I’m a little surprised and bit more embarrassed to say that I was glad for the end of Shaco week. It wasn’t good. In fact, it was disturbingly not good. I can’t stand feeling like a non-factor in a game, and for most of Shaco week, that’s exactly how I felt. I’ve also never been in love with the pet controls in League of Legends, and I had more than a few frustrating encounters with my own clone. I’m worried for Shaco’s future, mostly because he has such a great ganking kit. A slight buff in the wrong direction and he could become a big problem.
As one forum-goer mentioned this week, players don’t really have a reason to pick Shaco when Nocturne is on the board. While their kits aren’t exactly the same, they do perform similarly, it’s just that Nocturne is the much stronger of the two. I know some of you have said that Shaco is really designed as a split pusher, but I have to disagree.
In my experience, Shaco requires much more farm to effectively split-push than many of the other characters in the game. For one, he does not clear creeps well, even with a Madred’s. That’s pretty much the bread and butter of any split pushers kit – can they burn down creep waves to amass a little pushing army behind them. Shaco can’t until mid-late game. Master Yi can do it by level seven. Many of the best split pushers also have an attack damage or attack speed modifier to help them push. Again, Yi is a great example, but so is Sivir, Ezreal, Nasus and as mentioned above, Nocturne. All of those characters also have creep clearing ability, which makes them infinitely better than Shaco at the split push. If he has one thing going for him, it’s that he can escape gank attempts better than many of the others, but that doesn’t really make him a good split pusher so much as a safe one.
I think Shaco’s biggest problem is that his Deceive and his Jack in the Box no longer work well together. Some time ago, Shaco was able to drop JitBs from stealth, which made him excellent at ganking. He could deceive in, drop a box behind the unsuspecting enemy, and still get the crit bonus from Deceive. Now, though, he’s forced to decide between that Deceive damage or planting a box. The box is pretty much always the better choice, but it gives away your position and allows the enemy a chance to make an escape.
That said, Deceive can be extremely frustrating to play against, especially if the Shaco gets fed. For every complaint I have about Shaco, I’m certain I could find someone who loathes him the way I loathe Mordekaiser. I get it. Fed Shaco is like fed Eve, but he’s more escapable. Still, I think Shaco is overdue for some love, and from the look of Guinsoo’s Twitter feed he’s about to be getting some, along with some bug fixes.
If I could change one thing about Shaco, I think it would be to remove Jack in the Box and replace it with something else. While I think JitBs are great little gag additions to a jester’s kit, they serve very little purpose beyond Shaco’s early jungle and ganks. They die far too easily to AoE, get accidentally triggered by minions entirely too often, and deal pitiful damage. He needs another skill that gives him a more reliable jungle or more reliable lane. He already has a poison, so my suggestion would be some kind of attack speed or attack damage modifier or possibly another AoE style skill to help him plow through the jungle.
That doesn’t really address his survivability problems, but I think with more consistent damage and more utility out of his W, he could scale much better and be able to purchase a bit more survivability along the way. Shaco was fantastic once, but he hasn’t kept up with the bruisers and he can’t possibly withstand deathcap mages.
Check back soon for this week’s Champ of the Week!
