Everything Wrong With: Pyke | League of Legends

For our third episode of Everything Wrong With, we're gonna discuss champion who has been around for a decently long time at this point, yet was one of the most influential designs in terms of how the support landscape has been shaped thereafter. Let's discuss Pyke: The Bloodharbor Ripper!
League of Legends Everything Wrong With Playlist: • League of Legends Ever...
Check out my Genshin Impact channel! bit.ly/3HQN9ud
Check out my Smash Bros channel! bit.ly/3rlFD3Z
Support me on Patreon! bit.ly/3iy5pvu
Donate to the channel! bit.ly/36TpIQP
~Editor (Matamer)~
KZbin: / @matamer
Twitter: / matamer_
~Contact Links~
Facebook: bit.ly/3lGV9Vg
Twitter: bit.ly/3kv7CZU
Discord: bit.ly/33M2iev
Twitch: bit.ly/2XNes31
Candle.gg: bit.ly/3ndfU9r
Non business email: [e-mail]
Business email: [e-mail]
Graphics provided by: / tofugraphics
#LoL #Pyke #LeagueofLegends

[@bmac4]

Fun fact, Pyke is the only champion who is known to have gotten a pentakill in pro while being played by a designated support player, most notably Eyla.

[@IIIlIl]

What does the word "designated" support player mean in this context?

[@user-jd5nu5kh3k]

@@IIIlIl Probably meaning that the player was chosen to play support in bot lane with an adc. I guess its because you can technically play support champs top, mid and jungle. eg. Nautlilus mid

[@aleksandarmilovanovic1264]

​@IIlIlIIIlI Every team in pro play has a designated top,jungle,mid,adc and support. It has happened that a designated top laner or mid laner pick a champion that is usually used as a support. But in this case the designated support actually picked him

[@slavchems4759]

@@IIIlIl it's the players role in the team

[@andyeccentric]

​@@IIIlIlhe's just being fancy talkin

[@LifesY-T]

honestly, the only reason i think he's so cancer to deal with is because its basically impossible to catch a good pyke. never being able to punish anything a character does feels just... really bad.

[@shadowraith10]

I feel exactly like this about Samira and Nilah. They feel like at level 3 they can full engage on you as ANY marksman and suffer zero penalty for all inning you even with your support's intervention and still kill you 100 to 0.

[@zbz5505]

​@@shadowraith10nilah I'd fully agree, especially bc she'll always have an exp advantage just for existing. For samira idk, im low elo, so most samira are as trash as me.

[@jordanoharegibson1610]

​@@shadowraith10early Sam cds are too long to all in without an alistar who knows what they're doing

[@connorduval3977]

Not to mention he heals off any damage that you can get on him

[@ioiioooio193]

@@shadowraith10Samira NEEDS a GOD TIER support to be viable, I main adc and in order to get those snowball games it’s feels like I have to rely on supp to be remotely useful in a game. Nilah I can agree

[@QuestionableLogic_]

I am genuinely convinced that Pyke Middle is the reason that Supports that released afterward weren't allowed to function without -an ADC- a duo.

[@my2cents795]

I think all the jannas, karmas and sorakas top have something to do with it as well.

[@arcanegale285]

@@my2cents795 Seraphine had more success as a mid and as an adc than she had as support and Rell is now a jungler too,

[@michaelc.r.6416]

@@arcanegale285seraph was intended to be a mid laner, not a supp.

[@arcanegale285]

@@michaelc.r.6416 I mean I guess, but like her primary role is enchanter not mage generally she's a kind of Ivern type champion

[@Baaforsheep]

Sera is a mid laner, the only reason she got shoved support is old moonstone/she cute af with a shield + heal. She is a neutral mid laner, issue is they tend to be unpopular.

[@mikeyman2156]

Very subtle thing that I wanna say shoutout to vars for. He always has good audio mixing, no big audio spikes that hurt my ears, never too loud or to quiet. Thank you for that boss.

[@chingunganzorig]

Very under appreciated

[@Insanityltself]

I hate how insane his neutral game is. It feels like the only time you can kill him is if Pyke is the one who messes up.

[@speeddemon9616]

not true if you take control of spacing pyke cannot farm, his neutral game is only good if u let him have one.

[@oscar95237]

Bold of u to assume pyke would die even if he makes mistakes

[@Insanityltself]

@@speeddemon9616 Wdym? Pyke doesn't need to farm. Not unless he's in a solo lane but nobody plays solo lane Pyke anymore.

[@deletthis5040]

I've had the exact same thought for years. It's like he can almost always bite off more than he can chew and get away with it. It'd always dependent on him to fuck up rather than me make a play.

[@DronesOverTheMoon]

​@@oscar95237Literally unable to build health, its pretty easy to kill him if gets picke

[@calebwillingham6481]

Something overlooked with Pyke is how good he is at getting and denying vision. He's pretty safe if you play him right, with so much move speed, camouflage, and a dash that goes over walls and stuns pursuers, so he can get deep vision by himself more than most supports. His speed makes his sweeper more efficient too, as you can cover more ground in its duration. But even more significantly, he's perhaps the only support who can take Umbral Glaive first item, which makes him extremely potent at vision denial. And with a champ who excels at creating picks, getting and denying vision is even more influential.

[@Donnerbalken28]

Senna also has no problem building Glaive first, but Senna is a sitting duck once something with any form of CC shows up.

[@hasturthekinginyellow5003]

i kinda love how Pyke was soo good in its early versions that Riot had to basically shoot him with a shotgun in both knees and tie up one of his arms to his back just so he could be a support

[@Yokai_Yuri]

He is a support? I thought he was an assassin in bot lane with a good gold income. Kinda like senna who is " a support" that can 1 v 1 any adc

[@thetheory6159]

As a Pyke OTP, considering he's been in A/S tier consistently ever since, I daresay leaving him his harpoon might have been too lenient.

[@TheAngelRaven]

Just going to point this out: Soraka Top was a thing and she was absolutely GUTTED because of it, leading to her SUPPORT role actually become worse and lowering her winrate. All to get her out of top. With Pyke, they just fixed his kit to not have wave clear. WHY COULDN'T THEY HAVE REMOVED SORAKA'S WAVE CLEAR?!

[@lifeofphobia]

lmao jokes on u i still play soraka top

[@Nuvizzle]

The problem with support top lane never had anything to do with wave clear. People played supports top that had practically no waveclear at all. You were just there to soak XP until level 6 and then abandon top lane completely because you don't need any items to contribute to teamfights, meanwhile their top laner has to either follow your roams and fight at a disadvantage because their character is fundamentally worse in early skirmishes, or stay top and make their team fight 4v5. The problem with support tops was really never about the champions at all, it was about how worthless the top lane role was (and largely still is)

[@mccheesegod5711]

​@@Nuvizzletop lane is the most impactful role in the game most games just boils down to which top gets the first kill, then dunks on the enemy team the whole game. Like if you give a darius, illaoi, jax , fiora or heck anyone first blood they run away with the lead and start stomp rolling the whole team at which point no one can affect the game anymore, as a jungle main ganking the enemy top at even 2 kills is impossible, theyll be like 3 maybe 2 levels on you a whole item or component up on you and will just stat stick you off, its a literal terror ganking an illaoi top and watching her not only squash you the jungler but also the top laner like a bug and getting wave and then turret and worst of all shes unkillable after that at wprse shell go 1 for 1 and that throws you behind on tempo and doesnt really stop her at all

[@thehentairevenant2309]

@@mccheesegod5711 bro is smoking toplane is the LEAST impact role of them all, basicly being a island until tower plate are gone or tower got taken and the game is often win or lose before toplane leave top anyways

[@mursi2734]

@@thehentairevenant2309 and most unforgiving cus it's impossible to be even if you got first blooded the only way I got useful with example Pantheon was ulting into the fight and picking Enemies with my Q up and if that fails I am deadweight

[@aowens40601]

I think the problem is they want to shoehorn champions into the role instead of letting them settle somewhere and then tweaking from there. Forcing champs to fulfill a spot isn't fun from a player perspective cause there's no choice from the players.

[@StonedDragons]

Right?! Then you get champions like swain who can potentially play 4 roles (everything but jungle really), is an incredibly frustrating support to go up against, he's fine but suddenly Sona or Janna start doing well in the midlane and nope, that isn't allowed.

[@WarpedSymmetry]

I feel this so hard. Camille is one of my favourite champions in the game, but I started playing way after Camille jungle was a thing. They basically forced her to be exclusively a toplaner by tweaking her in the jungle. They did the same with Naafiri. I love the champion, and on release Riot told us she was a midlaner that could jungle, which is true but her clear is so bad that it has become Sylas 2.0. When a champion gets stronger in an off role than in their main role, nerfs are justified, but 90% of the time they just murder their ability to flex pick (except for Gragas, that sh!t is allowed to flex 4 roles (alongside Swain), 5 if you want to consider fasting Senna with Gragas farming)

[@aowens40601]

@@WarpedSymmetry I think gragas is good because he's a natural low cooldown mage. Normally you play around a mages stupid long cooldowns but gragas doesn't really have that problem. So really he can be good with most items. Tank or mage. Hopefully the mage items get more diverse once they get rid of mythics next season. They are so boring right now.

[@WarpedSymmetry]

@aowens40601 yeah, he defies both tank and mage's main weakness: high cds, while at the same time complementing for each class respective's weaknesses. Tanks have low dmg high cc and resistances, spammable low range spells sometimes self-sustain and usually low mobility, mages have high damage, low mobility and resistances, spammable long range spells, while Gragas, no matter what build he goes, has everything these two classes have combined, nullifiying their weaknesses and amplifying their strengths.

[@aowens40601]

@@WarpedSymmetry Since the durability update and AD classes having effective magic resist I wouldn't even say mages have high damage, barring those infinite scalers like viegar or A Sol. But they have okay AOE damage, which is probably why a lot have shifted to bot lane. More targets to hit which makes abilities more efficient.

[@jackdeangelo7377]

I love this series so much it’s really interesting to listen to you lay out the flaws in characters like these as someone who mains pyke, Viego, Kayn I understand those champions have many flaws in terms of design, and would love to see episodes on the ladder two.

[@TheSezla]

As someone who only plays ARAM, Pyke is an absolute nightmare in ARAM to go up against, pentakills are not rare at all to see on him there.

[@ohana_j4n]

i cant see him anymore there. he is in 1 of 3 arams. he with teemo who is just spamming shrooms on the lane.this drags the game out for at least 10min wirhout possible interaction since the time on the reveal is to short before the cannon minion dies. its just not fun anymore. they are killing aram for me at the moment and riot does nothing. they are totaly out of touch with aram and the buffs/nerfs just feel so random and maybe only driven by numbers and winrate. instead of playing the game to see and feel whats fair, too weak, too strong ect.

[@Rhyolite-hyena]

​​​@@ohana_j4n The balancing of bruisers & assassins, especially assassins, are all kinds of f up. It's too bizarre to see insane duskblade users & recently op bruisers still having all kinds of dmg buffs & dmg receive. The balancing in Aram is just a whole year late behind and I feel bad to be the person to have competitive spirit, but also like to change my playstyle after some times. Aram isn't fun anymore it's just overwhelmingly Lethality + Bruiser + *Control mage Trinity comp (+1 dps). Thks to all the dmg & cdr creeps we've gotten. Wanna feel special for playing wild factor champs that surprise people that they do live well (used to be) if you know their spacing? like Eve Belveth Udyr? Too bad they're non existent now. I never play aram alone now. And if Unflavored comp with silly ashe/ziggs/lee... = ignore the game & take free lost like a true casual then.

[@thetheory6159]

The problem is that since you can't back in aram, you are stuck at his ult's mercy EVENTUALLY, and you don't really have room to avoid it.

[@zedre7633]

Bit of a correction here: his ult did not grant three kills worth of gold for four years. On his release it worked the same way it does now, Pyke gets the normal kill gold and the last assisting ally gets their 300G cut. It was only after nerfing his waveclear in an attempt to stop solo laning that they added the extra cut to Pyke, about a full year after his release, to compensate for the nerfs somehow. And yes, everyone thought it was a stupid idea even back then too.

[@thetheory6159]

Oh it was retarded. Getting 600 gold per solo kill was also incredibly stupid -- imagine you kill your laner, get early dirk, then when the jungler ganks you squeeze out a double execute at 6 and instantly get TWELVE HUNDRED MORE GOLD AHEAD. At this point you're gonna be in your midgame before the enemy leaves their early, and immediately dominate all three lanes because of how Pyke can just go from one lane to another in 5 seconds.

[@YanYanicantbelievethistakenffs]

The only problem i have with him is the amount of mistakes they can do. They can go in. Eat half a rotation barely escape and be back at almost full. The kit is really good at discouraging persuit. E W breaks LoS almost instantly and if you try to folow you get stunned. But if you wait the speed will bee too much for you to follow. Other than that, i think he is fine, even if i am biased against him due to my absolute lack of object permanence + stealth hindsight. "Oh he went to the bush its our time to go in!" Then he is besides his adc but with the w. Classic thing i still fall for.

[@velvetgorge3844]

To be fair, Pyke has to use his mobility tools to even accomplish anything against his opponent in many situations. His gap closer CC is easy to avoid on its own and it's not something he can rely on if he misses his Q so he can be punished pretty hard for missing it in laning or in vital team fights. He does have his invis to lean back on; but frankly, if he has to resort to that to get away there's no point in chasing him anyway since he pretty much lost a lot of his impact in the fight unless his allies manage to put his enemies into ult threshold and he's able to capitalize on that. I feel the most annoying thing about him is his passive regen which makes his sustain fairly strong, but I take that to give him some survivability since he can't buy health and tbh I don't think it's particularly relevant beyond laning phase. Compared to something like Leblanc, Zed, or Talon I think his options for engagement are a fair deal riskier and less reliable. I'm pretty okay with Pyke on virtue that the margin of error for him is great. There's a fair number of options to outplay him and plenty of cool things he himself can do. In a lot of cases, if you manage to flash out of his ult or use zhonya's against it he's going to lose a lot of value within a team fight.

[@osa236harca6]

except in any case he isnt killed instantly in which all the above doesnt matter and his passives resets him@@velvetgorge3844

[@laurisimasm5222]

I don’t mind his damage, hook, ult, stun. But I hate that on top of this he has an ability that gives him mobility, health regeneration and stealth. He can go in, miss everything and escape with 1 hp. 3 secs later he’s back at full health :’)

[@peppinhof7903]

​@@laurisimasm5222dunno man if he does go in with his dash how should he get out? It's the one mobility skill he has, w makes him faster but you can still see him if he does it and punish him. If he's not dead yet. I play him as my main an if I mess up I always die. There is no in between. Maybe I play with people who know how to punish an error? Idk

[@pauliussipavicius4658]

It feels like people who complain about pyke, never had to play against ap shaco support. Ap shaco support is the real deal to discourage pursuit, heck they actually want you to do that. Pyke got nothing on him.

[@Malva597]

I remember the glory days of being full build at 20 mins. Good times

[@gr4ve686]

I feel like he'd be a bit better if when his ult successfully killed the target, it gave the credit/gold to whoever attacked last with Pyke getting the cut, instead of vice versa. I.E. his ult successfully last hits someone with a 700g bounty, and all that gold instead goes to the ADC/Mid/etc, instead of to Pyke, who would only get the cut. idk that might be bad too

[@corporatecanine6030]

It'd be way better. Instead of the Support being the selfish one, make his efforts actually support his team.

[@zapid6733]

Agreed, if there's a big enough bounty you are throwing if you ult them, it would make more sense if your teammate got it instead

[@destix6149]

No fuck No dont force him more into Support

[@Appa-nx2qf]

​@@destix6149he's meant to be a support......

[@spykeep]

in that case pyke mains use their ult as late as possible so they get the cut but gold goes to person who actually killed

[@cryotheum]

I think it would've been good to talk about how pyke interacts with shutdowns against enemies and being shutdown himself. He kinda is a loot pinata in the wrong hands because of his ultimate, and he also can easily take a lot of shutdown gold form his team which is not a good design decision for a support character imo

[@osa236harca6]

gotta love how almost all the footage in the video is pyke messing up and getting a kill lol

[@ages_dot_mp4]

To make things worse, when Pyke was released on Wild Rift people played him on both jg and mid, and recently he got a "balance" buff, forcing him to go support because of his abilities now deal heavily cut damage to non champion units, but instead his abilities deal even more damage to champions and his dash now stuns for 3 seconds and his ultimate instead of having an X shaped hitbox, it's a circle

[@Sulphyrous]

Id like a support who helps their team get ahead in gold in a different way. For example, they could have a passive that marks a champion, and if the champ gets hit by an ally they get 5 gold? (Presumably on a healthy cooldown) and maybe an ability that steals 20-25 gold on a takedown from an enemy, granting it to the nearest ally? They'd be like a cool thief/rogue lookin fella

[@im-caerula]

I'd ask for an "Everything Wrong With Katarina" but that would be an endless video.

[@Underworlder5]

so flexible she can build pretty much anything and still be viable (support is basically the only path she does NOT build). she also snowballs very hard and is especially nasty to face if you have bad teammates. her ult also has on-hit for some reason, making on-hit items and effects absurdly strong. did i cover the bases or are there more issues to address?

[@bobyhappy2992]

better do an "everything wrong with league of legends at this point"

[@leonardoneves6232]

@@Underworlder5she used to be able to build moonstone before its rework

[@sirblacksmith2297]

It's my birthday, thank you for this gift as a pyke main

[@OKIGorgon]

13:43 Vars: Words "assassin" and "support" aren't meant to mingle together. Me: *having the most fun playing assassin Twitch, Akshan, Evelynn and Talon supports.

[@omega7057]

Pov: a pyke just smurfed your ass in ranked

[@mechadonkykong]

I think what people don't realize about Pyke is that he starts with the 3rd highest base armor in the game. Only below Braum and Leona. So you could not only be hard to catch, but be very tanky if you decide to build tank items on him. (which is strange for an assasin of all champions, but i've tried it and its quite fun)

[@TimZoet]

You can always count on Vars to add the most low elo type of gameplay in the background. I laughed my ass off while listening to Vars yet seeing a Pyke miss every Q he had

[@anonmely-6803]

Remember that one weird PBE patch were they added relic shield to his passive and he could get stacks for his ult. Riot had a draft for a rework but it was pretty bad or it might've been groundwork for something. Regardless glad they didn't change go through with them.

[@theplant4046]

yeah I agree it would be balance knight mare you either be so far behind or far ahead that you would be able to execute targets from almost full health *like Lucian in "Devemon" video*

[@Starpotion]

Ult stacking would be horrendous, completely goes against punishing Pyke for not closing out games ASAP

[@KermitTPog]

I’m not going to lie the worst feeling on current Pyke is definitely doing what you’re supposed to do and landing ultimates, then getting a bounty despite receiving none of the gold

[@braescuvlad638]

bounties are based on gold not KDA so it makes sense. (even if i don't like it)

[@merikrock9017]

The bounty system in general is so flawed

[@zackbauer4562]

@@braescuvlad638 And Not just personal gold either, I was playing a match as shen and was 9/0 and had 150 bounty gold due to how badly my team was behind

[@theplant4046]

​@@braescuvlad638 you are half correct, if I weren't wrong and/or you were right, yes bounty increases as you get more gold but in it will increase dramatically if you score takedown that's why inting sion and proxy singed is op strategy, you'll get a lot of gold CSing but also you won't get bounty for that unless if you have A LOT of CS and dying a lot

[@megalobanter3997]

Meanwhile, wild rift buffing pyke jungle and mid in a way that people still play him support (On wild rift, pyke ult gold decreases if the opponent is worth less from dying too much, making him snowball less)

[@thechoripankiller]

Nah, if people decide to play selfishly, that's on them. Pyke has excellent tools to peel for his ADC. Have you even tried ganking a Pyke botlane? Saying all he does is "supporting by killing", with "supporting" on air quotes, sounds kinda biased

[@JackRutherford1224]

One of his biggest problems nowadays is the bounty system. Pyke takes all shutdown gold for himself if he executes someone with ult and does basically nothing with it because he turns into a walking ward after 25 minutes when a carry could flip the game with that gold.

[@Crusader3454]

Pyke was in a better spot before his q and e got gutted to keep him as a support, now his ults execute is the majority of his damage and its overtuned as shit

[@DronesOverTheMoon]

They nerfed that too

[@ZedantPoroking]

noticed 1k Pyke ults,so that's why

[@dracotoy]

Okay but pyke has really good skins so its okay

[@noodlesandeggs1512]

There is no bad Pyke skin. Sandstorm, Blood moon, Empyrean, Ashen Knight, they are all so good

[@odintakerprime6595]

@@noodlesandeggs1512 Sentinel is a dream

[@kauanjos3199]

​@@noodlesandeggs1512 soul fighter is a banger as well

[@noodlesandeggs1512]

@@odintakerprime6595 Sentinel I like but it’s personally my least favorite of the bunch. I like the biblically accurate angel aspect on him but the design could of been a bit better. Still a solid B ranking for me.

[@kyokokirigiri9010]

Underwear Pyke kinda sucks but that Choir on his Ult makes up for it.

[@ze_darku_magician5504]

Pyke has one of the coolest kits theme-wise for me personally. He was actually the first 6300 blue essence character I bought. Now I mostly play mages (Ahri, Syndra, Viktor, etc...) but he's still a lot of fun. I absolutely get how fighting against him is a massive pain though. I hate facing pykes in the enemy team because they can play absolutely terribly, never die because he is very hard to catch and then get a random quadra kill in a baron fight. Pyke players also tend to write "gg ez" in all chat when winning so that's another reason why hate seeing him.

[@linushedwall9838]

The best game I've ever had so far was with a random dude playing Pyke as my support. The dude was insanely good at his job, and the one time he accidentally stole a kill he said sorry, even though it wasn't really a steal since he did more than half of the damage. I'd love to play with that guy again tbh. Most random supports I've gotten either suck, or they leave lane

[@thetheory6159]

I usually apologize for kills taken before 6 because it's inefficient. Ult kills make ks split even. You remember what his username was? Might be able to catch him on the fly and stop rolling the dice for supports.

[@811chelseafc]

Nearly enough, this whole video is summed up by the first word in its title.

[@thecoolestcorgi4991]

Of the carry supports, senna is honestly the best designed. Only her numbers needed some adjustments. In fact, she ended up need MORE in her kit to be useful (the slow on her Q added in season 12). Her method of getting enough gold for items is made up by her stacks dropping from minions. It gives consistent extra gold to let her buy those more expensive damage items while on a support’s income. Her native scaling also means that her gold requirement is less than a normal marksman

[@Tyrone2714]

Imo supports can be classified into either tank, enchanter or carry. Whilst Pyke or brand are full enchanter, senna is still equally carry and enchanter, so she's not as oppressive when ahead, but not as useless when behind compared to her carry support peers

[@jamesprodaniuk20]

@@Tyrone2714pyke and brand are full enchanters lol

[@海誠ー]

Ngl senna only got extra stuff cuz she was hard to balance after glacial augment and frozen mallet removed/changed

[@KhârnTheAngry]

Truthfully, i hate facing Senna more than pyke. The range lvl 1 is absurd to me and her W range is just absolutely ridiculous. Feels like it hits when its not supposed to, just like Nautilus Q that lollypops

[@soulstalker4624]

Nah, Senna is also problematic for one reason; She gets her scaling more often than Thresh. The rate her souls drop is way too frequent than that of Thresh´s, and while Thresh only gets armor and Ap from 1 soul, Senna gets crit, range, damage and lifesteal, add this to the fact that Thresh doesn´t has any base armor growth, meaning that at minute 30, a Thresh with 120 stacks still has the same amount of armour than that of a Nautilus with two items, sure his W and E scale with the amount of stacks, but add this to the fact that Thresh doesn´t get any MR from his passive, meaning that MR is left through items. Senna gets more benefits from her souls for how often she gets to collect them, add this to 10 gold per soul, while Thresh needs more souls with less frequent drop rate to just only have extra armor, AP and extra damage on his E, oh, and a shield from a Lantern no body ever uses because most adcs are braindead. Senna needs either to have her lifesteal removed, or the range of her souls decreased, she is a Hyper-Carry, so her souls shouldn´t let her outscale and outrange enemies so fast.

[@private8384]

I can’t stop the “drink a shot of vodka every time vars makes a new series” challenge gets harder and harder every day. Keep up the content ❤

[@skinnybballer]

The worst thing about pyke is that his team loses productivity by spending 5 cumulative game minutes typing "ks"

[@frankiecoss7141]

3:28 That moment when you realize that the ult is called "Death from Bellow", but he leaps into the air when he casts it :^)

[@kevingriffith6011]

Obviously he shouts "Death from Below" as he casts it, making his enemies expect an attack from the ground before he jumps on them from above. It's the perfect high/low mix.

[@makwisseleb444]

Nah in fact he dives in the ground (after jumping) and strikes ennemies from below them (he goes out pointing his knife to the skies), but since it is instant, it really looks like he's just jumping on people lmao

[@oicmorez4129]

3:33 Correction: You dash if you HIT any champion. This can be used as ER combo to get a long range stun, especially useful with the recast (if you can't kill anyone with the time remaining, you may as well stun someone)

[@lowceyn2875]

I hate how mid-late game this champion is so useless it becomes a mini elder drake and THATS IT while his neutral game is broken early. Very mid design.

[@niebieskaskarpetka8313]

In addition, even when the enemy was already feeding and his gold bounty fell to 100g, Pyke didn't care. He got all of his gold, ignoring the mechanic meant to slow snowballing

[@phenax]

Main thing that frustrated me about pyke is his ult execute is so free and gets it through shields where cho gets cucked by a random last second shield

[@thetheory6159]

That's because cho actually deals true damage, whereas pyke scans if your current health total is below the threshold (if yes, it executes, if not it deals half the threshold as AD). Shields do not add to your current health total.

[@thatguyfrominvincible]

"finally shutting down pyke mid once and for all" davemon would like a word with you

[@thetheory6159]

Dave plays pyke in fucking top

[@Emman_Rafil]

that ult sfx at the beginning gave me a jump scare while I was playing

[@minimonkeymasher8888]

I actually love Pykes design. It fits his theme perfectly and his kits design is also almost perfect. Buuut, I do think it's kinda insane how much mobility he has. He's as mobile as Zed is, minus the cast time, since Zeds W is a blink. I'm not gonna say that doesn't belong on Pyke, but it is kinda crazy. Genuinely, I think the thing that would balance Pyke out really well is reversing his E. Where he blasts his watery soul forward, stunning you, and then his body follows suit, dealing damage. That way, a Pyke can actually be caught out for making a bad play and you aren't actively punished for trying to kill him for fucking up. Keeps his utility almost the same, but does remove that good feeling of E+Flashing on a group of enemies since the Stun is what comes first

[@corporatecanine6030]

I've gone from hating Lux and Morgana to full-time banning Pyke in every game. I'll even put up with Xerath and his inane poke damage just to not have to deal with his crazy hook and execute. A Support that has an execute is nonsense, too. Yeah hes an Assassin hybrid, but the fact that he has such a powerful tool that can completely trivialize the rear end of fight is hogwash and a Support of any kind should not have access to it.

[@mitchgodman]

The truly depressing thing about Pyke is that they actually mangaged to make an assassin want to buy nearly all support items on his release, and it felt good, which is exactly what they pitched to us. Then when he ended up being strong, they nerfed all of his synergy with support items and enforced buying lethality, and now he's just an assassin.

[@battlecatsubernoob1924]

As a pyke main, I don’t see going 5/0/4 at 10 minutes as an issue

[@Alrift]

Hot take, support as a role needs an overhaul. Like duo top lane, it's just dumb to have an entire role for nothing more than supporting. I'm hoping this double jungle becomes META. Bring back Nautilus top. Make Pyke a mid laner, worry about enchanters later because that's the only class that would struggle to be repurposed. The others are just numbers and role shifts.

[@robertaap4295]

Funny now Blitzrank and Nautilus are highlighted as "low damage" catchers. Those 2 are the highest damage catcher champions and do just about as much damage as a Pyke.

[@maayan_pele]

Yes thank you.

[@davidgancho2914]

I think most people what they hate about pyke is not his ul but how forgiving he is, you can just e w out of every situation and the heal is stupid.

[@Starpotion]

Pyke patting himself on the back and awarding himself extra gold for his own kills is so funny to me, like that's just something he could do 🏅

[@zirse7823]

"shutting down pyke mid once and for all" me a pyke main who has almost exclusively played him in mid the past year 🗿

[@malmro2216]

he had a brief moment in the meta when ravenous was super op

[@-_e_-]

@@malmro2216and when shiv was readded pre all the nerfs

[@ThatSonaGuy]

"enchanters are a defensive class" 6 million mastery point Sona main that constantly rocks Predator and isn't here to fight you, but KILL you: 🗿 Sometimes I hear stuff Vars says and agree with it, other times I think he visited the Mushroom Peddler in Legends of Runeterra.

[@DeannThunder]

Imagine making a champion, shifting all of his power budget into his ult over the years, remove all forms of creativity and player expression in his build path/lane choice. As a Pyke main it pains me to see him turned into an ult bot who becomes useless at the 20 minute mark, really hope they allocate more power to his base kit or change his passive so only 80% of bonus HP converts into AD so he can at least survive a bit longer.

[@malmro2216]

his power budget has always been in his roaming and vision control rly. atleast thats his consistent value every now and then you can get big e stuns or ult resets sure

[@thekirbycrafter7229]

​@@malmro2216thats boring though. If I wanted to play a macro focused champ, id play tf

[@shamelabaza3572]

This champion is the reason why i shifted from being a toplaner into support , the wreckless chaotic playstyle and once you lock him in you screw up your team by either being the reason you win hard or lose even harder

[@kawaiiprophet9410]

I’m literally in the same boat, I used to main top then tried Pyke for the first time and was hooked ever since

[@rike971]

Sounds like Pyke litterally grabbed you in this case.

[@noon6]

Well said😅

[@maayan_pele]

Yeeeeee

[@soulstalker4624]

With Pyke I really have mixed feelings. In theory he is such a reinvention of the support role, and playing him is actually very entertaining, the problem comes when we talk about technical things. This was the first instance when we saw Riot trying to break to stablished rules about classes, leading way to the whole "If it has cc, it's a support" type of mentality that lead to people playing Evelynn, Ahri or anything you can come up with as a support. This essentially drove many botlaners mad, not the supports or adcs that had to play against cancerous Heimer support or the pain in the ass that is double adc botlane, but for the adc that was paired with some idiot that thinks playing Lux support is all of the sudden gonna make up for his lack of skills in the midlane. The rage of having this type of supports stealing kills, stealing c/s and not even buying a support item just made it all of the sudden clear that Riot need to rebalance some champions in order to deter people from playing them as support and going back to the solo-lanes.

[@goranpersson7726]

pretty sure i saw lux supports before pyke came into botlane, although i do agree with the general sentiment that you bring forth

[@milanesadearsenico]

Next Everything Wrong with Viego please!!! His kit is already dumb but he gets access to an instant skill rotation possessing up to 5 times, it's stupid

[@firezera]

how is his kit dumb 💀 he even needs better interactions since they removed e w, his dash slows him for no reason and can't go through terrain

[@rike971]

​​@@firezeraAnd furthermore when Viego ganks or is near you're already warned by the green smoke which sticks to the wall.

[@VergiliosSpatulas]

I think you have bigger problems than Viego getting 5 resets. It's your entire team being dead.

[@mythmage8231]

The biggest problem with Viego is his passive taking up too much of his power budget. His normal kit isn't allowed to be good because the potential of his passive is too high. Maybe, instead of it being his passive, you made it his ultimate, meaning he can only do it once a fight.

[@sycron9900]

If u rly think Viego's kit is stupid , might as well complain about BelVeth

[@ecclecticsayonce5131]

I’m about to binge your whole channel and hopefully by the end I’ll understand this game

[@hammence2922]

I happened to pause it 47 frames after 6:42 and come back hours later to see it comparing "Catchers" and "Ass"

[@thelolimans5906]

I feel like he's kept in check due to the fact that he cannot get bonus health, so no matter what he will always be squishy

[@MiximumDennis]

i love how you put serpetns fang for pyke carry items. such inderrated gem of an item

[@thetheory6159]

Considering the ult can go through shields, a lot of the big shields you're worried about (Sett, Morde, etc) are often cast at low hp, where your R can safely ignore them. I prefer Hubris over serpents unless you are in a game with a lot of shields -- Karma, Seraphine (shield+heal) and the such. But often, you only really have one or two big shields to worry about, and you can usually time them out or, like Sett and Kench often do, snipe them with R because they shielded late.

[@FalcnPWNCH]

I still remember when Pyke at his absolute prime when Phantom Undertow could still damage and stun all targets - it was both hilarious and entertaining but also frightening to see teams like G2 from LEC just straight up *_flexing Pyke to all four positions;_* They'd literally play *_Pyke in top - mid - jungle - and bottom as support_* - there was pretty much no way to tell where the Pyke was going until the final picks were locked in

[@grabmax]

i begin to understand where this series is heading, next up are for sure ekko, lucian and senna

[@jarl_filip2617]

Even if he was garbage f tier, id still play him cuz hes badass

[@Alexavian]

Pyke has counter play on every ability in his kit plus his passive at least. Which keeps him weak. Nothing wrong with an assassin support. They can get it right with pyke by loosening up some of his counter play like slow q, w alerting enemies, reducing cd on E, more health per level. Atm he is a very weak champion

[@fortheloveofgodlaugh2981]

Pyke has to be the single most feast or famine character in League, at least when I play or encounter him. You either go 0/10 or hypercarry. Similarly to Pantheon, his status as an "AD Assassin Support" puts him in a tough but unique spot with his great elimination potential. I love Pyke but he's an incredibly difficult character to use well and in many different situations

[@rizronax]

Honestly if he's second to anyone id say he's second to Kled, pyke has so much utility in his kit, even if he's behind, kled's only team assisting utility is his ult, which if he's behind is basically him shouting "off to kill myself!" leaving behind a speed trail for his teammates to either agree and do the same or run.

[@dominicguye8058]

​@@rizronax😂😂😂

[@holywitch13]

I'm constantly playing with Pyke main, and when I retold him your video (he doesn't speak english), he agreed totally, and he plays it just because of that, Pyke is fun and very rewarding if played correctly. About midlane, remember statik shiv incident? It brought Pyke mid back for a 2 or 3 patches, maybe it's still working after nerfs even, idk

[@toobig7150]

I find funny that most balance issues stem from either bot lane, assassins or skirmishers

[@Baaforsheep]

2/5 are from bot lane so yeah. Assassins mid/jungle skirmish top/jungle/mid. So hmmmm yes?

[@milesedgeworth6353]

This has got to be my favorite vars series, I suggest covering mah boi kayn.

[@VeggehGaming]

For a long time Pyke was on my list of must-ban champs purely because of how egregious I find his concept. It felt very much like he was a champion designed to appease the people who didn't like being auto-filled support because, chances are, they couldn't flex their KDA that game, so they made a "support" whose entire game objective was to take all the kills and not punish his team for it. With all of the upsides of both sub-classes and seemingly very few of the downsides. And I despised that. And everyone was using him. I didn't want to play against that. I didn't even want to play with that. So I'd often just ban him and remove the problem from my games and force people to play with actual supports or dodge like they used to when I wasn't playing support myself (and I wouldn't play Pyke either for the same reasons). I think there's a world where hybridisation works but you have to be so careful with it to not make something ridiculous and Riot has failed with that a lot, I feel.

[@Ghosta085]

I played pyke jungle before the e and q change a few times and I can promise you it was the most broken thing I have ever touched. I was around for release Zoe, peak yuumi, 58% wr Annie, cinderhulk meta, all that good stuff. But a jungler with infinite mobility a hook and the gold sharing execute was just unfair.

[@weaselbun]

The fact that his ult would hit for the full damage on every cast for years was ludicrous. You could be at 100% hp and him executing two teammates alone was enough to put you in the threshold for execution yourself So glad it deals half damage over the threshold now

[@kcStranger]

I think current Pyke is more or less fine, but for all the reasons you cited, boy did it take a while to get there.

[@destix6149]

Pyke is Shit now, Miss old Pyke, Miss Midlane Pyke

[@antwan6672]

Hello, Pyke mid/supp otp here since 2019. I've played many iterations of Pyke these past few years. I do agree that giving him double gold on ult is the single most unhealthy thing riot did for him. The issue is that the champion was balanced around this gold generation for so many years that now it's really hard for him to function without that gold. Slowly over the past season his Assassin identity on support has faded away. He is primarily just a pick support, no different than blitz or naut. His job is to establish vision control (which he is insane at as he is the best umbral user in the game) and catch opponents. There is no self snowball, he cant assassinate anyone by himself on support even if he is fed due to him always being lower level. His mid lane is better at assassinating and in my opinion more fun to play. I think riot should just revert him to his original form, with wave clear and everything (with a few tweaks here and there like his original W where the MS he would get was insane) and just let him be both a mid laner and a support depending on what the player liked.

[@thetheory6159]

You can absolutely stay on par in level if you play correctly and crash waves proper before you roam, leech some exp from gank lanes to make up for the roam distance. Once you have your lethality built you can kill squishies pretty easily with ult -- without ult it's not nearly as easy and sometimes straight up unfeasible, but it's normal ; Pyke isn't meant to be a killer without ult.

[@GuardianGrarl]

Saltwater Jack the Ripper sure has his fair share of issues but we won't be thinking so when his ult starts deleting fools.

[@danha3107]

Tbh I think the original idea is totally ok if the intention is to make a support with carry potential, and catcher/assassin just makes sense as a combination for a support who can support but also has a modicum of self-sufficiency. Almost everything that was originally in his kit did have a purpose in bot lane, it's just the designers clearly didn't consider the "assassin" portion enough to realize he might be better solo. Wave clear is great to help ADCs (who usually have iffy wave clear at best early on) push harder for good backs or rotations. I also understand the need to give him a better neutral than most assassins. But man the original design did not do enough to take power away from elsewhere in his kit. I remember reading the patch notes where the "your cut" gold for himself was taken away and it felt like the most obvious thing ever, like why should he ever get double the gold???? Overall, I love his design so much, it's a sick idea and he's a cool character. Riot just did Riot things and did not consider all the ramifications of what they were doing

[@braescuvlad638]

TOOK YOU A WHILE (and thanks for making it)

[@cheetahofthewind13]

Its funny how pyke mid came back with a vengeance after riot added the extra EXTRA kill gold to him and it was meant for bot pane pyke but everyone said on the pve that this is just going to being back mid pyke

[@WolffQuam]

What is NOT wrong with Pyke: - His Theme. - His chara-design. - His skins. That's all folks.

[@theimmortaleye7511]

Doesnt rly Matter if gameplay is this cancerous and unfair - see yuumi

[@alanganon672]

@@theimmortaleye7511 yummi is like pyke but also has a shitty design

[@tovi3280]

@@theimmortaleye7511sry but yuumis design is not that good lmao

[@Brodobo]

@@theimmortaleye7511yuumi theme

[@WolffQuam]

@@theimmortaleye7511 I don't really know if you're being ironic or not, I'll assume you are...

[@TooMuchG]

Senna seems like a logical follow-up to this video. Different means, same outcome

[@craz859]

He's so squishy tho, i dont think he's a badly designed champion. Actually one of the hybrid champions that did work well.

[@quzyr8988]

true he is really squishy and gets raw buttfucked by cc but the problem is, that is his e is so strong it can go over most terrain in the game. you can even go over the thick walls at the tier 1 towers on bot and top without being super precise. its basically a one man bard portal with a stun connected to it so you have difficulties chasing him (thanks to the lenght of e and the huge w ms) and you have to sidestep every 10-5 secs depending on the state of the game, making it arguably as much if not even stupider to chase him than a singed

[@FenrirAlter]

Late game, yes and early on. He has increased base stats for his class, since he doesn't get any bonus hp.

[@daylem5829]

​@@FenrirAlterwho needs bonus hp if u can hop over walls with a cc behind you the moment ur in danger???

[@xolotltolox]

He is only squishy because riot mandated he is squishy, that should tell you more than enough about how utterly bullshit his design is

[@lok4890]

​@@daylem5829Pyke.

[@PedroHenrique-oj7ku]

Pyke is not all this, I honestly play pyke mid because I found the champion a lot of fun, but in higher elos you can punish pyke middle quite offten. Pyke its a accelerator, he has to play agressive, do roaming and stuff like that. The thing is, when you cant do this in the earlt/mid game your game is over, because everyone will over scale you. The thing that annoys me its, if you play velkoz mid our sup its okay, but why riot HAS to play pyke only sup?

[@LT_I_AM]

Bunch of npcs saying he's op 😂😂 Champ is pretty weak for at least a season now

[@Dingdong2730]

One of the main issues that completely stopped me from playing Pyke was him getting moved out of midlane and “only support”. People who like playing assassins are typically not gonna want to play engage supports or enchanters, I feel like in support, Pyke only has some slight overlap with Rakan, Bard and Thresh. If Pyke is banned or a bad pick, what champ do I pick? I’m not gonna play Zed, Qiyana or Talon as support, I don’t even wanna be support in the first place. I think most people who main(mained) Pyke would like to see a minirework that shifts him into a champ that can function in midlane without turning the game into a complete circus.

[@1ycan-eu9ji]

yep, plus he got so gutted for mid lane that he's pretty bad to solo carry in low elo, you can carry hgigh elo by getting your teammates fed but in low elo you gotta carry alone and your teammates don't end the game

[@Dingdong2730]

@@1ycan-eu9jiI think his way of solocarrying was a bit toxic, you shouldn’t be full build when your midlaner is only 2 items, reducing his kill gold was certainly a step in the right direction, because you’d pick him mid, then not lane because why would you? You flip a fight in botlane and you literally could get a full item off 1 roam.

[@1ycan-eu9ji]

@@Dingdong2730 a full build pyke loses in a 1v1 vs any champ with 2 items except support and maybe an adc, adc takes 3 items

[@Dingdong2730]

@@1ycan-eu9jiYes, and that is not good either. Pyke is so mobile and slippery that he should need to be reasonably ahead to 1v1 most champions, but again not 2+ items to be able to even be in melee range of Yasuo or Akali in midlane matchups. Would like to see Pyke get much better exp and gold scaling, traded for his base stats and base dmg.

[@liersiron5444]

@@Dingdong2730100% agree

[@jvstice56]

There's a reason whenever I was playing Draft or Ranked, I always banned Pyke esp. as ADC or Support. It's best to have him off the board fully rather. It was aggravating to lane against because of that "mistake" Riot ignored.

[@miladgoudarzee4033]

“Did I “support” right?”

[@koalteufel7947]

I love that we have an assassin support in the game, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

[@ChucktheSpicyChicken]

Pyke isn't here to support the violence, HE is the violence.

[@preponochopre9372]

i love your vids vars i learn a lot and its very fun to watch!

[@preponochopre9372]

hi form argentina!

[@julesbonnier817]

As Hyllissang asked a few years ago, it would be better if Pyke was changed to be more a support than a carry. I would like to see them suppress his passive which forbides him from getting HP, and in the same time severely shut down his AD ratios. Also, the game resolves so much about the shutdowns nowadays that pyke ultimate is obsolete. You could imagine a change where Pyke would choose an ally to give them the gold from the kills from his ult, or automatically give the gold to the ally he spends most time with (same concept as Yuumi), or more simply the one who assisted him.

[@loganwatt7375]

You missed my favorite meta with pyke, taking him jungle building exclusively tank items with old cinder hulk and ending up with one of the highest ad totals in the game despite building basically no ad. Idrm if the reason he hit such high numbers was just because of the +20% bonus HP from cinder or if it had something to do with Titanic still giving him ad as if he had all the health. Regardless it was probably his most degenerate state because yes his total heath was still low he had boat loads of armor/Mr still 1 shot you and could still heal any damage dealt to him by playing peekaboo, making him a tank, picker, and assassin champion.

[@quintessenceoflife7870]

I always liked to play him jungle long ago. His kit is very similar to evelynn's. Invis in W like evelyn post lv6 crowd control in E and Q like evelynn charm and a dash in E like evelynn E plus an ult that executes similar to evelynn's percent missing health damage on her R plus the regenerating health thing both got.

[@tomasbrombergzelaya6366]

Back when they first gutted pyke mid, when they removed E minion damage and Q tap aoe, i think that change was a mistake. Because they didnt remove the double kill gold on solo kill, so he could still snowball the same as before. Ironically this was near the time when Diana, Zed, Qiyana and Talon got buffed to be able to play in the jungle, which is stupid, because they refuse to let pyke be viable anywhere other tahn support but randomly buff 4 other assasins to be played off their intended role, to this day that is the most hypocritical change riot has ever made IMO. They could have nerfed E minion damage instead of removing it, or only removing the stun on minions and left the Q aoe with reduced damage on pierced targets but removed the insane snowball his R gave him and he wouldve been fine, he wouldnt have been much different from Talon pushing waves and permaroaming with his E or Qiyana going perma invis with her grass Q. I think they focused too much on making him a support they forgot he was also meant to be an assasin. Pyke mid should be viable because he's an assasin, if pantheon can be played support and naafiri toplane why cant pyke be played mid, sure most matchups are hell, but he was so much fun. He couldve been a great midlaner but they fucked up his patches :/

[@C0l0N31]

Remember when he got a mini rework on the PBE and he could stack executes.

[@ryls.]

i like pyke because previously i played overwatch and played Lucio, who's literally a hypermobile assassin support. the second i saw pyke i knew who am i going to main. funny how lucio is one of the best game's designs and one of the most healthiest for the game, when pyke is a complete opposite.

[@purpletheoriesone4013]

dude your mic breaks my speakers WHAT IS THAT u are the only one i have to listen so silently currently since my speakers broke but come on u still do that

[@summonersriftgarbage4426]

I played with a friend that stopped playing for a bunch of seasons and did not see pyke coming out, he was telling me how pyke was totally bonkers when I played it with him and did not believe me when I said his ult gold boost was even nerfed and that it used to give pyke basically double the gold for one kill

[@apophis588]

Riot should just remove his gold sharing kit and buff his assassin solo laning capabilities so he doesn't fall off so hard late game.

[@retributive]

That betrays his support design philosophy. He's not supposed to hard carry late game, he's supposed to do everything he can do snowball early while giving gold to his carry. Late game, he's there to catch out with CC but most importantly finish off carries and hard to kill tanks

[@Frocchi]

how would he support then?

[@malmro2216]

so then pyke support would be trash? and you would be really discouraged from ever using ur ult. also like 99% of the community actively hates pyke mid which revolves around perma roaming and sustain cheese so i rly doubt they will ever do that

[@Mik__-uq3rr]

Aoe execution with reset is what's wrong with him