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Let's talk about Shaco.

The Shreckoning·8/16/2016, 7:51:19 PM·3 votes·1,135 views

**TLDR- Shaco is a champion that does well in no meta, is never a safe pick with any build, and is always a cheese pick. For a long time now Shaco has been amongst the unhealthiest champions in the game, along with rengar, since he is either dominating or dominated. Shaco needs to be reworked in the upcoming assassin rework. **

Hello! I'm glad you chose to read the post through, were gonna have alot of things to discuss upon, but let me first introduce myself: I'm Shrek, I've been active in the community for 3 years now, and played the game beforehand. about half a year ago I predicted the major Udyr nerfs and how his design was unhealthy, along with the removal of devourer, and today I will try to explain to you why I personally feel like shaco deserves a rework as much as rengar, leblanc and talon in the upcoming assassin rework.

Let's start with some facts: If you played league in the last few years, unless you are, or have mained shaco before, I bet that you have only seen shaco around 15 times per 200 games. you can go ahead and check this in your match history to see if I am correct, and it may vary around different servers, but generally shaco remains an unplayed cheese pick. Why cheese pick, asked the veteran Shaco player in the room? becasue Shaco's purpose in a game is to ruin the other jungler's day. whether it's through invading him at his buff or counter ganking each and every gank he engages in just to put him farther behind. The thing is, Shaco can't do anything in the late game, although he could have completely dominated the early game, the champion is just not built to play against champions the were released after him. considering shaco was one of the oldest champions in the game, this may not come as a surprise, but also considering riot has not touched shaco other than minor bug fixes and tweaks since V4.2 . Just to clearify how absurd that is: Shaco has been unstable in every meta and remained generally unpicked competetively, but this may be all changed soon. Riot Meddler said this in a post 6 months ago when asken what happened to the shelved shaco reworked we were promised a long time ago:

_**"Nothing currently underway. I expect we'll take a look at Shaco to see what can be done if we end up picking assassins as the end of year class update. He's got a lot of game health and counterplay issues, he does some really cool and distincitve stuff too though that matches his thematic extremely well so I think he's potentially a really high value project.

Even if we do look at assassins at the end of year though (far from guaranteed yet) there's some risk that he turns out to be too big a project to be done properly within the small to medium sized changes of a class update."** _ So now that we know shaco may be in the assassin rework I feel like there are a few things that we can help riot fix about him: (considering he will be a part of the major rework part of the assassin's rework)

  1. Change shaco's passive- Shaco's passive, what was once one of his defining features, the fact that if you are up against a shaco you better fight him face to face and not run away- that feature, does not play a part in shaco's kit anymore. when Shaco was released, he was the most mobile champion in the game, but that was a long time ago. Now Shaco's mobility is outmatched by every other new champ that comes out with rediculous mobility abilities that make shaco's passive useless. perhaps make his passive allow him to chase targets with more movement speed towards enemies or a ceratin slow on a cooldown when he AA's. 2.**Q-**Possibly his most annoying ability- his Q ability gives Shaco a blink that comes with a 3.5 second stealth period, and when he hits an enemy after he uncloakes, he crits for varrying amounts. As opposed to rengar, I don't think this aspect of shaco defines him. He is definitely known for having extreme outplay potential for this, but only when combined with all of his other abilities. by itself, this ability is as fair as fizz's E. It gives shaco a free flash with a very short cooldown, free stealth, and buffs him for using it for the next auto attack. Although the ability is the main ability shaco will use for ganking a lane, I think it can be changed to something a bit harder to pull off, like a dash that makes him invisible while he is dashing, while increasing the range of the ability. The crit feature is great and should stay as it is. 3.W- This ability defines shaco. this ability gives shaco a "pet" box that remains stealthed until an enemy unit walks in range of it, it then fears all nearby opponents for a whopping 1.5 seconds at max rank. This is the ability that gives shaco his extremely fast clears and the ability to invade junglers with ease. I honestly love this ability. I find it so much fun when playing ap shaco, but at the same time, I can't help but admit its pretty obvious issues: It gives shaco an unfair advantage of vision, early damage, and fast clear. no other champion in the game has the same damage potential as shaco in the early game, and it's just because of his boxes. The boxes also fears ALL enemy units nearby for 1.5 seconds. that's potentially a malphite ult with just a 10 sec cooldown ability, and cean lead to many combos. The problem with this ability is that it's very overpowered in the early to mid game, but late game, becomes useless, so straight up nerfing it will only make matters worse. In my opinion, the ability should do a percentage health damage with every time it attacks an enemy, and in the early game, the cooldown will be changed to much higher amounts. This way, Shaco will still be able to clear his jungle fairly quickly early game, not as much as before to balance it out, but be much stronger in the late game and allow for much better plays around it. Although the fear is an important part that allows shaco to escape from ganks and what not, I feel like the only enemy that should be feared is the on that is being attacked, and it will only be able to fear 1 enemy per box. 4.E- The wonderful shiv. It's insane damage potential surprises us when we play against a shaco, and underwhelm us when we are playing as shaco. The damage potential for shaco's E is nice, but is almost never easy enough to use. The game expects players to be juggling from box placement to attacking an enemy only from the back, to fully mastering the shiv. but for most players, we just want to have fun, and if you haven't played with shaco for over 200 games, you probably identify with this too. The ability should be changed along with shaco's passive to something that is healthier to the champion, but easier to pull off. Maybe something like Shen's reworked Q, since before his rework, the two abilities were the exact same ability with different "skins". 5.R- This is a big one. If there is one defining feature about shaco, it has to be his clone. we all love and hate it at the same time. It gives shaco pushing power with one build, and burst potential with another. This ability is the only ability I wouldn't dare touch, as it defines shaco, and changing it ever so slightly will change shaco completely.

To sum it up- Shaco is the single most unhealthy champion in league. He is rewarded for being a douche and punished for being a douche at the same time. (if you counter jungle too much instead of ganking) He either dominates or is dominated, toxic, outdated, and simply too hard to master. He deserves a rework that will make him a fully playable champion once again.

2 Comments

Hàtér8/16/2016, 9:06:42 PM1 votes

What're ya fucking gay?

Sylar Hao8/17/2016, 2:43:37 PM1 votes

(Sorry for bad English)

As a main Shaco player I gotta say that Shaco has a very strong identity, and he's very hard to rework because of that, if you touch any of his abilities you risk to kill his fantasy of an assassin with dirty tricks and moves. Maybe, the less defying ability is his E and passive, but still very important in his kit.

You can't forget that not only the gameplay is important for a champion, but so it is his whole fantasy, role and looks. You may find a very fun to play champion (subjetive, ofc) but if his nature, or looks or fantasy aren't iconic, you may get bored of it sooner or later, it has happened to me many times in this game with new champions or reworks, that while they were fun to play, they didn't have that depth that engages you. And Shaco is one of the oldest champions with a very very deep personality and abilties, so changing his kit just a bit can be dangerous for the champion and his players.

That said, here are my thoughts:

First and foremost: A VISUAL UPGRADE. He is in dire need of it.

**P - Backstab ** - It' is not very exciting, but to be honest it fits his "dirty assassin" nature of stabbing someone in the back. Plus it increases the damage of all his attacks an abilities, not only autoattacks as many people believe. If anything they could bake the Critical strike from his Q to his passive: Just an idea: -- Shaco's next attack or Shiv after being unseen (hidden in bush, Q or the brief untargettable moment of R) will be a critical strike, dealing 20% extra increased by bonus ad+ap up to 100% extra damage. This way his passive backstab makes sense as dirty but powerful move, and it increases as you build your way to AD or AP. Note that this is just a made up idea I've just come up with.

Q - Deceive - I disagree completely. Yes, it's a "free flash" if you want to look at it that way. But I look at it as his only engaging tool. Shaco can't gank without it. Literally. Shaco can't join any teamfight without it, literally. Shaco is extremely weak unless built tank, and most players know this, and he's hated almost as much as Teemo, and I very used to see how the enemy team stop doing whatever they were doing to just focus me the very moment I'm spotted or I expose myself. Shaco has no damage reduction (Katarina), or boosts to armor and mr (Rengar) or resetting mechanics (Kha'zix) or instant repositioning (LeBlanc, Zed, Fizz...) like other assassins, all he has is this "flash" and he can only use it two ways, to jump in from stealth or start unstealthed and use it to escape. So, no, this ability should remain untouched.

W - Jack in the Box - This ability needs a rework, but not in its mechanics, but on how frustrating it is for Shaco and the enemy. The boxes are strong in very early game for several reasons:

  • Shaco has literally nothing to clear a single camp without it. His E has very low base damage because it has great scaling, and a fairly long CD at level 1, same as his Q, and he can't use his passive in the jungle, so he needs the boxes to be strong enough to help him.
  • Due to the reasons stated before, he's very easy to get invaded at level 1 and even 2. His boxes help him defend himself and escape. But the most frustrating thing for a Shaco player is reaching mid and late game. His boxes deal almost no damage (if playing AD, which is 95% of the time) and are killed in one autoattack. And if you play him as AP, you need to set a trap with several boxes so they are worth using, but setting a trap doesn't ensure you'll get a prey soon, if at all; and if you place them alone, they deal a little bit more damage but still die in 1 autoattack. So late game they are just small wards (they offer less vision radius) So, in my opinion Jack in the Box deserves the same treatment as Zyra's plants: a 2/3 hits to kill or a very healthy bar like Heimer's turrets. Shaco can't summon several at once like Zyra's or have them permanently dealing strong damage as Heimer's. It should have less base damage, but better scaling as AP and AD. This way Shaco can still have a way to clear camps, with less strong early ganks and invades, but making his boxes important in both mid and late game. The fear could be fixed to 1 sec at all ranks.

E - Two-Shiv Poison - This is a tricky one. This ability doesn't feel very assassin-ish to me, but Shaco struggles at chasing once he's used his Q (he's pretty slow compared to most champions) and this is his only real damaging ability. So changing this one have a bit impact on how to play him. I really don't know how would I change it, if I ever would. It does its work perfectly: it slows and deals a fair amount of damage. Plus AP Shaco needs this ability... So... I just don't know.

R - Hallucinate - I agree this is his most iconic ability. But it's increadibly frustrating for both Shaco and the enemy. It is reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally buggy, it is reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally irresponsive...

  • I can't count how many times he just decides to chase a certain enemy without attacking it. This always happens when Shaco dies.
  • When Shaco dies it no longer answers to any command. So many times I could've finished one or two enemies alone if only the clone reacted to my orders.
  • When an enemy enters a bush the clone decides it's a good moment to stare at that bush instead of pursuing it.
  • It moves slower than Shaco himself. Just give the clone the same AI as Tibbers after Annie's little rework. Period.

**TL;DR: ** Shaco just need tweaks here and there, changing some numbers, makes his boxes survive more than one simple autoattack, and make his clone receive the same treatment as Tibbers. Maybe rework his passive and E, but that's it.

** In my opinion his whole toolkit is original and iconic, and shouldn't be change much.**