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Quick Gameplay Thoughts: May 25

RiotMeddler·5/25/2018, 3:45:59 PM·1 votes·43,342 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

Some things we're looking at for 8.12

A lot of our time during the 8.12 cycle is going to go to monitoring the impact of the 8.11 midseason changes and making adjustments as needed. We're also planning on doing some other work as well though, some of that below.

Gifted Shields

  • Over the next few patches we'll be looking at Heals/Shields champions put on others. First thing we'll be testing, for possible inclusion in 8.12, is lowering the duration on some shields so that waiting them out's more feasible and timing for the user matters more.

Ornn

  • We're potentially doing some work on Ornn. Goal there, rather than increasing or decreasing overall power, is to make him less of a safe pick when you don't yet know who he'll be facing in lane. That likely means giving him a clearer weakness enemy picks can capitalize on and giving him strength elsewhere.

Sejuani

  • Sej buffs didn't make it into 8.11 since 8.10 analysis and followup ended up taking more time than expected. They should be in 8.12 instead as a result.

New AD items

  • As I'd imagine most of you have already seen we're working on a couple of new items that should appeal to fighters in particular. Balance and polish is still underway, expectation is we'll ship both Spear of Shojin and Atma's Reckoning in 8.12 though.

Pulling the Ryze and Azir investigations

A little while back we mentioned that we were going to put less time into trying to close the regular play versus organized play divide on Ryze, Azir and Kalista so that we could put more time into other champs. Before that came into effect we wanted to try some changes we'd been discussing for Ryze and Azir for a while. Those showed some promise, but also looked like they'd require a fair bit more work to ship, with likelihood of some additional followup being needed too. We're iceboxing those changes as a result and won't be working on anything for those three champs that isn't just a regular balance adjustment for a fair while.

Bounty Changes and Average Position Income

In addition to concentrating gold on specific champions (more solo carry/individual snowball, but less team snowball) the 8.10 bounty changes also resulted in a slight decrease in average gold income in every position since that change decreased overall bounty gold in the system. Breakdown of that below for anyone interested. As you'd expect higher income loss happens in positions that tend to have less kill focused champs in them since they were hit hardest by the loss of team-wide bounties (enchanters/tanks in support, tanks/split pushers in top).

Average change in 8.10 versus 8.9 at 35 minutes:

Top -325 Mid -260 Jungle -250 (though with very high variance from that average depending on the champion in question) Bot -250 Support -420

That gold loss is low enough we don't have immediate plans to counteract it, especially given we've increased income a bit over time in other ways, so pulling a bit out’s reasonable. Will be watching it though, in particular to see if it pushes power spikes for particular positions or champs back too far in some cases.

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

213 Comments

Shadow Hazard5/25/2018, 4:09:05 PM13 votes

  • On top of addressing shields will there be any hope of seeing ways for supports to empower other classes outside of marksmen more like her was done to nunu a while back

  • For ornn I personally feel that his brittle mechanic is simply a personal knock up tool rather than an anti tenacity tool for others. I think that needs to be looked at. It was a cool idea, but frankly is hardly used by ornns team members because of how easy it is for his follow through knock up.

  • I saw someone post an idea today of what if you make all the jungle items have some sort of "quest" like support items do that gain some type of empowerment from the quest completion?

Shaian5/25/2018, 3:51:20 PM10 votes

Hello,

I was wondering why you decided to go for a rootdurationbuff on Zyra, when its usually the spell she maxes first and her earlygame clearly doesnt need any more help? Zyra is in a bad spot, because she doesnt deal enough damage when her laning phase is over so level 9+. Isnt there anything you could do about her scaling?

CryoThorn5/25/2018, 4:05:49 PM10 votes

Hello Meddler, The Zyra buff on the PBE has not gone well with us on the Zyra mains subreddit, we do not believe that increasing the Root duration is going to magically make her playable again. It's nice sure, but it doesn't fix any of her core gameplay issues. We ask you to either consider a revert of her mid year mage update if you can not come up with a plan to properly balance her plants. Because they feel awful, and her spells feel awful too because most of her damage is put into her plants.

Please let me know your thoughts on this persistent issue, it needs to be addressed and solved.

TeriMaaKehBehain5/25/2018, 4:04:21 PM10 votes

What are, if there are any, plans for Mordekaiser Mordekaiser?

His VGU seems too distant in the future for him to be ignored for so long :(

FlufyBunnyRengar5/25/2018, 3:58:45 PM9 votes

Do you have anything planned for Rumble?

Roigaar5/25/2018, 5:03:34 PM6 votes

Meddler, can we get context on the Banner of Command changes?

I think Banner of Command definitely needed to be looked at, but the changes on PBE simply strip the promoted minion from its antimagoc shield and the item itself is getting its CDR removed. Looking at how much work Banner of Command historically needed to become a viable item, this move seems like you guys are simply choosing to kill the item. The CDR loss in particular makes it much less appealing to the subset of champions that actually used it for its intended purpuse as their only way to contribute to sidelane control, supports.

Sagarmatra5/25/2018, 4:42:14 PM6 votes

Hey meddler,

What made you decide to icebox the changes for Azir and ryze, but then go down a similar path for Taliyah in the meantime?

I don’t have access to pbe rn, but as someone that has mained/onetricked her since release, the patch notes just make me sad all around.

Tell Tale Heart5/25/2018, 4:41:05 PM5 votes

Who is doing the changes for Zyra? I think she needs more resources than one guy buffing an ability of her. Thats the treatment she had for years and it resulted in what she is currently.

Professor Ward5/25/2018, 5:25:42 PM4 votes

What, if any, are you guys thoughts on current nautilus? Any love coming for him?

Erdamon5/25/2018, 4:01:14 PM4 votes

Is there a possibility that Rumble will get another look along the way? Seeing how last buff didn't exactly do anything meaningful it seems like he needs something more

BadgerDrool5/25/2018, 4:14:43 PM4 votes

Hey Meddler. I asked if you've considered _decaying _ shields as a solution in a previous thread. A bit too late to get a response. Bringing up the idea again.

My previous comment was in the May 9th quick thoughts thread. Here it is in it's entirety:

Have you considered having shields decay over their duration? Shields have to land preemptively but, lowering duration may not be as healthy in laggy solo que vs stable latency pro-play. Having the shield decay in strength over time encourages the same behavior of landing shields closer to when damage is inflicted.

Example: Let's assume Janna is shielding at the moment for 300. Her shield duration is currently 5 seconds.

Approach 1: Shield can decay to 0% over 5 seconds. Shield loses 60 every second. Janna shield will decay to 120 @ 3 seconds after cast. Approach 2: Shield can decay to 50% over 5 seconds. Shield loses 30 every second. Janna shield will decay to 210 @ 3 seconds after cast. Approach 3: Shield only starts to decay at 2 seconds but goes to 0%. Shield loses 100 every second after 2 seconds elapse. Janna shield will decay to 200 @ 3 seconds after cast. Approach 4: Shield decay is delayed by damage taken/Damage taken applies to prospective decay first. Decay to 0% over 5 seconds is 60 shield every second. Taking 100 damage immediately means no decay will occur in first second and second second will see only 20 shield lost to decay. Janna shield power will be at 120 @ 3 seconds so long as damage taken to shield before that point is equal or less then 180. Approach 5: Shield can decay to 0% over 3 seconds, however decay will only trigger when no damage is taken for 1 second. Shield losses 100 every decay tick. Janna shield will decay to 0 @ 3 seconds after cast if no damage has been taken.

Basically there's several ways that a decay can be set up. Depending on the counterplay you want from opposing champions and if you want total duration to be variable based on damage taken.

Janna's shield specifically also grants AD while it's up and 5 seconds of +40 (+10% ap) AD on a 10 second base cooldown is a lot of power when pushing towers or taking objectives. Approach 5 on her shield specifically would allow you to lower the free AD against towers and objectives without hitting it's in fight case too hard.

The Iceborn5/25/2018, 5:00:21 PM4 votes

Can you do work on Lissandra before Ornn?

JettCon5/27/2018, 5:31:43 AM3 votes

Any thoughts on Elise and Nidalee right now?

Gnarlydude695/25/2018, 3:54:51 PM3 votes

Hey Meddler, hope you're doing well! Any thoughts on Singed? Seems very strong right now, and pretty obnoxious to play against. Part of that might be Shureliyas being overtuned, but I think he's still too strong despite that

redniwediS5/25/2018, 4:34:36 PM3 votes

Ornn

We're potentially doing some work on Ornn. Goal there, rather than increasing or decreasing overall power, is to make him less of a safe pick when you don't yet know who he'll be facing in lane. That likely means giving him a clearer weakness enemy picks can capitalize on and giving him strength elsewhere.

What are your thoughts on increasing his early cooldowns? When I lane against him it feels like he can just keep rotating through his spells during a fight. Sure he ends up with little mana by the end, but it makes trading with him fairly difficult, with few windows where he has something down to fight him and get out. Widening the window where other players can trade with him without eating Ornn's combo could do the trick.

SociopathFriend5/25/2018, 4:38:19 PM3 votes

Since you guys took a look at Banner of Command to make it less "anti-mage" and you're also looking into shields- have you given any thought to Maw of Malmortius? In my opinion, the item feels very horrible to play against as a magic-damage champion.

The item currently is almost crippling against melee-AP (and quite a few AP-ranged) champions as the enemy becomes very difficult to burst down and you can't 'manage' the damage like you can Sterak's to avoid the shield. It's a flat percentage, once you get them low enough it WILL trigger. Once it triggers, you're rewarded with the enemy gaining not only the shield to survive- but a burst of AD, spellvamp, and lifesteal to make fighting you easy as they gain healing and damage to destroy you. So not only does it negate burst, but it makes it difficult to beat them with DPS since they're getting healing to help win on that front as well.

Even if they don't fight you off- they've gifted with the sustain that lasts while in combat so they can very easily walk around in the creep wave and heal up. I've seen all-ins against Maw champions end with the Maw champion having more HP than the battle starts, with not a single healing item beyond Maw. Since it's not a static timer, they can almost chain the Maw procs to minimize the downtime and give you even less of a window to make your move- certainly a smaller window then the cooldown of most other 'defensive' items.

The item is currently a powerful defensive and offensive tool at the same time- but unlike other items in that bracket: Zhonya, Banshee, Edge of Night, Archangel's, there's no risk with using it because it will only ever be triggered when you need it. You also don't need to stack it up like Seeker's Armguard, Jaurim's Fist, or Tear of the Goddess so it's immediately effective even when buying Hexdrinker and all of the components are pretty cheap in comparison to other items as well.

VampyreKain5/26/2018, 2:16:06 AM3 votes

Man, you guys need to address AFKers. Also, why do people get dodged for not selecting a champion to ban? That should just be a default to no champion selected. Implement that and ban AFKers more harshly. I have a friend who AFKs constantly (we're working on that) and he hasn't gotten penalized once. Your Leaverbuster system is a joke.

FlufyBunnyRengar5/25/2018, 3:56:27 PM2 votes

Do you think ad assassins will have to take a nerf because of the updated Last Whisper?

fabfan5/25/2018, 3:54:48 PM2 votes

Hi @Meddler, With the Bounty changes, do you think Ignite will be a good choice vs Teleport on Top ?

It's my dream to see ignite back on toplane like in S3 (and also see teleport disappear).

Also any plans for Garen ?

LOVE JIHADI JOHN5/25/2018, 3:50:41 PM2 votes

are tower kill solo gold changes still shipping next patch?

Deep Terror Nami5/25/2018, 3:59:11 PM2 votes

I think shields should reward fast reaction and good anticipation of incoming damage; keep them strong but low duration. I don't think you need to differentiate between gifted and self-shielding for this.

The Yetii Rider5/25/2018, 6:56:37 PM1 votes

Meddler, if you lower the duration on Janna's Eye of the Storm you will be significantly cutting her damage. (Also Janna's Eye of the Storm can be cast on turrets, so by lowering the duration you are impacting her defensive strategy purely without really affecting the timing of the shield since minion autos come at the same rate no matter what).

Do you have any plans to address this?

Spideraxe5/25/2018, 3:55:47 PM1 votes

Hey Meddler can I ask for your thoughts on Yasuo since Blaustoise mentioned that CertainlyT would potentially do some stuff to him depending on how crit stuff lands

MrTVEye5/26/2018, 8:06:53 AM1 votes

Supports, the role that already starves on gold and xp, lose about 50% more gold, but sure, thats "reasonable". And ofc after tank sups been nerved in the ground, now you have to "look at" (meaning nerv) heals and shields, so that there will be literally nothing left to play as sup and be impactfull. more so while buffing all the champs that can snowball over and over again and giving them even more gold so that coming back once a team falls behind gets more and more impossible ( not only, but esp. as a sup).

theses days most games in soloQ are already a case of one player (a fighter or assassin in 90% of the cases) stomping the enemy team 1vs5, leaving 9 other players feeling at least useless (if you are on the winning team) or simply frustrated (if you are on the losing team). This may be not as much the case in high elo (and pro play is a different beast alltogether), but 95% of the playerbase are not in high elo.

the direction you are going with this game really is not heathy.

Old Man Riven5/25/2018, 3:50:42 PM1 votes

Dunno if you can say, but since he’s probably mostly done, was Aatrox tested in an environment with the new fighter items? Or will they come live and once he ships there will potentially be this balance nightmare?