Detailed Preseason-Feedback Part 2: Marksmen
I desided to share some thoughts on the preseason, now after i had 1 patch time to make my experience and refine my stance on the chances. i won't focus to much on balance, as balance always is off duering preseason, and riot usually does a good job restoring it towards end of preseason by simple number tuneing. I try to focuse more on issues that reach a bit deeper and are usually not solved by tweaking some numbers, as those are the things that riot nearly never changes once they hit pbe...
It's alot content, so i decided to split it up on serveral posts, hopefully allowing for somewhat sorted discussions fousing on one bigger theme. waring, huge wall of text incomeing!(TL;DR at the end) This is Part 2: Marksmen, here are the links to the other parts: Part 1: Items Part 3: Masteries Part 4: Miscellaneous
Table of Contents:
- Items 1.1 new items 1.2 reworked/changed items 1.3 removed items 1.4 general item changes
- Marksmen 2.1 Caitlyn 2.2 Corki 2.3 Graves 2.4 Kogmaw 2.5 Miss Fortune 2.6 Quinn 2.7 other marksmen
- Masteries 3.1 Generall Impression 3.2 Ferocity 3.3 Cunning 3.4 Resolve 3.5 Missing Masteries
- Miscellaneous 3.1 Tower 3.2. Vision 3.3. Gold 3.4. Jungle 3.5. Other Stuff
- Conclusion for preaseason
#Marksmen
Caitlyn:
A great rework in it's concept. Caitlyn was a sige markswoman, providing some zone controll and some snipes, but she usually was overshadowed from jinx in her role. The new focuse on more zone controll fits well and is grate, but imo the snipes came a bit short despoite the intentions. Lowered base as to deliver the sniper feeling better rather than a heavy machinegun is clearly the right direction. The ammo system off her traps is awsome, and the empowered headshot is a nice idea. Haveing that headshot also for E is great aswell, and the Q change make it feel way more like a snipershot.
However, all those great ideas are hold down by some issues:
The headshot has way to much power for beeing mostly a point n click, it doesn't feel that snipey Her 'true' snipes, Q and R, fell a bit lackluster, especially Q. It's there, but not really a defining abillity, and imo as a 'sniper', her damage skillshot should be a very important tool in her kit. But right now, later in the game, Her E has a higher damage reward than her Q thx to the new headshot mechanic. Also, her kit prettymuch gets defiled by the itemchanges and the crit scaleing of her headshot. The idea was to get her a bit away from a save rightclick bot and focus more on her actuall kit. To focuse more on ad and less on AA dps. However, with her passive beeing by far her major damage source while scaleing off crit, and with all the big crit items beeing AS items, especially the rfc+shive combo that synergieses with her headshot, she still becomes a high AA dps rightclick bot, just with even more savety due improved traps. She still doesn't feel that much like a sniper. In nearly all games i saw her, she had a ok early lane, dropped a afterwards, but if she was allowed to reach ~3 items, she would just turn into a heavy machine gun, shredding down everything in her way with raw rightclick while beeing awfully safe due range, e and w. Also, with a rushed IE a single heashot crit could already translate in to a kill, way to heav rng impact and to big powerspike with crit items. If the average gametime wouldn't be that short, her winrate would probably be far higher.
THe ideas behind the rework are nice, though there should have been a bit more focus on q+ult rather thanpushing most of her power into crit-scaleings, the execution isn't bad, but it's very, very poorly supported by the item changes.
** Croki:**
I like the idea of pushing his hybrid nature, and Special Delivery really is a great tool and alot fun to use. However, i think the hybrid idea should have been pushed further. Useing hextech ammo and dealing hybrid damage(or actually more magical), i feel like that should be reflected by his scaleings. I think a smal ap scaleing on E and a buff to R ap scaleing(R lost alot base damage and gained double the ad ratio) to allow hybrid builts would have been great. This also would allow to pick off the needed magic pen for lategame without feeling bad about it. Right now, Corki drobs harder than his bombs come to lategame, cause he deals ~75% magic damage but has no real acces to magic pen other than boots because of his poor ap ratios. The nerfed base ult on later ranks doesn't help either i guess(you need 150 bonus ad to break even), as it hurts his midgame alot, leaving only early for him.
Also, give out a warning in the shop equally to the 'melee's only' stuff on arpen items for corki, like 'You deal magical damage, idiot'. According to champion.gg, the most popular built on Corki uses Lord Dominic's...the stupidity of people sometimes hurts alot, but there is also little effort in educateing them i feel. Corki deals over 70% magical damage, arpen is just a wasted stat on him.
Graves:
Holy mother of god, Destiny finally is a shotgun!!! Thank you so much for this! The obviously great things, Graves finally feels like the shotgun wielding badass he is. His shortranged-all-in-bursty playstyle is awsome and prefectly fits his character. Howerver, not all is great on that rework. I kinda miss the feel of his old buckshot, the new AAs are nice, but don't deliver the same 'Oomph'. His new Q also does not deliver a smilar feel, the sound and visuals just aren't that powerfull. At the same time, he is certainly overpowered right now, especially vs melees. His AA damage scales a bit to hard, especially with crit, and the Q basedamage is kinda absurd. If he rushes IE, by the time he gets it, a single AA can crit for over 4.0 ad at close range while nearly instantly resetting E, which then resets your AA. And the reload time does not really open a big window. If you have ranged, it alows for a bit harras without fearing to get all-ined, but as a melee, you can't do shit, as you won't get out of his range till finished reloading, and he will punish you absurdly hard. He also has a really easy time clearing waves with the absurd q damage + aoe from AAs. in lane, especially as melle, there is little you can do to answer graves. On top of all that, his W has been buffed to hell and back. It'S one off the most powerfull utillity skills in the game now, nearly on the same level as veigars E.
I do think his AA damage, especially the dmage per aditional bullet, needs to be a bit toned down. His Q could use change to base-ad ratio and a lightly overall ratio increase, but less base, so it's not as opressing early on but stays more relevant for his overall damage later, which would be great as it actually allows counterplay while his AAs don't offer a whol lot of that, especially for melees. I get that he was meant to counter bruisers/melees, but right now, a well played graves goes beyond countering, he just scraps them.
What i'd also love to see is removeing the dmage from W, that skill really doesn't need it, and put some power onto E: let his E not refill a normal shell, but a big one that kinda gives him his old backshot. So the AA after E would gain aditional range, a bit more damage and pierce through targets, all with powerfull visualls and souds, delivering the old E+Q feel. The E-AA should do slightly more than a normal AA on life, while his normals would deals less damage.
So to summerize: Push some power from his laneing into teamfights, take away power from his AAs+W and add it to Q and E so opponents have a bit more windows of opportunity(E and Q have actually some downtime, atleast early in contraswt to AAs) i also find it mildly annoying that his AAs even without crit have a way higher AA scaleing in melee range than his ult.
Kog'Maw:
To be hinest, i think he was in a pretty good spot befor preseason, so i don't really see the need for a rework. But anyway, a rework it is. Well, they changed basically two things about him: his ult is now a execute rather than spam-poke, which imo was a great change. His W became a absurd on-hit steroid,but loosing all base dmage. This imo was a bad idea. He now is more itemdependend than any other champ ever was or will be. His W is 20% increases AA damage, and 100% increased on-hit damage. And his inbuilt on-hit has next to no base damage anymore, so he fully relys on getting on-hit from items, the more the better. As a result, he now has the most extrem 'bad early, strong late' powercurve ever seen. his earlygame is pathetic, his lategame is pure terror. I do not belive that such a extreme powercurve is healthy for the game in any way. they either should lower the total attackspeed increase to 50%, or because 4-5 AS is hella fun, they should reduce the damage of on-hit effects by ~50%, and in return give him back some basevalue on the %damage from W.
Miss fortune:
Honestly, I hate this Rework. It changed her playsryle alot, and made playing against her awfull, while she was in a perfect spot... Befor, she was a bounty hunter, scirting around the edges with her passive, searching for an opportunity to go all in on her 'bounty', focuseing it down with the stacking up damage from her W. Now she's a inoccent girl that can't make up her mind on whom to shoot.
Her ult befor was 1 part huge aoe damage, 1 part setting up the cleanup by stacking up W. It meant she did not only need to land a good ult, but also do some dirty work afterwards. Now it's press R and GG, if the new MF ever is allowed to channle her ult onto 3+guys, the fight instsntly is over, the damge is just beyond rediculous.
Her laneing was about finding opportunitys for extendet trades with W and occasionally poke with Q. Now it's harras with AAs between csing like draven or cait, slowly(or with the current tuneing rather fast) forceing your opponent to back. If he doesn't, you slow him with E and kill him. It's somewhat fun to play, but very different from her original style, and way to close on cait/draven laneing patterns, and really ugly to play against.
She turned into a harrasing lanebully that transitiones into walking R-button later on. in teamfights, it's Land a good ult for insta win, or don't and loose as the rest of your kit works poorly for teamfights.
Quinn:
In terms of fantasy, that rework failed. The 'Tag Team' simply doesn't exist. However, if you get over that and see her more as a 'huntress with pet', then the rework was a great succes imo.
A bit more power in her base kit, finally fixed her passive, and more focuse on map-mobillity suit her well. I didn't have the opportunity to play her with the latested Q changes, but they look prommising. Befor that, she was rather badly tuned, either snowball early on and translte that lead onto other lanes with your ult, or drop hard in teamfights. However, with that utillity on Q, she might offer a bit more in teamfights, especially if behind. It also should open up the jungle for her, which would fit well to her map-presence.
Other Marksmen
Ashe: Just..why??? Need a history lesson riot? Did you already forget why you changed phage/trinity slow into the rage passive?
#Slow + RNG = EVIL!
Draven : prettymuch the same old, disgusting snowball potential in both directions.
Ezreal: In theory good changes, but the item cghanges hit the poor guy really harsh, trinity and ER both were waaaaaaay better on him befor. he doesn't work that well with crit, and the overall lower ad+arpen hurt him alot.
jinx: Non of her actuall problems fixed, still strong in lane, strong in siege, hypercarry in teamfights and beyond broken in cleanup + objective dps. if you don't get her at the beginning of a fight, she'll whipe out your entire team and demolish the entire base in no time.
Kallista: nothing change, still the hella annoying fogger with spears and that stupid 'my support can't be out of position' ult.
Lucian: not much special, just that he can abuse the shit out of the item changes, beeing the only caster that profits alot from crit, and the pre nerf ult was certainly op.
Sivir: similar like Ezreal, she doesn't profit much from those crit focused itemchanges, but is hurt by the ad and arpen nerfs.
Tristana: it seems like the changes aren't fully though through. They want to focus more on all ins + resets, but the item changes focus more on sustained damage and AAs, and her early all in got nerfed as W now resets rather than dealing more damage on E, which means to get the full burst, you need way more mana, in a world with no mana pots.
So after all, she's still about sitting on a save range, destroying with hypercarry-AAs entire teams, snowballing with her resets through the fights and destroying towers in no time.
She's prettsy similar to jinx, good lane, strong teamfights, insane cleanup and superior towetakeing. HSe trades some sige and controll potential from jinx for huge savety from w+r.
Twisted Fat: With RFC increaseing the range of his stun, ad-twisted might become a thing again
Twitch: Overall just nerfed. The Q reset often is void, as he does not need the stealth once a target is dead, or he would need it in a teamfight but massivly gets screwed because of the delay, while the lower ult duration hurts alot.
Varus: Same issue as Ez and Sivir, does not profit as much from crit(though more than the other two) and is hurt by the ad/arpen nerfs.
His Winrate as adc mostly increased because people now finally built ER on him, but old ER was just superior on him. His midlane winrate dropped hard, showing how ad-caster builts suffer in preseason.
Vayne: the idea was to put more focus on her W rather than physical AA dps. Great that you changed items to give overall less AS but more crit so itemisation focuses far more on physical dps rather than on-hit, prettymuch nullifying the efforts. at the same time, she kinda was stealth buffed, as her W-tankshredding is more powerfull compared to other adc due to nerfed anti tank items. She can happily rush all the crit and still deal with tanks.
So overall, the idea off the markmen update was to give them more clear identitys, putting more focuse on their kits rather than 'who is better at rightclicking'. While many of the kit changes fit that idea very well, the horrible item changes just throw all over board and turn markmen once again to a mindless mass that is mostly defined by rightclicking whilst praying to RNG-sus come to mid-lategame. Even worse, all the potential of-builts that did not use crit have been eradicated.
TL;DR: Most adc reworks are great in their concept, buta bit flawed in their execution and totally pushed aside by the stupid rng focus of the item changes.
