i enjoy the potential for plays urgot has

Big Lincoln·Aug 6, 2017·4 votes·379 views

balance state aside, i think he has a good model for a juggernaut with potential for plays with E and R, something a good chunk of the class lacks beyond "me smash, me do damage" like and to a lesser extent

i think that future juggy designs should keep this in mind, giving these champs more to do than lob huge damage at someone and hope it sticks. urgot is great, i feel like he rewards skill very well

10 Comments

Teridax68Aug 6, 20173 votes

I agree with this, and I think juggernauts are going to need more unique tools if they want to overcome their current design issues. Right now, juggernauts are probably the subclass with the most binary design in the game, possessing a very limited range of core attributes (i.e. durability and high AoE damage) and weaknesses (kiteability), all of which are taken to such extremes that gameplay often plays much less of a part in their victory than team compositions and matchups.

So far, Urgot and Darius are among the most successful juggernauts in the game, and I think that is owed in large part to the fact that they do have tools to counter kiting and contribute in ways other than damage, even if they're still kiteable and have counterplay. It's still possible to hard-kite them, but unlike champions like Garen, Udyr or Volibear, they can still reach their targets if they play well, and can still contribute when they're behind in damage or durability.

Features I'd like to see on more juggernauts are:

Clear, interactive win conditions: Basically, if a juggernaut plays their cards right, and their opponent doesn't, they should have access to something so powerful that they're practically guaranteed to win the fight. Darius gets massive AD and execution potential when allowed to stack on the enemy team, and Urgot has his guaranteed kill if he manages to land his drill on a weakened opponent, and those I think are important reasons why they succeed. Illaoi technically has a win condition if she gathers a lot of tentacles against a clumped-up enemy team, but her mechanics disproportionately punish melee champions and don't affect ranged opponents as much. Garen's win condition (i.e. his execution ult) isn't really the most rewarding, and Nasus's (his Q stacks) isn't the most interactive. Mordekaiser has a good win condition (turning an enemy champion to his side via his clone), but otherwise his kit needs serious work for him to succeed. As for the other juggernauts, they don't really have a clear win condition: to some extent this is fine, as they shouldn't all be subjected to the same constraints, but I also feel part of this currently stems from an unclear definition of what it means to win for those champions, including for more recent designs like Yorick.
Unreliable means of affecting ranged opponents: Again, this is something Darius and Urgot have that makes them succeed, and even on other juggernauts it's a major reason why they feel more functional and competitive (e.g. Nasus's W, Illaoi's E, Yorick's wall and E, etc.). By contrast, champions with absolutely no means of affecting champions at a distance besides personal speed boosts, i.e. Garen, Udyr and Volibear, suffer heavily from it, and generally fare poorly in organized play. Having this sort of effect would be a good release valve to prevent juggernauts from being defined too harshly by their kiteability.
More range-agnostic counterplay: A common issue with a lot of juggernauts is that, because they're meant to punish people close to them, they often become way too strong against other melee champions, who are punished simply for interacting with them in their own combat range. Even Darius has this to some extent, even if it's mitigated by the fact that he can lose trades if his opponent leaves before he can reach 5 stacks. However, mechanics like Urgot's Q and R, Darius's Q and E, and Yorick's W all have around the same counterplay for melee and ranged opponents (though Darius's Q does only work at close range), which also makes them less binary relative to their matchup. By contrast, champions like Garen and Udyr, who both simply auto-punish you for fighting them in melee range, tend to feel pretty faceroll when played against another melee opponent, even if they also suffer when they fall behind.

Big LincolnAug 6, 20173 votes

i think riot is too restrictive on allowing juggernauts to have cc. currently, IMO, because of their lack of self-sufficiency except when being initiated on, juggernauts tend to compete too much to wardens (as divers do to vanguards, given they have semi-similar gameplay). personally i'm of the opinion that some of them should have the means to engage a fight and riot should be less stingy about giving them crowd control, even if it has a condition to fulfill before they can do something big like stunning multiple people. it would also be nice to see new designs focusing on countering specific champions like marksmen/high AS champs or assassins.

i think the lack of CC or otherwise lack of unique and meaningful utility means they also need to be fairly over-loaded on damage to be useful. it should be a staple that they're stronger than average with off-tank builds, but currently it either feels like too much or too little, where some champs just go into much higher damage builds Illaoi Yorick

illaoi's lack of options against ranged champions is simply because riot bases nearly every single ranged champion around keeping maximum distance; we have one single diving mage in Lissandra, and we have Quinn who doesn't even dive because Vault puts her at max range anyway.

Teridax68Aug 6, 20171 votes

While I don't think juggernauts compete too much with wardens specifically, as the latter has utility the former don't, I do agree that fighters in general have too much overlap with tanks, particularly when the recent Vanguard Update gave some of them very similar playstyles. With the exception of a few vanguards like Sejuani and Rammus, who I think are juggernaut and diver hybrids respectively, tanks should not be dealing high damage, and the fundamental difference between them should be that tanks should be using disruption as a means of attracting attention towards themselves, whereas fighters should be damage-dealers first and foremost, and damage absorbers second. I think separating the two is going to involve work mainly on tanks, rather than juggernauts, though I agree that the latter could also afford to have more unique tools at their disposal.

I also agree that juggernauts should have a baseline level of engage, which I think is also what makes Darius and Urgot successful: while engaging on the entire enemy team should be difficult for a juggernaut, I think it would be perfectly okay for them to have the tools to start a fight with a single opponent, since they have so much riding on their AoE that they wouldn't be at full power when dueling them (or shouldn't, at least, unless they're specifically duel-oriented like Nasus or Urgot). More generally, I think all melee classes as a whole should have tools to force fights, more so than ranged champions, because their range limitations means they need to be more proactive in entering and leaving combat.

Big LincolnAug 6, 20172 votes

well when I say engage I mean a juggernaut who has a really powerful one on par with old Sejuani ult or earthshaker's Fissure. i want one who can teamfight confidently and doesn't hinge on someone else picking an initiator so they don't get cucked by the enemy ADC. no dashes or anything, just a nice ranged AOE disable.

i feel the same way about melee carries in general; Riot is so hesitant to give them CC or other non-selfish utility, but they're all too happy to super-stuff them full of damage and then wonder why they're so difficult to balance. (but apparently Gangplank is allowed to have both)

Teridax68Aug 6, 20171 votes

I feel that when your ult gets to apply a significant amount of AoE hard CC, it stops being a simple engage, and is instead an initiation ability in its own right, which is more in the domain of tanks, many of whom are meant to force teamfights. However, I think that just means we need to either create more tank-juggernaut hybrids or adjust the ones we already have based on that, so that we can have a selection of champions who do get to make teamfights happen and contribute a lot of damage. Sejuani, in particular, should not have lost her old ult or AoE damage, especially since that in itself made her much more disposed to lead the charge than her current mechanics.

SujirenAug 6, 20172 votes

What skill? Anyone with slighest bit of mobility will never get hit by his e, the only way for Urgot to surprise and make any sort of engage play is use e and then flash during it's wind up to surprise flip them from decent range. Otherwise you are just relying on your team to do all the engages and plays in teamfight.