On the subject of Talon

Whut Thuh ··18 votes·1,349 views

As an old talon main i will still pick him against weak early laners but find him increasingly difficult to win against any sort of mage or assasin. his early combos allow him to be harrased on during or after the combo and his armor and mr is so pitiful i find myself taking biscut mastery over assasin mastery. and usually 1 or 2 pots every back until the laning phase is over.

I feel like this is the result of slow indirect nerfs to what made talon good. things like ghostblade and thunderloards just got weaker along with pretty big direct nerfs to his ultimate cooldown and this has all been since the addition of duskblade.

No im not asking for him to be returned to that state but i am asking that he recieves a minor buff to his armor and mr or max health or health regen just so he can deal with the amount of harass he gets in lane. (not to mention he has to go back more than the average assasin due to his mana usage)

what im asking isnt too much i dont think and would be a reasonable buff to his laneing phase and help him transtition better into the mid and late game

EDIT: Thanks for all the feedback, good to know what other players are thinking on the subject

30 Comments

Shaydrox6 votes

As a Talon main since season 2, I agree he's currently in one of his weakest states. Riot has, unfortunately, always been quite reluctant on buffing him when he could use it. This is partly due to the outdated state he's in. Let's hope the rework fixes him up and gives them more incentive to keep Talon at a stronger level when he's more fair.

A Doorknob4 votes

I'm not talon player, but from what I've noticed, Talon is quite obsolete. He requires to snowball like crazy and even if he does, if a team bides their time and make it to late game, talon becomes useless. He's an all in champ which his only escape is his ultimate which has a cooldown of 60 seconds and can be instantly countered with a pink ward. Of all the assassin champs, talon seems to be the most useless one right now, he has no survival method for late game. At least zed, leblink, fizz, kass, etc either have some sort of escape or some ability that grants them the ability to survive: Akali, huge life sustain; Kass, rift; Diana, has a shield; Zed, can teleport to shadows; fizz, troll pole and the list goes on. There is also the fact that some of these champs can even play off-tank. Personally, I don't think it's the champion itself that is shitty, but in which the state of the game is in right now. All Damage is too high right now making weak picks very risky. You either have a mobile champ, off-tank champ, if not you're probably just going to die. There used to be a reason you'd pick a high dps character like Tryndamere, but now, almost every champ can do what he once did and give more to the team.

AninLegions7772 votes

Talon isn't that easy mate. He's actually a mid-late game champ. The problem is his early game and the recent changes made his early game very hard. But if you can get his W to rank 4 and get a tiamat without dying or dying only once, you've won. Roam bot and get double kill. Talon's abilities have mad AD ratios so late game, he can easily Flash>E>Q>W>R the adc and it's gg.

TheOvermind3 votes

Riot has some pretty good plans for talon in the upcoming assasin update at the end of the season. I'd wait till then for them to touch up on talin and his abilities and stats

Arakadia2 votes

Do you bring stormraiders? I bring it on Kat for that reason because it helps you trade in laning faze if your going to.

Friendly Ram2 votes

Idk i usually go boots and 4 pots. Keeps me healthy till i reach 6.

warpenguin5552 votes

hes more than likely getting a new passive in the assassin update. Meddler said it but its buried now probably

Verdade2 votes

There was a discussion about Talon's R back when he was being released.

When rito revealed his kit, players asked if every blade of his R applied damage on its own. Rito said it would be too difficult to manage and it ended up in this state when 1 dagger touches you and deals full damage (which is stupid tbh)

What if we used that idea on Talon now? His R shoots 8 blades, doing 440+1.5 bonus AD if both applications hit His new R could do 100+0.2 bonus AD per blade, but applying damage for every hit, drastically changing his play pattern.

Instead jumping on someone and double-tapping R for instant damage he would R far off enemy, close the distance while stealted+sped up. Then jump on enemy, slowing him briefly. If enemy moves away from talon he takes 0 damage from R, but if he doesn't he gets bursted far harder than before this change.

It's telegraphed as his R is visible in fog so you know he's coming and you can prepare. It has clear counterplay, skill celling AND he has to commit do to his thing

D3m37r12 votes

Since the blades go in a circle it would be impossible to hit more than 1 or 2 on the way out.

Verdade1 votes

True, however return damage potential is hugely increased so simple double-tapping his R would be just bad

Shaydrox2 votes

That would create a huge gap between him using his R for damage and for utility, something that could be good, but I think the difference would be way too big since he's already lacking an escape. Not to mention using his E would mean pulling all the blades through someone completely for free. I think it would only add to the feast or famine design, and if Riot would make it to be really powerful his only viable combo would be R -> E which would make him even more binary as a suicide assassin.

Verdade1 votes

Whats exactly what assassin should do? Dive in, get a kill and die. Only few assassins break this pattern - LB (she's far squishier and more predictable to compensate), Zed (he's permbanned for a reason), Kha (but he has to get a kill, which is very hard if you look at his Q mechanics) E wouldn't mean pulling all blades through someone, as it has no silence so it's still counterplayable (dash, flash) and Talon can still counter-counterplay by flashing towards that enemy so blades really catch him. While it has counterplay it can delete multiple enemies at once, balancing the fact he's instadead once he's in.

Also, if he jumps at you without R, running away from him might be a bad idea, since he can press R, gain massive movement speed and catch you with every blade. But if you stay still and fight him he would be unable to hit you with more than few daggers.

He would get a specific niche - high-skill assassin capable of destroying your team IF you are bad enough and group up against him, but fairly squishy otherwise, with no real escape mechanism.

Shaydrox2 votes

Let's put it this way, I'd rather no have him having to go suicidal just to get his damage off, that's what current Talon already does and the ult change you're proposing wouldn't change a thing about him. I'm mostly hoping Riot will rework his passive, Q, and either his W or E completely into a new spell. While it might create quite a bit of AoE, his ultimate is the least of his issues imo.

SiG DxD2 votes

1 shit passive 2 no sustain 3 mana problems 4 no escapes 5 hyper reliant on only AD items ,all skilsl are bonus ad ,not total ,none of them 6 high cooldowns 7 bad waveclear unles hydra or atleast tiamat. go in no go out unless good TF

karruck1 votes

item 3147 ...ghostblade is dead...i still use it but i rush this first the passive proc is wonderful early game

Schàdenfreude1 votes

Yeah, I totally agree with this. Talon just seems to get out-harassed by almost every single midlaner in the League. Perhaps if we also reduced his E cooldown at early levels to get more of those "all-ins" on people.

ChaddyFantome1 votes

stormraiders >>>Tlords.

Whut Thuh 1 votes

i go ghost over flash so stormraiders would just be unnecesary

ChaddyFantome1 votes

{quoted}

i go ghost over flash so stormraiders would just be unnecesary

Ghost isn't up every 20 seconds and doesn't give you slow resist.

dragon1xx1 votes

Why play talon when you can play zed?

Calabok1 votes

Talon's burst against mages is fine. Don't try to argue for pointless buffs to your main

dw we outscale1 votes

He's a braindead easy assassin. You can get fed with him quite easily. You get what you paid for.

Don't buff a braindead easy assassin when he can still instakill people in a braindead easy fashion. He's incredibly unfun to play against when he's fed.

SlashStriker1 votes

I think talon is perfect example of assassin. However his Passive pretty much does not exist and his E is only good for repositioning. Other champions do damage with reposition ability but talon does slow.... I have no idea why his Q does damage over time since talon is assassin. DoT is Skirmisher ability not Assassin Ability

Talon [Q] in nutshell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_vuM2g0qJc

I am interested to see what they will come up with. The more you think about it the more messed up his Kit gets

Handin Out Naps1 votes

The day Talon's early game gets buffed is probably the day he gets the rest of his kit gutted in the process, or just gets reworked. Giving someone like Talon a stronger early game is just insane with his current kit.

Lestat S461 votes

As an old Talon main I havent been able to use my favorite champ this season because of the problems with him. Im really wondering what they are gonna do with him in the assasin update. Talon use to be the AD anti mage assasin with his silence but when they took that away he just became the total inferior to Zed. Zed does all the damage with WAY more mobility and no mana. Talon has no identity right now so no clue what they are gonna do to him.

Whut Thuh 1 votes

talon is basically high skill floor low skill cieling verson or zed with mana. its reallly really annoying

Jeanne fan club1 votes

His current passive allows very little interaction with the rest of his kit. Maybe a mini rework to his passive?

Whut Thuh 1 votes

it really is one of the most bland passives in the game. on the same tier as old syndra and taliya

Jeanne fan club1 votes

I'd say its pretty much Ahri tier for crappy passives, but not quite Lissandra, Kog or heimer tier.

D3m37r11 votes

I feel like Talon is inferior to Zed . I play him occasionally but only because Zed is too hard

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