What ever the Rumble changes may be, please don't make them number-only changes

Hello League Boards

Apparently there's some actions being taken in the case of Rumble severely underperforming and while I don't want to boast about how My thread did it, I'm pretty sure that the quiet voices of Rumble mains did bring enough attention to Rumble to warrant him some buffs as stated by Meddler and Repertoire.

It's great to see it happen but at the same time I feel like there's still an Elephant in the Room, and I'll take it up as my duty to shed some light on it. As it was both stated in My previous thread and as you can clearly see in Rumble's Patch History, all of his direct balance changes were very one-dimensional, simple, either very inefficient or crippling changes. It has become a trend for those ~7 years that Rumble's been out in League and with him becoming incredibly dependant on both items he builds and items that counter him, rather than his own kit, he has fell into a downward spiral of constant weakening that got overlooked, and now we get to see its effects. All of Rumble's current issues are the side effect of him being consistently neglected in terms of how his kit changes were handled.

As of right now, with the evolved gameplay, balance philosophies, champion design, and the fact that players have also been constantly improving over the years, Rumble's niche becomes less and less important, while situations ideal for him are borderline impossible to execute. He's supposed to be a lane bully, but his early game is incredibly weak, he's very suspectible to ganks, while rune system introduced a lot of safety nets that prevent him from capitalizing on his level power spikes, and the fact that there's been a constant stream of early game mechanics to counter DoT damage has crippled him even more as a laner. He can't really be a jungler since his current strength in the jungle (sustain, clear speed) doesn't shine as much, AP jungler items become more and more mana-related (something that Rumble can't make use of) and his ganking is very mediocre pre-6. His Teamfighting has probably taken the biggest hit as his base kit becomes nearly irrelevant, now, that has always been the case since his powerful ultimate compensated for that, but another problem that has cropped up is that there's been introduced a ton of new ways to counter Rumble's effectiveness in a teamfight, main point being Redemption, Locket and overall Heal/Shield power creep, not to mention that Magic Resistance items are very overloaded, Adaptive Helm is completely nullifying Rumble's damage, and again, regeneration mechanics meant to counter DoT damage make his strengths even less relevant.

Rumble's kit in theory while solid and has potential to work, as of right now can't work in 2018's League, sure you can bump up his Q damage by 200 and call it a day, and yeah, he'll be played, and will most likely win a ton of games, but that still doesn't solve any of Rumble's issues. Rumble definitely needs something more, something that can somewhat alter the way he's being played, or redefine his current themes and playstyle, even if it means a mini-rework of sorts, like on a scale of Zilean, or recently announced Quinn adjustments. I guess I might as well throw a few ideas and thoughts out there in a more insightful fashion:

Rumble as a Lane Bully:

The good stuff:

I really think that this is the best defining feature of Rumble both thematically and gameplay-wise. He's been known to make the living hell out of weak laners' lifes and that's definitely something worth exploring. Rumble both as an AP short ranged high damage bruiser, and a hot-headed punk yordle wants to be in the thick of things, get upclose and personal, and just melt people's faces. I really think that Rumble, while currently isn't one, but with proper direction has the potential to be defined as a true AP juggernaut, something like this would certainly have its niche and place in the game.

*Fundamentals are already there *While his early game after a certain powerspike becomes quite strong, his weaknesses are still in place to not make him overbearing *Fits Rumble's characters the most

The bad stuff:

Due to how much safety has also been tailored to Rumble's kit (and Riot's constant errors in judgement of Rumble's balance), Rumble's laning pattern has become more focused on just staying back, farming from range and rarely ever interacting with his opponent. Even when he was a constant waveclearing monster in mid-season 7, you could abuse his push by calling for jungler help, you could stay out of the range of his abilities, patiently farm and abuse the fact that Spectre's Cowl makes Rumble's performance drop significantly. Right now due to Rumble's Q having quite a high cd early game without much reward added to it, there's no reason for him to even bother fighting he's opponent, especially if all the safety nets rune system introduced would screw him over anyway.

*Can't be properly expressed due to how his kit focuses more on passive, uninteractive gameplay and how current game-scape will not allow him to do anything that he'd want

*His kit is as of now too easy to abuse with certain items or runes.

*His kit being largely focused on playing passively, and his base stats being very low for a melee champion there's nothing to incentivize Rumble to fight people at close ranges.

Rumble as a Teamfighter:

The good stuff:

Rumble has also been very much known for his teamfighting capabilities, his ultimate is a force to be reckoned with and has the potential to turn games around, or be a teamplaying force, that makes him a very attractive pick for teamfighting team compositions.

*Has a very strong, solid teamfighting tool...

The bad stuff:

Sadly this is pretty much it. Rumble's kit after 10~15 or so minute mark becomes reduced to the role of an ult bot. Sure you can try and flash into a group of people and Q>Zhonya them, as mentioned before, there is a ton of ways to tamper with Rumble's damage output and completely negate it, and as the game goes on, these tools become more effective and eventually outscale Rumble's damage. And with how quickly Rumble falls off, even when his team is ahead, his contribution brings very little unless you can ult in a near-godlike manner, but then, if Rumble can be very easily countered when behind/head to head and isn't that strong when ahead, why bring him to your team at all? His damage is very easy to deal with and negate, while his utility isn't nearly enough to warrant it.

*...But this strong teamfighting tool isn't nearly as good as it's made out to be as of right now.

*His base kit falls off very quickly, reducing his role to an underwhelming ult bot.

*If Rumble falls behind he's a dead weight to his team, if Rumble is ahead, other carries on his team do his job better anyway, preventing him from expressing his strengths and leaving him feeling very underwhelming.__

Rumble as a Carry:

The good stuff:

Rumble is also by many seen as a potential AP carry for his team, and he certainly has potential to become one. His AP ratios are very high, and his dps come late game has very little downtime. There are fundamentals to be explored, imagine Rumble becoming an AP equivalent of Gangplank (he's already compared to him by a few people anyway) or Camille, and with his current safety being there, it wouldn't be too hard to just give him a little bump to his late game stregnth.

*Again, fundamentals are in place for this to happen.

*Already has the potential of taking this role, with his constant stream of dps from all sorts of things.

*Rumble similarly to AD Carries, has the potential to burn through tanks and obliterate them.

The bad stuff:

The problem related to this is stuff that I kept mentioning all the time. Rumble's kit falls flat on its face once he leaves laning phase, while his damage isn't really enough to warrant that. Things worth noting here are that against squishies, his 3+ second Time To Kill takes way too long and isn't rewarding enough, against tanks he absolutely needs Liandry's Torment and Void Staff, his kit on its own doesn't provide him tank shredding so his performance in this regard is incredibly reliant on how strong these items are.

*Rumble's role as a carry is defined by items he buys, not his own kit.

*As I said time and time again, Rumble's base kit is borderline unsuable past the laning phase, while his very squishy posture alongside non-existent mobility cripple him even more.

*Every other carry does his job quicker, safer and more effectively.

In conclusion, Rumble deserves some of his strenghts to be highlighted, and not restricted by any excessive boundaries. Express his weaknesses in a different way than "oh this item makes him unplayable", give him some meaningful, long-term solution that will make him much more satisfying and enjoyable to play, while reducing strengths things that clearly don't work in his kit (the constant stream of nerfs to Rumble's offensive capabilites and buffs to defensive ones really shows, huh?)

Please, give Rumble something that's worth yours and our time.