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Quick Gameplay Thoughts: October 3

RiotMeddler·10/3/2018, 3:33:18 PM·1 votes·162,980 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 things we've been trying on Karma

For anyone that missed it Neurocat posted a piece on the NA dev corner earlier this week talking through some of the changes we've been trying for Karma. We wanted to see if the clothesline gameplay that Karma used to have years ago (tether to an ally, then hit enemies with the tether to CC them) could potentially be brought back. It was really distinct and could be pretty cool to play with. Conclusion we came to was that, unfortunately, while it's a cool sort of spell, it doesn't fit with a squishy caster who wants to be at a distance from he enemy team. Would be a good skill to put on someone who goes into the enemy team more (e.g. diving fighter or initiating tank) and we'll keep an eye out for a fit somewhere on a new or updated kit. Run through on the different major versions we tried below.

Longer version: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/KaRmzNlN-clothesline-karma-mini-retrospective

Ranked Skin reward if you don't own the champ in question

Since it's the time of year this question crops up a fair bit: If you don't own the champion that gets a Victorious skin, but you do qualify for the skin by being Gold+ in ranked, then you'll get given both the skin and the champion themselves. So, for example, last year, if you were Gold at the end of the ranked season, but didn't own Graves, you were given both Graves and Victorious Graves.

Some context on 8.20 balance changes

We're still more focused on preseason than the next couple of patches. 8.20 will have some balance work in it though. Thoughts on changes on the PBE, or probably on it soon, below. As usual some of this stuff will likely change as it gets tested.

Nerfs:

  • DH - Too strong early for a scaling rune. Looking at cutting early base damage as a result, Electrocute should have a longer period where it's the stronger pick. Also seeing it put out a bit much ranged harass for low risk early too, possibly ranged and melee values get adjusted differently. Scaling will likely remain the same.
  • Ahri - Rank 1 and 2 ult CD up, reducing her ability to snowball early and general safety. Same ult CD at max rank.
  • Graves - Looking at his AA AD ratio, with thinking being his scaling doesn't need to be as good as it currently is given he's strong early. Not concerned about nerfing him and Dark Harvest in the same patch given his performance with other keystones is also strong.
  • Nami - Currently looking at the degree to which her healing later in the laning phase can be pretty dominant, having a chilling effect on interaction. Testing a lower heal rank up on the W as a result (damage unchanged)
  • Sion - His recent W buff to permanent HP gained effectively also increased his regen, given the extra health acquired adds to current health as well as max. Likely cutting his HP5 down a bit to compensate (goal was to buff his HP stacking, not his laning sustainability)
  • Evelynn - Looking at reducing her ability to kill squishies without using her charm when she isn't pretty fed. Possible target as a result is R base damage. As with Graves not worried about hitting her and DH at the same time, given she also does well with other keystones.
  • Jhin - His best builds at present are both the fastest and some of the hardest hitting. Looking at a lower AS to damage ratio as a result, with some compensation elsewhere to make it so there's more of a trade off between mobility and damage.

Buff:

  • Corki - Aiming to get some changes in to help him out, though moderately likely those take a bit longer and end up in 8.21 instead. Possible directions we'll test include buffs to the Package and to his ult, though unlikely we do both at the same time.

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

297 Comments

Sir Rouge10/3/2018, 3:53:01 PM73 votes

Context on not nerfing Akali Irelia Kaisa Lucian Alistar Thresh for 8.20? They're all bonkers in soloq (most of them are also broken P/B or very good in competitive in 8.19, so that's a big hint).

Edit: Also pretty sad that you didn't nerf/further nerf Akali Kaisa Alistar even though you knew they were probably going to be problematic in pro play. They were too good in both soloq and pro play, they should have been nerfed in 8.19. You even said Alistar was too good in pro play in one of your post, the same post you said no champions should be very close to P/B status.

InTheory10/3/2018, 3:41:07 PM39 votes

I said it before and I say it again: The day you decide to nerf Nami officially shows how insane the balance team is. The fact that players actually asked for nerfs to Nami because they were reading a Number > 50% is a confession of failure on players’ side as well. That Nami evolved a high winrate is caused by a bunch of factors:

  • nerfs to enchanters on a global level (cutting heal & shield power) did not affect her as much
  • nerfs to shield enchanters (shield durations, decay) did not affect her at all
  • nerfs to enchanters on an individual level when they provided too much peel for their marksmen without bringing anything else to the table did not affect her of course
  • nerfs to supports that were pick/ban in LC$ (Tahm Kench, Braum, Rakan, Shen) did not affect her
  • nerfs to support itemization resulting in one less health pot at the beginning of the game did not affect her as much

Result: The competition around Nami on the support position has systematically been nerfed to a point where supports are slaves again. All the points that I mentioned that are nerfs to the support position but still favors Nami because she is most likely to play against an opponent that suffered way more from any sort of nerfs before. Asking to nerf Nami is asking to further nerf the support position. You want to be autofilled even more into the support position? Go ahead and ask for further support nerfs.

Nami has always been top tier in terms of

  • Gameplay Design: She’s no stupid heal/shield bot but is really fun to play. The player can actually decide to play passively or aggressively depending on circumstances and how lane plays out early without being dictated one playstyle by the “balance” team.

  • Fairness: Even though she has an over average high winrate she remains a super low ban rate. Players always liked to play against a Nami and even do so when she’s that strong compared to her direct competitors.

  • Balance: Nami barely ever found her way into patch notes outside of a) bug fixes or b) general stat changes that affected a whole bunch of champions at the same time anyway. Even the last real buff was surprising and unnecessary but the “balance” team went through with it anyway for reasons.

I asked several times that if they’d ever think about nerfing Nami they should just revert her Q buff. She was balanced before that change, rather balanced even afterwards. Now they go again with some experimental changes because that has always worked out as we all know.

Taking a look at top supports in diamond plus via leagueofgraphs.com shows that the top supports are all focused on either poke-damage or all-in damage. Nami with her strength to heal up poke damage especially in a situation where she can get the double bounce and her strength to counter all-ins if played properly put her on top of the current meta. All that is not because her numbers are good but because her gameplay favors the meta and everything that could do the same job is basically nerfed to the ground. Asking to nerf Nami because of that is basically asking

#PLEASE RIOT WE NEED MORE DAMAGE ORIENTED SUPPORTS PLEASE ADD MORE DAMAGE TO THE GAME.

If you ask me you should fire move whoever came up with that nerf to a different area in the company like the cafeteria. But make sure to not let them pile food because they don’t really know how to balance things properly.

Hadriel10/3/2018, 4:28:06 PM29 votes

If the concern with Nami is how much her healing is preventing interaction during the laning phase, why isn't there some sort of way of compensating for the loss, such as tinkering with the ratio on W? I just don't understand why you've been so heavyhanded with enchanter balance when they aren't the champions that have been causing distortions in the game. The meta is always Alistar Braum with some special guests unless you miss the mark olympically on item balance (Ardent Censer, Redemption).

Speaking of ratios, a few weeks ago you guys talked about preserving and encouraging off-meta builds. On the subject of Corki, every time you introduced nerfs in the past you unduly nerfed AP ratios, in fact nerfed the AP ratios more than you did AD ones for some unfathomable reason. AP Corki had a distinct playstyle to AD Corki that you guys all but killed with balance passes. Is it possible Corki gets the Shyvana treatment from a few patches ago? Corki's overnerfed ratios are, for example, the reason why he can't itemize for magic penetration he would benefit from, and his abilities unfairly scale much harder with AD than AP (package in particular is obscene, but also true of Q and R) considering AD contributes to auto damage that AP Corki doesn't get to tap into. This was a fun playstyle that was stifled and is sorely missed.

Support 4 Lyfe10/3/2018, 5:39:06 PM28 votes

I just want to say that Nami's W the most mana-expensive (non-ult) ability in the game, its heal part also scales very poorly, with a measly 35% ap ratio, I mean she already struggles pretty hard early game with mana management and how high of a cooldown W has before cdr.

Also, it's not one of those spells that you can spam in lane, it has a really high, static cooldown compared to every other poke ability (Lux's E, Brand's W, Sona's Q, Soraka's Q) and the high mana cost makes it impossible to spam in lane.

Nami isn't the problem, nerfing every other enchanter, their items and their abilities, while also nerfing late game, scaling adcs is the problem.

Nami synergizes really well with early game adcs and that's why her winrate is a little high (it's not higher than Kassadin (who still hasn't been adressed), Graves or Ahri), her ban rate is less than 0.9% GLOBALLY, she's a win more or lose hard support.

Plus, Nami literally hasn't received a buff or a nerf ever since season 5, that's how balanced Nami is and that shows that the problem isn't with Nami, the current one-shot/damage creep meta is the problem.

For context:

Nami had a 49.5% winrate and a 6-7% popularity around patch 8.5-8.6.

After that they:

  • gutted crit.

  • buffed Jhin.

  • released Kaisa.

  • buffed Lucian 2 times.

  • nerfed ADCs sustain.

  • buffed Ignite.

  • nerfed Heal.

  • released Conquereor (cough Draven cough MF).

  • released Stormrazor, which is insane on early game adcs.

  • nerfed Sona, Karma, Janna, Lulu, Taric, Rakan, TK, Morgana, Braum (aka every single peeling support besides Soraka).

  • nerfed every Forbidden Idol item (Mikael's, Redemption, Arden Censer).

  • buffed early game supports like Thresh, Leona, Nautilus and Pyke.

  • nerfed enchanters scalings (doesn't really matter for Nami's performance).

  • they buffed Athene's, Nami's best item.

Wee Petal10/3/2018, 4:04:28 PM19 votes

Any chance of an update on Zyra's plant targeting bug, is it fixed for the next patch? It's getting super frustrating having this bug happen nearly every single game. The bug only happens when the plant is attacking the nearest object to it and that object happens to be untargetable.

For reference, this is the current list of things the plants can target but not attack, that I know of.

Lulu's Pix. Thresh's souls. Cait's traps. Bard's Meeps. Synda's balls. Elise's Volitile Spiderling. Coins from Coin. Honeyfruit's blobs. Xayah's feathers. Shen's spooky sword thingy. Orianna's ball. Dead Champions under GA's effect. Poros. Jinx's Chompers. Stone slab with text on by blue nexus.

I'm sure there's more. It's pretty much anything that exists as a solid object in the game in some form but is not normally targetable.

And yes, that last one is correct. https://gfycat.com/RichSolidAngelwingmussel

It's a dumb bug that while is not game-breaking, it does negatively effect a lot of games Zyra is in and as such is incredibly frustrating.

There's also the minion aggro bug, where plants attacking a champion will draw minion aggro to Zyra, this is not intended (or at least went undocumented in the patch notes). On top of this there seems to be a weird minion aggro bug with Zyra's AAs, she can AA a minion while her wave and an enemy wave are attacking each other and momentarily draw minion aggro to her for ~1s before, 99% sure that's not intended either.

And rank 4 and 5 E doesn't apply a high priority mark so plants do not attack E'd targets (instead either continuing attacking the previous mark or the nearest target to the plants). Ranks 1-3 work fine.

2 of these bugs (aggro and targeting) have been in the game for months (?) now. The E bug I actually think has been in the game for nearly a year at least, but it's incredibly hard to notice and doesn't really effect much.

Elewd10/3/2018, 5:13:11 PM10 votes

I have to ask, How are Fixes to the Zyra plant AI bugs coming along? she almost feels unplayable unless you build for burst damage which shouldn't be her strongpoint.

Salvor Hardın10/3/2018, 3:54:51 PM9 votes

You mentioned changes to RekSai to make it more attractive to new players if I'm not mistaken. Anything to say about that?

TomiMan710/3/2018, 10:29:28 PM8 votes

Jhin - His best builds at present are both the fastest and some of the hardest hitting. Looking at a lower AS to damage ratio as a result, with some compensation elsewhere to make it so there's more of a trade off between mobility and damage.

Just.Nerf.His.Movespeed.Already. [zombie-brand-mindblown] [zombie-brand-facepalm]

OtterlyLost10/3/2018, 4:06:37 PM8 votes

I wish you wouldn't nerf Nami. She isn't especially stronger than she's always been; it's just the systematic nerf of her competitors that put her on top. Couldn't you instead look at buffing the other enchanters back up so that she has competition. Or find a way to encourage players to play things like Alistar, Thresh, and Leona, who counter her.

IxtaliKing10/3/2018, 3:46:04 PM7 votes

Hey Meddler, a few questions regarding Karma's update:

  1. I've seen a few posts on twitter regarding Quinn and Fiora getting new walking/running animations, can we expect the same for Karma with her update?
  2. Will we finally be getting a shield animation?
  3. How do you feel about Karma's rework so far from your play tests?
Linna Excel10/3/2018, 4:56:08 PM6 votes

Meddler, is riot going to look into Shyvana any time soon?

She's kind of unplayable and getting crowded out of the jungle right now. She can't gank early. Her damage is more towards DPS and she lacks CC, so that makes things harder (note I'm fine with these two aspects of her kit). She can't duel as well as she used to. The jungle timers got nerfed so she can't powerfarm as well as the past.

There are reasons why someone who should be one of your most popular champs based on theme alone is pretty much forgotten about.

Spideraxe10/3/2018, 3:39:28 PM4 votes

Also how have you enjoyed Worlds so far? Games have been relatively enjoyable for me so far, Darius being picked was super hype, any red flags you seen so far

AgentAl2110/3/2018, 4:25:21 PM3 votes

Hi there,any potential changes to Sona gameplay,visual or lorewise planned ?

I º oºI10/3/2018, 4:29:11 PM3 votes

Hey Meddler, something bugs me about Ziggs. I've been playing Ziggs regularly since season 3 and his passive AA is basically only used for towers and lasthitting. What do you think about giving his passive AA additional range? It can't be used for trading right now because you will get out damaged by minion aggro + enemy spells since Ziggs has to get way too close to hit it. One could say it's high risk high reward, but the risk is too high because Ziggs simply dies if he gets in AA range, especially late game. PLEASE think about giving it like 100 additional range so he can finally compete with outperforming Champs like Syndra and Orianna.

Galiö10/3/2018, 3:40:38 PM3 votes

Hoping the corki buffs help him out well. His last set of buffs were actually kinda big and he is still OK in winrate and not played much.

Even though I feel Corki is just one of those champs that isnt played in solo Q regardless of being OP or not.

Martian Spartan10/4/2018, 1:28:31 AM3 votes

udyr

Sexy Jack Rabbit10/4/2018, 7:10:23 AM3 votes

Would bother AT LEAST addressing Kai'sa? She's a menace in Solo Queue right now and I hate seeing her crap design all the time.

Flemman10/3/2018, 4:28:55 PM2 votes

Any new about the pyke change that were scheduldes after last patch buff.

If I remember, those buff were there so you could do a follow up adjustement just after so he his forced to build less tanky

Eeyore10/3/2018, 3:56:18 PM2 votes

Conclusion we came to was that, unfortunately, while it's a cool sort of spell, it doesn't fit with a squishy caster who wants to be at a distance from he enemy team.

I think the conflict arises in that Karma's fantasy back then wasn't to be a squishy enchanter who hides at the back, nor is that who she is in the lore and why people were so angry when her lore was butchered during Irelia's rework. She was a caster-naut, and her rework and subsequent balance changes kept removing that.

Jabalor10/3/2018, 3:59:12 PM2 votes

Oi Meddler what happened to the Urgot ult indicator? Was it shelved, scrapped, postponed?

Mezo10/3/2018, 4:00:10 PM1 votes

can you consider adding a new sorcery keystone works like old xerath W? "increase range for one ability with 35% magic pen and refund the mana cost for this ability" 50 seconds cooldown and refund 5 second of this cooldown after hitting champions with ability. i think it will be interesting keystone for some mages to play around it, especially it doesn't add free dmg like aery or arcane comet.