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Love / Hate Relationships: Making Wukong less binary.

painkills·11/6/2018, 5:39:26 PM·5 votes·22,461 views

Currently, Wukong is absolutely controversial:

  • If you play as him, he feels weak, limited, unable to do much in laning phase and relying on clutch assassinations / teamfights to be useful. This isnt to say that he is weak, as his winrate reflects the opposite, but the experience of laning as Wukong (or getting counterjungled) is frustrating. His hope lies mostly in assassinations or teamfight ults being meaningful.

  • If you play against him and he gets fed, he is a one-shotting, no counter-play monster who kills you from stealth before you can squeal. His time to kill when fed is extremely low, and the fact that his kit is point and click and mostly unavoidable makes this even worse.

Something needs to be done to reconcile these two perspectives, pushing Wukong away from "degenerate one-shotting" and towards healthier damage / trade patterns, while still letting him be useful and helpful for his team.

However, I'd like to point out that this doesnt require a full rework, as some numbers tuning and one additional mechanic in passive and Q could do the trick:

  • Q - Crushing blow: Wukong's next basic attack deals 30/50/70/90/110 + (0.10 AD) physical damage and shreds the enemy's armor by 10% for 6 seconds. The armor reduction stacks up to 5 times and refreshes the duration to 6 seconds. 25 mana, 5 second cooldown. (Keeps 150 bonus range).

  • Passive - Stoneskin: Wukong gains +2 armor and magic resist for every 150 bonus health. He gains an additional 3/5/7 armor and magic resist for every nearby enemy champ.

Analysis: Wukong's Q would now deal a little more damage early game (+20 base and +10% scaling opposed to the current +10 damage and 0 scaling) but less damage late game (-20 base and -30% scaling). This means his overall AD scaling for one shot builds is diminished. However, the fact that his Q scales, and has a 5 second cooldown means that he can threaten enemies with loads of damage if they keep getting hit by him. He will eventually outdamage current wukong, but only if he stays there and slams you 5 times to ruin your armor. It gives him team utility by threatening anyone shreded by him to be destroyed by physical damage dealers. It gives him something unique, without making him the bursty nightmare he is, and without changing his basic playstyle / trade patterns (E-aa-Q-W). Also, the mana cost was a bit crazy for what the spell was, and for the amount of mana Wukong has.

However, for that Q to work, he needs to be able to stay in the fight to apply it to a target several times. For this, he needs some survivability beyond a clone every 10 seconds. Therefore, lets change his passive. If a Wukong were to try to abuse the passive, he would get Titanic Hydra, Black Cleaver, Steraks, Frozen Mallet, and Warmogs (450 + 400 + 450 + 800 + 700 = 2800). This nets him 2800 HP (37 ar/mr). With his passive, that grants him 44 - 72 bonus AR and MR. Strong, better than his 8 - 40 ar/mr atm. Yet, this is only if he builds full bonus health. If he tries to go full AD build, then his passive is weaker than current. People already argue that its largely useless, so that shouldnt be a big deal. However, for bruiserkongs, a more reasonable Black Cleaver, Trinity Force, Steraks, Titanic, Deaths Dance (400 + 250 + 450 + 450 = 1550) nets him 1550 HP (21 ar/mr). This would give him 28 - 56 ar/mr. Tankier in duels, with 28 intead of 8, tankier in teamfights with 56 instead of 40, but in doing so he's given up lethality, AD, Duskblade procs, and other bursty patterns that would make him overpowered.

These changes make a Wukong Assassin, who everyone hates less effective. It makes a Wukong who goes full tank be quite beefy, but potentially helpful in teamfights as he shreds people's armor. It makes a Bruiserkong more survivable, less bursty, but with some threat of future damage if he keeps slapping you with his stick.

Would these changes keep Wukong's essence and play patterns, while making him a healthier champion to play as / against?

37 Comments

Galiö11/9/2018, 1:51:37 AM6 votes

My issue with this, while as the passive change can lead to an interesting idea, this is just straight up a huge buff.

His strength lays in his snowballing and the Q buff is huge. He'd murder people before even getting his armor pen stacks up.

And when he builds a cleaver he is gunna get extra stat check free stats. Hed literally be where he is now, but just way stronger.

I feel like he should have some sort of mechanic that semi projects what he is going to do to justify buffs.

Off topic from your post a bit but...I think hed be interesting if does something like:

Makes clouds somewhere around him Get dash resets to those clouds and making them pop each time he pops a clouds he also reduces his deceive CD deceive can become more potent of a spell

All that can play off his 'trickster element', making him somewhere between a yasuo and a shaco and can open up balancing his kit around something other than his Q.

chipndip111/10/2018, 1:09:06 AM3 votes

None of this makes him less binary

Spicy Rice11/13/2018, 3:39:52 PM3 votes

I think the main problem with Wukong is the same as most older melee champs. At the end of the day, Wukong is a stat check champion. The is little room for nuance in his kit, and fighting against wukong basically equates to surviving his initial burst and then seeing if you can kill him before he uses w to get out.

Your iteration would keep the same problem, except it would change it from simply surviving his burst, to surviving, then out dps'ing him while he whales on you with q (and presumably titanic procs).

I know you can make some pretty cool plays using w, but for all but the most dedicated wukong mains, his w is just an afterthought in fights, being used to stall for cooldowns.

Basically, I don't believe that wukong can be both viable and healthy due to the nature of his kit and that he would need a rework of some kind, primarily relating to his basic kit (not his ult), so that his general laning/trading both has more counterplay, as well as options for the wukong player.

PandaNator4311/9/2018, 6:59:06 PM2 votes

His play pattern is degenerate when he has burst dmg with his E-aa-Q. Getting hit by that into a huge AOE knockup means your dead before you hit the gorund, and the AOE of the knock keeps any teammates from trying to save you.

Take dmg off his q (less base and less ratio), but add a scaling to the armor shred based on bonus AD, and I think it would work better. He gets more sustained damage and utility, less burst. Perhaps even an AS steroid.

Or make the cooldown of Q scale down with increased stacks applied to enemies. So base CD of 6s, minus 1s for every stack applied to enemies. If you mess around with the numbers, you could have his ult apply stacks so once he's done with his ult he comes out swinging with like a 2 second cooldown on q.

He just can't have burst on that initial E-aa-Q.

ModKnightsKemplar11/9/2018, 12:50:02 AM1 votes

Approved! Very nice thread.

Gilgayu11/24/2018, 2:05:37 PM1 votes

Tbh, many champions need a rework worse than Wukong

Kog' maw's been nerfed and nerfed, and the rageblade change made him unplayable (and he was already weak way before that). Mordekaiser need one, he's simply too unmoble for a melee champion. Skarner's player base is very scarce, and his passive is useless in silver+ I wouldn't mind a small rework/nerf to nocturne, a fed nocturne's ult is just too impactful.

On the other hand, Wukong is a bit unhealthy, but is still at least tier 3.

Edit: Of course, we need the annual Ryze rework

Carnicore11/15/2018, 1:41:28 AM1 votes

I tried my hand at reworking him. I think he has a lot of untapped potential to be a fun and dynamic champion.

Gilgayu11/21/2018, 7:39:47 PM1 votes

Btw how do you make people vote at the end of a thread, like you've done for this one? [sg-lux-2]

Gilgayu11/24/2018, 1:58:58 PM1 votes

Adding a second part to clone is nice, but I think changing q would be necessary

instead of just empowering the next auto, it does damage in a line (like half of thresh's e) starting from Wukong. This will likely be more "dodgeble" and make his 1-shot potential less.