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Caitlyn VGU idea (constructive discussion pls)

CaptainAntiHeroz··2 votes·995 views

Alright I've decided instead of rambling about why I dislike her current kit I'm just gonna come up with a rework concept

First though there is a caveat here, if you aren't willing to be at least a little constructive please leave. I'm fine with disagreeing with me, disliking my idea(s) liking Cait as she is whatever, however I will explain all my thoughts behind this and such as I go I'm just hoping for a discussion on the matter and not a "well you just don't like cait screw you" please.

Okay now that I've begged mercy from the ADC community let me explain why I think Cait needs a VGU. (Even if its not an immediate thing right after Fiddle and Volibear). CURRENT CAITLYN PROS -Long range -R is satisfying when you get a kill with it and can be played around by the enemy team -Headshot pretty good in concept -Her Hat is iconic

CONS -she has an antique old school rifle and yet a late game Cait's goal is to attack really fast -she relies a lot of traps (in the form of a net and the snap traps) rather than precision -She has mobility (albeit a little bit I feel its still more than a sniper character should have) -The whole sit in a bush strat with headshot just encourages you to buy more attack speed to crit twice as often

Now as a disclaimer there aren't a whole lot of snipers to go off of in league, but Aphelios has a really interesting thing going with Calibrum and Jhin has a special place in many peoples hearts for being one of the (arguably but bear with me here) best designs in league as well as Senna's Q being a unique set up and deliver style. So now lemme get into it one the visual part. There are some pretty nice concepts on Google for what Cait could look like.

https://36.media.tumblr.com/3340ba84b93f74b3937fd8f05c3933d5/tumblr_nrligoX9mt1qk32lpo2_r1_1280.png

http://i.imgur.com/xrKTKvh.png

https://66.media.tumblr.com/c179d3cee80e70f722394cfe7fa7fd3d/tumblr_nnno4qByNz1tdm9gso2_500.png

Alright so now we've got some visual ideas of what she could look like lemme get into the ideas I've had for her kit;

Passive: Headshot: Cait doesn't gain attack speed similar to Jhin but does not have an ammo counter, instead after every shot Cait takes a very short amount of time loading a bullet. Every 10 shots Cait loads a bullet that will headshot dealing bonus and canceling any channeled abilites, dashes, and doing bonus damage to shields. Landing a headshot staggers enemies hit by the headshot. Being staggered by headshot prevents champions from using summoner spells for a brief amount of time. Cait gains 2 stacks towards her next headshot while in bushes. Perhaps she'll need bonus ad from the attack speed she isn't getting but I can't come up with numbers (and I already have an idea for that later)

Q- Should be a line skill shot (like it is now) that needs to be fired by aiming it through a target similar to senna's Q. However it can not be used to hit towers. As an expert sniper if you play around your vision you should be rewarded and as such shooting through a ward or your traps will double the range of her Q and deal bonus "precision" damage in the form of granting a bonus damage (kinda like what varus W does) execute (provided the target is low enough.

W- As it stands now she spams these things and they aren't really fitting of a sheriff whose a sniper that probably plans things out. To change that she can only have 4 active at a time, they are slightly larger and she can aim her Q through them, and they can't be seen or targeted by enemy champions. If an enemy steps in a trap Cait readies a headshot if she targets the trapped enemy. The area around the traps is revealed to Cait and her allies. The goal is to make the traps more strategic then 'We're attacking their tower let me place all my traps under their tower' The traps still disarm after the same amount of time (possibly less)

E- Cait fires a net in a target direction if it his an enemy champion or minion she hops backwards a short distance and readies a headshot. If it hits nothing Cait gains a small amount of movement speed for a short duration. (It should have slightly longer range than it does now) Mainly to cut down on the E backwards to chase people while still giving her a viable escape if enemies are trying to catch up to/engage on her.

R- Mostly the same the R should still be an execute however as she scales into the game if shes gotten attack speed.... R-Passive- for every point put into R Cait gets bonus damage on her autos and increased range based on how much attack speed she has gotten throughout the game. Again I'm not great at numbers and I don't know ranges of things or how much would be fair but the goal is to make her be more dangerous the longer she's "on the case" gaining the resources she needs to close in for the kill.

I'm no expert on game design but I came up with the to try to open a discussion around some of the champs that really aren't fitting their stated theme (in this case Cait being a sniper law woman). But please feel free to comment your thoughts on theses ideas below, and your own thoughts on who I should look into next if you want, or what you think about Caitlyn .

6 Comments

Pika3102 votes

First of all, Ace in the Hole isn't an execute, it does a flat amount of damage regardless of the target's current health. It's just as effective against a full-health LeBlanc out of position, as it is against a fleeing enemy.

Since I'm on it, I'll start there. League has a bad history with putting passives in R ranks. It's usually used to take power from elsewhere in a kit & lock it behind levels. As a duo-laner, ADCs tend to be under-level'd. It's not as bad & counter-intuitive as say giving a support champion R-passives, though and admittedly Cait is meant to be strong late. I'm not sure giving more damage & range to her autos is a good idea & her late is already in fine.

The proposed E change removes A LOT of safety, far more than you probably imagine. She would no longer able jump over tiny walls like dragon pit for example. The delay on the hop feels clunky & slow. Furthermore, a speedboost on a "missed" shot is just same-as in regards of usefulness for chasing targets.

The traps sound like they're just being straight-buffed. Larger traps are more useful, even if you have fewer. Players would still drop them under the enemy turret, but making them invisible removes basically all counter play they currently have. Furthermore, granting her team vision like tiny wards is just a bad idea.

I don't own Senna, cause Blue Essence is a trash system that needs buffs. I'll assume you're implying it work in a way similar to Lucian's Q. Considering its range is already double her aa range & it's reliant on accurately hitting a target to "extend" its width, this seemingly removes a lot of skill in using the ability. Also, doubling its 1300 range to 2600 on a ward or trap is obscene, especially considering you proposed the traps be invisible. The "bonus damage thru traps" idea sounds good on paper, but it already used to do this & that had to be removed.

Now to the main point. First, unless it was reverted, which is not listed anywhere, Caitlyn already only gains 90% benefit from bonus attack speed. This was noted by a Rioter during the chaos of patch 5.22. It's not the 0% benefit you're proposing, but it's a thing (if it's still there.) Personally, I hate the "ammo system" champion designs, they feel forced, poorly-implemented & generally don't make sense. Graves' custom shotgun has something like 8 chambers, but he only loads 2 shots at a time. Wtf? Then Jhin's "4th shot" just feels like a big "F U" & being able to zone near indefinitely with it lacks counter play. In the case of Caitlyn, a snipper can hold multiple shells, reloading after every shot makes about as much sense as Graves only loading a quarter of his gun's capacity. Furthermore, I can only imagine if Caitlyn's every attack were essentially a "Jhin 4th auto," but with an extra 100 range. Terrifying.

10 autos is a very very long time to set up a Headshot, especially if she were to have a fixed slow attack speed. Disrupting channels is an intriguing addition, I have no qualms with this. Disabling Summoners on the other hand is essentially a partial-Silence & Silences are a very feels-bad type of CC. Rito has said players often mistake Silences for severe lag, losing control without a clear understanding why & thus have been removing Silences from the game. Bonus damage to shields is a rather novel idea which Rito has been flirting with for a while, but I don't know how relevant it is.

Unfortunately, the idea of a "snipper" champion in a moba isn't easy to implement & Rito tried very hard to make her feel more like one, conditionally. Unfortunately, this has resulted in many many nerfs since it was first introduced in 5.22.

Mages are allowed to have longer range at the cost of resources (mana) & difficulty (skillshots.) Basic attacks don't have a cost or skill expression. If something akin to this were implemented, it requires some kind of trade-off & short of the fixed attack speed, I'm just seeing straight buffs at the cost of mobility. That mobility loss being off-set by increased safety.

Enough nay-saying, I'll conclude with a positive. Back to the R-passive, what say you instead of passively increasing AD & range, it adds a toggle to her passive. While the toggle is on, she has increased range at a hefty cost of mana-per-attack. Maybe it only lasts for her next attack or nth attacks & goes on a significant cooldown when it ends/is toggled off.

That's my 2-cents for now.

PS: 316k mastery points on Caitlyn

CaptainAntiHeroz1 votes

{quoted}

First of all, Ace in the Hole isn't an execute, it does a flat amount of damage regardless of the target's current health. It's just as effective against a full-health LeBlanc out of position, as it is against a fleeing enemy.

Since I'm on it, I'll start there. League has a bad history with putting passives in R ranks. It's usually used to take power from elsewhere in a kit & lock it behind levels. As a duo-laner, ADCs tend to be under-level'd. It's not as bad & counter-intuitive as say giving a support champion R-passives, though and admittedly Cait is meant to be strong late. I'm not sure giving more damage & range to her autos is a good idea & her late is already in fine.

The proposed E change removes A LOT of safety, far more than you probably imagine. She would no longer able jump over tiny walls like dragon pit for example. The delay on the hop feels clunky & slow. Furthermore, a speedboost on a "missed" shot is just same-as in regards of usefulness for chasing targets.

The traps sound like they're just being straight-buffed. Larger traps are more useful, even if you have fewer. Players would still drop them under the enemy turret, but making them invisible removes basically all counter play they currently have. Furthermore, granting her team vision like tiny wards is just a bad idea.

I don't own Senna, cause Blue Essence is a trash system that needs buffs. I'll assume you're implying it work in a way similar to Lucian's Q. Considering its range is already double her aa range & it's reliant on accurately hitting a target to "extend" its width, this seemingly removes a lot of skill in using the ability. Also, doubling its 1300 range to 2600 on a ward or trap is obscene, especially considering you proposed the traps be invisible. The "bonus damage thru traps" idea sounds good on paper, but it already used to do this & that had to be removed.

Now to the main point. First, unless it was reverted, which is not listed anywhere, Caitlyn already only gains 90% benefit from bonus attack speed. This was noted by a Rioter during the chaos of patch 5.22. It's not the 0% benefit you're proposing, but it's a thing (if it's still there.) Personally, I hate the "ammo system" champion designs, they feel forced, poorly-implemented & generally don't make sense. Graves' custom shotgun has something like 8 chambers, but he only loads 2 shots at a time. Wtf? Then Jhin's "4th shot" just feels like a big "F U" & being able to zone near indefinitely with it lacks counter play. In the case of Caitlyn, a snipper can hold multiple shells, reloading after every shot makes about as much sense as Graves only loading a quarter of his gun's capacity. Furthermore, I can only imagine if Caitlyn's every attack were essentially a "Jhin 4th auto," but with an extra 100 range. Terrifying.

10 autos is a very very long time to set up a Headshot, especially if she were to have a fixed slow attack speed. Disrupting channels is an intriguing addition, I have no qualms with this. Disabling Summoners on the other hand is essentially a partial-Silence & Silences are a very feels-bad type of CC. Rito has said players often mistake Silences for severe lag, losing control without a clear understanding why & thus have been removing Silences from the game. Bonus damage to shields is a rather novel idea which Rito has been flirting with for a while, but I don't know how relevant it is.

Unfortunately, the idea of a "snipper" champion in a moba isn't easy to implement & Rito tried very hard to make her feel more like one, conditionally. Unfortunately, this has resulted in many many nerfs since it was first introduced in 5.22.

Mages are allowed to have longer range at the cost of resources (mana) & difficulty (skillshots.) Basic attacks don't have a cost or skill expression. If something akin to this were implemented, it requires some kind of trade-off & short of the fixed attack speed, I'm just seeing straight buffs at the cost of mobility. That mobility loss being off-set by increased safety.

Enough nay-saying, I'll conclude with a positive. Back to the R-passive, what say you instead of passively increasing AD & range, it adds a toggle to her passive. While the toggle is on, she has increased range at a hefty cost of mana-per-attack. Maybe it only lasts for her next attack or nth attacks & goes on a significant cooldown when it ends/is toggled off.

That's my 2-cents for now.

PS: 316k mastery points on Caitlyn

hmmmmmmm so what if Q and E stay the same W just gets changed to have less of them but gets buffed to be invisible and give sight around it (maybe she gets 3 max) She still has set attack speed per lever the R becomes an execute and gives her say.....+25 range per rank invested in R but gains no +damage and the new passive stays what do you think of that? this puts her up from 650 base range to having 725 when she hits level 16 and she can build differently

Pika3101 votes

I'd like to clear up, I'm not necessarily opposed to any of the initial suggestions, I just pointed out what I thought might be issues. With the right costs & conditions, any of them could be fine. Ffs, Kaisa is allowed to shoot people from off-screen on a basic ability, but I shouldn't use an OP character as a comparison.

My main issue with the Q change was the 2600 range suggestion. I mentioned its current iteration is more "skill expressive" than a "targeted skillshot" like Lucian's. Both of these have their benefits. I couldn't begin to count the number times I've blind-sniped near-dead enemies, this does require aim, prediction & speculation, but it also couldn't happen if there weren't something to point & click on. Imagine how much more useful Lucian's Q could be if you could throw it into a bush or the fog of war.

The reason Caitlyn's net throws her backwards is recoil. It's a "Heavy Calibur" Net. I do suppose it could just as well be changed to "Net," but I still dislike the delay aspect of "if this hits something, you lose control of your character & automatically jump away from it." Depending on the projectile speed, this could be very unnerving.

I still don't like the idea of traps being invisible or giving sight. Nidalee's traps had both of these & were intentionally removed. As much as players hate Teemo for having invis traps on his ultimate, imagine stepping on an invis trap that let's an ADC auto you from 1300+ units away, from the fog of war, especially if you yourself were a squishy ADC or supp. Since it automatically counts as a headshot, there is very strong 1-shot potential. The only way I can see invisible traps being acceptable is if the automatic headshot were removed from it & maybe the attack even has slightly reduced damage.

Ace in the Hole can already be body-blocked by allies. Would making it an execute result in an increase or decrease in damage I wonder? In its current state it can be used for preemptively sniping assassins, maybe deterring them from engaging; as a guaranteed poke-tool; damage contribution to a fight you can't join; & etc. Losing its base damage would remove a lot of its utility & I admit I'm concerned of another situation arising, like Garen "executing" his target from 99%. "Oh, you have a papercut? JUDGMENT!!!" A small execute on it may be okay, but it should retain some of its base.

+75 Range at 16 would catch her up to & push her ahead of Jinx & Kog, who currently outrange her at rank 5 in their basic abilities. Since mid-game is supposed to be her weakness, I'm not sure about +25/rank. Something more like +15/25/35 or +10/25/40 may be more suited to emphasizing her weaknesses. Both of these would still result in +75 total at 16.

The rest could be fine, that's all my comments atm.

CaptainAntiHeroz1 votes

{quoted}

I'd like to clear up, I'm not necessarily opposed to any of the initial suggestions, I just pointed out what I thought might be issues. With the right costs & conditions, any of them could be fine. Ffs, Kaisa is allowed to shoot people from off-screen on a basic ability, but I shouldn't use an OP character as a comparison.

My main issue with the Q change was the 2600 range suggestion. I mentioned its current iteration is more "skill expressive" than a "targeted skillshot" like Lucian's. Both of these have their benefits. I couldn't begin to count the number times I've blind-sniped near-dead enemies, this does require aim, prediction & speculation, but it also couldn't happen if there weren't something to point & click on. Imagine how much more useful Lucian's Q could be if you could throw it into a bush or the fog of war.

The reason Caitlyn's net throws her backwards is recoil. It's a "Heavy Calibur" Net. I do suppose it could just as well be changed to "Net," but I still dislike the delay aspect of "if this hits something, you lose control of your character & automatically jump away from it." Depending on the projectile speed, this could be very unnerving.

I still don't like the idea of traps being invisible or giving sight. Nidalee's traps had both of these & were intentionally removed. As much as players hate Teemo for having invis traps on his ultimate, imagine stepping on an invis trap that let's an ADC auto you from 1300+ units away, from the fog of war, especially if you yourself were a squishy ADC or supp. Since it automatically counts as a headshot, there is very strong 1-shot potential. The only way I can see invisible traps being acceptable is if the automatic headshot were removed from it & maybe the attack even has slightly reduced damage.

Ace in the Hole can already be body-blocked by allies. Would making it an execute result in an increase or decrease in damage I wonder? In its current state it can be used for preemptively sniping assassins, maybe deterring them from engaging; as a guaranteed poke-tool; damage contribution to a fight you can't join; & etc. Losing its base damage would remove a lot of its utility & I admit I'm concerned of another situation arising, like Garen "executing" his target from 99%. "Oh, you have a papercut? JUDGMENT!!!" A small execute on it may be okay, but it should retain some of its base.

+75 Range at 16 would catch her up to & push her ahead of Jinx & Kog, who currently outrange her at rank 5 in their basic abilities. Since mid-game is supposed to be her weakness, I'm not sure about +25/rank. Something more like +15/25/35 or +10/25/40 may be more suited to emphasizing her weaknesses. Both of these would still result in +75 total at 16.

The rest could be fine, that's all my comments atm.

hmm i see i think q could stay untargeted......

i still can't come up with a better alternative for making her traps less oppressive but after some further thought yeah invisbile death sentences..... not necessarily good... I'll think on it, perhaps the best solution is just changing the arm time so she can't just slow with net or the new stormrazor and set one under your feet in time to proc it.......... dunno

I suppose the E feeling like a loss of control could be changed by making it a two part ability, if Cait hits a target she can reactivate the ability to go backwards, so combos like E auto E to get away could be made.

As for the R I mean like...... say you normally do 300 damage on it and the enemy is at 310/1000 it should do bonus damage because they are low health, whereas if a full health Leona walks in the way say 2000/2000 hp she should take slightly reduced damage because she's at full health and the shot wasn't aimed at her

And i do agree that does sound better, slow at first but she'll eventually gain the full range

AnythingSupports1 votes

Do Kaisa next!

But aside from that it's alright...... I think the idea about not being an attack speed carry that gets free damage really quickly but is instead methodical could be nice

Plus the support could help her with snipes ..... But good luck convincing ADC plays to talk about changing their champs

Anadanament1 votes

I'm bored and my internet is laggy, so I can't play. But I have ideas! I shall share;

  1. Passive - Your ideas on the headshot mechanic are neat, but no sniper needs to reload after every shot. Start her attack speed low, just a hair above Senna's. My idea: Caitlyn gains only 50% attack speed from items, increasing her critical strike chance by 1% per 5% bonus attack speed. Consecutively attacking the same enemy grants a 25% attack speed bonus per shot, up to 5 (lasting 2 seconds, falling off one at a time). The fifth shot can be fired at any enemy within 1.5 seconds, and is guaranteed to strike for 1% maximum health per (10% critical strike chance + 1% per 50 bonus AD) bonus damage instead of dealing normal critical strike modified damage. (Enemies would still take base AD damage.) Additionally, Caitlyn gains 50 range on her headshots.

  2. Q - Piltover Peacemaker My idea on the headshot mechanic is that her abilities would grant a free headshot against their targets for 2 seconds... or, in the case of the Piltover Peacemaker, if the initial target is an enemy champion, and it would apply instead of the base damage. Basically make it a shorter and narrower skillshot, but have the initial damage be a headshot that simply reduces normally against further targets; This would make her incredibly good at poking into the backline, as headshot's damage would apply to targets behind the frontline while dealing a % of the frontliner's max health to the squishy backliners (at a reduced rate). Hitting minions would deal (modified) damage equivalent to its current form.

  3. W - Yordle Snap Trap My idea behind this one is a bit crazy - the snap traps have a cupcake in them, no? So why not let the cupcake heal the enemy? Gives them a reason to stand on the VERY obvious trap... I mean, it's a trap, right? Heals enemies for 10% of headshot's damage, but roots them for 1.5 seconds and grants true vision for 3 seconds. She'd get a bonus of, say, a 20/25/30/35/40% increase in headshot damage against trapped targets, so it's a guessing game on both sides and very much fits the "trap and kill" play pattern Cait has.

  4. E - 90 Calibre Net There's not much to change here. It's probably the best ability in her kit. If anything, have it passively grant an AP scaling that boosts both headshot's damage and the heal of the snap traps. AP Cait needs some love.

  5. R - Ace in the Hole I have many issues with this ult, the first being that it's utterly useless outside EXTREMELY specific situations. My idea? Following; Ace in the Hole is effected by headshot's damage, and casting Ace in the Hole while a Headshot is available (either from passive stacks or any of her abilities) against the target, potentially stacking - so if she's got a headshot available from passive stacking and from an ability... or potentially all 3 abilities, Ace in the Hole's damage would reflect that, stacking up to 4 bonus headshots at once at the same target.

It IS the epitome of "headshot," isn't it? And don't headshots 1-shot someone? Isn't that their purpose? Let's give Cait the opportunity to 1-shot people with her ult... IF she can stack her abilities right.

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