Mark Yetter on twitter said that they are currently testing a nerf for conqueror by making conq stack up to 12 times but stack up for less every time so that you need more time to stack it, but without nerfing the damage of a fully stacked conq.
This is with the intention of encouraging extended trades and nerfing burst champs who currently abuse conq by stacking it instantly. However I believe this will have the opposite effect, since the champs this will affect the least are the burst champs who abuse conq because of interactions with the abilities. In other words they are nerfing everyone except the champions they are specifically trying to nerf with this change. Here are some examples to prove my point:
Garen spins a minimum of 7 times during his E, so he will still fully stack it really quickly, especially once he get triforce it won’t make a difference since he will spin quicker and more times during the E.
Talon has a few combo variations, but if he lands both parts of his W and follows up with a R-Q-AA he’s also instantly at 12 stacks.
Katarina’s ult has a tick rate of 0.1666 seconds and lasts 2.5 seconds, assuming she has 4 stacks from Q-E, that means that she goes from needing 0.5 seconds to fully stack conq to a whopping 0.65 seconds. Literally unplayable.
Renekton will get 12 stacks from E1-AA-W-Q-E2, which is already his bread and butter combo anyways.
Master Yi will still be Master Yi.
I’m not sure how Conq interacts with Wukong’s clone, but regardless E-AA-Q gives 6 stacks and his ult has a tick rate of 0.25 seconds, and knocks up for 0.75 seconds. This means that he’s at 12 stacks by the time you’re back on the ground after his knock-up, and guess what he still has an R2 to abuse his fully stacked conq for some reason. The nerf changes nothing for him. 1
Good Riven players won’t really care because they will insta-stack with all her animation cancels, but this nerf might make Riven even harder to play and to learn for those who don’t know the combos. Same goes for Irelia.
The champs this nerf affects the most are the ones who already struggle to fully stack conq, like Illaoi and Aatrox, ranged champions like Draven and Ezreal, champs who take it situationally like GP, or champions FOR WHOM CONQUEROR WAS SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED and with no quick stacking mechanic such as Sett, Jax, Darius, Fiora, Kled, Camille, Yasuo, Tryndamere and uuuh Udyr I guess? If it’s bad enough it might even force some them (especially Aatrox and Jax) to go for grasp or PtA and ditch Conq permanently.
Not sure how it would affect other conq users like Urgot (since he’s ranged but still has his W to quickly stack), Yorick (because I’ve never played him and rarely play against him lol), or AP champs who take it but don’t necessarily instantly stack it (like Cassio, Sylas, Diana, Akali or Singed). Someone who’s more knowledgeable about these champs is more than welcome to tell me how they think they would be affected!
This nerf will be a huge failure if it goes live IMO as it is not specific to the champs who abuse conq through their kit. A better approach would be to cap the amount of stacks you can get per second, so that you can’t get 10/12 stacks in less than a second. I think 4 stacks per sec would be a great change that would force some abusers off conq without forcing it off of champs who don’t have abilities or combos that can give 4+ stacks in 1 second.
I believe a better solution to this problem is to cap the amount of stacks you can get in a given time. For instance a maximum of 4 stacks per second would make bursty champs like Katarina and Rengar less likely to want this rune, and reduce the oppressiveness of Garen and Wukong without completely forcing them off the rune. However, it would be a nerf for players who mastered quick combos on champions who dont necessarily have an ability that abuses the rune, mainly Riven, Irelia and Fiora. It would also feel bad to need 2.5 seconds to stack it late game while playing champs who have tons of CDR and/or atk speed at lvl 18 such as Yi, Yasuo and Trynd (but maybe most of us would see this as a good thing lmao). A different solution to avoid that while nerfing conq abusers could be to remove interactions where a single keypress can give you 4+ stacks, like Renekton W, Garen E and Wukong R.
But what do I know, I don’t have 200 years of experience.
1 I don’t know about you guys, but as I’m writing this I’m noticing a pattern. The champs who abuse conq are some of the champs that we as a community have complained the most about in S10, namely Wukong, Katarina, Garen and Talon. Rly makes u think don’t it.
EDIT: I was wrong about Kata and Talon, their abilities only give 2 stacks. Apparently only Garen E and Wukong R are coded this way. However I just verified in practice tool that ignite and Gunblade do give two stacks each, so it is still very easy to get to 12 stacks as Kata, especially if you use your E on the champion instead of on your dagger if the enemy champ is on the dagger as that will give you 4 stacks instead of 2. However Talon is maybe one of the assassins who will be hit harder by this conq nerf since I was wrong about how conq stacks on his W.
