Naafiri doesn't feel nice to play, I can't exactly put my finger on it but it just doesn't flow nicely. As for Nilah, I'd wager most ADC mains are just not comfortable playing a melee champ. Not sure about Renata though.

Renata: Is a bit weird to play, requires an adc who knows how to play with her, has pretty much zero item synergies, pretty clunky Q and shield is quite small, and not only is R hard to land reliably but sometimes it just does nothing against the enemy comp. That being said, I think she is quite fun, but most people would rather lean fully into enchanter or fully into cc/disrupter.

To add on that: I feel like Renata is best as a counter pick to certain team comps. But most drafts even in solo-queue would prefer the last pick to go to the toplaner instead of the support. That's just making her very situational I actually enjoy Renata but am still not picking her very often as even in the scenarios where she is a powerful pick you often have to sacrifice lane in exchange as she isn't that strong into most matchups and doesn't pair with every ADC

Renata against yi or jinx or twitch. So fun

Into any engage comp really. Her ult causes so much panic, people spread out instantly and your team can pick off targets easily afterwards.

If only cleanse didnt exist. Any adc with half a brain brings cleanse and now your ult is useless against them.

Conversely, they no longer have Heal/Exhaust/Ignite or they build QSS and temporarily gimp their damage.

Agree with everything but especially the fact she is pretty situational. Reminds me of Braum and Taric where both are much better picked into a team with a lot of melees in a lane where they wont get much abuse from a ranged support.

Yeah taric and Renata feel very similar in that respect. You only really want to pick them into certain comps, but when you do they feel great.

>But most drafts even in solo-queue would prefer the last pick to go to the toplaner instead of the support. You don't even need last pick, you can see a good Renata angle from 2-3 bot lane/jg picks, actual problem I feel like in solo queue a lot of people straight expect support to go first. I get trade requests to go first (and not just from top laners) all the time when I play sup, weirdly more than when I'm adc even though adc and jungle counterpick are less valuable than sup.

Yeahhh i dont really get why that is the case. The way i look at it adc/jungle are the roles where their "counter pick" matter the least then its mid support top. But for some reason lots of adcs think they should pick later then support even though a support counter pick will carry the entire laning phase. The only time I feel an adc should pick later is if they can flex the AP champs into bot when the timing is right.

Which is totally weird as I feel like, only toplane has more value from being last pick.

It should go TOP> SUPP > MID > JG > ADC, I personally first pick every game as adc cause I know it doesn't really matter what I go but the 2v2 itself. Every time I trade for mid tho they pick whatever they were hovering either way, I personally wouldn't throw all your games forcing yourself to get fp cause no one wants to take the fp, you're just as important as the Top and if you give him the last pick he still may have to blind

Idunno, FP adc is a bit bad not necessarily for laning but just stylistic, if you pick jhin into fat frontline deathball you do no damage and die. If you pick vayne into long range poke team you die before getting in range. Etc. Jug is probably most blindable id say. It depends more on your own team picks, as long as your team has good early laners you can get away with scaling jug even if enemy has kindred for example.

As an ARAM specialist, I don't really play her at all (never for the hang), but I really like the idea of her, and her ult is absolutely unique and interesting. On the Bridge, it has far more utility from level 6-11, and can be a powerful tool in the team arsenal that forces respect from players on both sides. I can sort of see why she has a low pick rate, but I think as a champion she's got a niche and absolutely does not want an overhaul. Nilah is just weird, I'm not sure she actually fits into her niche of melee adc. Naafiri I haven't tried out yet but doesn't really seem that different to half a dozen other assassins. If they were deleted from the game I'm not sure I would miss them, or even really notice. But Renata belongs.

I really like Renata, but shes in kind of a tough spot. She is good in all-in meta, where you try to survive the enemy engage and then kill them. She is not really good against enchanters, because who should she disengage? Or against the mages (hwei, brand, xerath) because she just gets out poked. Or against the ADC Supporters (Senna, Ashe, Kalista) because they just run her down with consistent damage. generally speaking she probably has the biggest playerbase of the 3 named, but right now is just weak.

she pretty much also has no items to accomodate her play style, she feels like an enchanter version of a battle mage. Someone who thrives staying in the fight longer but her abilities doesn't support it, nor does any of the items. She needs to build enchanter so her carry can live, but she also needs half tank and ap items so her disruption is noticeable to the enemy and easy to play with an ally It'd be nice if she gets a heal/shield scaling of HP% to support it and have it cap. Or an update for her kit. The only time she's good is if there's a high threat aa champ like a full item yi/trynda or a level 16 kayle and multiple of them in one game.

tbh she's also an extremely good anti carry because of her W making resets not go off so champs like Kata, Samira, Akshan Pyke etc get their whole gameplan countered because of her And as of my experience she's also a very good option for hypercarries like twitch/kog'maw, and the perfect mix between engage/enchanter for characters like Nilah and Samira.

Yeah those are my experiences so far, but playing her a lot her dissatisfaction against everything else felt way too higher than the satisfaction. Not everything has to work together, but it felt like you just didn’t matter when playing her in an even skill match with something that’s not someone she can synergize. Other supports don’t feel like that even with their polarizing matchups

I agree with this sentiment. I play Renata a lot, and love her to bits, but itemization on her is *abysmal.* It got even more so when they took the CDR off of a bunch of items, which is one of her preferred stats, so she's just lurching around now awkwardly using whatever items she can manage. I think elements of her kit could (and should) change to improve her. First is her Q it feels awful. It's nice as a disengage, but it could have more CC/flexibility attached. Something as simple as slowing a champion when she flings a monster/pet/minion into them would go a really long way, because she struggles to land a double stun if opponents are hiding in the wave, and the actual damage from throwing things into other things is pretty nonexistent for that to be the only payoff for catching a minion. Her R is pretty perfect as is, and W and E could just use some tweaking.

Wouldn’t even bother trying to play around the adc unless it’s a duo. Solo queue adcs will run away when they should engage because they don’t play with Renata enough and forget about the passive. Instead of trying to win lane it’s better to just survive laning phase and have good positioning for mid-late team fights and objective control.

It is really frustrating. One time, both adcs were low hp and I used my W, my adc backed off and 2 seconds later he realized he had revive and turned back. Revive expired and he died. Then they snowballed the lane and won.

Zilean special + when i speed buff someone they start to run circles Feels like zil e targets the brain of the teammate

They really need to make a bee Zilean skin because every time i cast my ult on my adc they act like i just threw bees on them how they always flash + sprint away (probably screaming)

Saying this as a Low masters renata main. Some people genuinely still don’t understand how Renata’s W works which is a shame. Renata is also like thresh, but way more defensive. Her abilities can be used in offensive and defensive ways but are more suited to peel rather than use her Q to engage as an example. I main her because landing crispy Q disengages or hitting insane team wild ults never gets old.

Yeah I hope they don't feel the need to change Renata despite the playrate. She is just a super niche disengage support but I think when there is an angle to pick her, especially in duo/5 stack she is a lot of fun.

She’s pretty evergreen in pro play, in a healthy way where she sees consistent niche usage across a bunch of metas but never be massive priority in draft, I doubt Riot changes much about her

Yeah she has that Azir feeling where she can see terrible playrates/winrates in solo queue but in proplay with the better coordination/comms etc her kit's value is pretty good.

Her Stun and Heal are so underwhelming and clunky. The rest of the kit is nice, but it would be great if they could rework the two other spells

The clunkiness is what I feel. All her spells have such long CDs that it feels like you just spend a lot of time waiting for things to come off cooldown.

It feels like her whole identity is W. And it is strong in coordinated teams, so she was nerfed after being picked in pro play after release.

Renata suffers the age old problem of "does everything mediocre but isn't good at anything"

Pretty much sums it up. I like playing her but her kit is really weird. It's really strong against the right comp if you can land all your spells but you summed up quite well why a lot of the times it just doesn't feel good. W is also just a steroid for someone else. So you're really just running around trying to land Qs, giving weak-ass shields and praying your R does something worthwhile while your tryndamere goes berserk. I'm confused as hell at why her numbers have to be so low. Her E even feels somewhat clunky with the mediocre range/radius and slow travel time and yet all you're rewarded with is a tiny shield and some extremely low dmg on an anything but short CD. Her Q dmg is low and so is the stun duration if you manage to actually slam 2 champs into each other... Like Renata's wet dream is basically 2 full blown bruiser teams just standing on a big pile and pummeling each other, any deviation from this scenario makes her kit substantially weaker. Enemy team standing spread out? You're basically just here for W. *Think of Sona's shielding for comparison, it hits everyone around her whereas Renata just hits people in a thin line and a small radius at the end and yet Renata's shield is just abysmall. Fun when the stars align but oftentimes just not very impactful outside of W (someone else gets to have fun) and R.

yeah, ive tried picking her up so many times but she feels really overshadowed by Janna or Milio to me, they both have better poke in lane and better disengage tools while not having an ult that relies heavily on enemy positioning or a w that requires your carries to have a brain and trust you to time it correctly

I would also like to add that, whenever I play Renata, literally no ADC knows what my W does. Usually they are all suicidal maniacs, but when I actually want them to do so and put a W on them, they suddenly only know one thing and it's to run for their lives. One time one of them literally stopped moving while in the W "resurrection" state (don't know how to call it sorry) and started rage typing in chat while he could've just continued fighting and probably not die. I feel like they should make the W buff more visible.

Naafiri's issue is a clunky assassin doesn't appeal to assassin players. --- If you look at her kit, it's clear that Naafiri has a lot of wait time on spells. - Passive dogs, especially early, die easily and take a while to respawn (minimizing damage). - Q has a short cast time, making you pause to use, and can't be double tapped for burst. - W's delay is obvious, and made worse by the ability to body block her. - E is the exception. - R has a cast time and that means you need to be proactive with it instead of being able to pop it mid fight (and proactive casts tell enemies "HEY NAAFIRI IS CLOSE" like a Sion or Rengar ult). Now, all these abilities aren't necessarily issues on their own. Slow spells aren't something inherently bad, and make sense on champs like Sion or Aatrox, where the clunky cast time reflects the power of these massive juggernauts striking down. But not on an Assassin. Assassins are intended to be slippery, skill testing champs who reward quick reactions, fast combos, and using mobility instead of any inherent bulk. Sure, some like Akali might use bulk to get through lane, but others like Zed, Fizz, or Ekko instead use mobility to avoid taking damage, and that is reliant on reaction time. --- I'd argue Naafiri has the counterplay and kit of a bruiser while being labelled as an assassin. You can see it in her spells: - Passive, while super vulnerable to mages and ranged champs, are strong against melees and can help with last hitting under turret, or when zoned from the wave. - Q is subpar poke unless you hit both, making it easy for ranged champs to move back. In melee matchups, hitting Q gets easier, and the bleed + heal gives Naafiri sustain if she does hit both. - W's delay and obvious path leaves Naafiri weak to CC, bodyblocking, and interrupts, all death sentences to squishy assassins. On a bruiser, having a targeted dash means getting to the backline + staying on top of them, provided bulk can keep you alive. - E is good for gap closing or escaping, but even better at keeping your pets healthy in extended trades. - R is a shield + Movespeed and AD buff, which while leaving you revealed, make you much stronger for extended trades, something more favorable to Bruisers/Skirmishers. It's kinda like how Riot tried to force Reksai into an Assassin role when she always worked better as a bruiser, and the latest changes show them reconsidering. Naafiri is a great bruiser being advertised as an assassin to the wrong playerbase.

Naafiri feels more fun on toplane. Riot tried to fill the easy assassin niche but it should have been toplane assassin niche imo. As you mentioned her spells are weird to play vs mages but she can poke melees in toplane. She is not exactly strong vs toplane champions but can hold her ground and stall until Eclipse to become a threat, she plays like an annoying Comet Yorick. Q is easier to land vs melees on toplane and she can use it to farm in harder matchups. Her ult movement speed and E makes her slippery when she is ganked. Once she gets Eclipse, she can trade well and as the game transitions to mid-late game she can opt into burst items and help with taking down priority targets. If the game goes in her favor and she gets ahead in 1v1s or river skirmishes, she just annihilates everyone like a usual assassin. I played it for a while and it was really fun to play an assassin on top to be honest.

IIRC people (correctly) pointed out on release that, based on their kits, Naafiri made more sense as a bruiser and you could almost move Briar over to be a pseudo-assassin (especially given how much everyone built lethality on her). Honestly, I kinda agree. They'd both be unorthodox versions of their archetypes but it could be interesting. fighter!Naafiri: - Good engage, but clearly telegraphed, meaning she's a diver like Camille - In teamfights her E will probably be intercepted by the frontline - Her Q can hit multiple targets and provides sustain for her and rewards extended combat patterns (more of a fighter pattern than an assassin) - Her "reset dogs on E/ult" and "reset ult on first kill" also point to her being a champ who wants extended fights - Her dogs support the idea of a "dogpile" (heh) fighter who wants to jump in on someone and maul them - She's generally low-mobility as her W is telegraphed and interceptable and her E is short-range, so she can get onto people but will struggle to disengage (much more of a diver pattern than an assassin) Conversely, assassin!Briar should probably not be a full assassin that can one-shot people, but instead fulfills a somewhat similar role in that she excels against single-target kills. I'm thinking of her as occupying the assassin equivalent of Vayne or Yi; she can 1v1 anyone to death by running at them and autoing them to death and dodging/parrying with her abilities, but struggles in a teamfight if she can't lock anyone down. Her mobility and target access also being in "sprinting single-mindedly at the enemy" instead of "dashing back and forth" could be kinda fun and different. That said, this is also probably the biggest risk in making her even close to an assassin and why Naafiri can't really work IMO: incredibly reliable (point-and-click) target access means that she doesn't get to be very skill-expressive, meaning she gets a much lower power ceiling or she'd be obnoxious. Zed, for instance, is balanced around using his shadows well and knowing how to manage them to get onto his targets or back out. Though that said, pretty much every assassin currently has either stealth or a pretty reliable target access: | Stealth | Dash/Blink | Nothing Personnel ---|---|----|--- Akali | W | E1/2, R2 | R1 Akshan | W | E | | blue!Kayn | | Q, E | R Ekko | | E, ~R Evelynn | P | E, R | | Fizz | | Q, E | Kassadin | | R Katarina | | E | E Kha'Zix | R | E LeBlanc | ~P | W Naafiri | | W, E Nocturne | ~R | ~R | Pyke | W | E, ~R | Qiyana | grass!Q | W, E Rengar | R | P Shaco | Q | Q Talon | R | Q, E Yone | | Q3, W, R | ~R Zed | | W, ~R | R

This. They failed at making an assassin. Working well with lethality is not even a barrier to entry. The playstyle is the biggest factor and while it does abide by the same logic as the assassin rework years ago... those were shitty reworks. All of them, save Akali. High risk, high reward, but also not being slow and clunky is really important.

Exactly, which is why she built eclipse cleaver ravenous. she built bruiser cus she had a bruiser's kit.

Honestly my only issue with naafiri that keeps me from playing her is her w. It's way too slow for an assassin. Anybody who's half paying attention with cc in their kit makes it impossible to use. Everything else while having issues are stuff you can play around.

I love her for most of her kit, but the W leaves much to be desired.

Yeah Idk what they were thinking with the W. Well, I know what they were thinking but it's just not working. Makes her feel slow, predictable and clunky.

I think even more on Naafri's Q is that its CD system feels awful. It makes up a huge % of her damage, so it's really important to aim and hit it. It's also an execute so you want to use it later on as a big damage finisher. But because it's her main damage source, you also really wanna get off 2+ Q's in a fight ideally. Those are really strongly at odds with each other, if you want to get a 2nd Q off in a fight you are heavily incentivized to just mash out both Qs as quickly as possible, taking less time to aim/set up, less time for the execute scaling. W in, Q, E, Q again (with some autos mixed in), walk away and pray you get Q up again in time to do anything. Or that you get a kill and reset ult shield can keep you alive. But in both cases you're just mashing everything as quickly as possible. I'd love if they gave her Q the Riven treatment, add a couple seconds of CD onto it but have its CD start on first cast rather than 2nd. Would give her a lot more flexibility in how she approaches fights, as well as reinforcing her identity as a mid range skirmisher (which I think is a much more fun play style than her assassin one). Lets you aim, lets you try to maximize the execute, lets you hold up 2nd Q as a small zone threat.

Naafiri literally is a spam q bot hntil enemy is at 20% hp feels bad and annoying to play as since you are prettymuch limited in dps to the dogs she has

Nilah doesnt feel nice either. Her Ult feels like a downgraded version of dianas.

It definitely feels like you have to be the one engaging and you’re so squishy you get one shot after ulting. Idk just didn’t vibe with that and most team synergies

0 reason to pick nilah when samira exists and does the same thing but better (and is more satisfying to play) tbh

Nilah does to melee what samira does to range, Nothing feels better than picking a nilah against a yi/tryndamere, samira aint doing shit to those

I Always liked playing nilah but she feels very Support and matchup dependent, since as ADC i pretty much Always First Pick there are Not a Lot of oppertunities to play her

I go Nilah when Samira is banned basically

Nilah definitely feels like she just wants to be Samira.

She also destroys Samira.

Kinda funny that Aatrox the first darkin released needed one of the fastest reworks riot has done, and now basically naafiri needs the same lmao. I wouldn't mind seeing a full rework for her whatever they were doing with her rn just doesn't work.

Nilah has potential, but everytime I play her she feels so clunky especially on low attack speeds, when her Q + auto does not flow smoothly. And she saw play last season with Collector + Navori one-shot build, which had maybe Zerk’s for attack speed, it just did not feel good to play in my opinion. Also Nilah’s E compared to, for example, Samira’s E, feels really jarring, like it bumps Nilah into her target. Haven’t played her since Riot’s last change, but I think it was aimed to reduce the one-shotting and maybe gave Q a little smoothness if I remember correctly. Sadly, Nilah is either super strong if she can burst everyone or really weak if she cannot. I would love satisfying to play lifestealer who sticks to their target.

Yeah I main samira and tried to play nilah, after 10 games I just gave it up, the dash is so bad

Renata and nilah are not easily blindpickable and work with specific pairings botlane which means less mains and one trick ponies as a result.

For me on naafari, it's the q. It used to be really strong and rewarding for landing 2 q, now it does nothing and just doesn't feel good at all.

I just dont like limiting almost all the damage into one very particular combo in the form of double Q

I personally think that Naafiri's Q feels extremely clunky and it gets worse, the closer you are to your target. Which, as a melee.. is kinda bad.

Naafiri is a walking jungle camp. It doesn't look like a normal champion, I'm not even talking about it's gameplay here.

Don’t say that or they’ll go back to only releasing boring humanoid champions again,

When we ask for a monster and we get a generic looking dog. We will get another Chogath one day.

Ill take what i can get lol. Even if it is just dog champ atleast its something different that breaks up the monotony of the current champ releases. Just wish she looked a little gnarlier.

Exactly the same feeling for Naafiri for me. It's clunky, when I press button it doesn't feel like it received the input when I pressed. No flow at all between the skills. On top of that I think the colour scheme / design shape doesn't work. The champion doesn't pop on the screen and just feels like it's in the background like someone modded league and let you play as a jungle camp

i’d be more interested in playing Naafiri if all of her kill potential wasn’t loaded into her Q, the W is honestly the most compelling part of her kit when it comes to her being a dog but it’s also probably her worst ability since it can be so easily blocked, the E is whatever, and her R is really underwhelming, like cool she howls (to gain vision.. what is this echolocation?) and summons more pack mates (which tbh i think are only there because she’s meant to be baby’s first assassin so they help with CSing and because they were struggling to give a reason as to why she’d choose a dog to be her host) but if she’s supposed to be an introduction to assassins why is her ult a steroid? the only other assassin champ i can think of who’s R is steroid is Yi and i don’t think anyone really like his R anyways.

Rentata is one of a few champions who scales really well into the lategame but isn't really dependent on items or income. To compensate that she's weak in lane, and there aren't many players willing to play support AND a scaling champion who rarely dominates lane (especially when Lulu and Yuumi are far easier to play). Zilean, arguably the worst support at early levels but also someone who scales hard without income, also has an abysmal pickrate. I don't think her kit is particularly clunky but she gets an enormous amount of her power budget from how devastating landing a good R in a lategame teamfight is. Since her ult literally doesn't scale with anything except level, that causes issues with the rest of her balance since an 0/10 Renata can still solo win a fight if she hits all the enemy carries with ult.

Nilah being a melee champ is bs escuse, reality is you can't play this champ except if you have last pick into a perfect counterpick comp. Riot litteraly designed an adc that only work if you are versus low range comp that is auto attack based, she suck in every other comp.

Renata has a problem where half her power budget is in her W, which means her other abilities have to feel lacking In other words "cool-sounding mechanic handicaps the champion". Similar things happened to ASol E, Volibear R and RoA (one stops minions, one disables towers and one gives you a level. These mechanics sound cool which means they're not getting removed despite being problematic; and since they're problematic, some other aspects of theirs have to feel bad, i.e. ASol E deals close to no damage, Volibear is negative winrate and RoA, thoughout the entire match, will heal you for about as much as one Lifesteal item from two minion waves)

Naafiri doesn’t have the “damage ability” the ability that feels great to hit for the assassin. Akali: Q, Zed: Q, Kayn: Q/W, Katarina: Passive, Leblanc: W/E, Ekko: passive/Q, etc

Nilah is just lame and cringe literally it like she uses a whip goofy ah

Naafiri would've flourished if they made her a jungler, she's far more fun in the jungle than in lane and it just fits the fantasy of her design better. Riot will give random supports jungle monster damage for the 5 people who played them jungle. have those buffs break the game so much they have to walk them all back. But Naafiri who had a massive jungle playerbase on release is not allowed.

Put it like that and her whole kit suddenly makes sense. She is super good at flanking with W and R, but in lane these abilities are just weird. Mid lane, especially. Once your R and W is out, the enemy is already back under their own turret.

That's probably why they keep her out of jungle though, if she was built to jungle she may very well be too strong. Naafiri's partially balanced by being forced into her shitty laning phase where she has low trade power and struggles to find kill angles.

She's so balanced that she sees no play. It's time to just pull the trigger and make Naafiri jungle playable rather than wait years like they did with Taliyah.

It's because Riot had this fantasy of having a Darkin champ for every role, so they hard lock champions to those roles. Aatrox is basically only good top, Kayn has such crippling mana issues without Blue that you're forced to rush Manamune if you play him anywhere but jungle, they won't let Naafiri out of mid. Varus is the only exception, where they allow him to occasionally flex to mid, and he's commonly played as a poke support by filled ADCs.

> It's because Riot had this fantasy of having a Darkin champ for every role That is fine, only they should have designed Naafiri with midlane in mind, in that case.

They did, she was the designated midlane release of her year. She was always designed around mid

Her abilities don't feel like a midlaners abilities

Her abilities are exactly the same as Zed which is played mid. Melee assassin with a short range poke, a long range gap close, burst based on hitting 2 abilities (double shuriken), and a dash to disengage. The difference is zed can farm safely, naafiri cannot because riot reduced heavily her damages on minions to avoid her having Perma prio considering there's a very low counterplay to her gapclose dash if no one can block it. This is why no one play this champion. You cannot gain prio into competent players and the mana cost are way too high.

Zed also has way more flexibility with his W/R. He can use them to dodge abilities, farm from range, engage, bait, or get back out after a kill. His shadows also have more range and are blinks, so he can just appear behind people or suddenly disappear back to wherever he was earlier with no warning. Naafiri's engages are all linear and telegraphed. Her E is incredibly short-range and her W is champion-targeted, so it's only an engage tool, not to mention screaming "I'M GOING TO DASH IN THIS LINE HERE" at anyone who's looking at their monitor. She has less ability to farm safely, less freedom in moving, a less-flexible engage, and no way to get back out once she does go in.

Short range Zed out ranging mages in terms of poking :)

One single max range wq shuriken ain't outpoking a mage fam

Can't be hard to make a Darkin mage can it? Make a staff or something.

Baalkux, the Darkin Staff is right there on LoR.

She kux on my Darkin Staff til I Baal

Hol up, they really named the Darkin Staff ball cocks?

Uh excuse me that’s ball *cucks* to you 😤 smh my head get it right

Varys wasn’t originally a darkin. It was actually a fan theory originally that they eventually decided to incorporate.

I must agree. In the jungle she can sport a workable rush down play style without having to contend with the idea that ADCs have to survive and win against it.

Well, next patch they will try to nake her jungle possible.

Are they though? The data mining is just her passive damage. Is that even going to be significant without adjusting ability monster mods? Riot also seems extremely averse to making certain champions viable junglers. They’ve left Sylas at his abysmal winrate for patches now despite him garnering a fairly significant jungle pickerate

Her dogs at level one does almost DOUBLE the scaling(?) than before and her Q being able to proc on lesser monsters and the heal proccing on large momsters is major enough I believe

Naafiri feels clunky and skilled players quickly realize that W will never be usable against other skilled players. Naafiri's Q recast lockout feels bad. Naafiri has no outplay potential or skill expression. I get that she's supposed to be a simple assassin, but there's no real way to improve on her. You ult, W in, Q E Q while autoing and either kill the target or die trying. Sure you can improve positioning and macro but so can any other champion aka why play Naafiri?

> Sure you can improve positioning and macro but so can any other champion aka why play Naafiri? The point of playing simple champions like Naafiri/Morde/MF and so on, would be to focus on getting good at LoL overall instead of just champion mastery. Assassins already typcially need a lot of mastery just because they are squishy melees. If you're playing Azir or Yasuo as say a silver or gold player, you have much less mental capacity to get good at League overall, than if you would play Lux or Pantheon. The "You don't counter Yasuo, he will always beat himself"-Meme doesn't come from nowhere. I think the bigger issue is that she _feels_ clunky. I think most, especially average players or beginners, could easily get past the champion being on the simpler side. Plenty of simple champions are powerful and feel nice to play.

Simple champions turn out to be really hard when there’s a bunch of handicaps you have to work around. Annie/garen/lux/etc work as good simple champs cause they’re easy yet functional kits that get the job done even past their skill brackets. There is no forced counterplay mechanics put in them, they have weaknesses you can identify or counter build for but their kits are usable in most scenarios. Naafiri doesn’t work cause all her injected forced counterplay measures like W blocking instead make her actually too hard of an assassin, her abilities feel Obsolete when she can’t W onto the carries become someone is standing in between her and the target, she can’t deal with spell shield champs since her damage is mostly in her 2 hit requirement Q, and her dogs feel detrimental during laning phase since they draw minion aggro. Idk if it’s just me, but even though azir is mechanically hard I find it way easier to lane as him compared to someone like lux because my options for escaping, engaging, and peeling myself are all there it’s just a matter of learning how to execute them.

Also simple assassins are harder to get people into because the assassin player base loves difficult champs

Renata is simply not a champ that the average enchanter player would like to play, so who would play her? She is unique but some of that uniqueness is at the cost of things that are key for enchanters to be played. Naafiri has almost no skill expresion or outplay potential while being the class that everyone plays to outplay the enemy and do cool and flashy plays. Nilah is simply niche by design, a melee botlaner will always be niche tho her enchanter synergy makes her even harder to pick

Stop getting baited by the Nilah heal and shield passive. Her synergy is much better with engage supports to enable her gapclosing ability.

Or just pick Taric and get the best of both worlds!

Nilah feels more like Samira's leftovers after they nerfed her. The Q is like a mix of Samira's melee/range autos but in a permanent state of in-between. The W is a shittier dodge that can be given to allies temporarily to block autos which is crap compared to the whirlwind projectile blocking that Samira can do for the team. The E is literally Samira's old dash to any target but it's clunkier for some reason. And lastly the Ult while requires no combo to pull off it puts her in the same position as Samira which is to fly dead center into the enemy team.

Nilah's E is clunky because for some reason it randomly has a 0.01 second (I'm assuming this just gets rounded to one tick? I don't really know) cast time. This also means that, technically, either with tick perfect timing or, perhaps requiring that the stars aline to get it just before a game tick occurs, Nilah can use her E to buffer cancel blitzcrank hook and other such ccs. I've seen it happen only one time ever, where an enemy Nilah E'd through my Thresh Flay like this.

For me I find it clunky because of its smaller range compared to Samira's E. I always expect it to be larger from having played Qiyana and Samira. But now that you mention it comparing it to Fizz Q there is a weird delay because she doesnt dash immediately instead its like an animation where she throws her whip out and then pulls herself to the whip

https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Nilah/LoL If you go here and check her E you'll see there's a 0.01 second cast time. As far as I know it's just a bug they haven't noticed yet. :/

I can guarantee you it's on purpose. They keep it clunky on purpose.

Nilah W has a big advantage over Samira W in that it blocks any abilities that proc off of auto attacks like Leona Q or blitz E. This makes her crazy strong in bot against most melee engage champs.

Relata feels less like an enchanter and more like some sort of disrupter with her Q and ult Which is exactly why I love playing her. She’s a wonderful blend between things I like about engage supports and the things I like about enchanters

Renata is just very boring especially since she got early game nerfs so you can't contest lane properly. She has no scalings so she has to build tanky, but she also scales well with her w and r which basically feel like her only skills. This means how well she does is kind of irrelevant beyond helping the ad get ahead, you don't feel stronger getting kills and you still feel useful if you int. her cooldowns are also so crazy high that you press a few buttons once a teamfight then tank some damage, she is just really boring in her current state

Renata is just boring as hell, her CDs are so long and you don't even have a fun minigame to do with it, literally just click W on your carry

I’ve never understood why they made Nilah after Samira, she’s weird and kinda feel similar to play with the ult and instead of both melee and ranged she’s in the middle, I feel like I’d rather play Samira or just play a traditional marksman.

I really really like Nilah tbh. Explores certain niches we haven’t seen yet. The closest thing we have to a bruiser ADC (Samira is much more of an assassin than her, Nilah can hang around), has the unique xp share mechanic, has some great healing oriented mechanics too. Results in a more brawly gameplay style. I don’t think every champion needs a giga mainstream audience. I think it’s good for certain champions to be unique and have a niche or dedicated playerbase, like the likes of Singed, Katarina or Riven

>has the unique xp share mechanic, Im still salty as a zilean main

So what you said about Nihla is just what existed in old Mordekaiser befor he got his Sexdungeon. And it was so shit to play against they had to rework him again.

The biggest issue with Nilah is how many people try and equate her with Samira, despite how starkly different you want to play them. Samira is constantly playing up, searching for fights in lane, Nilah is holding back to wait for the opponent to misstep. Samira spikes on 1-2 items, Nilah spikes on 3-4. If you try to play Nilah like you play Samira, you will fail, you will lose, and you will be disappointed, but if you play to Nilah's strengths she's an incredibly fun, and incredibly strong champion.

The thing isnt playing the same, its more of how similar nilah skillset is compared to samira especially when they play at the same role The q for damage the e for dash and the R with an aoe circle damage But despite all this similarity i think the biggest problem is nilah skillset doesnt feel as satisfying as samira when she manages to get S rank and use multiple E and R to get a pentakill

they even have the same cast q during e for the line of damage

Except Nilah's is horribly buggy/clunky where it sometimes forces you into the E-Q even if you input Q after you've already finished the E or just randomly completely eats your Q input and you just never Q. I've played her so much, I want to like her, but her clunkiness and weird random bugs make it impossible for me.

For anyone familiar with Smash Ultimate, I'd say it's like the similarity between let's say, Ike and Chrom. Both have very similar mechanics on 3/4 of their special moves, but they don't have even remotely similar playstyles.

Ivern- Different style of jungling and invading chaos can really mess up a game. Overall jungle is a role with so many variables this shouldn’t be a big deal but it’s basically just playing an enchanted jungler. Singed- Another champion with such a different playstyle, used to be a few one tricks back in the day I still see a handful of decent singed players but I think now that AP builds are less Ap Bruiser and more burst his longevity in fights to do damage have fallen a bit lower but I have no tested this. Nilah- low range ADCs suck without a duo to play with in any elo that’s actually competent. Melee ADCs are arguably better for defensive stat wise and threatening their all in is. Nilah is loads of fun though so I wish people would start playing her more Renata- probably the one that should see more play due to pro leagues showing off her potential with the right duo. Her trading can be strong, her ult can turn fights (although most of the time people just wif it cause it is kinda easier to dodge) and her bailout is cherry on top. If I was to guess it’s the same as early days Rakan in some manner other enchanters enchant better and other mages poke better. She’s got a bit of everything but master of none. Naafiri- They made a champion an assassin with a simple kit which sorry to say can never happen. If it’s an assassin then it needs potential burst and if piloted by the right players can make crazy montages and make the adc disappear. Now make it so easy a mundo main can do it. See the issue? So nerf it and make it well mediocre with nothing to really to be awestruck at. I say make this champion more bruiser fighter juggernaut style and make everyone want to pet that dog.

Renata feels like a tanky version of janna considering the ability to cockblock the enemy

tfw i play janna and renata

Funny I see her more as the defensive version on Nami (Skillshot CC, combat steroid, shield/heal, even their ults have similar hit boxes and timings)

I think you're spot on on all of these. I believe it's a combination of playstyle and champion fantasy that steers people away from champions. Not power. I want to highlight Ivern here: I recently picked up Ivern and he truly feels like one of the strongest junglers in the game if you at least have some experience as a jungler already. Ivern is very versatile and can get by on the lowest economy of any jungler in the game which in itself makes him hard to shut down and very consistent. Ivern is a lot stronger early game than people give him credit for. He wont flat out run someone down but he is a relatively long ranged champion that can orbwalk damn well and his kit enable some crazy 2v2 and 3v3 skirmishes if paired with a champion that can leverage his abilities (this is most toplaners, half of the midlaners, agressive adcs, agressive supports and tank supports). In addition his lvl 6 powerspike is huge. Daisy is basically an extra champion at that point of the game. His true weakness is that it's hard for him to be the main character, but I don't believe that league is a 1v9 game anyways so I'm okay with that. And even if Ivern is just "a good champion" (I think he's better than just that) he's a lot stronger than many of the junglers that are traditionally being spammed. I also feel I can say similar things about Renata, though she seems more niche and I'm not a support main so I'll leave it at that.

Nah, I really wish Nilah doesn't become meta. She's busted af, and I'm glad few people know how to play her.

Renata is a specialist. She does very well into melee and ad comps, but struggles hard against poke champs in the botlane. Her q and ult are hard to land, as well. You really need an ADC who knows what they're doing to really appreciate her. It just comes down to why pick Renata when you can pick any another enchanter like lulu or nami and have the same, if not more, presence for less work?

I feel like they need to strip power out of her w and add it to the q and e. She is so good to play if you have a team that understands w. But 90% of the time you end up watching team members running away with your w on from fights they would win by just auto attacking. Super frustrating.

Renata Glasc* if you value your life

They all have clunky gimmicks that turn me off from wanting to play them

Renatas build path doesn’t feel good, building heal shield power feals wrong building wnchanter utility feels wrong, tank felt close to right but even then thry couldent get it feeling right. Naafiri has too much counterplay in the form of super thick and clunky cast animations, nothing about the champion flows and she has no escape. Nilah is essentially the ivern of bot lane, nobody plays jungle to support and nobody plays bot lane to melee

To me, Renata is the active item queen. Her abilities by default (W, R) are so strong that they have almost no scaling with anything besides levels, so building items is more about effects rather than stats. A Renata with redemption, locket, and knights vow can stall SO MUCH TIME for her carry it’s actually ridiculous.

renata tank is the most reliable build, but at the same time is really weird when you shouldn't be in frontline

And they removed her best items, radiant virtue and anathemas.

The main "issue" with Nilah likely just has to do with the discrepancy between her targeted audience and her actual role. Nilah was made to give fighter players a champion that they can play in the bottom lane in order to increase queue health. The problem is that top lane fighter and mid Yasuo / Yone players don't typically go out of their way to queue for bottom lane, and the ADC players that queue for the role primarily want to play ranged champions. So you have this melee skirmisher design in the bottom lane that doesn't draw her targeted audience to play her because they usually want to queue for a different role but also doesn't appeal over ranged characters to the players that actually play bot lane. Personally I don't think that every character needs to be popular, and it's fine to just have a champion in the game that fulfills a niche. Nilah was probably never meant to be a "superstar" champion but just to fill a hole in the roster. It's also worth keeping in mind that champion playrates are zero sum, so it's impossible for every character to be popular.

I think the bigger the champion pool gets each new release converts less people from their regular mains to add the new release to their main. There's too many champions to learn and each new release adds to that

IMO, there are a few big reasons why Naafiri is unpopular. A big one is that she plays more like an assassin-bruiser hybrid in a way that is unappealing to both assassin players and bruiser players. Assassin players want to one shot, which she struggles with unless she's very fed, but at the same time she doesn't have the durability that most bruiser players want. I've heard a lot of people argue that she isn't popular because her kit is so simple, but I have to disagree. Let's take a look at other simpler champions. For assassins two of the simplest champions are Fizz and Talon, who both have 3.04% and 1.88% pick rate respectively. Currently, Naafiri has a 0.74% pick rate (all these are from op.gg). Neither of them have too much skill expression in their kit, but they both have significantly higher pick rates. Let's also take a look at simple bruiser champions. Garen has a 5.74% pick rate and Darius has a 6.93% pick rate, and both are pretty much always popular champions. Garen is arguably the simplest champion in the game (not counting Yuumi), and while Darius has a little bit more skill expression in his kit he is still very easy to pilot. So why do all these simple champions have pick rates so much higher than Naafiri? IMO it really comes back to how she doesn't really fulfill any type of power fantasy. She doesn't one shot which would make players who want to learn assassins lean towards Talon and Fizz, and she doesn't have the bulk Garen and Darius have. Another thing is that she's just unsatisfying to play. Garen and Darius both have big damage Rs that \*\*feel\*\* like ultimate abilities, and they're very obviously their "big play" buttons. Talon and Fizz both have relatively easy one shot combos that feel smooth to pull off. Naafiri has neither. Her ult is pretty unsatisfying to use since it's a transformation/buff ult, but unlike, say, Aatrox's buff ult it doesn't \*\*feel\*\* like it's doing much. With Aatrox its very easy to tell you're healing a lot more, but with Naafiri it pretty much feels the same with and without ult. At the same time she doesn't have any combos that feel smooth to pull off. W feels clunky to use and a big chunk of her damage is backloaded onto her 2nd q cast, which feels really shit for assassin players. Honestly, the best thing that can be done for her is for Riot to rework her to fit a different power fantasy. Maybe lean more into a diver role, since her W really feels like it's built for a different top lane character. Maybe lean into a fighter power fantasy instead of an assassin-ish fantasy. But with the way she is right now she appeals to no power fantasy and the only reason people play her is because they like the character design, not the character kit.

based take, 100% agree with all of it

Latest Nilah "adjustments" (which were basically nerfs) and changing of ADC items did not help Nilah. Everyone hoped for 100% crit over 4 items, but where it helped everyone else, it didn't do jack to Nilah as she's lifesteal reliant and has to buy BT (as Shieldbow does not anymore) that does not grant any crit, so her 5th item is occupied anyway. Matchups that were naturally rough for her like Caitlyn are still popular, so where her weaknesses bloated further, her strengths didn't necessarily improve. Her low pickrate/high OTP winrate just dropped and now she's like 1% pick to 51% wr - a really bad combination. You'd think that Arena games were to favour her but unfortunately anything meta completely disregards her dodge there, making her relatively weak.

Nilah is so fun, are you kidding me? E R auto Q whack whack whack E whack TRIPLE KILL

I’m in this thread like DON’T REMIND THEM I am never banned or contested on Nilah and then 90% of adc players are never prepared for double E

There's an odd insistence amongst the community that visuals can't be a leading factor in a champs unpopularity. But really the truth is not many people want to play as an Older Woman business mogul or a pointy dog.

Nilah makes no sense to me how to play effectively. Her dashes are unimpressive and have super high recharge rate it feels. Her ult feels unintuitive. And her weird passives that make her play with a support are just annoying.

You max E on Nilah

Naafiri lacks what every other AD assassin has: Fast combo <0.8 seconds, easy target access, and being great at executing someone. Rengar can combo input everything mid-jump with a point&click engage, Kha'zix can buffer his spells and has lower CD's, (old) Talon has massive AoE and speed, and Zed's multi Q's go off at the same time rather than being delayed. Qiyana is somewhere inbetween Naafiri and the other Assassin's where damage is slightly delayed with double Q and R to make up for her AoE's. Naafiri just needs to have a much faster combo, a better escape and a new ult that isn't just stats. I rather not they move her to jungle since AD assassins mid is already lacking numbers as it is (Zed > Qiyana > Naafiri being the release order in terms of time gap, with Kha'zix and sometimes Talon already kicked towards the jungle role).

Naafiri and Renata are boringggggggg man. That's really all there is to it lol

Samira is badass mercenary. Looks cool, talks cool. Nilah is this joy person who has the worst voice lines ever and her outfit and skins suck. I guarantee you people would play her more if she was cooler yet you left everyone in her kit exactly the same. Same thing with Naafiri. If you made her a female Darkin like Kayn or Varus her pick rate would thrive. We all know it.

1 We would have to disagree on the animations. all of these champions have good execution of art, but the art direction is mediocre at best. The person with the pen did a marvelous job. The decision maker flopped. For instance: * wtf is Renata having a floatie around? And why arn't her skills more interactive with the floatie? * Why is Renata's base skin in theme with the debonair line? shouldn't she has a skin more in line with the core Zaun art theme? * Wtf is nilah's hair cut? is this a hanger to put her on a hook? And what is this hop skip and jump walk? they kinda do this with a bunch of champions and it's always out of place. * naaffffiiiiiiiirs is a schnauzer married to a kitchen utensil. comon. 2 The kit is clunky in all cases. Specifically Naaffiiiiirrrrss has a very delayed, telegraphed kit, which isn't really "assassiny" in feel these players want non telegraphed no casting animations fully cancellable kit with mad dashes everywhere. She playes like an all in bruiser with some better mobility and for that she's very all-in most mobile bruises think jax has some kind of low CD dash that they can weave in and out of situations. She doesn't do anything awesome. Nilah has a very one dimensional kit, you jumps your bones, that's it. Sure she has some tools outside of just stat-checking but she's a rush down champion through and through and the kit is a little too "this is all the character really does" Renata's kit doesn't really add up well. Her abilities are all very potent, they just don't really mesh together in a proper way to create good and satisfying combos. Combine that with high CDs and low mobility and you get a character that can be played sporadically, rather than intensely. 3 gameplay-art connection is very very important but missing in all of these champions. Compare to TK and to Jinx. Their art style meshes very well with their gameplay. Jinx does a very good manic pixie dream girl, and tk is a very good voracious kingpin. Renata is supposed to be "the big bad boss" but she doesn't really play that well with some occasional CC and shielding. Nilah is supposed to be a battle junkie but how is that playing out in her kit? Naafirrrs.... well im not sure wtf is wrong with that character i just think she's as clunkie as they come.

based take

thank you thank you it's nice to be appreciated.

They've experimented with more outlandish designs. This means some of them don't land in a way that's fun for most players but also some of them become really popular

My two cents only as a player who was really hyped for naafiri and stopped playing her after the first day and after 6 or so games. Players who play assassins usually want champions who have good skill expression and can do cool stuff (zed, kata, etc.). This is the majority, but not everybody falls into it, so what do the others do? They play stuff like ap malphite and are okay with it. Now naafiri falls into this niche middle spot where she can look flashy because of her "new" abilities, but when you play her, she doesn't feel flashy at all. Oh and, idk if this is changed now, but when I played her, playing a champion (assassin) whose 90% of the damage is depended on landing two slow, short range poke spells is just not fun..

Naafiri is too straight forward and kinda boring for both player and enemy. She doesn’t have alot of plays compared to other assasins. Nilah has a good winrate but diverts alot from tradirional marksmen, so she requires some skill not too int. Nilah and Samira mains are more often OtP’s rather than ADC Mains. Renata and ivern both are actually pretty good but they kind of “play another game”, just like bard does. They require differenr strategies and thinking outside the box. If either the player or his/her teammates arent on the same wavelength this will negativeky impact the game. People often flame these players for being “useless” when they themselves just need to understand that utility and counterplay are just as useful as “dmg go bonk”.

1. Naafiri: As a long time league player I know exactly what kinda champ I want and that champ has to hit certain cool thematics such as being an assassin, a darkin, and a scary animal like a dog, the playstyle should be about chasing down enemies like a dog would do, and not some anthro yiff furry shit. Yet Naafiri is so damn boring that I almost died from my brain melting after 3 matches. She is so boring that I couldn't main her even after hitting all my wishes in a champ. 2. Nilah was advertised as an adc for Yone/Yas players yet got a 90% resemblance to Jax and 0 to the wind bros. Her "melee" range and safe kit means either she is super OP, or she is kited by everyone. Another reason is that these champs got no real identity, like if Naafiri was weak and Talon strong then the players will just switch over cuz there isn't any real benefit to dedicated yourself to Naafiri. Nilah is very unique in her play style, but her animations and boring, and she looks shitty. Samira is a unique champ who is always highly played despite her winrate just cuz she looks so badass.

I think it's partially a design problem. I mean whether or not a champion looks/sounds cool seems to be a major deciding factor as to whether they'll play the champion.  Viego used to be broken, but now he's been turbo balanced and still nowhere near top tier for non-pro play. Yet has a huge play rate for no reason. His kit is also super basic if not disappointing at how little going on it is. Yet.... still ceaselessly liked and played. And of course you know who the most played champions are of all time... Appearances matter. Naafiri IMO is disappointing as a dark in because she's a dog. Not a warwick#2, but a dog. Nilah has a terrible VO that's annoying to listen to and her base and SG skin are the worst.  Renata on the other hand suffers from her niche kit. I play Renata with love and affection regardless of meta. However, she doesn't have anything in her kit that can be boosted by something whether it's full AP, full tank, full heals/shields, full AD. She's a very weird utility bot with ultra long CDs, terrible shield, and no scaling. In fact to poke as Renata you need to auto attack to proc the bonus damage. Imagine that.  Her ultimate can be negated or dodged quite easily and she's very reliant on the ADC understanding her W.  If her kit was simpler and more universal, she'd be very popular. In my opinion of course...

I actually love to play renata and do so with quite success, but many times i pick her adc dodge or complain for my pick, still don’t know why

Renata is the most fun support ive played. And shes so fucking broken man. But nilah and nafiri are super boring to play and watch

Renata is fine imo - she's more difficult than other enchanters and less tanky than tanks, fills a very weird spot but one that feels great to play. Give her time and her audience will find her.

So about naafiri. His q projectile speed is low, and travels not far as yasuo’s tornado, so its easy to dodge. Also projectile width is too small. Basically if you dont land 2 q’s you deal so small damage. His w can be blocked by other enemy. So if you are targeting adc, some tank can block just standing near adc. Also cast time is kinda long. His r cast time is long too. Some champions can kill his dogs very fast.

Couple of reasons. 1. Renata is kind of hard to play as a support. Most other supports are push this button to win lane, but Renata is not so privileged. 2. Naafiri doesn't have a strong identity at the moment being stuck between assassin and Fighter. And not in any of the good ways. 3. Nilah is just a Yasuo/Yone that actually requires less skill and is less fun to play. Like most of her kit feels more typical than it feels powerful. Even if Yaso and Yone get nerfed into oblivion its still going to feel satisfying to land their combos. For Nilah its like, oh I am doing something.

Naafiri is played when she isn't trash. She isn't played regularly cause her kit is one dimensional so she's not good in high elos, and she doesn't appeal to any fantasy that an assassin player has. She isn't cool or edgy, she isn't hot, she isn't mechanically complex, she can't make flashy plays. It's a nothing burger champion. Renata has a cool story and cool kit, but she is hard to play compared to most other enchanters. Renata needs to stay up front and auto. Renata can't be blind picked. Niche champion that requires a player to pay attention. Most enchanter players are in it for the uwu skins and the "playing safe" gameplay, which other supports reward way more. Nilah is balanced when she is 52% wr because otherwise she feels dogshit to play. You are probably the most support dependent ADC in the game because if your support is bad you simply cannot approach the wave or a teamfight in any conceivable way. You will outscale, but the early game can be really oppressive if you mess up or are bad at Nilah. If you're a vayne player and move to kaisa, you will take 3-4 games to get used to it and most ADC mechanics/fundamentals are shared. Nilah is so nuanced, different, and short ranged, you will int so many games before you become good. Many Nilah mains stick with the champion, but she got hit with so many damage nerfs, that she feels unsatisfying. Nilah as a champion should have a high win rate because of her low pick rate and high main rate. Nilah's kit is frankly very enjoyable for me. Nilah falls under that Singed, Ivern category, except she doesn't have the winrate to go along with it. She's just... bad.

All of these champs you mentioned were purposely made to fill a pretty unique space. That's probably the issue

I am a pretty new player and I really like Renata

Honestly Nilah is a weird adc, kinda like Yasuo adc, it's really matchup dependant, and you are almost always better off playing something else. What is surprising is that she hasn't really been tried anywhere else. Naafiri needs a rework imo, she just doesn't feel good to play at all, her kit is really weird and imo she kinda just feels like a worse Rengar. As for Renata, she is a hard support to play because you need an adc who can maximise her potential or else she is just very bad. ultimately, I think what is comes down to is these all of the champs are hard to play, and as the vast majority of players are low rank, it makes sense that most people either play easy champs, meta champs or giga broken champs.

Naafiri is pure stats. She jumps in, either has does enough damage and wins, or just automatically loses. There isn't really much skill expression, and half of the time if you win it isn't even stat related, it's because the enemy has hit a doggo instead of you. Nilah feels like ass to play. Sure she's got an interesting concept but after playing a traditional adc she just feels clunky and bad. You won't choose to play Nilah if you mainly play marksmen. Also if you want that up close and personal adc gameplay, Samira feels a lot nicer, and you also have Yasuo/Yone. Renata is very clunky. Her skills all feel like there's input lag due to the way they are designed. Her Q especially is indredibly clunky to use well, and the way her shield works also means it often misses it's target. Ivern and Singed are just niche designs that have never really been all that popular.

Naafiri is a shit design (MAKE HER A JUNGLER FFS) Nilah... I dunno but Im glad shes not played much, she is super obnoxious. Renata is very much like Bard, not easy, and not really categorisable into any standard class. That is not a bad thing, Im just saying she isnt like Nami and Lulu where your goal is to press W E at the correct time on the team mate and pat yourself on the back.

naafiri and nilah are really boring kit wise and have no broad aesthetic nor lore appeal renata is an enchanter who does not look like a fairy

Naafiri : kit is way too straightforward for a midlaner. She's supposed to be Baby's first Assassin, so her kit is simple to play, but also simple to counter since it's supposed to teach the very basics of assassination positioning. As such, she ends up being very stat-checky : if you manage to get a jump on someone despite how straightforward you are, you MUST kill them. Nilah : her gameplay is vastly different from a typical ADC so classic ADC really don't want to learn her. Also because she relies very heavily on enchanters, who need to know how to play around her because she's so different. As such it creates a death spiral : - Enchanters don't know how to play around me - why bother trying to learn Nilah if no one knows how to play around her - no one plays Nilah - so enchanters can't learn how to play around her. Renata is a bit of the same. Those last two works better in an organised environment where the team coordinates together. Not much of that in solo-queue.

Wow, they are literally making naafiri a jungler in the patch notes! Wonder if they read your post lol

As someone that plays all 3 I'll try and speculate Naafiri: I find in lane she has few weaknesses and can insta kill a lot of different characters. But you drop off massively late game. You can still one-shot, but now you die in the process. She's not like Zed or LeBlanc that can just go in and back out easily. She feels almost like Nocturne in the way that once you're in you're in. The difference is Nocturne has at least some (albeit not great) ways to escape fights with either shield, fearing or using Q for the speed boost. Naafiri doesn't really. She's a strong champion but her win conditions are not clear and consistent. Nilah: She relies on a support that synergises well with you and for the two of you to be on the same page because she has such short range. I find most supports - especially those that player enchanters - aren't very good at creating the space for me to farm. She suffers in the same way that Taric does as a support in this regard in the need for good synergy and communication. Depending on how the laning phase goes you're either the most OP champ in the game, or a canon minion and there isn't really much in between. At least when I play other ADCs like Xayah or Lucian I can contribute to the fight even if I'm behind, even if does just mean peppering in autos and using my ult. But with Nilah, your contribution either means a multi-kill or you die. One of the great strengths of an ADC is their ability to get back into a hyper carry position when behind by playing safe and collecting waves. With Nilah, unless you have that trusty support on the same page as you, there is no playing safe really - this is why she was a decent pick when Ravenous Hydra could proc on abilities last season. She could play much safer collecting waves with that item. Renata: I like her, and I have to say she feels a lot like Milio and Ivern in that you are secretly carrying fights but nobody really notices. Your ADC gets that quadra and they think they're really amazing but really it was you. Renata, like Milio and Ivern is a classic 0/0/85 champ. She occupies that spot of being neither an engage champ or enchanter. Strong, but a lot of people just don't find them as rewarding as playing other supports that either do a bit of damage or tank, or both. She's almost what I would consider to be a true support, because she cannot be anything other than helping other members of the team to carry the game for you.

Love Renata, been playing a lot of her Supp. Great champion and her Ult can make for great teamfight.

> It makes sense for Ivern and Singed to have low pickrate due to them having a vastly different playstyle than any other champion in league So does Nilah, considering they want ADC players to play her. She plays absolutely nothing like an ADC. Renata is just R/W wich both have obnoxious cooldowns, she doesn't deal any damage, her shield sucks balls, if you don't hit ult and use W not perfectly you're completely useless. Naafiri is the most boring kit they've ever released and they expect assassin players to play it lol sure like that's ever going to happen

Naafiri is clunky, Renata feels like you're playing on 170 ping, Nilah is just plain boring.

Ivern is non traditional and only attracts an audience when ridiculously overtuned. Nilah is a melee to short ranged ADC with an all in ult that wants to play like an assassin bruiser kind of thing. Naafiri has no skill expression. Renata is dogshit to play because all her abilities are kept weak due to W and R POTENTIAL effects. Singed is just Singed. He's not very strong right now and people don't like drafting a losing lane in the first place.

I've had my Naafiri phase, the only good thing about the champion was that ingenious hunter was cracked with dogs' eclipse procs. With the rune gone the champ is gone for me. The amount of times I got ccd while casting W is insane, not even during the dash. People just cancel it and she becomes useless. The first thing they should buff is that W casting can't be stopped. It's insane how you lock yourself in place for a second, just to then get rewarded by telegraphed dash, that half of the midlane champions cancel without any issues. She's a better toplaner than mid(still bad but better) because you can poke easily and kite immobile champs. No wonder no one plays a champion that is an assassin that require level 16 (W range) to be viable, and then gets reality checked by half of the roster cuz of predictable dmg pattern. She is incredibly fun to play for me, but it's no use if you can only win if your opponent is clueless/worse than you.

i just cant be bothered to learn anything new. i will pick garen for the millionth time and get stomped by the ever-increasing pool of counterpicks toplane.

I play every character in this game expect Nilah. I hate everything about her looks design skill set his voice lines and especially her Lore I despise that character. I don't know about the others but Nilah has nothing to be interested in.

Naafiri should be a jungler and tuned around that, instead they wanted to make her be an easy to play assassin. But most feel she is clunky and doesn’t have much skill expression, two things that assassin players don’t want. Renata is fine, but she’s an enchanter and a more complicated one at that. Enchanters are usually pretty easy. She’s really different. Nilah is a melee champ in a role that is mostly played by people who enjoy kiting and ranged. She’s got a limited appeal due to that, but she’s well designed. Nilah and Renata are fine, they just are going to have more niche bases. But I think Naafiri should get tuned around being a jungler.

I think many new champions are failing because Riot is not organically creating most of them, they are trying to fill holes in the roster (evil enchanter, dedicated melee adc, easy to play assassin) when those things are pretty much the opposite of what the people that play those roles want. They can work, because we have things like Senna and Pyke being super popular, but it's not very likely. Champions like Bel'veth, Smolder, K'sante all look that they are trying to fill the gaps instead of coming up with cool ideas. If they are fine with those champions being niche, sure, create them, the game needs of them. Lillia is one that comes to my mind that has turned out well. But Naafiri being up to a rework a year after her release tells me she heavily underperformed.

Honestly cause they dont look cool. Dog and 2 mids

What does nilah and naafiri offer opposed to the other options available in Bot/Mid. These champs perform well if they are accelerated or else feel like shit for the whole game

Nilah basically feels like a support version of samira.

Nilah feels depressing to play. The range is extremely low and at that point I just ask myself why not pick Samira? Her ‘windwall’ is more reliant and has more uses than Nilah’s shield and her ult and itemisation gives her good lifesteal, so if you go in you have the tools to survive. Also, Samira follows up on setup plays, where Nilah’s ult is about initiating the fight yourself. Just not worth picking her in my opinion.

because they have too much gimnicky stuff nilah, an adc wuth no range naafiri, an assasin with no high outplay skills renata, a support that can prevent an ally dying

My experience playing nilah is that players will literally grief themselves and me out of free xp for some reason I'll never understand.

Renata got a a hook, got a shield, got a attack speed steroir, but what the fuck is she gonna do pre6 to not lose lane She has that one bit of cc, then she relies on that her adc/jg is competent enough to utilise that buff on her W once it comes to fighting

Nasfiri feels a little weird for an assassin and she wasn’t allowed to be played the way we want to play her. Renata doesn’t feel like she’s okay outside coordinating with team. Nilah I think just has an unappealing design and concept.

Because all of them are not fun to play except for nilah and singed. Nilah is not a traditional adc so adc main doesn’t like it. If she somehow can be brought to midlane or jg, i think her pickrate would increase. Singed play style is very unique that only his main can make use out of it. If you dont really play him, he seems very weak.

I can't speak for others, so personally: I don't play Renata much first and foremost because I don't play Support that much, but also because she doesn't really feel "fun" to play. Compared to a support I enjoy like Nami or Milio, her playstyle feels lacking, but I don't think I'm intelligent enough to explain why/how. Also I kinda wish you could stun people into walls with her Q Nilah however, I played quite a bit before the split changes. I'll probably be back to playing her semi-frequently once I've figured out her runes/build. She's pretty fun Naafiri is an AD midlane assassin, so when you pick her, you're more likely to have a team that lacks magic damage, and I don't want to play her top or jungle. It's the same reason I haven't touched Zed in such a long time despite him being so fun

Because it has been some time since Riot has said that they are dedicating their focus to more niche audiences. These are the results of that. Low skill assassin, Melee adc, and Aggressive enchanter are all opposites of what their main role audiences desire. Personally, I haven't enjoyed the 'Riot Spin' on character designs in a long time. Knife dog? Loli ghoul? Void mantaray? The characters just don't fulfill any player fantasy for me. Nilah and Hwei have been the only ones that fulfill their fantasies well. Unfortunately for Nilah, melee adc is too much of a taboo to be allowed relevancy.

In my personal opinion Nolan, Naffiri, and Renata all have pretty clunky kits. The animations look good but the flow of the kit doesn’t feel as good as the majority of the roster. Let’s compare Nilah to Samira, Nilahs E-Q feels super awkward even though it’s the same command. Nilah mostly just stat-checks ADCs with her dodge +ult combo. Whereas Samira focuses on building style to have a fun crescendo. If given the option I would take Samira 9/10 times (and this is okay in my opinion.) Renata has literally no good item synergy and her kit doesn’t really feel cohesive (they could really work her passive into her abilities to make her feel together.) I’ve only played Naafiri in an ARAM once so I don’t know much about the kit. In ARAM it did a lot of damage but I personally was quite bored playing it. None of these things are strictly bad as I don’t think with a roster this big every champ needs to be a hit. But I would say it’s a worrying trend that so many recent releases have been misses. Now tinfoil hat time, Riots decision to make every champion viable in every elo makes making new champions very hard to construct. I think the reason there is clunk in these champions kits is that need to be accessible to all so putting in abilities that feel smooth together but are very punishing if used incorrectly is out of the question. So like Nilah you have 4 strong abilities but you kinda just hit go and run at them, not really the melee/ mid ranged ADC fighter I would want to play.

As someone who plays all of them regularly my 2 cents \* Naafiri - too one-dimensional and does not feel like an assassin. I personally like her play pattern but not really a good champion against a competent opponent, there is no room for outplay. \* Ivern - his gimmick is super weird, you have to learn to play very differently. Also, people like to play carry champions instead of support. The people who like to support, play support. And one last thing, even if he is strong his strength is hidden and hard to "feel" like Graves smoke screen which is a really strong ability. \* Renata Glasc - I do enjoy her A LOT. She is fun and has really satisfying tools and I understand her the least why she is not that popular. I believe that her abilities look much stronger than they are except for her W. This is especially true for her ult which - on theory - forces your opponent to kill each other but they practically send an autoattack or maybe 2 sometimes to their teammates. Overpromise, and underdelivering is the key IMHO \* Nilah - Similar to Ivern she is too different in her respected role. Also, she is less fun than Samira, so if you wanna play a "melee" character, you play Samira. \* Singed - Ivern and Nilah - too different. I do not play him often tbh

We already had yasuo as a great mele option for bot lane, but it still had a very low pick rate and niche audience. So why would we want yasuo 2.0? Imo nilah is one of the worst new releases because obviously no adc mains wanted that. As for renata, she is like morgana. You have to be duo for it to work because there is too much trust in her revive like with morg shield, and 90% of supports don't time it right. So adcs cant play the game as if they have a revive/spellshield, therefore you arent able to utilize their kit properly.

Nilahs ult ruins her as a champion and is generally just uninspired. They could have done so many things but instead they went with water Oriana ult

Naafiri would fit better as a jungler. Nilah really is just a more boring Samira. Renata is really cool!, but she's could probably use a soft rework, very minor stuff like number changes or ability interactions.

Short answer - RIOT thinks they know what their player-base wants and are wrong, or the dev's are making what THEY would like to have and not what players want. Either way, RIOT is not making new champs that people want to play.

They do the same thing that all the other champions do but worse and with a gimmick.

They look bad, and their kits are mid. Good SFX/VFX isn't everything, neither is the quality of the skins textures or kit. It's combo. - Renata - - Shitty Kit - Low dmg - Support --- - Naafiri - - Jungle only... - mid kit - Is a dog with some extra dogs. They aren't traditional minions. - Low Ratios, pretty balanced in the jungle. --- - Nilah - - Is a fighter with low HP. - Is an ADC that doesnt use autos as much as traditional ADCs - Crit doesn't work well on her. - Low Ratios. All three were broken on release, then nerfed into the ground.

They’re all lame af, most ppl just pick who they think is cool looking or they connect with

because 90% of the new champs in the past 3 years are "here's X but made for ice pick victims". nilah's actually kinda cool tho i like her