@Riot: Tristana Needs a Rework
To start this thread, I would like to point the similarities between Tristana's and Sion's AP/AD kit desyncs. Sion is already slated for a rework based on his lack of focus and his unhealthy AP playstyle with little counterplay. However, there has been no mention of a rework for Tristana, despite the similar impact she has on game health, lack of counterplay, and schizophrenic kit.
Note: For any use of the word "schizophrenic" in regards to champion kit design, I am going to refer to this quote:
"Let me clear up one thing, though - there's no world in which we make an old champion with a schizo kit into two complete champions." - Morello
*** LENGTHY ANALYSIS AHEAD ***
--- The Kits: ---
"Sion's AD kit has some bare-bones tools that can apply well to a lifesteal guy, but those could use updating as well (AS on this guy...hmmmmm) ..." - Morello
Sion:
Sion's kit consists of: Additional passive stats (health, damage, and damage reduction), additional active stats (lifesteal and attack speed), a shield, and a stun.
Sion's effective AD kit is based entirely on autoattacking an enemy with his stat bonuses. The skills that pertain to this are his passive, e, and ult. The q and w have some synergy, but the cooldown on the shield and it's absorption amount make it ineffective late game, where AD sion truly shines. The stun is just a chasing tool in his kit, and could easily be replaced with any other type of skill that would allow him to autoattack an enemy a few more times. This said, AD Sion is defined as a champion by his passive, e, and ult. Three skills.
Sion's effective AP kit is based entirely on a non-interactive single target nuke, with aoe damage that may hit more enemies. His passive is ineffective on a champion that needs to be in a fight for only three seconds and then leave when his cds are down, his e is only there to give him health, and his ult is nigh useless. If Sion is built AP, he is a champion with only two skills.
Depending on how Sion is built, he only uses half of his skills. The two branches of AP and AD give drastically different playstyles, which makes sense if you realize that he is basically two Half-champions stuck together. AP Sion (the q and w) is mashed together with AD Sion (passive, e, r), and the result is, obviously, the mess that Sion currently is. I repeat, Sion is TWO SEPARATE KITS shoved together inside of the same champion.
Tristana:
Tristana's kit consists of: An additional passive stat (range), an additional active stat (q), a clunky mobility move with high AP damage (w), and two point and clicks with high AP damage (e and r).
Tristana's effective AD kit is that of an ad carry, a lategame ranged autoattacker. Her w, e and r stop doing damage in the midgame, where AD Tristana has long been known to be worse than her counterparts in the role. The only parts of her kit that pertain to the archetype of a long range, autoattacking champion are her passive and q, and her w as an escape. The w is more effective when used offensively, but the archetype built by late game Tristana is to stay as far away from the opponent as possible and whittle them down with her large range. So AD Tristana is a passive, q, and an escape.
Tristana's effective AP kit is that of a melee range burst caster. Her passive and q are nigh useless excepting the range boost on e. However, since her full effective burst requires her to literally jump into melee range of a target, the e range increase is a bit strange. She jumps on a target, points and clicks, and (hopefully) jumps out. She is defined by only having a w, e, and r.
So here we see the same problem with Sion: Tristana has two different champion's kits mashed into a single champion, where neither kit is useful to the other. AP Tristana's melee burst stands in opposition to AD Tristana's melee dps, with neither side using the other's abilities excepting early game. She is either a melee burst caster with a range extension tacked on or a ranged dps that does an odd about of magic damage early.
Postscript: After a discussion on the other forums I would like to point out that yes, AD Sion and AD Tristana do both use their other skills for their utility. It's probably why AD Tristana is considered more viable than her AP counterpart. That said, the "utility" of AD Sion's q and w and AD Tristana's e decrease drastically as the game goes on, and Tristana's r becomes nothing more than a skill to make her more slippery. The skills still lack a large amount of thematic cohesion and counterplay (being point-and-clicks), but that's discussed in another section.
SUMMARY: So if Sion, a late melee dps champion OR early melee burst champion has a schizoprenic kit, how schizophrenic is the kit of a champion that is either a late high range dps champion OR an early melee range burst champion? I argue that Tristana's kit deserves a rework as much as Sion's does.
--- Theme: ---
"Scion wields a giant axe, one which, by today's standards, you'd expect to be chopped in half with. But, as has been mentioned, he's more of a Mage. Same thing goes for Mordakieser, big mace dude you'd expect to be bonked on the head by, instead he casts a lot of spell and.. nabs your ghost? " - IronStylus
SUMMARY: When I see a cannon and cannonballs, I expect bludgeoning head trauma and shrapnel. I don't expect to get jumped on by the cannoneer and then die in a bursty magical explosion.
--- Game Health: ---
Two sections: Counterplay and Interaction
-- Counterplay: --
"I am going to very upfront on one point though despite being very early in development, I have no intent or desire to retain the current AP Sion playstyle. It doesn't make sense thematically, visually, or have much mechanically worth salvaging. Run at a bro - click to stun then explode before they can react is really harmful to the game as a whole and is an incredibly frustrating and binary experience. It simply is not worth preserving." - FeralPony
I've already argued my one sentence on the theme of AP explosions and cannonballs. But on the subject of counterplay, I would like to point out the similarities between AP Tristana and AP Sion.
Sion: As FeralPony said: "Run at a bro - click to stun then explode before they can react"
Tristana: Run at a bro, jump on them and throw point-and-clicks before they can react.Then they die.
They are both early game burst casters with very little counterplay on the part of the enemy in terms of their burst. The only options are: Don't get hit with stun or rocket jump, or buy Zhonya's hourglass. Neither creates a fun experience for the laner against them, and it feels like said laner can effectively do nothing without abusing the window before the enemy Tristana/Sion gets their skills.
SUMMARY: If a point-and-click stun and explosive shield have little counterplay and is frustrating or binary, how then does a ground-targeted aoe with two point-and-clicks make the game a less frustrating experience?
-- Interaction: --
"... the AP kit has little-to-no counter play or interaction at all. There's something to be said about the shield being interesting, but I think it's bad when combined with a single target stun and as a burst nuke overall." - Morello
As stated in the Counterplay section, there is little interaction to be done with AP Tristana's burst or laning experience. In addition, I find there to be very little counterplay for Tristana's mechanics in general. As an AD she has two forms of escape and one of the longest ranges in the game (behind Kog'Maw's and Twitch's actives). She's just a little mobile turret. She can choose where she wants to put you and herself and play accordingly. Of course, the similar things can be said of most AD carries, so maybe I'm pushing the idea too far here.
I will end with this, however:
"A true weakness would be Kog'Maw's mobility. He plays like a sniper in FPS - untouchable in his zone, and defenseless in yours. This makes Kog have good contextual power overall, and makes him a healthy champion" - Morello
No matter the Tristana, she is effectively untouchable in any zone. She is only weakened by the power level of her abilities throughout the game. AD Tristana is defined by a strong magic damage level 2 and 6 and then incredible weakness midgame as her AP skills fall off without any magic damage to scale with, then a strong lategame as her range and attack speed strengths kick in. AP Tristana is defined by her strong bases and scalings on her abilities, and only becomes ineffective later in the game as the health and protection of the targets she is trying to assassinate increases.
SUMMARY: AP Tristana is not something to interact with, there are no decisions to be made regarding her skills besides avoiding the W. She is binary and not fun to play against. AD Tristana ... someone other than me will have to decide.
*** END LENGTHY ANALYSIS ***
To conclude this, I'll just give a bare bones summary of the analysis. Tristana is, as a champion, schizophrenic in kit design, inconsistent in theme, and lacking in counterplay and interaction. She shares these traits with Sion, a champion that is already slated for rework. As a player, I would like to know why Tristana has not been mentioned as a champion to rework despite her being, in some cases, worse than Sion.
Please feel free to share constructive comments below, and I hope to see some red posts there as well.
Note: To ward off any comments of the form "You're just mad because you're bronze and don't know how to play against her," I will attempt to make the comment section cleaner by saying that I am a Platinum IV level player. This does not mean I know everything, but it does mean I at least have a basic understanding of how this game functions.
