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Tahm Kench changes from the perspective of someone who loves him

jocomotion·4/19/2019, 5:08:06 PM·9 votes·5,240 views

So, it looks like Riot’s finally come around to taking another look at the frog, the myth, the legend TahmKench yet again, and this time they’re FINALLY looking to nerf the effectiveness of his allied W interaction rather than just needing the rest of his stats. And I just got to say. About DAMN time.

Listen I love TK. He’s my fourth most played champion, and the only champion I actually actively studied/learned rather than just passively getting good with them. So trust me when I say a majority of the changes proposed are at least a healthy step in the right direction.

For context here are the proposed changes so far:

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DvyGIy9IOFo/XLj-Ti02NgI/AAAAAAABRuY/mTjHlogWbRsA9VtnwAFw9eks8Rv_koWUgCLcBGAs/s1600/D4eCGeLVUAE3iDz.png

Going over the changes,

Q: Tounge lash- Overall buff

  • going from a flat cooldown to a scaling cooldown means that Tahm has a bit more periods of weakness when he uses Q in the early game, but in exchange the slow is much more potent in the earlier ranks and its duration has increased to two seconds.

W: Devour - Overall nerf

  • Finally. Enemies have a chance to fight/punish a greedy Devour. The ally interaction for this ability has been the easiest disengage to pull off, and it’s been a problem since his release.
  • Now personally, i think making this a 95% slow Is a bit much (I woulda went with something like 30 / 25 / 20 / 15 / 10 with level) but if riot where to do slow him that much they should at least allow TK to spit them out almost immediately, (right now the regurgitation has a noticeable delay) or possibly reverting the CD nerf he got to this ability way back when so it’s 14 / 12.5 / 11 / 9.5 / 8 seconds, since it’s no longer a guaranteed exit.
  • The damage change is questionable, the damage of this ability has always been huge, but it was at the cost that you need 3 stacks on an enemy to actually hit them with it. With the increased slow on Tongue lash getting those three stacks is easier, so it makes sense that they’d nerf this interaction, but even then I don’t know if this is the right choice.

E- Thick skin (mini revert/buff)

  • the grey health conversion and healing amount are just reverts to nerfs that didn’t fix anything about Tahm in the first place. Back when Riot’s balancing was tailored to making him squishier instead of fixing the actual problem, being devour.

R- Abyssal voyage- Slight nerf early, slight buff late

  • Not including devour, I think this is the biggest anti-pro changes. This knocks TK’s map presence down a peg at rank 1, but ranks 2 and 3 it’s a straight buff.
  • This makes it so TK can’t take his ADC at the right place at the drop of a dime and get an early lead quite as easily as he does now. Or instantly appear back top/bot after backing.

11 Comments

THE RlVER KlNG4/19/2019, 8:44:43 PM10 votes

these nerfs are cowardly and destructive.

you can't call yourself any true fan of the champion if you're excited about these changes. they will destroy him yet again.

Minimac20004/19/2019, 5:51:12 PM8 votes

You forgot the most important change. The 95% self slow ALSO GROUNDS his w flash is now gone entirely making eating an ally always the wrong choice. You can't save anymore with this crap hole of a champion, which is really the only thing he ever had going for him and they gutted his offensive w on top of it. No one will play this

Sugarlicious4/19/2019, 9:19:37 PM6 votes

Honestly, I can only see your point if you're playing him top and don't care about saving your allies. Repositioning is not how his W is supposed to work if used on an ally - the point is to save your ally, not delay their death and kill yourself in the process as well. Ground+slow+assuming your ally is low on hp since you chose to ate them= they will inevitably die as soon as you spit them out since you can't get them out of range, and you might (99% will) die as well during that ground+ slow. Tell me again how this will not make him completely useless in the support role? As if he wasn't useless already with that CD nerf on his W.

Nea1044/19/2019, 9:56:39 PM6 votes

This champion is already useless (44% wr). You are far too optimistic with commenting about further nerfs.

What they are doing is simply absurd, once again. And their game keeps falling to pieces, surprisingly.

Alzon4/19/2019, 5:20:51 PM4 votes

I also have put a decent amount of time into the Kench, and I agree with all of this. Everything except the Devour damage nerf is solid. As for that point in particular... Just look at Ornn, Mundo, and Sejuani for similar %HP (or %max HP) values, and compare to how Tahm’s works. Or Brand. Or Rhaast. Or Vayne. That change to flat damage is a big nerf to anything with more than 1K HP, although it might be more effective versus early jungle creeps due to their passive that reduces %HP damage. And champions, but 1K HP is reached and passed very quickly, especially in top lane. So I guess it’s a very early buff but a gigantic nerf later. Not cool.

Ri2ot14/19/2019, 11:29:37 PM3 votes

So in my opinion these changes are basically absurd, I know it sounds stupid to say that he is not op beause he has a free disengage which of course is really strong, but you have to look at it like this, after these changes his W will only be useful as a Zonyas for an ADC which it is not meant to be, it is meant to be a tool to reposition your ADC. With the current Cooldown of it and with his Q not being on 5s cooldown will practically destroy his mid and early game. His early game right now is weak anyway, he can not really do much before lvl 3 and even then has a hard time as a support. When he does start to get useful it basically depends on your gut to know when to eat someone, after these changes the only person you will want to eat is someone who got ulted by a Zed or something and just needs a Zonyas, but don't want to buy one. The spit damage change is also not great because thats the only form of real damage he does. There is also the Problem of people leaving Tahm way to early most of the time and therefore making this change just for Competitive play. If this change does end up coming through it will put him around 40% Winrate, maybe even less and he won't ever be seen in Proplay cause you just pick Thresh, Nautilus or Blitzcrank and make him useless. The E changes seem fine to me, pyke gets almost all of his health back and it is not op at all.

Aphelios is OP4/19/2019, 5:54:36 PM2 votes

Nerfs

K/DA skin