Quick Gameplay Thoughts: November 30

RiotMeddler·Nov 30, 2018·1 votes·194,581 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

Marksmen

Been seeing more discussion about the state of marksmen below. Some notes below covering what we’re seeing, what we’re thinking, and an early take on what changes we’re considering.

Data and Observations

We’ve been seeing some players on forum/social media argue strongly that Marksmen are weak. That argument comes in a few different versions, with the most common being ‘all marksmen are weak’, ‘Marksmen who aren’t on this short list are weak’ and ‘all crit marksmen are bad’.
Based off that we did some surveying of players from North America, Korea and Brazil this week to better understand how representative those feelings are. Results from that:

All three regions feel jungle is the strongest position, followed fairly closely by mid Korean players see top, bot and support as all around the same power level North American players see top as 3rd most powerful, followed by support, followed by bot Brazilian players see bot and support as equally powerful in 3rd place, with top clearly the weakest position in their eyes

We then also looked at which roles players have been choosing as their primary selection when queueing as another data point (what people are choosing to play versus how they perceive power). Overall we’re seeing some decline in players picking bot as preferred position over the few weeks since Worlds ended. Again there’s quite a bit of regional variation, with a larger drop in NA for example but little change in Korea. Also worth noting that desire to play support goes down as much or more in most regions over the same period, and that the decline is seen primarily in Ranked, with normal draft affected but to a lesser degree. Also important to note that declines in both support and bot preference starts before preseason, so this isn't caused by preseason changes, at least not primarily.
Turning to in game data, win rate isn’t very helpful here, given most games still have a marksman versus another marksman. Pick rate tells us that, on average, marksmen are still almost always being picked bot lane, with the most common non marksman being Karthus, who composes about 1% of champ plays in bot lane. That does vary noticeably by context though, with Karthus’s pick rate in bot at 2% in high MMR (nearly 5% in NA), versus no measurable play at all bot lane in Brazil.
Worth noting that Marksmen, including some crit marksmen, remained dominant in professional play as of a few weeks ago. We believe that will still be the case when professional play resumes too. Context is pretty different however, both because play between organized teams is very different from solo queue and because the pro meta is noticeably different overall (e.g. more tanks, more macro play, more effectiveness from champs that require more team co-ordination).
Finally, speaking of the state of the meta, we’ve also seen meaingful increases in play rates of many divers, assassins and burst mages after the end of the ranked season/release of the preseason patch, coupled with lower play rates on tanks and defensive supports in general. Playing a marksman often feels worse when either or both of those things happen.

Moving from talking about context to talking about our interpretations:

We believe some marksmen are currently strong with appropriate agency and satisfaction. Lucian, Ezreal, Miss Fortune and Jhin being good examples. Some others though are failing on at least one of those axes, crit item dependent marksmen in particular. For players who want to play marksmen who don’t have good options other than crit builds that feels understandably bad.
We believe that itemization, crit primarily, needs work. A lot of that’s the way the items work more than their power levels. Stormrazor for example is really strong at this point, but still not generating good satisfaction.
Preseason’s a time when willingness to play marksmen impact has dropped historically and then increased again when season starts. We’re seeing that same trend at present. That reflects more marksmen predators getting played, given players tend to flock to less effective but appealing anti carry heavy team comps during less competitive times. Also reflects that fewer players are choosing to queue as support, resulting in more autofilled support players, who then often try experimental champs/builds and pick very aggressive champs rather than tanks or enchanters, leading to less marksmen/support synergy. There are some issues we should be addressing regardless of seasonal trends like this, but also don’t want to overcorrect when some effects are temporary.
Marksmen who are always forced to build for late game are more likely to be considered unsatisfying. Their balance is also likely to fluctuate more based off the state of the meta. That makes sense where a marksman’s core identity includes ‘late game hypercarry’, but can be a problem for others.
Marksmen are potentially too skewed towards almost all offense and no defense itemization wise. Being comparatively squishy makes sense as a class weakness. We’ve arguably pushed that too far though, leaving marksmen too tied to multiplicative damage items and therefore excessively brittle when not well protected or in a favorable meta.

Finally, based off that what are we planning on doing?

8.24b

We’ll be looking at specific marksmen and putting power into some. Candidates we’re currently thinking about include Corki, Xayah, Ashe, Vayne, Trist, Jinx.
One tactic we’re going to look at for a number of them is giving more starting MR, reducing their vulnerability to harass in lane and magic damage based burst early/mid game. Not sure yet what sort of mixture of just more MR overall versus pulling per level MR forwards into starting MR that will be.
For Xayah we’ll be looking at whether she and Rakan are too dependent on each other power wise. Certainly want them to be effective together and feel a bit special, some concern their effectiveness is too low when apart though.

9.1 and/or later

We’ll be looking at crit items. Details to come soon ish once we’ve got them, a core goal will be to make crit items feel more satisfying to most users, given satisfaction has been a long running issue regardless of balance state.
We’ll also be looking a marksman offense versus defense. Potential approaches include making partial defensive buys decent choices earlier on (e.g. an early BT or Hexdrinker as a decent choice, rather than too often a trap). Might also involve further adjustments to base defensive stats.
And we’ll be looking at power curves on some marksmen, in particular whether we’ve got champs who’d be better off if they lost a bit of power late game, which they don’t always get to access, in exchange for a better early and mid game.

Gold/XP Funneling

For those unfamiliar with the term funneling here means putting more than one position's worth of gold/XP onto a single champ. We took actions to remove it earlier in the year where it involved low interaction strategies that don't give the opposing team sufficient options to respond to it. The main thing that addressed it was a debuff called Monster Hunter on starting jungle items that reduced lane minion gold heavily if you have the highest minion score on your team. That debuff did the job, but also inappropriately punished non funneling play at times. Intent was to only use it as a temporary band aid solution and we removed it in the 8.23.

Our belief is that funneling should be much less powerful than it used to be, since not contesting a lane can be taken advantage of more now through turret plating gold. Putting that much farm on one person also increases their gold bounty, so focusing a funneled champ is more rewarding than it was.

It’s certainly possible that’s not enough to keep funneling under control though without a more explicit penalty, even if it’s not as strong as it was. We’re working on a backup approach at the moment in case it’s needed. Possible direction is a more focused version of Monster Hunter that does a better job of distinguishing between funneled champs and champs who’ve just had a really good game and are picking up some lane farm while holding a tower, split pushing etc. More details to come if that looks necessary, want to make sure it’s an actual problem again, not just people giving it a try now it’s less obviously a poor choice.

Next Week

Some thoughts next week on turret plating, tower stats and tower rewards, including possibility of seeing lane swaps in organized play again. Was going to cover those topics today but this ended up really long already.

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

477 Comments

Lunari EmpressNov 30, 201835 votes

Diana Rework when?

It's very discouraging to play when Irelia is a better version of Diana. Ekko, LB and Akali do the same things as Diana but better and safer.

Can we at least revert the attack speed changes that were made in 7.4(?) - It feels very weird in a situation where due to itemization she's only able to play as an assassin, the attack speed after casting spells is very counterintuitive for a champion with a burst kit, using it to it's maximum potential you ideally want to slowly weave spells as an assassin.

Lets compare:

Diana Q does damage and marks - Ekko Q does damage, procs his passive and slows.
Diana W is a shield with slight damage - Ekko W is a massive shield and an aoe stun. Irelia W is a massive damage reduction. Akali W makes her unattackable for ages and gives energy+movespeed.
Diana E can... stop Kha'zix jumping away.
Diana R dash, removing other moonlight debuffs off of other targets, one way to reset is with Q - Irelia Q can last hit minions, dash faster and has two marking mechanics, allowing her to dash way more than Diana. Ekko E can dash in, or out, or to dodge spells on a low cooldown.

Point being, Diana is outdated.

Being forced to use abilities and mana in lane to get somewhat respectable attack speed for CS'ing as a MELEE champion is horrible, it needs some adjusting, it doesn't matter much later into the game but early lane phase just feels horrible for after losing a part of our old passive.

Taking over a second to get a last hit against mostly ranged matchups is not enjoyable, in any way.

Signed, DarklightDiana, Owner of the Dianamains Discord, Administrator of the Dianamains subreddit.

ArrowsofAlfarNov 30, 201830 votes

Last time you talked about Ornn and Galio changes, are there any plans to do the same to Zac? He went from a semi-tank/fighter to a fully fledged support tank with his rework, and ever since the last nerfs his playrate in higher elo is pretty much non-existant.

Tanks need to be less reliable and more rewarding to play.

With the tank update Riot did last year, both Sejuani and Zac gained on-hit cc abilities on low cd, which in turn makes balancing their damage very difficult. Having those reliable options to lock down opponents leaves them with little dmg as compensation. The only "tank" in Leage that's well designed in my opinion is Sion. He has counterplay on every single ability and no on-hit cc. This opens him up to having way higher scalings than the rest of the tanks, which in turn lets him carry games when ahead by building damage. Literally no other tank in the game has that option, making them feel useless even when ahead since you rely on your team too much.

TheSingularityNov 30, 20184 votes

Tanks need to be less reliable and more rewarding to play.

100% agree, the issue is, how do we achieve this without making some of the reliable tanks feel either too different or too crap? Now I love my tanks, naut especially who is a problem child who could use some work. Perhaps he could have a fast as fuck skillshot on R (urgot without the channel), then his R goes after who ever it hits (maybe multi hit, so if he lines it up well he hits all 5 people still). Other problem kids: Alistar Poppy Rammus Malphite Skarner TahmKench Zac

My god your the first person other than me I've seen point out why Zac/Sej turned out as broken as they did... everyone focuses so much on their damage instead of their new CC profiles... [zombie-nunu-hearts]

This opens him up to having way higher scalings than the rest of the tanks, which in turn lets him carry games when ahead by building damage. Literally no other tank in the game has that option, making them feel useless even when ahead since you rely on your team too much.

I'm a lil "eeehhhh" about this. I don't feel damage should ever be a selling point for a tank, because that isn't their job. It's tertiary at best with tanking primary with peel/lockdown secondary. They carry through enabling, not by dealing damage. Tanks that deal allot of damage have historically been anti fun (poppy, naut, mao, sej come to mind)

ArrowsofAlfarNov 30, 20182 votes

{quoted}

100% agree, the issue is, how do we achieve this without making some of the reliable tanks feel either too different or too crap? Now I love my tanks, naut especially who is a problem child who could use some work. Perhaps he could have a fast as fuck skillshot on R (urgot without the channel), then his R goes after who ever it hits (maybe multi hit, so if he lines it up well he hits all 5 people still). Other problem kids:

My god your the first person other than me I've seen point out why Zac/Sej turned out as broken as they did... everyone focuses so much on their damage instead of their new CC profiles... [zombie-nunu-hearts]

I'm a lil "eeehhhh" about this. I don't feel damage should ever be a selling point for a tank, because that isn't their job. It's tertiary at best with tanking primary with peel/lockdown secondary. They carry through enabling, not by dealing damage. Tanks that deal allot of damage have historically been anti fun (poppy, naut, mao, sej come to mind)

Well, the problem about the champs you are talking about is the fact that they dealt high amounts of BASE dmg combined with reliable on-hit cc. That opens em up to build full tank while still dishing out huge amounts of damage, all while having 0 counterplay. Thats the core problem with many of leagues tank designs. They are too reliable and selfless for pro play, even when nerfed to the ground, and thus too team realiant and frustrating to play in solo q.

Sion on the other hand has really good scaling on his q + r and no on-hit cc, which in turn makes him fair to play against compared to the ones mentioned above.

TheSingularityNov 30, 20184 votes

Thats the core problem with many of leagues tank designs. They are too reliable and selfless for pro play, even when nerfed to the ground, and thus too team realiant and frustrating to play in solo q.

While some definitely deal too much, ornn, ali, skarner, grag and poppy to name a few. Damage is necessary to a degree otherwise jungling/laning isn't viable. Perhaps nerf the base dmg of their non bread and butter spell (generally the W of most tanks) and add health/mr/armor scaling values depending on what said spell does. It would allow better power curves throughout the game, while giving them their main spell to jungle/lane with I don't have a problem with being team reliant, as I get the satisfaction from, getting my team ahead to the point they can carry me easily. If they're reliable in pro play, it doesn't bother me, it's the pros' problem not mine.

Sion on the other hand has really good scaling on his q + r and no on-hit cc, which in turn makes him fair to play against compared to the ones mentioned above.

But does the scaling really come into it? I mean most builds aren't straight damage or a strong AD component unless we're talking augment/suicide builds. Most is titanic, steraks, zzrot then beef. The damage component is then armor pen, again not going for the scaling but to use his high bases. Most of what makes sion feel more fair is his semi unreliability, immobiity and weaker early-stronger late. This gives enemies more agency over the lane. The struggle with doing this to other tanks is not making them carbon copies. Scaling armor/MR passives are too niche/situational so health passives are logical.

What would your ideal global direction be? Personally: As said above nerf the 2 non core spell bases and change and buff their ratios to something they actually build If possible tweak certain spells (there are many that can't be tweaked without destroying the spell entirely, eg rammus' entire kit) Buff tank items as a whole to offer lategame power, (850 health and 55 armor lost through tank item nerfs), could be a case for early dmg nerfs

Pïco de GalioNov 30, 20184 votes

No matter how many highly-voted comments and posts Riot gets about Zac and how the rework was essentially a complete bust, they seem to never reply at all while replying to other random comments with way less traction. Seriously not trying to shit on them but at this point it seems like they are ignoring the comments intentionally. Maybe someday [zombie-nunu-bummed]

melior sumNov 30, 201826 votes

Hey meddler, what are your thoughts on the recent wave of people wanting Fervor back? Fervor was a lot healthier for the game than conqueror is. Any plans on looking into this?

CàneNov 30, 201820 votes

Can you talk about Kalista and Ivern? These two champs seem to be really hopeless.

Harpy BootyNov 30, 201811 votes

I dont see why you are including Ivern in this?? Ivern himself is totally fine, he is just unpopular, similar to Aurelion Sol. Junglers usually prefer carry-oriented junglers and right now with scuttle beeing as important as it is he isnt favored in the meta. I would rather they do work on scuttle to give less aggressive junglers an option to stay in the game and not just overbuff Ivern again.

RiotMeddlerNov 30, 201811 votes

Kalista, along with Ryze and Azir, is a champ we're not working on for a while. That reflects that we feel we've sunk too much time into those three champs over the years and that the amount of further time needed now would create a bigger overall improvement to the game if we spent it on other champs. Realize that sucks if you play or want to play one of those three, but do feel it's the right overall call.

Ivern wise, would have to disagree that he's weak. Certainly some things about him that are a bit cumbersome, Daisy controls especially IMO, but don't think power's his main issue.

YouShantRyzeDec 1, 20184 votes

{quoted}

Kalista, along with Ryze and Azir, is a champ we're not working on for a while. That reflects that we feel we've sunk too much time into those three champs over the years and that the amount of further time needed now would create a bigger overall improvement to the game if we spent it on other champs. Realize that sucks if you play or want to play one of those three, but do feel it's the right overall call.

Ivern wise, would have to disagree that he's weak. Certainly some things about him that are a bit cumbersome, Daisy controls especially IMO, but don't think power's his main issue.

This is probably the most bittersweet thing I have ever read on a website form. I love the idea that you are not gonna Nerf or buff ryze now but at the same time he only received one direct buff over the the course of Season 8. So now the question is this: what is making Ryze so hard to balance around? Is it his Point and click CC or his ult?

Edit: Are you going to work on ryze's visuals as well? he has a decent amount of skins but almost all his skins have the same recall animation. They all have the same dance, same taunts, same laughs, voice lines, mostly the same cast animations and visuals. This is even more apparent when considering Triumphant ryze requires you to win a tournament to obtain him only to look extremely identical to ryze. There are so many ways you can make ryze look and feel amazing but it dosen't seem any love was put into him. Only numbers and stats that would be eventually gutted out in later patches.

GìygasDec 4, 20183 votes

{quoted}

Kalista, along with Ryze and Azir, is a champ we're not working on for a while. That reflects that we feel we've sunk too much time into those three champs over the years and that the amount of further time needed now would create a bigger overall improvement to the game if we spent it on other champs. Realize that sucks if you play or want to play one of those three, but do feel it's the right overall call.

Ivern wise, would have to disagree that he's weak. Certainly some things about him that are a bit cumbersome, Daisy controls especially IMO, but don't think power's his main issue.

As a long time fan of kalista this really sucks to see. i understand how kalista was a little hard to deal with a couple of years ago but by comparison to champs you guys have released recently i just do not get it. I do not understand how champions like irelia, aatrox, pyke and kai'sa are less of a hassle to deal with. kalistas pretty much the only reason i'd ever go bot lane as i am a mid main (who btw plays alot of the midlaners mentioned) it's clear to see you guys can balance out a champ that was once considered broken cough lucian cough but if this is what you have to say i guess i have to deal with it. at least i finally get to know why one of my favorite champs never gets touched anymore. hey but if you ever decide to try to balance her again make sure it makes her top tier again cause those were the funnest times lol. On the note of ivern, i completely agree. ivern and elise are my 2 long time jungle picks and id say i have a fair understanding of his mechanics and would agree hes solid when the comp is right. hes a very consistent jungler and while he may not be the biggest dmg dealer late he is a support jungler and does that job very well. though there are some bugs with him that haven't been fixed for a long time. such as daisy clipping to a lot of places or just weird interactions where teammates with empowered autos accidentally click my q and their empowered attack just dissappears such as illoais w. Other than the small bugs hes pretty solid. oh and release a skin for him please hes been out for 2 years now please and thank you :)

PorkysNov 30, 201817 votes

As you stated stormrazor is a strong item but it’s just you have to build it on some champions or you don’t do damage. The fact that you have to wait every 3-1 seconds depending on attack speed to crit is the problem as an adc you want to constantly auto attack to maximize your dps but with stormrazor either the crit does this much with the proc or this much without the proc. With old infinity edge your always crit this certain amount. Stormrazor as an item could of been avoiding if infinity edged passive was similar to it if you made infinity edges old passive bonus crit damage do 0-50% bonus crit damage depending on level attack speed and how much crit you have instead of a glorified bf with a little true damage added onto it

You said to give marksmen a power curve shift. shifting the power curves of some champions like Ashe xayah isn’t going to really help in my opinion unless it’s cdr changes and armor it’s either add another cdr option for adcs cause ashe is based around utility and you have less ulility now cause nonthere isn’t much cdr items for adcs since the essence reaver changes or just tune their cdr and damage because if you’re playing an immobile adc the 1-3 zed is still going to kill you

To top it buffing the wrong thing could lead to adcs being played in jungle and solo lanes and every time that happens they get nerfed look at you mid Lucian jungle kaisa and ezreal

RiotMeddlerNov 30, 201814 votes

Pretty confident we'll be making changes of some form to Stormrazor, strong but disliked is a bad state for an item to be in.

Essence Reaver's on our list of items we'll be looking at too, though less sure about outcome there. Certainly hearing feedback about it though.

KryonikNov 30, 201810 votes

Essence Reaver now is only really useful, and abused, on Jax, Yi, Renekton, and maybe Lucian. It became really niche to whoever can abuse the passive the most and on those cases is really hard to deal with.

Drew LogicDec 1, 20185 votes

Personally I think the old essence reaver was great and would like it brought back. As for Stormrazor I hate the item and hate having to build it but I feel like as an ADC right now you really have no choice in the matter. you guys are making changes to the game to lessen the overall time for a match but its hurting the ADC role especially with the crit item changes. If you are not a burst damage ADC (MF Lucian etc etc) excluding cait, you have a hard time in this current meta. You guys did some data collection saying that the most picked champion bot lane was karthus (when deviating from meta ADC) and you said the % of time he was picked was low, but what you really need to do is compare the % of time ANY non meta ADC is picked not just one champ. Add all those % up and get an average and you will see that its much higher.

MrFawknSunshineNov 30, 201816 votes

so with conqueror and dark harvest being so front loaded in damage and with ignite more common it puts most damage dealers at a great advantage in lanes vs tank type champs who dont have damage output allowing these fighters/bruiser etc to win lane and punish tanks easier.

with the nerfs to TP now its like you are punishing any one for playing tanks. we dont have the defensive options to lane with, due to dark harvest/conqueror + ignite.

the best option we have is to be completely passive and hope the enemy who is set up this way with a fighter/bruiser badly misplays other wise just shit out of luck.

i had a game where i flat out beat and out played a fiora with conqueror + ignite as maokai but end up auto losing cuz she gets to have gap closer, true damage/crit, healing, cc dodge and just "outscales" me. i would out play her in trades and die do to her damage + conqueror + ignite no matter how much armor/hp i built.

i feel most of crit adcs are bad, and tanks as a whole are under preforming and the game has shifted to a burst meta with all the execute damage and true damage in the game.

Huzzl3Nov 30, 20183 votes

I don't understand these complaints. Are people going to complain about conqueror until we have 8 tanks in every game again? You call conqueror front loaded when that's literally the OPPOSITE of what it is. You talk about playing Maokai and winning early but getting outscaled by a Fiora, whose entire point is to outscale tanks. If Fiora didn't outscale a Maokai the game would be completely broken. If you play a tank you auto win early game, so of course you're going to lose 1v1s after a point.

Edit: Yeah this is why I dont comment on the forums, you use terms you don't even understand and the other gold players upvote that. Good luck on your climb, no point arguing here.

MrFawknSunshineNov 30, 20187 votes

1st off conqueror is front loaded it gives AD + true damage and its used on champs that are as tanky as tanks at early levels with much more damage out put

i mentioned playing vs fiora and winning due to the fact she played bad and even though i out played her i still lose, still lose trades. cuz of conqueror + ignite ( and her kit )

no tank auto wins , champs like darius, urgot, irelia, akali, fiora , jax all win in lane. and then all out scale. they either get to go conqueror or dark harvest with ignite.

other then SION there isnt a legit viable tank for solo lanes/jungle

Leona/Alistar and to a point Braum are viable in bot lane depending on match up.

why be a tank if you can be urgot get 1 damage item and out damage and tank a tank. or be jax/irelia and have damage reduction gap closers and scale with CC or darius whos only liability as a champ is no gap closer / subject to being kited. is tanker then maokai while able to go damage runes and win trades ( just one example )

darius at lvl 1 582 hp 64 ad 10 hp per 5 39 armor 32 mr and 340 ms maokai at lvl 1 565 hp 64 ad 5 hp per 5 39 armor 32 mr 335 ms

so we see darius has 17 more hp at lvl 1 more hp per 5 same armor and mr and more ms

lets look at lvl 18 darius 2282 hp 26 hp per 10 149 ad 107 armor 53 mr maokai 2180 hp 18 hp per 10 130 ad 107 armor 53 mr

so at lvl 18 darius has 182 more base hp more hp per 10 more base ad and same armor mr

darius dont have to build as much defense to be as tanky as maokai while still building damage and having damage runes to benefit him.

and lets look at builds and how the stack with the base stats darius typical build item 3078 item 3053 item 3111 item 3742 item 3065 (not including passives ) 3857 hp 30% cdr 167 armor 153 mr is his stats lvl 18 with no runes maokai typical build item 3068 item 3047 item 3800 item 3001 3805 hp 217 armor 163 mr 30% cdr

so even with 5 items darius still has more hp 25% less armor and only 10 less total mr with having the same cdr having more damage ,kill potential and auto winning lane vs tanks

so nearly as tanky while having damage and damage runes

this is one example of how its pointless and a handicap to be a tank in the current meta

ArkaidanDec 1, 20185 votes

Tanks are so bad that 1 month ago the only top laners in korea's top 20 were a poppy ans a sion one tricks

MrFawknSunshineDec 1, 20182 votes

ok so 2 out of the entire class

matter of fact i even said SION if you read the comment

there is always 1 or 2 in a class that is ok just as adcs right now how lucian/ez is still ok but the majority of the class is bad

ArkaidanDec 1, 20181 votes

If you pretend that Camille and Irelia don't exist then bruisers are dogshit aswell

MrFawknSunshineDec 1, 20183 votes

not really top lane is Jax Karthus Riven Rengar Sion Camille Viktor Urgot Pantheon Lissandra Darius jungle is Khazix Jax Shaco Graves Kindred Kayn Udyr Rengar Rammus Camille mid is Kassadin Karthus Pyke Ekko Katarina Zoe Leblanc Malzahar support is Thresh Zilean Zyra Blitzcrank Nami Janna Soraka Pyke Alistar Leona Fiddlesticks

so if we look at this how many tanks are listed? sion in top rammus in jungle ali and leona in support so 1 tank out of top 11 champs in top 1 tank out of top 10 in jungle none in mid 2 out of the top 12 in support

goes back to my point that tanks as a whole as a class are bad in the meta and conqueror/dark harvest and ignite are all big parts of that. but we do see alot of fighters/bruisers/ that are viable

John WíckNov 30, 201811 votes

Itemization leaves ADCs without any bonus health or any feasible defense against damage like every other role. Mages have access to HP from Oblivion Orb/Haunting Guise/Rylai's, and they have Zhonya's to avoid upfront damage. Bruisers get HP from items like Black Cleaver/Sterak's/Titanic or the mitigation of Death's Dance. Tanks.... are tanks.

Part of why Lucian is so dominant is his ability to build Black Cleaver for the additional 400 HP burst cushion at no damage tradeoff.

What are your thoughts on a HP/lvl buff instead of (or in addition to) the MR buff to help markspeople keep up a little bit with everyone else's sturdiness gain at 2 items?

DreadLordZachDec 1, 201811 votes

I've been playing league since season 2, plat since season 4 or 5. Played a lot of roles but adc has always been my main role. Been talking with some buddies about the state of adc items and thought I'd take this opportunity to share some thoughts.

Crit chance is an inherently broken stat because it's based off random chance. Kind of like the old dodge mechanic if anyone remembers those days. I would argue that to truly balance crit it either needs to be balanced on hitting 100% crit chance reasonably early in a build (3 items max) or be removed from the game entirely.
To remove crit would mean a rework of Tryndamere and Yasuo since they both use crit in their abilities. And then larger would mean ADCs would need some replacement mechanic and item rework to give them the punch without the crit. A potential would be ramp up damage, like turrets, when attacking the same target. Could be a lot of things, you guys are a creative bunch and I'm sure with community input a good alternative could be found and balanced, no more random chance.
Or you make clear diverse build paths that gives 100% crit on 3 items (two for Yas since he get to cheat). I think IE could be left alone, it would be the 3rd item in this build path. Probably needs to be nerfed for balance since 100% crit chance earlier. 2nd item is going to be one of the 4 zeal items, good diversity and options there no changes really needed. But for the pesky first item, right now the only choice is stromrazor, which actually doesn't give the stats you really want but you have to take it to be relevant. ADCs need some choices here, I think the easiest for 1 choice would be to revert ER. Make it the crit cd item again. Right now it really is only used a couple champions mostly to smash through low elo games by abusing strong ult powerspikes. For a second option maybe bring back Sword of the Divine but changed up. Builds from BF and zeal? double brawlers gloves? (honestly should be agility clock but...) primarily give AD and Crit Chance add some cool little passive, good starting item for your standard auto attack crit adc. Stormrazor could be left as a Jihn, draven, caitlyn item, possible situational item for the unique powerspike it gives. Final starting build path for a crit adc would look like Sword of the Divine(for pure auto attacks) or ER(for ability users, ashe, lucian, crit mf), a zeal item(as an adc player I love the different options the different zeal items give), and then an IE. Balance crit for the curve of crit chance, most major fights will then be fought at 100% crit and you, in a roundabout manner, have removed randomness from crit.

Hope this gives some ideas or helpful insights, looking forward to changes being made to adc items. DreadLordZach

Yordle XayahNov 30, 201810 votes

Bear with me on this one (Or don't... I'm just a random person on The Boards)

I've been trying to play Zoe recently, so I keep queueing up for Mid as my first role and Bot as my secondary, and I just keep getting Bot over and over, which tells me that people just don't wanna play the role.

I've been an ADC main since early 2014, and as I keep getting the role while trying to play Zoe, I find that I just hate playing what I normally would enjoy, namely Trist and Xayah, but it applies to every ADC. I've always enjoyed Ashe for her simplicity and great balance. I just don't care for her right now. Talon jumps over a wall and I'm dead instantly. Sivir and Jinx have a similar problem to Ashe, and turns out the only good ADCs right now are those that can Two-Shot you with Lethality or that don't rely on Crit Items.

And if I try be creative and play On-Hit Trist with Rageblade and BorK, it just feels atrocious. There's literally no options for me other than go Stromrazor first EVERY-SINGLE-GAME into RFC/IE and hope their Irelia (or whatever) isn't too fed by 10 mins and then I become entirely irrelevant. You give me zero build flexibility as a Tristana player.

In the end, I find myself playing Karthus Bot simply because it just feels better, and I'm going to comment on this "diversity" in a moment too.

First: It's very frustrating that you come here and tell us "Marksmen were dominant in Pro Play a few weeks ago" and I'm just thinking... Meddler: Pro-Play isn't our game, and it's not relevant to our gameplay experience. Sej, Ryze and Azir were still played at Worlds and that doesn't mean they're good for the vast majority of us. Someone seeing Rookie go to town on Azir isn't gonna be able to just replicate that in Solo Queue. Also, what weeks are you talking about exactly? Because Top and Mid (and Jungle to a lesser extent) were the Order of the Day for Worlds. Did you not see what happened to RNG when they tried to play around Uzi? Did you not see what TheShy and Rookie were doing to their opponents? Did you not noticed how much more important Solo Lanes were in pro play? What exactly are you talking about when you say "Marksmen were dominant in Pro Play a few weeks ago"?

Second: Someone commented this elsewhere already, but instead of buffing Crit Users, you should be toning down everything else around them. It's again, very frustrating that you keep doubling down on this idea of cranking everyone's damage to 11. Tanks, Assassins, Fighters, etc. Everyone is just dealing so much up front damage, and everyone's just so sick about it.

Third: The diversity you're trying to sell in the Bot lane is very unilateral. You're all for Xerath, Karthus, Yasuo and Darius Bot, but I've never seen you support my Jungle Tristana or Mid Xayah. How come you speak so much about diversity but only support it one way? I personally hate Mages Bot, and yes: I know I'm very bias there, but all I want is real diversity, not just for a few select in the Bot Lane.

Fourth: Crit keeps being a problem, and at this point it feels like trying to treat a bullet wound with a band-aid. You know what will happen if you buff Crit Users again? They're gonna become the only good characters Bot. Do you really wanna go back to that YET again?? Insanity is often defined as doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. It's time that you do a proper rework to Critical Strike. It's been years...

Fifth: Are you seriously saying you'll look into how powerful Xayah and Rakkan are together? They've been out for long enough for anyone to tell you that yes: Their power is heavily amplified when they're together. It's frustrating that you care more about making them feel "Special" than realizing you can't do that without a compromise that hurts them when alone. The fantasy of "They're stronger together" is way too vague and it requires their abilities to be weaker alone to then become strong/competitive when they're together. Because of this, you end up ruining both characters alone for the sake of making them "Feel special together" and that's just so frustrating as a Xayah player. Their voice lines make a good job of making the experience of playing them together feel unique. I sometimes joke and say "Alistar is a fat Rakkan" because he can do very similar things with Xayah. He can set her up for a stun and a good multi-man knock up can lead into a multi-man snare with the Ult, and that feels good. Rakkan's kit is good with many more ADC than just Xayah, and I personally think this is an instance where trying to forcefully make them stronger together is hurting them more than helping them.

Anyway... I can't speak for every ADC, but for Tristana (and Xayah to a lesser extent) I've spent way too much time playing the character to not feel that something is just off, and reading your post doesn't make think you know how to help them without breaking the game (yet again) for Crit users like has happened more than once in the past.

This comes from someone who doesn't hate Pre-Season outright. I won't quit the game or proclaim that it's dying or whatever, but posts like these aren't very reassuring, specially when you try to make a point based on ADCs being strong a couple weeks ago in competitive or something... seriously what was that about?

Have a nice day and take care Meddler.

Tristana

Cupcake DeliveryNov 30, 20189 votes

Any thoughts on Caitlyn you can share? I understand that she's hard to balance as she's a lane bully and a late game monster; but it feels like she's been left in a gutter after getting nerfed heavily despite the semi-recent headshot buffs she got.

RiotMeddlerNov 30, 201815 votes

Three things are making us hesitant to do anything for Caitlyn right now:

When she's strong she's pretty oppressive to the rest of bot lane, including pushing a range of other marksmen out. Not a great time for that sort of effect.
We're seeing a couple of builds perform much better at present, Grasp especially. Not the most fun way for Caitlyn to play, and would like her to have other equally effective options as well though.
The biggest one - we're expecting her to benefit more than most from crit item changes.

ArcflareNov 30, 20189 votes

I think one of caits biggest weaknesses is her ult. She has arguably the weakest ult in the game. Cait has been my main since i started playing adc in season 2 and her biggest flaw that ive noticed over and over again is her ult. Ulting someone with almost no HP (10% or even less) and them living because someone can just step infront of it or the base/scaling of the ult just isnt high enough to kill someone within the same level or even when youre slightly ahead just feels incredibly bad. Especially when you know for a fact that an auto would have done 2-3x the damage and would have killed the person being ulted.

Yes her ult locks on at an insane range but avoiding it is also incredibly easy especially in a team fight. So heres my suggestion:

+Rework Caitlyns Ult to have an execute proc on it. This fixes low health targets from living with slivers of health and your ult being put on an unreasonably long CD for doing nothing while using it properly

+This would give her more identity as a Sniper. Sniper's are assassins after all even if her core gameplay isnt that of an assassin.

This change gives her more opportunity for kills while not changing her oppressiveness in lane and would make her feel better to play because when cait falls behind its very hard for her to come back like it is with most ADC's but this change will give her more chances to come back. This will also open her up to more game changing play opportunities.

AIQNov 30, 20188 votes

Is a team ever going to reassess the values or changes to Shyvanas passive?

RekSai CoffeeCoDec 1, 20188 votes

Gold Funneling existed before season 8 as we know but did you ever ask why it started to become mainstream after 8.10/8.11 patches??

What is in those patches in common that would cause it ??

The answer is the scuttle change/Jungle nerfs, so when scuttle is reverted and jungler isn''t 1-3 levels under solo laners for 5-8(used to be 4-6 before latest jungle changes) minutes at a time then this will go away.

Speak or DieNov 30, 20186 votes

Have you considered tweaking marksmen to suit different roles better instead of just bot lane? (Kai'Sa jungle, Vayne top, Varus mid) Just some ideas.

Also, are you guys happy with Evelynn? I'm holding out for some tweaks to her to give her some competitive viability because I would love to see her on the big stage, so I was wondering if you have plans for her or are you happy with where she is.

RiotMeddlerNov 30, 20189 votes

Long term we think it'd be good to allow marksmen some more flexibility in which positions they play. First priority for us though is to address some issues with them in their existing position. Particularly interested though in things that potentially help with both, like the starting MR example mentioned above. Would also want to try and avoid changes that made them effective in other positions but ended up pushing them out of bot. Generally we see players stick to positions more than they move with champions so a champ becoming only effective in a position you don't play can be pretty painful for existing players.

WeirWulfNov 30, 201811 votes

I really do not enjoy playing vs Marksmen toplane. Frontline vs backline champs generally have pretty binary/unenjoyable play patterns when laning against each other.

saltranNov 30, 201817 votes

Yeah, literally no adc main wants adcs to be meta on top just as we neither want toplaners to be meta on bot.

QuešNov 30, 20185 votes

Any context on Jax nerf ? I mean nerfing his R on later ranks wont impact his jungle performance and overall toplane performance,but will leave him weaker lategame(Correct me if im wrong,but Jax has always been iconic lategame bruiser).Wouldnt it be better to nerf his early game,where he is currently strong(for example - early E damage 50 + 50% bAD scale,100 + 100%bAD when charged,how about nerfing it ? or maybe his base ad,which is super high level 1 - 70AD.Maybe reducing it early with larger growth per level will be good idea since it will influence decently his laning and jungle even more)

RiotRiot MapleNectarNov 30, 201815 votes

The reason we removed the power from his late game is largely due to how his performance scales with MMR (he's better at low MMR, scaling down the higher MMR you go). There's a fairly sizeable discrepancy in how long games last between low MMR and higher MMR (low = slower games, high = faster games), so we removed the majority of the power from his lvl 16 which he hits far more frequently in lower MMR due to games lasting longer. He's also more of a terror when being played in the jungle, so we wanted to leave more of his dueling tools in tact for lane.

QuešNov 30, 20189 votes

Also,as I remember you,guys,nerfed Yorick while ago for his good performance in low elo,but you actually nerfed his early game instead of lategame unlike Jax for same reasons.Yikes

StarGuardianNekøNov 30, 20182 votes

An idea to Nerf gold funneling heavily is reducing the xp gained from lane minions when having any jungle item.

RiotMeddlerNov 30, 20185 votes

Concern there is that that likely reintroduces the same sort of problems we saw with the Monster Hunter Debuff, only more so if it's on all jungle items.

What we've just started testing is a modified version where a gold penalty only kicks in if you've got a t1 or t2 jungle item and have more gold earned from minion kills than monster kills. Will let you folks know if that shows promise after some playtesting.

Absolut GarenDec 1, 20187 votes

{quoted}

Concern there is that that likely reintroduces the same sort of problems we saw with the Monster Hunter Debuff, only more so if it's on all jungle items.

What we've just started testing is a modified version where a gold penalty only kicks in if you've got a t1 or t2 jungle item and have more gold earned from minion kills than monster kills. Will let you folks know if that shows promise after some playtesting.

Please don't do this.

In the first instance, this makes no sense, because a Jungler fed from gold-funneling will have more gold from monster kills than minion kills. This won't hurt gold-funneling at all.

This WILL hurt - creative strategies where laners take smite to lane. Those are the players with a Jungle item and maybe some gold from monster camps, but mostly from minions.

If you REALLY want to kill gold-funneling this way (and personally, I do not think that you should), then let it work THE OPPOSITE: Gold penalty if you have a t1 or t2 jungle item and have more gold earned from monster kills than minion kills. THAT'S what the profile of a gold-funneled Jungler would look like!

(But then we have the same problems that we had last season - lane taxing becomes impossible, Junglers are forced to rush the complete Jungle item. But there is no logical reason why the solution of penalizing players who get most of their gold in lane (non-Junglers) would have any impact on gold-funneling at all...)

True GarenNov 30, 20189 votes

{quoted}

An idea to Nerf gold funneling heavily is reducing the xp gained from lane minions when having any jungle item.

The main issue with gold funneling is the gold, not the xp. Your idea would tend to punish the wrong players for the wrong reasons.

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to look at what elements/changes actually made gold-funneling a more viable strategy in Season 8, and change or revert those? (Hint: It wasn't a change to how jungle items work.)

RekSai CoffeeCoDec 1, 20187 votes

[{quoted}](name=True Garen,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=FsE5FU2M,comment-id=00320001,timestamp=2018-11-30T22:23:49.166+0000)

The main issue with gold funneling is the gold, not the xp. Your idea would tend to punish the wrong players for the wrong reasons.

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to look at what elements/changes actually made gold-funneling a more viable strategy in Season 8, and change or revert those? (Hint: It wasn't a change to how jungle items work.)

Someone who gets it.

DJMateosDec 1, 20182 votes

Hey Meddler

1)Have you ever thought about giving Stormrazor scaling from 140% to 250% (0-100%CSchance)? That would solve the issue of the item being useless after 4 items and it would give a proper satisfaction of crit in late-game.

What about giving ER same passive as IE? Let the missing mana on-hit but instead of Essence flare you would use passive of doubling the crit chance. That would solve the issue on utility ADs not having CDR and damage at the same time.

True GarenDec 1, 20187 votes

{quoted}

Hey Meddler

1)Have you ever thought about giving Stormrazor scaling from 140% to 250% (0-100%CSchance)? That would solve the issue of the item being useless after 4 items and it would give a proper satisfaction of crit in late-game.

What about giving ER same passive as IE? Let the missing mana on-hit but instead of Essence flare you would use passive of doubling the crit chance. That would solve the issue on utility ADs not having CDR and damage at the same time.

Stormrazor isn't useless, just its passive is. Stormrazor is more than %100 gold efficient in stats alone. You're supposed to sell it if you are building further crit, but it's not a terrible pressure to do so.

This trade-off is by design.