@RiotJag Can we stop thinking direct stat checks are actual reworks?

I'm referring to the Teemo rework, which among all the recent reworks (maybe with the exception of Mordekaiser), is the most stat checky thing I've ever seen. These champions tend to be either useless or broken.

I'm with the opinion that we shouldn't keep making champions like Rumble who operate intensely on "running at people" and hoping your damage doesn't fall off. These types of champions are largely useless if they do no damage, and there is actually little interaction involved between player and opponent. We already have the Marksman role for these types of champions and they have a support to assist them in what they lack. That's what makes the role's weaknesses get covered, but in a solo lane these issues are exacerbated to the point where someone asks "what is this balance team doing?"

The reality is that the balance team can do nothing about these situations because the champions are flawed to their core, born from win conditions that need the opponent to be bad if both champions are at similar power levels.

I could honestly rant about the numbers like everyone else, but no. Grab a drink, sit down. Let's have a little chat about the "where" this rework is going rather than the "what" it is going to do.

First, it's not that the rework is an "entire" failure, because Teemo still technically functions. It's just that Teemo doesn't really have any core issues fixed. It seems like a Shyvana rework where you've merely moved some numbers around the champion to make it seem higher overall but otherwise have fixed 0 mechanical issues. So in a lot of ways the rework is moving backward. This seems to be common for certain types of champions, typically ones without dashes. And it looks like you (Riot) are not going to or are currently unable to break this trend.

Here's a basic summary of Teemo along with irrelevant gibberish on the side. I have to do something to not be depressed over this rework direction and feel like a legitimate discussion is even possible. At least under the chance Riot doesn't even read this, I can enjoy any smaller discussions that pop up.

Toxic Shot Teemo's main damage mechanism in lane, which makes him an "auto-attack champion" for most games because it is where his damage mostly is coming from. Ironically this is also the weakest part of Teemo because it stops scaling after level 9 (when you max first ability). The rework only pushes this back further to level 13, ironically worsening the same issue at level 9 by not giving him his level 9 damage. And unironically, since the damage is never immediate on the second portion, Teemo is always missing damage anyway unless he backs off for 4 seconds and comes back. Udyr experienced a similar issue until they made his DoT consume itself.

If Beemo was in Bee Movie, would he be adventurous? :thinking:

Blinding Dart Other than being the meme ability that doesn't properly do its job, it's Teemo's best poke spell and mostly has lane relevance until he's built AP items. It's otherwise completely useless for on-hit builds because Nashor's+Guinsoo has no sustain so nobody wants to build it. Sad times. It's affected by Tenacity and has a terrible cooldown despite otherwise being mostly a poke spell. An ability that has no idea what it wants to do after lane phase.

Aren't people usually disoriented when they're blinded? Even if Malphite is "unstoppable," that doesn't mean he can't miss. Well, then again. Can you really blind a rock?

Move Quick It's actually a really strong out of combat movement speed ability. The problem is that Teemo is almost always at risky ranges where he loses the bonus if the enemy decides to do anything. Most of Teemo's stealth plays are on shorter ranges, so it's actually pretty confusing why he loses the bonus just for entering combat. Other than that, the cooldown on this thing is outrageous, and stuff like Urgot pay no mana for their W abilities! But not only that, what is a ranged Marksman type champion going to do with out of combat movement speed for the majority of the game? The strength of this ability is only for poking and niche situations, being "good" only at a theoretical level. It's better on assassins.

Is Teemo really moving any faster if he uses Move Quick while standing still? :thinking:

Guerilla Warfare Ah yes, the repurposed E but otherwise current passive on live Teemo. It's situational stealth that gives people a high rise for how great it can be if positioned correctly or the enemy is just flat out unaware. The problem is that it's otherwise easy to sniff and an Oracle Lens completely negates the strategy since Teemo does not want to be mobile when enabling the ability. The stealth that hates to move, huh? And yet it's got severe limitations like duration till stealth on both iterations of the ability and a pretty low attack speed bonus. Another ability that's pretty confused on what it wants to accomplish but unlike Blinding Dart is too unoptimized to be even half reliable most times. On top of this, it's able to be used for trolling in really low elo ranges instead of for mastery purposes. It needs to be addressed.

I wonder what is Teemo hiding under if he's standing still to stealth? He has no time to grab the grasses nearby, and the game obviously shows he's not in prone...maybe he's Lux in disguise?

Toxic Mushrooms The thing Teemo is most known for. His identity despite most of his power coming from autos. I'd say that's a real big impact of an ability. It slows the enemy and does heavy damage over time...but that's about it. It's actually remarkable that it's even considered an ultimate ability, and reminds me more of Udyr where a champion is just a 4 basic ability kit. The problem of course is that you don't get them early. A lot of Teemo's bad matchups come from a lack of having this ability early for the waveclear balancing, and they are otherwise hard to detonate in chaotic teamfights. Planning is nice, but you can't really plan for EVERYTHING.

Why don't Teemo's shrooms knock people up? After all, they're getting sky high...

Yes I'm terrible. Anyway.

Does the rework really address anything more than swapping numbers around? Nope. It's a nice gesture to show concern for Teemo, but I thought we were moving away from reworks that pretty much force bigger updates from how they basically fix nothing? The Teemo rework seems to be running under the same principles, so inevitably it smells like it'll be the same kind of flammable object.

I have some suggestions I'd like to make so that this is actually a rework. I'd also like to make an explanation for these to get them out of the way first, with the abilities in question below the explanation. However, if you're not interested, you can skip this long section because it's not the main idea behind this topic.

Random reader: What? You don't want us to read your "supposed" great idea? Guess it's bad then.

It's not necessarily a great idea and it hasn't been tested. I'll admit that. I'd like to think it's good but I'm not the person to decide that.

It's the theory and logic behind it that matters, which is that the Teemo rework is not a real rework while this one actually is. It addresses problems directly rather than trying to tiptoe around them to keep the "integrity" of a champion. Keeping this "integrity" usually means trying to not outrage players while keeping the champion unbalanced, or even outright bad sometimes. Malzahar comes to my mind when I think about a rework like that, and I still do hate his rework even if I can enjoy playing him at times.

Friendly reminder that League boards still have no spoiler tag. It's garbage but I'll just add a start and end like those board games.

START HERE

Blinding Dart in more cases than not is being used for damage, not peeling. Therefore it's easier to change it to have that vantage point, but obviously it's not a Blinding Dart anymore, now is it?

Change Blinding Dart to Poison Dart, an actual DoT that lasts for 4 seconds. Instead of applying a Blind, it has a 6 second cooldown and costs 40 mana (goes up by 5 per rank). Teemo may still move while shooting Poison Darts. Teemo may channel this ability over 3 seconds to apply up to 3 Poison Darts, however he is self-slowed by 50% for the channeling duration and pays mana equivalent to the number of Poison Darts he is shooting. Cooldown applies after shooting. Does not break invisibility and can be held even when Flashing. Prioritizes champions over minions in case something dies during the skill. Deals 200% bonus damage to minions and monsters at low health, and if it kills them, refunds half the mana cost and cooldown. The major point of this ability is that it will NOT do effective champion damage unless it's rank 3 or higher.

Toxic Shot is, as I stated, Teemo's weakest part of his kit. It only makes sense that this receives the biggest change out of all of them. The on-hit damage made people think that on-hit builds are good on Teemo when it's been usable on many ranged champions, Teemo being one of the weaker ones. Frozen Mallet was Teemo's strongest time period in terms of items, and that time has long ended. Teemo's survivability is at an all-time low, so it's about time Toxic Shot was modernized to deal damage more immediately. Paired with the above Poison Dart, he will have a fighting chance no matter the opponent but obviously is better in 1 on 1 fights still.

Toxic Shot entirely reworked, including the removal of the +50% damage interaction. On-hit damage removed. Still applied as new passive. Now called Chain Poison, where Teemo will inflict a DoT that stacks up to 5 times if an auto-attack or damaging ability hits an enemy. Teemo will ignore magic resist depending on the amount of poison on the target. Every time the opponent is poisoned by a unique poison while Chain Poison is active, they will be Slowed for 3 seconds. If Chain Poison is at 5 stacks, all Chain Poison stacks are consumed (dealing all of their damage at once) and "Fatal Poison" debuff is applied for 6 seconds. With Fatal Poison, Teemo keeps the max magic resist ignore and ALL poisons deal their damage immediately and slow the enemy, including Chain Poison. Since Chain Poison is consumed immediately, it cannot stack back up to 5 while Fatal Poison is active.

Move Quick has always been an ability more fit to be on assassins who desire out of combat movement speed. The cooldown prevents it from being dynamic like Draven's movement speed bonus, so all-around the ability is just effectively a waste bin for Teemo since nobody apparently is thinking of anything better. Instead, I'd like move to shrooms to this ability slot and cause Move Quick to remove itself from Teemo's kit. Since it will be a basic ability instead, I'm suggesting more severe limitations.

Move Quick removed. Ability replaced with a short range skill shot called "Escape Maneuver." Teemo tosses a shroom quickly in the air and shoots at it to make it explode, dealing damage over time to any targets hit. Teemo cannot move during the shooting animation. The shroom leaves a non-damaging (but still applies on-spell effects) black smoke cloud that obscures the opponent's vision based on line of sight for 4 seconds. For allies, it will be a near-transparent white. Cooldown is 30/28/26/24/22 seconds, but damage only goes up per champion level. Costs 75 mana at all ranks.

Example: If the smoke is behind the enemy, they cannot see behind themselves. If they are in the cloud, they are fully affected by Narrowsight like Quinn and Graves' Blinds. This makes it not a true Blind but is still extremely powerful in teamfights as seen in RTS games. It's easier to think of this as some sort of Nocturne ult substitute.

Guerilla Warfare has never needed to be a damage amp quite honestly. It doesn't get to properly be utilized in most situations and creates a confusing stat check scenario where DPS is actually uncertain due to the low duration of the speed itself. Other champions who use in-combat speed usually try to maintain it in some form or otherwise have crazy good DPS options like crit builds. Teemo does not have those. Therefore this should just be updated to an easier to use stealth that gives Teemo amazing mindgame potential, but requires the user to know what they're doing.

Guerilla Warfare still applied as new E. Teemo may now activate it by standing still or being in bushes for 0.5 seconds without a cooldown, however you MUST NOT be in enemy vision, and an enemy must be within 2000 units of you. Maximum duration lowered from permanent to 15 seconds, but lowered to 2 seconds if Teemo begins to move. Activating the ability puts Teemo into stealth 0.5 seconds after cast regardless of the above and breaks any previous Invisibility, but allows Teemo to move with boosted movement speed based on champion level. Attack speed for activation removed. Teemo cannot be taken out of stealth even when damaged. No cooldown reduction for being in bushes unlike Teemo rework, instead cooldown is lowered to 16/15/14/13/12 seconds and mana cost changed to 40/35/30/25/20.

Now for something controversial. Removing shrooms as his ultimate. Why would I remove something I said was core to Teemo? Well, because what's core to Teemo is using these shrooms to stop the enemy from rushing at him or otherwise deal absurd amounts of damage. Riot doesn't like the absurd amounts of damage part, thus why I moved shrooms to a basic ability, so that they're not Teemo's main damage source. Chain Poison and Poison Dart fit that now. Instead, this should be an ultimate that enables a Teemo to feel like a god while it's up, similar to Nasus, Renekton, Vayne, etc. ults instead of being purely a damage ability. I've always thought of Teemo as the "solo fighter" in League, yet he has no abilities that allow him to feel like this except for his stealth. Anyway, this will be a special steroid that enables Teemo more for duels, but makes his teamfight power go up immensely compared to live.

Ultimate changed. Now called "War Machine" to fit Teemo's difference in personality during combat. When you guys do a VU, update the voices for this. Teemo's Evasive Maneuver gains massive cast range, channeling duration of Poison Dart lowered to 1 second along with self-slow removed, and Teemo gains 50%/60%/70% attack speed for 6 seconds. Getting a kill or assist lengthens the duration by 3 seconds. All of Teemo's abilities cost double the amount during this ultimate. This also does not break Invisibility upon activation. MONOPOLY

The above is just my idea of how to make Teemo ACTUALLY get a rework while addressing what Riot (I'm assuming Jag) wanted to do but didn't actually do.

Shrooms are unhealthy? Why aren't they a basic ability that are easier to use but have longer gaps between uses? Want Teemo to be competitively viable? Well then where's his damage going to be if not Toxic Shot or my Chain Poison? Why is Toxic Shot not the major target of the rework, something constantly nerfed for doing too much in lane for too little effort but scales horribly past that point? Want to make Teemo more intuitive to fight? Why not add a sense of urgency with a passive that stacks? Want to fix Blinding Dart's lack of impact? Why not make Teemo's Q not rely on a gimmick and just be more impactful overall? Where's his teamfight potential, something dead on current Teemo? STOP.

I could honestly go on.

My rework addressed quite a number of things and it's not perfect. I'm not asking you to like it. All I'm asking for is a proper rework. Please.

Please reconsider what you all define as "reworks." They should not be number shifts like balance patches. They should actually be attempting to change how the champion works REGARDLESS of what players ask for, because we all want different things (in case the contrarian in the room felt like his opinion was worthless).

However, it should at least solve issues with the champion EVERYONE experiences along with FAIR goals on Riot's end for what they want to accomplish with the champion. Our opinions on Teemo's problems are very evident and you'll find that unlike the vast number of rework suggestions that may or may not have an idea of what they want, the problems stated tend to be extremely similar across the board, even across various elo ranges. Acknowledge them. Think about them. Do something about them.

Thanks for reading. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take a shot for every time my shroom did nothing in a teamfight on both live and PBE. If you don't hear from me, you already know what happened.