I understand that this nerf was largely aimed at solo queue, and I understand that the few games that his has been played in pro games have generally gone pretty well.
But I also don’t care. This playstyle is not beneficial in most situations, especially if you haven’t seen the whole enemy team yet – yes, the Janna can help the bot lane get ahead, but it’s so obvious that that is what’s going to happen, and in return, the enemy gets a mega-fed top laner.
Do you know what kills a fed ADC?
A super strong bruiser.
If you can see the rest of the enemy team, it’s not a horrible choice. It’s also not a terrible choice if you’re just the worse top laner. Take a hint, FakeGod.
Most of the time, however, you could also steal the opponent top laner’s lunch money by picking a lane counter-pick. This is a bit harder against Gwen, who just doesn’t have any, but you can just ban that for now.
Smite roaming Janna shouldn’t really be able to *do* anything. It’s obvious, she can be blown up unlike say, a Leona, and there’s no way you can deal with a fed side laner. Nobody really ends the game through split pushing any more, but you can push the waves and turn up to fights three levels up and take a massive… ‘TSM’ all over the fight.
If you pick it on blue side, the enemy can probably move some champs around and just pick some sort of hyper scaling top, like a Jax, Vladimir, even a Camille or Ryze, and just turn up to teamfights with a ridiculous lead. Who cares if Jinx has four kills when Jax presses E?
It’s super good in the chaos of solo queue, but in co-ordinated play, it should not be strong. Even in solo-queue, I’m sure people would have found ways to counter it soon. Like, not picking Sett or Renekton, ever.
Woah, he just stealthed into this article and appeared. IT’SSS MEEEEEE!
Now, the Twitch top full roaming with support item COULD have been much better.
Unlike Janna, he has real potency with his ganks, can move around the map with a little more impunity and can do a lot with the kills he can get. His stealth makes his ganks so much deadlier, and AP Twitch support was quietly very strong too.
It’s not quite as strong in teamfights as Janna (against most comps, at least) as a peeler for the fed ADC, but acts instead as another burst mage and can completely blow up the game much easier with a couple of Dark Seal stacks early.
Janna might have worked somewhat better as a champ who could shadow the jungler to help them farm, with something like a Karthus, but Twitch is a far better second jungler.
In nerfing the Janna top with Smite, we’ve thankfully avoided the Twitch top that I’m pretty sure would have been a much better version. The only reason it’s Janna instead of say, Karma, or Lulu, is because the guy who started is was Apo, who is probably the best Janna player in EUW.
So Riot DID nerf the right thing, but maybe for the wrong reasons.
I was kinda excited to see another 200 CS Gwen with full tower gold at 18 minutes in competitive, too. Preferably not on Licorice, this time.
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