TEEMO
The Swift Scout
Teemo has always lacked skill expression, meaning his harassing playstyle has always lacked counterplay for those vulnerable to it. Conversely, champions with the ability to just face him head on leave him little room to defend himself. This results in a champ that is either very annoying or very useless depending on who you ask, and the state of the meta. With this rework I aimed to increase Teemo's skill expression, allowing better players to outplay their opponents, turning this champion into the sneaky commando he was always meant to be.
Abilities
Move Quick
Passive
Teemo gains 10-26% increased movement speed, double this if teemo has not taken damage in the last 5 seconds.
Notes: The old passive was quite rarely useful and when it was it was largely for cheap plays like bush camping a level 1 kill or for wasting time by delaying death in a lost fight by forcing enemies to kill you with aoe abilities. The old W was effectively passive in that players used it on cooldown. By moving the mobility from the old w to the passive slot it allows us to keep his mobility without taking up an active slot. The effect doubles when not being hit rather than out of combat to reward proper kiting.
Toxic Shot
Q
Teemo empowers his next basic attack, causing it to deal moderate bonus magic damage and apply a poison which deals minor magic damage over 5 seconds. For the next 5 seconds, Teemo’s basic attacks against the target deal minor bonus magic damage, increase the damage of the poison and refresh its duration.
Notes: Here we have effectively the instant damage of Teemo's old Q with the sustained damage of his old E. His old E was a passive effect in an active slot which is a bit underwhelming and so had to be made quite strong to compensate. This meant that Teemo was able to constantly harass his lane opponents without any real skill or opportunity to counter play. This lack of skill expression in his main damage source then made him hard to balance, as fights just came down to numbers and matchup knowledge. This new Q puts Teemo’s harassment on a cooldown, meaning that he can poke by just firing off the Q or he can follow up on it with basic attacks for serious damage. This provides skill expression to Teemo’s damage output and allows counter play as opponents can bait his Q and then disengage to prevent follow up basic attacks and then re-engage once the poison has worn off.
Noxious Trap
W
Tosses a poisonous mushroom at the target location which, upon landing, becomes invisible after arming over 1 second, lasting for up to 5 minutes and granting sight of its surroundings. Noxious Trap bounces forward if it lands on top of another. The mushroom will explode upon enemy contact, slowing all enemies struck by the blast for 4 seconds and poisoning them for 4 seconds, which causes them to suffer magic damage every second over the duration and become revealed.
Notes: Teemo’s old R never really felt like an ultimate ability. The nature of the ability meant that it couldn’t be very strong or it would be too powerful and so it instead had to have a short cooldown, making it more of an extra strong basic ability that you didn’t get until level 6. Not getting a really core part of your kit until 6 left Teemo with little to do up until that point other than harass with basic attacks and meant that he got virtually no level 6 power spike, allowing him to be easily exploited by opponents at that point and beyond even if he was beating them before then. As the old R was effectively a basic ability in the ulti slot, the mushrooms had to pack a really nasty punch which made then really unfun to play against. Taking half your health in damage over time for stepping on an invisible shroom never feels fun and Teemo being able to do that largely through luck isn't the most sensible thing as it leaves a lot of his potential damage output up to chance. By moving his shrooms to his W we can allow him to start using this very key part of his kit early on and means that because it isnt' an ultimate it doesn’t have to deal such crazy damage and so isn't so frustrating to play against.
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Blinding Berry
E
Teemo throws a berry in a straight line in the target direction which bursts on impact with an enemy, or at max range, dealing magic damage to all enemies in a cone and blinding them, preventing them from seeing or targeting other units for several seconds.
Notes: We’ve moved teemo’s blind effect to his E to properly reflect that fact that it is a utility ability rather than for damage. We have turned the ability into a true blind so it is now useful against all champions. With enough cooldown reduction Teemo could previously keep a target nearly permanently blind due to the point and click nature of the ability. To rectify this and make it fairer we have converted this into a skill shot but given it an area of effect component to compensate.
Guerilla Warfare
R
Teemo becomes invisible for a moderate duration, attacking an enemy or being struck will make him briefly visible again. During this time, Teemo always gains the full benefit of Move Quick, has increased attack speed, attack and ability range and gains cooldown reduction.
Notes: With this we wanted Teemo to have a real ultimate ability and a big boost of power at level 6 in line with other champs. Teemo has always had a reputation as a champion who seems cute and cuddly but can be a bit of a terror on the rift and we really wanted to embody that with this ability. Most of the time Teemo is skipping around darting folks and chucking out berries and shrooms, but when he pops his R he turns into a terrifying monster, zooming around and popping out of stealth to pummel enemies before slinking back into the shadows ready to strike again.