A look at Caitlyn's skills

First of all, let me just say that most of the leaks for patch v1.0.0.108 are fake. The fake leak with Fiddlestick's fear range increased to 1000 -absolutely BS. And Teemo WILL NOT get a new skin! Or, I could be entirely wrong and Riot truly wants to mess up the game. I have always been able to find leaked patch notes from PTR, but recently Riot has been really dedicated in sealing away all the leaked info. So my advice would be not waste time trying to find leaks. Just wait for the official patch to come out. (Jan 4th? I think). But one thing that is in the next patch we know for sure, and that my friends, is the sexy sheriff Caitlyn.

Caitlyn

Abilities:

Piltover Peacemaker: Caitlyn revs up her rifle for 1 second to unleash a penetrating shot which deals physical damage (deals less damage to subsequent targets).

Yordle Snap Trap: Caitlyn sets a trap to reveal sneaky yordles. When sprung, the trap immobilizes the champion and deals magic damage over 1.5 seconds.

90 Caliber Net: Caitlyn fires a heavy net to slow her target. The recoil knocks Caitlyn back.

Ace in the Hole (Ultimate): Caitlyn takes time to line up the perfect shot, dealing massive damage to a single target at a huge range. Enemy champions can intercept the bullet for their ally.

Headshot (Passive): Every 8 attacks (attacks while in brush count as 2), Caitlyn will fire a headshot, dealing either 150% damage to a champion or 250% damage to a minion.

The way I see it, Caitlyn is another step Riot took to transition from Team-based/AOE to more ganking orientated metagame. In my opinion, Caitlyn would likely be an AD burst/carry (or an AD mage). Looking at her skills, she seems to do tons of damage in bursts and crazy long range, but likely burdened with high cooldowns and poor teamfight abilities. Caitlyn isn't likely to be similar to Ashe or Tristana or pretty much any range carries. Her skills require very careful positioning, map awareness, and pre-planning. In other words, she is similar to Teemo! 


Caitlyn plays just like her description. She is a sniper. If you fight her in the open, most champions can defeat her one-on-one pretty easily. But a good sniper won't let you find her easily while she constantly pesters you with heavy damage. The skills Piltover Peacemaker, Ace in the Hole, and her passive require her to stay hidden somewhere, most likely in a bush. They work in conjunction to boost her ganking ability. If her Q and R counts as attacks (which they should), her Passive stacks them twice. If she times it correctly, her R will do 150% damage to a champion. Ouch!


But to do this, she has to have godly map awareness. When you look at her Yordle Trap skill, I bet you relate it to Teemo's mushrooms. We all know how annoying that is. The trap is around the same level of annoyance. Instead of slow, it IMMOBILIZES THE TARGET FOR 1.5 SECONDS! Plus, it's not an ultimate, so it should have around the same cooldown as mushrooms (still high). A good sniper would place traps at locations where the enemy is likely to escape, wait in the bush for the weakened champ to pop out, and then BOOM HEADSHOT!


From the discussion thread @Ezreal, I have gathered that Caitlyn's ultimate is a combination between skillshot and normal skill. That is to say, Caitlyn's ult can lock-on to the target from a long range (you don't have to aim) as long as its visible, and the bullet will travel in a skillshot manner, except it can only be blocked by a champion (not minions or neutral creeps). A lot of potential in this skill.


Lastly, Caitlyn's Net can slow the enemy while retreating. Very useful skill for escape, not so much for chasing because of the recoil. Again, we can see that she is not a standard ranged carry and more of an "in-and-out" character (or never "in") because this skill encourages only escape but not chase, unlike Ashe's Frost Arrow, Tristana's jump, and MF's AOE slow which can easily be played both ways.


In summary, I would definitely buy her for funsie games like Teemo. Not really sure about playing seriously with her though. We will have to wait for the official release to see!


Good luck and have fun!