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Noc Buffs on PBE!?

Che Gimpera·8/27/2015, 4:02:37 PM·2 votes·501 views

As a Noc main, a part of me is jumping for joy at the small range buff on Noc in the PBE but another part of me thinks that the range buff probably just make Noc the target of future nerfs as his ganks start to get complained about (rightly or wrongly so.)

Having played him quite a bit in S5, I think his range is actually pretty acceptable and the power ramp up as you put points into Paranoia feels like a real boost as you level. For me, the most overlooked part of Noc's ult is actually in the darkness that it brings. In solo queue when few people are on voice, it's very difficult for the enemy team to figure out what's going on, especially if they're spread out to avoid AOE damage.

What if instead of increasing the range on Noc's ult, you time the darkness based on how "scary" Noc is at the moment by basing it on the amount of bounty Noc has on him. The larger the bounty, the longer the darkness. If that's too confusing, you could also just make it like Rengar where each kill confers some bonus. Let's say if you set the base darkness at 3 seconds plus 0.25 seconds for each kill Noc has, a mid-game Noc with 4 kills will have the same ult as before but a late game Noc with 12 kills will have a 6 second darkness, helping him scale into late game and making him much more useful in "group and pick" type scenarios.

4 Comments

Adrian Umbra8/27/2015, 4:08:50 PM2 votes

The Noc buff is actually a reversion of one of his earlier nerfs, due to his power at the time in the game. Through a combination of factors, Noct has steadily fallen further behind his assassin and bruiser brethren. Thus, time to revert a couple of his old nerfs and make his ultimate have a decent range at first level of the ability.

And your idea is interesting, but fairly snowbally and VERY punishing to solo queue. Sure, it wouldn't be a big deal if he's only at a few kills, but consider if Noct has been stomping this whole game. Cutting off team vision like that for a considerable length of time would be insanely powerful in a game where none of the participants is in voice chat, while having relatively little effect in coordinated games. This change that Riot is making would affect team and solo queue relatively equally and thus (IMO) is more effective.

Dreadlocks8/27/2015, 4:10:00 PM1 votes

Its not THAT drastic of a buff.. Using it on the PBE its noticeable but not enough to freak out :)