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Love / Hate Relationships: Making Wukong less binary.

painkills··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

Galiö6 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.

painkills3 votes

Alright, so Ive posted some of these ideas elsewhere and ran into a similar misunderstanding.

When I say 110% on his Q scaling, I mean 100% from the auto-attack that the ability is based on, and an additional 0.10 scaling off total AD.

So, currently, the ability does 10+100% / 40+110% / 70+120% / 100+130% / 130+140% My proposal was to make it a static 110% and rank up 30/50/70/90/110 on base damage.

Overall, its both less scaling and less base damage (except rank 1), as a means of making it burst for less and making up for its lowered cooldown.

As far as your other point on telegraphing, the fact that his Q hits softer but progressively increases in damage if you an stack it on a single target, thats part of his telegraphing. Sure he can pop out of stealth and hit you once... you wont be dead. But you can be sure that hes going to want to keep Qing you to shred you.

And the buff in passive is to make up for that need to be in the teamfight for longer periods of time. He would NEED to be tankier cuz his Q will be significantly weaker in single combo bursts. He needs to apply several to be effective and thats the telegraphed playstyle that enemies can counter.

Finally, with regards to trickster, I would definitely love something that made his W be up more often, or be a more significant part of his gameplay. If it gets attack or if it hits someone with the spin the cooldown is lowered.... something to reward you for using the clone well. It heals you, it slows them, it knocks them up, it resets cooldown, something to make it a little cooler and more rewarding.

chipndip13 votes

None of this makes him less binary

painkills1 votes

Could you explain why?

If his burst is lower, then he cant rely on that as easily. His feast situations will be less marked and less oppressive.

If his sustained damage is more threatening and his defenses are stronger, he has more options if hes behind, making his famine less depressing.

Thats what I was trying to aim for, anyway.

Where do you think it's off?

chipndip12 votes

Q: Still point and click

E: Still point and click

R: Still aoe around himself

There's no variance to play around anywhere here. Think of Xin Zhao. What did Riot do with him so they could improve him so much with so little? Oh yes, they added variance (his new W). We don't need to "Aatrox" Wukong, but he's a diver that's 100% guaranteed in his play pattern and that's an issue.

painkills1 votes

I think a case could be made for the need for "simple" characters. Not everything needs to be a skillshot, or a minigame, or new mechanics.

Sure, his abilities are point and clicks. The skill test for this version of Wukong would mainly be behind how he manages to stack his Q on enemies. Anyone can land QER, but the key to his damage or usefulness would be how well he can follow-up or set-up for that R with Q stacks.

Too greedy stacking too many on a single target? You overextend and die. Too safe and only do QEW and out? You wont do nearly enough damage.

The character's basic mechanics can be simple, but his gameplan could make things more complex and engaging.

chipndip12 votes

Simple? Fine

None of what Wu has, and none of what you suggested, adds any real variance to the champion. All gains are still either 100% guaranteed or practically so. His kit also doesn't support a play style that would revolve around utilizing AAs.

painkills1 votes

AAs are guaranteed, but that doesnt mean theres no variance in autoattacking champions.

Armor shred and an AS steroid could support Auto attacks, but why would he need to have that play style supported?

Spicy Rice3 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.

painkills1 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).

Surely the fact that his burst isnt fight-ending anymore will force a change in game play patterns. The fact that Wukong now needs to jump on you and continue stacking Qs will change the pattern of how you play as or against Wukong. There is now a tension between how long Wukong can stay in, stacking Qs, and when he needs to retreat. He also needs to decide if hes more useful shredding tanks to help support his backline with its damage, or if hes bruisering backlines and forcing them to retreat. Its not just, "1shot and get out", its a bit more nuanced.

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.

I agree with this. Clone is one of the more interesting parts of Wukong's kit, and it currently isnt meaningful enough. Even something as simple as having Decoy refresh cooldown if the clone spin hits an enemy champion would allow for some fun, tricky plays. I do feel that this aspect needs to be played up.

Spicy Rice3 votes

While it might change his playstyle in skirmishes, I don't think it would really affect his fighting style in teamfights much at all. Due to his immense potential as an initiator, I wouldn't be surprised if his teamfights ended up being stealth in, e-aa-q-r, knocking up the enemy team, then just sitting on the closest squishy.

Granted, this is taking the current meta into account, where tanks/frontlines are all but nonexistent. If the meta shifts to a more tanky/slower meta, I could see his teamfighting become more nuanced.

painkills1 votes

Well, the fact that he needs to sit on the closest squishy means both the squishy and Wukong are still alive.

Starting from there, thats a pretty big difference when playing against Wukong. As the squishy, its less oppressive. As Wukong, its less binary. You dont NEED to burst or be useless. There are more options now. Initiate, sit on squishy, zone him, stick to enemy divers to avoid your team dying, shred their tanks, etc.

PandaNator432 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.

ModKnightsKemplar3 votes

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

Yeah, but I also think the OP is trying to solve that in a slightly less ham-fisted way. You don't have to prohibit him from having that. I can build AD taric and have burst on my initial E - aa - aa combo, too. People don't do that because it isn't reliable.

This is about building a kit that encourages Wuk to build more bruiser. That way, you don't have the hit the base or the scaling, you just encourage Wukong to build differently to succeed. Players will naturally gravitate towards more reliable builds.

PandaNator431 votes

Yeah, but I also think the OP is trying to solve that in a slightly less ham-fisted way. You don't have to prohibit him from having that. I can build AD taric and have burst on my initial E - aa - aa combo, too. People don't do that because it isn't reliable.

I think in this case you do have to prohibit it, for the reasons I stated: The pattern of E-aa-Q BURST plus the CC of the ult will always be the most reliable, so you need to prohibit the burst.

Its not hamfisted to changing base of scalings, they exist as balance levers, its their exact purpose.

Some of the other ideas I mention, yeah, those are a little-half baked. I was just trying to brainstorm ways to give Wukong damage that isn't bursty.

painkills1 votes

which is why his overall burst has been toned down by having less base damage on Q and less scaling.

painkills1 votes

Well I do think hitting his scaling and base would still be necessary to balance it, since otherwise he'd have both burst and long-term threat.

Both base damage, scaling, and initial armor shred are reduced in order to compensate for the lower cool down, longer debuff and stackability.

painkills1 votes

I think theres been a lot of misunderstanding with regards to the proposed damage I have on Q.

Currently, his Q deals 10/40/70/100/130 base and 0/10/20/30/40% scaling with AD.

My proposal makes it 30/50/70/90/110 base and static 10% scaling with AD.

This DOES address his burst, by making both burst and scaling lower in every rank but rank 1.

Gilgayu1 votes

{quoted}

I think theres been a lot of misunderstanding with regards to the proposed damage I have on Q.

Currently, his Q deals 10/40/70/100/130 base and 0/10/20/30/40% scaling with AD.

My proposal makes it 30/50/70/90/110 base and static 10% scaling with AD.

This DOES address his burst, by making both burst and scaling lower in every rank but rank 1.

Honestly if you want to go down that route to make him a brusier like champ, I would go as far as making his q dealing 0/20/40/60/80 with 8/16/24/36/40% ad with 10% armor shred and 5% mr shred for 5 sec, stacking up to 5 times. He will also heal for 50% of the dmg delt if his hp is more than 800/1300/1800/2500/3000. The cd would be lowered to 5/4.5/4/3.5/3.

I like stone skin (passive), but if Riot want Wukong as a brusier, they should probably let it grant Wukong armor and mr by percents, instead of just a flat amount.

These changes will encourage Wukong to go for hp items for the healing from his q, and more tanky items to utilitize its passive. I imagine the build would be like item 1413 > item 3078 > item 3071 > item 3053 > item 3074 / item 3748 >whatever boots

This will be used when he is extremly ahead, but when behind, he should use item 1413 > item 3078 > item 3742 > item 3156 > item 3083 > whatever boots

painkills1 votes

Well, see, the issue is that a Q that does 8%AD and 0 bonus damage at level 1 is pretty abysmal.

I also think the MR shred doesnt quite make sense for his kit and leaves design space for another champion to do so somehow?

Finally, Q heal for 50% of damage on a 3s cooldown, with 40% cdr and only healing if you have "enough health" is both OP and clunky. He'd heal for around 250 every 1.5 seconds. It also overloads his Q.

If Wukong were to have healing, I would attach it to his clone. He restores health based on damage blocked / taken by clone. That way he has incentive to use it well in combat, enemies have incentive to not fall for the clone, and it keeps Q from being the be-all end-all.

Wadya think?

Gilgayu1 votes

0 bonus dmg level 1 is because his q is a auto reset, so I don't want to make him too strong, it is also possible to add 5% extra dmg for every stack on his q if he keep spamming/stacking his q's passive. Or letting the cd be reduced by 30% when used on monsters also help (like evelynn's q)

50% heal is too much, maybe 10/14/18/22/26%?

His clone is a weird ability, and I think changing it would be better. It allows 1-shot potential, and it is boring. We can make it to empower his other abilities (although it sounds like a ult), and his staff(stick?) would "light up" when he uses w as a indicator ~~empowered q can have a bonus slow on enemy and crit for 150%dmg, but if it would have crited without the empowered, it would crit for 250%(not counting infinity edge) ~~empowered e can grant wukong invisibility(like shaco's) after dashing into the enemy. ~~empowered r can grant wukong 15% dmg reduction and 20% increased dmg per second, so like the 1st second it does 120% of normal, 2nd second it does 144% of normal, 3rd second it does 173% of normal, etc.

Idk, wukong has a good theme, but it is hard to work around it

painkills1 votes

I think the clone is iconic, part of the main things that make Wukong, Wukong. I would hate to remove it unless some part of the ability remained in his kit somehow.

Every other champion who has an auto-attack reset at level 1 has either 20+ bonus damage, or 20% or higher AD scaling. I've made another post about just how bad current Q is in comparison to all these other similar abilities.

Further, since Wukong's current issue is his reliable burst, having the option of an empowered Q that crits for 250% only exacerbates the problem we were trying to solve.

Gilgayu1 votes

Wukong is in a weird place right now, especially his r. It is true that his w is iconic, but itsn't all his abilities iconic? Considering he is the monkey king I guess the only thing Riot can do is lower his ad ratios and increase his base or something like that...

painkills1 votes

Well yeah, I understand how changing him could be difficult, if it were a VGU Level modification.

However, Xinzhao level work like modifications to passive and one skill could be enough for him.

In addition to what I mention above, something like letting clone stun enemies, or letting the clones cooldown be lower, or be lowered when he hits someone, could help. Further, letting him move / push his clone somehow could add an interesting level of play and utility.

Gilgayu1 votes

So in general, when someone has too much, just give them more complicated kit/skill shots. I used to think that until the akali rework...

painkills1 votes

Well the purpose of something of the sort would be to detract power from his one shot abilities, like what's been done to Q and E, perhaps going further there, but also putting in power in areas that arent as binary (require skillshot) and add something other than damage to his kit (CC).

painkills1 votes

That's kinda what I hoped to achieve. His base damage and ad scaling on Q would be lower than present (110 base and only 0.10 scaling) and his higher damage would be gated behind subsequent Qs that further lower target armor.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

Approved! Very nice thread.

Carnicore1 votes

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

Gilgayu1 votes

{quoted}

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

Very interesting work, but I find his e [monkey staff] and ult [apprentice] a bit weird Your idea of the e is like two long dashes that kinda counters adc, but without any damage the "dodging" seem a bit useless The ult is almost encouraging him into building on-hit build, which I believe is not Riot's intention.

His q and w seems fun though.

painkills1 votes

With this rework he ends up with 2 stuns (one of which he can keep doing as long as ulti is up every few seconds) as well as a knockup, and a damage avoidance tool very similar to Fizz's.

I love the W idea, and I had proposed something similar before. In my version, his Q became a short straight line skillshot, like Illaoi's for example, but it pushes people towards the end of that line. Additionally, the Clone's current spin becomes a knockup in the area, and you can use the Q to push the clone as well as enemy champions. This way, you can maneuver around to push the clone into enemies or the enemies into the clone. What I like about your version is that the "kicking" is part of the same spell. I do think that the clone shouldnt be a stone statue, as that would telegraph what has happened (Not wukong, clone).

Also, I feel that the R makes him very Yi... and the E very Fizz.

Gilgayu1 votes

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

painkills1 votes

Umm... The option showed up at the bottom when I created the post. Cant quite recall the specifics. Sorry!

Gilgayu1 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.

painkills1 votes

Another proposal I had was along those lines. Have Q be a damage line as you describe, but have it push people away, as well. In addition, let the clone be pushed by Q as well. That way, you could push the clone into people, or push people into the clone.

Gilgayu1 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

painkills1 votes

And while I may or may not disagree, the purpose of this thread isn't to discuss WHO needs it and in what priority.

The purpose of the thread is merely to take a look at what is making Wukong that bit unhealthy and trying to suggest options to make him healthier in the long run.

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