Balance Thoughts: Talking 'bout some Champions (Yas, Zoe, Fiora, etc.)

#DISCLAIMERS AND FOREWARD:

• I don’t post on the boards or talk about balance all that much. But, I've been playing since season three and I've put together enough thoughts on balance and the current state to make a substantial post(s) out of it
• I will partially be looking at aggregate trends I have seen on the boards for a long time. For example, Lee Sin was strong and probably needed nerfs and the boards called for nerfs like crazy; now he’s fine and no one even mentions him. That’s the type of thing I will try to ignore.
• I am Gold V. If that makes you think my opinion on balance is invalid, then good, you’re probably not the type of person I wanted to have a discussion with anyway. But that’s not to say rank is unimportant and not something be taken into consideration. Personally, I think I do a good job of separating problems at/with my rank and ELO from my thoughts on the game. For example, Master Yi wrecks lower ELOs and while I personally don’t like facing him (mostly because the team effort to shut him down and keep him down is difficult at lower ELO), I have no problem with him as a whole.

Now let's talk about some champions. I know I just said I would avoid hot-button topics, but these are things that have been bothering me. And hey, try to get them free upvotes

#Yasuo, Zoe, and CertainlyT:

##Yasuo:

Yasuo as a whole I’m generally ok with. I despise playing against him, but again, personal issues, not overarching issues. The biggest overarching issue I have with him is his windwall. Basically, assuming the Yasuo isn’t braindead stupid, he will always windwall the right thing. It’s a terrible feeling to pick, say, Ashe and feel that 25-50% of my reason for picking her is negated with negligible ways of countering on my part. Now the obvious answer is poke, but again, unless the Yasuo’s braindead or it’s just THAT MUCH POKE (doable, but a completely separate scenario that would need special consideration), he won’t waste his windwall on it. And that’s the problem. People say he’s unfun to play against because beating him feels more like him outplaying himself than you outplaying him. This is, in my opinion, is the key aspect of that. In terms of how to correct this, I’m not sure. I’ve seen it suggested that Riot make his windwall cost flow (the thing that powers is passive shield), but that would too much counterplay with how easy it currently is to remove. He could also afford to lose the armor pen on his ult. Make him buy armor pen like the rest if he wants to shred tanks. Barring that (something something melee AD carries all get steroids), the duration could be a lot lower. Another part of the problem is that if he gets into a fight and you come in later to help, he still has it. Not finishing a fight with the armor pen advantage and having landed his ult should warrant some penalty.

##Zoe: Cool design, fun champ, will be playing. But there are a lot of problems, many that people have already mentioned. Going through:

• Q does too much damage
• Yeah, probably. I would highly suggest spreading the damage out to her W and passive damage. It would reduce the ridiculousness with her E because now no single damage source reaches that high, the “no-wave clear” disadvantage would actually be a disadvantage and getting the ridiculous damage off would require her to stay in the fight where I can capitalize on her squishiness. Her W should mean said capitalization is still not an outright given.
• W too RNG, especially in Lane
• Definitely an issue. Honestly, they could just make summoners not drop from minions and it would probably, maybe be ok. Though with some of the other changes, it may be a little much.
• E has too much
• Definitely an issue. The extra damage, the Cooldown reduction (now removed unless a direct hit), and the raw CC (that doesn’t work as consistently with spell shield/CC removal). The CD reduction nerf was a good call; make it work fully consistently with spell shields and CC removal and it’s good
• THE GODDAMN TRAP. This is a slight personal issue, but the trap part gives it slightly more range, so even if you dodge it, you didn’t. Add a slight arm time (which is there, but maybe a bit longer?) because that is one of the most infuriating things currently in the game.
• R’s cool. Good synergy and design with Q; clear counterplay because you know where she’ll land
• Also, having played her some now, where the hell are her mana costs? I was playing her in Poro King (not Summoner’s Rift quite yet). I started NLR one game and I still felt I had more than enough mana to spam everything. The only mana item I built that game was Sheen/Lichbane

##CertainlyT:

In terms of raw design, he does good work. But he doesn’t do counterplay very well. And not the “there is something I can do to counter” counterplay but the “it feels good to do the thing that counters them” counterplay (I’ll probably talk more about this in a later post). See windwall for a good example. He also doesn’t really seem to have a good idea of when to stop adding things to champions. More damage, more mobility, and wouldn’t it great if this synergized with that, and maybe we can add in some CDR? Or at least that’s what it feels like. A champ that does too much for other champions to keep up. Look at Warwick. If I recall correctly, he felt ill at ease having to work within the confines of a pre-set champion. Within these bounds, he created what many consider his most balanced and healthy champion yet. It’s interesting, if nothing else.

#Fiora: I will go on record as saying Fiora is one if not the only full rework that I think was a complete and utter failure. Let me take about a minute to explain why.

1. To make vitals feel vital they have to do a lot when hit.
2. To make the player feel like a master duelist, vitals have to be relatively easy to hit.
3. Relatively Easy to hit + does a lot = inherently broken.

Also, why does her ult have a heal? Her ult also sucks because vitals suck. And it’s a good idea of what I was talking about before with the different types of counterplay. Standing against a wall to not have a vital procced is a counter, but in terms gameplay and how it feels to play against Fiora, it feels like shit. If they don’t want to scrap everything (and I do like the rest of her abilities), I would suggest making vitals only appear after being in combat. And it makes sense from a real world perspective*. Even experienced duelists and fighters cannot strike a weak point against a trained opponent right off the bat. It takes setup and catching the opponent at the right moment.

######*Add talking about how reality, lore, and gameplay interact to the list of future topics.

I still say her ult is stupid and needs to be deleted If it is determined she needs a full rework (unlikely, but eh), I would suggest looking at Weiss from RWBY and how she uses her sigils. I still remember her fight with the White Fang lieutenant, seeing her finishing move and thinking after “that’s Fiora’s [old] ultimate.” https://i.imgur.com/NrMmdkd.jpg[/img]

#Fizz: HAH! YOU THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO BITCH ABOUT THE FISH BUT NO. THIS ISN’T JUST MEME BAIT CIRCLEJERKING. Fizz is pretty alright in my book. IDC if he’s even still on the boards circlejerk hate train. He was and is generally an easy target for them and something usually pops up every once in a while.

#Kayle: Fuck this champion; she needs to be reworked ASAP and disabled until reworked. No, but seriously, if you will allow me a bit of salt, Kayle basically either does

1. Everything you do but better
2. Cockblocks everything you were trying to do
3. Sometimes both

Fuck Kayle, bush league super food EDIT: I must amend. I said I would avoid personal issues, which Kayle most definitely is. I just really, really hate Kayle. She does need rework though.

#Minor suggestions for:

##Zed: I would suggest making it so he cannot jump back to his ult shadow unless he has killed me or the pop will kill me. If he wants to fight me, then let’s fight, none of this pansy ass ulting to poke and force me out of lane nonsense.

##Ekko: I would remove the heal from his ult. IDK, I just think it would smooth out his play pattern by effectively killing tanko. And it would play into the delayed burst thing Rito’s been going for. Combo--> Back out--> Ult-> Combo. Three chances to dodge stuff with one chance to reevaluate the fight for the enemy