How reworked Talon works after the update

Talon has spent most of his time in League of Legends being the poor man’s Zed. If you want to play a mid lane AD champion, you are playing Yasuo, Zed or the mid lane AD carry of the week. Well, Riot was determined to make Talon an interesting and diverse pick, and it seems like they have succeeded. Turns out that Ubisoft’s announcement that there would be no Assassin’s Creed game this year turned out not to be true; enter Ezio Talon, YouTube Parkour video superstar.

For his new kit, click here.

Talon had almost all of his abilities changed, but we are going to focus mainly on his new passive, Q, and E. Talon has been given a three stack passive. If Talon hits an enemy with three abilities (if Rake hits on the way out and the way back it counts for two), he can then cause the target to bleed substantially if he hits them with an basic attack. Talon’s Q is not longer just a extra pokey stab. It now has a lunge associated with it. If Talon casts the ability on a target that is a little far away from him, he will leap forward to poke them with his arm sword. If he casts it on a target close to him, he will get a guaranteed critical strike.

While those two changes alone make Talon far more interesting than he was previously, it is his new E, Assassin’s Path, that really makes him unique (see also: super bad-ass). Talon can now cast E on any terrain and flip over it. This has almost no cooldown associated with it whatsoever. Once Talon flips over a wall, it will turn red for him, meaning that he cannot flip over it again for quite some time. This is such a cool ability and it makes for awesome chases and escapes. On the PBE there were a few weird spots that didn’t feel quite right on their placement, but that only lightly took away from the fact that Talon can now just bound across Summoner’s Rift with reckless abandon.

With this update, Talon finally feels useful. But there is more here than just that. Part of Talon’s main problem is that he had no identity. Assassin’s Path gives him that. Now when new players see him they won’t be caught saying “what does that purple dude in the cape do?” Instead, it will be the oohs and ahhs of watching a champion nimbly appear over a wall to save you or to take you.

THE GOAL: Throw out Rake in a strategic location, allowing for hits to the target both immediately and on the way back. Use Noxian Diplomacy to leap to the target, striking them and fully charging your passive. Basic attack them to start the bleed. You can also burst your ultimate on them for the initial stacks and use Noxian Diplomacy to finish them off. Use Assassin’s Path to chase a nimble opponent or run away after a cool kill.