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Put your Shaco hate aside, this is going to be an issue.

Weathered··33 votes·3,287 views

https://i.gyazo.com/1bf408324fb2207e1a8318d9bb75699a.png

His passive is only viable with a crit/AD playstyle. It lost it's extra damage for Shiv.

https://i.gyazo.com/cd902e735a0ab32508981ceb99c21946.png

You don't reach live duration for stealth until rank 4. Without maxing this, he loses most of his functionality of a stealth champion. The 50% AP scaling is not nearly enough to support an AP playstyle with such a high cooldown, and once again locks you into going full AD to be able to make use of having to max Q.

https://i.gyazo.com/4b1365cae149d62079cbcff78c362b6d.png

The health change is a necessity that should have been included a long time ago. However, the lack of being able to stack boxes is a huge gut punch to AP once again. If people weren't aware, stacking boxes was a lot more important than just trying to burst someone down. Box stacking could interrupt movement abilities, even Malphite's ult. This was really important for AP and lane Shaco, and was a huge part of his "deceiver" thematic in that he could bait people into wasting their engages.

https://i.gyazo.com/b4972b66d5670e1d2f6a18e1c595e293.png

The changes don't even make sense. The rank one damage is 5, and the rank 5 damage is less than half of live's value. The AP scaling is reduced too. They added a slow once again to force AD for auto attacks. They changed the bonus AD scaling to total AD, like I've said before, to force AD playstyle.

https://i.gyazo.com/25dcde3a9eb908fa2b0a3246c0d8c450.png

This change is useless. All it will be use for is a teamfight bomb with hopes of getting off fear. I appreciate the increased time for your clone, but it wasn't necessary.

These changes are not good. They restrict playstyles, they overall nerf his champion as a whole, they promote abusing a specific item set rather than having a variety of options, and kill his strengths. Riot said they wanted to tone down his early game, and they certainly have, but their solution to buffing his mid to late game is simply promoting AD/Crit because it scales well. This is not what Shaco players want. We don't want to be told that the validation for nerfing his best strengths is to build for late game and hope that we are not left behind. This is not a good fix until his VGU.

56 Comments

MEMEME67032 votes

Box stacking could interrupt movement abilities, even Malphite's ult. This was really important for AP and lane Shaco, and was a huge part of his "deceiver" thematic in that he could bait people into wasting their engages.

Being able to interrupt abilities that are specifically cc-immune is just bullshit, it's not part of a 'deceiver' playstyle because you aren't tricking the opponent, the opponent is simply being lied to (by the game), and you're taking credit for it.

The changes don't even make sense. The rank one damage is 5, and the rank 5 damage is less than half of live's value. The AP scaling is reduced too. They added a slow once again to force AD for auto attacks. They changed the bonus AD scaling to total AD, like I've said before, to force AD playstyle.

You didn't do the math on this, did you? The change is an INSANE buff to ap shaco. The way the math works out, you need between 480(level 1) and 994(level 18) ap for two-shiv to be scaling better on the old scaling than the new. EDIT: This math was really shitty, you actually need between 55(lv1) and 111(lv18) AP to make it scale more on the old than the new. Sorry. Changing a bonus AD scaling to a total AD scaling is generally done to help out the builds that DON'T build as much AD (this seems obvious to me, but I digress), by the way.

Notably, you also ignored the fairly interesting duration buff for AP builds.

This change is useless. All it will be use for is a teamfight bomb with hopes of getting off fear. I appreciate the increased time for your clone, but it wasn't necessary.

This is just a straight buff, and a pretty insane one at that. Why are you ignoring all the potential (ap scaling!) damage and aoe cc?

For a quick example, lets assume you jump on a squishy enemy in a teamfight, and they kill you and your clone within 0.5 seconds of each other, but you've peeled them a little ways off of their team and done ~60% of their hp in damage. That's not exactly a great scenario to be in, before or after the update. However, those miniboxes are going to either force the enemy to not run directly to their team, delaying their ability to help their team, or they're going to cut off a potentially crucial escape route.

And that's without even getting into all the other scenarios these boxes allow for, like the ones where your clone dies well ahead of you, and suddenly the enemy can't afford to stand and fight, so they have to just run (which also potentially allows you to simply walk away and leave them with no way to return to the fight quickly) or the ones where your miniboxes prevent someones allies' from flanking you in order to save them.

It really looks like you didn't put that much thought into this critique, and that you simply are reacting with 'this doesn't let me do exactly what I'm doing now with the same or better effectiveness, so it's bad', which is a silly way to think about things.

ReshiKillim5 votes

I honestly think that semi-hybrid Shaco is going to be the strongest version of Shaco after the rework comes out, but I have to say that I don't like how the playstyle is being forced. It feels a lot like the Mordekaiser rework to me, in how one particular playstyle is being forced as plainly superior to the others.

In particular, I don't like how backstab was changed. And the miniboxes are rather gimmicky because killing one kills them all.

The box stacking needed bugfixes instead of removal as a mechanic in my opinion.

MEMEME6707 votes

I honestly think that semi-hybrid Shaco is going to be the strongest version of Shaco after the rework comes out, but I have to say that I don't like how the playstyle is being forced. It feels a lot like the Mordekaiser rework to me, in how one particular playstyle is being forced as plainly superior to the others.

What other playstyle is there? Stack boxes and hope someone walks into them? I doubt that's creating a healthy gameplay experience for either player, honestly.

In particular, I don't like how backstab was changed. And the miniboxes are rather gimmicky because killing one kills them all.

The miniboxes being like that should be fine because it's an insanely strong buff.

Why don't you like how backstab was changed? It seems like a huge buff to AP shaco, because you can get a much stronger first hit with which to burst down your target.

The box stacking needed bugfixes instead of removal as a mechanic in my opinion.

The change seems like bugfixes, effectively. Unless there's like a radius like gp barrels have, but instead of connecting you can't place a box close to another box (even if they wouldn't be occupying the same space). Making it so the boxes have unit collision with each other is probably one of the best ways to do this for a ton of reasons, not the least of which being that the opponent should be able to know how many boxes are shooting at them.

ReshiKillim2 votes

Different Playstyles of Shaco: Support, Tank, Bruiser, Crit Nuke, Crit, AD, AP, Hybrid, Semi-Hybrid. And Riot is enforcing Semi-Hybrid as the best option.

The biggest reason I dislike how the backstab was changed, was that it (on live) interacts with Shiv for 120% of bonus AD and AP instead of just 100%. Which makes it really beneficial against enemies who are trying to escape or are unaware of your presence. Plus, it now has a cooldown.

In a good number of situations, an experienced Shaco could get a HUGE amount of their burst by using backstab. Reworked potential of it in a quick fight is significantly lower. Against most of the other assassins at the time period in which it wouldn't be a nerf (compared to live) anymore you'd have very little chance.

And this is another change that hits non-hybrid Shaco more than it does hybrids. From what I remember, backstab procs on item active effects as well. Might be wrong on this part, would have to re-test to confirm.

Previously, Deceive's crit damage was modified by crit damage modifiers (runes and IE), and allowed for a max around 312% crit damage on the deceive hit. That's not counting backstab. Crit-Nuke Shaco is one I'm hoping isn't going to killed by the update, but as what's on the PBE isn't final I can't say.

However, turning it into special mini-crit on-hit comes with negative of his passive now being nerfed by randuin's. (Randuin's crit damage reduction applies to magic damage as well)

Tank Shaco is one of the playstyles getting hit hardest, as it (on live) has low damage already. But the changes are going to seriously hit hard. The shiv changes especially. Tank Shaco heavily relied on boxes and the shiv early-mid to transition into being tanky, and Tank Shaco doesn't build any AP so a number of changes won't add much damage.

But since Shiv is worse early on, and deceive levels are hardly what you'd want for it other than stealth duration, Tank Shaco is getting boned.

Support Shaco's playstyle is getting shafted, as Shiv is no longer good to max first (which is what you'd generally max on support Shaco because the poke was necessary 95% of the time) and having to max deceive first kills the poke-defense role he had as support shaco.

Saianna1 votes

The way the math works out, you need between 480(level 1) and 994(level 18) ap for two-shiv to be scaling better on the old scaling than the new. Changing a bonus AD scaling to a total AD scaling is generally done to help out the builds that DON'T build as much AD (this seems obvious to me, but I digress), by the way.

?????????

And how did you made that math of yours?

Second thing is: Now AP Shaco is kind of FORCED to build some AD. Otherwise he won't work well with just basic AD he gets per level.

And what about JitB? It was trashed aswell.

Ultimate? Unchanged pretty much.

And you go with saying AP is just as fine, if not better? The fuck dude?

MEMEME6701 votes

Whoops, I screwed up the math, yeah. Correct math is as follows, my apologies.

The math, although I didn't account for changed backstab, base damage changes, or the 3-8% missing hp (because the OP was just talking about the scaling) is as follows.

57.6 – 117 is Shaco's AD at levels 1 - 18 respectively

This means this AD will provide 48.96 and 99.45 damage to his E with the 85% total AD scaling. Because the AP scaling is 90%, you need approximately (i multiplied by 1.12 here instead of 1.11 repeating), 55 - 111 AP to match the scaling, and after that you have less with the new than the old.

So, looks like a buff for early game that will fall off after ~2 AP items.

Second thing is: Now AP Shaco is kind of FORCED to build some AD. Otherwise he won't work well with just basic AD he gets per level.

Why, exactly?

And what about JitB? It was trashed aswell.

How? It got duration buffs (for AP shaco), and health buffs. The stacking was changed, yes, but I don't believe that alone, while buffing it in other areas, 'trashes' the ability.

Ultimate? Unchanged pretty much.

Really? Did you even read my explanation on how useful the Ult buffs can be in a bunch of scenarios? If you did, I'd like you to respond to that, and if not you should go read it and then respond, because I'm not going to write it all out again.

Saianna1 votes

Why, exactly?

Because if his Shiv overall damage falls off then he has to deal some damage by other means. For example by using Q. But it's tricky. Cause he's going into melee range against his opponent. Which means it's best to have at least some AD as "oh god, i Effed up, gotta slap this dude till one of us falls".

Imo it's stupid cause Riot wants AP-Shaco players to burn their escape ability or ability to stalk & throw shiv into going full melee. So many wrong things with this one.

One more thing: If Both Q and Shiv AP scalling is kinda worse than AD scallings (alot with passive that AP cannot use)... WHY WOULD YOU USE AP SHACO AT ALL? (Capsed so you could think about it)

It's a perfect example of saying "fuck off ap shaco players"

How? It got duration buffs (for AP shaco), and health buffs. The stacking was changed, yes, but I don't believe that alone, while buffing it in other areas, 'trashes' the ability.

  1. Duration buffs are more like weakened nerfs from 2-3 years ago when his JitB was about 3 mins long~~. I cannot call it a buff. More like reverted nerf.
  2. Health buffs are silly. (We asked for JitB to ward-like HP for 3-4 years by the way). Also believe me, this "buff" won't change a damn. JitB will be most effective early on first 5 levels, but then EVERYONE will be able to one-shot them, cause they'll gain hp waay too little to matter. Jitb to matter (and survive 3s of being "activated-stealthed") in lategame would have to have like 500 or 600 HP, bare minimum.
  3. Stacking JitB is important for Shaco. He predicts enemies and sets a trap beforehand. That's difficult thing to do. Why should he be punnished for it? He won't be able to kill an enemy with 1 trap, shiv and Q. No way in hell. (We are still talking just about AP Shaco). #Imo there's easy fix for this: Allow Shaco to stack JitB, BUT each another JitB deals 20% (or more) damage less.

Really? Did you even read my explanation on how useful the Ult buffs can be in a bunch of scenarios? If you did, I'd like you to respond to that, and if not you should go read it and then respond, because I'm not going to write it all out again.

Sorry, haven't read it, so I reread it and... I still disagree.

It is exactly the same ability with just a nice flower on top of it. Doesn't change much. Say, is killing Zac blobs a hard thing to do? No.. Not really. Does it take your whole attention to kill it? Again, not really.

You'll get the same thing here. BUT there's 1 thing more you should think about. Shacos JitB need 2~3 seconds before they get stealthed and activated. I am damn sure we'll have the same deal here. I simply do not believe that 3 boxes, with 1 HP bar, which will most likely be right next to your dead body will change anything.

Also there's funny thing: some Shaco mains are displeased about this rework, right? It's not just because this "rework" is weird. It was supposed to be the next most awesome thing happened on LoL after inventing Infinity Edge for ADCs.

I for example was speculating that his core-change will lie in ultimate. Still the same, but it'd copy abilities used by me, or it'd be alot more "smart" etc etc. And what we got? 3 MINI JitB with shared HP bar. Yay. Me. Meh.

MEMEME6701 votes

Because if his Shiv overall damage falls off then he has to deal some damage by other means. For example by using Q. But it's tricky. Cause he's going into melee range against his opponent. Which means it's best to have at least some AD as "oh god, i Effed up, gotta slap this dude till one of us falls".

Or you could just only go in if you can kill someone? Sure, if you make a mistake you'll be in trouble, but why assume you'll make a mistake in the first place, if you could just avoid that by playing better?

Imo it's stupid cause Riot wants AP-Shaco players to burn their escape ability or ability to stalk & throw shiv into going full melee. So many wrong things with this one.

They want every shaco player to do that. What exactly is wrong with that?

One more thing: If Both Q and Shiv AP scalling is kinda worse than AD scallings (alot with passive that AP cannot use)... WHY WOULD YOU USE AP SHACO AT ALL? (Capsed so you could think about it)

It's a perfect example of saying "fuck off ap shaco players"

Except Q is going to be MUCH better for ap shaco after the rework than it was before, AND AP shaco can use the passive with his Q. Also, the AP scaling on E is better than the AD scaling, and W + ult have AP scaling, so that's another reason you would use AP shaco.

Duration buffs are more like weakened nerfs from 2-3 years ago when his JitB was about 3 mins long~~. I cannot call it a buff. More like reverted nerf.

That's not how this works. You can't cherrypick certain things from other patches, that're 2-3 YEARS ago. We're talking about this change, right now. If you want to say shaco should be the same as he was 2-3 years ago, that's a different discussion.

Health buffs are silly. (We asked for JitB to ward-like HP for 3-4 years by the way). Also believe me, this "buff" won't change a damn. JitB will be most effective early on first 5 levels, but then EVERYONE will be able to one-shot them, cause they'll gain hp waay too little to matter.

Maybe that's the case, maybe it isn't. Neither of us can know.

Stacking JitB is important for Shaco. He predicts enemies and sets a trap beforehand. That's difficult thing to do. Why should he be punnished for it? He won't be able to kill an enemy with 1 trap, shiv and Q. No way in hell. (We are still talking just about AP Shaco).

Okay. Why should he be able to kill someone with one cast of Q W and E? What other assassin can do that?

The prediction and setting a trap is the same with one box or 50. The only change is the damage and prep time. (and with the extra time you can still be setting traps, just not enhancing a current one, essentially.)

It is exactly the same ability with just a nice flower on top of it. Doesn't change much. Say, is killing Zac blobs a hard thing to do? No.. Not really. Does it take your whole attention to kill it? Again, not really.

You'll get the same thing here. BUT there's 1 thing more you should think about. Shacos JitB need 2~3 seconds before they get stealthed and activated. I am damn sure we'll have the same deal here. I simply do not believe that 3 boxes, with 1 HP bar, which will most likely be right next to your dead body will change anything.

If they are fairly easy to just kill before they go invisible they'll probably be not very useful, yeah. But if they aren't, then they'll likely be very useful. That's another thing we have no way of knowing right now.

Saianna1 votes

They want every shaco player to do that. What exactly is wrong with that?

And what's wrong about not suing that? Zed has shadows to go IN and OUT Fizz has his pole dance Akali has her Shroud Kha has his jump with resets and so on and on

Shaco? Go in and die. Kinda similar to Kassadin. And we know how little Riot loves that rift walker.

Except Q is going to be MUCH better for ap shaco after the rework than it was before, AND AP shaco can use the passive with his Q. Also, the AP scaling on E is better than the AD scaling, and W + ult have AP scaling, so that's another reason you would use AP shaco.

Sigh.. No point arguing. You'll see. Don't take me wrong, some AP ratio on Q are cool, but I'm sure it'll simply turn out badly for AP Shacos. And I'd love to avoid that, cause AP Shaco is one of my favs to play as.

That's not how this works. You can't cherrypick certain things from other patches, that're 2-3 YEARS ago. We're talking about this change, right now. If you want to say shaco should be the same as he was 2-3 years ago, that's a different discussion.

Hmm maybe, but then.. Did anything major changed to AP-Shaco? Not really. He was like frozen in time. Oh well, maybe we have just extra power spike - Ludens Echo. 2-3 years ago Riot nerfed Shacos boxes. It was harsh and flat nerf. There was no "we'll slowly nerf it untill it works", but something like "we'll cut it in half and check on it in few years". <-- I'm salty here, cause that's not the way how balancing should work. Riot would "balance"/buff Zed every effing patch just so he wouldn't lose his position of es numeros une.

Also one more: If Riot was so "happy" to share some buff for Shacos boxes, then all of my "IT IS A SCAM" alerts in head start to shiny blood-red colour. I'm not sure how it'll trn out, but I know Riot too well to just think of this change as a clear buff.

Maybe that's the case, maybe it isn't. Neither of us can know.

Yup. We'd need some more info from testers.

Okay. Why should he be able to kill someone with one cast of Q W and E? What other assassin can do that?

Well not 100-0 obviously. Ap Shacos could never do that. But lets say fleeting ADC with half hp. E+Q should work, right?

The prediction and setting a trap is the same with one box or 50. The only change is the damage and prep time. (and with the extra time you can still be setting traps, just not enhancing a current one, essentially.)

Well not... Not really. If you throw 1 box and enemy falls for it = great, but if you put whole 3 (which takes almost a minute) then there's the commitment. You either succeed and get the kill, or you just wasted minute or 2. You see my point, right? With this change 1 possible way of playing Shaco-trapper is gone. Why would you decrease diversity if you could still make it healthy and keep it? I don't understand...

If they are fairly easy to just kill before they go invisible they'll probably be not very useful, yeah. But if they aren't, then they'll likely be very useful. That's another thing we have no way of knowing right now.

Yup, but then.. Don't you think this reworked ultimate is.. lame? They could have added anything to enhance him. 3 mini jitb really do say to you "we were too busy with other stuff, so here's this thing". If they were indeed busy with assassin rework in assassin rework update, then I believe it's a good time to hire some more staff.. But that might be just me :)

MEMEME6702 votes

And what's wrong about not suing that? Zed has shadows to go IN and OUT Fizz has his pole dance Akali has her Shroud Kha has his jump with resets and so on and on

Shaco? Go in and die. Kinda similar to Kassadin. And we know how little Riot loves that rift walker.

Zed's shadows are also a damage ability, and he can't use them to deal damage and go out.

Fizz E is currently maxed first, meaning the cooldown goes down but it's his main damage ability, so either he is using it from a point where he's already pretty close to the enemy (so he can get the damage off) or he's using it to reach them and missing a big part of his damage. If the changes make it so he doesn't max e (which I think is unlikely), he will still have to choose between using it to get in or go out, because at rank 1 it has a 20 sec cd.

Akali's Shroud is very effective at getting you temporary relief from being focused, but not very good at letting you escape from the fight, as everyone knows where you are the whole time you're in it.

Kha is very mobile once he evolves E, but he requires his enemies to be isolated to get the most damage, a requirement no other assassin has.

Kassadin, ironically, is the only one on this list who can get in and get out easily, as his ult is a very low cooldown. But he has other things that make assassinating difficult for him.

Shaco has tools to avoid just instantly dying after he jumps on his target. He can come from anywhere, so if anyone splits off even a little bit, he could be on them. Additionally, he can setup boxes to allow him to escape easily.

However, Shaco is not really designed to be very good in teamfights. It's just who he is.

Sigh.. No point arguing. You'll see. Don't take me wrong, some AP ratio on Q are cool, but I'm sure it'll simply turn out badly for AP Shacos. And I'd love to avoid that, cause AP Shaco is one of my favs to play as.

Maybe it will, but without any reasoning you can't really know. If you want to just believe out of faith that's fine, but you shouldn't try to convince others 'it's really bad for ap shaco, i know it i just know it, for no real reason, i just know it!'

Hmm maybe, but then.. Did anything major changed to AP-Shaco? Not really. He was like frozen in time. Oh well, maybe we have just extra power spike - Ludens Echo. 2-3 years ago Riot nerfed Shacos boxes. It was harsh and flat nerf. There was no "we'll slowly nerf it untill it works", but something like "we'll cut it in half and check on it in few years". <-- I'm salty here, cause that's not the way how balancing should work. Riot would "balance"/buff Zed every effing patch just so he wouldn't lose his position of es numeros une.

That's not really how it worked. Firstly, they didn't cut it in half, they put it to 66%, and this was 4 patches after Shaco had just been finished with some tweaks over two patches, so it was probably just that the boxes were lasting a little too long for whatever reason and thats why they nerfed them.

Also one more: If Riot was so "happy" to share some buff for Shacos boxes, then all of my "IT IS A SCAM" alerts in head start to shiny blood-red colour. I'm not sure how it'll trn out, but I know Riot too well to just think of this change as a clear buff.

That's your own problem. If you straight up don't believe Riot will buff Shaco boxes for any reason, then it's your own fault when if Riot does decide to buff them, you're upset because you don't believe it.

Well not 100-0 obviously. Ap Shacos could never do that. But lets say fleeting ADC with half hp. E+Q should work, right?

Sure, and they probably will be able to do this, especially if lich bane damage gets increased by backstab.

Well not... Not really. If you throw 1 box and enemy falls for it = great, but if you put whole 3 (which takes almost a minute) then there's the commitment. You either succeed and get the kill, or you just wasted minute or 2. You see my point, right? With this change 1 possible way of playing Shaco-trapper is gone. Why would you decrease diversity if you could still make it healthy and keep it? I don't understand...

Because changing it so that they don't 100-0 someone when stacked just makes it so either 1) People find a way to abuse it, or they don't do it. So why even let them abuse it ever?

Some ways of playing the game just aren't healthy for the game. Like Nidalee's old Spear > Run (in cougar, meaning you can't ever catch her) > Repeat. There's no reason Riot should try to keep that playstyle in the game, and so they don't.

Yup, but then.. Don't you think this reworked ultimate is.. lame? They could have added anything to enhance him. 3 mini jitb really do say to you "we were too busy with other stuff, so here's this thing". If they were indeed busy with assassin rework in assassin rework update, then I believe it's a good time to hire some more staff.. But that might be just me :)

Nah, it seems neat to me. Cloning abilities seems like LB's thing.

Also, Riot is pretty much always hiring, they just have trouble finding good applicants. It's not as easy as 'press the hire button and gain 5 employees'.

Champion Skin1 votes

Changing a bonus AD scaling to a total AD scaling is generally done to help out the builds that DON'T build as much AD (this seems obvious to me, but I digress), by the way.

Not always... it can also be used to lower early damage by lowering base damage but the damage will be about the same late game when base AD scales up and makes up for the lost base damage... making it so that the ability maxes out at level 18 kind of instead of potentially at level 9

There is also item 3053 (though that doesn't matter much)

Pill Slinger1 votes

Lol well this post certainly made me take back that upvote I gave OP.

SociopathFriend18 votes

Box stacking could interrupt movement abilities, even Malphite's ult.

Uh- if that's true then it most certainly did need to go- nothing is supposed to stop Malphite's ult.

Saianna2 votes

FYI Ahris charm does the same and yet noone spilling their shit over it + on top of that what is the chance that malphite will ult right at your JitB? I guess you know how difficult it is to set them up. Long CD <-- it takes 45~s to stack 3 of them, they trigger by anything, they have 0 health and their CC range is also lame AF.

Serika Zero1 votes

ahri's charm doesn't do that anymore since like mid way though the season when the nerf happened, we were against it as it took out of the skill needed to play ahri. Most of the time u had to time your skill shot travel time with the enemy's travel time to cancel their "Dash" like skill, meaning, it actually took time, practice and skill to pull it off. While Shaco's requires strategic positioning and forcing your enemy to play in your hands. Both are different proof of skill by mastering your champion and knowing the enemy.

Riot has been "nerfing" skill for a long time now.

Saianna1 votes

Riot has been "nerfing" skill for a long time now.

Agreed :(

RocketRelm10 votes

https://i.gyazo.com/b4972b66d5670e1d2f6a18e1c595e293.png

The changes don&#039;t even make sense. The rank one damage is 5, and the rank 5 damage is less than half of live&#039;s value. The AP scaling is reduced too. They added a slow once again to force AD for auto attacks. They changed the bonus AD scaling to total AD, like I&#039;ve said before, to force AD play style.

I… don't see how changing it from bonus AD to total AD 'forces an AD play style'. The only difference a shift from bonus ad to total ad causes is for niche items like sterakk's which I don't think is what you mean, and an ability to add your Base AD to the power of the shiv. The purpose of this particular change far as I can tell, is to connect the shiv's power to Shaco's Level (aka how high his Base AD is), rather than Rank Level (whether you max shiv first, second, or third).

The reason they've taken so much out of the base value of the damage, is because they've added Shaco's AD as part of the base value. Now a lvl 1 shaco with a rank 1 shiv has a 'base' value of 53.96. A lvl 6 shaco with a rank 1 shiv has a 'base' value of 65.69 (before factoring in any bonus AD).

ReshiKillim7 votes

Shiv (on live) currently procs backstab, which means it has a 120% bonus AD and AP ratio. With the reworked version, it will not proc backstab. Which drops 20% of base damage, and a lot of scaling. In exchange for total AD scaling instead of bonus.

And unless you're proccing backstab, which is hard due to pitiful stealth time early game, Deceive got nerfed damage early on as well as duration and CD.

MEMEME6704 votes

Shiv (on live) currently procs backstab, which means it has a 120% bonus AD and AP ratio. With the reworked version, it will not proc backstab. Which drops 20% of base damage, and a lot of scaling. In exchange for total AD scaling instead of bonus.

This is only if you're behind the target, obviously, so it is less than 120% ratio throughout the course of the game. I don't want to do the math right now, but without calculating backstab you need between 480(level 1) and 994(level 18) ap for two-shiv to be scaling better on the old scaling than the new. So even with backstab, you'll still need very high ap for the old one to be better.

And unless you're proccing backstab, which is hard due to pitiful stealth time early game, Deceive got nerfed damage early on as well as duration and CD.

The cooldown change is 0.5 seconds unless you're not attacking during stealth or shortly after it, and the cooldown will actually be SHORTER once you have 20% cdr or greater.

xelaker4 votes

maybe people were tired of walking into a bush, warded first of course no facechecking here, and plowing into 50 boxes and dieing with no way to do anything from fear... or being insta- halved by a single knife from an invisible guy...

Weathered2 votes

The new control ward now instantly disables all his boxes in a radius. Plus you can have two of them.

Halftime Illaoi3 votes

Welcome to the club, Poppy used to be a mage too now look what's happened. AP shaco was far far too interesting by far for Riot to keep it in the game.

Weathered10 votes

Poppy prior to her update was purposely kept weak, and was stated that if she ever found a way to make use of her ult more than they intended, they would literally smite her off the face of the earth.

Shaco is not in this boat. He has been praised as a balanced Assassin who has his respective strengths.

Ahristocats3 votes

{quoted}

Shaco is not in this boat. He has been praised as a balanced Assassin who has his respective strengths.

pretty much this, shaco is one of the healthiest assassin right now, since for example he can't kill someone if he is behind like leblanc for instance.

his only issue is his early game, and his early game was fixed by riot, for no compensation or trash compensation.

LatetotheRace3 votes

It really feels to me like Shaco will see a healthier gameplay change as a whole.

-Stronger camp clears, and clear time. -Better counter jungling. -More AD, not crit build style which can promote prolonged fights. -Less guaranteed utility. He is an assassin after all, utility should always be an underlying note and not a significant mechanic. "These changes are not good. They restrict playstyles" So... like tank ekko? Riot decided that 2 shot shaco was unstable and difficult to balance, so they fixed it. I don't blame them in the slightest.

I you have... say 400 AD, which I hope you will have. Your Q and one auto (provided it is a backstab) should do roughly 696 + 580 damage. This isn't even including two shiv poison or hallucinate, hydra or duskblade. I don't think these changes will effect him in any real negative way, other than the first two levels of deceive.

FantasySniper2 votes

I think the only one that I care about is the passive change and the fact that he can't slow monster attack speeds anymore. The rest of his kit needs to go to hell anyways.

ReshiKillim2 votes

From what I've seen so far, if the current changes on the PBE go live Shaco players will have to build hybrid crit if they want full damage efficiency.

Weathered2 votes

This is my issue. He is in a healthier state now since he maintains the flexibility, even if these changes end up being buffs.

ReshiKillim1 votes

I think they would've been better off giving Shaco the old Rengar treatment. Making shiv a skillshot, and reducing the early level stealth durations would've been enough to curb an overpowering early game.

Instead we get itemization changes and forced mechanics that remind me of the Morde rework.

Harvey Rabbit2 votes

{quoted}

https://i.gyazo.com/1bf408324fb2207e1a8318d9bb75699a.png

His passive is only viable with a crit/AD playstyle. It lost it&#039;s extra damage for Shiv.

https://i.gyazo.com/cd902e735a0ab32508981ceb99c21946.png

You don&#039;t reach live duration for stealth until rank 4. Without maxing this, he loses most of his functionality of a stealth champion. The 50% AP scaling is not nearly enough to support an AP playstyle with such a high cooldown, and once again locks you into going full AD to be able to make use of having to max Q.

https://i.gyazo.com/4b1365cae149d62079cbcff78c362b6d.png

The health change is a necessity that should have been included a long time ago. However, the lack of being able to stack boxes is a huge gut punch to AP once again. If people weren&#039;t aware, stacking boxes was a lot more important than just trying to burst someone down. Box stacking could interrupt movement abilities, even Malphite&#039;s ult. This was really important for AP and lane Shaco, and was a huge part of his &quot;deceiver&quot; thematic in that he could bait people into wasting their engages.

https://i.gyazo.com/b4972b66d5670e1d2f6a18e1c595e293.png

The changes don&#039;t even make sense. The rank one damage is 5, and the rank 5 damage is less than half of live&#039;s value. The AP scaling is reduced too. They added a slow once again to force AD for auto attacks. They changed the bonus AD scaling to total AD, like I&#039;ve said before, to force AD playstyle.

https://i.gyazo.com/25dcde3a9eb908fa2b0a3246c0d8c450.png

This change is useless. All it will be use for is a teamfight bomb with hopes of getting off fear. I appreciate the increased time for your clone, but it wasn&#039;t necessary.

These changes are not good. They restrict playstyles, they overall nerf his champion as a whole, they promote abusing a specific item set rather than having a variety of options, and kill his strengths. Riot said they wanted to tone down his early game, and they certainly have, but their solution to buffing his mid to late game is simply promoting AD/Crit because it scales well. This is not what Shaco players want. We don&#039;t want to be told that the validation for nerfing his best strengths is to build for late game and hope that we are not left behind. This is not a good fix until his VGU.

Dumpstered, yikes. :(

Crett1 votes

Wow, the passive change REALLY stinks. His Q's cooldown shouldn't have gone UP with a lower early duration, too.

ModAcademy Kayn1 votes

Two things I'd like to know a little more about.

  • You state that it restricts playstyles but don't clarify, or at least i didn't see it, that could be my bad, what playstyle is being restricted.

  • What is the normal Shaco itemization? I don't see enough Shaco's to understand his usual build.

Other than those, I don't understand what you mean by "Losing his functionality as a Stealth champion". Kha Zix only gets one second of stealth from his ult, albeit he gets two charges, and he still functions as an assassin who can slip around teamfights. If you are refering to his early game invisible jukes, it'd be hard pressed to find a way to make him more relevant late game, while keeping that early game fear cheese.

Saianna1 votes

AP build is being restricted in favour of AD or Hybrid builds.

ModAcademy Kayn2 votes

But how? They added in AP scalings and the whole mini-shaco boxes.

Saianna1 votes

You won't get as much damage out of Shiv anymore (worse ratio, base damage, no more bonus 20% dmg from passive backstab).

So this time to deal similar damage you have to go close & personal using your Q aswell. And that gets dumb, cause if you go for melee as a MAGE then it's suicide. ESPECIALLY if you have to use your escape to do that.

Boxes got heavy nerf blow aswell. You can't stack them. No stacking = no traps = damage cut by more than half. At least they'll have a little more HP......................................................... Which was supposed to be added like FUCKING 5 YEARS AGO. Anyways that amount of HP is worthless. It's more like they are giving us "freebie" buffs and then nerf the living shit out of other aspects cause of those "freebie" buffs we were supposed to get earlier.

And then his Clone..............

Meh as fu.. I mean pretty much the same as before. Qith bonus 3 JitB that will evaporate instantly. It's like Riot wants to promote "Go Melee, go kamikazee and fuck you". At least that's how I see it :)

Weathered1 votes

Both AP and bruiser Shaco were viable playstyles in recent seasons, however the above cuts to AP and the reduced base damage to E, despite the % damage, is going to make both of those playstyles very hard to make work.

His most popular build is Warrior>Hydra>Stattik.

By "Losing his functionality as a stealth champion", I mean that on live he is most known for his stealth plays, however with the extremely short stealth time and long cd at early levels, people won't see that until late game, when it isn't as impactful.

crzymdscntst1 votes

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but his Shiv's base damage got cut in half at lower ranks. (approx 25 damage if you consider his base AD) The scaling being less, anything you actually build can't ever outscale the old thing. The redeeming factor is that the 3-8% makes it an execute rather than poke. Which isn't a consolation to a lane Shaco (which are rare, but exist).

The big thing of note is that his Q can do about either 110-ish or 180-ish (after brief math) in combo with his passive. (Assuming that the AD scaling is on top of base auto-attack damage. If it's not, it's the 110, if it is, it's 180.) That's an increase at earlier levels and directly puts AP scaling into the skill. If you consider Sheen-based itemization, all around it's a buff to any version of Shaco's early game. Late game, I'd guess he'll fall off probably except at taking out priority targets and dying.

His ultimate is definitely all-around improved, but notably the change really only counteracts melee champs. Ranged champs are less likely to get sucked into it. I will note that 3 boxes applying fear at the end will be a delayed and very nice AoE CC for teamfights especially.

As to the boxes, the more effective way to use them, might be for a quick cluster of damage in some cases of insta-gibbing an enemy, but a more sustained way is to plot them somewhat randomly, slightly spaced, that way enemies chain the fear over the course of a few boxes and are disabled longer while you knock them down a notch. I do wish this was better in the longer run of preventing an enemy escape, but the trigger time has always meant you can't toss it behind a running enemy really. The stealth change to his Q where you can place the boxes from stealth means you can definitely do this a bit more accurately.

Saianna1 votes

but a more sustained way is to plot them somewhat randomly, slightly spaced,

Congratz! You just said "I don't play AP Shaco, so I'll give my opinion on AP Shaco"

Stacking boxes is just as important for AP Shacos as for example AAing as ADC.

TeCoolMage1 votes

I'm pretty sure his passive crits work with Q damage AP

Photos of Ghosts1 votes

There are issues in this new kit, but the fact that they reduced his early presence is great. Less clearing, shorter stealth, E is now a finisher.

Poske1 votes

Implying shiv wasnt a complete noob bait for shaco players

Best way to build shaco is Jungle on hit item / hydra / botrk / 2 tanky items

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

well that Q change makes sure he isn't cancer early game. thats all i care for they can sort out the rest as they please.

3tyson1 votes

gg ap shaco as a shaco main its a bad day 2 be me

OokamiNoSora1 votes

Im sorry =[
One of my mains got trashed by a rework as well. I know the feeling.

Sire Hippington1 votes

Those cahnges are perfect, they hurt the raw dagger-poke and box-stacking, but reward smart use of the ult and going in for risky plays(Q scaleing of AP and the passive).

The AP shaco you want to keep is an abomination that butchers fun for all other players, It's about the most toxic playstyle that ever saw the rift, way beyond tank-ekko levels of annoying. Fortunally Ap shaco isn't really viable on SR due to his lack of farming tools.

notmarked1 votes

what happens if you build him hybrid?

Xela Syab1 votes

I think what would be cool if Shaco had auto stealth around jungle camps and bush.

Elikain1 votes

There's absolutely no way i can put all the frustration i feel when facing Shaco, aside. This doesn't make me biased at all, it makes me fair.

Shaco already builds a lot of damage, building more fighter items for the sake of his invisibility and % bonus AD procs. This way, he now has to build squishy to get all that damage, instead of just ganking lvl 2 and winning from the start.

I don't think he's worse off with these changes, Riot addressed a couple of known furstrations when facing Shaco. Late game, he's just useless and he splitpushes a lot.

Spoofghoul1 votes

i like the changes for tank shaco

i mostly play tank shaco and these changes benefit that playstyle

9kPluzZ1 votes

As a Crit shaco main the 1.5 sec stealth is a joke.

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