Boards›Gameplay

Pyke: Yes, he needs to be nerfed. A 560k mastery point main's perspective.

Hotarµ·10/2/2019, 9:50:58 PM·115 votes·20,113 views

#####Before I start, 2 things.

1 • My name is Hotarµ, I'm currently sitting at 563,709 mastery points on Pyke. Due to work I generally just play for fun, although I'm working on a second account for a support-only ranked climb to see how I do. To put it in perspective of just how much I play Pyke, here's a graph of all my champion mastery levels.

https://i.gyazo.com/3155f9154a4c850f729b8eaf67e6f2aa.png[]

Also yes, I'm aware mastery points are not everything and only reflect someone's experience, I'm not claiming to be challenjour or anything, just let me flex my mastery points in peace

2 • I want to open an actual dialogue and talk about healthy ways to improve the game for everyone. If you're going to ignore everything I say and leave a comment like "Delete Pyke cancer champ", don't bother. You can leave your downvote and move on. I won't be acknowledging it and I ask that everyone reading this post does the same.

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

#1 • Jumping the Gun

######was going to be called "jumping the shark" but that wouldn't make much sense

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

https://imgur.com/TP58cTf.png[]

I think it's very important to note that after solo-Pyke's nerfs (the nerfs from patch 9.13 aimed at removing Pyke from mid and top) his performance did drop noticeably, and I think this is where Riot made a colossal mistake.

#Riot did not give Pyke (and by extension, Pyke players) enough time to adjust to the 9.13 changes.

During the initial days of patch 9.13, I thought Pyke was much weaker to the point where people wouldn't take him seriously anymore. Of course, this didn't stop me from actually playing him, but I was worried.

Losing all minion and monster damage on an ability and all the AoE properties from another would be a drastic change for any champion, however I quickly noticed that support Pyke was not as weak as I had once thought. His winrate also started to slowly rise back to it's original placement of about 47-48%, which I personally feel should be the resting place for popular champions with over a 10% playrate.

Unfortunately, in patch 9.14, Riot jumped the gun and immediately buffed Pyke. Pretty much overnight his winrate and playrate skyrocketed to what they are now, both increasing by about 4-6% which is a massive jump.

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

#2 • What should be done?

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

####Revert his ultimate buff.

His ultimate should be rewarding but as it stands right now I think it's just too much. If Pyke did need buffs following his 9.13 nerfs (which I don't think would be necessary anyway, to be honest) they should have been aimed at his basic abilities and not his ultimate.

Statistically speaking, if you refer to the above WR/PR graph, you can see the sudden spike was due entirely to this change. If we're talking about nerfing or changing Pyke there is absolutely no reason not to revert this buff first.

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

####Add a unique cooldown to his Grey Health mechanic.

Pyke is gated by his inability to build max HP and resistance items, however this also means that he has to have a naturally higher base HP, armor, and MR than most of the cast. Due to these high stats and a heavy reliance on his Grey Health (which again, acts as a leash) this means Pyke is very slippery and functionally immune to poke for a majority of the game.

Now I really dislike using numbers when suggesting changes to champions, but I'll be using them here for clarity.

Gift of the Drowned Ones [Innate]

Pyke stores 30−80% (based on level) of the damage he takes from enemy champions as Grey Health on his health bar, up to 80 (+ 800% bonus AD), with an upper cap of 60% of his maximum health.

NEW EFFECT: If Pyke takes 150 - 1,000 damage (based on level), Gift of the Drowned Ones is placed on a 7 second cooldown and any damage received after this cap is hit will be taken out of his Grey Health.

In other words, I'm shortening the leash. Pyke has to think even more carefully about his choices rather than just the ones that involve CC. This makes him less of a menace in lane, creates more windows where you can punish him for making mistakes (even when you don't have CC available), and encourages Pyke to play as he was designed: a fast, high-risk, high-reward champion.

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

##~~Thanks so much for reading, I would really appreciate your input. ~~

In closing:

Pyke is one of my favorite champions and he helped re-ignite my passion for League of Legends. I think a lot of his hate is undeserved but I would never deny how strong he is right now. I want to see him returned to a healthier point overall and I feel that implementing one (or both) of the above changes would do so while keeping him fun to play.

71 Comments

Harleqynn10/3/2019, 12:57:44 AM27 votes

First off, lovely and well reasoned post. You presented your problems and proposed solutions clearly and well. Nice job!!

Ok I sound like a high school English teacher...but I was really impressed by it*[slayer-jinx-wink]*

Moving on XD

I honestly have no problems aside from his gold and gray health thing. Even so, I just kinda deal with him when he shows up. I just play for fun so I don’t really get the DeLEt PykE ImmEdIaTe posts. That said, I think the changes you proposed are good solutions, and he does need to be taken down in power level a bit

TyRamos10/2/2019, 11:55:23 PM11 votes

Yeah I think both changes would be good. Its obnoxious that he takes a bunch of damage and heal nearly all of it back in a few seconds. Its especially obnoxious on ARAM. Same with his gold from the ult. Unfortunately with a few exceptions Riot is terrible at admitting they are wrong and reverting a nerf or buff. See Blitz buff and armor nerf.

faure10/3/2019, 6:07:46 PM6 votes

One of the most fundamentally broken designs ever released. Easy to play, impossible to punish, insane CC and damage with bonus gold to make sure he snowballs at superhuman speed.

IMO there needs to be a much longer delay on how long it takes his stun to proc. For one, the area it covers is enormous - unless you have a dash, you are getting hit 99% because it is impossible to avoid by just running to the side. He already has invisibility and his massive healing to make him impossible to chase, then you factor in this ridiculous AOE CC dash???

There is no counterplay other than CC nuke him, which is not an option until mid-late game at which point he has snowballed already and can chain execute your entire team in a matter of seconds. Honestly this champ is fucking disgusting, shit like this makes me hate this game.

VelvetCrotch10/3/2019, 6:28:42 AM6 votes

Never saw such a professional looking thread in my 7 years here lol

I am Bardo Bard10/3/2019, 8:42:32 AM4 votes

This thread is like a lemon: You have a handful of fruit but the juice you get out of it is almost nothing. The formatting is nice but looks like a substitute for actual content and people will go "Woooo, dat luuks so profezzional", but in fact it's just some Pyke player that shows us we know already and comes up with not-so great ideas and superficial things for such an overloaded kit that creates a multi-layered problem. I mean, why do you play Pyke so much in the first place? Because he is easy and safe. And I am sure you would drop him immediately if he get put in place properly, not fake nerfs like these.

This thread sounds like some funky lobby-ist sort of thing.

Shahamut10/3/2019, 6:55:21 PM4 votes

Pyke ruins economy by printing counterfeit gold!

No really, if pykes ult is going to be a full on execute, (no shield can save you), the. It either needs to not reset or not generate gold. The free gold for team is the most tilting part of his kit for me.

Lusty Elven Maid10/3/2019, 6:11:34 AM3 votes

His gold generation from ultimate is very much unneeded. Most of my game with pykes, both with and against, always have pyke extremely fed and has a bounty, regardless of whether the ADC is doing fine or horrible. He takes kill, get twice the amount of kill gold, buy assassin items, while taking after shock. He gets fed fast, and he snowballs super hard. Honestly, for an assassin, his kit is extremely forgiving.

Serika Zero10/3/2019, 5:54:45 AM3 votes

My views on this is mainly quite simple. riot has a design flaw.

Assassins are generally seen as high risk, high reward champions. Whose purpose is either burst, dot burst, get in get out play style.

Riot's first mistake was adding easy mobility to lol assassins. why was this a mistake? Because it removes the risk factor. There's no longer a high risk when you can easily escape a bad situations using Zed, Leblank, pyke, ekko, fizz, new akali, Quiana, Kassadin. Heck even talon now when he has walls.

Notice how less popular are Diana, rengar, kha and eve (tho eve has an easy escape, she has overall less mobility).

The next mistake riot made was giving assassins cc. Leblank and talon and kassadin used to have silences. Then riot removed at least that since they noticed cc makes assassins very strong. then they made Ekko.... Pyke... New akali.... Quiana...

So, Pyke already has two design flaws. Then they added a 3rd, gray health. The "you can't poke me and you will lose all trades VS me" mechanic. The same reason top Tham was seen as cancer and the reason why most people despite top lane rengar.

And then, AND THEN, they decided: well, assassins kill targets, and that means other carries don't get gold, what if, what if!!! We shared the gold, and not split it in two, but double it per kill!!!!

So yeh, pyke is an abomination created out of several design flaws.

If you want him to be in a decent state, he has to give up two of his absurdities in exchange for power in other areas.

Ps: tank pyke would have been absurd if he were allowed to build hp and resistances...

XJ9999999999999910/3/2019, 2:34:57 PM3 votes

they jumped the gun not because of stupidity but because project pyke was coming out lol

warhawk3610/3/2019, 3:15:40 PM3 votes

I like these changes a lot. But yesterday I was talking about potential Pyke nerfs. I really hate how long he has to use his ult again after it has reset on a kill, especially with the mobility he can get around really fast before the reset duration runs out. I think a simple idea would be to simply lower the time he has to use the reset ultimate again. Along with the changes you suggested I feel it would push him to teamfight more and not pick people off even though that would be good regardless. If he's forced into fights he has to either string his ult together before the reset comes to a close because of your change where he can't just heal up after being in the middle of a fight.

PurpleKingCrazy10/3/2019, 4:18:31 PM3 votes

I think It's very true Pyke can't really build health and now essential those tools are. I really do like the attention to detail and I truly like your suggestions to make his kit weaker and without gutting the champion and completely nerf him altogether.

I think what Riot has done tho is to make Pyke dependable only on one source (entirely lethality/some AD) and make his kit hyper anti-poke than I say that he had just become one of the most, if not the most boring champion in the game as it stands. I consider him one of my most hated, if not the 2nd-most hated champion (aside from Poppy which I will always hate and WILL always hate no matter what she is or what placement she is.)

Yea I was hopefully sure that someone will talk about this and I really like to say I used to like the champion on release and he would be the most exciting champion, and then Riot changed him to the state he is in now and I absurdly hate him for his easiness to his entire kit and his sensibility to play and win most of the time because "hurr durr burst is good and fast and easy hurrdurr." So yea I do like the suggestion you're going for as a professional pyke player and I appreciate your effort to come and suggest on the boards.

Taliyah

ContDeCaterinca110/3/2019, 8:33:06 AM3 votes

My biggest issue when facing Pyke is how tanky he can be.

He has the base stats of a Tahm Kench, but more armor per level, and then he regens more than TK does with his E.

He is skill dependent, his Q and E are skillshots you have to hit, but if the player is good, there is literally no way to lose trades, you win short trades(since you can't be poked down), you win all-ins since you have so much HP, armor and MR, not to mention hard CC and damage.

Plus that ULT is insane.

KrypticBeing10/3/2019, 1:03:27 AM3 votes

I think his ult should be harder to hit. The champ rn is one of those champs yoy have to play around of. You cant just play like an idiot and be fine. If they have a fed rengar you dont walk into the jungle. If pyke isnt in lane just play safe. Miss farm. Its so much better than dying, but people dont understand. If you have a competent jungler he can also countergank.

TK57610/5/2019, 1:09:36 AM2 votes

Let's not also forget his utility in battle alone. Not only does he have the ability to yoink your teammates but he can CC lock champions if his team has the right comp. But by his natural kit alone he has so many synergies.

Thingamajig10/3/2019, 8:12:37 AM2 votes

the ultimate accelerates the gold way too much

in aram his ultimate alone means that you are going to be behind 1-2 items on even kill score which is kinda insane

and i think they should add a cd to his healing like 10-15 seconds so that you are atleast given a breathing window when he decides to dip out and doesn't just mean that he has infinite health later on

so i guess we agree pretty much

Jaspers10/3/2019, 8:36:51 AM2 votes

I really like the idea that you take off his grey health, this means he'll heal less right? He can't just take all damage and heal up most of it when nearly anyone else (if they survived) would have to back or basically be dead weight.

I personally just with they add an 'out of combat' to his healing, as dipping into a bush and returning basically full HP to go again isn't fun for the enemy team and they'd remove the slow he has after his hook, no idea why that is there.

Padoµch10/3/2019, 10:05:54 AM2 votes

My opinion on Pyke is that he get too much free stuff.

  1. Make his Ult Physical not true. Take away the HP execution thresh hold. He will have to guess, just like Garen.
  2. His E stunns the first enemy hit and slows others .
  3. His grey health is gonna heal 35% of the dmg taken in the last 2 seconds and will not start if there is any dmg ticking on him -> ignite/Brand passive and so on.

There, Pyke is balanced.

Xintium10/3/2019, 11:08:53 AM2 votes

First of all, nice visually presented post, Hotarµ. What follows is my input.

  1. The "Pyke problem" started earlier than its release. I made a long post explaining what factors were involved, but the bottom line is this. In the botlane meta, there are essentially three types of lane: Poke, Kill, Sustain. The hybrid "Poke-Kill" lane, for several reasons, became the unconditional best lane in the game. Mage (and assassin) supports established their dominance over "conventional" (think: enchanters, but not only enchanters by no means) supports.

  2. Pyke winrate is immaterial, since that metric is affected by high banrate and relatively high (but oscillating) popularity. Such a metric needs to be first manipulated ("normalized") to give it any meaning. For example, banrate needs to be taken into account, while people with little experience on Pyke need to be filtered out.

  3. Pyke kit is too overloaded and some mechanics need to be removed. There is just no way out of this. You can tweak the numbers all you want, but you aren't gonna get anywhere if he still has all the tools in his kit.

There is no easy way out for Pyke. Of course, realistically speaking, Riot will barely scratch him with some placebo nerfs... or go over-board and gut him. If the meta changes back to a less damage/kill-oriented meta, indirectly nerfing assassin-like champions, this will also influence Pyke, which may be the "least effort" nerf he could hope for. But there is no guarantee that the meta will evolve towards a generally-lower damage across the board.

Sinister Anubis10/3/2019, 1:50:03 PM2 votes

{quoted}

#####Before I start, 2 things.

1 • My name is Hotarµ, I'm currently sitting at 563,709 mastery points on Pyke. Due to work I generally just play for fun, although I'm working on a second account for a support-only ranked climb to see how I do. To put it in perspective of just how much I play Pyke, here's a graph of all my champion mastery levels.

https://i.gyazo.com/3155f9154a4c850f729b8eaf67e6f2aa.png[]

Also yes, I'm aware mastery points are not everything and only reflect someone's experience, I'm not claiming to be challenjour or anything, just let me flex my mastery points in peace

2 • I want to open an actual dialogue and talk about healthy ways to improve the game for everyone. If you're going to ignore everything I say and leave a comment like "Delete Pyke cancer champ", don't bother. You can leave your downvote and move on. I won't be acknowledging it and I ask that everyone reading this post does the same.

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

#1 • Jumping the Gun

######was going to be called "jumping the shark" but that wouldn't make much sense

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

https://imgur.com/TP58cTf.png[]

I think it's very important to note that after solo-Pyke's nerfs (the nerfs from patch 9.13 aimed at removing Pyke from mid and top) his performance did drop noticeably, and I think this is where Riot made a colossal mistake.

#Riot did not give Pyke (and by extension, Pyke players) enough time to adjust to the 9.13 changes.

During the initial days of patch 9.13, I thought Pyke was much weaker to the point where people wouldn't take him seriously anymore. Of course, this didn't stop me from actually playing him, but I was worried.

Losing all minion and monster damage on an ability and all the AoE properties from another would be a drastic change for any champion, however I quickly noticed that support Pyke was not as weak as I had once thought. His winrate also started to slowly rise back to it's original placement of about 47-48%, which I personally feel should be the resting place for popular champions with over a 10% playrate.

Unfortunately, in patch 9.14, Riot jumped the gun and immediately buffed Pyke. Pretty much overnight his winrate and playrate skyrocketed to what they are now, both increasing by about 4-6% which is a massive jump.

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

#2 • What should be done?

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

####Revert his ultimate buff.

His ultimate should be rewarding but as it stands right now I think it's just too much. If Pyke did need buffs following his 9.13 nerfs (which I don't think would be necessary anyway, to be honest) they should have been aimed at his basic abilities and not his ultimate.

Statistically speaking, if you refer to the above WR/PR graph, you can see the sudden spike was due entirely to this change. If we're talking about nerfing or changing Pyke there is absolutely no reason not to revert this buff first.

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

####Add a unique cooldown to his Grey Health mechanic.

Pyke is gated by his inability to build max HP and resistance items, however this also means that he has to have a naturally higher base HP, armor, and MR than most of the cast. Due to these high stats and a heavy reliance on his Grey Health (which again, acts as a leash) this means Pyke is very slippery and functionally immune to poke for a majority of the game.

Now I really dislike using numbers when suggesting changes to champions, but I'll be using them here for clarity.

In other words, I'm shortening the leash. Pyke has to think even more carefully about his choices rather than just the ones that involve CC. This makes him less of a menace in lane, creates more windows where you can punish him for making mistakes (even when you don't have CC available), and encourages Pyke to play as he was designed: a fast, high-risk, high-reward champion.

https://i.imgur.com/nQ7Jpev.png[]

##~~Thanks so much for reading, I would really appreciate your input. ~~

In closing:

Pyke is one of my favorite champions and he helped re-ignite my passion for League of Legends. I think a lot of his hate is undeserved but I would never deny how strong he is right now. I want to see him returned to a healthier point overall and I feel that implementing one (or both) of the above changes would do so while keeping him fun to play.

We talked before about pyke and these 2 thinks keeps coming up. I agree that they need changed. Especially the grey health mechanic. Pyke is so slippery that you cant kill him and when caught with CC if hes not 100-0 he gains to much back after he runs away for a few second and now you have Ultimate abilities and summoner spells on cool down trying to initially kill him but didnt. His gold generation is also to good but every one knows this already. I Think these things are good to start. I may even buy RP again. I vowed to not buy RP until riot fixes pyke. He is a unhealthy champion by design.

Tr4shB4NSYST3M10/3/2019, 6:17:23 PM2 votes

IMO the 9.14 buffs were to push pyke back into pro play (they love when the flashy playmaker champs are in competitive). I agree 100% with what you said about 48% winrate on a high pickrate high banrate champ being pretty balanced

Slim Gragas10/4/2019, 6:33:09 PM2 votes

The fact that people think you need a to make a huge post like this as an everyday player to nerf a single champion just shows how terrible the Riot balancing team is. Their refusal to nerf certain champions effectively across several patches while other champions get nerfed after a single patch of something "broken" being discovered about them is a clear sign of favoritism and incompetence.

HeartPalpitation10/3/2019, 2:30:09 AM1 votes

Here is the problem, you are basically wanting straight nerfs to him, no compensation or anything straight nerfing his ult and gutting his passive. Not only would that shit on his lane phase but if he didnt somehow find a way to snowball lane phase he would quickly become irrelevant in every other part of the game. The reason they gave him so much gold on his ult is because they destroyed his wave clear. I've said it before and i'll say it again reverting everything giving his wave clear back while changing the way his passive works. Solo lane pyke was not really an issue he had plenty of counters so it's not like he was this broken uncounterable champion. If they had to change numbers to make him a little more balanced sure maybe 60% damage to minions with e or something would keep him from perma pushing and nonstop roaming. i dunno these seem like you just want him gutted and i don't agree with it.