~★☆★~How to fix Talon~★☆★~

Desiderium·Oct 5, 2014·1 votes·1,098 views

Mercy: Talon's autoattacks and spells deal additional percentage damage for each percent of health his target is missing, up to 20%. This bonus is doubled if the target's movement is impaired in any way.

Cutthroat/Backstab: Blink behind target enemy. Increases damage to that enemy by 3/6/9/12/15%. Turns into Backstab. Backstab: Medium mana cost. Resets AA timer. Only able to hit an enemy from behind; it has zero effect from the front or sides. Deals 60/120/180/240/300 physical damage (+0.7 AD ratio) and gives Talon a 1.5 second 60% speed increase. Backstab always has 15% armor penetration. If backstab isn't used within 3 seconds, it turns back into Cutthroat. Cutthroat's cooldown will continue to go down while Backstab is active.

6 Comments

LneacxOct 5, 20141 votes

What's the point of Backstab?

DesideriumOct 5, 20141 votes

Silence is gone, and the new slow is gone as well. Instead of any form of defense or CC, Backstab makes Cutthroat have additional offensive power (which most people would prefer) and a utility in the speed boost as well. Backstab is also rather easy to miss/juke if you don't aim on a CC'd target, which would also end up benefiting from the new passive.

There's no silence, there's no slow, there's no channel interrupt. This version of Cutthroat is complete offense. Backstab also has a mana cost, which would be higher than Cutthroat but lower than Rake. As a mana gated assassin, Talon's full combo should be very powerful but costly to use. This adds not only another avenue of damage, but an additional mana cost to manage as well.

On a target that is rooted by a teammate, Talon's combo would go something like this: E -> Autoattack -> E2 (Backstab) W - > Q -> Ult

LneacxOct 5, 20141 votes

I'm hearing 1. Pure Offensive orientation and 2. Mana gating as your goals.

Backstab's mechanical components are: 1. haste 2. AA reset 3. manacost 4. Gated by enemy facing.

I'll agree that the mechanical components do lead to your goal of more offense and mana management; but, I don't think the AA reset and enemy facing gate are proper mechanics.

First, what happens if someone isn't facing away from Talon? Is Talon blocked from attacking until they face away? If so, that probably feels really weird for both parties. What if someone is facing away from Talon when he begins, but turns around when he 'hits?' I just feel that a strict back-facing is awkward to use and implement.

Second, I think that Backstab's potential damage disparity is too high. Here's how I imagine it'll end up being used, as it is:

Target is low and tries to run from Talon. They take the entire brunt of Backstab's damage.
Target is healthy and decides to fight Talon. Backstab's damage is entirely nullified.

In my opinion, this seems to make Talon too strong against low targets and too weak against healthy targets. I don't think even the most execute-ish of champions has such a disparity between low and healthy targets.

And last, I think that a back-facing mechanic is too low-counterplay. You should run if you want to avoid Talon's damage, but Backstab invalidates this option: Either you face him and take basic attacks, or you run and take a Backstab.

DesideriumOct 5, 20141 votes

Think of Backstab like Riven's Q. There's a timer on it; after you press the skill chain once, the rest of the chain is available for a limited time. While Backstab is active, it doesn't stop Talon from autoattacking or moving or anything. Also, resetting the AA timer doesn't necessarily mean it becomes an autoattack. Think of it like Kha'zix's Q as well. He can auto immediately after, even if he already did it before he Q's, but his Q is not considered an auto attack. Sheen and whatnot won't work on it, just like Backstab. In the same vein, once KZ is able to Q, nothing is able to stop it. Same thing with Backstab. If you press E while it is available, while the enemy has their back turned to you, it is going to hit regardless of anything.

How Backstab is played with/against is dynamic and it depends on the situation. Its best and most reliable use case is against a target that has its movement impaired, regardless of whether they are healthy or weakened.

Your examples also aren't really well thought out.

Target is low and tries to run from Talon. If they are smart, they do not take the entire brunt of Backstab's damage because they will turn around just as Talon gets into range and then Flash or use other escapes, or just skip trying to time the turn and just Flash immediately upon being jumped on by an assassin when you have no health.

Target is healthy and decides to fight Talon. Backstab's damage is not entirely nullified because he can double E and Backstab ends up dealing damage anyway.

You should run if you want to avoid Talon's damage, but Backstab invalidates this option: Either you face him and take basic attacks, or you run and take a Backstab.

Play a Tryndamere or Aatrox against him then. I'm sure they'd love the basic attack fight indeed

LneacxOct 5, 20141 votes

Tryndamere and Aatrox can stand and fight, but do the vast majority of League's champions have a means of counterplay to Backstab?