Some thoughts for Zoe W - Spellthief
Hello, I'm Remurin and I played Zoe a ton ever since her release last year and main her ever since and have a very good understanding of how the champion works.
I really really love the champion and how it plays and she brought me back to playing League of Legends after being devoid of having fun in the game for ages. To prevent what happened before in patch 8.4 and what happened to other champions which my friends and I really enjoyed playing (which afterwards got nerfed to the ground causing the champion to not be any fun anymore and even losing its identity (like most recently Tristana somewhat)) I'd like to give some ideas of my own to adjust Zoe in the hopes that I reach at least someone at Riot.
I play the game for almost 8 years and have a nice grasp of the game. I peaked at Platinum 2 during Season 5 and 6 so I hope this gives me somewhat of a talking point.
Zoe's W ability is repeatedly getting targeted for nerfs due to the reliability of the damage. As such, the ability feels useless as a damage ability after countless nerfs. Because of that, I'd like to share an idea for her W- Spellthief.
W - Spellthief
PASSIVE - WHEEEEE: Casting Spell Thief or one of her own summoner spells grants Zoe Movement speed icon bonus movement speed for the next few seconds and summons three bubbles that orbit her for the next
10-> 5 seconds.The bubbles autonomously hurl themselves at the nearest enemy in range, prioritizing her attack target, dealing magic damage.-> NEW:
- The bubbles create three shields around Zoe negating up to [ X + (AP%) ] damage each for up to 5 seconds. (Repeated uses of spells refresh the bubble count and duration.) (Only basic attacks and spells can burst a bubble. Damage over time will damage the bubble shields, but not break them.)
(Basic attacks and abilities can only be negated up to a certain bubbles shield strength. Anything bursting more than a bubble shield will hit Zoe directly instead of another bubble shield.)
Example
- Viktor hits Zoe with his Q ability, damaging Zoe for 100 damage.
- Zoe uses her summoner spell Ignite on Viktor, triggering W- Spellthief granting her bonus movement speed and summons three bubbles around her which shield her from incoming damage. For the sake of explanation, we'll assume that Zoe's bubbles negate 50 damage each.
- Viktor uses his Empowered Auto attack dealing 100 damage, of which 50 damage gets negated and 50 damage hits Zoe directly.
- Zoe has still two bubbles remaining.
- Viktor uses his E empowered ability which hits and deals 100 damage to Zoe, of which 50 get negated and 50 damage hit Zoe directly.
- Viktor uses a basic attack at Zoe, dealing 40 damage. Zoe's bubble negates this damage completely but her bubble bursts regardless.
- Viktor's E ability afterburn damages Zoe which no longer has any bubbles remaining for an additional 100 damage.
My reasoning for why Zoe's W- Spellthief should become a defensive ability instead of a useless weak one which still gets complained about is that while it reduces her reliable damage power a lot it still retains her duelling power, giving her more time to give her Q ability to go off cooldown. Since her **W- Spellthief ** ability is locked behind using Summoner Spells and Item actives I feel like this is a good way to handle the ability in the future.
This would also enhance Zoe's somewhat too, allowing her to be safer while dealing less damage overall and still is able to retain her identity as a speedy trickster.
For something like that to happen it would be nice though to have some power back into her passive ability which is currently nerfed by a third in ratios and 33% to 4% in base damage on the PBE as of 8th of August 2018. hitting her probably harder than other mages which lose damage due to the change of damage runes.
