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@Meddler So what's the plan for Koggy in 6.21?

Rebonack··2 votes·343 views

Things seem to be settling out pretty clearly with Kog in Dumpster Fire Tier along with Kalista.

I'm not talking balance, here. I'm talking champion design. The rework removed Kog's agency for the most part (short of bushwacking someone). He lost the ability to aggressively poke at his foe. But in return he had the (seriously overtuned) ability to crush just about anything that tried to all-in him. With that gone, he really doesn't have anything to bring to the table.

I'm not asking 'what buffs do you guys plan on giving Kog?' I'm asking 'what is Kog going to provide for his team that other ADCs don't?' All late game scaling ADCs provide lots of damage. And as I've been saying for years now, the only way to make Kog's 'lots of damage' high enough to outweigh his lack of everything else is by making him grossly over-tuned. We've all seen what that looks like over the past few months.

So, what's the plan? Trying to balance Kog purely around damage falls flat. It always has. He needs some more levers to adjust. And even more importantly, he needs a niche that no one else offers. And 'Is useless without a drafted LCS team to protect him' isn't a niche. It's a weakness.

6 Comments

specter4241 votes

I like how he was reverted instead of nerfed but they weren't afraid to butcher swain and vlad with nerfs after the rework.

Hammermancer1 votes

there's the niche of taking ardent censor nidalee support and then just dumping the attack speed build concept... but then what does that nid bring to the team? XD

Yeah i hear you, but in reality riot doesn't always know how a tweak is going to work out until a few weeks of the player base messing with things are.

So if he winds up trash tier then we might see some other adc come back? Seriously getting sick of the same three ADCs over and over, but i don't want them nerfed out of the game, I want more adcs to do as well as them...

Basically i didn't mind ashe, she was a solid champ, and from what i'm told took a massive hit not too long ago. she's going to get buffed again because people like her. but think about corki, he's good, but not popular enough.. I'd argue that it's just the side effect of not being on the same level as the other top tier adcs

Rebonack1 votes

[{quoted}](name=T3H UB3RN07,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=fXb5gFw0,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2016-09-28T18:28:12.227+0000)

there's the niche of taking ardent censor nidalee support and then just dumping the attack speed build concept... but then what does that nid bring to the team? XD

Yeah i hear you, but in reality riot doesn't always know how a tweak is going to work out until a few weeks of the player base messing with things are.

Well, I did sorta predict that Kog was going to slump down to the 45ish range with these changes. And that was just based on how strong Kog was before the rework 'n taking into account that he's gotten nothing but direct and indirect nerfs since then. It didn't require precognition to figure out how this would end.

So if he winds up trash tier then we might see some other adc come back? Seriously getting sick of the same three ADCs over and over, but i don't want them nerfed out of the game, I want more adcs to do as well as them...

Even at his absolute strongest Kog has never broken 10% play rate. People don't enjoy him because he's an immobile champ who lacks agency for the most part. He can't make exciting plays and picks the way the popular champs do. He's purely reactive to what the enemy does.

Basically i didn't mind ashe, she was a solid champ, and from what i'm told took a massive hit not too long ago. she's going to get buffed again because people like her. but think about corki, he's good, but not popular enough.. I'd argue that it's just the side effect of not being on the same level as the other top tier adcs

The core of many of those champs are more or less fine. They can be brought to a healthy level of power with number tweaks alone. The problem with Kog is that you can't do that with him. You can make him deal more damage with his basic attacks or skills, but the amount of damage you would need to add to make him attractive is unhealthy. You could buff the hell out of his slow, but that's not supposed to be his focus. You could give him more range, but that would quickly unbalance him at the LCS level due to their flawless positioning.

The only thing in his kit that could really be tweaked is his resist shred. Focusing his power around amping the damage his allies do could be interesting, but that would probably still require a complete reworking of his Q.

ProfDrDeath1 votes

I think that there will not be much (direct) change in 6.21 or even 6.22. Maybe there will be changes to Guinsoo's Rageblade, to finally not have it lose base stats on completion.

At this point, Kog is basically a reworked champion, and people need to adjust their playstyle and expectations with that in mind. For instance, I don't think that Triforce is particularily good on him anymore, unlike in S5.

Back then, Triforce had a more synergistic stat spread for Kog'Maw as a first item, as he was literally profiting from every stat the item offered (it had 30 AD, 30 AP, 30% AS, 10% Crit, 8% MS, 250 Health and 200 Mana). Compared to now, it gained 10% AS, 20% CdR and 50 Mana, but lost 5 AD, 30 AP, 10% Crit Chance, 3% MS and costs 30 gold more. For the way Kog'Maw is played (focus on auto-attacks and already no-CD ult), 20% CdR and 10% AS do not come even close to make up for the loss in the other stats.

The main problem with itemization for Kog is how he kept on-hit itemization fairly weak all season long in his reworked state. Now that he cannot abuse basically double-proccing every on-hit effect, it becomes evident how comparatively weak the items actually are.

Rebonack1 votes

{quoted}

Things regarding whether or not Kog is over or under tuned.

This topic isn't about Kog's numerical balance.

This topic is about what direction Riot intends to take Kog now that 'Long Range Machine Gun Turret' has been scrapped and 'Artillery Platform' was intentionally killed.

Jalkan1 votes

Rekt.

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