Champion rant: Hecarim

Note: The following is the rambling of a mad man and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Lore

Look at my horse, my horse is appalling. This champs sucks - every single one of his abilities is awfully underwhelming. He can't do anything particular very well and playing him just makes you wish you were playing someone else.

Seriously. I hate how I'm forced to play him because he has the best skin in the game.

Abilities

Warbutt

Warbutt

Hecarim lays a beginner's trap, causing you to think for 12 seconds that building movement speed on him is a good idea. Movement speed is a stat most effective on high utility champs or champs who just aren't very item dependant. Heca is neither one of those two. If Heca lacks damage, he doesn't have any impact whatsoever in a fight, if Heca lacks tankability, he gets destroyed instantly when an enemy carry coughs in his general direction. If you do fall for the trap and build ms on him, you will be a pretty good chaser - technically. But you'll constantly find yourself dangerously ahead of your teammates, unable to finish off your opponent on your own or hold them very well.

• Hide
• Details

Info

Targeting input	Missing

• No additional details.

Rampage

Rampage

Active: Hecarim helplessly flails his weapon around in his only attempt at damaging his opponents. There's not much wrong with this ability in particular, but with every other ability in his kit taking a fortnight to cooldown, this is his only way of dealing damage and it just isn't that impressive. Also, it is absolutely vital that you are certain you will hit your opponent with this skill. If you don't, you will be unable to do any damage for up to 4 seconds. Talk about high risk, low reward.

• Hide
• Details

Info

Targeting input	Missing

• No additional details.

Spirit of Awful

Spirit of Awful
COOLDOWN:	An actual fortnight

Active: Hecarim gets healed a lot, if his teammates happen to burst down multiple opponents standing inside a 525 range of him, within the next 4 seconds. This is Heca's only way of helping him survive, and it's one of the worst skills out there at doing that. For a champ who can't do anything without charging right into his enemies, that is extremely underwhelming. Sure, the skill is potentially broken - but only with some very well-coordinated teamplay and only under very, very specific circumstances. In any case, it is very easy to play against, as the down time is atrocious and Heca can't hold his opponents.

• Hide
• Details

Info

Targeting input	Missing

• No additional details.

Underwhelming Charge

Underwhelming Charge
COOLDOWN:	Also an actual fortnight

Active: Hecarim does his best attempt at running really fast and gains some speed, starting with initial 25% upon cast, but ultimately ending up making you wish you were playing Rammus instead. With these cooldowns, there's a 60% chance you find yourself thinking that you're playing one certain big purple minotaur. But you don't have close to as much utility as that certain big purple minotaur and your cooldowns are even higher. What the Heca.

• Hide
• Details

Info

Targeting input	Missing

• No additional details.

Onslaught of Suckage

Onslaught of Suckage

Active: Boy, if the term 'high risk, low reward' was an ult, this would be it! Hecarim charges forward, but at a very, very reasonable pace. Before he has reached his target, your opponent will have had the time to look up a new build, shop for items, write a lengthy blog post on the League wikia and also dodge your ult. It is ridiculously difficult to hit an opponent right and the pay-off isn't that great, anyway. I'd take the ult of Malphite, Vi, Graggy and of many other champs over this any day.

• Hide
• Details

Info

Targeting input	Missing

• No additional details.

Trivia

And now, to back up my claims, I link you to Heca's lolking statistics. In Bronze solo queue, he has a solid win rate, never dropping below 50%. However, in Gold, his win rate is rather unimpressive. Plat and Diamond stats are somewhat unstable for him, but they're not good, either. Surprisingly, even though he depends a lot on his team, his team ranked stats are atrocious. None of these are very bad for a champ on their own and it is absolutely possible that you can do well with a low winrate champion - but all of this is indicative that Heca scales most strongly with no stat in the game or your own experience and skill but with how bad his enemies are. And that's some screwed champ design right there.