Cait is a very popular pick, but she's toxic as hell. Like, really, she's Urgot/Yorick-in-their-primes toxic, and it seems like the ONLY reason not to eviscerate her is because of the pain of like 20% of the population losing their top adc pick. I don't know that she needs to lose range, but if not, she should at least pay the real price for having that kind of range - she should be easy to jump on and destroy earlier in the game.
Cait is a safe ADC that can punish a lane and suffers mid/late for it. Her stats are on the low-end of the popular ad's. She has no self-buff to help her damage output aside from her headshot, and two of her skills aren't used in combat for damage at all, 3 if you count her ult most of the time. Her sole purpose is to push hard and fast, and to make laning phase hell for whoever she's against. If you can catch her though, she can't outduel many people that are equal in gold to her. I'd say she's almost the most balanced ADC in the game, as she has clear parts of the game where she is strong, and clear parts where she is weak.
Her power curve is more complicated than you're making it sound. She's almost always the strongest laning ADC, though lower skill players don't have access to the downright toxic parts of her kit (maybe that's why it's not worth reworking her?), but she's one of the absolute worst midgame ADCs. Her actual late game is among the best, however, as A) one big item buy is worth much more dps than almost any steroids (excepting maybe Kog'Maw, Draven and Vayne for single target, Twitch for multi target), so having/lacking steroids isn't actually that big a deal for a truly endgame ADC, and B) late game dps for ADCs is almost always a test of simple uptime - that is, the ADC who will deal the most damage late in the game is the ADC who can shoot the most while kiting the least without being actually tracked down.
Long story short, she has one of the better late games among all ADCs because the steroids don't matter that much while her extreme late game safety matters a lot.
She's FAIR in the sense that her win rate is around average when you only consider the meta-relevant ADCs; she's broken as hell in that she's one of the least fun champions to play against in the entire game and she's also broken as hell in that she gates out something like half the ADC roster from being viable picks just by her own existence - if she were removed from the game, Marksman pick diversity would go up significantly.
I highly disagree that she gates out ANY ADC, personally. Cait hasn't been touched much, aside from a nerf to her base attack speed, in quite awhile. There's going to be spikes in different ADC's use, sure, just like any role, but I really don't think that Cait is the reason they aren't picked.
Range is a steroid, sure...but if you look at the popular ADC picks right now, they ALL have something to increase their DPS. Cait really doesn't, and it makes her late game worse than most other ADC's, though Corki/Graves and a few others are probably worse.
...popular ADC picks? At the LCS level, she's the #2 contested ADC behind Lucian. In regular play, she's the most popular champion in the game, yet still posts a > 50% win rate despite the fact that popular champs are universally lower win rate because of that popularity.
Caitlyn is the definition of a popular ADC pick. And she has been for more than 2 years.
And no, she doesn't have a Lee Sin power curve. She has more of a Trist power curve. Steroids mean almost nothing to an ADC's late game unless they're Kog'Maw level. Safety is EVERYTHING. Trist has a better late game (higher damage and even safer to play in teamfights), Cait has a better early game, they both suck mid-game unless fed.
I highly disagree that she gates out ANY ADC, personally. Cait hasn't been touched much, aside from a nerf to her base attack speed, in quite awhile. There's going to be spikes in different ADC's use, sure, just like any role, but I really don't think that Cait is the reason they aren't picked.
Range is a steroid, sure...but if you look at the popular ADC picks right now, they ALL have something to increase their DPS. Cait really doesn't, and it makes her late game worse than most other ADC's, though Corki/Graves and a few others are probably worse.
People pretty much refuse to play Ashe strictly just because of Cait. Ashe can not win the matchup at all. Same with Quinn. Quinn has really short range and nothing to really compromise for it. Cait fulfills the lane bully role but so do Draven, Graves and MF. The difference is Draven, Graves and MF allow the opponent to interact with them. Cait just says "I'll just right click you with my really high range and poke you from a far with my Q. I'm not going to let you near me because I have higher range than you + traps and even if you get near me I can just knock my self back while slowing you. Oh yeah, my base stats are good enough for me to not get bursted down quickly."
Cait played perfectly provides no interaction at all. Since the last year or so Riot's been saying there needs to be more counterplay available so something has to be changed.
Isn't it just at least partially the fact that Cait just happens to be the one sitting on the throne of highest range? Of course whichever adc has that position is going to get a natural lane bully advantage. I personally don't see the big deal with having to just sit back and try and farm out a lane safely, the range difference isn't THAT big (unless you're Sivir really) and you have a support to either provide sustain or engage threat on her.
Then again take my position with a bit of salt I guess, as I'm a top laner mainly (so having to deal with lane destroying bullies such as Renek or Darius is part of the job), with a lot of support on the side, who happily plays stuff like Nasus (so I don't find having to spend a lane just farming a big deal even on other champs). A range disadvantage up there means you either kill/maul them really early or you're likely utterly stuffed in terms of being bullied for the whole lane because it means melee vs ranged (even on say Renekton stuff like Nidalee or Ryze is just cancer if you don't get ahead really early).
...popular ADC picks? At the LCS level, she's the #2 contested ADC behind Lucian. In regular play, she's the most popular champion in the game, yet still posts a > 50% win rate despite the fact that popular champs are universally lower win rate because of that popularity.
Caitlyn is the definition of a popular ADC pick. And she has been for more than 2 years.
And no, she doesn't have a Lee Sin power curve. She has more of a Trist power curve. Steroids mean almost nothing to an ADC's late game unless they're Kog'Maw level. Safety is EVERYTHING. Trist has a better late game (higher damage and even safer to play in teamfights), Cait has a better early game, they both suck mid-game unless fed.
I never said she wasn't a popular pick, only that she doesn't shove out other picks. Right now, in the LCS, she's not nearly as popular as before the BT changes. Kog, Trist, Lucian, maybe even Corki...all of them are in a much better spot than Cait on a competitive level.
Cait's also not the most popular champion in the game, or even the most popular ADC, so I have NO idea where you're getting your information from. She's just a good, safe ADC, and one that is great for new people to use to learn the role (probably another reason why Riot hasn't nerfed her too much, honestly).
I highly disagree that she gates out ANY ADC, personally. Cait hasn't been touched much, aside from a nerf to her base attack speed, in quite awhile. There's going to be spikes in different ADC's use, sure, just like any role, but I really don't think that Cait is the reason they aren't picked.
Range is a steroid, sure...but if you look at the popular ADC picks right now, they ALL have something to increase their DPS. Cait really doesn't, and it makes her late game worse than most other ADC's, though Corki/Graves and a few others are probably worse.
People pretty much refuse to play Ashe strictly just because of Cait. Ashe can not win the matchup at all. Same with Quinn. Quinn has really short range and nothing to really compromise for it. Cait fulfills the lane bully role but so do Draven, Graves and MF. The difference is Draven, Graves and MF allow the opponent to interact with them. Cait just says "I'll just right click you with my really high range and poke you from a far with my Q. I'm not going to let you near me because I have higher range than you + traps and even if you get near me I can just knock my self back while slowing you. Oh yeah, my base stats are good enough for me to not get bursted down quickly."
Cait played perfectly provides no interaction at all. Since the last year or so Riot's been saying there needs to be more counterplay available so something has to be changed.
If that was the case, she'd be 100 percent pick/ban rate in the LCS. She's not even close. The comparison to Renekton is probably the best one I've seen. Great early, and slowly falls off.
...popular ADC picks? At the LCS level, she's the #2 contested ADC behind Lucian. In regular play, she's the most popular champion in the game, yet still posts a > 50% win rate despite the fact that popular champs are universally lower win rate because of that popularity.
Caitlyn is the definition of a popular ADC pick. And she has been for more than 2 years.
And no, she doesn't have a Lee Sin power curve. She has more of a Trist power curve. Steroids mean almost nothing to an ADC's late game unless they're Kog'Maw level. Safety is EVERYTHING. Trist has a better late game (higher damage and even safer to play in teamfights), Cait has a better early game, they both suck mid-game unless fed.
I don't know where you get the idea that she's highly contested in the LCS, in fact Lucian wasn't even the most contested ADC pick this weekend. That was definitely Kog and Trist, two late game powerhouses. I don't have much of an opinion on Cait because I'm not terribly fond of bot lane, but don't just make claims that are blatantly false.
I just tried out Mao'Kai for the first time since the patch. It worked out late game, but was still good late game. Lots of power in Ancient Golem.
...popular ADC picks? At the LCS level, she's the #2 contested ADC behind Lucian. In regular play, she's the most popular champion in the game, yet still posts a > 50% win rate despite the fact that popular champs are universally lower win rate because of that popularity.
Caitlyn is the definition of a popular ADC pick. And she has been for more than 2 years.
And no, she doesn't have a Lee Sin power curve. She has more of a Trist power curve. Steroids mean almost nothing to an ADC's late game unless they're Kog'Maw level. Safety is EVERYTHING. Trist has a better late game (higher damage and even safer to play in teamfights), Cait has a better early game, they both suck mid-game unless fed.
I don't know where you get the idea that she's highly contested in the LCS, in fact Lucian wasn't even the most contested ADC pick this weekend. That was definitely Kog and Trist, two late game powerhouses. I don't have much of an opinion on Cait because I'm not terribly fond of bot lane, but don't just make claims that are blatantly false.
I just tried out Mao'Kai for the first time since the patch. It worked out late game, but was still good late game. Lots of power in Ancient Golem.
The might be the most recent LCS, but for the longest period of time, it really was CAitlyn/Lucian lanes all day, all the time, with the occasional Jinx/Sivir/Twitch popping up every now and then.
...popular ADC picks? At the LCS level, she's the #2 contested ADC behind Lucian. In regular play, she's the most popular champion in the game, yet still posts a > 50% win rate despite the fact that popular champs are universally lower win rate because of that popularity.
Caitlyn is the definition of a popular ADC pick. And she has been for more than 2 years.
And no, she doesn't have a Lee Sin power curve. She has more of a Trist power curve. Steroids mean almost nothing to an ADC's late game unless they're Kog'Maw level. Safety is EVERYTHING. Trist has a better late game (higher damage and even safer to play in teamfights), Cait has a better early game, they both suck mid-game unless fed.
I don't know where you get the idea that she's highly contested in the LCS, in fact Lucian wasn't even the most contested ADC pick this weekend. That was definitely Kog and Trist, two late game powerhouses. I don't have much of an opinion on Cait because I'm not terribly fond of bot lane, but don't just make claims that are blatantly false.
I just tried out Mao'Kai for the first time since the patch. It worked out late game, but was still good late game. Lots of power in Ancient Golem.
The might be the most recent LCS, but for the longest period of time, it really was CAitlyn/Lucian lanes all day, all the time, with the occasional Jinx/Sivir/Twitch popping up every now and then.
This year it's been Twitch/Lucian since the Twitch remake. Before that, Sivir/Cait/Lucian were the top three, though Corki has seen a decent amount of play, as has Graves. There has been a pretty big variety of ADC's in the LCS, probably a wider variety of those than supports/top/jungle, honestly. Cait hasn't been a priority pick/ban for quite some time, though a lot of people do default to her if what they wanted was banned/picked.
I pulled a stat that had her as the second most picked, but I think it was a bit out of date (it was definitely NA LCS 2014 though).
The rule of thumb is if something is grotesquely overpowered (Lucian/Twitch, now Kog/Lucian/Trist) that gets picked. Otherwise Cait gets picked. She's never not been extremely relevant to the pro scene.
I pulled a stat that had her as the second most picked, but I think it was a bit out of date (it was definitely NA LCS 2014 though).
The rule of thumb is if something is grotesquely overpowered (Lucian/Twitch, now Kog/Lucian/Trist) that gets picked. Otherwise Cait gets picked. She's never not been extremely relevant to the pro scene.
Except for now. Also season 3 worlds(somewhat relevant, but not extremely so. Huge variety of ADC's picked). Also season 2 worlds (Got picked once. Never banned). She's been dominant in certain meta's, and she's going to be a strong pick frequently, because she's strong at laning. She's also not nerf worthy, because she isn't the constant dominant pick, and doesn't crowd other champions out of the role.
I disagree with a lot of Riots general balance strategy. Just because something isn't completely dominating the meta, doesn't mean it doesn't need to be nerfed. Lets look at Dota for example. Brewmaster has a 98% Pick/Ban rate. 98%. Thats a lot. Yet he isn't a candidate for a nerf because he's balanced, and completely reliant on his Ultimate to be relevant during larger fights. If someone can silence, or stun him they get an easy chance to blow him up (Not that difficult considering Brew doesn't build super tanky and has a meh strength gain). In fact Brew has been receiving buffs (Albeit minor) in most recent patches, despite his huge Meta presence. Lets look at League now. Lucian is one of the characters who is in line for massive nerfs, due to his major domination of the bottom lane. Part of it is the fact that his kit is flawed. He has a huge nuke that pierces creeps, a nuke that makes running practically impossible, and a dash that also serves as a partial purge. Worst of all, every time he casts one of these spells, he almost doubles his next attacks damage. The nerf Riot has been considering is a range nerf. This would be nice for opposing ADCs and Supports, forcing him to get closer to the wave to last hit. However, this would leave him with his amazing burst and sustained damage,essentially not fixing the problem. I don't know how to fix the problem without a complete overhaul of Lucians numbers and/or a heavy rework of his kit. Something like removing on hit effects and crits from his second shot would go a long way. Another thing that could be done against any ADC short of super safe cait would be an aggressive trilane. 2 supports looking for kills and an ADC farming the lane. Example, a Thresh Morgana Sivir lane. Thresh and Morgana both have decent damage, long duration crowd control effects and good harass, while Sivir's Ricochet and Boomerang allow her to passively assist in damage while focusing on farming. The lack of jungle ganks could be problematic, and it would lead to a lower team GPM, but you would dominate bottom and potentially mid, assuming that one of the 2 aggressive supports allows the mid to have first Blue. Hmm, that seems all fine and dandy, but meta enforcing is Riots forte, so if that ever did catch on Riot would change how towers take damage or how EXP is spread. Again.
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Nah, that idea wouldn't be that good once people see it being used once or twice. With three people in the one lane not only do you have two people not getting any gold instead of one but you lose a lot of xp, and so those three eventually end up underleveled. If the other team runs a 2 person lane against it which can waveclear well (lulu+something?), or can at least hold the tower and not die your team is absolutely screwed, because without a jungler you should be losing mid and top (especially top) almost guaranteed. Their jungler just has to show top and mid and your laners are forced to give up cs/xp because you don't have a jungler to respond and put pressure elsewhere. And if it doesn't work really well your team is guaranteed to have a big gold deficit (their jungler has a lot more available without retaliation), so you end up weaker as a team.
And that's excluding the easy solutions of putting their jungler bot after 2 buffs for a 3v3 in which they'll be stronger (because the jungler will come in at a higher level and with double buffs), or just lane swapping, in which case we see the meta of the last 5 months of so play out again except you're considerably worse off because your second support can't help the top laner get enough farm at the start to be relevant later in the game as well as their jungler can.
A mild range nerf is pretty good sometimes. The 25 off from Thresh made it so that I never even troll as him as ADC anymore (used to be fun) and as a support trying to auto attack harrass is much much harder now.
Plus why morgana thresh? If you wanna do a tri-lane to murder people you need point and click CC. Annie/Nami combo would be absolutely ridiculous while a morgana/thresh lane would turn into them just farming under tower since the CC on those two champs is among the easiest to dodge in the entire game.
And a range nerf would be fine. Smaller range means its easier for him to get jumped on during fights and this can make all the difference
I disagree with a lot of Riots general balance strategy. Just because something isn't completely dominating the meta, doesn't mean it doesn't need to be nerfed. Lets look at Dota for example. Brewmaster has a 98% Pick/Ban rate. 98%. Thats a lot. Yet he isn't a candidate for a nerf because he's balanced, and completely reliant on his Ultimate to be relevant during larger fights. If someone can silence, or stun him they get an easy chance to blow him up (Not that difficult considering Brew doesn't build super tanky and has a meh strength gain). In fact Brew has been receiving buffs (Albeit minor) in most recent patches, despite his huge Meta presence. Lets look at League now. Lucian is one of the characters who is in line for massive nerfs, due to his major domination of the bottom lane. Part of it is the fact that his kit is flawed. He has a huge nuke that pierces creeps, a nuke that makes running practically impossible, and a dash that also serves as a partial purge. Worst of all, every time he casts one of these spells, he almost doubles his next attacks damage. The nerf Riot has been considering is a range nerf. This would be nice for opposing ADCs and Supports, forcing him to get closer to the wave to last hit. However, this would leave him with his amazing burst and sustained damage,essentially not fixing the problem. I don't know how to fix the problem without a complete overhaul of Lucians numbers and/or a heavy rework of his kit. Something like removing on hit effects and crits from his second shot would go a long way.
These nerfs force him into a specific niche of getting himself in danger to kill someone/be threatening, almost like Vayne. The problem with Lucian is that you could do everything, now you have to go for a more aggressive stance when you lane(which he was intended to do, hence why DoubleLift does so well on him), and not so much of a passive stance(which a lot of people were doing).
Also, I like the Ziggs nerfs. Makes his Q more dodge-able.
Q has never struck me as especially difficult to dodge. It's a good, real skillshot in my experience: he'll hit you if he's paying more attention than you. It's not like Morg bindings or (old) Nid spears where you think you're safe but you're not.
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Man I had a fantastic Lucian game last night. Like pro-level lategame with perfectly planned and executed everything, it was great. And it reaffirmed my belief once again that new BT is a fantastic luxury item.
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Man I had a fantastic Lucian game last night. Like pro-level lategame with perfectly planned and executed everything, it was great. And it reaffirmed my belief once again that new BT is a fantastic luxury item.
New bloodthirster knows what it wants to do, and it does that beautifully.
I highly disagree that she gates out ANY ADC, personally. Cait hasn't been touched much, aside from a nerf to her base attack speed, in quite awhile. There's going to be spikes in different ADC's use, sure, just like any role, but I really don't think that Cait is the reason they aren't picked.
Range is a steroid, sure...but if you look at the popular ADC picks right now, they ALL have something to increase their DPS. Cait really doesn't, and it makes her late game worse than most other ADC's, though Corki/Graves and a few others are probably worse.
Caitlyn is the definition of a popular ADC pick. And she has been for more than 2 years.
And no, she doesn't have a Lee Sin power curve. She has more of a Trist power curve. Steroids mean almost nothing to an ADC's late game unless they're Kog'Maw level. Safety is EVERYTHING. Trist has a better late game (higher damage and even safer to play in teamfights), Cait has a better early game, they both suck mid-game unless fed.
Cait played perfectly provides no interaction at all. Since the last year or so Riot's been saying there needs to be more counterplay available so something has to be changed.
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Then again take my position with a bit of salt I guess, as I'm a top laner mainly (so having to deal with lane destroying bullies such as Renek or Darius is part of the job), with a lot of support on the side, who happily plays stuff like Nasus (so I don't find having to spend a lane just farming a big deal even on other champs). A range disadvantage up there means you either kill/maul them really early or you're likely utterly stuffed in terms of being bullied for the whole lane because it means melee vs ranged (even on say Renekton stuff like Nidalee or Ryze is just cancer if you don't get ahead really early).
http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1448851001/34252472
I never said she wasn't a popular pick, only that she doesn't shove out other picks. Right now, in the LCS, she's not nearly as popular as before the BT changes. Kog, Trist, Lucian, maybe even Corki...all of them are in a much better spot than Cait on a competitive level.
Cait's also not the most popular champion in the game, or even the most popular ADC, so I have NO idea where you're getting your information from. She's just a good, safe ADC, and one that is great for new people to use to learn the role (probably another reason why Riot hasn't nerfed her too much, honestly).
If that was the case, she'd be 100 percent pick/ban rate in the LCS. She's not even close. The comparison to Renekton is probably the best one I've seen. Great early, and slowly falls off.
I don't know where you get the idea that she's highly contested in the LCS, in fact Lucian wasn't even the most contested ADC pick this weekend. That was definitely Kog and Trist, two late game powerhouses. I don't have much of an opinion on Cait because I'm not terribly fond of bot lane, but don't just make claims that are blatantly false.
I just tried out Mao'Kai for the first time since the patch. It worked out late game, but was still good late game. Lots of power in Ancient Golem.
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The might be the most recent LCS, but for the longest period of time, it really was CAitlyn/Lucian lanes all day, all the time, with the occasional Jinx/Sivir/Twitch popping up every now and then.
The GJ way path to no lynching:
This year it's been Twitch/Lucian since the Twitch remake. Before that, Sivir/Cait/Lucian were the top three, though Corki has seen a decent amount of play, as has Graves. There has been a pretty big variety of ADC's in the LCS, probably a wider variety of those than supports/top/jungle, honestly. Cait hasn't been a priority pick/ban for quite some time, though a lot of people do default to her if what they wanted was banned/picked.
The rule of thumb is if something is grotesquely overpowered (Lucian/Twitch, now Kog/Lucian/Trist) that gets picked. Otherwise Cait gets picked. She's never not been extremely relevant to the pro scene.
Except for now. Also season 3 worlds(somewhat relevant, but not extremely so. Huge variety of ADC's picked). Also season 2 worlds (Got picked once. Never banned). She's been dominant in certain meta's, and she's going to be a strong pick frequently, because she's strong at laning. She's also not nerf worthy, because she isn't the constant dominant pick, and doesn't crowd other champions out of the role.
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And that's excluding the easy solutions of putting their jungler bot after 2 buffs for a 3v3 in which they'll be stronger (because the jungler will come in at a higher level and with double buffs), or just lane swapping, in which case we see the meta of the last 5 months of so play out again except you're considerably worse off because your second support can't help the top laner get enough farm at the start to be relevant later in the game as well as their jungler can.
Plus why morgana thresh? If you wanna do a tri-lane to murder people you need point and click CC. Annie/Nami combo would be absolutely ridiculous while a morgana/thresh lane would turn into them just farming under tower since the CC on those two champs is among the easiest to dodge in the entire game.
And a range nerf would be fine. Smaller range means its easier for him to get jumped on during fights and this can make all the difference
These nerfs force him into a specific niche of getting himself in danger to kill someone/be threatening, almost like Vayne. The problem with Lucian is that you could do everything, now you have to go for a more aggressive stance when you lane(which he was intended to do, hence why DoubleLift does so well on him), and not so much of a passive stance(which a lot of people were doing).
Also, I like the Ziggs nerfs. Makes his Q more dodge-able.
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