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The PBE Janna Changes Make No Sense

Lucifer·8/9/2017, 7:06:34 AM·43 votes·3,046 views

You're gutting her Q and W when her E being on such a short CD late game is Janna's real problem. Why are you further gutting Janna's damaging abilities? You stated that you want Janna to be more aggressive, but all these changes do not do that at all.

I don't understand why Janna's damage is being nerfed /again/ when that is not even remotely Janna's problem. Please look at her passive and her shield cooldown / duration, NOT her damage and already insanely long CD Howling Gale.

52 Comments

DariusDemiurge8/9/2017, 7:32:38 AM25 votes

Hands out damage absorbtion and temporary bf swords like candy on Halloween but goes after her other spells. Riot is high as fuck right now, ahri and ezreal skins, vayne buffs, this. Curious what a train wreck ornn will be.

Sir Rouge8/9/2017, 7:49:00 AM12 votes

You must have not seen the full set of changes :

Howling Gale (Q) : cooldown increased from 14/13/12/11/10 to 17/16/15/14/13.

Zephyr (W) :

  • Damage lowered from 60/115/170/225/280 to 60/105/150/195/240.
  • Mana cost lowered from 40/50/60/70/80 to 0 at all ranks.
  • [New Effect] "Damaging a champion with Zephyr restores mana and reduces Janna's cooldowns" -->Mana Restore: 40/50/60/70/80 mana -->Cooldown reduction: 2 seconds

Eye of the Storm (E) :

  • Mana cost increased from 70/80/90/100/110 to 90/100/110/120/130.
  • Cooldown increased from 10 seconds to 13 seconds.

This makes it so she can't have her Q and E up as fast as she does now without putting herself in danger (close) to an enemy champion.

  • This does reward her for being aggressive.
  • This is a nerf to her shield CD (in general, with 45% CDR it's a tiny buff when you use W).
  • This is an overall nerf (which it is meant to be), but a much bigger nerf to players who won't utilize her W.
Akali is SO HOT8/9/2017, 7:56:49 AM11 votes

This actually is making her kinda more aggressive. They're nerfing her Q and E cooldowns and giving her w a bonus effect that restores mana and cooldown. This is a nerf to players that just stay in the backline and spam Q and E and will force players to put themselves in danger to use W to get the added benefits it's getting.

Tbh she's probably still gonna be really strong after these changes. The cooldowns are still ridiculously low for abilities that powerful mid/late game and it's almost a buff for any player that is capable of pressing W. I wouldn't be surprised if her winrate stayed the same tbh.

Ben SwoIo8/9/2017, 7:25:52 AM6 votes

Yes, it's that damn point and click shield that bothers me personally. Not her Howling Gale.

Sukishoo8/9/2017, 4:33:50 PM5 votes

Well there's the new effect of "[New Effect] "Damaging a champion with Zephyr restores mana and reduces Janna's cooldowns""

so the Cooldowns are being compensated for in a way.

I Love Thresh8/9/2017, 7:29:00 AM5 votes

Riot's decision making is almost as bad as a B5's

Roelo8/9/2017, 4:45:54 PM4 votes

The meaning of these changes is that Janna will now have to participate in fights instead of just standing back and pressing E. Now you have to actually get close and use your w to reduce cooldowns and get some mana back. I think thats the point of these changes.

FantasySniper8/9/2017, 7:21:37 PM3 votes

They do make sense if you think about it. The CD increases and [E] Eye of the Storm mana increase is supposed to be counteracted by [W] Zephyr's flat 2 second CD reduction for her abilities and its substantial mana restore. (I'm assuming the CD reduction doesn't affect Zephyr itself)

It's supposed to punish Janna for playing too passively and reward her more for using her Zephyr. Thus the net nerf would a 1 or 3 second increase on [Q] and [E], depending on if she uses Zephyr. The big problem here is that this can only buff her mana pool, and it can decrease the CD on her ult by up to 20%, making these changes a net buff.

If these go through without serious revision, Janna will only get stronger.

Chroud8/9/2017, 3:24:29 PM3 votes

Not that it is anything amazing but M7 Janna here and when ever I pick Janna i expect already to do Zero damage. Here Q and W could be nerfed to Zero damage and I will still play her the way I always have....

Q---Disengage Q-Sometimes engage W-Disengage W-Sometimes engage E- USE SHIELD R- HEAL or Disengage or Engage...

ModKnightsKemplar8/9/2017, 3:12:58 PM3 votes

I see your point, but I would worry that she would lose her strategic niche if they just nerfed her shield. I would guess that's the justification for going this route.

This seems analogous to to recent Caitlyn situation to me; the frustration, from a player perspective, was her traps. But the attack speed nerf really limited her ability to do sustained damage w/o those traps, and led to a much less powerful and less frustrating Caitlyn. They did still tap her traps later, if I remember correctly, but less than players wanted because the power from other parts of her kit was also contributing to the problem. Nerfing her attack speed first may have halted the trap gutting that a lot of players were calling for.

I would hope that the same thing happens with Janna; with a bit less peel, and more risk needed to spam spells, it's possible that the very good shield feels less oppressive to the opponent but still rewarding for the Janna player. I'm not sure why anyone would pick Janna if not for the big shield with AD; I agree that nerfing it would bring her in line, but maybe not in a rewarding or valuable way.

Shield duration, in particular, I think is a bad way to go. It would make the ability harder to use, but that's unlikely to have a huge effect at high elo where Janna is more problematic. It would make her even worse for bronze/silver, for sure, where she's already "struggling" (relative to high elo).

StrangerL8/9/2017, 2:59:26 PM3 votes

Nerf should be on the base value of shield and heal.

Almost every time she gets balance changes, Q and W are always the targets. Overall, her crowd control abilities are always the thing she gets nerfed.

For example, given the enchanter's item gives a massive boost to heal/shield power, I would rather she needs to channel her heal for 4 sec but gives her 0.25 sec knock back disable cc she used to have.

Martyrofsand8/10/2017, 5:56:49 AM2 votes

Changes actually make plenty of sense, just not really sure I feel they are the right changes.

Effectively the just nerfed her CDs so her Q and E are both longer, and frankly these are pretty big. Janna maxes E, which is 13 second CD at all ranks now meaning when she has 45% CDR the spell will have a CD of around 7-8 seconds up from the 6 second CD with 5 second duration shield she has now. They also nerfed the CD on her Q and considering she maxes that last this is a bloody huge nerf to her ability to peel in the early game.

The big change though comes from her W, which now refunds mana and reduced her CDs by 2 seconds when she casts it on enemies. This is a pretty low range ability and reduces her move speed when doing so. With max CD you are looking at a 6.5 CD on it, and it reduced her other CDs.

In the early and mid game this really hurts Janna's peeling before she gets all her CDR. 12 second CD to reduce your other CDs by 2 seconds while the Q CD will be a 17 second CD fucking hurts like hell when you are trying to peel champs with a million different gap closers. Late game it makes her a peeling machine if she can position well to spam W, assuming it reduces it's own CD putting it to around a 4 second CD giving you nice reductions on your other spells.

Time will tell but they are hitting her early and mid game peeling to give her late game god levels of peeling IF she puts herself in harms way to cast her W on someone. Frankly I think the whole nerf is pretty dumb and I see zero problem with Janna's E as is. If Janna has a problem, which I personally feel is debatable, it's that a good Janna right now will make it next to impossible for you to touch her carries and if you do she will just blow you away and reset the fight with her ult.

They are trying to hit that with these nerfs, but I don't feel this is the right way to do it.

Chaos Milk Tea8/9/2017, 5:55:39 PM2 votes

  1. Janna often can just sit on her bird and never cast it, using it primarily as a way to put off boots purchase and still outspeed in lane. The actual casting was mostly only useful when there was 1 persuer or someone is escaping and an ally might catch up.

  2. Right now basic janna gameplay consists of shielding when damage is coming and knocking up melee who touch anything. Forcing her to weave the bird in to get off more casts asks the janna player to enter the fight more often rather then just act as a back line peel bot.

  3. Yes she needs more than this change but its a good place to start. It would be great if her shield had some nuance besides givimg free damage but janna could really use any increase in depth atm.

Also, an idea: Nerf the shield but casting the bird on an enemy decreases their damage to shielded allies? It makes shield spam less rewarding and makes you further consider who to slow.

Habaneristo8/10/2017, 6:47:49 AM2 votes

Those changes makes no sense at all. Janna's not supposed to engage, to be a frontline. She's a peel-support. Why enhance her cooldowns? Why being a simple champion is so bad? Why every champion gotta be complex and require a lot of training and quick reflexes and mechanics? Alistar's a pain. Thresh's been a pain ever since his release. He's the complete support... he can peel, he can engage, he can disengage, he can deal damage, he gets tanky, he can rescue his teammates from tough situations... Alistar can lv6 tower dive, he heals, he can engage, he can disengage... Blitzcrank, omg... where to start? He's dealing tons of damage and if you use him properly, once an enemy gets caught, it won't be able to escape, no matter how hard he tries.

Naching8/10/2017, 12:50:37 AM1 votes

No... Riot will never nerf her shield...already weaker.

StrangerL8/11/2017, 5:30:47 AM1 votes

They failed to balanced item 3301 line even since it is invented in s4 actually.

Ancient coin history:

3 seasons: Too passive!

This season: Pickup coin mechanic = skill expressive,

Weak reward and Run out of ideas? Give Janna's passive to it!

Janna benefits it the most? We are done with the reward in Ancient coin, just gut Janna and claim that they are making her more skill expressive.

ZapMyHeart8/11/2017, 6:00:12 AM1 votes

Is it terrible that I max W first for Janna support? I still build a regular support path, but I find the MS passive and slow/damage helps weave in AA for harass. A simple W>AA>Q can dish out a good amount of damage.

teegorom8/9/2017, 4:12:27 PM1 votes

Good, she shouldn't be dealing damage with such low cd's and reliable cc. Too bad Sona is even stronger and nothing's being done to her.

The Deckowner8/9/2017, 2:12:51 PM1 votes

The bronze balance team members want to keep their freelo and make it easier to play.

Profirix8/9/2017, 5:59:07 PM1 votes

I made a post about this as well. Basically if they are going to hit her raw power, they need to provide more gameplay interaction, otherwise she will not be a good pick over other shielding supports.

LawUrDepravdHart8/9/2017, 7:28:30 PM1 votes

Here's meddler's rationale for the changes as well as the source- "Janna Nerf - Removing overall power and looking to add a bit more skill expression to her kit. At present we're trying higher CDs, with W reducing CDs/restoring mana on champion hit to reward more aggressive/risky use of that. Not yet sure if that'll be the final direction though."

Maybe not so delusional after all.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/0tA637vn-quick-gameplay-thoughts-august-8

Sohleks8/9/2017, 7:41:19 PM1 votes

They are trying to make her need to stand nearer to danger. That's a fine intent and all IMO. The method feels a little hamfisted I feel though. Enter standard range for one instant and pop your spell for a reward for full efficiency!

Oriyoki8/9/2017, 11:03:12 PM1 votes

They nerfed Q and W damage, removed manacost from W and nerfed E...