Ziggs Feedback/Proposal

There are no Master or Challenger mains and he's not finding much more success after the changes (especially late game). Even the best and most prolific Ziggs main atm (The Demon Thief), a D2 player, doesn't have a 60% winrate on him. However, there is no shortage of Zed, Talon, Ahri, and Azir mains at the highest tiers with ridiculous 65%+ winrates over hundreds of games.

The PBE changes last cycle made sense for Ziggs and emphasized his strong points while hitting his ability to use his ult. for long-range waveclear and stalling the game. They are in the right direction but Ziggs remains a very unreliable champion with less carry potential than other mids for the simple fact that his whole kit can be outplayed and he lacks solo kill potential despite not providing much CC. His Q is a good poke tool and should be dodgeable but even when it hits, it's not as impactful as an Ahri or Xerath Q since it will just hit the frontline instead of going through multiple players. Upping his ratio by 5% would be fair. I wouldn't change the base damage since Ziggs is already solid early but mostly falls off later on and buffing base damage can make him frustrating.

Another issue with Ziggs is that he's mostly relegated to poke and waveclear (which at this point, champions like Azir, Zilean, Vel'Koz, Viktor, Anivia etc. do equally well or better) rather than aggressive plays. In other words, he's not sufficiently rewarded for offensive risky plays. Ziggs is a painfully slow champion so if I use Satchel Charge offensively to get someone out of position or attempt to burst them with my full combo, I should be better rewarded. The League's primary explosives expert has surprisingly low burst potential relative to Viktor or other mages.

Satchel Charge is a conditional and long cooldown escape (26 sec. at level 13) which Ziggs depends on vs the many high mobility champions on the Rift so it deserves a much higher AP ratio than a paltry 35%. It needs to offer some incentive for a Ziggs do do more than frontline poke/kite while sitting on his escape. I may even leave Q alone and just up W's AP ratio to 70%. It sounds like a big change but given the long CD and the vulnerability it creates when used offensively, I think it's perfectly fine. At the moment, using Satchel Charge offensively is almost never worth it vs competent players. Without Satchel Charge, Ziggs is just another squishy mage with one of the lowest MS values in the game at 325 (Xerath, Vel'Koz and Zyra have 340 MS by comparison). Finally, buffing AP ratios on older champions makes sense considering that mage itemization has a little less AP than it used to in prior seasons. The meta has also changed in many ways which are unfavorable to Ziggs (more mobility, better kiting champions, more spread out fights, Soraka :D, etc.).

BTW: Even if W's AP ratio is buffed to 70%, it will still not be maxed 2nd due to its CD and the area control + waveclear E offers.