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Quick Gameplay Thoughts: July 4

RiotMeddler·7/4/2018, 3:40:00 PM·1 votes·80,596 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

Icons collection page

It got a little bit overshadowed by other stuff going on at the time, so for anyone who missed it, there's now an icons collection page in the client. It includes information about how you unlocked an icon, what proportion of icons for each category you have (e.g. Harrowing or Game modes) and rarity values for icons (e.g. Ultimate for things like the Dominion 100+ games icon or top 500 in LoL Beta).

8.13 anti snowball changes

We've been digging into the effects of the 8.13 anti snowball changes and have seen a pretty decent reduction in early game snowball following them. Still a bit elevated, so not quite down to what's been standard historically standard yet, quite a bit better though thankfully. Likely we'll have some further smaller tweaks to reduce early game snowball at some point, any solutions that are really disruptive would wait until preseason though.

8.13b mini patch

At time of writing 8.13b (mini patch around halfway through the 8.13 three week cycle) is being finalized and should get patched out shortly. You've probably seen patch notes for it already, TLDR if not though is buffs to Stormrazor, Brawler's Gloves, Varus, Trist and Caitlyn, plus nerfs to Nocturne and Taliyah. We're using this mini patch to address things that we've changelists ready for that are clear enough issues they shouldn't have to wait until 8.14 itself. Goal with the marksmen side of things is to help the marksmen in the worst states, still with a goal of getting them all back to reasonable spots without pushing non marksmen entirely out of bot lane.

Fizz

Latest W changes for Fizz have been testing pretty well in terms of how the pattern plays and how the ability feels. Still working on final numbers, so those might or might not change. Likely, given 8.13-8.14 is a three week period, that we'll be able to get them into 8.14 as a result. We'd originally expected it to take a bit longer, but fairly optimistic at this point they'll be ready soon.

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

251 Comments

Gankr7/4/2018, 7:15:58 PM33 votes

Sorry about the wall of text, I have a lot to say on this issue and would really appreciate a response.

Gankr here, former Master tier Zac top/jungle main before the rework. Myself, along with many other former Zac mains have been extremely disappointed with the rework and the lack of communication about it. Back when the rework was taking place, we had Riot Shrieve talking to us on the subreddit ( https://www.reddit.com/r/thesecretweapon ) about the changes, but since then we have had nothing. Zac used to have much more versatility as a top laner as well as a jungler with different build paths depending on your play-style.

His Ult: One of the biggest complaints in the Zac mains community is that his new ultimate feels terrible to use, especially compared to the old one. It does no damage and is completely one dimensional. It either picks people up or it doesn't. The old ult actually required skill the maneuver yourself around in a teamfight to knock people in the direction that benefited the team. When his rework was announced, his ult was called a "chaotic wukong ultimate" which makes 0 sense to me. It is only chaotic if you use it like a Wukong ultimate. It is like saying Oriana R is a chaotic Diana E. If you use the Oriana R like an idiot, then that may be true, but if you actually know what you are doing it is more skilled version of a Diana E. It is the same thing with Old Zac R and Wukong R. His E also had it's knock up duration changed to scale with charge time because of this, which is a pretty large nerf, which I will get into later. Not only is this ult less reliable, and less satisfying, but the ability Zac was known for got nerfed to make room for it.

Top Lane: Top lane Zac was a decently popular pick, even though it wasn't the strongest. It had a lot of counter play, but also had a lot of outplay potential. In this lane, you used to max Q in order to poke through minions and clear waves. The low cooldown and the surprisingly high damage made it core to this champion. Without this ability, it basically single-handedly destroyed Zac top. Another thing that killed Zac top is the E changes. His E used to be a 1 second knockup at all times which allowed for usage point blank. Without that his ability to duel or escape is much worse. The final problem with Toplane Zac is that his ult is pretty much useless in this lane. It does about 1/4 as much damage as his old ult, assuming your opponent is bad enough to get picked up in it, and it also doesn't give you a movespeed boost to be used as an escape from a gank or bad trade.

His Damage: One final issue I'd like to bring up is that his base damage on every single ability got destroyed. This further weakens his ability to fight other champs, which is especially terrible in a meta revolving around duelist junglers. Zac cannot be expected to exist in a meta where he needs to either fight off champions, or clear well, because right now he doesn't do either better than meta junglers.

If you want an even more in-depth version of this, here is a post I made a year ago that goes into each ability: https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/6f27eh/im_gankr_15m_mastery_points_zac_main_master_tier/?st=jj7jd9ey&sh=ad3eb579

IIIlIllIlIllIlII7/4/2018, 3:44:06 PM12 votes

What are your thoughts on the current state of Black Cleaver?

IxtaliKing7/4/2018, 3:48:00 PM9 votes

Hey Meddler, could you please show this thread to whoever is working on Karma? Thanks xD

Ducasi7/4/2018, 4:21:14 PM9 votes

News on Lissandra ?

You said there were some changes but never followed up.

Maybe a healing passive with her cc or abilities would fit her kit and persona perfectly given she is close-to-mid range and has an ice blood queen theme !

[katarina-love]

Otherworldz7/4/2018, 3:43:24 PM8 votes

Are the mage changes that were discussed still coming out in 8.14?

Has Riot decided on what kind of changes they want to make to certain mage champions there were left weaker post 8.9?

Ollion7/4/2018, 4:19:13 PM8 votes

Still nothing about Irelia she has 45.34% winrate and she is even weaker on top after passive nerfs

Bladeleaf7/4/2018, 5:09:23 PM8 votes

Waiting for Karma changes on patch 8.13 8.14. https://i.imgur.com/AgKWSwm.png

Asnen7/5/2018, 3:48:03 PM7 votes

Buff Nasus , please. For the love of God.

Mârty7/4/2018, 7:36:09 PM6 votes

Hey Meddler,

I've been asking for years and haven't seen any real answers.

We've had a ton of nerfs to enchanters recently. Reduction of team snowballing hits support gold income especially hard, idol nerfs, shield nerfs etc.

However, I still haven't seen the most deserved Janna nerf - her passive. Providing her entire team with virtually always available 8% MS is an insane passive which skews her power level. Why is this free-stat, ridiculously powerful passive with near-zero interaction or thought process required from the player allowed in the game?

Janna received a flat 5 MS nerf earlier and balancers explained how hard 5 MS nerfs hit champions, yet her passive provides all her nearby allies with more than t1 boots of MS, for free all the time.

Can we expect see her receive a new passive and have some power restored into her active kit?

Kimani7/4/2018, 4:30:58 PM6 votes

When will we be seeing Irelia changes? I think you guys left her in a terrible spot.

She has no winnable match ups top lane and it sub par mid now.

Kwazimoto7/4/2018, 4:27:53 PM6 votes

Is there still the intention of giving Sion some power back? It seems like he got hit really hard post Banner of Command and you had mentioned looking at him in a previous post?

What happened to giving Karma some power back after the enchanter item nerfs?

Also, the nerfs to funneling champs feel really bad when there are still ways to do it (nerfing Taric and then people just switch to Xayah and Rakan). Will this be a wack a mole nerf game that happens until there's a systemic change and none of the champs get compensation buffs?

Margarine7/4/2018, 3:56:35 PM6 votes

more Zoe nerfs coming?

ShadowParker7/4/2018, 4:00:34 PM5 votes

With work slowing down until preseason.

Can we please get some work done on Twisted Treeline?

There are a lot of glaring problems, the gold funneling strat being even more relevant there to be precise.

7deadLeeSlnz7/4/2018, 4:07:55 PM4 votes

Anthing planned for Corki or Galio?

OmegasisX7/4/2018, 5:47:17 PM4 votes

HI Meddler,

Does adding a brief burst of movement speed & slow immunity to Garen's Q & health regen on his ult sound like something you guys feel Garen could use? I know Garen's in a decent spot right now, but I feel that he could use just a little more to get him to where he really needs to be. It would look something like this:

Q - Decisive Strike Active: Garen gains 60% movement speed & slow immunity for the first 0.75 seconds of duration. Then, he gains 30% movement speed for the remaining duration (1.5/2/2.5/3/3.5 seconds).

R - Demacian Justice Passive: Whenever Garen kills an enemy with Demacian Justice, he regenerates 15% of his maximum health (+ 5% for each other nearby enemy champion, up to 35%) over the next 5 seconds.

The "skill shot" Q would give him a better engage and a brief window to get out of AoE slow fields and such.

The health regen on R (scaling with number of nearby enemy champs) would give Garen survivability in a teamfight so he can live long enough to get out to let his passive work.

EmperorPengu7/4/2018, 6:42:24 PM4 votes

Hey meddler what is the teams current thoughts on zac. He feels bad in the current jungle meta because of his lack of damage.

Fisherman Fizz7/4/2018, 6:44:23 PM4 votes

Glad to hear the Fizz changes should be shipping soon!

I've posted it in the Fizz changes thread but havent seen anyone acknowledge it yet:

His DoT got changed to apply on his Q in AoE and on his ult single target. These interactions were added mainly so that Fizz could charge his W mark more easily. Without the mark these interactions seem out of place, and I think they should just be removed in exchange for small buffs to the DoT damage itself.

Fourth Shot IV7/4/2018, 7:00:18 PM4 votes

any news about a new sorcery keystone for AD/AP casters ?

quizotic7/4/2018, 3:54:46 PM3 votes

Given how low his winrate (44%) has tanked and all the complaints are you guys looking into tweaking Aatrox? I realize there is a learning curve with reworked champions but I don't think we've seen one drop this low in a long time.

chipndip17/4/2018, 6:25:12 PM2 votes

Question: Why do you use specifically Ziggs for these posts?