For Riot and everyone who cares, the state of Quinn

Hi all. So lately Quinn has gotten some much needed attention from Riot (Yaaay) and that has motivated me to give them a heads up on how I, the average (though analytical) gamer, feel about Quinn. This is going to be just about a full character analysis. So prepare for a long post.

Sorry, but I don't know how to summarize this in a TL:DR, so I'll try to make it an easy read.

I'll give you guys an index covering the various sections in this post. They don't reference to one another, so feel free to scroll past sections you think you know enough about. They add up to the bigger picture however, so keep that in mind.

1. The Quinntroduction
2. The Strength of Quinns Kit
3. The Flaws of Quinns Kit
4. The Fantasy of being Quinn
5. The Role of Quinn Botlane
6. The Role of Quinn Midlane
7. The Role of Quinn Toplane
8. The Thoughts of a Quinn Fan

Without further ado;

1 The Quinntroduction

Quinn is an AD scaling ranged carry. Her kit allow her to do well in any lane, as well as outdueling most champions in 1v1 scenarios. She has short range, but makes up for it with soft CC's, burst and mobility. Her partner Valor occationally aid Quinn in combat, either through marking vulnerable targets, blinding enemies or replacing her on the battle field as the fastest character in the game second to Hecarim, Yi and Rammus. She's an excellent champion for Solo Queue. She can easily fill lanes where she's not countered, she can adapt her build paths easily, what she lacks in team synergy she makes up for with her potential as a splitpusher, assassin, fighter and duelist extrordinaire.

So why isn't she more popular?

2 The Strengths of Quinns kit

She has the most movement speed as far as ranged ad champions goes and is at 335, the other ones are Lucian, Varus and Urgot.

Her passive Harrier is great at level 1 invasions, it grants vision of the enemy as well as providing alot of burst damage paired with sustained auto attack damage. During laning it functions as a farming tool and a zoning tool, with some lifesteal it also provides alot of sustain as the bonus damage lifesteals. It also makes waveclearing faster without consuming too many resources. The damage has 50% bonus AD scaling, and it's base damage is a free sheen early game, free gauntlet mid game, and free trinity force late game, so it's damage never falls off.

Her Q Blinding Assault has great range, 1025, does decent damage and blinds enemies in an AoE for 1,5 seconds. This makes her extremely hard to trade with if you're a champion that relies on auto attacks in order to be effective. It's also a great farming tool for clearing waves, camps, or minions you wouldn't normally get. It also allow her to auto attack harrass in the middle of a minion wave, as you can potentially blind all of them. You can also use it to steal buffs, or bigger objectives like Drake or Baron.

Quinns W Heightened Senses is great during laning, as you can check for potential ganks before you go in for hard trades. During early skirmishes the power of AoE vision, although short, is invaluable. The same applies to late game, vision of where an assassin or tank is trying to flank can make or break a teamfight. The steroids she gains are also good mid-late game, since they don't cost any resources, but are passive's.

Her E Vault is probably one of the strongest level one tools in the game, it provides self-peel, chase, interrupt-slow, burst and is also a point and click ability. During laning it can be used both offensively and defensively. Throughout the game this is what makes her the notoriously strong duelist every melee fear, her high base movement speed, movementspeed boosts, blind, burst and the selfpeel provided by her E make it hard to get close to her and to stay close to her long enough kill her before she kills you. Since it's also an interrupt that can only be canceled by hard cc interrupts, you can use it to cancel channels, dashes, jumps, etc. This includes WW's and Malzahars Supress, Alistars Headbutt, Lee sins Q and the likes.

Her R Tag Team has near unlimited potential in utility. It's level 1 is ok, it's a good tool for roaming and it's execute deals decent damage early game. As the game progresses and you get more levels in your ult and W, it becomes a much more powerful utility tool. It can be used to escape even the most persistent pursuers, chase down fleeing targets accross the map, melt towers like butter, assassinate squishies out of position and you can roam from top to bot in under 20 seconds.

All of this adds up to a champion packed with utility. Hard to catch, easy to get catched by, dangerous to skirmish around without thought out positioning and vision coverage, almost impossible to kill on your own and even the shortest moment of not respecting her range and burst might kill you.

She's not perfect though.

3 The Flaws of Quinns Kit

Her range is quite short, Lucian, Sivir, Urgot and Kog'maw are the only adc's with shorter range, she has the same range as Graves at 525. Their abilities however makes up for it. The rest of her stats are average at best, but her HP regen is just above Rengar and Riven, third lowest in the game along-side various other champions. They both have means to negate harrass however (a heal and a shield), other champions have superior range, disengages or zoning abilities. Quinn does not have that luxury, and for a champ that thrives in prolonged engages she has a harder time shrugging it off.

Harrier is a passive that either fits long range auto attackers or straight-up hypercarries. Quinn is neither. Other short ranged champions rely on mobility and abilities like passthrough AoE nukes, not auto attacks as a main damage source. Trying to consume a mark in a teamfight is scary to do with 525 range and without a reliable escape. But the biggest gripe of all: Her passive... is... random. You can manipulate it through auto attacks while managing it's cooldown, but... it's... random. Given that it's her highest damage source, and procs her steroids, it's very frustrating to deal with. Alot of players both competetive and casual has expressed their discontent with the RNG that is crit. Quinn has in a way more issues than GP, crit / no crit - wait for 5 seconds, is not as bad as bonus damage / no bonus damage - wait over 10 seconds or use your escape. Lastly, Harrier scales well damage-wise, but when late game comes it quickly drops in value dps wise. Since it has a static cooldown on 10-3 seconds champions like Caitlyn, Vayne and Draven (despite all of them relying on aa modifiers or debuffs for their damage) quickly outscale her damage out put. Since it's not reducable through attack-speed, cooldown reduction or an item stat of any kind, Quinn has trouble scaling on items. The free damage and AD scaling might make up for it, but it still doesn't change the fact that this alone is what makes her scale poorly the most. As you can manage her passive easier if you have means to reduce it's downtime, and reduced downtime equal more dps.

Her Q is a one point wonder, the blind duration, AoE and damage scaling remains the same throughout the game. You get less cooldown and more damage, but the cooldown is not low enough as a sheen proc ability and the damage is never enough to one-shot caster minions. Her E gives her a garantueed passive proc, and when maxed her E+Passive outdamage her Q.

Her W is a one point wonder as well. Early, mid game is where abilities decides the strength of a champion, maxing it for the attackspeed and movement speed gives you zero burst. Besides, the only way to benefit from your W steroids is proccing your passive or go into Valor form, both being very situational and unreliable. The active vision component doesn't increase in duration either, besides being available more due to less cooldown, nothing else changes.

Her E... Yes... It's a one point wonder. You get more base damage and less cooldown, but being single target it can't waveclear, and even with cooldown reduction it's not low enough to justify a build involving sheen. One could say that Vault give her more uptime on her passive, but this is an ability which you can't mindlessly use. It's your only repositioning tool, can only be used on enemy units, it brings you into melee range before you jump back again, long story short YOU CAN max it first, but you can never use it mindlessly.

Her R is a strange one, you lose your passive and main damage output, you go into melee form and you have no escape other than trying to avoid damage long enough to be out of combat. The execute component Skystrike, while good lvl 6 falls off hard and fast later in the game. A level 18 Harrier proc outdamage her Skystrike at 100% hp. Figures right? It's an execute, of course it does no damage when they're at full hp. Two Harrier procs outdamage Skystrike at 1% hp... Problem with her Valor form is having absolutely no intended use. The Skystrike, which is an AoE execute, make it seem to be intended for teamfights, but the lack damage scaling suggests otherwise. Removing Skystrike from the equation leaves you with alot of choices but no definitive answers, you CAN use it to roam, you CAN use it to escape, you CAN use it to chase, you CAN use it to take a turret, you CAN use it to assassinate someone. You have 4 choices as Valor, all require map awereness, enemy knowledge, knowing your champion, managing your items and levels, as well as tracking the resources of you and your enemy. It require inhumanly fast decision making on an ultimate with over 2 minutes cooldown level 1 and over 1 minute level 3.

Knowing all this it's safe to say that Quinns Kit is fundamentally flawed. All of her abilities are one point wonders, but not maxing one over the others gives inevitable draw backs. And even though that is usually the pattern of late game champions, Quinns short range, inconsistant damage and poor scaling make her suited for early-mid game. She's a champion that is forced to make quick, accurate, impactful, correct decisions and fully commit to them, with a kit that is inherently random and situational. If she makes a bad call, she will either die, be forced to back or will be too far away to help her team.

So why bother playing her then?

4 The Fantasy of being Quinn

Quinns lore portaits her as an elite scout and Demacian ranger. She works with Valor as a two man cell unit, both working independently while assisting eachother.

This is translated well in her kit, as her abilities and actions are usually performed by Quinn or Valor as a joint effort. Valor finds a target, Quinn shoots the target, Quinn need an enemy blinded, Valor blinds the enemy, Valor relays information about Quinns surroundings, Quinn escapes from an enemy, Valor responds by finding a weakness to turn the tide, Valor replaces Quinn on the battlefield to quickly soar with her from A to B and Quinn re-enters the battlefield by majestically shooting holes through anyone below. The elite ranger scout fantasy is also expressed well in her kit and playstyle. Two different vision granting tools, as well the acrobatic mobility she has, make her fun to play. Since she also functions well in any lane, especially solo lanes, you also get a sense of exploration and anticipation on who you will be up against and how quickly you can take down his tower to freely explore deeper into enemy territory and scout for prey that has strayed away from their team or foil the plans of lurking ambushers.

Her character model is not suggestive like most female characters in games. Her jokes are hardly jokes, her voice is serious and her lines are mostly military though softly spoken, you could say she's very plain.

This sounds boring, but there is an appeal to characters seemingly lacking in personality. They become very relatable for the ones playing them. You can, regardless of gender, origin, culture or belief, tack your own face over Quinn, hear her voice as your own and (despite Garen trying to ruin it) hear yourself say "Demacia needs heroes" and see yourself being a hero through Quinn.

There are few champions in the League that can offer the same fantasy Quinn offers, she's not for everyone, but the ones who like her enjoy the fantasy she offers more than disliking her because of her issues.

Now, back to the game.

5 The Role of Quinn Botlane

Most carries other than Miss Fortune has a hard time winning trades vs Quinn. Her passive is an extremely high base damage ability, and paired with her blind you could say that she's over the top. Her short range make her suspectible to poke, but her E can easily close the distance to get within their comfort zones. When you reach level 6 you're one of the best adc's to respond to ganks. As Valor is fast, offers CC and her execute does alot of damage.

Here's a few problems though. You have to use her positioning tool to trade and poke effectively in a DUO lane. 1v1 Quinn would send every adc home crying, but Quinns kit doesn't allow her to perform well in duo lane set-ups. If the lane you're up against doesn't support hard engages with your E, you're stuck last hitting at 525 range and poking with your Q that is easily minion blocked. Also, given that most supports pack some sort of CC, her short range and lack of retreating options make them hard to escape. The biggest gripe is that your role is adc, you HAVE to carry ad. Unlike the counterbuilding available in solo lanes, you must build as much damage as possible regardless on wether or not you snowball. And as you soon find out, there are LOADS of better adc's. Adc's with AoE far better then your Q and R, adc's with auto attack modifiers far better than your passive, adc's with safety nets far better than your range and E. There is no reason to pick Quinn into botlane unless you were hard countered in the solo lanes.

So pretty underwhelming compared to others, but still better than Vladimir adc.

6 The Role of Quinn Midlane

Quinn midlane is relatively strong, especially early-mid game. Her high base damages and burst allow her to handle most mages quite well and her self-peel makes melee matchups favourable. Since she's ranged AD she can push down the mid turret faster than average and given that it's a solo lane she can build according to the situation rather than role. Her W also cover both sides of the midlane so Quinn is difficult to perform sneaky ganks on, and since the lane is so short you can E whatever you want and end up next to your tower. Her level 6 is a sudden powerspike very notable in the midlane. You are in the middle of the map and can quickly roam to wherever you are needed. Top, bot and jungle is only seconds away and the early damage on your execute make you a quick and efficient assassin.

Midlane Quinn usually put her in the role of an assassin, as she lacks the waveclear and utility as a mage/caster and she fullfill the assassin role well early-mid game. After a while though you'll find other assassins would've worked better, you have no escape or defensive steroids to dive alongside your tanks and bruisers to delete the enemy adc in teamfights. No means to reposition, become untargetable or invisible, and unlike other assassins potential to 100-0 squishies late game, Quinn doesn't scale well enough to do that. She's a worse assassin than Talon and Akali, just to put things in perspective.

Midlane is still the lane where she sees the healthiest gameplay though, every aspect of midlane compliments her kit extremely well. Botlane works against Quinn, and toplane... Well...

7 The Role of Quinn Toplane

Toplane consists mostly of melees and bruisers... Usually I say the strong points of Quinn first, then follow it up with her weaknesses, but this section is going to be a rant.

Quinn toplane is one-sided, toxic and extremely unhealthy. Her kit consists of ranged auto attacks, two self-peel abilities and tons of early damage. The amount of sustain needed to deal with her is too much, her passive might mark you as soon as you're close enough and doesn't cost any resources what-so-ever. If you get close to her, she jumps away, if you get close to her again, she blinds you, then you find out that you've taken too much damage and dealt too little, she will chase you with her E and ignite you. The only champs who can deal with her is Singed and Yorick, every other traditional toplaners gets countered by her. It's not satisfying to play with, or against Quinn toplane. So why change her then? Free win top! Because she scales horribly compared to other toplaners. To keep up her lead she must have one AD item and one armor pen item by the time they finish sunfire cape. She has no sources of mixed damage and is therefore easy to itemize against. Stack armor. Unless she can amass such a disgusting gold lead, she can't keep them shut down.

8 The Thoughts of a Quinn Fan

I really like Quinn and the various QoL changes and bugfixes lately is much appreciated. This still doesn't fix her core issues. I won't make suggestions on how to change her, as this thread is solely meant for awareness and discussion.

Based on my observations expressed in this post, I'll give a list of what I want and don't want to see changed. Just so I've said my part on the matter.

Here's what I want to see changed, prioritizing from top to bottom;

• Buff her functionality in a duo botlane and teamfights.
• Nerf her early game oppressiveness toplane, make her scale better toplane.
• Make her passive a relevant aspect of her damage output late game, make it easier to reapply to different targets in teamfights.
• Give a reason to max one ability over the other without being punished for it.
• Her execute needs better late game scaling for teamfights, make the execute intended for teamfights while your time as Valor is intended for his utility
• Define her a little, is she meant as a utility adc, standard dps adc, hypercarry adc, assassin or bruiser? Even if she's supposed to be everything she still needs to get better at it.
• A passive as Valor.
• With her passive basically being a free trinity force it would be nice to see her benefit more from building it.

Here's what I don't want to see changed, prioritizing from top to bottom;

• Her Valor forms utility. Quinn being fast and Valor being faster opens up so many options to make plays with.
• Her Vault is a fun mechanic, making it a targeted dash or whatever is only ok if I can jump on people's head.
• Her passive to remain a free trinity force. The numbers are fine, applying those numbers consistantly on an enemy unit is the problem.
• Her range. Like Lucian to some extent the thrill of playing Quinn is being a short range squishy, but being too fast, too slippery and too awesome to care.
• Her current midlane balance.
• Her versatility to go to any lane and perform well.

Thank you for reading, feel free to discuss whether I'm right or wrong, missed something or if you have some opinions of your own.