Riot, now that Crit ADCs are back..

Ars Arcánum··73 votes·18,251 views

When are Quinn and Swain going to receive reverts to the nerfs they got for being played in the bot lane when traditional ADCs were at their weakest?

Quinn: Quinn received QoL changes/buffs in Patch 8.6 after being assessed as too weak due to multiple factors (nerfs to her standard runes and general itemization). These changes were great, as they traded upfront power for scaling power, since Riot was trying to move her away from an assassin build, and made her good but not overbearing.

Swain: Swain was buffed in 8.9, giving him increased mana and mana regen, allowing him to use his abilities more before running out of mana of course.

Then everything changed when the 8.11 patch attacked. Crit wasn't optimal, and standard marksmen had their base stats nerfed. Quinn doesn't need to always build Crit, and old item 3095 was a good first buy on her. Swain can hold his own in the bot lane vs far weaker marksmen, so their play rates rose there. This led Riot to practically gut Swain's ultimate damage through his AP ratios, and balance Quinn (who has been a top laner since her inception) as if she were an ADC, lowering her passive damage, base armor, base AD, and AD scaling.

Now if they can get some power back, like Quinn's armor and AD scaling and a higher AP ratio for Swain they'd be decent champions again.

Fun fact: If Quinn is changed in Patch 9.6, this will be the 5th consecutive year she was changed on a .6 patch.

69 Comments

Eedat53 votes

Quinn and Swain weren't nerfed because of bot lane. IIRC Quinn was damn near 55% win rate top lane and Swain was dominating Mid and Top

Ars Arcánum7 votes

That's because Quinn's ultimate is polarizing in Solo Q games where there is lack of coordination. However, this does not mean she needs to be underpowered at all stages of the game. Quinn has plenty of counters, no real escapes, and can easily be shut down early via ganks and armor items.

Seijurou Akashi20 votes

How she has counterplay ? If she gets Duskblade she will one-shot you coming at you with high speed dealing nearly 1000 damage with 1 auto proccing her passive and duskblade, what's counter play to that ? dodge her auto's ? Also Swain is pretty good right now, he doesn't feel overpowered and underpowered there is no need to buff either one...

demoted to iron2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Seijurou Akashi,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=joXrvpAG,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2019-03-11T04:56:58.941+0000)

How she has counterplay ? If she gets Duskblade she will one-shot you coming at you with high speed dealing nearly 1000 damage with 1 auto proccing her passive and duskblade, what's counter play to that ? dodge her auto's ? Also Swain is pretty good right now, he doesn't feel overpowered and underpowered there is no need to buff either one...

Build armor. As an ex Quinn main, if you build a little armor and she doesn't have 2 items (excluding boots), she can't oneshot you. If you build more armor, she generally doesn't have good enough sustained damage to wear through your hp bar. She's super vulnerable to hard cc, is very fragile, and has no way out once you engage because your only escape tool is used in your burst combo. She has issues grouping and can only be useful splitpushing, getting picks, or if she gets a good flank in a teamfight. Right now Quinn is in a decent place, but the stormrazor rework really hurt her build strength overall.

Doge20201 votes

I admit to abusing Quinn when storm was busted. And the only reason I stopped playing her was because how bad it felt after the stormrazor rework and crit revert/rework.

Ars Arcánum11 votes

I'm sorry but this comment just isn't applicable anymore. If this were Season 7 I'd agree with you, but Duskblade Quinn just isn't the same as she once was. She absolutely cannot one shot anyone unless she is extremely fed and 2+ levels ahead of the other team's squishy.

As I said in my OP, Riot has steadily moved Quinn away from burst over these past two seasons through her R damage dropping to 40% from 100% total AD, her W attack speed scaling to 80% from 40%, nerfs to her passive damage and base AD - and by extension nerfing Duskblade itself and Electrocute.

Don't let irrational hatred for champions blind you from fair balance.

Neptunia xoxo11 votes

{quoted}

Quinn and Swain weren't nerfed because of bot lane. IIRC Quinn was damn near 55% win rate top lane and Swain was dominating Mid and Top

Literally this.

Daddy ReTaric1 votes

{quoted}

Quinn and Swain weren't nerfed because of bot lane. IIRC Quinn was damn near 55% win rate top lane and Swain was dominating Mid and Top

People complain about Quinn win rate when only main plays her. If it was Kai'Sa or any other champion with Quinn playrate and win wate would you call them OP as well? If Quinn had Vayne playrate her win rate wouldn't be that high but only true dedicated main play her.

Eedat1 votes

That's not what I said. I merely stated they were nerfed because of solo lane issues, not because of bot.

Top Quinn at that time was at 55% wr with over 10% PR and rapidly rising.

Daddy ReTaric1 votes

{quoted}

That's not what I said. I merely stated they were nerfed because of solo lane issues, not because of bot.

Top Quinn at that time was at 55% wr with over 10% PR and rapidly rising.

She never reached 10% PR.

Eedat1 votes
KlydeFrog1 votes

i mean anyone with a gap closer beats her, or you can just play graves into her and smash her

KlydeFrog1 votes

yep goes to show you how dumb people are. So and so is op better nerf them lol

Ahri Baka1 votes

{quoted}

Quinn and Swain weren't nerfed because of bot lane. IIRC Quinn was damn near 55% win rate top lane and Swain was dominating Mid and Top

Swain didn't dominate mid and top lol

DeusVult17 votes

And since Crit ADCs are back in action, when are we going to see reverts for the massive buffs that Vayne received when crit ADC were seen as weak??

The Skáld2 votes

And Caitlyn, Twitch, Tristana...

Sir Saltarin2 votes

None of them need to be nerfed, I see the Gameplay Boards jumping on the nerf adcs train again but it's not gonna happen.

Caitlyn is being buffed on PBE btw, enjoy

karolmo1 votes

Caitlyn is not even a strong pick right now. People still takes kai'sa over her, despite the crit buffs.

Sir Saltarin3 votes

Irelia is more played than Caitlyn as an adc on pro play and ppl wonder why she's being buffed lul

Youre Outta Luxx13 votes

I find it interesting when someone picks Quinn in game and your entire team says " GG trash top, useless champ, someone dodge" but when buffs are asked everyone goes "please no, 0 counter play, broken champ"

ChrisBrownze10 votes

Or maybe they just revert these terrible crit changes that alllow ADCs to melt anything instantly.

Sir Saltarin3 votes

No thanks

Kyovulpes1 votes

{quoted}

Or maybe they just revert these terrible crit changes that alllow ADCs to melt anything instantly.

They (enemies) don't melt instantly...unless you play low armor characters which in that case...don't get hit? Don't know

ChrisBrownze1 votes

{quoted}

They (enemies) don't melt instantly...unless you play low armor characters which in that case...don't get hit? Don't know

Lmao Vayne and crit Jinx can 3 hit tanks building full armor. Dont bs and pretend your role isnt overpowered af.

Kyovulpes2 votes

{quoted}

Lmao Vayne and crit Jinx can 3 hit tanks building full armor. Dont bs and pretend your role isnt overpowered af.

ummm 3 hits from vayne is gonna come in the form of true damage which since item 3124 is gonna take some time to stack means that shes been in a fight for longer than 6 seconds which is 15 attacks? but ok.

and jinx hax to choose between I pea shooter which is gonna take time to kill the tank or slow and powerful rockets both reduced in power by items like item 3143 item 3075...so no? like no adc is 3 hitting a rammus, rammus would be meta right now and because of that I have to have call complete bs on you and again would like to point out that you should probably build armor if you don't wanna die. Otherwise don't get hit? thanks for your time.

HàrrowR1 votes

{quoted}

Lmao Vayne and crit Jinx can 3 hit tanks building full armor. Dont bs and pretend your role isnt overpowered af.

Show me a video of a full build tank and a full build jinx three shotting him and ill send you 1000€

Z3Sleeper5 votes

NOPE.

Also Swain is still damn near top tier in mid lane right now. (53% wr mid and 52% wr top)

Original Sin1 votes

Where'd you get the statistics from? I barely see anyone playing him. If you give the win rate, you should give the play rate too.

Z3Sleeper5 votes

If you look at the top of your browser there should be a white space with an HTML in it.

Click on it and then type in something along the lines of "champion winrates" and you should be met with sites such as u.gg, op.gg and champion.gg. Click on one of those links.

From those sites you can search up whatever champion you like and find their winrates, playrates and a whole lot of other cool information.

Hope this helps.

Original Sin5 votes

Also Swain is still damn near top tier in mid lane right now. (53% wr mid and 52% wr top)

Op.gg wr 50.34% pr 0.73%

Champion.gg wr 52.98% pr 0.48%

U.gg wr 49.08% pr 1.0%

Definitely looks top tier to me LMAO

karolmo2 votes

53% winrate is pretty top tier, yeah

Starcraft243ver3 votes

Champion gg has had flawed stats for a while now.

On leagueofgraph his stats are not good.

Sir Saltarin4 votes

ChampionGG is garbage

Sir Saltarin2 votes

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/champion/Swain/

For that low pickrate, a bare 50% winrate is really bad

But if they buff him he may come back to botlane so I'm fine with him not being buffed tbh

ModCaliCoastReplay4 votes

{quoted}

NOPE.

Also Swain is still damn near top tier in mid lane right now. (53% wr mid and 52% wr top)

Indeed. The 10-0 game I just had on Swain implies to me that he's in a good place. (Yeah, it was just normals, but still.)

...seriously, he's fine. I know he's fine because he's one of all of two champions I feel comfortable taking top into the blind.

If you buff him now, it's likely that he'll be absolutely oppressive against his better matchups. I'm not sure he's not oppressive now when played at a top level.

ProfDrDeath5 votes

I wouldn't be opposed to Quinn buffs, personally, but a direct revert would not be the way to go (imo). Whether we mains like it or not, she is quite obnoxious to face in top lane, so any buffs should preferably target later stages of the game.

My preferred buff would actually be to give Behind Enemy Lines (R) a passive that adds 0/0.5/1 seconds (rank 1/2/3) to W's AS/MS buff duration. Or even 0.5/1/1.5 seconds. That buff would not strengthen her burst pattern, but make her a bit better in sustained combat.

Daddy ReTaric4 votes

Quinn could have her AD and armor back. Seriously she isn't doing so great right now.

Celestial Lion1210 votes

quinn needs a full rework, her kit is difficult to balance and frustrating to play against. when shes either r, e auto q auto and your dead or shes useless, there is no middle ground.

HyperTechno1 votes

That is why I am working on my Quinn rework concept with all I got. I am about to release my final version, so I would love to see what you think when it comes out. You can also look at my two past post.

Clone Is Friend4 votes

now that adc are back maybe we can bring assassins and tanks back too? assassins cant really 1shot adc's if they didnt get bunch of free kills from doing risky plays and some champions cant 1shot at all anymore (shaco) due to every adc having armor (ga) and shields (phantom dancer and shielding supports) and very good kite (fleet footwork and enchanter supports). there is not much assassins can do lategame. they can go 1 for 1 with a ga and just be dead weight after that. there is no real way for assassins to kill adc in a teamfight with adc's summoners and items being up. only way adc die at the moment is mages with their assassin like burst from a long range and bruisers with that conq healing and infinite abilities.

Clone Is Friend1 votes

reason why shaco isnt good even with the second highest main rate and pretty low pickrate is because he peaks at dmg late game but most games there is nothing to 1shot so all the damage feels like its for nothing. and he doesnt have an escape if he incages with q. he is just a sitting duck after he takes adc's ga away. too many times i am fed af and i should be doing some more dmg but the adc just has too much mobility, dmg, and survivability.

we assassins want rewards from the risks that we take that can easily cause us to lose the game or atleast an early dragon.

i have not done a pure 1shot since dark harvest got reworked. dark harvest was rewarding and balanced. current one works with 2 champions and they arent even assassins.

(i dont know how good other assassins can 1shot rn but i imagine its simillar to shaco)

Eleshakai1 votes

1-shotting should never be a thing. There are too many champs that can damn-near one-shot right now, and it's a problem.

Assassins should be able to kill quickly, but not one-shot.

Clone Is Friend1 votes

LMAO wtf. why are there assassins in the game then?

also assassins whole point is to basically go 1 for 1 in a team fight. mages burst way too quick which makes mages assassins which don't have to take risks.

also how will anyone kill an adc in low elo without ahy team composition or communication. if a adc player is good and doesn't take useless risks he can avoid getting 1shot but when the adc literally 2v5's with a support i think there is not much that can be done.

also the whole point of assassins are taking risks, if they fail when they take the risk they lose a lot and start being useless unless you are playing on season 7-9. seasons 3-6 were good for assassins since they usually had to take many risks durring the game to get the power to 1shot but now if you take many risks and succeed you get almost no reward.

and yes i agree every champion is an assassin rn when fed and that is a problem but is it really the facts foult that 1shotting is a thing or the fact that riot over buff items so much that 1 item advantage on anyone makes it super hard to kill since there is too much cc, cdr and dmg in the game.

also if you get assassinated you have done something wrong (or someone else). if you are saying a 8/0 assassin should not be able to 1shot you are dumb. he has played nearly perfect and he should get rewarded and the reason this is not broken for assassins is that there is the other side of the situation. if they go 0/3 for example they lose so much dmg from lack of items and xp they are useless unlike many champions with safer playstyle.

i don't mind losing and being useless sometimes but when i play perfect and i have alot of dmg i should be able to 1shot everything from mages to adc's

if you build full dmg and die instantly don't complain, instead go play tank...

Eleshakai1 votes

Assassin's are supposed to be able to kill quickly, but not one-shot. There's a difference between 'killing in 3 seconds' and 'one-shotting'. In s3-6 one-shots were RARELY possible.(almost never)

Clone Is Friend1 votes

WHEN WEre 3-6s oneshots the standard??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

when the actual fuck did u start playing. were you playing dota or something???

assassins are the worse they have ever been. and i think you are mixing mages and assassins up

Eleshakai1 votes

I played support in S3. Unless an assassin got SUPER fed... it wasn't a 1-shot. Well, except for Talon, but that's why he needed to get reworked. Even rengar's damage felt more reasonable in the old days.

HàrrowR2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Revert Shaco,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=joXrvpAG,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2019-03-11T08:17:57.787+0000)

now that adc are back maybe we can bring assassins and tanks back too? assassins cant really 1shot adc's if they didnt get bunch of free kills from doing risky plays and some champions cant 1shot at all anymore (shaco) due to every adc having armor (ga) and shields (phantom dancer and shielding supports) and very good kite (fleet footwork and enchanter supports). there is not much assassins can do lategame. they can go 1 for 1 with a ga and just be dead weight after that. there is no real way for assassins to kill adc in a teamfight with adc's summoners and items being up. only way adc die at the moment is mages with their assassin like burst from a long range and bruisers with that conq healing and infinite abilities.

Well this mostly seems like a shaco problem, zed, kha, rengar will have no problem one shotting an adc late game if they know when to strike

The Skáld3 votes

And nearly all ADCs have been buffed on AD ratios, but after revert, they didn't get nerfed. Weirdo, huh

Lovelle3 votes

Does Quinn really need any buffs right now?

OtterlyLost2 votes

Is Quinn going to be the new Shaco? Sure, her play rate is small but she's got a 52% winrate. She seems fine. The best buff I'd like to see them give her is maybe more MR per level so she could lane midlane instead of top lane. That's really it.

As for Swain, I also think he's fine. He's not over tuned or undertuned and in the right hands with the right comp, he's absurd.

And as someone else pointed out, neither of them were nerfed solely for their performance bot lane. .-. Quinn was an extremely dominate pick in all lanes; she was due for a nerf. As for Swain, he was pretty strong in multiple lanes as well and the only nerf they made didn't even address what was making him strong in bot lane. They nerfed his ult and left his extreme synergy with CC unchanged.

More from Gameplay

More by Ars Arcánum