Quick Gameplay Thoughts: August 30

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

Clash

We've now run tests of the new Clash system in Turkey, Latam South and, just this last weekend, NA. They've gone really well overall. In the NA test we did see some significant lag spikes in a few games, digging into it those were caused by some new server hardware that needed to be configured slightly differently than the existing hardware. We've corrected that so, fingers crossed, shouldn't be seeing that issue again.

Looking to the future we'll have some more details about next tests in other regions in an Ask Riot post next week. Assuming those go well we'll then be looking at a global beta in every region.

Teemo changes in 9.18

We've got some Teemo changes coming in 9.18. They're based in part off some of the larger Teemo work we explored earlier in the year. Focus here however is more on useability/clarity and fixing some points of unneeded frustration, rather than attempting to reshape his strengths and weaknesses a bit as well. Details:

Q

• Blinded enemies now have a light green tint on their screen to make it clearer they're blinded

W

• Now has a clearer timer for remaining duration of the buff

R

• Shrooms now check for nearby enemies more frequently. They should feel a bit more responsive in general. Also ensures enemies moving really quickly can't pass through some of their area without triggering them.
• Shrooms no longer detonate on Scuttlecrabs who aren't in combat. Makes keeping shrooms in the river much more practical.
• Shrooms can bounce off other shrooms multiple times, letting you deploy them a bit further away in some circumstances.
• Max ammo's now 3/4/5, increasing late game relevance a bit

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Initial thoughts on 9.17 balance

Early days, a few initial thoughts though:

• Panth seems to be performing pretty solidly now post buffs. No plans to add further power to him right now as a result, keeping an eye too to make sure we haven't now made him too strong.
• Ryze currently seems to be doing quite well in solo queue, especially compared to his historical average. Feeling really glad we went with only one of the buffs we were testing during 9.17 development as a result.
• Aurelion Sol and Kayle are both looking a bit weaker statistically. Both have had moderate changes to how they're optimized though and are getting a lot more play than previously. Giving them some time to settle as a result. Wouldn't be at all surprised if they're stronger on 9.17 than before even if it takes a bit more time for that to become really clear.

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TFT AI bugs

We fixed some TFT AI bugs in 9.17 that should address at least a fair number of cases of units freezing up in the middle of combat. We're still looking into some other possible issues, including around melee unit pathing. If you're still seeing units freeze feedback/details much appreciated, getting those issues addressed is one of our priorities for TFT.

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