Boards›Gameplay

Tahm Kench's current state

KoalaDoll·10/7/2015, 7:38:23 AM·3 votes·1,169 views

TL:DR I think tahm got out of hand and I'd like him to be put back in his place. Top lane and jungle he's too powerful and support he's too weak. I feel his W is way too frustrating to deal with, both in lane and in team fights, and his ult is just too good compared to its kin (Twisted fate's). I think he can be a good and interesting champion, but he needs more tweaks. Read below for some suggestions and feel free to make your own.

So lately I'm sure you've all seen tahm kench top or jungle. Now I just lost a game to tahm kench, all and all, so yeah I'm salty but hear me out:

I'm sure you all remember how weak tahm kench was on release, mainly because he is very hard to pull off bot lane (especially lower elo) so Riot gave him plenty of buffs in order to make him viable, when people started trying him jungle and top. Today he's one of the top tier junglers and top laners for solo q, yet remains one of the weaker supports.

Now I don't mind that the meta shifted, but I want him adjusted because when I'm playing againts him I'm not having fun, plain and simple. What I'm saying is: I don't FEEL like I have a lot of counter play around tahm.

Up top lane, basically, any champion that needs to get up close to do damage loses any trade to the good n' old: AA, Q, AA, W and walk back, AA, (maybe another Q and AA), heal with E combo. If it all comes to worst he can just farm with his low CD, low cost Q and W, and roam with ult (which has less CD than TF's at all stages of the game [and let's be honest, the global vision isn't worth it and the range is very similar])

If he eats you after he has some sort of extra slowing item (ie. Iceborn Gauntlet), he can AA after spitting you to proc the slowing field, AA two more times, stun with Q, and eat you again, repeat until you die.

The projectile W deals absurd amounts of damage, especially with ult's passive.

Jungle is not much different, as he has decent clear and really benefits from Cinderhulk. His ganks pre-6 are mediocre but as long as his laner has some CC he can just walk up to them and eat them if they dont burn a flash. And post-6 he's basically a tankier TF.

In team-fights, with a little CDR he can eat their front line two times, which removes them completely from the fight in the process and deals HUGE damage to them, based on their, AND tahm's health.

In conclusion I'm just frustrated and I feel there's room to place tahm in a better position.

My suggestions (I'm not saying all should be implemented but I think there's room for two or three):

  1. First and foremost, reduce the duration he can hold something in his stomach, friend or foe. 3 Seconds of suppression on a non-ultimate ability is bad enough, but also being able to eat the adc in the clutchest of moments for up to 6 seconds, getting bonus MS is just overkill.
  2. Increased CD on W. Because with 40% CDR, you can supress some one every 6 seconds for 3 seconds at a time. And that's not cool.
  3. Create on-champion static CD for his passive (like braum's), to prevent the infinite eating/stunning he can do in some scenarios.
  4. Make it so that the passive of the ult only applies to AA and the Q, becuse 8% of tahm's health as bonus damage on top of 32% of the target's health is not fun. Ever.
  5. General nerfs to Q, such as scaling mana cost, and/or CD (braum also has this for comparison).
  6. Increased CD on ult, (maybe decrease it if he brings a friend to buff support tahm and encorage team play?) 7.Decreased damage on projectile W (it really hurts for no reason.. It has more base damage than ziggs q..)
  7. Reduce his AS per level (Darius has +1% per level and TK has 2.5% are you serious?)

Q&A: Q. Are you salty after a specific game? A. Yes. But it is not the first game I'm angry after facing tahm and I also feel it won't be the last, and not because I've lost.

Q. Don't you think other champions deserve more attention right now? A. Not really, and I don't demand a full relaunch or anything, just some number tweaks.

Q. Tahm has a low winrate, and is pretty hard to play, you just got outplayed son! A. If you call pressing W on me after AAing a few times, suppressing me, stunning me while being one of the tankiest champions in the league getting out played then yeah sure.

Q. You're just mad you lost. You're probably such a toxic player. A. I'm not mad if a faker-like zed 1v5 my team by swapping shadows like a badass. I'm really not. I used to be like it, but I learned to appretiate skills when I see them. And tahm do take skills to know where to ult and how to utelize his passive in order to get stuns and such. However, I AM mad if tahm can just stand there with a 3 meter, 5000 hp sion complex in his belly, soaking up damage in the meantime, and then spit him out with 1/3 hp missing, just to do it again 5 seconds later.

There. I'm done. For the record I don't want tahm deleted or anything, I think he's a really cool champion with great potential, who just got a bit out of hand due to all the buffs he got. If you read it all you're awesome, if not, you're still awesome. :) Please tell me what you think, I just wanted to put my opinion out there.

If any rioter reads this, I'd be more than happy to hear your opinion.

I'm off to play some more league, hopefully without any tahm kench :P

6 Comments

AyRe CoNteMpT10/7/2015, 7:47:43 AM1 votes

i think its a very funny moment in the history of league as he is the first champion who is annoying on that level without having any kind of invisibility/mobility or lee sins kick.

an annoying tank. really funny. tho i agree, tahm kench is absolutely broken and basically unkillable for what its worth. i mean, a full tank malphite ults your team once which doesnt do tremendous damage and then just proceeds to be mediocrely useless. a full tank tahmkench outdamages many bruisers due to his ult-passive and CERTAINLY out usefullnesses any other tank in the entire game.

and i must say, malphites armor-scalings are allready kinda interesting because he gets damage through building defense but here, thats only one type of resistance, has diminishing returns and the damage scalings are not actually that high.

with tahm kench, having health scale on damage alone is theoretically fine even tho it doesnt have diminishing returns and also is good against every type of damage in every situation. it breaks him tho through his E which makes him virtually unkillable ever. a cinderhulk-kench has like 10000 hp and +400 bonus damage on his autos and QW

WHAT IS THIS

bad manner kid10/7/2015, 8:11:07 AM1 votes

Been frustrated with TK all night. People keep dueling him and getting regurgitated repeatedly.

The "Kayle-ult" shield I like to call it - What the hell - it literally punishes you for bursting him. Combine a HP tank with fixed 32% max hp damage on a fairly low cd... he's just extremely irritating to play against.

Trash MammaI10/7/2015, 8:29:36 AM1 votes

He's the same as alistar, with his CD's up you just want him gone..he's always in the way. With his CD's down you just ignore him because he's useless

Sohleks10/7/2015, 8:50:35 AM1 votes

Reducing the scalings would probably have the the least impact on support kench compared to other roles. He has a little bit of a slow start compared to other top tier junglers because he's not the greatest ganker off the bat, though his clear itself is really solid because of the potential damage of w in the jungle. According to champion.gg data jungle kench's winrate only goes up and up the longer the game goes [as he buy more hp]

I can also understand leaving the scalings intact and doing something else maybe though... Do we truly hate non-support kench getting stronger with items, or does he just need a toning down.

For the record Tahm's ult is nowhere near as good as TF ult; range on it is significantly shorter and it takes more time to appear oughta the ground.

As for support Kench, mmm, idk. I'd say it's viable but it is really hard for kench to assert pressure in lane and not just react because he just gets kited and has limited immediate threat unlike any other tank support. So he's kind of a passive niche pick. It's like he's a tanky melee janna, similary susceptible to ranged pressure and used for peeling. Definitely not weak though. But it's the position he's least likely to take advantage of his nice scalings.

TyroneWatermelon10/7/2015, 10:48:54 AM1 votes

Simple explanation to his ultimate and jungle state; TahmKench Boy,the worlds one river,and I'm it's King. Ain't no place I ain't been,ain't no place I can't go again

KoalaDoll10/7/2015, 11:21:13 AM1 votes

{quoted}

Reducing the scalings would probably have the the least impact on support kench compared to other roles. He has a little bit of a slow start compared to other top tier junglers because he's not the greatest ganker off the bat, though his clear itself is really solid because of the potential damage of w in the jungle. According to champion.gg data jungle kench's winrate only goes up and up the longer the game goes [as he buy more hp]

I can also understand leaving the scalings intact and doing something else maybe though... Do we truly hate non-support kench getting stronger with items, or does he just need a toning down.

For the record Tahm's ult is nowhere near as good as TF ult; range on it is significantly shorter and it takes more time to appear oughta the ground.

As for support Kench, mmm, idk. I'd say it's viable but it is really hard for kench to assert pressure in lane and not just react because he just gets kited and has limited immediate threat unlike any other tank support. So he's kind of a passive niche pick. It's like he's a tanky melee janna, similary susceptible to ranged pressure and used for peeling. Definitely not weak though. But it's the position he's least likely to take advantage of his nice scalings.

As I've said, I don't mind him being a top laner/jungler, but if he stays there in the long term, I think Riot needs to put him in line with other champions. Because come late game, he has the damage of a bruiser with a full tank build and stats, on top of his godlike shield, needing to only attack the tank three times and eat him over and over again. I don't feel the amount of effort one puts into playing tahm is equal to the amount of reward he is getting from it.

As for TF's ult versus TK's: According to the wiki, the delay is basically the same (1.5 seconds), with TK's being almost the same range as TF' level 2, (level 1 it is smaller but it's enough to gank any lane) with a much lower CD (TF: 180/150/120, TK: 120/110/100) and having a greater range come level 3. And don't forget you can have the midlaner join anyway so unless you like playing TF there's no reason picking him with TK jngl.

Support tahm is bad for the sole reason of the support budget, delaying TK's late game thus making him less useful. By moving him to the jungle or a solo lane he can get tanky faster, and being able to build even more "selfish" tanky stats as he doesn't have to watch over the carries.