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@Riot What is Sejuani's defining characteristic vs other tanks?

k5y7Qmf4oX·1/15/2016, 5:52:07 PM·13 votes·2,460 views

So while I was in another thread that was discussing how Sejuani is in a bad spot right now, people were mentioning how she lacks many things other tanks have and I got to thinking, why do I play Sejuani over other tanks?

Her tank steroid (passive) is conditional and worse than....almost every other tanks (read Sej gets 25armor at level 18 for a few seconds after hitting an enemy vs. Malphite +30% armor and passive health shield, or Taric permanent 30 armor on a skill, Alistar 70% damage resist ult, Leo/Rammus armor + MR buff)

Stat wise she seems kind of underwhelming for a tank then, she doesn't care about damage since that's not her job, but I suppose the %HP damage is nice for her, but it doesn't give a reason to pick her.

Now I know what most people will say: "Sejuani is great for her CC", but in a wombo combo scenario, wouldn't you rather malphite who not only engages with his ult like sejuani but deals most of his burst up front contributing to the wombo. If its the CC you want, amumu can wombo and bring CC. If you want Sejuani for her ability to stick to a target, there are better tanks for that too, see rammus, galio, leona (though I know she's not a jungler but you could pick leona bot and then free up your jungle to be something other than a tank).

So I'm curious, what's Riot's opinion on Sejuani, is she going to get some buffs, will tanks be given a pass after the immobile mage update?

And because someone asked the very generic question of "What would you even want as a buff" in the other thread this is what I came up with as a suggestion that I think might make her interesting should anyone care: 1)New passive because current one sucks; "Sejuani is a warlord intimidating all enemy non champions in her presence slowing them by X% while in Y range of her. Dealing damage to an enemy champion with an ability will cause them to be slowed by this effect as well. "

I think this is kinda cool if the minion slow is too strong it can be changed to have double effect on champions and there's plenty of ways to tune this. Would definitely help her get the most out of her W. And her E wouldn't lose it's slow since it would also trigger this slow, speaking of her E, that's the second skill I'd change:

2)New E, because she needs a decent tank steroid: "passive: Sejuani revels in a challenge and gains X armor and magic resist each time she is struck by a unique champion. This effect lasts Y duration and is refreshed each time Sejuani is damage by a champion.

Active: Sejuani unleashes a frost ring around her dealing X damage and making all enemies vulnerable. Champions remain vulnerable for Yseconds, Any crowd control which strike a vulnerable champion has it's duration increased by Z%

I think that would give Sejuani a really cool identity vs other tanks. She'd be the tank you go to when the rest your team isn't playing assassins and has CC because she'd be bringing a kind of reverse tenacity to the battle. Her new E would also still slow since her new passive so she doesn't lose her sticking power while also helping her W since it will now apply a slow so she can get more of its damage out. And it gives Sej players a little more to think about, you don't just ult to start the fight and then wander around aimlessly with W hoping to do damage, you would have to consider is it worth diving in with Q first in order to E and increase your ults power, or do you ult to surprise the enemy team and use E to have your team hold them in place even longer after, do you E the enemy tank/juggernaut to help get them off your carry or jump the enemy carry and E them to help your team catch them out. I dunno, that was just my thoughts on potential new abilities to help differentiate her from all the other tanks who have better tank skills and can CC enemy teams just as well as her.

TL/DR Sej feels weak, tank steroid sucks, others can do her CC thing too and some better so it feels like you should only take Sej when her numbers are high, and right now her numbers aren't, so what's the plan for buffing her/giving her a unique identity since so many tanks can wombo and do stuff better than her?

52 Comments

Maximum Morde1/15/2016, 6:54:52 PM7 votes

Ice bikini boar.

Quepha1/15/2016, 6:55:39 PM6 votes

Her AoE cc is better.

Comparing her to Malphite is a joke. His only hard CC is his ult while Sejuani also has a knockup on her Q and her E can easily be a massive slow on most of the enemy team.

LankPants1/16/2016, 7:48:08 AM3 votes

2)New E, because she needs a decent tank steroid: "passive: Sejuani revels in a challenge and gains X armor and magic resist each time she is struck by a unique champion. This effect lasts Y duration and is refreshed each time Sejuani is damage by a champion.

I don't think Sej should have tank steroids. One of Sej's things has always been that rather than multiplying her defence like other tanks do, which you can think of as a defence to defence conversion she converts it into damage, so a defence to offence conversion.

1)New passive because current one sucks; "Sejuani is a warlord intimidating all enemy non champions in her presence slowing them by X% while in Y range of her. Dealing damage to an enemy champion will cause them to be slowed by this effect as well"

I do agree with changing Sej's passive, I do not agree with this passive however.

Sej used to have a 10% on hit slow as her passive, it was garbage and unnoticeable. This slow would most likely have to be weaker than that in order to be balanced because it doesn't even require her to hit a target.

What I would do is separate out her W into an active and a passive portion with the passive portion replacing her old passive but making both halves more individually noticeable.

So here's what I'd do.

Base Armour 29.54>32.54 Armour/Level 3>3.75

This is mostly just to compensate for the loss of armour from her passive, the numbers are a little lower than what her passive gave her but they should be enough to stop her dying to jungle.

Passive

Reworked After being in combat for 4 seconds Sejuani will swing her flail with her next basic attack, dealing damage to all enemies in an area around the enemy struck based off of her own HP. If Sejuani does not use this attack within two seconds she loses the attack.

Base Damage: (10.0xLv) Scaling: (0.02/0.035/0.05xbonusHP) Buff duration: 2 seconds The same as Sej's flail swing in all other ways

The reason why I suggested her passive to work in this way is that it creates clear windows of power in Sej's kit. If her flail is glowing you want to hang away from her since her next AA has a nuke attached to it. It's feasible for an ADC to give up 2 seconds worth of DPS to avoid taking the damage on her passive and if they do they then get 4 seconds to beat her up without having to worry about it.

I also think that Sej should scale with her own HP rather than her enemies. I've always thought that Sej was less of a true tank and more of a bruiser with HP as an offensive stat, which you'll probably see as a theme here.

W

Removed Sejuani's next auto attack after activation deals AOE damage around her struck target. Now activates the AOE damage immediately on activation, similarly to Shyvana's W.

Removed Sejuani applies her E frost mark with her W (still applies on passive)

New Sejuani deals 50% increased damage to targets afflicted by her Q knock-up, E slow and R stun.

Base Damage/Tick: 10/17.5/25/32.5/40>10/15/20/25/30 Ratio/Tick: (0.01/0.015/0.02/0.025/0.03xmaxHP)>(0.01/0.014/0.018/0.022/0.026%maxHP)

This is similar to how Sejuani's W used to work, except the damage multiplier used to be applied on her old auto-slow passive meaning she could easily keep her multiplier on you. It's less effective in this form because the multiplier drops off if she doesn't have you under the effect of a CC.

I feel like the effects her are fairly obvious, you deal more damage if you have your targets CCed, less if you don't, but this also means that whenever Sej has to use an ability to catch up to you she loses some damage. The impact on early jungle should be minimal since the the difference in damage at low ranks of her W is almost non-existent, her level two jungle would probably end up stronger since her W damage is increased on slowed targets.

My goal here was to reinforce Sej's identity as the HP to damage Off Tank. She shouldn't be anywhere near as tanky as guys like Alistar or Nautilus, she probably isn't even as tanky as a champ like Amumu, but as a trade off she brings far better damage.

Also she shouldn't want items like Frozen Heart and Abyssal Sceptre, she should want to take their higher health but lower resist counterparts in Randuin's Omen and either Banshee's Veil or Spirit Visage. I think the fact that Sejuani wants a lot of HP and not as many resistances as other tanks is something that should be reinforced.

Zyorhist1/15/2016, 10:42:54 PM3 votes

I actually like the active part of your E for her. That is pretty good thinking outside of the box.

Her slows should have always been on her passive (and I think they were on her initial release). I think her flail of the northern winds (her w) shouldn't be focused much on the damage aspect (maybe give 300% to monsters for her clears) but enemies inside of it should have the slow from her passive (the one you propose) to be increased. With your E this would further drive the importance for her to have good positioning. she would be driven to stay ahead of her opponent wherever they were going and give her sticking power even if she lacks damage to go with. To me she should have always felt more like the jungle version of Leona.

TallyZrg1/15/2016, 9:47:53 PM3 votes

I like the proposed changes and you bring up some very valid points. The changes you proposed feel fair and there is some interesting decision moments that would be brought into the game because of them. Also adds a level of strategy to the character instead of "Do X, if X fails, wait for X to come off cool down and try again"

Take my up vote good sir.

HandheldBrandon1/15/2016, 6:12:21 PM2 votes

The Thing about Sejuani is that she actually does more damage than the other tanks the problem is the other tanks (Malphite for example) are doing pretty obscene amounts of damage right now. She is basically a CC tank who does (Is supposed to do) more damage than other tanks with far more sticking power.

www GOHAM org1/15/2016, 10:34:44 PM2 votes

have any of you here played sejuani with the new reworked ap jungle item. To be honest i stomped with it. If you are not playing straight ap sejuani then its like your playing vayne without botrk or mundo without spirit visage and warmogs.

that new item is the shit on her.

Captain Aishi1/15/2016, 11:53:55 PM2 votes

she has lower amounts of CC and survivability compared to other tanks and she's supposed to make up for it with higher damage output (in a similar category to amumu where you have an AOE ult, a single target hard CC/gapcloser and a measly defensive steroid, but technically good base damage and scalings for it)

Dominick Destine1/16/2016, 1:30:07 AM1 votes

It's supposed to be disruptive power (Slow) but she's worse than Nautilus on that end... and on the tank end as well.

I'm playing her a lot lately because Evelynn's jungle got slammed, and I find that Sej is still playable, could use a slight buff but only minor.

The Yetii Rider1/16/2016, 3:26:17 AM1 votes

The thing Sejuani has over other tanks is range. Sejuani's ultimate has a ridiculous range and width, longer than Amumu's Bandage Toss or Malphite's Unstoppable Force.

By the way, want to talk bad tank steroids? Amumu's is 10 damage reduction vs autos, barely better than a D Shield. Braum is some low number like 14 armor and MR plus a percentage. Maokai is only 35% damage reduction and it swallows his mana bar, Singed's is also tied to his ultimate. There are much worse steroids on tanks than Sejuani.

Khell DarkWolf1/16/2016, 9:16:44 AM1 votes

FAAAWK NO.

Don't even think about touching Sejuani.

You want the real reason to your question? Stop thinking of her as a "tank".

You already listed the reasons why other tanks do better then her based on her passive and other abilities and roles you mentioned.

The reason why you even want to think about using her now is to bring Damage and someone that could soak damage.

AKA Fighter Mage.

I've been here since Season 1 and played Sejuani on release as a tank. Since the rework, I've changed that scope.

You have to let go of the notion of her being a tank, just because it was done since her release prior the rework.

If she gets changed into an absolute true tank like Nautilus or Rammus. I know I'm officially gone because that is the only thing tying me here and my last Main champion.

RIP: Cassiopeia Kassadin MissFortune Skarner Karma Xerath Maokai Shaco Shen Ryze Draven Hecarim Warwick Urgot

The Deckowner1/16/2016, 5:35:40 PM1 votes

sejuani is a weaker version of amumu, q cc, w precent dmg, e abit of dmg, ult aoe cc

www GOHAM org1/15/2016, 6:04:04 PM1 votes

where is the other thread? I can't find it anymore... Honestly I'm not sure your idea provides anymore unique character diversity than what she currently has, what do you think about my idea...

Random thought here that sounds silly but I think makes a lot of sense for her kit. lemme know how smart or stupid I am...

What if when Sejuani activates her flail W for the second cast to make her start spinning that thing in the air... Well what if during that time she went INVISIBLE to champions that are more than 2 teemo lengths away from her!!!! oh fuck yea

She makes an ice storm that is so thick that visibility of sejuani is not possible unless you are close enough to her. I live in the northern US and trust me in an ice storm you can't see things unless you are right up close and personal to them.

So she essentially needs a reverse graves smokescreen that follows her character. Causes enemies outside the "nearsight" radius to be unable to see her while spinning her flail. This will give here a different aspect of tanky'ness.

What you guys think?

Kyrrion1/16/2016, 5:42:41 PM1 votes

All Sej needs is a % damage reduction while she's swinging her flail around during W. Her "tank steroid" just pretty much says "Oh you hit someone? Here, have the same base armor of Rammus".

25 armor armor is too little too late when the ADC's are getting their ArPen item (and since it counts as bonus armor it's effected by Last Whisper and the like).

Zero Skill Tank1/15/2016, 6:53:46 PM1 votes

Sejuani's shtick is that unlike other CC bots she's actually a decent jungler and duelist who doesn't pry for miracle when she sees opposing Lee Sin or Xin Zhao. Malphie, who you say you like compare her too does really poor job in jungle. Even Naut, probably closest fella to her playstyle-wise now does better as a support.

TL/DR Sej feels weak

Only because she used to be so strong IMO.

www GOHAM org1/15/2016, 6:58:22 PM1 votes

True i just figure it would be hard for them to re aggro onto your team if you are doing what sejuani does which is massive cc. And if she's invisible for 4 seconds to ranged/far away champions she'd slow them and live long enough to tell about it.

Veraska1/15/2016, 7:01:14 PM1 votes

One of sejuanis greatest strengths is that her ultimate is ranged which is a pretty huge deal.

And yeah sej is supposed to be the tank with more damage then your average tank but other tanks are doing more damage then her, and honestly that's not an identity I would support, a giant cc machine who can start fights and kill you while your cc'd doesn't sound fair to me.

Sejuani is balanced right now because her numbers are tuned so low, or at least they feel low.

EndlessSorcerer1/15/2016, 7:10:53 PM1 votes

Sejuani's ability to safely initiate fights is a major point in her favour.

Unlike many other tanks (i.e. Amumu, Malphite, Alistar, Sion), Sejuani doesn't have to go into the middle of the enemy team to initiate a fight. Her ultimate has a significant range which allows her to use it from a safe distance. If she happens to miss or land a bad ultimate, she can just back off and wait; while you lose the cooldown, you haven't put yourself at risk.

In addition, Sejuani deals a considerable amount of consistent damage. With some CDR (i.e. Frozen Heart), you have a considerable amount of uptime on your W and can frequently use your E for AoE damage and slowing.

Another advantage is that she has unconditional mobility on a normal ability. While Amumu's Bandage Toss requires a target and Malphite's Unstoppable Force is an ultimate with a considerable CD, Sejuani's Q lets her dash over walls (opening alternative gank paths) and freely (doesn't require a target). This provides a considerable amount of safety as she can easily escape dangerous situations due to her bulk, CC, and mobility.

Personally, I don't really have any issues with her current state. While she isn't dominating the jungle, in my experience she is generally a strong and safe pick.

Aside from a possible modification to her passive, the only real buff I would suggest is to extend her autoattack range for her W-empowered autoattack. It would make the ability's damage more reliable when using it as an autoattack reset (since her AA range is rather close to her model's hitbox). This buff would probably help her out without really adding too much power.

Itadaki Seieki1/15/2016, 10:37:33 PM1 votes

I feel like she's just really fun.

I played her before the rework, and I prefer the old Sej to the now.

Her kit was just more simple, lmfao.

Q was a charge, W was a slow(kinda) and E was a hard slow.

Now it's like, " IF YOU W AND HIT SOMEONE X HAPPENS. "

GundayMonday1/15/2016, 10:39:17 PM1 votes

She is a utility player, meaning she can wear many hats and fit many roles. You pick her when your team needs a safe pick that can do multiple things, or you're not sure what kind of comp you need yet.

  1. Engage? Check.
  2. Disengage? Check.
  3. Safety? Q is a flash on shorter cooldown, check.
  4. Tank? Sure! She can do this pretty well.
  5. Crowd control? 3 of her abilities do this.
  6. Damage? Sure! You can build her damage and sacrifice a little tankiness, and that's fine.

She's not the best at anything, but she's not the worst at anything either. She's like the Irelia of tanks. My $0.02 anyway.

Slamurai Jack1/16/2016, 1:15:13 AM1 votes

The answer to your rhetorical question is that she has high sustained DPS for a tank, even after the nerfs. In addition, she has sustained AOE CC as well as strong initiation, making a Sejuani team extremely difficult to kite back from. And 3rd, she's the only tank in the game that has multiple CC abilities that do not require you to be in melee range of the target.