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I feel like Riot doesn't even play their own champions.

Tsohgder·5/4/2016, 6:12:15 PM·216 votes·21,122 views

Lately I feel like champions are balanced without having enough knowledge about their gameplay. I'm talking about this: Kennen

On a separate note, we cleaned up a few** weird numbers **in Kennen’s other abilities_

probably talking about:

MARK DURATION 6.25 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds

WEIRD NUMBERS? There was a reason for that. At max rank, kennen was able to "chain" his W's thanks to that 0.25s, because his W has 6s CD at max rank. His passive used to last 8s, so he had a bigger window, but riot decided to nerf it without completely removing this chaining mechanic by giving him 0.25 extra seconds.

A lot of kennen players max W in the top lane, since it greatly improves your harass, wave clear and AOE damage.

In the same patch, they made some random changes to Viktor. Changes that make him feel clunkier, too.

Edit: for some reason people didn't get the point, I get that this patch was a buff overall, what i'm trying to say is that riot (or maybe just the guy who wrote the patch notes) doesn't really know their own Champions. Also, did everyone forget about AD kennen?

172 Comments

Malicious Metal5/4/2016, 7:19:35 PM71 votes

The thing is; Viktor, Kennen, Swain, Morde, Skarner, etc. have very small player bases and Riot doesn't have a lot of data on them, not to mention the apparent lack of mains of those champs in Riot's dev team.

They're underplayed and Riot has no real idea what they're even supposed to do and what reasons there are for players to actually enjoy playing these characters. Sadly they're out of touch with these champs and do what THEY think is right and the appropriate course of action. They may want to consider talking to those people who ACTUALLY play these champs and get some input why they like these characters and what the appeal of maining them is.

RiotCezium5/4/2016, 10:22:37 PM64 votes

I actually did note this exact thing while playtesting this change. The argument I made, however, was that there was so much ambient CDR on so many items Kennen wants to build, it would likely be ok to allow it to happen. Even if you go Rylai's first item, you're going to end up getting a Zhyona's/Abyssal at some point and potentially even CDR boots if you want the summoner spell cooldown reduction for flash. I found myself very, very rarely unable to use the second cast of W after using it the first time.

PbJMpP4xzk5/4/2016, 6:44:46 PM27 votes

WEIRD numbers, yeah, because numbers can be weird you know. i mean of course they feel weird for rito's devs they don't see them much and dunno about maths.

SoMNia5/4/2016, 8:42:36 PM11 votes

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Zhonya's Hourglass a core item, maybe even the first item, on AP Kennen? Because it now builds out of Fiendish Codex, which gives Kennen easy early access to 10% CDR. If he doesn't want that, Abyssal and the new Protobelt also grant 10% CDR. And most champions have to actually buy some CDR if they want to cross certain overlapping recast thresholds on their abilities.

Gubaguy5/4/2016, 7:51:34 PM10 votes

you wanna talk wierd numbers? lets address vels attack damage per level...

Gnart Even Close5/4/2016, 7:37:11 PM9 votes

it's likely intentional that they don't want the chain to be possible without CDR, since it is still possible with any increment of 10% CDR.

TallyZrg5/4/2016, 8:04:53 PM9 votes

Are you seriously arguing about 0.25 seconds on an effect? You can't even react that fast so why are you complaining about it?

Especially when they gave Kennen's ult the GP treatment of affecting EVERYTHING inside of it for more consistency. If anything you should be grateful for the Ultimate update.

Ionian5/4/2016, 7:13:18 PM7 votes

And they removed charm's ability to stop dashes, the only way to win lane vs LB and Diana [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Evewynn5/4/2016, 7:11:34 PM6 votes

Well, at least you can still buy CDR. A lot easier to get now anyways.

Bârd5/4/2016, 9:09:48 PM6 votes

Since so many items that are great on Kennen now give CDR, item 3157 item 3001 (Protobelt, no icon for that yet) does that even matter all that much?

All 3 of those build out of a cheap item that gives 10% CDR, and by the time you have enough XP for a 6 second cooldown W, you damn well SHOULD have enough gold for either a item 3067 oritem 3108

Alüe5/4/2016, 6:34:22 PM6 votes

Oh I feel the same way about xerath, they adressed nothing to his actual tool kit other than "hey guys you have more spells to cast now, we realize his ult is sorta hard to land!" Talk about a bandaid fix...

Penns5/4/2016, 7:20:10 PM5 votes

Well Kennen rushes Zhonyas anyway which has CDR now so... does it really matter that much?