Why the 7.1 Kennen Nerfs Were Unecessary

(This is just a preface, skip for my reasoning) Kennen's ult was nerfed last patch, and as a result his win rate has dropped 4%~ (hovered around 50-51 pre-patch, 47% post patch). First off, I would like to say that these changes aren't crippling. You can still win with Kennen, and I don't think he's necessarily bad right now. However, as much as this is biased in favor of buffing Kennen since he's the only champion I like playing, this is also addressing an overall behavior that I have seen expressed by the balance team, a behavior that suggests a fear of retracting mistakes made through balance changes. Seeing Riot get rid of the disaster of the Kog'Maw rework was a step in the right direction, and although this nerf isn't nearly as severe as the Kog'Maw rework, and honestly I don't think anything comes close to how bad that was, I think taking back a nerf like this shows progress and a step in the right direction. I'm only Diamond 5, but I honestly think I know this character more than 99% of people. My execution of that knowledge could use help, like a lot of help actually, but I think I have a lot of merit in acknowledging what is healthy for this character. I honestly cannot explain how much I love Kennen, playing him has helped me get through some horrible times, and If I got into detail I would probably (understandably) get banned. He's the only reason I play this game, and I don't want to see him fall victim to a series of unneeded rebalances as the result of this nerf.

First off, I want to explain why this nerf hits so hard, and why the attempt to pass it off as "a buff to good Kennen ultimates" is not accurate whatsoever. The change to his ultimate weighted the damage towards the end of his ultimate instead of the front. This seems reasonable, until you realize how "weighted" they actually made it. The damage on his new ultimate is lower until the VERY last tick of his ultimate, which is slightly more, and the early damage is laughable. That means to reap the rewards of this "weighted" ultimate, the enemy team has to sit in your ultimate for three whole seconds. I honestly cannot believe how unrealistic a scenario this is. This rarely ever happens, at least in ranked. Why does this never happen? Well, a big misconception about Kennen is that he is a walking AoE cc instakill machine with no counterplay, and this partly influenced the decision according to the patch notes, where it was reasoned that "he’s pumping out most of his damage before anybody has even had time to run the other way." Is that really the situation? If so, why has his ban rate decreased so much? Why does nobody play him if he can literally ult and kill people before they can react? The truth is that that is a grossly oversimplified summary of his ultimate. I can agree that Kennen's ultimate is fucking terrifying, but there are tons of things that you can do that are meta right now to avoid Kennen's damage or ultimate altogether, even if you get flashed on as an ADC. These things include: QSS, flash, heal, Zhonya's, hexdrinker, Mikaels, GA, picking Caitlyn in champion select, e.t.c. All of these are things that people can and DO use incredibly often to survive Kennen's ultimate. In addition, Hard CC and disengage is incredibly effective. I mean this might seem like a given, but I cant stress how much they render his ultimate useless, as it's considerably short, and his only method of dealing damage is charging straight into the enemy team. Considering how many people play Janna, Lee Sin, and CC tanks right now, getting a good Kennen ultimate off is far from easy in the current meta. Redemption is also very frustrating, but there are ways to work around it. I see people use these things constantly, and it's why Kennen is balanced. His ultimate is amazing, but it's not TOO amazing. Very rarely are you going to get that game winning pentakill Kennen ulti, and if you do, it's almost always because the enemy team made a mistake (squishies overextending onto the frontline, lack of proper warding, getting TP flanked, e.t.c.). So to summarize, Kennen's ultimate is already very balanced and has more counterplay to it than it would seem, so nerfing the damage would be unnecessary. Again, I have to stress how this does NOT reward "good Kennen players" in the slightest. It's a cop out, completely goes against the mechanics of this game and the current meta way of playing Kennen.

Next, I want to cover why this changes his playstyle in a negative way. Remember how I said expecting the enemy team to AFK in your ultimate for three seconds is completely unrealistic and never happens? Well it is, and as a result no one plays Kennen like that. Because Kennen's ultimate is predictable and easy to get out of, good Kennen players are opportunistic, and must look for opportunities to flank the enemy team or look for safe moments to avoid enemy CC and disengage to burst their backline and kill them before they are able to make it out alive. So, in the vast majority of games, you're playing a burst mage/assassin role to try and nuke their backline while they are vulnerable. This is how Kennen is supposed to be played. (Although In some situations, you do want to use your ultimate to peel for your team if you aren't able to burst the enemy backline in situations where they are fed or have too much peel and its unsafe for your team to follow up on your engages, but this happens much less, and generally is only a reality during the mid game.) This is why its so important for your damage to be weighted towards the front of your ultimate. The first three to four ticks are the most vital part of your ultimate when nuking their backline, as if they survive those, they will almost always get out of your ultimate. The nerfs to his damage severely limit this playstyle, as his ultimate's damage is now INCREDIBLY weak compared to his old one, and it's hardly ever viable unless you are in the perfect situation, are building full AP, and are at least somewhat ahead. This completely changes the way you have to play him. You aren't the burst mage anymore, you are now a CC bot that has to make up for the lack of damage by building Rylai's and stacking health and pen items and attempting to have more utility. Building full AP on Kennen is much less viable now because you will never realistically break even on your ultimate's damage anymore. In fact, I've built rab cap ONCE out of every game I've played since the patch. It honestly doesn't feel worth it to build it on him anymore. This obviously isn't horrible or game breaking, but it definitely isn't as fun as old Kennen is. I feel like I can't capitalize on leads anymore, and I never feel like I can get satisfying ults in anymore, even If I do land that seemingly perfect one anymore. It's just so much easier for enemies to get out of your ultimate now, which forces you to build Rylai's basically every single game now. This utility route is clearly not right for him, as dropping 4% in one patch is definitely a warning sign. This change makes Kennen not as fun or rewarding to play, not as good of a champion overall, and feels more laborious than satisfying.

Lastly, I would like to explain why this nerf wasn't necessary. Kennen has not been overtuned for a long time. He had his moment of glory during the LCS series where his pick/ban rate significantly increased, but after his items were nerfed, the hype died down, and he was in a very healthy state. His win rate has hovered around 50~51% at most, and 49% at worst, and it has been like this since season 5, which is when I started keeping track of him. Although win rate isn't the best factor in determining if a champion is overtuned, It still retains some importance in this case. Nothing happened to Kennen that made him OP. No one was complaining about him after the Rylai's + Protobelt nerfs. Meanwhile, there are champions that have been sporting a 53%+ win rate consistently across multiple patches that weren't even scratched this patch. However, Kennen has already been nerfed. Multiple times. Both Rylai's and Protobelt, the items that saw him become so big in the first place, were nerfed. My question is: where is the issue? Why did Riot suddenly decide that his ultimate had no counterplay to it? I know this isn't the strongest point to make, which is why I saved it for last, but I feel like this change was such a waste and the balancing could allocate their time to changing much more 'op' champions, like Twitch and Ziggs who can literally solo carry. Kennen is much too team dependent to solo carry games.

Okay that was super long but I really needed to get that off my chest. I hope someone takes it into consideration. TL;DR Kennen didn't have to be changed, he was already balanced, and nerfing him has made him a worse overall champion.