LoL players demonstrate why Smolder’s kit is such a big problem

The newest champion added to League of Legends, Smolder, is ruffling a few feathers due to how powerful his late-game scaling is.

Smolder was originally envisioned as a traditional ADC champion– a return to normalcy after the weirdness of recent releases. Ironically, he’s one of the strangest yet, with several different builds that turn him into a caster rather than a normal ADC. There’s even a popular tank build doing the rounds.

The strangest part of his kit is his scaling- once he hits 225 passive stacks, he gains a burn and execute on both parts of his Q, making it an incredibly powerful tool in late-game teamfights.

League of Legends player highlights biggest problem in Smolder’s kit

One player highlighted this problem, suggesting that he could be changed so that the additional burst doesn’t apply the burn or the execute: “After pressing Q on his initial target, bolts will splash behind the target, meaning you can take damage from his Q at around 1000 range from Smolder, which will apply the burn and the execute from almost a screen away.

“If we compare Smolder to other late-game carries like Vayne or Jinx, his DPS is actually a little lacking, but the fact that he can press Q on the tank, and spread around so much damage to the enemy team from so far away makes teamfighting against him an actual nightmare. I have killed people by using my Q on minions and killing them with the execute. That’s not fair at all.”

One solution put forward involved taking the execute and burn away from the additional bolts that splash behind the initial cast of the ability, though this would greatly reduce his ability to teamfight.

Smolder’s problem isn’t the burn or the execute. It’s the fact that his AOE bolts apply both.
byu/Depofile inleagueoflegends

“IMO, those bolts should never apply the burn, and especially not the execute. I think that’s a genuine balance problem that will make him really hard to balance, and would require him to be really weak elsewhere to make up for it.

“Even something that I’ve seen people propose and I think somewhat makes sense, which is to separate his execute from his burn and push it back ~100 stacks, I think he would still feel very uninteractive, and making him more reliable on stacks wouldn’t really be fun for anyone.”