So does volibear deserve a nerf?

Oakleaf Ranger·Apr 12, 2016·4 votes·1,878 views

I personally think his early game damage is overtuned for how tanky he is naturally is. Yes I understand that his mid to late game he starts falling off but so does pantheon but he was still nerfed because of his early game as well. Yes I know that he is kitable but early on its pretty much impossible for most champs to kite him early on without items/boots considering he has a move speed enhancement, slow, and displacement in his kit. I'm not exactly sure what his identity is so I don't want the nerfs to change that about him, I just want his early game to be less oppressive.

16 Comments

ValyrianBladeApr 12, 20162 votes

Pantheon's early game is a different kind of strong. He throws spears from range. You can't dodge them. If you stay out of range your not getting any CS or xp in lane.

In contrast, Volibear is 100% melee. He has no gap closer. He has no ranged abilities to farm from a distance. He has nothing to help him escape ganks (I'm assuming you're talking about top lane volibear, because it was top lane pantheon that caused his nerfs).

In my opinion, Top lane volibear is perfectly fine and shouldn't be changed at all. He has lots of weaknesses (most notable the 100% melee thing) to offset his strengths. Jungle volibear on the other hand is perhaps a bit strong. Again though, he's entirely melee. There's really not much he can do if you're paying attention. Even a relatively close ward will give you plenty of time to get away from him because he's only got a small MS boost in his kit (30% and only when towards champions). I'm not sure what makes jungle volibear so strong - maybe it's his passive helping his first clear (reasonable nerf would be that he needs to take champion damage or turret damage to proc his passive?). Maybe it's his fear giving him too much help (revert the jungle item change that let him heal off of feared camps, as before it was only when the monster was in combat [i.e. attacking you]). I really have no idea why he sees such a high win rate in the jungle right now - I just hope if he sees nerfs it's really targeted on jungle volibear as lane volibear feels balanced to me.

1 degreeApr 12, 20161 votes

JG voli might be stronger due to building cinder hulk = more hp = bigger bite mid to late game

also just being able to roam more and abuse your early level power helps snowball your lanes more so than if you're just farming it out top.

Darius BøtApr 12, 20161 votes

I get where you're going but it is the jg's job to roam and snowball the lanes. You don't generally Q randomly through the jg for the movespeed unless you're going for a countergank/drag/baron.

1 degreeApr 12, 20161 votes

no but voli has an extremely easy clear and can gank at 3 without going back.

look if you're top lane voli your best bet for a kill is to let your lane push and Q enemy under turret. or have jg gank which may not happen till lvl 5+

if your jungle voli you can go gromp blue to red and get a kill or force flash by the 3 min mark. recall and do it again on another lane. this is why voli is a stronger jungler than top lane.

i mean in addition to being melee only like you said of course :D

edit: also this post and earlier post was only comparing voli top vs voli jg. not voli vs any other jg lol

Darius BøtApr 12, 20161 votes

I agree his clear is insanely easy, I normally don't have to back until I feel like it :p Scuttle is the real MVP. I may have to try him up top one of these days lol

The Bíg TicketApr 12, 20162 votes

Troll thread.

Oakleaf RangerJun 29, 20161 votes

hehe XD

1 degreeApr 12, 20161 votes

It is pretty annoying that anytime a voli walks into your lane with a decent path you're forced to flash or die.

But for the most part he is kiteable I mean his only engage is Q. When you get better at positioning/warding he becomes less of a problem. Also good to just pick against him if you can with a champion with a mobility spell/cc.

NekusenApr 12, 20161 votes

i can't remember a time in which Volibear DIDN'T deserve a nerf

Darius BøtApr 12, 20161 votes

As my highest mastery champ I would argue he's in a good spot right now. The Q is avoidable through wards and positioning, it lasts 6 seconds. His W is the only thing that makes him viable anywhere, without it he cannot clear or do significant damage. The E is what I think should be toned down, it is essentially melee range but at max rank you will not escape him with that 50% slow. His ult is relatively lackluster for me, it's only a major damage dealer if the enemy hasn't built any measure of MR.

By end game he's really just a front line and glutton for punishment. Hopefully the enemy focuses him instead of the carry. His identity is kinda just being a big meaty bear tank.

Oakleaf RangerApr 12, 20161 votes

Yeah I was mostly talking about jungle volibear, I used pantheon as a early game champion that falls off as example. A better example for u would be the nidalee and elise nerfs. However what I hate the most is that he can just walk up to you early on and just face tank your damage while most likely doing the same or more to you in return. While his mobility isn't the best, its enough to get the job done to close the distance between you and him early on and once he gets on you its pretty requires a flash or a miracle to get away. He can even towerdive pretty easily. The worst thing is that instead of building damage items, he just build health/defense and still ends up doing more damage just because his damage scales off health. Personally I think thats where something in his kit needs to be nerfed.

1 degreeApr 12, 20162 votes

just don't fight him. you never really need to. even if he goes 0-8 he can still farm enough to get tank items and do his job in team fights.

if you catch him low or you can 2v1 is the only time it's really worth it to fight him.

also always be aware of his passive. if you do 1v1 him and you used your burst to proc his passive just disengage unless you have an ignite or follow up you wont be able to finish him 1v1.

but his passive has a pretty long cooldown. you could make it a point to ward one of his camps and look to fight him again knowing his passive is down. especialy if you have vision of him in the jungle and you can engage as soon as he uses W on a minion

Darius BøtApr 12, 20161 votes

Mortal Reminder, I think it's called, is also the cat's pajamas or anything with grievous wounds. But yes this^

Darius BøtApr 12, 20161 votes

I would ask why you're burning flash when he's already on top of you. The weakest part of his gank is when he's trying to get to you. Once he's on top of you he's gonna be committed. I recommend you flash as soon as he's walking/Qing towards you (early game), he has to go back into the jg. Circle around and plant a ward in river. And don't forget pink wards, that perma vision is a god send that almost no one uses.

Oakleaf RangerApr 13, 20161 votes

You can't always be hugging the tower and cs unfortunately otherwise I would being doing that non stop, wards only last so long excluding pinks which are visible and be cleared and your whole lane can't be warded 24/7 all the time either at least not without outside help. Basically the rule of thumb is that if voli can see you then he can close the distance on you which means either death, a lot of damage, or lose of summoners which sounds fair if it weren't for the fact that he can do this so easily. His passive only kicks in at 30% health so that's only usually kicking in after someone does enough damage to a TANK so that probably means exhausting a lot of resources on someone I'm probably not gonna kill. To sum it up, imo he has little risk but high reward EARLY to mid game which is where I would want to see a nerf occur

lOrnithoptherJun 29, 20161 votes

Maybe I'm just salty, but lane volibear is a bit ridiculous. The damage on his bite is absolutely stupid. Jungle Voli has never been something I have an issue with, because he ends up starved for gold unless he gets kills or lots of assists through ganking. Lane voli is a nightmare though. His bite chunks hard, his fling does damage and his chasing potential is great. I'd really like to see the missing health damage on his bite go away, just because we're already giving him max HP scaling for it's damage.