Thanks for the bumps and up votes!

she deals massive damage

Fiora can deal massive damage if fed.

But she struggles against CC. She has no ranged poke. She has no CC of her own. She relies on auto attacks for damage.

So while she has a couple good elements, such as a double closer and a good ult, its hard to make use of those things because she can't win duels in the early game due to her really weak pre-6 and very slow start.

She never was a very strong champion, but since release Riot made her worse by nerfing her sustain stat: life steal.

On average every life steal item's effectiveness was reduced 20%. Nerfing her main sustain was a huge loss for her as she relied on hit to mitigate harass so that she could farm and carry later on.

She has always been under tuned. I'm not sure why Riot never revisited her since her release...probably because they know to fix her, substantial changes are needed.

Fiora has one of those kits that is always running the risk of becoming grossly underpowered, so Riot has been careful about buffing her. That's a problem that Heimerdinger suffers from too since his kit is so strong almost any buff would allow him to dominate the lane against 90% of opponents; therefore, Riot instead nerfed him to the ground. The rework for him seemed to be going in the right direction

It will be interesting to see how the S3 Changes will affect Fiora since many melee adc's are expected to get stronger. Anyway you have some solid ideas.

You're right John.

Carries do have the potential to...carry...(I'm not trying to be jerk, sorry if I come across as condescending there)

That said, we've all seen games where a champion gets a little fed and dominates.

Irelia does it all the time. Jax is just as bad if not worse

...Akali...Lee Sin...Rengar...Riven...Shyvanna...Udyr...Xin...all these champions go carry mode if they get ahead (given not as hard as Irelia or Jax).

Even Corki, Kog, Ez and Graves do it...

So what's wrong with being able to carry if you do well?

I certainly don't think it is grounds to say "Fiora must have a bad kit, because she has the potential to carry."

People point at Nasus and say, "Nasus snowballs crazy hard and has crazy potential so he has a bad early game. Fiora deserves similar treatment." But look at Nasus' utility compared to Fiora.

Nasus provides his team with a good armor pen debuff, and WITHER is crazy crazy strong against any auto attacker.
(Not to mention Nasus gets tons and tons and tons of free damage from his ultimate and Q spam.) Those are things Nasus provides his team no matter how well or poorly he does. That makes Nasus an asset to the team inherently.

What does Fiora provide for utility? Nothing...absolutely nothing.

What I'm getting at is that a champion needs to be balanced at their face value...not their "what if" potential.

I'm not saying that each champion needs to be equal at every point of the game. That early game/late game gamble is a fun aspect of the game.

But justifying a champion being blatantly underpowered because they have the potential to carry if fed is a silly silly argument.

The simple fact of the matter is: Inherently, Fiora has a weak early game, a weak mid game, and a weak late game.

She has no place in competitive play. And that should really be fixed...

Lawl, I'm not disagreeing with you. Just saying that her kit is probably difficult to balance.

Plus all the changes coming are going to really affect what champs are 'viable' and which are not.

I have a pretty good eye for balance.

This is what I see.

Lifesteal, crit, and attack speed are going to be more expensive to purchase.

This is really bad for Fiora. She gets a good amount of free AD, but she has to buy the rest of the auto attack stats. Making them all more expensive for her to buy is going to really hurt her.

Meanwhile AD is going to be cheaper to purchase. This further devalues Riposte, which is already an absurdly underpowered skill.

The skill gives 35 AD at rank 5. That's the same amount of AD as a pickaxe plus a long sword. The pickaxe is currently valued at 975g and long sword 415g but both items' costs are being reduced to 875g and 400g. So the AD value on the skill drops from 1390g to only 1275g. Fiora's kit has less value...and the stats she needs cost more.

Then they made Tiamat's passive unique so she can no longer stack them which is about the only way to make Fiora intimidating in a team fight.

Then there is the new Rav Hydra item people are raving about...

First off the thing costs 3.5k making it a very expensive item to buy in the first place. For that amount you can nearly buy 2 tiamats and gain 25 more AD 40% more splash damage (and the damage currently doesn't decay on the edges...)

Second, the splash damage decays against targets further away from the main target all the way down to a pathetic 20% damage. Making the item as unreliable as a Pantheon ultimate...

And the the active on it gives you one free auto attack every 10 seconds...now if you were Wukong or Riven...who can get in pop someone with this in lane then disengage...it would be a slick little active...

But Fiora doesn't have a good disengage unless she is using her second lunge to get out...and that gets mana intensive in a hurry and requires and enemy target in an escape route.

I just don't see this being a great item on Fiora. She'd be much better of how she is with Tiamat being non-unique and wiping low ELO pugs with her ulti..

The item is going to be great on Wukong, and Riven who can play the poke and disengage game...but not Fiora...

The tiamat change is a huge huge huge huge huge nerf...

If anything...Fiora is going to be a weaker champion due to the changes...not a stronger one.

Sounds like a great idea, the only thing I'm worried about is her passive being a bit too strong if you get a healer like soraka in your lane. It would allow you to basically ignore harass as long as you keep AAing, and that might be a bit too much. Other than that, it sounds like a great change!

That was actually intentional devo. I very carefully chose the mechanic that I did.

When Fiora was released Riot claimed they were releasing a melee carry that could possibly go bot lane and carry / shut down enemy ranged carries.

Obviously, that didn't happen. Fiora was released and everyone was pretty disappointed with the result.

I think this passive is perfect for giving her another shot at bottom lane.
If she did go bot lane it would help off-set the enemy ADC's range advantage a little allowing her to farm more effectively against harass.

It also will help her support keep her up in team fights, which is a major problem that AD melee C run into.

In all honesty though, even with the extra support, I doubt competitive teams would gamble on a melee carry like Fiora over a ranged one and she'd still mostly be a solo top champion.

shameless bump...