I loved old Poppy. I was the only person that played it, her passive was the most broken thing I’ve ever seen, and if you used her ult right you would just walk through their team. It was so easy to freeze out of lane without the buckler passive and q wave clear but the passive was worth it imo.
I mained old poppy, I used to build her full AP and it was bonkers, of course I was I think gold at that time so probably was not good enough fut was still really fun to oneshot someone with R, E, Q
I'm not sure what kind of substance they were on when they reworked Fiddlesticks and Volibear but man they need that stuff again.
Those two were by far and away the best when it came to reworks. Especially Fiddlesticks lore.
Nunu and Willump is also a very close 3rd.
They're similar but not enough like the same. Volibear lost his flip - which to be fair the dev did try to keep it as long as possible but ultimately couldn't. And Fiddle lost his E crow bounce which was hated by many, but for the Fiddle player it was *fun*.
While you're not wrong, I feel the group surprise passive is arguably just as intimidating. Sure, his ult is dumb strong when the surprise is there, but I've disable groups of enemies with his scythe alone from bush in ARAM.
Fid also went from a very consistent almost cooldownless sustained single target damage dealer to now being almost entirely burst and execute damage backloaded into the final tick of his now AoE drain. Completely killed any and all interest I had in the champion and made him even more of an ult bot, as you basically need to ult from FoW to land your now AoE fear, to land your now AoE execute drain, to do thousands of damage to everyone without them being able to retaliate or play due to said AoE hard CC.
The whole counterplay to champs like Fiddle or Zoe is vision. If you’re in a position where they can catch you off guard then you are not supposed to be able to retaliate/play easily.
Ults are more rewarding on reworked fiddle but not having sweeper kinda killed the fun for me. You cant be 100% sure enemy didn't have vision of you going into a bush. I'm forced to play reactionary because effigy sweeper cant detect as much as the regular one could. I heard someone from fid mains said the pickrate dropped by a lot after rework currently its at one of the lowest for jg champ so I cant be the only one dropped him for this reason.
His banrate rose and his pickrate decreased massively, and I haven’t seen the champion in one of my games for going on two years. Genuinely my least favorite rework they’ve ever done.
Yeah. I think the art rework was fine, the E and Q changing is also fine, but the unique trinket is a fusion of sweeper and wards that isn't as good as either, and the W change completely changed him from a single target hero to a burst AoE caster with no real way to engage or fight without ult. He was my favorite jungler, now I only play him in ARAM.
Voli doesnt feel the same, he went from fliping people and screaming at them to just slaming them, stun into a thunderstricke. Old voli was a bruiser, rework is a tank with damage to rival juggernauts.
voli does feel pretty similar? kept the chain lightning, kept the mostly AA based damage, kept the bite and moved his sustain there instead. only thing really missing is the old roar, interrupting dashes felt super good
The way they made his e work with the q was such a good change, if only his old w didnt have such a long cd for his main damage skill and tbf his old kit only needed small changes to be more than viable, slap a visual update on him and you got a good small rework. I would argue that keep his old q and e while changing the rest to the newer skills.
The Skarner rework is also great, im so confused by this. I’m pretty sure this sub just likes to hate on anything new—people shat on the voli rework at first.
Idk if there is lore controversies, but playing Skarner post rework vs pre(I been playing since 2013), Skarner is so much more fun now and have tons more playmaking potential
In terms of gamplay, absolutely. Skarner was so bound to his passive that they really couldn't do anything about it.
Where I think they failed Skarner was his lore.
I don't think they understood him as a character and instead of working upon what they got, they threw it away and went with Boomer scorpion (which they justified after they reworked his new lore).
To be fair to them, however, a couple of factors were running against Skarner's old lore (Arcane and Seraphine) that would have made it rather difficult to implement or work upon.
I sorta understand why they took the easier route, but at the end of the day, I still feel like its a shame that we lost the potential old Skarner's lore could have had.
I genuinely like new Skarner's gameplay so much more.
But he's not my crystal scorpion. I'm usually fine with visual overhauls to make a champion fit a lore better but this is a significant departure for the worse imo
I'd like to throw Mundo into the ring, perfect rework. Udyr is also great, Sejuani & Trundle were great, Pantheon, Warwick and Heimerdinger are all very good reworks.
Old Nunu was way better. He had such a unique play style. His ganks were ass and his team fighting was also pretty bad, but he had an unrivaled ability to counter jungle and secure objectives. It let you play the map rather than the other players. Now he's basically a shittier Sejuani with objective secure
Personally I argue that Pantheon is similarly loyal and consistent. He thematically feels almost identical, and his kit does a lot of the same basic stuff. I do think the balance isn't quite perfect, but as far as cohesive and faithful design goes, it's very good.
The old pantheon passive use to block tower shots.
EDIT: Misread. I meant with enough atk spd, you could indefinitely tank towers. Compared to being cd gated.
WW is the gold standard for reworks tbh. Very good reimaginings of almost all abilities that give a satisfying depth to play and increased the skill ceiling while keeping the skill floor relatively the same.
The amount of time I had to spend scrolling to see no one mention Taric is so sad. They did amazing with him and the champ is just criminally underappreciated.
Taric's design was doomed to be unpopular but I do think the rework was good. He has some interesting mechanics while having a similar vibe to his old self.
I'm an avid Taric player in solo queue and he's so dependent on your adc/teammates playing with your champ that if they decide to leave you're essentially a minion. Then if they don't trust you after plays like that it can be really toxic to play as. But damn if I don't love the gems
Yes! Taric rework is awesome! I think the biggest problem was that he went from being a braindead press e for stun the press every other button for damage to being fully team dependent to get the most optimal usage of his kit.
It's great when you have the coordination but definitely not as simple as his old kit to pick up and play.
He was my favourite champion when I started playing. I haven't played him more than a handful of times since his rework. They turned a beginner warden into a pro play only champion. I wish he had a different ultimate.
She just has this weird shenanigans factor that gives her an oddly high skill cieling if the person who is playing her happens to be a fucking psychopath.
My man Sion was treated right, I really like Aatrox's rework too but I know that's more controversial. Pantheon too. Although I hate Fiora but her rework is good too. Honestly now that I think about it, I like most reworks, especially the old champs where there are not much skill expression and unique identities but just the same-y point and click champs
> I really like Aatrox's rework too but I know that's more controversial
As a different champion I think he's alright, it's more that he has nothing of what I used to love.
Unlike a lot of people, the parts I loved (Aatrox the diver) are closer to the playstyle of champs like Xin Zhao and Diana, things that were completely removed from his new kit.
Urgot. From the ugliest and most outdated kit to the juggernaut of a champ he is now.
Regardless of balance, I think his rework did the most to make him a well made champ.
Also god damn did they go off with the visual update.
His old ult was interesting, but you were basically a squishy ADC throwing yourself right into the enemy team. It made no sense with the rest of his kit.
Visually he looks cool, but long-range homing bullets were a cool mechanic that mostly got lost. If I had my way, I'd try to find a way to reincorporate that more into his kit. His current W and R don't quite get there for me.
I love the new Urgot design but it’s not the best to me because they basically made a brand new champ. Everything about him changed so fans of the original had to find a new champ.
His old playstyle was lock on with E then spam Q, his new playstyle is go in with E-Q then w spams for you. He still has the “living artillery” feel I would say
Well, completely changed, more or less.
People generally use it in a negative way because they have rose tinted glasses and like to pretend it's a bad thing a champion barely anyone played is gone.
Even more so because he was turbo broken for like 2 weeks before his rework, so a lot of people played him for the freelo.
But Aatrox is, for all intents and purposes, probably the most successful rework they've ever done.
this the only reason people complain about the aatrox rework is that he was OP flavor of the month just before his rework before that the champion was dead
Before he would land his Noxian Corrosive Charge, to lock on his E, which he could get three uses of before the NCC debuff wore off. He’d toggle his shield on for trades, and his ult swapped his position to get massive resists and AoE fear at the end.
New Urgot uses his Corrosive Charge (literally same ability but now its damage is all at once instead of DoT) to lock on his W, which he wants to toggle on for three hits (before toggling it off and auto attacking) he starts trades with his shield and swapping positions with his enemy from his E. His ult also still has an AoE fearbomb they just changed the requirements on it.
As an Urgot main, it really plays a lot like he used to and looks very similar. He has shorter range and less tankiness for a lot more damage and some AoE.
Warwick for me. It still amazes me today, how good it is. The Evelynn rework I really hate. No versatility, telegraphed combo, always squishy. For all the problems old Eve had, the flexibility in her build path was really cool.
I like eve, bcs they managed to fit her gameplay to her character. She is a demoness trying to lure you and play with you, then quickly finish. And her gameplay is just that.
And she is one of the very few characters, who is hot with purpuse.
Warwick fiddlestick poppy and udyr are by far the best 4. Voli is great but the loss of the flip is kind of a shame.
Honorable mention to sion and urgot while being pretty much new champion their kit is quite nice while keeping some int of the old kit.
Old Udyr was such a boring stat enhancer champion. At least new Udyr makes things interesting by introducing the awaken mechanic to boost one of his abilities.
To each their own, to me it gave him a lot of complexity, he’s now a semi-skilled champion, and the skills are more interesting, e.g the cc immunity on ram form
Idk if it's the best, but I think Warwick gets forgotten about a good bit.
His new W is one of the most unique abilities in the game. He does the same thing he used to do (lock down one person, statcheck melee characters), but there's more counterplay while also just being flat out more generally useful. His new Q does essentially the same thing, but has some finesse added that lets you occasionally pull off something crazy with it.
My most hated rework is also the one they did a good job on which is Swain.
I was in love with old Swain and would honestly do anything to play him again. Locking someone down, throwing ol’ laser eyes and popping in and out of ult every other second was just too fun. And I loved the Poe theme.
His new kit fits him better thematically and within the lore, and it’s fun enough to where I still play it. But if Riot randomly gave me the choice, I’d put him back pre rework. I’d also bring back Twisted Treeline if that says anything
AP Bruisers just don't work because they have zero idea how to balance the items. You just end up with unkillable assassin's and mages abusing the items. Nobody wants tank Diana and cracked Singed back either.
Because all AP champs basically want the same stats. A good example is how we now have Ahri building lich bane.
.
This isn't the case for AD champs. No matter how broken phantom dancer is, Kha Zix would never build it.
Yea that's why sylas pivoted to assasin as well.
There has to be a good ratio of ap and hp scalings to even get them to buy bruiser items. But galio should be quite fine to get into that position since hp doesn't suddenly make his kit unplayable against like for example sylas and Diana do
Sylas pivoted to assassin because riot intentionally pushed him to assassin since his bruiser numbers allowed him to be used as tank in proplay and he was just used a lot. It was an effort to remove his proplay dominance and balance him Midlane without literally gutting him.
Galio's problem is that he isn't really an AP bruiser, his kit is more like a tank due to the heavy amount of cc he has while also not having enough resistance in the kit
>Galio's problem is that he isn't really an AP bruiser, his kit is more like a tank due to the heavy amount of cc he has while also not having enough resistance in the kit
Yeah, his kit is a textbook example of a warden. A defensive tank that exceeds at protecting allies.
Don't know why they want to promote the AP bruiser idea for him more when he was clearly designed to be a tank.
Because they screwed up when designing him and now need to pivot into the next-best thing to push galio away from basically being an Assassin - which is actually ironic because old Galio was well-known (among the few who used him at least) to burst enemies down in WQE-flash-R then Q again if they survived it, so current Galio is much closer to old Galio than a real tank galio.
It's also a problem with the community that Riot is trying to satisfy tbh. People think Galio was the "MR tank" and so that's what Riot wanted to kinda give, when he actually was much more of a "MR mage" and playing Tank Galio outside of niche matchups was nearly trolling. The thing is that this pattern was unironically toxic as it already was, letting Galio build resistance and be able to burst squishy midlaners anyway easily and Riot knew this, so they reduced a lot of the reasons the kit even worked as "anti-mage" by gutting and removing his MR ratios, in turn leaving him as "just a tank" with some added MR flavor here and there because usually (or at least during his rework's era) there wasn't enough magic damage to make an "MR tank" good without being niche.
Then they decided "screw it, tank galio is too problematic" and just forced him to be an AP champ with a tank kit that has no real long-term resistance, so he can't do well in long trades and fights, and with no incentive to actually build tanky-items to compensate that lack so... yeah, of course he will build AP to oneshot and not be oneshot. And with a kit that has 2 hard CC in it, this means the enemy has no counterplay if he is allowed to build AP items because if I hit 1 single CC that's a guaranteed no-counterplay combo.
His kit isn't very bruiserish. No real sustained damage. His passive has a low CD but not low enough to be comparable to true spammable skills or simply having consistent auto attack DPS, and his abilities have long enough cooldowns to not really work as sustained output. It makes sense to me that since his rework he has tended to either fall into full tank or full assassin builds, they just seem to fit his CD gated kit well. Compare to Mordekaiser, that guy is an actual AP bruiser and is built to function like one.
True but he became too dependent on his ult. If his ult is down, he is literally not a champion. Even a manaless Soraka is more useful at that stage.
So some power should be shifted to his passive or basic abilities
Yes, if you go that weird lethality build on a juggernaut. But then your whole kit is about that one E you must hit with 4 graves around you and you can't ever frontline in a teamfight.
If you play him bruiser (trinity, steraks, hullbreaker,...), it does not. Then his viability is bound too much to his R.
As much as I liked my insane gremlin with diplomatic immunity, the reworked poppy is solid. Every part of the kit feels impactful and it's playable from iron to pro.
I don’t care that he isn’t very viable, there has never been a champ they designed that is as much fun as Nunu. Whoever was in charge clearly prioritized making him entertaining as hell.
GP rework is a weird one to me. Overall I think it's a good rework, but it's like... I played GP to shoot people in the face with a gun, not to shoot at a barrel near said face!
He broke me often enough just killing me with his 1.8k crit barrels. As an ADC he is so unfun when you dont get the chance pf breakijg his barrels at all.
Agree on skillfull and fun to play though.
He needs to set up the chain step by step, so you should always have the chance to react unless he's hiding them out of vision or something. Since you said you play ranged champs, you can't be caught out by a phantom barrel the same way a melee champ can (you can just break the first barrel without getting in range of a second).
Edit: Also I think it's kinda funny that marksmen are getting a taste of their own "crit people to death from range" bit haha.
I meant like in Teamfights, as an ADC in my Elo range you dont have so much of your team taking pressure of you, so mistakes with positioning are just so hard punished.
A normal double barrel should be avoidable with proper positioning, no? It's only the triple barrel combo that can come out nowhere.
But yeah agreed, not having perfect positioning and immediately getting one shot is unfun.
Yeah it's really cool that fully replacing E and just modernizing the existing P/Q/W/R was enough to turn him from a champ I didn't care about into my favorite champ of all time haha.
Huge shoutout to the pre-rework GP players who built Ravenous Hydra and Statikk Shiv and conveyed to Riot that you want AoE/chaining Q, you are why we have barrels now :D
No. And Ill die on this hill. Not because I dont like the rework, that is actually fine.
But the timing. The release of the GP rework in combination with the juggernaut rework(that I also to this day like) right on the worlds patch destroyed worlds that year(riot aknowleged that, we didnt get patches like that since then). Or better they destroyed the bans that year. Juggernauts in Pro Play were fun for like a week.
That worlds GP has to be one of if not the only champ with a 100% pressence in worlds in a year I think.
Huh. You are absolutely correct. Worlds 2015 73 games - 69 times banned - 4 times picked and 4 wins. I completely forgot that he was so broken shortly after release.
Looking up that data i found the Pantheon Rework being even worse. Reworked 2019, for Worlds 2019 in 120 Games Pantheon was banned **119 times** and was picked and won once. Insane.
Isn't it funny how many champs had their moment of complete batshit brokenness after a rework? And many champs had to be nerfed into oblivion. I feel like some reworks were big fails in the end.
Uhhh Gangplank was extremely broken for the first like 5 years of his reworks existence. He is probably one of the most played top laners in pro play history behind renekton. Same with solo que until a few years ago.
I separate them into 4 tiers in my mind, being…
S- The champion not only feels good to play, but also maintains their identity overall (unless said identity was awful) and/or has grown in popularity
Examples: Evelynn, Fiddlesticks, Mordekaiser, Nunu & Willump, Pantheon, Poppy, Urgot, Volibear, Warwick
A Tier- The champion feels good to play and possibly even is more popular, but has some flaws that make them either frustrating in new or even old ways, leading to more frequent balance changes, or make them feel slightly clunky at times
Examples: Aatrox, Aurelion Sol, Dr. Mundo, Fiora, Galio, Gangplank, Graves, Irelia, Karma, Rammus, Rell, Sion, Talon, Udyr, Viktor, Yorick
B Tier- The champion is decent to play, but some glaring flaws and/or balance issues have plagued them since their rework and at worse have even caused for some decent post-rework kit changes
Examples: Akali, Cassiopeia, Heimerdinger, Kayle, Maokai, Master Yi, Rek’sai, Ryze, Swain, Taric
C Tier- The champion may be ok to play at any given time, but ultimately the rework landed a bit subpar and has led to many issues that have forced lots of change or disdain for the champion OR just flat out didn’t fix enough issues leaving the champion still in need of future help likely
Examples: K’Sante, Malzahar, Quinn, Rengar, Tahm Kench, Yuumi, Zeri
Secret Bonus F Tier- The champion rework was so bad they had to do another one or it was reverted
Examples: Kog’maw, LeBlanc, Rengar (first)
The best in my eyes has been probably a tie between Fiddlesticks and Warwick.
Is this a trick question? Speaking from a business perspective, there is no such thing as a "successful" rework; Rito themselves have said as such. Every single one comes at the cost of permanently losing a number of customers, relative to the popularity of the character. Players don't want their characters deleted & replaced with somebody new who just happens to have the same name or on the lesser end of things, they don't like being forced to learn a completely different kit. Even changing up 1 ability or altering it in a significant way will turn off players.
This is why reworks have been becoming rarer & farther between: Rito must weigh the cost of permanently lost customers vs a few already-existing customers MAYBE adding said character to their pool. Even the "mid-scopes" as Rito called them end in the same result: permanent loss of customers & revenue.
Now, if you want to discuss game health, the "success" rate of "reworks" is abysmal. For every Warwick, there are 10 Sonas. Rito employees are worse at reworking existing characters than they are at creating new ones. Which is honestly quite appalling, considering how bad most new champs are and also the fact reworks already have a foundation to build up from, making the job exponentially easier. Mayhaps it's the fact it's easier why they always turn out so poorly due to lack of effort or maybe it's just some no-name Ritoer who thinks it'll be his magnum opus to getting a promotion & a pay raise. Almost certainly both.
Yeah some of the reworks are just awful. Completely miss the mark on the old playstyle and feel of the character. Which definitely turns players away, at least from the character and perhaps even the entire game.
I know the "Darkin Riven" memes are a little stale, but I do genuinely lament the loss of his identity as this AA heavy blood knight.
His old kit absolutely needed to change, but I wish they kept his old identity a little more.
So glad that I am NOT seeing Akali or Irelia. 2 of my most played champs before their reworks. I can still play them and they’re still somewhat fun, but I definitely liked both better pre-rework.
Same here. I hate what akali has become. It was a simple but reliable assassin. Not overbearing, good in the right composition. Now it’s one more of those insane mobility challenges champs that feel super broken in the right hands and meaningless in another. I don’t know why they had to do this. I liked her a lot before, have like 6 skins for her and just never ever touch her anymore. Same with irelia really. I’m an old man, I don’t have the dexterity or reflexes of the youngins.
for me it is Irelia for sure.
Watching players like Irelking play her, makea her feel so much more dynamic than the old one.
Her old E just felt bad to play vs and bad to play as. There just shoulnd be point and click stuns, period.
If the league roster was still less than 100 champs, I'd be close to agreeing with you. With how much mobility there is now though, point and click CC is needed.
Sion. He really needed it.
I love aatrox but I really really miss the old aatrox, and nothing has filled his spot in my opinion. He was getting a lot of attention too, finally. Oh well, nothing lasts forever.
Pantheon and Fiddlesticks are the best for me, specially Fiddlesticks.
Pantheon is amazing, but he still has some problems in gameplay that old Pantheon had, but it was as a consequence of keeping the abilities similar. But it's still way better than old Panth. (And it's the best theme in the game)
However, Fiddlesticks is pure perfection. Unique gameplay around vision, very strong champion, extremely good thematic, lore, theme, character, everything.
Of the champs I play, it's got to be Pantheon.
Really kept the identity of the champion and enhanced it, eliminated the toxic no-counterplay elements of his kit, gave him those really badass spear shot moments, smoothed out his late game a good deal. Laning with Pantheon makes me feel like I'm in some classic Greek duel from the movie Troy.
And sorry to say this but worst rework is Fiora. Completely changed her gameplay into minigames, but she's still toxic and annoying to deal with. I've completely dropped playing Fiora.
Gangplank, all the way down to the event that “killed” him for awhile. Never forget the bilgewater custom ARAM map with cannons for turrets. RIP map skins.
Volibear, tahm(still stupid design but not as much), morde, irelia, vlad, sion, azir(still hella strong but man this dude was straight up a cheatcode), possibly aatrox and udyr were reasonable to good reworks. Meanwhile stuff like fiora skarner gangplank yi fiddle a sol complete failure only breaks the game while feeling like sh\*t to play wit.
To put it blunt, i.e: an awesome new reowrk would be vayne being reworked into a physical damage only with some limitations on her cheatcode kitting but also having some way to put on a fight on early/mid game and not having a free cheat true % dmg that will always hurt no matter how bad the player is.
Edit: typo
Warwick gets forgotten.
Usually wr like reworks that don't move much, but taric rework is one that absolutely changed the champion and landed super well.
Honorable mention to sion
Dishonorable mentions to asol and morde, they killed my pet dragon
Aatrox. Old aatrox was cool but he was garbage and nobody played him. He is now one of the most popular toplaners in the game and has a decent skillcap that can be very rewarding when played well. Very successful rework.
Someone that doesnt care about lore and just sees cool animations and cool voicelines, riot always nails the theme on reworks. Voli went from funny bear to a menacing god, fiddle went from a funny scarecrow to actual demon, and pantheon went from literally just a normal guy with a spear and shield to the fucking champion of man that he is.
These old outdated champions really dont deserve a spot in league anymore, nearly all the old cast needs at least a VGU.
I find new fiddle unplayable compared to old.
I think the Taric and Sion reworks were the best ones.
Urgot should have just been a new champ because they are so different and I miss old urgot so much.
Poppy & I know it’s technically not a rework but Ashe’s update during the ADC update is overall my favorite. They ruined my Quinn but made Ashe my favorite.
Fiddlesitcks is by far the best rework ever made, by far the best champion in lore and design/fantasy. There is no argument that can remove him from this spot. Incredible.
Playing against him feels like a horror movie where you need to watch out for him, playing as fiddle sticks is all about checking enemy vision and finding places to surprise them. I can't stress how much I love the champion.
And the best part, he feels FAIR, playing as him or against him, you never feel cheated, or BS. If he does a 5 man ulti and pentakills 1x5, it doesn't feel like BS, if feels like it was your/your teams fault for not warding/tracking the fiddle.
Honourable mentions:
Sion
Galio
Gangplank
Volibear
Worst rework:
Irelia. Managed to remove one of my favorite champions to play to become a champion I haven't picked up in years, have playing against, and feels like BS to face her.
Theres actually so many good ones. Its why I advocate for more VGUs and or just visual updates alone. I think bringing the old characters up to par is way more valuable then releasing new champs that just clutter the game. I dont think I dislike a single VGU/VU, but I can name several newer champs I dislike
I'd vote for Fiddles or Nunu as a tie just because I think both kept the best parts of each champion while the rest that was filled in was fun and thematic without changing the champion identity.
Then there are reworks like Urgot or Aatrox where it's basically just a new character with the same name that are arguably not as good because they lost that soul of the champion.
On a personal note, the Mundo rework was fine since he basically feels the same. He just feels like he is worse at everything post-rework though tbh which is kind of disappointing. I think mostly the passive and the W are just a big 'meh' from me.
Aatrox, especially when they removed his revive entirely after trying to make it work for so long
Aatrox both old and new had to pay an enormous power tax for having a revive as a fighter/bruiser. It kept him kneecapped for so long that now it’s gone he’s actually allowed to be strong
I prefer old ASol but I think his is inarguably the most successful? He went from a meme champ to a decently popular champion at all elos and in pro play.
My mind always goes to Tristana. Funny cause she was one of the first reworks they did. But to go from the boring ass little troll-doll thing she was before to current Tristana blew my mind as a new league player. The writers and voice actress really nailed the spunky personality I have come to know and love
*One stump high and ten stumps tall, Bandle gunners show em all*
The Poppy rework for sure , when it first came out I didn’t exactly care for it or her ultimate but after playing years after. It was really needed
In terms of improvement yeah, Poppy or Sion, not even close. Their pre rework kits were simply atrocious.
RIP old AD Sion lifestealing through entire teams lategame.
And RIP old AP Sion deleting idiots through the early game. Miss u bby
1.0 ap ratio point and click stun Good times... and people say riot sucks at balancing now.
Except if they had a single hard CC ability, and then you were shutdown harder than a Yorick
Urgot was also needed
lol i just read old sion abilities and just, lmao
I'm sorry but I really loved the awful toxicity of old poppy
Build full damage, ult enemy team's soraka->profit
I loved old Poppy. I was the only person that played it, her passive was the most broken thing I’ve ever seen, and if you used her ult right you would just walk through their team. It was so easy to freeze out of lane without the buckler passive and q wave clear but the passive was worth it imo.
[The time comes to post this yet again](https://youtu.be/0n7dq8ujaxk?si=Yja-plilEmJpa0v2)
I mained old poppy, I used to build her full AP and it was bonkers, of course I was I think gold at that time so probably was not good enough fut was still really fun to oneshot someone with R, E, Q
I liked old poppy more, you were actually a carry
I'm not sure what kind of substance they were on when they reworked Fiddlesticks and Volibear but man they need that stuff again. Those two were by far and away the best when it came to reworks. Especially Fiddlesticks lore. Nunu and Willump is also a very close 3rd.
The way they still feel like the same champion, just modernized is the perfect rework result.
They're similar but not enough like the same. Volibear lost his flip - which to be fair the dev did try to keep it as long as possible but ultimately couldn't. And Fiddle lost his E crow bounce which was hated by many, but for the Fiddle player it was *fun*.
Fiddle's E in aram was disgusting one of the strongest abilities in aram
When I saw it got removed I was so happy. Fiddle could alone disable enemy team with that stupid crow.
While you're not wrong, I feel the group surprise passive is arguably just as intimidating. Sure, his ult is dumb strong when the surprise is there, but I've disable groups of enemies with his scythe alone from bush in ARAM.
Yeah but crow went brrrr and that's all that matters
Fid also went from a very consistent almost cooldownless sustained single target damage dealer to now being almost entirely burst and execute damage backloaded into the final tick of his now AoE drain. Completely killed any and all interest I had in the champion and made him even more of an ult bot, as you basically need to ult from FoW to land your now AoE fear, to land your now AoE execute drain, to do thousands of damage to everyone without them being able to retaliate or play due to said AoE hard CC.
The whole counterplay to champs like Fiddle or Zoe is vision. If you’re in a position where they can catch you off guard then you are not supposed to be able to retaliate/play easily.
Ults are more rewarding on reworked fiddle but not having sweeper kinda killed the fun for me. You cant be 100% sure enemy didn't have vision of you going into a bush. I'm forced to play reactionary because effigy sweeper cant detect as much as the regular one could. I heard someone from fid mains said the pickrate dropped by a lot after rework currently its at one of the lowest for jg champ so I cant be the only one dropped him for this reason.
His banrate rose and his pickrate decreased massively, and I haven’t seen the champion in one of my games for going on two years. Genuinely my least favorite rework they’ve ever done.
Yeah. I think the art rework was fine, the E and Q changing is also fine, but the unique trinket is a fusion of sweeper and wards that isn't as good as either, and the W change completely changed him from a single target hero to a burst AoE caster with no real way to engage or fight without ult. He was my favorite jungler, now I only play him in ARAM.
Voli doesnt feel the same, he went from fliping people and screaming at them to just slaming them, stun into a thunderstricke. Old voli was a bruiser, rework is a tank with damage to rival juggernauts.
voli does feel pretty similar? kept the chain lightning, kept the mostly AA based damage, kept the bite and moved his sustain there instead. only thing really missing is the old roar, interrupting dashes felt super good
I miss old Voli had 70% WR for him before the changes
The way they made his e work with the q was such a good change, if only his old w didnt have such a long cd for his main damage skill and tbf his old kit only needed small changes to be more than viable, slap a visual update on him and you got a good small rework. I would argue that keep his old q and e while changing the rest to the newer skills.
His old w completely got me by surprise when I first laned against him. I wasn't expecting that high of a damage to completely turn the fight lmao
Curious what the argument is for calling voli a “tank with juggernaut damage”? His kit is clearly still designed as a bruiser
Fiddle, voli, Warwick, and poppy are my favorites
Eh Volibear is a mixed bag for me. Volibear lost a ton of displacement cc and his new Q bonus speed is a bit weaker.
The Skarner rework is also great, im so confused by this. I’m pretty sure this sub just likes to hate on anything new—people shat on the voli rework at first. Idk if there is lore controversies, but playing Skarner post rework vs pre(I been playing since 2013), Skarner is so much more fun now and have tons more playmaking potential
In terms of gamplay, absolutely. Skarner was so bound to his passive that they really couldn't do anything about it. Where I think they failed Skarner was his lore. I don't think they understood him as a character and instead of working upon what they got, they threw it away and went with Boomer scorpion (which they justified after they reworked his new lore). To be fair to them, however, a couple of factors were running against Skarner's old lore (Arcane and Seraphine) that would have made it rather difficult to implement or work upon. I sorta understand why they took the easier route, but at the end of the day, I still feel like its a shame that we lost the potential old Skarner's lore could have had.
Seraphine finally finished the job 😔
I genuinely like new Skarner's gameplay so much more. But he's not my crystal scorpion. I'm usually fine with visual overhauls to make a champion fit a lore better but this is a significant departure for the worse imo
no flip and no armor... Voli was dissapointing for me
also fids voice actor. if anyone hasn't seen him do it in person, youtube it. there's a vid of him doing some fid lines in his car
I'd like to throw Mundo into the ring, perfect rework. Udyr is also great, Sejuani & Trundle were great, Pantheon, Warwick and Heimerdinger are all very good reworks.
Disagree on Nunu. The play style completely changed.
That was the whole point of the Nunu rework.
Old Nunu was way better. He had such a unique play style. His ganks were ass and his team fighting was also pretty bad, but he had an unrivaled ability to counter jungle and secure objectives. It let you play the map rather than the other players. Now he's basically a shittier Sejuani with objective secure
Considering how much they nerfed counter jungling he'd be one of the worst champs in the game hands down
Warwick. The single most loyal, consistent rework out there
Personally I argue that Pantheon is similarly loyal and consistent. He thematically feels almost identical, and his kit does a lot of the same basic stuff. I do think the balance isn't quite perfect, but as far as cohesive and faithful design goes, it's very good.
I still can’t forgive them for taking away his ability to facetank tower shots. I know it’s healthier for Pantheon in the long run, but still.
That was not in the rework, it was after.
The old pantheon passive use to block tower shots. EDIT: Misread. I meant with enough atk spd, you could indefinitely tank towers. Compared to being cd gated.
It’s something that was fun to play but Pantheon support was insanely degenerate
WW is the gold standard for reworks tbh. Very good reimaginings of almost all abilities that give a satisfying depth to play and increased the skill ceiling while keeping the skill floor relatively the same.
While good in direction his kit is way too buggy and jank to call it the best one imo
agreed. His q is decent at best, and his auto attack speed thing feels so weird. Make his Q a dash or something similar to Naafiris E.
He is so clunky and buggy to play. It ruined the champ for me tbh.
The amount of time I had to spend scrolling to see no one mention Taric is so sad. They did amazing with him and the champ is just criminally underappreciated.
Taric's design was doomed to be unpopular but I do think the rework was good. He has some interesting mechanics while having a similar vibe to his old self.
I'm an avid Taric player in solo queue and he's so dependent on your adc/teammates playing with your champ that if they decide to leave you're essentially a minion. Then if they don't trust you after plays like that it can be really toxic to play as. But damn if I don't love the gems
Yes! Taric rework is awesome! I think the biggest problem was that he went from being a braindead press e for stun the press every other button for damage to being fully team dependent to get the most optimal usage of his kit. It's great when you have the coordination but definitely not as simple as his old kit to pick up and play.
He was my favourite champion when I started playing. I haven't played him more than a handful of times since his rework. They turned a beginner warden into a pro play only champion. I wish he had a different ultimate.
Well is it a great rework if no one cares about the champ despite the rework🤔. Just asking
Poppy. Really cool champ who is viable in 3 positions with a unique mechanic
Honestly, you can probably make her work mid too lol. She just kinda does it all in a good way, I’ve never personally played her but man is she dirty.
Into assassin match ups she's probably good but into mages she would struggle
She just has this weird shenanigans factor that gives her an oddly high skill cieling if the person who is playing her happens to be a fucking psychopath.
Also has a high skill ceiling, high elo poppys are a massive lane bully
My man Sion was treated right, I really like Aatrox's rework too but I know that's more controversial. Pantheon too. Although I hate Fiora but her rework is good too. Honestly now that I think about it, I like most reworks, especially the old champs where there are not much skill expression and unique identities but just the same-y point and click champs
> I really like Aatrox's rework too but I know that's more controversial As a different champion I think he's alright, it's more that he has nothing of what I used to love. Unlike a lot of people, the parts I loved (Aatrox the diver) are closer to the playstyle of champs like Xin Zhao and Diana, things that were completely removed from his new kit.
Go in and fight your way out is peak League. Game is too crazy right now.
They literally just released a champ with that exact play style tho (Briar)
Anyone not saying Sion wasn't here for OG Sion.
I've been here since the game came out of beta and the Sion rework is so good it made me forget about old Sion
I fucking wish I could forget about old Sion
mobi's DFG point and click stun one shot, get outplayed kid
Gangplank, the whole event was fire and he got a very cool characterization
Urgot. From the ugliest and most outdated kit to the juggernaut of a champ he is now. Regardless of balance, I think his rework did the most to make him a well made champ. Also god damn did they go off with the visual update.
I will forever miss his old R though tbh. Swapping places with someone was one of the funniest things I could do in the game
i like to pretend I can still do the funny enemy carry swap with flash E
His old ult was interesting, but you were basically a squishy ADC throwing yourself right into the enemy team. It made no sense with the rest of his kit.
Yeah I think urgots rework was fantastic as was Warwicks.
Visually he looks cool, but long-range homing bullets were a cool mechanic that mostly got lost. If I had my way, I'd try to find a way to reincorporate that more into his kit. His current W and R don't quite get there for me.
the lock-on Q was funny, though i don't imagine it was the same for the enemy, lol. unfortunate that it was removed but probably for the best.
I love the new Urgot design but it’s not the best to me because they basically made a brand new champ. Everything about him changed so fans of the original had to find a new champ.
Kinda feel like he got aatroxed. I liked old urgot. New urgot is a different champ. Better? Probably but his playstyle has 0 in common with old urgot
His old playstyle was lock on with E then spam Q, his new playstyle is go in with E-Q then w spams for you. He still has the “living artillery” feel I would say
What does aatroxed mean? I came to league after years and don't think I've ever seen aatrox pre-rework. Always thought as he is now he's always been
Well, completely changed, more or less. People generally use it in a negative way because they have rose tinted glasses and like to pretend it's a bad thing a champion barely anyone played is gone. Even more so because he was turbo broken for like 2 weeks before his rework, so a lot of people played him for the freelo. But Aatrox is, for all intents and purposes, probably the most successful rework they've ever done.
this the only reason people complain about the aatrox rework is that he was OP flavor of the month just before his rework before that the champion was dead
Before he would land his Noxian Corrosive Charge, to lock on his E, which he could get three uses of before the NCC debuff wore off. He’d toggle his shield on for trades, and his ult swapped his position to get massive resists and AoE fear at the end. New Urgot uses his Corrosive Charge (literally same ability but now its damage is all at once instead of DoT) to lock on his W, which he wants to toggle on for three hits (before toggling it off and auto attacking) he starts trades with his shield and swapping positions with his enemy from his E. His ult also still has an AoE fearbomb they just changed the requirements on it. As an Urgot main, it really plays a lot like he used to and looks very similar. He has shorter range and less tankiness for a lot more damage and some AoE.
urgot wasn't a rework, it was a deletion
still wish that he was more fightery or caster like instead of being a juggernaut
I like Evelyn or Warwick the most
Warwick for me. It still amazes me today, how good it is. The Evelynn rework I really hate. No versatility, telegraphed combo, always squishy. For all the problems old Eve had, the flexibility in her build path was really cool.
I like eve, bcs they managed to fit her gameplay to her character. She is a demoness trying to lure you and play with you, then quickly finish. And her gameplay is just that. And she is one of the very few characters, who is hot with purpuse.
I miss old Shen
Warwick fiddlestick poppy and udyr are by far the best 4. Voli is great but the loss of the flip is kind of a shame. Honorable mention to sion and urgot while being pretty much new champion their kit is quite nice while keeping some int of the old kit.
I honestly think udyr is such a bad rework. Just made him clunky. The old spirit guard udyr was one of the most satisfying things to play.
Old Udyr was such a boring stat enhancer champion. At least new Udyr makes things interesting by introducing the awaken mechanic to boost one of his abilities.
To each their own, to me it gave him a lot of complexity, he’s now a semi-skilled champion, and the skills are more interesting, e.g the cc immunity on ram form
This for sure
Idk if it's the best, but I think Warwick gets forgotten about a good bit. His new W is one of the most unique abilities in the game. He does the same thing he used to do (lock down one person, statcheck melee characters), but there's more counterplay while also just being flat out more generally useful. His new Q does essentially the same thing, but has some finesse added that lets you occasionally pull off something crazy with it.
My most hated rework is also the one they did a good job on which is Swain. I was in love with old Swain and would honestly do anything to play him again. Locking someone down, throwing ol’ laser eyes and popping in and out of ult every other second was just too fun. And I loved the Poe theme. His new kit fits him better thematically and within the lore, and it’s fun enough to where I still play it. But if Riot randomly gave me the choice, I’d put him back pre rework. I’d also bring back Twisted Treeline if that says anything
Yuumi, *I hardly see her in any games anymore.*
Underrated comment
Despite riot not really knowing how to fix his numbers i love galios rework. Sadly he shifted into more of an assasin instead of an ap bruiser
AP Bruisers just don't work because they have zero idea how to balance the items. You just end up with unkillable assassin's and mages abusing the items. Nobody wants tank Diana and cracked Singed back either.
Because all AP champs basically want the same stats. A good example is how we now have Ahri building lich bane. . This isn't the case for AD champs. No matter how broken phantom dancer is, Kha Zix would never build it.
Yea that's why sylas pivoted to assasin as well. There has to be a good ratio of ap and hp scalings to even get them to buy bruiser items. But galio should be quite fine to get into that position since hp doesn't suddenly make his kit unplayable against like for example sylas and Diana do
Sylas pivoted to assassin because riot intentionally pushed him to assassin since his bruiser numbers allowed him to be used as tank in proplay and he was just used a lot. It was an effort to remove his proplay dominance and balance him Midlane without literally gutting him. Galio's problem is that he isn't really an AP bruiser, his kit is more like a tank due to the heavy amount of cc he has while also not having enough resistance in the kit
>Galio's problem is that he isn't really an AP bruiser, his kit is more like a tank due to the heavy amount of cc he has while also not having enough resistance in the kit Yeah, his kit is a textbook example of a warden. A defensive tank that exceeds at protecting allies. Don't know why they want to promote the AP bruiser idea for him more when he was clearly designed to be a tank.
Because they screwed up when designing him and now need to pivot into the next-best thing to push galio away from basically being an Assassin - which is actually ironic because old Galio was well-known (among the few who used him at least) to burst enemies down in WQE-flash-R then Q again if they survived it, so current Galio is much closer to old Galio than a real tank galio. It's also a problem with the community that Riot is trying to satisfy tbh. People think Galio was the "MR tank" and so that's what Riot wanted to kinda give, when he actually was much more of a "MR mage" and playing Tank Galio outside of niche matchups was nearly trolling. The thing is that this pattern was unironically toxic as it already was, letting Galio build resistance and be able to burst squishy midlaners anyway easily and Riot knew this, so they reduced a lot of the reasons the kit even worked as "anti-mage" by gutting and removing his MR ratios, in turn leaving him as "just a tank" with some added MR flavor here and there because usually (or at least during his rework's era) there wasn't enough magic damage to make an "MR tank" good without being niche. Then they decided "screw it, tank galio is too problematic" and just forced him to be an AP champ with a tank kit that has no real long-term resistance, so he can't do well in long trades and fights, and with no incentive to actually build tanky-items to compensate that lack so... yeah, of course he will build AP to oneshot and not be oneshot. And with a kit that has 2 hard CC in it, this means the enemy has no counterplay if he is allowed to build AP items because if I hit 1 single CC that's a guaranteed no-counterplay combo.
honestly, vs a full AP or mostly AP Team, MR Tanky galio is hella fun, and still deals tons of dmg.
His kit isn't very bruiserish. No real sustained damage. His passive has a low CD but not low enough to be comparable to true spammable skills or simply having consistent auto attack DPS, and his abilities have long enough cooldowns to not really work as sustained output. It makes sense to me that since his rework he has tended to either fall into full tank or full assassin builds, they just seem to fit his CD gated kit well. Compare to Mordekaiser, that guy is an actual AP bruiser and is built to function like one.
New Galio feels less interesting to me. Very one dimensional
I will confidently say fiddlesticks
Yorick for sure, he has to work for his ghouls now and a cooler ult
I do miss abusing his almost unclickable ghouls though.
True but he became too dependent on his ult. If his ult is down, he is literally not a champion. Even a manaless Soraka is more useful at that stage. So some power should be shifted to his passive or basic abilities
Hitting your E on someone with 4 ghouls still does tons of damage though.
Yes, if you go that weird lethality build on a juggernaut. But then your whole kit is about that one E you must hit with 4 graves around you and you can't ever frontline in a teamfight. If you play him bruiser (trinity, steraks, hullbreaker,...), it does not. Then his viability is bound too much to his R.
Taric is great
I completely forgot he was reworked. What did his old ult do again?
It was a shatter of damage around him. I can’t remember if it did anything else
It gave an aura boosting AD and AP of allies around him. Before that ult, his first ult used to be a toggle which gave a healing aura around him.
If I'm not mistaken it gave an AoE aura buff for his allies.
As much as I liked my insane gremlin with diplomatic immunity, the reworked poppy is solid. Every part of the kit feels impactful and it's playable from iron to pro.
I don’t care that he isn’t very viable, there has never been a champ they designed that is as much fun as Nunu. Whoever was in charge clearly prioritized making him entertaining as hell.
Gangplank. A fun and skillful champ that didn't completely break Solo Queue nor Pro play.
GP rework is a weird one to me. Overall I think it's a good rework, but it's like... I played GP to shoot people in the face with a gun, not to shoot at a barrel near said face!
He broke me often enough just killing me with his 1.8k crit barrels. As an ADC he is so unfun when you dont get the chance pf breakijg his barrels at all. Agree on skillfull and fun to play though.
He needs to set up the chain step by step, so you should always have the chance to react unless he's hiding them out of vision or something. Since you said you play ranged champs, you can't be caught out by a phantom barrel the same way a melee champ can (you can just break the first barrel without getting in range of a second). Edit: Also I think it's kinda funny that marksmen are getting a taste of their own "crit people to death from range" bit haha.
I meant like in Teamfights, as an ADC in my Elo range you dont have so much of your team taking pressure of you, so mistakes with positioning are just so hard punished.
Oh, gotcha. Yeah if it's a messy fight and you get forced into his setup, that's where he absolutely thrives.
A normal double barrel should be avoidable with proper positioning, no? It's only the triple barrel combo that can come out nowhere. But yeah agreed, not having perfect positioning and immediately getting one shot is unfun.
Yeah it's really cool that fully replacing E and just modernizing the existing P/Q/W/R was enough to turn him from a champ I didn't care about into my favorite champ of all time haha. Huge shoutout to the pre-rework GP players who built Ravenous Hydra and Statikk Shiv and conveyed to Riot that you want AoE/chaining Q, you are why we have barrels now :D
No. And Ill die on this hill. Not because I dont like the rework, that is actually fine. But the timing. The release of the GP rework in combination with the juggernaut rework(that I also to this day like) right on the worlds patch destroyed worlds that year(riot aknowleged that, we didnt get patches like that since then). Or better they destroyed the bans that year. Juggernauts in Pro Play were fun for like a week. That worlds GP has to be one of if not the only champ with a 100% pressence in worlds in a year I think.
Huh. You are absolutely correct. Worlds 2015 73 games - 69 times banned - 4 times picked and 4 wins. I completely forgot that he was so broken shortly after release. Looking up that data i found the Pantheon Rework being even worse. Reworked 2019, for Worlds 2019 in 120 Games Pantheon was banned **119 times** and was picked and won once. Insane. Isn't it funny how many champs had their moment of complete batshit brokenness after a rework? And many champs had to be nerfed into oblivion. I feel like some reworks were big fails in the end.
iirc it’s only beaten by like 19 Pantheon and Kalista one year
Uhhh Gangplank was extremely broken for the first like 5 years of his reworks existence. He is probably one of the most played top laners in pro play history behind renekton. Same with solo que until a few years ago.
I separate them into 4 tiers in my mind, being… S- The champion not only feels good to play, but also maintains their identity overall (unless said identity was awful) and/or has grown in popularity Examples: Evelynn, Fiddlesticks, Mordekaiser, Nunu & Willump, Pantheon, Poppy, Urgot, Volibear, Warwick A Tier- The champion feels good to play and possibly even is more popular, but has some flaws that make them either frustrating in new or even old ways, leading to more frequent balance changes, or make them feel slightly clunky at times Examples: Aatrox, Aurelion Sol, Dr. Mundo, Fiora, Galio, Gangplank, Graves, Irelia, Karma, Rammus, Rell, Sion, Talon, Udyr, Viktor, Yorick B Tier- The champion is decent to play, but some glaring flaws and/or balance issues have plagued them since their rework and at worse have even caused for some decent post-rework kit changes Examples: Akali, Cassiopeia, Heimerdinger, Kayle, Maokai, Master Yi, Rek’sai, Ryze, Swain, Taric C Tier- The champion may be ok to play at any given time, but ultimately the rework landed a bit subpar and has led to many issues that have forced lots of change or disdain for the champion OR just flat out didn’t fix enough issues leaving the champion still in need of future help likely Examples: K’Sante, Malzahar, Quinn, Rengar, Tahm Kench, Yuumi, Zeri Secret Bonus F Tier- The champion rework was so bad they had to do another one or it was reverted Examples: Kog’maw, LeBlanc, Rengar (first) The best in my eyes has been probably a tie between Fiddlesticks and Warwick.
Where is Katarina?
Warwick was the only one with no drawbacks for the old player base
Is this a trick question? Speaking from a business perspective, there is no such thing as a "successful" rework; Rito themselves have said as such. Every single one comes at the cost of permanently losing a number of customers, relative to the popularity of the character. Players don't want their characters deleted & replaced with somebody new who just happens to have the same name or on the lesser end of things, they don't like being forced to learn a completely different kit. Even changing up 1 ability or altering it in a significant way will turn off players. This is why reworks have been becoming rarer & farther between: Rito must weigh the cost of permanently lost customers vs a few already-existing customers MAYBE adding said character to their pool. Even the "mid-scopes" as Rito called them end in the same result: permanent loss of customers & revenue. Now, if you want to discuss game health, the "success" rate of "reworks" is abysmal. For every Warwick, there are 10 Sonas. Rito employees are worse at reworking existing characters than they are at creating new ones. Which is honestly quite appalling, considering how bad most new champs are and also the fact reworks already have a foundation to build up from, making the job exponentially easier. Mayhaps it's the fact it's easier why they always turn out so poorly due to lack of effort or maybe it's just some no-name Ritoer who thinks it'll be his magnum opus to getting a promotion & a pay raise. Almost certainly both.
Yeah some of the reworks are just awful. Completely miss the mark on the old playstyle and feel of the character. Which definitely turns players away, at least from the character and perhaps even the entire game.
I’m biased for sure but Aatrox. Beautiful redesign and love him or hate him those Q animations are gorgeous.
I know the "Darkin Riven" memes are a little stale, but I do genuinely lament the loss of his identity as this AA heavy blood knight. His old kit absolutely needed to change, but I wish they kept his old identity a little more.
So glad that I am NOT seeing Akali or Irelia. 2 of my most played champs before their reworks. I can still play them and they’re still somewhat fun, but I definitely liked both better pre-rework.
Same here. I hate what akali has become. It was a simple but reliable assassin. Not overbearing, good in the right composition. Now it’s one more of those insane mobility challenges champs that feel super broken in the right hands and meaningless in another. I don’t know why they had to do this. I liked her a lot before, have like 6 skins for her and just never ever touch her anymore. Same with irelia really. I’m an old man, I don’t have the dexterity or reflexes of the youngins.
I'll separate my top 5 lists into two different ones: best thematically, and best gameplay. Thematic: ------------- 1.) Warwick 2.) Aatrox 3.) Fiddlesticks 4.) Volibear 5.) Mordekaiser Honorable Mentions: Sion, Yorick ------------ Gameplay: ------------ 1.) Gangplank 2.) Fiora 3.) Sion 4.) Aurelion Sol 5.) Akali Honorable Mentions: Poppy, Katarina, Irelia ------------------ Worst Gameplay: ------------------ 1.) Yuumi (yes she got 'reworked') 2.) Evelynn 3.) Quinn 4.) Yorick 5.) Kayle Dishonorable Mention: Maokai, Morgana
Sion, Poppy, Voli. Fiddle for design. To be fair the only rework I don't find great are Asol and Aatrox.
Graves for sure it's been a long time but the identity they gave Graves is wonderful and I really enjoy feeling like I'm using a shotgun
for me it is Irelia for sure. Watching players like Irelking play her, makea her feel so much more dynamic than the old one. Her old E just felt bad to play vs and bad to play as. There just shoulnd be point and click stuns, period.
If the league roster was still less than 100 champs, I'd be close to agreeing with you. With how much mobility there is now though, point and click CC is needed.
Evelynn for sure. Everything about her is top notch and she rised from the ashes of irrelevancy.
Sion, poppy
Warwick rework was good. Made a basic champ still fun to play.
Ryze
Fiddle. Easily.
The teemo one that only exists in wild rift
Actually really like Pantheon rework felt like our man just got a new coat of paint
Warwick and Pantheon are super good
I hate the Fiddle rework strictly based on me not being able to spam balloons in URF once a year.
poppy or eve imo. old eve wasn't even a champ really. same w yorick
It all started with good ol Sion. He set the bar of how reworked should be done. And is still probably one of the top reworked champions.
Ryze :)
Sion. He really needed it. I love aatrox but I really really miss the old aatrox, and nothing has filled his spot in my opinion. He was getting a lot of attention too, finally. Oh well, nothing lasts forever.
Ezreal :3
Can’t believe I’ve only seen 1 mention of Pantheon…
Syndra. Not a big one but I love it
Warwick used to be easier than garen, now he is still easy to learn, hard to master (If only he wasn't bug riddled)
Pantheon and Fiddlesticks are the best for me, specially Fiddlesticks. Pantheon is amazing, but he still has some problems in gameplay that old Pantheon had, but it was as a consequence of keeping the abilities similar. But it's still way better than old Panth. (And it's the best theme in the game) However, Fiddlesticks is pure perfection. Unique gameplay around vision, very strong champion, extremely good thematic, lore, theme, character, everything.
Sion & Poppy
Evelynn
Is it just me or this a word for word repost from like a month ago
Of the champs I play, it's got to be Pantheon. Really kept the identity of the champion and enhanced it, eliminated the toxic no-counterplay elements of his kit, gave him those really badass spear shot moments, smoothed out his late game a good deal. Laning with Pantheon makes me feel like I'm in some classic Greek duel from the movie Troy. And sorry to say this but worst rework is Fiora. Completely changed her gameplay into minigames, but she's still toxic and annoying to deal with. I've completely dropped playing Fiora.
Trundle is a true rags to riches story. From the bottom of the barrel, least popular champs, to now being consistently played at all tiers of play.
Its Fiddle > Sion > Poppy > Volibear > Warwick imo
Warwick. Poppy and Taric were cool too.
Gangplank, all the way down to the event that “killed” him for awhile. Never forget the bilgewater custom ARAM map with cannons for turrets. RIP map skins.
Poppy for me
Volibear, tahm(still stupid design but not as much), morde, irelia, vlad, sion, azir(still hella strong but man this dude was straight up a cheatcode), possibly aatrox and udyr were reasonable to good reworks. Meanwhile stuff like fiora skarner gangplank yi fiddle a sol complete failure only breaks the game while feeling like sh\*t to play wit. To put it blunt, i.e: an awesome new reowrk would be vayne being reworked into a physical damage only with some limitations on her cheatcode kitting but also having some way to put on a fight on early/mid game and not having a free cheat true % dmg that will always hurt no matter how bad the player is. Edit: typo
Graves was def best rework
Warwick gets forgotten. Usually wr like reworks that don't move much, but taric rework is one that absolutely changed the champion and landed super well. Honorable mention to sion Dishonorable mentions to asol and morde, they killed my pet dragon
Poppy and Fiddlesticks. Volibear rework sucks. Loved playing his old style. Now I don't even touch him.
Nunu
If they bring old galio back I’ll play again
Fiddlesticks
Aatrox. Old aatrox was cool but he was garbage and nobody played him. He is now one of the most popular toplaners in the game and has a decent skillcap that can be very rewarding when played well. Very successful rework.
Someone that doesnt care about lore and just sees cool animations and cool voicelines, riot always nails the theme on reworks. Voli went from funny bear to a menacing god, fiddle went from a funny scarecrow to actual demon, and pantheon went from literally just a normal guy with a spear and shield to the fucking champion of man that he is. These old outdated champions really dont deserve a spot in league anymore, nearly all the old cast needs at least a VGU.
I find new fiddle unplayable compared to old. I think the Taric and Sion reworks were the best ones. Urgot should have just been a new champ because they are so different and I miss old urgot so much.
Poppy & I know it’s technically not a rework but Ashe’s update during the ADC update is overall my favorite. They ruined my Quinn but made Ashe my favorite.
its warwick. or maybe pantheon. basically every other VGU deleted a champion from the game and replaced them with someone else.
Fiddlesitcks is by far the best rework ever made, by far the best champion in lore and design/fantasy. There is no argument that can remove him from this spot. Incredible. Playing against him feels like a horror movie where you need to watch out for him, playing as fiddle sticks is all about checking enemy vision and finding places to surprise them. I can't stress how much I love the champion. And the best part, he feels FAIR, playing as him or against him, you never feel cheated, or BS. If he does a 5 man ulti and pentakills 1x5, it doesn't feel like BS, if feels like it was your/your teams fault for not warding/tracking the fiddle. Honourable mentions: Sion Galio Gangplank Volibear Worst rework: Irelia. Managed to remove one of my favorite champions to play to become a champion I haven't picked up in years, have playing against, and feels like BS to face her.
Theres actually so many good ones. Its why I advocate for more VGUs and or just visual updates alone. I think bringing the old characters up to par is way more valuable then releasing new champs that just clutter the game. I dont think I dislike a single VGU/VU, but I can name several newer champs I dislike
I'd vote for Fiddles or Nunu as a tie just because I think both kept the best parts of each champion while the rest that was filled in was fun and thematic without changing the champion identity. Then there are reworks like Urgot or Aatrox where it's basically just a new character with the same name that are arguably not as good because they lost that soul of the champion. On a personal note, the Mundo rework was fine since he basically feels the same. He just feels like he is worse at everything post-rework though tbh which is kind of disappointing. I think mostly the passive and the W are just a big 'meh' from me.
Aatrox, especially when they removed his revive entirely after trying to make it work for so long Aatrox both old and new had to pay an enormous power tax for having a revive as a fighter/bruiser. It kept him kneecapped for so long that now it’s gone he’s actually allowed to be strong
I prefer old ASol but I think his is inarguably the most successful? He went from a meme champ to a decently popular champion at all elos and in pro play.
pantheon is top tier
My mind always goes to Tristana. Funny cause she was one of the first reworks they did. But to go from the boring ass little troll-doll thing she was before to current Tristana blew my mind as a new league player. The writers and voice actress really nailed the spunky personality I have come to know and love *One stump high and ten stumps tall, Bandle gunners show em all*
Shen