What is the point of shielding as Tahm now?

RIP Tahm Kench·8/5/2019, 4:32:43 AM·12 votes·7,947 views

I've played quite a bit with the hotfix version of Tahm now. His lockdown is terrible now, but his pick and gank potential with a 3 second 70% slow is insane.

The one thing that I really don't get now is the fact that he now heals for 100% of gray hp that you don't use. His shield used to be the one bit of skill where if you don't shield you only regen about 30% of gray health, but if you shield properly you have the chance to "regen" 100% of it.

Now your two options when jungling or laning are: back off and regen 100% of gray health, or shield and potentially regen 0%. There is no more reward to shielding unless you're about to die, at which point you'll probably die even if you shield because Kench has no escapes.

Once you get a spirit visage, the risk/reward ratio is even worse. I just don't get why this change was made.

9 Comments

GilxeN8/5/2019, 5:53:12 AM15 votes

Because this champion kit is so dumb that they ran out of ideas what to do with him.

GigglesO8/5/2019, 5:59:21 AM3 votes

[{quoted}](name=RIP Tahm Kench,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xm0BFxrH,comment-id=,timestamp=2019-08-05T04:32:43.710+0000)

I've played quite a bit with the hotfix version of Tahm now. His lockdown is terrible now, but his pick and gank potential with a 3 second 70% slow is insane.

The one thing that I really don't get now is the fact that he now heals for 100% of gray hp that you don't use. His shield used to be the one bit of skill where if you don't shield you only regen about 30% of gray health, but if you shield properly you have the chance to "regen" 100% of it.

Now your two options when jungling or laning are: back off and regen 100% of gray health, or shield and potentially regen 0%. There is no more reward to shielding unless you're about to die, at which point you'll probably die even if you shield because Kench has no escapes.

Once you get a spirit visage, the risk/reward ratio is even worse. I just don't get why this change was made.

Riot balance team doesn't know what we want them to do.

The Ecdysiast8/5/2019, 5:03:15 AM2 votes

Yes.

That is exactly the point. It's more skill expression to know when to back off and regen than to know when to just press E for your entire healthbar.

DUDE BRO8/5/2019, 7:39:34 AM2 votes

Before he had 2 health bars in combat.

Now he only gets 60% (?) grey health so his shield in combat isnt ad bad. However he needs compensation to not he useless, thus full heal of that grey health.

KalokasIsMyDaddy8/5/2019, 5:55:38 AM1 votes

I mean I play a bunch of Kench and I find his shield useful. I have a really agressive/poke playstyle with tahm and I tend to dive a lot. He can use his shield to proc shield bash and to keep himself going in a 1v1.

Sire Hippington8/5/2019, 4:30:12 PM1 votes

Shield for buying time when you know you won't get out for the regen, simple as that. And with his lack of escapes, that's a rather likely scenario.

AgentBlack8/6/2019, 1:19:48 AM1 votes

Am I missing something? Tahm Kench only converts 75% of his grey health into healing, at all ranks.