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6.9 balance hotfix going out soon

RiotMeddler··104 votes·111,225 views

Hey all,

We've got a balance hotfix that, all going according to plan, should be going out sometime late this week or early next week. It contains small to moderate buffs to Swain, Vlad and Cass and a small to moderate nerf to Malz. Our expectation is that we'll do additional work on each of those champions in the next patch too (these changes won't address all their issues). This hotfix isn't intended to be a massive change, more to take the edge off major balance outliers while we assess the reworked kit's learning curves, the state of the meta and work on additional changes. We're also looking at whether the Ocean Drake buff is too strong with one stack and might also make adjustments to that before 6.10, not sure yet.

Tentative change lists:

Cassiopeia: More useability and general power on Twin Fangs. Future changes (non hotfix) likely to focus on other skills)

  • E Cooldown to 0.75 from 0.9
  • E Mana cost to 40-80 from 60-80
  • E Range back to the previous range model (700 range center to center instead of 550 range edge to edge). On average slightly longer against small targets (like most other mid laners and minions), slightly shorter against large targets (like most tanks)

Malzahar: Higher mana costs to constrain pushing and jungling, less safe jungling, slightly weaker ult

  • Q mana cost to 80 from 60
  • W mana cost to 80 from 60
  • Neutral monster damage reduction to 50% from 75%
  • R damage to 5/7/9% from 6/8/10%

Swain: Increased damage on Q to account for its lower consistency, bug fix

  • Q damage to 30-110 from 25-85
  • R cast time on toggle on removed (unintended, shouldn't have shipped)

Vlad: Adding power, mid game especially, and increasing healing from empowered Q, in part to offset E cost

  • Q empowered missing health ratio increased to 4% AP from 2.5%
  • E base damage increased to 30-90/60-180 from 30-70/60-140

552 Comments

RiotMeddler65 votes

Oh, also just for clarity's sake it's worth mentioning there are a lot of other champions we're looking at as possible buff or nerf candidates in 6.10. Hotfixes involve some risk though, both on the technical side (less testing/implementation time) and the on the design side (reacting quickly off limited data and analysis). As a result we're only hotfixing the extremes, even if there are other champions, items etc that will almost certainly receive changes in the next patch.

AramsAreBest7 votes

What about karthus?

Serpents Embrace3 votes

Are there going to be MORE changes for the champions you have listed, or this going to be it for them?

Because TBH, these Cass changes don't even address half of the problems.

Abyssphere14 votes

[{quoted}](name=Serpents Embrace,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xjvV0YeJ,comment-id=00000005,timestamp=2016-05-06T00:51:19.984+0000)

Are there going to be MORE changes for the champions you have listed, or this going to be it for them?

Because TBH, these Cass changes don't even address half of the problems.

He said in the OP itself that there'd be more changes to all of the champions here in the next patch. Read, maybe?

Regulus ag Sun52 votes

{quoted}

Oh, also just for clarity's sake it's worth mentioning there are a lot of other champions we're looking at as possible buff or nerf candidates in 6.10. Hotfixes involve some risk though, both on the technical side (less testing/implementation time) and the on the design side (reacting quickly off limited data and analysis). As a result we're only hotfixing the extremes, even if there are other champions, items etc that will almost certainly receive changes in the next patch.

The problem with Vladimir isn't the damage on E or the healing on Q.

It's the absolute lack of damage on Q and the incredibly small window to use Crimson Rush on TOP of the MS steroid being so pathetically weak that the other two Transfusions are completely meaningless.

The problem with E isn't that it doesn't do enough damage, it's that it's INSANELY telegraphed to the point any non-Bronze player will never get hit by it. Make the hurtbox invisible to enemy champions and just flat out remove the movement nerf to self and you can fix that ability outright.

Give Q significantly more damage or just remake Crimson Rush altogether. 16 MS boost that FADES?! Are you serious?

{quoted}

Riot literally missed several champions in the mid-year mage update. Karthus, Zilean, and Heimerdinger are all immobile mages that received no attention in the MYMU.

As a Vladimir main you REALLY don't want a mid-season Mage update.

blessthekellen30 votes

Crimson Rush window of opportunity to use is basically a joke.

RandomMagus15 votes

Going off just pure numbers, his healing and his damage went down with the rework and in return he gets to do even more damage to himself and can't buy a spellvamp item to offset that. Hurray...?

about last night14 votes

Meddler...

what about the 20 minute rift herald buff?

FalconPawwwwnch4 votes

What is Riot's thoughts on current rageblade, bloodrazor, and the champions who use them?

From my experience the new rageblade is really underwhelming on almost any melee champion

RiotMeddler17 votes

Rageblade's probably on the weak side, we wanted to err in that direction and tune up if needs be though rather than the opposite given how dominant its been this season (get a look at which champs are dependent on it, which just like it etc).

Bloodrazor's looking like it might be too weak, lot of champions its the best choice for are struggling. Might also be some champs who'd been nerfed due to how powerful they were in a game with Devourer we can put power back into now, not sure yet.

DCYOUNG88818 votes

If Rageblade is on the weak side, might I suggest giving the item more attack speed, it did lose a little bit of it's attack speed due to having less stacks and the item doesn't give attack speed on it's own without stacking. In addition, when upgrading to rageblade, you lose 25% of the attack speed you would gain from recurve bow once you upgrade.

FalconPawwwwnch10 votes

Is there a chance at you looking at the individual champions that used it before? Im not an expert on balancing but I can't imagine it's healthy for champions to only be good when depending on such broken items

I'll use Jax as an example because I play him a lot, ever since his massive base stat nerfs 2 years ago he hasn't fully recovered as a staple competitive pick or solo queue pick until rageblade was introduced this preseason. He wasn't picked once at worlds in s4 or s5.

Would it be better to give the individual champions some power instead of making rageblade so powerful again?

RiotMeddler12 votes

We'll be looking at both champion and item states yeah. Will generally want to avoid significant changes to both at once though. Whether we change a kit or an item will also depend a lot on the wider balance state. If most champions of a type are struggling that often suggests their items aren't up to par. If it's only certain champs, kit solutions are usually more appropriate.

BetweenSkill9 votes

But with many of those "on-hit tanky" champions like Jax/Shyv, they were decently balanced until the double-hit passive was introduced, after which specifically Shyvana's kit was fairly severely hit, especially early, followed by the removal of Devourer, which was what was the cause of them being broken. This seems to be similar to "sejuani-ing".

EcchiOtakuTM7 votes

Please for vlad just increase the Q's duration by 1.5 seconds, return the old CD, remove E interrupting W, and remove the outside warning to vlad's E it already has enough counterplay with it being blocked by winions and vlad already raises a sphere before he uses it, his E doesn't need that outside warning. If you really want to keep the outside warning at least let E heal based on targets hit.

      Also I just really don't like vlad's ulti, doesn't feel fun to use, does average damage when it ends, barely heals for being super delayed the damage amp is a joke, for such an ultimate it could have been reworked into something new and fresh. I'm not even sure if the ulti heals if the target dies before hand and if the target doesn't die before hand there really wasn't any point in the ulti.

I honestly thought it would have been reworked ever since I heard vlad would be in the mage patch.... But ignoring his ulti which works fine the rest of his kit needs clunkiness fixing

       Love everything else about vlad though but vlad mainly needed QoL changes.

As for malz: Make voidlings magic damage scale per level instead of rank that would tune down jng malz and even lane malz. After that just need to make Q EXTEND the E duration by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds instead of fully reset it (It feels too satisfying to fully reset an E that's about to die so this just nerfs it's max damage.but makes it more consistent) Also would love if voidlings changed to "Cap of 4 vs non-champions", to compensate the FIRST voidling takes 50/55/60/65/70% reduced damage from turrets and voidlings spawn another when attacking turrets, so AD malz's entire niche of turret taking can come back. Stop changing malz in the wrong way.

Veigar: Feels amazing however make veigar's passive have a CD before you gain stacks from hitting a unique champion(MAKE SURE IT'S UNIQUE PER CHAMPION) reason it needs to be unique is due to veigar hitting multiple champions but hitting multiple champions with multiple spells gets a bit too much hence this suggestion. On a side note you still havn't buffed ghost to distortion's CD or speed amount I don't regret losing boot enchantments but that really was important thing lost which wasn't even bad for the game.

Ghost: Please scale it into distortion's amount and CD later on really took a hit with enchantment removal which I agree with but needs compensating.

TL;DR You're not doing what you need to for vlad and malz that's the main point of my concern. His Q's empower duration needs increase and CD revert, his W shouldn't be interrupted by E and E itself has an extra warning for no reason and if it keep it at least let E heal if it hits enemies.

Please fix vlad and malz the right way the first time. I won't even dog about the ulti for vlad just fix q, w, and e

MrLlamaWaffle19 votes

Viktor k

Bârd22 votes

Anivia k Galio wtf do I do with this shit item 3174

NeutralPanda19 votes

Nothing, it's a support item now. item 3073 item 3073

WoonStruck18 votes

Vlad: Adding power, mid game especially, and increasing healing from empowered Q, in part to offset E cost

  • Q empowered missing health ratio increased to 4% AP from 2.5%
  • E base damage increased to 30-90/60-180 from 30-70/60-140

Is there a reason you don't comment on the clunkiness of Vlad's kit that prevents him from accomplishing what his kit says to do?

The missing health ratio is not going to make his problem areas any better, even if it is an appreciated buff for balancing E's cost.

E's base damage doesn't need buffing at all. E is the only part of Vlad's kit that DOESN'T need changes, outside of maybe the E release delay that freezes him for half a second.

Seriously, his Q's delay along with the particle is all that's keeping Vlad from functioning properly. Try mitigating that and you'll see him in a way better place, and it won't feel terrible to play him anymore either.

If you keep his own kit holding him back no matter what he wants to do, he will never feel rewarding until you buff him to the point of being overbearing. PLEASE consider QoL changes first before you buff Vlad too much and then proceed to gut him and leave him there until his next rework.

WoonStruck17 votes

Is there a reason you don't do mechanical touch-ups on Vlad?

His old kit was balanced by how much his Q and E delays constrained his movement.

With the new kit, there's much more counterplay and such long delays should not be necessary.

Especially on Q, since you cannot get clutch heals off like the ability wants you to. The reward of his Q often isn't there simply because you CANNOT get it before you die often enough. The delay feels insanely long now with the pattern Vlad follows.

It makes me sad, especially since it takes a full 1-2 seconds during the time you're vulnerable after W until you get a heal off Q. I'm usually dead from the ADC alone before the heal particle reaches me, even if I was above half health.

Basically, my point is that his current cast animations were there to limit his old kit. In his new kit, they're just an artificial way to make him weaker...and it feels terrible for the user on top of the new unreliability of his kit. Before you do significant buffs, you should think about making QoL changes to Vlad. That would solve a lot of his kit's current issues, and you can follow up with balance after that if he proves to be out of line.

CowboyNinja13 votes

Its funny so many complaints from actual Vlad players about the new mechanics. RIOT's response? He's fine just needs number tweaks.

At this point I wish they'd just do a full Sion on him. Give me a whole new champ please. Not this abomination of a destroyed version of the guy I loved.

Shadow Hazard16 votes

Malz's ult damage component is pretty useless. I literally only use it in a fight were a priority target needs to be stopped so the team can focus them. Even pulling off a perfect combo and having your voidling go to town on the champ during the ult they will definitely survive unless they are dumb.

biggest issue malz has lost his ability to be anti assassin.

Quality Content14 votes

Vlad's E does not need more damage. I've been able to regularly get it to hit for upwards of 400 damage, sometimes even in the 700-900 damage range. It's not a place where he's weak so please, please consider buffing him where it's needed, like his Q damage, cooldown or the crimson rush duration.

Onkel Malte13 votes

The nerf on Malzahars jungling is nice but seriously, make his ult even weaker? This is a joke right?

I feel like voidlings should be an addition to his Mage kit, and not his core damage! He should be able to smuggle Space aids through Minion waves, and have some powerful Q casts!

Paroe4 votes

{quoted}

The nerf on Malzahars jungling is nice but seriously, make his ult even weaker? This is a joke right?

I feel like voidlings should be an addition to his Mage kit, and not his core damage with Space aids through Minion waves, and powerful Q casts.

Like it was before. At this point id honestly like his old kit back with the following changes;

  1. New passive stays
  2. %HP pool becomes flat damage

Just... nix the voidlings. Riot doesnt understand how to build a pet champion. Making the voidlings a toggle - a single voidling who cannot be damaged by champion spells - and giving it the stats it has now at rank 5, then increasing the amount OF voidlings he can have out per level would do A LOT for him as a power check. Give the voidlings a shared HP pool based on malzahars HP+a base amount, a long cast time (2~ 3 seconds), and a high mana cost (30~50 mana per voidling) and suddenly you have a malzahar who wouldnt do as bad in the mid lane AND has balanceable voidlings seperate from the rest of the kit.

Onkel Malte6 votes

Don't even bother to make a comment what exactly you want to change... they won't notice it anyways, because they've got their plans already and are just "tuning" things.

Welcome to the infinte nerf-buff cycle that was no issue on Malz for the last YEARS.

**_

##Still it's not the "magical" power on Malzahar you've got to fear now, but the Voidlings, and that feels very weird.

Br4ndon12 votes

You forgot to list the Vel'Koz rework being reverted. I know you have a lot on your plate right now so you just made a mistake, its okay.

Vanic99813 votes

VELKOZ is fine. I'm enjoying the new VELKOZ right now and would prefer the new VELKOZ over the old.

Sqkerg4 votes

VELKOZ :3

Txys11 votes

Does the pbe even help...

Ultîma9 votes

Hi Meddler, a lot of the concern for Malz seems to be regarding his new passive. Having the damage and CC-reduction stay for a second, after it's procced, on top of the 90% damage reduction and its consistent up-time has played a huge part in his overall game dominance. Why is it being avoided altogether when his skills already received an overall nerf across the board (Q and R specifically) with the rework?

Similarly, Vlad's issue is largely felt as that the non-empowered Q is far too weak to be used to trade in any measure and that the window of Blood Rush is far too short for the weak buff that it gives (especially with regards to the almost imperceptible movement speed boost). Wouldn't it be a better move to action some change in those areas as opposed to the proposed buffs?

Tweaks are good, but these seem to be targeting the wrong things entirely.

RiotMeddler6 votes

We'll probably look at Malz's passive in 6.10. It's a type of effect that's pretty difficult to hotfix, hence its exclusion from the first round of changes.

Not sure on Vlad yet in terms of other changes likely, will certainly discuss Q concerns with the team though.

Kuroi8611 votes

2 things on Vlads Q.

  1. Being that Crimson Rush starts way too early, you don't get the whole buff duration considering it can activate while Q is still on cooldown.

  2. The ms is completely unnoticed. If it could somehow scale, not to mention give him some sort of visual effect attached to it so we can actually feel the speed?

I'm trying to be positive, Vlads rework still needs tweaks though!

Lugg8 votes

Please buff the Karthus wall.

Baculus8 votes

{quoted}

Vlad: Adding power, mid game especially, and increasing healing from empowered Q, in part to offset E cost

  • Q empowered missing health ratio increased to 4% AP from 2.5%
  • E base damage increased to 30-90/60-180 from 30-70/60-140

This is an ineffective change and completely misses the mark. His Q's problem was that Crimson Rush was terrible (<3 seconds to get a cast off after a VFX warning and the 'rush' was a FADING 16 MS) and that E is useless (10% max health, slows him when charged, minion blocked, is interrupted by everything).

That's not even touching that his R was nerfed and his W and Q's fluidity were negatively impacted in the dumpstering of the champion.

I mean, you even went the extra mile and made his passive worthless... while reducing Q damage by a third (for the <3 second window of crimson rush) and destroying his sustain across the board (20% Spell vamp and old E resulted in MUCH higher healing than the proc system).

Tecniac8 votes

Hi, main malzahar from euw here, since s4 (more than 50% of my games are played with malz), and im a little sad with the directions of the changes (Im happy with the mini-rework), so i hope you read/answer this.

I just want to tell you that changes for Malzahar will make him suffer even more in mid, being AP.

The real problem is that he has gone too weak for going mid, he cant just 1v1 anyone anymore, without a bunch of items. Thats because his R, thats the 1st problem in his new kit.

Why dont you try to improve the interaction between W and R instead of nerfing both? For example

  • A little bonus flat damage on R if a voidling hit (That means recover the base damage from R)
  • Make his voidlings enrage and be invulnerable within R area (50% extra as, added to the extra 50%, 100%)
  • Make the voidlings spawn rate 2x when hitting a E or R target (2 voidlings per hit, so you can use W while R and you have dps and enough damage for nuking someone, but giving him time to react)
  • Lower R cd, cause now its not as powerful as before (you can avoid the area easily, and you can remove the CC)

R is his main tool being AP mid to be effective in TF and similar (Supress 1, delete 1, 4v5). You give him the E reset combo, you can poke and push like before (harder, but ok), but if you buff his R you will take him back to mid, if you nerf him one and other time he will just hide in jungle, cause he is getting out of his "meta" pick, cause he cant trade or make others out of the lane (Mains Yasuo will be extremely happy with his changes/nerfs, now yas can just wreck malz cause he relies on burst, and malz on dps, and his R will be just completely eaten by his passive)

(Maokai is a tank, and with his W he deals 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13% (+ 3% per 100 AP) of target's maximum health , rooting them also, with a low cd...)

If you nerf his mana cost, you will push him more into jungle, cause being jungle you dont really need that 20 mana that you REALLY need in lane, having blue and jungle item passive... And the 25% nerf to neutral monsters will hit him twice, cause his only "good" pick now will be nerfed, and he will suffer in jungle and in lane.

Remember that doing an early drake or baron solo =/= OP jungler. He struggles in ganks, he excels at taking objectives, he excels ganking at 6 with R. Hes just some kind of AP Warwick, with a better learning curve. Many champs can solo baron with just 2 items (Warwick Aatrox MasterYi Nasus Jax , etc) and any champ with enough sustain or as or damage solo dragon at lvl 2-3, you cant punish malzahar for doing that, will be just unfair.

Take this post as as proof that I like to analyze in depth this champion, I love his kit, his lore, his style, and ill play him being op, nerfed or normal, but please, i beg you, reconsider the changes to a better way, dont just nerfhammer him til he transforms in Skarner 2.0, dont take out his utility, dont make him un-fun to play.

And sorry for my bad english, if i made some mistakes. I really, really hope you can answer this comment.

Cimexis7 votes

Possible longer (old) Q range for future Cass tweaks? Pretty please :)

blfUvZ8Ybu6 votes

Viktor's e delay 0.8 and missile speed 950 please.Do it.Small change please.One second is very long.

USG Failsawce6 votes

[{quoted}](name=Akatsuki Deidara,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xjvV0YeJ,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2016-05-06T00:27:20.470+0000)

Viktor's e delay 0.8 and missile speed 950 please.Do it.Small change please.One second is very long.

The laser isn't even as bad as the ult... the ult needs a revert bad. Or at least brought to somewhere in the middle of where it is now and where it was before.

The laser is at least manageable, and the missile speed makes up for the aftershock delay.

blfUvZ8Ybu5 votes

{quoted}

The laser isn't even as bad as the ult... the ult needs a revert bad. Or at least brought to somewhere in the middle of where it is now and where it was before.

The laser is at least manageable, and the missile speed makes up for the aftershock delay.

I partially agree but 1 second is very long.So we accept half damage for Viktor's e skill.All players dodgeable e skill.0.8 second is fair but 1 second is disgusting.

Leu075 votes

Im really concerned, about cass, and this rework....I think it didnt hit the mark, her early game is pretty weak now...she scales "ok" to late, but she is not the damage carry late game she used to be...having 6 slots for items is pretty great, but you never complete 6 items plus you have to builds tons of stuff in Cass, if I wanna build Ludens for the MS I cannot build Tear or Rabadon or Zhonya, and ap items arent that great when it comes to getting early cdr or early magic pen plus the rework on the ap items is pretty weird, is still more easy to hit the 40% of cdr with AD champions <c<....for real giving cdr to Zhonya doesnt solve that issue, why not give Essense Reaver passive to Rabadon, where when you build more AP or Mana you get more cdr? it was too hard? its too hard to balance?

Getting back to Cass... That passive is BORRRRRING!!!!! havent you learn the lesson with that type of passive with MF? cool you wanted to make a joke in the mid season spotlight "cuz she is a snake" props for you, but come on, but that's all she gets for being a snake? she is freaking slow (ppl buy boots and you have to wait be lvl 11 to get that lvl of ms), unless you hit your Q, or that you build ms items (but we know AP items with MS are more for support that for mid champions), why dont you give her a passive that really works on her kit?...like for example the original one "After casting an ability any subsequent abilities cast will cost 10% less for 5 seconds. This ability stacks up to 5 times" <,< , since her mana cost and usage is insane or she should either get slow resistance or passive magic pen, and the ms stuff cannot build boots let it be a passive in other skill.

Give the range back to the Q...or the damage...hitting Q doesnt feel important at all...you hit Q just for your E, is a skill that doesnt stand alone, since the last rework.

That W doesnt work at all in laning, I only find it useful for the ppl to not flash from a wall, you hit the target and the person just move a little bit and thats it....why not let the grounded effect stay like the poison?

The E is a plain nerf, you still need to hit the Q or the W, because the damage is sooooo weak that even minions survive if there not poisioned in late game, her mana cost are hugeeeeeee but like HUGE! so you last hit to get some mana back <,< but guess what you only get mana back to cast another Q or another E and thats it.....and the heal <,< pls.....plus the 1/0.75 second of cd anytime it just make her lose DPS.

Manbearpigcatlol5 votes

Any chance on fixing your fail with Viktor lol? For a billion dollar game the balancing is a joke.

Muted Summoner1 votes

{quoted}

Hey all,

We&#039;ve got a balance hotfix that, all going according to plan, should be going out sometime late this week or early next week. It contains small to moderate buffs to Swain, Vlad and Cass and a small to moderate nerf to Malz. Our expectation is that we&#039;ll do additional work on each of those champions in the next patch too (these changes won&#039;t address all their issues). This hotfix isn&#039;t intended to be a massive change, more to take the edge off major balance outliers while we assess the reworked kit&#039;s learning curves, the state of the meta and work on additional changes. We&#039;re also looking at whether the Ocean Drake buff is too strong with one stack and might also make adjustments to that before 6.10, not sure yet.

Tentative change lists:

Cassiopeia: More useability and general power on Twin Fangs. Future changes (non hotfix) likely to focus on other skills)

  • E Cooldown to 0.75 from 0.9

  • E Mana cost to 40-80 from 60-80

  • E Range back to the previous range model (700 range center to center instead of 550 range edge to edge). On average slightly longer against small targets (like most other mid laners and minions), slightly shorter against large targets (like most tanks)

Malzahar: Higher mana costs to constrain pushing and jungling, less safe jungling, slightly weaker ult

  • Q mana cost to 80 from 60

  • W mana cost to 80 from 60

  • Neutral monster damage reduction to 50% from 75%

  • R damage to 5/7/9% from 6/8/10%

Swain: Increased damage on Q to account for its lower consistency, bug fix

  • Q damage to 30-110 from 25-85

  • R cast time on toggle on removed (unintended, shouldn&#039;t have shipped)

Vlad: Adding power, mid game especially, and increasing healing from empowered Q, in part to offset E cost

  • Q empowered missing health ratio increased to 4% AP from 2.5%
  • E base damage increased to 30-90/60-180 from 30-70/60-140

And Fiddlesticks?

RiotMeddler3 votes

Looks pretty strong, doesn't seem to be hot fix strong though at the very least. Early days too.

Guy Fox Teemo1 votes

How's Zed doing , Stronger, Underwhelming or Same? (I can't really grasp it in game since I'm a really experienced Zed player and win anyways).

LankPants2 votes

I'm fairly sure his winrate won't change significantly at least bellow Plat, what you need to look out for is banrate. I wouldn't be surprised if Zed's banrate is in the 85-95% range currently.

Guy Fox Teemo1 votes

Thats the annoying part, people just going to auto ban in fear of something they haven't even seen :S (Or thats even OP, if he is, idk)

LankPants6 votes

He was straight-up too strong on the last patch, so yes people are auto banning him, there's a good reason for it. A champ who's already top of his role gets indirectly buffed, what do you actually expect?

Zed should have got preemptive nerfs going into this patch, not sure why he didn't.

Kuroi861 votes

One small question would be where would you nerf him and by how much?

The issue with a high ban rate champ is that it restricts the info you have on him. =/

AbusiveEmu4 votes

Mid lane mage main here. I have gone against far more Zeds than I can count. Ranging from Bronze and deserved it to Gold and deserved higher.

IMHO. Once you get the hang of his kit and know where and when to direct your spells you just faceroll the keyboard much like sona. I get it though, this is what this champion does and is what makes him unique (and a pain in the ass to play against)

My issue is his Energy regen. If his shadow's thrown abilities hit you he gets back energy of a fairly substantial amount. At rank 1 it's a 25% refund and rank 5 it's a 90% refund. Someone with that much damage should not be near resource-less late game. Not to mention his Ulty never has a cost which is stupid IMO.

I might be a little biased here but I personally don't think he should have an energy regen with the dmg that he throws out at a safe range. I would be willing to settle with cutting it in half to not entirely screw him over though.

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