Why I Think New Warwick Is A Failure

I just read the blog post about upcoming updates and thoughts on old updates, and I have to strongly disagree with Riot's take on the Warwick rework. I know this isn't the most popular opinion in general, but a lot of long time Warwick players are unhappy with the rework. Here are what I think are real reasons why the rework failed.

1a) His passive damage took a slight late-game nerf and a slight early-game buff. His passive is most used later in the game when he can stand toe-to-toe with people, so I'll call this a slight nerf. 1b) His passive healing doesn't exist before Warwick is below 50%, huge nerf. His healing from 25% to 50% is either slightly nerfed or buffed, as above. Slight negative. His passive healing is much better when under 25% health, huge buff. Overall, slight nerf. 1c) His passive will never heal you above 50%. It was almost impossible for old Warwick to leave the jungle without full HP. Now it's almost impossible to leave with more than 50% HP. Massive nerf. 2a) Q mana cost and cooldown are both lower, buff. 2b) Q heals for less across the board, nerf. 2c) Q now has a small dash, buff 2d) Q is now full of bugs, nerf 3) The loss of Hunter's Call is huge. While his new W provides more attack speed later in the game, it was for a single person only. With Warwick being a strong initiator, you're almost always around teammates, and giving all of them an 80% attack speed boost was incredible in team fights. This is one reason I am upset with the rework. As someone that played Warwick as a utility initiator with max CDR, losing this makes me feel much less valuable, especially on attack-heavy teams. 4a) Blood Hunt now gives more movement speed than Blood Scent did, buff 4b) Blood Hunt gives a huge steroid on very injured enemies, huge buff 4c) Blood Hunt only works when running towards an injured champion, huge nerf. This really hurts Warwick's ability to get both in and out of fights, and doesn't allow you to use injured enemies as a speed boost to chase healthy enemies. This might not have been intentional/thematic, but I can't count the number of times I took a couple extra hits to get an enemy slightly lower to trigger Blood Scent to get away faster. 4d) Blood Hunt can't be turned off, huge nerf. Another nerf that can't be understated. It's very easy for people to forget about the jungle. When you have a red blood wolf over you, not so much. Being able to turn off Blood Scent and kick it back on right as you popped out of the bush was awesome. Now enemies get low, see a warning, and start playing differently. It ruins his ability to sneak while on the prowl. 5a) Primal Howl gives damage reduction, which is a buff. That being said, damage wasn't the problem Warwick had. 5b) Primal Howl gives an AOE fear. Big buff 6a) I'm not really sure how the healing stacks up for R yet. It seems like it hasn't changed much but I could be wrong. 6b) R now applies on hit 3 times instead of 5. Big nerf. 6c) R has at least the same range to much greater. Big buff 6d) R is now a skillshot.

I need to mention this by itself, as this is the biggest change to his kit and where I feel he didn't need to be changed. The suppression and point-and-click on his ult were already balanced by 1) launching yourself into harms way when you can be b) easily interrupted with c) no escape skills. The upside was a guaranteed lock-down of hard to hit targets. Warwick was my go-to jungle pick against very mobile champions (Riven, Vayne, Ezreal, Kassadin). With the change of R to skillshot, it's now become next to impossible to hit these champions. Meanwhile, immobile champions are still having the same problems avoiding Warwick's ult. This change let Warwick engage from slightly further away, while destroying his role as a lock-down jungle. This is by far the biggest nerf in my opinion, and completely ruined Warwick. Any champion with a dash or something similar now won't fear Warwick in the slightest, and Warwick players will now have to engage unseen and further away from the enemy team to have any hope of landing his ult.

I'm sure I could list some more, but I think this hits the major points. His win rate is still sub-49%, although at this point it could be from all the non-Warwick players trying him out. But I doubt we'll see much shift in the coming weeks. We won't see him in pro/high level play often and I'm willing to bet after the shine wears off we'll see him less.