Everyone Hates Smolder

[@Necrit]

I'd like to apologise to Naafiri for mixing up "Traditional Jungler" and "Traditional Assassin". *pets doggo*

[@eleos_22]

👍

[@KingKlobber]

👍

[@grenada9347]

The good ending

[@gkarak1996]

Smolder is a ranged bruiser. He wants to build AD and Health Bruiser items with a lot of AH. Riot f*ed up.

[@sticksstickerson]

Unsure if you mention it in the video, but Smolder just makes me wish Riot remembered that Corki exists and gave him a mini-rework or anything, because as far as I'm aware he just feels like a Corki but having a combination of two of the most broken parts of League's systems, as much as I might enjoy the idea of all dragon characters having an execute, his is just so...yikes.

[@Mediados]

"Why don't you like me?" "Your mom!" "What?" "We want your mom, not you."

[@cuongluuchi4226]

Mhmm....

[@emanuelstornello8009]

Oh yeah I do want his mom 😂

[@warlis4767]

What does his mom even look like? 😂 Daenerys Targaryen? 😂

[@omegaminoseer4539]

Sylas also likes Smolder's Mom. He can literally use her against her own son.

[@phelinmelon1007]

Too bad she was fired

[@lucashodges5134]

when it comes to his ult audio, usually you don't actually hear the voiceline, just hear that ungodly screech crying for his mom lol

[@dizzyheads]

I hate it so much

[@wnopest]

This is especially true in pro play. Every replay destroys your ears because of smolder's ult being so loud.

[@nugget4yearsago518]

It tends to be afterwards, which just makes me hate it more for assaulting my ears twice

[@jinhunterslay1638]

I play in Japanese dub, and you can actually hear it quite clearly. He would should “HAAA HAAA!” (Mother in Japanese)

[@emanuelstornello8009]

Riot perfectly made the representation of an annoying kid to whom you cant do anything while he makes your life hell because he was spoiled by his mom

[@TheNotshauna]

Yeah Smolder is really rocking the nepo baby fantasy

[@absolutesquid1268]

Exactly I played against him a few games ago i cant even auto that much he just fucking flies away then punishes me with "MOOOM"

[@marquisepixley684]

You are wrong

[@taddeustentakel8598]

@@absolutesquid1268 You my friend are an imposer, ME am the true Taddeus!

[@jakobmoiirers_jmoii]

spot on!

[@Dhoulmegus]

I love taking 1/3 of my hp as true damage because he moused over a minion I happened to be located in a 120 degree angle behind.

[@Gamer9o]

Same can happen to you with mf .. and she hits even harder ( ofc its harder to do than smolders AOE version but xD )

[@Polareon]

@@Gamer9o True but atleast MF becomes giga useless

[@jimmy_h7911]

​@@PolareonTank moment

[@spaceglidinmio2388]

​@@Gamer9o does mf do true dmg?

[@Aleph3575]

@@Gamer9o Does mf have scaling true damage, AOE, or an execute all on one ability as well as having an escape that lets her ignore terrain or an ult that can't be interrupted and heals her if it hits her?

[@hadywattar1420]

We have never seen a cool dragon that can speak.... Asol crying in the corner

[@themuffinprincesa21]

I feel like the joke he made about it was pretty clear about that lol

[@Necrit]

I'll apologise once he gets wings of stars!

[@timojet]

@@Necrit that would be sooo cool

[@ViktorLoR_Mainu]

Asol is a snake.

[@anhuro8558]

I would say Shyvana is even cooler

[@lordscorch3167]

6:10 see thats another interesting thing. "players started to *figure out* Smolder". not just that, players started to realize what Smolder *was;* a ADC hyper carry that becomes more likely to win the longer the game goes on/the better the ADC farms. on top of that, his E breaks the golden rule of ADCs: Immobility, allowing him to jump walls without flash and even in the worst case making opponents waste theirs. in Kayle's rework, a "hyper carry that becomes more likely to win the longer the game" was the entire point of her. but she is restricted by *level* instead of a stack mechanic, a difference that has kept her back from being a viable bot laner even in the *current* meta. and its all because of that one difference: Stacks from farming. turns out, making an ADC hyper carry with the limitation of "he is weak early but gets stronger as he farms" make Smolder one of the most impactful ADCs currently, because that *should be* how *all* ADCs work but currently they don't. Smolder is powerful because he was accidentally created to play into how ADCs *should work,* but not how *they currently do.*

[@christermonsen5637]

tristana,caitlyn,ezreal,zeri etc etc can all go over walls easily.. and why can't adc's work different, some good early, others midgame and some lategame?

[@huntersuper98]

Funny you say this because Smolder pre "adjustments" was best mid game, not late game. His strongest point was right when he hit his 3rd item.

[@shuroke]

Also if you look at the graph for ban rate it started two weeks before the play rate since riot allowed players to ban smolder before his release date

[@tonysmith9905]

Not all adcs should be late game monsters. We have some early game and mid game monsters too, like Draven and Lucian. Putting them all into late game scalers is totally boring. Champs should be different from one another in a wide variety of things: role, kit, itemization, and actual in-game goals. There is no rule that says adcs need to be immobile. Lots of adcs have mobility, many with dashes or even teleports. Even movement speed buffs aren't entirely useless as mobility, seen plenty of Dravens and Jhins escape bad situations because they're moving at mach 5. Smolder is powerful because you let him reach his in-game goal. If you're the opposing bot lane your mission is to stomp him into the ground and abuse his weak early game, then proceed to shove your lead down the enemy team's throats and win before one of their win conditions comes online. No, you're not bad if you can't accomplish this. There is no "accident" with Smolder. He is not some magical formula that they happened upon. Every one knew his late game would be strong if he's allowed to get there. That's his entire point. That is NOT the point of adc as a whole.

[@sarvashaktimaan7106]

It's honestly mostly the E. It gives too much mobility. Smolder just stands too far away in lane and if anyone tries anything he is already safely under tower, dodgin any skill shots with the ms boost.

[@andreapetro420]

200 years of design experience and they couldnt see that an ADC version of Nasus could be op

[@horizonblack8351]

Devs team acting blind. Welcome to Riot new champion. They will surely nerf to the ground so that everybody forget about him

[@k1nk1ne]

​@@horizonblack8351 ah-ha we just need to wait a few years)

[@magnav6797]

I think all adcs should be like smoulder moving forward

[@Vanaema153]

@@magnav6797 at that point we can't call those types of champs "adcs" because all they do is just spam their one ability that scales and that's it. Traditional adcs (which Boulder was supposed to be mind you) AA more than anything. Heck even AP Kog auto attacks more than Boulder...

[@Morfe02]

More like a Kogmaw with infinite stacks Also the design sucks IS a furry 😂

[@GalaxyCharizard83]

If you want another crazy stat, people looked at how quickly Smolder got up to the amount of Pentakills he has in pro games which was around 24 at the current moment (possibly more). To compare how fast he got those Pentakills, it took Zeri triple the amount of time to get 20-ish or so Pentakills than Smolder.

[@phoenixflamegames1]

Kaisa, being the second fastest and the dominating adc in proplay for like 2 years, got that amount in like a few hundred games. Let that sink in rq.

[@E1barto212]

I mean, if you look at his kit it should be very obvious he'll be a Penta machine. He WILL reach 225 (it's competitive so it's slower), the team actually play around their ADC (allows him to get damage out in fights, and he literally executes from ally damage getting enemies below the threshold! If he has dealt damage within 3 seconds from a massive AoE spammable ability that deals % Max True Damage from a burn.

[@einjharrelraca]

to be fair. some champions are better at pentakills than others. Shadow assassin kayn for example is dog shit after 2 targets. malzahaar is poop after 1 target. no one is going to say that katarina is stronger than yone just because she gets more penta's than him on average.

[@sunnyhvar1992]

I mean for Smolder, a pentakill is any fight in which his team kills all five enemies, like it or not, that's just kinda how he's designed

[@Konstamonsta]

idk how people thought he was a traditional adc. his entire kit screamed caster from the get go

[@P.H691]

When I heard traditional adc, I thought smolder would have a kit like Caitlyn or Ashe, where your entire gimmick is your auto passive and your abilities only aim to help enhance your ability to auto attack people. No one asked for a ranged caster that chunks your health and executes you for looking at him funny

[@alwolfdeadman]

@@P.H691 agree we already have lux, who can ult every 10 secs dealing 1k ap vaiger levels of damage, for that

[@karasutsuki1733]

yes, this is exactly my problem with him too, I wanted a stacking adc finally, awesome, but its not an adc, its a ranged AD caster :(

[@xkey_blade9558]

@@P.H691 i mean Ezreal,Corki and Kog Maw are techincal also Traditional all where relased Season 2 and he is more a Champ like these 3 what i like because we hadn´t such ADC a long time ^^.

[@karasutsuki1733]

@xkey_blade9558 all of them auto a lot, smolder doesnt that much heck, kogmaw is the definition of autoattack

[@Dream_Machine450]

"Scalling percent health true damage" Phreak said it is illegal but here we are now

[@askyw69]

As a tank main I am so sick of every champ having %hp damage. It's not even an anti-tank thing, it's anti-everyone. More champs should be able to build anti-tank options, either directly with items like lord doms or with exponential scaling in their kit based on a target's HP, like lord dom's. But building anti-tank should be a trade off for most champs, killing a tank and an adc in the same amount of time shouldn't be a thing most champs can do. Vayne and Fiora being some of the few exceptions to that as their kits were designed to shred anyone, rather than it just being a tacked on feature like most of the champs released in the past ~5 years.

[@bllllllllackbirdie]

@@askyw69 also, vayne and fiora kit are build around the %hp true damage and have to do certain things to trigger them (vital and 3hit passive). smolder just has to point click q on a 1 sec cd......

[@askyw69]

@@bllllllllackbirdie exactly. I almost want to go through the past 20 new releases and reworks just to see how many have %hp damage somewhere in their kit. It has to be over two thirds of them, most of which will just have it tacked onto a random ability as an afterthought.

[@ProcrastinateWGames]

on a skill that is also AOE... NICE ONE. imagine nasus Q stack damge applied to his E with % health true damge

[@blackpearl7596]

*It's not illegal if it's on ad carry*

[@minnieoutsangmidyeon]

Necrit: We've had champions at 60% in the past. Me: Looks at Samira

[@123hattan]

Seraphine

[@danielramsey7910]

ah yes, satan@@123hattan

[@BoopaKing]

I remember the days of Kassawin. Fun times.

[@TheOctoJon]

Laughs in release leblanc!

[@oui7171]

Scalling percent health true damage, that's a little bit illegal hahaha

[@MiiMavis]

remember kindred old passive? with the on hit (not true damage)

[@rastkostankovic2964]

Insert Phreaks comment on pre rework k'santes passive that scaled on hes bonus %hp wich would be funneled into hes All Out true dmg coversion that delt % hp physical in base,and that same amount of % hp as true dmg in all out."A bit illegal" . Classic flipfloping from riot

[@dizzyheads]

​@@rastkostankovic2964 How else is he going to get to masters

[@rastkostankovic2964]

@@dizzyheads Holy 💀💀💀

[@Truest-Repairman]

Then, when he gets Elder Dragon buff on top of his the Elder Dragon buff literally included in his kit, you either go next, or watch as he gets literally 20 kills every 5 minutes.

[@Andrew-tj8pr]

first straight up dragon champ and they made him a prepubescent teen who makes "my mom works at riot" jokes. give us a young dragon, sure, but make him fucking cool

[@TarsonTalon]

Spyro is a good dragon, but I can easily imagine him giving this kid a swirly.

[@corleone6630]

Riot should stop giving execute abilities to every champ

[@Soren59]

For real, Asol didn't need it either. How the heck is a scaling execute good game design

[@vanhoutastic]

@@Soren59fast game = more game = more addicts

[@Gator771]

whats wrong with a 6% hp execute that unlocks after 20+ minutes that only procs for 1 champion? if you ever looked at how small the actual execute is you will realize its just glorified collector passive

[@Omegeddon]

@@Gator771 Even then most ppl die out of it so they dont even proc the execute

[@EnBelli]

@@Gator771 playing against champs with an execute is not fun, sure its a low hp% that could mean maybe 1-2 aa or another skill but sometimes that extra bit of health is what lets you get away. It kills the I ran away with 1hp that used to happen before. Now if you are pushed to that low point you are dead even if you could potentially get away you can't your health bar has been nerfed that what ever the execute threshold is. That hp is non existent might as well read a 1 hp but is not and it bothers people well the ones that have to play against the executes specially if they executes give a refresh. I think the true damage is worse than the execute with smolder but it being on a low cd ability does not help its case. Sure as you said needs to build up to it but still people will hate it.

[@eternalgamingforum7562]

Smolder still looks like a april fools joke

[@martinkaradjov6153]

they should delete him and apologize and this point

[@eternalgamingforum7562]

@@martinkaradjov6153Fully agree, but this thing was created because of more diverse agendas. It will not go.

[@Braxtonkai]

if I wanted this kinda stuff I'd be subscribed to disney+ 🤮

[@eternalgamingforum7562]

@@BraxtonkaiBetter get used to this shit or vote with your wallet and stop supporting woke stuff

[@julianholler7505]

​@@eternalgamingforum7562Bro its a cartoon dragon how do you get woke from this?

[@christoskoukas8856]

Haha, Naafiri looks so much like a jungler that even Necrit thought it was her intended role. No, she was supposed to be a midlaner from release, never anything to do with the jungle.

[@ToasteBlade]

Yeah, I was surprised he said that. She even has balancing to keep her out of the jungle because her minions suck against jg champs

[@ChucktheSpicyChicken]

Rito: this is naafiri, queen of the jungle! LoL community: nice! So she's a jungler right? Rito: ... LoL community: she's a jungler right?

[@Nek-oski]

IKR, where did that jungle idea come from, she was intended to be a roaming midlaner assasin like Zed, Talon etc.

[@Aleph3575]

@@ChucktheSpicyChicken lol literally the first game I ever played as Naafiri I played her jungle because I thought she was a jungler.

[@scraps1450]

@@Nek-oski It's sad because those two are ALSO good junglers that riot gave improved monster damage ratios to, Riot specifically nerfing Naafari jungle clear is so odd

[@bright554]

I like how Necrit hides smolder's popularity but it's visible in previous shot

[@zhal2370]

Naafiri was made from the beginning to be used in the mid, and perhaps as an off role jungler

[@Loliston]

Thank you, it really bothers me when Necrit dosen't check his assumptions

[@valeriaarecar4761]

Fr, people just wanted to play her really bad in jg just because she is a dog when Rioters kept saying she was a mid/top champ

[@devinjacquet5253]

I'ma have to check the post because I do not know this to be true.

[@davidens1216]

An ADC with ad-ap kit, with a dash which goes over walls, infinite scaling, a slow on Q and an uncanny look.... Yea bro it was supposed to be a SURE HIT... to the permaban

[@lightworker2956]

Yeah, the scaling % true damage is insane, and on top of that he has a bunch of stuff added on top that really doesn't need to be there, such as an execute and a slow and the ability to jump over terrain.

[@uberneanderthal]

"at first people didn't dig his visual appeal" and at second. and third, and fourth. he's so obnoxiously cutesy he makes Teemo look rugged.

[@123hattan]

Teemo is cute, but it works out because you can see he is a guerilla manace. The cute look is just deceiving from his war crimes. Smolder is just a kid that accidentally ended in a battlefield.

[@Vickiraytive]

@@123hattan I still can't get over the fact that Teemo literally knocks you out with a dart in Bandle Tale lmfao

[@nikenit]

@@123hattanSame with Millio, he also looks just like a kid who somehow got into league. Hwei also looks incredibly out of place. Nilah, Ksante and Naafiri also look like they were made by a completely different art team. The only champion released after BelVeth that looks even remotely close to the original league artstyle and tone is Briar. Everyone else look like something from a Chinese knockoff game. Considering the financial state the league is in (or Riot games in general, not just league), it may not be far from the truth.

[@kuzan_aokiji]

teemo player here and I hate smolders so much jesus

[@sir_aizen]

Omega Squad Teemo agrees

[@cytrussToo]

I love how at 4:20 you censored the rest of the graph to emphasize the point you were making, only for that same graph to have been fully visible two seconds earlier xD

[@shenpai_ren]

I do indeed hate smolder as well

[@arcanacoltic971]

Always hated him as well.

[@ConfusedOwl92]

Yes

[@rogerarayasaborio549]

No More than I hate myself.

[@ianestevez6570]

Relatable content

[@VaIinar]

Bro knew what he was doing when he put the uncanny smolder face on the thumnnail

[@WOLF_WRLD]

It's literally a mini elder when he get his last scale form

[@auroradavar1058]

I get this criticism but it takes almost all game to get the stacks. It should not be a scaling execute but this one is starting to feel like getting mad at a 400 stack veigar for 1 shotting somebody.

[@OPGardevoir]

​@@auroradavar1058 No. He only has to q farm until 20 minutes which gets increasingly easier because it gains aoe and bigger aoe overtime. Veigar only gets 2 stacks max per q so it takes a lot longer for him to reach a threatening point. Also not to mention you are comparing Veigar ult a single target nuke with a long cd to smolder q an aoe max health percent scaling true damage burn execute on a 1 second cd. You're coping

[@sneakythief298]

@@auroradavar1058 even more funny when you kill 60% of their team with 1 W.

[@magical571]

@@OPGardevoir Not to mention veigar's q gets body blocked. Smolder's is targetted, so it's pretty braindead to stack them. And veigar doesn't have any form of evassion, while smolder does.

[@trafalgarlaw8373]

But veigar has a 2.5 second stun, and he gets 5 stacks for a takedown@@magical571

[@MR0KITTY]

7:49 Have they never played Ashe? Every five seconds she's complaining about poverty.

[@nurventilatoren]

This could've been a Shyvana Rework... instead we got bootleg Charizard.

[@sticksstickerson]

Or just a Corki rework because thats more to what he's like than anything

[@SangoProductions213]

@@sticksstickerson oooo. That's an idea.

[@marquisepixley684]

I disagree with you

[@markg2294]

Not even. More like dollar general Spyro the dragon.

[@Brother_O4TS]

​@@markg2294 And Spyro looks better than than him lol

[@tahjjoseph7547]

Bans Smolder: "What did I do !?" "U became an AD MAGE and upset the balance but Ur a dragon and I play u later."

[@chadhardt6136]

this whole character feels like something out of retail world of warcraft

[@BASSFZz]

Does he? I don’t know if I agree with that one. Lol

[@odlfmariner470]

@@BASSFZz imo he does

[@jonihonkala1193]

Alextrazsa nuking rito universe.

[@koreanbbq2376]

the fact that smolder had a 49% winrate on release astounds me considering every game I played whoevers team he was on was the losing team.

[@ReptarKingOfMeat]

Yeah, I don't have a problem against him usually. His bubble is slow and easy to dodge, his ult is predictable and also easy to walk out of in most cases. If I see a smolder doing good it's because of his support or jungler.

[@koreanbbq2376]

@ReptarKingOfMeat Every smolder I've seen has sub 200 stacks in a 30 minute game so idk about that. They just suck as players in anything emerald or below

[@Braxtonkai]

because people were playing him as an adc on release. Then others started to build/play him like a mage or with tank items

[@ReptarKingOfMeat]

@@Braxtonkai I've played against him top and mid with no issue either. He either gets ahead by jungle/support perma ganking, being in another lane getting fed by a teammate or he snags some kills after laning phase in a team fight and snowballs.

[@oliverbehrer5252]

A new ad carry style champ that is a balance nightmare i wonder how many times this is now

[@P.H691]

Take a shot for every time riot tried to fix an adc champ and instead makes them worse. I guarantee you won’t be able to walk right

[@phoenixflamegames1]

⁠@@P.H691I guarantee you you need a hospital visit with zeri alone😂

[@brunosouza3867]

Adc's are not allowed to have any different mechanics as samira, zeri, aphelios, poke kai'sa. And the soloQ is not the problem, beacuse must of the time this champs have poor wr, with smolder being a exeption, most people just dont like adcs doing different things. The real problem is pro play, because it look like anything that is not a normal adc becomes mega broken in pro league, as if the normal adc are just shit champions.

[@sayjii]

4:17 shows it then proceeds to hide it just to show it again

[@xy2447]

you could especially notice his "long range bullshit" on urf

[@xaedris]

"The only peace i seek is death" of this cursed poorly designed baby faced over powered discount spyro.

[@TarsonTalon]

Spyro could give Smolder a swirly, and he wouldn't lose his good-guy reputation.

[@wlnlax14]

Too safe and too present in every lane

[@Larky90]

this Ive seen him in all the content creators videos across multiple ranks, played in every lane building anything and doing atleast decent, which is not okay... We dont really need other champs if they keep pumping out champs who can be played in every role. Just unlock the one for all game mode and lock everyone in as smoulder lol

[@ISituationHD]

2:14 ??? "We never once advertised her as a jungler. We consistently and quite strongly communicated she was a mid lander many times" Riot

[@nikolastamatov7255]

They'll never do that but the smolder q problem can easaly be fixed by them just removing the stacks and tiying it to lvs like kayle. lv 6 its aoe lv 11 splash zone lv 16 execute (based off ad not stacks). If they make those changes theyll just need to fine tune some numbers and smolder will be in a ok spot as a champion but it'll never happen cuz riot is alergic to admiting mistakes

[@danielfernandezromero68]

If you tie it to his levels he can't be played as an ADC

[@Kwabsii]

Great idea - make a champion that is intended to be played in a duo lane level reliant. Top laners surely will be happy if Smolder players go there to not be 2-3 levels behind.

[@phoenixflamegames1]

@@danielfernandezromero68this is the problem sadly…

[@navyblue1865]

nah, they just want to play Cait-Ezreal-Kaisa all games😔🙏🏿

[@magical571]

@mandoole it wouldn't be op, but it would push smolder top over adc. which i doubt anyone wants to deal with.

[@markfarmer7534]

"He's almost like Xerath with an escape" gave me PTSD flashbacks, but if it were real, it'd give me 1 billion LP

[@yebutmynameiskyle]

This champion was designed as a mage I don't care what Riot says. Everything about him is a mage caster.

[@briannguyen6248]

Which is why I enjoy playing him as adc lol

[@TzrcWolf_]

Which is why it fucking sucks that he can take advantage of AD abilities that give him healing and escape.

[@Capta1n4mer1ca]

​@tzrcwolf6285 Acting like AD abilities are OP 😂 you realise smolders abilities deal basically no dmg? He lives off his true dmg and execute. Complaining about ad abilities is absolutely hilarious with the amount of armour there is in the game. There's a reason you can build 1000 ap but only max out at about 400 AD. Cos its meant for auto attacks. Since he doesn't auto, having his abilities do AD dmg is a disadvantage

[@deadbeats5640]

@@Capta1n4mer1caad casters are a thing. Yorick and illaoi are prob the biggest 2 I can think of. The problem was his stacks and true damage but the recent changes do make him more item oriented then stacks and that just made him even more insufferable let alone his voice lines being comparable to fizz.

[@tonysmith9905]

@@deadbeats5640 Yorick isn't really an AD caster though. All of his damage comes from auto attacks, whether they're his or his ghouls. Renekton, Riven, Lee Sin, most assassins. These are AD casters.

[@funloop]

The way i see it, it was basically what the second comment said. Honestly, if he didn't have that E ability then i suspect that he wouldn't be that bad. Also, this feels weird that a new champion is still being talked about in a general term since most new champs get forgotten pretty quickly, especially when it isn't about their skins

[@Braxtonkai]

Rito hitting their late Blizzard arc

[@Re1dy]

Naafiri was meant to be assassin midlaner

[@martinkaradjov6153]

he is

[@nikenit]

"All these rates stay similar, no matter what champion" >Looks at Yasuo sitting in top 5 pick and ban rate for 9 years straight, with sub-50% winrate Yeah, right

[@AshBlossomWorshiper]

I was wondering where all this came from. I only ever really play events. I was lile "heartstone smolder is a little annoying, but he seems fine"

[@JakeSPuwuowo69]

"Banrates usually go down after the first month or so" Me maining Yuumi from pre-release on PBE until her rework that completely ruined her: "... Yeah?"

[@tomasdolezan4148]

I think changing his Q to skillshot like Veigar got would make him little more fair, because at this point he has one skill that does insane dmg and you cant dodge it

[@OCovilDoMarcos]

that'd make it even stronger tho, because now he'd be able to kite back way more efficiently and safely. Just look at ezreal and how strong he is at chasing and kiting back because he can just throw skills instead of having to auto attack.

[@zsomeone8921]

He's popular judt becouse they add the most powerful things to an adc , the infinite scaling, and they remove the most difficult mechanics to an adc, the kiting

[@atoucangirl]

just this once, i feel extremely vindicated. when he was released people were like "finally a simple kit, like the good ol' days". as it turns out, a champion can be simple AND infuriating and unbalanced. because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how the abilities actually work, %hp true damage and infinite stacking sucks on its own (especially on a fucking ADC), and just proves my point that Nasus would be beyond despised if he was released today.

[@magical571]

THIS. I never enjoyed how much push the whole "make all new champions simple, 200 years aphelios meme" train got. Easy champions are meant from their very design to be around or above 51% winrate, not even just my opinion, but explicitely how riot balances, they repeat it all the time on patch note and dev insights.- And it makes sense, a hard champion will lose more due to their higher floor, but good players will reach their higher ceiling too, so naturally they will, overal, have a lower winrate but be perfectly balanced there as those who stick with it will reach a higher potential. Easy champions on the other hand, if they aren't winning more than half of their games, they are failing basically, no point in picking them besides personal bias. Nothing to master there, the whole point is for them to be easy and reliable, and the gap between a new player and a master at the champion gets diminished greatly (it will come down more and more to the macro of each player, which applies to every match and champion ever basically, so easy champions just "erase" an aspect of the match up). So easy champions are by design meant to, surprinsingly i know, easily kick your butt. And when you lose to an easy champion, well, it doesn't feel truly earned, it makes you question why even bother with a harder champion. Why not just point and click, have safety, long range poke, free scaling etc. Of course it's gonna get obnoxious the more of these champs there are. And since they are simple, they rely much more on number changes for their balance, and player mastery plays a way smaller role, so again, they need to be consistently winning or there is no point to them. easy champions are an obnoxious paradox. A complicated champ, if they overperform, they can have mechanics removed, changed, adjusted, and people will find much more wiggle room to adapt and play with a different strategy, a simple champion? not so much. it's way more of a "punch harder" "live longer" straight line.

[@RetroCube]

Nasus is nowhere near comparable. Dude falls off late game even with an infinite stacking mechanic with how much power creep has happened over the years.

[@NotAnAmerican]

Nasus today would have a dash like jax q

[@atoucangirl]

@@NotAnAmerican my entire point is that Nasus would be hated if he wasn't an old champion people are nostalgic for and think is well-designed. he's a polarizing mess with no counterplay and one of the most boring laning phases if you're against him.

[@huntersuper98]

@@atoucangirl Smolder only became this because of the "adjustments" that really turned out to be a buff across the board. The champ was completely fine pre-buffs once people figured him out.

[@Hajsa999]

He scales in game, he also scales in meta. Thats why charts go up haha

[@shadownight9956]

Until S7 we had only to worry about vayne but nowadays i am seeing those white bars are longer than my future😢😢

[@PayamRPooya]

For Smolder to lose it's pick/ban rate , all riot needs to do is to bring back the Kraken Slayer's True Damage . Smolder True Dmg is the main reason that i pick him up as my main as soon as he released and the same reason that most adc mains did the same , even in content creator space of adcs you could see that , Doublelift , Saber , Sneaky , Dabes ... . Adc had been in a bad place before Kraken True Dmg removal , but after that it lost all agency in the game . i mean if any tank player is here , be honest ... have you ever thought twice about diving headfirst into backline since KS true damage has been removed ? for Smolder to lose it's play popularity , other ADCs have to be able to compete with him in game agency, and without True Damage , no other ADC can

[@amyw5691]

deathwing appreciation in 2024

[@anormaluser5750]

I'm pretty sure part of the high ban rate is exactly bc he is either extremely OP or extremely useless, and you don't know if the OP Smolder is gonna be on the enemy team or if the useless smolder is gonna be in the ally team, it's annoying both ways

[@Oscar97o]

Naafiri was always meant to be a midlaner.

[@oliverbehrer5252]

True but even when she was a jungler i would still play her mid

[@MojijojiMiho]

Yes. But her design is not something you expect from a midlaner. Her design is not midlaner.

[@drakinathehuman]

Support all the way because everyone needs a dogo companion

[@emanuelstornello8009]

No she is supposed to be a jungler because riot hates roaming, unless the botlane does it

[@spivotz]

@@MojijojiMiho Her design is 100% midlane lmao

[@Dinglix]

make never surrender a setting that can be checked by anyone, that makes it so the surrender popup never show up, if they want to surrender, they can go into the setting and uncheck it so next time the popup will show

[@LUNAT1C._]

I love watching your vids baked as hell man also I alone am responsible for atleast 57% in that Smolder banrate chart

[@Zights1]

ppl acting like every new champ is not broken af for a cpl months until skin sells are done

[@JeliOnYT]

I'm just sad his mom doesn't work for riot anymore

[@Ronan-ht6jc]

Nah bro, between this and Ksante, Rito did everyone a favor by firing her

[@deadbeats5640]

The prob is she was one of the main people working on the skarner rework. So he’s prob broken on release or hard to balance.

[@giulioceresini1435]

Which is great new. Smolder charcter design makes you throw up when you even glance at him. I am baffled how anyone would greenlight that shit.

[@BoneWalker]

8:50 Riot laying out their intentions and them never being true? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

[@paradoxwraith5275]

Should have added his mom.

[@icarusunited]

I love smolder top. He plays like a vayne/quinn with a unique veigar Q.

[@colossaldonut5190]

Riot's latest disaster and the champion is meant to be simple. I don't understand how they fucked up this bad in all honesty.

[@merok4291]

I mean he is simple. Simple+overtuned+garbage design both kit and character vise=Smolder

[@magical571]

simple champions will always be above average in win rate, they are meant to. Smolder is overtuned for sure, but this is the kind of shit you ask for when screaming for simple champs. Don't believe me, listen to riot's patchnotes or dev insight. If a simple champ isn't on average winning around or more than 52% of their matches, they are failing by nature of their simplicity. They exist to win reliable and easily. No niche trick, no nothing. They win, or they fail by concept.

[@skeley6776]

@@magical571 if their pick rate is low that could be true but Smolders pickrate is insane he should be 47% maybe 48% wr + he is pretty much a must pick in Pro.

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

9:15 It's almost like auto attacks are a boring mechanic... not even Rito wants to keep using them.

[@ponglenis9273]

People have forgotten how the pre reverted rework kogmaw was. Smolder is nothing compared to 5.0 AS on a 10 seconds cd with the press of a button combined with mixed damage.

[@Aris-zw5lj]

Exactly, a fucking kog or Twitch late games completely annihilate smolder's DMG and teamfight potential

[@tadihotado3518]

Blud really said naafiri was a jungler Yea about as effective as yone jungle when he first released, she's a midlaner btw in case you couldn't be bothered to read

[@WholesomeVolibear]

Me a wild rift player watching this video: hmmm yes he sounds like a problem

[@tedddenzel6769]

lmao same bro

[@WholesomeVolibear]

@@tedddenzel6769 😂

[@holloworeo2233]

Same lol

[@fehyth3400]

the champion is extremely overtuned, but its also extremely fun to play, so maybe calling the champion a mistake is a bit too much maybe swaping the execute for something else also i think people tend to forget that briar was literally hit killing anyone while healing to full health in her letality build

[@sgtspring3663]

All my homies hate Smolder.

[@anhuro8558]

Not that surpising that Smolder stayed popular. Not only is he an easy champ to play, but he's a pentakill machine and as soon as a good build came online for him (and people learned the champ) people quickly realized how OP he is (on top of being easy to play). A lot of the reason why people play smolder as well is so the enemy team doesn't pick him. Now... they are just completely gutting the champ in the next patch and making him unplayable. I also believe the banrate for Smolder was low in the beginning because people didn't know how to play him, thus he was seen as a weak champion. That's at least how I experienced it. Also I'm pretty sure the main selling point was that he was supposed to be an easy champion to play with a simple kit, NOT that he was supposed to feel like a traditional ADC.

[@GigaLigma]

They should take all the annoying parts of his kit out (like the execute on Q) and make it so for his ult, he temporarily switches places with his mom who has all the passive upgrades instead of him. Like a ranged Shyvana ult. Give people the dragon they wanted and balance it by tying it to the duration of an ultimate. They could make his mom more of an auto attacker too while keeping Smolder himself as more of a siege caster.

[@lebalduino]

Pls don't. If you want to make something similar to Shyv, use it on her rework. Make something different with him. A lot different

[@GigaLigma]

@@lebalduino It wouldn't be that similar because Shyv is still a melee champion and not a ranged siege/ADC champion. The only similarity is the concept of a transformation ultimate, which is by no means a signature to Shyvana as there are plenty of transformation champions in the game already. Moreover, the transformation would be nothing like Shyvana's since it would just be upgraded Smolder. And like it or not, Smolder is already thematically similar to Shyvana. You may as well just accept that instead of rejecting a way to make the champion better because it's "too similar" to something else. I'd rather him be similar to Shyvana than similar to Asol like he currently is.

[@tonysmith9905]

"keeping Smolder himself as more of a siege caster." He's not a sieger though, he doesn't have the range for it on his best ability. Caitlyn and Ashe and Kog are siegers. Smolder is not.

[@GigaLigma]

@@tonysmith9905 Smolder's Q hitbox becomes longer than the primary abilities of the champions you mentioned actually, making it easily cover an entire minion wave as well as any champions behind it just by hitting one of the melee minions in the front; not to mention Rapid Firecannon, one of his statistically best and most popular items, increases its cast range further. As for his W, it's just longer range to begin with. If you think Smolder's range is low, you must be really bad at bouncing his upgraded Q off closer targets to hit further-away ones. Think of it like Miss Fortune's Q except aoe and significantly harder for people to dodge. And aside from that, long attack range is not the sole definition of a sieger. Waveclear is just as important to this role so that you can destroy enemy minion waves and build up your own minions, and there's almost nothing in the game that has better waveclear than Smolder once he's upgraded.

[@brigsterdrusselpineda7623]

as a ingage support main Specifically Rakan Smolder took the "I hate to play against this champ" to another level to the point I ban him in every game I play as a support (even tho there are other champions that counters Rakan better) and when I play other roles and see him on the team or enemy I always go for him and make sure he doesn't have fun, I don't care about winning anymore I just want every smolder user have 0/20/0 kda

[@RaulHernandez-fn9zl]

I also do indeed hate smolder

[@zachtemoro2116]

Maybe its just me but I don’t mind him as he is now, its more so he just outshines every ADC thats come before him. He makes it glaringly obvious how bad most marksmen are, and hopefully the buff to IE makes them more viable. However I doubt that just a buff to IE will fix the issues most of them have where they have to resort to building Assassin or Bruiser items

[@Braxtonkai]

how does a mage outshine adc's?

[@snieddjamal4649]

Video about smolder Everyone: naafiri 🤓

[@crashed3927]

If you want to ruin a smolders (or any adcs) day just lock Kalista with AP Malphite support. Once you hit 6 the game is over for him.

[@bthsr7113]

I hate Smolder for making Shyvana even less likely to get attention for lore and a visual overhaul.

[@Disambiguous]

She's already been confirmed as next visual update after skarner

[@undyne1]

I can't be the only one who swears Naafiri and a few other champs were meant to be junglers before release, due to teasers.

[@amandaslough125]

Naafiri was announced to be a midlaner though.

[@ZzShy]

The other main issue which I never see anyone notice is that the ADC role only ever has a handful of good champs that fit the role, every other role has 10+ Meta champs at a time while ADC rarely even has 5, so pick rates for ADCs tend to be super inflated, just look at the top 10 most played champs at any time and at least 6 or 7 of them, and often even more, are ADCs

[@skeley6776]

ADC mains literally cried last time we made something that isnt a adc meta remember vlad adc and how Rekkles and other adcs cried and RIOT quickly nerfed it. Meanwhile Jg has every class in the game and we had Ezreal Jg... So tldr ADC mains are the reason why the ADC line up is so boring.

[@hello_mr.yomi6627]

@@skeley6776 The Duality of adcs People say adc is useless People say ADC is overpowered

[@MalevolentDivinity]

@@hello_mr.yomi6627 And I say they're terribly designed, toxic, and boring.

[@hello_mr.yomi6627]

@@MalevolentDivinity I think the biggest problem with ADC is that a lot of them can be a mage as well because the have small AP scaling Obviously there are some that are balanced like Ezreal and twitch But the whole point of an ADC is for them to be a hypercarry with the drawback of being very squishy and reliant on other teammates but there are a few adcs that break that mold and become absolutely overpowered

[@MalevolentDivinity]

@@hello_mr.yomi6627 No, that's the theoretical point of a character like Kayle or Karthus. Ranged AD's just scale off three multiplicative stats that only really work on autoattacks, causing them all to basically play the exact same way and have idiotic scaling that makes them suck midgame while being wildly overpowered lategame. It's shit design, and the game would be better off if they deleted crit.

[@MasterStacona]

tl;dr : Rito finally made a good champion design for the first time in like the last 10 years or something. his attack range is too short to be a traditional auto attacker. He has the same attack range as Corki and guess how people play him...

[@skeley6776]

he is just Spyro but red idk how that is some crazy good design but I guess Deviantart OCs are now considered good design lol.

[@AngryShark105]

The thing is that every new Champions in the league now is SAME Faces & bad Lore, the art of the models of each skins are like the same position, they are pretty bad now no kidding. Looks A. I

[@xxred_riot10]

Well its true though the new champions are kinda sucks

[@romainrondeau4242]

Yeah when you've got Smolder+Millio in comp they have the same face.

[@sarvashaktimaan7106]

If they remove the execute and heavily nerf E mobility he would be fine. The biggest issue is that he is a late game hyper carry that completely 1v9s if he gets to late but also has incredible escape because of his range + E.

[@animalxing8697]

If Riot literally just replaced Smolder with Spyro the Dragon, and reworked his snot bubble into actual fire breath, that would fix 90% of the problem

[@Braxtonkai]

smolder is akin to dragons as edward cullen is akin to vampires

[@animalxing8697]

@@Braxtonkai nice profile pic

[@Braxtonkai]

@@animalxing8697 haha you too

[@gedaun4345]

I appreciated the goat story joke, even tho no one other than the Czechs got it.

[@meow-2411]

All i can say is watch T1 vs NS game 2 😅

[@CrescentWolves]

My problem is that as a support main. Even if I engage him good he can just E away after the CC and be safe again and punish. Then ofc you eventually reach the point where he has enough stacks to just carry and you can't do anything against him anymore.

[@frenchi0]

my life flashed before my eyes after seeing Naafiri release date

[@Nevermind445]

I kept playing smolder a lot because to me it seemed like his kit wasn't figured out yet, like you could play him in more ways than the average player did. The fact I got to 'cook' whenever I played him was really fun to me. What gave him this versatility was the fact he didn't really rely on items. Your power spikes were your stack milestones. This kind of makes it so you can build anything on him

[@TheDragonshunter]

Because the only way to make an adc good is making it broken because normally tanks with full tank items do more damage...

[@Noah_Morrieh]

Damn you must be really bad

[@Broestablette]

People don't ban new champs because they don't know how to play against them. They ban them because their teammates don't know how to play them, yet still pick them

[@runeserpent1449]

He’s also so resident sleeper watching In pro play, enemy team tries to dive him and he just ults the wave and they got nothing. Can even fly off the freaking map to stall longer

[@argumentumadhominem3977]

Pro play is Resident sleeper in general.

[@Super_Top_Secret_Area]

I don't hate Smolder. I actually like him, he looks like he could be tasty if cooked on a stick. Today I saw someone's hateful meme about putting Smolder in a meat grinder. Honestly, I don't see the point of that much hatred. But I won't deny he looked tasty, like, Smolder meat could be used to make a nice pie.

[@deejayf69]

I mean, low key, Smolder is so fortunate to have the circumstances line up for him. If I were a champion I'd rather be ded than building crit in the current season. I want this return to classic Smolder that weaves in auto attacks, but dear god, are crit items terrible.

[@gingeroxide]

It being 8 years since an adc got released that wasn't overly complicated, lived on a knifes edge, or got gutted because of pro play has certainly influenced play rate.

[@dreamweaver4183]

They fr just had to add a Zoe part 2

[@urielmarles7036]

zoe? what does smolder have to do with zoe? XD. Their design problems are quite different.

[@phoenixflamegames1]

@@urielmarles7036they’re aiming at the cutesy design.

[@merok4291]

@@urielmarles7036 Disney characters.....Same as lillia "vomits"

[@wanyshu1671]

Hasn't that always been the case? Why not play Dota, last time I checked they weren't scared to have a champ be ugly.

[@bingh4309]

Bro, I swear half of those bans are my teammates banning him when I hover him...

[@rosestemss]

"we have never had a cool dragon that can actually speak human" Aurelion Sol: Am I a joke to you???

[@magical571]

that was the intended irony

[@alexcat6685]

@@magical571 and he's a god who takes the form of a dragon not is.

[@urbanrip7477]

they really combined just combined the best parts of asol and ezreal

[@xarao]

Let's be real, people are just malding now, "oh no a scaling adc that plays safe and only deals damage to me late game BUT it has true damage and execute to compesate for the lack of early and mid game pressure, it is so op, riot please nerf it to the ground, i can't stand seeing an ADC dealing damage to my perma shielded yone, nerf it now now now now or i am gonna cry bua bua", kappachungus maximum deluxe moment.

[@ToasteBlade]

I still love Smolder. I like playing mages bot but my friends get mad at me for needing AD. I can now play an AD mage that I like.

[@yasugoi12]

I think the only reason why Zeri's play rate was consistent was because the bottom lane only has fewer champs unlike other roles, and in Slmorder's case, adc players got tired of kiting in every other auto attack.

[@pettermiranda4651]

His E should scale with atk speed, and maybe his Q should auto reset, but that part would mean some of his numbers would have to go down drastically