I liked this name for the feature much better so I’m sticking with it for part two. In the first part of Passive Resistance, I covered the toons from Alistar to Nasus that could use a passive rework. Today I’ll go ahead and finish that list, going from Nidalee to Zilean. There are fewer champions in this section, but I think all of them are deserving.

Nunu (Nunu can cast a spell for free upon attacking a unit 7 times) – Nunu probably needs a new passive the least out of this group, but giving him one might make him a little more fun to play. As it stands, Nunu is best suited to jungling for a team that has decent CC and against a team without much CC to counter him. His passive is nice for jungling, but most junglers have golem buff so you dont’ really need that extra mana efficiency. What about a passive that made him a slightly better tank, like a slow aura (granted, this would be REALLY strong) or something to synergize with his ult?

Rammus (Rammus gains additional damage as his shell becomes reinforced, converting 25% of his armor into damage) – There was talk a while back about giving him a boost from magic resist -> ability power as well, which would make this passive great. Rammus isn’t really an attacking toon. He’s more control and abilities, so he doesn’t get a ton from this.

Sivir (Increases Sivir’s dodge chance by 10/15/20/25% while moving) – Dodge toons have been on the way out for a while now, and Sivir needs a lot more than just dodge to bring her back to serious viability. Once the supermid of all supermids, Sivir is now way too soft to stay competitive in a solo lane.

Soraka (Increases surrounding allies Magic Resistance by 16) – Again, the fact that this doesn’t scale means that it’s useful for all of six levels, after which it becomes completely worthless. Soraka’s been hit so hard by nerfs recently, both to her own healing power and the harassing metagame, that she could use a little boost. Sona’s introduction also makes Soraka the ugly stepsister to a healer with much greater…assets.

Teemo (If Teemo stands still for 3 seconds without taking damage, he becomes stealthed. (damage will break this effect). Moving or taking actions will break Teemo out of stealth. When Teemo breaks stealth, he gains “Element of Surprise”, increasing his attack speed by 40% for 3 seconds) – Everyone knows this. I’m sure Riot knows this. Teemo is arguably the worst ranged champion in the game. He has two skills that might as well not exist they scale so poorly, his ult is countered by Oracle’s Elixir, and his passive requires that you stand around doing nothing for three seconds, as though people would be willing to march into brush when Teemo is in the game. Teemo needs a complete rework, but a new passive would be a great start.

Twisted Fate (Twisted Fate and his allies receive an additional 2 gold per kill) – The Twisted Fate remake was one of the most complete overhauls we’ve seen in this game. While most of the changes seemed pretty cool, I really think they gave him a crappy passive. I currently average 134 creeps per game, which gives me a whopping 268 additional gold. That isn’t even enough to buy an elixir. Just give the guy a passive that will help his survivability and do away with this silly thing.

There you have it. There’s only one honorable mention from this group, and that’s Taric. I know, Taric is very strong, but he spends very little time attacking when the laning phase is up, so you don’t get a ton of benefit from the cooldown reduction. Still, it does synergize with his other skills, which is more than we can say for a lot of characters.

Miss Fortune’s introduction to the League has caused a bit of an imbalance. She has one of the better passives in the game, and it’s a passive that vexes Teemo fans. Teemo has an entire skill dedicated to a passive movespeed buff, and Miss Fortune’s is just better. I went back through the existing champions to see who was in dire need of a passive rework and the list is long. So long, in fact, that I’ll be splitting this feature into parts to make it easier to follow.

Alistar (deals 20/40/60 percent additional damage to turrets) – Once the pinnacle of pure tank power, Alistar now appears in almost none of my ranked matches. The Sheen nerf hit him really hard, particularly in conjunction with his passive. With an excruciatingly slow base attack speed, his passive gives him almost nothing. Also, when you’re at a turret, either you’re taking it uncontested or, as Alistar, you should be disrupting your opponent, not whacking away at the turret.

Ashe (While out of combat, Ashe’s critical strike chance increases by 3/6/9/12/15/18% every 3 seconds, removed after next attack)- On the whole, Ashe is a pretty strong toon. She farms well, has a permaslow, a free CV, and a great ult. So why this crappy passive? It essentially allows you to open the fight with a crit, which is really not much of a damage increase for a carry. You’ll probably crit anyway quite a bit as a carry.

Fiddlesticks (Nearby enemy champions have their Magic Resist reduced by 10) – First thing you’ll notice is that it doesn’t scale. Granted, it reduces everyone’s MR, but not by nearly enough. Since the string of Fiddle nerfs, he could really use a new passive.

Heimerdinger (Heimerdinger gives nearby allied Turrets and Champions 6 / 12 / 16 / 22 health regen per 5) – Heimer has officially been nerfed off most ban lists, and as such, I think it’s time he gets a new passive. The regen is nice for turrets, but since the Heimer nerf, very few teams stand and poke a turret down slowly, so this isn’t really relevant. It won’t ever serve to save you or your allies or even your greatly nerfed turrets.

Janna (Increases the Movement Speed of all allied champions by 3%) – I’ve never liked Janna’s passive and I may be one of the few. Three percent movespeed is hardly noticeable, especially when so many toons these days have their own speed boost or a gap closer of some kind.

Kassadin (Kassadin takes 15% reduced damage from abilities and transforms this damage into bonus attack speed) – The damage reduction is nice, but transforms it to attack speed? There’s a reason you don’t see people playing attack damage Kassadin. He’s also so soft that even the 15 percent reduction rarely saves him.

Nasus (Nasus drains his foe’s spiritual energy, giving him a natural 10/15/20% Lifesteal) – Lifesteal on a tank toon – need I say more? If it scaled in some way with his HP gain, this might be a different story, but most of Nasus’ damage comes from his ult in combination with Spirit Fire. Very few players play Nasus for Siphoning Strike, and even if they do, this passive relies heavily on players staying close to you. You know what happens when Nasus ults, I know you do. People scatter. Goodbye, passive.

There are a few runners-up from this category that I’ll just mention briefly. Eve takes 50 percent reduced damage from minions but she needs remade in full, so she didn’t make the list. Gangplank’s passive (a healing debuff/slight poison) isn’t great, and makes no use of his primary skills – Parrley and his ult – but it is a healing debuff, which puts him well above the others on this list. I think Karthus could use a rework in full. His ult is cool, and his passive allows you to get the ult off when you otherwise didn’t, but any passive based on dying first seems a little dumb to me. Still, there are far worse, and his passive at least synergizes with his skill set to a degree.

Stay tuned for more passive remake candidates. I thought up a better name for this feature just after posting so I renamed it.

I’ve played a lot of Miss Fortune since the most recent patch, probably more than any new champion in recent memory. Her playstyle is much more enjoyable than many of the newer folks (I still just don’t get Galio) but as I mentioned in my impressions post, I think that’s because of her relative strength. After playing her some more, I realize her power actually makes her less fun.

The realization came after a game today in which I was racking up kill after kill after kill. I had been dominating the mid lane, but I wasn’t really having much fun. The reasoning is pretty simple – Miss Fortune isn’t difficult, in any way.

I prefer toons with a little bit of complexity to them. The fact that you can land Double Up without even trying for more damage than most skillshots ungeared is completely absurd. It’s also not fun. The joy of skillshot damage is landing that one hit on a guy that was about to get away. There’s also a lot of fun in dodging the hit that was about to kill you. For all the work Riot has done to reduce the RNG for toons like Gangplank, why introduce a toon whose baseline skill is an RNG for the second hit? Add to it the fact that Double Up forces you to either take damage from that big shot, or get harassed while she darts in and out of creep range from her passive. It’s not fun to play against and really, I don’t think it’s all that fun to play. I can almost hear the frustration of the other team.

I hope she gets some serious reworks. My best option is turning off her passive in combat. It’s good enough for getting across the map, it doesn’t need to so severely wreck the laning metagame, too.