As a Talon main, I believe Talon needs a nerf.

I first discovered post-rework Talon's potential when I began playing him in Bloodmoon. I learned that Talon is capable of crossing the map quickly to access objectives and kills, he almost always has an escape path, and the true invis from his ult gives him lots of room to set up a play. It was easy for me to cross the map, place some vision, farm some ghosts, and then use the buff to easily locate and kill any enemy I wanted with a clean escape with his E.

So I started playing him in norms, and within 2 or 3 weeks I had a shiny Mastery 7 badge. I believe that playing Talon has greatly improved my style of play, because playing Talon encourages constant moving. It enables you to focus on helping your teammates secure kills and objectives, and I feel like Talon has the most impact on the outcome of a match than any other champion I have learned to play.

I started playing in Season 5, and until a few weeks ago I have always been on WiFi with a meh computer. Now that has changed, and I am able to play with a steady, lightning-fast connection with a perfect 60 fps even on the highest visual settings. That can only mean one thing: It's time to play ranked.

I was placed in Bronze 1 two weekends ago after 6 wins and 4 losses. 2 of those losses had afks and/or legitimate trolls that went out of their ways to make us lose the match. Last weekend I ranked up to Silver 5, and just moments ago I finished winning 6 matches in a row to bump myself up to Silver 4.

Not really a big deal, Silver 4, as I'm still near the very bottom of the food chain. What is outstanding, however, is the stats I'm seeing at the end of these matches when checking the brand new Stats feature in my profile. The KDAs are nice, sure, but I'm seeing how effective my playstyle is at securing objectives through fighting with the team and roaming to help other lanes early.

I'm probably going to keep climbing to at least high Silver effortlessly, but while playing these matches in ranked and after hundreds of matches in norms, I have to admit that Talon is very overwhelming. R E Flash Q catches squishies off guard with no chance of escape with a Duskblade proc. The constant moving around the map means that a veteran Talon player will never be caught with all nearby terrain on cooldown. The low cooldown of Talon's E means that he will outrun almost any other champion and can easily get out of many sticky situations, especially if used in conjunction with his R to give him true invisibility. In many team fights, I am able to apply damage, E out, flank, and then re-enter the fight with cooldowns back. Talon can engage with a good W Q combo into a teamfight and then be in the perfect position to apply damage to multiple enemies with R while having an easy escape.

I can keep going, but the point is that Talon has many advantages that most other assassin champions do not have. Akali is bound to her smokescreen to survive teamfights, Yasuo must play around his windwall, Zed is bound to his shadows' locations, etc. but Talon doesn't have these issues. He is free to flank into a fight from one direction and then escape in the other. He simply has too many ways to enter a fight and then still has many ways to survive.

Talon is pretty broken, even after the recent nerf to Rake, and it's surprising that more players in low elo don't pick him up or at least ban him.

Honestly, I think a large portion of these issues can be solved with some minor changes to his E. Giving his E a minor mana cost would make leaping across the map less viable, or changing Talon to being energy-dependent would mean that using E to travel would put him at a disadvantage if he tried to fight without full energy. Alternatively, E could have a higher cooldown between leaps. I honestly don't even feel the 2 second cooldown because it takes that long to travel from most terrain edges to the next. A 5 second cooldown would mean that Talon players would need to be sure they can commit before they leap, and it would also prevent Talon from traveling from one lane to the next at supersonic speed before enemy teams can react.

Anyway, there is my two cents. Sure sure, I'm just some guy who just managed to rank up to Silver 4 with 6 wins in a row, but my experience with Talon tells me that he does indeed need to be tuned down just a bit to make him a tad less impactful and easier to play against. The late game falloff just isn't enough, and I've been countering it with Gathering Storm pretty well.

I'd like to hear some thoughts from other Talon players, and also from those who are a bit annoyed when they run into Talons on the Rift.