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Has Anyone Noticed or Talked About Rakan's Win Rate Lately?

draecina·5/22/2017, 3:27:15 AM·32 votes·4,454 views

Rakan's ranking compared to other supports (Platinum+ Games only):

Champion.gg: Rank 25 on a list of 28 supports, with a WR of 45.99%. Just above the win rates of Veigar, Lux, and Miss Fortune support. Play rate is 8.49%.
League of Graphs: Rank 25 on a list of 25 supports, with a WR of 46.1%. Play rate is 8.4%.
Lolalytics: Rank 36 on a list of 42 supports, with a WR of 45.93%. Just above the win rates of Poppy, Kennen, and Lux support. Play rate is 7.92%.

I have given you three different sites with very similar statistics on the state of Rakan currently. Riot's last buff did not help much (although the Q range change is wonderful). Why they nerfed the shield without increasing its range is beyond me. I see no one talking about Rakan and I wonder why. Xayah has a win rate of a little under 50% (Champion.gg) and to me, she feels fine to play with and against. You can say it's because he's new, but Xayah is doing much better than him. Rakan is an extremely fun champion to play, but I feel as though he's going to be forgotten, even after waiting for a support for so long. Also, before anyone says "you're just whining because you have a godawful win rate with him!", yes, my win rate is way below average Rakans! For me, it takes a long time to get a good win rate with certain supports, I've also gotten counterpicked in some games, plus there's always the learning aspect of it despite me playing lots of games both on this account and my other account. I'm not blaming my gameplay on the champion. I have, however, noticed his very low win rate after looking up the champion for tips. I'd like to hear some thoughts on this, because maybe I'm blind, but I've seen no Rakan threads lately.

tl;dr Rakan's win rate is 46% (one of the worst support win rates in the game)

119 Comments

Raxistaicho5/22/2017, 3:38:47 AM34 votes

The thing with Rakan is that he potentially offers so much to his team and is so mobile that Riot has to be extremely careful with buffing him, because he could easily run out of control.

chipndip15/22/2017, 4:51:35 AM15 votes

No one cares and no one will start to care. The issue is that Xayah can function without Rakan. Rakan gets DOUBLE HIS FUCKING E RANGE WHEN JUMPING TO XAYAH. Makes no sense why Rakan's "thing" is so much more fundamental to him than Xayah's "thing".

To boot, he gets bullied hard in lane to transition to a team fighting potential that can still be matched by other support picks.

VoraciousX5/22/2017, 5:23:17 AM14 votes

It likely has something to do with the fact that his dash ranges are so much more limiting when he isn't with Xayah, which makes him harder to let loose. I'll bet anything most games he wins are when he has Xayah as an ADC, and most of the ones he loses are when he doesn't.

It probably also doesn't help that when they first introduced him they mentioned that more skilled players would start with spellthief's, while ancient coin would be what everyone else wanted, and guess what his most common starter item is by a large margin?

DarkRitual5/22/2017, 4:37:21 PM7 votes

The ancient coin changes were also terrible for him. He's not tanky enough for Face to be great, and spelltheif's is out of the question.

None of the support items FEEL good on him.

Ralanr5/22/2017, 4:30:11 PM6 votes

You know, something about being really squishy with AP scaling abilities in a role that doesn't get much AP really doesn't surprise me that he's not doing well.

His mobility is great, but it's very lackluster without Xayah.

Pandemic Punch5/22/2017, 3:36:54 AM5 votes

I feel like he would be way stronger if he could proc relic shield and use it's build path.

ozzzz6665/22/2017, 7:15:46 AM5 votes

I LOVE Rakan. I'm one token from M7 with him. He is REALLY strong for his utility, but he needs a strong aggressive adc and at least one or two people on the team who aren't afraid to get kills when he goes in. When I play him with my premade groups, he rocks hard... However, it is really touch and go in soloQ, as it is just way to common to get a trash adc and people who are just interested in protecting their kda by avoiding death at all costs.

StoryDuck5/22/2017, 10:23:24 PM4 votes

If Rakan isn't a top tier LCS pick I'll eat my hat. He has insane amounts of engage potential, utility, and loves to build Redemption and Locket. The reason he has a really low win rate is the complexity of his kit and need for teamwork. I've had a chance to play some games on him and even I mess up sometimes with him but when I do it normally costs the fight/game. When I don't make mistakes with him and my team follows up after I ping I'm going in it's insane how powerful he is. He can just flash R W entire teams then rush out and shield allies while waiting for W to come back up. His power comes from a team working together and lets face it, solo que isn't know for its highly coordinated team fights but in high rank pro play? I know he's going to be a big pick.

Scary Door5/22/2017, 3:50:35 AM3 votes

Rakan is mediocre in Solo Queue because he relies on teamwork and/or an adc that follows up in lane... these are things that are uncommon in Solo Queue.

In organized play or in capable hands he can be absolutely off-the-charts powerful. He synergizes well with many champs currently in the meta. He has mobility, shielding, high scaling, can be played either tanky, AP or even AP Bruiser. He is basically more versitile than just about every support in the game, but his skill cap is fairly high and is far too focused on team play to be a strong pick right now outside of those circumstnaces.

NekoniClaws5/23/2017, 1:16:36 PM3 votes

I consider taking Rakan to be basically inting, (unless you have Xayah and provide her the buff)

Honestly if I compare Rakan to my mains, (Leona, Thresh) - his issues are obvious.

Rakan's E is a requirement to keep him alive after providing CC (his ONLY real use). All it gives to his team is a tiny little shield to one ally, and by shielding someone in a clutch situation, he often ends up taking additional damage (a net loss) Alternatively you can shield preemptively and walk out of range (something that no other shielding support has to waste time doing.) It's useless, and basically he's short an ability so that he can fulfil the criteria of 'squishy CC support'.

In a teamfight he can at best dish out 1 second of CC at an 8 second intervals. He goes in, looks pretty, and leaves, because he's a liability.

Compare to Thresh. Thresh's CC is longer, has a very long range, and the engage is optional. He can provide heals from relic equal to Rakan's. His shields don't endanger him to cast (both W and FOTM if chosen) and shields both him and an ally. He has a double the basic CC abilities of Rakan. His ult (played correctly) is more powerful in laning, and equally as powerful in teamfights.

In a teamfight, Thresh can land a 1.5 second stun every 3 seconds (then flay, additionally). He can also stay in there, bodyblock things, displace enemies, deliver AOE debuffs and shields, and draw focus due to his short cooldowns. (Leona is very similar). Rakan having to go in but being unable to stay in is huge.

Rakan isn't suffering because he 'needs coordination' or is 'hard to master'. He's a controversial character design and it's not surprising he's not working perfectly.

Mysticman895/22/2017, 3:59:35 AM1 votes

I worry he's going to end up like pre-nerfs azir or kalista levels of strength, which is to say, meh in the hands of most mortals, but kind of absurd in the hands of a rakan god.

Look at this guy for example, sporting a 72% winrate with rakan over 109 games.

Blakiepug5/22/2017, 7:22:09 PM1 votes

Tahm Kench has been in a bad spot for over a year now, consistently having one of the lowest support winrates. At this point I've kind of given up hope. The class updates pull all eyes onto the changed champions and leaves those who are truly struggling to rot forever as they are ignored by the balance team...