Orrn's unstoppable nerf was so unnecessary

Risen29·May 11, 2018·100 votes·18,632 views

He was such a fun champion before that nerf. If fit his character theme so perfectly to have an unstoppable ability, fitting with his ability to charge through player created walls. He's basically suppose to be a kind of legendary god-like figure - so he should be difficult to stop and kind of scary in that way. It was so refreshing to play an engage tank that, for once, didn't have to spend the whole fight sitting there looking at his ability buttons blocked out after he dove into the enemy team.

Now he hovers at a wonderful 47% winrate.

Way to take a sledgehammer to his face, riot.

81 Comments

JbelsMay 11, 201843 votes

Yeah, it really does suck. I would have definitely preferred nerfing the damage on brittle or something. Removing unstoppable sucked

IceKingChernobogMay 11, 201837 votes

The removal of unstoppable took away so mucg skill expression and out play potential out of his kit, i wish they reverted his W buff. Now it’s just mash W and auto.

Chembaron YamadaMay 11, 20185 votes

That was actually the point, they wanted to nerf people harder who mastered Ornn than people who just picked him up.

You achieve that by removing skill expression from a kit, so the winrate of mains and casual players get closer to each other.

Risen29May 11, 201818 votes

{quoted}

That was actually the point, they wanted to nerf people harder who mastered Ornn than people who just picked him up.

You achieve that by removing skill expression from a kit, so the winrate of mains and casual players get closer to each other.

That's a garbage reason to nerf any champion. Skill expression in champions is a good thing.

Chembaron YamadaMay 11, 201813 votes

Too much skill expression can be a bad thing, tho. Look at Kalista or Azir. Low Elo players and people just playing them casually did poorly on them since release, since they are pretty hard to play and have alot of skill expression. But people mastering them were warping the whole game around them.

Risen29May 11, 201810 votes

{quoted}

Too much skill expression can be a bad thing, tho. Look at Kalista or Azir. Low Elo players and people just playing them casually did poorly on them since release, since they are pretty hard to play and have alot of skill expression. But people mastering them were warping the whole game around them.

No, Azir and Kalista were never problematic because of thier skill ceiling. No champion has ever been regarded as a problem solely on the basis of having a low skill floor and high skill ceiling. Their problem is just they both do too much too well because of poorly designed kits. So it's difficult to make them good without them being overpowered in skilled hands. For instance, Azir's mobility is totally unecessary, goes against his theme, yet forces you to tone down every other aspect of his kit to prevent him from being overpowered in skilled hands. Because he pokes, hypercarries, and has an aoe knockback.

Ornn doesnt suffer from that problem. His kit is not fundamentally flawed in its core design. And his unstoppable fits with his thematic rather than completely contradicting it like azirs engagement mobility (why does a commander who doesnt fight directly, who has a whole kit to support this playstyle, suddenly want to dive into the enemy team when he's not even going to be directly auto attacking them?)

There are ways to tweak Ornn to keep his unstoppable, and have him not be overpowered in skilled hands. On the other hand, it's hard to keep Azir's positional abilities unnerfed as long as he has access to such mobility. They are design contradictions that let him do too much.

Because of that, most players agree Riot was being way too rash in rushing to take away his unstoppable rather than tweaking other variables first. It would be akin to taking away Azirs turret. No, that was never his real problem. All you're doing is taking away something cool and iconic that actually fits with his core theme of being a positional commander type.

Thats why the unstoppable removal is such a gut punch to players who loved Ornns thematic and design. It ultimately wasnt necessary. There were other ways to balance him. And his unstoppable is a key part of his thematic, going along with his ability to break walls by charging. Everything about this guy says I'm barreling towards you and I won't be stopped, like a charging ram.

Chembaron YamadaMay 11, 20185 votes

If a champion has a very low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, that means in the end that the champion will always be problematic in one tier of play.

If you balance that champion around high elo, then he will be decent there, but absolutely underpowered in low elo and will feel bad for playing picking him up.

If you balance around low elo, then the champion will feel good to pick up, but he will completely demolish high elo and warp the game around him.

That's what happens with champions with too much difference between skill floor and skill ceiling. And that's what's happening with Kalista and Azir. They will never be allowed to be decent in low tier of play, because they potential if mastered is simply too high.

I get that you miss that part of his kit, since it was a "cool thematic strength", but in the end I think that this should be a defining strength of a champion. A champion should be designed around the idea of being unstoppable on such a low CD.

Ornn has alot of unique strengths, I don't see this particular one as necessary. I stay to that, I think removing the unstoppable was ok.

Risen29May 11, 20184 votes

{quoted}

If a champion has a very low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, that means in the end that the champion will always be problematic in one tier of play If you balance that champion around high elo, then he will be decent there, but absolutely underpowered in low elo and will feel bad for playing picking him up. If you balance around low elo, then the champion will feel good to pick up, but he will completely demolish high elo and warp the game around him. That's what happens with champions with too much difference between skill floor and skill ceiling. And that's what's happening with Kalista and Azir. They will never be allowed to be decent in low tier of play, because they potential if mastered is simply too high.

Wrong. There are plenty of immensely high skill ceiling champions that are still fine at lower elo or in casual play, like Riven. And, conversely, there are plenty of higher skill champions that perform like garbage at low elo, but nobody is concerned with it because they aren't overpowered in the middle or upper tiers (Aurelion Sol, Ivern). Riot has also contradicted your own claims by saying they have no problem with specifically balancing some champions around the fact that they are high skill ceiling intended for pro play, like Ryze.

The cause of the problem is not that a big gap exists between floor and ceiling. There is nothing inherently wrong with that on it's own. That is, in fact, the basis of what makes a game competitive. You can't remove that without the game ceasing to be fun or interesting.

The cause of the problem in these kinds of cases is that the kits are overloaded to the point where having things tuned just a bit too high causes them to spiral out of control in pro hands. Usually because they have no clear weakness in their kit designs, so they just do everything too well. Azir and Kalista fall into that design trap. This makes it impossible to just nerf them the way you would a typical champion like Viktor who has a very clear and straitforward design philosophy with strengths and weaknesses that you can tweak.

Ornn is not comparable to Azir, who has clear contradictions in his design that make him both someone who fights from a distance and someone who wants to dive into a teamfight for no real reason; because nothing in Ornn's kit contradicts the core design of an unstoppable CC tank. Ornns kit is consistent with itself. It was just overtuned. He merely had too much damage given the amount of utility and defense at his disposal. A simple tweak to his damage output could have solved all these problems of him being overbearing in top lane as a duelist without having to sacrifice all the fun and unique aspects of his kit that make him an effective skill expressive tank.

Instead they want to sacrifice his utility for damage? That is nonsense. He is a tank, not a juggernaut. They dropped the ball by trying to strip the wrong things away from Ornn, and taking away one of his funnest and most iconic aspects in the process. It was a mistake. They need to revert it and tinker with his damage/defense if necessary.

PupelMay 11, 201823 votes

The should have reverted his W buff back to current HP instead of Max HP

LordGeovanniMay 11, 20184 votes

This is the only they they did positive for him balance wise and it by itself is broken. I have said again and again Release Orrn's Only problem beside Q taking forever to come up which was fixed and R doing no damage for an an ult (and i belive that his R second cast could be global and it would be okay as the only global tank ult it is still slow does no damage and only slows people from beyond the intital R range Except that he could possibly ult and tp and apply W brittle before the ult hits the enemy knocking them up. But that is a neiche play that requires long range tp and isnt broken because its a global skill shot (just like Jinx ashe and ezreal ults except more balanced because it wont delete people from over half hp).. Release Orrns only problem is that none of his skills scale with the same thing so He has no way to keep in control of lane like if he goes ad he may win lane early but then lose later because his ad is only on his Q and it doesnt benifit his W E or R. His passive Masterwork items only applies to neiche meta items that forces those play styles too.

BeatzBoyFTWMay 11, 201817 votes

Always known for avoiding nerfing the main problem. Remember how Sion's E is the main problem of his laning phase, yet they preferred disturbing his Q instead?

MarothennanMay 11, 20184 votes

Actually I think what they wanted to do is instead of nerfing the E max they tried to make people max Q instead since Q got nerfed if you don't max it. Should have just nerfed maxing E imo but I can see what they tried there

SaezioMay 11, 20183 votes

{quoted}

Actually I think what they wanted to do is instead of nerfing the E max they tried to make people max Q instead since Q got nerfed if you don't max it. Should have just nerfed maxing E imo but I can see what they tried there

E? you mean W? his W is his bellows breath

ZackTheWaffleManMay 12, 20182 votes

They're talking about Sion.

VelvetCrotchMay 11, 20182 votes

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs] [slayer-pantheon-thumbs] [slayer-pantheon-thumbs] [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

CurlyCrusaderMay 11, 201814 votes

Well they followed their customary nerf format: A champion needs a nerf because they're doing too much damage, so instead of nerfing their damage, they take away things in their kit, and then when those champs are still doing well because the problem was ALWAYS the damage, they then nerf their damage and then they're left guttered.

Brain Errör 404May 11, 20183 votes

ALA Zoe's Q-Q-R extend fluidity. No one complained about that, they complained about her overly one dimensional "one shot from FoW" kit. New ass champion, already needs reworks. Riot games, everyone.

JohnnyNeverSinsMay 11, 201812 votes

Honestly i hate full tanks that 1v1 almost any champion,i fucking hate them,i hated orrn from the very beginning,when i saw he was getting nerfed i was so happy until i realized that instead of nerfing his %hp damage (like 95% of the community complained about) they nerfed his unstoppable phase, i got really pissed off,i mean,CLEARLY the problem was not his unstoppable phase.....would be nice if they nerfed some of his %damage and brought back his unstoppable i also found it a skill expressed ability,which is always nice since when you get it right it feels good.

LùmenMay 11, 201811 votes

They put a wall of excuses behind his W, saying that it often does things it shouldn't and overly punishes the enemy for it but I think it's just a load of bollocks. He's too hard to balance so they just make sure he's unplayable, that's my 10 cents on this case. Not sure though

Akali is SO HOTMay 11, 20188 votes

They probably could've put it somewhere else in his kit instead of just flat out removing it, but it definitely needed to be removed from his W. It might have been fun for the person playing Ornn to use, but playing against that ability was impossible. It already did %hp damage which is super strong to begin with and applies brittle which lets Ornn do even more damage to the target and CC them. Being unstoppable on top of all of that means you can't really do anything at all when he runs at you and activates his W aside from running away. Basically, had no counterplay and was impossible to play around which is why it was removed.

My Waifu VanillaMay 11, 20184 votes

Except you listed the counterplay.....running away. The ability starts off with a MASSIVE cooldown and stays relatively high all game. If you want to fight him in his W that is entirely on you (let alone get hit by the auto afterwards). He is already slow as hell so it isn't like Rumble who can use W to move FASTER during his frontal cone.

Risen29May 11, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=My Waifu Vanilla,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=tTcjW21Q,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2018-05-11T06:45:16.463+0000)

Except you listed the counterplay.....running away. The ability starts off with a MASSIVE cooldown and stays relatively high all game. If you want to fight him in his W that is entirely on you (let alone get hit by the auto afterwards). He is already slow as hell so it isn't like Rumble who can use W to move FASTER during his frontal cone.

Exactly. People often misuse the term "counterplay" without understanding it's real meaning.

When trynd ults and you kite him until it wears out, because that's the only option you have available, that's counterplay. You can't just sit there like a potato and die to him, then whine that it should be removed from the game because you don't have any button you can press or micro you can perform that will let you kill him through his ultimate. Your only option is to kite.

Counterplay is sometimes simply decision making, tactics, or teamwork.

Some people have a wrong idea that counterplay means you have an ability you can click to counteract whatever the enemy has just done. Or it has to be something you can juke and micro your way around. But that's not always the case, nor does it have to be in order to be countered.

Sometimes the counter play is as simple as just not giving them the opening to use their ability effectively by adjusting your tactics or strategy.

Akali is SO HOTMay 11, 20182 votes

You sorta just proved my point. The counterplay to Tryndamere is to wait until he pops his ult and then kite and CC him and rip ignite on him so he dies after it ends. Same goes for Ornn. The difference is you couldn't kite him before because he was unstoppable. If you want to compare them, then you would have to make Trynd unstoppable during his ult and see how poorly that goes. It is essentially the same thing. Now, after the nerf, running away and CCing him is sufficient counterplay because you can actually do that now.

Risen29May 11, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Akali is SO HOT,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=tTcjW21Q,comment-id=0006000000010000,timestamp=2018-05-11T14:39:49.946+0000)

The difference is you couldn't kite him before because he was unstoppable.

Thats a lie. Nothing stops you from running the other direction. Ornn even did you an favor and slowed himself to make it easy on you.

Not everyone who faces trynd has cc or slows. How do you think I beat him 1vs1 when I play shyvana? Tactics. I run when he activates it. I dont come on here and cry about how there is supposedly no counterplay because I dont have CC on my champion.

There were other ways to deal with Ornns W to make it easier to play around, like increased cooldown. And the other option was to make it less damaging and more defensive/utility.

The point here is not that his W didn't need nerfs, but is was completely unecessary to remove an iconic and fun part of his W when there were plenty other ways it could have been nerfed first.

Akali is SO HOTMay 11, 20182 votes

Yes nothing stops you from running the other direction. However, Ornn has his E to close the gap and his ult to knock you up to make it harder for you to run away. Therefore, the best way to play around his W is to stop him from getting to you in the first place by CCing him to stop him in his tracks. The counterplay of CCing Trynd is still there regardless of whether or not you picked a champion with CC. If you manage to get a whole team of champions with 0 CC, then that's your fault.

I'm all for giving his unstoppable back on his W if Riot makes the ability less powerful and changes it in a way where you can stay and fight Ornn when he pops it instead of only being able to run away and CCing him. With how powerful his current W is, it should not allow him to be unstoppable. Lower the range, increase the mana cost, change the damage to %current health, or lowering the shield could be potential changes to allow him to get unstoppable back, but currently he shouldn't have it.

Smitty ManjensenMay 11, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=My Waifu Vanilla,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=tTcjW21Q,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2018-05-11T06:45:16.463+0000)

Except you listed the counterplay.....running away. The ability starts off with a MASSIVE cooldown and stays relatively high all game. If you want to fight him in his W that is entirely on you (let alone get hit by the auto afterwards). He is already slow as hell so it isn't like Rumble who can use W to move FASTER during his frontal cone.

Dunno why you even bothered answering to an Akali main who's talking about another champ which doesn't have counterplay(which is false), too damn ironic.

Akali is SO HOTMay 11, 20185 votes

I don't know why people always feel the need to bring this up. It's impossible to have an actual discussion on anything here when a response to a well constructed argument is "Lul wrong cuz Akali main." Nothing I even said is even remotely related to Akali so bringing up the fact that I play her is just a cheap scapegoat to not have to make an argument. Completely worthless to the conversation.

Akali is SO HOTMay 11, 20182 votes

Running away is not sufficient counterplay to an ability that is already super powerful to begin with. He gets a shield, does %max health damage, and applies brittle with a single ability. What is an interactive way to minimize the benefit he gets from popping W? CCing him. But wait, you can't CC him remember? Now your only option is for your entire team to run away from him while he applies Brittle to everyone and sets up the rest of his team to CC lock you for the rest of eternity. Being able to lock him down with CC means he can't automatically apply Brittle to your whole team without having to put any thought into the timing of popping his W. Now he needs to be more considerate when doing this instead of just popping it and running right in with no consequences. Not to mention that he already has 50 extra range compared to a lot of melee champs which makes him all that much harder to play against Brittle to begin with.

Also, Rumble has to use 2 abilities to get the same effect and needs to use 3 abilities (compared to 1) if he wants to CC you on top of that all of which can make him overheat very quickly. He is also not unstoppable when he does this so you can CC him and stop him from doing damage to your team.

EinarUlfarMay 11, 20188 votes

TBH After the removal of the unstoppable, I went from playing Ornn with relative frequency to not playing him at all. ): He was pretty fun in the Support role.

LuggMay 11, 20187 votes

I agree. They should have nerfed a different part of his kit.

Votable JesterMay 11, 20187 votes

Well either that or the shield probably had to go because it really was an ability that told the opponent, "don't bother trying to interact with me until this is done, you can't do shit and will just get burned."

JaspersMay 11, 20183 votes

This I agree with, it's another 1 ability that defined and entire characters kit thing, it does %max HP damage, protect Ornn while using it and gives him a proc on his passive for more %HP damage. His Q is used only to harrass in lane and to setup his E for an easy W.

Tank Sion as a good example of abilities spread out. His shield is on W but it doesn't nothing in terms of damage is it's depleted, his armour shread is on his lane long range poke so could be useless if they are too far away. His Q is slow and telegraphed. All easily played around yet also fair for both the you and your opponent. Plus no Max HP damage.

I think add instead of it just being Max HP damage, give it actual values not just Max HP and make it scale with some of Ornn's HP, not his enemies, he has brittle for that.

TheSandQratorMay 11, 20184 votes

Splitting hairs here but Sion's shield explosion actually does % Max HP damage.

And honestly I think that if they made Ornn's W do % Current HP damage like it originally did, it would feel a lot less bad to play against, even if just damage wise. His W actually has no base damage, it's all based on the target's HP, so a lot of the damage would come from the Brittle proc. If he just spammed you with it without getting the Brittle hit, it would likely do much less damage overall.

With the reduced Brittle duration, it's a lot less powerful a zoning tool. If it were % current HP on top of that, using his W offensively mean he HAS to go in to make much use of it. Otherwise it's just a waste of mana.

TheCodeisCupCakeMay 11, 20187 votes

Lmao unstoppable was one of the things that defined a good oran from a bad ornn, timing it right could result in amazing outplays. Really sucks they removed it

RyusaetherMay 11, 20186 votes

While it was a pain to deal with him before, I have to agree with you. I think the problem was the unstoppable combined with the dmg, the shield and the brittle effect on a spell with relatively low CD, but the max health dmg got nerfed and is now in a decent spot, and the CD got higher so it's a greater commitment.

It was funnier to play around his Unstoppable, you had to time your CC to deal with him. Now with Darius I can just braindeadly all-in him whenever I want and Apprehend him when he wants to run away with Searing Charge, that change removed all the interesting interaction with the champ (other than avoid Bellows Breath's last hit not to get the Brittle). Though something on that spell would need to be adjusted, it would have too many things for it (%health dmg, shield, unstoppable, brittle passive).

AzadetheMay 11, 20183 votes

They also made its Cooldown longer.

Risen29May 11, 20185 votes

I would gladly give up something on his W to have the unstoppable back. It was a defining aspect of his thematic and design, going along with his E.

At least they could have done was put it onto his E. It wouldn't be as fun, but at least it would still be there. And it would make sense for it to be on his E since that's the charge that breaks through walls.

Chembaron YamadaMay 11, 20182 votes

The charge breaking through walls is his E.

Sir PouncealotMay 11, 20184 votes

He's still fun af, and I love the guy but it did detract quite a bit from the fantasy of his kit, hope they consider re-adding it in the next patch cycle if enough players ask for it.

SaiannaMay 11, 20184 votes

He's basically suppose to be a kind of legendary god-like figure

All that while Aurelion sol, the master of universes, a celestial being the size of cosmos itself, is playing with his balls all day long, then gets beaten by a boy with piece of steel xD

Wild GeeseMay 11, 20184 votes

I hate the scaling on Ornn; it's all over the place, Max health, bonus resist, AD, AP, all on different abilities. I get it, he's a tank, but I don't think I've ever seen a champion with such a forced build. Every other tank in this game has options to dip into damage a little. Is there something about AP scalings on Ornn that would be game breaking?

Tons of fun to play though!!

PaffWasTakenMay 11, 20184 votes

We should make a compromise and givehim the same Unstoppable mechanic as Aatrox : It works only half of the time and you can never tell if it'll work or not

Teridax68May 11, 20184 votes

I feel that particular nerf was a step in exactly the wrong direction. In an environment saturated with crowd control, and where CC affects melee champions the most, I think CC mitigation and immunity should be a much more common tool for melee champions who are otherwise lacking in range or mobility. Considering how there's generally a whole bunch of CC any team can output, choosing which ones to soak up and which ones to block constitutes valid tactical gameplay, imo, and simply timing one's own CC immunity properly to block an effect from a single opponent also demonstrates meaningful mechanical skill. This is why Ornn's own unstoppability felt skill-expressive, because it gave him an extra layer of gameplay in outplaying his opponent in lane and powering through crowd control at the right time in later fights.

As a side note, I also think part of the problem with CC is that there's simply too much of it, and that we need to take out a lot of CC effects, and reduce the duration of some, on most champions in League. However, even in this environment desaturated from CC, I think we should still have many more champions with the tools to become less vulnerable to CC. Unstoppability, self-cleanses and Tenacity I think should be hallmark mechanics on juggernauts, whose lack of mobility and reach means they otherwise have few to no means of outplaying kiting. Not only would this add more mastery potential to a class whose skill ceiling is mostly rather low, it would also potentially allow them to equalize their performance across higher and lower elos, whereas currently they tend to stomp pubs in Bronze to Gold, yet suffer practically everywhere else. If a champion is to be particularly exposed to damage and crowd control, they should have adequate means to counter both, and not only do most juggernauts fit this bill, so does Ornn, a tank with generally mediocre range and rather telegraphed mobility.

remakoroMay 11, 20183 votes

I really wonder what Riot has planned for tanks. Cuz they are mostly in deep shit atm and riot keen on making things even worse for them

KZ EngelMay 11, 20181 votes

he just does way too much dmg for a tank, even now

give unstoppable back, nerf w dmg

AzadetheMay 11, 20182 votes

W has been damage nerfed every time it was changed except the initial Max HP change. Since then it has been nerfed Twice.

LordGeovanniMay 11, 20183 votes

His original problem was that he did too little damage even when he won lane. The buffed it but in the worst possible way with % max hp damage Riot is horrible with almost all instances of % max hp damage when all Ornn Needed was to have his QE and R scale with ad or ap and to give him more options for masterwork items like a item 3091 masterwork a item 3156 masterwork item 3143 item 3512 item 3053 item 3065 item 3022 item 3083 item 3075 item 3151 just a few of these

Risen29May 12, 20182 votes

{quoted}

His original problem was that he did too little damage even when he won lane. The buffed it but in the worst possible way with % max hp damage Riot is horrible with almost all instances of % max hp damage when all Ornn Needed was to have his QE and R scale with ad or ap and to give him more options for masterwork items like a masterwork a masterwork just a few of these

That is the kind of crap I hate the most when they do it - Take a weak champion, buff them, now they are overpowered. Instead of toning down the buffs you gave, you start cutting off their legs taking away original features they had in order to try to save the buffs you made, and in some cases they leave the champion abandoned and bleeding in a gutter worse off than they were before the buffs!

What terrible balancing methods.

As a side note: I think it would actually be very fitting if Orrn were viable to be built using nothing but masterwork items. What better way to celebrate him being the living forge than for him to be decked out fully in his own custom gear?

AzadetheMay 11, 20181 votes

I want to stay neutral here as an Ornn player.

But it's hard to.

Ornn himself has never been the problem, even after all his severe nerfs/reworks. I personally enjoyed the unstoppable status.

But..... I'm doing fine without it.

I also don't build him like everyone else either. But I beat them by 30%, pulling closer to 77% rather than 47% too.

The problem with Ornn is that people who play him haven't actually done the math on how certain runes work with him and choose the right runes, and also potentially build the wrong items.

AKA:

Learn the right items. Learn the right runes.

I can beat nearly every single conceived "Ornn Counter" with Ornn. This includes:

Sion Darius Fiora MasterYi Irelia Camille Quinn Udyr

I'll give you a hint:

AP is not the solution. Armor is not the solution. Resolve isn't as important as its Tier 3 and 4 runes on Ornn. You can other Tree Primary Rune him. In Fact, it's almost guaranteed to be better.

Knowing which opponents do what and when NOT to use R.

(If you R a Sion who hasn't R'd yet, you're not very smart).

Knowing not to use E as an engage unless it guarantees a kill. Using Q to more functionally than W or E.

Personally, I'd love to have Unstoppable back. It would mean I could do more useful things more actively. But I do well enough being passive. (I do miss W through Veigar's Wall or ignoring Blitz's pull).