Views: 1239 S4 Changes and Reflection
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So I've taken some time to look into the Season 4 changes, but also experience the changes and play through them. I wanted to share my observations and some possible issues, maybe even some solutions to some problems I see:
1. Right off the bat a major concern has to be pink wards. Controlling them is nearly impossible, even if you're winning lane. Giving pink wards 2 extra health is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, although increasing the health wouldn't be that beneficial and might be detrimental to gameplay. I think pink wards should be given
Evelynn treatment in the sense that you can only see them within a certain radius, that would cut back on the ease of killing pinks. I feel that in a lot of ways right now pinks are a massive waste of an investment, which is saying a lot considering they only cost 100g and supports have more access to gold.
1a. The obvious problem with pink wards is a champion like Evelynn. Eve is OP and it's not her fault, the problem is Riot basically removed any usefulness for pink wards, it has nothing to do with Eve's kit. I would be extremely disappointed if Riot nerfed any of Eve's numbers because it would show they have no clue whats going on in their game, sadly I think they might actually do this. They already did it once before when they broke eve because they felt she was toxic, she was unplayable for a year, it would be a masssive step backwards for them if they did the same thing again. In Season 3 the way to negate some of Eve's presence was to spam pinks against her, and while it wasn't necessarily the best counterplay design, it was at least some form of counterplay. There are junglers who are difficult to ward for, Nocturne, Hecarim, Rammus to name a few, but never impossible to ward for. Evelynn is impossible to ward for now. There are too many routes into a lane or teamfight that 1 pink ward isn't going to negate. Even if the team places multiple pink wards it's still difficult to negate, and how realistic is it for team members to carry pink wards around? Not entirely realistic for multiple people to have pinks. I think the solution here would be to allow players to place up to 3 wards in any combination of pink or green. This would allow you to actually ward against stealth champions like Evelynn or Twitch. Oracles was an obvious issue from Season 2-3, but I don't think pink wards were the issue, especially if you limit them to 3 per player I think it would be fine.
2. Trinkets - Stealth Ward is in most cases the best option. I'm actually fine with this, the other trinkets are what I have an issue with. Sweeping Lens has a 3 minute cooldown. Why? Having it on a 2 minute cooldown is still quite long. The problem I normally face with sweeping lens, is I can go clear out a ward, and then the opponent waits 3 seconds and places one in the exact spot, and by the time my trinket is off cooldown, the ward will be expired. If someone clears my ward with lens, I hardly even care, I just put another one down; would like to see some reduction in the cooldown. Scrying Orb - I really can't figure this one out. It has a 2.5 minute cooldown and reveals and area for 1 second. In what world is this better than Stealth Ward? I don't think this in any situation would be better than warding totem, atleast not until you upgrade it. Even still, the fact that I have to invest 475 gold into a trinket to be superior to a trinket that I can get for free is pointless. Even if they reduced the cooldown to 30 seconds I still think it would be an inferior start to Stealth Ward. This new CV needs a massive cooldown reduction and even still I don't think it would help it.
3. Supports - A lot of good changes to supports, but also a lot of bad ones. Increased gold flow is good, but traditional supports are still outshined by AP carries in some aspects. Utility scaling is pretty weak. Do I really want to build 100 AP so I can give my carry 10 movement speed from Nami's Surging Tides? Probably not, I don't think many players would even give a **** or even notice 10 additional movement speed, and sure it could mean life or death, but if you think about it, 100 AP is about 2000 gold worth of stats. 2000 gold for 10 movement speed and a small buff to my ****ty and recently nerfed ratios on all my other spells. Mind boggling how anyone could think that was a good trade off. The point of giving supports utility ratios was to bring them in line with mages or even make them superior to mages that have crept into bot lane, they were already inferior and trading off damage for garbage like a minor movement speed or slow buff isn't going to be as beneficial. Sure, there are still supports that are good like Sona and Thresh but I would argue thats because of their kits, not because they were given a utility ratio.
3a. Annie - I think it's pretty obvious Annie is an issue. She was already a strong support in S3 and she was given more gold in S4 and no longer has to be a ward bot. That's a pretty substantial, indirect buff. I would probably increase the number of charges on her passive to require 5. The problem is her stun is too reliable and up way too often. I don't think this should affect mid lane as much because a lot of Annie players use Q to farm (because of the refund) and can easily get the stun up with 5 charges instead of 4. Summon: Tibbers also probably needs a nerf. Let me just read you this stat line for a second: Tibbers - 1200 health, 30 armor, 25 MR, 80 AD and deals 35 damage to all enemies around him every second. That's a level 6 Summon: Tibbers, not to mention when he's dropped on you he's going to be hitting you for 200 magic damage. Cut his health in half, reduce his AD to ~50 or 60 and reduce the damage on the sunfire-esque tick to ~20 while increasing the ratio. This would make tibbers less of an auto-win at level 6 and actually give bot lanes a chance to kill him without losing horribly.
3b. Taric - I know Taric is really strong, but I haven't played him enough to know what his issues are or how to fix him, so I'll just say taric is really strong, maybe OP but I don't really have anything I can suggest.
4. AD Carries - Lucian, Jinx, and Sivir. Sounds familiar, well they are pretty much god tier AD's with Tristana, Draven, and Varus seen as the only other viable options, at least according to Doublelift. I don't know if I agree but I think Lucian, Jinx, and Sivir are the best. A lot of people are really high on Lucian, and I think he's good, but I don't know if he's a first pick/ban material good. I personally think Jinx is way worse than him, but I will say, the problem with these champions is that they are grotesquely overtuned with utility and damage that it shores up any weakness they might have had. Let's just take a look at Jinx's kit. 175% movement speed buff for 4 seconds after killing a player or tower. Massive Range/AoE or Attack Speed steroid, Long range, slow/reveal nuke. High damage root (with 1:1 ratio) and a global nuke that scales off AD, distance traveled and the enemies missing health. Who in their ****ing right mind could look at that champion and tell me (s)he is not stupidly overtuned for the position. There isn't an ADC that comes close to what Jinx brings on an ADC. Sure champions like Ashe and Varus bring CC or initiation, but when comparing ADC's side-by-side there isn't an ADC that has a more complete kit than Lucian or Jinx
Just some observations, I don't play jungle enough nor do I have the knowledge about jungle to really give a fair and accurate assessment of it's current state. I've seen a mix of reviews on the jungle, all I'll say is the Wight thing is stupid tough. It's 70 gold yet tankier than Blue/Red buff and gives nothing in return? What?
1. Right off the bat a major concern has to be pink wards. Controlling them is nearly impossible, even if you're winning lane. Giving pink wards 2 extra health is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, although increasing the health wouldn't be that beneficial and might be detrimental to gameplay. I think pink wards should be given
Evelynn treatment in the sense that you can only see them within a certain radius, that would cut back on the ease of killing pinks. I feel that in a lot of ways right now pinks are a massive waste of an investment, which is saying a lot considering they only cost 100g and supports have more access to gold.1a. The obvious problem with pink wards is a champion like
Evelynn. Eve is OP and it's not her fault, the problem is Riot basically removed any usefulness for pink wards, it has nothing to do with Eve's kit. I would be extremely disappointed if Riot nerfed any of Eve's numbers because it would show they have no clue whats going on in their game, sadly I think they might actually do this. They already did it once before when they broke eve because they felt she was toxic, she was unplayable for a year, it would be a masssive step backwards for them if they did the same thing again. In Season 3 the way to negate some of Eve's presence was to spam pinks against her, and while it wasn't necessarily the best counterplay design, it was at least some form of counterplay. There are junglers who are difficult to ward for, Nocturne, Hecarim, Rammus to name a few, but never impossible to ward for. Evelynn is impossible to ward for now. There are too many routes into a lane or teamfight that 1 pink ward isn't going to negate. Even if the team places multiple pink wards it's still difficult to negate, and how realistic is it for team members to carry pink wards around? Not entirely realistic for multiple people to have pinks. I think the solution here would be to allow players to place up to 3 wards in any combination of pink or green. This would allow you to actually ward against stealth champions like Evelynn or Twitch. Oracles was an obvious issue from Season 2-3, but I don't think pink wards were the issue, especially if you limit them to 3 per player I think it would be fine.2. Trinkets -
Stealth Ward is in most cases the best option. I'm actually fine with this, the other trinkets are what I have an issue with. Sweeping Lens has a 3 minute cooldown. Why? Having it on a 2 minute cooldown is still quite long. The problem I normally face with sweeping lens, is I can go clear out a ward, and then the opponent waits 3 seconds and places one in the exact spot, and by the time my trinket is off cooldown, the ward will be expired. If someone clears my ward with lens, I hardly even care, I just put another one down; would like to see some reduction in the cooldown. Scrying Orb - I really can't figure this one out. It has a 2.5 minute cooldown and reveals and area for 1 second. In what world is this better than Stealth Ward? I don't think this in any situation would be better than warding totem, atleast not until you upgrade it. Even still, the fact that I have to invest 475 gold into a trinket to be superior to a trinket that I can get for free is pointless. Even if they reduced the cooldown to 30 seconds I still think it would be an inferior start to Stealth Ward. This new CV needs a massive cooldown reduction and even still I don't think it would help it.3. Supports - A lot of good changes to supports, but also a lot of bad ones. Increased gold flow is good, but traditional supports are still outshined by AP carries in some aspects. Utility scaling is pretty weak. Do I really want to build 100 AP so I can give my carry 10 movement speed from
Nami's Surging Tides? Probably not, I don't think many players would even give a **** or even notice 10 additional movement speed, and sure it could mean life or death, but if you think about it, 100 AP is about 2000 gold worth of stats. 2000 gold for 10 movement speed and a small buff to my ****ty and recently nerfed ratios on all my other spells. Mind boggling how anyone could think that was a good trade off. The point of giving supports utility ratios was to bring them in line with mages or even make them superior to mages that have crept into bot lane, they were already inferior and trading off damage for garbage like a minor movement speed or slow buff isn't going to be as beneficial. Sure, there are still supports that are good like Sona and Thresh but I would argue thats because of their kits, not because they were given a utility ratio.3a.
Annie - I think it's pretty obvious Annie is an issue. She was already a strong support in S3 and she was given more gold in S4 and no longer has to be a ward bot. That's a pretty substantial, indirect buff. I would probably increase the number of charges on her passive to require 5. The problem is her stun is too reliable and up way too often. I don't think this should affect mid lane as much because a lot of Annie players use Q to farm (because of the refund) and can easily get the stun up with 5 charges instead of 4. Summon: Tibbers also probably needs a nerf. Let me just read you this stat line for a second: Tibbers - 1200 health, 30 armor, 25 MR, 80 AD and deals 35 damage to all enemies around him every second. That's a level 6 Summon: Tibbers, not to mention when he's dropped on you he's going to be hitting you for 200 magic damage. Cut his health in half, reduce his AD to ~50 or 60 and reduce the damage on the sunfire-esque tick to ~20 while increasing the ratio. This would make tibbers less of an auto-win at level 6 and actually give bot lanes a chance to kill him without losing horribly.3b.
Taric - I know Taric is really strong, but I haven't played him enough to know what his issues are or how to fix him, so I'll just say taric is really strong, maybe OP but I don't really have anything I can suggest.4. AD Carries -
Lucian, Jinx, and Sivir. Sounds familiar, well they are pretty much god tier AD's with Tristana, Draven, and Varus seen as the only other viable options, at least according to Doublelift. I don't know if I agree but I think Lucian, Jinx, and Sivir are the best. A lot of people are really high on Lucian, and I think he's good, but I don't know if he's a first pick/ban material good. I personally think Jinx is way worse than him, but I will say, the problem with these champions is that they are grotesquely overtuned with utility and damage that it shores up any weakness they might have had. Let's just take a look at Jinx's kit. 175% movement speed buff for 4 seconds after killing a player or tower. Massive Range/AoE or Attack Speed steroid, Long range, slow/reveal nuke. High damage root (with 1:1 ratio) and a global nuke that scales off AD, distance traveled and the enemies missing health. Who in their ****ing right mind could look at that champion and tell me (s)he is not stupidly overtuned for the position. There isn't an ADC that comes close to what Jinx brings on an ADC. Sure champions like Ashe and Varus bring CC or initiation, but when comparing ADC's side-by-side there isn't an ADC that has a more complete kit than Lucian or JinxJust some observations, I don't play jungle enough nor do I have the knowledge about jungle to really give a fair and accurate assessment of it's current state. I've seen a mix of reviews on the jungle, all I'll say is the Wight thing is stupid tough. It's 70 gold yet tankier than Blue/Red buff and gives nothing in return? What?
I love how drastically the meta of ADCs shifts. S2 was the golden time for AD caster carries, then S3 was all about Range for awhile. Now it's Raw ****ing damage, ala Lucian, Sivir and Jinx. Too bad AD carry is the ***** role of the game now.
I think we might see ADC's phasing out a bit more. I'd expect to see more bruisers, assassins, or even mages played in their place. I don't think they'll totally fall out of favor but I would suspect we'd see games played without them.
You mean
Lucian's so OP he got beaten on OGN most of the games, last I read day one he won 2 games and lost 6, or something like that. Jinx just needs a numbers tweak on W and she's perfectly fine, people need to see her as they would a Kog Maw, she's not hard to corner and we're with this tank meta anyway.
Most ADC players should probs focus on learning
Jinx - now this is a champ that NEEDS a nerf.
You mean
Annie - I'm a support myself but I never got used to play caster supports (like Anine and Fiddle). I always get killed :D So I can't say much about her, just that it really feels like shi should be nerfed a little. But that won't happen 'cause if Riot touches her, they will go to jail for child molestation...
Taric - tried few games with him while he was free last week. Not a bad champ, but he is slow, his heal is not that strong and is very mana dependant. Therefore it is not impossible to kite him, especially if he wastes his stun.
Jinx - now this is a champ that NEEDS a nerf. When she came out, she was so OP, every noob could score 10/1/3 with her. She got slow, stun, and *****load of dmg dealing, as well as speed bonus. Riot tried to gently nerfed her, but it didn't work. But at least it scared few kids from picking her for ranked games, as today's trend is either Caitlyn with her OP range, or Vayne.
you don't think he is overbearing in lane? hmm maybe it is just the people at my level but i can bully pretty much anyone out of lane with a competent adc.
I think he is easy to deal with. Just make sure to be aware of his zone, and try to harass him when he runs in for the stun. You just have to pick an ADC with an escape and you can just jump away from the stun. I'm not saying he's balanced, but he's definitely not as difficult as people make out to deal with in laning phase.
What if Annie's charges fade one at a time rather than all at once? More fair?
Would definitely have to agree with this, it limits Annie's zoning pressure without forcing her to throw out stuns every 10 seconds like a ******. The main part of Annie's stun is just the threat of it, as it's so long-ranged. You either decide to get stunned and take a ton of damage, or zoned away from your creeps by a mile.
Taric just kinda... walks at you. He gives you plenty of time and obvious intent in his movements to avoid what he's going to do. Not to mention his mana costs are killer early, and he cant really afford to be going rambo over and over again and burning heals to win out trades. I usually play him with the gameplan of waiting for the enemy to make a move and countering it.
watched oddone **** stomp with taric in lane yesterday. oddone was on a role...the jokes XD
Also, @
He just scales too well is the real issue, it isn't like he's overbearing in lane still.
@OP
yeah annie is pretty much played in every high elo game if she isn't banned. she just insta ***** on people. taric is just the ultimate lane bully right now.
i think luther already pointed out the adc point...and it is true. you need a champ with mobility and escapes otherwise a bruiser will be on your face beating you...well that will probably happen regardless but...
thanks to the trinkets the jungle has changed...imo any champ who can just bypass wards with speed of ganks doesn't care much though...such as udyr, hecarim, eve, rengar, etc.
overall good summary moon.
I agree on the fact Vision wards aren't exactly strong atm but Eve isn't as strong as people make her out to be.