User blog:RoznosicielCiast/Is Siphoning Strike too strong?

Hey guys!

As the post's name says, is the thing i want to discuss about today. This time, it's quite short, so i hope it won't cause anyone to panic because of HUGE WALLS OF DOOM TEXT.

Short info - what is and what can it do?
For those who don't know/remember (i know it's very basic knowledge, but as well), it's ' spell that grants him bonus physical damage on his next basic attack. Bonus damage is also increased for every unit killed with usage of, simply - more killin', more damage.

How does it works in my eyes?
Well... Its effectiveness is insanely dependant on player's skill, lane matchup (if talking about top) and overall difficulty of the match. Of course, due to lots of reasons affecting it, i have to describe possible situations.

's effectiveness depending on the match (top lane)
As we all know, not every match is going to be same. So, let's split the possibilities into 4 ways:

-Total fail

-Tied lane

-Well farmed

-Left alone to farm 24/7

Total fail situation
If player is either forced to retreat from lane very oftenly, missing lots of farm or is simply being killed very oftenly, 's effectiveness massively drops and becomes almost useless. Of course, player might manage to jump back in the game by gaining sudden advantage due to team's help/individual skill. Allthrough, it will take time to stack the damage up to some noticable amount and will be partially cut off no matter how hard the player tries.

Tied lane
Simple - each laner gets his own part and gold gain is nearly equal. will be quite stacked and work good. Later on, it can be stacked up even better than before, or worse.

Well farmed
Player gains advantage in lane and is able to control creep waves without further problems. will get stacked up really good if player can handle it, resulting in incredible damage.

Left alone to farm 24/7
Someone made the mistake of hardly losing/went afk and Nasus has full control of the lane. Warded up and farming 'till ~25th minute. He comes out of lane and double hits carries.

So what?
Right, what then? Every champion should have something to shine with. So why not with his ?

But, the problem lies deeper.

What makes powerful?
As well, it might be considered as balanced because

-it has counterplay (dun' let doge farm at all cost)

-it requires good farming to work well

But it's not. Let me explain.

interactions with player's skill
While talking about pubstomp/not very high ranked tiers, it's simple that is not considered as very strong pick and rather not used well unless player is a smurf/actually knows what to do even if playing at low skill tier. So no one expects overwhelming results.

But what happens when we go higher?

Interactions with player's skill - further
As the difficulty increases, players become better and better at farming, finally hitting the point when laner can easily take 3/4 of creeps. So, let's say - even gold will have his  fed well almost every game (even if having a tied lane), simply showing off its almost full/clearly full potential. And it's not like any other strong ability.

Pros
It interacts with. Every hit will heal him for noticable amount. Combined with additional life steal from items, it heals quite much a chunk of health.

Althrough its stacking up damage, it also has increasing base damage.

For such amount of damage, its cooldown heavily reduces upon leveling.

It also resets AA timer, making short trades more effective.

Cons
Well. You need to be in AA range to hit. But honestly, how hard is it (i'll write more about this later in the post)?

And, finally, it can be countered by denying from farming.

Problem with denying from farming
But how are you going to force him to go away? He is honestly strong to fight even in early game and low health plays will be oftenly punished. Passive lifesteal also keeps him in lane much longer than most champions can afford.

Unless you're and you keep machine gunnin' poor  or  who can negate health loss very well and even if partially countered by  can still keep active fights, it's going to end badly.

Hey, let's gank him then!

Problem with denying from farm - further
Did i mention it's incredible easy to farm under turret with ? Heh, i didn't, so i do now. To hit it even harder, he benefits more from farming under turret than open lane. As is nearly undiveable and will barely lose health under turret (lifestealing all health loss quickly), how are you going to do this? He can quite simply retreat from even hard ganks.

It stacks up without limit
will keep progressing even if everyone has full build already, and if game is horribly long, he might stack it up to the point where angels fear to thread.

But well, we have more high damage champs in the game, why is this one a problem?
Right! But do you know any other champion that can build almost no damage and stack up defenses while steal dealing insane damage? That's it - all damage you need is maybe or, maybe some lifesteal item - whatever player prefers. Rest fill up with defenses and poof - you're most likely an almost nuker + tank. The only champion i can imagine to be similiar is (still not that good), and maybe, but he definitely has to build some more damage and will not become that tanky.

And that's not everything!
We have to add in ,, and. Combining it all up, you get a surely strong champion. Not the best one. Propably not even one of 5 best champs. Still, enough strong to doom one carry, slow another one and remain in fight long even if focused first (lol).

Shortly about jungle
Shortly only, because there isn't much to talk about.

Some believe jungle is not enough to farm up effectively. Others have already forget about as a jungler. But in fact, you can manage to farm enough fast to reach good amount while also being able to gank, and if game requires, you can just go crazy and keep farming after midgame ends (well, it's not crazy - you should do it). And his ganks are strong (at least surely for top lane), oftenly granting a kill/assist, not letting him fall behind too much. Althrough toplane seems to be better in farming than jungle, it's still viable.

Note
This is not my hate post about. In fact, i like him and i spent some games at crazy farming, but it's just clearly visible that he is just too strong if given with even a bit of advantage. I didn't thought about it too much before, but i've recently noticed that he is sometimes banned at ranked games.

Remember when i said it's quite short post?

I lied.

It was quite late when i was writing this, so sorry if i made some typos/logical mistakes.

derp
Of course, feel free to comment and share your own point with us.