Quick Gameplay Thoughts: June 20

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

---

Rek'Sai

We've got some follow up changes for Rek'Sai in testing, though a bunch of them will be pretty hard to datamine. Mainly bug fixes and useability, though we're also testing an AD ratio buff on the ult, belief being that's still underperforming a bit versus where it should be.

Q - does a better job of spell queueing W - Standardized unburrow time for W reactivation versus right click (right click was slightly slower), knockback for secondary targets now clears the CC properly on knockback end (was lingering sometimes) R - Ratio 1.6 -> 1.85, CD updates properly for allies, visual effects clean up.

---

Ezreal

Ez looks pretty weak at the moment. Some of that makes sense with the current meta, state of items in particular, which aren't so favorable to him. Something we'll want to consider before buffing him however is whether this is finally the time to do some work on his W, make it a more satisfying spell. Lot of value from doing that, main downside is that we've got some other small updates in the queue already (Azir, LB being the main two). Would be looking for a W that had interesting skill expression, still felt right thematically for Ezreal and didn't remove gameplay or intended weaknesses from him (so not just W affecting minions or W removing the skilltest on who E hits for example).

---

Rift Herald

Rift Herald looks to be in a pretty good space still. We'll be making a slight buff most likely in the next patch however, increasing the gold reward for the kill from 25g to 100g. Goal there is to put a bit more power in for taking the camp in the first place, bringing up the baseline value a little even if you don't get much out of the summon itself (e.g. if your team's behind and can't support the push well). Also puts a bit more reward in for the jungler (usually) specifically.

---

Inhib Tower XP

We'll also be removing the XP inhib towers give at present in an upcoming patch. We removed most tower XP a while back, but looks like we missed that specific case. It's not a major impact, but it's a bit of extra snowball, that won't be appreciated or played around, in a situation where one team's already getting themselves into a powerful position (they've taken an inhib tower). Snowball's got its place, good play should increase your chance of winning after all, but we still want it to be at the appropriate levels, clear, satisfying etc.

---

Xayah

Small bit of follow up on Xayah coming in the next patch too, with her Q lockout now reducing with the amount of attack speed she's got. The lockout looks like it's having the appropriate impact in lane, but longer than needed later in the game.

---

Death Sounds

Shortly, most likely in 7.14, we'll be testing out updated sounds for nearby allied and enemy champion deaths, aiming to make those a bit more distinct so team fights especially are easy to track. Bunch more details on those coming in the next week or two, feedback then much appreciated as to how clear they are/how they sound in general.