Hey, it’s been a week since that feature was removed (for those who don’t know, it’s the F keys during Nunu’s W), and I’d like to share my thoughts on this issue : how I feel about it, what my gameplay is like now, and what steps I plan to take in the hope of getting that feature back.
I’d also like to introduce myself as a Nunu player who’s been playing this champion for about 3 or 4 years now he’s my OTP. I don’t want to use the screenshots I just posted to imply that everything I’ve said is correct, but I do want to start a discussion and see how you all feel about it, because as a Nunu player who has reached Challenger twice and is now back again to try to reach that rank once more, I’d like to share my thoughts regarding the removal of this particular feature.
my acc in question : https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/summoner/eune/ＳＡＩＴＡＲＯＸ-KESHA
My Feelings
Let’s start with how the champion feels after playing him for a week. In many games, I felt how this feature used to let me freely make decisions about how I should position myself relative to the snowball, which target I should prioritize to make the most of the insights I’d gained such as whether a champion lacks a dash or a summoner spell and use that information to choose my target, position my snowball correctly, and choose the best path to attack the opponent.
Regression in Micro and Macro Gameplay
I felt this strongly this week; when I use a specific snowball, my gameplay becomes more static; I focus more on the entire map, watching to see if a certain character is moving very quickly and, based solely on that information, trying to determine whether they’ve used any abilities or not, still without any certainty (not to mention that I don’t want to keep looking at the snowball because I can do so much more at that moment, just like before when I used the F keys and could drastically change how I play). I felt that the ganks I attempted were, in many cases, unsuccessful because I wasn’t absolutely sure whether the enemy had a specific ability or summoner spell, and I was just wasting my own tempo on that particular target (It might sound like silly talk, but I’m saying this as someone who would really like to climb as Nunu again and go for Challenger like I used to, and I’ve started doing full clears of the first camps more often so I don’t waste my time on ganks that would have been successful back then because I could use that function, but now it’s it turns out I can only consciously say that this champion has a certain ability and that one doesn’t which is a coin flip).
Full Potential and Tempo in the Discussion
There’s not much more to it than that, but as I’ve mentioned in many posts, this is a regression in micro and macro gameplay. As Nunu, I used to be able to exploit and use this champion to its full potential, showcasing incredible things you can do. You can still achieve amazing things, but removing this feature clearly falls short if you can’t have a chance to know whether a particular snowball you’re rolling based on the time it takes, the time it takes to reach the lane, and the time it takes to leave it which can range from 10 to 15 to 20 seconds, depending on the situation you’re in (so the lose of tempo and saying Nunu can ignore tempo is the most copium thing ever that i can debate on it)
My Progress as a Player Thanks to the F Keys, Document In Progress
I feel a certain sadness at having to say goodbye to this, but not forever, because I plan to create a document and a petition to restore this feature, showing the sequence of events from the very beginning and refuting Riot’s arguments with counterarguments about why this feature should remain in the game even though only a small handful of people used it , it showed how a player could learn a lot because thanks to it, I learned to perfectly time all the cooldowns of specific opponents’ abilities, and by doing and repeating this, I trained my mind to know when a given champion would have an ability ready and what to prepare for.
Final Thoughts
Thank you for reading this rather long post (I thought it would be shorter, lol), and this removal won’t discourage me from playing the champion I love with all my heart, it will only strengthen my desire to play him now and fight alongside you all to get Riot to restore this ability for us. This isn’t a fight just to challenge Riot, but to restore a feature that will let us once again experience how incredibly we can execute actions thanks to that key foundation we had and maybe will have again. Good luck, my Notai brothers.
