It is totally, 100% A-OK for LeBlanc to have such high burst

Reynard the ƒox·May 28, 2015·134 votes·35,738 views

but it's not ok for her to also have one of the easiest ways in the game to avoid danger as well.

146 Comments

RiotMeddlerMay 29, 201573 votes

Yup, Le Blanc's got some problems. We're doing some work on her at the moment as a result, looking at reducing some mixture of her E's width, her W's travel speed and W's AOE size (unlikely to be all of those at once though). Our goal's to make it easier to react to her casts, whether that's dodging W or E, CCing her as she comes in with W, using defensive abilities on yourself/allies as she W's in or whatever.

LuciferMay 29, 201517 votes

{quoted}

Yup, Le Blanc's got some problems. We're doing some work on her at the moment as a result, looking at reducing some mixture of her E's width, her W's travel speed and W's AOE size (unlikely to be all of those at once though). Our goal's to make it easier to react to her casts, whether that's dodging W or E, CCing her as she comes in with W, using defensive abilities on yourself/allies as she W's in or whatever.

If you're going to change her E width, can you make it so that it aligns with the hitbox correctly >_> ? Note, Le Blanc is not the only one in need of hitbox revamping/clarity... I'm looking at YOU, Blitzcrank

Have you also considered changing the tether range on E? It's kind of ridiculous the way it is now.

BorblandMay 29, 20152 votes

Personally, I'm looking at Morgana

SquarefighterMay 29, 20156 votes

She's been basically fine since they changed the Q particles IMO

jaymc1130May 29, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Yup, Le Blanc's got some problems. We're doing some work on her at the moment as a result, looking at reducing some mixture of her E's width, her W's travel speed and W's AOE size (unlikely to be all of those at once though). Our goal's to make it easier to react to her casts, whether that's dodging W or E, CCing her as she comes in with W, using defensive abilities on yourself/allies as she W's in or whatever.

If she had relevant mana costs she might actually have to make tactical decisions about when she can and can't engage instead of playing like a resource less champ for all intents and purposes. Zero cost ultimate that empowers basic abilities on a short cd? Totes awesome balance.

TotalJerkMay 29, 20154 votes

She has Incredibly high mana costs already.

ThryaleMay 29, 201539 votes

can you look at shortening her leash range too? I've burned flash from an almost max range chain and still couldn't escape the tether. That's a problem.

I mean, karma's leash doesn't apply a slow, and if she uses it on you at max range, all you gotta do is move 2 inches away from her and it snaps.

Only Play DariusMay 29, 201515 votes

One is point and click, the other is a skillshot.

Don't get me wrong though, I despise Leblanc

FadedpfMay 29, 20156 votes

It does not matter at all if one is point or click. Leblancs is stronger, applies a slow and is near impossible to escape. It has hit box problems and is honestly a strong cc if you do get snared.

EphidelMay 29, 201511 votes

How does it not matter? You have to hit a skillshot. I don't see a problem with punishing people for getting hit by skillshots.

KSHarrisonMay 29, 201518 votes

The leash range, if it's limited to about 1000 range, may be standard for a skill shot. Is it broken? No. Can you learn to play around it? Of course. But it could nevertheless adhere to better game design, which would lead to fewer frustrated responses like from the user above. This factor alone has motivated many of Riot's design initiatives, for example involving reworks, where the champion is theoretically fine, can be played around and balanced, but not "healthy" ie. not adhering to good game principles.

The problem with LeBlanc's E is that the in-game animation presents a false choice to the victim. On cast, its range appears to be a certain length, while the tether itself holds for much more than that length. This gives the illusion that when you are hit by it, you can still break it, when in reality you may very well need a double dash to actually break the tether. Exacerbating the misleading disparity in cast range vs tether range is that the range of the tether's actual breaking point is not communicated at all.

The animation is the opposite of clarity. Your expectation to escape is not met. This results in frustration, especially over a wasted Flash. You can read more about False Choice here. The "Ineffective Choice" is the relevant section.

TheSuperBaseMay 29, 201512 votes

{quoted}

Yup, Le Blanc's got some problems. We're doing some work on her at the moment as a result, looking at reducing some mixture of her E's width, her W's travel speed and W's AOE size (unlikely to be all of those at once though). Our goal's to make it easier to react to her casts, whether that's dodging W or E, CCing her as she comes in with W, using defensive abilities on yourself/allies as she W's in or whatever.

Thank you.

Euijin SongMay 29, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Yup, Le Blanc's got some problems. We're doing some work on her at the moment as a result, looking at reducing some mixture of her E's width, her W's travel speed and W's AOE size (unlikely to be all of those at once though). Our goal's to make it easier to react to her casts, whether that's dodging W or E, CCing her as she comes in with W, using defensive abilities on yourself/allies as she W's in or whatever.

people already cc as she uses w...so..I don't understand. First peole whined and she got her silence removed, then damage off her q. It's the same with riven high skill cap champions that people put a lot of work into for a high risk high reward playstyles are punished.

Fomorian27May 29, 20153 votes

Personally I think the w's aoe size is the one to hit. In lane, her weakness is supposed to be waveclear and this helps accentuate that. The aoe is so big that it feels undodgeable most of the time. If you were new to the game you'd be forgiven for thinking that her w aoe was similar in size to the mark on the ground she leaves behind, but it's actually many times that size.

Euijin SongMay 29, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Yup, Le Blanc's got some problems. We're doing some work on her at the moment as a result, looking at reducing some mixture of her E's width, her W's travel speed and W's AOE size (unlikely to be all of those at once though). Our goal's to make it easier to react to her casts, whether that's dodging W or E, CCing her as she comes in with W, using defensive abilities on yourself/allies as she W's in or whatever.

people already cc as she uses w...so..I don't understand. First people whined and she got her silence removed, then damage off her q. It's the same with riven high skill cap champions that people put a lot of work into for a high risk high reward playstyles are punished.

ItsaMeUncleMarioMay 29, 20156 votes

Exactly! People just complain about high skill capped champions because instead of learning how to play against them they would rather have them nerfed. It is really sad to see a lot of hard but rewarding champs go into trash tier because noobs don't know how to counter play.

SaintshingMay 29, 20153 votes

Her chain hitbox should be fixed regardless of balance issue. It just doesnt match with the visual effect. Her passive also gives her a lot of hidden power. She already has high mobility. The stealth makes her almost impossible to gank.I think the point of the passive is to trick the enemy to follow the clone instead of just making her invisible and thus untargettable. The stealth duration should be reduced back to .5s. I am fine with Leblanc's damage since she mostly does single target damage and she kinda has to put herself at risk to use her full combo. But I feel it is unfair that she has so much unconditional mobility. Almost every other highly mobile champions' mobility abilities were nerfed at some point, e.g. nid, lee, gragas, kass but leblanc was left untouched. I think a reasonable nerf is to increase her w cd but let it refund half the cd if her w hit enemy units, so it wont hurt her offensive side or waveclear but makes her less safe. This is also consistent with direction of the gragas and nid changes.

Skia AsteriMay 29, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Yup, Le Blanc's got some problems. We're doing some work on her at the moment as a result, looking at reducing some mixture of her E's width, her W's travel speed and W's AOE size (unlikely to be all of those at once though). Our goal's to make it easier to react to her casts, whether that's dodging W or E, CCing her as she comes in with W, using defensive abilities on yourself/allies as she W's in or whatever.

Start by switching the base damages of Q and E (Q currently being higher) so she does less poke with Q+R.

NuSix3May 29, 20156 votes

I understand the complaints, but I just don't see how you can nerf LB at all without making her completely useless.

Vellich0rMay 29, 20155 votes

Honestly, IMO she can keep all that. My issues her free instant escape, which is also my problem with zed. I literally have no issue with either champion excluding their variety of get outta jail free cards.

patmax17May 29, 20151 votes

I was about to post this too. A Rioter said if the change on Zed's ult (delay before being able to swap position with shadow) works, they will look into a similar solution for Leblanc. Her combo is just too fast, and has a much lower cooldown

DJ RandMay 29, 20152 votes

I get frustrated with LB too. But I wanted to add something to this:

If you constantly show face as a jungler in her lane, and force her to W, you're blowing her mana + a chance of her comboing whoever she's against or CSing with it. Zed on the other hand? He has no mana. I don't want LB to be nerfed into oblivion, lately I see more AD assassins being played over AP assassins.

Late game is another matter entirely.

MajorPain9May 29, 20154 votes

Meanwhile your team begins to lose because the other Jungler is ganking lanes that don't have an easy escape and getting kills because of it.

x Ape xMay 30, 20152 votes

well, if they take that away from leblanc, she would no longer be an assassin. She'll jump into the enemy team, kill one, and die. While leblanc should be nerfed to add counter play such as the rioter mensioned above, taking away the defining aspect of assassin from her will deal the final blow to the loss of assassins in this meta

ICantNameMeMay 29, 20154 votes

Please don't reduce W's travel speed... it was horrid before you buffed it, and even today, I still sometimes miss my QW combo simply by my W being faster than the Q mark applies. My original thought on how to nerf LeBlanc's laning phase was to have a smaller AoE in the center of W that could proc Q, but not the edges. Please don't reduce her W range, she already has horrible enough waveclear as it is.

As for her E, the hitbox is definitely wider than the animation shows, and it feels a lot easier to hit it than it should be, so go ahead and nerf that. I agree with Thryale too:

can you look at shortening her leash range too? I've burned flash from an almost max range chain and still couldn't escape the tether. That's a problem.

Her leash range doesn't check for breaking often enough. She can literally pop back to her W in the last 0.5s and the tether sometimes still won't break. Make her chain only take 1.75s or 1.5s to root but make it a slightly smaller tether range (a la fiddlesticks drain nerf) and then make it check for tether breaking more frequently (like Morg ult).

She's extremely annoying to play against, but I don't think LeBlanc needs too many nerfs because it's very hard to carry a game with her. Compare her to Katarina = autowin if you get fed in the first 15 minutes. Hurr Durr I can 70% a squishy with targeted spells and then when I kill them I get to do it all over again. AoE Reset Assassins with instant targeted burst combos are balanced right? Why do you think Kha'Zix can't W midair anymore and it doesn't apply his passive? Because it was too much burst in too short of a window (plus it was AoE). Well what do you think Katarina does? lol. Here is an example of Katarina's burst at 15 minutes in, and also bad Death Recap.

TL;DR #NerfKatarina2015

67chromeMay 28, 201519 votes

It is totally, 100% A-OK for LeBlanc to have such high burst

From a balance perspective? Yes. Everything can be balanced with the right numbers.

In the case of LeBlanc: the AoE on a typical mage will allow them to easily chunk 50% of an enemy team's collective HP, decent positioning with auto-attacks will allow a marksman to take out 50% of an enemy team's collective health, and pretty much every assassin has just enough re-set mechanics, AA power, and mild AoE to hit ~50% of an enemy team's collective HP.

LeBlanc is mostly hard-capped at 20% of an enemy team's collective health regardless of how well she does or how much she invests in damage items. In the same kind of circumstance where a typical damage-dealer could pretty much carry their team on their back, LeBlanc might scratch by with 30% of an enemy team's collective HP. She's certainly not your Katarina, Annie, Master Yi, or Miss Fortune where you can ramp up to 100% of an enemy team's collective HPs if you do well enough.

LeBlanc's substantial skill spike to contribute more than your average champion in most late-game scenarios arguably merits her mobility and range to make it more difficult to shut her down than you're average champion: seeing as her contributions are really limited to begin with.

In a counter-play, game-health sense though?

LeBlanc's 100%-->0% combo with little warning and requiring more wide-reaching strategies to deal with over reflexive/tactical maneuvers just is not particularly fun to deal with.

Should she be changed to offer more counter-plays that aren't almost exclusively strategic? Possibly.

I kind of like the option to choose a few champions in LoL that aren't warm-and-fuzzy 100% counter-play approved. With over 120 choices it's kind of nice to have some variety, with all the champions that reward reflexive counter-play it's kind of nice to see a few that sample from different player skillsets and require more strategic play to deal with.

Riot's balance team will probably make a decision on the side of healthy game-interactions and counter-play in the near future concerning LeBlanc though.

blueberrypancakeMay 28, 201514 votes

I wished they buffed Ap Ezreal as

He has higher burst

But much higher risk as alot of his damage is attached to his mobility which he

gasp

can't return to

QuortMay 29, 20154 votes

Whoah! It's almost as if he is a different character with different strengths and capabilities! :0

DrCyanideMay 29, 20153 votes

I love AP Ezreal! "High Risk, High Reward" is actually applicable to him in a lot of situations.

RatbertMay 29, 20151 votes

Except he has poke and a global ult that hurts like shit when he's fed.

YOU BEEN WARNEDMay 29, 20152 votes

I can hurt you like shit with AP Gangplank lichbane Q & global ult when fed, does that mean he's overpowered ?

If anything, it's the ADC mains that prevent us from having nice things. People who abuse the crap out of ranged auto attacks make any ranged champion 200% more effective.

I've never had problems with AP Ezreal unless he's the douchebag kind that somehow lands extreme auto attack harass [ADC main?]. That's my opinion.

Mandang0May 28, 20156 votes

You're implying that LB can only damage a single target and that these other mages can AOE down an entire team. Both of those are exaggerations, in opposite directions. (Also, speaking in terms of team combined health really misses why LB's contribution is so powerful - it reduces the team to 80% of its members & <80% of its damage, something the other mages can't say).

I also don't think counterplay needs to be immediate button-for-button counterplay (why I don't care that some champs have point-and-click spells), but LB leaves much to be desired in the counterplay department even considering indirect counterplay. The way I prefer to talk about it is comparing the amount of effort she has to make with the amount of effort required to deal w/ her. LB just has it far too easy in terms of mobility, target selection, and burst (and on short cooldowns).

AquariusGineMay 28, 201513 votes

TL;DR

Leblanc is balanced, just incredibly unfun to play against

ZileanUltJesusOPMay 28, 201510 votes

like tryndamere

hgjkdlsaf jeldvbMay 28, 20157 votes

like tryndamere...

ZileanUltJesusOPMay 28, 20155 votes

tryndamere is balanced but extremely annoying to play against

SpinCycleMKVMay 28, 20155 votes

Faker says otherwise, but I'm sure some random GD scrub knows more.

FakerrMay 29, 20154 votes

I disapprove this comment.

ModAcademy KaynMay 28, 20158 votes

I am completely fine with a champ being able to 100-1 you. I play Malhazar, he is one of them.

I am not fine with that 100-1 being unavoidable. Power requires trade-offs. Like being able to miss your high damage,

ZileanUltJesusOPMay 28, 20151 votes

did you just say this then say i play malzahar in the same sentence?

Marinaras TrenchMay 28, 20154 votes

You can get a QSS easy mode. Leblanc you need like 2MR items to not instadie

ModAcademy KaynMay 28, 20159 votes

Things Mal has to do to 100-1 you: Stand still for 2.5 seconds, get aids on you, get out pool and land his silence. Things Leblanc has to do to kill you: Get within range.

Things you can dodge/avoid with Malhazar: His Q, don't get caught in a pool, and wait until he uses aids on his minions Things you can dodge/avoid with Leblanc: Don't get within range

Items to help against Malhazar: Banshee's and QSS (Since it cancels out suppressions and Banshee's can take out the first tick of aids) Items to help against Leblanc: MR and Zhoynas, while the latter being any defense item AP/AD regardless.

Things Mal can do that Leblanc cant: Can build tankier with Roa and Liandries, without sacrificing much, can deal with tank betters, AOE Silence, can siege better Things Leblanc can do that Mal cant: Be mobile, not have to stand still to insta-gib someone, can build squishy without sacrificing much due to W/R escapes, can escape under low health if smart enough due to passive

Things that counter Mal: CC, anyone with mobility, delayed cc (IE Viktor stun, Ekko stun, stuff like that) and ORANGES OH GOD NOT THE ORANGES Things that counter LeBlanc: CC, staying away with a 10ft pole, Common counters? CC, just like every other champion save Irelia and Olaf

Did I forget anything?

BIackDynamiteXMay 28, 201511 votes

{quoted}

I am completely fine with a champ being able to 100-1 you. I play Malhazar, he is one of them.

I am not fine with that 100-1 being unavoidable. Power requires trade-offs. Like being able to miss your high damage,

Do you sometimes point and click the wrong person with your Malz ult, or what?

ModAcademy KaynMay 28, 201510 votes

...okay that was one time...

But for reals, Malhazar has to stand still to do that, so at any given time in a teamfight someone can cc and save their carry. Any smart leblanc will get in kill ya and leave behind the back lines.

SlytherinUmbreonMay 29, 20153 votes

I ult the tanks, and we win team fights because of it. This meta confuses me.

RatbertMay 28, 20151 votes

It is avoidable. Any knockup or knockback prevents her dash from hitting.

ModAcademy KaynMay 28, 20151 votes

How many mids have that sort of cc? We got Ahri charm, Yasou third Q, and im out. How many others do you know?

RatbertMay 29, 20151 votes

Azir Anivia (quick fingers for aniv though) Chogath (at least for now) Diana Fiddlesticks Gragas Orianna Velkoz That's all of them that are possible.

SFHFWillMay 29, 20154 votes

Syndra You forgot about her.

QuortMay 29, 20152 votes

Champions with quick repositioning (Katarina, Talon, Ekko, etc...) can also avoid the Distortion with quick reflexes (watch for the Sigil of Malice and if you see that then get ready). :3