What Shaco's ult could become

HollowMimic·Oct 28, 2016·83 votes·13,175 views

I've seen many people saying that the new Shaco is pretty weak, mostly because his stats and damage have been cut in half. Since I'm a new player, I don't know how to propose balanced changes to that but I've got an idea from Shaco's lore and concept (and Sona's ult).

He's supposedly a demon jester, one that makes you laugh while you die right? Personally, I don't see this happening at all in his kit (unless maybe from the jacks).

So maybe they can make his clone spawn a laughing gas when he dies, instead of boxes.

The gas will spawn around the clone and force enemy champions to laugh and kind of paralyze them for a bit (1sec), while evaporating (much like how Sona's ult works but more difficult to land, though as a compensation it happens in a small area not in a line).

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of "illuminati" boxes but they look too weak and quite difficult to land with the enemy champion in the middle (be useful). Not to mention that all of them die when one does and they seem to have a delayed activation.

Thoughts?

92 Comments

abdul569Oct 28, 201638 votes

One for all: Shaco vs Lux. My ears are not ready for this.

LauchmelderOct 28, 201610 votes

OfA Shaco vs Nunu Bot

Kill me

Large MinivanOct 28, 20162 votes

Teemo

notice me Sin piOct 28, 20163 votes

URF: Shaco against Lux , Lulu , Jinx , Teemo , Nunu bot

EmojayOct 28, 201619 votes

Yes please

Riot20thCenturyFauxOct 28, 201625 votes

{quoted}

Yes please

We tried something very close to this first, as it happens! There's a devil in the details, however -- AE hard CC is a very powerful effect, and it's important whoever's inflicting it can appreciate when it happens. With nearby JitBs, Shaco generates hard CC off of himself, but its more appreciable -- enemies draw closer to the boxes little by little and there's a clear line when it'll be triggered. Far away JitBs do have some issues here, of course.

When the CC is attached to clone detonate, it's a lot muddier. We found in testing that while it's easy to see when the clone dies, it's pretty tough to track when the clone will die -- enemies can swap focus off of it when they figure out it's fake, Shaco can get distracted by someone finding his real self, etc. That often resulted in opponents seeing the cool ae CC detonate play and Shaco himself being barely aware it had happened.

The box triangle is a direct evolution from that -- the detonate sets up the JitBs, the JitBs themselves are always clear to Shaco in what they're doing. It's not as immediately impactful as a CC detonate, but it allows Shaco a place of safety to retreat to and ended up creating more consistently interesting plays. It's also got some minor teaching value for novice Shacos -- box triangle was strong well before it was a meme xD

TwoShotsOfVodkaOct 28, 20163 votes

Sorry to tell you something that many shaco players think. This " meme " is in fact a real joke, useless as .. Shaco seriously need to be up on the PBE because you literally smashed his clow face against a wall.

shadew69Oct 28, 20169 votes

sorry buut you can not make intersting plays when the enemy sees the JitBs fall and when they fall the enemy can clearly see them and walkaround them. its take a second until the JitBs fall and a second until they trigger.

and the Jitbs themself are bad pinkward himself made a video talking about the shaco rework and he self said that the JitBs are useless since you need to destroy one of them.

HollowMimicOct 28, 20169 votes

Thank you for your answer Faux.

However, wouldn't that issue (not realising when the gas landed) just add to the skill gap for someone playing Shaco?

Since there is so much diversity among champions, people discover what playstyle fits them most or try to adjust their playstyle to the champion they like. Thus, learning a hard but unique champion might be what someone wishes to do. And with so many champions in the game, it's not like a player will just give up if he gets frustrated from not managing to play with Shaco. He/she will either give up on him or practice harder.

All in all, it doesn't matter how hard it is to learn a champion but how rewarding is when you do (I've learned that from one-trick-ponies with high skill champions). But (only from what I've seen) the new Shaco doesn't seem rewarding enough for his already high-skill gap.

As for the practical point, I wouldn't call the triangle a place of safety since the boxes last for so little and all of them die when one of them gets destroyed. At least with the gas, the person would be (sort of) paralyzed and Shaco had more time to escape. Of course all of this is theoretical. Maybe there's sth that we all miss because we haven't played with him yet. Whatever the case is, I wish for a satisfying result for the whole rework, when it goes live.

PS. Also, what ShadeW said. Pinkward has a nice video about it (not a rant); maybe you can gather some info from it.

Riot20thCenturyFauxOct 28, 201614 votes

The skill gap would grow, to be sure, but it's much harder to grow mastery on a character when the game's not giving you good feedback on when your ult was working well or not. Further, being able to make good use of the box triangle's power has its own brand of mastery -- if players really struggle to make good use of it we'd of course revisit, and so far many players do seem to be able to use it well, which makes sense because it does a lot of damage and can deny quite a large area -- if it dies in a chokepoint it'll get some work done.

There was a bug on PBE for a bit where if someone attacked one of the mini-boxes with a very small amount of damage at a certain level range it would one-shot all three, so that may well have been contributing to perceptions they die instantly? If the R boxes need more HP or duration they'll get it, they can be tuned individually.

That's rather the point of Shaco's mini-rework -- adding the tools we need to be able to tune the character properly. At this point, we have levers we can use to adjust either his burst or dps at any phase of the game. It'll make balancing him much easier.

Pinkward's video was certainly interesting, and his main concerns were with power level; generally speaking, most folks who are worried seem to be worried about power level. Naturally so are we, and while Shaco mains probably won't worry about the potential world where he releases too strong, that is a very real possibility too -- the preseason is going to do all sorts of spicy disruption to the game, and balance will certainly be a stranger place for the first patches afterward.

HollowMimicOct 28, 20167 votes

Completely satisfied.

We now just have to wait and see and hope for the best.

Thank you once again.

Hyrum GraffOct 28, 20167 votes

+1 to OP's response, you did a damn good job providing context in this thread.

HollowMimicOct 28, 20164 votes

Thank you buddy.

Just tried to cover most concerns through constructive conversation.

(plz dont ask my age :P)

Riot20thCenturyFauxOct 28, 20169 votes

{quoted}

Thank you buddy.

Just tried to cover most concerns through constructive conversation.

(plz dont ask my age :P)

Your efforts are super appreciated here, too -- if players are concerned, usually it's something we're also concerned about, and threads like this are a great opportunity to share what we've got

HollowMimicOct 28, 20162 votes

You know sth folks,

I've been posting for almost 2 yrs in HS forums (using the same tone), trying to help improving the game and not once I felt that I was achieving anything. And now here I am, 5 months after I started this game, I made my first suggestion and it immediately turned into a helpful and constructive conversation for both sides (seller + customer).

I guess, Blizzard needs an operations and strategy consultant :D (apologies but I had to get that out) (hoping to not get banned for this comment :P)

ff4skOct 28, 20165 votes

Not to sound like I'm flaming you or anything but the whole box thing seems stupid and feels like just a gimmick to use as a reason to nerf shaco further.

shaco didn't need gimmicks, he was already a tricky champion to master, what we wanted was a buff to his late game and some toning to his early so he can be healthy early and stay viable late game.

Instead we got nerfs to his damage across the board on all his abilities making his early insanely harsh and his scaling is so weak that he's now weaker late game on pbe than he is on live servers.

Shaco is currently so versatile with tons of possible builds you can go, pbe shaco looks like a cruel attempt to cripple all of shaco's different play styles to force him into an AP role.

I understand that his early may have been slightly oppressive but seriously these nerfs are just brutal. I don't even know if he can be played anything besides AP anymore.

Riot20thCenturyFauxOct 28, 201612 votes

If he releases too weak, we'll be able to buff him. PBE's an awesome place but it's not a good balance bellweather -- there's too many factors warping matchmaking and game outcomes for it to be meaningful in that regard. We certainly don't intend to force Shaco into any specific role, and in fact went out of our way to support different builds, haha.

Worried he's gonna be weak when he comes out? We hear you and if he needs buff he'll get em. Some folks seem to be worried that if he does end up being weak on release that we'd leave him numerically weak forever, which, uhhh... not really sure why we'd put a bunch of work into him and then do that xD

TalisidOct 28, 20168 votes

Honestly I don't think you can blame anybody for thinking that you will nerf Shako into the ground and then wait months or even years to fix him. Just look at the state of champions like Kalista or Azir , or you could look at how long Nunu was in the dumpster until the recent buffs. He's exactly the sort of problem-child type design that's gets neglected for long periods of time.

I'm not saying that this will happen with Shaco but you have to admit, fears that he will be intentionally deleted from the meta by a deliberate over nerf are not entirely unjustified, given Riots balance history.

The Yetii RiderOct 28, 201610 votes

{quoted} Some folks seem to be worried that if he does end up being weak on release that we'd leave him numerically weak forever, which, uhhh... not really sure why we'd put a bunch of work into him and then do that xD

Yes Olaf I have no idea Evelynn where anyone Mordekaiser would get the idea Shen that your reworked champions Corki end up in a weak state Garen and are left to rot. KogMaw Azir Kalista

The problem is that when you guys change a champion's core thematic and the core thematic you change it to is inherently unhealthy the Live Balance team can't do anything about it. Then players who enjoy those champions are told that they need to be patient and wait for the people who made their champs unhealthy in the first place to get around to trying again.

I can understand why you might not want to talk about this, but don't pretend like there's no reason for us players to have doubts in the Gameplay Update team. It's not the Live Balance team's fault when the Gameplay Update team misses the mark and then moves on.

Zoma GaidenNov 3, 20162 votes

"we certainly dont intend to force shaco into any specific role, and intact went out of our way to support different builds, haha."

I want you to play him jg and see if he can jg... ap shaco was a meme and thats what you turned him into shaco is weak and looks like a top laner let alone a support. This rework is completely hammering him down and it's not needed.

SpoofghoulOct 28, 201610 votes

Yes like a singed poison gas cloud which makes you ''spam laugh'' and puts you in terrified status.

I think the terrified status would suit this make people run around and laugh hysterically whilst taking damage from being poisoned

ff4skOct 28, 20167 votes

A newbie thinking up better ideas than Riot's design team.

I honestly want to know what they were taking when they sat down and thought up the abomination they call a rework

Warlord ZudaneOct 28, 20165 votes

Don't act like it's a huge deal. It's a fresh set of eyes, someone looking at it without years of Shaco play. It's someone looking at the lore not what they are used to playing.

ff4skOct 28, 20165 votes

You think the "great minds" behind the shaco rework know jack shit about him let alone how he plays like?

It's a big deal when the people behind the rework fuck up so badly that even a new player like op can think up of a more creative, healthy, and viable concept than 3 MINI box meme on ult that dies in a split second.

Warlord ZudaneOct 28, 20163 votes

Fresh eyes = New ideas. That's not a new concept. That's my point. Stop acting like the dev team is shit because they aren't looking at it fresh.

ff4skOct 28, 20165 votes

Stop acting like the dev team is shit

But they are? Look at the entire rework. What did they fix besides putting every assassin's abilities behind a cd wall or a gimmick? People are still complaining about rengar, kat is now harder to play yielding the same pubstomp results, kha is even more busted than he initially was, talon/lb are the only ones who got somewhat of a change that only changed the way they're played.

the smaller "reworks" are nothing but nerfs to majority of the champions leaving half of them gutted and the other half limping to stay viable.

forget the assassin rework, lets look at the mages rework, initially it left a bunch of champions busted and in need of fixes(remember the outcry about malzahar suddenly becoming viable and everybody wanting him nerf'd? Remember how people were complaining about brand in the bot lane? or swain top?)

ok ok no forget that, lets go for the adc rework that happened last pre season where they fucked over half and made half so broken that they were dominating other lanes and some even going jungle, till today people are complaining about top lane and jungle being infested by ranged carries, did I mention the masteries they popped out too which everyone was asking for to be toned down?

ok no forget that, remember when devourer/rageblade was busted on all on hit and Riot just left it for months til they finally reworked those items after people were begging them to?

Alright lets forget that too, remember the juggernaut update? do I need to keep going?

I mean they have the pbe for a reason, to fucking test these things before they go onto the live servers, and every time they make a shitty "rework" that either breaks or guts an entire list of champions making them unplayable then leaves them in the dirt til they're indirectly buffed or fixed a year or so later.

When a dev team constantly fucks up over and over and over and over AND OVER again it's only justified to start doubting these people's sanity and to ask for them to get sacked.

Give me a valid counter argument defending them, I dare you.

EndlessSorcererOct 28, 20162 votes

ok no forget that, remember when devourer/rageblade was busted on all on hit and Riot just left it for months til they finally reworked those items after people were begging them to?

God, I remember that. They waiting until the patch before the removed Devourer and reworked Rageblade to finally nerf Master Yi. The following patch, he was extremely weak since he was nerfed for his synergy with two items which had just been essentially removed.

LeetriOct 28, 20163 votes

It's actually not a huge deal. I've studied design, and a lot of the times when you are too involved in things you miss the bigger picture. That's why you get user input from people outside the design team. Think of it like this: you're furiously trying to fit a couch through the door, you've tried flipping it every way imaginable and you still can't get it through. In comes your roommate who asks if you've tried unscrewing the legs. That hadn't even been a thought before he said that, but you do as he said and the couch can now squeeze through. Sometimes you just need to take a step back and do something else like going for a walk or sleeping. Then when you get back you can see through fresh eyes and realize you were focusing on the entirely wrong part.

Peoples ChampOct 28, 20161 votes

They probably decided to go with the three boxes instead of changing his ult because the boxes are already coded.

ff4skOct 28, 20162 votes

So they took the easier option and gave him a useless unwanted gimmick on his ult to use it as an excuse to nerf shaco more on his other abilities

MetalGearTeemuOct 28, 20164 votes

Giving champions half assed unreliable gimmicks instead of actually addressing their problems is what we call "Getting Garened"

Avios1Oct 28, 20167 votes

Not gonna lie, came here thinking it was a shaco QQ thread.

I was disappointed in that regard. nice idea ^.^

HollowMimicOct 28, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Not gonna lie, came here thinking it was a shaco QQ thread.

I was disappointed in that regard. nice idea ^.^

Glad that you were pleasantly disappointed :)

Avios1Oct 28, 20162 votes

https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1439498154ra/15845851.gif

FrostarianOct 28, 20166 votes

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

xScarfyOct 28, 20166 votes

Great idea! Its fits very well from a thematic standpoint....I don't play shaco and can't really say much about his rework tho, but I don't feel like his boxes are all that useful with the delay and your idea sounds like it offers a lot more gameplay wise. And I also just wanna see something like this ingame :D imagine someone like Diana or Vayne just spammimg their “ha“ and “hmpf“!

JonxxOct 28, 20163 votes

That's actually a really cool idea. I really love most laughs emotes in league, and it's shame they're not used much.

DarkRitualOct 28, 20163 votes

I think some form of the Trickster's Glass item active from BMB would be a decent fit for Shaco's Ult.

DrugsForRobotsOct 28, 20162 votes

The problem I see with this is that it encourages Shaco to just Ulti and throw clone into the grouped enemies during a teamfight, stunning them. This might be fixed if you had something like, "when the clone explodes, enemy champions near death are forced to laugh uncontrollably for a moment."

I've tried getting such an idea to Riot in the past with no luck unfortunately.

HollowMimicOct 28, 20162 votes

Sorry to hear that buddy.

As for your question, maybe it's because I'm still new but doesnt the same thing happen with so many other ults when enemies group during team fights? (i.e. Illaoi, Xin Zhao and Vladimir)

Also, your change is what I had in mind; the area that I'm thinking is a small one, not like GP's ult for example. The clone explodes and deals a certain amount of damage, a gas comes out and evaporates in the air and affects all enemies nearby with them spamming their laughter for 1 second.

DrugsForRobotsOct 28, 20162 votes

With the exception of Xin, none of those champs have CC attached to their R. Better examples would be Sona, Malphite, Orianna, or Annie. Shaco's ultimate is a pretty small AoE at the moment, on par with the AoE size of Malphite and Orianna's R. Even with their small AoEs, those other champs are major picks because the CC is nearly instantaneous.

Without the 'near death' clause, or something like it, adding a 'enemies are now stunned as they laugh uncontrollably' would be a huge buff to him, even if the stun duration was like 1s.

HollowMimicOct 28, 20162 votes

I see what you mean. I merely suggest the idea though, not how to implement it in a viable way. Hopefully, with your explanation they can try it/think about it.

*Personal question - Doesn't Xin's ult stun u for a bit (like 0.5 sec)? I'm pretty sure I get stunned each time he ults me (unless it only happens if I hit a wall).

DrugsForRobotsOct 29, 20162 votes

Xin's R knocks back anyone and everyone around him other than his 'challenged' target. The knockback does take ~.5s. He also has his W that causes his 3rd attack to knock you up briefly.

Troll for TrumpOct 29, 20162 votes

DCs gonna sue

ArkhanOct 29, 20162 votes

Kind of like The Joker on Infinite Crisis. (before it was cancelled.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4v167AJS9k

VandalayNov 5, 20162 votes

pls dont kill my beloved shaco :( i may be just silver 5 noob but i am rly used to him. He is one of my 3 main champs. I am good with.

If all this comes pls at least make his boxes usable they die allways instant with no chance to fear or do dmg... if you fix this you can take down his early a little bit no probl. But pls make them a ability and no joke anymore.

Omnem OccidoNov 5, 20162 votes

I love the idea of making them laugh to death. Perhaps make it a 1 second stun with a forced laugh animation and have it deal damage over time based on missing health. Then, instead of having his E deal missing % Health, have it deal 50% more base damage than it does with the current reworked state, and give it the ability to utilize his passive, causing it to crit. Also, make the crit on his passive deal increased damage based on critical strike chance.

VandalayNov 5, 20162 votes

and make the boxes dont killable until the cc is out. With that i would be rly happy. But some E shutwodn for exchange for passive absolute dmg on his e is fine. But 50% :( lets say 15%.

BardfulOct 28, 20161 votes

The changes to his ult still have him shoot blades which I like because it makes him appear closer to jhin which could be a really cool direction for the lore so I wouldn't want it to change.
They could just make the boxes invulnerable until they fear surrounding targets.
With the double box stacking dash interrupts no loner existing, I feel a good support change that would fit thematically goes like this. When his boxes fear someone, surrounding allies laugh and gain (10% of shaco's ad) and (10% of shaco's ap) for 1.5/2.5/3.5 seconds. A different scaling could be an option but the part to note would be surrounding allies gain something and laugh.

BardfulOct 28, 20162 votes

Really my only issue with your proposal is point 1. Someone made a post where they suggested jhin and shaco have some relation in lore and it makes so much sense. They wear masks, are psychotic, and jhin's e is similar to shaco's ult. Besides shaco's lore needs an update so this would be even better.