Interesting rework and gameplay change for Talon to help in balance issues, particularly in Diamond+

Ramaero·Jul 18, 2018·1 votes·1,121 views

#Edit:

#3pm now, so as stated in below edit not spending any more time on this. Upvoted NM1010 for good feedback on the thread, thanks.

#Edit: If over 4 hrs from now at 3PM eastern time, if a comment from someone at Riot is not made by then, then I will stop looking at this thread, nothing personal to riot or anything... I am just out of patience regarding this. Obviously it hasn't even been a day yet since I made this thread, and it is more reasonable to wait around about week instead which is what I generally did in the past, but I am not willing to continue hoping I get a reply from Riot considering the thread is not popular, and even if it was I doubt anyone from riot will decide to reply to this even if it was noticed, and are likely concentrating on things more pressing and important for the collective league community than this thread regardless of it's importance to me, despite my belief that the gameplay changes/additions I am asking for would be well received by many other players if implemented.

If by some chance someone from Riot decides to reply to this after the time I mentioned above then don't bother doing it for my sake, because I won't be reading it unless it somehow makes it into the patch notes, and actually gets put in the game, which seems highly unlikely. I only go on the boards every once in a while to observe the dev corner, and not to see much of anything else and not to make threads or comments either, and will be returning back to that. The only thing that brought me back is described in my thread about Akali's rework being similar to what I asked for with my champion concept on the champion Feng over 2 months ago before we were shown her gameplay, and ofcourse I elaborated a lot on that in that the thread. If I am lucky enough for the gameplay changes I asked for to come out, then I will see it eventually in the patch noes, but obviously I am not going to hold my breath as there are other more pertinent gameplay changes, and champion updates that can be argued are more deserving than my requests. I am putting this edit into two threads I made essentially on the same day that discuss two different topics concerning gameplay additions, not trying to spam, this edit is relevant to both. Also just want to say thanks again for Meddler and Riot Stashu for commenting on an idea that I admit was not a great one for Talon a few months ago. It was nice to see feedback on it.

I am a Talon main in low plat, and even though I am not in diamond or above I do see him getting picked or banned much more often than before. So I decided to do this considering Talon is a problem in high elo, the small base damage nerfs Riot are doing to his rake in the next patch is very unlikely to solve that problem, and because I wanted to find a solution that fixes that, but also gives him a more unique style of gameplay especially in mid and late game. The below changes have many nerfs, but also many large buffs and quality of life buffs; pay special attention to his W, his E that now has a passive, and his Passive. The % changes are relative to the current Talon's damage in his abilities, so compare to his actual damages on the Talon wiki page to see what it would amount to if curious of specifics. I did it that way as to more emphasize the "difference" in the changes between current and new Talon, as well as to simply save some time, and listing that information isn't too necessary to get my concept across.

#**base movement speed buff: ** now 355

#Passive: large buff mid and late game buff, with large early game nerf

base damage lowered by 60%, and % bonus AD also lowered by 20%
bleed can be triggered from abilities if enemy champion has had full stacks for 2 seconds

#Q: large early game nerf, slight mid and late game buff

Q range lowered to 500
Base damage of Q lowered by 50%, but % bonus AD increased by 30% with the exception of his W and Passive

#W: very large mid and late game buff, but weaker early

first tick of rakes damage does a larger % of rakes total damage with each increase of rank 10%/30%/50%/70%/90% of total rakes damage when rake is thrown out, with the blade return at max rank being only 10% of the total damage from rake and being the much weaker portion instead
range increases from 650 to 800
blade recall delay increased to 1.5 seconds, slow still procs at the end
W Rake Base damage lowered by 30%, but % bonus AD increased by 70%
starting cooldown higher but max rank cooldown lower, at all ranks 13/11/9/7/5 seconds cooldown
triggering bleed lowers Talons W cooldown by 2 seconds
takedowns reset the cooldown on Talons Rake
mana cost at all ranks is, 80/65/50/35/20

#**E: ** very large mid and late game buff because of new passive in E, but early game slight nerf

now has a passive, whenever Talon triggers his bleed or gets a takedown, he gains bonus movement speed that is 10% - 170% of his total attack damage for 4 seconds
starting cooldown on terrain increased to 220 seconds, but goes down at a faster rate so cooldown is lower at ranks 4 and 5, e.g. 220/170/120/70/20

#Ult: early game nerf, slight mid and late game buff

Base damage of ult lowered by 50%, but % bonus AD increased by 30%
ult CD higher at first rank but lower in last rank, being 120/80/40(current Talon is 100/80/60)

#Clarification:

These changes will result in Talon having a much weaker early game damage wise while also making it take longer early game for terrain to go off cooldown, so affecting roaming early on, and in turn this will reducing frequency of large snowball early game. To make up for the drawbacks early game, his mid and late game will be much stronger if he does not fall too far behind because he will be more versatile in fights because of having a much stronger projectile damage mid and late game that can be used much more frequently than current Talon, and he can more frequently trigger bleed on multiple targets because of rake now being able to trigger bleed. Also because his new passive on E gives bonus movement speed that scales off of Talons total AD, the longer the game gets the faster he will become when he procs his E's passive. If he does not fall too far behind when he is weak early game, he will be able to function as an effective assassin, while also being able to function somewhat effectively as a poke mage and skirmisher because of how his rake gets more powerful as the game goes on and because of his speed improving as well, and he will shift to being better known as a "hyper carry assassin". For example, if Talon can make it through the first 25-30 minutes without himself and the team not falling too far behind, he is very likely going to be equal to or greater than a current Talon for example being 3,000 gold ahead and up by 2lvls from a large snowball early game because the current Talon is going to start falling off when the new Talon scaling and overall fighting potential in several situations has increased and should continue to increase up to late game.

This will also help to solve Talon being frequently banned in diamond and above because of his dominant early game, and games very likely being decided so early on. With these changes Talon players will find it much more challenging to consistently snowball early on and have a large gold and level difference early game, but it will be much more rewarding if they manage to do that when it will be a challenge alone to simply at least not fall too far behind in the first 25 minutes, and when that time comes to really start to make a stronger impact on the game because he will be able to function as a great assassin, while also functioning as a mage and a skirmisher to some extent because of the changes to his Passive, his W, and his E.

#Edit: Current damage from abilities result in early game, mid game and even late game damage being too weak to have a significant benefit later on. I should give respective number buffs to make up for that so that it will benefit him more in all phases of the game but particularly early and mid game. I believe this is still a great idea for Talon, just need the right number tweaks.

7 Comments

nm1010Jul 18, 20182 votes

This is kind of a mess, did you actually do any of the math or factor in any of Talon's combos?

RamaeroJul 18, 20181 votes

Flower combo from my distant memory a few weeks ago before making this thread:

0 items with just starter items ~ 60% current Talons damage 1 item ~ 75% current Talons damage 2 items ~ 90% current Talons damage 3 items ~ 105% current Talons damage 4 items ~ 120%+ current Talons damage etc.

He will lack kill pressure and ability to quickly one shot early for sure. Can only really expect that 3 items in, but current Talon will have snowball advantage thus why would this Talon be better? Because of how he can use his rake and his new E passive and function as a mobile mage/skirmisher and not just be about being able to one shot someone. He'll be able to safely zone or poke enemies with his rake and have a higher damage in teamfights because of it's low cooldown and ability to reset and lower itself on takedowns and triggering bleed.

A few weeks ago I worked out the math, then deleted the info because did not feel like posting this lengthy thread, and ended up changing my mind today, while not having the numbers. If I remember correctly from before the details in the flower combo percentages above, generally speaking and the trend of champion lvl to amount of items he has, his rake will start doing more damage before Talon gets his 2nd item though, which again is an ability that will be significantly more of a strength than it is currently, not to mention he will be able to use it at least twice as much in a fight not including resetting it via a takedown or lowering by 2 seconds it via a bleed proc, emphasis on his rake being max rank for this, and more affectively deal damage from range mid and late game. For example He can W, Q, ult, hold invisibility, and immediately W again from a distance when exit stealth because his stealth is duration is so close to his Rake cooldown at max rank and max CDR, and a squishy will likely die from the final rake after stealth.

Sorry I can only give % approximates though, really don't want to go extensively regarding the math; especially because from experience in the game and playing Talon I am fairly confident I am not too far off with damage comparisons.

nm1010Jul 18, 20182 votes

0 items with just starter items ~ 60% current Talons damage 1 item ~ 75% current Talons damage 2 items ~ 90% current Talons damage 3 items ~ 105% current Talons damage 4 items ~ 120%+ current Talons damage

Just a long sword @ lvl 6 full rotation = ~60% as you claimed At a full item 400 bAD build with lvl 18 we get ~99% of the current damage.

Basically all of these changes significantly nerf a full combo Talon without getting resets. If we start talking about fast combos he might have actually gotten buffed, but I don't feel like doing another 15 minutes of math to compare (and I'm pretty sure it'll be close or worse).

This goes without even mentioning all of the game pacing issues that these changes would bring. Most notably the fact that he would get absolutely dumpstered in lane without his w waveclear (which is worse until 171 bonus ad). Without kill pressure at level 6 (He does a laughable 372 damage before resistances) he would just be a constant liability until mid-late game and the pay off just wouldn't be worth it.

RamaeroJul 18, 20181 votes

Wow I'm sorry, I could have sworn it was not that bad, particular with 400 bAD. I'll take your word for it, I'll look more into the calculations later and maybe make an edit, but, to fix this I would simply have to adjust his % base damage and % bonus AD damage to the point in which it should just about equal current Talon mid game with same gold and items, and make his early game not as bad, particular with increasing his early game damage with W. I'm surprised it was that far off with 400 bAD though later on...I really want to do the math of that later; he shouldn't have to rely on resets on rake to exceed the damage he does compared to current Talon that late into the game.

That being said though, were I to adjust the numbers properly so that he is doing about the same as current Talon with 2 items at the same level, and 3 items exceeding current Talon(assuming current Talon is always going to be ahead anyway because of stronger early game) then it should work out. But ya really sorry for wasting your time on that and you ended up finding out with calculating it thoroughly; I really thought I replicated the % scalings I originally came up with when I thought about this a few weeks ago, but I ended up making him too weak early and mid game with these numbers.

That aside, I just need number tweaks to make up for that, the idea behind making him have a really strong mid late game but weaker(but not too weak which is what I did) early game is something I still think would be a good change for him, with obviously making his abilities stronger than they are now. Sorry you had to find out the hard way with calculating it.

RamaeroJul 18, 20181 votes

Made a few edits and fixed a few typos and grammar mistakes a few minutes after posting the thread. Sorry, shouldn't have posted in such a rush.

RamaeroJul 18, 20181 votes

I am putting this comment and an edit into this thread in another thread as well that I made essentially on the same day that discuss two different topics concerning gameplay additions, and I am not trying to spam, this edit is relevant to both threads. Edit is at the top of the thread. Also Riot I explain this in my edit, but don't bother replying unless it is for others on the boards who might read this after 3PM eastern time when I stop looking at these threads, because except for the dev corner occasionally to see what changes might be coming soon, I am done with the boards. Still I must say thanks to Meddler and Riot Stashu for discussing with me the rework I had first wanted for Talon(but was a badly constructed thread and overall I was asking too much for what the rework consisted of).

RamaeroJul 18, 20181 votes

Going to leave thread as it is here, this was one of my last threads on the boards and not spending any more time on here. Thanks NM1010 for the feedback on this, and I gave upvotes. I appreciate it.