@riot from a warwick main. i hope you read n respond with your thoughts
i feel warwick is actually strong + gives unique powers to a team. but im ok with a rework i just hope hes not changed too much.
over the last month, after min/maxing warwick and testing many things on him and learning many things about the dank wolf, i have slowly turned into a warwick main after i found out how strong he can be and how useful he can be to a team.
warwick provides several unique powers to a team and no other champion can give the exact same powers warwick can with a single pick. that makes warwick really unique.
also its really so fun to main a champion that many see as weak or outdated or not useful, and completely destroy diamond games with said champion.
warwick mains we must let riot know. he doesnt need "much" changing. a few changes are ok, sure, but i fear riots rework may remove many of the biggest powers warwick currently has.
in this thread, i will identify what warwicks greatest powers are that he CURRENTLY provides to a team, so riot can hopefully keep all of those powers in his rework
warwick currently has a very decent and strong winrate for jungles in plat+ games. warwicks winrate shows that he totally is not "weak" or "bad" as a champion. but riot still thinks he could use a rework due to his super simple kit. i however think warwicks kit while it may be simple still takes ALOT of skill to use properly, warwicks kit is just as simple as garens and garen also takes a decent chunk of skill to be good with
also. while it isnt that popular and its winrate is low, i actually believe warwick is just as strong or stronger in toplane. for anyone out there who wants to learn how to be a warwick beast in toplane ill explain many of the methods and min/maxing results of warwick i have learned in this thread because such things explain warwicks powers as well
SOO moving on. ill explain warwicks biggest powers now and how these are super helpful to a team and warwick is unique in giving all of this power to a team with just 1 champion slot. i hope riot allows warwick to keep all of these powers in this rework.
here we go. here are warwicks powers
FIRST OF ALL. ill say what i think is the strongest warwick build currently runes- the strongest warwick runes are always imo 15% atkspeed reds, scaling armor yellows, 30% cdr blues/quints. vs super high AP teams u run 20% cdr to throw in a visage, however due to rune pages not being free i just stick with 30% cdr for all warwicks games. against super high AP enemy teams, the 20% cdr warwick runes would technically be better in a world where all runes are instantly free and customizable in champ select, but that world doesnt exist, so in most cases the 30% cdr runes are fine for warwick and cover every situation decently
mastery- 4% speed, 3% dmg, 2% vamp, bounty, armor penn, fervor, 5% armor, bush speed, 8% healing, 15% summ spells
also always run ignite. smite/ignite for jungle. ignite/TP for toplane (and when your WW top. never push. always hug tower. normally u get to 6 before your enemy can freeze. and not having flash doesnt matter if u hug tower. then after 6 just roam if wave pushes. your ulti is so strong that u can roam and get kills if your enemy tries to freeze). the reason ignite is good is because id rather 1shot people with R+ignite then flash+r and do less dmg. once you run the BURNING WOLF you will never go back to flashwolf again
for jungle- bloodrazer, mobility boots, zzrot, deadmans (possibly this before zzrot), warmogs, frozen mallet (depends. possibly mallet first vs riven and things. but if enemy doesnt have a big fast splitpusher that you want to slow down then you could go another pure tank item like randuins and not even get mallet), then sell mobi boots for sunfire or something. if enemy team is ALL AD then you can get a sunfire instead of zzrot and a mallet last item
so vs a ALL AD TEAM warwick would make bloodrazer, warmogs, mallet, randuins, sunfire, deadmans as his final 6 item build. but normally every team has "some ap" so you swap out some items for ZZROT / visage / banshees for MR
many warwicks would disagree with me on this build and say it needs to contain visage and botrk and things like that. however after learning alot about warwick and truly thinking about how battles work in league, i concluded the PURE TANK build with 1 damage item is strongest. and heres why
just in basic elements of "how teamfights in a moba work". in teamfights you will have both teams fighting and both teams have the frontline soaking damage and the backline dealing damage to eachothers frontline
in this logic. it means in a pure 5v5 teamfight, a botrk will actually be less valuable than a randuins. the randuins will give warwick possibly a few seconds more to live, while the BOTRK will make warwick deal maybe 300 more actual damage to the enemy tank before WW dies, also remember with all the CC flying around in teamfights the frontline is usually CC'ed so much that they cant even autoattack for half of a teamfight.
imagine warwick in the front, starting the fight, soaking damage, and then warwicks team has KOGMAW in the back ripping apart the enemy frontline, with possibly a anivia or brand or azir also on warwicks team blasting out tons of magic damage, with possibly a darius toplane adding in some nice physical damage (since kog and brand are heavy magic). that is the type of teamfight i am talking about. warwick on the frontline, so he needs pretty much all tank items, while warwick has a KOGMAW and BRAND and DARIUS beside him dishing out the sick damage (and darius himself is tanky + black cleaver build)
so then you might think at that point. why warwick? why not just have a fricken maokai with actual tank steroids for the 5v5? i will explain why shortly
so back to items. in the grand view of how the game works, a extra tank item is just "better" on warwick lategame than the botrk. and i dont like adding in the visage because most teams seem to be stacked with AD and zzrot already gives MMR. if i do NEED more MR then due to 30% cdr runes i usually get a banshees if i need more MR
however. i will admit. if the enemy team has high amounts of AP, then it would be better to drop 10% cdr off runes and add a visage into the build
so i fully admit that visage is a decent great item on warwick (after zzrot if you need more MR). however zzrot provide a stronger power in my opinion as a MR item, however if the enemy team has TONS OF AP then i admit adding in a visage and removing 10% cdr from runes is a good idea
however because runes and rune pages are limited and not free for everyone. I normally just run the 30% cdr on and if my enemy does pick a high about of AP ill just throw in a banshees as the last item. banshees is like a cheaper visage
NOW. ON TO WARWICKS "POWERS". considering the ITEMS, BUILD, RUNES, AND MASTERYS. here is the power that warwick gives to a team.
the questions is "why warwick? why not just use maokai?" and here is the answer. here is why you might want a warwick instead of a maokai as your tankline
- warwick has SUPER HARD ENGAGE ( i know maokai has this power too. sure. so they share this power. but theres more warwick powers coming later )
in 100% pure lategame 5v5. warwicks ultimate gets a VERY SHORT 40 second cooldown and becomes a decent range 1.5 second suppression on the enemy tank that tenacity does not reduce and can only be stopped by the enemy supports mikeals (because the enemy tank doesnt get QSS). this stun allows warwicks team to "engage" and "start the fight".
now you may think its dumb for warwick to "engage" onto the enemy "tank", however if warwicks team also contains BRAND, KOGMAW, SORAKA, and DARIUS in it, then it 100% IS A GOOD FRICKING IDEA for warwick to literally press "r" on the enemy tank and "engage" a fight on the enemy tank.
this is literally how i play warwick in lategame 5v5. and it is highly effective. I press "r" on the enemy tank to start the fight. and the fight starts. and because i build pure tank items on warwick, i am a immortal wolf and i drop down a Q and i run back into my team. the ENEMY TEAM normally cant even kill me in time because im pure 100% tank items, while the ENEMY TANK gets his pussy popped by the BRAND+DARIUS+KOGMAW on my team. the end result is my E speedboost normally activates a few seconds into the teamfight, and the enemy team CANNOT kill me before i run away because im so fast, while MY TEAM pops the pussy of the enemy tank and the enemy tank dies in a few seconds to brand+kogmaw+darius
that is the power of warwick. you can build pure tank and just press R to start the fight (assuming your team picked smart and has other high damage champions. and hey the meta dictates that each team have a ADC with full dmg items + armor penetration that can kill the enemy tank in seconds so your usually good on damage from your teammates). so as long as you start the fight, your team has so much godlike damage that all that matters is "starting" the fight. once the fight "starts" warwicks teammates will rip it apart. while warwick is just the immortal wolf that starts the fight then walks away laughing and chases enemies who run
and if the enemy support mikeals your R? who cares. you back away, and regenerate health with your warmogs passive, and in 40 seconds your R cooldown is done and you can use your ultimate again
even if the enemy has alot of stuns to stop your ultimate. it doesnt matter. that means they used CC on you (the tank) instead of your carries, and the fight usually will STILL START even if your ulti gets CC'ed also. if the enemy tank has a banshees (which they will usually have) all warwick has to do is use his smite to remove the banshees (as jungle) or botrk to remove banshees (as top ww)
- warwick is a midgame assassin. maokai isnt
around 15 minutes. before the super lategame 5v5 teamfights kick in. warwick is a powerful midgame assassin and assuming your team isnt behind your gameplay is basically you walking around the map and pressing "R" on enemy squishies and 1shotting them. assuming the teams are even and warwicks team isnt already losing, then warwicks ulti + fervor + q will nearly 1shot enemy squishy champs. and warwicks speedboost lets him close in for the final Q to kill, along with usually some easy autos since WW moves so fast
because warwick is this powerful midgame assassin. it means warwick can give his team a huge lead in the midgame (15 to 25 minutes). warwick can snowball his team with his killing powers in the midgame, making it so his team is 10,000 gold ahead when 30 minute teamfights roll around
- even lategame. warwicks R 1-shots squishies. so warwick can use R to engage or assassinate in the lategame
so. in power 1, i explain how warwicks R is usually used as a hard engage lategame. however, if teams arent completely grouped, then warwick does have the option of walking around and using his ultimate to delete squishies and it has a low cooldown. and ive learned that EVEN IF A SQUISHIE BUILDS QSS, it barely counters warwicks R, because they have to activate the QSS after warwick uses R usually after its been ticking for 0.3 seconds, and warwicks R still applies its FULL damage even if you use QSS, and on jungle warwick you can cast smite while your R is going, so i like to use my FROST SMITE on the enemy ADC the moment he uses QSS. this means the enemy ADC will be slowed by the frost smite as warwick is using his ultimate. then, after warwicks ultimate is done, the enemy adc is usually still in Q range so you Q him then he is low enough to chase with the E speedboost and kill. Or if the enemy ADC does use QSS + FLASH + heal to get away, you can just walk away as warwick and use your R again in 60 seconds (usual cooldown at 15 minutes) for a easy kill
- warwicks E is so much power in lategame teamfights
lategame teamfights usually contain alot of juking, bush dodging, and bush hiding. warwicks E completely removes the enemy teams power to do such tactics
whenever i hit lategame as warwick and the 5v5 teamfights start happening, i see the immense huge power-boost that warwicks E provides to his team. warwicks E provides in many cases full map-hack vision across walls and inside bushes for your team. All of the wall-juking and bush-juking tactics that people have learned to escape and avoid dying in teamfights get removed against warwick.
Imagine jumping over a wall and the enemy not knowing where to throw a skillshot due to fog of war. warwicks E removes the fog of war and you get popped with a perfect skillshot and you die, where as against anything besides warwick you would have lived. warwicks E giving vision to his whole team to enemys that are running away is a huge massive powerboost
i hope in warwicks rework, his E is allowed to be completely the same
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so lets see what we got so far. with warwicks R, he can hard engage fights AND be an assassin midgame and lategame (if he wants). maokai cant do that. and thats just warwicks R. warwicks E then provides a bunch of power to his team too
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next. warwicks R cooldown. this deserves its own point. at level 6, and with the high CDR, warwicks ultimate will have a damn 40 second cooldown. that is SUCH A LOW COOLDOWN on such a POWERFUL ability. a damn 1.5 second SUPPRESSION that tenacity cannot reduce. that can either hard engage fights or delete squishies. on a fricken 40 second cooldown
when i reach level 16 on warwick, i literally begin to use my R on-cooldown. oh, the enemy tank walked within 600 units of me? i guess ill immediately press R on him and chunk him for 30%
oh whats this? 25 seconds later a fight breaks out on the map and the enemy ADC is running away with 30% health. well jeeze, would you look at that. my warwick ultimate is only 7 seconds away from being ready. so i easily chase down the enemy ADC with my E 40% bonus movespeed and easily R him for a juicy meme-kill
warwicks ultimate cooldown is so low that its good to just cast it every 40 seconds once you reach level 16. your a immortal tanky wolf-god that is just busting out R's on cooldown.
playing warwick at level 16 when you realize his powers and went the right tanky items, is fun as hell, and provides so much to your team
and heres another cool point. i notice many times on warwick in the lategame, that after we win a fight and as we are sieging, my R cooldown is lower than deathtimers and as enemies start respawning and coming back to defend their inhibs, i literally will have my ultimate back up and ready to use to knock out people as soon as they respawn and try to defend. enemy comes to defend his inhib and BAM BABY WOLF R, MY TEAM SMOKES U IN the 1.5 SECONDS, LATERR LMAO. im sure my enemies are thinking "what the hell. didnt he just use his ultimate in the teamfight. its back again. my god. so broken"
- warwicks W is actually pretty darn powerful currently because its so cheap. 35 mana. and it provides a decent power boost for such a low cost to the ADC and even AP champs when attacking towers. WW team pushes very stong with thw W
lategame as warwick, because his mana issues are so bad, i normally begin to only cast R and W and i never cast Q anymore since my warmogs heals me anyway. because if you do cast Q you quickly go oom and i find out it feels like a short amount of time after i cast R that im looking at my R cooldown and so ill be ready to cast R again and im oom if i used too many Q's. so ill use Q rarely lategame.
even with this weakness, warwick feels strong lategame, because his W is so cheap, only 35 mana, and it gives 40% attackspeed to warwicks whole team and 80% to warwick. thats a pretty strong boost and it LASTS 6 seconds and has a damn 10 second cooldown with 40% cdr. so you can almost use it whenever you want
even though warwicks W is really strong. i would be ok with it getting changes in the rework. but the E and R i feel are his biggest powers and shouldnt be changed
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warwicks main power points that he gives to his team are E and R. i hope those are not changed in the rework. what remains is W and Q. i feel warwicks W is powerful, but its not the major power he gives his team so id be ok with warwicks W getting changes.
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now lets look at warwicks Q. i feel warwicks Q is the perfect addition to his kit to fill in the "blank space" of power. warwicks Q functions as some general power for the wolf-god to use. i think the spell feels pretty perfect to me and i think it fits warwicks kit and playstyle. warwicks W however i guess could be changed without removing the power warwick gives a team
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overall. to finish this power breakdown. i want to say that i believe warwicks main power-areas that he brings to a team currently are his E and R. the fact that his R has a 40 second cooldown lategame. the fact that warwick can be a midgame assassin and turn into lategame tank-initiation while still being able to assassinate squishies if he sees a good chance. all these powers together are what warwick gives to a team that no other champion can provide all by himself, but warwick does it all in a single pick.
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oh yeah i almost forgot. fervor is also a huge power warwick has now. warwicks ultimate lets him stack max stacks of fervor and its adding like 300 extra damage lategame to warwicks ult (to help assassinate squishies). actually fervor adds eve more, near 600 extra damage to warwicks ult if you use it when already at max stacks. all game its decent damage making him super strong in lane. top warwick feels so strong now with fervor. warwick has pretty strong synergy with fervor (and im still amazed fervor is allowed to keep its super high current damage level)
there we goo. this power breakdown explains why you might want to pick warwick over maokai. because while maokai may be more tanky with a 20% tank steroid, warwick himself does provide many unique powers that maokai cannot provide
i explained how warwicks R and E provide tons of powers to his team. i think the Q is in a good place. and maybe the W could be changed without making warwick fans too sad.
so with all that said. id like to share the direction i would go if i were to rework warwick. i dont know what riots planning, but heres sort of how i think things could improve warwick in a good direction
- id probably make warwick resourceless while keeping many of the same skills and reworking w. lategame i dont use warwicks Q and i just use his R on-cooldown every 40 seconds. and i use warwicks W when me or my adc want more attackspeed cuz warwicks W is super cheap and on a 10 second cooldown
pretty much this means i will make all of warwicks spells "free" and do the same things. which might be pretty darn OP. imagine warwick in lane spamming free Q's all day. might not be too op since warwicks Q is low range. but still its pretty oppressing vs a melee champ. also im thinking of a possible resource that can be fun and provide interaction in lane, but essentially the end result is im removing warwicks mana and making him all-free like garen and riven
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id add CDR into warwicks Q. may as well. instead of forcing warwicks to go tons of cdr runes why not just put it in his Q
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with all these pure-buffs. warwick would need to be nerfed in some areas to compensate because warwick ALREADY has a good winrate RIGHT NOW. so with my changes which are basically pure-buffs. i think removing Q damage (in how i show later) is a good compensation nerf or who knows. the numbers would need to be tuned to find a balanced power level
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i do think W could probably be changed. theres many paths to go with it. below ill show my current idea. or possibly a new spell all together, who knows
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i think making warwicks ulti available at 1 would actually be a pretty sweet idea to make warwick able to gank early. and heck give it a 60 second cooldown. and other nerfs can happen to hopefully bring things in line.
with all that said. here is my full changes to warwick that id probably think is a good direction if i was the leader of the warwick rework
passive: the same. i think the onhit power fits well and gives in combat sustain and extra damage which seems to fit warwicks kit
resource: eagerness warwick becomes more eager to strike the longer he goes without striking prey. and in combat he slowly builds it too. every 15 seconds warwick gains 1 eagerness charge (max 5). every Q and autoattack on champions warwicks uses up a charge to deal extra 4% max health true damage. warwicks R uses up a charge per hit, so a full ulti uses all charges (unless warwick is stunned i guess since warwicks ulti does hits over the duration)
Q: the same. but now the cost is free. -50% damage to champions since it would be broken in lane being FREE and gaining eagerness damage too. keep same damage/healing to minions monsters Q now passively gives warwick free 4,8,12,16,20% cdr
W: on use gives allies and self (in range) a 1 second speedboost of 30% movespeed. and also gives allys +2/4/6/8/10% bonus damage for 6 seconds. same cooldown. warwick gains attackspeed instead of the bonus damage (same value of 40,50,60,70,80% speed) because currently the cooldown is 10 seconds with 40% cdr. this new W will be pretty strong. pretty much giving warwicks whole team 10% more damage. its a huge power boost and for warwick to be balanced with it and the new kit he would need alot of numbers-tuning along the road definitely
E: the same. or maybe riot wants to add this into warwicks passive and give him a new E spell, who knows, but that would feel very overpowered to me because warwick already has a good winrate with just 3 spells + E. giving warwick a 4th spell might be too good. and many spells "give speed boosts" so warwicks E is pretty much spell he just doesnt cast it, it depends on enemies being low HP. and look at vayne, vayne has silver bolt passive that isnt a active. i think warwick is OK with his E being the way it is
R: the same. but available at level 1 and does 50 base damage at lvl1 (but it deals 20% max hp true damage and 5 stacks of fervor too). now interacts with eagerness charges. also i was thinking having R interact with onhits is a bad design cuz it makes ww feel maybe too high damage with botrk, wits end, and bloodrazer. but then i realized its ok design because WW builds with more than 1 dmg item will still be the weaker WW builds. and the best builds will still be tank+1 dmg item. so you can leave in onhits on warwicks ult and the best builds will still be 1 damage item (botrk, bloodrazer) and then tanky. also warwicks R cooldown will be changed to 60/55/50/45
also while i pretty much dont change that much about the true way warwicks spells work and feel, warwicks kit still feels more fun to play lategame and has more interaction because all the spells are free.
also while AP isnt that great of a stat on warwick. i feel 1 damage item + tank is the best way to play warwick. and there are many times i like to try gunblade on warwick top (instead of botrk) as my damage item and it works pretty nice sometimes. so i think warwicks Q should only have its base damage (the 16% hp or 275) reduced by half against champs but warwicks Q will still get full 100% AP damage to champs.
and i dont think warwicks eagerness damage should scale off AP, i dont know how it would scale or what the damage should be exactly
but i do highly think warwicks eagerness damage should be %damage so its weak against squishies (otherwise warwicks full eagerness ulti would just 1shot adc's. too OP) while still being able to hurt tanks nicely with a full eagerness ulti.
i know it sounds so darn typical of riot design. but i think making warwicks eagerness a simple 4% max health true damage would be pretty balanced, considering you only get 1 charge every 10 seconds it aint as bad as fiora. ayyy lmao :D
so overall my changes to warwick are pure massive buffs across the board. all spells become free (resourceless), ultimate is ready at level 1 with a reduced cooldown to boot (60 seconds). with a super low cooldown 45 at lvl16. warwicks W is arguably buffed a little, and warwick gains free CDR and eagerness as a resource which is a pure power boost with no drawbacks too. So my warwick changes give him pure buffs everywhere, with a 50% damage nerf in Q to try to "even things out". Will the 50% damage nerf to Q be enough to balance out warwick? i dont know. maybe. would be sweet to release my version and see what the winrate is.
actually i think all my numbers are pretty decent and my warwicks winrate i think would be near 55% on release. and then further damage nerfs to Q could bring warwicks winrate in line because i think the numbers for everything else are pretty fair. Just keep nerfing warwicks Q damage to champions until he has a ok winrate.
but for warwicks Q damage remember it will keep 100% AP scaling damage to champs and minions, but the base damage of warwicks Q can keep getting nerfed until his winrates ok
