[Patch 1.0.0.133: Ziggs] General Discussion - Page 36

chaotic/unorganized ramble on aps:

Zilean is still useless always hated that champion glad to see him go out of favor.

He just doesn't -do- anything. Past early game, 2x bombs is not enough damage vs a team that knows how to spread out, and the ult is completely useless in many fights, by the time someone dies and gets revived, the fight has ended and the other team can just stomp the guy as he revives. no CC and no damage, ok utility = not a great champion when there are sooo many other APs out there.

I hesitate to say this because literally everyone is gonna jump on mem for this but I think Xerath hype on team liquid is highly overrated. He has no reliable CC since his E is single target and while good range not powerful and potent enough to initiate. It's only real use is stunning people who stray in your direction. His damage is highly overstated, especially in games where laning phase ends with both teams relatively even. His damage is abysmal, in fact if you fall behind, and with no solid utility beyond range, you're not going to accomplihs much. Your ult has low cooldown but not low enough that you can siege up and poke when teams are circling around objectives waiting to initiate, which only really leaves your Q. Great range, ok cooldown, but the damage if you're even/behind really isn't that good. For one, 1300 range is -not- enough to safely reach any squishy targets that you can actually hurt without leaving yourself open to initiation. If you move up to siege, the other team can see that and jump on you since siege still has a small cast time. In a poking war, there really are people who are comparable to Xerath who lose out on a modicum of range but makes up for it with increased utility. Orianna and Karthus come to mind, and also Ryze since it's a point click and the lower range is countered by the fact that Ryze gets quite tanky as the game progresses. The W damage is also overestimated since you're maxing E before W for the extra damage, and 10% mpen is not a lot of extra damage early game and rarely do we see games go to max levels these days. The ult damage is good but the AoE really isn't huge. A problem with Xerath is that as the team fight erupts, you want to abuse your long range but that naturally spreads out your team with your tanky divers going after their carries, which usually stretches out their team as their tanks/peelers move up and carries move back. The result is that you're hitting their front line guys from a safe distance, but are contributing very little to damage on targets that matter. As someone without reliable CC, you're kind of iffy as a peeler for your carries who're going to be relatively close to you.

Xerath is a great champion and exerts a lot of lane control vs. many opponents, but the way you see people on TL post you'd think he's number 1 op champion right now and I really think that is very very far from the truth.

I don't think Brand is underplayed at all, he always had inherent issues with dropoff after midgame and difficulties maximizing damage in team fights - need good ult bounces and good aoe cc to keep everyone in your pillar. His abusice laning was one of his strongest points, and the E range nerf hurt him a lot. Initiating in-lane trades with W reduces your damage output by a huge chunk, and increased vulnerability with the E range nerf definitely toned down his laning significantly. I don't think he's necessarily bad, but, again, so many APs that do just as much/more than he does without a lot of his drawbacks.

In general I think AP mid is a very volatile position just due to the vast number of APs that any small change can upset who are the "best" APs. It's a very small difference and a lot of APs are pretty good, but any small nerf/buff can catapult one from the bottom to the top or vice versa. Another example I can think of this is Malzahar. For a while was super FotM in tournaments but then got a tiny ult damage nerf and small pool damage nerf. combined with the increased prevalence of characters with more and more range and m ore and more lane dominance, Malz fell out of favor pretty hard, and I think it's very understandable. I don't consider him anywhere near a top AP pick right now. Power creep does have something to do with it also tbh ;d

Swain is definitely underplayed though, es very strong, do damages and never die.