Perfectly Designed: Fiddlesticks | League of Legends

hey guys welcome to a new series on my channel called perfectly designed where i take champions that don't belong in either why no one plays or why everyone plays but are still really good characters with a respectable pick rate and an overall positive general opinion the first champion i want to cover is fiddlesticks the ancient horror and a very well polished rework in both gameplay and narrative background so perfectly designed will be structured in the same way as the other two series where i give a brief overview of the champion and then dive into reasons why i believe that champion to be perfectly designed i say that in air quotes because i'm not implying these champions are flawless similar to why no one plays and why everyone plays the name is just meant to be a hook i don't literally mean these champions are perfect they're just very well made and don't worry i'm not going to be putting a disclaimer at the start of every video just for this one i know how many of you have grown tired of it on my other series anyways since he's a real world champion that means we're going to first talk about how he was before all the changes and what was the exigency for a visual gameplay update there's not too much of a difference between old and new fiddlesticks fundamentally speaking all of his active abilities do more or less the same thing just remastered to string together well and give him actual kill power arguably the most egregious problem with old fiddlesticks was that apart from his ultimate he was way too slow with a really incongruous playstyle his basic abilities namely terrify and drain were single target they were insanely effective against one person because strain did something like 900 base damage plus 225 ap while also healing ridiculous amounts that end terrify was a 2.25 second point-and-click instant fear fiddlesticks had fantastic damage output but he was horrible in skirmishes since he suffered from malzahar syndrome where he can only really focus on one enemy at a time and there were so many ways to punish him if he didn't have backup also he lacked an immediate burst option not saying every champion should have one but for a jungler it's very important since the faster you are to get your attacks out the better you do in the meta overall it was kind of weird to have a champion with a devastating teamfight ultimate but low aoe damage for their basic abilities if we evaluate him strictly by his playstyle fiddle was actually pretty good he's this slow in mobile mage with a big jump scare ultimate in a way he shared a lot of the same problems with malzahar and kennen who also have super ultimates but sort of lackluster main kits for his rework just about everything was altered but stayed the same in functionality terrify was still a point-and-click fear but he now had a passive component where if he was out of sight from the enemy team his next attack has the potential to fear every single target he hits the active effect itself also did a big chunk of current health damage incentivizing players to use his attack first in the rotation which is usually what you did pre-work anyway drain was renamed to bountiful harvest and it lost a lot of damage in fact about 2 3 of its base damage however now it drains every single target around him and lasts for 2 seconds instead of a full 5. additionally if you fully complete w's channel duration the last hit does a huge chunk of percent missing health damage making it a powerful finisher and since middlestick's sphere lasts 2 seconds that's just enough time to get the full channel darkwind received an interesting change now it's called reap no longer does he throw a crow that bounces between enemy targets anymore instead it's a targeted slash a much faster ability that now slows on top of silences though it deals less damage overall especially considering dark wind's bounciness the subtle changes were just enough to fix the two most critical problems he had without need for ridiculously unfair or oppressive tactics due to his new nightmarish appearance fiddlesticks is a constant threat on the map at all times because of how much destruction he can unleash in a matter of seconds he's the ultimate team fight burst mage whose playstyle entails waiting for just the right moment and laying down colossal amounts of damage enough to where he can straight up potentially 1v5 pentakill you've probably faced a lot of situations where your team was spam-pinging for wards to be placed everywhere because of how dangerous fiddlesticks can be in the mid to late game that's a large part of why we saw fiddle support for so long because everyone realized he was just not quite good enough to be a jungler since his abilities felt a little too restrictive that and he had really consistent long range harassed in lane and was pretty hard to engage on since he could point and click fear anyone that came his way not the most degenerate play style but it wasn't what he was designed for there are a lot of champions in the game that have perfectly good play styles but are just missing something thing is you can give those champions what they're missing which will greatly improve their gameplay without making them overpowered or lack counter play sure it might entail a 1 to 1.5 percent higher win rate but usually they're sitting at like 48 or 49 anyway so if anything it's a needed buff this is what a rework is meant to do take a champion that has an already existing kit and retrofit them to keep up with the times that's what they did with nunu pantheon volibear fiddlesticks and swain part of the widespread frustration with the kali's rework is that it felt like she could do everything she could trade she could kite she could all in she could duel she could one shot etc what she locked before was burst she was more of a fighter duelist like irelia and jax than she was an assassin like zed and katarina but then they made her both and stuffed her kit full of things that made her severely overtuned as a result she had to get nerfed and rebalanced again and again and after three years she's finally found a middle ground all they did with fiddle was take what he already had and just shifted it around he does relatively the same damage than before but more aoe focused and a little faster that's why so many people loved his rework from a gameplay perspective and of course his new lore rest in peace tedrick no one looked at the old green face scarecrow with horror he was actually pretty derpy looking visually and audibly speaking they did a perfect job capturing that jump scare feeling he's supposed to have and animations and sound effects do have huge influence on a champion's experience why do you think people love skins so much because they look a lot more explosive and have cooler sounds than the default it makes you feel like you're doing a lot more even if it's the same champion now let's talk about actually playing him in game not only did his rework make him so much better to play in team fights and skirmishes but as an actual jungler his clear speed has noticeably improved still not quite at the level of power farm junglers but good enough for him to stay competitive with the vast majority of high tiers he can also hold the zone a lot more effectively in 2v2s and 3v3s thanks to his new q and w and though he's still in a mobile mage who's easy to lock down and single out he himself is also good at shutting down champions making it a two-way street the hallmark of any good jungler in recent seasons is how good their damage is for both clearing camps and fighting champions and the two ways to accomplish this is either fast attack speed like viego and xinjiao or an area of effect damage like hecarim and king fiddle's main selling point was that he had the healthiest clear in the entire game that is he took literally no damage from camps that actually meant something back in the day because a lot of champions were rated highly based on whether they were able to perform a full clear without backing of course nowadays we live in an age where junglers take basically zero damage from their first clear since smite heals and they have omni-vamp ironically even though his clear speed has drastically improved he's been knocked down a few pegs when it comes to 1v1s bountiful harvest has allowed fiddlesticks to clear camps almost twice as fast as before but that opened up a new weakness for him in that he's really weak early game if caught out by himself fiddle used to be really damn good at screwing over champions like lee sin kane olaf master yi etc because they literally could not kill him fast enough since even at level 4 or 5 he could drain tank anyone without hard crowd control or burst so while he's a lot more vulnerable now that's a worthwhile trade-off because he can reach level 6 earlier where he's really supposed to shine a sore spot among mage junglers is their inconsistency relative to skirmishers that's often my karthus either hard 1v9 games or is absolutely useless now i understand that can happen to any jungler but it's rare to find a jungle karthus who performs at like an average level out of the three true mage junglers fiddlesticks karthus and talia fiddle is the most consistent he has a consistent matchup spread consistent power spikes windows of opportunity etc that doesn't change the fact he's still a mage jungler who does struggle against skirmishers due to his high cooldowns and vulnerability early on but he can more than single-handedly fill the team's magic damage quota if your top mid and adc want to go attack damage champions in why no one plays malzahar and kennen i talked about how those two champions are known for having really strong ultimates but really underwhelming basic abilities which makes their usefulness hinge entirely on their alt secondly both champions are really predictable since the only way they can use their ultimates is by walking up to you unless you engage first crow storm doesn't have an instant cast but it allows him to hide over walls and pop out of nowhere because it blinks which makes his super ultimate way better since you won't be able to see him coming without vision control but he's not entirely useless without it just like malphite fiddle can still be a dangerous foe due to his instant crowd control and high percent health damage that point-and-click lockdown is also what makes him decent at ganking even if he doesn't have any dashes or mobility there's no way you can dodge a sphere versus being able to sidestep maybe a nidalee spear or a cocoon the last thing i want to talk about that makes fiddle so well designed is that he's one of the best champions to teach you jungle macro he's got a very well established learning curve getting better in performance the more you learn the champion even though he can still pull stuff off with his basic abilities much of his impact hinges on how well you position your funnel engage making a clear hit or miss in terms of results you might think that makes him inconsistent since he's either really useful or really useless but like i said the more you learn fiddlesticks where to position him your windows of opportunity etc the more consistently you can land those hits the first and foremost mechanic he teaches you is vision control vision control is almost everything when it comes to mastering fiddlesticks don't take my word for it as any respectable fiddle one trick you are still able to get some really nasty ultimates even in plain sight especially when you have someone on your team who can engage like a nautilus small fight or seraphine but since it's not a good idea to count on your team comps or teammates in solo queue you have to learn where to put down your effigies to clear warts keep yourself hidden from the enemy team as much as possible etc the threat of getting altered by a full ap fiddle may exert more pressure than the actual ultimate itself let's assume you're level 16 and have about 500 ability power empower terrify deals 20 current health plus 4 per 100 ap which means 40 current health damage to a single target bountiful harvest does 360 base plus 70 ap 70 of 500 is 350 so you have 710 damage plus 22 of every target's missing health while healing for half the damage i might add reap is 210 plus 50 percent so that's 460. and finally crowstorm has a maximum damage output of 1625 plus 225 ability power running the numbers just without terrifying let's look at his we and ultimate phase tanking an entire crow storm deals over 2700 damage and then you have battlefield harvest dealing 7 10 plus 22 missing health then reaps 460. if fiddlesticks lands his entire combo he can easily do over 4 000 damage to all targets not just one person every one that's like central levels of burst damage even if you don't take the full five seconds from crow storm because everyone is feared for at least 2 seconds thanks to his q passive you're still losing over 2 thousand and that's just fiddlesticks you still have to contend with the rest of his team however he's only scary if people don't know where he is much of his pressure can disappear if the enemy team not only has vision of him but the right tools to peel him off he's super easy to play and super strong but he has just as many cogs as he does pros despite his w lifesteal he's still a mage and still really squishy if engaged on by a tank or bursted down by an assassin if you're not paying attention and use your w at the wrong time blitzcrank gold can silence you and there goes pretty much all your dps and most notably he's slow meaning you need to be immaculate with your positioning in a way he's a lot like twisted fate he can get a lot done but if you're not careful with where you put yourself the enemy team can destroy you just as fast as you can destroy them but he has everything you need to mitigate his weaknesses and augment his strengths it all comes down to you and how well you can use them can janna ultimately deny his entire engage yeah but he can also destroy janna and her whole team in two seconds is he really easy to shut down with an early game champion yes but if he tracks the enemy jungler's movements he can stay out of harm's way until he outscales them is he immobile and easy to burst down by an assassin yes but he can buy time with point-and-click fear and zhonya's which you usually buy on him ever since his rework he's been holding at a very solid 51 to 53 win rate which might lead people to think he's broken but win rates don't always constitute a broken champion akali was stuck at 46 or something for like a whole year and even then everyone thought she was crazy op one other thing that contributes well to fiddle's design is that he's a very safe champion to maine we know that riot has a tendency to buff in nerf champions before you even get a chance to figure them out despite his really strong kit and very rewarding playstyle he's not a champion that's on the balance team's radar all too much in fact he hasn't received any major buffs or nerfs ever since his rework last year more or less he's exactly the same as he was and he has fantastic item selection you can either choose to go full one shot burst with protobelt death cap and void step or you can opt to fight more like a battle mage with ever frost zhanya's and demonic embrace he synergizes so well with many of the new season 11 mage items overall fiddlesticks among other champions is a perfect example of how you don't need to go yu-gi-oh on a champion to make them satisfying and dynamic to play he only needed a shift from single target damage over time to a0 with a little bit of burst to his kit but that's enough to completely transform him from a fringe pocket pick to a stable ap champion for junglers to fit into their roster hands down an incredible rework if you enjoyed the video a rating would be much appreciated and if you'd like to see more content like this consider subbing to the channel don't forget to check out the video description for links to my discord and social medias and normally i would say to watch my other perfectly designed episodes but this is the first one so instead consider taking a look at my why no one plays or why everyone plays series if you haven't yet but for now that's it for today thank you all so much for watching and i'll see you again soon for the next one take care [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Vars

Views: 180,653

Keywords: league of legends, best lol moments, lol montage, league, league of legends pro guides, lol, fiddlesticks, fiddlesticks support, fiddlesticks mid, fiddlesticks jungle, fiddlesticks rework, fiddlesticks items, league of legends discussion, why no one plays, vars league of legends, varsverum, fiddlesticks buffs, fiddlesticks nerfs, full AP fiddlesticks, fiddlesticks guide, fiddlesticks gameplay, fiddlesticks challenger

Id: A88nzlTG63A

Length: 14min 29sec (869 seconds)

Published: Sun May 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/VarsVerum]

Damnit man I was gonna post it myself haha