Patch Chat with the Playtest Team - 6.23, Shyvana, Anivia, and Malzahar mini-updates

RiotAesah·Nov 25, 2016·1 votes·30,181 views

Hey guys! Welcome to Patch Chat, a Dev Corner thread we make to talk about our new patches every two weeks: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-623-notes

I'm Aesah on Riot's Playtest Team, a group of Diamond+ players who play with the new champions, reworks, balance tweaks, items, and map updates before they are released. It's our job to the test the changes that our designers come up with and ensure that we're introducing positive changes to LoL in terms of both balance and fun. We'll be watching this thread to answer as many questions as we can.

While we're still waiting to see how the crazy updates in 6.22 shake out, but 6.23 brings some new interesting additions. The biggest one of note is Shyvana, who can now spit fireballs after ulting to play up her dragon fantasy. Anivia's control mage aspects are emphasized at the cost of some of her burst, while Malzahar's voidlings should have more clarity. Out fo the assassin update, Akali in particular was struggling and recieved some buffs. Shen recieved small defensive stat buffs as well. A few underused items in Blade of the Ruined King, Guinsoo's Rageblade, and Sterak's Gage were improved and will be a bit more appealing to champions that were considering them before. And of course, we're still working on improving the new client!

All of us on the Playtest Team are avid gamers so feel free to talk to us as fellow LoL players!

Adam "Afic" Cohen Ben “Cezium” Burkhardt Don “Aesah” Ding Nicolas “Gleeb” Haddad Dan “penguin” Hardison Miles “Daydreamin” Hoard Bao “Bao” Lam Robert “ROBERTxLEE” Lee Nicholas “Nickwu” Smith Blake “S0be” Soberanis Trevor “ThEntropist” Thernes

203 Comments

Yuumi or LoseNov 25, 201614 votes

Any thoughts on Heimerdinger? He's been untouched for so long and doesn't see play at tournaments, rarely played on ranked or even norms, but has a decent winrate. Heisondong says that Heimer struggles because you have to rely on your enemy not knowing what to do against Heimer to make him work. Is there a way to equalize?

Also, any news on Ohmwrecker or will we finally see the item being deleted?

RiotAesahNov 25, 20162 votes

Not sure about Heimerdinger although I agree he needs to be looked at.

We've been discussing possible changes to Ohmwrecker to make it less non-existent

LùmenNov 25, 20163 votes

I know there's been a little bit of dicussion over his passive and it's hidden, meaningful effects but.. It's just so underwhelming. Yasuo gets double % crit chance and a shield every once in a while, Jinx becomes sonic when she scores a takedown, Kled has an invincible cowardly lizard and the list goes on.. I know that Heimerdinger is unique in terms of his ability to siege in such a reliable way and that his kit is overloaded in a good way, but I just want to see more interaction. His passive feels like untouched void.

SkyroarNov 25, 201613 votes

Why are Malz voidlings instant-killed by AoE?

Cosmic WarperNov 25, 20163 votes

{quoted}

Why are Malz voidlings instant-killed by AoE?

This. It's very frustraing.

GinoSoldierNov 25, 20168 votes

'Morning guys! No questions from me, but wanted to say this is a great idea. Thanks for taking the time for this! [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

RiotAesahNov 25, 20164 votes

Yep we do this for all patches every other Wednesday!

(I dropped the ball a bit on this one and it's a bit late)

lightdragoon88Nov 26, 20166 votes

Malzahar is now crap tier...Thanks Rito. [slayer-jinx-unamused]

This change needs to be reverted or needs SERIOUS buffs...like not being **ONE SHOT BY EVERYTHING. **

Sahn UzalNov 25, 20164 votes

How do y'all feel Rengar will be doing next patch? In a good spot? Still too strong? Tacos?

RiotAesahNov 25, 20168 votes

Rengar seems to be in a pretty good spot as far as I can tell- he'll see more success as people start disassociating his playstyle with old Rengar as well as just learning him in general.

I fuckin love tacos dude

RivuoNov 25, 20163 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Aesah,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=AfkzYAfg,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2016-11-25T16:53:10.836+0000)

Rengar seems to be in a pretty good spot as far as I can tell- he'll see more success as people start disassociating his playstyle with old Rengar as well as just learning him in general.

I fuckin love tacos dude

Rengars in a pretty good spot? he has like a 80% ban rate...

ThefrostyvikingNov 25, 20163 votes

Hello! Just to get started i'll write that i think this is a great idea and i am thankful for it.

And so i wish to ask, what are your thought's on akali? I have seen a lot of ....sad people writing about the fact that her new passive gradually becomes quite useless, her damage taking too much time to deal and it's too little for an assassin. I am quite curious to what a diamond would think about all this for i have no idea x)

But for something that i have tried a bit more myself, shyvana. I feel that she struggles with her W seeing that she must always choose if she wants mobility or damage. This because she lacks a non ultimate gap closer forcing her to use W to catch up to people she wants to gank but by the time she reaches them the W will be over leaving her with quite little damage. Her current passive needs her to take 3 dragons or something in order to not be inferior to her previous passive and it seems quite strange. I personally enjoy playing shyvana but i find myself struggling a lot from when the enemy team is able to kite even shortly and the fact that i can't really pressure the enemy laners since they can run away before i can go near them. Her greatest virtue seems to be a relatively quick clearing speed and invades that rely on the enemy not warding their jungle since if she gets caught in there she will most likely die x)

I cant but help to feel that shyvana's kit is a bit strange for a jungler. It seems more reasonable to play top but there are a lot that simply beat her silly 1v1, darius and fiora for two. Any thoughts on all this?

Thanks for reading.

RiotAesahNov 25, 20165 votes

Akali's new passive being useless only applies if you can't land two autoattacks, but given the increased reliability on W that seems fairly unlikely. We were definitely off-base on exactly how powerful the W would be though and released her too weak, hence buffs in 6.23. I expect this to be enough, but as someone with hundreds of Akali games myself, I'll be watching her closely to see if more are needed.

About Shyvana I'm not an expert there but her new dragon E gives her additional power while she's being kited.

HextenNov 26, 20167 votes

Akali is not in a state where number changes are going to fix her. She is having mechanical issues. Against competent opponents, they will not wait around Akali's shroud for her cooldowns, so shroud working is not as great as you would think it is. Especially given her dashing nature, her shroud doesn't follow with her hence it's not exactly working at full effect. Her shroud works if the opponent just sits in the shroud expecting to duel her one on one, but in practice, no competent player is going to do that. They will move away from shroud and kite.

While Akali sits in shroud waiting for cooldowns for a second rotation, the target can move away from shroud since it's stationary. Hence Akali has to dash again inorder to stick onto the target but now she is forced out of her shroud and can't wait for her rotations anymore. if she stays in the shroud, the target just escapes out of her dash range, hence she cannot re-engage for a second rotation. This just seems counter-intuitive to her whole playstyle, which is to stick to targets. The ultimate range nerf also doesn't help with this as well. In earlier seasons, this shroud gameplay worked much better because she had better picking power with the original ultimate range in combination of her shroud. Given the original bursty nature of her ultimate, lowering the range to 700 made sense since it could be used to train a target down, R again and again and not spacing out R's to proc her Q's. But now since the bursty nature of her ultimate is removed, it makes more sense to space out her R's with triggering her Q's hence restoring the original ultimate range would help facilitate the intended playstyle much more better.

Akali's winrate for both top and mid before the update was a solid ~50%. She is far weaker overall in all aspects kit wise. Again, as you said, shroud working doesn't make up how much power Akali lost as a result and the winrate shows this.

Akali is now all about relying on triggering her Q and passive as her main source of damage, not her ultimate. Given the ultimate does negligible damage now compared to before, is there any point in the ultimate doing damage to begin with? Would it be better to completely shift off the damage of the ultimate and boost it's utility nature such as the range? This would give Akali the tools to achieve her intended playstyle of using R's to trigger Q's/passive. Keeping the damage on the ultimate doesn't help Akali do anything because R spamming doesn't work anymore, and it feels like it's leftover power that should be re-allocated somewhere else.

Nero of VaelNov 27, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Aesah,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=AfkzYAfg,comment-id=00080001,timestamp=2016-11-25T16:59:18.100+0000)

About Shyvana I'm not an expert there but her new dragon E gives her additional power while she's being kited.

This is only true while her ultimate- the longest cooldown she's got- is active. You want to fight as a dragon obviously but that option is not always available. Only being able to fight during a limited ult is a problem. I mentioned in an earlier post that we should somehow revisit our approach to her ultimate and passive and their relation to one another. I have an idea that involves something with taking dragons, once the third one is slain, her ultimate becomes a toggle. Don't get me wrong she still needs more on the way of defense given her kit style so perhaps the armor/mr values could be adjusted a tiny bit. Also, playing her in Twisted Treeline 3v3 was a nightmare. All her passive was good for is 5/5 armor/MR with no drake. That's a little ridiculous.

TeCoolMageNov 27, 20163 votes

Don Ding is such a weird but cool name

On a more related note Anivia has bad itemization, she usually wants Rod of Ages + Seraph's Embrace over either + Morellonomicon, or all 3. All the other CDR items are niche defensive items (Abyssal Scepter, Zhonya's). Losing MPen boots means having even less ability to do damage early game, along with CDR runes.

Can we get an offensive CDR item without mana? For LB+Katarina against low magic damage comps, tear users, infinite mana sustain supports, etc?

Also will we be seeing further wall buffs?

Finally: Anivia's identity should be a control CARRY mage, keep in mind that champions like Janna and Zilean are control SUPPORT mages. The distinction is important as Anivia's damage shouldn't be super reliable but it also shouldn't have extremely steep requirements / be sparse.

RiotplaytestpenguinNov 28, 20165 votes

If Anivia is underperforming the designer will be following up. Sometimes you have to take short-term pain for a long-term better game (and I say that as the resident Anivia main :'( )

TeCoolMageNov 28, 20161 votes

yeah :( I heard from Phroxz0n in reddit that he can't make any changes in 6.24 so he has to do so in 7.1 (I think, there shouldn't be a 6.25)

The Liandries buff is good, though. I hope tear+rod users get better access to CDR someday.

Another question: What's your stance on high mana champions being gated by tear? Doesn't it kill build diversity if there's only 1 AP item that gives you 1k mana, and reduces costs by 25%? Why can't there be an item that works as an alternative to tear for snowballing?

RiotplaytestpenguinNov 28, 20164 votes

I think that Tear gating mana champions is actually good for the game because mana champions have historically been very strong -- and ensuring that catalyst is a strong first buy and a tear is a weak one makes for interesting lane states where Ryze/Anivia can actually be bullied.

AnìvìaNov 28, 20161 votes

So basicaly you are saying that anivia is changed(nerfed) now in a way to have more balanceoptions in the future that would put her in a better healthier spot like you try to achieve with the assasins? Or is the last part more about the game as a whole, less so for anivia?

I could life with the the first option as long as it doesn't take 3 month up to 4.5 Years like it did with ryze. :P In the end of the (hopefully not so far away) day I just want her to be balanced. Thanks for the answer.

RiotplaytestpenguinNov 28, 20163 votes

Yes, whenever there's a pattern change like this it's because the existing pattern was deemed problematic. Her RE/ER wasn't okay in terms of playing against, and too much of the character was balanced around it.

Chromatic EagleNov 25, 20162 votes

Might still be early, but what's your thoughts on the assassin rework? Some seem more successful than other but I'm not sure if many are happy with them.

RiotAesahNov 25, 20167 votes

I think it was a great success! There are a ton of working parts to 6.22 and given the amount of resources/time we could reasonably allocate to it, obviously it wasn't PERFECT but overall was fantastic.

OlscaNov 25, 20163 votes

Agreed, as a lvl 7 talon, I fucking love what you did with him.

DwarvenGiantNov 25, 20163 votes

I have yet to try out all of the Assassin changes myself, but I can say that my friend, as a once-Katarina-main, said that the work you did on her is great. He's really enjoying her.

Huang ShaotianNov 25, 20162 votes

What's the plan with redemption? Too strong, too weak, just right?

Why are AP mids destroying so hard now?

Riotvo1d seekerNov 25, 20169 votes

I don't believe there are any plans to make changes to the item yet, but my personal opinion is that item 3107 is on the strong side because of how cheap the item is and how powerful the active is.

AP mids are doing exceptionally well across the board for two main reasons:

Removal of MR aura on Aegis allows them to reliably burst low MR targets (such as ADCs) who aren't itemizing MR outside of runes and maybe a qss / hexdrinker later in their build.
Many of the reworked assassins that often go mid lane, such as Talon, Katarina, and Akali, have low win rates as a result of either being undertuned in Akali's case or very difficult to play for champions like Katarina. Players who have significant experience on AP mids benefit from going against opponents who are not fully comfortable playing the newly reworked champions.

IAmNeverViableNov 25, 20162 votes

Couple of question.

How Singed be after rylai changes? Kind of a big core item to singed.
How Urgot been doing? Seem everyone forgot him. (Still want Star Guardian Urgot)
Any possible changes to Syndra? Felt too punishing to not get hit by her q,e and yet lose 70-90% to the squishy's hp by a single ult. Any changes to reward Syndra for actually hitting her skill shot.
Do you think Crits are overtune? I think crit chance and ie synchronize too well. I felt adc prefer crit over atk spd/ sustain build. An example, Vayne who known for tank shredder as on-hit effect, prefer crit build to kill their target.
Do you think there is too much damage in game? I felt that there's too much damage in the game. Getting two shot felt bad and most champion can do that when 2-4 items in. I remember in season 3-4 champion take 4-6 hits to actually kill someone after 3-5 items in. I would like to react to the damage i taken rather than dying in 2 seconds. Longer teamfight is funner than pressing faster to win.
Support experiment. Do you have any analysis or hypothesis on the experiment? For me, I have couple of reason why players don't pick support.
1. The itemization does not feel very impactful. Tank support items does not tank as well as true tank items. Utility support only have very few option to pick on. Mostly on active item. Hard to see the amount of effectiveness on the item unless your a dedicated support main.
2. Really felt like a half a player and useless when behind. Players want visible control over the game. Losing as support felt awful because you had no control over it, totally reliant on the carries to not messed up. No impact beside vision and peeling. Reason why most people don't want to ranked as support because they can't control their team or map. Need objectives for support.
3. Too little damage and squishy. Late game, support get destroy quick and can't output noticeable damage as other squishy or tank. Support can't 1v1 and they can't ward in safely without escort.

Yandere YandereNov 25, 20161 votes

What are your opinions on preseason so far? Are Assassins too strong/weak? Is the jungle balanced? Did the reworks hit their marks? Something more off-topic and personal but what are your opinions about Talon and Yasuo atm? Some ppl even say Yasuo needs a small rework, any thoughts about that? (Sry for so much questions >.<)

RiotplaytestpenguinNov 28, 20166 votes

Very big list of questions but I'll jot down my overall thoughts

Assassins are in a decent spot IMO, some might be too frustrating due to ban/winrate discrepancy () but overall I feel they're more sustainable for the game. Lots of them are in a mucked state of balance RN but I think they're better characters for the future.
I think the jungle is very funky rn, it's similar to last season's jungle in that if you farm everything you are a god, but everything feels more calculated because if you fail a gank and your opponent takes most of your camps then you're pretty screwed for a long time. I generally like it much more
I absolutely hate Yasuo to the point where I don't like talking about him if I'm not forced to. I don't think he needs a rework, he's just a frustrating character.

Nameless VoiceNov 28, 20168 votes

I don't understand why a character being so frustrating that a huge percentage of the player base despise him isn't considered grounds for a rework.

Such a champion is damaging players' enjoyment of the game far more than any balance issue or champion who doesn't reach their full potential.

Having fun but not at the expense of others is right there in the Summoner's Code, yet that's exactly what leaving Yasuon in the game in his current state is doing - his players get to have fun at the expense of everyone else.

Kei143Nov 28, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Nameless Voice,realm=EUW,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=AfkzYAfg,comment-id=002100000002,timestamp=2016-11-28T11:26:31.242+0000)

I don't understand why a character being so frustrating that a huge percentage of the player base despise him isn't considered grounds for a rework.

Such a champion is damaging players' enjoyment of the game far more than any balance issue or champion who doesn't reach their full potential.

Having fun but not at the expense of others is right there in the Summoner's Code, yet that's exactly what leaving Yasuon in the game in his current state is doing - his players get to have fun at the expense of everyone else.

Those are designer jobs, not the jobs of play test. So the opinion is really directed to the wrong place.

There could also be stuff in the works and hes not allowed to say it.

Arìes WíndNov 28, 20161 votes

When you are a rioter don't you think its kinda scary and hurtfull when you says things like that of a champion played by so many dedicated players ? IDK you are doing like any low elo players in the forum, just saying some champions shouldn't exist. The thing is it was the same for every champion That had a power era in the game (zed, rengo etc..). So why Riot doesnt bring solutions instead of shirting on the champions they ironicly created themselves because all your comments on yasuo are just ridiculous to read (he is trully fustrating i know). Not mentionning the fact your hate on yasuo goes as far in patchnotes. Aren't you the Ones who are supposed to calm down players instead off setting fire again and again. Im a main since season 5 and god its so Damn bad to play m'y champion right now because people decided it will be the hated one for the next mounths. Sorry for my english hope you understand its not about flaming but expressing my general feeling as a legit yasuo player who just want to hasagi in peace like when i discovered LOL whit this champion in season 5.

RiotplaytestpenguinNov 28, 20165 votes

Nah, I have a rule where if I don't hate some aspect of a character it probably means they aren't a very functional character ;).

Photos of GhostsNov 28, 20162 votes

But if they ruin the game for us and take away our will to play it, they're probably a counterproductive character.

La BelloNov 25, 20161 votes

So your shipping Lux's new skin which will obviously inflate her playrate but there are no buffs/nerfs or mini reworks coming along with it.

Does this mean that you think Lux's current state of balance is healthy? Are there ever plans for a update to her and if you were to update her would you try to ship her to more of a supportive cliche(bottom support) or offensive one(mid)? would the Snare of Laser Death combo (Q>E+R)ever get touched?

RiotAesahNov 26, 20164 votes

I'm not fond of Lux's gameplay but our skins team doesn't work with our design team to synchronize skins with buffs (most of which are in development for a month+)- I feel like if it would go against our principles if that was a common thing.

ULTRAF0RCENov 26, 20162 votes

What is it about Lux's gameplay that you dislike?

La BelloNov 26, 20164 votes

I cant speak for him but MY personal gripes are that...

near impossible to encroach on and can stay far far behind her backline. The bonus damage on her passive isnt that vital to her DPS rotation so good players will never miss-position themselves to try to proc it.

As with all Artillery mages and most Artillery champions they have this random skill that encourages them to leave thier "safe space"and attempt to land an auto or two Ziggs Xerath Varus . I know this is often a balance decision but TO ME it feels forced and is lost potential where there could be something better that accentuated or complemented the characters kit in a different way.

Lux is also one of the few characters in the game where item 3041 is a through and through viable choice due to how hard it is to kill her. If your melee you have no choice but to eat a point blank snare and sometimes a laser which allows her team to counter attack OR cover her escape with a Lucent singularity if the target could survive the latter.

There isnt much counterplay to her E earlygame without mobility skills because the travel time and the AOE of the skill.

Mid-Late game her gameplay is akin to Nidalee where it doesnt matter if you dodged 80 skillshots she only needs to hit that one binding.

Yes all her abilities are skill shots but Prismatic barrier cant ever "miss" Lux herself,Lucent Singularity is fairly consistent poke at a mid range and Q sets up for everything else so Lux can expend all the skills she wants but so long as she holds onto Q her threat level and safety level remain quite high.

But all this aside I definitely dont think she needs a full on rework I think she just needs her damage spread out . I dont think the Q>E-R should be a full on 100-0 unless fed or 6 item late. She should have to overstep her boundaries a bit to get kills and her whole "illuminate the battlefield"/ Cheerleader gimmick should be built upon.

ULTRAF0RCENov 26, 20161 votes

What do you think about having stuff like some form of stealth as her w albeit one that doesn't give a movement speed boost and acts mostly just as a avoid auto attacks system? With the conceit being that she requires two e detonations along with a q e r combo in most cases to kill another squishy mage

Also what aspects of illuminate the battlefield or cheerleading would you want to have with her that would make you like her more?

La BelloNov 26, 20162 votes

Like I said I dont think she needs a MAJOR OVERHAUL just some adjustments to make her less hair pulley.

add a small cast animation to Light Binding (maybe 0.7s? ) thus giving melee opponents some reaction time but compensate by increases the projectile speed slightly

Id like her E Lucent singularity to have its damage toned down but in its place its act as more of a scrying tool. giving true sight/revealing targets within the damaging portion's area and making the area the Singularity itself as a whole reveals bigger and unobstructed by terrain. Lucent Singularity also applys Illumination mark(and can also detonate with the damaging portion).

Illumination should play a bit more vital role in her DPS combo.

Then sap like 5%-10% AP ratio from her other offensive skills Q,E and R and add it to Illuminations ratio. -Lux's auto attacks no longer activate illumination instead only her abilities (and the damaging abilities of Allies)do. -the Illumination mark now takes 1.5 second to arm -BUT once Illumination is proc'd the target cant be re-effected for X seconds. Sort of a wierd combination of Leona's and LeBlancs passive.

also

Lucent singularity renamed to Luminescent Final spark changed renamed to "Finales Funkeln"

with these changes

-Lux is more reliant on her team to get out damage. -brings some more utility to the table -proper backline support with no real reason to move to the front BUT has less-effective tools to protect herself in turn(point blank snares can finally be reacted to)

SociopathFriendNov 27, 20164 votes

Just to throw my $0.02 in about that

add a small cast animation to Light Binding (maybe 0.7s? ) thus giving melee opponents some reaction time but compensate by increases the projectile speed slightly

It's no different than the animations for multiple characters with the same ability, like Morg root or Xerath stun. There's no reason to penalize Lux for being the same as them. Melee opponents will be stopped the same by anyone with a projectile CC attack- that's why you're supposed to bait it out.

Id like her E Lucent singularity to have its damage toned down but in its place its act as more of a scrying tool.

Her E already is the lowest damaging, highest costing, and highest CD ability of the waveclear abilities of her class. In exchange it gets to be fairly reliable to land. Also, Lux is a mage, not a support, her job is to CC an enemy then blow them up with her combo- just like any other burst mage, and to waveclear, like any other mage. This ability already is one of the most inferior waveclear abilities and you want to nerf it even further?

Then sap like 5%-10% AP ratio from her other offensive skills Q,E and R and add it to Illuminations ratio. -Lux's auto attacks no longer activate illumination instead only her abilities (and the damaging abilities of Allies)do. -the Illumination mark now takes 1.5 second to arm -BUT once Illumination is proc'd the target cant be re-effected for X seconds. Sort of a wierd combination of Leona's and LeBlancs passive.

So let me get this straight -Lower the damage of all her abilities and put them into her innate -Remove her sole reason for getting into AA range by making her AA not trigger said innate -Make her innate have a delay -Make her innate not able to be proc'd again for a time ^This sounds like a horrible idea, people already complain they don't interact with Lux (which honestly should apply to Vel'Koz, Xerath, Varus, Ziggs, and maybe Jacye just as much but no- Lux is the one who gets complaints) and your changes remove any reason for her to step anywhere near her lane opponent. (To AA and get the innate off).

And you're outright destroying her ability to waveclear, which requires those autos to trigger the innate. Now she has to use both of her only damaging spells outside of her ult to clear the wave?

Furthermore, this outright removes her existing (risky) combo of Q-AA-E-R-AA and replaces it with... Q-E-(apparently pointless 1.5 second wait)-R and then nothing... you realize her having to AA is a risk-reward system right? I know you do because you mentioned it. You're removing both the risk and the reward of that system and replacing it with nothing more than what you already stated you don't like now.

-Lux is more reliant on her team to get out damage. -brings some more utility to the table -proper backline support with no real reason to move to the front BUT has less-effective tools to protect herself in turn(point blank snares can finally be reacted to)

Umm, why should Lux be reliant on her team to get out damage? No champion except Supports should "rely" on another champion to do anything. Her more utility is just "more vision" which frankly is not a good exchange for lowering her damage on her only waveclear tool. Especially when it already gives vision in the first place. And her snare can be reacted to just as much as any similar CC, Lux is not special in this regard, you have to dodge skillshots to defeat mages.

RiotplaytestpenguinNov 28, 20164 votes

Balancing around skins doesn't happen in actuality

Cynical RainNov 26, 20161 votes

Why are you changing Anivia? Do high ELO players such as yourselves believe she's too strong? Do high ELO players such as yourselves believe the new one is nice? The official justifications given for changes are always BS. In this case, everything that was changed, from the initial non-instant R to now has been because R+E is apparently unfair. Did you see Anivia everywhere? Insight from the people who actually allow the changes to be made would be useful.

RiotplaytestpenguinNov 28, 20165 votes

I worked on the Anivia changes and was traveling for the holidays, so direct all blame in my direction in regards to this team :)

Anyways:

She is supposed to have a vulnerable laning phase, and that just wasn't true. She generally won or had a skill matchup into everything because she was a jack of all trades that was better than almost all.
Most mages have set-up to their 1shot combos. Obviously their are outliers to this (hello ) but generally if you get 1shotted and there was nothing you can do about it other than "stay outside of this champion's range of threat or get instagibbed" it leaves the designer with very little wiggle room to adjust power
her itemization leads her to being much less vulnerable than other champions: on top of her passive she almost always builds Seraph+Archangel, so she was insane at itemizing for almost every scenario. Even when an LB or Syndra bursts you, they've generally used their ultimates and have itemized damage. Anivia wasn't gated by having to build full damage items nor was she committing any cooldowns. Laning against her post-6 turned into "I get shoved out and die because of this undodgable combo" or "I win this all-in but she eggs".

If she is very weak (which sentiment currently seems to be, but data-driven is always ideal) then she can be buffed in several different ways that I've discussed with the designer. The point of making changes of this magnitude is that they're sustainable changes, and I do believe these are sustainabble -- even if she released weak in the short term.

patmax17Nov 28, 20161 votes

I guess you mean she builds Seraph/RoA? :)

RiotplaytestpenguinNov 28, 20163 votes

Yep, woops. Shoulda had my coffee first

GhostOfShrimpmasNov 28, 20162 votes

Most mages have set-up to their 1shot combos. Obviously their are outliers to this (hello ) but generally if you get 1shotted and there was nothing you can do about it other than "stay outside of this champion's range of threat or get instagibbed" it leaves the designer with very little wiggle room to adjust power

So, why did Annie get to keep that part of her kit during the update?

OlscaNov 28, 20161 votes

You guys seem to be completely avoiding any questions on malz... suspicious... wonder what is in store for him next.

RiotplaytestpenguinNov 28, 20164 votes

I playtested a bunch of Malzahar stuff and was busy investigating from feedback in this thread about which abilities were "1shotting" his voidlings as it's not really all AOE spells, it's just certain ones that tick fast. The designer is going to followup and special case those abilities.