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@Riot, can Lee Sin not remain the pinnacle of jungling for another season?

U4fyn2vZzW··69 votes·4,057 views

Look, I get it you don't want to nerf your golden boy to hard because #LCSBIGPLAYS but can you just nerf him to the point where some other junglers can at least have the capabilities to stand up to him or atleast defend themselves? Such as.

  • Removing his unnecessary spellvamp on an AD-champion, I can't think of one other AD champion that has **5%-25% FREE Spellvamp **built into their kit.
  • Give him an actual punishment for missing his Q, remove his passive energy restoration and tie it to his Q second cast and give the first cast of his Q a high energy cost, this will make it so that dodge his first Q won't just mean he can ward hop and then tempest your ass or flash-kick you with his 350 movement speed . . . speaking of which.
  • Reduce his movement speed to 340, there is absolutely no logic reason a champion as mobile as him needs 350 movement speed.
  • Reduce the base damage of his ultimate, why in the name of God does his ult do 200/400/600 (+200% Bonus AD) to his intial target and every further target struck, knocking his first target back and all other targets in the air?
  • Give his ult a meaningful cooldown, his ult is arguably one of the best ultimates (by far in the top 5) in the game. It's a nuke, it can peel, it can be used to engage, it has so many uses with no downsides to using it (Besides being a trash lee sin and kicking a kill away, which isn't a big deal if you know how to land his Q that travels at the speed of light). 90 / 75 / 60 seconds, come on you guys can do better then that. Make it 115/95/80 Seconds, that way you have to think when you use it.
  • Don't allow his tempest to reveal stealth champions anymore, just remove it it's toxic as hell. Like, he already has such great physical damage scalings and if he gets fed earlygame and you're a smart player that decides to build some armor to survive him SCREW YOU his tempest does great aoe magic damaged that scales with 100% of his Bonus AD.

91 Comments

Rozzeta23 votes

Olaf had Spellvamp in his W. Remember? It was that thing which was removed in the rework because it simply didn't belong in his kit...

U4fyn2vZzW8 votes

Completely forgot about that, but yeah they removed it on him but for some reason they keep it on Lee Sin . . . for no cost

XD

Halman19 votes

Yeah because spellvamp does not belong on a champ whose major game plan is keeping his health low and sustaining to get the benefit from his passive that scaled from missing health. Yet it clearly belongs on a champion with no health costs or any kind of synergy with being low health, and with tons of mobility and a shield to ensure his safety. Riot logic.

Narasimha20 votes

Don't allow his tempest to reveal stealth champions anymore

I refuse to accept any indirect buffs to Teemo.

U4fyn2vZzW5 votes

Fine, minus teemos

The Bored Frog3 votes

have it instakill teemo if he is stealthed and it hits him

Tin Tarantino4 votes

What if instead of revealing stealth it just killed Teemos Kappa

DoraTheBrown2 votes

but i worship Satan

Buttigieg 20202 votes

Teemo is love Teemo is life

Long Dong Wukong12 votes

L C S B I G P L A Y S B O Y S

Ah, Zed. With your amazing plays topping many a competitive player's highlight reel, how could we not love you? All in all, Zed is one of the best examples of what we call a "healthy assassin" in League of Legends.

BetaDude403 votes

I kinda think Zed WOULD be balanced if they focused less on humongous waveclear and perfect escape.

His R is really what I hate. QSS and Zhonya's counter it, I know, but being at a severe disadvantage due to Zed's insane poke and waveclear means getting those items in time before he snowballs to hell will be extremely difficult. Until then, you encounter a problem. If he ults you, and you don't have QSS or Zhonya's, your first instinct is probably to run to safety. Problem is that when you do that, he can initiate his full burst and teleport all the way back to his original shadow created by his ult before you can get a single tick of damage off. And then you suddenly die. If you just stand there so he doesn't have instant free escape with no repercussions, then now you take even more burst damage from 3 versions of Zed all firing on you at once, killing you instantly again. There's just no real way to go around it. I know Zed is an assassin, and that is his job, but with the insane poke and creepscore he can have at 10 minutes in, there is no way you can get those counter items to beat him.

Healthy Assassin? Hell no. He has a lot of adjustments that need to be made before I could consider him even halfway "healthy".

U4fyn2vZzW4 votes

Zed's healthy on the fact that if he gets fed really only one person on your team is at risk because he's so ult dependent it's not even funny, but the problem with Zed is that he's super safe in lane compared to other champions. His mobility is fine since he's an assassin, his waveclear and pushing potential isn't imo.

But let's honestly be real, would you rather go against a fed Fizz, a fed Akali, a fed Katarina, or a fed Zed.

What they need to do is reduce his Q damage to minions, that would force him to go in and last hit more which would allow for the opposition to poke him.

BetaDude402 votes

I agree. Way too safe and pokey for an "assassin".

Also, to answer the question, I'd go against the Katarina. She at least has some hard counters :/

U4fyn2vZzW3 votes

And those counters are? If she gets uber fed early and mid game your entire team is literally at risk and has to focus her down to the ground, leaving her own team to repel you when you do so.

Halman7 votes

His ult cooldown should be in range of cooldowns of Sejuani, Braum or Azir, since it's essentially the same with larger damage and more utility (kicking into your team? EZ wardhop if you wardhop are a wardhop lee sing wardhop who can wardhop wardhop every wardhop 8 wardhop seconds wardhop flash wardhop). So probably larger cooldown than those two ults. It's also great for dueling, have you ever seen any dueling potential on those champions? Yeah right, so probably even larger cooldown. Amumu level.

Bronze Prophet4 votes

You come into Riots home and insult Riots Golden Boy? If I EVER see you in ranked, I am insta-locking teemo for jungle.

BetaDude402 votes

Better than fucking Lee Sin...

Teemo doesn't have 2 gap closers, a massive knockback, extremely high AD ratios, free lifesteal and spellvamp, both physical and magic damage scaling off AD, and many more overloaded things.

I would take Teemo shrooms any day to Lee Sin.

Keyoshi4 votes

I'm starting to love these qq threads about lee sin, IMHO he has a pretty big skills cap. Yeah alright lee sins can dominate early game but it takes a really good lee sin to be able to take it into late game. If they nerfed lee sin in any damaging way, he'd be as bad as shaco was before he got changed. Strong early game terrible late game. Lee sin is a duelist don't fight him on his grounds. Ward your jungle, you are allowed 4 wards if i remember correctly. He might have "perfect ganks" but who doesn't? Elise has a really strong gank (potential if they're any good.) late game he just becomes a peeler for the adc. Honestly he's fine where hes at. People just need to learn to have counter play with him andalways keep moving when fighting him, Of course your going to lose when your sitting in one spot.

U4fyn2vZzW4 votes

"IMHO he has a pretty big skill* cap"

You're talking out of your ass, Lee Sin's only ability that points to any real skill is his Q that is one of the fastest skillshots in the game.

And Lee Sin is not only a duelist, he's a tank, engager, peeler, bruiser, he's basically anything you want him to be.

He has perfect ganks that literally no other champion has, he can counter gank like a God, he can burst early like a God with his laughably high damage, and he can overall make the other jungler wish they banned Lee Sin.

Elise can't even compete with Lee Sin anymore, she use to be able to but they nerfed her to put her in her place. Elise's gank potential doesn't even compare to Lee Sin's if you miss your slow ass stun you're doomed unlike Lee who can wardhop tempest or flash kick them back to the teammate.

Please name the counterplay to this champion, PLEASE. His lategame is not awful it's amazing, he only falls off in damage lategame because smart players have learned that he can go tank and still outdamage most people with just one item again because of high ratios and base damage and utility.

If they nerfed Lee Sin he'd still be perfectly fine just not the God of the jungle anymore, there is really no reason that out of about 50 + junglers Lee Sin can dominate them all with them not being able to do anything.

TonyTonyMordecai1 votes

Jarvan is in a good spot right now too, but Jarvan needs to use 2 abilities to do a Lee Sin style jump into the lane. Not to mention Lee's Q doesn't have an initial delay like Jinx's W. If Lee had a delay like that, he'd be more fair, since if he hits anything unfriendly, he can jump to them. And he can jump to anything friendly(even wards... how is that fair?). Braum can't even do his jump to wards, he needs a friendly unit. Jax, I think, cant jump to wards either.

GaleWinUnleashed2 votes

Braum is the only jumper that can't jump to wards, which is a deliberate effort to keep him on the defensive rather than being an initiator tank. Lee Sin, Katarina, and Jax can all use wards to get around.

GaleWinUnleashed2 votes

If Lee Sin's ratios are nerfed, then he'll actually have to choose between being tanky or doing damage, instead of having the perfect middle ground where he can out-tank AND out-damage any other bruiser (along with most other champions if he plays well).

DynamiteGazelle3 votes

I think the biggest problem for me is that as someone who watches the LCS and pro gaming reasonably frequently, I'm soooooo sick and tired of seeing Lee Sin in every freaking game. I mean, ya there are other chaps who are played frequently in a series of games too, but the popularity of those champions comes and goes so at least in the grand scheme of things they aren't especially popular for too long (because they get nerfed usually, ex: alistar top) But our good old boy Lee Sin has been a fixture at the competitive level since it's birth pretty much. He has never fallen out of favor and at this rate he never will. I'm so tired of seeing him. The only way to get rid of him is a hard nerf though, and we know they won't do that :P

Alpharite2 votes

If every change you listed above went through, it would be hilarious to see Lee at a 30% winrate.

U4fyn2vZzW2 votes

These changes wouldn't even kill him, it would actually make it so you have to think when you play this champion inside of chanting "THE PLAYS" when you insec kick someone.

Cenobite Azaziel5 votes

{quoted}

If every change you listed above went through, it would be hilarious to see Lee at a 30% winrate.

Like elise with 42% win rate?

Alpharite2 votes

Precisely, although Elise's gutting was caused both by direct and indirect nerfs (SotAG rework).

Chessburger2 votes

To be honest, he's not at the top anymore.

U4fyn2vZzW8 votes

You're joking right? He has EVERYTHING any jungler main (Or player in general) wants in their kit. The only thing he truly lacks that's noticeable is true damage and stealth.

U4fyn2vZzW5 votes

There's not a single jungler in this game that can stand up to Lee as they've all been nerfed (Yes I'm looking at you Vi, Elise).

Chessburger4 votes

Rek'sai is currently the queen of jungle. If lee still had attack speed slow on his E he could maybe duel her but at the moment all he can do is run away. I don't know what's going on in the NA scene but pros in euw aren't using him as much as you'd expect if he was that good. Hell almost nobody bans lee any longer.

U4fyn2vZzW3 votes

"Currently" key word, no one is ever going to remain a better jungler then Lee Sin. Everytime someone gets to a point or is released where they can destroy Lee Sin in the jungle or at the very least survive him or stand up to him they are nerfed into oblivion, it's inevitable that Rek'Sai is going to be nerfed to that point.

You do realize that events like this where a champion is released or buffed to the point where they can go toe to toe to Lee Sin happen frequently and are nerfed instantly? Riot doesn't want any champion combating their special boy.

Just like every other jungler.

Chessburger5 votes

The problem with people is that they can't vary their jungling path strategy and gank strategy. In the previous season lee was king because the only really viable path was buff small camp buff gank. Lee was really good at that and he could decide to do red and go to your 2nd buff to kill you or force you out. You can outplay that now. He can't take your red early with impunity because you will catch him and he will be low. This jungle is slightly more reminiscent of s1 or s2 where there actually was strategic diversity that was deeper than just the ganks and relied heavily on efficiency and wider game control in a sense. That was heavily reduced when they first changed the jungle in s3 and persisted through S4. You basically have a lot more choices to make right now and that adds depth to gameplay. The only champions struggling right now are skill based junglers like ap and tank junglers, because they're really hurting for mana, since they first deleted all mana back jungle items and secondly nerfed mana regen. You know things like amumu who uses half his freaking mana bar for a Q ult.

P.S Lee can't be balanced around ward hops at all. My suggestion posted on these boards before was removing his ward hop ability, revert his last set of nerfs that deleted attack speed slow from his E so he can be THE all around duelist but a) needs a friendly unit to escape trouble or has to use flash and b) has to use flash for his "insec" combo which would be balanced because it'd be gated by the long cd of flash. (right now it's balanced around the ult CD). The proposed change would effect the game doubly because now he wouldn't be rushing sightstone for free mobility and map-wide ward control

DatKiva2 votes

its cause of the skill ceiling, a good lee sin can shit on reksai

Chessburger2 votes

Assuming about equal skill lvl... If lee is the better player then he deserves to win. The matchup is still heavily in rek'sai's favour though.

U4fyn2vZzW3 votes

You don't get it, Riot realize's Rek'Sai can stand up to Lee Sin in the jungle (And lets be really, he can just slow her, ward hop away, kick her away) and they are nerfing her for that reason.

**Every other jungler that could even stand up to Lee and force him to play on the defensive has been nerfed. **

Elise Vi Khazix HecarimRengar - Keep in mind, all these champions were broken in some way besides maybe Hecarim and where broken in par with Lee Sin . . . but they got nerfed, he didn't.

Chessburger3 votes

I get what you're implying in regards to lee but I disagree on that. Most of the champs you listed had certain strengths that felt too strong when ahead though so that's likely the real reason for nerfs. Also most of them are really "press buttons kill stuff" easy to play. I think I'll leave this thread be though, from what it looks like you feel like Riot has a personal vendetta going on against champs that can compete with lee.

OJ1912 votes

{quoted}

You're joking right? He has EVERYTHING any jungler main (Or player in general) wants in their kit. The only thing he truly lacks that's noticeable is true damage and stealth.

item 3706 oops

U4fyn2vZzW2 votes

If only every jungler had the capability to take that item, unfortunately for some trailblazer is needed because they're squishy and lack sustain/clear times (Looking at you Nautilus).

Silents4292 votes

Well those are his legit scalings? Are you shitting me right now!?

I know he was overpowered with a loaded kit etc, but I didn't know his scalings were that stupid.

JJI7443 votes

{quoted}

Well those are his legit scalings? Are you shitting me right now!?

I know he was overpowered with a loaded kit etc, but I didn't know his scalings were that stupid.

Don't worry, with his 4.8 AD scaling abilities, 40% AS buff, and %missing HP damage, he falls off lategame. (sarcasm)

Krosan1 votes

Those scalings are not out of line with other characters with AD-scaling abilities, especially considering that they are all bonus AD.

Yi's Q is 100% TOTAL AD to all targets.

Gangplank's Q is 100% TOTAL AD.

Zed's E is 80% bonus AD (fairly comparable to Lee's E, too, since he has an ability that increases his bonus AD, bringing it more closely in line with Lee's 100% bonus AD scaling). His Q is 100% bonus AD (60% to secondary hits).

Trynd's spin is 120% bonus AD.

Garen's Spin2Win is 330% of total AD with all hits landed and no crits.

Renekton's Q is 80% bonus AD (120% on rage), and his W is 150% (225% empowered) of total AD.

Pantheon's Q is 140% bonus AD against non-critical targets. Heartseeker is 120% of bonus per hit and 360 of bonus over the full duration.

Lee's scalings are not out of line with other AD-scaling champions, especially considering that unlike Zed, Trynd, and Pantheon, Lee can't really afford to build a total raw AD build outside of wood league.

I hate the bastard as much as anyone else, mind, and I'm tired of seeing him, but getting salty about his scaling ratios is not the right course.

U4fyn2vZzW3 votes

Except all those champions have forms of counterplay .

Yi is an extremely squishy and predictable champion, making him easy to shut down and avoid him abusing that ratio.

Zed's E doesn't also slow targets (except when his shadow does it, which doesn't do damage). His E also has a lower base damage and range.

Trynd's Spin is his only form of bonus attack damage, again like Yi predictable champion and easy to shut down if played against correctly.

Garen's Spin2Win is channeled and can be avoided completely.

I can't really say much for Renekton, he has high scalings but unlike Lee he actually begins to fall off if he tries to abuse them. Very easy to kite and again has some form of counterplay (Maybe not in lane, but general any ranged character that plays safe can survive).

Pantheon's Q costs an hilariously high amount of mana, literally if he tries to abuse it earlygame he goes oom. Heartseeker is channeled and can be avoided.

All your points are invalid, the problem with Lee is that his scalings are to much of an icing on the cake. His ultimate to be specific, it deals 200/400/600 (+200% Bonus AD) to his target struck, and knocks them back a mile and also deals the same damage to all enemies they collide with while knocking them airborne. While costing NOTHING and having a 90/75/60 Second cooldown . . . it's embarrassingly broken.

Plastic Mem0ries1 votes

I shrekt a Lee Sin earlier as Udyr... I personally think Lee Sin is in a good position as of right now.

U4fyn2vZzW5 votes

You shrekt one Lee Sin player out of thousands, want a biscuit?

Plastic Mem0ries2 votes

No, I just had breakfast :/.

Anyways, I'm just saying, I think some people are overestimating Lee Sin. If he's fed, he's definitely going to be a problem mid-late game. Though if you play safe and ward, he wont be able to touch you. You could see his Q's coming, so ganking would be unsuccessful, leaving him to just jungling which should put him behind. Sure, he's very strong. The Q teleport with the W to minions and wards make some excellent and the plays that can be made are just outright stupid, but if you simply play smart and build some armor along with your items, you should be fine and dandy.

But don't listen to me. I don't think I know what I'm talking about lul.

TonyTonyMordecai1 votes

No offense, but Udyr is also pretty strong. His permanent movespeed boost, stun, shield, etc etc, is kind of annoying.

Plastic Mem0ries1 votes

{quoted}

No offense, but Udyr is also pretty strong. His permanent movespeed boost, stun, shield, etc etc, is kind of annoying.

Exactly why I main him :p

TTUPhoenix1 votes

Hate to say it, but Dag's got a point. I've beaten on Riven in lane as Nasus... but I had two great ganks from my jg and their Riven didn't seem that great. A single victory doesn't mean that much, since it can be just as much about relative player skill as it is champ strength.

Plastic Mem0ries1 votes

Of course I've beaten a Lee Sin on Udyr multiple times, as I said before, I'm simply saying that if he's fed he's a problem, but other then that his mobility is the only problem I see. His ult is unique and should stay in, and his damage isn't too spectacular since he has to build tanky items.

And Udyr is Lee Sins counter, so I shouldn't have posted this in the first place lul.

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