Cait needs to be either an early or late game marksman

chipndip1·Dec 22, 2016·76 votes·2,608 views

This shit needs to stop. It's not fun. Her being strong early is one thing. Late? Another thing. BOTH? What the fuck is this and how come I can barely convince anyone to ban this bitch?

39 Comments

PermabannedGarenDec 22, 201612 votes

{quoted}

This shit needs to stop. It's not fun. Her being strong early is one thing. Late? Another thing. BOTH? What the fuck is this and how come I can barely convince anyone to ban this bitch?

There's this stage of the game called "mid game", which is historically where Caitlyn is at her weakest.

GeshultzDec 22, 201619 votes

{quoted}

There's this stage of the game called "mid game", which is historically where Caitlyn is at her weakest.

Issue is her mid game has been improved greatly due to her traps allowing her to siege towers extremely powerfully around mid game. On top of having more reliable DPS then before through ruccan's hurricane offering crit now. Along with having a powerful early game bully potential. Along with multiple anti diving tools + whatever the support offers and her reworking giving her a combo against all ins with E Q auto

SpârkyDec 22, 20162 votes

Well thats not her unbalanced shes kinda like jayce at the moment because she just perfectly fits this meta and her counters are weak right now

warpenguin555Dec 22, 20161 votes

where she hides behind her team and sieges mid with hurricane and head shots anybody who walks close. But yeah totally exploitable weakness

HazyCloud7Dec 22, 20161 votes

Runanns hurricane stacking headshots totally alleviates that. The idea that Caitlyn has a weak mid game is a total myth.

datfatguyDec 22, 20166 votes

Late game it's hard to one shot her as an assassin because she does ridiculous amounts of damage and also gets tons of lifesteal from it. This shit needs to stop now.

AnonagonDec 22, 20165 votes

I don't mind her not having a particular weak point - not every champion needs a super defined power curve. She's just too strong in general.

HongChongDongDec 22, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I don't mind her not having a particular weak point - not every champion needs a super defined power curve. She's just too strong in general.

Except this is why the game doesn't have a defined balance. If you don't give a champion defined weaknesses and strengths then you get cases of champions who are too sub par and champions who are just strong with no draw backs. Aatrox and riven are prime examples of this.

AnonagonDec 22, 20161 votes

Power curves aren't the only way a champion can have a weakness, and really they aren't a replacement for having a real in-kit weaknesss.

Caitlyn is too strong because she lacks any in-kit weakness, not because she is strong both early and late.

chipndip1Dec 22, 20161 votes

What?

"Caitlyn isn't strong because she's strong for almost the whole game, she's strong because of the ingredients that make her strong for almost the whole ga-"

Literally WHAT?

AnonagonDec 22, 20161 votes

No, you miss the point

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with having a "strong early, weak mid, strong late" or "good at all points" powercurve

A weakness in a champion's powercurve is not a solution for simply having no meaningful weakness during the times that they are strong. This is why Lee Sin is a problem - yes, he falls off, but before then there's really nothing holding him back.

You could make Caitlyn weaker early or weaker late, but that wouldn't change how she doesn't fundamentally have any weakness during the time that she is strong.

chipndip1Dec 22, 20161 votes

Alright, that makes more sense.

With that established: It's hard to really emphasize marksmen weaknesses when they're click-bots. That's why, in most cases, marksman weaknesses are just their power curves. "Beat them before they scale in" or "survive until they fall off" is usually the game plan when dealing with marksmen. Caitlyn's thing was "survive early, then win before late", but Runaan's makes it so she gets crazy amounts of headshots, so her mid game isn't very exploitable anymore, either. Either her mid-game needs to be made worse, her synergy with Runaan's needs to be worse, or her early/late game needs to be made worse.

AnonagonDec 22, 20161 votes

I agree that it is particularly hard to make ADCs who are nothing but auto bots have meaningful weaknesses. But with Caitlyn, she has a very clear niche as a ADC that she fulfills, and the problem is that she reaches too far beyond that. She is supposed to be the premier siege ADC, with her range, poke, and zoning tools. Her problem is that she simply deals far too much DPS in a normal fight because of Runaans and Headshots. I'd be entirely for nerfing her interaction with Runaans - perhaps making the counter be an on-attack effect so that it simply doesn't work with Runaan's bolts. I'd also love to see power shifted towards her Q and R, considering those don't see a lot of use past the laning phase (ever see those LCS games where Caits walk into lane and immediately ult for poke?)

chipndip1Dec 23, 20162 votes

All your suggestions seem like really good ideas and I'm glad we had this talk. Sincerely.

Especially the attack counter idea. That'd probably straight move her back in line without nerfing any of her abilities.

Chibi ZephyrDec 22, 20165 votes

Plat 3 Cait main here. I think it's a misconception that Cait's early game is really strong. It's not - it's average, maybe a little above average, depending on match up. Cait's early game USED to be really strong, sure - but times have changed. She struggles with the likes of Lucian, Jhin, Sivir, Leona, Braum, Thresh, Kench, etc. And all of those champions are (save lucian) in the meta. If she's in a favorable matchup, like against vayne or twitch, then she has a strong early game, but only until level 6 when vayne and twitch suddenly become a lot stronger than her. That, coupled with her weak early and one of the least impactful ults in the game and only haveing 2 abilities actually worth using in team fights, cait deserves what she's left with.

shadowwroughtDec 22, 20162 votes

as a support main, I would have to agree, cait is manageable until she gets fed off stupidity or to late game.

IA9hRfpP5qDec 22, 20165 votes

Riot be like:

https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder366/62440366.jpg

xWatersDec 22, 20164 votes

How exactly is Caitlyn weak mid game? I'm not being facetious I just want an answer of how I can somehow gain an edge before lategame.

UnboundCreatorDec 22, 20162 votes

{quoted}

How exactly is Caitlyn weak mid game? I'm not being facetious I just want an answer of how I can somehow gain an edge before lategame.

She's weak mid games because she's actually weak the entire time til late. She just appears strong early because of her absurd AA range.

DestructoDaveDec 22, 20163 votes

{quoted}

How exactly is Caitlyn weak mid game? I'm not being facetious I just want an answer of how I can somehow gain an edge before lategame.

She used to be weak mid-game before her rework and before new Runaan's. It's basically just a meme at this point. Her mid-game is nowhere near as weak at it was back in the day thanks to all the extra headshots she gets from E/Traps/Runaan's.

SpârkyDec 22, 20161 votes

she has a massive power drop off mid game what are you talking about. IE and runaan's is great on her but that is core on every adc and say if cait and a jinx or tristana have that as well jinx and tristana out dmg her at two items then at 3 and 4 items cait out damages them but at 5 and 6 items jinx and tristana outscale her so badly so i recommend to play jinx and trist into cait. Or just do what i do and q farm early with ezreal and you can farm under tower very easily.

DestructoDaveDec 22, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=PG Sparky,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=t1R6m5MH,comment-id=000500010000,timestamp=2016-12-22T13:10:44.966+0000)

she has a massive power drop off mid game what are you talking about. IE and runaan's is great on her but that is core on every adc and say if cait and a jinx or tristana have that as well jinx and tristana out dmg her at two items then at 3 and 4 items cait out damages them but at 5 and 6 items jinx and tristana outscale her so badly so i recommend to play jinx and trist into cait. Or just do what i do and q farm early with ezreal and you can farm under tower very easily.

Not anymore. She did before her rework. Now, traps and E make up for that, and so does Runaans. She is A LOT stronger on 2 items than she used to be.

Like I said, its basically a meme from a time when Runaans didn't have crit, and her traps and Net didnt proc headshots. Yes, back then she was incredibly weak mid-game. Now she just isn't. Esp. with so many strong laners being weak. She's better on 2 items than a lot of other lane bullies, and carries.

MunchCrunchLunchDec 22, 201610 votes

that was a before rework thing. since she scales with crit. before the rework zeal items gave less crit. so she had to finish more than one to get a lot of power.ALSO. runnans hurricane was not an item she bought because it gave no crit

she is no longer weak mid game. runnans IE hurricane is most likely the strongest mid game adc

Titanium70Dec 22, 20161 votes

Thing is: Besides her Range advantage Cait has NOTHING to improve her DPS. *

No Steroids at all - that's why nearly every ADC has a better midgame than she has because of said steroids. Jinx AS, Vayne AD, even Varus gets AS and stronger AAs. Every ADC in the game either Steroids or has an ADCaster-Kit to improove their mid-game. Except Cait.

In Lategame however, while still usefull, those steroids lose alot of impact because of all the items. Than Cait's back again.

*Yes she has her Passive which (with RH) can increase her DMG. Still she either lacks AS or AD to use it efffectivly in longer fights. Good Burst, sad DPS.

Brutalitops01Dec 22, 20163 votes

The biggest thing with Caitlyn is she's safe. She's decent early, fairly weak mid, and then comes back hard late game. However, her early game strength is something that is beyond easy to play against if you know how to. If she uses her Q to push you in, she's going to be using a lot of mana, meaning that you can put damage on her for free. If she doesn't, you can pretty easily set up a freeze and, if you're stronger, kill her if she comes close to farm. While she may be strong early, she's one of the weaker ADC-type champions who can be considered lane bullies. Lucian can poop on her if you play him aggressively. She can net away for safety, but if you can engage on her hard enough that the net doesn't get her to safety, she pretty much just dies.

chipndip1Dec 22, 201614 votes

What do you mean "if she gets close"? She's the farthest away from anyone in that lane, save Jinx at level 9. There is no "close".

And Lucian gets bullied into another planetary system with his 150 range deficit on top of him not being op right now.

SpârkyDec 22, 20166 votes

Lucian sucks in general right now

Faceroll TacticsDec 22, 20162 votes

This.

He wasn't good with his standard build before, he only found success when black cleaver and youmuu's was good on him.

And then they needed cleaver AND Lucian, basically giving him the Sejuani treatment

chipndip1Dec 22, 20162 votes

Now this guy's saying he's a Cait counter.

Maybe her KILL counter, but that's it.

RivuoDec 22, 20163 votes

I think its an extreme misconception that caitlyn has an oppressive early game considering anyone experienced in bot lane knows its the support that wins you bot lane

If cait maxes traps she is horrible if you engage on her, if Cait maxes Q then sidestep the Q and she has nothing besides the net.

oSEXYPLATYPUSoDec 22, 20161 votes

lol

aww

item 3070

AwoofDec 22, 20161 votes

It's been like this forever. If she is too strong at the moment that doesn't mean we necessarily have to reinvent the champion's whole power curve.

And to answer your question, there are a lot more impactful things to ban than her.

Snake TownDec 22, 20161 votes

I ban her all the time if my adc isn't picking her, I swear in low gold she wins every game I see her in.

SpârkyDec 22, 20161 votes

As i've said before its not thats shes necessarily "strong" in the early game she is designed to be a lane bully but a hyper carry late. Which is tricky to balance so i dont think she needs nerfing just her counters like sivir who can just push her in need to get buffed. Also my advice for cait is get a ranged supp like karma so you dont get poked out and pick jinx/tristana because they outscale cait at 5 items.

ErockandrollDec 22, 20161 votes

I only find her late game strong, in the sense that she's a classical ADC who scales of AS, AD, and crit chance. those items make her late game DPS stronger that say, corki or Ez, who spike in the mid game as a result of triforce. However, that doesn't allow her to out DPS actual hyper carries. (who have even more steroids in their kit)

Classically speaking, she had the late game damage, and the early game range, but was met with a power troff in the mid game. However, that mid game lul is currently (at least partially) mitigated by her trap line, as she is able to max traps by level 9. And that's how I feel like she ended up in a place with no real weak point.