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These Janna changes seem really really weird

Witch of Babylon··23 votes·1,813 views

Base AD lowered from 51.956 to 49 HP per level lowered from 78 to 70 Base HP increased from 487.04 to 500 Attack range increased from 475 to 550 Base movespeed lowered from 335 to 320 AD per level lowered from 2.95 to 2

Tailwind (Passive) Movement speed lowered from 8% to 5% [New Effect] Additionally, Janna's basic attacks deal bonus magic damage equal to 35% of her bonus Movement Speed.

Howling Gale (Q) mana cost lowered from 90/105/120/135/150 to 60/80/100/120/140 cooldown changed from 14/13/12/11/10 to 12 at all ranks [added to tooltip] "Howling Gale always reaches it's destination in 1.5 seconds."

Zephyr (W) Range lowered from 600 to 550 Cooldown increased from 12 at all ranks to 15.5/14/12.5/11/9.5 Bonus movement speed lowered from 9/11/13/15/17 to 5/8/11/14/17

Eye of the Storm (E) Cooldoown changed from 10 at all ranks to 18/16/14/12/10

I know these PBE changes just came out today and PBE changes almost always get changed, but I wanted to say something about them.

  1. Why is aggressiveness being put into her basic attacks? It does not make much sense for someone like Janna. I think it would make more sense if aggressiveness was put into her tornadoes or her W, but putting power into her basic attacks with bonus damage that won't even scale good at all is a really weird change imo

  2. Everything about the W changes is weird. 600 to 550 is a change that I don't think is necessary at all. Janna already has a very low range on her W and the change does seem unnecessary. Another thing is the movement speed nerf. Why is the bonus movement speed getting nerfed? If you want her to be more aggressive during laning phrase and her autoattacks deal more damage based on her bonus movement speed, nerfing the W bonus movement speed makes no sense at all.

Not too many reasons but pretty major. I feel like these Janna changes really weren't thought through well enough and I really hope for some better Janna changes soon.

69 Comments

ModWulf Helhammer13 votes

Aggressiveness is put in her basic attacks because it forces her to interact with the enemy to get it. Same reason Lux, Xerath, and Ziggs all have auto attack passives.

And they can't give her bonus damage based on bonus MS while still keeping her at the same amount of bonus MS

Skorch1 votes

While true: There are other things for it to scale off, or change the scaling.

Also there is a BIG difference between Lux, Xerath, and Ziggs. And Janna. Sure you could argue that they are aggressive. But better aggresive enchanter examples are like Rakan and Morgana (Kind of)

ModWulf Helhammer5 votes

You misunderstood what I meant there. It's not saying Janna is an aggressive champion like mid laners, it's that currently Janna barely interacts with the enemy. Making her get something for doing that forces her into retaliation range, which is the point.

If the mages I mentioned didn't have the passives they do that reward them for getting into auto range, they could just stay far out of range of the enemy, and wouldn't have to take any risks, which is a bad game design

Ariel the Cruel4 votes

Except Lux, Xerath, and Ziggs all want to deal damage. Janna. . . Doesn't. She only wants to keep her ally alive. The passive doesn't benefit her play-style, and isn't strong enough too reshape it. Without her W passive, the changes actually result in her doing less damage than on live.

Using Q to fuel Soraka's blood heals is an example of forcing interaction. Giving AA damage to a champion that rarely AA's, isn't.

Jet Sett2 votes

Which is why the gave her an incentive to AA. Janna only wanting to protect her ally is the issue, she has no reason to be anywhere near you except the few times she goes to apply the slow. Every other moment is her being just our of range of you while shielding the ADC.

Such a passive playstyle would normally reward someone who could get past that right? Except her ult is literally a dive cancel that further rewards and gives incentive to not interacting with enemy champions. With her new passive we could see Janna interacting and participating like never before. If she rarely AA's then the increased range and bonus magic damage from bonus MS will make people WANT to AA and interact, and it could even have her participating in teamfights by contributing some damage with bonus MS engage items/abilities.

The AA's also give her something to do with the CD on her Q being almost doubled at level 1.

Ariel the Cruel1 votes

Her durability is going down, Shield (her primary trading tool) CD went up, W is even more punishing to use, her AA ranged was increased to match most of the support roster. And most other supports aren't punished for using their harass/trade tools.

The AA passive is a trap. Without shield, she well almost never trade even (much less positive). Using W puts her in enemy engagement range and removes her bonus damage (in addition to MS). These changes will result in non-new Janna becoming even more passive.

Jet Sett1 votes

I don't think it's possible for Janna to be more passive, she already sits in lane only to throw on a shield or tornado and pick up coins. A support doesn't have to focus on last hitting early game, so it's possible she'll just be fitted into a nuisance type of role where she tries to poke you away from cs.

It's entirely possible that she'll need to be given a bit more power early to make use of her new passive, and it's entirely likely that Riot doesn't want her to be strong right now because of how strong she's been for awhile. We'll see when her changes are out and we see what direction they took her afterwards.

Weiss Guertena2 votes

Except Lux, Xerath and Ziggs' passives actually deal damage early game. Janna's, which is based on BONUS movespeed, doesn't. Oh, and she actually loses AD to compensate. Add the doubled cooldown on her main trading tool and the fact that using her W is counterproductive, and I assure you Janna will have to play more passively than ever.

Call Me Nana1 votes

{quoted}

Aggressiveness is put in her basic attacks because it forces her to interact with the enemy to get it. Same reason Lux, Xerath, and Ziggs all have auto attack passives.

And they can't give her bonus damage based on bonus MS while still keeping her at the same amount of bonus MS

but this is counter intuitive for a healing support.

The champions you listed above are **burst mages or control mages. ** Janna is neither of those two, nor would she ever build straight ap, she would build support itemization.

ModWulf Helhammer1 votes

You didn't really get what I meant. It's not saying Janna is a mid laner, or that she's supposed to be dealing damage, it's that currently she barely interacts with the enemy, and this new passive rewards for getting into retaliation range, so that there is more risk to playing her. Check my other comment

Call Me Nana1 votes

{quoted}

You didn't really get what I meant. It's not saying Janna is a mid laner, or that she's supposed to be dealing damage, it's that currently she barely interacts with the enemy, and this new passive rewards for getting into retaliation range, so that there is more risk to playing her. Check my other comment

no, i completely understood what you meant.

She was NEVER designed to be interactive with the enemy team, only by a means of peeling them off.

What they're doing is trying to get her to attack based off her MS, but they're nerfing that. Which is entirely counter intuitive to their goal. You cant try to reward someone for being risky, but take away the abilities that help them do that.

ModWulf Helhammer1 votes

She was NEVER designed to be interactive with the enemy team, only by a means of peeling them off.

You don't see why this is a problem? That's precisely the thing they are trying to change. To make Janna have risk, and not be so safe.

Call Me Nana1 votes

{quoted}

You don't see why this is a problem? That's precisely the thing they are trying to change. To make Janna have risk, and not be so safe.

and i dont think you understand that how they're going about it is incorrect.

Janna's basic attacks deal bonus magic damage equal to 35% of her bonus Movement Speed

Zephyr (W) Range lowered from 600 to 550 Cooldown increased from 12 at all ranks to 15.5/14/12.5/11/9.5 Bonus movement speed lowered from 9/11/13/15/17 to 5/8/11/14/17

Base AD lowered from 51.956 to 49 Base movespeed lowered from 335 to 320 AD per level lowered from 2.95 to 2

Eye of the Storm (E) Cooldoown changed from 10 at all ranks to 18/16/14/12/10

now not only does she have to be risky, her means to be risky have no benefit.

Whats the point of making her auto attack in fights if all the stats she NEEDS to use the ability have been gutted.

Zane Zephyr8 votes

Because she's the most uninteractive support and now it forces her to be at least a little aggressive to get the most out of her kit.

Nymzo3 votes

Except auto attacks are not part of her kit, buddy.

Shadòw2 votes

but the auto attack bonus damage is

Nymzo2 votes

And how does that help her after the laning phase, when most of her dmg will fall off faster than the current towers?

Shadòw4 votes

it shouldn't.

it should just bring her to actually start interacting with her enemies.

Nymzo2 votes

Then she will disapper, outclassed by Lulu, Karma or Nami because she doesn't have a passif that actually help her.

And then a few months laster Riot will have to buff/rework again because people were to bias to understand the difference between a good and bad design.

Shadòw4 votes

So you want to fcking tell me now that Janna in her current state is a good design?

hahahhahahahahahahahhh lmao

Nymzo1 votes

{quoted}

So you want to fcking tell me now that Janna in her current state is a good design?

hahahhahahahahahahahhh lmao

In what part of my post did I ever talk about her current design?

Shadòw4 votes

And then a few months laster Riot will have to buff/rework again because people were to bias to understand the difference between a good and bad design

for me her new design is like 100 times more healthy than her current design.

Nymzo2 votes

Gotta love how you legit dodged the question when wrong in an argument, lol.

A shame you won't be able to confirm that because they actually just gutted her instead of simply fixing item 3504 and her design.

Shadòw3 votes

well you said we people don't understand the difference between good and bad design only because of bias, indicating that her old design was better, which it is clearly not.

she deserves a good gut anyway, and there is nothing wrong with adding at least a little bit of skill and interactivity in her kit.

and don't tell me that item 3504 is the main problem. that champ has always been broken af, item 3504 just took it on a ridiculous level.

Nymzo1 votes

{quoted}

well you said we people don't understand the difference between good and bad design only because of bias, indicating that her old design was better, which it is clearly not.

For the whole time we argued, we talked about the future changes and when I said:

And then a few months laster Riot will have to buff/rework again because people were to bias to understand the difference between a good and bad design.

That was also for the changes, that was not the her current design. Believe or not, I don't like it too.

she deserves a good gut anyway, and there is nothing wrong with adding at least a little bit of skill and interactivity in her kit.

This is kinda ironic, considaring no one considers auto attacks to be skillful in any way and they didn't change her point and click w.

and don't tell me that item 3504 is the main problem. that champ has always been broken af, item 3504 just took it on a ridiculous level.

You are right but what you may not know is that Ardent also make her stronger against her own counter like Thresh or Blitz.

Shadòw1 votes

Well fact is that her current design simply needs changes. And I wouldn't think of them as bad design. They might need work, but they go into the right direction.

And they were about time, because I sure as hell don't enjoy playing against that cancer every game I didn't ban her. She meanwhile is one of my most hated champions in the game, but what pisses me off most is the lack of interactivity in her kit.

This is kinda ironic, considaring no one considers auto attacks to be skillful in any way and they didn't change her point and click w.

Well auto attacks are skillful, because there is more behind them then just right clicking. When a champion has power in his auto attacks, you have to find the right positioning and times to trade.

So by forcing her to actually step forward now and then it will create healthier gameplay.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

{quoted}

Then she will disapper, outclassed by Lulu, Karma or Nami because she doesn't have a passif that actually help her. [...]

Except... you know.... the bonus movement speed on her passive? Don't act like that extra damage meant for poke in lane is her only passive, dude.

Nymzo1 votes

Yeah but it got nerfed and considaring this same ms synergize with the other part make me think that the autos will take a lot of power budget.

hhaavviikk3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Zane Zephyr,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gxr4nd15,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-09-13T21:14:58.047+0000)

Because she's the most uninteractive support and now it forces her to be at least a little aggressive to get the most out of her kit.

pretty much any support becomes uninteractive once they get coin though, see that sona? yeah she got coin so now she doesn't even harass and doesn't need to and just sits back and spams W

Zane Zephyr1 votes

Janna was like that before coin was busted.

Before coin/ardent, sona would get the frost item and harass the shit out of people, and lulu also did that to an extent too

Janna's playstyle hasn't changed one bit because of her kit

hhaavviikk1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Zane Zephyr,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gxr4nd15,comment-id=000200010000,timestamp=2017-09-14T07:46:02.770+0000)

Janna was like that before coin was busted.

Before coin/ardent, sona would get the frost item and harass the shit out of people, and lulu also did that to an extent too

Janna's playstyle hasn't changed one bit because of her kit

what I meant to say was that coin is so good of an item that even the usually aggressive sona plays passive because coin is just that great.

phreak in his patch notes run down said something along the lines of ''coin may give about 200 more gold than the 2 other support items but it also gives less stats'' however that is amazing on a support, I would gladly take less stats on any of the other support items if that meant I could gain 200 more gold towards a core support item.

Ariel the Cruel5 votes

As released, the AA passive is a newb trap. Her core identity revolves around peeling, not attacking. An extra 10-30 AA damage won't change that. The new passive will only come into play during the early lane phase. And to reward her for trying to use it, they nerfed her durability. And just to ensure no Janna vets try to use it, they almost halved the up-time on her primary trading tool (shield). Scratch that. She can't use zephyr to trade anymore because it provides most of that passive's damage. So shield will be her only trading tool. These changes will make her (and ADC) less aggressive, not more.

The Yetii Rider5 votes

Fun fact: every champion has a base MS of 325-355. With this change, Riot has created a brand new lowest tier of base MS just for Janna. As they should.

For the W range nerf - it's a usability buff tbh. It now matches her max auto range, so you can W and always follow up with an auto rather than pausing while Janna moves into range.

E nerf - Fantastic. Hits Janna's lane, no impact after.

Q changes - Also fantastic. It's a CD buff until rank 3, which is level 15 if you max it last. Seeing as plenty of games end before support hits 15, this is a straight buff to her.

Passive nerf - Its being balanced around Coin quest, as it should.

Improvements to Janna's harass (new passive/higher range). Basically a trap to make bad players buy Spellthief and try to play aggressive in lane, only to get instantly punished by delayed snap cast Q, lower base MS, and lower W MS. In essence, Janna will play the same as she always has but when her play rate inflates the bad players will be able to make way more mistakes on her.

Ravenhale1 votes

Yea... but you lose the bonus damage on your Auto Attacks the moment you use your W (since you lose your passive while Zephyr is on cooldown) so why would you ever use the W?

The Yetii Rider1 votes

It's a trap. You would never use your W anyway, you don't want to turn off your bonus movement speed for even a second, especially with the nerfed base speed. This isn't good, but it's good to support the sub optimal play style that Riot is trying to bait bad players into.

Linna Excel6 votes

Can you tell me why exactly should the wind champion who flies around be the slowest champion in the game?

The Yetii Rider4 votes

Because as she is now, Janna can literally just not buy boots and still be fast enough. I was hoping that the change Riot made to address this was to lower or remove the AP ratio on her Zephyr passive movement speed (mostly because she gets a double helping of MS from stacking item 3041 , which, surprise surprise, makes it harder for her to lose stacks because every point of MS makes her that much harder to kill) but instead they just nerfed her base (which nerfs every % MS buff she could receive) and also nerfed the amount she's getting (and unlike her Tailwind bonus, the Zephyr nerf isn't offset by the Ancient Coin quest reward, she's just becoming slower).

TL:DR - Even with 320 base MS Janna will not be the slowest champion in the game. The 5% base on her rank 1 W already takes her back up to 335, and that's the skill you max second. 17% is going to take you up to 375, which is a respectable amount without boots but not enough. So basically, she's going to have to buy boots. Which is what Riot should be aiming for with these changes.

ZephyrDrake1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Yetii Rider,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gxr4nd15,comment-id=000400010000,timestamp=2017-09-13T21:40:52.723+0000)

Because as she is now, Janna can literally just not buy boots and still be fast enough. I was hoping that the change Riot made to address this was to lower or remove the AP ratio on her Zephyr passive movement speed (mostly because she gets a double helping of MS from stacking item 3041 , which, surprise surprise, makes it harder for her to lose stacks because every point of MS makes her that much harder to kill) but instead they just nerfed her base (which nerfs every % MS buff she could receive) and also nerfed the amount she's getting (and unlike her Tailwind bonus, the Zephyr nerf isn't offset by the Ancient Coin quest reward, she's just becoming slower).

TL:DR - Even with 320 base MS Janna will not be the slowest champion in the game. The 5% base on her rank 1 W already takes her back up to 335, and that's the skill you max second. 17% is going to take you up to 375, which is a respectable amount without boots but not enough. So basically, she's going to have to buy boots. Which is what Riot should be aiming for with these changes.

oh noes... 300 gold used to buy boots! oh noes! something that most Janna players already do regardless... she is still going to be faster than every support that rushes ardent anyways and she is still going to be faster than anyone that doesn't have boots even with her lack of boots...

The Yetii Rider4 votes

It's not about the gold, it's about the slot. On live, if Janna is good and she gets ahead she can skip boots entirely and go: item 2302 item 3504 item 3285 item 3041 item 3102 item 3190 and that makes her actually very fast and hard to kill combined with her kit.

ZephyrDrake2 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Yetii Rider,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gxr4nd15,comment-id=00040001000000000000,timestamp=2017-09-13T21:54:02.140+0000)

It's not about the gold, it's about the slot. On live, if Janna is good and she gets ahead she can skip boots entirely and go: item 2302 item 3504 item 3285 item 3041 item 3102 item 3190 and that makes her actually very fast and hard to kill combined with her kit.

if a Janna is actually managing to build that many items then sorry but you lost a long time ago and it's not the Janna's fault in the slightest that you cannot kill her

The Yetii Rider3 votes

It is, though. The only reason you can't punish such a greedy build is because she has an AP ratio on her MS at all times. No other champion in the game has this.

Kaeblen2 votes

so, what used to be an important strength is nerfed into the ground, and you say its wonderful because "she still isn't the worst there is"?

that's a very strange way of reasoning things out.

Honestly, I'd feel a lot better if they just removed all her MS abilities altogether--at least then they wouldn't be pretending.

The Yetii Rider2 votes

She's losing her strength of "ridiculous MS without doing anything".

She retains her (important) strength of having the best peel in the entire game.

rtbf2216514121 votes

[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gxr4nd15,comment-id=00040001,timestamp=2017-09-13T21:29:14.393+0000)

Can you tell me why exactly should the wind champion who flies around be the slowest champion in the game?

Why should she be faster than Hecarim

Jet Sett2 votes

I mean could you explain why robotic champions don't automatically have the highest Armor in the game? Or why Brand can be ignited and hurt by fire spells?

The answer is balance>theme.

Kaeblen1 votes

you realize she used to have one of the best MS in the game?

this is the second nerf they've given to her MS. I thought the constant, high MS and pathing through minions was part of who Janna was. I guess others thought differently.

The Yetii Rider1 votes

The constant high MS and pathing through minions is the reason why Janna is so useful even in the hands of people who don't play her.

Janna's power in the hands of her mains right now isn't...too big a deal. It's high, but not high enough to warrant any sort of worry. The problem is not that the best are playing her too well, it's that the worst are. Janna's skill floor needs to be lowered. She needs to be able to fuck up more so that people who just pick her up aren't winning with her as much. Then her win rate will even out a lot more.

Ariel the Cruel1 votes

Janna's skill floor needs to be lowered.

You mean "raised," right? ;p

spicystats1 votes

I feel like adding a new movement speed tier or giving her the slowest movement speed feels off or weird though.

I understand she gets speed from W but I feel like if you think she has too much MS you could just hit her W bonus instead of her base. This might make her auto passive weaker but there's more of an incentive to use W ya?

If you buy mobis now and use your W you'll literally be slower then Anivia. The rest of the changes seem more reasonable to me although I'm a bit curious on how Riot came up with her new HP values and MS values...

Ariel the Cruel3 votes

With this change, Riot has created a brand new lowest tier of base MS just for Janna.

Isn't unmounted Kled already in there?

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