Shaco is toxic

[Duilliath]

CDs are numbers. That is balance. Mana cost is numbers. That is balance.

You continue to confuse balance vs toolkit. Those are not the same.

[Charge me Doctor]

I start to really hate this "lol just pink Shacos Q" argument. How exactly it will help me to get to him after he just jumped 400 units away? Burn Flash? Yeah, right.
I want to repeat that i don't have any issues with his Q, but with synergy of his spells. Overall deceive is a good and cool skill, but it just opens too much of an ability to exploit his other skills.

You want to talk about mana problems? I play Poppy, don't even dare to fucking speak about mana problems

[Duronos]

CDs are numbers. That is balance. Mana cost is numbers. That is balance.

You continue to confuse balance vs toolkit. Those are not the same.

No there us no difference, they work together. It is part of the kit. Forcing a Shaco to escape is like dying as Riven vs the enemy top laner. Shaco just doesn't give you gold but it requires him to go back with a lot less gold, as Shaco that's a bad thing as he can get behind quite fast. To put it bluntly, you can beat a Shaco without even killing him.

Also doctor, deceive doesn't usually allow him to exploit boxes past being able to place one behind the enemy laner on a gank when there's enough space. If anything I agree his E could use tuning and his R needs to get checked (but keep the .5 seconds of being off the map when used) and changed around but his boxes and deceive are pretty tame as it is.

[Duilliath]

No there us no difference, they work together.

This is where you are wrong and why you are wrong.

Vladimir's kit is inherently toxic. Infinite poke + sustain + undodgeable damage. His numbers are low enough that he is balanced. Balanced and toxic are two completely different things, though having a toxic kit often means a champion is kept purposefully undertuned. It is the same reason Poppy is woefully weak in lane. It is the same reason Morello commented that if she ever were to become a popular pick at pro level (and would be viable) that he'd murder her into the ground. It is the same reason pre-rework Eve and Heimerdinger were considered troll picks.

Until you understand that they are two completely different things, there is no way to have this discussion with you, because you simply do not grasp the basic concepts being discussed.

[Charge me Doctor]

what do you know about Eve. Her perma invis and 1,5 second stun on first hit? It was incredibly OPed and toxic. As well as Heimers rockets that used to target only heroes. Can you imagine a poke that hits for more than 400 at max level with two items on all heroes in almost 1k range? Things like this get nerfed very fast when they are OPed and can't be balanced via dropping their damage to the ground, Shaco on the other hand, has quite low win rate because of being "hit or miss" champion that's what saves him from being Eve'd

[Duronos]

what do you know about Eve. Her perma invis and 1,5 second stun on first hit? It was incredibly OPed and toxic. As well as Heimers rockets that used to target only heroes. Can you imagine a poke that hits for more than 400 at max level with two items on all heroes in almost 1k range? Things like this get nerfed very fast when they are OPed and can't be balanced via dropping their damage to the ground, Shaco on the other hand, has quite low win rate because of being "hit or miss" champion that's what saves him from being Eve'd

To be honest the higher you go up the better his win rate gets.

- - - Updated - - -

This is where you are wrong and why you are wrong.

Vladimir's kit is inherently toxic. Infinite poke + sustain + undodgeable damage. His numbers are low enough that he is balanced. Balanced and toxic are two completely different things, though having a toxic kit often means a champion is kept purposefully undertuned. It is the same reason Poppy is woefully weak in lane. It is the same reason Morello commented that if she ever were to become a popular pick at pro level (and would be viable) that he'd murder her into the ground. It is the same reason pre-rework Eve and Heimerdinger were considered troll picks.

Until you understand that they are two completely different things, there is no way to have this discussion with you, because you simply do not grasp the basic concepts being discussed.

Ever just thought you don't actually "know" Shaco like you think you do?

[Shiny212]

All this silly rage against shaco just makes me wanna play him. Get a grip you tools, there are plenty of champions that need a nerf or redesign before Shaco does, if he needs one at all (he doesn't).

[Duilliath]

Ever just thought you don't actually "know" Shaco like you think you do?

Ever thought?

I know you've stated before you have a, let's say, special outlook on life. Unfortunately, you're adamant about displaying that with your Shaco obsession.

[Deleted]

As much as I'd like to delve in explanations and facts, I think the simple observation of player behavior is good enough to get a good idea.

I think that players of the particular champion being really toxic is small, but good, hint of champion also being "toxic". In reality there is always connection of unfair advantage and egocentric players, as well as certain lack of team play.

For the skills, I think enough has been said - outside of Q it's all garbage, just as for many other old champions. It's like nobody is being excited over Nasus using his wither skill - dude just hovered over somebody and screwed him over, there was some decision in mana, uptime and so on, but not really anything that would hurt in long term. In same light throwing a knife on somebody or planting a trap and most importantly autoattacking... All those things are kinda low level decisions that everyone deal with, and there is little finesse to it. Sure you can actually screw a trap and that's nice, but that's a bit too little for all the decisions that "modern" champions have to deal with.

[Duronos]

Ever thought?

I know you've stated before you have a, let's say, special outlook on life. Unfortunately, you're adamant about displaying that with your Shaco obsession.

No I don't care if they change him, I'll just play others like Pantheon and Vi but my point is having played him a lot and I mean more than most people play ranked games in an entire season that you're making it sound far to black and white. His kit hasn't been toxic since Season 2 after they nerfed it hard. If a Shaco is forced to escape it's often the equivalent of killing him without doing so. Shaco can get behind quite fast and as stated just because he has a couple of ways to escape does not make him toxic. Ever seen that bear man called Udyr? He has an easier time escaping than Shaco does just because of pure sustained speed yet nobody complains about him because he has no gap closer, in reality though Udyr in your mind should be considered a terrible champion because he can get fed through purely farming the jungle.

Difference is that Udyr's kit isn't designed for conventional play much like Shaco, not every fucking champion needs to have the same ideas. Shaco is played differently and for every thing you state is toxic about him there is another reason why his kit can also hinder him. An example? Well his W is pretty much a worse version of Fiddle fear in terms of teamfights and you can't often place them ahead of time to exact prediction of where the fight might happen but only have an idea of it, only decent Shaco's seem to do this anyways.

His Q is relatively useful if the enemy team hasn't popped a pink down (a lot do where I play to prevent the instagib on their carries later on) and his E is somewhat useful for peeling but that's about it in terms of AD Shaco. His R is the only thing that really is decent in teamfights as you can force a focus on to you and if you can time it right and have a bit luck in regards to enemies blowing their ultimates for you then it can greatly help. Overall Shaco's teamfight is where he can lack a bit unless he's ahead but any champion should be able to do well in a teamfight ahead.

You have two options as Shaco in a game mid game onwards, split or assassinate. Both are very situation and unless you're ahead you may have a tough time assassinating a full health carry. Shaco's split push I'd say is alright but it lacks in being able to happen all the time because if you're playing jungle which most Shaco's do they have to be the objective controllers which means that if top is already pushed and Baron is up... You can't push bot often not. With that said I find that in solo queue he is great to play like you'd play a Rengar, jump in and take out as much health as you can on a carry, press R and hope your team follows up.

Unlike Rengar, Shaco is squishy which makes it much easier to get taken out if you try to dive a carry meaning you have to look for better openings than a Rengar might. Outside of how each play in the jungle from levels 1-5, Rengar and Shaco are very similar within the way they play level 6 onwards, both can splitpush well and instagib carries if given a solid opening.

Shaco in essence doesn't have a W for a teamfight outside of placing it behind just in case the enemy team gets the advantage and tries to follow up on the team in which case I try to plan ahead and place them in places where the enemy team might go. With that said, it's like a cheap fiddle fear with less fear time and minimal damage.

Also if Riot balanced the game around low ELO, where are the Master Yi and Amumu nerfs?

[Charge me Doctor]

kit can't becaome "not toxic" after nerf, it becomes not toxic after rework, god damn it, you still don't understand what toxic is.
If poppy somehow will be viable via not needing 6 3k cost items or 10 kills lead she will be most likely shut down from the game completely before they rework her or they'll cut her stats in half, because character with CC that is also a gap closer that deals shitloads of damage, with spammable % HP removing auto-attack resetting spell, with MS, armour and AD boost, with strong AAs, very sturdy (reduces damage from attacks by 50%) AND ability to become invulnerable for 4 out of 5 players on enemy team, while increasing damage output on single enemy for 40 fucking percents.
She is very toxic character but she is balanced because she can't win lane and can't effectively jungle, she is an underdog, and will remain so until they fix her kit. Some people enjoy playing underdog characters (i do, i really enjoy her kit and i love that people can do little to nothing to deal with it, but i would trade it for her to become actually viable), but Shaco is different, he has toxic kit, has decent stats and with changes to importance of jungle he becomes viable again, as more players get into playing him (and fail horribly most of the time, because you can't just swap to a character with unique gameplay and perform on the same level as when you played Yi) it becomes quite obvious that he is going to get reworked soon.

Udyr is shit at escaping in early game, at level 18 with 4 items 2 of which is MS items he is good at it, but before - nope, 4 times you change a stance and you are out of mana, but comparable to Shaco, there is only Lee who is good at escaping.

I wonder, every time when Shaco jumps in with Q after initiating has began, enemy front liners are knocked up by CC, back liners are in danger, W got dropped and i fucking can't get to two Shacos while they casually walk towards Tristana who can't jump second time, because first time she used it to get out of Wukongs ult range. Yeah, W is completely useless in teamfights, because, i mean, any decent player will quit everything and jump on this W before it goes in invis in 2 seconds, who the hell cares that you first have to walk to it or waste important damaging spell on it losing 500 damage on enemy player and wasting it on a box so it won't just ruin whole teafight be fearing everyone around it for 1 second.

I am seriously tired of explaining how Shacos kit is toxic and seeing explanations like "but its costly!", it just doesn't correlate, it is costly, but it's still toxic and leaves no counterplay, all choices you make against Shaco as an individual player is wrong choices, and that is what should be addressed

[Duronos]

Whatever... I'm just fucking done hearing ignorant shit like "he has no counterplay" or "there is no right decision against Shaco". Whatever, seems like I play vs a Shaco today in normals and I instantly knew what to do and guess what? It's like I can point out different things about what he's good at and what to do vs him but all of you just bring out the shitty fucking argument (yeah I'm fucking pissed that I have to speak to brick walls) of "His kit is toxic Imma go cry in the fucking corner and there is nothing you can do vs Shaco".

If this were the fucking case then we'd have at least 10 Shaco mains in Challenger on each server right? Oh but wait we don't. Wonder why eh? He's not even banned out against Shaco mains at higher elo and even if they get him they still often lose just as much as they win. You're all stuck on this crying like a little bitch about him when in reality he's not toxic, nothing about his kit is toxic. YOU KNOW WHAT'S FUCKING TOXIC? If he could escape and not lose anything out of it, Shaco loses each time he doesn't get a kill and if you're telling me that his kit is toxic then you need to think again. The mana costs make it not toxic, I can't fucking tell you the amount of times where I have to escape from enemy jungle and just have to go back and lose even harder.

Shaco missing gold is worse than most people losing out on gold, you have to use your strong early kit to get the gold and if you can't... Well you're more often than not fucked unless the enemy team doesn't ward dragon within which you can solo it at 6 pretty easily. You guys just do not get it, I don't expect you to anymore because I understand you're all low elo and don't try to think, "well shit maybe if I do this or force this or play more passively it might counter out this champion". Lee has a million escape options more often than not but there's this huge circlejerk around him and how he requires skill to play, he doesn't for me for some reason as ward jumps, insecs, and whatever else I have to do in the situation comes naturally.

Oh but does Shaco require skill to play? Nah he just has a million ways to escape with no consequence ever if he has to press Q and W for a huge combination of 145 mana. Yeah, whatever... Lee has energy and has no problem escaping and doesn't lose out much because unless he's like super low health he'll just go back to farming jungle or find a gank elsewhere.

IF YOU GUYS HAVEN'T REALIZED, I'M POINTING OUT OTHER CHAMPIONS THAT CAN DO THE EXACT SAME THING AS SHACO WITH WAY LESS RISK BUT GOD FORBID CALLING THE ABILITY TO DO WHAT THEY CAN DO TOXIC. DO I NEED TO POINT OUT THAT JUST BECAUSE HE CAN ESCAPE WITHOUT YOU GETTING A KILL ON HIM DOESN'T MEAN YOU LOSE OUT, SHACO LOSES OUT FAR MORE. HE'S NOT TOXIC, IT'S JUST HOW HE WORKS AND I GET THAT YOU GUYS ARE ALL "FOR GLORY AND KILLS" AND IF YOU CAN'T KILL HIM THEN HE'S TOXIC.

[SargorVirm]

you dont have shaco mains everywhere because he is WEAK! he is UNDERTUNED! that doesnt justify his kit is toxic. Poppy, WW, Shaco, pre-rework Eve, pre-rework Heimer; ALL of these champions had 00 counterplay. They werent spammed because Riot nerfed them TO THE GROUND to keep their toxic KITS from ruining the game. Multiple people have explained how there is 0 decisions that are correct for shaco. "cc", "ward", "bait", "scare"; all of these things are how u handle shaco? thats how you handle EVERY JUNGLER IN THE GAME! but someone magically because you say so its "counterplay" for shaco? Not.

Put this hypothetical, if shaco goes 1v1 vs ANY CHAMPION of FLAWLESS play. All cc used at correct times, no one is "baited" into anything, who wins? Shaco.

Either he gets you to burn everything and just LOL-Q's out, losing all your cd's and most likely sums for no kill; OR he wins. Either way he wins in the long run. THIS is why he is toxic. You are blind because you love this champion (or you get butthurt when someone points out the issue with the champ). You wont listen to reason or logic. Starting threads to rant about people disagreeing with you WITH logic that even RIOT agree's with, wont change people to magically come to your side.

[Duronos]

you dont have shaco mains everywhere because he is WEAK! he is UNDERTUNED! that doesnt justify his kit is toxic. Poppy, WW, Shaco, pre-rework Eve, pre-rework Heimer; ALL of these champions had 00 counterplay. They werent spammed because Riot nerfed them TO THE GROUND to keep their toxic KITS from ruining the game. Multiple people have explained how there is 0 decisions that are correct for shaco. "cc", "ward", "bait", "scare"; all of these things are how u handle shaco? thats how you handle EVERY JUNGLER IN THE GAME! but someone magically because you say so its "counterplay" for shaco? Not.

Put this hypothetical, if shaco goes 1v1 vs ANY CHAMPION of FLAWLESS play. All cc used at correct times, no one is "baited" into anything, who wins? Shaco.

Either he gets you to burn everything and just LOL-Q's out, losing all your cd's and most likely sums for no kill; OR he wins. Either way he wins in the long run. THIS is why he is toxic. You are blind because you love this champion (or you get butthurt when someone points out the issue with the champ). You wont listen to reason or logic. Starting threads to rant about people disagreeing with you WITH logic that even RIOT agree's with, wont change people to magically come to your side.

So we have our good friend Joe the engineer who's been studying the perfect way to streamline a car, it's better than anyone has tried before. Joe has worked on this for years and has finally figured it all out, knows the perfect design in and out. He shows this design to everyone else, how it works and explains it to them. The other engineers who have not really studied this field say, "Preposterous, how could this work? are you sure you aren't letting your obsession with streamlined cars get to you?" to which Joe responds, "So your word, the people who do not study this field has more value than mine?".

My point is, I love the champion but as someone who has played thousands of Shaco games, I see the flaws that you guys don't. I point them out, explain it and you glaze over everything I say because you want to think you're "right" without any experience. Makes you feel big and strong, that's what politicians do by the way. It's their job to make decisions with something they have no experience in.

Also if Shaco gets caught he often dies, Shaco is very squishy so don't give that "flawless cc" bullshit. I've played against enough Syndra's, Fiddle's, Rammus', etc. to tell you the obvious.

[Charge me Doctor]

So, to be able to counter Shaco, now you need to play thousands games on him? Doesn't that sound ridiculous? Things like "guys you just take your whole team to his jungle and disrupt it" is not counter, things like "you just need to gank him with 3 people" is not a counter, things like "oh but he has to go back to base often when he spams shit without blue" (which by the way he can take from enemy jungler) is not a counter.
Counter is juking Rengars root, counter is jumping to your tower when Mao attempts to root you, counter is waiting for Jax stun to automatically go off before he jumps on by keeping distance. Shaco just have no counter, like Olaf did, like Yorick does. He just spams shit and you can't do anything about it, you can suck, or you can suck less, other is in hands of a player.

You are not actually study anything, you create strawmans, you just play a game, it's like learning to drive a bike, but you learned how to drive a handlebar-and-seat-less-monocycle over years and now say that it's totally fine and everyone who asks the only bike-making company in a town to make a bicycle because handlebar-and-seat-less-monocycle are objectively worse at a task of allowing a person to move from point A to point B just haven't ride thousands of hours to make an opinion

And anyone who gets caught without flash most likely to die. But hey, Shaco does have flash on 15 seconds CD (which is totally fine IMO, even that someone like Tristana has to actually cast stuff, not just *poof* and be gone, without being able to drop a fearbox / slows at people who chase you) so you have to bring at least 2 types of CC (and pray that they won't bug each other out and he will be able to use spells) and pink ward to kill him. Or have long range spells to finish him off. Or have a lot of dots. There is options to get him. Without fear box and slows that he possess.

[SargorVirm]

No one is flawless, true.... but that is the principle of how his KIT is toxic. Assuming everything is done correctly by the shaco, he wins the fight. Plain and simple. He is not OP as fuck because he is intentionally UNDERTUNED. Anecdotal evidence of how YOU know everything about it does not somehow make your claims his kit true. Duilliath explained it perfectly. Axethor gave you all the analytical examples needed. To use your "Joe the Engineer" example; you forgot to mention his process to streamline a car has a material NO ONE ELSE has access to. Since he wont release this material to the competitors, his suppliers cut his budget, thus making it fair to "compete". He is BALANCED, but TOXIC at the same time. What we have all been saying

[Axethor]

Duronos, there is one major line of though that you seem to associate with toxic, and that is how powerful a champion is. Champion power has NOTHING to do with how toxic their kit is.

Shaco has all these weaknesses you point out because he is purposefully left in an under tuned state. He is allowed to exist because Riot knows that as long as he remains in this state, he won't become a problem for the majority of their players. However, all his weaknesses are weaknesses that could apply to any champion in the game, and not specific to Shaco. Udyr is easily kited even with his super speed boost. Pantheon is also easily kited and his ult takes a long ass time to go off. Lee Sin is broken and will probably be nerfed in the preseason, but if he did have a weakness it would be his reliance on hitting Q and positioning for his ult.

None of their kits are toxic, they are just balanced (or in Lee's case unbalanced) around how their kits work as a whole and have built in counters. That is what Riot means when they talk about counterplay. A part of a champion's kit that allows the opposing player to make a correct move and take the advantage in a fight. Shaco lacks these counters, so to compensate Riot hit him with huge mana costs, similar to Poppy.

He is balanced around that fact that making him viable would warp the meta around Shaco. I don't want that, you don't want that (permaban status in ranked), and Riot doesn't want that. So they leave him weaker. It doesn't make his kit any less toxic.

[Deleted]

As a heavy Shaco player I'm really interested in what they're going to do with him. It's actually weird playing a UP champ that is still a massive pain for the enemy team (if you're not miles behind that is).

But I just love him, the theme, the champ, his skills, the high risk high reward, the tricks (pun intended) with his ult and skillset in general. He's just waaaaaay to cute.

[Duronos]

Wait wait wait, so designers tunnel vision purely on kit and say something is toxic? Like they completely forget that technically Shen is toxic with his global ult, same with TF, rumble has infinite harass technically. So basically it's okay to call something toxic just because you can?

From a design perspective it makes no sense to just view a kit and not take into account mana costs if they use mana and cd's.

[Duilliath]

Wait wait wait, so designers tunnel vision purely on kit and say something is toxic?

Finally. Yes.

Toxic has absolutely bugger all to do with the power level of a champion. Or mana costs. Or...

Sidenote, Shen's ability is not particularly toxic as an opponent can make several choices in the moment itself: kill the ally through the shield. back off. interrupt the yearlong channel.