User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Champion Rework) Olaf, the Berserker/@comment-6016076-20150710095617

I'm always a fan of unique resources, because I think they add flair and identity to a champion.

I also think you did a good job trying to remove some of the artifacts of his old kit that I believe Riot left to retain his identity from the "Olaf'd" period. If you were around the League GD boards at the time of the rework, Scarizard was getting absolutely mauled by a public that had managed to work itself into a hysteria over the opportunity to "revenge-critique" Riot for Olafing the champion. There was a lot of pressure to retain Olaf exactly as he was before while somehow magically making him acceptable by design standards.

Resource

Looks interesting. Is there a cap?

Passive 

Same thing. I'm not a fan of his health not accurately reflecting his current attack speed bonus. I think that's a nice bit of clarity for the opponent to be able to look at Olaf's current health and unambiguously judge about how strong Olaf is.

Q

I think the bonus Movement Speed is too much. A 45% slow + 45% bonus MS is an insane movement speed differential. Items like Ghostblade, BotRK, and Righteous Glory exist. Many champions bring +%MS bonuses. I don't think Olaf, with a CC-immune ult, can ever exist in a state where his gap closing is entirely self-sufficient within his own kit without any help from items or allied buffs. When you do add the items, it becomes unstoppable.

The switch to 100% AD ratio is too difficult to tell how it'd play out.

W

So in Olaf's rework, a big discussion ensued over the redundancy of attack speed on his W. The reason for including it was because there were no AD steroid numbers that felt good in standard autoattacks without being overpowered on his ability ratios. Essentially, when Olaf decided to chase your ass with Q, he would activate W for massive bonus damage on the chained-Q's. This extended as well to Olaf's poke potential.

I think of how much damage Olaf does now, and I'm not sure this is the way to go. I could be wrong. All I know is that it was tested and for whatever reason (may not even be related to the point I just made), they didn't elect to go with AD.

I think the Cleave is a nice touch to make up for Q probably not being as spammable with Fury for wave clear.

I'm a little worried about the 5% missing health. Right now, jungle Olaf gets pretty low at level 2 on his buff. Say at 20% health, he is getting 9% lifesteal, multiplied by (1 + 0.4 + 0.1) from his W passive and Second Wind if applicable. If his AD is 60, that's 8.1 health restored per attack.

If his health is at 650, then 5% missing health restored would be 26 health per hit.

26 vs. 8.1 is a massive boost. Olaf will be jungling consistently at 40% health or above probably. He will also become extremely tenacious in skirmishes where he can't be bursted down at low health. I think adding a scale-by-rank element to the % missing health is appropriate.

Although even at 5%, he will become incredibly resilient as his max health increases. I think it would propel Olaf to a top 3 jungler, because you could build him tanky and still be very difficult to kill, regenerating 100-150 health per attack late game. Mostly it forces Olaf into defensive itemization because that just works so well with this kit. It fits the meta, but something about excising any offensive itemization due to the high opportunity cost of not taking defense feels a little against the theme of a viking.

Maybe with testing it won't be as problematic as I'm making out to be.

E

Examining E in a vacuum, I'm not a fan of the trading burst for sustained DPS. A lot of Olaf's strengths right now are in his burst potential, and frankly needing 5-10 seconds to stack up enough to be meaningful is too slow on the time scale of most teamfights.

On the other hand, with his W adding AD, maybe his Q burst will go up in place of his E. It leaves his E feeling underwhelming, but the overall play might even out.

My hunch tells me the stacking mechanic will take too long with the current numbers. If the damage number is buffed, it would make his late game really strong against tanks, which is something that has hurt him a lot in the current meta. With that in mind, the stacking buff might work and prove a great way to provide Olaf a way to compete late game in the areas he needs.

R

To be frank, I don't like the removal of steroids and the duration scaling. I think 4 seconds is too short and an unnecessary nerf to his level 6. Eight seconds is a very long time and seems on paper superfluous according to my experience with Olaf. Presumably you wanted to add some bonus for scaling the rank since the steroid was removed. An overbearing utility like CC-immunity needs to be tightly constrained; such a volatile effect can easily run rampant on your power curve. I think the inelegant consequence of being forced into scaling it with rank is one indication the steroid removal isn't a good idea.

Removing the AD steroid precludes a lot of my arguments above, such as the W AD steroid buffing Q and compensating for the lack of E burst. Losing the AD contribution from the ult will sink Olaf's burst.

Removing the AD steroid also hurts Olaf's sustained DPS. It feels like the E received a stacking buff to make up for the instant AD steroid from the ult. I think that's not worth and will ultimately lead to not dealing enough damage late game.

Removing the resist steroid I'm less sure about. I never felt like Olaf was too tanky. I don't know how this would play out.

TL;DR

Q


 * Not a fan of the bonus movement speed

W


 * Unsure about the AD steroid and how it will buff his ability ratios


 * Missing health is extremely strong in first jungle clear, may need to scale with ranks. At 5%, it seems overpowered on paper late game.

E


 * Not a fan of losing the burst power


 * The stacking buff will take too long

R


 * 4 seconds seems UP while 8 seconds seems OP. I think static 6 seconds at all ranks has worked fine.


 * I think the removal of the AD steroid undermines some of the changes in this rework, namely maintaining his burst and providing some needed late game damage.

What I like

Passive

Love the new resource idea. No idea how it'd play out, but seems cool.

W

I think the Cleave effect could be a nice touch to replace any lost Q waveclear

E

If Olaf's damage hadn't been nerfed elsewhere, I think the stacking buff could be really important to making Olaf's kit more adaptable to a tanky meta without providing him excess power elsewhere.