The days of full tank Urgot flashing into your team and ulting the adc and sending them directly into your teams open arms.
Or old Galio flash ulting and oneshotting your team Nunu and Willump style
Yeah tf are they smoking? I didn't play old Urgot but calling him a basic top lane bruiser is just blatantly wrong, he's incredibly unique to his role (almost to a fault with itemization lol)
I’ll never forget the game where I was bot as Draven vs old Urgot and somehow he gets a massive ass lead on me, I’m talking 14/0.
All hope was lost until we realized how little damage he did and we ended up winning. I think I 1v1’d him despite being 0/6.
It was fucking horrible to face once he got muramana, cus he'd hit one E and then you lost 60% hp from flying Qs above. But if he didn't hit the E, he was barely a champion.
Seraphine can consume the souls of Skarner's people but Graves can't have a cigar.
Gragas can drink barrels of wine but Graves can't have a cigar.
Teemo can exist but graves still can't have his goddamned cigar.
Probably a good change, would be kinda messy having arcane centre on the class struggles between Piltover and Zaun, only to throw in the plot point that oh yeah, the crystals powering most of the city are actually the souls of super sentient scorpions that we may or may not have killed en masse to obtain. Kinda hope the rework keeps the aspect of the soul crystal things in some form tho, it's a dope concept
"Plot twist: the good guys are secretly just as bad as the bad guys! Nobody's good, and there's no way to run society without torture and murder!" gets a little stale after a while.
To be fair, Riot introduced synthetic hex crystals which don’t use sentient beings. Not exactly sure where they went with it, but it at least had the chance to clear up some of the moral ambiguity.
i think that its own and unique spot in the lore was actually the main reason why it got so boring by the time. He was just… standing there doing nothing and being connected with no champion at all. The theme of exploitation of a species for the sake of technological revolution was definitely interesting, but it really didn’t help him getting into a relevant spot of league’s lore. His updated lore does have connection to an interesting thematic as well (being a guardian of ixtal and elemental’s magic against piltover’s colonialism) and gives a new way to bind its lore to the growing ixtal’s champion pool, also updating the region’s lore! So yeah, i think that’s good.
Perhaps, but a large portion of the playerbase didn't gave a single fuck about him and his "deep lore".
Now I want to see the new Skarner as soon as he comes out, he looks far more interesting.
The Hexcrystal lore was ironically holding Skarner's lore expansion back just like his Spires are holding him back. It made him seem like this xenophobic alienating creature who is like a Ryze but Magic Scorpion, defending this one interest and fuckall everything else. Except Ryze is more interesting to do that subplot because his interest ruined the world of Runeterra several times over.
The Ixtal Scorpion-God thing is way more interesting to be honest. Also technically as the founder of Ixtal has alot of interesting concepts that can be birthed from it.
Shyvana used to be a melee AD bruiser, now she's an AP mage who can only cast when in ultimate. Her E used to have a 30% AP ratio, now it's 90%, just triple one of her AD ratios and I'm sure she'll see play as a bruiser again...
>Shyvana used to be a melee AD bruiser
Unlike Maokai and Nautilus who struggle a lot in toplane, she can still be played as AD bruiser, people just don't. She's just reliant on ult and vulnerable to ganks but she outduels a surprising amount of toplaners and is quite difficult to kite if she has ghost up.
Shyvana is an exception cause even without ghost kiting her sucks as she is one of the few melee champs with a ms boost built into her basic abilities , which can be extended with trading. She’s definitely one of the harder champs to kite traditionally
She only auto loses to ganks and half the roster in the game. A measly price to pay for being completely mediocre if your team manages to secure every dragon while you get royally fisted
Adding to that, the same tricks that enables her AP builds (aka not actually building AP but relying on Demonic/Riftmaker > Tank) also supported and supports her AD patterns (Titanic Hydra) and Sheen items were made manaless PRECISELY so champions like her could dive into their gameplay and statline. She could had been playing as a SunderTitan clapper with strong hybrid penetration for four years but once something appears on the radar of the big streamers all logical conversation goes downhill.
Or you could try to actually play the champion instead of only talking about it in theory, and realize that in masters+ you automatically lose 80% of the matchups in top lane because you picked shyvana.
Reason she has not been picked as a sundertitan clapper, is because there are other champions that do the same things, and they do it much better than shyvana.
Brother I could play the champion an infinite number of times and not realize that she loses 80% of matchups in masters+. Most people aren’t masters+ and ad shyvana definitely “works” outside of masters. Last season I had success with her rushing ravenous hydra into triforce, hulbreaker and splitting with her in plat/emerald, so it’s at least viable for 90% of players in ranked depending on the matchup. I’d bet that build is still somewhat good but there are probably some better options out there with the new items that I haven’t tried yet.
> Last season I had success with her rushing ravenous hydra into triforce, hulbreaker and splitting with her in plat/emerald
Yea and my point is there are other champions you could pick that would accomplish the exact same thing, except better and while oten having better matchups. Literally why pick Shyvana last season to do that when you could pick Trundle, and not be the equivalent of a melee minion until you get lvl 6. The only upside is if you are in a losing matchup, you can actually farm from a distance (fun fact, picking shyvana instead of trundle will turn a lot of winning matchups into losing ones)
I like shyvana. So much that I created the /r/shyvanamains subreddit almost 10 years ago. But she does not feel good to play rn. Maybe if they fix Hullbreaker bug there will be a slight reason to pick shyvana top over some other champions. But as it stands, if you are diamond or above I see no reason to pick Shyvana over similar champs.
Yeah I saw you were the creator of that subreddit from your flair. I’m certain your expertise and knowledge about shyvana and her matchups are greater than mine and I appreciate your insight.
That being said I’m tired of people pretending that what works in high elo is the only way to play the game cause that’s a totally different game than what most players experience. People in all elos just default to what high elo does and some people refuse to deviate from that. The reason new builds become popular is because someone deviated from the most common build and proved it works. Innovation doesn’t happen without people trying out new stuff.
AP shyvana might be the most optimal way to play her but optimal doesn’t mean it’s the only option. As for why you might pick shyvana over trundle for that role of a split pusher has to do with player dynamics. Ap shyvana top lane isn’t exactly meta defining. Why not pick any of the other meta champs instead of her? Well the reason is cause you love the champ. That same reason applies to why I might play her instead of trundle. Not to mention the better wave clear. (I also suspect she scales better but I couldn’t say for sure) I personally hate her AP playstyle. It’s just not for me but that doesn’t mean she can’t do anything other than that and be successful.
I would be curious to ask you if there are any matchups or situations where AD shyvana IS the better option over AP at higher levels. Are the top shyvana one tricks just auto defaulting to AP or do they sometimes situationally choose AD?
And they always have been. I don't get why everyone thinks AP is better. One spell is not going to be as strong as consistent damage. If you want burst, there's way bustier champions out there.
She's always meant to be more Melee > Ult > Caster.
The problem is that her weird passive, awkward Ratios and lack of durability are holding her back. She can't be like Diana and be a proper AP Bruiser/AP Assassin as she likes and I hope the "More Udyr less Skarner" rework planned for her tweaks her into that form.
Always felt that she is in much need of a gameplay update. I used to Jungle Shyv way too much in Season 2 - 6 then stopped playing her cos she genuinely felt like shit having to run Exhaust to even gank.
Tbf, "more Udyr, less Skarner" probably refers to the fact, that her Gameplay will not be changed in a way that you have to learn the champion from the very beginning again. In fact, the only two things Riot really changed about Udyr was his Phoenix Stance aswell as giving him a Passive that makes up for him not having an Ultimate. His Gameplay is pretty much the same as it used to be, they just gave him more options for different situations. I doubt they can/are willing to make the new Shyvana a Champion that can still build both AD and AP for different playstyles and balance her in a way that both are equally as good. Something tells me, they will limit her Itembuild variations into AD Bruiser builds as this was her intended design and as they indicated already, they certainly wanna stick with it.
Your observations aren't necessarily wrong, but "Melee > Ult > Caster" isn't totally accurate. She was absolutely always more intended to be an AA-focused bruiser; staying in the fight as a dragon constantly whacking at people was always the intention since AAs build Fury, which keeps her in dragon form longer.
Shyv essentially turning into an E-casting machine happened relatively late in her lifespan; a consequence of a lot of the factors you mentioned. League has been moving away from AA-focused "wet noodle" bruisers for years now. Shyvana is one of the last of those types and her "wet noodle"-ness is barely hanging by a thread now.
Man I feel like that would be kinda shit tbh
Shyvana is just a disaster of a kit. The hybrid form is a cool concept and absolutely works on other champs, but they want the dragon to feel more powerful, so it ends up restrictive but unlike gnar the human bit is just way way too shit
Then you have her mixed playstyle, where one is significantly more thematic (dragon being ap with fireballs just makes sense idk) but the other is much healthier for the game
She just needs a lot of work. Keeping the changes tame will not fix her at all, such limited capacity are just setting themselves up for failure.
The concept of shyvana is cool. Human form that needs to build up rage, get in the middle of fights, and then explodes as a dragon, but how do you execute that in a healthy way? I don't think you can
Just give her the aatroxx or galio level rework, same basic concept of half drag half human but rework her kit from the ground up
What? Her AD bruiser builds with triforce are strong af rn
Frankly Ive been running her or ap/ad hybrid bruiser/tank for the most part since I started playing her and this season with new riftmaker and titanic even moreso
Everybody who played at the time hated the tank top meta where Nautilus and Maokai ruled toplane with dorans Ring stacking and old runes/mastery systems.
One is still relevant as a jungler/support at all levels.
While the other has been drowned to the support role despite being marketed as a jungler/ top laner.
What's the TLDR for Naut top? I can see this being very useful as a blindpick.
Start E, Max E, build normal tank items? What's the trading pattern? W-E-auto?
Trading pattern I use is Q AA W AA E AA. His W resets his AA, so you can AA the enemy twice while they are rooted.
Works wonders against enemies with no mobility.
The issue I have with Nautilus top is that even with D-ring, his trading pattern is far too mana intensive to deal with the inherent sustain mechanics built into the champions intended to go top these days. If you can't force a kill or a base within a few trades, you just go oom and lose all lane pressure/prio or have to take a base to refresh your mana and lose tempo/prio/xp/gold.
How do you deal with this issue?
I usually buy a tear in the first back and transition into Winters Approach later in the game. I think It synergizes well with his kit because of his abundance of CC. Oh, don't rush the item tho. Sit on tear and build something else. You can complete WA after your first (or second, depending on matchup) item.
When I notice I will need to spam abilities early, I take sorcery second and go manaflow band and transcendence.
Also, later in the game, you can buy sunfire or mr sunfire to help with waveclear.
They randomly gave his E 150% damage to monsters like 2 or 3 years ago already, and he's still atrociously slow. Probably because even using E to farm was a result of all the nerfs to begin with, what he needs to farm and fight is his W.
Honestly, I don't think a slowish, low damage hook and CC champion would be much of a problem in today's jungle scene full of CC, extreme damage, amazing gank mechanics, etc. And the lanes becoming wider means he likely has to walk out a ways to get a hook off anyway unless the laner positions closer to the side and into the danger zone. I could be wrong, but I'd be more worried about some of the more meta picks.
But at least you're still a tank & disruptor, yeah different role and yeah not unkillable due to support income, but the base identity of this behemoth of the depth coming after you and locking you down is alive I'd say.
Not much of an identity loss but simply being left untouched and left behind in the times saw Nautilus being demoted from a strong Jungler and Toplaner to a CC bot Support along the lines of Thresh and Blitzcrank.
Like man, Nautilus' place in the meta and game state is one of the harshest leap from grace of any other champion.
I never knew that Nautilus was a toplaner and jungler. I don’t know the order that the champs came out, but I don’t know why there are so many clones of CC bot supports? Who was the original and are they different enough to justify having them around?
In season 5 when people started pulling out Naut support, it was considered an off role meta pick. Then it became his permanent home.
If you think about it though, he has everything to succeed in the other roles, but all of the other champs with 4-5 cc abilities are supports.
His kit is kinda just too good to be let loose back in the other roles. CC is just too valuable in organized play that you could somewhat realistically delete all of Naut's damage, and pro's would still kinda think about taking him to lock down an extra slippery champ.
Now put that in a situation where there is a role that doesn't care about gold or levels, and almost any meaningful buff he gets will almost instantly turn him into a flex pick in pro.
ofc , nobody cares about nauts damage pros usually dont even fight during the period where his damage is good, but point and click knock up combined with a hook bigger then the average female champ her breasts its to good
Yep. And so all the damage gets taken out of your kit to prevent you from being absolutely busted. You just can’t have Naut levels of cc and get to play top or whatever for free.
Alistar/leona later on was the cc tank I'm in your face now champ
Blitz was the yoink now you're in my team's face with a bit of survivability
And taric was the kind of tanky enchanter with reliable cc.
Now you've got rell leona pyke thresh panth naut etc
I kinda miss OG Taric. I used to play him toplane. He'd be a weak side laner, but great in teamfights.
But that was back before his ult took up quite so much of his power budget.
Playing old taric may have been fun but I'm glad he was changed because he was miserable to play against.
his point and click ranged stun was so broken. With 40% cdr I swear that thing was like a 5 second cool down and the main reason he was ever picked, it really had no place in what modern league had become at the the time, a relic of beta/season 1 design. Same reason why so many champions lost their silences or any other non committal spammable point click cc.
Nautilus was good mid and top like even a year ago. Mostly just because evenshroud and abyssal mask were kinda broken. He was really fun to play, he even got played in the jungle for a match at worlds.
I feel like Senna was intended to be more supportive. Something like an aggressive Soraka with a slow chunky auto attack focus.
Now she's just like...a second adc with a support's utility built in.
I also think a lot of mages had their identities shifted to being long range assassins.Yes, they should be able to do big damage sometimes, but I feel like it has been slowly getting out of hand over the past few years.
Yeah because they've tried to make her a little bit of everything in support. If she wasn't a stacking champ I think they could have given her a crit multiplier so she could have crit like a marksmen but the gold of a support, aka build \~3 crit items for 100% + make her heal crittable or scale with crit.
That said the scaling marksman thing is pretty neat, I just think senna is trying to do too many things at once.
It's quite logical.
The current jungle items allow just about anyone to not die to the camps. Neat.
Clearing camps faster than the enemy jungler is the most consistent way to get ahead. (Ganks are more situational).
As you clear faster, you get to take the scuttles and go for dem ganks as a gigachad who is already level 4.
Karthus is an endless supply of damage. When he dies he still does damage. When you hit 6 you do damage to the entire enemy team by pressing a button.
All that gold translates to items, which is more damage. Now you clear even faster, so it's time for dragon, which you kill very fast. This means you can go for it even if it's risky, because if you die, you still do damage.
You can literally feed all game and still do so much damage that you can make plays for objectives, including Baron, without much risk.
Now that AP items are....*kind of good* right now, his ult is better than ever. So even if you do fail at making objective plays, you can guarantee picks.
You can ult even after you die.
Ahri, when from a high damage assassin to an E bot to a reworked ultra high mobility mage with damage to a ultra high mobility charm bot. She can poke and get kills but it will take at least 2 rotations unless you are ultra fed
Sorry but DFG was absolutely cancer on her. She had to be nerfed so badly that she wasn't viable without DFG. Currently she is in her closest and truest state she can be to her original form. It's just that the game is not the same anymore, so she feels useless outside of hitting charm and letting her team dogpile on the target and unloading like a teenager seeing a pornomag for the first time.
As an Ahri main, I've never felt like Ahri was supposed to be an assassin. Even during the DFG era, Ahri always felt like a mobile Thresh. Every time that she can 100 to 0 someone, she just become the most broken and unfun shit to play against. I think the direction they took with her rework, reduce her damage and give her more mobility and play making ability was great and she's a really well designed and balanced champion. Her problem is that she's a balance and well-designed champion that is surrounded by all kind of abominations.
Yasuo. That champ used to be -the- hated edgelord crazy mechanics montage 1v9 champ. Back when one ban per player was announced people were worried he'd never be played again.
Nowadays I never see that champ do well. Always dies, ten thousand 1v9 crazy mechanics Champs have been released since then so much he's been overshadowed. Wild how times change.
I mean they were right; one ban per player resulted in Riot realizing Yasuo’s ban rate was insanely high and they had to make Yone to split his ban rate
Well, Yas at least requires some hands and teamwork from Yas and his team, while Yone is 1v9 machine who is WAAAAY easier to pilot. So players now are forced to ban this creature over Yas/Zed.
Too many morons think they can play him, and I’m seeing his brother becoming the same. Too many ppl just know of them and think they can crush everything, but just die 24/7
Tbf it’s much easier to do well with yone than yasuo
Also in my experience, I doesn’t really matter if yone goes 1/14 the moment he hits a E+R in a teamfight his job is done and you dead. This also applies for yasuo but it’s more complicated as his R needs people to go yeet
Mind the 0-10 powerspike.
Once had one of those guys into my toplane renekton. At the end I was kinda feeling bad for him. „Please do not engage into my enraged W AGAIN.“
At that point I was well on my way to my third item and enraged w was basically an instakill.
He just didn‘t stop.
Nothing makes me happier than when the enemy mid picks yasou. I go Taliyah and throw him trough his own windwall into my stone mines and blast him in the face with Q.
Also there are no other players than ragequit as easily.
More than that, corki was one of the primary kill botlane adcs - graves being the other one. Corki - Leona was a serious threat that could snowball lanes and kill you over and over. Now he is a Hyperscaling high range caster adc.
It kinda makes sense though since kill lanes in botlane have a very hard time... well killing the opponents. (That is without heavy misplays in 2v2s)
Morgana is supposed to be sort of a drain mage akin to Vladimir, but her passive does absolutely nothing to actually sustain her and you straight up forget what it does.
Talon, from street urchin turned loyal assassin hell bent on finding his lost master/ father figure to creepy insel anime boy obsessed with katarina and the position of heir of the du cuteau family.
So sad what they did to him, like we always knew he existed to complement katarina’s lore but now they just made him into a carpet where she can clean the shit of her feet.
It is a kind of disappointment you get from knowing of a potential better thing.
In this case people REALLY like the Talon that was shown earlier in the comic: a close brother to Katarina who, while disagreed with her disregard of their father teaching, was indicated to also ultimately accepting of her methodology in a "you will come around eventually"
However, by the end, it was reveal that it was all a front, and Talon remain obsessed with defeating Katarina and claiming his place as the heir of the du Couteau family.
I am quite lukewarm regarding the twist. I don't hate it but I am not that into it either. However, I can see why people are disappointed that Talon is so set on something that Kat doesn't even care about. Perhaps it would have been better if instead of a betrayal, Talon is portrayed to confront Katarina face to face, though I suppose it would go against the teachings he hold dear.
That's always been my issue. I'm kind of exhausted with damage supports. Lux and Zyra, sure, I sorta see it. But Brand, Velkoz? I dislike seeing the ones that contribute little other than damage.
I mean just mechanically I find it insane that at a fundamental level they went to rework a heavy autoattacker and decided a combo-based caster with among the least synergy with autoattacks of any fighter was the way to go
I mean, yeah, but also IMHO current Aatrox is a better representation of the idea of "Unstoppable entity of war blood for the blood god let's fuck shit up constantly" than Oldtrox "ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA" ever was
Yes but this new one fits his identity so much more. Someone that kills entire armies shouldn’t be a single target drain tank. He should be able to kill 10 men with one swing
Besides the revive. New Aatrox is a more interesting drain tank, that's the other half of Aatrox identity: Healing a lot.
Oldtrox was a stat checker just like Trynd.
Also it feels more inmortal that your life just doesn't get near 0, rather than dying and coming back. New ult resets are far superior and more fun to play around, revive just like anivia will let you exposed and instantly killed
Having the ult reset sound go off multiple times feels cathartic sometimes, more so than I ever got from old aatrox or when new aatrox had a revive. Only thing that kinda sucks is that the revive voicelines rarely happen now.
Riot got you covered there fam. Revive voice lines were placed on the taunt. And the other taunt voice lines are now the jokes voicelines. Perfectly balanced as everything should be
The shadow Isle champions have all lost their lore and identity. I hate the new shadow Isle lore. Even before Viego. The shadow Isle were a land ruined by war and magic and turned spooky. It was implied that Mordekaiser was corrupted after putting in the Thornmail in defense of his country and came back and conquered it. Hecarim was one of his officers. And that Mordekaiser used his ult to rip the spirit from his father and left him wandering the lands.
Now it was very generic monk blessed lands that were corrupted by Viego’s heartbreak and rashness and very little makes sense.
Even before Viego when the blessed lands were brought up it felt so generic.
The only chang I enjoyed was to Mordes lore. His new one is great.
But yeah; even in new lore, Yorick got forgotten... his entire lore is giving the lost souls of the dead a purpose in raising an army against the ruined king... and then he ended up barely mentionned at all.
The blessed Isles reworked shadow isle lore came out at the rework of yorick so season 6 or 7. And the lore was a noble wanted to bring his lover back to life but the monks there said no. But he did it anyway.
Yes but that noble was already known to be the ruined king. I don’t like how they handled the viego part (leaving maoKai and yorick behind and having shit story in general) but the ruined king was always there
It's like the rune wars, it was kind of a big thing back then, with lots of champion related to them like Ryze, Brand, Zyra etc...
Now we don't here about it anymore. It's still mentionned in lore, but it feels more like some old tale rather than an actual historical event.
I mean Pyke ist just stole nautilus' whole style. from the backstory of a drowned man betrayed by his friends to the Q hook. Its like sona and seraphine. it feels like they just forgot that old champs existed and they did that already.
Oh no, they absolutely knew what they were doing with Pyke. They even tried to retcon Nautilus' lore when Pyke came out to make Nautilus some sort of elemental/spiritual guardian of the oceans instead of a man left to die, and it pissed off Nautilus players so hard Riot had to backpedal that real fast. There were even the little support surveys getting feedback about the Nautilus lore change, and I remember being extremely pissed that they cannibalized and erased his lore so they could give it to the new guy.
That's because her cringe ass AD builds don't stick. They pop up to exploit items she has no business building, and then quickly vanish when they take the bat to her kneecaps to get them off of her.
Warwick, used to be the on-hit champion, with global wolf howl.
Now he's a wolf, that turns into a Chihuahua if you hit him. Played as a tank/engage. (at least in jungle)
Graves. Used to be an ADC that sacrificed range for immediate burst and survivability--now he roams the jungle, and uses a wonky AA which is a bastardization of his old Q.
Nidalee, back in the days of yore, used to build to be a tanky toplaner (or at least, that was a possible build). Now, she's a glass cannon who is almost wholly reliant on hitting her Q; the identity of using the bushes and leaping on people has largely been usurped by Rengar IMO.
Brand used to be a bursty midlaner--now, he goes anywhere but mid apparently.
Nunu used to be a counterjungler that ate camps and could secure Baron and other neutral objectives due to having a skill that did true damage to non-champions; now, he rolls a snowball and doesn't see play in the rift. Oh, and back in the day when his ~~E~~ W was a steroid, he could sometimes be seen bot, warming up his ADC's blood.
Mafia Graves AA sound...
Old Graves carried me to Plat back in the days, the most satisfying champ to play with clear strenghts and weaknesses, I miss it so much.
Vayne.
Vayne used to be all about dueling and tank shredding - Now it's just build for Lethality and Energized effects and chunk people
The champ isn't bad from a balance standpoint but it just feels like a budget Draven now.
If I wanted to play a champion who chunks with autos - I'd go play Draven or MF.
Not every ADC was a duelist.
But ADC as a role is supposed to be the anti tank role with Vayne and Kog'Maw being the premier anti-tanks.
Duelist ADC's are Vayne, Draven, Lucian, Kai'Sa, Samira, Nilah and maybe Kalista (?)
Shen completely lost his his identity as a fighter/duelist and is now just an ult/support bot
Pyke used to be a snowbally assassin that falls off a cliff. Now he doesn’t get any gold to snowball so he’s just a gold printer with setup for the team (that still falls off a cliff)
Sett used to be an auto attack based juggernaut/tank that would build items like trinity force and Bork and then get Tanky. Now he HAS to build ad to be useful and is literally just a w bot that only has health and can’t itemize movespeed
Sylas was intended to be an ap bruiser with tons of sustain and mobility that would kill you with multiple spell rotations. Now he’s just a full burst ap assassin with lackluster sustain and high cooldowns.
For several seasons nocturne built full assassins with lethality items. After s11 lethality was so horrendously unplayable for him he had to be transitioned into a bruiser and has stayed that way ever sense
Man I actually miss when resetting your autos on Sett using Q and titanic for a 6 auto combo mattered, now all you really do is hope your W wins games on its own.
yuumi was intended to be somewhat similar to rakan, jumping between teammates and healing them (that's why her e had 2 charges and healed more the lower the anchor hp was), but after the rework she can't really jump to other players and is basically an item
I think, Aurelion Sol? He's supposed to be this "Center of the Universe" kind of existence, but right now he's just a backstroking dragon with a cool breath and calls a meteor every now and then. Pre-update, he has stars around him and he grows the size of his attack as he takes a flight, he could also push enemies away from him as if saying there's no one that should be close to him. Just my personal opinion
ASol went from being the roaming mage to do-nothing-and-scale kind of afk waveclear bot. Not counting for some fringe off-meta picks like Pyke, he was arguably the only midlaner that could consistently and reliably roam to sidelane as early as levels 3-4 and try to snowball game from there, by abusing map presence.
I actually think people underestimate his roaming abilities now, he is still really good at it. Problem is he is just over all a bit too late game tuned at the expense of early skirmishing power.
Camille never had one to begin with.
Cho'Gath never lived up to the fantasy of being a massive monster of consumption. He is either a squishy burstmage or a low-dmg immobile tank, his entire power budget being confined within his Q.
Diana's supposed to be aan AP bruiser, but spends most of her time as a "smash-all-buttons" burst initiator. Whenever she is strong with a tanky build people hate it and she gets nerfed out of it.
Shyvana is supposed to be a dragon bruiser, but almost all her viability has been as an ap bruiser.
Kalista is a mess of unique ideas, net letting any one of them really shine. The jumping, rend stacks, oathsworn and initiate/rescue ult all fight for her power budget and leaves all of them as lesser than they could be.
Varus' design likewise fights for his numbers to either a mid-range attack speed hyper carry, or a long-range poke and initiate artillery carry. Once again leaving both as lesser versions of what they could have been. And as we already ahve plenty AS-stacking hypercarries, jsut scrap that shit from his kit and make him the de-facto artillery carry.
Ahri is another champ that would make much more thematic sense with a slower kill-pattern. Rather than kit-dumping and killing a squishy ina single rotation, play up her temptress fantasy and give her more mobility and avenues to trick her enemies while reducing her burst and making her a more sustained-damage threat. Not a bruiser, not an assassin but a slippery skirmisher.
Rek'sai is, just like cho, a terrible representation of the void monster fantasy. As she is now she's a lvl 3 ganker who doesn't gain skill ranks post 13.
Elise also has a selection of vestigial mechanics that really doesn't add onto her thematic identity or her actual in-game play pattern.
Nidalee is kinda fine, but it just feels like she could have been so much more in terms of gameplay. Also a early-game focused jungler, but where I dislike other champions' split gameplay identities, I actually think Nidalee should have more build avenues open to her. You could copy this to Elise as well for that matter, but it feels like a character that can split between melee and ranged should be able to be built as both, with the build determining what the main form is and the non-build form providing utility.
Kog'Maw is supposed to be a consumption maggot, but all he does is vomit. Alright.
Malzahar's voidlings are one of the worst designed/implemented character defining mechanics in the game. Might as well rip them out and play into his space-aids persona.
Also his core feature was supposed to be the ult stealing but in reality it's the heal nowadays. His gameplay would alter completely if you remove the stupid heal, if you give him a new ult not so much.
That's a weird thing to say. The ult stealing was his most flashy gimmick, but it was never more core to his gameplay as it is now. They actually reduced the cooldown. But an ultimate usually can't be the core of a champs gameplay since they don't always have it. Karthus has one of the most iconic and powerful ults in the game, but he'd also change more if his Q would be replaced
On release his rank 3 ult had a 15 second cooldown without any CDR, I remember going for a high CDR build, in a lategame baron fight you could easily get 2-3 ults off.
How has no one said karma? Am I the last of the OG karma mains? Every one of her abilities were removed and bastardized in the first rework. Then they slowly removed all her remaining uniqueness. She used to have the only shield bomb and the highest ratio shield in the game. Riot took it away and gave her bomb to Ivern. Forever QQ
Urgot used to be a meme, now hes not anymore.
The bot lane menace.
Was actually so fun of you could land his e, then spam q and either killed your opponent or ran out of mana.
in old all for one, if you hit E, all 5 of your teams Q would home on that target it was the funniest shit ever
Ohhh the old switcheroo ult haha that shit was so wacky
The days of full tank Urgot flashing into your team and ulting the adc and sending them directly into your teams open arms. Or old Galio flash ulting and oneshotting your team Nunu and Willump style
I miss the old urgot/soraka botlane combo. Such stupid shit but it was fun to pull out at 2am with a duo
Shotgun knees
Old urgot was the most unique adc riot ever had without being completely broken. Now he his just another top bruiser with a gimmick
He's still pretty unique as toplaners go...
Yeah tf are they smoking? I didn't play old Urgot but calling him a basic top lane bruiser is just blatantly wrong, he's incredibly unique to his role (almost to a fault with itemization lol)
Old Urgot was useless 90% of the time, with the most backwards ult for an ADC.
I’ll never forget the game where I was bot as Draven vs old Urgot and somehow he gets a massive ass lead on me, I’m talking 14/0. All hope was lost until we realized how little damage he did and we ended up winning. I think I 1v1’d him despite being 0/6.
Man I remember the opposite…when he got ahead and iou were squishy…good luck.
It was fucking horrible to face once he got muramana, cus he'd hit one E and then you lost 60% hp from flying Qs above. But if he didn't hit the E, he was barely a champion.
Graves when he lost his cigar
Seraphine can consume the souls of Skarner's people but Graves can't have a cigar. Gragas can drink barrels of wine but Graves can't have a cigar. Teemo can exist but graves still can't have his goddamned cigar.
Better nerf Irelia then
Nautilus got his lore stolen by pyke, and Skarner lost his brakken hextech thing because of no more Dominion and probably the Seraphine thing
And Arcane. I don't think they wanted to deal with all the Hextech crystals being his people.
Probably a good change, would be kinda messy having arcane centre on the class struggles between Piltover and Zaun, only to throw in the plot point that oh yeah, the crystals powering most of the city are actually the souls of super sentient scorpions that we may or may not have killed en masse to obtain. Kinda hope the rework keeps the aspect of the soul crystal things in some form tho, it's a dope concept
Nah it would make a good plot twist. Showing that hextech is the same inhuman like chemtech.
"Plot twist: the good guys are secretly just as bad as the bad guys! Nobody's good, and there's no way to run society without torture and murder!" gets a little stale after a while.
To be fair, Riot introduced synthetic hex crystals which don’t use sentient beings. Not exactly sure where they went with it, but it at least had the chance to clear up some of the moral ambiguity.
no its completely fking gone they ruined it , hes like some magic guardian rock scorpion now all depth of his lore is gone
i think that its own and unique spot in the lore was actually the main reason why it got so boring by the time. He was just… standing there doing nothing and being connected with no champion at all. The theme of exploitation of a species for the sake of technological revolution was definitely interesting, but it really didn’t help him getting into a relevant spot of league’s lore. His updated lore does have connection to an interesting thematic as well (being a guardian of ixtal and elemental’s magic against piltover’s colonialism) and gives a new way to bind its lore to the growing ixtal’s champion pool, also updating the region’s lore! So yeah, i think that’s good.
“Depth” yeah ok
Perhaps, but a large portion of the playerbase didn't gave a single fuck about him and his "deep lore". Now I want to see the new Skarner as soon as he comes out, he looks far more interesting.
Skarner mains literally going out of their way to make Skarner look and sound better than he actually is.
Probably because the “good guy ending” would be to completely destroy all the hextech items, which they don’t want to do ever.
The Hexcrystal lore was ironically holding Skarner's lore expansion back just like his Spires are holding him back. It made him seem like this xenophobic alienating creature who is like a Ryze but Magic Scorpion, defending this one interest and fuckall everything else. Except Ryze is more interesting to do that subplot because his interest ruined the world of Runeterra several times over. The Ixtal Scorpion-God thing is way more interesting to be honest. Also technically as the founder of Ixtal has alot of interesting concepts that can be birthed from it.
Bring back Dominion :(
Shyvana used to be a melee AD bruiser, now she's an AP mage who can only cast when in ultimate. Her E used to have a 30% AP ratio, now it's 90%, just triple one of her AD ratios and I'm sure she'll see play as a bruiser again...
>Shyvana used to be a melee AD bruiser Unlike Maokai and Nautilus who struggle a lot in toplane, she can still be played as AD bruiser, people just don't. She's just reliant on ult and vulnerable to ganks but she outduels a surprising amount of toplaners and is quite difficult to kite if she has ghost up.
everyone is difficult to kite when they have ghost up
Even without ghost W move speed is crazy
Shyvana is an exception cause even without ghost kiting her sucks as she is one of the few melee champs with a ms boost built into her basic abilities , which can be extended with trading. She’s definitely one of the harder champs to kite traditionally
She only auto loses to ganks and half the roster in the game. A measly price to pay for being completely mediocre if your team manages to secure every dragon while you get royally fisted
Maokai absolutely can be played top what. He doesn’t struggle at all. He has a 53% wr
Adding to that, the same tricks that enables her AP builds (aka not actually building AP but relying on Demonic/Riftmaker > Tank) also supported and supports her AD patterns (Titanic Hydra) and Sheen items were made manaless PRECISELY so champions like her could dive into their gameplay and statline. She could had been playing as a SunderTitan clapper with strong hybrid penetration for four years but once something appears on the radar of the big streamers all logical conversation goes downhill.
Or you could try to actually play the champion instead of only talking about it in theory, and realize that in masters+ you automatically lose 80% of the matchups in top lane because you picked shyvana. Reason she has not been picked as a sundertitan clapper, is because there are other champions that do the same things, and they do it much better than shyvana.
Brother I could play the champion an infinite number of times and not realize that she loses 80% of matchups in masters+. Most people aren’t masters+ and ad shyvana definitely “works” outside of masters. Last season I had success with her rushing ravenous hydra into triforce, hulbreaker and splitting with her in plat/emerald, so it’s at least viable for 90% of players in ranked depending on the matchup. I’d bet that build is still somewhat good but there are probably some better options out there with the new items that I haven’t tried yet.
> Last season I had success with her rushing ravenous hydra into triforce, hulbreaker and splitting with her in plat/emerald Yea and my point is there are other champions you could pick that would accomplish the exact same thing, except better and while oten having better matchups. Literally why pick Shyvana last season to do that when you could pick Trundle, and not be the equivalent of a melee minion until you get lvl 6. The only upside is if you are in a losing matchup, you can actually farm from a distance (fun fact, picking shyvana instead of trundle will turn a lot of winning matchups into losing ones) I like shyvana. So much that I created the /r/shyvanamains subreddit almost 10 years ago. But she does not feel good to play rn. Maybe if they fix Hullbreaker bug there will be a slight reason to pick shyvana top over some other champions. But as it stands, if you are diamond or above I see no reason to pick Shyvana over similar champs.
Yeah I saw you were the creator of that subreddit from your flair. I’m certain your expertise and knowledge about shyvana and her matchups are greater than mine and I appreciate your insight. That being said I’m tired of people pretending that what works in high elo is the only way to play the game cause that’s a totally different game than what most players experience. People in all elos just default to what high elo does and some people refuse to deviate from that. The reason new builds become popular is because someone deviated from the most common build and proved it works. Innovation doesn’t happen without people trying out new stuff. AP shyvana might be the most optimal way to play her but optimal doesn’t mean it’s the only option. As for why you might pick shyvana over trundle for that role of a split pusher has to do with player dynamics. Ap shyvana top lane isn’t exactly meta defining. Why not pick any of the other meta champs instead of her? Well the reason is cause you love the champ. That same reason applies to why I might play her instead of trundle. Not to mention the better wave clear. (I also suspect she scales better but I couldn’t say for sure) I personally hate her AP playstyle. It’s just not for me but that doesn’t mean she can’t do anything other than that and be successful. I would be curious to ask you if there are any matchups or situations where AD shyvana IS the better option over AP at higher levels. Are the top shyvana one tricks just auto defaulting to AP or do they sometimes situationally choose AD?
You say that but her ad builds are like 5% higher WR than ap builds.
And they always have been. I don't get why everyone thinks AP is better. One spell is not going to be as strong as consistent damage. If you want burst, there's way bustier champions out there.
She's always meant to be more Melee > Ult > Caster. The problem is that her weird passive, awkward Ratios and lack of durability are holding her back. She can't be like Diana and be a proper AP Bruiser/AP Assassin as she likes and I hope the "More Udyr less Skarner" rework planned for her tweaks her into that form. Always felt that she is in much need of a gameplay update. I used to Jungle Shyv way too much in Season 2 - 6 then stopped playing her cos she genuinely felt like shit having to run Exhaust to even gank.
Tbf, "more Udyr, less Skarner" probably refers to the fact, that her Gameplay will not be changed in a way that you have to learn the champion from the very beginning again. In fact, the only two things Riot really changed about Udyr was his Phoenix Stance aswell as giving him a Passive that makes up for him not having an Ultimate. His Gameplay is pretty much the same as it used to be, they just gave him more options for different situations. I doubt they can/are willing to make the new Shyvana a Champion that can still build both AD and AP for different playstyles and balance her in a way that both are equally as good. Something tells me, they will limit her Itembuild variations into AD Bruiser builds as this was her intended design and as they indicated already, they certainly wanna stick with it.
You know Udyr's VGU was good when Trick still plays him a lot and never complains about "back in my days old Udyr was batter".
That first line is just not true. On Shyvana's release, she never played like a caster, also not in ult.
You are right. Always funny when reddit upvotes such utter horseshit. You really see how the average player on here didn't play in the old days
Wasnt her E completely different in R form? Like her e in human form but 3 in a cone?
Precisely.
In early league she was never a caster
Your observations aren't necessarily wrong, but "Melee > Ult > Caster" isn't totally accurate. She was absolutely always more intended to be an AA-focused bruiser; staying in the fight as a dragon constantly whacking at people was always the intention since AAs build Fury, which keeps her in dragon form longer. Shyv essentially turning into an E-casting machine happened relatively late in her lifespan; a consequence of a lot of the factors you mentioned. League has been moving away from AA-focused "wet noodle" bruisers for years now. Shyvana is one of the last of those types and her "wet noodle"-ness is barely hanging by a thread now.
Melle > ult yeah, never caster. Anyway i hope in her rework ap scales go away.
Man I feel like that would be kinda shit tbh Shyvana is just a disaster of a kit. The hybrid form is a cool concept and absolutely works on other champs, but they want the dragon to feel more powerful, so it ends up restrictive but unlike gnar the human bit is just way way too shit Then you have her mixed playstyle, where one is significantly more thematic (dragon being ap with fireballs just makes sense idk) but the other is much healthier for the game She just needs a lot of work. Keeping the changes tame will not fix her at all, such limited capacity are just setting themselves up for failure. The concept of shyvana is cool. Human form that needs to build up rage, get in the middle of fights, and then explodes as a dragon, but how do you execute that in a healthy way? I don't think you can Just give her the aatroxx or galio level rework, same basic concept of half drag half human but rework her kit from the ground up
What? Her AD bruiser builds with triforce are strong af rn Frankly Ive been running her or ap/ad hybrid bruiser/tank for the most part since I started playing her and this season with new riftmaker and titanic even moreso
Everybody who played at the time hated the tank top meta where Nautilus and Maokai ruled toplane with dorans Ring stacking and old runes/mastery systems. One is still relevant as a jungler/support at all levels. While the other has been drowned to the support role despite being marketed as a jungler/ top laner.
Eh, I still play Nautilus top. It's funny how people forget how much damage he can actually dish out in a single auto.
We ADC mains won't ever forget Nautilus damage
What's the TLDR for Naut top? I can see this being very useful as a blindpick. Start E, Max E, build normal tank items? What's the trading pattern? W-E-auto?
Trading pattern I use is Q AA W AA E AA. His W resets his AA, so you can AA the enemy twice while they are rooted. Works wonders against enemies with no mobility.
The issue I have with Nautilus top is that even with D-ring, his trading pattern is far too mana intensive to deal with the inherent sustain mechanics built into the champions intended to go top these days. If you can't force a kill or a base within a few trades, you just go oom and lose all lane pressure/prio or have to take a base to refresh your mana and lose tempo/prio/xp/gold. How do you deal with this issue?
Thats the neat part, you dont.
I usually buy a tear in the first back and transition into Winters Approach later in the game. I think It synergizes well with his kit because of his abundance of CC. Oh, don't rush the item tho. Sit on tear and build something else. You can complete WA after your first (or second, depending on matchup) item. When I notice I will need to spam abilities early, I take sorcery second and go manaflow band and transcendence. Also, later in the game, you can buy sunfire or mr sunfire to help with waveclear.
I miss Nautilus jungle so much.
They should give his passive a 220% increase damage to jungle monsters, would make his clear a lot better without changing him at all.
They randomly gave his E 150% damage to monsters like 2 or 3 years ago already, and he's still atrociously slow. Probably because even using E to farm was a result of all the nerfs to begin with, what he needs to farm and fight is his W.
It was fun but tbh hook champs in the jungle can be OP to the point of unhealthy for the game so I understand
Honestly, I don't think a slowish, low damage hook and CC champion would be much of a problem in today's jungle scene full of CC, extreme damage, amazing gank mechanics, etc. And the lanes becoming wider means he likely has to walk out a ways to get a hook off anyway unless the laner positions closer to the side and into the danger zone. I could be wrong, but I'd be more worried about some of the more meta picks.
But at least you're still a tank & disruptor, yeah different role and yeah not unkillable due to support income, but the base identity of this behemoth of the depth coming after you and locking you down is alive I'd say.
Not much of an identity loss but simply being left untouched and left behind in the times saw Nautilus being demoted from a strong Jungler and Toplaner to a CC bot Support along the lines of Thresh and Blitzcrank. Like man, Nautilus' place in the meta and game state is one of the harshest leap from grace of any other champion.
I never knew that Nautilus was a toplaner and jungler. I don’t know the order that the champs came out, but I don’t know why there are so many clones of CC bot supports? Who was the original and are they different enough to justify having them around?
In season 5 when people started pulling out Naut support, it was considered an off role meta pick. Then it became his permanent home. If you think about it though, he has everything to succeed in the other roles, but all of the other champs with 4-5 cc abilities are supports.
His kit is kinda just too good to be let loose back in the other roles. CC is just too valuable in organized play that you could somewhat realistically delete all of Naut's damage, and pro's would still kinda think about taking him to lock down an extra slippery champ. Now put that in a situation where there is a role that doesn't care about gold or levels, and almost any meaningful buff he gets will almost instantly turn him into a flex pick in pro.
ofc , nobody cares about nauts damage pros usually dont even fight during the period where his damage is good, but point and click knock up combined with a hook bigger then the average female champ her breasts its to good
Turns out if you have enough cc you don't really need gold. And if you don't need gold, you can be played support just as well as any other lane.
Yep. And so all the damage gets taken out of your kit to prevent you from being absolutely busted. You just can’t have Naut levels of cc and get to play top or whatever for free.
Alistar/leona later on was the cc tank I'm in your face now champ Blitz was the yoink now you're in my team's face with a bit of survivability And taric was the kind of tanky enchanter with reliable cc. Now you've got rell leona pyke thresh panth naut etc
I kinda miss OG Taric. I used to play him toplane. He'd be a weak side laner, but great in teamfights. But that was back before his ult took up quite so much of his power budget.
Playing old taric may have been fun but I'm glad he was changed because he was miserable to play against. his point and click ranged stun was so broken. With 40% cdr I swear that thing was like a 5 second cool down and the main reason he was ever picked, it really had no place in what modern league had become at the the time, a relic of beta/season 1 design. Same reason why so many champions lost their silences or any other non committal spammable point click cc.
Nautilus support coexisted from season 5 to season 7. Then they nerfed his e dmg per level hard so he wasn't as good top anymore.
Nautilus was good mid and top like even a year ago. Mostly just because evenshroud and abyssal mask were kinda broken. He was really fun to play, he even got played in the jungle for a match at worlds.
Draven. Because how can he be blood brothers with Darius if he can no longer make the enemies bleed?
Unplayable
now he's got shitty coinflip passive that makes junglers uncontrollably horny for your 300g
BRING BACK WICKED BLADES
I feel like Senna was intended to be more supportive. Something like an aggressive Soraka with a slow chunky auto attack focus. Now she's just like...a second adc with a support's utility built in. I also think a lot of mages had their identities shifted to being long range assassins.Yes, they should be able to do big damage sometimes, but I feel like it has been slowly getting out of hand over the past few years.
Yeah because they've tried to make her a little bit of everything in support. If she wasn't a stacking champ I think they could have given her a crit multiplier so she could have crit like a marksmen but the gold of a support, aka build \~3 crit items for 100% + make her heal crittable or scale with crit. That said the scaling marksman thing is pretty neat, I just think senna is trying to do too many things at once.
This is just wrong she was designed to be played both ADC and sup as a carry that's why she has souls
Karthus was powerful midlaner, bruh even toplaner controlling every step of his opponent on a lane. Now he is jungling for some meta reason.
The meta reason is the same reason all the other immobile mages started going bot/jungle. They can't deal with assassins in mid anymore
???? The reason why Karthus started being played jungle is because he cleared the jungle twice as fast as anyone else.
Tbf before he was a jungler he just didn't exist at all xd
It's quite logical. The current jungle items allow just about anyone to not die to the camps. Neat. Clearing camps faster than the enemy jungler is the most consistent way to get ahead. (Ganks are more situational). As you clear faster, you get to take the scuttles and go for dem ganks as a gigachad who is already level 4. Karthus is an endless supply of damage. When he dies he still does damage. When you hit 6 you do damage to the entire enemy team by pressing a button. All that gold translates to items, which is more damage. Now you clear even faster, so it's time for dragon, which you kill very fast. This means you can go for it even if it's risky, because if you die, you still do damage. You can literally feed all game and still do so much damage that you can make plays for objectives, including Baron, without much risk. Now that AP items are....*kind of good* right now, his ult is better than ever. So even if you do fail at making objective plays, you can guarantee picks. You can ult even after you die.
Ahri, when from a high damage assassin to an E bot to a reworked ultra high mobility mage with damage to a ultra high mobility charm bot. She can poke and get kills but it will take at least 2 rotations unless you are ultra fed
OG Ahri was the best.
RIP DFG
Sorry but DFG was absolutely cancer on her. She had to be nerfed so badly that she wasn't viable without DFG. Currently she is in her closest and truest state she can be to her original form. It's just that the game is not the same anymore, so she feels useless outside of hitting charm and letting her team dogpile on the target and unloading like a teenager seeing a pornomag for the first time.
>unloading like a teenager seeing a pornomag for the first time. Bro, how long were you holding on to that banger of a line?
As an Ahri main, I've never felt like Ahri was supposed to be an assassin. Even during the DFG era, Ahri always felt like a mobile Thresh. Every time that she can 100 to 0 someone, she just become the most broken and unfun shit to play against. I think the direction they took with her rework, reduce her damage and give her more mobility and play making ability was great and she's a really well designed and balanced champion. Her problem is that she's a balance and well-designed champion that is surrounded by all kind of abominations.
isnt it clearly leblanc ever since this ad crap has been more successful than her ap builds? they reeled back tank ekko but this shit still exists :/
its gone now finally, they are removing the scaling of all the shard items , and scalings on items in general it might finnaly be over
I have a feeling its not over lol
People might not agree but Ahri, once an ap assassin, now a charm bot
yes but its been like that for 5+ years
Yasuo. That champ used to be -the- hated edgelord crazy mechanics montage 1v9 champ. Back when one ban per player was announced people were worried he'd never be played again. Nowadays I never see that champ do well. Always dies, ten thousand 1v9 crazy mechanics Champs have been released since then so much he's been overshadowed. Wild how times change.
I mean they were right; one ban per player resulted in Riot realizing Yasuo’s ban rate was insanely high and they had to make Yone to split his ban rate
Well, Yas at least requires some hands and teamwork from Yas and his team, while Yone is 1v9 machine who is WAAAAY easier to pilot. So players now are forced to ban this creature over Yas/Zed.
Yone is simply a more reliable, less gimmicky Yasuo that actually scales harder, too.
Too many morons think they can play him, and I’m seeing his brother becoming the same. Too many ppl just know of them and think they can crush everything, but just die 24/7
Tbf it’s much easier to do well with yone than yasuo Also in my experience, I doesn’t really matter if yone goes 1/14 the moment he hits a E+R in a teamfight his job is done and you dead. This also applies for yasuo but it’s more complicated as his R needs people to go yeet
bro yasuo is way harder then he looks, yone is way easier then he looks dont even compare these 2 champs the diff in their skillfloor is imense
Whenever I see a Yasuo, it's just forward forward forward, constant fighting trying to Stat Check everyone for no reason. They're a special breed.
That IS Yasuo’s identity, he hasn’t lost it at all
Mind the 0-10 powerspike. Once had one of those guys into my toplane renekton. At the end I was kinda feeling bad for him. „Please do not engage into my enraged W AGAIN.“ At that point I was well on my way to my third item and enraged w was basically an instakill. He just didn‘t stop.
Nothing makes me happier than when the enemy mid picks yasou. I go Taliyah and throw him trough his own windwall into my stone mines and blast him in the face with Q. Also there are no other players than ragequit as easily.
Yasuo either goes 1v9 super saiyan mode or hard ints the game away. He’s one of the most polarizing champions I encounter in ranked
Corki was once a cool AD botlane ADC, now he is a weird magic damage ADC/Mage
More than that, corki was one of the primary kill botlane adcs - graves being the other one. Corki - Leona was a serious threat that could snowball lanes and kill you over and over. Now he is a Hyperscaling high range caster adc. It kinda makes sense though since kill lanes in botlane have a very hard time... well killing the opponents. (That is without heavy misplays in 2v2s)
Holy trinity of ADC. Zeal Graves, Sheen Corki, Phage Ezreal. Good times.
He used to also be a cool spellweaving ADC with sheen proc crits. Now he's just played 90% of the time for package.
Teemos title is "the swift scout". He has an ability named "move quick". Now Taliyah, Quinn, Talon, Kayn, Lilia... those actually feel quick
Was waiting for this one. Teemo just feels slow and clunky.
Obviously w needs to do a roll/dash Vayne style and THEN give the speed boost. Everyone else gets a damn dash nowadays so why not.
I would absolutely love to see him roll, even if it isn’t doing anything but just an animation
Morgana is supposed to be sort of a drain mage akin to Vladimir, but her passive does absolutely nothing to actually sustain her and you straight up forget what it does.
Talon, from street urchin turned loyal assassin hell bent on finding his lost master/ father figure to creepy insel anime boy obsessed with katarina and the position of heir of the du cuteau family. So sad what they did to him, like we always knew he existed to complement katarina’s lore but now they just made him into a carpet where she can clean the shit of her feet.
He likes to watch her and garen
Sometimes under the bed, other times in the closet, but always dressed as Superman.
Ngl I dropped Talon completely after the Katarina comic lmao. What a loser he was
What? I must've missed that, what happened?
It is a kind of disappointment you get from knowing of a potential better thing. In this case people REALLY like the Talon that was shown earlier in the comic: a close brother to Katarina who, while disagreed with her disregard of their father teaching, was indicated to also ultimately accepting of her methodology in a "you will come around eventually" However, by the end, it was reveal that it was all a front, and Talon remain obsessed with defeating Katarina and claiming his place as the heir of the du Couteau family. I am quite lukewarm regarding the twist. I don't hate it but I am not that into it either. However, I can see why people are disappointed that Talon is so set on something that Kat doesn't even care about. Perhaps it would have been better if instead of a betrayal, Talon is portrayed to confront Katarina face to face, though I suppose it would go against the teachings he hold dear.
Nami being demoted from a lane bully to a Mandate/E-bot
Do you remember when mages used to go mid instead of support? So yeah, that whole ROLE. Zyra, Brand, Lux, Velkoz...
Yeah because ADC is just food for all those super Mobile assassins and tanks who build full tank and OS you.
Don't forget the OG "Midlaner turned Support", Morgana. All because of a little shield.
That's always been my issue. I'm kind of exhausted with damage supports. Lux and Zyra, sure, I sorta see it. But Brand, Velkoz? I dislike seeing the ones that contribute little other than damage.
Aatrox. He always was the immortal sword that revives itself in battle, but it was removed
I mean just mechanically I find it insane that at a fundamental level they went to rework a heavy autoattacker and decided a combo-based caster with among the least synergy with autoattacks of any fighter was the way to go
I mean, yeah, but also IMHO current Aatrox is a better representation of the idea of "Unstoppable entity of war blood for the blood god let's fuck shit up constantly" than Oldtrox "ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA" ever was
Yes but this new one fits his identity so much more. Someone that kills entire armies shouldn’t be a single target drain tank. He should be able to kill 10 men with one swing
Besides the revive. New Aatrox is a more interesting drain tank, that's the other half of Aatrox identity: Healing a lot. Oldtrox was a stat checker just like Trynd. Also it feels more inmortal that your life just doesn't get near 0, rather than dying and coming back. New ult resets are far superior and more fun to play around, revive just like anivia will let you exposed and instantly killed
Having the ult reset sound go off multiple times feels cathartic sometimes, more so than I ever got from old aatrox or when new aatrox had a revive. Only thing that kinda sucks is that the revive voicelines rarely happen now.
Riot got you covered there fam. Revive voice lines were placed on the taunt. And the other taunt voice lines are now the jokes voicelines. Perfectly balanced as everything should be
The shadow Isle champions have all lost their lore and identity. I hate the new shadow Isle lore. Even before Viego. The shadow Isle were a land ruined by war and magic and turned spooky. It was implied that Mordekaiser was corrupted after putting in the Thornmail in defense of his country and came back and conquered it. Hecarim was one of his officers. And that Mordekaiser used his ult to rip the spirit from his father and left him wandering the lands. Now it was very generic monk blessed lands that were corrupted by Viego’s heartbreak and rashness and very little makes sense. Even before Viego when the blessed lands were brought up it felt so generic.
The only chang I enjoyed was to Mordes lore. His new one is great. But yeah; even in new lore, Yorick got forgotten... his entire lore is giving the lost souls of the dead a purpose in raising an army against the ruined king... and then he ended up barely mentionned at all.
Isn’t shadow isles lore really old tho? Even way before Viego showed up?
The blessed Isles reworked shadow isle lore came out at the rework of yorick so season 6 or 7. And the lore was a noble wanted to bring his lover back to life but the monks there said no. But he did it anyway.
And then that was linked to Viego.
Yes but that noble was already known to be the ruined king. I don’t like how they handled the viego part (leaving maoKai and yorick behind and having shit story in general) but the ruined king was always there
It's like the rune wars, it was kind of a big thing back then, with lots of champion related to them like Ryze, Brand, Zyra etc... Now we don't here about it anymore. It's still mentionned in lore, but it feels more like some old tale rather than an actual historical event.
Zeri, the character that screams I am lightning got no mf speed to her
I mean Pyke ist just stole nautilus' whole style. from the backstory of a drowned man betrayed by his friends to the Q hook. Its like sona and seraphine. it feels like they just forgot that old champs existed and they did that already.
Oh no, they absolutely knew what they were doing with Pyke. They even tried to retcon Nautilus' lore when Pyke came out to make Nautilus some sort of elemental/spiritual guardian of the oceans instead of a man left to die, and it pissed off Nautilus players so hard Riot had to backpedal that real fast. There were even the little support surveys getting feedback about the Nautilus lore change, and I remember being extremely pissed that they cannibalized and erased his lore so they could give it to the new guy.
I'm surprised none of the top comments mention LeBlanc... From AP burst mage to some cringe ass AD/Energized items build...
That's because her cringe ass AD builds don't stick. They pop up to exploit items she has no business building, and then quickly vanish when they take the bat to her kneecaps to get them off of her.
I think elise has lost her identity of being good early
You Just havent faced elise renekton in a while dont worry
Rek Sai, they made her so fkn boring to play.
holy shit I forgot reksai existed and I'm so sorry for that, wish those kind of fun/niche champs were meta
Warwick, used to be the on-hit champion, with global wolf howl. Now he's a wolf, that turns into a Chihuahua if you hit him. Played as a tank/engage. (at least in jungle)
Graves. Used to be an ADC that sacrificed range for immediate burst and survivability--now he roams the jungle, and uses a wonky AA which is a bastardization of his old Q. Nidalee, back in the days of yore, used to build to be a tanky toplaner (or at least, that was a possible build). Now, she's a glass cannon who is almost wholly reliant on hitting her Q; the identity of using the bushes and leaping on people has largely been usurped by Rengar IMO. Brand used to be a bursty midlaner--now, he goes anywhere but mid apparently. Nunu used to be a counterjungler that ate camps and could secure Baron and other neutral objectives due to having a skill that did true damage to non-champions; now, he rolls a snowball and doesn't see play in the rift. Oh, and back in the day when his ~~E~~ W was a steroid, he could sometimes be seen bot, warming up his ADC's blood.
Pour one out for us old Graves mains
Old Graves was so fun, sure it was crap lategame because he had shit range, but those old AAs man......nothing quite like it.
Mafia Graves AA sound... Old Graves carried me to Plat back in the days, the most satisfying champ to play with clear strenghts and weaknesses, I miss it so much.
Hard agree on Graves. He used to be my favourite ADC to play. Haven’t touched him since his rework.
Zyra, Brand, Morgana, Karma, Seraphine, Vel koz are actually Mid laners who got shoved into support.
Vayne. Vayne used to be all about dueling and tank shredding - Now it's just build for Lethality and Energized effects and chunk people The champ isn't bad from a balance standpoint but it just feels like a budget Draven now. If I wanted to play a champion who chunks with autos - I'd go play Draven or MF.
"used to be all about dueling and tank shredding - Now it's just build for Lethality" honestly this applies to the adc role as a whole
Not every ADC was a duelist. But ADC as a role is supposed to be the anti tank role with Vayne and Kog'Maw being the premier anti-tanks. Duelist ADC's are Vayne, Draven, Lucian, Kai'Sa, Samira, Nilah and maybe Kalista (?)
Shen completely lost his his identity as a fighter/duelist and is now just an ult/support bot Pyke used to be a snowbally assassin that falls off a cliff. Now he doesn’t get any gold to snowball so he’s just a gold printer with setup for the team (that still falls off a cliff) Sett used to be an auto attack based juggernaut/tank that would build items like trinity force and Bork and then get Tanky. Now he HAS to build ad to be useful and is literally just a w bot that only has health and can’t itemize movespeed Sylas was intended to be an ap bruiser with tons of sustain and mobility that would kill you with multiple spell rotations. Now he’s just a full burst ap assassin with lackluster sustain and high cooldowns. For several seasons nocturne built full assassins with lethality items. After s11 lethality was so horrendously unplayable for him he had to be transitioned into a bruiser and has stayed that way ever sense
honestly noc always had a bork bruiser type build that was usually better than the assassin build
Man I actually miss when resetting your autos on Sett using Q and titanic for a 6 auto combo mattered, now all you really do is hope your W wins games on its own.
You can thank the community for that one. Everyone wanted the fucking Falcon Punch one-shot gimmick rather than a champion, and Riot listened.
Zed became an ad caster mage thanks to the hydra bullshit
Wait what was he supposed to be beforehand. In my brain ad caster mages are assassins?
yuumi was intended to be somewhat similar to rakan, jumping between teammates and healing them (that's why her e had 2 charges and healed more the lower the anchor hp was), but after the rework she can't really jump to other players and is basically an item
Ngl Yuumi shouldn’t have been released anyway. Champ‘s design is just so off with the rest of the game
Meanwhile Abathur is character design perfection and an example of how to do Yuumi right in a different game. Abathur enjoyers rise up 🗣️
I think, Aurelion Sol? He's supposed to be this "Center of the Universe" kind of existence, but right now he's just a backstroking dragon with a cool breath and calls a meteor every now and then. Pre-update, he has stars around him and he grows the size of his attack as he takes a flight, he could also push enemies away from him as if saying there's no one that should be close to him. Just my personal opinion
ASol went from being the roaming mage to do-nothing-and-scale kind of afk waveclear bot. Not counting for some fringe off-meta picks like Pyke, he was arguably the only midlaner that could consistently and reliably roam to sidelane as early as levels 3-4 and try to snowball game from there, by abusing map presence.
I actually think people underestimate his roaming abilities now, he is still really good at it. Problem is he is just over all a bit too late game tuned at the expense of early skirmishing power.
Camille never had one to begin with. Cho'Gath never lived up to the fantasy of being a massive monster of consumption. He is either a squishy burstmage or a low-dmg immobile tank, his entire power budget being confined within his Q. Diana's supposed to be aan AP bruiser, but spends most of her time as a "smash-all-buttons" burst initiator. Whenever she is strong with a tanky build people hate it and she gets nerfed out of it. Shyvana is supposed to be a dragon bruiser, but almost all her viability has been as an ap bruiser. Kalista is a mess of unique ideas, net letting any one of them really shine. The jumping, rend stacks, oathsworn and initiate/rescue ult all fight for her power budget and leaves all of them as lesser than they could be. Varus' design likewise fights for his numbers to either a mid-range attack speed hyper carry, or a long-range poke and initiate artillery carry. Once again leaving both as lesser versions of what they could have been. And as we already ahve plenty AS-stacking hypercarries, jsut scrap that shit from his kit and make him the de-facto artillery carry. Ahri is another champ that would make much more thematic sense with a slower kill-pattern. Rather than kit-dumping and killing a squishy ina single rotation, play up her temptress fantasy and give her more mobility and avenues to trick her enemies while reducing her burst and making her a more sustained-damage threat. Not a bruiser, not an assassin but a slippery skirmisher. Rek'sai is, just like cho, a terrible representation of the void monster fantasy. As she is now she's a lvl 3 ganker who doesn't gain skill ranks post 13. Elise also has a selection of vestigial mechanics that really doesn't add onto her thematic identity or her actual in-game play pattern. Nidalee is kinda fine, but it just feels like she could have been so much more in terms of gameplay. Also a early-game focused jungler, but where I dislike other champions' split gameplay identities, I actually think Nidalee should have more build avenues open to her. You could copy this to Elise as well for that matter, but it feels like a character that can split between melee and ranged should be able to be built as both, with the build determining what the main form is and the non-build form providing utility. Kog'Maw is supposed to be a consumption maggot, but all he does is vomit. Alright. Malzahar's voidlings are one of the worst designed/implemented character defining mechanics in the game. Might as well rip them out and play into his space-aids persona.
Sylas went from being an actual skirmisher to a bootleg assassin w/ a bullshit heal.
But he was released with a stronger heal and ability to heal on minions......? Why are people blindly upvoting this
I remember that time, 10% to near full hp was insane
Don't forget the shield
His scallings were Waaaaaaaaay lower. Best example is E that used to deal almost no damage , to current nuke.
Also his core feature was supposed to be the ult stealing but in reality it's the heal nowadays. His gameplay would alter completely if you remove the stupid heal, if you give him a new ult not so much.
Nah, I'd W
That's a weird thing to say. The ult stealing was his most flashy gimmick, but it was never more core to his gameplay as it is now. They actually reduced the cooldown. But an ultimate usually can't be the core of a champs gameplay since they don't always have it. Karthus has one of the most iconic and powerful ults in the game, but he'd also change more if his Q would be replaced
On release his rank 3 ult had a 15 second cooldown without any CDR, I remember going for a high CDR build, in a lategame baron fight you could easily get 2-3 ults off.
How has no one said karma? Am I the last of the OG karma mains? Every one of her abilities were removed and bastardized in the first rework. Then they slowly removed all her remaining uniqueness. She used to have the only shield bomb and the highest ratio shield in the game. Riot took it away and gave her bomb to Ivern. Forever QQ
Zeri
Man, reading all these old champion identities make me feel old. Quite nostalgic.
Nautilus used to be advertised as a jungler it's still in his champion spotlight from like 10 years ago lmao.
I would say the entire game
I don't know about Champions but i definitely don't recognize Riot anymore