for real, why did no one else play him at all? Ryze counters mobility, and especially kassadin- it felt like he was baiting KOO into picking Kassadin just for that exact counter.


Faker has said he wants an Ahri skin for Worlds, but seriously, he should get a Ryze skin. His Return animation should be him sitting on the OGN Throne, and he should do a tumble when he leaves base.

Marin will get Fiora or Rumble, Bengi will get Elise or Reksai, Bang should get Sivir, and Wolf should get Alistar.

And both Bengi and Faker should be Legendary skins. Ryze should have the Trophy strapped to his back instead of a scroll.

 

Ez game Ez life.

 

Are you aware of the fact that Worlds was played on patch 5.18 and we're currently on 5.21? Nerf bat was ages ago, bruh.

Also, no more Sivir skins pls D: Snowdown remains best skin.

 

Xena Sivir best Sivir you heathen D8.

 

Must he missing from the wiki. All I see changes after 5.18 (where she had some small hp nerfs) are 5.20 where they lowered the duration of her ultimate. I don't see anything about reducing her true damage, magic parry, stun, or insane mobility. Could you point those out?

Having just checked I know you can't. She has more damage and utility than any other champion in top lane right now and there isn't much counterplay to her play style. You can't kite her, you can't CC her (and she will stun you for trying) and you can't burst her. Sure if you can bait out her riposte then you can kill her, assuming you can outburst her or chase her down, but she is just as if not more frustrating now than pre_rework to play against.

 

Fiora before rework was frustrating to play against? I always thought she was pretty easy to handle.

Then again, I don't think current Fiora is too strong either. Of course she can execute some pretty nasty plays if you have great reactions and understanding of match ups, but by no means is she unbeatable in lane, or even later for that matter.

To be honest, the only champion I consider obnoxiously powerful currently is Tahm Kench, and that only because him eating allies is just too forgiving for the carries in his team. All the juggernauts and Fiora still have their weaknesses, even if they are on the strong side of the spectrum. But there are always champions that are slightly stronger than others. There is still room to win by outplaying them.

 

Pre-rework Fiora could all-in you under your own tower and eat the tower shot (parrying one shot iirc) and then tanking it a bit, until she used her ult to kill you and then walked away without getting tower aggro again.

So here's the stage for why I think Fiora is too strong. SKT vs KOO game 3 45:11 to 45:24. A 1/1/6 Fiora with 300 cs 2v1s Rumble (who theoretically counters her) and Reksai and chases them both through escapes and flashes and winds up losing only half her health. She literally has 3 items (4 if you include upgraded boots) Black Cleaver, Ravenous Hydra and Spirit Visage, against a 75% health Reksai (who is built full tank, she kills him in 4 shots with her ult) and a Rumble with Giant's Belt, Liandri's Visage, and Zhonya's hour glass (he lasts 8 hits after a zhonya active). The entire Rumble kill takes place AFTER she uses her ultimate and she face tanks the turret the entire time, even sitting through Rumble's zhonya. She has no armor items at all at this point either, and the gold difference between the two should be minimal (4 kills vs ~85 CS assuming Fiora had spent all the gold she made before the fight happened, which she didn't but Rumble had). Fiora is just literally able to 2v1 them based on having roughly the same number of items and her kit. Even accounting for the fact that Reksai had only ~120 CS (so he had a finished Locket, Ninja tabi, sightstone, green jungle item and giant's belt). Considering it took her ~12 seconds to kill both of them (2.5 of which her DPS was 0 because of Zhonya) that means her damage output was about 6000 damage (After resistences) in 9 second window.

That's balanced though, right?

 

Old parry didn't work on towers, but otherwise you're spot on about what happens if you got ahead with Fiora.

Let's take your statement bit by bit. Fiora has 3 completed items, Rumble has 2 and parts of a third. 2 offensive, 1 defensive (MR vs Rumble) compared to one defensive and one offensive. Rek'sai has two complete defensive items but practically no armor, just MR and health. Fiora has a heavy advantage in itemization: Armor shred, sustain and enhancement from SV, and MR compared to Liandry's MPen mitigated by MR. She tanks the tower for days because she's got the 3.2k health pool and sustain while Rumble has no damage or ult. "Roughly the same number of items" doesn't hold water when you compare the relevant stats. But I completely agree on how optimal Hydra + Cleaver are on Fiora.

You're also missing one thing: the 100+ cs lead translates into not just gold and items, but levels. Smeb's coming into this fight lvl 18 while Bengi and Marin are 14 and 15 respectively. It's a lot less ridiculous when you're that far ahead.

Fiora has clear weaknesses in her early game and her waveclear before getting hydra, heavy mana gating for lunge in the mid game and fairly rigid high-cost itemization. Certain picks like Volibear can heavily punish her early game while attack speed reductions really fuck up her day. Faker showed us an answer to mobility with Ryze Potter and the Point and Click CC.

That's all beside the point though, because trite as it sounds, this is a team game. Even the early laning phase can go from 1v1 to involving junglers and support; that's why Lee Sin and Elise were such contested picks during Worlds. Marin's phenomenal performances on Fiora are due to his synergy with Bengi and Wolf as well as Faker's pressure mid as much as his own skill.

Like we saw with Darius in the group stages, you don't instalock Fiora and automatically win, you have to pick her to complement your own team's composition and when the enemy team can't punish it.

 

He has 2 completed items (Zhonya and Liandri) plus two large components (Needlessly Large Rod and Giant's Belt). 3 levels for Rumble means 10.5 armor and 240 HP, while Fiora has almost 400 AD, so MAYBE that lets him survive an additional auto attack, but in terms of damage, Fiora beat him by miles just by auto attacking him. It isn't a close stretch by any imagination, even if he had those 3 levels she would still have destroyed him.

Reksai has basically the same amount of armor as Rumble at this point, by the way, with more HP (Rumble has 130 and Reksai has 123), but he also has Ninja Tabi, which should reduce Fiora's damage by 10%, he still gets evaporated in 4 (or 5, watching the video closer) hits. Their healths being nearly equivalent, Fiora was still able to kill them both, without minions around, and walk away with 1.5k hp.

Champions are balanced based on their individual power. This has happened before and will happen again, you yourself explicitly pointed out how several champions have been so strong they defined the meta. That's a terrible argument to make, especially vs a champion that can ignore CC at will for .75 seconds. Fiora was picked 13 times, and only lost 4 games in the entire quarterfinals to finals, so an approximately 70% win rate. Also I'm going to point out the obvious, Darius is not like Fiora AT ALL. He can't ignore CC, deal true damage as part of his consistent damage, heals for less, has far less mobility, and if you cared to view the games damage reports, I'd bet even in losing games, Fiora did more damage than winning games with Darius. They aren't equivalent.