League of Legends' Updated Evelynn Isn't Balanced for Hybrid Builds

League of Legends players often develop innovative playstyles for different champions, but for the [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

League of Legends Evelynn

League of Legends players often develop innovative playstyles for different champions, but for the reworked Evelynn, it appears that you'll be much better off building her as an assassin rather than a diver.

While the old version of Evelynn didn't receive quite as much attention as the other junglers due to an outdated kit despite her unique playstyle, Eve mains still found multiple ways to build the champion. Some preferred AD, others opted for AP, and the way that she went about teamfights also differed depending on builds.

For those that are concerned with losing out on certain builds they enjoyed using on Eve, Riot Reav3 took to the Evelynn mains subreddit to discuss their reasoning behind focusing Eve firmly towards the assassin role.

"Early on in development we decided that Evelynn's Thematic Fantasy matched that of an Assassin, rather then a Diver," Reav3 wrote. "We believe that thematic cohesion is important for a champion so we committed to the Assassin gameplay direction rather than the changing her theme to match a diver pattern (we would have probably made her more visually tanky if we went that direction.)."

Reav3 went on to say that while assassin's have been notoriously difficult to balance in the past, they've made "great strides" in understand ways to provide them with sufficient damage alongside clear counterplay.

But for those who hoped to mix the champion subclasses a bit and recreate popular hybrid builds for Evelynn, that isn't as much of an option anymore. Reav3 acknowledged the popularity of hybrid builds but compared the reworked champion to Akali to illustrate problems that hybrid builds would create.

"Hybrid builds tend to work pretty well on fighter/bruiser type champions but can be very problematic on Assassins, which is one of the reasons we can't balance Live Evelynn as an Assassin and also why Akali tends to be more of a top lane sustained fighter than a balanced Assassin," Reav3 said.

Reav3 closed out his insightful discussion about hybrid Evelynn by ensuring that Riot does care about Evelynn mains and their diverse builds, but they also care about the future of Evelynn and feel that the assassin direction is better in the long term.

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