@@bungercolumbus Because Tahm is broken. If he's balanced as a support, he's op top. If he's balanced top in silver, he's op top in high elo. So they cut him down.
they removed that because they moved the bonus damage %HP to his passive. and honestly you shouldn't be spamming his Q it should be poke and peel helping your ADC get the advantage not gluttonous greed and hunger.
Riot said they might give him a mini rework where they make devour his ult and give him a new spell for his w as a result and honestly I'm excited to see it
From what I remember they said they might make his abyssal voyage into his W. But it will be used as an engage tool with a knock up and he can’t take a teammate with him.
you realize how dumb swapping part of his bread and butter for his ult sounds right? the one tool he needs most and you wanna put it on a 30-60-120 timer? his kit is fine where it sits again just a matter of numbers.
@@dracobellator1164 imo Tahm's issue is that he has exclusively his autos to stack the passive now, which is why he's restricted into Hail of Blades (and let's be frank, the rest of the Domination tree does not do him any favors). On top of that using Kench as a support properly is difficult because aside from the relatively weak slow on Q he has no form of CC whatsoever, and his damage is not outstanding either because he can't poke that well. He also has remarkable issues with using his R in an effective manner until he gets a 2nd level in it because the range is stupidly short: I understand Twisted Fate because he basically teleports alone and tells everybody on the enemy team that he's about to teleport, but why Kench has this ridiculously small range? Best he can do at lvl 6 is teleport from his side of the wall bush in botlane to the enemies'.
Tahm Kench is my favourite champion ever. When played top he is always doubted, so when you destroy it feels so good. To hit up the top laner with don’t bench the kench when they start saying how dumb a champ is, such a good feeling.
Personally, I think Tahm Kench is in a goodish spot rn in the top lane. The only problems are that he requires a very greedy play style, his r is really only useful when he is ahead level 1, and his lack of presence in team fights. He has the potential to carry games, but can be easily shut down by ganks and a bad team cause he isn't really a carry, and the enemy can just ignore him cause his only piece of cc without his passive is his q which slows. Even though there are a lot of deficiencies when playing the Kench, you play him to primarily shut down the enemy top lane, cause of his ability to all in and win in early levels, poke, and his sustain/tankiness with e so he is really only good as a counter pick. But once he starts going, I think he is one of the least killable champions with high stickiness and high damage.
Great video! I’m a tahm kench main and love him to death. I main his sup but he’s in this situation where if he’s good he’s extremely degenerate top and in pro play which sucks for the rest of us. They did talk about a mini rework on him but I’m worried that will make him really lame top lane. I honestly think they should just keep him be tbh but I’m open to the rework.
I mained him top on season 5 or 6 (whenever he was released). So much fun. And late game he didn't fall back, because: Q (back then it used to stack the passive), run up to them and attack, and immediately reset attack with Titanic Hydra (back when it still had the active) for an easy 3 stacks and then W, spit and if they were still alive somehow you could just smack them and Q again... So much fun dominating -top lane- the entire game. I miss the old Kench. The most fun champion that I had played. And then they nerfed him to dirt.
If his w worked like thresh lantern for allies (no idea how the enemy/ally difference would work) it would mean he can’t just flat out deny hard cc on a carry because the carry has to be able to click him
I'm actually good with tahm rn. I agree late game is hard but to scale up I ward enemy jg n ult in to steal the buff or both. Titanic hydra also helps a lot in team fights.
you can play kench toplane in so many ways, grasp, glacial conqueror, hail of blades, you can basically pull out any runes and still dominate toplane, the best way to do that is to fight lvl 1, tahm wins basically with every toplaner beacuse no one apparently knows that he is very, VERY strong lvl 1.
I think most of the problems you mentioned regarding uninteractivity come from his shield that also acts as healing. I think removing the passive regeneration and compensating his kit elsewere would make him a lot less annoying to play against considering that he cannot take humongous amounts of poke and not a give a shit anymore.
So let's say you have 2000 points to design any champion Tahm already ussd 4.5k So yea why not remove 1.5k from his kit and compensate with another 1.5k to keep him broken. Yay!
As a kench main i think one if the biggest reasons why he's not played alot is he was designed around his q applying a passive stack and when they removed that it kinda messed up alot of his laneing and support engage potential. Like before as support you could slow with your q hit twice and w for a lot of damage then spit them out behind you so you adc could kill them but now that extra hit required along with reduced slow makes it to where its almost impossible to get that combo unless you hit them once or twice before q and why wouldn't you play any other support at that point where your q by its self will be enough to get a kill. Also his ult needs to have more range at rank 6 because how it is now is just laughable. I think kentch is one of those perfect examples of a champ being balanced around pro play which then makes them useless for 99 percent of players. Theirs to many examples of riot pushing for ultra competitiveness then and ruining chaps like azir, kindred and kench (my three mains before I stopped playing due to dumb shit like this) just because they can be used extremely well by less than 1 percent of players. Like if a champ has a 45 percent win rate in almost all ranks I really don't think they need a nerf riot. Sorry for this essay of a comment I just don't really like this ultra competitive direction league is going because it makes it to where I have to play whats meta and I can't play as fun Champs without my team inting or telling me to kms even if I'm like 13/3/15.
Tahm main here. I left lol for 3 years and when i came back Tahm was nerfed outta this world. but I STILL play him whenever I feel like I wanna win (top only) but I remember even in 2016, in low elos people still didn't know how ridiculously strong Tahm was in 1v1. I would got top against a Fiora or a Darius and just start trading auto attacks with them, they thouhgt "oh what a dumbass he's actually fighting a darius or a fiora lvl1! I ALWAYS got first blood with him! Just bcz of how unexpected the amount of damage was at lvl 1! good times. He's still really strong in 1v1 tho but much harder to play bcz of the Q no longer adding a stack and the stack being removed after a stun.
S11 has done good things for him. I main him top lane and have a 60% winrate. He is still an absolute beast but deff needs something There was a rumoured many rework of kench that would swap devour and his ult
why does no one play kench. because ANY time he becomes a reasonable pick in any capacity, riot GUTS him so far into the ground, he's basically a reportable offence. i would also love to see kench reworked as a jungler. make his devour's second portion no longer have a time limit on jungler monsters if it kills them, then ramp up the effects they have atm.
I play him a lot as a toplaner/auto filled support. Honestly he feels good right now(revert wits end and he's gonna be really solid), as a lane bully he still provides enough dmg as any other, but you outlined one of his clear problems: juggernaut lane bully on bot isn't really healthy for the game. The champ was so gutted, nobody plays him now. His rank 1 Ult is garbage tier and his kit doesn't scale very well into lategame. Sadly he doesn't fit in the meta, and remains a cheese pick which you don't see often. I don't think the rework riot wants is good: swapping R and W seems so lame, considering how many champs have an R that "swallows/eats" enemy champions. The Q heal would just make it something like tanky darius with chogath/skarner Ult. Honestly I think the champ should be kept in this state. I am totally ok with tahm being not very popular, not every champ is/should be yasuo/irelia tier popular. The champ was designed to fill that niche role, and I love everything about it. Maybe buffing his Q or his passive would help him right now, but he isn't in as bad of a spot like other champs. I think If they really want to keep him in one role, it should be top, but only if that forced balancing was necessary.
Tahm rework would be better if they buffed his base resistance stats and swapped r and devour, with r range nerfs and a dmaage or cc effect added to it
Playing Tahm as a DPS tank right now works. hes slow to start, but once you get spirit visage and that thorn armor, he becomes far more tanky and can take most 1v2s, given hes not CCd to hell
@@PresidentAnubis imo the only problem with taking DD is that it doesn't give any HP so it doesn't buff his passive. Titanic Hydra has insane synergy with his passive on the other hand
It's a true shame...I think they did a fantastic job combining his kit and character and lore all together really nicely :( You FEEL like you're this sophisticated backwaters catfish demon when you play him! It's terrible that he's a victim of the balance nightmare curse. Maybe if they reworked his kit while somehow keeping him relatively the same then he wouldn't be such a nightmare to balance and as a result he wouldn't be either gutted or absolutely pick or ban disgusting, but that'd be a VERY long ways away. He's just such a fun concept and thematically he was executed fantastically. It's unfortunate that this is his state now.
man I used to despise the people who played kench top. Then I tried it... I never thought licking someone to death and being able to not get poked out so damn hard would be this fun.
Haven't played tahm much in s11 plan to but s10 he was so gun as a top lane people underestimate the tank and early game damage and I eneded up late game just tanking and being supported because damage wasn't enough
he dosent really have a good rune for support, like, as TK you can either pick grasp or hail of blades basically, but as a support he would not benefit for either, he dosent have the range to use grasp on a botlane and as a tank he cant really go for hail of blades, he dosent have enough cc for after shock and the shild one is also not very good on him
When i started maining Tahm i never knew he was supposed to be on support, i played him only toplane and not even once on support. i just thought hes toplaner and to be honest i still think he belongs toplane. i fell in love with him for his design and character. i just wish riot would give him more skins.
I'm silver 2 and play him în top, i can win my lane, and use my ult and my tp to be în teamfights, but here is a catch, i'm în hell and my guys focusing tanks or supp, but Tahm is still broken în top lane trust me, i can have 4000 hp and be invicible. A mini buff would not be bad on him
Because his Q doesn't proc his passive Because his base stats have been nerfed into the ground Because his W costs an arm, a leg, your lunch, AND your time while also being so nerfed that it's unusable unless you're in comms with your teamates Because his Ult rank one is literally just as fast as if he just walked there in the first place Because his W still has that annoying ass bug where if you try to eat someone as the third stack just procs you'll just eat the minion next to them instead since it has a slight delay compared to his auto And finally...... Because Riot forgot to give him his mini-rework
BUT, isn’t the W (Devour) going to get replaced with the Ult? That’s going to make people not want to play him anymore he’s going to be so weak only picking people and popping his shield without swallowing them at 3 stacks until lv 6
@@TheSinfulGamer Even if you argue that he's closer in resemblance to a catfish, I wouldn't insist that he is actually a proper catfish. Kench has catfish-like whiskers and a tail, but he has a frog's tongue, his skin is closer to a frog. and he behaves much more like an amphibious creature than a almost exclusively water-dweller. And since he's a demon, he therefore probably shouldn't be compared directly to a catfish exclusively. Platypuses have duck-like beaks, tails that have more resemblance to a fish, and furry bodies, as a comparison. Besides, alongside the old saying of "Unbench the Kench", other variants include "Unload the Toad", "Unclog the Frog", "Uninhibit the Ribbit", "Unroll the Tadpole", "Permit the Kermit" and "Unimprison the Amphibian". All of which are about frogs. I don't see one about catfish at all. So there.
@@MyronZhang You're argument may be detailed but that literally doesnt change the fact that he is a catfish. Just because people call him a frog, doesn't mean he is one.
@@blaisepeck8765 I used to main him, but sadly I didn't have a computer for a little over 2 years and then realized they destroyed my OG main Aatrox and kench...I was so lost on who to pick afterwards
@@Taintsnicely5434 well now he is kinda better at being a support and trust me i played both and i love him much more as a support rather than top laner he doesnt feel like pure bs anymore you have to work your way through matchups
Honestly like half my won lanes on Tahm Top is because nobody respects the insane level 1 trade. Often that is flash or first blood as they try to take the fight and quickly figure out they cannot.
I honestly have never beaten a tam top in my three months back to the game. I have no clue how to outplay him. Usually the solution to this is to just play with him for a week to learn his ins and outs. But I haven’t done that yet.
Honestly. It's not even his level one. Top side he's extremely strong only until late game where his damage finally falls off. Other wise no he's pretty disgusting to play against. Like playing against him top feels so awful that it feels like even just trying to exist in lane is punishment. You really can't farm at all as his poke will being you down. The strong ass slow will pretty much make sure he gets his full proc and then devours you guaranteed. No amount of usage of flash will save you from that, you'd need ghost oe cleanse to actually get out. And then still hits you for a long ass while after being spat out. Effectively speaking once he devours you and gets the slow off. There is no amount of outplay you can possibly do unless your godamn darius and a space q or someone with 50 mobility spells.
@@isaiahkern9434 Take Vel'koz and bully him out of lane....been down that road as a tahm main....i can't fucking do anything if my opponent as any sort of range advantage on me.
That's not why at all. It's because Tahm is broken. If he's balanced as a support, he's op top. If he's balanced top in silver, he's op top in high elo. So they cut him down. He literally covers the subject.
@@zhangbill1194 yes specially for people that only knows the surface, just like twitter users. Oh new Items release - complain, decent skins - complain, An actual balanced new champion - complain. Complaining to riot is basically a meme now that's why riot themeselves are confused with what to do with releases because everything they releases good or bad is getting negative reception.
1 reason why people really don't play tahm kench anymore as a support. People he tries to save with his devour press 1 key and immediately jump out into death and then blame tahm for taking away there ability to dodge said attack with there own skill or flash or whatever. Ate my adc during a nunu ult just to have him jump out close to the end, flash to try to get out of said ult just to die at the boarder of ult. Then ping me because I ate him and took away time he could have used to run from the ult
Lol thats not at all the real problem. His devour comes out as a toxic ability but honestly I havent had that problem often. And I think u have to give the person being eaten ability to get out when and how they want because if not it can easily become super toxic with trill tahms devouring u and throwing u into enemy.
@@slurp3194 nice perspective, thing is trolling can happen with any character. Yes that ability makes it quite easy but trolls are going to troll thats what the report buttons for even though it usually goes to nothing. But when it comes to real tahm kench players who are just trying to utilize the ability the way it was intended, to save the adc or carry but most of the time I run into adcs and carries who jump out to there own deaths. There is a problem there, the ability is useless due to the nature of how people play, they don't want someone to take control and save them, they just want someone to help save them. Example, Morgana shield is a action that saves them from cc but it doesn't hinder what they plan to do. His eat mechanic needs changing but to what, who knows. Till then I've given up the champ, its bad enough fighting against 5 opponents and then your own adc's hardheadedness
I would actually like a updated version since his rework has changed him quite a bit. I don't know if he has still a low playerbase. If so it would be a nice addition to the series.
I think the biggest problem with Tahm is his flexibility. Much like pyke you can’t balance either of them for support when people will take them solo lane and become insane. I think the best solution for tahm (and pyke) is to make them solo landers and balance them for that. I like the idea for tahm that his w and r can’t be used on allies. Maybe make his w so that if you w an enemy you can then r and take them out of a fight? All of a sudden tahm isn’t a sup anymore
Flexibility is definitely an issue a lot of champions in this series struggle with. It feels like nowadays champions are popular based on how many hats they can wear, regardless of how well they perform at it.
Vars why play 6 champs when you can play 3 and be really good at them? I think flexibility is good but not when it comes to supports. Except morg and lux, they seem to be able to sup and mid pretty well
I always thought tahm being a rengar/khazix to pyke would be fitting as they both get damage off health, are bilgewater, tahm quote:”the river forgets the names of the drowned” when pykes story is that he drowned.
Tahm is in a great spot solo top wise i can't speak to support because i haven't support kench in a very very long time. The attach with his q going away hurt but he does allot of damage currently i generally start cinder into beserker grieves then finish Sunfire into dead man's and force of nature so your super fast and stick to your opponents super hard
Actually true, besides his still to this day op lvl1, I just play him because me and my friends love spamming "FROGGE ALWAYS WINS" whenever someone gets a kill with him lmao
Support main here, maining Bard, Braum and Kench since S5. 1) Personally I would remove the Thick Skin active of his E because the animation to cast it is just a disadvantage to use in the thick of a fight so you just use it as a gimmicky survival tool in rare cases like surviving Ignite, Teemo Shroom or Karthus Ult. 2) Then I would move the Thick Skin passive to his actual passive. I would revert the bonus health damage to his ult like before. This accomplishes 2 things: it would remove his early game cheesy damage as a top laner and delay that to level 6. And also, right now, there really is no incentive to put points on his ult because the active part of it is a bit useless with the indicator and slow animations. Having the bonus health damage there would incentivize points to be put into it. 3) Next, I would make the animations in his ult a little bit faster. To not make it too broken, I would like it to have an actual moving sprite (maybe him swimming underwater where only his yellow demonic eyes could be seen) such that the time to travel is proportional to the distance, just like Bard's ultimate. That way, going over a wall for a clutch save would take significantly less time, but racing towards Baron from base or roaming mid would still take a longer time. 4) Next I would put Acquired Taste as a passive on his Tongue Lash, such that it would put the first stack only when you successfully land a Q, where he can then auto-attack/Q to complete the remaining stacks. I would lower the cooldown on it but also lower the damage by a lot (maybe to something like Braum Q) so it can be his bread and butter ability. To balance this, stacks would fall off at a (way) slower rate, one by one after exiting battle against Tahm Kench. This way, leaving the enemy marksman on 2 stacks after a skirmish would put significant pressure on them to lane safer for a moderate amount of time, making him a more viable support. This would also slightly nerf toplane Kench because you would need to land a Q first before going all in, instead of just walking up to them. 5) Because of #4 I would bring back the speed boost when using W on allies. This incentivizes a more support-y playstyle. He can still eat enemies, slowing him still, but only after completing the stacks in #4. This cross-ability interaction still makes sense, imo (see Diana moonlight mark). A long cooldown for this just like when he was released is optimal since you would have to choose carefully which one youd like to devour. If being able to eat enemies still proves to be too powerful, I actually am in favor of having him be rooted in place while digesting and not being able to choose where to spit the enemy (he spits them to the direction where he first devoured them). I think the suppression and missing health damage is enough of an upside to still have it be a viable option. That's it. I hope he can be viable again. I miss playing him.
lol fr tho, his pick rate is at a steady 0.51 as of this comment. He still has next to no carry potential cause hes a tank, but he does have a crazy good lane phase.
