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Riot: "We neutered Sejuani's W damage because the ability was just a glorified sunfire"

BobaFlautist··48 votes·2,927 views

"With an aoe max hp aa-reset tacked on"

Alistar E is just a glorified sunfire with an empowered, stunning AA tacked on. Amumu W is just a glorified sunfire with a passive reset tacked on. DrMundo W is just a glorified sunfire with some tenacity tacked on. Fiddlesticks R is just a glorified sunfire with a channel and a blink tacked on. Garen E is just a glorified sunfire with an armor shred tacked on. Hecarim W is just a glorified sunfire with team-oriented vamp tacked on. Jayce Electric field (not sure which ability) is just a glorified sunfire. That's it. They didn't even tack anything on. Karthus E is just a glorified sunfire toggle with mana-refund tacked on. Mordekaiser w is just a glorified sunfire with a heal and some annoying team mechanics tacked on. Nasus R is just a glorified sunfire with hp and resistances tacked on. Rammus R is just a glorified sunfire with building damage tacked on. Renekton R is just a glorified sunfire with hp tacked on. Shyvana W is just a glorified sunfire with movement speed and on-hit damage tacked on. Udyr R is just a glorified sunfire with a three-hit passive tacked on. MonkeyKing R is just a glorified sunfire with movement speed and onock-up tacked on. Sejuani NEW W IS JUST A GLORIFIRD SUNFIRE WITH AA-LOCKOUT AND PASSIVE INTERACTION TACKED ON

What's that? This is a rather diverse array of abilities despite a similar method of application because the conditions of use, base damages, scaling, and surrounding kits dramatically change the use cases, counterplay, and fundamental perception of an ability?

Woah.

Sejuani's w scaling was ESSENTIAL to her kit, it was by far the most satisfying ability she had barring her ulti, and you watered it down to basically nothing.

This is malzahar all over again: "We don't like how much power is in the ulti and the one skill people like using, so we'll move it all to the passive and the least satisfying part of the kit. I hope you like playing around a passive and one of your four buttons, because the rest of your skills will be rendered pointless."

55 Comments

EndlessSorcerer21 votes

I liked Sejuani's current kit and found it quite satisfying to play.

The only things I wanted from the rework were a faster clear (i.e. bonus damage to monsters) and/or an actual passive.

It is just hard to justify player her at the moment considering how badly Lee Sin, Graves and Ivern dominate tanks in the jungle.

WinTheWarOnPants2 votes

Changing her W was something i kinda wanted just cause it was so underwhelming and i wanted her to make use of her flail. I kinda like her new W but think it should be more like Poppy ult in design, by which i mean you activate it once to starting swinging her flail around, then activate it again to apply a slow and deal "burstier" dmg in a line with a slow. And it would deal magic dmg cause FFS why would is it physical now?!

Morgan le Fey1 votes

I think it's physical because she's literally just hitting someone with a big metal ball on a chain.

Don't get me wrong, from a balance standpoint it should totally be magic. It just makes more sense numerically. The flavor could be fixed with something like "the True Ice in the flail is what actually does the damage, the flail is just a method of delivering it" or, hopefully, something better with more than 15s of thought put into it. That said, given the current flavor, I can see the logic behind physical damage.

LankPants4 votes

If Alistar headbutting you can deal magic damage then so can Sejuani swinging her flail.

Seriously though, it's not that uncommon for champs to have abilities that don't fit their logical damage type when there's a good gameplay reason for it. For example everything Katarina does is magic damage, primarily because she's balanced around buying AP items and not AD items. If you were going to go entirely by logic Kat should certainly be an AD champ, the only spell you could justify as magic damage logically is Shunpo.

There is a few good reasons for Sejuani to have a magic damage W over physical. Firstly magic damage tends to be a more effective damage type if you're itemising minimal or no pen, since MR numbers are lower. It also opens up some offensive itemisation options which are probably good for Sej to have. If she deals magic damage then she can build the new Abyssal Sceptre and Liandry's. I firmly believe that these semi offensive item choices should stay a part of Sejuani's arsenal and with a physical damage W they probably won't.

Morgan le Fey1 votes

Oh, no, I totally agree with you. I just suspect the flail thing is the logic behind it.

TheFancySkeleton1 votes

Don't forget the werewolf biting you for magic damage.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

Just a theory, but maybe they made her W dealing physical damage so she is able to handle red buff better early? Think about it. Sejuanis current kit has some problems killing red buff because she just has AoE magic damage and red buff takes additional damage from physical attacks. Sejuani just has auto attacks to do so.

Blue buff will still be easy because of the E damage being magical, but she will be better clearing red now too because of W. If you keep in mind that they were balancing her for the jungle position.... Like I say, just a theory. Please don't kill me. xD

Big Lincoln8 votes

they really fucked the jungle over this season

i want to go back to season 4 or 5 jungle. give me back my spirit stone and my quill coat

OHminus2 votes

Reaches out for old Cinderhulk and pre-nerf Sejuani Rito kicks those memories into the (howling) abyss because that's where they think she belongs

Melledoneus1 votes

Shen might be the jungle tank we were looking for. The LCS seems to like him there.

Chembaron Yamada15 votes

Many of these skills are passively doing damage around the character, correct. Just want to point out a few things. Some of these champs are actually in need of a VGU: Amumu DrMundo Fiddlesticks Rammus Udyr Mordekaiser

And... Sejuani new W being a glorified sunfire? Wut? It is a 2 part skillshot, you have to aim it and it is dealing 2 portions of damage, not pulsing damage in an AoE like the other examples. I have seriously no clue why you think it fits in that list. It works like a Rengar Q now.

Zenderana2 votes

Sejuani current w is a sunfire not the thing on the pbe

Chembaron Yamada5 votes

I know but in his post he wrote "new W is a glorified sunfire with AA lockout and passive interaction tacked on" so it seems he is talking about the reworked version. And that is just wrong.

Wheatloaf2 votes

Many of the abilities he mentioned also have decision-making involve beyond "Am I in combat? If yes, use this ability more or less off-cooldown." Certainly not all of them, but most of them.

SweedishGunner7 votes

What I would've done with Sej is sinply change her passive. I would keep all her kit the same but create a new passive.

New passive; 'Battlecry'

Whenever Sejuani hits 2 or more enemies or monsters with a single ability (second cast of W counts) she gains bonus armour and magic resist (10/15/20 at levels 1/7/13), gains bonus movement speed (20/30/40% at levels 1/7/13) and rallies allies towards Sejuani (20/30/40% bonus allied ms at levels 1/7/13) for 3/4/5 seconds (at the same levels as before), Battlecry has a (?) second cooldown (maybe scaling with levels again?).

Obviously it's a rough concept but there you go. Now Sej wants to make proactive plays, she's great at clearing multi camps, good at counter ganking and great for teamfights, it also can't be abused in lane unless being ganked.

Obviously my numbers would probably need changes and maybe more granularity but I think that'd work way better than the current changes.

LankPants1 votes

Alternatively if they really wanted to change the W what they should have done is

On activation Sejuani swings her flail around herself 4 times over a 4 second duration dealing 10/17.5/25/32.5/40 (+1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5% Max HP) (+15% AP) to all enemies hit. At the end of this effect Sejuani slams down her flail at a target location, by default this is the direction aimed at when W was cast but it can be changed by recasting W. This deals 60/90/120/150/180 (+6% Max HP) (+40%AP).

Basically just a fusion of live W and PBE W to take the better aspects of both. It's possible that the numbers could be a little off, but it's the actual design that matters.

If I was going to keep her stacking E with this I'd increase the stack number to 8, make her W ticks apply one stack each and the hit apply 2. I feel this would also be good as it would make melee allies less impactful for her too, they get her a quicker stun but almost none could get a stun by themselves while Sej is more than capable of getting the stun in for herself.

SirΤeemο6 votes

and to imagine that sej's W didn't do that great of damage after the hit.. :p so it had to be changed to... this
the thing that disturbed me the most is the E , because you have to land some hits to get it work

Bunnymap6 votes

Overall I think sejuani is going to be messed up or release, but could be fixed by removing a lot of power from the E and putting it into the W, which is now kinda worthless.

LankPants3 votes

Also, I don't even think it was ever really in question, but W should deal MAGIC DAMAGE. It dealing physical damage on the PBE is just confusing as hell. They changed Abyssal to be a great item for Sej, then they changed Sej so she can't use it effectively. There's just so much wrong with physical damage W.

ChaoticPinecone6 votes

You killed your own argument. If youre going to post something like this, how about limit yourself to abilities that do feel like a glorified sunfire? Lets be clear here - Amumu W feels like a glorified sunfire. Mundo's W feels like a glorified sunfire. Karthus' E feels like a glorified sunfire.

Fiddle's ult does not. Udyr's Phioenix does not. Wukong's R does not. Garen's E does not. These abilities are not "turn them on before a fight and keep them on". You actually have to manage the other abilities.

3TWarrior2 votes

actually, udyr's ult is worse than a sunfire except during early game in the jungle

wukong's R definitely feels like a sunfire where all you do is move to do damage and suppress your opponents

garen's E...really, it may not be a toggle but it has almost the exact range of a sunfire and basically just makes him a mobile source of proximity damage, just like sunfire

ChaoticPinecone2 votes

And trying to make comparisons like that kill the argument, because everyone can see how ridiculous it is. Garen's E is nothing like a sunfire. An ability that gives you movespeed, 9 procs to try and get Black Cleaver shred, movespeed when hitting a target, armor pen shred after a certain amount of procs, can crit, and goes on cooldown is not like a Sunfire (which is just AoE burn damage around your model).

There comes a point where there are more major differences than simlarities, and thats when it becomes kinda ridiculous to say its "like a sunfire". You can call Ori ult, "like a sunfire with some CC, centered around the ball instead of her model, and puts all the damage up front instead of DoT". You can call Teemo shrooms, "little pockets of sunfire you hide on the map that go invisible, and only get triggered when the enemy steps on them".

3TWarrior1 votes

here is a link to my comment fully explaining this issue

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/t1302nly-riot-we-neutered-sejuanis-w-damage-because-the-ability-was-just-a-glorified-sunfire?comment=000d0000

ChaoticPinecone1 votes

I'm not arguing numbers here. I'm arguing that there is a very big difference between something like Garen's E and Sunfire in terms of usage. There is less of a difference between Amumu's W and Sunfire - Amumu's W pretty much acts like a toggable Sunfire with % health damage, but Garen's E or Fiddle's ult? Come on.

Teridax681 votes

I completely agree with this. The issue with Sunfire Cape and its clone effects is that it's power distributed in pretty much the least meaningful way possible: any kind of permanent or semi-permanent damage aura with no need for management basically just means you win fights by attrition, and simply by staying near whoever you want to kill. It's not really the best expression of skill (death by proximity can be expressed more interestingly with sharper effects, like Garen's E or Fiddle's ult), doesn't really carry the most interesting counterplay ("don't stay near this guy ever" isn't all that engaging), and often doesn't really translate to great power expression either, because the high uptime means the effect in question often ends up having to be fairly weak, at least on a per-second basis. As much as I dislike Sejuani's power being pushed into an excessively strong shatter effect and a team-wide aura, I do think the argument for reworking her old W is a valid one.

Cavemantero5 votes

I never heard someone say 'nerf sej'. IN the meantime we still have overloaded kits from Ekko Yasuo Orianna Lulu Jayce and now everyone's favorites Xayah and Rakan

Im starting to hate riot more and more every patch. For every Poppy rework we get a Nugalio Galio and Fabio Taric .

ShadowParker5 votes

Why the fuck is Orianna on there?

invisiblecat13 votes

Some people just get tilted by her when she does QRW and nearly kills an entire team But TBH she is one of the most fair champions since you can just slightly move upwards and avoid all her damage

ShadowParker1 votes

I mean, that can be said about most champions though.

She is very fair. Just watch her ball.

invisiblecat11 votes

Exactly

LightIsMyPath1 votes

Like they don't deserve it if they get engaged all at once..

chipndip14 votes

So apparently every aoe is a glorified Sunfire Cape, even if you're locked out of AAs during the attack.

This is why some people say there should be elo-based restrictions for posting on Gameplay...

3TWarrior1 votes

actually, let's take a look at some of the numbers, in particular Garen's E, Judgement

garen does at max 300 + 370% AD damage from his E total if every spin hits and can do more if there is a critical

if you take this from base stats alone, that comes to 693 base physical damage over 3 seconds

let's factor auto attacks with sunfire

if at max level, garen has roughly 1.0 attack speed or 3 attacks, that is 402 total physical damage and 132 magic damage however you can factor in his Q for even more "auto attack" damage for a total of 134 and 186 or 320 damage total

add that and it is 720 with auto attacks

but since most build sunfire as well, let's factor sunfire into his E. it comes to a comparison of 720 from auto attacks + sunfire and then 825 from his E

if we compare the base damages of the ability to sunfire, garen's base attack is 134 and then E is up to 10 ticks of (30 + 37% AD) or if you take that in sunfire's view, 3 ticks per second of 30 + 37% AD for a total of 90 + 117% AD per second

this is an AOE that's over 5X as powerful as sunfire but it has almost no difference in range or function only that it allows garen to move through units and reduce armor

Eedat3 votes

Uhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmm can you link me where Riot said that?

I don't think you understand what quotation marks are

LankPants2 votes

No problem.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/pcT3hhuA-mid-season-tanks-update-sejuani

Lack of interesting / interactive combat pattern Sunfire Cape has never won awards for creating deep combat patterns, so it should come as no surprise that Sejuani’s current kit is lacking in this department.

It's paraphrased, but it's not really out of context.

ModAcademy Kayn3 votes

Nice quote taken out of Context with the rest of the thread that came with it.

SociopathFriend3 votes

Sejuani's w scaling was ESSENTIAL to her kit, it was by far the most satisfying ability she had barring her ulti, and you watered it down to basically nothing.

That would be because, barring her ult, her other abilities were really lackluster. E in particular was almost invisible in terms of what it did.

Now, her Q, W, E, and R are all distinct abilities with clear moments of use and impact.

JedenVojak3 votes

{quoted}

That would be because, barring her ult, her other abilities were really lackluster. E in particular was almost invisible in terms of what it did.

Now, her Q, W, E, and R are all distinct abilities with clear moments of use and impact.

E used to be really strong though. It was so strong that I would level W last - but they wanted Sejuani to be more spammy so they moved her max health damage from Q onto her W, then sucked damage and slow duration from her E and reduced the cooldown of it; they turned her into a w-bot only now they're completely removing that w which already sucked out the power of her other 2 spells and thrusting it into some weird stacking passive thing.

Stacking passives suck.

Big Lincoln1 votes

no they aren't

KoKoboto1 votes

Yup I think her overall rework is leaning more towards success Gameplay wise Sejuani will work fine In terms of making her more unique and her abilities more unique yup

Thematically this one is off a bit, a lot of people are complaining, personally I'm fine with the changes.

agbudar3 votes

i will keep repeating this till people are sick of it

TARGETED CLICK STUN MAX HP% DAMAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOW IS THIS GOING TO BE BALANCED LIKE EVER???????

3TWarrior1 votes

Swain : good luck ever balancing me now...I can kill your whole team just by being in proximity

they said they were going to update him...they made him visually appealing but overall they just made him oppressive and unsatisfying to the playerbase at large due to how crazy their random decision making process is

do they throw a dart at ideas on paper and say "that's the one we'll use" ? XD

Tobias Brackner2 votes

Darling, there is a difference between "sunfire w/ tenacity" and "sunfire with aa reset"

Anhartamin2 votes

[deleted]

Big Lincoln4 votes

new sejuani is more likely to one shot you than the current one ever was

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

25% max health magic damage for autoattacking a target you have stunned.

Totally a great idea and not just numbers shoehorned in.

Big Lincoln2 votes

it's all about that s k i l l e x p r e s s i o n after all

Linna Excel2 votes

Ahri W is a glorified sunfire that only does damage 3 times.

Saphixia1 votes

Electric field is jayce's melee form w btw

3TWarrior1 votes

you can actually switch to ranged while using it and it is preferable to do so when you've knocked them out of range with E

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