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"Fiddle didn't need a jungle item"

KONO RUBICK DA··74 votes·6,040 views

You obviously, (and riot of course) never played fiddle.

Right now, fiddle is next to postnerf2010-evelynn lvl. Literally can't be played, he already had several problems: -no jungle item -too much depending on zhonya, if he didn't have it he would die 0.5 sec after ultying -way too much mana cost, WHO ON EARTH has 120 mana cost on 2 spells except veigar who has a item 3028 passive? -too much cc depending, his main spell that allows him to do damage and surviving requier his target to stand still for 5 seconds right in front of him since the range nerf(?????). and his fear only lasts 2.25 seconds (not counting tenacity and QSS). What can he do if he isn't draining? ultying but since 2014 the vision has been improved it's really easy to see fiddle comming and just back. Throwing crows? nerfed, the spell has been nerfed in every fiddle patch since 2012. reducing mr? also nerfed.

NOW: if you read this and watched the changes to items since 2014 you pretty much understood why he is unplayable.

He can't jungle, no no, i'm not saying that he is going to die. But what will happen if fiddle can't buy a jungle item? he won't be able to clear the jungle quickly, and that's going to have massive concequences: -he can't jungle quickly to gank and bring presence -he is going to use so much mana because his damage is severally reduced to monsters without a jungle item -he can't have a gold efficient jungle item like every junglers

item 3157 nerf pretty much burrowed him, he can't have it quickly, he is going to die in every fight and be useless before at least 20 min in the game.

i hope someone will do something for him.

http://orig08.deviantart.net/9de2/f/2014/357/b/1/dark_candy_fiddlesticks_by_sourtea-d8aw85d.png

94 Comments

Betoldia Prime22 votes

Have you ever played fiddle with cinderhulk instead of Sheen? I whenver i play fiddle, i play him Tanky ap. To make up for the squichiness and magus removal, i tested cinderhulk on him. and its actually preety good. Heres a build to try, and tell me if it works or not for you, cause it does for me :) item 1401 item 3157 item 3151 item 3116item 3158 item 3174

yay nibbers2 votes

Sounds like it would be a decent second or third item to finish (after Zhonya's of course), OP may be too closed minded for it but I think I'll give it a go myself.

Betoldia Prime4 votes

Look at that, an open minded person :)

For a second i thought all the comments were gonna be burns for playing off meta or "That isnt for that champion" items.

yay nibbers3 votes

Off-meta or weird items is the funnest way to play! Been playing AP Udyr lately, super fun.

Itadaki Seieki6 votes

{quoted}

Look at that, an open minded person :)

For a second i thought all the comments were gonna be burns for playing off meta or "That isnt for that champion" items.

OMG THATZ NOT IN TEH META!!!!!!!! OMG LERN 2 PLAH THE GAME CORRECTLY.

Pffffft.

I play Fiddle top for lulz. It's just fun to screw around with people as Fiddle. His laugh and dance make it perfect.

DHM3 votes

gonna be burns

Heh, burns, heh Cinderhulk, heh.

Jungle Lux God1 votes

I've ran Fiddlesticks with Cinderhulk, but at the time I played it I used it on a full-tank build. It was a completely different way to play Fiddlesticks, and was honestly really fun because your entire focus is on Fiddlesticks' utility instead of his damage.

I don't remember my builds, but at the time I was running item 1401 item 3143 item 3065 plus boots and a couple other tank items.

I was surprised it was working so well too. I ended up getting a 100% win rate with that style of build in normals, which doesn't mean much because it's normals, but I was still impressed at how it worked.

Doctor Dyment1 votes

But he isn't supposed to be a tank. The fact that you have to build him as one to get consistant success is bad.

The Yetii Rider3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Doctor Dyment,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lNJx15K1,comment-id=000300040000,timestamp=2015-11-18T23:37:06.072+0000)

But he isn't supposed to be a tank. The fact that you have to build him as one to get consistant success is bad.

Elise was never supposed to be a tank either. The fact is, if you have a mage whose base damage is high enough to get success without building AP, tank will just be better. Same thing with Ekko, same thing with Karthus, same thing with Diana. AP is largely just icing on the cake to a champion with high base magic damage.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

Who cares what he is supposed to be...?

If tank/AP-pen works, then use it. People take champions in a different role than they are supposed to be ALL THE TIME.

Jungle Lux God1 votes

I know he isn't supposed to be a tank. I just had a lot of fun with a full tank off-build.

Fiddlesticks is stil a lot better as an AP than as a tank, and I was just sharing something I did.

Doctor Dyment1 votes

No no, I wasn't bashing you for not playing him as AP, I was just saying that having to build a mage with tank in order to be successful is a failure not on your part, but on Riot's.

cheezzyy1 votes

fizz and ekko were never meant to be ad, but did you see the weeks when people did that? learn to think instead of just assuming it's bad because it isn't common already. this is why korea is so much better than na.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

I'm gonna try this. Been thinking lately about how to fiddle, and this is a great solution with some truly amazing items. Question: you ever think about throwing RoA on that? Seems like the synergy with cinderhulk might be enough to be somewhat okay.

Betoldia Prime2 votes

I actually DID try RoA... the sinergy is wonderfull but i waste too much time building it, or i build it too late because i focus on zhonyas first. you can try it tho

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

Yeah, I figured the time delay would be a big issue. Thanks for the reply!

GenghisEmo5 votes

Actually, as it is now, Cinderhulk is the only viable thing for Fiddle right now.

Veraska26 votes

If you're not going devourer sticks you're playing this game wrong

LankPants8 votes

CRITTLESTICKS BOYS

Vistha Kai6 votes

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/veax-yik8so/hqdefault.jpg

yay nibbers14 votes

Not to be that guy, but you just have to learn to play Fiddles better if you think he can't do anything. He still can buy up to the tier 2 jungle items, he just doesn't have a proper jungle enchant anymore. I can't say anything about the current jungle as I haven't played him recently, but he was definitely fine or better back in season 5 and even now he still has a 50% winrate according to champion.gg. All of his issues you list are because of the hilarious damage his ult does, which is a fucking lot. Fiddlesticks still has probably the best ganking potential thanks to his ult, being a blink and all.

That said, I miss when fear made your enemies run around randomly rather than away from you, though it's always super funny fearing Master Yi while he's ulting and watching him run away at the speed of sound.

KONO RUBICK DA3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ron Pitts,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lNJx15K1,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-11-18T17:03:31.536+0000)

Not to be that guy, but you just have to learn to play Fiddles better if you think he can't do anything. He still can buy up to the tier 2 jungle items, he just doesn't have a proper jungle enchant anymore. I can't say anything about the current jungle as I haven't played him recently, but he was definitely fine or better back in season 5 and even now he still has a 50% winrate according to champion.gg. All of his issues you list are because of the hilarious damage his ult does, which is a fucking lot. Fiddlesticks still has probably the best ganking potential thanks to his ult, being a blink and all.

That said, I miss when fear made your enemies run around randomly rather than away from you, though it's always super funny fearing Master Yi while he's ulting and watching him run away at the speed of sound.

i wish people learn that champion.gg has terrible ressources

i wonder why swain's players forgot how to play him after 50 games and have their win rate decreasing

yay nibbers3 votes

The site just gives the numbers dude. It could be that Swain isn't picked often and the people who have ~50 games haven't played him in a long time, or they just happen to have losestreaks, we can't know for sure why this happens but it's not champion.gg's fault. Also keep in mind that champion.gg uses Riot's API, meaning if anything it's Riot's own fault for the numbers being wonky (not that it's anyone's fault).

Besides, weird stuff like that doesn't really invalidate the other numbers, especially not average winrates. It's not like they just make up the average winrate. Average winrate is just that, a ratio of wins/losses across the entire sample. People of all number of games and ranks above Gold are taken into account, making average winrate a pretty telling number when it comes to a champion's viability. Fiddlesticks being at 50% puts him just above the median for jungle and means at least 50% of the games he's in are wins. Still only pretty average, but more than viable. Fiddles could definitely be worse off.

Autrah Fang2 votes

isn't 50% win rate also ideal for a champion? if they win 50% of their games wouldn't they be considered balanced? or would balanced be 55%? (that's Vel'koz's win percentage, and people often refer to him as most balanced champ in the game due to him not being changed since release)

i'm honestly curious. i would honestly think a champion winning 50% of their games would make them balanced but i could be incorrect.

Edit: also, according to champion.gg Swain's winrate has been going up this patch, not down as the OP was trying to say in his reply to you. :/

Sir Yamazuki3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Broken Fangz,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lNJx15K1,comment-id=0002000000000000,timestamp=2015-11-18T20:34:45.330+0000)

isn't 50% win rate also ideal for a champion? if they win 50% of their games wouldn't they be considered balanced? or would balanced be 55%? (that's Vel'koz's win percentage, and people often refer to him as most balanced champ in the game due to him not being changed since release)

i'm honestly curious. i would honestly think a champion winning 50% of their games would make them balanced but i could be incorrect.

Edit: also, according to champion.gg Swain's winrate has been going up this patch, not down as the OP was trying to say in his reply to you. :/

Riot said their general idea is 53% max when played by people who main the champion/are experienced with them. This is why sometimes even when a champion is at a 50% average they'll still be OP because in some cases it means they are winning 60% of the time with experienced players. This is why Azir was nerfed despite his low average win rate, since his win rate was 58% with good players.

yay nibbers2 votes

While I don't think avg. winrate alone is enough to determine a champion's balance, it's definitely a good place to start. Of course, a flat 50% strictly speaking would mean a champion is balanced, but you can go higher than that and still have a well balanced champion. To me, between 45% and 55%, avg. winrate is more a measure of how well off the champion is doing at a given moment, and anything higher or lower than that can mean the champion is under or overtuned. I think it's also important to look at how a champion's winrate changes with player experience. You can have a champion with a lowish, say, 48% winrate, but then have it spike up to 50% or even higher on a player with some games under their belt. Because avg. winrate takes all games on a particular champion into account, inexperienced players can bring the average down. It all depends on circumstances and other such factors.

To put it shortly, 49/50%-55% is a pretty ideal range, in my opinion.

The Swain anomaly OP pointed out was in reference to Swain's winrate by player experience, not patch. If you look at different champions on champion.gg, you'll find some (usually older, less played, or harder) champions have a weird thing where their winrate by player experience will dip as games played goes up, which contradicts common sense (more games = more experience = more skill). It's a weird occurrence that I can only imagine is explainable by how little these champions are usually played. When taking averages, low sample size means even a small amount of extreme numbers can skew the average one way or the other. In the case of a hard champion, a person's winrate for the first few games will likely be lower as they learn the champion, going back up as they get better. This is likely what we're seeing with Swain.

Keep in mind this is all conjecture, I'm no expert on any of this.

Autrah Fang2 votes

although your response was conjecture, it is still very informative. thank you very much for the explanations! :)

48983507DEL11 votes

Agreed, most Rengar mains do the same thing: buy up to Tier 2 then rush items that are better on him like Tiamat and Ghostblade.

Also, the Fear change was to give him more consistency, but it also made it better for peeling.

yay nibbers1 votes

Yeah, Warrior isnt really good anymore now that it doesn't give arm. pen.

And yeah I understand the fear change, I'm just saying it was funnier when they ran around randomly in a panic.

48983507DEL11 votes

Oh he did that even before the removal of armor pen just because of the movement speed bonus and critical strike stat.

The build was Tiamat, Brutilizer, Lucidity Boots, Tiamat, Youmuu's, Last Whisperer, IE, Rav Hydra, Phantom Dancer x2 (sell boots). You got 105% crit chance, with crits dealing 1,300 damage each.

The most common build now is almost identical, except you get Trinity Force instead of Phantom Dancer and you have less crit chance. Build order is still the same.

Disulfiram8 votes

Indeed...

Tank junglers can have a mini item 3068 AP fighter junglers can have a mini item 3100 Autoattacking junglers can have a mini item 3091 that becomes huge when well farmed AD caster junglers can have a mini item 3071

Why can't fiddle have a mini item 3157 or at least a mini item 3174 as his jungle item? Maybe tied to farm a la Devourer? (E.g. you need 30 stacks to unlock the stasis active, or the %mp5 passive scales with the number of stacks up to a cap)

Not counting that other junglers could use them too: Diana might situationally prefer the mini Zhonya to Runeglaive, Chogath may situationally prefer the mini Grail to Cinderhulk, etc...

KONO RUBICK DA4 votes

{quoted}

Indeed...

Tank junglers can have a mini item 3068 AP fighter junglers can have a mini item 3100 Autoattacking junglers can have a mini item 3091 that becomes huge when well farmed AD caster junglers can have a mini item 3071

Why can't fiddle have a mini item 3157 or at least a mini item 3174 as his jungle item? Maybe tied to farm a la Devourer? (E.g. you need 30 stacks to unlock the stasis active, or the %mp5 passive scales with the number of stacks up to a cap)

Not counting that other junglers could use them too: Diana might situationally prefer the mini Zhonya to Runeglaive, Chogath may situationally prefer the mini Grail to Cinderhulk, etc...

imo i think he needs a rework anyway, they won't give to AP a mini zhonya, and if they does he still needs mana cost decreasing

Jasiwel1 votes

I think a mini item 3174 with HP-or-Mana could be awesome for these kinds of junglers.

Angry Monster1 votes

First off none of the jungle items are champions specific. So saying why can't fid have his own is a joke.

The mage jungle item does give mana on return if you weave in auto between your spells correctly. Also the new jungle pot helps out with sustain a lot. Their are options, maybe you should use them

Disulfiram1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Angry Monster,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lNJx15K1,comment-id=00050002,timestamp=2015-11-19T21:21:01.256+0000)

First off none of the jungle items are champions specific. So saying why can't fid have his own is a joke.

The mage jungle item does give mana on return if you weave in auto between your spells correctly.

Fiddle can't autoattack while draining, and Drain lasts 5 seconds. Drain costs 80->120 mana (levels 1->9)

Runeglaive gives 8% of your missing mana; assuming that all the mana Fiddle has is the base one (else he's already built another mana item), that's 32->108 (levels 1->18) at most, assuming he's out of mana when he uses this bonus.

He's way better off skipping the jungle items... or at least he was, when all he lost doing this was a little bonus gold on camp kills and the Smite upgrade.

Now that the camps give less XP and the jungle items give bonus XP, Fiddle being an ulti reliant mage is forced to start with a jungle item that he's never going to upgrade and that doesn't give stats he'll actually use, since his mana costs are way too high for that passive regen to be actually useful.

Also the new jungle pot helps out with sustain a lot. Their are options, maybe you should use them

The new jungle pot is extremely weak on Fiddle: he doesn't need the HP regen at all, and the mana it gives is way too little to justify its purchase.

Please, don't assume that Fiddle is Elise: he's not.

Jungle Lux God6 votes

I haven't played him since 5.22, but Fiddlesticks might actually be slightly better compared to some other junglers.

In particular, Hunter's Talisman gives him a legitimate starting option that helps his early clear speeds in a way that the old Hunter's Machete didn't, got new mana regeneration options in the jungle such as Hunter's Potion and being able to run a Talisman + Faerie Charm start without dying to jungle camps, and overall his sustain just matters so much more because the jungle is so much harder for quite a few champions.

And does it really matter that Fiddlesticks doesn't have a jungle item now? Ever since Runeglaive came out the ideal strategy for him was to build your smite upgrade, then start building your core items, and now that all the jungle enchants are extremely cost-inefficient it literally doesn't matter that Fiddlesticks doesn't want the jungle items because the ideal strategy is to just not buy the jungle items at all.

Obviously Fiddlesticks did take a massive hit with the nerf to Zhonya's and he does have some big mana issues, but other than that he might be a bit better than how he was in Season 5.

BluePolarizer5 votes

I feared jungle Fiddles back in season 4 and 5. I actually miss playing against him because he truly adds an element of terror to games and forces you to get good at vision in the wierdest places or he'll literally melt your entire team. It was completely different playing against Fiddlesticks than any other jungler. Riot making him unplayable means that it's alot harder to get high quality games against him.

charcharmunro2 votes

The problem with Fiddle doing that now, though, is that so many other junglers can bring the "There may be sudden death" feeling and get going a lot faster. Sure, Fiddlesticks is probably one of the easiest characters to play compared to those and is one of the few junglers who'll always have full health after a clear but it takes him so long to get his ult and be more useful for ganking. Shaco ganks every lane a million times before you're level 4, Rengar just instantly deletes you with little warning, Amumu can suddenly come out of nowhere and whittle your health down, Jax can pop in from over a wall and just bash you to death... Hell, even Rammus and Hecarim can bring that sort of terror better than Fid. Fiddle is pretty ult-reliant to do much beyond harass a lane and even then... It's on a high-cooldown so he can't apply pressure and its best use is for ambushing onto a grouped team, and if you're grouped against Fiddlesticks you're not really thinking ahead.

48983507DEL11 votes

Well now you have Rengar.

Zaghyr3 votes

-way too much mana cost, WHO ON EARTH has 120 mana cost on 2 spells except veigar who has a item 3028 passive?

Janna *Cries

KONO RUBICK DA1 votes

{quoted}

Janna *Cries

didn't know that she had a high mana cost, but if she had a low mana cost, she would have wave cleared every time in the middle lane

Zaghyr1 votes

ya, but since they nerfed her q, you will need a lot of ap to make up for the base damage being crap, even when fully charged

Xietnin3 votes

RIP Fiddlesticks (and Cassiopeia), who led me to place in Gold III one season. Fiddlesticks Sleep softly.

Chespin20132 votes

They should just rework Fiddle really keep his ult and make him actually use that scythe he has in kit because who doesn't wanna see Fiddlesticks swiping people left and right with his scythe

Shadowkirby144 votes

Probably give him a Gangplank-level update: Remove his passive and Q and make him use his scythe like in Twist of Fate, increase the range on his Drain, buff his E, and update his ult. All while getting a fresh Visual update, new quotes and VO.

ltmetal2 votes

If you ask me, no champion is more deserving of a buff/gameplay update. He has been the engineer of the nerf train since season 3, and even when he isn't getting directly nerfed, he's getting indirectly nerfed.

The Loveless1 votes

Meh. Runeglaive isn't for him but the damage from Cinderhulk might be decent in combination with his ult. Dcap, rylais, zhonyas...abyssal? Visage? If Eve and Elise can get away with building tank, I don't see why Fidd can't.

He's not a burst champ, and in this day and age I wouldn't dare play him as a squishy (same deal with Karthus). He does, however, dish out sustained damage really quickly.

KONO RUBICK DA2 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Loveless,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lNJx15K1,comment-id=000b,timestamp=2015-11-18T20:11:43.107+0000)

Meh. Runeglaive isn't for him but the damage from Cinderhulk might be decent in combination with his ult. Dcap, rylais, zhonyas...abyssal? Visage? If Eve and Elise can get away with building tank, I don't see why Fidd can't.

He's not a burst champ, and in this day and age I wouldn't dare play him as a squishy (same deal with Karthus). He does, however, dish out sustained damage really quickly.

no, he needs 3 sec+ to dish out sustained damage

by this time you are already dead, cc'ed which stopped drain, or the enemy just run out of drain

The Loveless1 votes

What about an AP bruiser build of some sort?

Dar Raksada3 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Loveless,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lNJx15K1,comment-id=000b00000000,timestamp=2015-11-19T03:26:59.006+0000)

What about an AP bruiser build of some sort?

Fiddle has basically no natural tankyness, which makes it really difficult. You might wonder why I factor in movespeed in the below comparison, but it's fairly important for keeping up with people, dodging stuff and kiting (insofar as fiddle can kite) Health 524 – 1884 Armor 20.9 – 80.4 Magic res. 30.0 Mov. speed 335 (drain) Compared to other champions usually considered squishy:

Yasuo: Health 518 – 1912 Armor 24.7 – 82.5 Magic res. 30.0 Mov. speed 345 (Shield100 – 510, not to mention windwall/dashes. Yes, I am aware he's melee.)

Karthus Health 516 – 1791 Armor 20.9 – 80.4 Magic res. 30.0 Mov. speed 335 (passive means he doesn't have to be as tanky) He's only slightly tankier than Karthus (8-93 hp), and not nearly as tanky as yasuo (6 more base hp at lvl 1, but less hp/level and no shield. Less mobile and can't protect himself from cc. Though fidd gets a + for being mid-ranged) Even if you build him as an ap bruiser, he'll still die easily. But more importantly you'll do less damage per second (more time for people to get out of your range because you're slow), you still get absolutely destroyed by any random cc and your cooldowns are too long to use more then once, maybe twice with cdr, if you're not being ignored. Altough it could probably work if you have a solid cc team, I used to like playing him with an Orianna, Morgana, Malphite or Galio mid, Malphite or another aoe cc tank top and preferably thresh or leona bot*

*The numbers are current, but the experience I'm talking from is from season 3+4, and only minor experience in season 5 before magus removal.

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