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United States47024 Posts
On August 14 2015 02:51 Seuss wrote:
I agree that rooting is dangerous and requires appropriate compensation for the danger, but I think you're overstating how much compensation is needed in Xerath's case. The penetration W provided Xerath was fundamentally broken. It's simply not healthy for the game for a champion to effectively ignore 84-144 MR off roughly 4,5k in items.
I've heard you say this, but why is it "not healthy"? It's not a systemic mechanic and alters how he individually interacts with particular champions relative to their respective power curves. What's unhealthy about it?
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On August 14 2015 03:08 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 02:51 Seuss wrote:
I agree that rooting is dangerous and requires appropriate compensation for the danger, but I think you're overstating how much compensation is needed in Xerath's case. The penetration W provided Xerath was fundamentally broken. It's simply not healthy for the game for a champion to effectively ignore 84-144 MR off roughly 4,5k in items.
I've heard you say this, but why is it "not healthy"? It's not a systemic mechanic and alters how he individually interacts with particular champions relative to their respective power curves. What's unhealthy about it?
It made him a tankbuster for free. Which makes no sense because he has no real reason to get to be a tank buster outside of being rooted.
There is alot of Xerath hate in this forum. It became an echo chamber for the last page o.0
I take the opposite stance to Ketara et al and say that its Lux is the flat experience, not Xerath. Xerath right now exists in the space of Long Range Control Mage. Ziggs exists in the Long Range Siege Mage. Both dont see play because they dont have the midrange aoe hard cc that is necessary to handle tanklines (i.e. Ori ult, Viktor W, Azir Wall) at my best guess. You get on them, They're dead. Lux by comparison has mediocre burst, long cooldowns and a shield, all of which are subpar. When she was strong most recently she had better wave control than Ziggs with 0 risk associated, they took that away and now shes just ... bleh. Its been eons since her burst was actually relevant or that you could get through laning phase with her without being at a disadvantage (Late S2, when laning was long enough for it to a safe bet lux would come online and we had no midlaners for competition).
So what you're really complaining about is that Lux is still underpowered and has no real niche in the game, not that Xerath is generic. Xerath has a very clearly defined niche in the game and its different from Ziggs. Lux is the one who is much ado about nothing.
To keep poking at the tiger, here is what I say we do to Lux. Give her back her stealth (that was rumored to be on her kit in development), and give her a touch of mana cost buffs/damage buffs across the board. Now shes a vision control mage with the best midgame of the 4 (Lux, Xerath, Ziggs and Kog). She only has 3 offensive abilities all with long cds, so she doesnt have the best waveclear, doesnt have the best siege and doesnt scale the hardest. But now given a midgame Mejais and appropriate waveclear, Lux is the single strongest siege mage in the game midgame. Would be way more fun to play too. Think Midlane Twitch.
:D
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On August 14 2015 02:51 Seuss wrote:It's important to note that while Xerath's root provided an opportunity to punish him, it was a very brief one. The animations for rooting and unrooting were 0.5 seconds each, meaning even if you moved to punish Xerath the instant he rooted you only had 1 second to reach him, otherwise he'd zoom off with his W speed boost. Some types of flash engages were good at this (e.g. Sejuani, Malphite), but that's something a good Xerath could play around.
1 second of doing nothing, all of his spells had cast times, so it was minimum 1 second, if you cast no spells.
Look lets not confuse things, I think old Xerath was super strong and would be OP now that assassins aren't nearly as good as they were when he existed, but if you want to keep the root mechanic you can't give him some garbage stuff he doesn't need, like overkilling squishes he already one combo'd if they got in mage chain range when his ult was up
@ above I actually think Lux is cool, she has more utility than the other long range poke mages, and she also fills the void left by old Xerath being removed of having pick potential.
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On August 14 2015 03:36 Purge wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 03:08 TheYango wrote:On August 14 2015 02:51 Seuss wrote:
I agree that rooting is dangerous and requires appropriate compensation for the danger, but I think you're overstating how much compensation is needed in Xerath's case. The penetration W provided Xerath was fundamentally broken. It's simply not healthy for the game for a champion to effectively ignore 84-144 MR off roughly 4,5k in items.
I've heard you say this, but why is it "not healthy"? It's not a systemic mechanic and alters how he individually interacts with particular champions relative to their respective power curves. What's unhealthy about it? It made him a tankbuster for free. Which makes no sense because he has no real reason to get to be a tank buster outside of being rooted. There is alot of Xerath hate in this forum. It became an echo chamber for the last page o.0 I take the opposite stance to Ketara et al and say that its Lux is the flat experience, not Xerath. Xerath right now exists in the space of Long Range Control Mage. Ziggs exists in the Long Range Siege Mage. Both dont see play because they dont have the midrange aoe hard cc that is necessary to handle tanklines (i.e. Ori ult, Viktor W, Azir Wall) at my best guess. You get on them, They're dead. Lux by comparison has mediocre burst, long cooldowns and a shield, all of which are subpar. When she was strong most recently she had better wave control than Ziggs with 0 risk associated, they took that away and now shes just ... bleh. Its been eons since her burst was actually relevant or that you could get through laning phase with her without being at a disadvantage (Late S2, when laning was long enough for it to a safe bet lux would come online and we had no midlaners for competition). So what you're really complaining about is that Lux is still underpowered and has no real niche in the game, not that Xerath is generic. Xerath has a very clearly defined niche in the game and its different from Ziggs. Lux is the one who is much ado about nothing. To keep poking at the tiger, here is what I say we do to Lux. Give her back her stealth (that was rumored to be on her kit in development), and give her a touch of mana cost buffs/damage buffs across the board. Now shes a vision control mage with the best midgame of the 4 (Lux, Xerath, Ziggs and Kog). She only has 3 offensive abilities all with long cds, so she doesnt have the best waveclear, doesnt have the best siege and doesnt scale the hardest. But now given a midgame Mejais and appropriate waveclear, Lux is the single strongest siege mage in the game midgame. Would be way more fun to play too. Think Midlane Twitch. :D
Ugh, please no on more stealth. Only twitch isn't a totally stupid champ with it, and that's basically because he always is in vision or blown up if close enough to make good use of it.
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United States47024 Posts
On August 14 2015 03:36 Purge wrote:
It made him a tankbuster for free. Which makes no sense because he has no real reason to get to be a tank buster outside of being rooted.
Except that a no-mobility long engagement range caster would naturally be good against low-mobility, short engagement-range heroes. Being a "tank-buster" is like the most natural place for him to be.
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On August 14 2015 03:08 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 02:51 Seuss wrote:
I agree that rooting is dangerous and requires appropriate compensation for the danger, but I think you're overstating how much compensation is needed in Xerath's case. The penetration W provided Xerath was fundamentally broken. It's simply not healthy for the game for a champion to effectively ignore 84-144 MR off roughly 4,5k in items.
I've heard you say this, but why is it "not healthy"? It's not a systemic mechanic and alters how he individually interacts with particular champions relative to their respective power curves. What's unhealthy about it?
Partly because it's not systemic. It's counter-intuitive for there to be one AP Carry for whom building MR as a counter is practically worthless. This also reduced the effectiveness of building Health as a counter, because the multiplicative effect of MR was lost.
Maybe if the itemization in LoL was more DotA-esque that'd be fine, but in the absences of tools like Force Staff, Mekansm, and Pipe Xerath's penetration had deleterious effects on his balance.
On August 14 2015 03:37 Slusher wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 02:51 Seuss wrote:It's important to note that while Xerath's root provided an opportunity to punish him, it was a very brief one. The animations for rooting and unrooting were 0.5 seconds each, meaning even if you moved to punish Xerath the instant he rooted you only had 1 second to reach him, otherwise he'd zoom off with his W speed boost. Some types of flash engages were good at this (e.g. Sejuani, Malphite), but that's something a good Xerath could play around. 1 second of doing nothing, all of his spells had cast times, so it was minimum 1 second, if you cast no spells. Look lets not confuse things, I think old Xerath was super strong and would be OP now that assassins aren't nearly as good as they were when he existed, but if you want to keep the root mechanic you can't give him some garbage stuff he doesn't need, like overkilling squishes he already one combo'd if they got in mage chain range when his ult was up @ above I actually think Lux is cool, she has more utility than the other long range poke mages, and she also fills the void left by old Xerath being removed of having pick potential.
His numbers were intentionally suppressed back then, if he'd be super OP now they'd probably just remove the penetration entirely without compensation as an Olaf fix while figuring things out.
The point of adding another ability/spell via his W is to give him something interesting when his ult isn't up. That was the major mechanical problem with Xerath, when your ult was down you really didn't have much outside of Q.
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On August 14 2015 04:03 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 03:36 Purge wrote:
It made him a tankbuster for free. Which makes no sense because he has no real reason to get to be a tank buster outside of being rooted.
Except that a no-mobility long engagement range caster would naturally be good against low-mobility, short engagement-range heroes. Being a "tank-buster" is like the most natural place for him to be.
Here is the Dev blog
The basic premise is you cannot have a tank buster who tanks cannot ever reach. Its BS to play against.
On August 14 2015 03:59 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 03:36 Purge wrote:On August 14 2015 03:08 TheYango wrote:On August 14 2015 02:51 Seuss wrote:
I agree that rooting is dangerous and requires appropriate compensation for the danger, but I think you're overstating how much compensation is needed in Xerath's case. The penetration W provided Xerath was fundamentally broken. It's simply not healthy for the game for a champion to effectively ignore 84-144 MR off roughly 4,5k in items.
I've heard you say this, but why is it "not healthy"? It's not a systemic mechanic and alters how he individually interacts with particular champions relative to their respective power curves. What's unhealthy about it? It made him a tankbuster for free. Which makes no sense because he has no real reason to get to be a tank buster outside of being rooted. There is alot of Xerath hate in this forum. It became an echo chamber for the last page o.0 I take the opposite stance to Ketara et al and say that its Lux is the flat experience, not Xerath. Xerath right now exists in the space of Long Range Control Mage. Ziggs exists in the Long Range Siege Mage. Both dont see play because they dont have the midrange aoe hard cc that is necessary to handle tanklines (i.e. Ori ult, Viktor W, Azir Wall) at my best guess. You get on them, They're dead. Lux by comparison has mediocre burst, long cooldowns and a shield, all of which are subpar. When she was strong most recently she had better wave control than Ziggs with 0 risk associated, they took that away and now shes just ... bleh. Its been eons since her burst was actually relevant or that you could get through laning phase with her without being at a disadvantage (Late S2, when laning was long enough for it to a safe bet lux would come online and we had no midlaners for competition). So what you're really complaining about is that Lux is still underpowered and has no real niche in the game, not that Xerath is generic. Xerath has a very clearly defined niche in the game and its different from Ziggs. Lux is the one who is much ado about nothing. To keep poking at the tiger, here is what I say we do to Lux. Give her back her stealth (that was rumored to be on her kit in development), and give her a touch of mana cost buffs/damage buffs across the board. Now shes a vision control mage with the best midgame of the 4 (Lux, Xerath, Ziggs and Kog). She only has 3 offensive abilities all with long cds, so she doesnt have the best waveclear, doesnt have the best siege and doesnt scale the hardest. But now given a midgame Mejais and appropriate waveclear, Lux is the single strongest siege mage in the game midgame. Would be way more fun to play too. Think Midlane Twitch. :D Ugh, please no on more stealth. Only twitch isn't a totally stupid champ with it, and that's basically because he always is in vision or blown up if close enough to make good use of it.
Lux has awful base ms, terrible cds and terrible base damage outside of a perfectly lined up combo. It doesnt have to be as long as twitches (which I agree would make her horribly, horribly OP) or give her an MS bonus like Twitch. its already a shield. it just has to make her able to cross wards without being seen, forcing you to change how you ward against her and how you play out your midgame. All it does is opens up more actually interesting plays imo.
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United States47024 Posts
On August 14 2015 04:32 Purge wrote:Here is the Dev blogThe basic premise is you cannot have a tank buster who tanks cannot ever reach. Its BS to play against.
I mean, that's a very shortsighted, 1v1 approach to the game that's also inconsistent with other aspects of the game.
Champions aren't self-sufficient against all other champions. It's a team game. Just as ADCs rely on frontliners to provide crowd control and defense, it's literally just the same dynamic that a tank requires a mobile engagement hero to deal with Xerath and cannot intrinsically deal with him on his own.
If that's going to be their argument then the support role is fundamentally flawed because it's intrinsically not a self-sufficient role.
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I never really liked their dev blog on the subject. Take these two paragraphs:
First off, Xerath’s decision making was very simple and non-interesting. Instead of having to ask things like “what are my teammates doing?” or “how am I positioning myself,” Xerath’s decision tree really came down to: “is my ult available to cast?” To make things worse, there was very little that Xerath could do while his ultimate was down.
Secondly, Xerath occupied a very awkward niche: a tank buster who could output significant damage from off screen. When a champion lacks the tools to dodge damage, they should be allowed to buy defensive items or keep their distance from the source of damage. None of these were viable options against Xerath thanks to his high spell penetration.
If the first is a problem and is removed/fixed, then the second is no longer a problem by the very way they define it.
I also found their reasons for removing W to be fairly shallow. It's clear they really removed W because they couldn't think of a way to fix the "Xerath's playstyle is fundamentally boring/simplistic when his ult is down" without adding a new skill, and W was the obvious sacrifice because it wasn't a skill that did damage.
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United States47024 Posts
On August 14 2015 04:51 Seuss wrote:
I also found their reasons for removing W to be fairly shallow. It's clear they really removed W because they couldn't think of a way to fix the "Xerath's playstyle is fundamentally boring/simplistic when his ult is down" without adding a new skill, and W was the obvious sacrifice because it wasn't a skill that did damage.
Which is why I think Ketara's suggestion of making it Xerath's passive makes more sense.
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On August 14 2015 04:53 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 04:51 Seuss wrote:
I also found their reasons for removing W to be fairly shallow. It's clear they really removed W because they couldn't think of a way to fix the "Xerath's playstyle is fundamentally boring/simplistic when his ult is down" without adding a new skill, and W was the obvious sacrifice because it wasn't a skill that did damage. Which is why I think Ketara's suggestion of making it Xerath's passive makes more sense.
It seems like a natural shoe-in for a passive, but I think there are a few problems with that idea.
First, the cooldown on W (while possibly undertuned at low ranks) was necessary to constrain his laning phase. Complete freedom to pelt away at 1300 range during laning isn't something to be granted lightly. You can't replicate that aspect of his W with a passive unless you essentially make it a fifth active. Otherwise you have a passive with a cooldown that gets activated by the player accidentally standing still too long (which is just a terrible idea).
Second, the root on W was another critical aspect of Xerath's balance; it's what opened the window for assassins to take him out. If Xerath has complete freedom of movement, with only a temporary range reduction while moving, it becomes much harder for him to be assassinated, costing him in other areas. The same logic regarding cooldowns and his passive applies for roots as well.
If you're going to just say "Screw the root and the cooldown" then I guess the passive works (though I maintain that this will end up limiting him severely), but I think my proposed design is intuitive enough to work, especially in a world where stuff like Kalista's ult exists.
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Secondly, Xerath occupied a very awkward niche: a tank buster who could output significant damage from off screen. When a champion lacks the tools to dodge damage, they should be allowed to buy defensive items or keep their distance from the source of damage. None of these were viable options against Xerath thanks to his high spell penetration.
Im assuming that link is still blue for you.
In any case im not sure why people are still harping on this, given that Riot is never going to roll back to old Xerath. he might as well be dead and gone. The real meat of the discussion is whether or not the rework style was good. I still think its fine :D
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I find the rework fundamentally boring because his skills basically have nothing to do with one another. He's viable but he isn't interesting. He's basically Ziggs that has windup and needs to fire his ult three times.
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On August 14 2015 04:32 Purge wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 04:03 TheYango wrote:On August 14 2015 03:36 Purge wrote:
It made him a tankbuster for free. Which makes no sense because he has no real reason to get to be a tank buster outside of being rooted.
Except that a no-mobility long engagement range caster would naturally be good against low-mobility, short engagement-range heroes. Being a "tank-buster" is like the most natural place for him to be. Here is the Dev blogThe basic premise is you cannot have a tank buster who tanks cannot ever reach. Its BS to play against. Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 03:59 cLutZ wrote:On August 14 2015 03:36 Purge wrote:On August 14 2015 03:08 TheYango wrote:On August 14 2015 02:51 Seuss wrote:
I agree that rooting is dangerous and requires appropriate compensation for the danger, but I think you're overstating how much compensation is needed in Xerath's case. The penetration W provided Xerath was fundamentally broken. It's simply not healthy for the game for a champion to effectively ignore 84-144 MR off roughly 4,5k in items.
I've heard you say this, but why is it "not healthy"? It's not a systemic mechanic and alters how he individually interacts with particular champions relative to their respective power curves. What's unhealthy about it? It made him a tankbuster for free. Which makes no sense because he has no real reason to get to be a tank buster outside of being rooted. There is alot of Xerath hate in this forum. It became an echo chamber for the last page o.0 I take the opposite stance to Ketara et al and say that its Lux is the flat experience, not Xerath. Xerath right now exists in the space of Long Range Control Mage. Ziggs exists in the Long Range Siege Mage. Both dont see play because they dont have the midrange aoe hard cc that is necessary to handle tanklines (i.e. Ori ult, Viktor W, Azir Wall) at my best guess. You get on them, They're dead. Lux by comparison has mediocre burst, long cooldowns and a shield, all of which are subpar. When she was strong most recently she had better wave control than Ziggs with 0 risk associated, they took that away and now shes just ... bleh. Its been eons since her burst was actually relevant or that you could get through laning phase with her without being at a disadvantage (Late S2, when laning was long enough for it to a safe bet lux would come online and we had no midlaners for competition). So what you're really complaining about is that Lux is still underpowered and has no real niche in the game, not that Xerath is generic. Xerath has a very clearly defined niche in the game and its different from Ziggs. Lux is the one who is much ado about nothing. To keep poking at the tiger, here is what I say we do to Lux. Give her back her stealth (that was rumored to be on her kit in development), and give her a touch of mana cost buffs/damage buffs across the board. Now shes a vision control mage with the best midgame of the 4 (Lux, Xerath, Ziggs and Kog). She only has 3 offensive abilities all with long cds, so she doesnt have the best waveclear, doesnt have the best siege and doesnt scale the hardest. But now given a midgame Mejais and appropriate waveclear, Lux is the single strongest siege mage in the game midgame. Would be way more fun to play too. Think Midlane Twitch. :D Ugh, please no on more stealth. Only twitch isn't a totally stupid champ with it, and that's basically because he always is in vision or blown up if close enough to make good use of it. Lux has awful base ms, terrible cds and terrible base damage outside of a perfectly lined up combo. It doesnt have to be as long as twitches (which I agree would make her horribly, horribly OP) or give her an MS bonus like Twitch. its already a shield. it just has to make her able to cross wards without being seen, forcing you to change how you ward against her and how you play out your midgame. All it does is opens up more actually interesting plays imo.
Nah, you would have to make her spells quite weak, and at least remove her ranged snare. Stealth + semi-global ranged ult basically means she would be TF who you can't punish for the roam by pushing down the tower. Plus the pick power around objectives would be absurd with her snare.
I'm looking at the wiki and champions that have stealth: Vayne/Akali basically have it as a win-more mechanic; Eve/Rengar are notoriously difficult to balance; Wukong, Teemo, and Shaco are basically kept weak intentionally; Leblanc and KhaZix seem to work alright with it, but those are mostly pseudo-escapes, kinda like Vayne/Akali, but less good; and Talon's is fine because its one time on his ult. Doesn't seem like a good thing to port onto a long range burst mage.
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You can make it his passive but not give him complete freedom of movement, and I think there are appropriate buffs you can give him without giving him the magic pen. Here's an example:
"If Xerath does not move for 2 seconds he roots himself to the ground. While rooted Xerath is immune to crowd control, takes 20% less damage from physical and magic damage, and each of his abilities are enhanced as follows. Q becomes max range without a windup, W range is increased by 50%, and E cooldown is decreased by 50%. R can only be cast while rooted.
If Xerath is in combat, moving again will trigger a two second unrooting cast animation."
I wouldn't focus on the enhanced ability buffs, I just pulled those out of my ass. But the benefits/drawbacks of the root I think are appropriate. Immunity to CC since he is CCing himself. Damage reduction since he can't move and it steals flavor from his old passive.
And a 2 second unrooting window is a LONG time which gives opportunity to punish him, but only while he's in combat so the passive isn't annoying when he's moving around the map, and it gives enemy champions the ability to interact with it by tagging him to flag him in combat in the first place.
I'll respond about the Lux thing in a minute. You're partially right, but the reason you're partially right is because rework Xerath stole the parts of Luxs kit that were unique, and did so with higher numbers, so there's little reason to pick her now aside from the shield, which doesn't fit into a lot of compositions. Her shield is good against Karthus and Anivia, but when is the last time we saw them in serious games?
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On August 14 2015 05:41 Ketara wrote:
And a 2 second unrooting window is a LONG time which gives opportunity to punish him, but only while he's in combat so the passive isn't annoying when he's moving around the map, and it gives enemy champions the ability to interact with it by tagging him to flag him in combat in the first place.
"In combat" is defined by any time you take or deal damage and/or receive a combat debuff (even if it doesn't deal damage). Simply CSing will enable the root.
Basically players shouldn't have to think about how to avoid accidentally rooting themselves, and I don't think there's a design you can shoehorn onto a passive which avoids that problem sufficiently (barring scrapping the root entirely).
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United States47024 Posts
A passive that doesn't give complete freedom of movement even already has a precendent because Kalista exists--her passive locks you out of moving and canceling your attack frontswing and when you start an attack, you're forced to complete it. It's on a somewhat smaller scale, but the basic concept of you being forced into an action because the passive intrinsically causes certain behavior when you do something is the same.
Admittedly Kalista has probably the mechanically clunkiest passive in the game solely to try and make her passive as unintrusive as possible to play with.
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On August 14 2015 03:36 Purge wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 03:08 TheYango wrote:On August 14 2015 02:51 Seuss wrote:
I agree that rooting is dangerous and requires appropriate compensation for the danger, but I think you're overstating how much compensation is needed in Xerath's case. The penetration W provided Xerath was fundamentally broken. It's simply not healthy for the game for a champion to effectively ignore 84-144 MR off roughly 4,5k in items.
I've heard you say this, but why is it "not healthy"? It's not a systemic mechanic and alters how he individually interacts with particular champions relative to their respective power curves. What's unhealthy about it? It made him a tankbuster for free. Which makes no sense because he has no real reason to get to be a tank buster outside of being rooted. There is alot of Xerath hate in this forum. It became an echo chamber for the last page o.0 I take the opposite stance to Ketara et al and say that its Lux is the flat experience, not Xerath. Xerath right now exists in the space of Long Range Control Mage. Ziggs exists in the Long Range Siege Mage. Both dont see play because they dont have the midrange aoe hard cc that is necessary to handle tanklines (i.e. Ori ult, Viktor W, Azir Wall) at my best guess. You get on them, They're dead. Lux by comparison has mediocre burst, long cooldowns and a shield, all of which are subpar. When she was strong most recently she had better wave control than Ziggs with 0 risk associated, they took that away and now shes just ... bleh. Its been eons since her burst was actually relevant or that you could get through laning phase with her without being at a disadvantage (Late S2, when laning was long enough for it to a safe bet lux would come online and we had no midlaners for competition). So what you're really complaining about is that Lux is still underpowered and has no real niche in the game, not that Xerath is generic. Xerath has a very clearly defined niche in the game and its different from Ziggs. Lux is the one who is much ado about nothing. To keep poking at the tiger, here is what I say we do to Lux. Give her back her stealth (that was rumored to be on her kit in development), and give her a touch of mana cost buffs/damage buffs across the board. Now shes a vision control mage with the best midgame of the 4 (Lux, Xerath, Ziggs and Kog). She only has 3 offensive abilities all with long cds, so she doesnt have the best waveclear, doesnt have the best siege and doesnt scale the hardest. But now given a midgame Mejais and appropriate waveclear, Lux is the single strongest siege mage in the game midgame. Would be way more fun to play too. Think Midlane Twitch. :D
Okay so, check this out.
Let's pretend Xerath is just removed from the game, and lets compare Lux and Ziggs.
They both have damage on auto passives, but the counterplay around them is different. Ziggs passive creates timing windows when you can engage on him since he has to use it up CSing. Lux creates zoning opportunities, because when you hit an E the enemy has to decide to back off or take increased damage.
They both have a unique mechanic in satchel/shield, which are totally different.
They both have semi global aoe ults, but the way their ults work is different. Lux ult is a small aoe but fairly easy to aim and hit. She uses it more as an assassination and burst tool.
Ziggs ult is bigger aoe, longer range, but more telegraphed and easier to dodge. It is more about displacement and siege uses than assassination.
Ziggs also has the unique identity of being a siege mage, he has abilities that increase his damage on minions and towers.
Lux has the unique identity of being a Light mage, and is the only champion in the game with 2 abilities that grant vision (I think?) I'd argue that this identity isn't clearly defined enough in modern League and her Q should also grant vision or her E should see stealth or something like that, but that's a little tangential.
What's left in their kits are the parts that are similar. They both have ranged poke, but they're poke champions so that's fine. Ziggs is a line skillshot and blockable on a low cd, Luxs is a circular skillshot with a small windup and unblockable on a high cd so they aren't too similar.
They both have a circular slow field, which are admittedly similar.
And Lux has a linear hard CC skillshot, which is different from Ziggs but similar to other champions like Ahri, Morgana, Zyra etc.
I'd argue that in this comparison, Lux and Ziggs feel different while still both being long range poke champs.
Now, lets add rework Xerath to the trio.
Xeraths passive is also autoattack based, but has no counterplay. You can't prevent him from getting mana back and in practice you're never thinking about his passive when playing against him, its just free mana.
Xerath Q is ranged poke, but its a line skillshot, unblockable, with a windup and a short cooldown. It has half the properties of Lux poke and half of Ziggs.
He also has a circular slow field like the two of them. Pre rework Xerath did not.
He also has a linear hard CC skillshot like Lux. Pre rework Xerath did not.
His regular abilities are as good at waveclear and sieging as Ziggs regular abilities, which steals some of Ziggs siege mage identity.
His regular abilities grant temporary vision and can check bushes, which steals some of Luxs vision mage identify (again, admittedly many modern champs do this and I'd like to see Luxs vision tools more clearly defined)
His ult is used as an assassination tool like Lux ult, but is circular like Ziggs ult and has range and windup more similar to a faster Ziggs ult. It takes some of the flavor of both abilities.
He has ZERO unique mechanics or things that set him apart in identity because the self root, free armor and free pen were all removed with the rework. I think he needed reworking, but the rework removed his uniqueness and replaced it with nothing.
Do you see what I'm saying? Rework Xerath is half Ziggs, half Lux, with no unique mechanics. Because he is between the two, their differences are no longer pronounced, since rather than compare with each other they both compare to the similar Xerath.
Lux may need some modernization buffs, that's true. Rework Xerath has higher numbers than her for no real reason. The best example of this is that both Lux and Ziggs both had their base movespeed reduced from 340 on the argument that poke mages shouldn't walk that fast, and then rework Xerath has 340 movespeed. I can guarantee you that if Xerath is ever nerfed that will be a target.
But buffing Lux wouldn't solve the problem. Xerath makes them all so similar, that whichever one has the highest numbers in a given patch will be played and crowd out the others. You can buff Lux till she's the best and then Xerath won't be played. If you reworked Lux to make her no longer a poke mage it would change her identity.
What would solve the problem is to give Xerath his unique identity back. Right now he has none.
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wow Ketarah's passive version of old W is actually pretty cool/interesting, I like it even though I know it will never happen.
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On August 14 2015 05:52 Seuss wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 05:41 Ketara wrote:
And a 2 second unrooting window is a LONG time which gives opportunity to punish him, but only while he's in combat so the passive isn't annoying when he's moving around the map, and it gives enemy champions the ability to interact with it by tagging him to flag him in combat in the first place. "In combat" is defined by any time you take or deal damage and/or receive a combat debuff (even if it doesn't deal damage). Simply CSing will enable the root. Basically players shouldn't have to think about how to avoid accidentally rooting themselves, and I don't think there's a design you can shoehorn onto a passive which avoids that problem sufficiently (barring scrapping the root entirely).
I think you are arguing the specifics in my example rather than the concept. You could make it "in combat with champions", some things are already like this.
I think there are ways to do it.
Another way would be to give him specific map points he can root on by clicking, similar to Azir and this new Skarner bullshit.
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EPT
