Jayce is so close to being good.

The problem with Jayce as an overall champion is sort of the same problem there was with Nidalee -- you have six abilities but he was (and still sort of is) defined by just one heavy poke ability. Riot dealt with that by making him super mana hungry and upping the cooldown on his E, but he was unfortunately still all about the one poke skill. Jayce builds became about two things -- making the poke hurt more and enabling him to spam it. His hammer stance is useful for winning lane only.

Jayce as a champ exists in a binary state, both from game to game and in League at large: Either his poke is too strong, or he, as a champ, is not strong enough.

Nidalee has outgrown that spot, though. Now, she's largely about using her spears to begin a fight, but not as her sole mechanic. She now wants to poke, then jump in. The way Repertoir made that happen was by taking power from her spears and distributing it to another area of her kit.

Jayce has had power taken out of his poke over and over. Shock Blast is about where it needs to be -- his poke is game-changing but not game-breaking. When a team is facing an enemy Jayce that is fed, they have options -- both sustain and hard-engage work well against a Jayce. This is assuming Jayce is hitting his Shock Blasts, which have become easier to dodge.

The main problem is, Jayce has a stance that's supposed to be tailored to hard-engage, but he's just too squishy to make it work. He lacks reliable CC to make much difference building tank, and he lacks the tankiness to succeed in hammer stance when building damage. All of these problems can be mitigated when he's fed, but if a Jayce is behind, he's nonexistent.

The other problem is, as a "win lane" tool, Jayce's hammer stance is... actually pretty good. A Jayce can land a Shock Blast through an Acceleration gate, use Hyper Charge, run through the gate, close with To The Skies!, land three fast hammer attacks while doing damage with Lightning Field, knock the enemy back with Thundering Blow, then transform AGAIN to shred armor with an auto and finish with another Shock Blast. That can be too much. At levels 3-5, Jayce can win an all in by virtue of "I have way more abilities than you."

The problem there is, Jayce doesn't have to really think too much about what stance he's in, because he can change it really quickly. If you're changing forms twice in one all-in engagement in lane, there's probably something wrong. It looks and feels super cool, but when you compare him to Elise or Nidalee, you can see why their form changes accomplish more than his does. For Elise, her human form is all about setting up engagements with poke and CC, and changing to spider form is an announcement she's going for the kill. Nidalee is similar, with her human form being about creating opportunities, and her cougar form capitalizing on them. When Jayce changes to hammer stance, he's usually saying "My cannon abilities are on cooldown so I'm going to switch real quick and switch back as soon as they're off cooldown."

This problem means that any buffs to Jayce's hammer stance are buffs to his oppressive laning. What you don't want is to make Jayce relevant by just saying "Okay, you're going to get fed more often, so your Shock Blasts will be more oppressive." Instead, ideally, Jayce has to be constantly aware of which stance he's in. Good Jayce play should be about asking "Which stance is best for this situation?" and not about a) staying in one stance for every teamfight, or b) swapping stances over and over so you can spam abilities.

I really want Jayce's hammer stance to get a buff, making him and his melee form more relevant, but I don't want the result to be that he's too dominant in lane and comes out of it hitting too hard with his Shock Blasts. Simplest solution would be to make his transform cooldown scale, like the rest of the ability. Have its cooldown go to 8/7/6/5 at 1/6/11/16, thus ensuring that he can't swap stances twice in a short lane engagement at level 4. Doing so would free him up for a decent buff to his hammer stance.

When I talk about buffs to his hammer stance, I don't mean huge ones. I mean buffs that do two things -- make his hammer stance tempting to Jayce players outside of lane phase, and give him a tiny push back into relevance. Possible options:

Slightly buff the resistances that hammer stance grants. When Jayce uses hammer stance in a team fight, he's easy to focus, and he's likely to BE focused if he builds damage. If he builds full tank, his damage becomes negligible, meaning it would be hard for him to take advantage of these resistances to try to become unkillable. Instead, this means a Jayce building damage will survive slightly longer when diving in. Give him more mana from his Lightning Field passive. The passive is genius, as it gives Jayce a reason to jump into hammer stance in lane even when not going for a kill. His mana-hungry lane phase means he'll often need to swap forms. Changing his transform cooldown as previously discussed creates a larger window of opportunity for his opponent to capitalize when Jayce swaps forms to farm mana. This is good, but he simply needs to get too many autos out in order to make enough of a difference. Buff the amount of mana returned from his autos here. Give him some lifesteal in hammer stance. This increases the utility of Jayce's hammer stance as a sustain tool in lane, and simultaneously gives him more survivability if diving in. Give him a decent shield upon transforming into hammer stance. Recalling that stance-swapping is now less common, it's unlikely that Jayce will be able to abuse this shield with frequent swaps. It would allow him to deal with some initial burst upon engaging, without any risk of making him into some unkillable monster. It's impossible to give him added health upon form change, as that's just too much free sustain, but a shield (especially one that decays) doesn't create that problem. Give Lightning Field some small AD scaling, and increase its cooldown and mana cost. There's a lot of potential to make this ability good. Right now, it's got two problems -- it doesn't feel like it does much (even when it does) and if it did more, it'd become overpowered. Giving it genuine, noticeable damage, but making its use a genuine decision, seems like a positive change. This makes hammer stance more appealing, but sadly doesn't help him stay alive, which is why I prefer: Give Lightning Field a small shield. This would create more choices with it, and increase his survivability. Obviously, this would be instead of making the shield happen on form change. Also, this, too, would require a larger cooldown for the ability. The only champion with a free spammable shield should be Riven. Make To The Skies! cast a little faster. The idea with To The Skies! is that it's powerful but easily reacted to. He can be stunned or interrupted really easily. It would be bad to make him untargetable or do something like that, but narrowing the window of response just a bit wouldn't be a bad idea. Refund To The Skies! cooldown if interrupted. This is a secondary option. Right now, To The Skies! WILL be interrupted by any champion with any ability that can do so. This means kiting Jayce is fairly easy (and it will get easier if his transform cooldown goes up). Giving him the cooldown back means a champion can interrupt his gap closer and run, but can't interrupt his gap closer and then laugh while kiting him to oblivion because he can't change forms or escape.

Obviously, I'm not suggesting all of these buffs be implemented (some of them are clearly redundant), but one or more of these could feasibly make Jayce a stronger, better champion WITHOUT making his Shock Blast spam more of a problem. When talking about making Jayce play more about assessing which form is better for which situation, these buffs create more situations in which hammer stance is the correct answer. It brings Jayce closer to what he's supposed to be.

Some people might look at things like increased resistances, damage, lifesteal and a shield and say "wow, you're giving Jayce WAY too many stats in the one form, just to compensate for the range loss." To them, I say... look at Gnar. Gnar gains more resistances, combined with increased health and damage, as well as access to heavy CC. It's true that he has far less control on his form swaps, and a strong case could be made from the way people play against him (avoid him when he's big, engage when he's small) that his tank form is overpowered and his ranged form is too weak. That said, Gnar's tank form isn't so strong that he's impossible to play against, and it shows pretty well exactly how much compensation you need to make loss of range a decent trade. Gnar gains enough in his playmaking ability and stats to make Mega-Gnar the stance players would always choose if given the option, which means he gains more than Jayce needs (or should have), but Jayce clearly needs a hell of a lot more than 5/15/25/35 armor and magic resist to make his hammer stance a reasonable option.

Again, Jayce is almost where he needs to be. I'm not suggesting that Jayce is incredibly weak, is incapable of making a real difference, or anything of that nature. I do think that Jayce is less strong than other champions, and that currently he's never the "right" pick -- any situation where he's good, there's another champion that's a better pick. I'm saying that his relevance and playstyle could both be improved with a few minor changes.