Zoe QOL Changes/Discussion

Hey everybody.

So, I've been enjoying Zoe. I've currently got 31243 Mastery points on her, which I'm sure someone can beat. But i've been playing her a lot.

Beyond all the "Omg she's so op", I think she definitely could use some QOL changes on a few aspects of her kit, so I'm putting them here.

1. Q Range Indicator. Fix it. This problem isn't specific to a skin, I have the skin and I've used the base skin quite a lot, the Q range indicator isn't accurate. If you line up the tip of the arrow that shows up with a minion, the Q won't actually hit them. You have to move the range finder past the target in order for it to hit, and I'm gonna say, it's REALLY annoying. Especially with a champ who has long range and a lot of the skill is understanding her exact ranges, having the range indicator be incorrect by 25 units (it seems like) is incredibly frustrating. You're constantly missing people by having the projectile fizzle out a single pixel in front of their face. If you were to simply extend the range to match the indicator, which is seriously like, 25 units, it would feel a LOT better.

2. Ult + Auto Attack synergy. This is probably the change I want to happen the most. Zoe's burst combo is her Q, her R, and her auto attack Passive all hitting together. Unfortunately, her Q range is significantly longer than her auto attack. The problem with this is that very frequently you'll E Q R someone, and you'll hit your skill shots, but you yourself are JUST out of range to get the auto attack off, so they'll live with that frustrating 2 hp. One potential solution for this would be to simply increase the travel distance of the ult, but it wouldn't solve the problem, it would just make combo targets more accessible. But in reality, what I want is for sniping someone at max distance to be cohesive across her kit. If she could get a temporary auto attack range increase when she ults, that would fix everything. I don't see much chance for abuse here, as just R+autoing in lane isn't very efficient for harass. I'm sure I'm missing some scenario where this would break the character, but someone will point it out to me. Currently this problem IS pretty much solved by buying Rapid Fire Cannon, but that purchase feels REALLY bad on Zoe, as she has no attack speed synergy. You can justify it on TF because he uses the range and the attack speed works well with his E, but Zoe doesn't use it at all.

Alternatively, you could give the Q a debuff to where if the Q hits a target, Zoe can then auto attack that target from extended range (hopefully the range of the Q. Especially if you can only extend your range against the target your Q hit, the range should be pretty forgiving). This would smooth out the combo while avoiding any abuse scenarios that I can think of.

3. Projectile Size. I'm not going to sit here and go "omg her Q and E are so tiny, make them easier for me to hit waahhhh", but there have been QUITE a few times where the E legit goes through part of a champion's model. It seems to happen most on Champions that lean or otherwise visually change their position without actually changing the hurtbox. Example is Janna who leans forward, if you shoot the E through her actual face while she's moving perpendicular to you, it doesn't always hit. I'm not sure where within the coding this problem lies, if it's a champion hitbox/hurtbox problem or if the E is simply too thin to consistently recognize the edges of things it should collide with. Regardless it would be really nice if it was changed.

3.5. E nerfs. Speaking of her E, if there was one problem I had to identify with her as being OP, it would be her E cooldown at later ranks. With max CDR and level 5 on E, as long as you hit the spell, it's cooldown is slightly over 4 seconds. That's... a bit crazy late game, doesn't give much opportunity for people to play against it. I would just say tone down the 30% cooldown return on hit to maybe 20% and call it good. Still supports her "fishing for sleeps into snipes" siege pattern, but you won't get someone chain slept with maybe a second or 2 in between, and you won't get 2 people slept at the same time. Which is possible if the first E hits the ground and someone walks over it at the last second before it fizzles.

4. Waveclear. This is an interesting topic for Zoe, because to some degree, her ability to waveclear with Q feels less reliant on her AP and more on the level of her Q. I've tried tank Zoe builds that don't build any AP until 3rd item and I find myself still one shotting backline creeps at about the same time as if I purchased a lot of early ap. So that's an interesting situation. But while I'm CERTAINLY NOT advocating for giving her Q more damage, it's fine where it is, I find that Zoe's kit is very much a "shove mid and roam" kit, but she has crazy amounts of trouble actually shoving mid. She gets out pushed by just about everyone, which is a fine weakness early game, but mid game you still have the same problem while your midlane opponent can use 2 spells on the wave and leave without worrying about their tower. Trying to roam with Zoe feels much harder than with other mid lane mages because she just can't control the waves as well as any other mage. I'm not sure how to go about fixing this problem, but I wanted someone at Riot to at least give it some thought. You could increase the AOE on her Q to better hit a full line of minions (half the wave), or you could add a low scaling % value to her to her Q that gives additional damage to minions/monsters (would also help with jungle zoe, please help jungle zoe. Please.) Like "Zoe's Q does 0/2/4/7/10 % more damage to minions and monsters". Something like that.

Sorry for the long post but I really like this champion, props to CertainlyT. I have hated you for a long time after you designed that hernia on the intestinal wall of League, Yasuo. But this is pretty awesome. You're... partially forgiven. <3

If anyone has read all of this, I'd love to read any ideas or constructive feedback you have. Hopefully Rito will respond, i'll be checking that Red Tracker.

(EDIT: The formatting ruined my numbering system, i can't fix it :( )