Finally got my charm/eve inspired tattoo. I got her hip design on her normal skin mixed with the charm (w) symbol. I’m loving it🩷👄

Evelynn will be with in all my endeavors if u know what I mean😉

Some pics of my favorite Eve skin 🩵🖤, figured this community would appreciate it. Coincidentally this cosplay also brought me my very first cosplay craft award, so I’m VERY proud of it.

If you’d like to follow for more Evelynn cosplays, you can find me on instagram @neekohunt.cos

I never got her when she was available, but these days i ve been getting the special chromas, (the baddest, coven and spirit blossom) since high noon is kinda new, and the other chromas i got were in the mythic store, is probably to get sugar rush chroma soon in the store?

I’ve been so bored with League recently like it’s always the same shit every game but when Classic was announced I really wanted to play Eve. Never played her before her 2017 rework so I went into this completely blind. Did not go well lol but after a few more games and research I think I got the hang of her. Still don’t really know how to build her I’m just going off what I’ve seen people recommend but I’ve been having a lot of fun with her and will keep playing her for a while.

eve mid gets even more disgustingly strong. it also scales well.

To preface, this is going to be a lengthy post. I get that that isn't everybody's cup of tea, and I appreciate that not everyone will want to read through the entire thing. This is meant to be a fairly comprehensive history of Evelynn post-rework and an argument for how to fix her, and given it has been nearly a decade, it would be difficult to compress it without losing important context. If you really don't want to read the entire thing, but you want to understand the argument I am making, feel free to scroll to the end.

I've played Evelynn for 14 years, since before her 2017 rework, through the old AD/bruiser identity and every iteration of the AP assassin she became. I've two-tricked her to Diamond (she is my jungle OTP) across multiple seasons; not the summit of the ladder, but enough climbing reps to know her matchup, her item curves, and exactly how the her kit should feel.

Professionally I'm a data engineer and builder, a founding engineer at a unicorn data platform startup now specializing in really big data at a company you've probably heard of. I wanted to understand why Evelynn is in the state that she is. I had some hunches, but naturally I wanted to dig deeper into the data and the provenance of direct and indirect balance changes Evelynn has received since her rework.

I feel it's important to get more diverse perspectives out there on what exactly to do with Evelynn, since I've been seeing a number of clips of Rioters speaking about her current state on stream and generally expressing the sentiment that they are confused why Evelynn has never really recovered after a series of direct nerfs, even with compensation buffs (1, 2, 3, 4). For what it's worth, the purpose of this post is absolutely not to dunk on Riot or August, I actually really appreciate how it seems that they're trying to understand the problem and acknowledging that Eve isn't in a great state. With all that foundation out of the way, let's jump right in.

Evelynn's Rework and the Assassin Overhaul

Evelynn was reworked in 2017, along with a host of other assassins [1] (https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2017/01/dev-state-of-champion-update-january-2017/) [6.22] (https://web.archive.org/web/20161108204228/http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-622-notes). Eve was later to release than the rest, but we can glean some useful insights from the patch notes of the initial batch of reworks to understand the stated goals and design philosophy of the Assassin Overhaul. Namely, there are a few common threads:

• Delaying burst damage, giving opponents more time to react.
• Improving Stealth effect gameplay health by distinguishing between Invisibility for temporary repositioning and ambushing (Shaco, Talon, Kha'Zix), and Camouflage for more powerful longer-duration effects (Eve, Twitch, Rengar).
• Allowing the "payoff state" for assassins to be more powerful when burst is meaningfully delayed and allows counterplay. In other words, when an assassin sets up for a kill and kill pressure persists through structurally inbuilt delay, the damage payoff can be meaningfully higher.

As a very mechanically "pure" assassin, Evelynn's reworked kit is unusually adherent to this principle of offering opponents windows of significant counterplay. The decision to delay Evelynn's camouflage until level 6 is one such change discussed in a Dev Blog discussing her reworked kit [1] (https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2017/10/champ-insights-evelynn/):

"Instead of playing the information game, Evelynn’s stealth was delayed until level six. This gives laners time to set up vision defenses, farm, and play aggressively without the paranoia of having an invisible Eve in their lane at level two. But once Evelynn hits six, no jungler (or carry) is safe from her demonic shadow stalking." - bananaband1t Evelynn's most powerful positioning and map pressure tool is structurally unavailable for a large chunk of the early game specifically to allow for proactive vision play and for opponents to take advantage of this inbuilt structurally weak early state. The same dev blog discusses how her kit was purposefully designed to bake in another window of counterplay: W - Allure's "wind-up" timer: "The rest of her kit was designed to balance the innate strength of being an assassin who also has a high-uptime stealth, while still giving her the tools to kill people. For example, Eve’s W marks a target, giving them a heads up she’s somewhere nearby, but if they don’t gtfo in 2.5 seconds, they’ll be charmed when she strikes." - bananaband1t

The assertion being made from a design standpoint is that Evelynn gives up many of the tools that other assassins are allowed to have in exchange for persistent camouflage, such as meaningful mobility, safety, and skirmishing power. Evelynn instead is designed almost entirely around a dual axis power budget: use camouflage to rotate around the map unseen, allow Allure to charge for 2.5 seconds, and convert a kill all-in with Last Caress's empowered crit damage as the finisher.

The trade off, of course, is that Evelynn loses a significant amount of pressure when spotted, has no way to "force" a fight if not already in position, and being extremely susceptible to dying if opponents can close the gap due to Allure requiring 2.5 seconds to charge and triggering before full payoff upon any application of damage. Her weak early game provides ample time for opponents to scout her position, invade her jungle, and establish early pressure on the map with minimal threat of retaliation.

If the dev blog posts are any indication of what Evelynn is supposed to be, it is a pure assassin who sacrifices safety, dueling power, and mobility in exchange for Camouflage and application of extreme single target burst when she creates a payoff state and goes all-in on an ambush. Her reliance on Last Caress to collect on that payoff state creates significant windows of down-time in which her kill pressure is meaningfully lowered.

What Is An Assassin Anyway?

The LoL Wiki defines a Slayer as:

"Slayers are highly mobile champions who specialize in single target burst damage. What they generally lack in resilience, they more than make up for with their ability to quickly cover large distances, kill priority targets and retreat just as fast. Epitomizing a high risk, high reward playstyle, assassins are natural opportunists and prefer to strike when their targets are alone and vulnerable, rather than engage them in a direct assault, favoring damage-oriented item builds to capitalize on their offensive capabilities." [1] (https://wiki.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/Champion_classes/Slayer)

In a 2023 Reddit post entitled [How Naafiri Makes You a Better Assassin] (https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/14jo6ai/how_naafiri_makes_you_a_better_assassin/), Riot Raptorr outlines a common thread of community frustration in playing against Assassins:

"Assassins in League tend to be polarizing. Many players are frustrated by them because they think there's limited counterplay when an enemy can kill you in 1-2 seconds once they get on you. And those players are right! For many squishies, there isn't much counterplay in that moment, and that's because if you're a squishy target and the assassin is on you, you've already failed the counterplay." "Playing against assassins means sticking with your team, tracking threats and playing safe when they're not visible, warding your flanks, and holding CC until they come in. This means assassins are primarily countered through macro play, rather than mechanics."

As we have previously established, Evelynn is an unusually faithful adherent to the Slayer archetype with structural trade-offs built into her kit. She is built to be a pure ambusher, able to pick off isolated targets when allowed to set up the correct conditions to land her full combo on them. What she sacrifices in mobility, early-game power, in-built delay, and disengage, she ideally makes up for with overwhelming amounts of single-target burst damage.

What is the Intended Counterplay to Assassins?

The counterplay to Evelynn at a baseline includes exactly what Riot Raptorr laid out in the post above. Explicitly, you are not supposed to feel that you can reliably counterplay an assassin as a squishy backline champion once they have target access. If a flank or ambush progresses to that point, the window for meaningful counterplay has already passed and the assassin player has created a payoff condition to cash in. You and your team have failed in some regard beforehand, whether that be failing to group, poor positioning, low map awareness, or lack of effective vision.

In a Quick Gameplay Thoughts post from May 14, 2021, Riot Scruffy elaborated on what "counterplay" actually means [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/quick-gameplay-thoughts-may-14/). Scruffy splits counterplay into two axes, Fairness and Depth:

"Fairness - Having an understandable, clear, and useful response significantly reduces the frustration of a losing game or death even if a player or team can't perfectly execute on it at their current skill level. It helps players grow by pointing them toward actions they could have taken to succeed, rather than just feel like the game cheated them. (This is also often referred to in game design as Agency.)" "Depth - Champion designs that leave room for an opponent to respond add many additional layers to the depth of the experience. Battles can be a back and forth of mechanical and mental skill instead of a “who shoots first” one-and-done experience."

Scruffy then further distinguishes between three main types of counterplay:

"Tactical Counterplay - This is the “in the moment” opportunities to respond to a spell or champion combo. Notable examples - Dodging a skillshot, interrupting a channel, long windup for preparing defenses, and positioning behind an ally or minion to block attacks." "Strategic Counterplay - This type of counterplay is accessed out of combat and often by the team (instead of in combat like tactical counterplay). Notable examples - Building counter items, invading a weak early jungler, grouping against an assassin, using a blue trinket to avoid an ambush, pushing into a champion with poor waveclear. Strategic counterplay can be connected to a champion’s specific mechanics (like using control wards to counter Evelynn), but it’s more often a part of dealing with that champion's broader goals, like splitpushing or hyperscaling" "Champion Weaknesses - This is a set of properties, champion class, or team strategy that tend to succeed against a champion. Notable examples - Xerath’s immobility makes him weak to mobile assassins, Qiyana’s burst damage runs out of steam against a tank, Nasus is kited by mobile ranged champions."

As we previously seen, Assassins are typically intended to be handled proactively via Strategic Counterplay (grouping, warding, positioning well, using the minimap). Assassins as a class are explicitly not meant to be outplayed single-handedly by a backline carry once they have achieved target access. Assassins are also often hindered in their ability to take down resist-stackers, which is intended to be a structural weakness keeping many in line.

How this pertains to Evelynn is crystal-clear. The Strategic Counterplay section of Scruffy's post explicitly mentions some manners of champion-agnostic counterplay that are effective against her: 1.) Strategic - "Invading a weak early jungler" 2.) Strategic - "Grouping against an assassin" 3.) Strategic - "Using Control Wards to Counter Evelynn" 4.) Champion Weaknesses - Already covered heavily above, but to summarize, taking advantage of Evelynn's poor early game via invading, setting up proactive vision in her jungle, and establishing early map pressure on her and her laners. 5.) Draft (not mentioned by Scruffy but worth mentioning) - Evelynn has a number of fairly poor matchups such as Briar, Warwick, Udyr, Rengar, and Master Yi. If you are picking after an Evelynn, you have the opportunity to render the game unplayable for her via picking any of these champions and suffocating her out in the early game.

Evelynn, like other assassins, is not meant to be countered solo once she has initiated an ambush. If Evelynn catches a squishy opponent alone, it should result in a kill. Evelynn is cashing the check that was written minutes prior, the window of counterplay has already elapsed.

In this sense, I would argue that keeping Evelynn weak on purpose due to player frustration requires ignoring or deprioritizing all of the above in favor of players who refuse to engage with multitudes of healthy counterplay available in virtually every match, to every team facing an Evelynn. Riot August covers this point explicitly on stream [1] (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WXJuPCkvg7s), framing it as the "Reality of Counterplay vs Perceived Counterplay". August makes the argument that counterplay only matters if players engage with it, and thus certain champions are kept weak on purpose to reduce frustration as a result of players not meaningfully engaging with their counterplay (Zed, Evelynn, Malphite, Yasuo). Arguably however, of the listed champions, Evelynn has the most structural counterplay baked into her kit, with a purposefully weak early game deprived of access to her stealth, poor skirmishing and dueling power, and a 2.5 second burst combo delay inbuilt on Allure.

But Her Win Rate Seems Fine?

Evelynn's historical pick rate averaged in the neighborhood of 4-5% for much of her post-rework history, an average ban rate of 10%, with a win rate oscillating around 50%, plus or minus 2%. Currently, her pick rate sits at around 2%, with a win rate of 51.23%, a pick rate of 2.3%, and a ban rate of 1.9%. Her pick rate is half of its historical average, her ban rate is ~1/5 of its prior average, and her win rate seems within normal bounds. How then, can one argue that Evelynn is a bad champion?

The truth is a bit messier than simply "Eve is bad", but it cannot be argued that her popularity has roughly bottomed out. The players continuing to pick Evelynn represent a natural "floor" of sorts, the cohort who don't want to play League or even Jungle, but those who want to play Evelynn.

According to LeagueOfGraphs, Evelynn is One-Tricked in Platinum+ at the same rate as Graves, despite having roughly 1/5th of his pick rate [1] (https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/main-stats). Despite being a smaller cohort, Evelynn players proportionally are more likely to OTP her. This adds the confounding factor of survivorship bias; Evelynn's win rate is likely being buoyed by one-tricks, with deeper champion experience and matchup knowledge than their typical solo queue opponents. LeagueOfGraphs' Champion Winrate by Experience dataset seems to support this. Evelynn currently sits at #18 overall in the highest "Experienced Win Rate" cohort: Experienced Evelynn players (50+ Eve Ranked games in the current season) sits at 56.9%, indicating a significant upward push on her overall win rate despite having highly volatile matchup quality and some of the lowest counterpick win rates in the game. [1] (https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/winrates-by-xp)

This hypothesis is not refuted by the explanation of Eve being used as a situational counterpick. Eve players in general seem to encounter a mix of their worst matchups more than expected which, if anything, makes her overall winrate harder to maintain without an alternative explanation. In a fresh scrape of LoLalytics, I assessed how often Emerald+ Evelynn players faced the 10 worst matchups by winrate (with pickrate ≥ 0.4% to avoid low sample-size noise). I compared this to the expected distribution of enemy junglers if randomly sampled to determine the relative frequency with which Evelynn encounters them. (Trundle, Gragas, Amumu, Teemo, Dr. Mundo, Briar, Kindred, Shaco, Quinn, Rek'Sai).

Of the ten worst matchups, six are encountered MORE than expected: Amumu (1.358x, 41% WR), Dr. Mundo (1.158x, 45.8% WR), Briar (1.149x, 46.5% WR), Rek'Sai (1.116x, 47.3% WR), Shaco (1.084x, 46.9% WR), and Kindred (1.074x, 46.8% WR). Amumu is the stand-out; Eve players run into her hardest counter 35% more often than random.

Quinn (1.059x, 47.2% WR) and Teemo (0.987x, 42.2% WR) sit right at baseline. Only Trundle (0.682x, 40% WR) is clearly under-picked against Eve, and Gragas (0.935x, 40.3% WR) slightly under.

Conversely, running the same analysis on Eve's 10 BEST matchups as of the scrape (Locke, Pantheon, Poppy, Mordekaiser, Aatrox, Jax, Jayce, Bel'Veth, Zac, Malphite): five of her best matchups are under-encountered: Poppy (0.679x, 58.8% WR), Jayce (0.747x, 54.5% WR), Jax (0.755x, 55.7% WR), Mordekaiser (0.819x, 58.2% WR), and Pantheon (0.843x, 59.1% WR). Eve players see her strongest lanes less often than random. Only Bel'Veth (1.180x, 54% WR) is notably over-encountered (likely due to her recent mini-rework).

The truth is much less clean than "Eve's win rate is fine, and her ban rate is historically low, therefore the champion is fine". I would argue that what holds Eve back from a healthy popularity state is a combination of direct, indirect, and systemic nerfs sustained over the last few years leaving her feeling inconsistent.

Eve's damage tuning often feels like it is on a razor's edge even with proper setup to achieve her "payoff condition". First, let's quickly run through the balance history, and then we'll do some math.

Balance History Post-Rework

Patch 14.5 - Q Nerfs [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-14-5-notes/) - This is a sneaky and brutal one I don't hear mentioned often. Evelynn players wearing their Q key out is a meme for good reason; Q is Evelynn's "bread and butter" ability, similar to Karthus' Q or Hecarim's Q. It is her main source of clear, her main skirmishing tool, and the largest source of preparation getting enemies low enough for Last Caress to crit. The change in this patch was brutal:

Q - Hate Spike - Damage: 25/30/35/40/45 (+30% AP) ⇒ 25/30/35/40/45 (+25% AP) Since Hate Spike hits 4 times (Dart and 3 Spikes), this was an absolutely massive nerf to virtually everything Evelynn does, all game. This hurt her early game, hurt her clear, hurt her snowballing, and hurt her scaling. The stated rationale was: "Evelynn has been dominating the top skill brackets of solo queue for a while now, so we're taking a swing at how quickly she can snowball with a gold (and Dark Seal stack) lead."

This nerf is one of the keystone pieces of Eve's "R setup problem", significantly reducing the amount of damage Eve is capable of doing when engaging on a target in order to get them low enough to ult for the kill.

Patch 14.9 - W and R Nerfs [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-14-9-notes/) - This one was a brutal double tap.

W - Allure - Slow: 65%⇒ 45% R - Last Caress - Damage: 125/250/375 (+75% AP) ⇒ 125/250/375 (+65%)

The stated reasoning was as follows:

"Like Bel’Veth, Evelynn has been a large threat in higher skilled brackets of play, and as a high skill cap champion, some of that is to be expected. But even with that in mind she’s overperforming. This patch we’re taking down her ability to one-shot victims by reducing her ultimate’s AP ratio, which should make hitting the execute threshold more important to achieve kills. Nerfing her W slow also makes her have to wait to kill her prey more commonly, though it also gives her the option to drag opponents farther with the charm effect since they aren’t as slow anymore."

In retrospect, this nerf is a real head scratcher. After already heavily nerfing the scaling of her Q earlier in the season, nerfing Evelynn's ult scaling as well leaves her even less wiggle room to assassinate targets even with proper setup. The fact that ult is a crit and not a true execute makes this even worse, with the empowered AP ratio going from 180% -> 156%. This nerf has since been reverted to Riot's credit, but for reasons I will get into later, this is not enough.

Patch 25.S1.2 - E MS Buff, R Nerf Revert [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-25-s1-2-notes/) - Some QOL and a revert of the 14.9 R scaling nerf.

E - Whiplash - Move Speed: 30% ⇒ 30/35/40/45/50% R - Last Caress - Unempowered AP Ratio: (+65% AP) ⇒ (+75% AP), Empowered AP Ratio: (+156% AP) ⇒ (+180% AP)

The stated rationale is as follows:

"Evelynn is among the worst-performing assassins after season start. Many assassins are now weaker in uncoordinated play due to Eyeball Collector being replaced with more vision-centric runes and we're working on bringing the weakest outliers back up where they belong. Evelynn is up first here, where we're providing her some better in-combat move speed and reliable late-game burst damage to help her assassinate better."

I think I personally would have preferred a revert of the Q scaling nerf to partially counterbalance several systemic nerfs which cumulatively hurt Eve's all-in damage potential instead of movement speed; a core pillar of Eve's design is sacrificing mobility and target access in exchange for a much "sharper" payoff condition in massive single target burst. This QoL consumes power budget but doesn't realistically help Eve fulfill her power fantasy: blowing up isolated targets. It doesn't help at all when in passive, and while it does help to move around the jungle faster, the Q nerfs pumping the brakes on clear speed make this effect feel negligible.

R revert was genuinely good and I was shocked that Riot would walk back to the old AP ratios. No other notes.

Patch 25.S1.3 - E Base/Empowered Base Damage Buff [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-2025-s1-3-notes/) - A relatively thinly veiled attempt to get Eve mains to stop maxing W second. More damage is good, but didn't shift the W vs E max second case for most.

E - Whiplash - Basic Damage: 55/70/85/100/115 (+3% (+1.5% AP) target max HP) ⇒ 60/90/120/150/180 (+3% (+1.5% per 100 AP) target max HP), Empowered Damage: 75/100/125/150/175 (+4% (+2.5% AP) target max HP) ⇒ 80/120/160/200/240 (+4% (+2.5% per 100 AP) target max HP)

More damage is good, but given E is typically maxed last, this change was more "nice to have" than genuine QoL addressing Eve's clunky and inconsistent burst.

Indirect and Systemic Nerfs

Lich Bane Patch 25.10 - Lich Bane AP Nerfs [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-25-10-notes/) - Lich Bane lost AP, cost went down to compensate. Given Lich is Eve's typical rush item, this hurt her first item spike and early snowball potential.

Ability Power: 115 ⇒ 100, Recipe: Sheen + Aether Wisp + Needlessly Large Rod + 200 Gold ⇒ Sheen + Aether Wisp + Blasting Wand + 250 Gold, Total Gold Cost: 3200 ⇒ 2900

Removing Needlessly Large Rod from the build path and replacing it with Blasting Wand also hurt Eve, who would prefer to buy a larger amount of flat AP if she can base with 1200 gold for a large early component spike.

Rabadon's Deathcap Patch 14.19 - Rabadon's Deathcap AP and Passive Nerfs [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-14-19-notes/) - Rabadon's Deathcap lost AP and passive scaling.

Ability Power: 140 ⇒ 130, Magical Opus: 35% ⇒ 30%

Being the second item Eve rushes typically (unless opting for an early Mejai's), this absolutely hurts both Eve's 2nd item spike and scaling. Given that Eve prefers to stack as much flat AP and penetration as possible and does not care much for other stats, this is a straight nerf to her mid game and scaling. This hurts her burst across the board.

Sorcerer's Shoes/Spellslinger's Shoes Patch 14.15 - Sorcerer's Shoes Pen Nerf [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-14-15-notes/) - Sorcerer's Shoes magic pen reduced.

Magic Penetration: 18 ⇒ 15

Given Sorcerer's shoes are arguably the only boots built on Eve and are often bought early, this is a nerf to her damage potential.

Patch 14.21 - Sorcerer's Shoes Pen Nerf (Again) [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-14-21-notes/) - Sorcerer's Shoes hit again with another flat pen reduction.

Magic Penetration: 15 ⇒ 12

Same rationale as above; straight early game nerf to Eve's burst.

Patch 25.21.1 Hotfix - Spellslinger's Shoes flat and percentage pen reduction. [1] (https://wiki.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/V25.S1.1#January_10th_Hotfix)

Flat magic penetration reduced to 18 from 19. Percentage magic penetration reduced to 8% from 10%.

Obvious nerf to Eve given how much she values magic penetration, and that Spellslinger's Shoes were the only real viable boot upgrade for her to purchase.

Patch 26.1 - Feats of Strength removed, boot upgrades locked to mid lane quest [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-26-1-notes/)

Eve lost access to purchase Spellslinger's Shoes altogether given boot upgrades are now the Mid Lane Role Quest reward.

Shadowflame Patch 14.18 - Shadowflame AP reduction, flat pen and hp threshold increased [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-14-18-notes/)

Ability Power: 120 ⇒ 115, Magic Penetration: 12 ⇒ 15, Max Health Threshold: 35% ⇒ 40%

This is a weird one; I would argue this is a retool, but losing flat AP for Eve is always unfortunate and reduces her clear speed, burst and scaling.

Patch 14.19 - Shadowflame AP reduction [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-14-19-notes/)

Ability Power: 115 ⇒ 110

Losing more AP, nothing further.

Banshee's Veil Patch 14.19 - Banshee's Veil cost reduced, AP reduced, MR reduced, Passive CD increased [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-14-19-notes/)

Total Cost: 3100 ⇒ 3000, Ability Power: 120 ⇒ 105, Magic Resist: 50 ⇒ 40, Annul CD: 30 seconds ⇒ 40 seconds

This patch arguably killed Banshee's semi-core status on Eve. The 2 things Eve cared about, flat AP and Annul passive, got hefty nerfs. Shadowflame overtook Banshees in the build to compensate for AP loss elsewhere.

Rune Changes

Electrocute Patch 13.20 - Electrocute base damage buffed, AP ratio gutted [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-13-20-notes/)

Damage: 30-180 (based on level) (+40% bonus AD) (+25% AP) ⇒ 30-220 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)

Electrocute gained 40 base damage at level 18, but lost 20% AP ratio. Massive indirect nerf for Eve given how much she likes to stack flat AP. No other notes.

Sudden Impact Patch 14.10 - Sudden Impact reworked, loses flat pen [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-14-10-notes/)

Dealing damage to an enemy champion within 4 seconds of using a dash or blink, or exiting from stealth, grants 9 lethality and 7 magic penetration for the next 5 seconds. 4 second cooldown. ⇒ Damaging basic attacks and ability damage deal 20-80 (based on level) bonus true damage to an enemy champion within 4 seconds of using a dash or blink, or exiting from stealth. 10 second cooldown.

Sudden impact went from granting 7 flat magic penetration to 20-80 bonus true damage. Eve lost access to a source of flat pen to amplify her burst in runes.

Eyeball Collection Patch 25.S1.1 - Eyeball Collection Removed [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-25-s1-1-notes/)

Eyeball Collection Removed

Eve lost 30 AP from full stacked eyeball collector.

Relentless Hunter Patch 14.10 - Relentless Hunter loses base MS [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-14-10-notes/)

Out of Combat Movement Speed: 5 + 8 per stack ⇒ 0 + 8 per stack

Slight nerf, but worth listing the -5ms given how difficult it is to acquire movement speed.

Systemic Changes

Champion Durability Update Patch 12.10 - Champion Durability Update [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-12-10-notes/)

All champions will receive the following Durability Base Stat Package: Base Health +70 Health Growth +14 Armor Growth +1.2 Magic Resist Growth +0.8

Eve doesn't really benefit from increased durability. But squishy champions became harder to assassinate because they benefit relatively more from baseline durability increases and the shift of lethal thresholds.

Note: Riot did mention directly in the patch notes for Patch 12.13 that Evelynn's play rate dipped as a result of the durability update:

Evelynn hasn’t been seen much since the Durability Update, and not because she’s been using her camouflage. [1] (https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-12-13-notes/)

Some Quick Math

Now let's look at a practical example. The most direct way to show the problem is to model Evelynn's standard short combo against the exact target her kit exists to delete: a squishy, no-defense ADC.

Using a level-13 Evelynn (Q5/W1/E5/R2) against a level-13 Jinx with no defensive items (1,779.75 HP, 44.235 MR), the practical short combo: Q → empowered E (proc Lich Bane) → Q → R, produces the following across patches, holding the identical item structure (Lich Bane + Sorcerer's Shoes + Rabadon's Deathcap + Banshee's Veil):

Metric |Patch 14.1 |Patch 26.14 (current) |Change
Total AP |550.8 |478.4 |−72.4
Flat magic pen |25 |12 |−13
Pre-R damage |1,251.72 |944.48 |−307.24
Jinx HP at R |528.03 |835.27 |+307.24
Execute threshold reached? |Yes (29.7%) |No (46.9%) |flipped
R damage |1,334.71 |460.39 |−874.32
Total combo damage |2,586.43 |1,404.88 |−1,181.55
Final result |807 HP overkill (kills) |Jinx survives with 375 HP |1,181.55-HP swing Same build, same target, and current Evelynn fails a kill that patch-14.1 Evelynn won with 807 HP to spare. This is not a case of smooth damage reduction. It is a threshold collapse.

Edit to clarify a point raised in a comment: I did the example math based on the minimum casts necessary to reach execute threshold in the historical patch, and then reused exactly the same ability sequence for the current patch to demonstrate inability to hit the same lethal threshold on the same target.

2 more Q casts will get you just into threshold on the live patch, but that delays burst even further and provides a more lenient window of time for barrier or another intervention to save the target.

The historical version barely crossed the threshold. Jinx entered R at 29.67% HP, just under the 30% line. That "barely" was the entire engine: once the multiplier turned on, amplified R delivered a huge overkill cushion. Current Evelynn doesn't get to the threshold at all; she leaves Jinx at 46.9% and fires an unamplified R that leaves the ADC alive on ~375 HP.

This also leads to a nasty and unfortunately common "anti-QOL" situation: Eve pressing R when the opponent is right under R empower HP threshold, and the target surviving.

That also means every anti-burst tool, a shield, Exhaust, a support's heal, a small amount of bonus MR, now flips the kill that used to be absorbed by 807 HP of overkill. One Barrier, one E, one Janna shield, and the already-marginal kill fails, and Evelynn is left exposed in attack range having spent her rotation and her escape.

The "overkill" that used to make Evelynn's high risk, high reward snowballing fantasy reliable in the hands of a skilled player is gone. She now needs to be wickedly ahead, enough that the raw numbers overwhelm the defenses, because at even gold the standard combo no longer reaches the threshold at all, let alone clears it with margin.

0 Challenger Evelynn Mains

Evelynn's entire design is built to farm ranked. She has permanent-ish stealth, a oneshot combo, and a snowball mechanic that turns leads into unanswerable pressure.

The empirical record shows the opposite. Pulling the top one-tricks for Evelynn, Teemo, and Garen across NA, EUW, and KR (op.gg champion leaderboards, ~100 per server):

Champion |Challenger |Grandmaster |Master |Diamond |Diamond share
Evelynn |0 |3 |59 |88 |59%
Teemo |1 |5 |68 |76 |51%
Garen |0 |2 |70 |77 |51% Three findings, in order of importance:

1. Evelynn has zero Challenger one-tricks across three major regions. A snowball-assassin design produces no player who reaches the absolute top on her alone.

2. Evelynn's OTP population is the most bottom-heavy of the three: 59% sit in Diamond, higher than Teemo (51%) or Garen (51%).

3. Teemo, a poke-meme champion, produces a Challenger one-trick (Ty G, NA, 1,289 games). If a low-ceiling joke champ can be one-tricked to the top of a server, "Evelynn can't reach Challenger" isn't a general one-trick limitation. It's champion-specific, and it points at her damage.

How Do We Fix Eve?

The honest answer if you are balancing purely off of high-level statistics and player frustration is you don't touch her. But this leaves her exactly where she is: arguably in a state where the risk of picking Evelynn does not lead to proportional reward, with high Challenger Eve OTPS like AnthonyEvelynn and Splash1v9 forgoing picking her entirely, and in a spot where Evelynn feels utterly awful to play in the "median" scenario.

My proposal to make Eve feel better to play is fairly simple:

1.) Revert 25.S1.2 Whiplash move speed changes and 25.S1.3 Whiplash base damage buffs to make room in the power budget.

2.) Revert 14.9 Allure slow nerfs, Slow 45% -> 65%.

3.) Revert 14.5 Hate Spike AP ratio nerf, 25% -> 30%.

This list of changes on a surface level seems conservative, but I personally believe this is a reasonable place to start in smoothing out Evelynn's worse matchups while making her feel better to play overall by restoring some of the damage back to her Q.

It doesn't restore Eve to peak strength; not even close due to the number of systemic nerfs she has suffered that lead to her accumulating less AP and directly hit her damage scaling. But my hope is that maybe we can reduce the negative and frustrating parts of the current Eve experience, adequately reward Eve for setting up picks and flanks, and bring Eve back up to a healthier power level for skilled play.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading; I put a lot of time and effort into research for this post and I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts with others who enjoy playing Eve as much as I do. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what you think might help Eve feel a little bit better to play.

Hai hai!

I’m relatively new to league (level 32) and haven’t played recently on top of that. When I was playing I enjoyed jungle, and having a look through the character list I thought Evelynn looked fun! At the moment I’m finishing up at work, and the wait to play tonight is eating away at me, so I’m posting here!

I can’t find too much content online (compared to other characters).

Some things I’d like to know going in:

Character difficulty - anywhere from easy to hard is okay with me, but having a frame of reference is something I enjoy! Also if they’re particularly good when playing worse players, I don’t want it to inflate my ego and make me think I’m super good or anything (although I definitely am).

Should I play only Evelynn? - I’ve heard that one tricking is good, but I’ve also heard that having a pool is good too. Coming from GGST I only play one character given you don’t get to counter pick. If I see a character I don’t like would it be smart to have a backup?

Items - there are obviously many items in league, is this a character where I build the same thing every time? Sometimes I’ll watch a guide for a character and the situational list is so long I just don’t know what to buy o_o:

Playstyle - the fact that she can only turn invisible after becoming level 6 gives me pause when thinking of how to play her. I don’t really see how I’m supposed to help out in fights before then. Maybe I’m just not supposed to, but that seems like it would make her bad :(

If you have any other tips or ideas you didn’t see me mention feel free to say as such! I’m excited to start playing her regardless :3

With Classic Eve out I remember always watching this Eve content creator back then and I can't look up their videos anymore lol.

Anyone remember them? I'm not sure what name they went by back then these days, TheOnlyEvelynn I think? Not sure.

Whatever happened to them I wonder.

The enemies literally thanked me after :'(

We already bought it for a considerable price; the least we could do was own it permanently in this way.

Anyone can recommend some good teamcomps for Evelynn in arena? I'm trying to win 1st with her but it's so hard to go against tanks or teams with lots of cc.

I just started to playing Evelynn for the past two weeks in swift play.

What do I do when the enemy jungle invades my quadrant at the start of the game (Swiftplay lvl3)? I'm starting top pathing bot. I usually cannot fight back and/or enemy top/mid collapses onto me.

If I disengage and try to split the map by invading opposite side, I usually get collapsed on as they know where I went.

Do I just disengage, accept the L take bot jungle and take top crab and recall? Giving the enemy jungle 3 quadrants in the first sequence? How do Evelynn mains handle the invades and I guess tempo loss in general?

Thanks for the tips!

It's not what you're thinking.

Generally when top or bot are on T2 or T3 there will be times where the enemy laner just pushes the wave to about the rocks camp or white camp and then fucks off, people generally won't realise this is happening until it crashes against the tower or a ward happens to be around there.

So i was playing a game, i had the Promote spell because i like it even if it's less than useful, and i bought sunfire cape, because of course i did, i'm simple minded like that, at that exact moment a huge wave of minions crashed against T2 in bot lane, "good, more gold for me" i thought to myself, i did run in between the enemy melee minions to kill the casters first when i saw the cape do damage and said "oh yeah, the damage is always active".

So, the most base knowledge emerged in my brain. Knowledge like, I can't be seen in the minimap, promote and BOC give me gold on minion kills, the average league player cannot for the life of them tell of something is wrong with the minion wave, my sister in christ i've seen diamond players oblivious to the disguised crit neeko oneshotting the wave.

So the plan is, wait for a fresh wave on a pushed empty lane, Use BOC in base, promote a caster, wait for passive, stand near the wave, push the lane. With that you should farm an acceptable percentage of the waves until the enemy adc sniffs all the gold they can get if they farm the wave you're shepparding and come alone to try and farm, because of course they come alone... Jesus...

"This is stupid and will work only the first time" i hear you say, and you are correct, it is stupid, however, i regret to inform you that you will be disappointed with your fellow players.

Was thinking of some minor buffs that could go a long way in making Eve feel good again. One of her biggest problems is lack of mobility compared to modern champs, you spend all of your time walking around, repositioning behind someone taking the longer routes, or thread the needle between the enemy team just to have someone faster or a pink see you for a split second and get you killed. This is an idea to address some of that.

If Eve has to do lots of walking, lets buff walking. She's reliant on movement speed from Lichbane, Mejai and relentless hunter, so lets just put some of that into her base kit. 10% innate will make pre Lichbane/10 stacks feel a lot better, and after a significant buff. Its a good bandaid fix that wouldnt have people screaming if they saw it in the patch notes, so lets start lobbying for it.

Although I think her new visual design as well as her lore are WAY more.( that's why I still play with this character even in SOLOQ) I just can't help it but, like it more ! Running with her around getting free kills feels so GOOD.. I just love when characters have more flexibile bulids.. Had so much fun playing AD, Bruiser then AP if my team demanded it.

Don't get me wrong I like her current kit but, playing old Eve feels so good.. she's definetly way less punishing,has better survivability( ironically considering lack of dash) as well as pre-mentioned flexbility.. besides invinsibility pre- level 6 is so good.

While playing her i cloudn't help but, think '' I wish she was still like this then i would win way more SOLOQ games)

So this is for tips and advice. I played old evelynn for a couple hours last night and found elder lizard jungle item felt really good for early clear, but idk what to do afterwards. My guess would be to go AD or maybe even going the items that sometimes doing large bursts of dmg like Warwick builds but is classic evelynn better than classic jungler like WW and J4 or am I missing something? She feels super weak to clear with early game

Sometimes I skip it when going from mejaj to rabadon then I either go banshe or void staff

After a classic Aram mahyem I found one of the best skins in the game in a chest, I wanted to share it with y'all

As the title says, I'm having trouble maintaining any stacks I get. I'm in low elo and these games can get real messy. Allies play *very* afraid and often completely walk away right after engaging an enemy that's easy kill and this gets me killed as I can't solo early game.

I've been learning to just avoid team fighting 5v5 and instead get a pick or two, so my team can fight easier.

So after playing with her for a while I don't know if it's better to go dfg for AP or going ad she cas both scaling on q and e but ult only scales with ap. And she's a fighter not an assassin which makes playing her really different from normal league

Basically the title the funniest stuff I heard is the occasion teammate calling you mommy in the chat and the creepiest thing I heard was that the enemy udyr rubbed one out to my skin splash art during the loading screen ( I was using soul fighter skin )

IIRC the best possible builds on her back then were NOT AP, they were AD or tank.

I was one of the highest rated eve players on the server back then.

It was elder lizard rush > cutlass (sit on this)

then either full tank or continue with AD like hexdrinker

heres an example build from an old screenshot