Fiora nerfs are in the wrong direction

DropFill·Feb 22, 2016·31 votes·3,107 views

People are complaining that someone with a strong late game ( and a good early game too ) plus the fact that she can build tank should not be allowed to do this. Nerfing her base damage and buffing her scaling would make her transition to late game longer while making tank fiora obsolete. Instead you are nerfing her CD's which are not the reasons why people build her tank. Also, the change to her E CD is fun. There is a certain champion that does exactly what a rioter said ( fiora waiting on a bush with E active to "cheat" the ability CD ) called that can hold her Q as much as she wants, because the CD starts upon cast. So please, this CD change to her E should be applied to riven. Meanwhile, fiora should get base damage nerfs and scaling buffs (not huge ones), to make her more of a late game champion.

38 Comments

Dominick DestineFeb 22, 201616 votes

Any nerfs to Fiora are welcome.

Fiora is broken.

AnidanFeb 22, 20163 votes

That's cool and all, but people want a well-balanced and thought-out game. This change isn't a great direction toward the latter. While it will nerf her, it's not really the best way to go about it. Though, with how easily she scales (only needing AD + CDR for her damage) she's problematic in terms of build efficiency. One could argue that she scales with enemy HP, but that's not necessarily true, as only the number goes up while the relative value is the same.

Hinagiku33Feb 23, 20162 votes

I actually like Riot's idea to nerf the cooldown on W. People keep complaining that it's BS (despite the arguing for it before the rework) so I thought it would be a more popular change. Making clutch saves with it still feels great so there really is no problem with just cutting down on it's up-time to give opponents a wider window to hit back.

But seriously...have any of you guys seen Fiora's kit or played her even once???

"Let's just nerf her base damage, then we'll up her scaling to compensate so she's still encouraged to build AD but won't be able to build tank."

Have...Have you seen how low Fiora's base damage already is? Her Q has very low base damage and the AD scaling goes from "meh" at rank 1 to "actually pretty good" at rank 5, her W is a little bit of magic damage that only scales with AP (which she doesn't ever get since Triforce no longer gives a little), and her E is just two basic attacks with the crit back-loaded onto the second one being the most significant damage in her kit that isn't her passive - and Riot nerfed her base AD pretty hard with the rework to encourage her to build AD already so her basic attacks are nothing special.

The problem of "Tanky Fiora" isn't that she has such amazing base damage that she has no need to build damage...the problem is that most people seem unable to actually play glass cannon Fiora and not feed. Squishy melee DPS with low burst isn't exactly the most reliable role in League to start with. I watched everyone playing Fiora get wrecked super hard after the rework, and I saw people almost immediately say that the new Fiora required her to build defense to make up for no longer having her old ult and actually having to sit there in melee range for an extended period of time.

And lo and behold: item 3748 item 3053 item 3071 item 3742 item 3156

I have tried this build (in customs against bots since I'm not that mean) and it really is a stupidly good build. The damage actually isn't great, but the items alone make her incredibly hard to kill...and it really is the items alone since Fiora has no real defense outside of her 0.75 second W block. Just building that and being hard to kill meant that I could spam my low damage and eventually kill something - and when players are unable to play glass cannon Fiora successfully they will settle for that every time.

Nerfing base damage will only mean that glass cannon Fiora is hurt even more by falling even the tiniest bit behind. And buffing her scaling will only mean that the iffy amount of AD that bruiser Fiora builds will still be good enough to succeed. All it would do is make glass cannon Fiora even less popular and make Bruiser Fiora even more the default.

tl;dr - Fiora's base damage is already pathetic because Riot was afraid of her building tanky. Shame they have a bunch of items that give offense and defense and let bad Fiora players do it anyway. But nerfing her base damage further will only make glass cannon Fiora even harder to play and will make tanky, bruiser Fiora the only way to play Fiora.

SasogwaFeb 22, 201611 votes

It's not a problem of numbers with her scaling, it's a problem of nature of scaling. Most damage champions have to buy several stats that synergize together to come up to their lategame scaling. Cdr + Arpen + AD for assassins Attack speed + AD + Crit + Arpen for ad carries Fiora just needs 1 single thing. AD. And has no counterbuilding whatsoever, due to %max health true damage. Due to the nature of her unidimensional scaling, you can't change her scalings to make her good with only AD and not good with AD + tank stats. There are crazily good items that grant a whole lot of AD and defensive stats ( item 3748 item 3071 item 3156 which are core).

You won't be able to change Fiora into a good carry with full damage itemization and not be good with an AD bruiser build by simply touching these ratios. She's either gonna be OP with tank build and balanced with AD build or balanced with tank build and weak with AD build. I mean, the AD tanky build grants a huge amount of AD already ! She doesn't rely on only her base damages with that build because she USES her scalings since the items she get grant AD AND tankiness. If she had better scalings, the tank build would be... Even better?! With Titanic + BC + Malmortius she's at 160 Bonus AD already ! A squishy build wouldn't grant so much more.

No, she can't be balanced to be a carry in her current state. She'll remain a disgusting %health true damage machine until Rioters finally have no solution after months/years of trying to solve the problem the wrong way, that to remove the true damage or nerf her stats to trash. Or they'll just play coward and she'll stay competitive for years and though people complain, they won't change sh*t because they don't want to recognize they made a mistake.

%health true damage is not a duellist mechanic that can fight everyone. It's a specialized antitank mechanic that would be much more fitting for an immobile void spitting machine such as Kog'maw than a light fencer with a foil (???). It doesn't even make sense thematically.

YumaS2AstralFeb 22, 20161 votes

That is what I am saying.

As long as Fiora is able to do max health true damage with her passive, she is always going to be able to build tanky. She doesn't need to build penetration at all, unlike other assassins, and as such, her build is not as restrictive, when compared to other melee carry champions.

This is also the same problem with MasterYi . Although he doesn't have % of max health true damage, he has an on-hit true damage that can be applied as many times as he want through auto-attacks. Combine that with his double attack passive, and his massive attack speed steroid on his ult that also leaves him immune to attack speed slows, and you start to realize that he doesn't actually need to build a lot of damage items to work, as he doesn't need to build penetration items.

BigPooStormFeb 22, 20161 votes

{quoted}

That is what I am saying.

As long as Fiora is able to do max health true damage with her passive, she is always going to be able to build tanky. She doesn't need to build penetration at all, unlike other assassins, and as such, her build is not as restrictive, when compared to other melee carry champions.

This is also the same problem with . Although he doesn't have % of max health true damage, he has an on-hit true damage that can be applied as many times as he want through auto-attacks. Combine that with his double attack passive, and his massive attack speed steroid on his ult that also leaves him immune to attack speed slows, and you start to realize that he doesn't actually need to build a lot of damage items to work, as he doesn't need to build penetration items.

I find it funny how a Yi can duel an 700-800+ stack Nasus with FH, Randuins, and Thornmail. Look at the death recap and see 1100 true damage and just LOL to myself.

Sir YamazukiFeb 22, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I find it funny how a Yi can duel an 700-800+ stack Nasus with FH, Randuins, and Thornmail. Look at the death recap and see 1100 true damage and just LOL to myself.

Yeah, had a similar experience as a tank, the true damage did more than everything combined with devour being the 2nd thing I took the most damage from. His Q and actual auto attack damage were irrelevant and unfortunately his ult removes one of the options to dealing with him, lowering his attack speed. So, you either have to pick a better 1v1 champion or always lose to him unless you play aram all game and hope your team team fights better.

YumaS2AstralFeb 22, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lord Yamazuki,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=qEigAYdE,comment-id=0002000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-22T20:25:46.486+0000)

Yeah, had a similar experience as a tank, the true damage did more than everything combined with devour being the 2nd thing I took the most damage from. His Q and actual auto attack damage were irrelevant and unfortunately his ult removes one of the options to dealing with him, lowering his attack speed. So, you either have to pick a better 1v1 champion or always lose to him unless you play aram all game and hope your team team fights better.

The thing is that there is no champion that can 1x1 Yi.

If he builds squishy there are some champions that can burst him down before he is able to deal damage, but unfortunately, with that tanky build, this is simply not possible; no champion is able to 1x1 Yi currently. Even many of the 1x1 monsters fail to do anything against Yi:

Nasus: Yi laughs at Wither (unlike any other champion) and does too much damage in a short time for Nasus to be able to reply with his stacked Q.

Fiora: She can't deal with the absurd amount of sustained damage that Yi has.

Jax: The only way that Jax can beat Yi is if he isn't smart enough to dodge Counterstrike with his Q. Otherwise, Yi can actually outduel him and bypass Jax's ult with his true damage.

Mundo: Yi does too much damage in a short amount of time for Mundo to be able to heal with his ult, and Mundo simply doesn't do enough damage to outDPS Yi. It gets worse if Yi builds a item 3033

YumaS2AstralFeb 22, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I find it funny how a Yi can duel an 700-800+ stack Nasus with FH, Randuins, and Thornmail. Look at the death recap and see 1100 true damage and just LOL to myself.

To be honest, the other reason why Yi is able to duel Nasus, no matter how much stacks he has, is his ult.

While other carries have to fear having their attack speed reduced, Yi just laughs at Wither, and then proceeds to rip Nasus apart. Nasus will still 1x1 Yi if he doesn't have at least one armor item (Q deals physical damage) but with that tanky build, this is not a problem at all.

SpoofghoulFeb 23, 20162 votes

redbuff + redsmite + sated

6X true damage on hit every auto attack

at lvl18 you are doing near 300 true dmg on every auto with just a sated the double strike passive

add 120 magic damage

fervor stacks
base ad

looks like the only damage item yi really needs is devourer

Critmaster GarenFeb 22, 20163 votes

{quoted}

It's not a problem of numbers with her scaling, it's a problem of nature of scaling. Most damage champions have to buy several stats that synergize together to come up to their lategame scaling. Cdr + Arpen + AD for assassins Attack speed + AD + Crit + Arpen for ad carries Fiora just needs 1 single thing. AD. And has no counterbuilding whatsoever, due to %max health true damage. Due to the nature of her unidimensional scaling, you can't change her scalings to make her good with only AD and not good with AD + tank stats. There are crazily good items that grant a whole lot of AD and defensive stats ( which are core).

You won't be able to change Fiora into a good carry with full damage itemization and not be good with an AD bruiser build by simply touching these ratios. She's either gonna be OP with tank build and balanced with AD build or balanced with tank build and weak with AD build. I mean, the AD tanky build grants a huge amount of AD already ! She doesn't rely on only her base damages with that build because she USES her scalings since the items she get grant AD AND tankiness. If she had better scalings, the tank build would be... Even better?! With Titanic + BC + Malmortius she's at 160 Bonus AD already ! A squishy build wouldn't grant so much more.

No, she can't be balanced to be a carry in her current state. She'll remain a disgusting %health true damage machine until Rioters finally have no solution after months/years of trying to solve the problem the wrong way, that to remove the true damage or nerf her stats to trash. Or they'll just play coward and she'll stay competitive for years and though people complain, they won't change sh*t because they don't want to recognize they made a mistake.

%health true damage is not a duellist mechanic that can fight everyone. It's a specialized antitank mechanic that would be much more fitting for an immobile void spitting machine such as Kog'maw than a light fencer with a foil (???). It doesn't even make sense thematically.

if thats the case then they can just give her the jhin treatment and make her passive scale with a mix of crit, attack speed and ad.

right now she scales with ad and cdr. if they make her buy the same items as yasuo, and tryn and other adc, it could fix the issue.

5050BSFeb 22, 20161 votes

This is the problem with a few champs. Riven > AD Fiora > AD Tahm > Def Mundo > Def Voil > Def Sej > Def Sion > Def

Voluug13Feb 23, 20161 votes

The last 4 dont really scale offensively with HP alone. Ok, maybe Voli, but Mundo is mostly fixed damage, Sion's damage is shit, Sej's HP offensive scaling is garbage now and needs AP to work.

The rest are true and need to be reworked/deleted.

VeraskaFeb 22, 20166 votes

I think the issue is the nature of %hp damage in general, in fioras case it scales with 2 things; fioras AD and her opponents HP, since her opponents HP is going to scale up throughout the game anyways she only needs to invest a certain amount of AD before she can starting itemizing into defensive stats. Right now her scaling is a percentage of her opponents max health based on her AD, but if you changed it to an amount of AD that was multiplied by the targets health (think giant slayer) it would definitely encourage more AD centric builds

Of course it might be the items, they do offer a lot of mixed stats so they might always break fiora while other champions rely on them simply because fioras kit is so good, that's a grim possibility

I'd like to look into the giant slayer passive tho.

Also a silly idea, what if fioras passive worked both ways, like she's trying to hit your vitals and you wanna hit hers, she's a fencer so her kit gives her the edge in that duel, but you ARE dueling her y'know? It'd be pretty goofy. cool but goofy

EvilRabbittFeb 23, 20161 votes

Then she gets horribly murdered by any ranged champion. :C

VeraskaFeb 23, 20162 votes

I mean there's a reason you don't bring a sword to a guy fight

Touch My BoxFeb 23, 20166 votes

As usual they are worthless when it comes to champion changes.

Blue ezreal too strong? Let's nerf his ultimate, the least impactful part of that build.

LuxrathFeb 23, 20162 votes

While i dont think fiora is really BROKEN, only a bit too strong atm (for reference, IMO release Xhin was broken), i think that the nerf to her parry CD is very much in the right direction. When i play fiora, i think of w kind of in a similar vein to a low cd flash. Its not a get out of jail free card but it ups your chances of survival in a gank or all in immensely. Now that its on the same CD level one as some Ultis (almost 30 second is a long ass time), a good bait out can leave fiora open to all ins or a gank. Its going to make her laning phase MUCH easier to deal with. If she is STILL too strong after this is live, i really do think that they need to nerf base damage but if they do, they should increase her scaling otherwise together the nerfs will gut the champion.

Critmaster GarenFeb 22, 20161 votes

any straight up nerfs to bruiser fiora will just force her into that build.

the problem is that right now the bruiser build is more effective than her intended playstile. they need to start working on that. so yes. reducing the level scaling on her passive, or removing it alltogether and increasing her bonus ad scaling so she has to build more ad for her passive to be noticable is what they need to do.

then work on making adc fiora more functional as a champ.

AnidanFeb 22, 20161 votes

Wouldn't bonus AD Scaling just serve to make her extremely effective against squishies while being far less impactful to tanks? I mean, they'd just build against the AD with armor, while a squishier champion may not afford to be able to do that. That'd go against their intentions with her current design, if that was made the case..

WadeWilson1337Feb 22, 20161 votes

Tbh, Riposte really needs to stop blocking summoner spells. Probably the least discussed aspect of her kit that is broken.

DorkunedAurasFeb 23, 20161 votes

For the record, Nocturne Sivir can block summoners.

I know this because back in 4.20 when I, like the rest of the world, was spamming Warwick , and these fuckers could block my smite.

WadeWilson1337Feb 23, 20161 votes

To be fair, Nocturne and Sivir are also fairly weak in several other areas. Both suffer mana issues, are heavily reliant on their ults, and both are considered low tier and are simply not in meta. But also their blocks are for ONE spell, Fiora is invulnerable and can theoretically just eat several ultimates

DorkunedAurasFeb 23, 20161 votes

I'm just stating there is a precedent for blocking summoners

RetillinFeb 22, 20161 votes

But, doesn't this just show that Riot WANTS her to be a juggernaut? It seems to be their goal. Otherwise, wouldn't they have adjusted their view on Fiora over the past 8 months...?

Penta PenguinFeb 22, 20161 votes

I think maybe Fiora's damage is too reliable for a champion with high mobility and defense

She is GOING to hit vitals in lane, it's just a matter of time, a successful trade can amount ot just hitting a Q on a vital then using the move-speed to back up, and W if she has to. WIth Ulti 1-2 additional vital strikes is too easy. On top of all this she even gets a critical strike.

I would increase CD of Ulti at Rank 1 then scale it back down to normal through Ranks 2 and 3. And slightly nerf the refresh on Q hitting an enemy unless it hits a Vital.

EvilRabbittFeb 23, 20161 votes

Or, crazy concept, nerf Titanic Hydra. But as someone pointed out, I'm bronze and this is the only game I play. So I clearly have no idea wtf I'm saying. Nerf Titan and Maw, then TA-DA. No more tanks dealing bruiser damage, no more bruisers dealing assassin damage. Oh and, complain on Fiora while Kog'maw can delete people without someone at the keyboard.

RetillinFeb 23, 20161 votes

She would end up just using Ravenous Hydra and Black Cleaver/Steraks instead. Fiora gets to pick when she fights. If a champion can do they, they should not have the amount of damage she has.

EvilRabbittFeb 23, 20161 votes

Ah, but then she loses 450 hp. And burst. Hydra does not have Titanics burst without going glassy. Also, if she went that way it'd remind me of DARIUS. Darius picks his fights, nerf him? Ahri picks her fight, nerf her? What about Heimerdinger? He controls fights by denying you the option. Do we nerf everyone because people are terrified of bruisers? Then when bruisers are gone, we nerf tanks? The only broken items are Maw and Titan. Take those out, she will become less pick/ban and more situational. Will still see high tier play, just like every other champion that is balanced well.

Also, you didn't answer. Why are we whining on Fiora when we have Kog'maw?

Old Man TeetoFeb 23, 20161 votes

Where the heck are people seeing these changes? Surrender@20 doesn't have them, and neither does ReignofGaming.

Boards posting stuff about Viktor E nerfs, Abyssal Scepter Nerfs, Fiora Nerfs... etc

WHERE!?

GulmaFeb 23, 20161 votes

probable pbe.

RetillinFeb 23, 20161 votes

If you go to S@20, on the right had side is a Featured Content list. Top one is the PBE changes. Riot changed the way they put files into the PBE so it is harder to data mine. (Not sure if that was the intent, but it was the out-come)

DengedenFeb 23, 20161 votes

(You want Riven nerfs? Dude, she's terrible.)

Fiora's early game is good - as in, her early level trades are decent. Grasp and some lucky vitals can give her a slight advantage. She gets terrible after that point and until she completes 1.5 of her damage items though. And btw, a nerf to her CDs is a nerf to her early game (presuming you're part of the 1% of players who play around CDs), which makes transitioning into late game more difficult.

Quite frankly, you know what's healthy? Bruiser Fiora. You know what isn't? A complete glass cannon Fiora consistently wreaking havoc in teamfights inspite of the multiple ways that could go wrong. Do you feel outplayed when the ADC Yi pentakills you ~~in ARAM~~? No, you feel cheated.

A Prop PhoneFeb 23, 20161 votes

As an ex-Fiora main I would love to see her moved back to glass cannon murder machine. However as one other person above said, you should really be happy with bruiser Fiora if you play against her. Otherwise she is going to turn back in to an assassin, which I liked, but apparently the entire communitiy + rito didn't like.

In my opinion the main problem is there are just to many AD items that have strong defenses. This scenario hasn't existed at this level before S6. The last time we had items classed like this was OLD Atmas Impaler (noobs look it up). Riot nerfed, and then later deleted that item.

Now here we are again with Atmas Impaler 2.0 and tons of problems with bruisers and tanks doing crazy damage. So much so that even ADCs can build the items.