke, becoming untargetable and replacing himself with his clone after .5 seconds, and exploding it in the process. This reveals Shaco if he is stealthed.3

I have no idea what this changes other then let you explode the clone early which leaves it with No Counterplay something you yourself said shaco was lacking.

New Effect: Casting Jack in the Box or Hallucinate does not break stealth.

Your ult already doesn't remove you from stealth and casting a box while stealthed gives away your location. this does nothing and is not needed.

W: JiTB

Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 mana 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 mana

Again buffing him early letting him slowball.

Cooldown:~~ 16 seconds~~ 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 / 18 for each consecutive box

You just removed top lane AP shaco from the game

45 / 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 (+ 15% AP) (+ 5% bonus AD)

The issue with boxes isn't their lack of damage but the consistency of their damage. this is not needed and further removes AP shaco from the game. now you don't need AP just AD and levels.

Passive: The cooldown for Jack In The Box is increased by 2 seconds for every Box that is currently active. Passive: Up to 3 / 4 / 5 boxes (At levels 1 / 6 / 11) can be placed at one time. Expired boxes, and boxes exceeding the limit, disappear in a puff of blue smoke (not seen through fog of war).4

AD jungle start is ruined but clear speed becomes faster after level 1. shaco can no longer early invade or gank faster than any other jungler. there are now less reasons to play him. an unneeded and probably unwanted change any shaco main would hate to see.

New Effect: Boxes prioritize Shaco’s current target.

Boxes already do this.

New Effect: Boxes now take 75% reduced AoE and DoT damage during the 1.25 second delay before they enter stealth.

They can still be one shot by champions and monsters, this doest fix shaco's team fighting at all, boxes would need scaling HP to work in team fights.

New Effect: Boxes are now placed instantly (easier to block predicted skillshots).

Nice interesting idea adding more skill and depth to the champion.

New Effect: Clicking on Shaco shows how many boxes are currently placed.

Gives away if he's real or a clone?

New Effect: If Jack in the Box is not placed in brush, it will quietly cackle with excitement once an enemy is within its laugh radius. This effect can only happen once per box.

Why? what possible buff or nerf does this offer? it gives away that shaco is nearby ruining his invasions and laning tactics.

My Thoughts

Your removing AP shaco from the game and ruining his jungle start, I have no idea why? ruins his laning as well seen as the boxes gives away there presence with a laugh. this change is unneeded, unwanted and I don't see a point it in.

boxes are not teemo shrooms, there damage stacks so making them last 120 seconds is absurdly OP, there free wards too. massive buff with no counterplay again.

E: % Max health damage

Nothing more to be said, your not reworking shaco your buffing everything he has.

R: again % missing health damage and further movement.

This is NOT a rework. you just buffed everything shaco has and called it a rework

I would suggest you scrap everything and start again. find the root of shaco's issues (his dependency on gold which as a jungler he can't get, his passives fluctuating value depending on if he's snowballing or not and his lack of late game scaling due to box's damage being unreliable and his lack of escapes from teamfights)

AD Ezreal1 votes

I disagree with most of the problems your listing. none seem to apply to shaco.

The stuff you listed after making this statement was all quotes from Riot. These are the reasons they feel he is in need of a rework. I don't know how you feel none of these apply to Shaco, and you are the only person who has been in such strong disagreement with these claims.

Manic Attack: Your math for Manic Attack is completely wrong. Shaco's Q deals bonus critical damage from -60 / -40 / -20 / 0 / 20. This converts to 140 / 160 / 180 / 200 / 220% bonus damage, which is significantly less than what Manic Attack offers. You also calculated in things like crits to the manic attack passive when the rework states that the damage is capped. Crits cannot apply.

Decieve: I have no idea what this changes other then let you explode the clone early which leaves it with No Counterplay something you yourself said shaco was lacking.

Passive: If Hallucinate is active, Shaco can hold R then press Q to vanish in a puff of blue smoke, becoming untargetable and replacing himself with his clone after .5 seconds, and exploding it in the process. This reveals Shaco if he is stealthed.

The counterplay is bolded.

Jack in the Box:

You just removed top lane AP shaco from the game

I disagree. I changed him. Less boxes to work with, much faster box placing to even it out. CDR still applies.

Boxes already do this.

No they don't. Go into a game, place a box and attack a target the box isn't attacking. It won't attack the new target.

Why? what possible buff or nerf does this offer? it gives away that shaco is nearby ruining his invasions and laning tactics.

It adds counterplay to the boxes, something they severely need. It also creates the possibility of mind games where opponents have to worry about the box that they know is nearby. In lane this is irrelevant because boxes only laugh once, and since the enemy will be nearby, they will laugh as soon as they go into stealth.

Your removing AP shaco from the game and ruining his jungle start, I have no idea why?

His jungle start is the same. Since the cooldown is lower and the base damage higher, Shaco will still be able to clear his first buff without taking damage.

I would suggest you scrap everything and start again. find the root of shaco's issues (his dependency on gold which as a jungler he can't get, his passives fluctuating value depending on if he's snowballing or not and his lack of late game scaling due to box's damage being unreliable and his lack of escapes from teamfights)

his dependency on gold which as a jungler he can't get

This was part of my rework. You fix this by buffing base damage on abilities, and if necessary, lowering scaling to balance it out.

his passive fluctuating value depending on if he's snowballing or not His new passive takes care of this, as it scales every level, and is a set amount of damage that is additive rather than multiplicative when it comes to items

his lack of late game scaling due to box's damage being unreliable

There is now AD scaling, and less AP scaling but more base damage. That means that the damage will be more reliable early on, but won't deal insane damage if Shaco gets really ahead.

his lack of escapes from teamfights

See the new Q passive that ties in with his ult

I'm sorry dude, while I do want to thank you for taking the time to respond, I can't take your criticism very seriously because you didn't read carefully--you're contradicting yourself, missing points, doing math wrong, and simply stating things about Shaco that aren't true.

DeadPuddle2 votes

Have you looked at every other reply? everyone else has said good job and good work and noone has given you constructive feedback.

So you're saying that shaco cannot crit anymore? my math is not incorrect, you didn't make that clear you just stated that the damage bonus was capped. % damage bonuses like shaco's backstab bonus apply AFTER crit damage is applied so if shaco were to crit for 200% damage you would then apply you'r % bonus AFTER the crit bonus is applied for a massive extra damage spike.

Passive: If Hallucinate is active, Shaco can hold R then press Q to vanish in a puff of blue smoke, becoming untargetable and replacing himself with his clone after .5 seconds, and exploding it in the process. This reveals Shaco if he is stealthed.

Yea what is this? you've buffed every other aspect of shaco's damage and you're allowing him a point click nuke? WHY? It makes no sense. I'm sorry I didn't notice players can escape in 0.5 seconds??? He's invisible dude there's no counter play at all, even if he's pinked your allowing shaco to nuke a target.

Less boxes to work with top means less damage to top lane and more opportunities to be ganked. faster box placement does nothing against 90% of top laner's as they don't use skill shot spells.

I agree you did change it, you made it worse.

No they don't. Go into a game, place a box and attack a target the box isn't attacking. It won't attack the new target.

I just did, boxes focus champions that damage shaco or are damaged by shaco.

It adds counterplay to the boxes, something they severely need.

Why does a trap with a small flee mechanic and low damage need counter play???? Your acting as if shaco's boxes are the most broken aspect of the champion when they are currently the weakest part of shaco's kit.

It also creates the possibility of mind games where opponents have to worry about the box that they know is nearby.

HELLO they can see that a player is playing shaco in the load screen, they already KNOW there are going to be boxes on the map. jesus you don't gank a teemo after level 6 and think wow I never expected there to be shrooms in this lane. I sure wish they had a noise to let me know there are shroms here.

In lane this is irrelevant because boxes only laugh once, and since the enemy will be nearby, they will laugh as soon as they go into stealth.

YES EXACTLY, it specifically fucks over shaco jungle invades, which have been nerfed into the floor this season with the way XP has been redesigned.

His jungle start is the same.

Flat out wrong, right now you have 1 defensive box and 4 for your starting buff. now you have 3 for your first buff and no box to place defensively as a ward. if you get invaded your screwed.

Since the cooldown is lower and the base damage higher, Shaco will still be able to clear his first buff without taking damage.

Without 4 boxes you can't juggle the camp agro using the tetris box placement trick (if you don't know what I'm talking about I would suggest actually learning how to play shaco before making a rework suggestion on him)

Without this trick one of the boxes will be destroyed early by the camp dropping the first buff clear damage by 1/3rd, that is a lot now that each individual box does more damage.

This was part of my rework. You fix this by buffing base damage on abilities, and if necessary, lowering scaling to balance it out.

You added more % based bonus damage to the kit. that's not scaling that increases his feast or famine issues causing him to snowball harder.

Shaco's backstab passive is the main core issue in his kit that causes him to snowball and is one of the prime things that needs to be reworked but you haven't touched it.

Unlike % max HP damage that scales into late game (because HP pools keep growing) and works vs tanks OR % current HP damage that stay's stable during the whole game

(% Current damage) damage value varies wildly depending on the current game state of the champion and shaco's one of the only champs who has it.

let's convert it to gold value so it's easier to see the "worth" of his passive. Gold gets you items which = more damage (and with plenty of 100% scaling ratios items give a lot of damage to shaco) so we can say the more gold you have the more damage you do.

If you start the game and have a horrible first 8 min you'll back with around 900 gold. so your backstab worth is going to be 900 + 20% = 1080 gold worth on your champion.

If you have an amazing first 8 min and get a couple of kills you might go back with 1500 gold. so your backstab worth is going to be 1500 + 20% = 1800 gold worth. that's around 800 gold worth of bonus gold/damage on your champion. Almost a free pickaxe

It gets worse as the game goes on because the worth of your passive keeps spiking as you snowball. because the passive is so strong riot keep the rest of his kit at its current power level. If you want to buff anything you have to nerf power elsewhere. If riot changed his passive you could buff the rest of his kit and solve his inbuilt snowballing issue. I'm not saying remove his backstab mechanic as its a part of his identity but changing it to flat true damage or making it apply a debuff to armor/magic resist would make 1000 times more sense then furthering his issue's by adding more of the same problem.

There is now AD scaling, and less AP scaling but more base damage. That means that the damage will be more reliable early on, but won't deal insane damage if Shaco gets really ahead.

Champions that are ahead are SUPPOSE to deal insane amounts of damage. you balance a champion's kit not by nerfing its ability to deal damage when fed but balancing its ability to get fed in the first place, this is first year games design stuff.

See the new Q passive that ties in with his ult

Look could you maybe reword it so it makes more sense. You just said his Q passive helps his escape but in its description it just says his clone explodes and reveals him from stealth. This also doesn't give shaco an escape from team fights. you can't dive in with your Q then escape with your Q it's on a cooldown

AD Ezreal1 votes

Have you looked at every other reply? everyone else has said good job and good work and noone has given you constructive feedback.

You must have missed the Reddit thread. There was plenty of positive and negative feedback. And there is plenty here as well, you just didn't look very hard. I plan on responding to most, if not all of it.

my math is not incorrect, you didn't make that clear you just stated that the damage bonus was capped.

I see what you're saying now. I state in the notes that builds involving I.E. or Statikk Shiv will no longer allow Shaco to deal over 300% of his damage with one autoattack. Since there's nowhere that explicitly states when crits apply (before or after bonus damage), and the wiki has been wrong, I didn't know what to trust on this matter.

I will reword the passive to make my intentions clear. The damage will be capped bonus critical damage, starting in at -170% + 5% per level).

I'm sorry I didn't notice players can escape in 0.5 seconds???

Human reaction time is roughly .2 seconds. This gives them over double that amount of time to react. There are plenty of abilities in the game that have that window with expected counterplay.

He's invisible dude there's no counter play at all

It says right in the description that using the move makes him visible. Not only that, but it states that he vanishes in a puff of blue smoke. The opponent would be able to see this because his smoke is always visible through fog of war. I will clarify this to include his clone though, although I thought that much would be obvious.

faster box placement does nothing against 90% of top laner's as they don't use skill shot spells.

I disagree. Say the opponent just triggered all of your traps, or you just got to lane. Getting 3 traps set up would normally take 48 seconds - CDR. Now it would take 36 seconds - CDR. And if they walked into 2 of your traps, it would take 26 seconds instead of 32 seconds to set up two more (- CDR). The boxes also deal more damage, and focus on shaco's current target.

I'm not worried about Shaco being more susceptible to ganks now. He still has stealth, and now his boxes arm roughly twice as fast. If a gank comes he can place one down at the same cooldown as before or even shorter, and run away. And remember, starting level 6, he gets a 4th box anyway.

I just did, boxes focus champions that damage shaco or are damaged by shaco.

But they don't change targets based on who Shaco is currently attacking. That's the problem.

Your acting as if shaco's boxes are the most broken aspect of the champion when they are currently the weakest part of shaco's kit.

Chinese Jester, one of the best Shaco players in the world, previously Challenger ranked (Master 1 right now because of school), has stated that Shaco's boxes are the single most broken part of his kit. I agree with this, and so does Workshop Shaco, who worked on this with me. Not only that, but also Riot has made comments about how frustrating they can be, which I quote in the rework.

They are broken for 3 reasons:

  1. They deal a ton of damage in AP form
  2. They are a form of hard CC that can be chained together
  3. There is nothing you can do before or during their stun to prevent yourself from being stunned, besides knowing they are there.. Which you can't because there is almost no indication

you don't gank a teemo after level 6 and think wow I never expected there to be shrooms in this lane

Avoiding a character altogether is exactly what counterplay seeks to avoid. Shrooms really aren't in a good place, but they aren't in as bad of a place as the boxes.

t specifically fucks over shaco jungle invades

No it doesn't. Placing boxes in brush prevents them from laughing. Boxes also trigger faster. Will this have to be worked around? Sure. Will it add new strategies of outplaying the enemy by having them avoid certain areas? Yes.

Flat out wrong, right now you have 1 defensive box and 4 for your starting buff. now you have 3 for your first buff and no box to place defensively as a ward. if you get invaded your screwed.

The defensive box lasts for 1 minute. it's placed at roughly 35 seconds depending on when you get there. Old Shaco starts placing boxes in the pit at roughly 0:57 seconds. Since boxes last 1 minute, at 1:35, the defensive box is down. Now that cooldowns are lowered, in order to get 3 boxes in the pit in time for the buff, they have to be placed starting at 1:18, rather than :57. The 3rd box will be placed at 1:44, which is after the defensive box is down. These boxes deal more base damage, and you can always put down another one as one of the boxes is dying to chain cc the buff so you don't get hit.

It works out. I've already calculated this.

Without 4 boxes you can't juggle the camp agro using the tetris box placement trick

There are very high level shaco players who don't bother with this, so it has nothing to do with knowing how to play Shaco. It's a preference thing. I do know what it is though.

Without this trick one of the boxes will be destroyed early by the camp dropping the first buff clear damage by 1/3rd, that is a lot now that each individual box does more damage.

Boxes trigger in 1 second. You can chain them together for the first clear.

You added more % based bonus damage to the kit. that's not scaling that increases his feast or famine issues causing him to snowball harder.

Again, you fix the issue by buffing base damage. That is why I buffed the base damage on his main poke ability, and on an ability that needed more usefulness in AD form.

Shaco's backstab passive is the main core issue in his kit that causes him to snowball and is one of the prime things that needs to be reworked but you haven't touched it.

There was a time when it was halved on enemy champions. However, I reverted the change after I realized that drastically reducing the damage multiplier on his old Q, and removing the permaslow was a healthier solution. In reality, Shaco isn't going to be getting that many backstabs anymore, and the ones he does get are going to be less multiplicative.

I will consider your suggestions for replacements for bonus % damage, but I don't like true damage because it removes the trade-off between tankiness and damage. Tankiness simply becomes optimal because you get damage anyway.

Champions that are ahead are SUPPOSE to deal insane amounts of damage. you balance a champion's kit not by nerfing its ability to deal damage when fed but balancing its ability to get fed in the first place, this is first year games design stuff.

Lol, there is no such thing as "first year games design stuff". There aren't any game design books, or worthwhile balance classes. You balance a champion's kit by considering all of the above. If a champion is too strong when fed, that's a problem. That's what snowballing is. In the case of Shaco, his boxes do a ton of damage late game whether he is fed or not because they previously had 100% AP scaling. That's an issue.

Look could you maybe reword it so it makes more sense.

I have no problem doing something like that. But I don't think it's the wording, I think you just missed a word when you read it or something. Here it is now:

Passive: If Hallucinate is active, Shaco can hold R then press Q to vanish in a puff of blue smoke, becoming untargetable for .5 seconds. After this time, Shaco takes the place of his clone, and explodes it in the process. Activating this ability reveals Shaco and his clone if they are stealthed.

Thank you for your feedback.

DeadPuddle1 votes

Since there's nowhere that explicitly states when crits apply (before or after bonus damage)

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Shaco

See the ability details on backstab, I've also tested this in game and can confirm its authenticity. you can factor it into the passive. rewording this and some other descriptions to be clearer would help a lot.

"Backstab also applies after a critical strike is achieved. If you were to critically strike for 500 damage, the same critical strike would do 600 damage from behind (500 * 120% = 600 damage)."

Human reaction time is roughly .2 seconds. This gives them over double that amount of time to react. There are plenty of abilities in the game that have that window with expected counterplay.

Players reaction time is one thing but counter play also involves giving a player a telegraphed awareness of intent from the enemy. jinx zap, chogath Q, thresh Q all have telegraphed animations showing there incoming. In the case of other champions like malphite ult you can watch his movement and by virtue of the fact he's standing there you can anticipate his ult.

This new shaco nuke has no telegraph and no visual presence showing shaco incoming as hes invisible. it's very punishing. the only thing I do like about it is it's making his damage more consistent. shaco has a large damage potential with his ult and his boxes but due to the fact players can cc his clone to escape its blast range and simply walk about from his boxes after 3-4 auto's (out of possibly 9) it's all very inconsistent damage. It's like a part of hit kit is do 1000 damage 10% of the time, that's a lot of kit value thats very failty.

I disagree. Say the opponent just triggered all of your traps, or you just got to lane. Getting 3 traps set up would normally take 48 seconds - CDR. Now it would take 36 seconds - CDR. And if they walked into 2 of your traps, it would take 26 seconds instead of 32 seconds to set up two more (- CDR). The boxes also deal more damage, and focus on shaco's current target.

I'm not worried about Shaco being more susceptible to ganks now. He still has stealth, and now his boxes arm roughly twice as fast. If a gank comes he can place one down at the same cooldown as before or even shorter, and run away. And remember, starting level 6, he gets a 4th box anyway.

While all of this may be true his jungle gank's are now insanely strong as he's almost always going to get the box flee off. this is teh difficulty in balancing any champion. you tweak one part and suddenly he's broken in another lane or jungle. you remember when vi was released, she was broken AF and the reason was she was designed as a top laner and released as a top laner. noone at riot tested her in the jungle and low and behold she was suddenly a broken jungler.

But they don't change targets based on who Shaco is currently attacking. That's the problem.

but they do? yes they might not attack the target shaco is attacking but that's due to them attacking another champions who just damaged shaco. perhaps they should focus champions if possible and focus targets shaco is attacking and have the 'focus champs that damage shaco' be removed.

Chinese Jester, one of the best Shaco players in the world, previously Challenger ranked (Master 1 right now because of school), has stated that Shaco's boxes are the single most broken part of his kit. I agree with this, and so does Workshop Shaco, who worked on this with me. Not only that, but also Riot has made comments about how frustrating they can be, which I quote in the rework.

I respect chinese jester's opinions. I do no however like workshop shaco as I've read his previous shaco rework proposal and it was a collection of buffs with no justification. he seems to me to have a bad grasp of design balance.

I think we should clear something up before discussing boxes, you stated they are broken and I disagree because they aren't. you're now stating there frustrating to play against and I totally agree with that statement

Now as to the broken aspects of the boxes.

They are broken for 3 reasons:

  1. They deal a ton of damage in AP form

True, the amount of damage dealt is very high but in full AP build shaco's Q does very little damage, the boxes make up for the missing Q damage and teemo shrooms deal more damage but are apparently not considered OP??

  1. They are a form of hard CC that can be chained together

The chaining CC is a problem agreed. They are used in ganks effectively but when you lane with him you have a minefield of CC damage at your fingertips. This is only minorly balanced by the large mana costs of boxes early and mid game. the fact that the flee is AOE based also means riot can never justify buffing the boxes survivability as its like a mini hecrim ult if you drop a box in the middle of a teamfight and it isn't destroyed.

I would rather see boxes only fear a single champion or the triggerer of the box and apply a slow for more consistent damage (lower the damage of course so it's not OP) perhaps make champions immune to flee if they've been recently flee'd but limiting the number of boxes you can place really hurts his jungle start

  1. There is nothing you can do before or during their stun to prevent yourself from being stunned, besides knowing they are there.. Which you can't because there is almost no indication

Does there need to be an indication? If you see a shaco luring you into a bush or path cant you assume there's a box there? and why does he need this in lane at all?? you can see him place boxes and can count cant you? I Think this is more players not knowing how to fight shaco in lane more then anything else.

That is why I buffed the base damage on his main poke ability, and on an ability that needed more usefulness in AD form.

Level 2 invades are going to be guaranteed kills with the large increase in shaco's base damage on shiv. you could almost run him with hybrid pen reds and have him scale into mid game better with this much free early damage.

Lol, there is no such thing as "first year games design stuff". There aren't any game design books, or worthwhile balance classes

Guess I wasted 4 years of college then. and this stack of design books here. what a waste of money. I must spread the word that games design conferences are run by swindlers trying to take your money while imparting no information.

AD Ezreal1 votes

I have restated the Manic Attack passive so that it's more clear. I recalculated it as crit damage to show that the damage can't crit again. I think it's way more confusing for humans to read (which was my intended audience), but from a programming standpoint, it makes sense. (I still have to verify if I did these numbers right.)

"Every 6 seconds, after using an ability, Shaco becomes manically excited and will use both shivs in his next basic attack within 6 seconds to deal bonus critical damage capped at (-125% + 5% per level) (+ 30% AP) (+ Deceive Passive) (+ Backstab Damage), slowing the target by (2.5% per level) for 2 seconds and gaining movement speed (2.5% per level) for 2 seconds."

Players reaction time is one thing but counter play also involves giving a player a telegraphed awareness of intent from the enemy. jinx zap, chogath Q, thresh Q all have telegraphed animations showing there incoming. In the case of other champions like malphite ult you can watch his movement and by virtue of the fact he's standing there you can anticipate his ult.

I know...... We appear to agree on this matter. That's why the shaco nuke DOES have a telegraph--there is a puff of blue smoke that the enemy can see as Shaco vanishes (visual cue 1) and the clone appears if it was invisible (visual cue 2). THEN .5 seconds later, the clone explodes, and the real Shaco appears on top of where the old one was.

While all of this may be true his jungle gank's are now insanely strong as he's almost always going to get the box flee off. this is teh difficulty in balancing any champion. you tweak one part and suddenly he's broken in another lane or jungle.

I know...... I considered this heavily. A .5 second stun matters, but it isn't that strong, especially because it isn't as reliable as a point and click stun like other junglers have. Also, since Shaco's new passive is far weaker in the early phases, and more importantly, his Q invisibility is significantly shorter, his gank is overall weaker early on. Shaco having less setup time is huge. Beyond this, even if he does get ahead, the passive changes are in place to make it so that his initial burst later on is less multiplicative, and therefore less snowbally (there will be no such thing as a Q-ing and critical hitting above 265% late game in the rework--current Shaco can exceed that by far). See here

yes they might not attack the target shaco is attacking but that's due to them attacking another champions who just damaged shaco.

That's what I'm saying. I want them to change focus to whoever Shaco is attacking for AP and AD Shaco.

Does there need to be an indication?

Yes, I think that there does.

If you see a shaco luring you into a bush or path cant you assume there's a box there?

Sure, that's why they stay the same in bushes. Bushes are already an indicator of possible danger, and are limited on the map for this reason.Bbut for various paths, Shaco will have to work a little harder.

and why does he need this in lane at all?? you can see him place boxes and can count cant you?

He doesn't need it in lane, that's why I thought of something that is negligible in lane, but more important after 6 minutes.

Level 2 invades are going to be guaranteed kills with the large increase in shaco's base damage on shiv. you could almost run him with hybrid pen reds and have him scale into mid game better with this much free early damage.

That would mean no Q, which would mean sneaking up on the opponent would be harder, and take longer. It would also mean his Manic Attack damage would be lower because the Q wouldn't have its passive yet. He would have the possibility to mark and proc the enemy with his boxes (something I honestly want to remove but Workshop Shaco wanted in), but if he misses that, it's only a 25 damage buff, pre-armor reduction. 25 extra damage in one hit before an 8 second cooldown... That's not as big of a buff as you are making it out to be.

Guess I wasted 4 years of college then. and this stack of design books here. what a waste of money. I must spread the word that games design conferences are run by swindlers trying to take your money while imparting no information.

I considered taking that route, but I ultimately decided that a lot of the people writing the books didn't have much of a history to base things off of. In other words, many are making it up as they go, and aren't very good at it. I don't think swindling is their intent, but I think a lot of the information is misguided, or freely available on blogs written by very passionate and experienced individuals. Like David Sirlin.

DeadPuddle1 votes

Getting the wording of a game rule clear while also ensuring it's not open to interpretation in as few words as possible is always challenging. The sheer quantity of d&d rulebooks or warhammer codex's with blatant 'murkey' rules is hilarious but they keep reprinting them.

Is this not clearer

Passive After using an ability shaco's next basic attack within 6 seconds will critically strike dealing (125% (+ 5% per level) damage (normal critical strikes deal 200% damage) and steal (2.5% per level) movement speed for 2 seconds. (6-second cooldown)

Q Passive: Manic Attack critical strike deals an additional 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25% damage

This is far more clear to the reader (honestly drop the 30% AP scaling. it's not only difficult to word in the passive but if AP shaco's wish to get into melee range they can take lich bane as an item. The passive is already overloaded with value and if a player buys lich bain & gets a 30% AP scaling that's broken AF. you yourself said you didnt want shaco one shotting players, that's exactly what's going to happen )

there is a puff of blue smoke that the enemy can see as Shaco vanishes

I don't feel like this is enough due to his stealth, truly I think invisibility is going to need a rework. It's polarised (either on so you get a large advantage in positioning or off in which case you're caught out of position and killed) riot need to maybe change it so pinks cannot see invisible champions but you are seen while invisible if you're within 100 units of an enemy champion.

his gank is overall weaker early on.

And this is where I have my biggest issue. while it's not thematically part of his identity shaco players pick shaco to affect the early game. They WANT him to be strong early. its like if they reworked lee sin and turned him into a mid game orientated jungler. If I wanted a mid game jungler I would play someone else besides shaco.

I considered taking that route, but I ultimately decided that a lot of the people writing the books didn't have much of a history to base things off of. In other words, many are making it up as they go, and aren't very good at it. I don't think swindling is their intent, but I think a lot of the information is misguided, or freely available on blogs written by very passionate and experienced individuals. Like David Sirlin.

In all honesty you could make the same claim about any profession. There are swindlers who write books on any subject. You just have to separate the wheat from the chaff and follow people in the actual games business (everyone but sid meier's, that guy has no concept of how to make a gaming experience)

EDIT.

I personally feel that adding a monster attack speed slow on his E gives shaco a large increase in his jungle camp clear and sustain while also increasing his already strong ability to solo dragon early but low and behold riot are adding it anyway

[Several QoL changes planned for 5.22] Two-Shiv Poison (E) [reduced chance to hit removed, now slows monster attack speed by 20-30%]

Taken from surrender at 20's 5.22 patch info page http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/10/1029-pbe-update.html

AD Ezreal1 votes

Your passive is clearer. It's not exactly what I want, but it is clearer.

If invisibility gets a rework, so be it, but that's not something I set out to do.

Riot is making it pretty clear that they don't want much to happen in the early game. They view it the game as a spectator sport more than anything. And the early game is the least exciting thing to watch. People want to see team fights. I don't agree with this design philosophy, but I do think the likelihood of Shaco keeping his identity as an early game monster post-rework is very low.

In all honesty you could make the same claim about any profession. There are swindlers who write books on any subject. You just have to separate the wheat from the chaff and follow people in the actual games business (everyone but sid meier's, that guy has no concept of how to make a gaming experience)

My major was Music Composition, there are hundreds of years worth of music and books by geniuses in the public domain. Music Composition has been around as a craft for the same amount of time, and so has teaching it. There are tons of very well established music conservatories around the world for studying music, and they have sent great composers out into the world, showing that their degree programs are worth investing time and money in. The same cannot be said of game design--that's what I mean. And anyway, you seem to be siding with my claim anyway, that high quality information is available outside of school without the need of teachers.

I personally feel that adding a monster attack speed slow on his E gives shaco a large increase in his jungle camp clear and sustain while also increasing his already strong ability to solo dragon early but low and behold riot are adding it anyway

The old passive didn't apply to baron or dragon. I don't see why this one would. I certainly didn't intend for it to.

I'm glad you're critical of my numbers and my wording. That's useful. But ultimately I believe you're focusing on the wrong things. I said in the rework that the numbers would be off. This is the first iteration, and I made that clear, so I didn't expect the wording to be solid either. I am glad you've brought up the points you have though. The passive won't stay the same during the next iteration.

However, I think your niche as a designer is a balance designer. You don't seem like a game designer to me, you seem like a balance designer. And by that I mean that you don't seem that concerned with what is fun and what is not fun. And that's fine. You can tweak values and find a good spot. You can also interchange various mechanisms to find the best fit: % of total AD not working? How about % bonus AD? No? How about % base AD? Balance designers are good for these sorts of things. Knowing where which things work best where. Knowing how to word things. Knowing what will be overpowered or underpowered.

But a game designer focuses on crafting something that is fun and compelling: What is fun to play against? What is fun to play with? What is fun to play? What's an interesting new idea to bring to the table? What is at the core of this idea? How can we rework this idea to keep the core the same, but change everything else? These are things you don't seem to concern yourself with. It's very obvious to me that Shaco's boxes are anti-fun. I think getting 2-shot by a previously invisible champion is anti-fun. I think permaslows are anti-fun. These are things I want to get rid of. This is why I wanted feedback. What ideas did I present that people liked? What ideas did I present that people didn't like?

While your sort of feedback is nice to have along the design path, it ultimately isn't that useful until later phases. Is Lich Bane too powerful? Ok, we play one game with Lich Bane and we know and make changes. Is the blue puff not enough of an indicator? Play one game and we know it needs an audio cue as well.

The first part is finding inspired ideas that drive a kit to a point where concerning yourself with the math, the play testing, and the right wording becomes worthwhile.

But now I know when I do the next iteration, I'll know who to come to for advice in this respect.

DeadPuddle1 votes

Riot is making it pretty clear that they don't want much to happen in the early game.

Riot have not and will never make statements like this, they don't want to control the meta of the game and with the upcoming changes to the way ADC's work (buffing base AD across the board) riot are opening up early ADC plays.

The fact that nothing happens early is just a fact of EU and NA very boring meta's. As we've seen the asian scene's always crush is at world events due to their persistent to make level 1 - 7 team plays in the early game.

I do think the likelihood of Shaco keeping his identity as an early game monster post-rework is very low.

with the current state of season 6 PBE shaco will be able to level 2 gank mid lane 13-15 seconds after both mid laner's arrive at the lane (camps spawn at 1:40), I don't see a single reason to enforce the idea shaco will be changed to a mid game champion. 1/3 of the champions in the game are early game champions.

My major was Music Composition, there are hundreds of years worth of music and books by geniuses in the public domain. Music Composition has been around as a craft for the same amount of time, and so has teaching it. There are tons of very well established music conservatories around the world for studying music, and they have sent great composers out into the world, showing that their degree programs are worth investing time and money in. The same cannot be said of game design--that's what I mean. And anyway, you seem to be siding with my claim anyway, that high quality information is available outside of school without the need of teachers.

explain the existence of Auto-tune. that aside the games industry now earns more money than the music and video industry combined. like in every upcoming industry there are fakes/swindlers and there are more fakes/swindlers when the industry is new and booming. it's a fact of people and people change very very slowly over time.

The old passive didn't apply to baron or dragon. I don't see why this one would. I certainly didn't intend for it to.

It's a debuff like darius's passive bleed, Shyvana's flame breath or vi's armor debuff. If it doesn't apply to dragon then riot just removed shaco's ability to solo dragon at 6. that's gona piss a lot of people off.

I'm glad you're critical of my numbers and my wording.

People often mistake my critiquing their suggestions or work as a personal attack. I personally think it's very important to critique work to find faults worth fixing and improve shortcomings. like tempering steel to make a stronger sword. so long as it doesn't come to insults its worth the time.

I think your niche as a designer is a balance designer.

It's been stated many times that league of legends ie beyond balancing and riot focus more on introducing fun mechanics while nerfing or attempting to limit things that are abusing and unfun to play against (things like infinity sustain laner's)

However this approach has always resulted in released champion problems which last years as riot don't wish to upset players that main certain champions by drastically changing them. (Annie, Thresh, Lee sin, Yi, Diana, Fizz, most recently Azir)

I'm not saying that fun shouldn't be a top priority but someone (and I've had a wonderful discussion with CertainlyT at a riot event on the subject) has to be the voice of reason when it comes to designing champions.

CertainlyT explained he had had multiple flat out arguments across design board table with subninja when subninja was pushing his zac champion design. Think about it for a sec. subninja was showing off his champion design and open up with (zac is a tank/sustain CC champion with one of the most long range forms of initiation.....o and he has a second life passive like anivia)

CertainlyT flat out said no, the idea was preposterous (and I agree) A tank is fine (Alister). A tank with sustain is fine (Dr Mundo) a Tank with long range initiation and CC is fine (Amumu).

But the thing about all of these champions and tanks as a rule is that they start fights and soak damage for their team. due to this they have to build defensive items (to stack on top of their tank stats to begin with) to survive.

But they can die from initiation, there a front line target and if 5 players throw everything at them with their team not following up they WILL die. except if they have a second life passive. No existing tank initiator has a second life passive because it's far too overkill, they can't be unkillable and if they get killed come back that's just nonsense..

Fast forward to zac's release and he's overpowered and at a high ban rate (He can't die, does too much damage while building full tank and has too much CC) he's totally over tuned.

It takes 8 months for riot to get him "balanced" and by that I mean taken out of the meta. Now he does far to little damage and isn't as tanky as he use to be. he's not played. he will live through a fight but do so little he dies after his team does without contributing much. he needs a rework and redesign and is currently a mess. all because his thematic design is so broken there's no amount of number tweaking can fix him.

And it kinda sucks because while I'm happy zac is a champion the fact noone thought to look ahead has put him in this spot. I'd really rather avoid that if I could.

Glad to give feedback and hope you don't take much of it personally. People make mistakes, if we catch each others then less mistakes are made.

AD Ezreal1 votes

Agreed for the most part. Just so you know, in no way did I mean to belittle you by calling you balance oriented. I have and still do think that balance is extremely important, and that your approach is invaluable in making a game worth playing. I'll keep your thoughts in mind moving forward. Thank you for the input!

Ubermacht2 votes

OR. OR. We can just delete the champion that causes the most cancer in the game.

Saphixia4 votes

how the fuck is shaco cancer????????? If your looking for cancer here is some Yasuo Fizz etc. The only reason you would not like shaco is because your tunnel vision and you don't know how to counter him

Handin Out Naps1 votes

If you think shaco isn't down right cancer, you just haven't played vs a good shaco yet

Saphixia1 votes

Ive played against good shacos before (and ive played against some really bad ones) but he really isnt that bad, a good shaco is good because they practice and play hime a lot. I main (technically) Warwick and people say to me wow how are you so good on such an easy to counter champion. same thing, i know how to play him, build him, almost everything.

Handin Out Naps1 votes

U know they might be using a little thing called sarcasm. After reading your response I really don't think this little arguement will get very far. Anyway have a great day friend.

Saphixia1 votes

I agree with you but Uber didnt seem to sarcastic, its hard to tell sarcasm in writing. You have a great day too!

AD Ezreal1 votes

A good portion of this rework actually focuses on making Shaco less of a frustration to play both against, and with. Here are a few examples of each:

Less frustrating to play against -

  • Increased box counterplay
  • Less box damage scaling
  • Weaker early game ganks/less early snowball potential
  • Damage cap in the late game so he can't instantly burst carries in literally 2 hits if fed
  • No permaslow
  • Weaker early game escape

Less frustrating to play with -

  • Better teamfight/less need to rely on splitpushing
  • More map control with reworked boxes
  • More normal power curve
  • More reliable abilities and passives
  • Less reliant on getting expensive items before being at all effective
DeadPuddle2 votes

A little bit concerned by what I'm reading.

  • Increased box counterplay

Don't boxes already have counterplay? Much like how useless old heimerdinger turrets were you can just walk away from the box as it attacks and escape the damage. Riot also made it so stacking boxes in one location and baiting a target into them is no longer cost efficient or worth the time invested.

Besides when you drop them they make a laughing sound the enemy team can hear through the fog of war and leave a small puff cloud which also shows up through the fog of war.

  • Less box damage scaling

Boxes already fall off massively late game. It seems odd to lower something that's already none existent

  • Weaker early game ganks/less early snowball potential

I agree with the snowball potential so long as you also target fixing his famine issues when behind but you cant nerf his early game ganks, he's a ganker, he can only do a couple of camps effectively before having mana issues, he's suppose to take few camps and gank lanes more thats what a ganker does. make him on par with lee sin. there both as effective early game ganker's, shaco just needs to be able to fight mid game and have late game scaling like lee

  • Damage cap in the late game so he can't instantly burst carries in literally 2 hits if fed

OK this is just wrong, the entire point of playing an assassin is to be able to assassinate enemy champions. a fed assassin is suppose to 2 shot squishy carries (If they are not protected properly by there supports, tanks, CC abilities), that's why items like QSS, Zonya's and GA exist. to give these same players a late game item if this occurs.

  • No permaslow

Easily causes his clone to stand out as a clone as it doesn't stick to a target the way players click, that's the entire reason shaco has a perma slow.

  • Weaker early game escape

What escapes??? a shaco's engaging tool Q is also his escape. shaco has an escape if he is dove on but like most assassins he's elusive, you don't dive on him, he dives on you, that's the whole point. it's on a very large cooldown so he cant use it to engage & escape at the same time.

Less frustrating to play with -

  • Better teamfight/less need to rely on splitpushing

Totally agree, he needs to either have an escape (Like a movement speed buff on backstab :p) or have his def stats increased to allow him to survive in the maw of a teamfight, maybe damage he takes is shared with the clone.

  • More map control with reworked boxes

Not sure this is needed. Boxes are meant to give shaco map control, there not zoning pets like turrets or zyra plants. there traps. you plant them for vision and for cc/damage when ambushing a player, there not to control map zones.

  • More normal power curve

I trust you mean less reliance on gold and have actual scaling with XP. Shaco currently has support level damage scaling.

  • More reliable abilities and passives
  • Less reliant on getting expensive items before being at all effective
AD Ezreal1 votes

Don't boxes already have counterplay?

No, you are locked in due to the flee mechanic, and have almost no way of knowing when a box will show up.

Boxes already fall off massively late game.

AD Shaco's boxes, yes. AP Shaco's boxes, not at all. They scale with 100% AP in the live version of Shaco.

OK this is just wrong, the entire point of playing an assassin is to be able to assassinate enemy champions. a fed assassin is suppose to 2 shot squishy carries

That would be fine (although extremely frustrating) if Shaco wasn't able to go invisible, but instead had a very forecasted approach. There needs to be an element of counterplay. 2 shots is too fast. Also, unless extremely fed, most assassins at least have to use all of their abilities to delete a carry.

Easily causes his clone to stand out as a clone as it doesn't stick to a target the way players click, thats the entire reason shaco has a perma slow.

I don't know what you mean. There are multiple reasons Shaco has a permaslow right now. I'm not sure what that has to do with the clone standing out because I'm not sure what you're talking about.

DeadPuddle2 votes

No, you are locked in due to the flee mechanic, and have almost no way of knowing when a box will show up.

Yes that's why it's called a trap. the counter play comes after you activate the trap because you can either kill the trap or walk away from its damage source. or you could simply not chase a shaco into a bush when he's taunting you because you know there's a shaco in the game and he has traps.. duh.

AD Shaco's boxes, yes. AP Shaco's boxes, not at all. They scale with 100% AP in the live version of Shaco.

But they only shoot targets 3 or so times late game because players just walk away from them. were not talking about teemo shrooms here. they get 3 of there 9 autos off or they get one shot and only get 1 auto off. that's not much damage.

That would be fine (although extremely frustrating) if Shaco wasn't able to go invisible, but instead had a very forecasted approach. There needs to be an element of counterplay. 2 shots is too fast. Also, unless extremely fed, most assassins at least have to use all of their abilities to delete a carry.

You just said he's fed. any fed assassin 2 shots ADC's or mages late game, why target shaco because of that. and there is counterplay, you drop a pink ward on the ground when you teamfight, shaco doesn't go into a fight first he goes in after a player initiates. you're saying that anyone on the enemy team pressing a single key to drop a pink ward on the ground isn't enough counterplay??

A 2 year old could do it. its so easy that its exactly the reason shaco is not played in high elo, because its SUPER DIFFICULT to teamfight when the enemy know to get pink wards. its the same reason akali is not played in high elo as well. you drop a pink and just kill her.

I don't know what you mean. There are multiple reasons Shaco has a permaslow right now. I'm not sure what that has to do with the clone standing out because I'm not sure what you're talking about.

You're aware of auto attacking and moving yes? you don't just click on a champion and attack them, you click to attack and once the damage goes through you move to follow them then click to attack them again.

Shaco players do this to stay in range of the target if they don't have the slow. unless your a micro-managing GOD you can't do this with shaco and his clone at the same time. the perma slow allows his clone to stick to the target. if you remove it then his clone will auto a moving target then stand there finishing his animation, then run after the target, after 3-4 steps he will auto them again.

the clone will stick out to the enemy team because it will look like a baby is playing, it will look like its a bot with shit AI.

Jus Clownin2 votes

I like Shaco the way he is.. But he needs some FIXES.. not a rework. For one his clone needs to mimic him. It needs to have buffs showing (if shaco has them, even if its APPEARANCE only). It needs to throw shiv's when shaco throws shivs. Right now the ultimate can be rendered completely useless if you have a buff - which for a jungle main character seems kind of counter intuitive.

Yes. Shaco is annoying. he is a troll Champion.. But honestly - thats what hes intended to be. He is a DEMON JESTER. And when you have one/Fight against one most often its a career shaco (who is pretty good at it, this is why people hate playing against him) or isnt the best (And thus this is why people hate playing with shaco).

He falls out of line with most other champions. In team fights his job is to make the carries dissapear. Deceive in, backstab the carry, Pop hydra - flash out (if you run flash like I do). Repeat. OR.. he split pushes and forces the enemy to peel resources to stop him.

Changing his underlying mechanics will basically make him not shaco anymore.

Backstab Passive is in a good place - It requires you to think before you come out of deceive rather than just walk up and stab someone in the face. It gives you more damage and in a team fight setting often puts you at greater risk (As you are further from the rest of the team). Deceive is in a good place. Its countered by sight wards. If you're against a shaco and nobody has these shame on you. Boxes are in a good place - They give an element of planning to the character rahter than simply jump in, kill, jump out. Shiv is in a good place - It's not very high damage if AD, but is practically the main source of damage if AP. Clone is not in a good place. The ultimate can be completely negated by a BUFF on YOU.

AD Ezreal1 votes

It's fine to like Shaco how he is, but most people who don't play him hate him. That's what I'm trying to address here, but I'm also trying to keep him as similar as possible, and even add a few new tricks while addressing the reasons people hate him.

I don't agree that Shaco's clone should throw shivs. I think Shaco players should have to work to maintain the illusion of which is which. The buff issues should be fixed in the next patch, and my rework wants them fixed as well.

Here is why I disagree with your claims: Backstab passive is not is a good place because it's too snowbally in conjunction with his deceive crit. If he gets ahead, that extra 20% is extremely powerful on top of the already high crit damage.

Deceive is in a poor place because of it is too feast/famine. It is extremely item reliant. It is his only source of true burst, so if he is behind, it does very little damage. But if he is ahead, it does way too much damage. That is why his passive has been reworked to make him less item dependent. The stealth is also a small issue because of how frustrating it can be to play against, which is why it received a small change.

Boxes are the most broken part of his kit. They provide no counterplay, and no warning that they are around. It is nearly impossible to plan for them, and if you're hit, there's nothing you can do. The only option is to simply avoid Shaco at all costs. That's a problem.

Two-Shiv Poison basically needs to be better on AD, because Shaco already can't use his boxes for much damage (leaving him with only his Q and AAs for most of the game). It's fine on AP in my opinion.

I agree that the buff issue should be fixed, and like I said, Riot very recently stated that this would be fixed in the next patch. Other than that, the clone just needs to give Shaco an escape option, and more reliable damage, which is what this rework does. The clone is in a weird place where it provides the potential source of a lot of damage, but it's so hard to get that damage off that it's often useless.

ZglenQa Senpai1 votes

Yes, as there is no indication of when Shaco is around. With someone like Rengar it's different because there is an exclamation mark warning players. The same goes with Akali. There is an area where you know you can pink ward. With Shaco it can be at any time. This applies to more than just team fights, because as an assassin, Shaco can pick off targets outside of big fights.

Yeah but rengar has ms boost during and after stealth to catch people who try to flee becouse they see indicator. Ofc akali has some sort of warning mark which is stealth break whenever she use skill or aa in shroud. Gues what? Shaco has it too! It's orange puff which u can see it even from bushes! And it works for Q and W.

That's what it already is. Just because the enemy is slower doesn't mean that it's any less obvious that the clone is not AA moving. The clone isn't as tricky as you'd like to think in my opinion. Most people can tell in a few seconds which is which. Besides that, the clone has new options to replace the need for this. Obviously in a rework some things are going to change. Not everything can stay, and that's not a bad thing because new things will take their places.

Most people can tell which is which becouse of other things like tankyness, dmg dealt, missing on hit effects (bug), missing buffs, spawn side and items (sometimes clone doesnt have items -> bug).

Here is why I disagree with your claims: Backstab passive is not is a good place because it's too snowbally in conjunction with his deceive crit. If he gets ahead, that extra 20% is extremely powerful on top of the already high crit damage.

Shaco has high crit dmg only when he has IE and already maxed Q, sorry but 140% total ad ratio on first lvl of deceive (154% with backstab) isn't much. With lvl 5 deceive, IE and backstab it's 294% but it's still just one aa. If you were posting this when we had sotd (next 3 auto has 100% crit chance, 100% as) I could agree with you.

Deceive is in a poor place because of it is too feast/famine. It is extremely item reliant. It is his only source of true burst, so if he is behind, it does very little damage. But if he is ahead, it does way too much damage. That is why his passive has been reworked to make him less item dependent. The stealth is also a small issue because of how frustrating it can be to play against, which is why it received a small change.

Do you ever use clone in fights? I mean to atack not just to juke enemys. I belive you don't becouse you say this crap.

Boxes are the most broken part of his kit. They provide no counterplay, and no warning that they are around. It is nearly impossible to plan for them, and if you're hit, there's nothing you can do. The only option is to simply avoid Shaco at all costs. That's a problem.

The exact same thing you can tell about wards and they are still in this game for 6 years!

Two-Shiv Poison basically needs to be better on AD, because Shaco already can't use his boxes for much damage (leaving him with only his Q and AAs for most of the game). It's fine on AP in my opinion.

And they are good they give shaco stick power, range poke with decent dmg, sustain in the jungle and they are finisher.

I agree that the buff issue should be fixed, and like I said, Riot very recently stated that this would be fixed in the next patch. Other than that, the clone just needs to give Shaco an escape option, and more reliable damage, which is what this rework does. The clone is in a weird place where it provides the potential source of a lot of damage, but it's so hard to get that damage off that it's often useless.

DUDE! Do you know that clone has 50% of shaco dmg and 300/450/600 +1.0ap magic dmg on explosion? This is strongest ult in terms of dmg in the game so don't say crap like this!

No assassins aren't supposed to be great at team fights, but they are supposed to have a job: delete the highest priority squishy. Shaco isn't very good at that because his ult provides no escape, and unless he is really fed, his Q (his only source of burst) is not that strong until very late game.

Ok lets make some math here for shaco with 100/200/300 ad at lvls 6/11/16. For this math i use my skillorder R>E>Q>W only for 300 ad shaco I will use item 3031 , also 200 and 300 ad use item 3077 . Combo is Q>W>R>AA>E>AA>tiamat. I'm not counting W dmg it's part of escape plan.

[100x1.2 + 170 + 100]x1.2 + ([100 + 100]x1.2)x0.5 = 530 It's only with 100 ad at lvl 6? (actually it should be ~120 ad but it's much easier to count and see diffrence with 100ad).

With 200 ad at lvl 11 shaco dmg is a lot higher:

([200x1.8 + 310 + 200]x1.2 + ([200 + 200]x1.2)x0.5 = 1110 + item 3077.

For 300 ad at lvl 16 this amount is really nice:

[300x2.7 + 360 + 300]x1.2 +([300 + 300]x1.2)x0.5 = 1890 + item 3077.

Yes amount of dmg is really dumb BUT shaco is not Zed or Leblanc and he don't make full combo in less than a second. Time required for this combo with 1.5as is over 1.5 seconds and thats enough time to get exhausted and killed by adc. This mechanic is high risk (you can die easly), high reward (you can easly kill enemy adc).

At 1.5 seconds you are guaranteed at least 3 hits

There is no guarantee that box will hit even once :) it's based on ms and a bit of luck in which side enemy will escape. Box can hit you 3 times in 1.5 seconds only if you are in range. It hit's once every 0.5 second.

Beyond this, even if he does get ahead, the passive changes are in place to make it so that his initial burst later on is less multiplicative, and therefore less snowbally (there will be no such thing as a Q-ing and critical hitting above 265% late game in the rework--current Shaco can exceed that by far).

Looks like you have no idea why this change was pushed. In Season 2 and Season 3 there were mastery incresing critical strike dmg just like item 3031. Not sure if this was 10% or more, generally a lot of shaco nerfs were made just becouse mastery or item was too good on him.

Like someone said before take new piece of paper and start again. BUT FIRST you have to understand how shaco works, becouse you have some serious problems with it. Also read shaco nerf list and reasoning for this. A lot of stuff which u placed here were removed becouse they where "toxic".

[http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3246185](http://Better nerf shaco)

DrPepperholic2 votes

i read the "problems" part of the doc and closed it. many of what you listed are mostly false i've played with and against many a shaco and he is a strong champion if the player is good. you want a champion that a 5 year old can play which will never be balanced or too boring to even play(most adcs fit this) and no he cant beat everything like you surely wanting. but that is not balance that's like saying teemo isn't the weakest champion in league. and i would hate for a teemo rework to happen because like rest of the reworks it would break the best parts of the champion and a rework no matter what you think will be good ends up being something different and less fun or more op which ends up being perma banned in ranked. so reworking shaco not a good idea in my very important opinion

Blade of Justic2 votes

I feel like this is everyone's reaction when they see "17 pages"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnqbAsAA0U8

JasonWildBlade2 votes

2 passives, plus 2 bonus passives for each basic ability. Nobody needs 8 passives.

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