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Shaco: Dagger in the Shadows (Shaco Rework Idea)

Wicis··4 votes·1,267 views

I know Shaco isn't that bad off. In the hands of the right player, he's pretty effin good. However, I do think his kit needs a bit of an overhaul considering the more recent changes to other champions making them more engaging and challenging COUGH - excuse me - to play. I think the following rework could make Shaco engaging and fun, and shoot him into the meta.

Now, I know nothing about balancing so just take this as a general idea (if riot even comes close to considering this idea). Also, a little bit about me, I'm in the camp of, "Riot should put more work into the champions already around instead of making a new one every other month." So I have a ton of ideas like this and if this receives a positive enough reaction I will post more.

To Begin Passive: Serrated Dagger (has an internal cooldown of .45 seconds) Shaco's autoattacks cause the target to bleed for 35% of the damage taken as physical damage over 5 seconds. This damage is increased to 55% if the autoattack strikes the back of the target. The duration of the bleed reduces rapidly while an enemy champion afflicted with the bleed is not moving, also reducing the damage the bleed inflicts. This effect stacks.

Q: Concealed Intentions Will be free at lvl 5 Shaco instantly fades into the shadows, becoming invisible for 5/6/7/8/9 seconds. Shaco's next autoattack will be a critical strike. If Shaco strikes a target from behind while invisible, the target will be rooted for 1 second (Target will not be rooted if it has true vision of Shaco). 16 second cooldown at all ranks. Combat prevents this ability from being cast.

W: Guided Strikes Will cost a hefty amount of mana early, becoming manageable at later levels (Shill shot, 500 range, fast but not instant, stealth would break at the end of the distance traveled if it hits anything.) Shaco dashes a short distance towards and through a target, dealing 30/45/60/75/90 physical damage (+25% of AD) and reducing the target's armor by 25% for 4 seconds and their movement speed by 10/15/25/30/35% for 2.25 seconds. 14/12/10/8/6 second cooldown. This ability can critically strike.

E: Thrown Knife Again, will cost a good amount of mana, becoming very manageable at later levels. (Skill shot, 725 range, fast moving. Stealth would break immediately.) Shaco throws a dagger in a targeted direction. If the dagger strikes an enemy unit or neutral monster, It deals 20/50/80/130/180 (+12% of AD). Striking an enemy champion increases Shaco's critical strike chance against the target by 10/12/15/18/20% and his movement speed when moving towards the target by 10/20/30/40/50% for 8 seconds. Striking a neutral monster increases Shaco's critical strike chance against the target by 25/30/35/40/45%. 18/16/14/12/10 second cooldown.

R: Jack in the Box Will cost a hefty amount of mana early, becoming manageable at later levels. (425 Range, medium sized AoE, very short cast time. Stealth would break immediately.) Shaco places a large Jack in the Box at a target area. This Jack in the Box is untargetable. After a 1 second delay, any enemy units in the area become feared. Enemy champions become feared for 2/3/4 seconds. Enemy champions affected by Serrated Dagger can not be feared by the Jack in the Box. Damage may break the fear (this chance will scale on Shaco's Critical Strike chance, getting as low as 70% chance to break upon receiving damage). Enemy minions and monsters are feared for 6/7/8 seconds. Damage will not break the fear against enemy minions and monsters. 50/40/30 second cooldown.

I think with some tweaking, this could be great. I clearly have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to damage scaling on abilities, but I used a base of 300 AD to try and figure out the scaling, and tried to keep the damage on the low side because these abilities do so much more than just damage. Shaco would be based around his autoattacks, buffing them and trying to keep 100% uptime on those buffs. To do this, Shaco will need roughly 30% CDR. Shaco will only need crit strike on the low end, 40-60%. However, this Shaco excels at 1v1s and can often force a 1v1 with a well placed and well timed ult.

I really do feel this would be a balanced kit (minus the damage numbers, they could use reworking by someone more experienced than me), but if you think this is like SILLY OP, let me know where I went wrong. If you think this would be weaker than his current kit, again let me know where I went wrong. I enjoy doing this and I want to learn. I also want to submit more ideas in the future.

Thanks for reading!

12 Comments

CrimsonCobra33 votes

There are spots of brilliance in this concept, but on the whole, I feel it deviates too much from the original Shaco play-style.

Wicis1 votes

Thanks for the feedback! You think so? I know he's basically a caster with low duel potential but I kind of wanted to flip that on it's head. It's just how I think he should be played. It's not really up to me, though.

Maybe this could be a champion suggestion instead?

CrimsonCobra32 votes

I think it has a lot of merit, and can certainly be used as inspiration regardless of whether or not it is used for Shaco.

Accipitrade3 votes

I think, as a whole, this isn't a bad rework idea. I think the dash is a clever idea, and I like it, but like CrimsonCobra said, I think that it deviates too far from Shaco's original playstyle.

Your passive is interesting, and I really like it too. However, I think that healing would negate that DoT, so I propose a different way to go about what you're saying:

Damage dealt to enemy champions deals an additional 5/7/10/13% of your attack damage as a DoT bleed. Damage dealt to an opponent's back does 10/13/17/20% of your attack damage instead.

When I play shaco, I try to literally play him like an assassin: I Q to jump behind an enemy, then crit them for almost all their health bar with statikk shiv, kill them, and get out just as fast. The problem with your rework is that it semi-opens him up to dueling, however, there isn't much potential to it and it almost makes it seem like a waste of his Q. Like, why would I ever want to use Q unless I'm trying to assassinate someone, but then the dash seems kind of pointless. To try to clarify, I'll admit that the current shaco still has the same low dueling potential that this rework does. However, that dueling potential lies in his ult, which I find to be a really fun ability. It gives him tons of extra damage and utility, making the enemy guess which one is the real one (albeit that is usually an easy task)

Your new ult also improves teamfighting with shaco, however, it's a bit lackluster. I think that the box mechanic should be gotten rid of entirely, and keep his ult as is. I absolutely love it as I've said before, and I think it's fair, fun, and works with his kit.

I'd like to see the W be changed to deal a small burst of magic damage, and if he dashes through an enemy, slows and fears them. This would do two things: to start, it repositions shaco, and secondly, the fear will make enemies run AWAY from shaco, procing his passive.

His Q, for however close it is to his current Q, still has its problems. It's duration is really long, which is good, but at the same time doesn't help much because there's no initial 'jump' like there currently is. For example, if a fight breaks out in baron pit, to join it, currently you'd just Q over the wall and get there. Now, with your Q, it takes time to get to the pit from the other side. You have the time while invisible to get there, but it's just not really useful at that point.

If this is at all confusing, let me know! I'd love to clarify what I mean but I'm pretty tired as I write this.

Wicis1 votes

Thank you for the friendly reply! I agree with the length of the Q. I have shortened it.

As far as how it works, I think it makes him a little more challenging. You can't just Q to catch someone. I, personally, think that's a bad mechanic because it's obvious. With his current Q, you know he just jumped over a wall or he's chasing you. But with this Q it makes you use it more tactically. It's not something you can just do in front of someone for guaranteed damage or a guaranteed escape. You'll have to burn two spells if you want to invis and jump a wall. Using your example, a ward and good communication would be a simple fix.

Lastly, I feel like I took his burst potential and turned it into dueling capability, with his ult only really helping him in 1 or 2v[more] situations. Shaco can, with only 30% cdr, maintain 100% debuff uptime with his E and W, both of which give him great duel capability. 20% chc and 25% armor pen just from abilities? That's pretty good.

As far as the ult, I agree that it's maybe not the best, but with the combination of spells above, having a clone wouldn't be good unless it mimics the abilities you use.

Premium Fuel2 votes

With that kind of q duration, it would be better to put the q as his ult because 9 second invis at level 1 is way too much especially at a 32 sec cd. Plus Rengar already has an ult just like that and it is something that riot can't balance, which is why Rengar is getting a rework. The chance to break the fear won't benefit shaco at all, and it could even screw over his target. The counter play would be he can't damage you without breaking the fear, but then if by chance it doesn't break the fear, level 16 you are feared for 6 seconds and you can't do anything while his team dog piles onto you. Not to mention he doesn't even need to damage you, because his team can guarantee that they land their engage abilities.

Wicis1 votes

I don't know, 9 seconds of invis wouldn't be that bad. Consider Eve, she has perma stealth that gives her mana but has a limited range. Twitch has an 8 second stealth that gives you a lot of AS when it breaks at max rank and the CD is only 16 seconds. With 30% CDR (the ideal amount for this shaco kit) twitch would only have 3 seconds of downtime on that stealth. With 40, it's 1 second of downtime. At some point, being stealthed for so long, the duration becomes negligible. There's a lot you can do with 8 seconds in the game. Plus, Q would be the last thing you level, so 9 seconds of stealth on a 32 second cd at level 11 would be more realistic.

Lastly, any damage would break the fear. Not just Shaco's damage. A minion could hit a person feared by Shaco's ult and it would break the fear (depending on shaco's crit chance). That was taken into consideration too, I put that it fears enemy minions and monsters as well, increasing the likelihood of a feared champ to be struck by a minion if the fear occurs in lane. And tell me how that's any different compared to other CC effects. (Also, not really a guarantee, the direct they head in is random, there could be some sudden accidental jukes if your teammates are bad enough, lol.) Not only does Shaco have to be really close to place this, but he can't be stealthed and place it, it has a cast time, a charge time, and is visible. This ult would also require cooperation within the team, so that people don't go around breaking fears willy nilly and fucking up plans, but it would also basically remove the possibility of someone on your team having Sunfires... or AoE damage... or an AoE status effect. It's not that broken.

Wicis1 votes

You're right, though, it is a bit long.

Eunbi Bias2 votes

uhhh. No offense. But wtf is that Q. At level 5, 21 seconds. Plain broken. Level 1 is 9. Guided strikes just isn't really...Shaco. Why is his jack in the box his ultimate. You killed Shaco Jungle. There goes his clone.

Wicis1 votes

I don't know if it's broken, more unnecessarily long. And Shaco jungle would still be a thing, you just get E and W and have a boat load of extra damage in the jg. You'd only need 1 E and maybe 2 Ws to clear a buff lvl 2 if you're AD (only feasible build). You'd get out of there with relatively high health because of the clear time. Mid to late you wouldn't need to cast anything, but that's most jgers.

As far as his Guided Strikes ability not suiting him, could you elaborate. All I really did was take the jump from his Q and made it it's own spell that ups his duel capability.

Eunbi Bias1 votes

Through a target. And it is honestly broken. It's essentially a free escape. Level 1, you can hide for 9 seconds, while hovering over the enemy. There is no reason for a box as an ultimate. But hey, I'm wasting my time here

Wicis1 votes

{quoted}

Through a target. And it is honestly broken. It's essentially a free escape. Level 1, you can hide for 9 seconds, while hovering over the enemy. There is no reason for a box as an ultimate. But hey, I'm wasting my time here

I did change the Q in a way you might like. I didn't intend for it to be a free escape, I accidentally left out that being in combat wouldn't let you stealth.

And you didn't explain why his W doesn't suit him. Don't think I didn't sincerely consider your comment. I really did. :(

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