Preseason Q&A

RiotMeddler·Nov 17, 2015·1 votes·139,599 views

We're about wrapping up now, we'll have a finalized rundown later this week, but thanks for participating! We'll probably close up comments by end of tonight.

Preseason Q&A

Welcome to the preseason Q&A, where myself and the design team will be fielding major questions you might have about the current preseason. Before we get to that, I wanted to write up some early first impressions we've had so far. There are certainly some outliers we want to address before we can get a deeper understanding, but initial thoughts might quell some concerns. A few weeks from now we'll have a more high-level overview.

In the meantime...

Preseason so far

It'll take a while for things to shake down, but I'll dig into some first thoughts. If, after reading this, there's anything not mentioned you'd like to get our thoughts on, we'll be answering questions between 1pm-3pm (with some less regular posting throughout the rest of the day too (where time permits) between other work).

General Game Elements

Masteries

Overall, we're pretty happy with how the new masteries are going, with some exceptions. The first of those is that there are some that are definitely too strong. The most notable of those is Warlord's Bloodlust, and we'll be hotfixing that today to work on champions only, rather than against all targets. Might also need to make some changes so that this mastery's just not just dramatically more effective on Trynd/Yasuo than other champs (or make changes to Trynd/Yasuo if needs be). Other likely outliers are Deathfire Touch (probably too strong on DoT champs, potentially too weak on others) and some of the Resolve tree on health stacking tanks.

On the other hand there are also some champions that aren't sufficiently well served by the current masteries. Starting soon (potentially patch 5.24) we'll start adding a few extra masteries in to flesh out the trees a bit more, probably beginning with the Tier 1 Cunning masteries, since that juncture currently doesn't feel like it offers many champs a good choice.

Minion Blocking

We made some under the hood changes to make minion blocking more predictable and less random in 5.22, but it looks like we also made minions feel too large. We'll be looking to adjust this to make it feel "right" again, starting with some tuning to how minion blocking's calculated in 5.23.

The Jungle

We're seeing certain champions struggle more than they should at present. We've got some buffs to Hunter's Talisman and Refillable Potion coming as a result to help out some early clears. We're also seeing some magic damage dealing junglers in particular have issues, so are lowering Magic Resistance on some monsters to help them specifically. If you're currently struggling in the jungle, you may want to try Krugs (or Gromp) > double buffs, as that seems to be a fairly stable approach.

As far as Rift Herald goes, we're seeing it do some cool stuff so far and it seems to be generating the sort of teamwork and reward for controlling the top part of the river we'd hoped. That said, the Herald is looking like it's a bit too punishing, so we're reducing its damage output somewhat while trying to keep it tanky. Hopefully this reduces the need to recall after taking it for many champions.

Turrets

We're currently seeing turrets die too easily. Some of that's assumedly due to the reduction in effective health tower health in 5.22, some of it's also going to be due to a bug that's removing their intended growth in Armor/MR over time. We'll be fixing that bug in 5.23, and increasing outer tower health a bit, then looking at whether towers are still falling too fast or not.

Champions:

Marksmen

Graves is significantly too strong, Kog'maw definitely too weak. We'll be nerfing and buffing those two respectively in today's hotfix, with Graves losing some burst and early harass power from Q (damage and mana cost nerfs) and a bit of base MS. Kog by contrast's getting a little bit of early AD and a better base attack speed. In both cases we suspect we'll need to make further adjustments as well. We'd rather chip at some of the problem quickly and then reassess than try and do everything at once without sufficient observation time.

Current thinking is that a few other marksmen probably also need adjustments, though just in the form of regular balance changes rather than a hotfix. For 5.23 we're looking at cutting a bit of power from Lucian and MF, both of whom seem too dominant, and we'll be fixing a couple of small bugs on Ashe's Q that should help her out a bit. We're also looking at Quinn to try and shift some of her power from raw damage back into utility, though aren't sure yet whether we'll have changes we're happy with for 5.23 or not.

Assassins

Physical damage assassins seem to be in a rough spot after the removal of Brutalizer and changes to Last Whisper. In the short term, we're looking to give some of them a bit of love through buffs to their kits (Kha'zix/Zed), longer term we'll also want to find some other solutions as well (potentially assassin focused items, or item changes).

Other Champion Changes

It's not preseason specific, but we've also got some significant follow up work on Mordekaiser coming soon. Statikk should be covering that in a separate thread in the Dev Corner within the next couple of days, with some context on what we felt worked and what didn't from the Morde rework in 5.16, plus thoughts on what our next steps are and why when it comes to addressing issues Morde has.

The next patch will also include a general sizing pass on a large number of champions, with model sizes of around 40 champions changes by between -10% and +10%. The goal there's to align champion size better with each champion's role (tanks should look bigger and tougher, squishies like ADCs smaller and more...squishy) while at the same time removing some visual discrepancies (Lucian's not intended be 7 foot plus tall for example).

Other Stuff

Items

Statikk Shiv's looking too generically strong. We'll be hitting its damage as a result, while increasing its damage against minions to try and focus it more as a waveclear item.

Rageblade is just all-around way too strong. As a first step we'll be increasing its cost a few hundred gold, but I imagine we'll need to look at further power cuts at some point as well.

Clean Up, Bug Fixes

We've got a number of start of game things to sync up (bunch of stuff that needs to be shifted forwards up to 15s to match the earlier game start, like Bard Chime spawns, Skarner Crystals, Smite charges etc), plus a number of bug fixes to things that changed in 5.22.

Game Duration

Game duration, and snowballiness, has been one of the things we've spent the most time looking at and talking about since the preseason launch. So far it's looking like the average game is a couple of minutes faster. There are some changes coming in 5.23 that will likely impact that, in particular a change to Homeguard that gives a modified version to every player after 20 minutes, somewhat tougher turrets (see above), and changes to minion strength that cause them to push more if their team is winning (giving winning teams opportunities to siege/losing teams opportunities to farm and catch up).

In terms of direction, two of the big things we're looking at are the concerns that games are ending too often before late game and that a single mistake mid game may be deciding things too much, too often. We're also looking at whether games are too stompy in general. Some increase in stompiness is expected for the first patch of the preseason, as people experiment with new things, that's something that should fall off fairly quickly though. If not, we'll need to make some follow up changes.

794 Comments

fannybanditNov 17, 201551 votes

I have a question/suggestion. Loving the preseason changes so far, but i would love to have an "appear offline" button or something so i can log in and play a game WITHOUT my friends. Sometimes it's better to just go alone......

RikochetteNov 17, 201515 votes

I agree! I love the ideas of clubs and other things. However, sometimes I just want to feed in peace.

TaristaNov 17, 201514 votes

My boyfriend removed all of his friends on one of his accounts because of this. He didn't want anyone to whisper him or anything because it was his serious account. Why should he have to remove EVERYONE just because he doesn't want to be disturbed...

lofi n chillhopNov 17, 201513 votes

I am the same :( I have no friends on my account, well for me it's 'cause ... well it's cause one of my symptoms of autism is that I basically get panic attacks some days if I have to much social demands. and league being my "relax" go-to means that I often can't risk getting a message from a friend and freezing up 'cause I don't know what to say. and with the new "ranked buddy queue" thing however it's called, I'm worried that if it becomes the way to play league I won't be able to do it since I deleted all my contacts :(

and the thing is, if there was an "appear offline mode" I wouldn't have this issue. especially if you could check this at login. and I don't mean the "away" status I mean, nobody sees you as online...

RikariNov 17, 201527 votes

Why do mages have such a hard time efficiently hitting 40-45% CDR? Their only viable options are item 3174 item 3165 . Every CD item is now a support item,adc item or even a tank item. Also why Is rift herald a one man buff? It would have far more impact if it was teamwide.

HunkerDownDawgsNov 17, 20153 votes

Buy Lucidity then?

RoryraiNov 17, 201510 votes

That's inefficient compared to magic penetration boots, especially considering how much more accessible magic resist is (new Mercurial Scimitar).

RiotPWYFFNov 17, 201515 votes

I know Jag had a very specific reason as to why he kept Herald a one-person buff, so I'll poke him to answer here.

For the CDR topic, I wonder if the ideal state of Mages is that they are guaranteed to hit CDR cap without much tradeoff or if they can be balanced in a way that investing into CDR is a meaningful decision (ie: giving up MR and maybe even Sorc Boots to double down on cooldowns for the additional utility). A world where a mage decides between high-damage, higher-cooldown abilities vs. lower-damage, utility-focused, lower-cooldown abilities seems like an interesting decision if done well.

In other words, right now there's a large mentality shift of "I will always hit the CDR cap" to "I need to think try very hard to hit the CDR cap." Additionally, since outside of the keystone masteries there hasn't been anything more powerful injected into Mages, it might feel like a power decrease but we have a lot of noise and data we'll need to parse through to see if this is actually true. Are mages weak? Are mages properly calibrated against their core stats (CDR, AP, mana regen)? Honestly speaking I want to see more before just saying "if you raise gold costs on AP and make it more difficult to hit the CDR cap, of course mages are going to be weak," - it's hard to assess that without seeing how the ecosystem of the game actually plays out, not to mention the strength of Deathfire Touch.

[edit]

Additional note on other champions getting more 'free' access to CDR than mages. These kind of comparisons are really weird to me, because CDR is one of those stats that's very closely tied to the balance of the kit using it. CDR on marksmen tends to be very singular in purpose - damage - and often dependent on proper positioning to use well. Most Mage abilities tend to be fight-starters or fight-stoppers, meaning they have the ability to dramatically change the landscape or flow of a fight on a single ability cast. CDR to them is far more valuable and, in their natural item builds, needs to be 'priced' accordingly.

If stats were just generically priced without accounting for the stat affinities of the classes purchasing them, I think we'd get some really, really weird scenarios.

HellioningNov 17, 201531 votes

Mostly, the complaint is that these are champions who only do useful things when they have their abilities up; compare this to ADCs, who's autoattack actually hurts.

But it's the ADCs that can easily hit CDR cap, without giving up anything at all, while mages can't.

It's kinda backwards, and easy to see how this makes people salty.

RiotPWYFFNov 17, 201517 votes

I edited in an answer regarding that, but I do feel like we're in a bit of a vacuum comparison. A mage using abilities on cooldown can often stop or outright deny a champion threat. A marksman can do the same via a steady stream of damage but we're basically talking variance in power. Mages have high variance - high highs, low lows (no abilities to cast), while Marksmen have less highs but more consistent output. In a balanced world, these two types of damage output would be well balanced against each other, but Mages also get the addition of utility, which needs to be considered as well.

I suppose this is a long way of saying damage isn't the only thing to compare and Mages vs. Marksmen can't really be boiled down to individual stat comparisons and who gets access to what. A reverse example (not totally comparable) might be if Marksmen were demanding total AD scaling on Trinity Force procs, similar to Lich Bane.

HellioningNov 17, 201531 votes

Really?

Lucian killing someone with one ult isn't a high?

Ashe stunned someone and getting them killed before they can respond isn't a high?

MF wombo-comboing your team to death isn't a high?

And it's not like every mage is utility focused, and not all of them have super strong induvidual spells.

RetillinNov 17, 20158 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Pwyff,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=B3Pe5U8H,comment-id=00080001,timestamp=2015-11-17T20:34:21.820+0000)

For the CDR topic, I wonder if the ideal state of Mages is that they are guaranteed to hit CDR cap without much tradeoff or if they can be balanced in a way that investing into CDR is a meaningful decision (ie: giving up MR and maybe even Sorc Boots to double down on cooldowns for the additional utility). A world where a mage decides between high-damage, higher-cooldown abilities vs. lower-damage, utility-focused, lower-cooldown abilities seems like an interesting decision if done well.

In other words, right now there's a large mentality shift of "I will always hit the CDR cap" to "I need to think try very hard to hit the CDR cap." Additionally, since outside of the keystone masteries there hasn't been anything more powerful injected into Mages, it might feel like a power decrease but we have a lot of noise and data we'll need to parse through to see if this is actually true. Are mages weak? Are mages properly calibrated against their core stats (CDR, AP, mana regen)? Honestly speaking I want to see more before just saying "if you raise gold costs on AP and make it more difficult to hit the CDR cap, of course mages are going to be weak," - it's hard to assess that without seeing how the ecosystem of the game actually plays out, not to mention the strength of Deathfire Touch.

But I think this is the problem from the outside looking in. Mages have few options to do it, yet AD casters (Ez/Lucian/Corki/ect...) all get it REALLY easy.

RiotPWYFFNov 17, 201516 votes

The question is also what they do with those abilities. AD Casters get access to CDR very easy, but they can't transform that CDR into an ability that starts and ends a teamfight on a single cast. An Ahri charm at late game can potentially mean a squishy target is dead without using any ability. An Ezreal Q cast on cooldown does not.

Really, really important distinction.

RoakOriginalNov 17, 201517 votes

ehm.. kalista ult? :D

edit: ashe ult, sivir ult, urgot ult... sivir uses ER quite well..

RiotPWYFFNov 17, 201510 votes

Good point - I think Kalista was intended to push the boundaries of just how much utility a markswoman could offer in League (Ashe being the other), and was designed accordingly. Luckily she doesn't build Essence Reaver. I'd be very curious to see a utility Ashe build.

Either way, it's worth mentioning most markspeople with on-demand CC have to make tradeoffs in some capacity to have that power / access that power. Mages have it as a standard expectation.

HellioningNov 17, 201512 votes

And the mages that DON'T get on-demand CC are punished for the ones that do.

BADxW0LFNov 17, 201513 votes

You are basically saying that AP champs need to make tough choices when it comes to their itemization to dish out the damage whereas AD champs can just get AD items and have a bunch of them come with CDR. AP need their abilities to do anything meaningful in a battle, so why give the champs who can just PewPew you to death the CDR instead of the the one's who have to wait every time to do anything?

RiotPWYFFNov 17, 201514 votes

I think I'm saying that Mages have access to a lot more breadth of power than Marksmen and their itemization currently reflects that as well. If a Mage were to become a magic-focused Marksman I think it'd be easier to balance them, but then you'd be effectively choosing between the two. All a marksman has - all that they are identified by - is their pure damage with key positioning. A mage can be that, but they can also be the one who picks off fleeing champs, or controls the battlefield, or catches and blows up a stray squishy.

HellioningNov 17, 201515 votes

Wasn't the entire point of the marksman updates to differentiate between them, so that there can be some pick-off marksmen and some 'assassin' marksmen?

ZidarynNov 17, 201514 votes

If Rift Hearald was global it would be wayyy too strong and we could just call it Baron then.

EtoranzeNov 17, 20159 votes

The reason herald is a one man buff is because otherwise it would be too influential, and the meta would just swap into a top lane focused one. Even if it only was say a two man buff, that would be brutally hard to deal with early game.

Valor BotNov 17, 201520 votes

Hi there. Have there been any considerations to put Quinn Quinn's ultimate on a short CD in favor of removing the cast time and ease of interruptibility? The visuals/animation make it feel like a really epic moment, until you get shot down immediately afterwards by an auto attack or interrupted by a caster minion. I think giving it a CD would encourage Quinn to make the most of her time in the ultimate.

RiotRiotRepertoirNov 17, 201514 votes

Yes! I've given quite a bit of thought to this actually. One of the things that I think is important to get right here is how to balance what feels good for Quinn versus what feels fair for the opponent. Though I don't have specific changes for 5.23 to make on this front, I'm keeping an eye on Quinn (her ult especially) to see what kind of adjustments need to be made over the course of the next few patches.

What I'm currently feeling is that it's too easy/annoying to get knocked out of R or the channel (I think minions cancelling the channel, for example, may be out of hand), and that a cooldown or different restriction on the R may be appropriate in the long term in mitigating some of those more earflicky interactions associated with her R at the moment.

FreeAlexJones911Nov 17, 201513 votes

In my opinion adding a cooldown and removing the cast time would make the ability into "a cooldown you hold on to to disengage from or chase targets" rather than "a form you go into which saves you time walking." I feel like what it is right now is really unique and interesting compared to other abilities in league but if you make players decide between using it as a combat spell or as an out of combat spell they are almost always going to try save it for a combat scenario.

TheDiffNov 17, 201520 votes

Why did you guys nerf towers? To be honest, i always thought they needed a buff- like more health and more damage. I mean,I like the new turrets because i can get my turret fast and help other lanes that need it, but if i gank for another lane and go back to base, and if my laner has a wave backing them up, i know for a fact that my tower is gone in less that T-minues 30 seconds. Which is pretty lame if i dominated them in lane; it's also pretty lame when you are being dominated and have to back due to low health, and your turret is being taken down in 2 pushes, maybe not even that. I know you guys wanted to try to speed up games, but I think i can speak for a lot of summoners when I say that I (we) love the long strechted out games because that is where our true skill and the champions true strengths come out, and that towers needed an overall buff not nerf. I think i personally would be fine with the tower changes if you guys tweaked their damage to fit how easily they can be taken down, or keep that "minus all incomming champion damage by 30" until like 10-20 miuntes??? Other than the turrets i still love this game and none of the changes are 'game breaking'. I guess what im trying to get is---- With the overall feedback with the nerf to turrets, what are your plans for them in the future? Will you tweak their hp to make them stronger? Tweak their resists? revert the changes due to negative feedback? Tweak their damage? Or was this an experiment? (sorry if my question sounded weird)

GuardmanNov 17, 201519 votes

Some questions:

Are there any plans to add non-combat masteries, specifically at the keystone level? And what I mean by non-combat are masteries aimed at things like map control, vision, taking objectives, and farming.
With two ADC junglers ( Kindred and Graves) has there been any thought of making a jungle enchantment for ADCs? Currently after a lot of testing on new Graves (and my fair share of Kindred last season) they are better off not enchanting as Warrior is meant for fighters and Devourer is tuned to be unattractive on ranged champions.
Is there anything going to be done about junglers being weak in the early game? With a tough first clear and them having to put a lot of gold into non-combat stats, junglers are very prone to being invaded and it is very hard to farm your way out of being behind.
In a similar vein is there any plan to make hunter’s potion more attractive? I really want to like it and I’ve been making a point to buy it when I can, but it seems to make jungle problems worse instead of better since it is even more gold spent on non-combat stats and by the time you buy it you are already getting enough sustain from your jungle items.
Is there any plans to add some masteries to help Nasus as the mastery trees are just wonky for him. It’s not that their isn’t masteries for him, but that he has to take a lot of inefficient masteries to get to the ones he want and the masteries he does want are deep in the trees. For example, two masteries he should want the most are Intelligence and Stormraider’s Surge as he loves CDR and wants the speed boost, but they are deep in the Cunning tree and most of the rest of the cunning tree are full of things he doesn’t really want/need. On the other hand he likes almost everything in the Resolve tree, Swiftness especially, but none of the Resolve keystones are that great on him (Grasp of the Undying - He already has built in lifesteal and he probably won’t get more than one proc off on someone due to his burst/kitability; Strength of Ages - Unless you are a jungler it takes too long to farm up; Bond of Stone - He isn’t a support and would rather be doing damage then taking it from an ally). This means to get to the mastery he most wants out of the Resolve tree he has to take a keystone that is only okay on him.
Is there any plans for Trinity Force? I built it once and I didn’t get anywhere near the power spike I was used to with it. And the rest of the time I didn’t even want to build it because of the stat layout.

Jesus is SaviorNov 17, 201518 votes

Why is there no longer a true-sight elixir or trinket? Every season since I have played (season 3 onward) there has always been an option for true-sight while full build. Oracles elixir could be purchased with all item slots full (just like other elixirs), and would auto-consume and give you true-sight. After it was removed, we got 2 true-sight trinkets (the upgraded red trinket and the pink ward trinket).

Now, this pre-season, we have nothing. There is a trinket that gives you "warning particles" but it doesn't reveal the stealthed champion, so you can't target them. This is a problem, because MOST stealth champs are assassins, so unless you're a tank those warning particles aren't going to do anything - if they're more fed than you they're going to one-shot you with no counterplay.

If you are a non-stealth assassin (or an ADC) the stealth assassin is going to kill you with no counterplay almost 100% of the time (EDIT: because they get the first-strike). And if you've reached 6 items, you can no longer purchase vision wards, the only current item you could "outplay" them with.

Do you guys plan to do anything about this? (I honestly have not played one game this preseason, and won't play at all this season if there are no viable anti-stealth options while full build - it's not about whether I can or can't climb, it's more-so that it is completely anti-fun to be against a stealth champ and not be able to do anything about them, so if a game isn't fun I'm not going to play it, because games are supposed to be fun)

PS: I main Eve, and with no vision ward trinket, you've made it impossible for people to counter me late-game. I used to play in tournaments, and almost every time the enemy team would buy 5 vision ward trinkets to make me useless and unable to sneak up on them. You should honestly bring back all the old trinkets and scrap the new ones, because I don't want my champion nerfed again. And yes, this is a stealth champion main complaining that you have removed all viable anti-stealth items - I hate stealth just as much as everyone else, even though I PLAY it, and items to counter it SHOULD exist for it to be a healthy game mechanic.

MajorPain9Nov 17, 201514 votes

Has there been an increase to the amount of surrendering since the preseason has taken place?

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 201511 votes

Yes, we've seen a noticeable increase in surrendering around the 20 minute mark post 5.22. That's pretty standard after a major patch like this, given some champions tend to be out of line and people are experimenting with new stuff, so games can feel decided pretty early on. It's something we'd expect to drop off noticeably over the next couple of patches though as we address major issues and people figure out what works and what doesn't post changes. If that doesn't happen we'll need to dig into what else is going on.

ToTheLMacNov 17, 201514 votes

Can we get some Poppy teasers or something? Or just like a time table. This is all I care about, Poppy is life.

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 20159 votes

Quite soon (almost certainly next rework of any size to go out).

The IsopodNov 17, 201514 votes

Why the nerf to Grevious Wounds? Soraka Soraka has no counter play now, besides killing her, which shouldn't be a type of counter play.

StrikeZoneNov 17, 20157 votes

Because grievous wounds is now wide spread in the game after giving it to every ad champ in the game. RIP singed and mundo

Super SpookyNov 17, 201514 votes

Do you think the changes to the item 3508 are punishing champions that profited from buying it before? Champions like Ezreal , and more so Jayce , who don't necessarily build a lot of crit like many of the other ADCs currently using it often. The removal of mana pots also seems to make their days a bit worse in lane.

It seems like a choice was removed without any similar options being added, leaving just the item 3004 on Jayce and taking a solid option away from some good Ezreal builds.

Will this be looked at in the future, or are you taking a different path for mana heavy AD champions that don't build crit?

MaikalNov 17, 201510 votes

Can you guys buff gold from the jungle?

You guys said in the patch notes that it was increased, but your numbers of what the gold given was previously was wrong and did not account for the 30 bonus gold we previously had from jungle items. Jungler gold income actually decreased, and to make matters even worse, all jungle items, and most core items that junglers build like hydra variants, cleaver, blade of the ruined king, youmuus, etc, all were increased in price significantly, even having recipe costs over 1000 gold which is hard to accumulate on junglers.

Why is it that all other lanes got increases in gold income, and junglers got a decrease despite items getting such an increase in price? I'm assuming this was a mistake given the context in the patch notes.

Aurelion SolariNov 17, 20159 votes

On keystone masteries, I feel that the ap options are pretty low, deal damage over time, deal a three hit proc, and move speed if you burst, but there is one for crit, one for people who attack fast, both of the ap ones have better ad scaleing (I understand that ap is more cost effective, but I don't feel the ratios are right) and I was wondering what other keystone masteries you might add to fill, utility, kiting, or low cd spam play styles, and the same things go for supports, who don't seem to have the widest of options, as someone who plays healers and shielders I have my one option. and I better be happy, yeah, it's impactful, but not a choice.

Questions: So what options would you guys look at to add new keystone masteries for more playstyles/roles/champions

Also ap in general, zhonyas has always been efficient, and as a mage, it's worse for me, but thank you for that nerf. somethings are too strong.

LoZfan03Nov 17, 20159 votes

After some initial trials, I really don't understand refillable potion in the jungle. In my experience so far, anyone that wants to consistently buy potions to sustain for the jungle will struggle heavily on the initial camps if they take refillable and barely make enough gold to either upgrade it or grab the other jungle item before having to recall. This feels super bad because of how much recalling delays you (in both gold and xp) for very small gain. As well, going the immediate potion upgrade route delays your jungle item and the very important bonus xp from the second half. (Side note - I've been feeling very underleveled in the jungle so far in the preseason even when avoiding the refillable.) Three health potions give significantly more total health, and get most champs that I've tried to the point where they can sustain decently off the second tier item's passives anyway.

So that's my context anyway. I really like the items conceptually, but they just don't seem to work on anyone without near-crippling drawbacks. Is there something about them that I'm doing wrong or not understanding? What is the intended clear pattern for refillable potion users? You mention that buffs are planned - can you give more details there?

RexSaurNov 17, 20158 votes

About the marksmen that got weaker/arent doing great are you going to buff them oither than the obvious kogmaw?

Mainly talking about Caitlyn/Ashe/Sivir/Twitch, they are all at near 45% win rate, and thats with the pre nerf warlords mastery so its only going to get worse for them.

As someone who has played caitlyn for over 3 years i feel she will need some buffs, she is mostly worse overall after that patch, i do like the new kit dymanic and the fact she has more unique stuff in it but still.

Cant help but feel like caitlyn was nerfed significantly with all the kit nerfs, her laning phase was nerfed way too hard, so much that caitlyn now has a 43% win rate on the first 20 mins of the game according to champion.GG, for her pickrate she has around 46% win rate which is about 5% lower than she had before the patch, and mind you she needed some buffs or atleast net positive changes, not nerfs, i feel like she could use more mana in lane and traps shouldnt feel so weak and have a 45s cd at rank 1 of the spell, its gating her laning phase way too much.

i also feel the Q doesnt do enough damage on the early ranks of the spell considering how hard it is to hit now on a single target.

Twitch basically got a nerf as 2 seconds on his ult >>>>>>> The q reset which is still mostly completely useless due to the fact his stealth still takes too long go off even if a minion is hitting him.

RiotCertainlyTNov 17, 201514 votes

I'll go into some elements of our approach. As an individual contributor to the marksmen updates, it will only reflect my perspective, but hopefully it will be helpful:

Winrate data is heavily skewed at the moment due to three factors. First, a couple of champions are way too strong (e.g., Graves). They will naturally lower the win rate of all other marksmen. Second, champions with new mechanics ought to go down in win rate as people learn to use them. This includes itemization changes (e.g., we are confused as to why players aren't trying Essence Reaver on Sivir). Third, not every champion will have a 50% win rate at balance. For example, as we differentiate marksmen, you'll have to pick them in the right circumstances - If you pick Vayne on a team that desperately needs wave clear, you'll probably be worse off than if you'd picked Sivir. Champs that have well defined niches will tend to be more powerful than their win rate suggests.
We aren't sure where every champion sits. Obviously we have our own internal assessments of champion power, but they actually differ markedly from a lot of players' perspectives. Unless we take the time to carefully watch and play the champions on Live for a while, we risk just playing musical chairs, shifting a new set of marksmen from apparently weak to actually overpowered. Further, we can't just balance champs. We need to listen to you, the player base, about how you want to use champs in order to get the _right _changes in place. Technically, we could just balance any champ just through changing their base HP and HP per level, but it wouldn't lead to a satisfying experience.
That is all very nebulous. So here are some specific answers.

We're hotfixing Graves and Kog'Maw today (nerf and buff respectively).
I'd look some obvious changes in 5.23 and a substantial amount of fine tuning in 5.24.
Caitlyn's Q is indeed too weak. Even if we had to nerf other elements of her, it would be worth buffing the ability to let her actually reach towers and make skillfully avoiding it matter when playing against.
I believe duo bot Twitch is very powerful and that players who are routinely failing with him are probably not good at the champion or are fixated on a strategy that is now less effective (teamfight AoE) as opposed to opportunistic assassination. Even the data supports this. His win rate is almost 50% when played in his best role. He's not doing well in the jungle, and we'll have to assess how much we can support him there.
I don't have a good sense for Sivir and Ashe's balance right now, so perhaps someone else can reply to that. Anecdotally, they feel effective given their utility.

HopOnAndRideNov 18, 20158 votes

Hey riot how about winnable games and a balanced queue system.

RiotRiotRepertoirNov 18, 201524 votes

Good suggestion.

Linux EgirlNov 17, 20156 votes

Please, can i ask if Thresh is considered as meele or ranged ? Because as it is now it seems like he isn't meele and he isnt ranged either. Because if he buys : devourer enchant on jungle item - he procs it every 4th attack --> ranged runaan's hurricane - he can't buy it because it says "RANGED ONLY" --> meele Ravenous/Titanic hydra - he can buy it --> meele but he can't even use the passive or active --> ? Relic shield and other - he doesn't proc the execute --> ranged I would really like to know if it is made like this on purpose or something's wrong and how he has to be considered as. Because before he was ranged, he has ranged 450 after all. Thanks :)

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 201514 votes

Thresh is meant to be a ranged champion. When we updated how we tag champions as melee or ranged he got missed for some reason (not sure why myself sorry). That'll be fixed in the next patch.

BradoaNov 17, 20155 votes

Are the people at riot looking to nerf the new essence reaver

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 201512 votes

We are. In particular it's getting champions to the CDR cap too early in the game. We'll be looking at some changes, probably for 5.24, to make some of that CDR come later in the game.

FloatzeINov 17, 201513 votes

{quoted}

We are. In particular it's getting champions to the CDR cap too early in the game. We'll be looking at some changes, probably for 5.24, to make some of that CDR come later in the game.

I get the feeling that the Crit to CDR conversion shouldn't be 1:1. I think that it should be half your crit from other sources added to CDR instead of your crit from other sources being added to CDR. It means you can't instantly hit the cap with just Trinity and Essense Reaver, you need an additional 20% from somewhere.

maucerNov 17, 20155 votes

Has there been anymore thought on adding champion mastery levels to ARAM (or other modes) in some form? That is something I would love to see!

RiotCertainlyTNov 17, 201512 votes

I'm not sure our designers who work on that are in this Q and A, so I'll answer for them! I would be somewhat opposed to this on the grounds that ARAM doesn't test a wide variety of skills and because the random mode is about encouraging you to branch out, not go deep on a small number of champions. However, I think it would be cool if there were ways to express your mastery of ARAM as such -- for example, ones more related to the map or champion classes.

Pika310Nov 17, 20152 votes

You hit paste too many times and repeated yourself in the original post.

That aside, I've noticed many old interactions that were specifically removed from the game have snuck their way back in. Just an example of these: a long time ago Caitlyn's passive was changed so that it would not charge up whilst autoing turrets, but with the recent rework this has returned. Were these types of interactions returned on purpose, or is this an oversight in coding error? In the latter case, will you be looking to track these down and undo them once again?

RiotCertainlyTNov 17, 201516 votes

This was done on purpose. Caitlyn is a (perhaps the) premiere siege marksman. She should feel good about attacking towers. We added this mechanic back in on Caitlyn because it made sense that she wouldn't feel a tension between shooting towers and minions.