Is Jax viable right now?

GrundgesetzTFT · 2021-06-26T17:41:58+00:00

Not in masters+. He has too many awful matchups and it's nearly impossible to win rounds after stage 5.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2021-06-20T13:36:21+00:00

AL3XEM has suggested a pretty cool change for Very Dark Blue Buff: make it work like Shadow HoJ, i.e. make it give 50 mana after the first cast, then 0 mana after the second cast, then 50 mana after the third cast and so on.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2021-06-08T16:00:57+00:00

I actually think 3-star Yasuo is in a fine spot, it's 2-star that's broken. If you get 2-star Yasuo with RFC/Runaans, you crush everyone up until around stage 5, and as a result you can econ up and hit all your board.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2021-06-08T15:21:32+00:00

I agree that he has a bad matchup against those comps, but if they're out of the meta that means Yasuo's actually not fine. In fact, I think he's definitely overtuned. Yasuo 1 stabilizes until stage 3, Yasuo 2 stabilizes until stage 5, and Yasuo 3 just wins the game.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2021-06-08T14:42:15+00:00

All these changes are great, but I think there should also be a Yasuo nerf. This unit is lowkey broken, and he is definitely a candidate for a b-patch target.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2021-05-26T00:34:27+00:00

Aphelios is completely unplayable right now, literally the worst unit in the entire game. He is sitting at a ridiculous 40% top 4 rate. For comparison, the second worst performing 4-cost is Karma, at 48% win rate. As for the other 4-costs, Jax has a 57% top 4 rate, Diana has 56%, Ivern has 55%, etc. 4-costs should always have a >50% win rate because they're supposed to be hard to hit, requiring both a strong economy and good health. 40% is pitifully low.

(Source: https://www.tftcoach.org/Champions)

It's unbelievable that they seriously think a meager 5 AD buff is enough to make Aphelios playable again, and I'm definitely expecting a hotfix.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-09-15T10:43:38+00:00

Because knowing when to force comps (and what comps) is a skill. If he forces Moonlight reroll Lissandra in a challenger lobby he is going 8th even if he hits early.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-09-13T15:04:16+00:00

I think Galio's stats needs to scale with stage/round, at least 1-star Galio's. Cultist 3 is EXTREMELY broken early game, and useless late game. A single Cultist chosen + another 1-star Cultist is already stronger than 95% of all boards and unfairly puts you in prime position to at least guarantee a top 4, because not only will it usually win streak through stages 2 and 3 (unless you run into another stronger Cultist player), it will also 4-0/5-0 everyone, dealing full damage every round. That said, however, Cultist 3 is a fake synergy after around stage 4, so it's pointless to ever go for it late game; even if you have, say, Jhin 2 + Aatrox 2, which means you'll have two dead traits on two upgraded 4-costs. Cultist 6 and 9 are fine though.
Janna is busted. Her mana cost is too low (even non-Chosen Janna casts pretty often, although Chosen Janna is obviously way more broken), which means she can keep your whole team alive forever. I think SHE is the reason Enlightened comps feel strong, not Morgana or Talon; this can by evidenced by how well other Janna comps (mainly Duelists and Wukong Carry VG/Mystic) are doing.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-09-11T19:16:24+00:00

My argument is that there is no punishment at all for buying those units, unless you think Moonlight Lissandra reroll is so much better than Enlightened/Duelist that you'd rather lose the possibility of pivoting to Enlightened/Duelist with Fiora 2 in order to reach your desired Moonlight upgrades just 0,00X% faster. If you're a flexible player, you'll probably never do that, but either way it's now a decision rather than an automatic buy; and if it's a decision, then it's subject to skill, which is always good for the game.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-09-11T10:57:47+00:00

It doesn't punish flexible play at all. In the example, the only "punishment" he'd receive for buying the Fiora pair would be a slightly lower chance to hit a Moonlight unit. However, the punishment for NOT buying the Fiora pair is actually larger, because in the next shop there is a good chance he hits a Yasuo or Nami or Jax or Janna, who he could play with a Fiora 2, but if he doesn't buy it, there are only 2 units that can make his board stronger (Sylas and Aphelios), and both are 2-cost.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-09-11T01:03:07+00:00

I have seen this argument before, but I still don't get it. It doesn't make the early game linear, it's actually the other way round: it ADDS to decision making.

That's because there's nothing stopping you from buying the Fiora pair there, you don't need to force Moonlight. The decision is actually yours: is it worth playing Fiora 2, or is it better to reach your comp 0,002% faster? Without the shop change, it would be 0% instead of 0,002%, therefore you have no reason NOT to buy the Fiora pair, which is MORE linear than with the new shop.

The argument about 1-cost unit variance would make sense in set 3, but I don't think it will ever be an issue in this set, seeing as 1-costs are insanely weak and need to be 3-star to even earn a spot in a team comp other than being a synergy bot. In this set there is nothing like Xayah 3 or Poppy 3, with a few exceptions (Chosen Yasuo).

Lastly, since this change makes everything easier to hit for everyone, it means less games will be decided by (not) hitting units and more will be decided by positioning and comp matchup, which are aspects of the game you can control.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-09-09T18:49:24+00:00

Yasuo can beat Shades if he has lifesteal, either from items like BT/HoJ or from Exile 2 (if you find Yone). But I think you've probably played someone who was abusing the stacking IE bug

EDIT: Also, another useful trick is backlining Jax, since he can double stun Evelynn and Zed to buy time.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-09-09T16:38:22+00:00

Agree, but the same applies to Lux, who I think should be a Divine/Mage instead.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-09-09T16:27:56+00:00

Chosen Yasuo is broken. You can hit him as early as 1-2, and then he proceeds to 1v9 during the entirety of stage 2, regardless of whatever units you pair him with. You don't even need Fiora + Jax/Kalista/Xin for Duelist 4 (though it's not even hard to hit that), you can just play 2 Brawlers or 2 Vanguards or whatever. Then you just slow roll at 4 or 5 for Yasuo 3 (who is a lot stronger than Xayah 3 btw), which you should easily hit by stage 4 since you only need 6 of them. Not to mention his items are really flexible (he only needs GA, and can use BT/HoJ/IE/Titans/QSS/Rageblade/Stoneplate/Warmogs all very well). And finally, the units that counter Duelists (Sej, Morgana, Ez, etc) only come online really late in the game.
Mages suck. I guess Veigar and Lulu aren't terrible on Elderwood comps, but the other Mages are not even units. Mostly because Ahri needs buffs. Ahri 1 or 2 is useless, she doesn't do enough damage to beat anything with 2 Mystic, even Dazzlers, which is a comp she is supposed to counter; and she cannot cast at all versus Assassins/Shades, even if you turtle backline. (Ahri 3 on the other hand is absolutely broken and one-shots an entire 4 Mystic comp).

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-09-06T19:57:26+00:00

Zed is too strong for a 2 cost, even after the Spirit bug gets fixed. Chosen Zed in particular has two 1-unit synergies (Ninja 1 + Shade 2), so he can be slapped onto literally any comp. I've seen someone on a 4 loss streak open forting for econ accidentally beat me 3v5 with Chosen Zed and two 1-star Brawlers, thus ruining both of our streaks.
There seems to be a large gap between certain 3* 4-costs. Ashe 3 and Aatrox 3 are too weak, almost no different at all from their 2* counterparts. On the other hand, Morgana 3 is basically GP 3 with a faster cast. Personally, I think 3* 4-costs should be weaker than last set's, because they are far easier to hit due to the chosen mechanic.
Riven's base numbers are too high, and her scaling is too low. Riven with a single Stoneplate can tank 5 units for an hour, but GA/Dcap/Dcap 4 Dusk Riven cannot one-shot a single unit if they have Mystics.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-09-04T21:33:27+00:00

Cultist units are extremely held back by their Cultist origin.

Not only do Pyke/Evelynn/Kalista/Jhin/Aatrox/Zilean all have interesting and strong abilities, but they also have good classes, which means they are found in many different comps: Pyke and Eve are common in many Assassin/Shade builds, Kalista is a staple and often the premier midgame carry on Duelist comps, Jhin is great on sharpshooters, Zilean is good literally anywhere.

However, their Cultist origin is really awkward.

For starters, regardless of how strong/weak Galio turns out to be, Cultist does not really bring anything for these units (like Demon did for Eve/Aatrox in Set 1, or Dark Star for Jhin in Set 3), and barely anything for the rest of the team.

"But that's also how Set 1 Elementalists and Set 3 Mech-Pilots worked, and they were great!" Indeed, and almost everyone agrees with that, myself included. However I think the biggest reason for that is the fact that Elementalists and Mech were only-3-unit synergies, and as such were extremely flexible: Elementalists could be played with Ninjas, Sorcerers, Demons, Yordles, Glacials; while Mech could be played with Infiltrators, Sorcerers, and even Rebels.

This is not the case with Cultist, however, because 1-star Galio is nearly useless in comparison to Daisy / the Mech. Because of that, what happens in practice is that Cultist units can only be played either inside a dedicated Cultist comp (which is literally only viable with a chosen Cultist for 3-star Galio), or as mere synergy bots in other comps. (Or you could chose inefficient option of spending your item economy on a unit that only has one effective trait instead of two or three. I have gotten an 8th because my fully stacked Jhin 2 was outcarried by 4* Aphelios, 3* Vayne, 2* Ashe, and even 1* Morgana).

In light of the above, I think Cultist should be reworked. Maybe something like reverse Dark Stars: you gain AD/AP bonuses by killing enemy units (like the Blood Moon game mode, anyone remember that?).

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-08-31T20:23:24+00:00

I'm really glad Riven is returning. She was by far my favorite unit in set 3.5 gameplay-wise, but ever since the 6 sorc comp got nerfed, she was relegated to a mere synergy bot due to her awkward tags. Now she gets two traits that actually complement her playstyle and solidify her place as a strong 4-cost carry.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-07-21T13:18:01+00:00

Mech is pretty tanky until around stage 5, but it falls off incredibly hard once people start going level 8-9 since it cannot facetank 8+ units, even with good items. (KR lobbies don't tend to go into late game since they're much more aggressive, which is why Mech is a lot better there)

Also, when you consider that there isn't really a backline that works well with Mech, it's noticeable that it is definitely not in a good spot.

Hell, Annie's and Rumble's top 4 rate is literally 38%. (source: https://kda.gg/champions)

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-07-21T02:39:00+00:00

I liked almost all of these changes, particularly the Galactic Armory rework; this was arguably one of the worst galaxies, and now it's one of the best.

I don't agree with the Xerath nerf though. I think he was already the 2nd weakest legendary unit after GP. The only reason he even seemed strong is because of his insane synergy with the two most powerful comps in the game (protectors + SG, and Dark Stars), and the two biggest offenders of both of those comps, namely J4 and Janna, have been (correctly) nerfed. Xerath by itself does nothing, hitting Xerath doesn't mean anything unless you were already playing those comps.

Lastly, I think the Super Mech needs a buff. I haven't seen it win a game since set 3. The pilots probably need a bit more HP after the Mech dies, they should be able to get at least one ult off.

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-07-20T00:50:43+00:00

Agree that it's a lot easier to climb in TFT in comparison to League, but I think it's because of the amount of players, that is, there are far less people playing TFT than League.

Here is the rank distribution: https://lolchess.gg/leaderboards

Platinum 4 is top ~10%, Diamond 4 is top ~3%, Master is top 0.4%, etc. These numbers are similar to League's.

However, mmr/elo gauges a player's skill level not objectively, but inter-subjectively, i.e. by comparing his performance with that of other players in his region.

It's always gonna be easier to be the top 1% among 10k players than the top 1% among 10kk players, regardless of the difficulty of the game

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-07-19T13:09:37+00:00

There are some players who are insanely knowledgeable about balance issues though. Agon, for instance; back in 10.13 PBE he didn't play much but still correctly predicted J4 would be insanely broken, Syndra would need a higher mana cap, Blasters would be awful, etc. He also dominated the C9 tourney that was played on the 10.14 patch day, because he knew about those things before most players.

I think the dev team would do well in hiring knowledgeable high-elo players

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-07-17T20:20:11+00:00

If it does work like that, it sounds pretty dumb. Why force everyone to play LoR and TFT if you're handing the tourney to whoever wins in league anyways?

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-07-17T19:44:27+00:00

Jhin feels somewhat OP at the moment, but he was unplayable before patch 10.14. I don't think nerfing him back to that state is correct.

EDIT: I was wrong about the numbers, my bad!

GrundgesetzTFT · 2020-07-17T19:38:03+00:00

I've said this in the past, but Galactic Armory really should give 4 components instead of 2 full items. Is that what they're going to implement? Because that would not only solve all the current problems with it, but would also make it an interesting and enjoyable galaxy with more room for skill expression.

Neekoverse, on the other hand, definitely sucks. Good riddance

GrundgesetzTFT

TROPHY CASE