After yesterday’s delay, the Ziggs patch went live on the servers this morning. After watching the Champion Spotlight, I’m more than a little sad I don’t have the IP to get this guy. He looks awesome, but he also looks crazy broken. His burst damage is ridiculous, and his range is amazing. I hope you’re ready for some frustrating matches.

I think the worst offender in Ziggs’ kit has to be his ultimate. I’ve never been a fan of global ults or even semi-globals. They’re just too powerful, mostly because they allow an unseen party to add unpredictable damage to a fight. Players engaging in bot lane suddenly have a ton of unpredictable damage changing the outcome of their fight. The existing globals/semi-globals are just too easy to land. Gangplank’s ult hits almost instantly, Nocturne’s ult is targeted, and even TF’s port can cause problems. With Ziggs, Riot is adding a high-damage AoE nuke to the mix.

Just watch Malphite get hit with that ult at 3:25 in the video. Granted, Phreak is 16 and has a Deathcap, but holy hell. And Ziggs will regularly be in the position that he overlevels his opponents, just by nature of being a typical pick for mid lane.

I’ll have more thoughts later in the day. For now, I’m not excited to be facing this guy.