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Hi, I'm tonpole, a mid-Diamond Heimerdinger player with 1.1m mastery points. Let's talk about Heimer

tonpole·6/30/2016, 11:25:33 AM·6 votes·1,495 views

Context: Season 5 was the season of analytics, where websites like champion.gg allowed players to easily compare champion win rates in different positions and with different builds. As the season progressed, Heimerdinger maintained the highest win rate in both top and mid lane (usually 54-56%) for the majority of the patches, prompting a large number of posts calling for Heimer nerfs. The defense that was usually provided in the comments was that Heimerdinger had a very low play rate, but the highest average number of games played on any champion, indicating that the only people who played him were Heimer mains or one-tricks. These players could be expected to win a larger number of games than average, but their wins weren't balanced out by losses from new players, because no one played him. Competitively, Heimer remained in the shadows, emerging rarely, as in the legendary NLB Final game between GSG and CJ Entus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRAoZJolrYI utilizing smitedinger and an insane push, or a few games from Huni and Darshan in the offseason where they seemed to be trying to get the hang of him before ultimately giving up. Currently, Heimerdinger is in a very different state. The only actual change to Heimer since the glory days of S5 was a nerf to the vision on E, part of a broader sweep on similar spells. His win rate, however, plummeted to 46-49% in both top and mid, despite him maintaining the highest average number of games played of any champion. The reasons for Heimerdinger's current state, so abysmal that even dedicated streamers like Heisendong have given up on him, are not obvious to those unversed in the ways of the dong. The goal of this post is to elucidate the ways in which the game has changed around Heimerdinger, while he has mostly remained the same.

 

1. Minion spawn timers were moved up. The goal of this change, as I understand it, was to make competitive League matches more exciting to watch. At the time, there was a lot of standing around and posturing in the river before minions spawned, which wasn't interesting for viewers. I actually think that this was a great idea and could probably go a bit further, but this change had an enormous impact on Heimerdinger. I spent a lot of time last season optimizing my level 1 in custom games, and got to the point where I could reliably start my opponent's red buff without missing minion experience, using a potion, or teleporting. This would give me an instant level 2, deny a large amount of experience from their jungler (buffs were worth more then), give me red buff on my auto attacks, and blunted the effectiveness of early ganks against my team. Using this strategy, which I did every game I could, I was often able to completely zone the opposing top laner and end the laning phase several levels ahead, not to mention the gold lead I would amass.

 

2. Jungle camp experience for laners was nerfed. This is a follow-up from the previous point, but it's important. When the spawn timers were moved up, it stopped being worth it to start a buff, and instead I swapped to a small camp. In top lane I could do wolves, gromp, or krugs without missing experience (often without missing the minion gold, either), and in mid lane I could start wraiths or wolves. A common misconception was that the point of this strategy was to get an early level 2, but starting a camp actually put me behind in the laning phase. Heimerdinger relies heavily on his turrets, which have a very slow recharge. By missing out on the opportunity to start with three turrets in my lane, I would often lose multiple CS to the turret and be forced to trade a lot of health for CS for the first 2-3 waves. The advantage, and it was a big one, was that I would hit level 6 a full wave before my opponent on the cannon wave. The point of this strategy was to enable the level 6 dive, which I did every game, whether I had vision on their jungler or not. It had a very high success rate. This stopped being possible because of the combination of points 1 and 2, making it no longer worth it to start a camp. Because I wouldn't hit level 2 off of the camp, I would miss CS since I could no longer farm with rockets when entering the lane and would put myself behind in the lane. The experience advantage no longer aligned with the cannon wave, and was small enough that the diving without vision was risky, because the opposing laner would hit 6 during the dive and could now turn on me.

 

3. Turrets now draw tower aggro. This is actually a stealth nerf that was not documented in the patch notes, but arrived nonetheless in the preseason patch. I suspect that this was an unintended effect of the minion call for help flags that were changed in that patch. The way it used to work was that turret basic attacks did not draw tower aggro onto Heimer, but the beam attack did. People who haven't played against an aggressive Heimer main (or who skipped the previous paragraph) probably would not think that this was such a big deal, but I dove everytime I had access to my ultimate. Turrets received an enormous nerf in patch 4.5, which prevented the ultimate turret from spawning with a charged beam attack, but, strangely, this enabled a stronger (or at least slightly different) dive pattern. In S5, I could walk up with my cannon wave at level 6 (their level 5), wait for the cannon to take aggro, RQ and put down as many regular turrets as I could, and continue positioning to see how they reacted. I had 1.5-2s (somewhere around there) where they would be taking damage from my turrets, but their tower would still be attacking my cannon minion and then my ultimate turret. This gave me a large amount of time to properly position my grenade, after which I could toss out some parting rockets and leave, only taking a couple of turret shots and dealing an absurd amount of free damage. I would love to see this play pattern return, because Heimerdinger is played so infrequently that I managed to first blood a few LCS players this way, but even I agree that this was abusive and must have felt very bad to play against. Currently, turret basic attacks immediately draw tower aggro, meaning that I have to be much healthier to initiate a dive, and that I have very little time to put down any reserve turrets and position my stun. I still dive, because YOLO, but it is much less frequently a good idea, whereas I expected to get a free kill diving at 6 most games last season.

 

4. AD itemization was drastically improved (as was tank itemization, but this isn't as large a factor). I don't expect that this is a revelation to most people, so I won't belabor the point, except to say that the most damaging change was to make hexdrinker and maw a must-buy in all situations, rather than a strategic purchase that would put a build order behind (this has been toned down slightly). This one change made life very difficult for Heimer, who could now be engaged upon with very little risk of death for the opposing laner or jungler.

 

5. New masteries. These provided a large buff for other champions, specifically AD champs, who benefitted enormously in the early days from Warlord's and then from Fervor. Heimerdinger, on paper, looks pretty good, because he can proc Thunderlord's by hitting three out of five rockets. I would argue that this is not actually a large benefit, insofar as I believe that other champions gained a greater benefit from the new masteries than Heimerdinger did. Currently, the majority of the time that I am proccing Thunderlord's, it is on my third auto attack, not my rockets. Auto attacks form a large part of Heimer's early damage, and rockets, while nice when they proc Thunderlord's, are mana intensive and easily missed. Because Heimer is a DPS mage that gradually wears his opponents down, the benefit of having access to Thunderlord's is far outweighed by the risk of a champion like LeBlanc having access to Thunderlord's. If you couldn't look at the numbers attached to the masteries, you would think that Heimerdinger, who splashes a large amount of damage in team fights with his turrets and AoE spells, would naturally take Deathfire, but the reality of this is that Deathfire is terrible on him. AoE damage is nerfed enough that the numbers don't make it attractive over Thunderlord's, but more importantly, Heimerdinger spends a lot of time early game harassing opponents at their turret. Deathfire severely decreases the ability to do so, because he will constantly draw turret aggro instead of being able to weave in and out of turret shots.

 

6. Lane sustain is at an all-time high. Heimerdinger is a lane bully, and relies on forcing his opponents to make meaningful decisions in the early game at the cost of a strong late game. Is this CS worth the wrench to the face that I am going to take? In S5, most opposing laners started with a doran's item or a long sword (rarely, boots and pots. I had forgotten entirely about Flask, which offered huge sustain, but no damage. Thanks to Skypual for pointing that out). This provided Heimerdinger with a reasonable amount of sustain to work through, after which he could force opponents to start making those difficult decisions. Oftentimes, champs were baited into staying too long in lane in order to afford their next big item, letting Heimer dive them when they were at low health. If they didn't stay, he was able to accrue a small gold and experience advantage, which he could use to either 1v2 when the jungler came or push down the tower and begin roaming. Many champions chose to return to lane with a slew of potions, further delaying their full builds. The preseason patch introduced the new potions, notably Corrupting Potion. The current play pattern is that I wear through all three of the potions while they trade with me, dealing much more damage to me than previously, and then they back and TP to lane with refreshed potions and damage items. I either back for minor items and match their TP, or I stay and am at risk of losing 1v1 or 1v2. By the time I wear through the second round of potions, they can return with either Spectre's Cowl or Hexdrinker (and another round of potions), at which point I have to be very careful about engaging in any further fights, since I can no longer reliably win the 1v1. My point here is that the easy access to large amounts of gold-efficient lane sustain invalidates the advantage that a lane bully can accrue. It's relatively easy for opponents now to simply last hit at tower through their first use of TP, and then they can start being relevant on the map and dueling 1v1 with items that bypass a deleterious laning phase.

 

7. Mage items. Before I get into the MYMO, we should take a moment to review the S5 core items on Heimerdinger: Morello's, Banner, and Zhonya's. Morello's gave him the CDR, mp5, and AP necessary to carry the laning phase into the mid game. Banner gave him the ability to survive lanes that were otherwise impossible (Azir) as well as enabling much stronger dives with a banner cannon minion, and Zhonya's provided him with the necessary tankiness to sit inside his turrets, enabling him to split or stay pushed up in his lane (remember, it is not possible for Heimerdinger to maintain a freeze or a safe wave position while also using turrets). Without this item, it was very easy to push Heimer out of his turrets, at which point it was easy for champions to clear them without worrying about being stunned. Once the turrets fall, life becomes very difficult for Heimerdinger. Zhonya's enabled a mid game. Not all of these items were built every game, but they were all nerfed so hard as to be temporarily not worth building, necessitating innovative (read: cancerous) builds. I'll get to that in a moment.

 

8. Mid-Year Mage Update: Despite being an update targeted at buffing immobile mages, this patch did not help Heimerdinger, an immobile mage. The MYMU consisted of two parts: mage item buffs and specific mage buffs/reworks. The new items were great for mages, just not for Heimerdinger. He does not want to dash into range of anyone with protobelt, and while it's amazing that turrets leech with Gunblade, it's not actually worth buying outside of troll games. That leaves Abyssal, which scales with late game and wasn't even an ideal purchase before the change, new Morello's and Zhonya's, and the mana items (RoA, GLP, Seraph's, Athene's). None of these are items that Heimer actually wants. Outside of the 25 mana cost for a turret, his mana costs are very high (W scales up from 70-110 mana, E is 85, R is 100), which would suggest a reliance on large mana pool or mp5 items, but the truth of it is that his cooldowns are so long that it's not even worth investing in these items, because if you do, there is still a decent chance that you will miss with these spells. It is far better to rely instead on lower mp5 (I run Meditation and pick up a second Doran's ring in most games; this is more than enough) and focus on bullying your opponent with auto attacks and wave manipulation than to try to play as a spellcasting mage. New Zhonya's is better than early-S6 Zhonya's, although not as good as S5. From a gameplay perspective, I think that this is actually a great place for it to be. I pick it up when I absolutely need the active (Zed, Fizz, Rengar), and don't purchase it otherwise, which was the goal of the rework. Not having ready access to the active, however, means that Heimer is significantly less safe this season and is forced to opt into tanky builds. New Morello's is similar - better, but not as good as before. I pick it up when I can, but even in situations where I absolutely want the passive (Vladimir), I can't afford to buy it, because I have to first purchase a large amount of MR to ensure that he doesn't murder me. The champion updates were as problematic as the items. Heimerdinger has many counters, including Syndra, who can pick up any turret (including the ultimate turret, for some reason that I cannot fathom) and throw it into another turret, then Q to kill both, or Vladimir, who welcomes the additional leech target, or GP, who has a much easier time of farming gold and silver serpents en masse with barrels this season, or Nasus, etc. There are a host of champions who can easily clear turrets, like Yi in Alpha, or Azir while he does Azir things, and whenever these champions are strong, Heimer will be less strong. The MYMU, in short, added a new list of champions that can be confidently picked into Heimer while offering little in return.

 

9. Summoner spells. For a period towards the end of S5, Smite became common on top laners (Cinderhulk), and even some mid laners (Runeglaive). This period was completely miserable for Heimerdinger, whose lane contribution was reduced to auto attacks and the occasional rocket volley. Ganks were particularly potent, as a double smite from the laner and the jungler would pop the ultimate turret. Thankfully this meta died out, but it was replaced by the double TP meta, which bypassed the perils of the laning phase in a way similar to the corrupting potion of today. This meta has fallen off slightly, but I think it's worth mentioning anyway, because it continues the point that increases to lane sustain act as negative pressures on lane bullies.

 

10. Heimerdinger's passive change. This one is actually a buff. I know that it must sound like I've been trashing the donger, but I want to give as accurate a portrayal as I can in order to open up a discussion. At the start of preseason, health regen items were changed to offer a percentage of base hp5 rather than flat hp5. At the same time, Heimerdinger's passive, which previously gave a hp5 aura, was changed to give an aura that didn't affect him, and instead he received an increased base hp5 as compensation. Surprisingly, Heimerdinger's base hp5 is the highest in the game. These changes, along with the inclusion of the Perseverance mastery, lead to the creation of a build some people know as the Holy Trinity of Tilt (AKA Cancerdinger), consisting of some combination of ZZ'Rot, Banner, and Rylai's. In addition to playing Heimerdinger, I am also an amateur Heimerdinger historian. The earliest usage of this build that I am aware of was by the great theorycrafter BobNormanRoss (now known as SenorDonaldTrump) who played an extremely oppressive game against Meteos' mid-lane Kassadin with this build. Meteos was streaming at the time, and Twitch chat went into full meme mode for the duration of the game. Sirhcez and Trick had already been building ZZ'Rot on a couple of champions, but I believe that it was this game that promulgated the effectiveness of ZZ'Rot as a serious item. Within a few weeks many teams in soloqueue were building multiple ZZ'Rots, and the item was eventually nerfed. Nevertheless, it is still effective on Heimerdinger for two reasons: he scales extremely well with health regen now, and he is in a bad enough place that building straight AP is asking to die. Positioning on Heimerdinger is very sharp. Turrets will push the lane into unsafe places, but he cannot afford to position safely, or else he will lose the turrets as well as the lane. This forces him to adopt a very aggressive playstyle, where the goal is to force the opposing laner to burn through enough of their health and mana pool CSing under tower that they are unable to use their full kit when the 2v1 gank inevitably happens. I win many games now through abusing the Yordle Global Taunt passive, where I build tanky, get mercilessly dove 1v3 all game, and hopefully stay alive long enough for my team to farm wraiths.

There are other, smaller effects, as well as nerfs within this season (such as the FQC nerf), but I really wanted to talk specifically about the large impacts that preseason/S6 patches have had in relation to S5. These changes have put Heimerdinger in a position where picking him is a losing proposition, even for those players who are very experienced on the champion.

TL;DR: Power creep

14 Comments

Linna Excel6/30/2016, 2:31:31 PM3 votes

Heimer is one of the most annoying champs to play against so it's kind of hard to feel bad for his players.

TankofGod6/30/2016, 11:32:44 AM1 votes

Banner of command vs heimdinger just makes him auto lose XD

SaltyKracka6/30/2016, 5:36:22 PM1 votes

So...Heimer lost a bunch of cheese and now relies on simply being cancer instead.

Can't say it's good, but frankly he's been in need of an actual rework for...well, as long as he's existed.

Bruticus447/4/2016, 4:38:51 PM1 votes

Here was another wonderful post from this guy I wanted to share on this thread:

vfactor95 (NA) - 4 days ago

So I guess the next logical question is what do you think Riot needs to do to fix him?

Do you want them to buff him in a way that supports the cancerdinger build or reward him more for building AP again?

Or maybe you think he needs something other than straight champ buffs?

tonpole: I think that there are a large number of ways to buff Heimer. My preferred option is to just nerf everyone else to oblivion, but seeing as that won't happen, I think that the conversation should really start with his cooldowns (Q: 24-20s, W: 11s, E: 18-10s, R: 100-60s). Turrets are the bread and butter of Heimer's kit, and some CDR is necessary on him in order to replace dead turrets or have enough that you can move to respond to a team fight. I run CDR/lv blues for this and usually try to get an additional 10-20% from items. I think that the ammo system is sensible for preventing an overly oppressive laning phase while allowing him some team fight freedom late game, but he's such a gold-reliant champion that you really have to be focused on doing something at all times to make that skrilla, which requires turrets. This means that if a fight breaks out unexpectedly, I probably won't be able to contribute more than one turret to the fight, which is easily cleared. I would look towards reducing the turret cooldown in the late game. I think that if we look at the cooldowns of W and E, we'll find that they are pretty similar to most of the other squishy AoE damage spellcasters. The difference is that those champions generally have skills that are more reliable. Rockets are easily blocked by creeps or tanks, grenade has a very slow projectile speed, and the stun zone isn't terribly large. Both of these spells are pretty easy to miss or dodge, which means that Heimer players will usually hold onto their E for an emergency defensive use, so there's no reason to level it early, because you will only have one shot with it in any fight. For W, leveling carries with it a large increase in mana cost, but by the time this happens you will usually be trying to poke with W to get Thunderlord's to proc (auto attacks are dangerous after mid game), so you probably won't fan them out, making it more difficult to land them. This doesn't leave much for a Heimer player to actually do to meaningfully interact with the game, which is part of why I try to focus on pushing the boundaries of auto attack damage early game - there often isn't anything else I can spend my time doing. The large cooldown and low reliablility of W and E means that it's not worth it to invest in a playstyle based around them. Morello's and tear into Seraph's is an incredible build, but the game is over by the time you finish stacking Seraph's (I tried to make this work for a long time). Finally, the worst part about the cooldowns is the interaction with Heimer's ult, which requires that the basic skill be ready to use in order to use the ultimate version of it, unlike Rengar, who maintains a separate cooldown for his empowered skills. I don't know if this would be a good change, but I think the devs could look into allowing any skill to be cast as an ultimate provided that R is ready. There are a lot of times where I try for a stun, and as soon as I toss it out I get ganked. This would allow me to at least try for a second chance at CC at the cost of all of my damage, or it could lead to a risky burst playstyle (something like EWRW) and item optimization around that. Spells could also be made more reliable, such as reducing damage on W, but allowing it to piece units, or increasing the missile speed of E, or spells could be given additional uses (RW, for example, could propel Heimer backwards throughout the cast like a Graves ult, giving him a situational escape, but preventing him from damaging opponents during the later portion of the ult unless he started very close to the target).

If not cooldowns, I would look into a fresh review of gold generation from killing pets from all champions. The devs commented on this, saying that they wanted players to feel rewarded for killing pets, but I still feel like this is a pretty bad interaction. Against champs who can easily clear my turrets, I have to either purchase CDR so that I can replace the turrets, or purchase alternate waveclear (ZZ'Rot). In the former case, I'm knowingly feeding my lane opponent more gold in order to survive the lane, and in the later case, the CS numbers get out of control. For me, this isn't a big deal, but I've had more than one team surrender at 20 because Azir has 300 CS while I only have 200, without realizing that there aren't even that many minions in the game. I would look into removing the gold on pet deaths (thankfully the interaction with spellthief's was already addressed this patch) and also restricting the CS counter to minions and monsters. For me, the motivation for last-hitting a powder keg isn't so that I can earn 10g, it's so that GP doesn't get 300g from killing me with it.

There are a lot of smaller changes I would make. Turret AI is really dumb sometimes, where I can't convince turrets to attack a minion two Teemo's away from them, or where they will refuse to fire on an inhibitor. They also stop firing before they unleash a beam attack, leading to a few missed CS, but these are mostly minor annoyances and can be dealt with by having enough experience to see it coming.

As far as pet survivability, I think that they're in a really weird place right now. Many pets were made resistant to AoE damage, so that they could survive in a team fight long enough to be useful. I think that this made sense for the game at the time, because it required champions to right-click pets to get rid of them. Now, however, we're in the age of high AS marksmen and junglers who buy Runaan's, meaning that pets often evaporate in team fights without actually being targeted. I think that this balance could be reviewed to see if it still accomplishes the original intent.