Dragon Slayer = Shaco Nerf

Jericho Swain·Feb 13, 2015·82 votes·3,903 views

The Dragon Slayer buff awards you with some stat boosts and a visual effect around your character given after slaying dragon. This visual effect however is a problem for Shaco as it gives a constant, easily recognisable differentiation of Shaco and his clone, this removes any of the mind games that were once possible through his ultimate. With the red and blue buffs you can just not ulti while you have it. I'm not sure if this was done purposely to force people to only be able to play ad Shaco however I am one of the few ap Shaco players and find it quite frustrating that this is only really affecting this play style of the character.

36 Comments

PæanFeb 13, 201518 votes

Having any buffs as Shaco gives you away, but yeah, the constant dragon buff is more annoying. They just need the clone to be an EXACT clone. I think even now it doesnt show any items on the clone if you click it. And people can just ping you as you use your ulti and the ping remains on you so they can ping again and there goes any mind games.

BallisticMouseFeb 13, 20154 votes

I don't see how dragon buff is more annoying, unless you mean that is lasts longer than blue/red but most Shacos I see have those for most the game anyway.

PæanFeb 13, 201510 votes

The fact that it never goes away makes it more annoying... Meaning that there will always be an easy difference between shaco and the clone. And yeah, it is very rare i dont have either my buffs or the other junglers buffs on me at all times xD

XengreFeb 14, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Having any buffs as Shaco gives you away, but yeah, the constant dragon buff is more annoying. They just need the clone to be an EXACT clone. I think even now it doesnt show any items on the clone if you click it. And people can just ping you as you use your ulti and the ping remains on you so they can ping again and there goes any mind games.

It is actually quite a feat for Riot to continue to ignore this type of issue with his clone for these past several years.

straight4freeFeb 13, 20155 votes

Just play AD Shaco... AP Shaco is mindless.

Brenticus12Feb 13, 20155 votes

AP Shaco takes alot more skill and playing mind games with box and clone placements.

What's so tactical about coming up from behind someone then stabbing them for free crits?

SaltyKrackaFeb 13, 20155 votes

The ability to actually get and stay behind them?

Anyways, forget about skill, AP shaco is a cancerous off-build that shouldn't be anybody's priority when designing the dude.

Brenticus12Feb 13, 20153 votes

How is it so hard to stay behind someone when you can Q in with invisibility? And when he's running away cause he's low due to free crit and the obvious crit items you have to buy as AD Shaco, you can just kite him and get free passive buffed AAs on him.

If not you can still kill him cause you have the element of surprise so unless you're underfed you'll probably kill him in a few seconds anyway.

How is AP Shaco cancerous in any way? It's not like AP Tristana who can instagib anyone in a second flat with no way to retaliate or like AP Yi who can destroy a team with his Q then heal any damage taken in less than a second with W.

SaltyKrackaFeb 13, 20152 votes

Because the only thing AP Shaco does is set traps, pop clone, and lol all the way back home? It's not a playstyle where you have to actually interact with people.

Brenticus12Feb 13, 20151 votes

Okay, from what you've said, I realise you're just a moron, good bye.

You don't even seem to know what cancerous means in game context.

BetaDude40Feb 13, 20151 votes

Your name says plenty about you.

JimmyyyFeb 13, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Just play AD Shaco... AP Shaco is mindless.

Why are people downvoting this... It's a pun. We're on the internet. Upvotes pls.

FredartFeb 13, 20153 votes

Idk man, i keep getting morons to smite my clone.

ThePlasticSporkFeb 13, 20151 votes

It doesn't even show any items on the clone, which is quite a bit more obvious than the dragon buff...

So no, this doesn't really affect Shaco at all

DrCyanideFeb 13, 201517 votes

More obvious? Having to click on a target is more obvious than looking in the center of your screen and seeing which one has orange hands?

Brenticus12Feb 13, 20153 votes

Takes alot more time in a few seconds to check the items than to just glance at the clone and see that he has no buff.

lDontLiftIcarryFeb 13, 20151 votes

troll/10

LeeDarkFeb 13, 20151 votes

Shaco needs a rework anyway. Scary as that prospect is.

Ariel the CruelFeb 13, 20151 votes

Ooh. I love this game!

Box: Base damage gutted, AP scaling increased, has a shorter duration (active and inactive), and fears Longer. --- We wanted to reinforce the idea of Shaco boxes scaring the daylights out of people. So we increased the fear duration at the expense of everything else. We also shifted the damage more towards scaling, to help out the late game of AP Shaco.

Shiv: Now scales on AD. --- We wanted to give a hand to AD Shaco without nerfing AP shaco too much. Since our internal data shows the AP Shaco never bothers with this skill anyways, we decided to shift it a little.

Flash: When ever an enemy gets feared by a Shaco box, the cooldown on this skill is reduced by 1 second. --- It's important that Shaco be able to maintain his high mobility stealth play. We felt this would encourage strategic use of his boxes while not affecting mobility creep in an way.

Clone: All damage now scales based on Bonus health. --- We Don't really have a good reason for this, but we thought it would be funny. And at the end of the day, isn't that what Shaco is all about: Getting a good laugh?

Passive: The first time an Enemy see's Shaco, they gain a debuff that Causes Shaco to deal 5-20% bonus damage for 5 seconds. This ability resets after being unseen for 2 minutes. --- We felt his old passive was too difficult to utilize for people new to Shaco. So instead, we took this opportunity to reinforce the idea of Shaco being gank happy clown.

HexalythFeb 13, 20151 votes

Yeah, I do believe that getting the dragon buff, does kinda give it away. But.. If you're in the heat of battle, no one really has time to look at that. After all, it all comes down to controlling your clone, and outsmarting the enemy. These are just my thoughts.

Jesus is SaviorFeb 13, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, I do believe that getting the dragon buff, does kinda give it away. But.. If you're in the heat of battle, no one really has time to look at that. After all, it all comes down to controlling your clone, and outsmarting the enemy. These are just my thoughts.

People can practice though.

Once people become aware, it'll be like "oh yeah, just look for the fire"

@OP: thanks for letting me know I should never play Shaco. This is just really dumb lol.

Ariel the CruelFeb 13, 20151 votes

More importantly, thanks for letting me know Dragon buff didn't replicate. XD ... . . . I haven't faced a Shaco in a While.

A Miss FortuneFeb 13, 20151 votes

I play AP Shaco too. In my opinion, AD Shaco is useless because of his low damage output early game and him only being viable for assassinating lone-squishy targets or split pushing. So yeah, I understand how it's annoying that the ultimate which does a huge ammount of damage can easily be found as a false Shaco.

lDontLiftIcarryFeb 13, 20151 votes

don't level R past rank 1. just max E/W first now. Thats what I did to fix the issue.

Newb the LegendFeb 13, 20151 votes

If played right, Shaco can take on a 1v2 with his clone and if he is able to get his q off correctly

VantoothFeb 13, 20151 votes

I do agree it's kinda lame for shaco, but early buff (1-2) aren't THAT easy to see. Later on it is poison though... If riot would just increase the buff transparency until the 4-5 it would be nice. Unless I'm playing shyvana without my ice skin the buff kind of annoy me. (but that's just me)

FastAsHeckFeb 13, 20151 votes

yeah they really need to fix the clone, i dont think that even the blue/red buff thing is good either but we have had it since forever

slippykittenFeb 13, 20151 votes

upcoming in 5.4 - AP ratios removed on shaco.

ZarxisFeb 13, 20151 votes

The clone should display and use all the buffs that Shaco had on him at the time of casting Hallucinate. The clone's AI should be improved (it seems to get... confused easily, and it should continue to attack if an enemy target is selected, instead of the strange following behavior that occurs if Shaco dies after commanding his clone to attack). AP Shaco should receive some sort of compensation for the loss of Deathfire Grasp (higher AP scaling on E) or should be directly made practically unviable so that Riot can afford to give AD Shaco some love. [This will probably occur when Shaco is reworked.]

Wînter FoxFeb 13, 20151 votes

Shaco needs a remake badly. More than old Trist, Poppy and maybe even GP

Random TaskFeb 13, 20151 votes

That's why they've been working on him. Remakes don't take a day to make. They talked about some of the ideas they were doing about his ult, around the time Yasuo came out. Sion took a couple years, Azir was going to be released in 2012 but then underwent changes.

RainbowgasmFeb 13, 20151 votes

is it too much to ask that characters like Shaco, Wukong, and Leblanc who use clones to misdirect the enemy, ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO MISDIRECT THE ENEMY?

I don't care if it's just aesthetic, the clone should carry the visual buffs with it.

SirsirFeb 13, 20151 votes

Leblanc too...

FuaztinFeb 14, 20151 votes

Since when does AP shaco not bother with shiv? That's fucking stupid. He has two reliable damage abilities. What internal data could you possibly have that points to something like that.

BradTasteFeb 14, 20151 votes

How about when shaco summons a clone, both shaco and his clone's item and stat previews, have question marks on everything, so that there is no way of telling the clones apart

CataclysmCrashFeb 14, 20151 votes

As apposed to all the other constant, instantly noticeable aspects of the clone?

God forbid Shaco takes buffs as a jungler, or buys items if he wants to use his R for anything other than an invuln dodge or objective destroyer. I mean, yeah. The clone has its uses. It's honestly a pretty good ultimate. But at the end of the day it can't trick a bronze who knows how to click his mouse.

Let's not fool ourselves here:

The clone is a good ult
The clone is absolutely shit at doing what you would assume it should do for a "deception" themed champion

If Shaco gets reworked, wherever they shuffle power they need to put a portion into making his clone actually be capable of tricking people and rewarding Shaco players who can use it effectively to do so.