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Quick Gameplay Thoughts: July 27

RiotMeddler·7/27/2018, 3:47:22 PM·1 votes·107,932 views

Hi folks,

Usual Disclaimers

These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get delayed or even stopped. If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler

Some thoughts on tanks + thoughts on damage part 1

We've seen quite a bit of player discussion around damage currently feeling really high. Also seen fair amount of discussion around tanks, and how some are struggling. Wanted to start today by talking about the tank side of things, given it's also part of the damage discussion. Further thoughts on damage in general to follow next week, there are quite a few different angles worth talking about, so wanted to split the conversation over more than one post. Talk next week will include some of our thinking on damage contributions from kits versus other sources in particular (e.g. where is ability to stack damage from items, runes etc healthy or problematic?).

Some current thoughts on tanks then:

  1. Tanks played as supports are generally performing pretty solidly. Jungle and top tanks by contrast are more likely to struggle. A lot of that reflects what a team expects from higher gold/XP positions. Many tank patterns front load a lot of their contribution, which tends to be pretty consistent in power (CC that isn't very item/level dependent in particular). That means support tanks are more likely to still justify their spot even if tanks overall may be weaker.

  2. Most players are drawn much more to damage focused classes than non damage ones. Play rates for many tanks tend to be low relative to other options when they're equally balanced.

  3. That combination of some tanks (jungle and top struggling) and lower general appeal means metas occur, such as the present one, where there are few tanks being played. That contributes to damage feeling high for a couple of reasons. Teams without tanks lack a front line, so tend to get burst more due to the lack of soak/zoning. Metas without tanks also mean it's more likely that each team has 4, or even 5, damage threats on it as well though, especially if enchanters (the main other non damage group) are also being played less. Even if any individual champion’s damage isn’t any higher the game's going to feel much more lethal when there are 1, or even 2, more high damage champs per team.

  4. Given the above impact on how high damage the game feels, plus other benefits tanks bring (they give structure to team fights, help create more distinction between different members of a team etc) we think it’s generally good for a team to have around one tank on average. That’s not to say teams without tanks are bad and something we want to remove entirely, or that teams with multiple tanks are always problematic. Tanks being too common or too rare tends to create problems though, with one a team on average tending to lead to good metas.

  5. Some tanks are proving to have some of the difficulties being balanced between pro and regular play that a few other champs (Ryze etc) have. Gragas has also been such a case, Zac and Sejuani are now also creating some problems in that regard too, indicating our approach with their updates last year had some significant issues.

So, having tanks be good choice who get picked is something we think’s important for the game, both to help keep damage output in check and for other reasons. In terms of what we're planning to do to support healthy amounts of tank play:

  1. We'll be looking at damage sources that are anti tank, particularly those that counter Armor/MR. Feeling is we've pushed too far in terms of amount of pen/true damage offered. The reduction in true damage from IE's passive in 8.15 is the first part of that. Following changes will depend on how large an impact that does/doesn’t have, plus the general state of the game. Need to be careful here not to swing back so hard that stacking tanks becomes optimal again, without sufficient ways to respond to it.

  2. We'll be buffing some individual tanks in 8.16, particularly those who've been historically healthy even when strong and/or that we've overnerfed this year.

  3. We'll be looking to reduce the organized team versus random team difference in effectiveness some tanks show. Not certain yet on timing of that.

  4. Longer term again we also want to work on kit satisfaction (feel, rather than power) for some tanks. Not sure when that will happen yet, could be quite a while off (e.g. not this year) depending on what other work on champions is also needed.

Tanks we'll be testing buffs for in 8.16 below. Not guaranteed all of these ship, possible others also get added, though this is our best estimate right now of the appropriate candidates.

  • Amumu
  • Nautilus
  • Sion
  • Leona
  • Rammus
  • Maokai (probably pretty jungle focused to avoid him defining top lane too much again)

Stats Tab

We've been testing a new stats tab in some regions recently. So far that's been doing pretty well. Plan as a result is to roll it out wider with a patch or two, barring any unexpected issues arising.

Next Champion Roadmap

Should be in early to mid August.

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/6.24.1/img/champion/Ziggs.png

409 Comments

Gankr7/27/2018, 7:12:37 PM34 votes

Hey, I posted this comment a few weeks back asking about Zac specifically with 30+ votes and no response. Now that this is about tanks I was wondering if you could go more in depth on Zac and the possibility of a revert or partial revert.

Sorry about the wall of text, I have a lot to say on this issue and would really appreciate a response.

Gankr here, former Master tier Zac top/jungle main before the rework. Myself, along with many other former Zac mains have been extremely disappointed with the rework and the lack of communication about it. Back when the rework was taking place, we had Riot Shrieve talking to us on the subreddit ( https://www.reddit.com/r/thesecretweapon ) about the changes, but since then we have had nothing. Zac used to have much more versatility as a top laner as well as a jungler with different build paths depending on your play-style.

His Ult: One of the biggest complaints in the Zac mains community is that his new ultimate feels terrible to use, especially compared to the old one. It does no damage and is completely one dimensional. It either picks people up or it doesn't. The old ult actually required skill the maneuver yourself around in a teamfight to knock people in the direction that benefited the team. When his rework was announced, his ult was called a "chaotic wukong ultimate" which makes 0 sense to me. It is only chaotic if you use it like a Wukong ultimate. It is like saying Oriana R is a chaotic Diana E. If you use the Oriana R like an idiot, then that may be true, but if you actually know what you are doing it is more skilled version of a Diana E. It is the same thing with Old Zac R and Wukong R. His E also had it's knock up duration changed to scale with charge time because of this, which is a pretty large nerf, which I will get into later. Not only is this ult less reliable, and less satisfying, but the ability Zac was known for got nerfed to make room for it.

Top Lane: Top lane Zac was a decently popular pick, even though it wasn't the strongest. It had a lot of counter play, but also had a lot of outplay potential. In this lane, you used to max Q in order to poke through minions and clear waves. The low cooldown and the surprisingly high damage made it core to this champion. Without this ability, it basically single-handedly destroyed Zac top. Another thing that killed Zac top is the E changes. His E used to be a 1 second knockup at all times which allowed for usage point blank. Without that his ability to duel or escape is much worse. The final problem with Toplane Zac is that his ult is pretty much useless in this lane. It does about 1/4 as much damage as his old ult, assuming your opponent is bad enough to get picked up in it, and it also doesn't give you a movespeed boost to be used as an escape from a gank or bad trade.

His Damage: One final issue I'd like to bring up is that his base damage on every single ability got destroyed. This further weakens his ability to fight other champs, which is especially terrible in a meta revolving around duelist junglers. Zac cannot be expected to exist in a meta where he needs to either fight off champions, or clear well, because right now he doesn't do either better than meta junglers.

If you want an even more in-depth version of this, here is a post I made a year ago that goes into each ability: https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/6f27eh/im_gankr_15m_mastery_points_zac_main_master_tier/?st=jj7jd9ey&sh=ad3eb579

WiegrafOfValor7/27/2018, 5:53:25 PM32 votes

#Meddler, can we have more utility on Tank items and Runes? I see no reason for runes such as Grasp and Aftershock to deal damage, and I really don't understand why the runes aimed for Tanks lack several tools that can help Tanks do their job in a healthy way.

Take for example some ideas that can be use as Runes or Item concepts:

  • [Item Concept]: ACTIVE: Instantly unleash a shockwave, pulling all nearby enemies in 200 units towards the user.

The idea behind this item is to have a tool to protect your backline from mobile assassins or/and divers. Most of the times, even if you are Tanky enough to hold the enemy team, they can ignore you easily and unless you have a kit that can make the enemy focus you, such as having a taunt, there isn't much you can do. This item could change that.

  • [Rune Concept]: Taking damage drops shards that can be picked up by your allies that will restore their HP based on your maximum health, also once the user dies, a massive shard is dropped and the allied that pick it up restore X health based on your max HP, and gains X AR and X MR based on your stats for a short period of time.

This rune would help when you have to engage on a teamfight to create a opportunity, burning the enemy team CDs, costing your own life. That rune would make it so that the enemy team gets punished for focusing the tank. Which should be a good play by the Tank player, but more often then not it ends just being a waste since we have such short CDs nowadays.

  • [Rune Concept]: Gains passive Physical shield based on bonus AR, It regens after X seconds out of combat. When broken grants X Tenacity until the end of it's cooldown. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

This rune is made so it lessen the effect of a heavy poke laning opponent, that can set the Tank champion behind and create a frustrating laning phase. By making the tank have to wait for it's shield to regens before going into lane, creates room for the opponent to gain leads if poking right, without making the life of the Tank player miserable. Lategame can be useful for engaging and making use of the Tenacity to position yourself and create plays.

A Nunu7/27/2018, 6:29:58 PM30 votes

#DON'T GIVE NUNU A DASH THANKS BYE https://i.imgur.com/b7Hjwht.png/img

Mordepool7/27/2018, 3:58:25 PM28 votes

Damage has been high since runes reforged came out.

Since almost all runes are just Do X to get Y

Y being More damage.

Perhaps an interesting question you should think about should be.

" Why is it that Building Defensively when behind make zero difference in whether your opponent can still kill you".

^^^^. This is why you have 30% trap games you made defensive itemization such garbage that it's only a Good buy When you are ahead

Daoist7/27/2018, 3:53:13 PM26 votes

Hey Meddler, do you have any plans for Talon ? He is too much of a threat to roam, waveclear, and snowball in the mid lane.

Linna Excel7/27/2018, 4:45:09 PM24 votes

Since you mentioned sejuani being hard to balance for pros and normals, do you guys think that it's time to revert her mini rework? Yeah the old ult ate up her power budget but it was a lot more fun/satisfying to use and I don't remember riot having the same problems for keeping her balanced back then.

To be fair, I have to wonder if riot is starting to give too much skill expression to champs. The fact that the pros pick and can do crazy stuff with perennially nerfed and underplayed champs speaks volumes about the those champions being poorly designed. I say so because it's clear that those champs are designed exclusively for the pros and balanced completely around them. Less skill expression would increase the stability of performance of champs, but you don't want to take too much out.

I would argue that a champ that is completely balanced around pro play, like Azir or Ryze, probably has a bit too much skill expression; you are forced to neglect the rest of the player base by keeping these champs nerfed and it's a clear example that the pros are playing a different game than the rest of us. This is something riot has consistently been against and I think it's time to admit that the balance issues of those champs go directly against riot's philosophy.

ggplayer2507/27/2018, 4:04:36 PM23 votes

Hey Meddler, I see now item 3031 is getting a buff to have a smoother buying process. But I want to ask about the item 3089 . As the other "big item" for the mages or APC's , do you think the item 1058 item 1058 recipe isn't smooth enough? Considering the underpowering state of the mages Viktor Anivia Orianna Azir Velkoz Veigar Ziggs ?

Sire Hippington7/27/2018, 9:33:36 PM16 votes

The main issue regarduing tanks(and tankiness in general) is that damage outscales tankiness to much later on. That's partially by anti tank mechanics on items/runes, but mostly by simply to high damage numbers and to little def stats.

One of the big issues is that we lack proper raw HP items to back off defstats from items like Frozen Heart. Right now, the highest we get is warmongs with 800, and it sucks as a single hp item as alot of it's power is gated by a 3k hp threshhold. If you compare that to the old days, Warmogns would either grant up to 1337hp and 45 hp/5 for compareable less gold that was gated behind a stacking mechanic so it wasn't to strong as a rush, and later we had it as 1k hp item with %hp regen even in combat. We no longer have an as self efficient item for raw HP to back up defstats only items or for provideing good baseline tankiness vs all damage types. On top of that, tank items are generally pretty slot inefficient, often not even gold efficient, and their unique damage reduceing effects also got nerfed alot in time. I remember FH haveing more aura range with a stronger as-slow, and randuins active also slowing as by 35% fro quite some time... Then we have the lack of self-defensive keystones. Fleetfoodwork has a poor heal without high offstats for the scaleing, overheal and triumph are the strongest defensive runes but in a path that doesn't suit tanks, Grasp has most of it's power in the damage rather than the heal, Aftershock also has a good portion of it's power in the damage rather than it's defensive use, Guardian has half it's power on shielding allies and often doesn't activate when YOU would need it.

However, the probbably biggest issue is champ design and crept up over the years. Back in the days, tanks did solid raw flatr damage vs squishy targets, but not much vs tanky opponents, supports hardly delt damage vs tanky targets aswell, partially becuase they couldn't affor much actuall items. Bruisers had overall less raw anti tank damage, and jungle most of the time also was a more supportive or atleast didn't scale that well damage wise(lee for example starting with good damage and then building tank). But most off all, mages were way more CD reliant and thus had far less dps, and magic damage overall beeing much less dps and more burst, so tanks could focus on armor as a single mr item usually was sufficent vs some abmbient aoe damage and to disway mages from trying to burst the tank. Now, about all tanks have %hp damage(exept malph and rammus), causeing them to be more dangerous vs other tanks, supports can afford to pick up more damage, and many of the support picks are even focused on dealing damage like brand or pyke, carryjunglers are very common, and we have alot easier acces/less trade offs for getting anti tank items like BotrK(compared to good ol madrets) or Liandrie's, and most mages, atleast the ones that are meta, have rather lowish CDs if not straight dps. For tanks(and bruisers), you usually can't get tanky for teamfights, you just can choose wether you want their mage+ambient to melt you or wether their adc should shred you, since you can only itemize properly against one of that, and at full built it feels like not even that is possible as an adc still shreds you through 5 armor items. The damage of a single adc vs tanks might not be much higher than in days of old, but the damage of a full 5 man is alot higher than it used to, and the defens later on is lower rather than higher....

I think it's also important to note that this issue applies to bruisers just as much. The only reason they are strong right now is because they dominate in the early lane, transition into a good midgame IF they have a lead and games snowball so strong that their still poor lategame doesn't really matter. But if they have to enter teamfights without a lead, or simply in the lategame, they can't do shit because they die way to quickly.

But apprently the only thing that comes to mind for you guys when some one underperformes is damage, like on Olaf for example. He currently has a bad overall performace, however he does well in the first 20 min and the drops like a stone. You're answer on PBE to that? Buff his W AS that only really matters for the early clears and duels without fixing any of his mid/lategame teamfight issues. How about finally not loosing the defstats of his ult when he needs them the most? Or boosting some base defstats, or increaseing the healincreas on his W at later ranks? NO, just slap a bit more dps on him and it'll be sure fine...

In terms of tank balance for pro and normal play, i think a good start would be removeing the dash+flash interaction that gets abused alot by Gragas and Seju. It gives them alot reliabillity especially for early ganks, which is very valuable for proplay, and it's a mechanic that i think shouldn't be in the game. it's basically 'cheating' on the hitbox of you're skill, giving you're opponents no option other than getting hit or preemptively flashing which then means you can trade a few sec CD vs 300sec of flash. Imagin Ezreal beeing able to use flash duering his ult to alter it's path...

Also, how about reverting the tank update reworks? Mao is even more generalistic than he ever was, Zac is an abomination that is near impossible to balance in one mode, let alone for pro and regular at the same time, Seju has been an balance issue ever since and lost alot of her old identity in the progress without getting any improvments on her thematic...Also, Nauti want's his niche as CC-god back, and haveing each tank with enough CC to basically chain CC on their own is not great for the game. Especially as meele, whenever modern tanks are strong, it feels like you're no longer allowed to play the game as you're CCed 24/7 in every fight.

RNG Unable7/27/2018, 3:58:26 PM13 votes

Hey Meddler, do you think Lethality items - or "Armor Pen" items are too efficient to buy on a certain champs?
Do you think Lethality items are much cheaper and powerful compared to crit items while offering great killing potential to the squishy targets? item 3142 item 3147 item 3071 item 3814 ?

Spideraxe7/27/2018, 3:57:16 PM13 votes

Also any update on lowering early Surrender vote to 4/1?

Pokemonred2007/27/2018, 4:08:54 PM13 votes

Regarding tanks, what do you think about their items? Two examples I can think of off the top of my head:

Despite item 3076's power, item 3075 can feel pretty bad to build for a late game item, since the champions who it's supposed to counter tend to find it rather irrelevant later on in the game.

item 1413 got nerfed because damage dealers like Jax preferred it to alternatives (could this have been related to the state of item 1419 and item 1412? The former's pickrate seems to be declining, and most junglers who sit on machete/talisman are champions who would buy the latter)

PsychoWhite7/27/2018, 8:50:44 PM12 votes

I'm just not having fun in many matches anymore. If every champion has so much dmg, there is no reason to sit around and learn about champ mechanics and game macro. I remember when new Irelia was released, and Nautilus had just received buffs. I played Nautilus top to try him out, I let the wave come under my tower so i can farm safely. The enemy Irelia stunned me under tower at lvl 3, she jumped in with Q aa Q aa then she tried to go out of tower ranged, I pulled her in just a little bit and she used W, I popped my shield, rooted her again in my tower where she would get hit by my minions. But the trade was still in her favor. She killed me in her next rotation. I bought some more hp but it was over, I would just die under tower after she got six. And I'm just sitting there wondering, how people get away like that, how can you dive a Nautilus, which should be a mistake with all this cc hes carrying, and get away rewarded.

ReformedVirginXD7/27/2018, 4:02:55 PM12 votes

Damage creep also occurs because Pro play exists. For example, Nidalee got her auto attack resets removed and got higher base ad, her W refund and cooldown was nerfed but got a gigantic +60 base on q, her cougar Q got nerfed and got compensated with 40% damage increase as hunt effect from 33%.

This can be seen in recent history. Take a look at Rek'sai she could easily get tremor sense buffs and tunnel buffs but instead damage ratio increase on 2 ability's just so it doesnt effect pro play, quite sad tbh.

I think for damage creep to decrease we need some serious good choices in resolve and electrocute nerfs.

Electrocute has 2 problem, its long cooldown and extra damage makes it just that good for assassins but pointless for burst mages since they lack something that fits their dps playstyle.

Petition to decrease cooldown to 30 sec and decrease damage with it.

Also jungle needs some srs tweeks.

Keystone Cowboyz7/27/2018, 3:51:14 PM10 votes

Hey Meddler, do you have any thoughts on Malzahar and Azir at the moment?

Also would like your opinion on the rune system as a whole vs the old system.

Thanks!

EDIT: oh and Jayce!

Spideraxe7/27/2018, 3:50:10 PM9 votes

Hey Meddler can I ask for some of the context behind the Lee Sin and Tahm changes on PBE since they seem like a head scratcher

PopcornBunni7/27/2018, 4:25:45 PM8 votes

If tanks are at such a lowplayrate, wouldn't the expected result be them having a higher winrate, since they're being played mostly by one-tricks and mains?

Even at sub 5% playrates they have low winrates because damage champs just contribute way more to fights than them.

Daddy Ants7/27/2018, 8:25:12 PM7 votes

{quoted}

  1. We'll be looking at damage sources that are anti tank, particularly those that counter Armor/MR. Feeling is we've pushed too far in terms of amount of pen/true damage offered. The reduction in true damage from IE's passive in 8.15 is the first part of that. Following changes will depend on how large an impact that does/doesn’t have, plus the general state of the game. Need to be careful here not to swing back so hard that stacking tanks becomes optimal again, without sufficient ways to respond to it.

Conqueror and Infinity Edge in my opinion shouldn't be giving as much True damage as they do.

Especially Conqueror.

20% of ALL damage converted to True.

CelticDK7/27/2018, 8:10:34 PM7 votes

Tanks need to be take more damage and do less damage. That's a big problem here. Every tank is a bruiser now even if it's only tank items being built.

Spideraxe7/27/2018, 3:53:55 PM7 votes

Can I also ask when we might start to see some preseason plans from either you or even safelocked

Douglas Funnie7/28/2018, 12:24:47 PM6 votes

Can tanks actually be tanky, but not do so much god damn damage for once?

Arcsecond7/27/2018, 4:15:15 PM6 votes

Hey Meddler,

Is there any hope for Diana? Diana, Akali, and Katarina used to be very balanced, but post assassin update Akali, and Katarina have been on a completely different level, and now Akali is becoming even stronger with the rework. Is the jungle going to be reverted back to 3 camps to level 3, or are level 3 junglers permanently out of the meta? Most importantly are queue times at high elo going to be increased for better matchmaking, or is that going to be left to the players through dodging?

Solari Fortune7/27/2018, 4:03:02 PM6 votes

Naut Buffs I am liking the idea of

Leona while I am excited to see am also concerned just do to her tendency to shift between meh and wtf

Any ideas of what these 2's buffs could look like?

Meep Man7/27/2018, 8:18:26 PM6 votes

Will the Tank buffs be focused on higher durability, higher utility, or higher damage? I think many of us would not want it to be the third one.

Doseqis7/27/2018, 6:19:51 PM5 votes

Anything for Shen perhaps kinda sucks having him be repeatedly nerfed because the very highest play can use him in their pro games.

Thought on balancing around pro play too? Feels like so many champs are just left in horrendous states because of pro play and it's super frusterating as someone who enjoys a few of those champs

Kobold7/27/2018, 6:28:53 PM4 votes

In regards to point 3

We'll be looking to reduce the organized team versus random team difference in effectiveness some tanks show. Not certain yet on timing of that.

What possible thoughts are being thrown around regarding Shen?

Tyberius117/27/2018, 8:31:05 PM4 votes

Meddler PLEASE do not forget about Hecarim. Thanks.

Fofi7/27/2018, 3:53:41 PM4 votes

Hey Meddlers, do you have any update on Udyr's phoenix stance? I remember you said it was underperforming compared to tiger stance. Also, any thoughts on Udyr's VGU or atleast Visual Update? His base skin is so outdated and it feels like you need to buy a skin (Not black belt aka recolor) on him for his kit to feel smoother

Karoloooo7/27/2018, 4:14:17 PM4 votes

Just a question about Sion. He seems too slow to me. In lane it's very hard to disengage or trade, same in team fights, and his ult is nearly not possible to hit lol. Sion and the defense runes stack, giving him a big disadvantage early. It's incredibly hard and confusing, on how to play this champion.

I think reducing 'w' cost and increasing shield hp would be good enough for Sion.

What's the teams plan on buffing him indirectly or directly?

PurpleHatter7/27/2018, 4:45:24 PM1 votes

Why do you seem to avoid touching Kayle?