How Orianna has been changed, explanation on playstyle:

Poking with Q was what a skilled Orianna would do.
It greatly reduced your mana costs and avoided putting your escape and mobility (W) on cooldown. On the other hand it was more skill-intensive because you had to be good at landing Q. Now Riot is basically forcing good players into playing her badly and that's something I just can't get behind.

Old Orianna (Q) was
- More skill based (you had to land a lot of Qs in a row, period).
- Rewarded aggression and zoning (because you were far into the lane with your ball over the creep line, poking with Q, and you had to keep W up for escaping ganks)
- Safer overall because again, you had your W off CD all the time.
- Better laning which meant better, faster items and better scaling.
- Less blue dependent.

Now Orianna is
- Less skill based (most of your damage is on W), which is something we really needed, it's not like most of this game's champs are playable by total idiots
- A lot less safe because if you wanna do damage you gotta put W on CD
- Only good as initiator in teamfights because your short-CD DPS skill (Q) is useless
- Which means Orianna is completely different and a lot more boring
- Also more blue dependent in lane because you have to use a less mana-efficient combo to deal damage
- More dependent on having a fed bruiser to do well, which means she's gonna be even worse in solo Q especially at lower Elos.
- If you get ganked while poking with QW you have Protect. Big deal.
- You will be unable to clear waves as fast with Q

So let's recap what happened
Orianna was a hybrid initiator type / DPS type of champion, absolutely unique. The closest you had was Viktor, also a hybrid (poke / zoning). Her DPS element was Q, now nerfed and reduced to a positioning tool for her damage abilities (W and R). They also enhanced E to focus her on more of a supporty AP.

No matter what Riot says and what's written on paper, her damage output is GREATLY cut off, this is because Q was still on a way shorter CD than W and having a good ratio on it meant that if you hit multiple Qs in a row it was well worth the risk. As of now landing several Qs doesn't reward you as much, and most of your damage is on a fairly long CD skill (W). So basically you're a one-time burst initiator while you used to be a DPS champion.

I also doubt that Orianna can beat a lot of the lanes she used to beat before. She has a little bit of an edge over old Orianna at levels 1 to 4 because of the buffs to her passive (edit: her passive is worse under this aspect too, so scratch that), but when your poke comes into play from level 5+ you're going to be VERY blue dependent.

SOLUTION
If you REALLY want to do a good buff on Orianna just tweak her global cooldowns.
This way you're giving new / less skilled players an easier time landing her combos, while proficient players are unaffected. That's pretty much as good as it gets, and honestly while I played her on PBE the global CDs felt nice. Orianna is in a VERY good spot and this small of a tweak can put her in the spotlight very easily. Just please don't change things for the sake of changing.

Well said.

People will argue, but it's a major hit to her playstyle

I still don't agree with most of your content, but w/e. Here are my thoughts on the change and how it will negatively impact Orianna, taken from a thread I made the other day.


"By lowering the damage and ratio on her Q you are taking away from her kit and forcing her to be played a certain way, always using your W for damage and using your Q strictly for positioning. By cutting her Q's ratio by 33% and base damage by 19% you are limiting the options of Orianna players, she can no longer choose to use her W as a peel to follow up with Q for AoE damage into a shield as she will be losing 27% of her damage in that situation. You are HEAVILY nerfing both her damage and her utility while limiting playstyle variance with this change, effectively removing any peel from her kit. With the lower damage on Q using it for damage and W for utility is no longer an option, you simply have to use W for damage in order to contribute to team fights and I don't think this is what you are actually aiming to do."

...Do you realize you said the exact same things I'm saying in that snippet?

I talked about W about an escape in lane but that's the same about peeling in teamfights, basically now you have to choose between damage or utility while before this point you could use Q for poke and keep E and W to peel or escape ganks. Your DPS is cut off because Q is useless and Riot shortened the CD thinking that would compensate, I don't think 0.2 ratio is worth a lil shorter CD especially when it was short already, it was completely pointless to do that.
Oriannas are now going to save mana over using Q.

PLEASE RIOT READ THIS, STOP IGNORING THIS. You're going to demolish a champion's playstyle for no reason.

If you REALLY want to do something for Orianna in this patch - even though I don't think it's necessary - just do the global cooldowns thing. That's more than enough of a change, it will help new players land their combos while taking no effect on players who already know the champion. PLEASE DON'T DO OTHER CHANGES I BEG YOU.

I don't agree with A: what you classify her as, she isn't an initiator. B: who you compare her to, Viktor, C: the fact that you say her damage is reduced in every situation, which isn't true or D: saying she depends on her bruiser any more than she used to. Other than that I agree with the majority of the points you make.

She's not an initiator in her current state. She's a hybrid DPS / initiator type. She initiates with her ult on a bruiser and then proceeds to deal DPS with Q while protecting her carry with whatever utility she has off CD.

After the patch she's gonna be just an initiator, she's gonna ult on top of a bruiser in her team and then she'll have to use W and Q for damage. Which basically only leaves her protect as util, and protect as a shield alone is pretty ****ty to be honest.

Yes we cant think of anything to do this patch

destroy orianna
riot logic

ori can initiate on towers, and with her ultimate if allowed to cast ball and retreat to leash range. or puts the ball on the initator, and helps initiate

Viktor and ori are both "poke" champs albeit quite different... but its a generalization. no one is quite like our clockwork lady

Damage is reduced by shorter mana supply in early game, by base damages to her Q in mid and late game. in no way, shape, or form is her damage improved. you can land more Qs, but the mana to damage ratio is less. And ori needs her mana

This last part i can agree with, but with the E change riot WANTS you to rely more on your bruiser. doesn't mean people will or have to

Edit: when i say "on towers" i mean she can put ball by the tower, and wait to ult should an enemy be bold enough to approach

Downvoted because title upset me.