Does Draven Need a Buff?

Sarko 5·4/12/2015, 4:52:50 PM·4 votes·5,433 views

Lets all take a look at everyone's favorite champion, Draaaaaaaaaaven. Now I love this champion. As an ADC main I love to throw out the Draven in games where I deem fit, and then get the enemies to "ff at 20" because they're getting 2 shotted by the Draven. In games matched against lower leveled summoners, this champion is a true monster, and is used to stylishly massacre your enemies before they realize you aren't throwing axes, but freight trains filled with his enemies tears. Now, you get into evenly matched games, where very few deaths occur, and a siege quickly turns Draven into a out of mana, easy to detonate target. Sure, you still do tons of damage, but not a whole lot more than a Caitlyn who heavily out ranges a Draven.

What does this mean? When I play Draven, I find myself having to build Essence Reaver, just to sustain my mana long enough to do anything at all during a fight. Sure, I can practice preservation of my mana by not using my axes to farm, or not spamming Blood Rush (W) to try to get a few hits off, but this still does little. Draven is completely reliant on his Axes, his passive and high damage output depends on having one or two up during every fight. The fact that his kit drains so much mana makes him near useless by the time a fight comes around. Unless I'm coming to a fight from the spawn pool with a full mana bar, I find myself unable to even ult in most fight situations.

So buff him? I think a small rework to his kit is necessary. Either an increase mana pool/mana regen, or slightly lower mana costs on abilities. Because so many champions are viable (even Urgot somehow), I think Draven needs to be at least considered for a slight tweak, in order for this champion to bring a tad more to the table.

Agree? Disagree? I'm open to all suggestions. Leave your comments and tell me what you think!

9 Comments

Dreadlocks4/12/2015, 7:40:02 PM3 votes

I like Draven but it requires too much focus for me to catch axes and fight. =]

DragoonRuin4/12/2015, 5:30:05 PM2 votes

Draven has a niche, as an extremely dominant early game champ. I hate to use competitive play as a gauge of balance, but he's seen LCS Play multiple times this season.

Other ADC's need much more help than Draven, Twitch and Miss Fortune, esp Miss Fortune. She's seen ZERO competitive play, or high ELO viability since Season 2. She really needs some help to give her a place in the current game.

GaleWinUnleashed4/12/2015, 5:47:17 PM2 votes

I actually think Draven is in a pretty good spot. He's obviously a strong early bully, and has an easy time last-hitting with Q. His weakness is that he's heavily dependent on Q for damage, particularly early to mid game, and the axes make him predictable. Clear strengths, clear weaknesses, and he's tuned fairly well at the moment.

Then there's Miss Fortune. She still works, I guess, but she lacks a clear identity. Most of what she does can also be accomplished by Graves, usually with better results. She needs some tweaking to give her kit an actual direction and open up unique reasons to pick her over anybody else.

YeezusOfNazareth4/12/2015, 9:08:47 PM2 votes

miss fprtune need a buff i am the one who u commented on his post

Kitten of Evil4/12/2015, 5:14:50 PM2 votes

He is an early-game monster. He's not meant to be super-strong late-game like a Vayne or a Kog'maw. Different champions in a role are going to excel at different times, as it should be. As the meta shifts, those windows of power change too.

Tanks are strong now, and tanks are more likely to lengthen a game, which benefits hyper-carries and tank shredders.

Draven's still extremely strong early-game, and shouldn't run out of mana if you're good at managing axes. His Q is somewhat like a Vayne Q, but with higher AD ratio and it can be re-cast for free if you catch the axe. Unless you're chasing or peeling with W/E, he doesn't use much mana at all.

TheUnseenBiscuit8/5/2016, 5:53:53 PM1 votes

with the recent debuff on Youmuu's Ghostblade and the rise of cc related poke chaps Draven has sadly fallen off, the agro has left lanes leaving Draven redundant when league needs Draven right now to deal with brawler top laner, as a adc main i have noticed to increase of sup focused lanes and getting the right matchup with the right sup meaning more influential in the lane, this may not look like a bad thing until you take into account that sups are playing less and less aggressive. due to the debuff of Youmuu's Ghostblade Dravens early game has fallen off and his aptitude to snowball became slim, what needs to be done is a buff to his w and a good ad scaling on his q to encourage people to use more of the good ad items like i edge and bt Dravens win rate has dropped into the 46% realm more than once now.

AcidTheWarlock8/5/2016, 6:03:19 PM1 votes

Draven doesn't need buffs.

He needs buuuuuuuuuuuufffffs

Dominick Destine8/5/2016, 6:05:04 PM1 votes

I do agree that Draven has become slightly underpowered.

Give him a real passive.... his old bleed was great, his new one is garbo.... he has fallen by the wayside compared to Ashe Jinx Jhin Caitlyn Sivir Lucian

Sirsir8/5/2016, 6:25:53 PM1 votes

Most ADCs run oom if they spam, unless they build for it (Varus item 3042, MissFortune item 3508) or just have a naturally low mana kit (Tristana). Lane bullies in particular have higher mana costs to gate them. Use mana well and you dominate

If you must have something, how about mana for catching an axe?