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Fiora's Riposte

Darkwind·7/5/2017, 10:03:53 PM·11 votes·2,160 views

A certain recent post brought to my mind the long-standing issues I've have with Fiora's W, so I figured I'd make my rant/post. The TL;DR: I have three problems with the attack speed debuff on Fiora's w. First, it causing the reward paradigm of the ability to be a bit backwards. Second, it is entirely out-of-place with Fiora's theme and kit. And third, it adds a massive amount of low-visibility power to Fiora's kit.

>#Reward Paradigm

Fiora's W has a very strong reward for landing it in combat. That's true regardless of whether you block anything with it or not. I have significant issues with that. To begin with, the W has an incredibly strong primary feature- blocking all damage or CC during its duration. The entirety of the skill should be focused on that feature. Fiora should be rewarded heavily for successfully blocking, and only get a small, marginal benefit to landing the skill without blocking something. Without an attack speed debuff, that's pretty much what you would see now. It's got a pretty small amount of damage until you max it (although that number seems a little high to me too, I won't get into that), its slow is there, but not that powerful, and the cooldown is long enough to prohibit using it too much or spamming it.

Then you look at the attack speed debuff and suddenly it's quite powerful even without blocking anything. It's got a stronger attack speed debuff than Malphite's E at level 1, albeit for a shorter time. It's got higher damage. PLUS, it has the potential to block anything you throw at her and stun you... which should be its primary purpose.

The result is that it's FAR more difficult to punish Fiora for using her W without blocking something than it should be. If, as Xin Zhao, you bait out her W by canceling your third Q auto, it's pretty much impossible to dodge the W because of the ranges involved. However, you've outplayed her- you got her to not receive the main benefit of her W. As a result, you should be able to punish her incredibly hard.... but you might very well not be able to. The attack speed debuff from her W could easily cause to to accidentally cancel your Q auto again, allowing her to Q away. Or, it could cause her to be able to trade back reasonably, because you only get that single auto off before your knockup is over. There are any number of other similar scenarios where Fiora's attack speed debuff allows her to win fights that, based on the ideal reward paradigm I've outlined, she should not win.

>#Out-Of-Theme

Fiora is the Grand Duelist. She's supposed to be all about high-skill, high-risk, high-reward plays. This feeds back into the reward paradigm I was talking about; even more so than other champions, Fiora should have her power gated behind high-skill tasks. Landing the W skillshot is not a particularly high skill task. It's not free, but it's really not that difficult when engaged in combat. What's much more difficult is timing the W to block an important piece of CC.

Furthermore, what is Fiora, as a champion and an individual, doing with an attack speed debuff, at all, anywhere in her kit? Attack speed debuffs are very similar to % damage reduction in terms of their effects in teamfights and on DPS. These are things that tanks, supports, or supportive mages should have, not fighters! What does a Grand Duelist have to do with slowing down an enemy's attack speed? The other pieces of her kit fit very well into this theme, but this part simply does not.

>#Low-Visibility Power

Abilities typically have one or two effects you need to know. More complicated abilities, you might need to know three about, or rarely, four. As an example of a conditional ability, let's look at Cassiopeia's R:

  1. If you are facing her, you will be stunned.
  2. If you're facing away, you will be slowed.
  3. Either way, you'll take damage.

That's a very reasonable burden of knowledge to put on players for an ability, and it's intuitive enough. You're going to take damage from this, but you can prevent a stun by looking away, and instead get slowed. Let's move on to Fiora's W:

  1. During W, she is invulnerable and immune to CC
  2. If you try to CC her during W, she will stun you.
  3. Either way, she'll deal damage to you
  4. If you don't CC her, she will slow you
  5. If you don't CC her, she will reduce your attack speed.

It's immediately obvious when looking at this list that Fiora's W has more effects. However, it isn't obvious when interacting with the skill in game. Attack speed slows are one of the most powerful effects in the game relative to their visibility. That is, it's easy to tell how strong a stun is, or how strong damage is. But it's much more difficult to tell or appreciate how powerful that attack speed slow is. That means, when you're playing the game, you may not realize until too late that you've even been hit by an attack speed debuff.

Furthermore, it doesn't really make sense. Remember how I put it earlier with Cassiopeia's ult: "You're going to take damage from this, but you can prevent a stun by looking away, and instead get slowed." In Fiora's case it's much more convoluted: "You're going to take damage from this, but you can prevent a stun by not hitting her with CC, and instead you'll get slowed and deal less damage." Why are you dealing less damage because you played well? What?

I see very little benefit in terms of design to the presence of this attack speed debuff in Fiora's kit. Its ability to help her win fights is in my opinion misplaced, and the 'power budget' it represents should be transferred to one of her other, more high-skill, areas. I'd rather see a 2-second stun on her W if it is used correctly, or a higher damage number on her passive, or a stronger attack speed buff on her E, or... really just about anything else in her kit buffed in place of this random power.

8 Comments

Asayake 5150glow7/6/2017, 1:29:44 AM6 votes

Fiora is a duelist, you said it yourself. Without this attack speed slow, she is outstatchecked by many divers, including Irelia and Xin Zhao. Juggernauts would simply screw her over entirely, especially Darius (her attack speed slow is the only reason she can fight him in lane). The attack speed slow often only evens the fight.

Also, keep in mind that this skillshot has a delay of .75 seconds. That's as long as Riven's W. Xin's knockup is only a quarter of a second longer (1 second). Even at melee range, it's completely possible to dodge as long as you're paying attention. Hell, it probably takes less time for Lux's Q to reach 550 range, yet you don't see ADC's complaining that it's impossible for them to dodge Lux's Q at auto attack range, do you?

Wrong, it's completely in theme. A single target damage reduction isn't very impressive in a teamfight, especially not one that's easily bodyblockable and just as easy to dodge via normal kiting. Comparison? Nasus. Nasus isn't even a great teamfighter, except in mid game where he spikes hard. His Wither, while also single target, is also targeted and can be easily applied to the ADC every time. It might be a damage reduction tool, but it's NOT something a tank would ever want, because, well, who cares about a 50% AS slow against a Maokai?

Now in Fiora's case, it's a very strong dueling spell, where there is no Maokai to block the ability.

Attack speed slows are damage reduction. Fiora needs this because she is a low range squishy with a slow gapcloser. A 350 range dash is simply not all that impressive for gapclosing on, say, a Caitlyn, or even a Lucian who can also dash away and kite. The attack speed slow is perfect for this scenario, as it's mainly against ADC's, and what's the best way to hit an ADC's damage? Reducing their attack speed. Or, well, crit reduction, and honestly that wouldn't be a terrible idea either.

The other reason for this is because while Fiora has high burst, she is not going to kill a bruiser in less than a few seconds until late game. However, those same divers and skirmishers can often do the same to her. For example, Jax will kill you very quickly with a Triforce, and usually faster than a Fiora would. These champions tend to be partially auto reliant, so the attack speed slow stops them from killing her too quickly. The ability reliant ones can be outplayed via the blocking portion of the ability.

  2. During W, she is invulnerable and immune to CC and immobile

  3. If you try to CC her during W, she will **block the CC and ** stun you if you fail to dodge the delayed projectile.

  4. ~~Either way, ~~ If she hits a heavily delayed skillshot, she'll deal damage to you

  5. If you don't CC her, and she hits the skillshot, she will slow you

  6. If you don't CC her, and you fail to dodge the skillshot she will reduce your attack speed.

In comparison, Cass's R is undodgable without flashing before it actually hits, in it's, what, .2 second delay with no cast time, and it's large, conical AoE?

It's immediately obvious that Fiora's has more effects, when you don't look at everything. Cass's does heavy damage, Fiora's does not. Cass's is AoE, Fiora's is not. Cass's is an ult, Fiora's is a basic ability with a ~20 second cooldown. Cass has a small delay with an instant cast, Fiora has a large delay with a fast projectile. Sure both can either stun or slow, but they're simply not the same spell.

If someone hits you with a skillshot, you are usually punished for not dodging it. If Fiora hits you with her W, wheres the difference between that, and Morg hitting you with her Q? They're equally easy to dodge, yet Morg's is far more lethal because she lacks the parrying portion. That doesn't quite make up for it, so she gets half the cooldown as well.

If Fiora hit you with her W, you did not play well. That's where your mindset is wrong.

I would be completely against number buffs elsewhere on her kit because if that kept her balanced with attackspeed AD champions like Irelia, Xin, Jax, Yi, Trynd, Caitlyn, and Vayne, she would end up overpowered against ability/burst based champions like Pantheon, Riven, Wukong, Jarvan, and Lucian.

Plus, you can't exactly ask for more visibility besides a big animation, a shield that flashes when something is thrown at it, the word 'Parried' appearing, and then a big, shining white projectile stabbing outwards.

D3m37r17/6/2017, 1:24:42 AM1 votes

Member when fiora was a fun, low skill champ with clear weaknesses and counters? I member.

RottedApples7/6/2017, 5:01:06 AM1 votes

sometimes it's better to eat the stun than try to work with the attack speed slow like holy shit.

The slow is just infuriating, oh look you didn't cc her during that parry? welp too bad this attack speed slow is just as effective at stopping your damage than that stun would have been.

Joxcab7/6/2017, 5:12:10 AM1 votes

You do realize that's literally the only possible way she has even the smallest chance of fighting an attack speed melee carry in lategame right?

Lategame melee carries will usually have some form of CC. They'll also have massively high AS. They just hold the CC and just autoattack her to death if she doesn't use Riposte to slow their attack speed. But then they just hit her with the CC instead and most likely have Mercurial at that point anyways to remove the slow, or any potential stun from some accident or third party interference.

In early it barely matters because tanks shouldn't be fighting her anyways, and most of the glass cannon type tops or squishier tops aren't entirely reliant on autoattacks and use abilities instead in combination. (For instance, Jayce with autos as well as his long range poke, Jax with his autos as well as his auto reset to bypass the slow and E/Q for dodge or mobility or another hit, GP with Q and Barrels, so on and so forth).

Also sure she blocks everything, but you don't get hit by the slow unless you get hit by that narrow box.

SpookyNeedle7/6/2017, 5:21:48 AM1 votes

"If you try to cc during her W, she will stun you" yeah if you just happen to be right in the path of the slow linear skillshot. Also if you try to cc her during her W, you parried yourself, 100% your fault. Same reason why the parrying summoner spells argument doesn't carry any weight.

Also, in your second to last paragraph. Your definition of playing well isn't quite accurate. If you were playing well, you'd avoid the riposte completely.

Klavier7/6/2017, 5:24:54 AM1 votes

But fiora's w is not instant, you can dodge the attack speed slow or stun. I don't know why you don't mention it, in recent posts it looks like the ability will either stun you or as slow / slow you, and it doesn't matter what you do you're doomed.