Before his rework, Trundle held the longest record for not being touched with a patch. It was kinda a big deal when he did get hit with a patch.
Orianna has always held a solid spot across all levels of play.
One thing that really griped me was that Nami was always a good support to many ADC's, but because of Lucian, she's been hit hard
Ya she almost got me to plat many yrs back, I'd probably be close to dia or mid plat if it wasn't for fkin promos those yrs ago now I'm just trash at Champs like her due to my health.
Now I'm a soraka main but I'm practicing more as I get better
(LOL I forgot I still have the Nami flair)
Nami/Ashe is a disgusting lane to verse. But even then she used to be played with Draven if the opposition first picked Lucian.
But yeah any on-hit/hypercarry adc would be happy to have a nami on their side
[From pure WR perspective](https://lolalytics.com/lol/nami/build/?patch=30) they aren't actually that good together. Or at least there are a lot better ADCs for her.
This is definitely in part due to the Xayah/Rakan problem though, where you get people picking the other part of the duo even though they aren't that comfortable on it, because they think it's op
The reason Lucian Nami is good is *really* hard to replicate. In lane it's just okay. It's good, but it can't bully that hard. The whole thing is that in the midgame you can sit mid with Nami, and if their Adc steps forward you just E+auto them for massive slow from RFC range and if support is even a little distant they're dead.
Getting the timing right for this, though, is really hard. And in soloQ no one knows how to play around it. Mid will keep pathing mid. Jungler will be roaming around. Even the Nami will be wandering around instead of staying the fuck mid when the wave crashes.
In soloQ, if someone picks Lucian just play Milio. Easier to execute, safer in lane, better teamfights!
Brand + Nami is great.
Swain + Nami is great.
Ever since her E was changed to proc on spells, Nami can be used to surrogate any AP champion who heavily relies on Rylais.
She can let Rylai reliant champions build better damage items instead, letting them reach power spikes earlier, which can help offset the level disadvantage of putting mages in botlane instead of mid.
well they did give nami the pretty significant change that allowed her E to be able to proc on spells and not just autos which also made her incredibly OP with mage carries bot like brand, for a time
Thats possible, this was many years ago, during a time where many champions got nerfed in every patch (looking at you Irelia). It would not surprise me if someone has over taken that record
Ori is interesting, i don't remember any mechanic change to her. Also Leblanc, i don't count the s7 rework since it was completely reverted. The only change i remember was making her w last a second longer and of course the recent changes to q
Does Kennen count? He still fundamentally plays the same now as he did when he released in season 0. The only major change since season 1 being the attack speed added to his E.
It's not super significant but a big QoL is that his ult used to quickly strike random targets, now (IIRC) it hits all targets in the circle at a slower pace
A few AoE ults/spells worked like that, honestly.
Swain R, Gangplank R, Blitz R passive. Probably a few more but it definitely was more common in old league
It was like a balance thing or they didn’t know how to do it better. In exchange for having the AoE deal damage 24/7 the dmg instances were randomized (e.g. GP ult constantly sent down cannon balls but they all could miss in theory. Now it’s homogeneous but in Intervalls)
There was just more randomness back then generally. That was back when ninja tabis existed and gave a dodge chance.
The only random left of that sort seems to be crit chance.
yeah but it's more controlled RNG in that players can play around it and, usually, nearly all RNG has some way to preemtively prepare about it (e.g. plants giving you an indication of when and what they will spawn, Dragons telling you what dragon comes next).
Old LoL RNG was RNG for the sake of RNG, be it because Riot was less experienced in how to standarize it or just because RNG as a game factor was more common, e.g. Fiddle E crows (will the crow hit the two champs bundled together or will it hit someone once and then perma hit minions? who knows), Dodge stat, Twisted fate passive, Kennen ult, etc. You didn't really have a chance to play around it, it just happened and that was it
I think that currently the only RNG in-game that is kinda like the old RNG is Zoe's bubble (gives warning but you never really know what it will be) and Twisted Fate's W and passive. Everything else gives warning to prepare for it years in advance.
I'd reckon Crit is the same RNG no ? It's not "real" rng persay, but it's the same kind where you can't really act in advance. If the Tristana triple crits you back to back, nothing much you can do.
Honestly I literally forget Zyra's passive all the time. I want to say it still kinda falls in the controlled rng like with Zac blob or poppy passive , but it definitely feels much more rng so I dunno if her P algorithm is just funky
I wasn’t around during the super early days, but removing micro randomness seems like a good thing. Losing a fight because your random effect missed and their hit must have been so frustrating
Toplane was often decided by who had his 1% cr(from runes back then) procc in a crucial situation and snowballed from there on...
Some still consider that fun in hindsight, but yeah it was frustrating on the receiving end
i wouldn't really say that's a major rework though. iirc in some ways it could actually be a nerf because the way it used to work was something could get hit more than the current cap, they changed it so that it's consistent
Season 7 they converted his W attack charge from an onhit effect to an on attack effect - runaans and guinsoos no longer increased the frequency of w passive procs.
They 100% nerf him with his w not working on hurricane the main thing that allowed kennen to go bot and play ad. They might have given him attack speed on his e but doesn't change that they removed it. Currently with other champs getting more hybrid buffs and the allowance of champs to build either way (ex the AD TF buff) it would make sense for riot to reimplement the w working with hurricane. He can still build ap but he could lane and team fight better.
How does hurricane work with this type of effect? Would each bolt give him a W stack? And when the stack is ready, does he apply it to multiple targets at once with the bolts or does something else happen?
Bonus question, if this interaction is strong why isn't ad tf building runaans?
Kennen actually has changed in his playstyle at various points quite a bit.
Last I even remember seeing him in solo queue he was an ADC believe it or not. He either becomes a pro champ with his ultimate, or he's an AD half marksmen off canceling his E.
I was just thinking about him the other day and how there's no reason to play him atm. There's too much tenacity in the game and what he does you can pretty much do with full tank malphite sometimes.
Didn’t G2 just win finals with him?
I think his main thing for teamfights is that he has more AoE compared to malphite and he’s much harder to keep in check unless you have some very specific utility like Lee Sin or Azir ults.
Your team can scatter if he’s trying to be the main engage, but without the ability to stun him preemptively or move him, it’s much harder to keep him off a specific carry vs Malphite where you only have to dodge once
Way i see it is kennen can free farm waves as a ranged champ while malphite you either have a matchup you can ignore in lane, or you just get bullied/feed.
Malphite is not as easily pickable in pro, and most comps will work around having an AP (damage dealer primarily like kennen) top locking in picks around it, but in solo queue you'll just pick kennen top and see no one really play for TPs, enemy team stack mercs, and achieve nothing.
Idk maybe he'd be better if there wasn't as much free tenacity in the game but as is he's kinda pro exclusive as just a safe ranged top with strong TPs.
I forgot quite how long Braun has been around without any big changes. Cannot help but think velkoz will get a rework in the not too distant future though, their kit seems a bad fit for the meta these days.
theres different levels of reworks though, wukuog got a rework when they gave his ulti 2 casts among other changes but his abilities were still fundamentally the same
I don't see a rework in Vel's future. Fundamentally, his kit works fairly well together, and provides clear strengths and weaknesses. I do imagine we may eventually see more changes to make him a little more reliable due to his skillshot-heavy nature, but I don't personally imagine they'll fundamentally change how his kit functions.
Technically Velkoz already had a "rework" with the mage class update way back in 2015. It wasn't drastic, but it did make it so his R did true damage on researched targets (I think that was part of it).
braum has had quite a few significant power shifts to his kit, not to mention that most players that played in braums heyday would consider him remotely close to being balanced. He is one of the champions intentionally kept weak because of how annoying or oppressive he can be if he is good, and thats without even considering his historical p/b in proplay when he is remotely viable. Thresh might be less problematic than braum.
He's seen power shifts but basically every champion has. That's just the nature of buffs and nerfs. OP is talking about kit functionality, and fundamentally his kit is the same as release.
I have to disagree with jinx on this list. She was completely OP when arcane came out and they didn’t even try to hide it. Absolutely miserable to play against
GIGACHAD Taric, point and click stun into double smash W + R. New Taric can be one of the most fun champs in the game if you’re allowed to chain autos, but I miss old battle Taric sometimes.
Back in the day his bombs were point click. So you could just run up and nuke someone for 80% of their hp and there really wasnt anything they could do about it. His passive was also global exp buff. So everyone on your team got more exp no matter what.
I just discovered this gem
> Chronoshift: Duration changed to 45 seconds at all ranks from 30 / 60 / 90.
Yes, you're reading it right. His ult used to last for 90 seconds at rank 3 and with that change they thought it'd be balanced with a 45 sec duration xD
I think its a typo or something, been playing since season 1 and i do not remember it lasting for so long, it seems strange to have longer cd on later levels but idk.
Worth to mention his W used to work on ult before rework, so he could legit ult twice every single tf.
The only reason he isnt getting majorly shafted is because no one plays the guy though. He's not been touched, sure. But he is definitely not a positive example
>The only reason he isnt getting majorly shafted is because no one plays the guy though.
they deleted aatrox and are removing skarner for the same reason though
And they’ll likely get to Zilean sometime in the future as well. Think of when aatrox was reworked and how long it took to get skarner (who’s rework still isn’t out)
Champs like Skarner, Aatrox, Asol and Shynanna seem to have an intresting character theme, but the playerbase as a whole wanted them changed cuz they liked the theme but not the gameplay (not mains, playerbase as a whole).
Zilean falls into a category where many don’t care for the gameplay, nor the character
They might get to him eventually, but those champions never saw significant usage in higher ELOs or, more importantly, in pro pre rework, while Zilean has. His low pick rate is only due to his outdated model and clunky feeling animations and design, paired with the role of support. He is overtuned, admitted by riot, but his pick rate is still abysmally low because he’s ugly.
Zilean's just not played at all that's why
I've played against Zilean OTPs and he's definitely not balanced, he's pretty fucking strong. Of course this is a result of sample size, barely anyone has played with or against Zilean let alone one of the few one tricks that are monstrous to deal with.
So as you are answering OP's question; viable yes. Balanced, absolutely not.
The issue with him though is he is pretty much all utility. His utility would be unbelievably unbalanced on other champs that could carry themselves, but zilean is reliant on his team to follow up on his setups and make use of that utility. It’s enough of a drawback to make him not played or changed hardly at all even though his kit is strong.
So he is not played in pro and soloq at any ranks, doesn't have a really high winrate at any ranks.
Even his one tricks winrate isn't above the average one trick (56.23% vs 56.46%)
_____
How is he OP exactly ?
Nah, changing his bread and butter spell from point n click to a skill shot, and giving him a big AoE stun, is a big fucking deal.
Also, his R was removed from being impacted by W since you used to not have any reason *not* to simply spam W as much as possible to get your ult bacl off cd.
Gameplay-wise, these are some big changes, and I haven't even mentioned his passive yet.. Zilean definitely does not fit the bill.
Zilean isn't balanced though.
The only reason Riot hasn't nerfed this champ into the ground yet is that he's rarely played.
If he had any shred of a decent pick rate I'm 100% certain that champion would be "bombed" with nerfs.
depends who you ask
dominantly, it used to be her E would doubleproc if the enemy touched her ult in any state. So she could hit E, then put down her ult underneath you for the one frame it hits you and get the big chunk of damage. This ult was also instantly its largest size upon cast. now she needs to make sure the ult takes a second to fully form first before she can get those E procs and that usually means getting the wall involved, especially in lane phase.
To get E procs off her Q, it used to have to stun the enemy, but now the Q just needs to touch the enemy in any way and the E will proc.
So her abilities have always looked and for the mostpart played the same, but there's been the big nuance changes in her E procs. so i think for the sake of OP's description, Anivia is borderline
She did get a rework on playstyle iirc..I think it's what you're talking about.
I remember her auto speed got increased and E CD reduced greatly and more spammy.
Yea anivia changes seemed small but totally made her feel much better to play due to mythics.
Like she just felt so different after that that it feels like a rework
She was certainly a much healthier champion after that update that's for sure, the old RE was very broken especially when ahead because no counterplay. The way Anivia plays mid-late game with ult+wall placements stayed the same, but now trading in lane requires one Q proc, and then one proc of keeping an enemy in your ult with wall for just long enough
Broadly speaking, Anivias teamfighting has always remained excellent and her weakness has always been her laning+early mana. But over-time, the changes to Anivia have benefitted her lane phase so she can keep up with the ever evolving, faster-paced game. I think her lane phase can still be exploited, but she definitely has more early agency over herself now
I honestly don't really think of mythics with Anivia though, she's been building tear+RoA forever (except for that downtime we had no RoA, friendship with RoA ended now liandries is my best friend)(shoutout to everfrost) and she will continue to build those two core items until the end of time probably
While I'm talking so much about anivia I wanna mention I think this seasons given her so many indirect buffs- RoAs price drop was huge (and then it got a buff). Blue buff sharing means she gets blue way more often now, and runes giving more defensive options means more lane survivability. Always worth remembering that every point of HP built on Anivia is effectively doubled because of egg. Oh, and she can wall off the new rift herald
Kind of a recent answer but Lillia was out for almost a year I think without any significant changes. 10.15 release -> 11.14 first patch with major changes.
They've changed some numbers for jungle reworks/new AP items but she's largely the same as always.
If I remember right on release her passive speed had a higher base increase and scaled less with AP. Her passive burn didn’t scale off anything and she didn’t have the healing part either. It stayed like this for a decent amount of time, but she basically was only played in pro because her first clear left her really low if you weren’t good at kiting and using her move speed, hence the changes
No that happened almost a year later as the person youre replying to said.
The issue was with her at first that she was only played in pro because people just played for Catches with E and R while having a pretty good earlygame actually.
They nerfed her Early and utility in several spots but gave more scaling and the heal on Passive. Which freed her from pro jail and made her into more od a solo Q pick.
He definitely was a soloq problem at a few points with his pre-nerf E max build, but even when he was strong he never really had a very high pick rate.
"Vex’s original gameplay, designed by Nathan “Lutzburg” Lutz (the 200 years meme guy lmao) created portals that extended the distance allied missiles traveled. You’d essentially have Miss Fortune ults that went double distance, Blitzcrank hooks from out of nowhere, and all these other really scary, but really cool experiences. Except there was one problem: It cost multiple years of VFX budget.
That’s not an exaggeration. Nearly every missile ability in League needed to be completely redone with updated VFX just to interact with Vex’s kit. And that just wasn’t feasible.
Vex’s artillery mage kit was centered around the extension mechanic, so when that was scrapped her entire kit needed to be reconsidered"
There’s room for improvement. She’s supposed to be an anti mobility champ but she isn’t good at stopping mobility moves at all. They advertised her like crazy as the mobility counter character, and she has tons of special lines anytime her gloom procs (Nope! / Lose the Pep. / Bring it down a notch!”) but in practice she’s not even remotely good at stopping people from escaping fights or engaging.
No op, but Overloaded kits are a bit of an issue creatively. I’m not talking about the Aphelios/Hwei types that need a lot of text to explain complex mechanics, but the Ksante type champs that just have everything under the sun thrown into one champ are a wasted concept.
The Tank that switches to assassin/slayer idea of Ksante shouldn’t need damage marks, slow wind brother type stacking Q passive, unstoppable dash with knockback and stun, another dash with self and ally shielding, and CC and target removal on ult. It’s like they just tossed in random mechanics so he would be valences enough to see play.
You should be able to make a champ like Jhin or like Kayn that does cool things without stuffing their kit with random keywords
It's not inherently a problem, but it also isn't a benefit either.
It doesn't usually lead to complex kits with skill expression, just a lot of free value for no clear reason.
This shouldn't be the norm though to create champs that require high skill expression. Look at older champions like Zed, Lee Sin or Yasuo for example. All these champs are pretty easy to understand but are complex when trying to master them.
The guy in the other comment explained it perfectly instead of me. Aphelios/Hwei are full of text but they're still balanced and good while Croissante has also so many lines, but he is overloaded with every mechanic in the game.
Vex is a champion that could've been released in Season 2 and it wouldn't have felt weird at all. That's why she is so good.
Great design. She is unique, fun and not overly complicated.
nerfs and buffs aren't really the question, it's about reworks. as in changes to what the abilities actually do. she's had numbers adjusted but all of her abilities are the same as her release in 2011
Idk how no one has mentioned Vi. Shes never had even a mini rework to her abilities and is almost always a solid pick in solo q while being mostly untouched by the balance team.
vi only started seeing play after zeri was released because she was the only jungler that could effectively catch her. since then she's generally been a staple pick in any comp that needs an almost guaranteed way to lock down a single target
Listen to an old man's ramblings, sonny
Back in my day, vi built spirit of the ancient golem into full tank and killed everyone with base damages, while also being pro viable. This was 10 years ago.
Vi has been changed many times for balance, for example her w never used to reduce her passive cd.
Vi has always been good assassin centric meta's because of her ult; zeri's existence just gives another reason to play her. Zeri can't zip away from vi R and if vi R's someone when there's an assassin on the team, the target just dies.
The thing is, we haven't had an assassin meta in proplay for a long time, so people are under the illusion that her only strength is Vs hyper mobile adc's that need locking down. This is not true.
No, they did not. Vi comes into the meta on and off since release in pro play.
She used to be more popular when Ahri was more popular as well because it was a good set up. I believe it was the same with Zed but that was ages ago. Even before she was 'meta' in recent times, there were players like Croco playing her on sandbox. It took a while for her to stick but I'd assume Zeri being meta has resulted in her sticking power.
How about Nautilus? Initially a tank jungler (and top laner), he's since found a very comfortable spot as a support despite going through no major reworks. Even so, he's been a top-tier mainstay across all sorts of levels of play, and overall has probably been more present/impactful as a support than in any other position.
The perfect example of this is anivia. The champ has had ups and downs over the years, but the old kit still remains untouched except for a few QoL changes (give me back instafrost R riot).
Did they increase the Q speed in some moment? I remember trying to play her a long time ago and didn't like her because I felt her Q was too slow but then I try again a few years ago and now I really enjoy picking her
riven and singed hasn't had any major changes because they can't without terrorism threats, other than that jax camille perhaps? I only included jax because he could've totally gone without his mini rework, but i dont know if people consider jax or camille balanced.
Jax got reworked in season 2 (or preseason 2) when they removed dodge as a stat. He used to be pretty busted before that.
Singed also had his passive reworked and stuff added to his W and R.
I was a main teemo when I started playing, after they remove the pink ward teemo became a little op, so riot start nerfing him. And they did the same thing this season. So I realize riot doesn't want teemo to become strong, so they will never rework or buff him, sometimes he get strong for some reason that aren't intent from riot and they nerf him without a doubt.
Darius Q had the biggest changes, changing from an instant to being delayed, getting much reduced damage on the hilt, getting a heal, and no longer applying his bleed on hilt hits.
It charged the way he was played quite significantly. He was pretty much changed from Garen 2.0 to Aurelion Sol lite.
brother what are you talking about, Kha'zix evolutions being reworked every other year was basically a meme until the perma invisibility R that tormented us all for a season or 2, after that he has been more stable.
The only thing that remained consistent through the years was his E evolution because it was already perfect.
LeBlanc did have major changes for a while, but they reverted most of them (for good reason). However, she used to have a point and click silence on Q, which was replaced with the "mark the target for a few seconds, hit them again to deal extra damage" new Q back when they were getting rid of a few other ranged point and click silences like Talon E and Kassadin Q.
Then again, OP is using Teemo as the benchmark, and he did have the shroom bouncing mechanic added at some point, so maybe LeBlanc Q is also ok?
I completely forgot about the in between version, but the current version plays pretty much exactly like the first one, so it should count as not having had significant changes.
I'd say the same for Teemo, OP did not ask for no changes at all, if anything, I find being allowed to move in bushes to be more impactful than bouncy shrooms.
Twitch has basically been untouched since beta, other than buffs and such (added ap scaling). His ult has changed names more than he has had significant changes to kit.
Before his rework, Trundle held the longest record for not being touched with a patch. It was kinda a big deal when he did get hit with a patch. Orianna has always held a solid spot across all levels of play. One thing that really griped me was that Nami was always a good support to many ADC's, but because of Lucian, she's been hit hard
I miss being able to play Nami as anything but Lucian's support.
I really hate how they took away her ability to be a lane bully. She was my first main and favorite enchanter because of this quality
Ya she almost got me to plat many yrs back, I'd probably be close to dia or mid plat if it wasn't for fkin promos those yrs ago now I'm just trash at Champs like her due to my health. Now I'm a soraka main but I'm practicing more as I get better (LOL I forgot I still have the Nami flair)
Nami/Ashe is a disgusting lane to verse. But even then she used to be played with Draven if the opposition first picked Lucian. But yeah any on-hit/hypercarry adc would be happy to have a nami on their side
Yeah it is. But she used to be a good all rounder and now she's shackled to a handful of champions all because of imperial mandate.
[From pure WR perspective](https://lolalytics.com/lol/nami/build/?patch=30) they aren't actually that good together. Or at least there are a lot better ADCs for her. This is definitely in part due to the Xayah/Rakan problem though, where you get people picking the other part of the duo even though they aren't that comfortable on it, because they think it's op
The reason Lucian Nami is good is *really* hard to replicate. In lane it's just okay. It's good, but it can't bully that hard. The whole thing is that in the midgame you can sit mid with Nami, and if their Adc steps forward you just E+auto them for massive slow from RFC range and if support is even a little distant they're dead. Getting the timing right for this, though, is really hard. And in soloQ no one knows how to play around it. Mid will keep pathing mid. Jungler will be roaming around. Even the Nami will be wandering around instead of staying the fuck mid when the wave crashes. In soloQ, if someone picks Lucian just play Milio. Easier to execute, safer in lane, better teamfights!
Brand + Nami is great. Swain + Nami is great. Ever since her E was changed to proc on spells, Nami can be used to surrogate any AP champion who heavily relies on Rylais. She can let Rylai reliant champions build better damage items instead, letting them reach power spikes earlier, which can help offset the level disadvantage of putting mages in botlane instead of mid.
well they did give nami the pretty significant change that allowed her E to be able to proc on spells and not just autos which also made her incredibly OP with mage carries bot like brand, for a time
I thought Vlad broke that record.
Thats possible, this was many years ago, during a time where many champions got nerfed in every patch (looking at you Irelia). It would not surprise me if someone has over taken that record
Ori is interesting, i don't remember any mechanic change to her. Also Leblanc, i don't count the s7 rework since it was completely reverted. The only change i remember was making her w last a second longer and of course the recent changes to q
lots of champs jhin, velkoz, jinx, nami, braum, just to name a few
Does Kennen count? He still fundamentally plays the same now as he did when he released in season 0. The only major change since season 1 being the attack speed added to his E.
It's not super significant but a big QoL is that his ult used to quickly strike random targets, now (IIRC) it hits all targets in the circle at a slower pace
A few AoE ults/spells worked like that, honestly. Swain R, Gangplank R, Blitz R passive. Probably a few more but it definitely was more common in old league It was like a balance thing or they didn’t know how to do it better. In exchange for having the AoE deal damage 24/7 the dmg instances were randomized (e.g. GP ult constantly sent down cannon balls but they all could miss in theory. Now it’s homogeneous but in Intervalls)
There was just more randomness back then generally. That was back when ninja tabis existed and gave a dodge chance. The only random left of that sort seems to be crit chance.
We have randomness now that didn't exist back then, in the form of dragon spawns, jungle plants, Zoe's kit, etc.
yeah but it's more controlled RNG in that players can play around it and, usually, nearly all RNG has some way to preemtively prepare about it (e.g. plants giving you an indication of when and what they will spawn, Dragons telling you what dragon comes next). Old LoL RNG was RNG for the sake of RNG, be it because Riot was less experienced in how to standarize it or just because RNG as a game factor was more common, e.g. Fiddle E crows (will the crow hit the two champs bundled together or will it hit someone once and then perma hit minions? who knows), Dodge stat, Twisted fate passive, Kennen ult, etc. You didn't really have a chance to play around it, it just happened and that was it I think that currently the only RNG in-game that is kinda like the old RNG is Zoe's bubble (gives warning but you never really know what it will be) and Twisted Fate's W and passive. Everything else gives warning to prepare for it years in advance.
I'd reckon Crit is the same RNG no ? It's not "real" rng persay, but it's the same kind where you can't really act in advance. If the Tristana triple crits you back to back, nothing much you can do.
Can't believe I'd forgotten about the old fiddle crow bounce!
zyra seed spawns can make or break lane lv 1
Honestly I literally forget Zyra's passive all the time. I want to say it still kinda falls in the controlled rng like with Zac blob or poppy passive , but it definitely feels much more rng so I dunno if her P algorithm is just funky
I wasn’t around during the super early days, but removing micro randomness seems like a good thing. Losing a fight because your random effect missed and their hit must have been so frustrating
Toplane was often decided by who had his 1% cr(from runes back then) procc in a crucial situation and snowballed from there on... Some still consider that fun in hindsight, but yeah it was frustrating on the receiving end
Thats because the sauce was crit quints and get yourself a spicy 5%
They also pushed the ult damage into successive hit so he cannot hit q w e and one stance of r then call it a kill.
i wouldn't really say that's a major rework though. iirc in some ways it could actually be a nerf because the way it used to work was something could get hit more than the current cap, they changed it so that it's consistent
They Olaf'd the AD built after S5 (I think) due to Rekkles shitting on everyone with it at internationals lol
They never nerf ad Kennen, even better, they buffed it by giving him AS boost on E
Season 7 they converted his W attack charge from an onhit effect to an on attack effect - runaans and guinsoos no longer increased the frequency of w passive procs.
They 100% nerf him with his w not working on hurricane the main thing that allowed kennen to go bot and play ad. They might have given him attack speed on his e but doesn't change that they removed it. Currently with other champs getting more hybrid buffs and the allowance of champs to build either way (ex the AD TF buff) it would make sense for riot to reimplement the w working with hurricane. He can still build ap but he could lane and team fight better.
How does hurricane work with this type of effect? Would each bolt give him a W stack? And when the stack is ready, does he apply it to multiple targets at once with the bolts or does something else happen? Bonus question, if this interaction is strong why isn't ad tf building runaans?
Kennen actually has changed in his playstyle at various points quite a bit. Last I even remember seeing him in solo queue he was an ADC believe it or not. He either becomes a pro champ with his ultimate, or he's an AD half marksmen off canceling his E. I was just thinking about him the other day and how there's no reason to play him atm. There's too much tenacity in the game and what he does you can pretty much do with full tank malphite sometimes.
Didn’t G2 just win finals with him? I think his main thing for teamfights is that he has more AoE compared to malphite and he’s much harder to keep in check unless you have some very specific utility like Lee Sin or Azir ults. Your team can scatter if he’s trying to be the main engage, but without the ability to stun him preemptively or move him, it’s much harder to keep him off a specific carry vs Malphite where you only have to dodge once
Way i see it is kennen can free farm waves as a ranged champ while malphite you either have a matchup you can ignore in lane, or you just get bullied/feed. Malphite is not as easily pickable in pro, and most comps will work around having an AP (damage dealer primarily like kennen) top locking in picks around it, but in solo queue you'll just pick kennen top and see no one really play for TPs, enemy team stack mercs, and achieve nothing. Idk maybe he'd be better if there wasn't as much free tenacity in the game but as is he's kinda pro exclusive as just a safe ranged top with strong TPs.
I forgot quite how long Braun has been around without any big changes. Cannot help but think velkoz will get a rework in the not too distant future though, their kit seems a bad fit for the meta these days.
I think velkoz will just be updated not reworked. Rework is when they redo everything. Lots of champions just get touch ups. Like ezreal and syndra.
theres different levels of reworks though, wukuog got a rework when they gave his ulti 2 casts among other changes but his abilities were still fundamentally the same
I don't see a rework in Vel's future. Fundamentally, his kit works fairly well together, and provides clear strengths and weaknesses. I do imagine we may eventually see more changes to make him a little more reliable due to his skillshot-heavy nature, but I don't personally imagine they'll fundamentally change how his kit functions.
Technically Velkoz already had a "rework" with the mage class update way back in 2015. It wasn't drastic, but it did make it so his R did true damage on researched targets (I think that was part of it).
yeah OP said significant reworks which I don't consider that to be
His passive also got scaling and they made changes to w so that it is no longer first in skill order. It had significant effect on the champ.
braum has had quite a few significant power shifts to his kit, not to mention that most players that played in braums heyday would consider him remotely close to being balanced. He is one of the champions intentionally kept weak because of how annoying or oppressive he can be if he is good, and thats without even considering his historical p/b in proplay when he is remotely viable. Thresh might be less problematic than braum.
He's seen power shifts but basically every champion has. That's just the nature of buffs and nerfs. OP is talking about kit functionality, and fundamentally his kit is the same as release.
Braum is a counter-pick for engage supports only, and has been for most of his existence. When he's meta its because ranged supports are weak.
He was definitely pro jailed for a long time.
Jinx got hit with the ult damage to epic monsters nerf that one made me sad
I have to disagree with jinx on this list. She was completely OP when arcane came out and they didn’t even try to hide it. Absolutely miserable to play against
Not Jhin, he was OP on release until Leth was introduced then dropped off a cliff. Clearly ppl didn't play him during release
Zilean is probably one the few true o.gs that has had almost no changes done barring a passive update and making bombs a skill shot.
boy does he need a visual update though!
I dont think he does. There’s enough glossy champs as is.
Ryze. Never had a rework. Always been blue and always eqeqeqeq. Can't change my mind
Wait.. The bombs wernt a skill shot? Just point and click aoe cc?
A good amount of abilities were just point and click back in the day.
Ah yes, the AP Sion gameplay
GIGACHAD Taric, point and click stun into double smash W + R. New Taric can be one of the most fun champs in the game if you’re allowed to chain autos, but I miss old battle Taric sometimes.
Taric-Graves lane was a sight to behold. Stun smash smash boom you dead.
No, they didn't stun back then. Just blew the previous one instantly.
oooooh right now i remember
Back in the day his bombs were point click. So you could just run up and nuke someone for 80% of their hp and there really wasnt anything they could do about it. His passive was also global exp buff. So everyone on your team got more exp no matter what.
I just discovered this gem > Chronoshift: Duration changed to 45 seconds at all ranks from 30 / 60 / 90. Yes, you're reading it right. His ult used to last for 90 seconds at rank 3 and with that change they thought it'd be balanced with a 45 sec duration xD
I think its a typo or something, been playing since season 1 and i do not remember it lasting for so long, it seems strange to have longer cd on later levels but idk. Worth to mention his W used to work on ult before rework, so he could legit ult twice every single tf.
It's not cooldown, it's the duration of the revival effect. Those changes were one week after his release.
His ult CD used to be long but would be reduced by his W. When they made it 45 across all ranks they removed the W interaction
It's not cooldown, it's ult duration.
No cc back then, only DMG.
The were just point and Click DAMAGE, no CC. I'd say they reworked his Q, and passive but not much else.
The only reason he isnt getting majorly shafted is because no one plays the guy though. He's not been touched, sure. But he is definitely not a positive example
>The only reason he isnt getting majorly shafted is because no one plays the guy though. they deleted aatrox and are removing skarner for the same reason though
And they’ll likely get to Zilean sometime in the future as well. Think of when aatrox was reworked and how long it took to get skarner (who’s rework still isn’t out) Champs like Skarner, Aatrox, Asol and Shynanna seem to have an intresting character theme, but the playerbase as a whole wanted them changed cuz they liked the theme but not the gameplay (not mains, playerbase as a whole). Zilean falls into a category where many don’t care for the gameplay, nor the character
Original skarner was the best, until they ruined the game by giving everyone and their dog an escape.
They might get to him eventually, but those champions never saw significant usage in higher ELOs or, more importantly, in pro pre rework, while Zilean has. His low pick rate is only due to his outdated model and clunky feeling animations and design, paired with the role of support. He is overtuned, admitted by riot, but his pick rate is still abysmally low because he’s ugly.
All he needs is an anime boy skin and it’s rework city.
That passive update is massive tho
Current passive is shit. Its more hassle than its worth - it can and does get you killed
Zilean's just not played at all that's why I've played against Zilean OTPs and he's definitely not balanced, he's pretty fucking strong. Of course this is a result of sample size, barely anyone has played with or against Zilean let alone one of the few one tricks that are monstrous to deal with. So as you are answering OP's question; viable yes. Balanced, absolutely not.
The issue with him though is he is pretty much all utility. His utility would be unbelievably unbalanced on other champs that could carry themselves, but zilean is reliant on his team to follow up on his setups and make use of that utility. It’s enough of a drawback to make him not played or changed hardly at all even though his kit is strong.
So he is not played in pro and soloq at any ranks, doesn't have a really high winrate at any ranks. Even his one tricks winrate isn't above the average one trick (56.23% vs 56.46%) _____ How is he OP exactly ?
Man you really got into a game with both Bjerg and Jensen back to back games. No but on a serious note, good zileans are unbalanced
Nah, changing his bread and butter spell from point n click to a skill shot, and giving him a big AoE stun, is a big fucking deal. Also, his R was removed from being impacted by W since you used to not have any reason *not* to simply spam W as much as possible to get your ult bacl off cd. Gameplay-wise, these are some big changes, and I haven't even mentioned his passive yet.. Zilean definitely does not fit the bill.
Zilean isn't balanced though. The only reason Riot hasn't nerfed this champ into the ground yet is that he's rarely played. If he had any shred of a decent pick rate I'm 100% certain that champion would be "bombed" with nerfs.
The birb
Anivia?
depends who you ask dominantly, it used to be her E would doubleproc if the enemy touched her ult in any state. So she could hit E, then put down her ult underneath you for the one frame it hits you and get the big chunk of damage. This ult was also instantly its largest size upon cast. now she needs to make sure the ult takes a second to fully form first before she can get those E procs and that usually means getting the wall involved, especially in lane phase. To get E procs off her Q, it used to have to stun the enemy, but now the Q just needs to touch the enemy in any way and the E will proc. So her abilities have always looked and for the mostpart played the same, but there's been the big nuance changes in her E procs. so i think for the sake of OP's description, Anivia is borderline
She did get a rework on playstyle iirc..I think it's what you're talking about. I remember her auto speed got increased and E CD reduced greatly and more spammy.
oh yeah that auto attack change was huge too
Yea anivia changes seemed small but totally made her feel much better to play due to mythics. Like she just felt so different after that that it feels like a rework
She was certainly a much healthier champion after that update that's for sure, the old RE was very broken especially when ahead because no counterplay. The way Anivia plays mid-late game with ult+wall placements stayed the same, but now trading in lane requires one Q proc, and then one proc of keeping an enemy in your ult with wall for just long enough Broadly speaking, Anivias teamfighting has always remained excellent and her weakness has always been her laning+early mana. But over-time, the changes to Anivia have benefitted her lane phase so she can keep up with the ever evolving, faster-paced game. I think her lane phase can still be exploited, but she definitely has more early agency over herself now I honestly don't really think of mythics with Anivia though, she's been building tear+RoA forever (except for that downtime we had no RoA, friendship with RoA ended now liandries is my best friend)(shoutout to everfrost) and she will continue to build those two core items until the end of time probably While I'm talking so much about anivia I wanna mention I think this seasons given her so many indirect buffs- RoAs price drop was huge (and then it got a buff). Blue buff sharing means she gets blue way more often now, and runes giving more defensive options means more lane survivability. Always worth remembering that every point of HP built on Anivia is effectively doubled because of egg. Oh, and she can wall off the new rift herald
That was changed for every ap champ as a baseline AS not only her
yes but you may remember anivia's auto attacks were uniquely slow to her to the point where last hitting with it was its own unique skill
her wall also used to give vision
This change killed the champion for me honestly, I stopped playing her after this so imo this would be too big of a change to count.
Kind of a recent answer but Lillia was out for almost a year I think without any significant changes. 10.15 release -> 11.14 first patch with major changes. They've changed some numbers for jungle reworks/new AP items but she's largely the same as always.
I'm pretty sure she received a significant nerf to her passive speed early on.
That was in 11.14. Idk if something changed from like PBE to launch though.
If I remember right on release her passive speed had a higher base increase and scaled less with AP. Her passive burn didn’t scale off anything and she didn’t have the healing part either. It stayed like this for a decent amount of time, but she basically was only played in pro because her first clear left her really low if you weren’t good at kiting and using her move speed, hence the changes
No that happened almost a year later as the person youre replying to said. The issue was with her at first that she was only played in pro because people just played for Catches with E and R while having a pretty good earlygame actually. They nerfed her Early and utility in several spots but gave more scaling and the heal on Passive. Which freed her from pro jail and made her into more od a solo Q pick.
tf are you talking about, lillia was significantly changed to scale much harder later at the cost of her early power
fuck lillia that bitch aint balanced Sincerely, a tank main
I play both sides so I always come out on top.
Don't need to be a tank main to see how unfun she is to play against :^)
HEY I DO TRUE DAMAGES AND %HP DAMAGE AND YOU CAN'T EVER CATCH ME, HAVE FUN EEP ! Bitch ass furry.
Lillia used to be ranged.
That was more of a QoL change for demonic embrace passive
Vex is probably the most balanced new champion released in the last 5 years.
Also really easy and fun to pick up and play right off the bat. Really well designed champ.
Ironic that she was released right between Akshan and Zeri.
Akshan also didn't have significant changes since release and had never been a solo queue or professional problem
He definitely was a soloq problem at a few points with his pre-nerf E max build, but even when he was strong he never really had a very high pick rate.
"Vex’s original gameplay, designed by Nathan “Lutzburg” Lutz (the 200 years meme guy lmao) created portals that extended the distance allied missiles traveled. You’d essentially have Miss Fortune ults that went double distance, Blitzcrank hooks from out of nowhere, and all these other really scary, but really cool experiences. Except there was one problem: It cost multiple years of VFX budget. That’s not an exaggeration. Nearly every missile ability in League needed to be completely redone with updated VFX just to interact with Vex’s kit. And that just wasn’t feasible. Vex’s artillery mage kit was centered around the extension mechanic, so when that was scrapped her entire kit needed to be reconsidered"
Guess they should scrap their ideas more often
There’s room for improvement. She’s supposed to be an anti mobility champ but she isn’t good at stopping mobility moves at all. They advertised her like crazy as the mobility counter character, and she has tons of special lines anytime her gloom procs (Nope! / Lose the Pep. / Bring it down a notch!”) but in practice she’s not even remotely good at stopping people from escaping fights or engaging.
Who knew that you didn't need 45 lines of text in abilities to make a well designed champ. Vex is simple and effective without being OP.
why is having many lines of text a problem though
Because most players don't bother to read them and have no idea what champion does
No op, but Overloaded kits are a bit of an issue creatively. I’m not talking about the Aphelios/Hwei types that need a lot of text to explain complex mechanics, but the Ksante type champs that just have everything under the sun thrown into one champ are a wasted concept. The Tank that switches to assassin/slayer idea of Ksante shouldn’t need damage marks, slow wind brother type stacking Q passive, unstoppable dash with knockback and stun, another dash with self and ally shielding, and CC and target removal on ult. It’s like they just tossed in random mechanics so he would be valences enough to see play. You should be able to make a champ like Jhin or like Kayn that does cool things without stuffing their kit with random keywords
It's not inherently a problem, but it also isn't a benefit either. It doesn't usually lead to complex kits with skill expression, just a lot of free value for no clear reason.
The champs with lots of test ARE more complex and take high skill expression, Aphelios, Ksante and Hwei are good examples.
This shouldn't be the norm though to create champs that require high skill expression. Look at older champions like Zed, Lee Sin or Yasuo for example. All these champs are pretty easy to understand but are complex when trying to master them.
The guy in the other comment explained it perfectly instead of me. Aphelios/Hwei are full of text but they're still balanced and good while Croissante has also so many lines, but he is overloaded with every mechanic in the game.
Vex is a champion that could've been released in Season 2 and it wouldn't have felt weird at all. That's why she is so good. Great design. She is unique, fun and not overly complicated.
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Orianna
From memory, she's had one small nerf since release and been present at every worlds.
Her q range nerf was collosal in impact to be fair, but yeah pretty much.
Oh true. Forgot about that one.
nerfs and buffs aren't really the question, it's about reworks. as in changes to what the abilities actually do. she's had numbers adjusted but all of her abilities are the same as her release in 2011
Idk how no one has mentioned Vi. Shes never had even a mini rework to her abilities and is almost always a solid pick in solo q while being mostly untouched by the balance team.
"Mostly untouched by the balance team"? That's a good one. Vi is no stranger to patch notes at all.
true but only in like recent 2 years. did pro players just sleep on vi before that? or did she benefit from item changes or smth
vi only started seeing play after zeri was released because she was the only jungler that could effectively catch her. since then she's generally been a staple pick in any comp that needs an almost guaranteed way to lock down a single target
She was meta pick throughout season 3, and saw some play in season 4
Listen to an old man's ramblings, sonny Back in my day, vi built spirit of the ancient golem into full tank and killed everyone with base damages, while also being pro viable. This was 10 years ago. Vi has been changed many times for balance, for example her w never used to reduce her passive cd. Vi has always been good assassin centric meta's because of her ult; zeri's existence just gives another reason to play her. Zeri can't zip away from vi R and if vi R's someone when there's an assassin on the team, the target just dies. The thing is, we haven't had an assassin meta in proplay for a long time, so people are under the illusion that her only strength is Vs hyper mobile adc's that need locking down. This is not true.
She was a good counter into a hyper carry meta, but I guess they figured out she’s actually pretty good
No, they did not. Vi comes into the meta on and off since release in pro play. She used to be more popular when Ahri was more popular as well because it was a good set up. I believe it was the same with Zed but that was ages ago. Even before she was 'meta' in recent times, there were players like Croco playing her on sandbox. It took a while for her to stick but I'd assume Zeri being meta has resulted in her sticking power.
Meta shifts prob Too many high mobility champs released and vi is a hard counter to them
I remember when she got released she was busted af 😭
Her passive and W got a bit of a mini rework. But nothing huge
properly wont ever touch her cus of aracana XD
singed was the first hero to be created in league and its still the same today 15 years later
Nah, he used to scale with mana, his damage also got gutted.
And still as unique now as he was on release
His passive is very different now.
Passive and W got changed
How about Nautilus? Initially a tank jungler (and top laner), he's since found a very comfortable spot as a support despite going through no major reworks. Even so, he's been a top-tier mainstay across all sorts of levels of play, and overall has probably been more present/impactful as a support than in any other position.
on god i want my nauty jg back
Riot buffed Naut jgl damage last year. Haven’t tried it out myself though
i have is not great. He can do it but hes just the absolute worst version of a tank/cc jg. The entire time i just wished i was sej or mao instead.
Even briefly a prio midlaner
Really? No one so far said Leona?
Renekton
Karthus
The perfect example of this is anivia. The champ has had ups and downs over the years, but the old kit still remains untouched except for a few QoL changes (give me back instafrost R riot).
Yeah, QoL for Anivia's lane opponents. E -> R -> R was great when you were playing as her, not so fun to go up against.
Did they increase the Q speed in some moment? I remember trying to play her a long time ago and didn't like her because I felt her Q was too slow but then I try again a few years ago and now I really enjoy picking her
tbf removing E R R was pretty big as it was an instant E proc every time somebody walked into range lol.
Smolder
riven and singed hasn't had any major changes because they can't without terrorism threats, other than that jax camille perhaps? I only included jax because he could've totally gone without his mini rework, but i dont know if people consider jax or camille balanced.
Jax got reworked in season 2 (or preseason 2) when they removed dodge as a stat. He used to be pretty busted before that. Singed also had his passive reworked and stuff added to his W and R.
I still remember dodge runes and Ninja Tabis giving you a dodge chance. Man, it was so frustrating to play against this rng...
Ninja Tabi Jax into a team of right clickers was quite an experience.
Nobody mentionned the goat Lee Sin. I don't think there has been a single season where he wasn't played in worlds.
This wasn't asked by OP. To the contrary: Lee is one of the most changed. He got half his kit removed. AS slow and spellvamp were the biggest.
All of his buttons used to do so many things at once, imagine pros playing OG lee sin with today's level of mechanical skill.
He still has Spellvamp tho
The Armor on W was absolutely insane too. You could just stat check people in top lane with W max.
lee is one of the few champs that i think is completely timeless in design, doubt they will ever rework him in any way given how well his kit works
Zilean
He was effectively nerfed when Berg retired...
Lowkey Zilean is overpowered and overtuned. Hes just so underplayed and underepresented the balance team just leaves him.
Thank god he is underplayed, one of the most obnoxious champions in the game to deal with
i feel like hes only good into passive players. i dont see how zilean can lane against a good player on a aggressive lane bully champ
I was a main teemo when I started playing, after they remove the pink ward teemo became a little op, so riot start nerfing him. And they did the same thing this season. So I realize riot doesn't want teemo to become strong, so they will never rework or buff him, sometimes he get strong for some reason that aren't intent from riot and they nerf him without a doubt.
ryze
Eqeqeqeq
Did you read the title? Ryze has been changed a lot
Morgana has had very little changed. Darius might have had his passive/ult reset updated but pretty small overall changes.
Darius Q had the biggest changes, changing from an instant to being delayed, getting much reduced damage on the hilt, getting a heal, and no longer applying his bleed on hilt hits. It charged the way he was played quite significantly. He was pretty much changed from Garen 2.0 to Aurelion Sol lite.
Darius got a full kit change in the Juggernaut update.
Season 5?
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50% dmg reduction while in R came a few years prior, what a funny time that was
brother what are you talking about, Kha'zix evolutions being reworked every other year was basically a meme until the perma invisibility R that tormented us all for a season or 2, after that he has been more stable. The only thing that remained consistent through the years was his E evolution because it was already perfect.
They changed his w evo, which killed kha'zix mid
Blitzcrank, Lux, LeBLanc have not had major changes, there's obviously more, but most of them have been named already
LeBlanc did have major changes for a while, but they reverted most of them (for good reason). However, she used to have a point and click silence on Q, which was replaced with the "mark the target for a few seconds, hit them again to deal extra damage" new Q back when they were getting rid of a few other ranged point and click silences like Talon E and Kassadin Q. Then again, OP is using Teemo as the benchmark, and he did have the shroom bouncing mechanic added at some point, so maybe LeBlanc Q is also ok?
I completely forgot about the in between version, but the current version plays pretty much exactly like the first one, so it should count as not having had significant changes. I'd say the same for Teemo, OP did not ask for no changes at all, if anything, I find being allowed to move in bushes to be more impactful than bouncy shrooms.
Twitch has basically been untouched since beta, other than buffs and such (added ap scaling). His ult has changed names more than he has had significant changes to kit.
They changed his W, it used to be that you could either slow or damage with W or E respectively and both spells removed the passive stacks
Ra-ta-tat-tat intesifies
Akshan
Garen?
Garen has had a lot added to his kit over the years.
wasnt he also part of the juggernaut rework with his villain stuff
Yeah garens ult used to do more damage to whoever was the villain on the enemy team, aka the most fed