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Quick Gameplay Thoughts: November 9

RiotMeddler·11/9/2018, 4:21:46 PM·1 votes·171,304 views

Hi folks,

Usual Disclaimers

These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get delayed or even stopped. If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler

Better balancing some tanks in both regular and Pro play

In addition to our other preseason goals we're also putting some work into narrowing the effectiveness difference some champions have in regular play versus in pro play. Right now we're working on Sejuani, Galio and Ornn, each of whom's been a challenge to balance in both contexts.

Correcting that sort of difference generally involves moving power out of places that are much more effective in pro and putting it elsewhere. Can also involve removing unintended barriers to playing a champ successfully. A good example of both from last year was the Alistar update in 6.22. Some of his CC got shifted from immediate to delayed (E stun), which, along with better buffering on his WQ combo, has narrowed the gap dramatically. He still goes through periods of really high pick/ban rates in pro play, but is in a much better state in regular games (doesn't sit in the low to mid 40s win rate wise for example).

Details on the champs we're currently looking at below. Please note this is all still work in progress, so likely some things change substantially as we continue testing. Likely at least some of these champs’ changes don’t ship in 8.23 either.

  • Galio

Nerfs: Waveclear's disproportionately powerful in pro, so we're cutting back on that, with Q damage over time moving to % only which is much less effective against minions. E is then also getting reduce damage to non champions. Finally his ult no longer knocks up more in the center, given coordinated teams are able to get much more value out of that bonus.

Buffs: More upfront damage on Q and a significantly lower mana cost at higher ranks. Allows more harass, making optimal Galio play less about wave clearing. On the same note his E's getting both a faster dash speed and a slightly lower cast time, making landing it on targets actually trying/able to dodge more feasible.

  • Sejuani

Nerfs: Reducing Sejuani's CC power, targeting durations on Q and E, plus potentially removal of the brief W slow. Also testing lower range on E activation.

Buffs: Adding strength to her later in the game with better per level health, armor and attack speed. Also just adding damage to Q,W,E, some at rank 1, but mainly loaded into rank up damage. Early game power's highly favored in pro, so scaling stats can be good levers for addressing excessive performance differences.

  • Ornn

Nerfs: Targeting Ornn not winning trades so reliably in lane with removal of the W shield. R1 slow scales off distance travelled, so less power from just dropping it on someone. R2 knockup reduced on subsequent targets, cutting further power from his initiation and general team fighting.

Buffs: Higher per level armor and HP here too. Return of Unstoppable on the W, high W damage, revised passive. Ornn changes have the most going on, with more other reasons mixed in as well, rather than a strong focus on just narrowing the pro versus regular play gap.

Rune Stats and Different Classes

The changes to rune stats coming in preseason will likely impact some classes more than others. Our plan there is to see where things land and then make quick reactive changes as needed, rather than trying to compensate before scale of effect is clear. Our expectation is that tank supports will probably be one of the most affected groups, given they're end up trading the scaling Health Resolve currently offers, which is really good on them, for a probably weaker mixture of stats. Many of them are quite strong going into preseason, so that's still a case where we believe the best approach is to assess and react quickly, rather than potentially prematurely buffing.

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

299 Comments

Moody P11/9/2018, 4:27:37 PM50 votes

Lucky timing for me, huh?

I don't like these Sej changes. They don't address any of the flaws this rework has put on us and frankly she just feels like a mix of Nunu and Gragas while being worse at what either of them do. Given, this is probably the best you'll do for us and the post below is likely wasted effort, but I spent time writing this out so I'll dump it anyway.

At first, I was thinking about how I’d write a big post detailing all my complaints with the rework and what I’d like, but I think that’s been done to death by me and plenty of other Sej players, so I’ll just cut right to the chase; I think the best way to handle Sejuani now is, short of a full revert, compromising on a fusion of her old and new kits to return the role and feel of the old while retaining some of the counterplay and interactivity of the new.

My suggestions, going down each of her abilities, revolve mostly around her W, E, and R. I’d like a full revert to the old W’s functionality. I think it flowed better, felt nicer, and I think she was healthier as a champion when her damage was split up into an over-time commited period rather than dumping her entire rotation on you in one big burst like she does right now. I’d be down for slowing down the tick-speed, since that would be relevant to the below changes.

On her E: I don’t like the melee mechanic. I don’t find it engaging, interesting to play as or with, and it’s absolutely fucking awful to play against when Sejuani gets to dogpile you with a targeted stun without ever touching you because her ally Irelia smashed Q and auto on your face. Working with the presumption this gets removed..

Keep the current stack mechanic, maybe raise to 5.

Instead of a stun, restore the old slow mechanic, BUT make the slow (and the damage) dependent on the number of stacks.

Pressing E now detonates the stacks on ALL targets within range and puts the spell on cooldown, rather than the current cooldown-per-target system.

I like that old Sejuani emphasized choices; with her, you could either choose to maximize your damage against one person with your W, which often came at expense of CC presence, or you could work your way around the fight to stack up on everyone before slowing them, which lowered your damage contributions. I take this one step further with the stacking system, which adds further counterplay by making Sejuani have to either commit harder or go in at the right time to maximize either. Now, even if Sejuani gets the jump on you, you can still lessen her CC impact by kiting away or around her.

For her ultimate..

Remove the single target stun as well as the range empowerment (it feels entirely counter intuitive to her current kit anyway)

Keep the storm effect, but have it deal its damage in DoT or something, just for a little more satisfying effect.

At the end of the storm, everyone inside is STUNNED.

This keeps the counterplay of the current ult (move out) but returns the potential for the satisfying 5 man stun that Sejuani was so appreciated for. I think, honestly, that her current ult is more toxic than the old one; to make a pick with the old ult was a huge opportunity cost of not having that for a teamfight. The new ult simply doesn’t worry about that, because it’s designed almost entirely to make a pick, with the added AOE storm effect merely icing on the cake. It was kind of bullshit, because it kept you from being able to save your picked teammate unless you could survive the follow-up damage and slow that the pop hindered you with. Retaining the more interesting effect of her new ult and making it more central to the ability, which allows for counterplay and strategy on both teams to figure out how to maximize or nullify Sejuani’s ult.

I know the good people at r/sejuanimains have come up with their own megapost, and I contributed a small bit to it, but I’d like to put my own individual concerns out there, too. Thank you for reading.

Xenosaurus11/9/2018, 5:16:12 PM37 votes

Hey Meddler, I'm writing this as a collective request, formed directly and indirectly by avid Sejuani players from the subreddit r/sejuanimains. Please do not view this as a single individual's comment, but rather a collection of opinions of multiple players (mainly so we can avoid spamming this comment section with multiple version of the same sentiment).

We come to you, because the recent changes to Sejuani, that are currently on the PBE, have caused great disapproval within the community. This is a rather complicated topic, so please excuse the wall of text that is about to ensue. First and foremost, let me start explaining the grievances that are shared by a majority of Sejuani players:

Sejuani underwent a very significant rework some time ago, which has caused her popularity and performance in pro-play to skyrocket. Due to this, she was subjected to multiple nerfs that eventually left her in a very poor state, both in casual, as well as in competitive play. So before we go into detail what issues lie within her kit and how the Sejuani playerbase views them overall, let us just ask one question:

Is there ANY possibility to give Sejuani the same revert treatment that champions like Rengar, LeBlanc, and Fizz have gotten in recent history?

The notion of a revert is something that multiple members of the community have spoken out in favour of (although it is not entirely unanimous). The following reasons have been given:

  • a) Sejuani's current issues are entirely based on the tank-update rework and the new abilities that were added. Before said rework, Sejuani was not in a problematic spot, as a number of balance changes during the Cinderhulk-domination era managed to put her in a solid place with an acceptable winrate
  • b) A majority of the playerbase seems to not be happy with the shift in identity that came with the rework. Many members feel that her E is not a comfortable spell to use and the added gimmick of synergizing with melee champions adds very little depth to her kit in casual play, while only being a serious balance issue for organized play. At the same time the constant weakening of her ultimate ability (which used to be her defining characteristic) has also left a bad taste in many mouths.
  • c) There is a very definite concern about the direction the balance team seems to be taking the champion. Mainly the notion that the best way to address her is by boosting her damage and reducing her utility. Many players feel that Sejuani's identity as a CC-heavy teamfighting tank should not be abandoned in favor of a generic bruiser-tank playstyle (as well as the concern that tanks with a surplus of damage have been known to be an issue before)

While we do not, in any way, want to coerce the balance team into making decisions they are not fully behind, purely based on community uproar, we will have to note, that (at least from our point of view) a full revert could potentially remove all current problems with the champion while also appeasing the playerbase, or would at the very least (even if it is not directly desired by us) could be a better base for further changes, should they be inevitable.

In the case that a revert is completely out of the question (in which case we would appreciate a detailed and comprehensive explanation to further communication and understanding) we have also compiled a number of key features that originally attracted us to playing the champion and which hopefully might be able to help the balance team to better understand what makes Sejuani appealing (as the recent changes do not seem to go into that direction):

  • a) Sejuani should be a team-fighting tank at her core. Her power lies mainly within her ultimate, which provides unparalleled engage power. This ultimate should punish teams that frequently clump together in teamfights and be able to be countered by teams that manage to spread out before and during a fight. The teamfighting importance of the ultimate should therefore be reflected by its cooldown and leaving your team at a disadvantage if it is not used to its full effect.
  • b) Sejuani is mainly a tank who is also able to deal moderate damage while staying in a fight. The rework changed her damage to be more frontloaded and bursty, which mostly adds counterplay issues. Ideally Sejuani should be able to be a presence within a teamfight after unleashing her ultimate, but at a level at which the enemy is not forced to immediately take her out or else risk losing the fight entirely.
  • c) Sejuani's main characteristic should be an engage powerhouse with a lot of initial cc and weaker follow up. The old iteration reflected that this well, as Permafrost was useful enough to be a factor in fights without being overbearing.
  • d) Sejuani's (perceived) intended weaknesses had always been a weaker early jungle presence, making her vulnerable to aggressive junglers and counterganks, as well as a lack of powerful innate tank steroids, urging you to build her fully tank and not build early damage items and abuse her base tankiness. In turn, she gets rewarded by bonus HP ratios that allow her damage to scale and be relevant enough during the lategame. Additionally her ultimate should feel like something that should be used with care and patience to get the best result in a teamfight and not just a tool to pick off a single enemy.
  • e) There are two rather inconsistent limitations in her current kit that overall make it feel relatively clunky. One being her W dealing physical damage, which seems to have very little point overall and only serves to discourage offensive build options involving magic penetration. The second one is the ramping effect on her ultimate, that scales based on travel range. This refers to her ultimate being made much weaker over time despite being her most defining feature and reiterates that constant buffs to her base kit have forced her to have a weaker ultimate, although said ultimate apparently was not the problem in the first place.
  • f) Her passive ability works against her tank identity. A tank's main goal should be to get into a fight and absorb damage for their team by pressuring enemies to deal with them. Her current passive does not do this at all and instead gives her a short window of perceived invulnerability, which only serves to weaken her overall presence in an ongoing fight. Several other tanks in the game get benefits for staying in a fight. Sejuani is seemingly punished for it.

At this point we have to conclude this lengthy comment. However, I do want to repeat myself and emphasize that (in the view of the majority of Sejuani veterans) her pre-tank update version was by far the most enjoyable and the most balanced version to exist so far and while our community is not as large as some of the more popular champions, a revert or at the very least a return to her CC tank identity would very much be appreciated. I hope this did not come off as too much of an emotionally charged outcry, but a lot of us are very passionate about this very champion and we would like her to be back in a comfortable spot once again.

RiotMeddler11/9/2018, 4:23:45 PM14 votes

Additional note since time of writing: Looks likely we'll put some more time into Sejuani and Galio changes. They'll be in 8.24 or later as a result. Will likely see them gone from the PBE shortly, work's still ongoing though, that just reflects preparing 8.23 for launch.

For Sejuani something we'll be looking at in addition to, or instead of some of the above changes, is how much power her passive's giving her in pro given how much front loaded power is valued there. Might be a good angle to reduce that instead of some of the CC changes.

For Galio, considering bigger changes potentially.

Moody P11/9/2018, 4:32:26 PM10 votes

Posting separately it's leaving a bitter taste in my mouth that you don't seem interested in addressing the fact that nobody wants to play any of these recent tanks unless they're seen as busted. What does more damage do for a champion in long term other than just make people complain down the road about "too much damage?" I still don't want to play Sejuani; she's not rewarding me for being skilled or for being smart in any facet. I pick her if one or two of my lanes has a diver, and then I get free stuns and waffle around a teamfight for 10 seconds waiting to do it again.

There's more interesting things you could have done with Vanguards but you're dead set on just giving them oodles of hard CC. Wardens have so much more to offer their team and you haven't had nearly as much issue balancing them out (Shen excluded) but Vanguards are a recurring appearance on the chopping block in the patch notes because CC is all they have to offer.

edwsfhgj11/9/2018, 4:28:14 PM10 votes

Will Kalista get the same treatment? Just capping Rend damage on Baron and Dragons goes a long way to reduce her Pro vs regular play effectiveness.

Sire Hippington11/9/2018, 7:22:26 PM9 votes

If you want to make tanks work outside of pro(and even in pro they had little priority outside of botlane, and even there rakan was favoured), tankiness needs to become a thing again, and not be gated that hard by item leads. If i get ahead on a bruiser or tank, everything is fine, but as soon as you are behind you feel like playing sona, just slower..same if you are even and players reach the 3 item mark. It's therefor not supprising that the two only tanks doing somewhat well in pro are dominant laners that usually atleast go even(sion and orn)

In proplay, that's not that bad, the main purpose is intitiateing, and if you get a good initiation and proper followup, you usually survive easily as the enemie damage dies befor doing anything, or because your opponents are to busy dealing with actuall threats. In soloQ however, you can't rely on imidate followup, and without imidiate followup, the enemie team just turns on you and pops you like a baloon befor your team really knows what's happening. You also can't really skirmish in the front and wait for a good opportunity to get into the backline, because you instantly drop way to low, you're first strikr must be near perfect ot it's usless.

So if you want tanks to do shit again, let them be tanky again, tune down/remove that massive overaboundance of anti tank mechanics we have in the game. Why do ~35% of the champs have %hp damage in theit kit? Why are %pen and truedamage so common these days? How is anyone supposed to be tanky against that? Most of all, why do tanks of all classes have high %hp damage? I remember S2 when lategame tanks mostly were afraid of the ADCs dps in teamfights while ignoreing anyone else exept for a few specific anti tank champs, while bruiser could basically ignore the damage off tanks and supports aswell, causeing them to win 1v1 vs tanks even if they couldn't outright murder them.

Now to what's going on on PBE:

**Gallio **changes actually look fine, bit more power to tanky builts, better early laneing and less absurd full ap damage on Q and less eaveclear. Removeing some power from the ult is nice aswell. His kit still is very overloaded immo, so much CC and damage with that semi global ult on top, but what ever, just fits to about all the new designs.

Seju looks bad. Just revert her. Her current kit doesn't feel good, and she's only popular when she's powerfull because that's the only reason to user her ankward kit that doesn't even deliver on her theme. If the buffs enough to make her strong, she'll just return to snowballing certain champs early on because the 2v2 vs the other lane+jungle is an autowin and people will ban her again. The old kit wasn't perfect, but it atleast encouraged her to get right into the middle of a fight and stay there which resonates with her lore, and it felt good to use, and she was more consistent while the new one is situationally opressive and else rather meh. The current one feels more like a gurilla fighter, strike quick, dump all you've got and get out asap cause you have no sustained tankiness or damage, just go in, hope the passive keeps you save till your E is stacked, get the passive proc and retreat, which is not what Seju is supposed to do, that's more a xayah/rakan thing.

Orn changes feel bad. The loss of the shield is massive, the heavy nerfs to the ult knockup take alot from his big moment, and we really, REALLY don't need a tank able to do nearly 70% of someones maxhealth in one combo(+some flat damage aswell). The passive changes feel bad to play against, at some point the entier enemie team is a good bit stronger just becuase orn is on her team. It feels very bad to loose a sidelane just because orn hit 12 and upgrades someones BC or trinity, and it also feels bad for orn to have so much of his power shoved into his allies. Also, looking at the Squad5 discussion, it seems not a single ornplayer is really happy with it... I really hope you guys take you're time with orn and don't rush these changes as they are now.

Runestats: Why are tankstats so much worse than offstats? The adaptive stats are worth~215g, the armor/mr are merly worth 100g, and the hp reaches ~250g AT LVL 18. Why do you guys always screw over tankiness when one of the main complaints about the game is it's damagecreep?

Also, any context on the ward nerfs? THe game is already way to dark, toplane early on feels like a horro game, you just carefully bide your time till either jungler comes out of the dark with about no chance to properly ward against it and it makes toplane a misserable experience for me.

Daddy Ants11/9/2018, 6:16:59 PM6 votes

Any plans to nerf Lucian and Kaisa?

They are murdering bot lane diversity.

Lucian should be looked at first over Kai'Sa though, Kai'Sa may be strong but she isn't as bad as she was. Lucian is turbo cancer to play against.

CANT MUTE MY INT11/9/2018, 5:46:56 PM6 votes

Keep killing Sejuani... Lowest winrate champ in league atm, nerf her cc more and she will be a dead champ.

Ęvelynn11/9/2018, 4:26:45 PM6 votes

do you think you'll ever give Evelynn wave clear so she can push waves/or be played mid? even as jg i can't even hold a turret while my laner is gone/respawning

xCrunchy11/9/2018, 4:29:34 PM6 votes

Hey Meddler!, Can you tell me if anything is planned for Caitlyn or Jinx ? Or are you currently happy with their current state? :)

Have a good day! :)

Solari Fortune11/9/2018, 4:30:59 PM5 votes

Thoughts on Vi? Often times when it comes to buffing her you guys just drop the CD of her ult and call it good when I feel she could use help in other places

Also any crit marksmen you still see as struggling? I think people say Cait is one of them that hasnt quite recovered from the item changes

sad bıtch11/9/2018, 6:04:23 PM5 votes

Tanks doing damage is not fun, ever [slayer-jinx-unamused]

Their threat should be cc and utility, not melting you

AtomToast11/9/2018, 4:56:28 PM5 votes

Hey, any thoughts on Asol? :( The nerfs and the changes to twt esp with the upcoming ones to celerity has left him in a complete dumpster state. He's as matchup dependent as he's never been before, across all elos his winrate dropped even below 50%. Even a lot of mains dropped him now. iirc he now has the lowest health of any champion if you exclude those with defensive boosts and heals etc. Combined with the fact that he had the lowest armor in the game in the same manner (excluding champs with defensive boosts) he is just extremly lackluster.

The hp nerfs really just made his bad matchups worse for the most part.

Anything, just to show that you haven't forgotten him after you nerfed him, please :( He's not great and also about to get sejuanied

The Yetii Rider11/10/2018, 4:23:33 AM4 votes

What is the point of Sejuani living longer if her CC is weaker? Tanks are there to give their team CC, that's all genuine tank players care about. Tanks don't need more damage.

Salvor Hardın11/9/2018, 4:25:47 PM4 votes

Hi Meddler! :)

Any reason why Nunu's Q buff was reversed in the PBE?

Also anything to say about Shen or Gragas? Personally I would like them to receive the kind of treatment that Ornn and Sejuani are receiving.

Lil Homie busta11/9/2018, 4:28:47 PM4 votes

What about Spear of Shojin? Will it be on PBE throughout the current cycle and possibly live within the 8.23 preseason patch? Or it will need another cycle to be tested?

Frozen Diva11/9/2018, 4:33:09 PM4 votes

Can we expect some VFX for Blade Queen/Program Lissandras passive? Can't imagine 1350 RP skins without adjusted passive VFX tbh...

Also is there really no other way to nerf her? I've tried the changes on the PBE and the W nerfs feel really harsh. Like... REALLY harsh. How about longer cooldowns? Mana nerfs? I'm sure you can find a way to make her nerfs feel less noticable.

But please don't nerf her (already low) 1v1 potential and her laning phase.

Buff Riven Plz11/9/2018, 5:44:23 PM4 votes

Any update on the scaling cdr shard? Also is it true there will be a 4th slot of the shards?

cocacolalips11/9/2018, 6:33:34 PM4 votes

Hi Meddler

Thoughts on making a blog post about Powercreep?

90% of the champions starting with Camille you have released or given a VGU to in the past 2 years have been pick/ban in pro play.

Martian Spartan11/9/2018, 7:55:36 PM4 votes

Anything on udyr?

Porkys11/9/2018, 5:05:26 PM3 votes

Hey meddler since the addition of being able to ping bounty gold on pbe and kaisa being able to ping her distance of her R

Wouldn’t it be a nice to add a feature where Draven can ping his adoration and it tells the entire team how much gold his stacks are worth and how much he has instead of waiting every 150 stacks for a uncontrollable announcement

YukiSilence11/10/2018, 1:28:59 AM3 votes

I am for heling sej, but are u guys ever going to help less played champs and champs that are clearly in a bad spot instead of buffing and nerfing the same champs, i get the idea of fixxing the stronger champs, ut in a ever changing meta i dont think there will ever be a time were u arnt going to have storng and broken champs. So why not just help the champs that need it

Such as vi, syvanna, reksai, ivern, etc.

haenex11/9/2018, 4:33:00 PM3 votes

Next champ release in ps9 or s9?

Rmlthl11/9/2018, 6:07:30 PM3 votes

Is Shojin still happening?

Packun Flower11/9/2018, 5:34:40 PM2 votes

Hey Meddler, you mentioned a few QGT's back that Zoe was being looked at and had some possible changes in the making but then went silent on it. Are those still happening? or are we currently happy with where she falls in terms of gameplay/power?

Spideraxe11/9/2018, 4:27:47 PM1 votes

Hey Meddler do you have any ideas on any more preseason base stat changes since Rovient mentioned you guys were looking into lowering base line durability through stats as opposed to buffing damage runes in order to offset the influx of runes durability