Talon's Passive

is by far my favorite assassin, let alone champion in the game (maybe next to Ahri). He's a champion I never get bored being and rarely an unsatisfactory with at the end of a game, win or loss. This season I won 18/22 Solo Queue games as him in mid lane, down from 18/18 (100% winrate, but I had a bad day one day), and think he's not as useless and people perceive him to be, however I greatly dislike one aspect of Talon, and I'm sure other experienced players will agree - his passive is him weakest tool, and collectively in a whole game, nearly useless. I want to see if I can make Riot aware of this, maybe chalk it beside other champion changes in mind by explaining it... with science (math)!

Talon's passive is simple if you understand how it works. Directly from the tooltip:

"'s autoattacks deal 10% additional damage to any target that is slowed, stunned, immobilized or suppressed."

This means that each on-hit effect applied by Talon to a champion with the above described debuffs, he will apply an extra 10% of that AA damage, or 10% of his total AD. The most important thing to note that this passive damage amplification is not increased by critical strikes, any extra on-hit applying damage from items, OR Noxian Dimplomacy ('s Q).

Here's an example. Level 1, a player might have 78 AD. Disregarding armor penetration, that player will deal 78 physical damage to a minion. Casting Rake to slow that minion THEN an AA will deal ~86 physical damage to that minion because of Mercy (the passive). If Talon instead Rake's a minion and activates Noxian Diplomacy before the AA, Talon will deal a total of 78 * 1.1 + 30 + (0.3 * 23) ~= 123 physical damage. The extra damage done by Q is ignored by Talon's passive, only increasing his base AD + bonus AD. This is the same for ALL on-hit effects (Sheen, crit, ect.)

This is where it gets complicated. I'm going to show with approximate math how 's damage varies with two of his best combo's: W E AA Q and E AA Q W in three cases: level 3, level 6 with some extra AD, and level 18 with a full build. These examples will not include, for the sake of understanding and simplicity, critical strikes, armor, armor penetration, stacking mastery damage amplification, and champion damage reduction spells. It's worth noting that if all auto attacks were critical strikes in any scenario, the difference between damage would remain the same. It will, however, include the Havoc mastery, as shown by the 1.03 damage amplification because it is mandatory for glass-cannon . This is base damage at its core. Finally, I understand it's possible to put an AA in JUST after cutthroat's slow to apply Mercy damage, but being true for both scenarios, the difference remains the same.

is level 3 with a 23 bonus AD for a total of 83 AD with masteries

Combo 1 - Without passive

E AA - 83 * 1.03 * 1.03 = 88.05 Q - (83 + 40 + (29.9)) * 1.03 * 1.03 = 162.21 W - (60 + (27.6)) * 1.03 * 1.03 = 92.93 Total = 342.59 physical damage

Combo 2 - With passive

W - (60 + (27.6)) * 1.03 = 90.22 E AA - 83 * 1.1 * 1.03 * 1.03 = 96.86 Q - (83 * 1.1 + 40 + (29.9)) * 1.03 * 1.03 = 171.01 Total = 358.09 physical damage

With his passive, he deals 15 more physical damage because Talon gets two auto-attacks in his combo. It's worth noting that the first of the two combo's has the potential to deal more damage because Talon is making the best use of his slow - dealing quick burst then keeping his enemy close for an extra AA when it has reset after the W cast, but this is good use of his passive and shows, at level 1, it's worth the extra mile. It's very weak and very risky to do for level 3 Talon vs a good mage, but plausible.

is level 6 with and 51 bonus AD for a total of 118 AD with masteries

Combo 1 - Without passive

E AA - 118 * 1.03 * 1.03 = 125.18 Q - (118 + 40 + (66.3)) * 1.03 * 1.03 = 237.95 W - (80 + (61.2)) * 1.03 * 1.03 = 149.79 R - (240 + (76.5)) * 1.03 * 1.03 = 335.77 Total = 848.69 physical damage

Combo 2 - With passive

W - (80 + (61.2)) * 1.03 = 145.43 E AA - 118 * 1.1 * 1.03 * 1.03 = 137.7 Q - (118 * 1.1 + 40 + (66.3)) * 1.03 * 1.03 = 250.47 R - (240 + (76.5)) * 1.03 * 1.03 = 335.77 Total = 869.37 physical damage

With his passive, he deals ~21 more damage. The pattern continues as his attack damage grows and he maxes his W and Q, but it's agreeable that the passive does little to no damage and barely compensates the 3% increased damage on Rake, the ability Talon should almost always max first (a place doesn't come to mind where he should not). This goes on until something changes - Talon begins putting points into cutthroat. Why? As cutthroat is increased, its damage amplification is as well, increasing to 15% from 3%, where it remained for all of early game and most of mid game. Let's compare at full build.

Level 18 with

• 373 AD - 265 bonus AD

Combo 1 - Without passive

E AA - 373 * 1.15 * 1.03 = 441.81 Q - (373 + 200 + (344.5)) * 1.15 * 1.03 = 1086.77 W - (260 + (318)) * 1.15 * 1.03 = 684.64 R - (440 + (397.5)) * 1.15 * 1.03 = 992.01 Total = 3205.23 physical damage

Combo 2 - With passive

W - (260 + (318)) * 1.03 = 595.34 E AA - 373 * 1.1 * 1.15 * 1.03 = 486 Q - (373 * 1.1 + 200 + (344.5)) * 1.15 * 1.03 = 1101.02 R - (440 + (397.5)) * 1.15 * 1.03 = 992.01 Total = 3174.37 physical damage

does MORE damage without the use of his passive is a burst pattern than with it, given than none of his allies used crowd control on his target before he decided to delete them. More to the point, Talon's passive is arguably only very useful in laning phase because the difference between damage dealt and total damage dealt is it its highest and when it can be used most properly. I hope that this explanation helps a bit, and I'd like to see some changes in a patch, especially since Talon wasn't compensated well when his silence was removed (probably only because of LCS and the freelo Talon bandwagon, respect to Curse's mid laner Voyboy). If you liked it or just like simply like , please help out by up-voting this thread. Thanks!