Idea for a Minor Teemo Rework

As we all know everyone's favorite yordle to hate has seen better days, and regardless of whether you despise Satan or adore the furball, it's safe to say his kit could use some tuning up.

To get to the point, my major idea to change Teemo is to add another passive to his E, Toxic Shot. Obviously, I'm no balance expert but I'm more concerned in expressing the idea than the exact tuning that could be adjusted by Riot, as well as hearing what the community has to say about it. So without further ado...

E - Tranquilizer Darts

Unchanged Passive : Teemo's basic attacks deal bonus magic damage (10/20/30/40/50 + 30%AP) and poison his target, causing them to take additional magic damage (24/48/72/96/120 + 40%AP) over 4 seconds. Subsequent attacks refresh the poison's duration.

New Passive: Teemo’s poison sedates the enemy, applying a stack of Sedative on each basic attack up to 5 stacks. Upon reaching 5 stacks, the stacks are consumed and the target is put to sleep for 2/2.25/2.5/2.75/3 seconds. This effect cannot occur on the same target for another 6 seconds. Sedative stacks remain for 2 seconds after being applied, falling off gradually at the same rate. DoTs that have been applied prior to the activation of sleep do not remove the CC.

Sleep, a new CC: Functionally similar to a stun, but the CC is immediately removed upon receiving damage from an enemy source other than lane minions. All other traits are comparable to a stun, removal by Cleanse/QSS, prevention by Black Shield, etc. DoTs that have been applied prior to the activation of sleep do not remove the CC.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, I want to elaborate on what I believe this will accomplish for Teemo. Currently, Teemo is a dedicated lane bully that doesn’t bring much to his team outside of his shrooms in the late game. His main weaknesses are that he is squishy, lacks hard cc, range, and burst. His strengths are that he punishes melee opponents in lane, has strong harass, decent dps, and powerful zoning and map control in his shrooms. I wanted to give Teemo more utility to bring to the table without making his already strong harassment even stronger. This is the reasoning behind having 5 stacks that fall off rather quickly, rather than the 3 or 4 that fall off slowly that other champions have. For Teemo to be able to apply the sleep CC, he needs to be committing more than just harass. However, giving him this CC doesn’t necessarily decrease his ability to be all-in’d as it takes a while to stack and since Teemo is squishy he can be quickly killed or cc’d before being able to proc the CC.

But this is a post about how to improve Teemo, so the change has to accomplish something, which it does. The ability to hard CC his targets gives Teemo’s team something other than the damage and shrooms Teemo provides. It also gives Teemo tools both offensively and defensively. I’ve thought of plenty of uses for the rather unique sleep CC that I’ve suggested, and I really do want to go through all of them, as the CC seems pointless at first glance.

Offensive Uses once enemy is sedated:

-Allow ally to come in for a gank. -Place Noxious Trap(s) directly on or in the escape route of cc’d enemy. -Allow more time for your DoT to tick before reapplying it. -Turn fights from 2v1 to 1v1 or 5v5 to 4v5 temporarily. -Allow time for you to stealth and get the attack speed bonus from your passive.

Defensive Uses: -Give you time to run to a bush to stealth/juke/escape.

-Allows you to move to a better position to kite melee champions who have all-in’d you. -Gives time to place shrooms as you kite back.

Lastly, as a support main I couldn’t help but consider Teemo for the support role, in which he is occasionally played by trolls and cheesers. Similar to how Bard sets up kills with his ult, Teemo could do a similar job with his sleep, and since the bot lane is a duo lane he could also sleep one enemy before him and his carry switch focus to the other laner. Granted I feel like Teemo would need other changes to make him a truly viable support, such as greater vision as well as percent health instead of flat damage on his ult, but it is a start.

Anyways, I’ve rambled enough. I’m eager to hear what the community has to say, good or bad so please share your thoughts.

TL;DR: Just read the changes for his E and give me feedback :).