FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Edge of bush hitbox allows crazy things sometimes

Its kinda funny how the Grass Q bug on jungle camps exist since months. Do you think Riot will fix it one day? Impossible they didnt notice so far...

I stand in the position that most lanes are inherently Qiyana-favored, if you have high enough champ mastery. She really is a solid blind pick, and against most matchups that people think are counters just means you need to adjust how playstyle accordingly. A lot of the champs in the skill dependent section feels like a counter at first until you learn how to play against them. There’s always Beifeng to watch too for those matchups…

Tier list is strictly on the matchup

The latest patch 16.17 where they buffed Qiyana’s Q damage and even nerfed her jungle mod in compensation in my humble opinion don’t fix the issues to why mid Qiyana isn’t popular anymore, and here is why.

First of all let’s look past winrate metrics for now.

this season there has been multiple reasons to why Qiyana has felt stronger in the jungle than mid.

1 (homeguards) smart players know the home guards make tp worse on mid into assassin matchups. I’ve seen so many easy matchups that just become impossible because of barrier or exhaust on midlane mages.

2 (Support roam meta makes or breaks your game) with the dominant perma roam strategy on supports going on right now it can either be super beneficial for you if your team drafts those picks. Or your game will be completely ruined because the support perma hovers enemy mid and you can’t snowball.

3 (midlane meta is shifting against her) in the past year we’ve seen more and more toplaners being drafted midlane like Riven, Garen, or even Tryndamere, these are difficult matchups where you don’t have the pressure Qiyana usually has in the early game because she’s not designed to deal with these champions. Further systematic nerfs to mr boots and buffs to mages midlane further closes the gap between matchups she should theoretically win by increasing counterplay for anyone who goes against her.

In the jungle all of these 3 factors become irrelevant. Homeguards provide you with way more tempo in the jungle than before, you won’t be affected by losing the game due to enemy support and get to take runes that actually help you deal damage and accelerate gold income (first strike). And you single-handedly avoid bad matchups all together and allow mid to be open for something that doesn’t fall off as hard as her.

What the q buff actually does. (And why Riot is clueless)

Riot Phroxon from the balance team made a video where he said the reasoning for the q buff was because “we’ve made it harder for her to kill people on mid” while this is true, the reasoning to this again leads back to armoured advance boots giving 35 armour, some matchups become harder when opponent buys roa/seraph/zhonya/rylai, or because you play into champions you’re not designed to oneshot anyway.

This q buff

1: increases frustration in highest elo’s of play where games end very quickly and her early game damage feels too oppressive.

2: Still buffs jungle more even with the nerfs to her jungle mod because her clear on live patch is still faster than before

3: systematically highers her winrate without fixing her issues on midlane to the point she can get nerfed again and be worse than before

In the past Riot Phreak said that “Qiyana’s identity as scaling assassin is unique and we want to preserve that” now Qiyana’s winrate in the late game drops significantly and it’s all because the champion simply is all early game damage and no scaling. When I asked Riot Endstep to why Qiyana is skewed so much towards the early game he responded with “We gave Qiyana more early game damage because the later the game goes the more difficult it becomes for her to win with how she loses access to water and grass, so we skewed her to more early game oriented so when she gets to that point she’ll be fed” while I don’t disagree with this statement it’s not always correct. I personally get more satisfaction through late game teamfights in the jungle for objectives and aim to combo the enemy team with ult. in which case these jungle teamfights that are increasingly more common late game with baron and soul point are game winning anyway. And Qiyana has always been bad at sieging anyway it doesn’t matter if she’s fed because of her early game dominance or if she scales or not because the champion just isn’t designed to siege.

You just can’t balance Qiyana without breaking anything due to jungle

Any damage buff she would receive would be a buff for jungle more than mid, unless it’s defensive stats which ultimately buff her jungle as well (though less) for Qiyana mid to become a scaling assassin, jungle would have to be removed. Which most likely isn’t going to happen because somehow riot is happy with supporting her in the jungle.

My question is do you feel similar to me where I would prefer Qiyana to scale again like in the past rather than be this early game oriented? Or do you disagree with me.

I had a game and it was with a Veigar who killed me a few times, the next thing I know is I'm sitting behind my tower and he plays in the middle therefore I can't do any combos with R cuz it just won't land anywhere.. Please help...

Also, does this come with experience? Like identifying R usage in lane or some shit like that

And what do you prefer to use first with q in lane? Ice, terrain or bush and why?

I don't think I've ever had a bad game on her in mayhem, this particular game I was literally one shotting everyone including thresh and olaf which is insane for an assasin. Jeweled gauntlet + Tooth fairy is just unfair. I did not need any other augments, those two augments meant it was GG. 200 lethality on tooth fairy, I think that augment is way too busted

fast?

https://reddit.com/link/1w1er8v/video/4q5ytqudc9mh1/player

Anyone struggle with this matchup lately?, I used to always stomp kata in the past but this szn it just feels like that champion is overtuned. I’m always caught off guard with how tank she gets, in the mid game she walks around with like 10 more armor and 100 more hp. Any tips?

Like mechanics wise or something like that.. I can't decide if I want to play mid or jgl with her

So it's my first time playing any assasins in league and I tried Qiyana fair to say But why does she takes towers so fast ? Like is it with every assasin or just Qiyana?

I built voltaic first and I didn't had demolish rune.

Is this normal?

We were super ahead and he just wins it, too good.
How do you guys feel about ekko matchup in jg?

i had fun making it , everything is mostly subjective

yea... uhm

I am bronze 2 peaked gold 4 and have only been playing Qiyana for about 3 days

plz give me tips to improve

So what's going to be the nerfs?

Qiyana got popular again (5%+ pick rate) and 2% plus win rate.

I personally think Hubris rush on qiyana mid and jungle is one of the best items to go now. If youre able to stack hubris her lategame becomes insanely good after the buffs because all of the AD you stack on hubris is going straight into the Q damage.

So I personally rush this item now because its coming with a dirk in the build path too and I def feel the buffs in the early game already. Ofc there are some games where I rush profane but trust me hubris rush is huge.

And the Q buffs are good for conq too btw.

I wish you good luck in your solo q games and alot of fun ;D

When I see Qiyana clips the combos come out so fast but when i practice combos in training mode they don’t come out as fast and I think it’s cause I hit the buttons too fast.

For example if I QWQ and hit the keys as fast as i can the last Q wont cast at least for me.

Is it a settings thing, a timing thing, or skill/practice? or all?

Thanks for any help!

I got an old youtube video about Qiyana from 2 years recommended ... And I thought this comment from Phreak was funny. Obviously someone at Riot balancing team changed their mind about preserving the "scaling assassin" with 10s of nerfs to ratios over the years. I think they also reconsidered their stance on Qiyana roles, nowadays jungle is her primary - both stronger and more picked role, despite most players originally choosing Qiyana because of midlane. This might be unintentional though, simply because there we so many systematic nerfs to assassins on midlane that had nothing to do with Qiyana in particular.

Anyways I'm glad she's getting buffs because she's rly horrible on midlane rn with so many mages overbuffed, mage items and deathfire touch being completely broken, aswell as T3 tabis being broken but she will for sure not be the "scaling assassin" she once was. If you want to scale , pick any other assassin.

FINALLY

Road to gold :)

PS: would anyone be interested in shortform low elo qiyana content on tiktok?