One of the most difficulties for League of Legends devs in reworking is ensuring that a champion still feels rewarding to play for those who devote effort into knowing their kit, while not making them impossible to attempt for new players. The recent Ivern rework seems to divide the player base into 2 groups.
Is Ivern recent rework good or bad?
In a thorough post on League’s subreddit, A Challenger-level player by the name GarboTetris with over 4000 games on Ivern expressed his issues with the champion’s rework, noting that a lot of the modifications have either lost a lot of the champion’s skill expression.
The revamp provided Ivern a lot of strength in his W, E, and R abilities, but it also eliminated a lot of their counterplay, leaving the champion feeling “shallow to play as and oppressive to play against.”
Garbo can state with certainty that the Ivern rework was a disaster after testing about 350 games. Garbo goes on to illustrate how each buffed ability has effectively removed the champion’s counterplay.
“Being able to place a bush is an extremely powerful ability, but if you get pushed off of them or place them carelessly, your opponent can use them against you.”
Garbo feels that Ivern’s Bushmaker ability has become far too helpful for the player, as not only will his team receive vision for a longer amount of time, but its cooldown has also been shortened, which means they can no longer be punished for improper use of the ability.
“With the new shield refresh mechanic, what previously counted as a whiff will now apply a second shield for another 2 seconds. Once the second shield expires, Ivern will already have his E back up and can cast it again. This basically removes the entire punish window that previously existed.”
His Triggerseed shield has also been modified such that if the seed’s explosion misses an enemy, the shield is reapplied for the same amount and duration. This modification was designed to provide Ivern with extra tools to assist ranged champions, but it instead removed any counterplay against his shield.
The same can be said about Daisy, whose adjustments have made her far too powerful, thereby forcing Ivern to rely on his ultimate as a source of power.
Although many Ivern mains are dissatisfied since all of the time they’ve spent perfecting his unique ability set has been left mostly ineffective, these changes are beneficial to casual players learning the champion.
According to one user, the change has made him “bearable for people to actually play,” rather than being a tremendously complicated champion that many beginner players may shun.
It’s a difficult balance to strike since developers want Ivern fans to feel like their efforts were worthwhile, but they also don’t want to deprive the wider player base of a unique jungling experience.
Riot may or may not rollback or adjust him in the future, but given the vast number of champions in League of Legends, we may not see any significant changes anytime soon.