Quick Gameplay Thoughts: February 9

RiotMeddler·Feb 9, 2018·1 votes·86,113 views

Hey all,

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

Zoe

To state the obvious, Zoe's been a controversial champion. She creates some really fun moments and does some really unique and interesting stuff. She's has also been a source of a lot of player frustration and remains too powerful. We've been chipping power off her in various ways, overall though they haven't made enough of a difference. We'll be nerfing her quite a bit harder in 8.4 (next patch) as a result. In retrospect this is a situation where we should have made larger changes earlier and we need to get better at figuring out when to go from smaller tuning to larger changes in cases like this. We should also have been talking more about our thoughts on her as well, even if that sometimes wasn't more conclusive than exposing a lot of the debate going on amongst us here.

Likely changes for 8.4:

Q: Only applies her passive damage on primary target hit. That reduces her wave clear, particularly ability to kill caster minions with one Q, reducing her power from gold and ability to shove/roam as easily. It also makes it harder for her to harass through a wave and makes it easier for allies to block Qs intended for sleeping allies.
W: Is no longer able to drop teleport. Teleport creates some cool plays, and is the only real out of combat drop to be had. At the same time though its power is generally significantly higher than the options and it doesn't present opponents with good ways to play around it either (which is particularly important with randomly picked effects).
E: Drowsy can now be cleansed, preventing the sleep from happening. That makes Cleanse, QSS, Mikael's noticeably better responses to her. We originally thought that the appropriate degree of cleanse countering Zoe E was to have the player choose between being able to reposition faster before falling asleep (cleansing the slow) or breaking the sleep once it hit. Having seen Zoe get a lot of play since her release though it’s clear at this point cleanse effects ought to be a stronger counter, rather than a partial one.
E: CD increased, giving more windows where she can't threaten lethal as well and/or can be engaged on.
R: Bug fix, but one that's potentially power impacting: Was granting the ability to move through units for the entire game after the first cast, rather than just for a very brief period when she returned to the cast point.

As you've probably noticed, there's no nerf to her Q damage in that list, though that's certainly a point of a lot of player frustration. We're confident the above changes are both a significant power reduction and changes that, regardless of whether we do or don't also nerf the Q at some point, are improvements to Zoe's play pattern. If we did follow up with a Q nerf, or if the above ends up being too heavy a hit, we'll also need to look at appropriate places to give Zoe power (she's pretty dependent on her Q burst to function). That could involve things like making W's damage contributions more meaningful later in the game.

Summoner Spell CDs on the Scoreboard

The display of those is currently bugged, making them much harder to read than they should be. On CD Summoners should show as much greyer/dimmer like they previously did. We're testing a fix for that at present, should be in the next patch at the latest. We'll also be reverting the orientation change, so Summoner spells are again shown vertically rather than horizontally. That was a well intented change that didn't hit the mark.

Keystone Development

We're still working on that new keystone for the Resolve tree (probably) previously mentioned. Some aspects of it are still in flux, one thing that's looking promising (though also not yet guaranteed) is having some of its reward be some dual percent pen (both some % armor pen and some % magic pen). That makes it appealing on champs with mixed damage types, helps out its users against tanky front lines and helps distinguish it from other sustained damage keystones.

One challenge that goes with that is then ensuring that keystone's best users aren't exclusively ranged champs, getting another % scaler on already high offense builds, and/or champs building full tanks looking to multiply their base damages. We're looking at mechanics like a trigger on proximity to enemies, scaling with offensive stats etc as a result.

Lissandra

Following on from a question from earlier in the week: Lissandra. She's got a couple of issues. She's too weak and her passive's not interesting or satisfying to most players. We'll be taking a look at her sometime in the next few patches (8.6 ish?). Minimum target there is to offer her some more power. It's possible we also end up improving or replacing her passive, don't want to make any promises there that we might not be able to deliver on though, beyond that we'll be at least looking at it.

Next Week

Amongst other things planning to talk about a couple of other requested topics from this week:

Marksmen play patterns and thoughts on what's healthy/unhealthy
Mastery curves and how we think about them when designing and balancing

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

364 Comments

RoigaarFeb 9, 201849 votes

Hey, Meddler. I really dislike having to do this because I think these types of threads often get derailed by tone-deaf "buff my champ when?" posts, but I feel like this topic has gone completely under the radar. You guys have spent the last couple of months trying to address the state of toplane by adjusting runes, champions (those that seem[ed] to be struggling, like bruisers, as well as those that seemed to be unduly strong, like lane bullies drawing too much power from runes). None of those discussions/changes have taken Quinn into account.

Quinn is the type of champion that you would expect to come up often since she's been typically considered one that bruisers in particular seem to have a hard time going against, and it should have been an alarm to you that she is utterly absent from the string of complaint posts that have appeared here and in other forums about the state of toplane. I invite you to control + F Quinn in the most vitriolic posts about toplane balance (you know the ones I'm talking about), or watch the high-elo community videos like Wicked's referenced tierlists, and you'll see what I mean.

To summarize the issue: Quinn's playrate has been falling dramatically over the weeks since preseason, to a point where she's beginning to disappear from data gathering sites, and instead of seeing winrate increases that usually happen when only players with 50+ games play a champion, her winrate has gone down by 3-4% according to most sources.

Quinn is struggling. She has received indirect nerfs in almost every patch since preseason hit, the most egregious being lethality values going down across the board when the AD assassins and casters seemed out of line, but has also suffered from nerfs to almost every major rune she can viably spec into, including Press the Attack, Celerity, Eyeball Collection, Sudden Impact, Coup the Grace and Triumph repeatedly.

This period was supposed to evaluate where champions landed in terms of power level after preseason. Despite being a niche champion, Quinn previously appeared to be appropriately tuned considering her play rate, winrates. As you balance the things around her, that is no longer the case, but she is absent from the conversation. Her stats as a niche champion should be cause for alarm. Her situation has deteriorated immensely in the span of two months, she was significantly healthier on 7.22.

And we would understand some apprehension: Quinn has historically been a champion that tends to cause frustrations in toplane, but that is simply a nonissue given her current power level. Moreover, there are plenty of parts in her kit where power can be altered not to contribute to alienating melee champions, such as W’s and R’s many levers.

I can't stress this enough. Her playrate has plummeted, reaching sub 1% levels, only behind Volibear and Mordekaiser. Her winrate has dropped several points even though mains make up for the majority of her appearances. You guys continue to nerf tools she relies in, and in the current toplane discussion where she would normally get flak, she has been conspicuously absent because she is irrelevant in this state. This situation feels wrong and we are worried she will be held in this state indefinitely. Can we get you guys to at least comment on this situation?

Ars ArcánumFeb 9, 20186 votes

Good Lord I couldn't have wrote a better comment. Well said.

EidelweissFeb 9, 201811 votes

Riot doesn't give a fuck about balancing low play rate champions because they don't sell skins lol

See how Meddler responded almost immediately to the Ahri comment?

Electro522Feb 9, 20187 votes

Yet, in his post, he talked about Lissandra............because it was a high voted topic that was brought up when he asked for suggestions on what to talk on.

LárxeneFeb 9, 20188 votes

This isn't the first Gameplay Thoughts post where Quinn was at the very top. He blantantly ignores these.

StrongholdeFeb 9, 20185 votes

is it possible that both her playrate and winrate have fallen due to an absence of champs she has favorable lanes against, or am I dumb and have seen so little of her in the first place that I dont see any bad matchups? no flame intended, just genuinely curious

Rework QuinnFeb 9, 20186 votes

Nah, you're not dumb, but it's mainly the second reason. She's unpopular regardless of how the meta looks - the only time she gets a spike in playrate or winrate is when they change lethality.

Quinn was once - by far - my favorite champion. The rework hurt that quite a bit, but I was still able to have fun playing her. But as time has passed, she's become more unsatisfying to play with every passing patch, and I don't even enjoy playing her in normals any more.

Tommy GorlamiFeb 9, 20182 votes

I think in the hands of a good player, Quinn feels incredibly frustrating to play against, so when she is strong it feels like she has no counterplay. She's like Pantheon in that way. I think she could do with a change to her passive to remove the RNG factor from laning and give more skill expression.

I also think that she as a champion is fine, but the state of top lane in general right now is bad for champions that want win lane, so Quinn is obviously going to suffer as well. If nerfs end up coming to early tank itemization she will be able to come back into the meta with champions such as Renekton.

In addition, though she should be a lane counter to Gangplank in this meta, there are several other champions that fulfil this niche better, including Lucian. I think it will be hard for Quinn to exist in solo lanes while Lucian does a similar job in lane and is more useful later on.

RoigaarFeb 9, 20188 votes

But she hasn't been strong ever Skystrike's AD ratio got nerfed. We don't want to return to those power levels, and are the first to admit that simply adding flat damage is going to induce more frustrations that it will solve issues for Quinn players, but there are plenty of things that could be done to add power without buffing the parts of Quinn's kit that feel frustrating to play against.

I don't think she's fine, her playrate has fallen from slightly below average to the third worst in the game in a span of two months. She has suffered from meta changes, yes, but she's also been collateral damage for nerfs aimed at other targets, while her counterparts have been getting buffs to address their poor state relative to the meta and the tools they have at their disposal. Quinn isn't even in the discussion. It's not just tanks.

Quinn has always had to compete with some of these champions, and despite being a niche champion, she's been fine during periods where the meta has been far more hostile to her than it is now. She has gotten progressively worse. She's not awful, but she was in a much healthier place before preseason. She doesn't feel particularly powerful during the periods where she should be, and given her power curve that's an issue, because the later it goes, the harder it is for her to have an impact as a short ranged AD with no on-demand steroid, no mitigation mechanics outside of Q, and a single-target intensive damage profile, same weaknesses that usually make her balanced.

GurdiFeb 9, 20188 votes

I am an ADC Quinn player, but I was interested in this post and grabbed the top lane matchup table I gathered from last week to investigate Quinns problems. The matchup winrate difference can be viewed in this image

She loses mostly against: currently very very strong meta champions (gangplank and camille), champions with auto attack reducers (nasus, jax, teemo), and tank champions (especially malphite and maokai). She has good matchups against: squishy champs (riven, trynda, rumble, pantheon).

These findings might indicate that:

The increased popularity and especially of tank champions with either more damage or more durability since preseason results in Quinn having some very hard losing matchups
The popularity of Quinn is hindered by the current popularity of anti- auto attack champions.
She still has a place versus squishy champions and fighters but they are also less popular since the preseason mostly due to tanks outperforming the fighters.

My conclusion is that she still is good versus a lot of less popular melee champions and popular squishy champions, but the increased power of tanks results in some frustrating heavy losing lanes while she traditionally could farm early game and win by roaming instead of trying to kill the tank. Thus, I think she has the same problems as the other top lane fighters at the moment making this not an issue to Quinn specifically. ADC Quinn has some other issues and perks but I focus on top lane in this post :P.

What do you think has to be changed to either quinn specifically or top lane in general to make it more healthy?

jadelinkFeb 10, 20187 votes

A nerf to GP would likely increase diversity in top a lot... It's not just quinn, he 'counters', its 90% of tops. Malph and Panth were always the grand counters. But you only tend to see either of them top now as a specific counterpick.

RaxistaichoFeb 9, 201824 votes

Thoughts on Ahri these days? Even if she's not weak necessarily, her emphasis on safety over damage strips her of a lot of personal ability to get things done and forces her to rely strongly on her team, making her somewhat unsatisfying to play.

I honestly wouldn't mind if her Q movespeed got hit in exchange for getting some damage back.

DauntFeb 9, 20185 votes

True, her damage is not consistent enough and it can't be because of her safety. If they were to lower the Q movement speed that she gets per level and exchanged it for damage in her kit i think she'd feel better.

RiotMeddlerFeb 9, 201823 votes

Let me pick a couple of people's brains on Ahri and talk about her a bit next week. Agree the issue isn't power, but satisfaction.

RaxistaichoFeb 9, 201811 votes

Thanks!

Also I wouldn't mind if you could set her W on fire (no pun intended) and piss on the ashes, that spell still existing is a travesty on both sides. It's not fun to play around and it's not fun or engaging to use.

StormFox1989Feb 9, 20187 votes

Why not just move movespeed from Q to W?

Makes her less safe (unleveled/low leveled spell to use as safety that is usually not leveled till 4, and low mana pool) to make her retain some more damage in the rest of her kit.

SkycrowxFeb 10, 20184 votes

Remove the Q movement speed, it gave her a huge winrate increase around 8-9% Which is the mainproblem. Ahri might sit on a 50~ % winrate, but it feels absolutely uncarryable once your teammates fall behind or are straight up toxic etc just don't care to win. Because Ahri is only Strong if her teammates are strong aswell. She lacks Damage way to much. This is why i want the Movement Speed be gone, so that her winrate will take a huge hit and at the same time you strenght her weakness to balance the WR out. If she has more damage she has more Solo Carry Potential and actually feels rewarding again and much better for the Players itself*[sg-ahri-2]*

FunnyBuddhaFeb 10, 20183 votes

{quoted}

Let me pick a couple of people's brains on Ahri and talk about her a bit next week. Agree the issue isn't power, but satisfaction.

My favorite version of Ahri is when landing the E gave you a damage boost. That felt rewarding to land your charms (which is make or break for good Ahri's) and you got rewarded for it. I don't recall why that was removed. Assuming it was too strong at the time or E + Flash was too strong.

Also, the W seems almost like a place holder not sure what to do with it though.

Funnybuddha

2Charmnot2CharmFeb 10, 20184 votes

My favorite version of Ahri is when landing the E gave you a damage boost.

I hated that because it means you're forced to always start charm to deal maximum damage.

I like being able to use my other spells first till the enemy burns their mobility spell, flash, or walk in a way that makes the charm a sure hit when i decide to throw it.

Another problem is charm being blocked by minions, you can't always control where and how many of the enemy minions/pets are in the fight, even that scuttle crab when it randomly dashes can be a pain for ahri to deal with (Yes it wasn't going to hit anyways cause i was slightly out of range, i was planning to spell flash combo there but decided to hold onto flash, also skip to 25 seconds).

Most of the time when i start with charm it's when i'm reacting to someone being aggressive to me or it's a charm flash combo.

I would be fine with just removing the movespeed on her q and buffing her damage so she can actually do things on her own.

ImaginesTigersFeb 9, 20188 votes

Although I'll agree that Zoe's undoubtedly a frustrating champion, is the change to her Q (especially hitting her ability to waveclear) really where power has to come from? These changes are huge, but that's the only one which makes the champion feel significantly worse to me. Cooldown nerfs are alright, but having the uniformity of her damage, and losing the ability to clear the back line consistently early, feels like shit.

What are the chances that all of these ship, instead of just a few?

And in the event that all of them ship - will you guys address the fact that something was going really well that a champion (and their users) have to endure patch through patch of nerfs because the design team made mistakes?

RiotMeddlerFeb 9, 201817 votes

It's likely, though not guaranteed, that all of these changes ship. It's also possible that we will have to nerf the Q still. We're making these changes because we believe that, even if the Q also needs nerfs, these are all appropriate changes. If she ends up too weak we wouldn't revert these nerfs but would instead give her power in healthier ways.

In terms of how we should have done better here, yeah, in retrospect we should have hit Zoe harder like this in 8.1 or 8.2, rather than putting her players through a steady trickle of nerfs while her opponents still had to deal with some inappropriate strengths. That's something we need to get better at and I think the best response there is to demonstrate by handling future releases, whether VGUs or new champs, better.

DeadUnbornFeb 9, 201813 votes

How about having the ability to activate W for the passive damage with no summoner spell attached to it (so you don't get the MS buff), but have the ability go on CD if you do? this will help wave clear when needed but wouldn't really buff her a lot IMO

RiotMeddlerFeb 9, 201816 votes

Something along those lines seems promising, find ways to make the W contribute more of a baseline.

iahim98Feb 9, 20187 votes

Thoughts in making the minions who drop summoner spells show what they drop to both Zoe and enemies so they can both prepare to what summs she can get (you probably have also seen that reddit thread) similar to how we know what drake will come and so both teams can plan around it.

RenanReinFeb 9, 20188 votes

Hi Meddler. I’ve seen a lot of complains about the Precision Keystones being weak (and little impactful), so, I have some suggestion to some of them (Precision tree), and also some insights on some Sorcery Keystones. I know you guys already have some buffs for PTA planned, but I thinkg you guys are aiming on the wrong aspects to change.

Press the attack – The problem with PTA is that this Rune has a support oriented mechanic. Increasing the damage by all sources, means that this Rune can’t be buff enought without becoming op. My suggestion: Change the increased damage from All Sources to Only the Champion who has the Rune, this way you can increase this damage and make this a good sustaining damage Rune.

Lethal Tempo – Is easily countered and easy to avoid. Why not take some ideas from our beloved fervor and put it here? My suggestion: Attacking na enemy Champion grants a stack of “Tempo”. Each “Tempo” stack grants X% attack speed (scale with level). When you reach 5 “Tempo” stacks, they’ll transform into “Lethal Tempo” granting more attack speed (a burst of attack speed) and removing your attack speed cap for X seconds. (You can also put a cooldown on “Tempo” stacks gaining after Lethal Tempo expires).

Fleet Footwork – Its ok, the problem is that the other 2 Precision Runes are garbage. Also, the fact that this Rune is a sustain oriented Rune, this mean that take the other 2 Runes against this, will automatically make you lose the lane because you can’t sustain enough against a Champion with this. Suggestion: Make this Rune only procs on champions, this way you don’t need to gutted it. I know that this maybe will imply on doing changes on how energizes work, because energizeds attack need to proc on minions, in value to the clearwave from statikk, but maybe you guys could make a way for something like this to work, just don't ruin this Rune).

Sorcery

Aery – Aery offensive mode should work only on spells. This is the SORCERY tree, which means is about resources and spells, so, auto attacks should not be able to have synergy here. By removing it interaction with auto attack, you can make it better on spells procs, maybe Aery could be attached to the target (mark) and make it receive extra damage on the next allied spell, based on YOUR ap/ad. So, basically some kind of “Leona passive”. This way you would’t make Aery a raw damage Rune, and make it more distinte from Comet.

Phase Rush – Phase Rush could be more interesting. Is very good on some champions, but a very few. My suggestion: Decreasing the cooldown based on level (15-10) and after the 3 seconds of the slow resist and movement speed, if the Champion stills in combat, it will keep 50% of the movement speed for 2 more seconds (only the ms, not the slow resist). For example, I’m fighting and uses Phase Rush , I'll gain +40% ms, AND if after 3 seconds I have still fighting with my enemy, so for the next 2 seconds, I’ll have +20% ms. This could help a little this Rune in my opinion.

ITakeYoSandwichFeb 10, 20183 votes

Upvoted for everything except Fleet Footwork. I think with these changes to PtA and LT and a little balancing the precision keystones would be in a balanced state. Making this change to FF would just needlessly complicate energized effects.

iahim98Feb 9, 20187 votes

Hey meddler when can we expect the addition of old summoner spells to unsealed spell book?

Also as a QoL can you let us swap summoners around for free when we have spellbook? As of how spellbook works we need to swap whatever is off CD and that usually leaves us with summoners in the wrong order. The only work around right now is to either wait for the shards and use them to correct it or rebind the summoners around which both feel pretty bad.

RiotMeddlerFeb 9, 20188 votes

Spellbook changes - potentially 8.6.

Swapping buttons around - planning to do that. Takes some UI/engineering work, so I'm not sure where it is on the backlog versus other similar tasks.

TomiMan7Feb 9, 20185 votes

Keystone Development

Are you guys ever experimented with opening up precision for mages? I mean making it more viable to go into precision as a primary tree? Now mages can only go sorcery and only a selected few can go domination, and probably none of them can go precision, even though there could be an interesting gameplay with a DoT pattern with PTA for example. In contrast ADCs can go precision sorcery inspiration maybe even domination, and do fine. Thoughts?

RiotMeddlerFeb 9, 201822 votes

Definitely open to mages in precision primary and it was something we thought about during keystone development in particular (e.g. adaptive damage on PTA or the AP ratio on Fleet Footwork). Hoping the precision stat split opens up a few more opportunities for that to be an effective choice, the Attack Speed's still arguably too much of a barrier there for many mages though, even at only 50% of its previous value. That does then beg the question of how much playstyle bound stats like that are appropriate on the trees, and that's something we don't have enough of a consensus on ourselves yet (but are certainly actively discussing).

TomiMan7Feb 9, 20185 votes

Attack Speed's still arguably too much of a barrier there for many mages though

Why not just make the stats from rune trees adaptive? I mean if you are AD you get attack speed and some AD(70%-30%), if you are AP you get AP and no AS( or potentially some AS like 80-20) ? This way AS wouldnt gate mages to use whatever they fit them better and AD champs would still get what they want from precision, or there could be a little check box whether they want split stats or not?

B0OMFeb 9, 201811 votes

Adaptive CDR instead of Attack Speed to support DPS play styles for mages?

PowerOfDrainAgeFeb 9, 20187 votes

You could also just attach a bar that you define how much percentage of its stat u want, something like:

AS---><---AP

(i hope it's clear what i mean with the above)

That way player can define his playstyle which was one of the main aims of the new runes i believe.

Fisher No ChainsFeb 9, 20185 votes

Hi Meddler, sorry if I’m doing the same question every time, but I am very happy that you’re working on LB.

Do you have any news about the direction the “rework” is going to? Or maybe it’s just planned but you won’t work on her until Rengar is finally released?

Also, is it confirmed that LB “rework/revert” is being worked on by AzuBK and August?

RiotMeddlerFeb 9, 201810 votes

Yeah, it's planned, but until the 8.4 patch gets locked (middle of next week), hands on work won't have really started.

AzuBK and August are indeed the folks who'll be looking at her.

Ars ArcánumFeb 9, 20184 votes

Has Riot considered a potential small Gameplay Update for Quinn or reversion of her ultimate? It's pretty terrible, both for the player and the enemy and eats up way too much of her power budget. Lot of Quinn mains, including myself are failing to find success with her.

And anything on Ashe? I miss seeing her in Pro Play and she's not too good in Solo Q right now.

VinnieFeb 9, 20184 votes

Hey Meddler,

Any word on the ryze changes mentioned a few months ago?

FlacidGnomeFeb 9, 20184 votes

Hello Meddler! Viktor has felt pretty bad for awhile now. There were a few changes pushed through to the current patch, but nothing that actually fixes his issues. (lower overall damage than most midlaners and taking too long to come online.) Is there anything the works to possibly make his E hit harder or become more reliable? Or even possibly lowering the initial cost of his hex upgrade. (1250g is a lot for a first back especially when other laners can build tear or codex or the mana item i cant think of the name right now.)

PsycloneJokerFeb 9, 20183 votes

I'm glad you guys are finally doing the Zoe nerfs that most people were calling for all along. Kinda worried though, these plus the previous attempts at nerfing her might be too much. Think this might be another "Riot Classic" of joke nerfs + real nerfs = champion is dead.

RiotMeddlerFeb 9, 20188 votes

It's possible this hits her too hard. I feel a good potential parallel here is Camille. We nerfed her in small ways repeatedly early last year, which didn't solve her problems. After we finally hit her fairly hard we got a much better understanding of how she should/shouldn't be powerful while she was a bit weak. That let us then put some power back into her in appropriate ways and she's an effective pick without being the balance challenge she was on release at this point.

TonyTonyMordecaiFeb 9, 20183 votes

Morning Meddler!

So with the Lissandra passive, are you planning on keeping the mana part but make it more intuitive with her ice theme, or just make something entirely new, like how you did with Ashe and moved her old Q to her passive.

RiotMeddlerFeb 9, 20189 votes

More likely just replacing it. It does offer meaningful power, but that power's not satisfying or particularly engaging. Possible there's some solution that improves it enough to be worth augmenting instead, but I'd be a little surprised.

DeadUnbornFeb 9, 201810 votes

Maybe adding a 3 spell hit brittle effect could work for the new passive. Liss is very CC focused so empowering one of her CCs makes sense to me at least

ITakeYoSandwichFeb 10, 20189 votes

Seems to me that if anything they would add a brittle effect to the claw to encourage using it as an engage rather than saving it to escape.

EDIT: It's also tough to land, so that would add an extra reward for landing it without just putting more damage on it and making her waveclear absolutely stupid.

ExcalibaitFeb 9, 20182 votes

How do you (and probably also the balance and gameplay teams) feel about how the Support Items got received by the playerbase so far? Any potential follow up changes planned yet?

RiotMeddlerFeb 9, 20184 votes

Reception seems ok. We did some surveying and overall satisfaction was about the same before and after the changes. Belief is that reflects some people who are dissatisfied because of the lost options, some people who are genuinely neutral and some who like the build flexibility it gives. We'll be bringing a standalone Twin Shadows back in 8.4 as the first step to help that first group, then Shurelia's (Talisman active) in 8.6 most likely. Still considering an Active Item CDR option (though would need to come with an actual Active Item CDR cap) and whether or not a FoTM active replacement is also needed.

In terms of wider ecosystem stuff, there are also some edge cases with non supports utilizing the Bandit passive. Looking into whether that's abusive and a coming balance problem or just an unusual build that's fine.

QualdrionFeb 9, 20185 votes

Have you considered reintroducing the spellthief quest reward? Because for me I'd love to see some AP item that gives the % movespeed on hit as it made playing certain champions feel a lot more fluid and fun (especially Ekko).

KyunseiFeb 9, 20181 votes

what's your current thoughts on Jungle items changes ? I feel like they are very iterative and shouldn't hit live as such.

Even on pure auto-attacker jungle Talisman overwhelm a 5% life steal Machete.

RiotMeddlerFeb 9, 20184 votes

They're still pretty experimental. They won't be in 8.4 at the least and, assuming we ship something in a later patch, will almost certainly change noticeably from what's on PBE right now.