Updating Marksmans! (Ideas and Discussion)
Alright so I am bored and have some ideas surrounding the now infamous Marksman class. My ideas are basically in an effort to;
- Create different playstyles
- Make their gameplay patterns a little more interesting and interactive
These changes are all just my personal ideas. If you disagree feel free to do so! I think this post should be a place to really hammer in what we like and dislike about certain marksmans! I will not be talking about Marksmans such as Teemo or Azir or anything. I am only focusing on the champions that will or have gone bot lane. Now without further a due, into the bulk of this!
*Note this took me like 3 days to make. So many resets and shit happening ;-;
First Marksman's I feel are fine.
Overall, I think Ashe is in a fine spot. She is fairly different from other Marksmans with high and low points. I don't believe there is any major changes I would make to her. She is a utility marksman that has this leader-persona that aids her allies. She is a fun champion and isn't too problematic. She does have a good place within Pro-play due to her Ult and Vision but I believe with items changes and other marksman changes, she would not be too overbearing. A cool champion.
Jhin is another utility marksman and probably a pretty beloved marksman for many ADs. He is just fun and completely different from any other champion in the bot lane at the moment. I don't believe he is in need of major changes.
Jinx is in an odd place in my mind. While I do believe she is fine, I also think her reliance on Crit makes her too 1-diminisnal. Although I would like to see that Crit reliance taken away somewhat so she just doesn't become - build 
and sit on Rockets all day - I also don't know what to do to change her. Right now she is fine but if I were to make a change, it would maybe reduce Crit damage so if she wants to AoE people, it isn't just giant crits? Not sure so I am leaving her as a fine for now.
Lulu is a neat champion that is relentless and a true bully. He is a tight champion that has a lot of skill based elements in his kit that allows him to be among the best when he is good. Similar to Jinx, I do think he may need some minor changes to be a more balanced champion but for now, since I have no idea how to do that, I'd leave him to focus on the others.
Sivir is a champion I have always liked. She is this short ranged, monster that aids her allies and is meant to be aggressive. Unlike Ashe who is leading picks and making calls, Sivir is in the heat of it leading her team into the enemy. She is a pretty awesome champion and I think she is truly fine at the moment. If I had one worry is she could get out of line at times due to her ease of pushing in lanes and powerful team play elements. Overall though, she is fine.
Purple Pants is in a good spot. He is a mix of long range sniper and archer. He is a pretty cool champion that I wish would double down on his cool aspects, the poke and utility, but I understand it is pretty damn good for mid. However, he is pretty fine at the moment.
The new bird on the block. A powerful Marksman that has shown her power off early. I don't think she needs major changes like the champions to follow but I do think she could be ton down a little bit as she is offering a little too much in a couple of places.
Now I will get into the problem child's of bot lane. These guys all will need a change of some kind to be more balanced or interesting.
Oh Caitlyn. How you have ruined far to many games for people to love. As everyone knows, when Caitlyn is strong, she is often a must pick, powering through bot lane to have a powerful mid and late game to boot. Let's be real for a second.
Caitlyn is a bitch.
But fear not because I believe I have the solution so Caitlyn is less of a bitch, but at least a playable champion for the people that like their officer foreplay! The changes for Caitlyn are as follows;
- Traps have increased armed time from 1.1 to 1.5
- Max traps held is reduced from 5 to 3.
- Recharge time changed from 45/32.5/20/12.5/10 to 45/35/25/15/10
- Traps last for 60 second from 90.
- Headshot range decreased to 1200.
- Headshot changed from "deals 50% + (0.5 × total critical strike damage modifier × critical strike chance %) AD bonus physical damage" to "deals 15/30/45/60% +(0.5 x total critical strike damage modifier x critical strike change %) AD bonus physical damage."
- Headshot changed from 15% bonus attack speed to 10% bonus attack speed.
- Caitlyn's Attack speed growth change to 4% from 2%.
- Peacemaker deals 75% less damage instead of 50%.
- Ace in the Hole now deal 10/25/50% bonus physical damage based on the Targets Missing Health.
The goal of these changes is to try and pull power from the her primary power and arguable the worst aspect of her kit, her traps, and place that power back into her kit in other areas. The traps are now much more of a tactical tool that Caitlyn has only a limited amount of to play with. Each trap is important and plays into her sieging power. Opening the window for enemies to react with less trap lines walling off an area and giving players a chance to interact with Caitlyn. I also pulled some damage from Caitlyn early and spread it out in her headshot ending in a neat buff around level 16 for Caitlyn. I also pushed some power into her Attack speed and Peacemaker to give her a better damage spread. Peacemaker lets her control waves better and also gives it some use later in the game. The attack speed growth nerf previously hurt Caitlyn quite a bit so I wanted to push some power back into her. Arugable the biggest change is on Ace in the Hole. I felt this ability was pretty shit in a lot of cases so I push some power into it by giving it an execute power so Caitlyn now has to chose whether to hold it for people that are low OR poke people with it. if the execute value is too high, it can be removed or we can lower the base damage on ult. I want to give Caitlyn players the option to chose how they use their abilities and right now Ult doesn't finish people off well enough OR it's just a tool to poke people.
Draven is the current hate child of botlane. The self-indulging execution has had a good run in bot lane but I do think he is lacking in his style factor. So lets give him a little flair to better hold to his best aspects.
- Passive changed from "when Draven catches a Spinning Axe, kills a non-champion or destroys a turret, he gains a stack of Adoration. In addition, Draven generates 2 bonus Adoration stacks if he kills 6 non-champions in a row without dropping an axe" to "when draven catches a Spinning Axe, hits an enemy champion or kills 5 non-champions in a row without dropping an axe, he gains a stack of Adoration. If Draven is in combat with an enemy champion for more than 2 seconds, Adoration gained is doubled."
- Spinning Axe damage changed from 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 (+ 65 / 75 / 85 / 95 / 105% bonus AD) to 50 (+25% bonus AD)
- Spinning Axe gains a new effect "Each attack against a enemy champion with a Spinning Axe increases the bonus damage of Spinning Axe by 5-15% to a max of 100%. Catching an axe holds the current bonus. After 6 seconds, the bonus will drop 15% every second."
- Whirling Death gains a new effect "Enemies hit by Whirling Death take 10-30% bonus physical damage based on units hit Missing Health, increased by the total distance travelled.
The changes for Draven are intended to really play up Draven's most unique aspect, his aggressive all or nothing playstyle. Draven wants to fight and take risks and the more he fights, the strong he gets. I wanted to pull away from Draven just farming for 10 minutes, landing a kill and then being ahead. So I pushed his gold gain towards more aggressive play making. To make sure the current Draven won't run away with this change, I changed how his Spinning Axe work. Instead of just being a bulk, upfront amount of damage, I changed it to a stacking damage that is a nerf but levels out about the same. Hitting Spinning Axe autos will grant him a massive boost in power however it gives the enemy a chance to react and possibly outplay Draven rather than being hit with a massive 50+105% damage auto in your face. This Draven wants to fight you. Draven is labelled the Grand Executor but frankly he isn't that amazing at Executing people. So I added in a little bonus to Draven's Whirling Death. The units hit now take 10-30% bonus damage based on their missing health. The neat aspect is the bonus will increase the further the Axes travelling letting Draven show off his skill a little more.
Jumping out of order because Tristana would totally do that, we got the rocking jumping, blowing shit up yordle Trist! I really like Trist but she has forever been a problem in bot lane even before her Update. So I want to offer some changes that may enhance her gameplay and keep the core of what players like, while making her somewhat fair.
- Passive removed
- New Passive: Gunner Special - Enemies explode when slain by Tristana's basic attacks, dealing 50/75/100/125/150 (+25% Attack Damage) Physical Damage to nearby enemies. If enemy champion is slain, the blast size of the shrapnel is increased. Deals 75% less damage to minions and monsters.
- Rapid Fire changed from "Increases Tristana's Attack Speed by 30/50/70/90/110% for 5 seconds" to "Increases Tristana's Attack Speed by 150% for 1 second and then decreasing over 3 seconds by 40/35/30/25/20% lasting for 5 seconds."
- Explosive Charge can no longer be placed onto a turret.
- Explosive Charge loses passive "Enemies explode when slain by Tristana's basic attacks, dealing 50/75/100/125/150 (+25% Ability Power) Magic Damage to nearby enemies."
Now the main goal with these changes is to push Tristana as an aggressive, diving marksman that wants to make big explosive plays. One of the biggest issue I think Trist has always had is her power late game, and her tower taking ability. This is a concept that Riot tried to push onto Trist but to me, this isn't what makes Trist fun or interesting. It's the ability to launch right into the heat of things and show the enemy you got no fear. Jumping around, and blowing shit up is why people like to play Trist, not just auto attacking everyone out of range and taking towers like swiss cheese. Replacing her old passive with a modified Explosive Charge one pushes her explosive nature and keeps that fast pushing, aoe champion. I changed Rapid Fire to work more in an interesting manner other than just press Q to be better. The player will get a massive surge of 150% bonus attack speed for 1 second until it starts decreasing over 3 seconds. The idea behind this is to match more to that explosive, flip of the switch persona that I feel Tristana just needs to own. This allows for single moments of hyper power that starts getting weaker over time. It still is strong but it works as a net nerf overall. However, it still ends up being 90% attack speed late game for 2 seconds which is pretty amazing. The final change I made was removing Trist's ability to put Explosive Charge onto turrets. This always felt like the reason Trist came out too strong in my mind. Mixing her long range, and massive tower busting with godly kiting and disengage always felt wrong. It fights for what Trist should be, a power house that wants to jump in and prove she is a hero. So we remove this part of the ability to focus her in on wanting to pick fights and excellent at team fighting, but not be as godly at killing towers, an aspect that leads to her often being the default best marksman.
Next up is Skill shot Boi himself, Ezreal. This guy has a lot of awesome potential and I think out of all the marksmans listed here his changes may be the most extreme.
- Ezreal now uses Energy instead of Mana. All abilities are adjusted for this.
- Essence Flux loses it's bonus attack speed on allies hit. Essence Flux now marks enemies hit with Flux for 3 seconds. Landing abilities causes Flux to stack and extending the duration to 6 seconds. At 3 stacks, Flux explodes dealing 70/115/160/205/250 (+80% Attack Damage) physical damage and restores Ezreal's energy to full. Enemies cannot be effected by Flux again for 12 seconds.
- Essence Flux now only deals 50 (+40% Attack Damage) magic damage to all enemies it passes through.
Now the purpose of these changes are to first, push this skill shot, rapid caster in a direction that is more interesting, while also pushing his chaining. This Ezreal will now have basically the infamous energy instead of mana. However, I feel Energy is not only a more interesting resource than mana, but also allows Ezreal to be pushed into a more unqiue direction aimed at him being strong early and mid, while letting him be able to chain his abilities together a lot more. Ezreal still needs to land his abilities to make the most out of his periods of strength. Ezreal is at his strongest pushing out abilities and landing his skill shots which can be difficult to land, so we reward him for landing them and reward him more for want to push for aggressive plays. Gating his best moments behind this lets him be interesting while shifting some of his scaling and power away from AP so he can actually scale somewhat decently.
Similar to Tristana, I feel Miss Fortune falls to embrace the best aspects of her and falls flat of a AoE teamfighter that takes some brings the heat. The goals of these changes are to make her somewhat interesting to play.
- Double Up changed to "Miss Fortune fires off in two directions dealing 20/35/50/65/80 (+25% Attack Damage) physical damage the first enemy hit. The shots fired bounce through the first enemy hit, 40/70/100/130/160 (+50% Attack Damage) physical damage to the second. Both apply on-hit effects. The shots are capable of being fired in two separate directions. If Double Up collides with a Poppy Bomb the shot stops, exploding the Bomb.
- Strut is removed.
- New W - Poppy Bomb - Miss Fortune tosses a Poppy Bomb at target location. After 3 seconds, the bomb explodes knocking enemies back and dealing 30/65/100/135/170 (+20% Attack Damage) magic damage to all enemies in the area and slow enemies hit by 28/36/44/52/60%.. The knock back area and damage area are different. (Knock back is closer to the center of the bomb while the damage is slightly further).
- Make it Rain changed to "Miss Fortune fires a special bullet into the area that explodes over target location, dealing 80/115/150/185/220 (+50% Attack Damage) physical damage to all enemies within the area, lasting for 2 seconds. Hitting a Poppy Bomb with Make it Rains causes the bomb to explode early.
This MF now should feel a lot more interesting than prior. First on Double Up, the ability is now a skill shot that allows MF to fire off two shots that will bounce off the first target it hits. The bounce works similar to how it works on live but it now fires off two shots, which the player can fire off in two different directions so there is a small skill gap for players to grasp, while also interacting with her new W, Poppy Bomb. Poppy bomb is basically like a delayed Ziggs Charge that will require MF to use her skills to make it go bomb early. Bligewater has a lot of these types of skills and I feel MF could use something similar yet distinct and interesting for her kit. It has less damage but a light CC element to offer her team while also providing a way for her AoE to stay. Poppy bomb also being blown up by Q and E allows for players to have a chance to react to MF and not just take instant AoE damage, but also show off the MF player’s skill for lining up the shot. Make it Rain also received a small change to be slightly delayed as instant damage isn’t fun but also give allows for the damage area to be a little stronger. Also the idea of MF firing a Double Up style animation into the area with a bullet that reaches a maximum hit to explode and rain down bullets is just damn cool. Removing the slow and shifting it onto Poppy Bomb also keeps a lot of MF’s utility on her W while putting her damage onto her Q and E. Strut is an old ability that didn’t really make MF interesting so removing it in favour of better abilities and a more team fighting persona was something I thought was fun and exciting. I left Bullet time as is but I could see it getting slightly nerfed to bring its power down and not have MF just be a ult bot like she kind of is.
That is it for the big changes. The rest of the champions I will talk about are champions I either have no idea how to fix or ones I just don’t want to touch. So let’s get started!
Corki just needs to be balanced around mid. Forget his marksman role at this point and focus on how to make him a healthy mid laner. It will work out for the best and will alone use to keep his cool identity.
The lady of 17530+ roles. Quinn is far too many things all at once and has probably the worse identity crisis since Sion. Quinn is the same as Corki. Forget her marksman role and just balance her as a Top/Mid. She never favoured the bot role so trying to balance her as such is only harmful for the champion. Let’s make her a good Top laner that doesn’t shit on top laners.
I just don’t want to touch Kalista with a ten-foot pole. She is the kind of champion that is Trash or OP depending on the day and patch. She needs some kind of work but I just don’t know what. If anyone wants to offer ideas, this would be the place to do it!
Kog’maw is everyone’s beloved hated puke void puppy that has too many things wrong in my mind to fix. If I were to ask you what was his intended role or niche, you would be hard pressed to find one. Why should you pick Kog’maw over another champion? He is a late game hyper carry but that is a boring and binary role that doesn’t offer anything interesting for his design. He needs a good rework to push him into a good direction.
Twitch is a cool champion that I have loved for a long time. Ideally I do know what to do with him but overall I’d rather just leave him allow for nerfs. Unlike other champions here he is okay but needs nerfs to be better. If we were to nerf him I would nerf his AoE power on ult to favour his coolest aspect, the assassin elements in him. Work on balancing him around that aspect since we have enough late game hyper carries that 1v5. He shouldn’t be one of them.
Finally we hit Vayne. Now some say she needs a rework, others just want nerfs, others don’t know what to do. My current mindset is go forth with the PBE changes that were up, expect for the heal and focus her role towards tank busting. Make Vayne the best damn tank buster in the game and keep changes centered around that aspect. It is a niche that she should just try and own.
And that’s everyone! I had a lot of fun ( and hate) for making this post. Other than a couple of complete resetting of everything, this was a fun look at all the marksman’s and offering up changes to fix some of their main problems, while also pushing the best parts of them. A lot of these are just my own ideas on what could be done for each champion but I would love to hear what everyone else thinks. Share your input below and let’s start a discussion about what we can do to fix this class up! Thanks for reading!