Lee Sin and Zed should keep their iconic damage

Dingding123·Feb 9, 2015·107 votes·4,296 views

because let's face it the buttloads of damage they do is iconic at this point

but their Energy costs need to be GUTTED. I want to see them bleed yellow when they use an ability.

All in favor

54 Comments

TehNACHOFeb 9, 201533 votes

At the very least, the balance team needs to make it so that burning an entire rotation consumes all of or most of their energy. To put things into perspective, to fire a level 18 Zed's Q, W, and E once, it only costs 125 is his total 200 Energy. Let's also not forget the Energy Return you get on his W, which would bring the energy return up to 85 with only a single return. You literally don't even burn half of your energy as Zed with a single rotation.

I always thought the point of energy was to allow pseudo resourceless play styles while laning while still allowing extremely high moments of burst comparable to mana users. However, this is at the cost of being completely and totally drained if you ever do fire off your rotation to burst no matter how you itemize (You can itemize to ward off some mana drainage. You can't itemize at all for energy). Why is it then that Zed's rotation has so little punishment for himself energy-wise?

AMYS GRAVEFeb 10, 20152 votes

I did the math on lv 18 zed. If he lands his skills he can sustain his energy for 1:45 using his weq combo then 6 sec later his eq combo then at 14 sec his weq combo again.... a min and 45 sec is insane energy sustain when compared with shen who has to hit his taunt to complete just one spell rotation.

Captain AishiFeb 10, 20157 votes

I want to see the day where scaling energy yellows are mandatory on zed XD

krawkawFeb 10, 20153 votes

It just like how scaling mana regen yellows are mandatory on lux or almost any mage at this point

IronChefBoyardeeFeb 10, 20153 votes

To give more context to this, Kennen uses 170 Energy on full rotation (45/45/80), and Shen uses 210 energy (50/60/100). Lee Sin's total energy rotation is 240 (50/30/50/30/50/30), but he gets enough energy back from autos and sticking to his target or by simply not using all of his skills at once that it can more realistically be seen around 180-200

DurzakaFeb 10, 20151 votes

{quoted}

To give more context to this, Kennen uses 170 Energy on full rotation (45/45/80), and Shen uses 210 energy (50/60/100). Lee Sin's total energy rotation is 240 (50/30/50/30/50/30), but he gets enough energy back from autos and sticking to his target or by simply not using all of his skills at once that it can more realistically be seen around 180-200

Both Shen and Kennen also have had CC involved in their rotation. So that is a prety fucking big factor to energy costs. Shen's taunt still costs too much energy though.

IronChefBoyardeeFeb 10, 20151 votes

To be fair, Kennen requires you to hit all three abilities to get that CC (or an auto and two abilities), so it's more than fair. I wasn't calling for reduced costs for Kennen, not by a long shot. Simply giving other energy costs, even though I forgot Akali.

Also! if Kennen does get off Mark of the Storm, he only gets 25 energy back. 25. This doesn't scale. Zed's gets up to 40, Shen gets 40 per target for landing E, akali gets no return, and lee sin can return 30 per ability cast. I agree with everyone in this thread that Zed's costs should be higher, especially for getting 40 energy back on hitting two targets with an ability. Energy restoration is a joke to him but vital for every other energy champ

Auz the RipperFeb 10, 20151 votes

Akali gets 20-40 energy back if she detonates her Q's mark

DurzakaFeb 11, 20151 votes

{quoted}

To be fair, Kennen requires you to hit all three abilities to get that CC (or an auto and two abilities), so it's more than fair. I wasn't calling for reduced costs for Kennen, not by a long shot. Simply giving other energy costs, even though I forgot Akali.

Also! if Kennen does get off Mark of the Storm, he only gets 25 energy back. 25. This doesn't scale. Zed's gets up to 40, Shen gets 40 per target for landing E, akali gets no return, and lee sin can return 30 per ability cast. I agree with everyone in this thread that Zed's costs should be higher, especially for getting 40 energy back on hitting two targets with an ability. Energy restoration is a joke to him but vital for every other energy champ

Well first, Shen also needs to land his ability to get CC. Being skill shots doesnt mean anything. Zeds damaging abilities are skillshots as well that he needs to lane in order to get his damage and energy return.

The difference when talking about Kennen's damage, besides the strong CC that is attached to it, is 2 fold. One, his Q has 1050 range. He can poke out with that every 8/7/6/5/4 seconds. And never EVER run out of energy doing that. He can even use his W on cooldown and still not run out of energy. It is only his insane engage/escape that takes any real energy, which you dont even need for his combo.

Two, he is ranged. Not really anything else to say. That is where a lot of his power is.

I said in my own post (not as a reply to someone) about Zed's energy regen. But 40 energy every 18 seconds is next to useless. It might as well not exist.

IronChefBoyardeeFeb 11, 20151 votes

I think you and I are in agreement to the zed thing. I think. But Zed can instantly refund 80 energy, not 40.

Regardless, his energy costs need to be changed

DurzakaFeb 11, 20151 votes

His energy regen is based on the level os his W, which you level last.

By late game, if he is getting with both of his spells, odd are he is already diving someone, that energy regen doesnt mean a whole lot.

JunkοFeb 10, 20151 votes

To be fair, ulting as Kennen in a teamfight makes you manaless.

IronChefBoyardeeFeb 10, 20151 votes

What? You mean the fact that he gets to apply a 1sec stun to a target who stays near him for 1.5 secs?

JunkοFeb 11, 20151 votes

Especially after the buffs, he can easily stun an entire team with ERW (E also gives 40 energy back). Stun 5 people and you gain 125 energy back without counting the E regen. Not even counting that his kit allows you to easily stun 1 person twice with 1 rotation of spells. So he gains 150 energy back + 40 from E.

Ariel the CruelFeb 10, 201522 votes

but their Energy costs need to be GUTTED.

Shen You mean.... I won't be alone any more?

Icy AuronFeb 9, 201516 votes

I absolutely love the way you put this. Make them bleed yellow!

Auz the RipperFeb 10, 201511 votes

I think it'd be more effective to gut Zed's wave clear Cut his Q's damage to minions, make his passive only affect champions When an assassin can outpush almost any Mage and still have perfect CS, sh*t is wack

TTUPhoenixFeb 10, 20151 votes

I remember trying Zed when he was free and being surprised that his passive worked on minions.

KeltulisFeb 10, 201511 votes

Riot could just tweak Lee's passive to only restore 10 energy per AA, and either increase Dragon Rage's cooldown or tone down the absurd AD ratio and damage.

Zed's assassination ability is fine, but his insane, mage-level waveclear needs to be toned down. I suggest making his Q do even less damage to secondary targets and make it cost more energy.

Jungle Lux GodFeb 9, 20157 votes

All in favor

Aye!

I definitely think that the energy costs are too lenient on Lee Sin and Zed for how strong they are currently. They have resources, but they currently don't care about their resources because their kits have so much restoration that it makes their kits look resourceless.

A cool way that Riot could at least experiment with increasing energy costs is to look at adding energy costs to their ultimates in some form. I know Kennen was pretty bad at one point for that exact same reason, but if you look at Lee Sin and Zed, it might actually give them some bigger tradeoffs for their power.

If we add an energy cost to Lee Sin's ultimate, it could be tuned so that his late game is a lot weaker. In the late game, a lot of the power that Lee Sin has comes from his Dragon's Rage, where he gets a flank off with his incredible mobility and kicks the enemy carry into the enemy team. Adding an energy cost to Dragon's Rage means, ideally, he cannot Q-W into the enemy team and immediately Dragon's Rage someone into his team, but if he restores some energy with his passive, then he has enough to kick them. This also curbs some of the edge cases where Lee Sin gets so fed that he can Q-E-Hydra-R them to death in a single combo after landing a Sonic Wave.

Alternatively, we can increase the energy on his other abilities so that he needs to manage his energy a lot more when he makes all of his flashy plays. He should be able to do the flashy plays, but he should have to spend more time to do each play due to energy constraints.

As far as Zed goes, he currently has the energy to constantly harass the enemy laner. His opponents can retaliate, but not for long if they use mana, while Zed doesn't care because he doesn't use mana.

Ideally, Zed should have such high energy costs in the early game that he cannot use a full combo without the energy restore from hitting someone with an ability from both himself and his living shadow. In addition, we could probably move the energy cost of dashing with Living Shadow to when Zed dashes with it rather than when Zed puts the Shadow out to promote using this ability to restore energy and to make it more risky for Zed to engage using it. Zed could also have this same change be coupled with an energy cost on the recast on his ultimate (to dash to his shadow, not to dash to the targetted champ) so that he has to create a greater risk in engaging onto a target: if he overcommits too much energy to try to kill his opponent, and his opponent outplays him by dodging his abilities, then Zed cannot jump back to his shadow to safety without his opponent having any say in whether he can travel back.

It also would probably make a lot of sense to make the Living Shadow energy restore only apply on champions as well, to still give Zed the tools to restore his energy with his Living Shadow without putting him in situations where he doesn't have the energy to restore his energy.

Leaf of the lakeFeb 10, 20152 votes

You, sir, are a genius. Specifically in reference to your fix for zed.

AuryielFeb 9, 20156 votes

Eh... IMO Lee should retain his mobility and CC but have trash burst and better dps

Kitten of EvilFeb 10, 20156 votes

Zed in particular is an extreme outlier in energy costs. Lee is just weird because his "full rotation", i.e. using Q Q W W E E, costs 240 energy but he gets a bunch back from weaving AAs inbetween. I'm not counting ultimates because energy champs all have essentially free (or at least, not gated by energy) ultimates.

Shen's QWE energy costs are 210 always. Kennen's QWE costs 210 at level 3, down to 170 maxed. Akali's QWE costs 200 at level 3, down to 160 maxed. Zed's QWE costs 165 at level 3, down to 125 maxed.

Looking at the numbers, it's no wonder people are annoyed at Shen's high costs -- a full combo costs more energy than he has. I think people's general opinion on Kennen is that he's balanced, at least in terms of energy costs. It's also not surprising that people are upset at how much Zed can spam, even in the universe of energy users. Why is his combo allowed to cost 35 less energy than everyone else's, at all levels?

JunkοFeb 10, 20151 votes

What if Shen's entire rotation cost only 100 energy? Would that change anything? Shen can do NOTHING but be a meatshield after using his spells, by the time they are off cooldown, his entire energy will be regenerated. His E cost was absurd, but isn't anymore and idk why people say it still is high when he is never punished for missing his E (let's face it that 10 energy for Q+W will be gained during your E animation).

Kennen can stun a single person 3 times in a row while dealing a fair amount of damage and regaining 25 energy every stun. His E will ALSO regain 40 energy for the first enemy it hits (even a minion). That means Kennen combo cost is actually reduced to 55 energy. But Kennen is a teamfight champion, where he can stun EVEN MORE people (because of short per target CD on R). So does Kennen actually use energy in a teamfight?

Akali has 3 free point and click gapclosers that reset on kill and cost 0 energy. She also has a point and click ranged harass that is a pretty strong nuke if you can proc it with an AA(implying it's hard) while also restoring energy to be able to cast it again. Oh and free spellvamp for no reason, cause why not?

Lee Sin has other problems outside of his energy, it requires you to manage AAs to regenerate enough energy to cast all your abilities, it does take some skill. The problem is everywhere else in his kit like free stats for no reason on skills and a point and click nuke that applies heavy cc with a 200% AD ratio.

Zed has no good CC, and is heavily reliant on his spells (especially ult early) to kill, let's face it with the heavily mobility creep atm Zed isn't going to get close to AAing the ADC without his ult. He needs to hit spells twice to regen energy, and for some reason when casting shurikens on top of the opponent somehow go through them and not hit, or your shadow will just cast them in a different direction despite having mouse on your target. Double E isn't that hard to hit after ult, unless you are against Kalista and the like.

Kitten of EvilFeb 10, 20151 votes

I think it would make Shen more viable, but he's still in a weird spot. His balance is a tough issue, but certainly it doesn't help that he's the only one whose energy costs do not drop as he levels. His E is also really shittily animated, and the hitbox is paper-thin.

Lee has the opposite problem. His energy costs are not the only reason he's imbalanced at the moment -- it's because he has several mobility options, a free displace, free sustain, and an execute.

You say "Zed has no good CC". Does Akali? Not really. Even Kennen's requires that he hit the enemy three times with spells. "Zed is heavily reliant on his spells to kill". Uh, Akali is also very reliant on her spells to kill, so is Kennen. I'm really not sure how Zed is so different from the other two as to justify his vastly lower (40 less!) energy costs.

SmokingPuffinFeb 9, 20155 votes

Lee needs to be able to make the flashy plays. He has to be able to QQ-ward-W-R, for example. That puts a ceiling on how much you can nerf his energy costs.

Zed has plenty of room for higher costs. My pet suggestion - +25 energy on Q, refunds 25 energy if it hits a champion. This thing where Zed can throw Qs with no thought is seriously annoying.

KingsgraveFeb 9, 20158 votes

{quoted}

Lee needs to be able to make the flashy plays. He has to be able to QQ-ward-W-R, for example. That puts a ceiling on how much you can nerf his energy costs.

Zed has plenty of room for higher costs. My pet suggestion - +25 energy on Q, refunds 25 energy if it hits a champion. This thing where Zed can throw Qs with no thought is seriously annoying.

Tie in Lee's energy return in landing his skillshots and performing combos rather than autoing people.

SmokingPuffinFeb 9, 20152 votes

Lee only has one skillshot. Not a lot of leverage there, although certainly you could apply the same nerf I proposed for Zed Q to Lee Q.

Tying energy return to performing combos is possible, something like Old Cass passive would work, but it's not clear to me it really helps with Lee feeling really oppressively strong. Doesn't really create a weakness, which is what Lee needs more than anything else.

TheRainInSpainFeb 10, 20152 votes

Q - Passive only kicks in if you hit an enemy champion. W - Passive only kicks in if you shield an allied champion. E - Passive only kicks in if you hit an enemy champions (alternatively, hit a stealthed enemy champion) R - Passive only kicks in (heh) if you actually kill target enemy champion. Assists do not count.

Either energy cost increases or heightened cooldowns on all his abilities. R would have 200 energy cost regardless of level.

I've seen bad Lee Sin's, but as his kit has absurd base stats and almost infinite sustain, any fool can make him oppressive.

SmokingPuffinFeb 10, 20151 votes

Your proposed Lee would be a 35% win rate champion. How do you expect him to jungle with no energy?

TheRainInSpainFeb 10, 20152 votes

Have you two actually played energy champions? 200 max energy (no energy bank runes), and 10 a second energy regen. Unless you are literally spamming your abilities without care or forethought at max CDR, you should not be at constant zero energy. Besides, it isn't as if you're playing a pure mage (Kennen is a Mage/Marksman, and Akali has some physical damage). You have auto attacks and other stuff that non-spellcaster type champions have, on an AD platform. Are you saying Lee Sin physically cannot auto attack?

Do note that I play Kennen a LOT, and I do spam my abilities. But I'm rarely at zero unless I'm in the "20 hp left! 20 hp left!" scenario. Kennen, unlike Lee Sin and Zed, does not have energy refunding effects.

SmokingPuffinFeb 10, 20151 votes

In order to press QQWWEE in the jungle, even at rank 1 Lee requires 21 energy per second.

If Lee cannot proc his passive on jungle monsters, he will be OOE in one rotation of abilities. He also won't have much damage against said monsters, because his passive is a huge steroid as well as a huge energy source.

The proposal I was responding to effectively deletes Lee from the jungle. Kit simply stops working.

TheRainInSpainFeb 10, 20151 votes

Well, good. I never want to see another Lee Sin (and J4) ever again as long as LC$BIGPLAYS still exists.

Rubber JesusFeb 10, 20151 votes

But he wouldn't be able to jungle then, and this would be Riot forcing a champion into a certain role, top lane, and not promoting diversity. Doesn't he need the refund from neutral monsters in order to get the first jungle clear, and probably from minions while laning? I haven't played him in the new jungle yet, so I'm not 100% sure how it would affect him there, but I'm can imagine first clear or two would be hard without energy.

RikariFeb 10, 20152 votes

the cost isnt the problem,their full combo cost is quite high. its the regen rate+regen mechanics that are the problem.

KeevalroyFeb 10, 20152 votes

All in favor

Aye.

Juggernaut JesusFeb 10, 20152 votes

They need to have Shen level energy problems.

TotalJerkFeb 10, 20151 votes

At one point Zed was considered a lousy champion, and he's hardly changed since then. He's only strong right now because so much was nerfed.

I don't get it, Instead of calls for buffs, everyone is demanding that we nerf yet another champion. Mobility creep is surely a problem, but everyone's actual stats are moving in the opposite direction. Next thing you know, we'll all be fighting with glorified minions that fly across the map. Next year's LCS could end up just being people dancing around while no one actually kills anything.

Yulen XoshxiusFeb 10, 20152 votes

I want to agree, but then: Why did they nerf everyone else then?

dj2themaxFeb 10, 20152 votes

people are screaming for nerfs because rito has nerf and are still nerfing every other champ instead of buffing champs that need it.

TotalJerkFeb 10, 20151 votes

{quoted}

people are screaming for nerfs because rito has nerf and are still nerfing every other champ instead of buffing champs that need it.

Are you trying to say we should nerf more champions because Riot nerfs too many champions? I can't quite decipher this sentence.

Antemos XaosFeb 10, 20151 votes

He's saying that they call for nerfs because riot has a history of Nerfing over buffing, so Nerfs are statistically more likely to happen than buffs.

AbyssphereFeb 10, 20151 votes

{quoted}

At one point Zed was considered a lousy champion, and he's hardly changed since then. He's only strong right now because so much was nerfed.

I don't get it, Instead of calls for buffs, everyone is demanding that we nerf yet another champion. Mobility creep is surely a problem, but everyone's actual stats are moving in the opposite direction. Next thing you know, we'll all be fighting with glorified minions that fly across the map. Next year's LCS could end up just being people dancing around while no one actually kills anything.

People are asking for nerfs because they know Riot won't give buffs. If Riot intended to give buffs then they'd have stated that intention (and done so) by now. Pretty much the only mage who's been buffed this season is Ahri, and she's being put back in her place anyway, so...

ArisakaFeb 10, 20151 votes

TBH I really dont think the two champs are that op anymore. They both got huge nerfs and they are in a pretty good spot rite now.

Cale017Feb 10, 20151 votes

Or just give them mana like everyone else has to use.

And Lee Sin only gets to keep all that damage if he drops half of the utility in his kit.

Terra D SerphFeb 10, 20151 votes

On the topic of nerfing some crazy resource(less) pools on champions...

what if Riven had an energy pool? Enough that she couldn't spam abilities 24/7 but instead had windows of opportunity to use her spells in rotations?

200 Energy pool +10 Energy regen per 5 seconds(or whatever the norm is right now)

+Passive: grants +10 energy per empowered auto attack(will help her gain some energy back so she isn't gutted, gives her something on her already-existing passive).

+Q: 30 Energy +10 per q after the initial for a total of 50 energy if you q 3 times.

+W: 70 Energy, maybe something could be added per champion stunned(like 5 energy per champ or something like that)

+E: 90 Energy, no change

+R: 100 Energy(none on second activation), adds +10 energy per AA w/o empowered stacks(stacks still add 10 energy per hit, doubling the total energy regained per AA), cone grants 10 energy per champion hit(for a maximum of 50 energy).

This secures her as an all in champ who won't just q q q e her way back to safety without some serious planning.

One rotation with all spells used, assuming auto attacks are used as efficiently as possible.

Q AA Q AA Q AA W AA E AA

Goes from 200 to 150+30 to 180, - 70 +10 to 120, -90 +10 to 40.

If she ults against 2 champions:

R Q AA Q AA Q AA AA R W AA AA E AA

200 to 100, 100 to 50 +80 to 130, 130 +20 -70 +40 to 120, 120 to 30 +10(at this point the ult should wear off?) to 40. Could probably proc 2 more Q's after this for some escape distance or get the last amount of damage on a tankier target,

And those aren't counting the passive Energy regen per 5, which could probably add that last Q into the second scenario, if you don't auto-attack something or someone.

If this made any sense to someone I'd love some support on the numbers. Even if you disagree.

Probably could work on the numbers. Probably been discussed before(I'll google this momentarily). I'd like to see all or most resource-less champs get an energy or mana bar, but that's personal bias. And I realize that's probably not how a lot of Riven mains go through their rotations, I was just thinking of an ideal spot for her to use all her spells while simultaneously losing her entire Energy pool, and then maybe get one more spell off before having to back off for a few moments while her cooldowns and energy come back up.

BorblandFeb 10, 20151 votes

Agreed. Very high Q manacosts for Zed early, to prevent him spamming it too much. And it make his combo a bit more difficult.

Red OctoberFeb 10, 20151 votes

Love this.

Zone of EndlessFeb 10, 20151 votes

Make zed deal decreased damage to minion and he will be balanced. Free wave clear that is stronger than a mage is a no no. Why is someone gated by mana be punished by someone who basically doesn't have to worry about managing his resource as much in laning phase?

RegalPhantomFeb 10, 20151 votes

Zed I agree needs higher energy costs. His issues are part of a overarching trend in the design of Champions in LoL; that they don't have an identifiable weakness. Upping his energy costs (and decreasing the regen rate of energy in general) would increase his downtime, making it harder for him to waveclear and harder for him to both wave-clear and assassinate at the same time. Additionally, I think that he should have an energy cost on using his shadows (probably 20-30 energy each time you swap places) to add a bit more depth to him (Do I stay for 1 more spell cast to secure the kill, but leave myself in a position where I can't get out due to being out of energy).

Lee Sin is a different problem altogether. Even though his unbanned pick rate during patch 5.2 sat at about 25%, his win rate is below 50%, (46.5% in Gold, 48% in Plat, 49.75% in Diamond) meaning that any purely numerical nerfs will probably push him into Urgot territory, which despite what people whine about is not something we want any champion to be in. Additionally, the only skill I can think of in his kit that isn't interesting is his E. His Q, the first part of his W and his R are well designed skills at their core. Jumping to a target after hitting it with a skillshot is fun. Ward hopping is fun and rewards strong mechanical play. His ult is in a similar boat. These skills I'm fine with, but in order for Lee Sin to be healthy he has to have real tradeoffs for the advantages that these skills provide that aren't just having bad numbers in spots.

That being said, I think that tweaking how his energy costs work with his passive might be a place to start. An idea that I have had is to make it so that his passive either ONLY restores energy on champion hits. This would hurt his early-game jungling and make him a touch less oppressive where he is good, but also open up opportunities to increase his strengths elsewhere in his kit to make him healthier for the game.

TL;DR - Would be a good change on Zed. Lee Sin needs a deeper set of changes, of which energy may or may not be a factor.