Dear Repertoir: Plat Quinn here, my fantasy of her.
I'm one of those rare Quinn mains who absolutely adores her. Repertoir has stated that he is working on her, but I'm extremely worried that her changes won't match with my fantasy of her, what she's supposed to do, and the way I play her. So this post is going to describe my fantasy of her and the way I play her, in the hopes that it will help him preserve what I love about my favorite champion. My apologies for the scatterbrained wall of text, I'd be happy to speak about anything at all regarding Quinn, I just wanted to try and get as much of my view out there, so this is a bit more raw rather than organized.
What I love about Quinn at the moment is primarily her playstyle, rather than her lore. I personally wouldn't want something where Quinn and Valor act more complex/some kind of interaction where you're controlling two people on the field at the same time. Tweaks and changes, not a rework. She doesn't need a rework.
Quinn is NOT a marksman/fighter as stated. Some people have called her a marksman/assassin, but I don't view that to be accurate either. She is an assassin/marksman. Assassin as the primary role, marksman as the second.
For the most part, each assassin in LoL has their own unique niche, and their own upsides and downsides. Katarina excels in teamfights where she can reset often and annihilate the enemy team, while Shaco is amazing at ganking but does poorly in teamfights. Quinn's uniqueness as an assassin comes from her amazing roam and pick potential, and her ability to act as a marksman in addition to an assassin, unlike someone like Talon who has to dive the enemy team all the time. She isn't particularly strong in teamfights, but she can do the job just fine.
Due to her blind, Quinn's primary target with assassinations are marksmen. Later in the game, once she has enough damage, she can nearly always kill the enemy ADC solo, but if the enemy ADC has his support with her then it can make her life difficult. Nearly anytime I see the enemy ADC farming solo, even if he's half the map away, I pop my ult and run down there to kill him.
Because of her kit, primarily her e, I don't believe that she is a very good duo-laner. I also don't think she should be in a duo lane. I mained ADC throughout S4, and I don't think it would be very enjoyable at all to constantly have to put up with Quinn's blind if she's viable/strong bot lane.
I play Quinn top/mid. Of the two, top is easier to play as, but mid is far more high risk/high reward. As Quinn mid, her roams are extremely strong, just as strong as those of TF. Laning as Quinn is sometimes very dependent on your own skill level, rather than the enemy skill level. This is mainly true for top lane due to the often binary nature of fighters and tanks. For the most part, when originally learning Quinn, I had to lose a matchup once or twice before I starting to win the matchup. Her laning phase is very dynamic and enjoyable to play, with ranged autoattack harass mixed with managing cooldowns and interrupts. Some high points of playing as Quinn in lane are when you cancel Irelia's Q to a minion next to you with your e, leaving her vulnerable and exposed. If I had E'd beforehand, then I would likely have died. Another would be timing your passive appropriately to pop yasuo's shield a split second before he is marked, allowing you to double proc your passive on him fully.
I don't think that Quinn's passive is as unreliable as some might say. Valor will always mark the enemy champion if you've autod/started an autoattack animation and canceled it as the mark is ready to be applied. With minions it's similar, Valor likes to mark low HP minions primarily, which is good as it helps with last hitting. The main change I suppose that I would do to Quinn's passive would be to have her "target" enemies for marking with her rightclicks without needing to start up the autoattack animation, more is not needed.
Quinn's best skill is her e, I don't think many people would deny that. It gives her utility, escape, chase, and damage all in one skill - and it's not even that powerful as it needs to have an enemy to vault off of, and is predictable where it will land. It's a lot of fun following thresh lanterns or irelia Q's with the e, and it feels even better canceling the ability. The main complaint I have about this ability is simply using it in Valor form. In Valor form you lose out on both using it as an escape, and its damage, leading it to provide only utility and chase. I've heard some complain that Valor doesn't have a passive, but I disagree - I view Valor's w as his passive, he has passively increased attack speed depending on how many points were put into w. Quinn's passive scales with levels and items, Valor's with W points. However, I believe that valor form e should also apply Quinn's passive damage, just for consistent damage output overall. It's not fun losing out on Quinn's safety and range along with damage.
My usual playstyle when playing Quinn is to get leads and apply tons of pressure. Quinn is very good at pressuring the map. Often I will either bully my own laner, or roam quite early to try and get a kill/another lane stronger, to apply more pressure. I'm also known to ward/invade the enemy jungler solo when my own lane is dead or backed, in which situation my w active helps a lot at locating the enemy jungler, or showing where he isn't allowing for safe wards.
If I fall behind as Quinn, she can still be useful. The uses for a weak Quinn are splitpushing, acting as a secondary marksman, and providing minor peel for allies with Q and E. I personally dislike splitpushing with Quinn unless I am behind or the game is getting late, as if I am ahead I prefer to look for gaps where the enemy is separated and pick off enemies. Late game when everyone is grouped Quinn isn't as good at assassinating and she is unable to fill her role of pressuring without splitpushing, so I tend to follow the weak Quinn pattern.
Her being an assassin/marksman means that her assassination pattern depends a lot on autoattacking with her autoattack resets, combined with her skills. I pretty much always build bork on her for literally everything that item gives: With the active it has additional burst, while due to Quinn autoattacking with her assassinations (Like someone like Yi or Rengar) she makes good use of the passive as well. The stats it gives all help her too.
Quinn has exceptional dueling power, but I don't focus on that too much. Rather, my playstyle focuses on her skirmishing power - her strength in 2v2s and 3v3s. Spotting an incoming gank bot lane and ulting from mid, turning a 2v3 into a 3v3 which is also a countergank, assassinating the enemy carry with the ultimate and the AOE proc dealing damage to everyone else. The skirmishing ability of Quinn is why I quite like her Skystrike ability, unlike many other Quinn players, even though it feels lackluster. (I wouldn't miss it too much if it was swapped for something better, though)
Generally speaking my rule when playing Quinn is ranged form for melee champs, and assassinate ranged champs with the melee form. Valor lacks the stats needed to duel melee champs in melee, and Quinn's kiting power and utility should be enough to deal with melee champs if she's good enough. (If not she deserved to die) On the other hand, Quinn has a low autoattack range compared to others, and Q is a linear skillshot. Using Valor form with his e is the best way to ensure that Q will land, but that requires using e. If E is canceled then there is a problem, if e is used then quinn lack an escape, if the enemy adc has a gapcloser keeping e will be needed to follow the gapcloser (following dashes and blinks is the best thing about e). This inherent vulnerability is one weakness and a payoff Quinn has in exchange for her power as a marksman compared to other assassins.
Thanks for reading my wall of text, and my apologies for it being so long once more. If there is anything at all that I can do to help make sure that I will still enjoy Quinn, please let me know. I'd love for Riot to start working with us fans of champions far earlier than pbe, to make sure that we will still love them when the threat of changes is over. Anyone reading this, upvote for visibility? c:
