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Quick Gameplay Thoughts: August 4

RiotMeddler·8/4/2017, 4:17:59 PM·1 votes·50,999 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 put 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

Rengar

Touching on Rengar since he gets some questions and we mentioned him much for a bit. We don't have any immediate balance plans for Rengar, we're not happy with his state long term though, which will assumedly mean some larger work at some point (might be one of the projects taken on after LB and Azir, might not, still assessing options there). As with LB he's been a challenging champion historically, offering some really high moments but never being in a great spot counterplay/balanceability wise.

Upcoming Rune Reveals

We've seen some feedback recently that our rune reveals each week have felt really heavy on damage options for keystones, leaving people wanting to see more non damage stuff and/or concerned there won't be enough non damage options in the system. Seemed like really legit concerns. Next week we'll have a couple of regular runes that are non damage options from the Inspiration tree. Week after that we should have a couple of non damage keystones (probably one from Resolve and one from Inspiration). Let us know if there's other stuff you particularly want to see some of after that.

Rune Simulator

Speaking of new Runes also wanted to talk about something else that's been asked for. We will be doing an online Rune simulator, sometime around the time Runes hit PBE most likely, that will allow you to go to a webpage and browse through runes/make a rune page using a very similar interface to the in game one. Mentioning in part since it's a question that's cropped up a number of times in the past that we haven't previously been sure we'd be doing or not.

Non Runes pre-season stuff

As we get closer to pre-season we're also starting to look at what smaller non runes projects we might also include. Should be able to expect some more talk about that in a month or so, with tweaks to some systems like starting items, possibly income systems etc possible. Details not yet certain, we're still figuring out how much work we should be trying to take on in addition to Runes, which things are most in need and which sorts of change it's most appropriate, or inappropriate, to do at the same time Runes go out.

216 Comments

ImaginesTigers8/4/2017, 4:25:16 PM14 votes

I have a bigger question: what do you guys want to do about Ryze?

He was a problem before his rework, and generally always have been, but why decide to give him an ultimate that's disproportionately powerful in pro play, and really limit what you can do with him for solo queue? I feel like it sort of hurts the players who want to bring him in as a solo queue pick but can't because he has to be reduced in effectiveness to compensate for pro play.

D'you have any thoughts/plans for Ryze?

Nebuul8/4/2017, 5:02:33 PM12 votes

Is Riot happy with the state of Tahm Kench? Every website is tracking him at 44-47% win rates. He has had almost all his original advantages removed:

  • he's got a large, cumbersome hit box, but his 200 range aa allowing him to trade over minions was removed. This results in him being helpless and stuck in minion waves
  • his self-healing has been drastically nerfed
  • his W regularly consumes the wrong target if multiple legal targets are under the cursor (priority should be 3-stack enemy champs, then allies, then minions/monsters)
  • because of the switch to depending on stacks for his passive damage, he now has a much harder time killing minions and monsters
  • his W spit regularly just spits out gold but no projectile if he consumed a low-health minion/monster

Some suggestions have been to give him back his "ranged melee" auto attack, to allow him to stack his passive on everything for damage purposes or to just make minions/monsters always take full-stack damage. It has also been suggested quite frequently to allow him to stack his passive on blue/red buffs so he can consume/stun them like champions at 3 stacks.

Leyin8/4/2017, 4:39:20 PM8 votes

What about brining back more unique jungle item paths? Because now we have Cinderhulk and Runic Echo that are just version fo other items just good for jungle, the warrior has no passive overall and the Bloodrazor feels like an item that is only used than it is needed and not a option like : runic echo or cinderhulk on Gragas or Warrior or Cinderhulk on Trundle.

The basic jungle items feels in my opinion more for the smite on champions than the choice of the goals of the jungle ( ganks, objective, fast clear ) Most of all champions use 1 jungle item, there are no big choices to counterplay.

I know it sounds big and not a big balance problem, but I think jungle items should decide about:

**"What do you want reach? What is your strength? (not based on smite effect) and How it is useful for your team?" **

and not just that you are able to gank better , better with auto-atacks and smaller fights or wards, but no smite at champions.

Overall I think the jungleitem should be a big decission making item. It is the item that is only able to buy by the jungler. It should give the player and the team the feeling that this item decides about the playstyle and not just giving the stats you need and a tool for ganking

It that an option for pre-season or more for the next mid season? ( I know it is really big and not just a simple balance problem)

Wukong Airlines8/4/2017, 6:19:17 PM8 votes

@Meddler, Recently Ghostcrawler discussed what makes a champion/rework a success, as a Talon main, I'm not satisfied with the outcome of his rework, he fits the theme yet he lost a lot post the rework, I would like to know your opinion about him and if he'll receive any changes/QoL adjustments in the near future.

and when can we expect the reveal of the new Vanguard champion? From the "Horn" teaser, I feel like he'll be a leader type of champ that will give much Auras to his Teammates, am I right?

Monstrous Yi8/4/2017, 4:30:10 PM7 votes

What do you think of Janna current state being one of the best support in the game for a while now?

HalcyonDweller8/4/2017, 4:56:23 PM6 votes

I saw somebody propose an interesting idea for hostage lobbies:

{quoted}

This is why I have been suggesting to bring back the tribunal. When 3 or more people report someone in lobby, the lobby is stopped and reset with that person being kicked from queue. They are free to requeue with no punishment until the case is reviewed by the tribunal. The tribunal sees an exact recording of the pregame lobby and vote whether the reports were justified. If they are, that person gets put on low priority queue. If they are pardoned, anyone who reported gets put on low priority queue. Every time this happens, someone is punished. This would prevent the scenarios you described.

Now I don't know if Riot would find the tribunal to be an effective option, but the idea of punishing players for trolling in champion select while protecting players from others misusing the tool to "escape" counterpicks or against off-meta players does make it seem very attractive to me.

What do you think?

Also have there been any developments with detecting or dealing with trolls in champion select?
Sw4de8/4/2017, 4:36:02 PM6 votes

Thought's about catchup xp(from kills and jungle camps)? Thoughts about the success rate of ganks? Feels so difficult to avoid ganks this entire season, with combat smites, decreased vision, higher respawn timers on camps meaning more time to gank, and gold/xp of junglers higher than ever(excluding the disaster of season 6) means more damage, so even without the help of laners, junglers can often 1v1 the solo laner in the gank even with their teammate pushed back.

Dreadlocks8/5/2017, 6:38:25 PM5 votes

Rengar

Touching on Rengar since he gets some questions and we mentioned him much for a bit. We don't have any immediate balance plans for Rengar, we're not happy with his state long term though, which will assumedly mean some larger work at some point (might be one of the projects taken on after LB and Azir, might not, still assessing options there). As with LB he's been a challenging champion historically, offering some really high moments but never being in a great spot counterplay/balanceability wise.

I know this is projected to be in the far stretched future.. But at the very least if you guy's don't do large work to him, can you at the very least do something with his Q.. Like, anything?.. This champion rework to me was bad but if we got something a little more fluid on his Q i wouldn't be so disappointed.. I just installed a file to get his old Leap sound back (a lot more_ ferocious_) <3

Just something different with Q.. at least to hold us over till you guy's find more time? Begging here <3

ProfDrDeath8/4/2017, 4:45:41 PM5 votes

Hello Meddler,

since this was quite a bit of discussion recently: What do you think about the current state of the jungle? Especially the early parts, with them superleashes and the massive XP gain from Raptors.

Is there any chance that XP gain gets reduce, for instance by making the small Raptors spawn at level 1?

ThaJabes8/5/2017, 8:01:50 AM5 votes

I have issues with Leblanc and Rengar as many other players might have as well. I don't like how telegraphed Rengars ult is. I know you guys wanted to make it this way for more counterplay, but when champions exist like poppy, tahm kench, janna, maokai, thresh, taric, braum....i could go on forever. My point is that there's plenty of counterplay and ways to stop this melee assassin, and you can even throw exhaust in there. Whenever I ult in a teamfight from a massive distance, players huddle together and can usually get an idea of my direction based on my ult changing targets, it feels really bad and I went from playing rengar often to avoiding him and only playing kha'zix when I want to experience that kind of play style.

As for Leblanc, her kit just feels really bad and difficult at the same time. I will admit I was never much of a Leblanc player to begin with, but I do play a lot of mid in plat and I think Plat elo is a decent barometer here. But the new Leblanc feels extremely hard to play and I don't even want to take the time to learn her. Whereas the old leblanc was much simpler to understand. I can't tell you how many times I have had friends that didn't fully understand her R and how her clone worked. It seems like Leblanc is made for diamond tier or higher and I always commend a player for being good at her. However, i'm pretty sure diamond tier is somewhere around the top 1-2%. As I said earlier her combos don't feel great either.

Nicram8/4/2017, 5:10:30 PM4 votes

Hello :D Can I know your opinion on Urgot ? He doesn't feel that powerful when compared to other Juggernauts. He feels a lot slower and he has not that much damage for a cost of higher tankinees. Is there any planned work on him? Little buff please ;c
EDIT: Also there is too much power put on his passive for cost of his basic abilities. His shotgun knee attack feels very powerful, but his normal basic auto is much weaker.

Alesgedesht8/4/2017, 4:31:49 PM4 votes

[about pre-season changes] Yesterday there was an interesting thread on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/6rcvij/map_change_suggestion_drake_rift_herald_baron/ about Dragons and Barons swaps; tl;dr adding more rng in the game. Haven't read any rioter comment about that, what's your position? This general concept wouldnt require much work from art side, even code maybe. It would be a nice refresh for the jungle.

Onandaga8/4/2017, 5:33:44 PM4 votes

Happy to see some word finally about Rengar possibly getting changes in the future.

SaltBlanc8/4/2017, 9:14:01 PM4 votes

@Meddler, is there any information about the coming Leblanc mini-rework you could give us? A list of the problems you try to fix would be enough though. I really hope, you won't leave the Leblanc main community without ANY information.

Thank you in advance.

Bootleg Gay8/4/2017, 4:42:52 PM3 votes

Do you think that, with all the requests and crazy expectations for future events, that there will ever be a time in which developers focus nearly entirely on reworking champions in order to bring the state of the game in line with something more balanced, healthy, or interactive? With all the reworks being wanted, or even needed in the case of those nerfed until they eventually get an update (Azir, Kalista, LeBlanc, Rengar, etc), it seems like new champions only add to the chaos for the time being.

Any idea if this would ever become at least considered?

zippyHD8/4/2017, 7:35:56 PM3 votes

@Meddler

Please take a look at the linked thread below. It's a thread with Pro players, streamers and the commubity who want Leblanc rework reverted such as(Faker,Bjergsen,Perkz,Febiven and alot more)

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/kdsQnEds-rioters-working-on-leblanc-need-to-be-more-transparent

This thread have alot of information, opinions and suggestions which you and the Riot team could use, in the near future, when your about to look at Leblanc.

Solari Fortune8/4/2017, 4:30:04 PM3 votes

Will Spellthiefs line be looked at sometime soon? It has become very discarded since it has been nerfed many times cause Mid Laners abused it and Coin atm is very powerful causing it to be dropped by a lot of supports that used it.

Also do you plan to transfer Windspeakers Blessing to the new Rune system or make a new rune that is similar but unique

Dog of Pavlov8/4/2017, 5:14:51 PM3 votes

Hi Meddler,

  1. Any plans for MissFortune Attack Speed buffs? Maybe shifting her power to make Crit more viable?

  2. Will we expect to see Twitch and Draven nerfs post-worlds?

  3. Should we expect to see any buffs for champions (mainly top laners) that rely on a lot of self-healing that have been affected by item 3076 ? E.g. - Illaoi and others?

LowkeyLoki18/5/2017, 11:51:22 PM3 votes

@Meddler (sorry for the wall of text.) On behalf of the Shaco mains discord, we want to know what your current thought on the state of him. Personally, I think he is only doing "ok" in the current meta is because of how the lethality items are a bit strong. When those get nerfed, we feel like this is going to hit Shaco way too hard. There is 3 main things we want to address.

The first being the new E changes. Personally, I started out playing Shaco full ap when i first purchased him. I think The E changes hit AP shaco top and support players a bit hard, but not because of the physical damage proc. It is because of the newer damage output as a percent damage, rather than a flat output. This makes it a finisher rather than a poke tool and this also ties into point 3.

The second item on the list is other champions having mechanics in their kit that was deemed too much for shaco to have, namely added damage in his q, free crits and stacking of our boxes. I feel that boxes need to have less of that "bounce" when you place them on another. We understand what it is like to walk into a bush full of Jack in the box's when Shaco is building full ap. Simply put, the fear of the JitB can push you away from the rest of them or into them if Shaco has great placements, however unlike Maokai's saplings which deal bonus damage in a bush, are stackable and have arguably more damage, Shaco cannot stack his boxes together. Shaco being able to oneshot is another key thing in this list. Old Shaco could oneshot and walk out of the fight. Understandably, this had to be nerfed. However, without any damage on his q he simply doesn't have enough damage, skirmishing ability, or mobility to get the job done. All of these problems sum up to one big problem.

Problem 3: Bruiser Shaco. Right now the Triforce shaco build has been nerfed, but when the lethality nerfs come (We all know they are coming.) A bruiser-esque Shaco build will become dominate again. We understand it was Riot's intention to make assassins burst windows longer and it worked phenomenally with some champs, but they all had one key thing in their kit that allowed it to work well. They all have a skirmishing/escape ability. Khazix's ult allows you to kite and re-proc your isolation damage, Kayn's E allows you to regen health and re- proc magic damage if you are shadow assassin and his ult allows you to escape. There are many others with some form of a skirmishing ability. Shaco's q isn't nearly as powerful at helping him stick to a target in order to delay his burst window and it doesn't help him to stay on target. Either Shaco needs to be allowed to weave in and out of the fight or one shot and be forced to run or die. Right now, people still build defensive and bruiser items on Shaco while taking fervor and going a dps a route of play because he simply needs to be tanky enough to get off his damage or you won't do anything unless you are fed.

(TL;DR) All in all, we feel that Shaco needs to have better tools in his kit to help him delay his burst but still feel like the trickster we all love. I personally would consider adding movement speed to his q or something to help him stay onto a target when they use their escapes.

Thanks! ~ /r/Shacomains Discord.

Spideraxe8/4/2017, 4:30:42 PM3 votes

Hey Meddler any thoughts on any thoughts on what to expect in 7.17

SmurfSupp0rt8/6/2017, 2:00:26 AM2 votes

@Meddler Ways for Riot to make him either less clunky or less hit or miss/problematic

Proposal 1 1)-Revert Q, take away ult crit. The ferocity system will compensate if you give Q a higher cooldown. or 2)-Keep new Q, take away E's casting time and enhance the viability of his ult "hunting" aspect by reverting it to what it was. Exampli gratia either a full ult revert by allowing him to see everyone again all the while being stealthed and not camouflaged and keeping the crit but still applying it to the closest enemy. Also ult notification radius.. reduce. Full ult revert.

If Riot doesn't like the reduction of the ult notification they can still go through with it by reducing the radius in which rengar can see his enemies.Promoting team oriented and coordinated game play. Cuz you know having allies that provide vision while he is close serves exactly the point im trying to convey.

Proposal 2 We all know that the outcry that led to rengars rework was based upon the "non-existent counterplay" his ult provided coupled with his easily offloadable and immense dmg he had from the previous ferocity system and scalings. Jumping from invisibility bla bla instagibbing bla bla. So what i propose is basically this:

-Revert Q and remove the atk speed from empowered Q and the bonus ad. Give same base ad values as pre rework Q --0 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+ 0 / 5 / 10 / 15 / 20% AD) but retain the same base cooldown as the current one. Maybe compensate by giving empowered Q bigger base values. Don't touch scalings cuz Rengar is gonna be spreading strokes once more.

  • Keep W as it is. As i believe if it gets touched upon it might become lackluster or be over the top depending on either number nerfs or buffs coupled with the rest of the changes. Of course datas could point otherwise. Nevertheless i am reserving judgement.
  • Either keep E as it is or reduce the casting time. Either way its cool.

And now i'll delve into the most important part of my post and as i believe the biggest issue to date about Rengar. Not his Q or his E(bola)...but his Ult and Passive. Everyone will ask "But why not his Q? It does TONS of damage, its aoe, it has crazy scalings, its an auto reset and his cooldown is asinine" and i would wholeheartedly agree but thats why im proposing a revert with significant nerfs in exchange for the fluidity and fun his kit once had You see, it wasn't really the Q or the E, but Rengar's amazing snowball potential(if played right) and ult's utility over the years(invisibility-camouflage, bonus ms, vision,crit/amplified dmg), that made him oppressive AF coupled with his ferocity stacking system( which thankfully for his enemies, got tackled successfully by Riot ). Really people's concerns were that a scary knifecat could just press one button, becoming invisible and if fed would never give a rat's a** again, if it cut you down to pieces in a matter of !milli!seconds, you being tanky or not. It honestly wasn't about his Q oneshotting you nor his E (that essentially) rooted you till the end of time. But really about the honest concern of "what are we gonna do, if we can't anticipate him?" . And so it's time i give my asinine 2 cents about these 2 problematic aspects of Rengars kit. First things first:

-Ultimate(Renamed from Thrill of the Zone back to Thrill of the Hunt) EFFECT RADIUS: 2000 / 3000 / 4000 ---> 1500/ 2500 / 3500 | COOLDOWN: 130 / 100 / 70 (cooldown remains the same) Ultimate will still largely remain unchanged until Rengar amasses all his trophies. Right down until his last and most important one. ACTIVE: Rengar channels his predatory instincts, becoming camouflaged and gaining 40% bonus movement speed for the duration. Attacking or casting most spells ends Thrill of the Hunt.
Though instead of having true vision of the closest enemy, he will have true vision of every enemy (per pre rework) but his true sight radius(the range in which he sees enemy champions) will be subject to significant nerf to compensate for the quality of vision it will provide. Promoting team coordinated play by using his team's vision. Now the pre rework true sight radius numbers elude my memory but the percentage nerf could very well vary from 10 to 20% less radius. Adding on that, the radius in which Rengar can be seen by his enemies should be respectively increased by the same amount(mind you not the ult notification radius, thats a different thing). Essentially shifting the weight of see/being seen, more favorably towards his enemies, by forcing the rengar player to use his braincells and calculate the distance, he deems appropriate, to start ulting from. Making it, effectively, an expression of skill, intelligence and game based knowledge. Increasing the movspeed the ult gives by a bit is probably a valid idea Also crit removed

Note: This all may seem hectic for the rengar player but the 5th trophy from the Bonetooth Neclace will affect the ult greatly and give it a more of a rewarding kind of evolution much like in khazix's case

-Passive Passive receives quality overhaul and the Bonetooth Necklace rewards get reverted to release state to provide dynamic and meaningful changes that also impact Ult's utility notably.

FEROCITY: Remains the same BONETOOTH NECKLACE: Rengar gains a trophy whenever a champion he damaged within 1.5 seconds dies. Rengar can only gain one trophy per enemy champion, up to 5, with an additional trophy made available through the event The Hunt is On!. Stacking nature remains the same. Will still require 5 unique enemy champion kills, to avoid old and die-hard bad habits i.e killing the weakest enemy link over and over again. But Rengar can now lose 1 Trophy/death again

1st Trophy: Extra leap range( riot would need to readjust base leap ranges again), 2nd Trophy: Extra move speed, 3rd Trophy: Either a 10% cooldown reward or a 10% ad scaling, 4th Trophy: Extra time on thrill of the hunt 5th Trophy: Rengar sheds his _Camouflage _ and now during his Ult, instead becomes Invisible instantly ( the 2 seconds of delay before he is allowed to leap are removed). While Invisible(and until the ult duration is over), Rengar continuously lets out a battleroar (while at a certain range) that reduces the movespeed of all the enemies he sees. While Thrill of the Hunt is active, entering a brush will refund half of his basic abilities cooldowns. Head of Kha'zix: Rengar keeps all of his Trophies after death.

Rain Silencia8/4/2017, 11:48:20 PM2 votes

You guys got anything for Yi yet?

He still seems to have rather toxic and simple gameplay mechanics, its really difficult to keep up with him in higher elo games because he just lacks any sort of utility and even his mobility is limited compared to all the champions that have 2 gapclosers nowadays. Id really love for him to have more options outside of just autoattacking...

IraWretched8/5/2017, 6:58:52 AM1 votes

Is the honor system working the way you guys intended? It seems like 90% of my games result in bot lane honoring each other and top honoring jungle, etc. Is there some neato data lying around about how often X role honors Y? It seems really interesting to look at.