I’ve been traveling over the past couple days so I haven’t had much time to spend in League of Legends. Last night I finally had the time to sit down and give him some decent testing so here we are, back at another impression post.
Nocturne feels pretty good, on the whole. He’s a strong jungler, capable of staying healthy enough for a gank without returning to base. Duskbringer gives him a nice damage bump that makes for fast jungle clears, especially when coupled with the passive of Shroud of Darkness.
Nocturne’s ganking power before level 6 is actually a little bit underwhelming with all the dashes in the game. He gets much better at six, but unless you have the jump on an unsuspecting opponent, his slow isn’t overwhelming enough to stop someone (like Nunu’s Ice Blast, for instance) from running to tower. His fear is nice, but it’s short, and in most cases I was out of melee range when using it, so I wasn’t getting hits in, the fear would land and I would get a hit or two, and then the player was out of range again.
Like I said, that’s before level six. Once you’re level nine, things get much easier. Duskbringer starts to hit damn hard, especially if you’ve snagged a Wriggle’s or a Brutalizer. The slow is also at a point that you can hopefully sneak in a few more hits before your target Flashes or Ghosts away.
I think Nocturne might actually fall into the Xin Zhao category of junglers, though. He’s definitely strong in the jungle, but he can also be utterly devastating in lane. Without the help of a lanemate, he’s pretty tough to lane against. He regenerates health quickly with his passive, even if it is best used when pushing a lane. He also does big damage to single targets, and his spell shield gives him extra staying power against those pesky casters.
The big selling point for Nocturne is his ult, which is one of the most terrifying skills in the game. Vision is so important to the execution of a good teamfight that losing it can be crippling. I’m still not sure how I feel about the skill. It’s a great flavor skill, but I don’t like it when champion skills make it mechanically difficult for me to perform in the game. I would love to think that people will just get used to it, understand how to fight with it, but when that ult is up, everything around you is basically brush, and it becomes impossible to discern whether your team is winning or losing the fight. This is especially brutal in solo play, where you don’t have teammates able to call the fight out to you.
The only other issue I have with Nocturne is that tanky DPS still reigns supreme. Yes, it got a small nerf this patch, but for the most part you’ll be best served by building a Ghostblade or an Infinity (if things are going particularly well) and then stacking up some health so you can compete with the bruisers.
