How to Make Heimerdinger Viable again.

Star Twister·May 3, 2015·2 votes·1,192 views

Heimerdinger is an interesting champion, suffering from a major problem, even after his rework....his turrets are garbage. sure they can seem super broken in solo que, but only if you don't know how to deal with them. If you suck and ignore them and just try to dive heimer under them you gonna wind up dead. But in a 1v1 against heimer anyone worth there summoner lvl will just keep picking off the turrets until he runs out, blowing a bunch of hiemer's mana and time. and in team fight situations they are almost totally useless, because they will either be too far away to make a difference, or you will die trying to place them close enough to be any good and in both cases the turrets are likely to die from collateral damage almost instantly and have 0 impact on a fight.

But if left alone they can be devistating, a simple damage or health buff is not going to be enough to make heimer viable. They need to be given some new utility, a good place to look is the shaco box. shaco boxes while point for point are less powerfull there utility makes them extremely useful, the combination of the stealth, undamageable state they enter to the fear that will guarantee the box will at least do some damage before it dies. these features allow for strategic use and placement that heimers turrets can never hope to match.

That said just copying shacos boxes wouldn't solve the issue either, heimers turrets need a something different to work with the heimerdinger style. I suggest that heimers turrets gain a mini version of Braums unbreakable that will rotate around the turret to block based on where heimerdinger is relative to the turret, allowing the turret to be used as a sheild for heimer to hide behind to give him a tool to deal with all the champions that counter hiemer by having "skill shot" that hit everything in there path like TF wild cards etc. adding this to the turrets combine with a substantial health buff would make the turrets a worth while investment, balancing out the fact they are completely immobile and there for super easy to target and eliminate without taking any damage from them at all. this will also lead to much more intersting gameplay, allowing heimer to fill the roll of the TF2 engineer, making a home away from home where hiemer and his teammates can use to regroup before making a push.

5 Comments

lightdragoon88May 3, 20151 votes

His turrets need to take reduced damage from AOE spells.

PhifeMay 3, 20151 votes

heimer is completely viable... dont do anything to him please!

This champs broken in a split push comp.

SwollwonderMay 3, 20151 votes

Heimer does his job and is a nique pick. He does what he is supposed to augments a turret or creates an entirely new defensive zone

ajwfMay 3, 20151 votes

See, the issue with heimerdinger is his turrets in the first place. You place them, they farm for you, they kill for you, they basically zone any champion without the range of 500 or so to the point that they have to scrap for CS. In these matchups vs melees or champions who require spells to gain their range (think katarina), Heimerdinger offers almost no way they can do anything.

I hate him as a concept: He sets the most powerful turrets in the game (compared to shaco and zyra and probably azir late game) that last indefinitely and scale HP and damage with AP. He literally is based around these turrets, with a stun to hit people while in turret range and a W to poke you even more. So there are matchups he wins by literally doing nothing but placing turrets, and there's nothing the opponent can do.

Not only that, he's terrible for his team. His utility stun sucks when not in turrets and he has no ability to roam to help. You touched that he does nothing in teamfights, but you'd rather give his turrets a shield to make it even harder to play against the do-nothing ability of his? Want to make him 'viable'? Make him a better team player.

So no, a turret buff of ANY kind would make him quite reasonably the most 'hands free' champ in the game.

Star TwisterMay 3, 20151 votes

Turrets are a core design element of dinger and like it or not they are here to stay so we need to find a way to make them better, in the sence of better for gameplay not just blinding buffing them. Giving them the braum sheild that orients itself based on hiemer will go miles to making hiemer better in team fights adding a new element of protection not just for hiemer and the turrets but for the rest of his team. 3 closesly grouped turrets with hiemer right behind them could make a safe haven from the constant barrage of poke a lot of champion do now as well as targeted ranged abilities. Maybe a good way to balance this new super useful shield might be to make the turrets auto attacks like the help pix auto attacks, that while targeting a certain target can be intercepted by by another enemy.

This would also allow for some interesting counter play as well, with the turret shield always oriented towards dinger an enemy who pays attention will know, "hey hiemer is missing and it looks like he's heading into our bottom jungle. Additionally by changing the auto attack to work like help pix even if you target an enemy champion they can potential hide behind there minions or other tankier team members so they might not have to take the damage.

that part about the CSing for you is actually a huge disadvantage. sure its nice they will help you farm which is nice for the first wave that comes in range but then the lane gets pushed away instantly and its unlikely any of those turrets will get to kill another creep for 3 or 4 more waves depending on the opponents wave clear. but the other downside is that the turrets will waste that super nice laser on a single creep instead of holding onto it for when a champion comes into range.

I've never lost a lane to a hiemerdinger on any champion because his turrets are so easily dealt with even with melee champs like yasuo because they are so predictable. wait for a minion wave to move into range to draw there attention then swoop in and auto attack them once, moving in a random direction to avoid the super predictable heimer rocket/grenade attempt to punish you for attacking the turret, then finish it off. and any champion with ANY ranged ability can easily take them out from complete saftey. Another option is to rush the dinger and when he starts frantically placing turrets just focus the turrets, then the huge cooldown becomes a factor and you can keep him on the back foot by jumping on each new turret as he drops them.