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Jinx nerfs incoming! - Context

RiotAD Yuumi·5/19/2015, 10:43:22 PM·138 votes·30,971 views

Hello friends, Riot Jag and I have been working on some nerfs and I wanted to drop in really quick to give some context on them before diving back into Ekko bugs D:

The changes are as follows: Q - Switcheroo!: Minigun bonus AS:: 30/55/80/105/130% >>> 30/40/50/60/70% Minigun now gains 0/2/4/6/8/10/15/20/25/30/35/40/45/50/55/60/65/70% additional AS based on character level.

I've attached a graph that shows Jinx's total bonus AS (from Q + character AS/lvl). Green line is Jinx on live, red line is Jinx with the nerfs, and Blue line is the total AS she'll have lost at any given level. (Also yes I get it, I didn't title the graph or label the axes. I am the worst.) ** TLDR, minigun AS will be the same @ lvl 1, down 20-35% between lvls 5-12, break even @ lvl 16 and be up 10% @ lvl 18**

The intent behind these nerfs is to hit Jinx's early game by lowering her tower taking potential and early AA'ing dueling. She's pretty well defined as a hyper carry and within that niche is further defined by her cleanup potential. As such we feel that for a character who's kit lends itself to snowballing it is probably too easy to get the snowball rolling. These changes aim to curb that level-9-double-kill-bot-lane-and-take-their-tower case and smooth it out more towards level 13+. Her late game is not impacted, it's just going to be harder for her to get there.

Also worth noting that these nerfs, like many other we do, are a matter of degrees. Jinx is still going to be a tower demolishing monster and minigun is still going to attack CRAZY fast. Hopefully though, getting that first structure is going to take an extra minion wave or two, and dueling that Draven is going to be a bit more ill-advised.

191 Comments

Deep Terror Nami5/19/2015, 10:59:00 PM136 votes

It's nice to see the clarification on the Boards instead of over on Reddit. While the community over there might be real big and hardcore into wanting to know these things, not all of us are Redditors, so we either don't get that info, or we see it on Surrender@20.

10/10, want more of this clarity discussion on the League Boards.

Dr Poro5/19/2015, 10:51:02 PM60 votes

for a character who's kit lends itself to snowballing it is probably too easy to get the snowball rolling

Katarina uwotm8?

metaworldpeace105/19/2015, 10:47:24 PM18 votes

These nerfs are perfect in my opinion. It was really frustrating at how quickly she scaled into a killing machine. This q AS nerf will help level out her scaling in a good way. Lowering her scaling early, but making her stronger late game is fine by me. That's what she's supposed to be. A hyper carry that can be strong at all phases of the game usually isn't a good mix (see pre-nerf Jax)

Hellioning5/19/2015, 10:54:25 PM17 votes

Why is she even getting compensation? I know that you want her to be good in the late game, but she was already pretty good in the lategame; why does she need to be better?

CreationFlaw5/19/2015, 10:47:39 PM8 votes

Honestly, I'm pretty happy with the changes. I found that even if I went even or slightly ahead in lane, she just had too many free stats to duel unless either my support was a badass or I was able to outplay them.

RedCyclone5/19/2015, 11:35:12 PM8 votes

Tristana item 3070

The Loveless5/20/2015, 6:26:24 AM6 votes

Trist still needs her range back

ValyrianBlade5/20/2015, 2:47:55 AM1 votes

I don't understand this one bit.

What happened to all that stuff about "Jinx mains being dedicated" and "their extra experience on her indicates a higher win rate" and "she's the type of champion we expect to thrive in solo queue" stuff that came in the context of her R semi-nerf?

This seems way too severe and is just going to throw Jinx out.

She ALREADY has severe weaknesses. She's BY FAR the easiest ADC in the game to gank, excluding Kog'maw (who more than makes up for it with his late game power).

Jinx ALREADY has really low base AS and AS scaling to compensate for the power of her Q's AS.

This change just seems way too hard. If she needed a nerf (which I still think is debatable - her win and pick rates may be high but her ban rate is low, if players don't think she's worth a ban there's a reason - ADCs as a whole are really weak and Jinx is just stronger than the rest, the others need buffs, not Jinx nerfs) this is really extreme. Why did no one think of trying a 15% dip first instead of going straight to 35%? 35% is HUGE. 35%!? So you're saying instead of her hitting a major power spike at level 9, she hits a weakness at 9. What's this about keeping a champion's identity?

Jinx was the weak laning phase, easily gank-able, adc who turned strong enough mid game to start snowballing herself if you didn't snowball off her early. Jinx does NOT have a snowballing kit by any means. She's a hyper carry. Any hyper carry that gets a lead should be able to snowball HARD. The thing is, it's REALLY hard for them to get that lead. Jinx has no means of chasing kills if both enemies are smart enough to not die and get her excited from the passive. Maybe she does well because she can more easily turn one enemy's mistake in to 2 kills instead of 1, and people in solo queue make a LOT of mistakes. Not a problem with a champion who almost never sees competitive play though...

aperson15/20/2015, 2:52:02 PM1 votes

Is it customary for a champ's designer to make balance changes to them? Seems like there would be a conflict of interest...

Anyways, I don't think Jinx is gonna be hit by this much. She has a ridiculously broad kit, so she'll always have tools to fall back on if one gets nerfed.