what changes would you make to the duelist role to make it more diverse (aka not jett on 3 maps and raze on 4)
Bro what are you smoking, EG the world champs of 2023 played him on Pearl. Fnatic and a few other teams played him in 2024, on Haven and Abyss.
His flash and TP can help to take a lot of space, the issue is that the highest level players can dodge the flash and just shoot him as he TP in. He does need help, but it's the same as Jett, or any other duelists. They need their team and initiators to set them up, if they just fly into a site by themselves it's suicide. Unless the opponents just whiff everything.
make iso shield give him +40 hp instead of making it completely dodge a fucking rocket launcher
remove neon's 100% bullet accuracy
make jett's dash animation look like yoru's tp so you have some time to shoot her (maybe give her her 2nd updraft back) and give chamber the same treatment
phoenix/reyna are already good in ranked so buffing them would be terrible for ranked
nerf raze nade pls
yoru is in a good place imo
The issue isn't that duelist are weak, more that no other duelist can replicate the value of jett/raze.
What other duelist can OP effectively? Yoru, but then you lose the hard entry. Neon, but you lose the aggressive oping style and holding a passive line doesn't benefit you. Reyna, but you only get dismiss if you hit the shot and again you lose the hard entry
What duelist out-values raze? Nade to break util and clearing chokes, satchels for entry and breaking util, boombot for info and not to mention rocket.
Neon was played alot bc she was over tuned. and the slide accuracy got you "free" entries
Yoru - I think to make Yoru more viable on Jett and Raze maps, you could give him a "dimensional glide" which lets him preemptively prompt an ability that upon further activation would push him a few meters forward. Next, you could give him an ability that let's him "bounce between dimensions", this would let him deploy an ability that has the potential to propel him vertically or horizontally, Riot could also give him two charges of his ability to further match Raze's explosive speed and range.
Phoenix - Phoenix is in a more interesting spot, though I think his pick rate would increase significantly if he was given a "phoenix charge", which would let the player prepare an ability that upon secondary use, would make Phoenix charge forward a couple meters with great speed. In order to challenge Raze's mobility, he could also be given a "phoenix burst", though it has to be deployed onto the ground and could propel him omni-directionally. He'll also have two charges of this ability.
Iso - I have a couple ideas for how I would balance Iso further but figuring out lore reasons would be the bigger obstacle. How about for Iso's signature ability, he can utilize a miniature version of his ultimate, which instead of isolating an enemy, isolates himself and the spot a few meters in front of him, which subsequently allows him to move there which great speed. Riot could also decide to give him a bouncy shield that he can deploy up to two times which coincidentally also moves him omnidirectionally upon use. How handy!
Neon - In order for Neon to become more viable on more maps, I think her slide should be changed to only be able to go towards where the player is looking. Also, she can detach the electric pack and activate it to boost her outwards, relative to the position of the pack. To make sure she's on par with the other characters, let's give her another electric pack as well.
This is an issue between flash duelist vs dive duelist.
In my opinion, flash duelist need to be buffed slightly above dive duelists because teams will naturally gravitate to dive duelist because of the ease of execution when entering a site. By buffing flash duelists Riot incentivizes teams to be more creative.
Yoru - he is in an interesting spot because he is the most balanced out of all the flash duelists. I think he is in a good spot, kinda like viper back in the day, everyone thought she was weak, but several good players proved how OP she was and ever since then riot keeps on nerfing her. So, if players get more creative with setups and line ups for his TP i think he's gonna be played more compared to raze and jett.
Phoenix - His ult is such an integral part of his gameplay but i feel like it's kinda underpowered compared to other ults in the game. My ABSURED suggestion is to make phoenix ult into a basic ability. Kinda like in league of legends where some champs dont have an ULT and they have 4 basic abilities. To balance this out his ult duration needs to be lowered and he needs to purchase this ability in the shop and make it the most expensive ability purchase in the game. Everytime phoenix gets a kill, dies, or takes an orb the cost of his ult will be lowered.
Reyna - just give her 3 orbs. her balance changes last time were good but her basic abilities feel like they are missing something so adding another orb charge fixes that.
Iso - Make his contingency wider and add the ability to stop anywhere he wants.