Why Divers should be chosen for the Late 2016 Rework

Warning Long Post!

Preface:

• The Diver Sub-class is a sub-class of the overall class FIGHTER, in a post made sometime ago, Divers, if chosen from a set of other classes and sub-classes, were being considered for a rework later this year. Of the two class reworks we have seen so far, Juggernaut and ADC, the response has been mixed, with some crying "OP or Broken" and others claiming the reworks to be "Necessary Changes", regardless one thing can be stated as fact about the reworks: it cemented the Class and Sub-class as important to the overall meta and made each and everyone of its reworks 'unique' and different.

What is the Diver Sub-class?

• LOL Wiki describes Divers as: "The most well-rounded of fighters: while not as tough as juggernauts or as loaded with damage as light fighters, divers blend the best of both worlds, mixing in natural toughness and damage with powerful bursts of mobility. While still short-ranged overall, divers excel at entering fights and initiating combat, though once in they have only their natural defenses to protect them against incoming damage. Divers tend to build equal parts damage and defense, allowing them to remain a constant threat without sacrificing too much survivability."

• Riot Meddler has described the Diver class as: "Pretty mobile, and really good at getting onto specific targets they want to kill, builds a little bit more offensively than juggernauts (e.g. Irelia or Xin Zhao)"

• Examples later stated by Meddler have been: Irelia, Xin Zhao, Shyvana (Diver/Juggernaut, but better described as Diver), Olaf (same as Shyvanna), Wukong, Jax (Hybrid of Diver/Light Fighter), Master Yi (Diver/Light Fighter), Aatrox, and in my personal opinion Warwick.

Why should Divers be reworked?

• In my opinion Divers of all the Classes and Sub-Classes of League of Legends, suffer the most from being generic and having a 'samey' feeling between them. After initiating a fight most Divers have no choice but either Fight or Die. Unlike Assassins, Divers do not have the luxury of being assured their kill immediately after their combo and to make up for it Divers have extra tankiness/sustain to allow them to either Fight until they achieve their kill and they have a chance to leave, or Die while soaking up as much of the enemy's cooldowns while they do so. The weakest of Divers can initiate only to be killed almost immediately if they enter too deep, Aatrox for example, while not even being able to soak up much damage since either their innate tankiness or sustain is too weak in an attempt to balance them. If they are fed these Divers STILL might not be able to kill and survive the teamfight. The strongest of Divers, Shyvana or Master Yi, enter fights and achieve their kill consistently and are both tanky enough while having sustain and/or escapes built into their kits to let them leave after an extended teamfight without dying. The worst sin of Divers, as mention before, is the fact that many of them are binary in nature: they can either kill and fight for a bit after or die without doing anything, and to compound on this a number of diver champs rely on their ultimates to be a major threat in teamfights, Warwick, Wukong, and Olaf. Without their ults, these Divers cannot teamfight and only exist to peel or soak up damage.

What Divers desperately need reworks?

1. Aatrox: The saddest of the Diving Sub-class, Aatrox is weak as an initiator or as a tank, Aatrox only strength is his damage and champions like Master Yi or Shyvana offer this, but with cc or sustain to boot. Aatrox is deliberately crippled by his passive, which in a best case scenario only lets him come back to hit-and-run and at worst case scenario leaves him like a pinata in the middle of the enemy team. Aatrox's E is a noobtrap which only slows his dps down during a dive and his diving Q is ironically probably one of the worst diving abilities since it can be easily dodged unlike most of the Divers who either have point-and-click Dives to assure their stickiness, like Xin Zhao or Warwick, or aoe cc, like Shyvana or Wukong, which lets them push aside champs to get to their target.

2. Warwick: Warwick has been offered reworks before only for them to be iceboxed for the immediate future. Like Aatrox, Warwick suffers from his kit being too weak/boring, unlike Aatrox, Warwick also suffers from 2009 splash arts and ability icons and an old model which limits his skins from being redesign to a high quality. Warwick's only advantage in being reworked is that he actually has a theme or pattern of playing unlike Aatrox. Warwick is a blood hunter and so can sniff out low hp champs and chase them down while they run for their life. Unfortunately this ability is stuck to his E and while it is a great ability with a lot of utility, its bland and feels like a passive that somehow stole a place on his main abilities. Warwick's Dive ability is his ultimate which allows him to stun a person while dealing damage, while stunning himself in the process. This ability often feels toxic to the community, despite having counterplay albeit through relying on your team to peel WW off of you feels like a crapshoot most of the time. If players want to counterplay WW themselves they buy QSS or its upgrade Mercurial Scimitar but does counterplay mean making someone's ability useless with one item? The problem is that squishies want to counterplay WW's ultimate, and despite whether or not it is toxic, it FEELS toxic which matters more. I have a solution which I'll put at the bottom of this post, that lets WW keep his ultimate which lets him stay a diver and squishies have counterplay besides build QSS and make WW QQ.

3. Xin Zhao: Xin Zhao is a lot like Warwick: Dive or Duel Ultimate, a kill or be killed mentality, and stickiness (Xin's Q/ WW's E) which allows them to stay on their target after they dive in. Xin Zhao loves to duel 1v5, like a Master Yi but unlike Yi, Xin Zhao either kills everyone or gets stunned and destroyed. Like I said before, Xin Zhao has no problems with one target and staying on them, but against a team with a fair amount of CC and Xin cannot stay alive for long enough to kill his targets in a teamfight and his R only delays his inevitable shutdown. Unless Xin is super fed or super OP, cough unnecessary W buffs cough, then Xin Zhao cannot 1v5 let alone 1v300.

4. Shyvana: Shyvana is the first on this list to be doing just fine in the meta. She's a textbook example of a diver: tanky enough to stay alive and has enough damage to kill her target if they let her. In fact she literally dives to her opponent when her ultimate is up and even when she can't ult, her kit allows her to still be strong enough to fight 1v1 and maybe even 1v2. The reasons why Shyvana is TOO strong are simple enough:

• Her insane clear and survivability in the jungle allows her to easily outfarm any other champion even other champions who solely focus on farming early like Master Yi and Udyr.
• Shyvana is allowed to build tanky, while keeping her damage in tact with only 1 or 2 damage items. This allows her to be an absolute menace not only to her target, but to everyone else afterwards.

5. Master Yi: Just like Shyvana, Master Yi grabs a few damage items and switches to building full tank for the rest of the game, after hitting a huge powerspike, Master Yi becomes almost unstoppable, unless teams focus him with their CC. Even so to kill Master Yi at his peak requires a team effort and a copious amount of CC, all while his team slows kills off members of your team while your distracted with Yi.

What's wrong here? Have you noticed? Each and everyone of these champions are Devourer-based builders.

• Before each of these mains crucifix me, let me tell you that I am a Warwick main and I like Devourer's. Its undoubtedly the most interesting jungle enchantment, but it doesn't have much in the way of competition: a ball of ad stats, a mini sunfire cape, and a mana recharge with a movement speed boost. Compare these with a cool wolf pet, a ghost clone, and a badass purple theme to boot! But Devourer's is sadly broken and here's why: It was design to encourage on-hit and attackspeed, but provides so much of both that its users just build on more item for their passive, BOTRK if you wanna destroy tanks too with its passive or Titanic Hydra if you're gonna build hp for more on-hit in its passive. The worst part is that Devourer's promotes counteractive playstyles too, so that its buyers will farm early and forget about ganking which hurts their teams, just so they can destroy enemy teams later. Devourer's needs a replacement that lets Auto-Attackers be themselves without being forced to farm and sit in jungle all day to do so. Finally WHEN Devourer's gets reworked, the above champions will NOT be magically fixed, but it will allow these Divers to be changed for the better and the overall gameplay of LOL will improve as a result.

---

BONUS LOOK INTO WARWICK's ULTIMATE: Lets look at its Pros and Cons first shall we?

Pros:

• Strong Initiating Tool
• Strong Dueling Tool
• Promotes Warwick's standard On-Hit build
• Great move to use as an emergency (use this and wait for your team to help you)
• Good peeling move

Cons:

• Instantly becomes a target to every enemy nearby and stuns/charms/knockups will stop his channel.
• Suppress feels Toxic and it feels like no counterplay is available to this except literally taking it away which leads to:
• QSS taking away Warwick is strongest ability and his ability to dive making it all to easy to kill the vulnerable WW.
• Suppress might stun his target, but Warwick is stunned too (no building QSS to counter that!).

How to untoxicify Warwick's ult and make immediate counterplay avaliable to his target:

What if Warwick's ultimate only stopped Warwick from moving? After ulting Warwick would be stuck onto his target while dealing damage and while they still be able to walk and autoattack (but not AA Warwick), but not use spells (Summoner Spells might be okay). Warwick would lose his ability to "catch" an opponent out of position, such as being surrounded by Warwick's team or under a tower alone, but still retain his ability to dive and duel. If a squishy gets ulted they will either continue to attack with AAs or move towards an ally with CC so they could pull WW off them (or to a tower to kill the silly Warwick).

Warwick's Ultimate NOW:

Pros:

• Strong Initiating Tool
• Strong Dueling Tool
• Promotes Warwick's standard On-Hit build
• Okay peeling move

Cons:

• Instantly becomes a target to every enemy nearby and stuns/charms/knockups will stop his channel.
• Suppress might stun his target, but Warwick is stunned too.

Too strong/weak?