Quick Gameplay Thoughts: September 8
Hi folks,
Usual Disclaimers
These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get put delayed or even stopped. If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler
Anti Shield Tools
We've mentioned this previously, but not particularly visibly. At some point post pre-season we'll likely get some anti shield items into the game, intended to be responses to enemy teams stacking shields really heavily. We're planning to use items, rather than things like Runes or Champion abilities that you have to commit to as part of the game, because such effects are intended to be more like safety valves you opt into when needed, rather than things to run purely based off the enemy comp at game start.
Not yet certain whether how many items we'll do, suspect a couple is likely, with the mechanic on them probably something along the lines of 'deals X damage when Y happens (AA? spell?). This damage is doubled against shields'. Something to bring shield heavy teams down a notch, not serve as a hard counter, hence not going with something like 'removes all shields'.
Possible Item changes in 7.19
In addition to the champ changes coming in 7.19 we're also going to be looking at some items for balance adjustments. Likely candidates there include:
- Sterak's gage: Buff, potentially with a melee/ranged split if needed.
- Zeke's: Buff, details TBD.
- Edge of Night: Buff, details also TBD.
- Stoneplate: Investigation, looking in particular at whether it's too attractive an item on fighters (is the trade off they're making for it meaningful enoguh?)
- Righteous Glory: Investigation, looking at whether it's too strong when rushed especially
- Ardent Censer: Nerf, potentially including removing one of the three benefits it gives (AS, heal on AA, damage on AA) with a portion of the removed power being then put into the remaining effects.
A few more champ changes likely in 7.19
In addition to the previously mentioned Azir and Xin Zhao updates, plus possible Janna changes being explored, we've got some other changes coming, many of which were previously also tested on the PBE in some form:
- Malphite: Significantly increased armor while his passive's up, with some power pulled elsewhere. Likely hitting Q less than previous version tested.
- Aatrox: Second half of Q being non uninterruptible, with a likely buff elsewhere as well (still determining what)
- Vayne: Buffs and game health, with Q bonus damage no longer able to crit, Q AD ratio up, W minimum damage up, W starting % down (same at max) and R duration extending on takedown.
Notably missing there is Udyr, despite some changes being tested a while back that got put on hold for other work in 7.17 and 7.18. We need to take another look at those, assess if they're on track to do what's needed or if we should look for a different approach.
