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Twitch's passive. Let's be real.

Twîsted Fâte··7 votes·1,787 views

Ok so I play a LOT of Twitch. I like to think I know my way around the champion pretty good and know his bot lane match ups by heart. Recently I've come to the conclusion that his passive has just not kept up with the rest of the game and could use a little tweak, not too much, but definitely needs a little something-something to help keep up with the rest of the pack. Currently his passive is as follows.

DEADLY VENOM -

Twitch's basic attacks each apply a stack of Poison icon Deadly Venom, dealing 12 / 18 / 24 / 30 / 36 true damage over 6 seconds and stacking up to 6 times for a maximum of 72 / 108 / 144 / 180 / 216 true damage over the duration.

It doesn't scale off of anything and it's numbers are QUITE low. A comparable passive to this is Darius's Hemorrhage so let's take a look at that.

HEMORRHAGE -

HEMORRHAGE: Darius's basic attacks and damaging abilities cause enemies to bleed for「 9 + (Darius's level) 」(+ 30% bonus AD) physical damage over 5 seconds, stacking up to 5 times for a maximum of「 45 + (5 × Darius's level) 」(+ 150% bonus AD) physical damage over the duration. NOXIAN MIGHT: Upon applying full Hemorrhage stacks to an enemy champion or killing them with Noxian Guillotine, Darius gains Noxian Might for 5 seconds, during which he gains 「 40 - 200 」bonus attack damage and instantly applies full Hemorrhage stacks through his usual means.

Alright so the first thing I notice is that Darius gets an excellent 30% AD ratio on this and on a side note, if you completely take this ratio out, the damage is almost identical to Twitch's passive. With the ratio factored in Darius's passive has roughly double the damage over a shorter duration not to mention the massive steroid he gets upon 5 stacks.

I'm not sure what the best solution to this is. You could obviously simply increase the numbers on this but I'm not sure if that's the way to go. Giving Twitch a cool steroid upon 6 stacks would be cool and would go great with his kit since in the laning phase Twitch is completely based around getting stacks on his target using Contaminate for good trades. It would add more to the concept of getting punished for allowing twitch to pile stacks on you unchallenged. I do believe something should be done to help the little rat stay relevant in this ever changing bot lane and I think changing his passive is the way to go. Cheers!

15 Comments

JustMyBassCannon3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ix Snarf jr,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=m67AccpT,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-09-23T07:12:41.196+0000)

Alright so the first thing I notice is that Darius gets an excellent 30% AD ratio on this and on a side note, if you completely take this ratio out, the damage is almost identical to Twitch's passive. With the ratio factored in Darius's passive has roughly double the damage over a shorter duration not to mention the massive steroid he gets upon 5 stacks.

Are you sure you did the math right on that? By that, I mean did you make sure that you didn't mistake a bonus AD ratio for a total AD ratio?

If not, where is Darius getting the bonus AD? What's the build?

I'm not sure what the best solution to this is. You could obviously simply increase the numbers on this but I'm not sure if that's the way to go. Giving Twitch a cool steroid upon 6 stacks would be cool and would go great with his kit since in the laning phase Twitch is completely based around getting stacks on his target using Contaminate for good trades. It would add more to the concept of getting punished for allowing twitch to pile stacks on you unchallenged. I do believe something should be done to help the little rat stay relevant in this ever changing bot lane and I think changing his passive is the way to go. Cheers!

Well, first, we can't compare them parallel, because they are different champions entirely. Darius is a melee bruiser with built-in defense tools, burst damage and soft/hard CC, while Twitch is a marksman with short-to-medium range tools for getting into and out of a fight, multiple steroids and he's the only Marksman with an AoE attack that can crit on an entire enemy team without them trying to stand in the space of a Karthus Q. Their kits aren't similar, the only similarity is that they have a stacking mechanic built up by basic attacks and abilities, and that stack mechanic deals damage and builds up the strength of another ability in their kit.

Second, Twitch's kit suffers from old Mordekaiser syndrome. That is to say, his kit is designed around the function of a pair of core abilities, and the rest of his kit's tools suffer due to the potential power of said core skills. His kit had a concept, but somewhere in the process of balancing him, that concept ended up getting overshadowed by something else. Not that current Mordekaiser solved this...or was the only champion to suffer. Cassiopeia...

Third, Riot's working on marksmen in general post-Worlds (I'm guessing this means around November/December). Marksmen are going to receive tweaks, changes and new items for different builds. Maybe he'll just get a few tweaks and become stronger with a new build, or maybe he'll receive more drastic changes to help him feel less anachronistic.

Twîsted Fâte1 votes

{quoted}

Are you sure you did the math right on that? By that, I mean did you make sure that you didn't mistake a bonus AD ratio for a total AD ratio?

If not, where is Darius getting the bonus AD? What's the build?

Well, first, we can't compare them parallel, because they are different champions entirely. Darius is a melee bruiser with built-in defense tools, burst damage and soft/hard CC, while Twitch is a marksman with short-to-medium range tools for getting into and out of a fight, multiple steroids and he's the only Marksman with an AoE attack that can crit on an entire enemy team without them trying to stand in the space of a Karthus Q. Their kits aren't similar, the only similarity is that they have a stacking mechanic built up by basic attacks and abilities, and that stack mechanic deals damage and builds up the strength of another ability in their kit.

Second, Twitch's kit suffers from old Mordekaiser syndrome. That is to say, his kit is designed around the function of a pair of core abilities, and the rest of his kit's tools suffer due to the potential power of said core skills. His kit had a concept, but somewhere in the process of balancing him, that concept ended up getting overshadowed by something else. Not that current Mordekaiser solved this...or was the only champion to suffer. Cassiopeia...

Third, Riot's working on marksmen in general post-Worlds (I'm guessing this means around November/December). Marksmen are going to receive tweaks, changes and new items for different builds. Maybe he'll just get a few tweaks and become stronger with a new build, or maybe he'll receive more drastic changes to help him feel less anachronistic.

Ahh you're correct good sir. I did indeed factor Darius's entire AD into it as opposed to simply his Bonus AD. After recalculating it seems as far as straight damage goes Twitch's beat his out until he gets 5 stacks, then Darius's becomes significantly more powerful. After reexamining this though I think that when Darius gets 5 stacks that's when the passive really becomes noticeable and becomes a massive factor in lane fights. And you're completely right about these 2 champions being completely different and comparing them probably isn't the best way to gauge Twitch's passive. What I was trying to get at here more than anything is that Darius's passive is a DoT + uber steroid that I see having a significant effect in the game all the time, Twitch's passive is a DoT passive that you really just don't notice at all. I mean playing against a twitch I never really think "Damn his 6 stacks on me are really hurting", and playing as Twitch I don't really see it as something that significantly helps me in trades.

yay nibbers2 votes

Darius needs the steroid after stacking to really be effective though. The big difference between Darius and Twitch's passive is Darius's does physical damage and Twitch's does true damage. That's a huge advantage Twitch has over Darius and his bleed because Twitch's poison damage cannot be mitigated. Death can be delayed by building HP but the same applies to Darius's passive. Darius's bleed however, can be mitigated by armor, and thanks to the way armor works the mitigation can be huge with just a single armor item. It's part of the reason Darius builds Black Cleaver over attack speed items like Twitch can/does. On top of that, even if it does its full damage somehow, Darius needs AD items for his bleed to outdo Twitch's poison damage.

Another thing you don't seem to take into account is Twitch's full E damage at full passive stacks. Compared to Darius's ult, the damage is much smaller but at the same time it's also a non-ult ability and has a cooldown to match. Twitch can use it to trade while Darius generally has to save his ult for finishing. As for the damage, at full stacks Twitch's E does almost 400 phsyical damage with just a bit over 100 bonus AD (IE/BT+BoRK), which is pretty huge considering it's almost double his passive's full damage (before armor, and still pretty huge in general considering it can also hit multiple targets).

I'm not saying Twitch doesn't need some sort of work, I'm just saying you're really underselling his damage. I do agree that it feels underwhelming compared to Darius though.

Spicy Rice2 votes

The thing is, unlike darius's passive, which is physical damage, and therefore is mitigated by armor, Twitch's passive is true damage, and therefore is not affected by armor/mr. If you want to buff its damage, you'd have to get rid of the true damage aspect, otherwise, he would be an unprecedented lane bully on the levels of release Draven

Budupops2 votes

the difference is twitch has 800 range

ScriptBrand1 votes

needs to be changed, not buffed. and by changed i mean changed to something stronger

Twîsted Fâte1 votes

Any ideas?

Spicy Rice1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ix Snarf jr,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=m67AccpT,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2015-09-23T07:16:43.750+0000)

Any ideas?

You could change it so that it did X amount true damage + something like 2-3% current hp

Frostwoman1 votes

his passive was supposed to be his damage source to keep him in their for his insane late game kit.

they nerfed his passive and his ability interactions with it multiple times during times when most adcs were weak enough to get evenly or outtraded by twitch and then inevitably outscaled. most recently it happened mid s3 and at end of s4.

i feel like his passive is one of the few things that match his identity on that champion but buffing it will just make him fotm again. i feel like in order to buff his passive, you need to compensate by taking away power from some other part of his kit.

besides, they buffed him a bit recently.

Twîsted Fâte1 votes

I took into the account that Darius's passive is physical when comparing the damage. I agree the idea of Twitch's passive does go well with his identity but I think it's just a bit naked and really doesn't do enough to help his laning phase. He doesn't have much of a bully mechanic compared to numerous other ADs, and has no mobility whatsoever to boot. I think he could use a little change to balance this out a little more. Perhaps maybe a slight slow on each stack? like 3-4% slow per stack might work well and would go along with his kit great. I just think it needs SOMETHING done, not sure what.

Only Play Darius1 votes

His passive is worthless. Hell I see Darius Talon passives finish off their target 100x more often than a 6-stacked deady venom.

NoMonku1 votes

Though this isn't what you asked specifically, I feel he may need his passive changed, at least to make him more "healthy. His passive does passive TRUE damage, meaning you can't mitigate it. While giving it a steroid, most likely AD, won't significantly buff his early game laning power, it can become too strong later in the game. Draven got his passive changed because his DoT damage was considered too powerful(and it was) and after players started playing Twitch because of Draven's change, him being similar to Draven this way, his passive got nerfed as well.

While Darius' DoT may be strong, the main strength of it I feel comes from his ability to dunk with more power and not so much the bleed damage. Anyways, as the bleed has been nerfed/removed for ADC's, I feel it isn't the right way to look if you want to buff him.

Smegma1231 votes

I see a few "buff/change" Twitch threads from time to time. However the thing with Twitch that one needs to consider is that what he brings to the table is very unique compared to other ADC's. I could fairly compare Lucian/Graves/Caitlyn/Tristana/Jinx/Vayne and so on, but Twitch is a completely different ball game.

I think a lot of people don't really understand the kind of pressure and prescence he can have on the entire game, especially when the players are good and ESPECIALLY in coordinated/competitive play.

Look at this recent game from the LPL Regional Qualifiers in China. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDpRX8Er5u4

EDG's Deft on Twitch(with Lulu's help) starts to exert IMMENSE pressure during midgame with his insane pick potential. He's just not the same as other ADC's and should not be considered as such. I know you aren't comparing him to other ADC's, but the general point I am trying to make is that there's no immediate or serious need to buff him. He's not the strongest pick by far so he could definitely use a little bit of love but at most, some very very minor buffs. Riot has buffed his Q a little bit over the past 2 patches which makes life a little better.

GastonBarnacles1 votes

Twitch is ranged.

Hayaishi21 votes

Because Darius is melee and doesn't deal true damage.

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