Quick Gameplay Thoughts: March 7

RiotMeddler·Mar 7, 2017·1 votes·56,062 views

Hi folks,

Some things we're thinking about below! Additionally, if there's something particularly on your mind gameplay wise you'd like to hear our thoughts on do throw that suggestion into the comments. Can't make any promises I'll be able to speak to it, or speak to it immediately at least, always on the lookout for new topics though.

Looking at struggling junglers

One of our focuses for the 7.6 development cycle is looking at champions who commonly jungle who are having too hard a time of it. We're expecting that'll mean we look at a range of champions and then make changes to a subset of that group. Currently being considered are Nunu, Fiddlesticks, Nidalee, Amumu, Jarvan and Volibear. You should see changes to some of those champs hit the PBE today, expect some others to follow and some to likely get reverted during the patch cycle as we test them.

Changes we're more confident in are Nid traps prioritizing big monsters over small plus Fiddle getting bonus E damage against monsters and from memory CD/range tweaks to Q/W respectively. For J4 and Nunu we're looking at W scaling and consume respectively, though need more testing on those to speak with confidence about how promising those directions are/aren't. Nothing concrete yet on Amumu or Volibear.

Shifting defensive stats from items to base stats

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned we were testing moving some stats from items to base stats, making vanguards, wardens and juggernauts at least more inherently tanky. We've concluded that approach wasn't working well enough overall, given it pushed a lot of champions towards more offensive itemization, risked blunting the difference between ahead and behind tanks too much and made some defensive purchases too unsatisfying/unimpactful.

We're still exploring other defensive item changes though and will be investigating a number of concepts (possible need for an item that's strong against sustained magic damage specifically, efficiency of double defensive item rushes from solo laners, tanks dying too fast in some circumstances late game etc). We won't necessarily end up with changes that touch on all or even any of exact those issues FYI, but figured there'd still be interest in hearing about the sorts of things we're considering.

Ninja Tabi

We've seen some recent spikes in Ninja Tabi use, especially in high Elo ranked. Still assessing whether that's reflective of Ninja Tabi being too strong (they are really gold efficient) or whether that's a natural and appropriate reaction to some teams stacking a lot of physical damage dealers who auto attack (any game the enemy team's running a jungle Graves for example Ninja Tabi's value goes up quite a bit). We'd like to get more confidence we've properly distinguished between an item being too strong and an item being an appropriate safety valve basically. More thoughts on that to follow at some point.

Aatrox

Aatrox's balance changes should be hitting the live servers shortly. We believe the direction they represent's a good one, as usual with larger sets of changes they'll likely throw his balance out a bit, one direction or the other, initially though. Given his optimal builds have likely changed moderately we also suspect he'll probably perform worse for a little while just after the changes than he will longer term as players experiment with builds and people unfamiliar with Aatrox give him a try.

256 Comments

GoLéonMar 7, 20179 votes

I would like to address Phoenix Udyr Udyr in here, because he is currently also one of the struggling junglers.

Phoenix Udyr was one of the most potent champions in Season 6 with the introduction of Runic Echoes and the Sated Devourer +Rageblade combo. Patches pasted and Runic Echoes got nerfed, Devourer was replaced by a weaker item with Bloodrazor and Rageblade got another rework. This was combined with Udyr nerfs in Patch 6.4 and 6.7. Since then Udyr has fallen out of favor for alot of players. With the introduction of Season 7 all things that still held him in a decent spot got changed. SotA got replaced. Power farming, Udyrs most loved task, got flat out removed from the game and strong early game junglers like Kha'Zix or Graves are currently the best junglers in League of Legends. Udyr is known for his fast clears, which isn't the case at the moment. Champions like Shyvana are clearing just flat out fasters, which allows them to get earlier on to the map and secure river control. You could say, that compared to Shyvana and Master Yi , Udyr can gank, because of his bear. Udyr can stun, but he can't gapclose, which Shyvana and Master Yi can. These problems can be fixed by just changing some numbers. Here are some changes, Udyr Mains like DoublepainSits, who currently is the best Udyr player after LoLSkills ranking, came up with, to improve Udyr's early and mid game.

R: Phoenix Stance

Persistent Effect: 40 / 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 (+45%) --> 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+45%) Activation: 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+25%) --> 20 / 27.5 / 35 / 42.5 / 50 (+25%)

Udyr's Mid-Late game is completly OK, why the Level 5 numbers are the same, but his first clears are seriously lacking. These changes would allow him to get faster on the map and apply pressure on the lanes or in the enemy jungle much earlier.

E: Bear Stance

Movement speed bonus: 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35% --> 20 / 23,75 / 27,5 / 31,25 / 35% Duration stays the same

Giving Udyr's level one Bear Stance a larger movement speed bonus helps Udyr's ganking alot. With every rework or new champion are coming more gap closers into the game (e.g. Warwick's Q, Camille's E). Having more movement speed on level 1 Bear Stance would improve Udyr's ganking alot.

**P: Monkey's Agility ** Adding the level 20 change, as mentioned by Meddler Also the Jax and Fervor of Battle treatment, so that the stacks fall of one at a time and not instantly.

Mana cost on all spells

The last idea I want to mention is the mana cost. Udyr has 270 - 292 base mana level 1 and 2. So after ~7-8 usages of Phoenix and Turtle he can only auto attack. This forces him to start blue buff most of the time, to have a healthier and faster clear.

Mana cost: 47 / 44 / 41 / 38 / 35 --> 43 / 41 / 39 / 37 / 35

These changes would improve his time after clearing the jungle, while being less dependent on blue buff in the early-mid game.

I would really like to hear your thoughts about these ideas.

Sahn UzalMar 7, 20176 votes

Really cool to hear something about the things you're testing, and how they're working out, rather than us just hearing it all at once when the update hits PBE.

I'm also pretty happy with the approach you're taking with Ninja Tabi's!

EreldraMar 7, 20176 votes

A question about Ahri: Any nerf plans for her? She's got a quite high SoloQ-Winrate, and now that shes starting to come back into Pro-Play, probably even more after the Nerfs to LB and Ryze, it's probably warranted to be worried about her getting nerfed soon. What does your team think about her and her coming back into Pro-Play?

Also, thanks for doing this kind of posts, I think it's super informative to get a regular glimpse into what you and your team are thinking and planning!

MakeItEasy4LolisMar 7, 20176 votes

Buff Aatrox base stats, those are really a big problem.

Also what about Udyr? Phoenix stance is pretty much useless in this meta

Illâoi Evê SiônMar 7, 20175 votes

Did you guys try out things like +% base Armor and +% base Magic Resistance and +% base Health as stats (to counter Tanks dying too quickly late game, and to make Tank items better on Tanks but not horrible on melee champs)? Any thoughts on that?

Also, thanks a lot for looking at Nunu. Do you think the Consume changes might help out lane Nunu, too, or are they just changes to Well Fed? (Support Nunu is starving in a lot of senses of the word)

######I also made a Warden item concept that converts AoE magic damage spells to single target damage here.

HamentaschMar 7, 20175 votes

Any thoughts on nerfing Ivern and Shaco? Correct me if I'm wrong, but their performance and winrate in soloq seems way out of line for an average jungler.

Also any thoughts on a jungle buff for Dr. Mundo and Rammus? Mundo really needs it more, he is so fun to play but right now he just doesn't perform.

Lil SoybeanMar 7, 20175 votes

What'sup Meddler. Any discussion about Karthus lately? I'd really like your personal opinion as well as to know whether he's been mentioned internally at all.

He has 2 main playstyles:

Rylai's or Frostbelt early/All-in with exhaust level 1-3/Focus on landing Q's and dueling the enemy frequently to build a lead via solo kills.
RoA early, take teleport, AFK farm from afar and never interact with the enemy laner until minute 40, then press R

My main concern is how you guys seem to be progressively gimping the first playstyle and forcing him into the much lower skill-expression, much less interactive, and much more boring 2nd playstyle.

Notable changes, in order:

When DFT was released, Karthus, Brand, Malz etc. spiked in power. You nerfed Karthus' wall slow, saying that he should be chaining Rylai's to the initial slow to keep landing Q's. (Rylai's Q's slowed for 40% at the time.)

Then you nerfed DFT drastically but left Karthus' wall the same, and he dropped to around a 49% winrate.

Next: The Rylai's changes.

Removing the isolated 35-40% slow he's had since his inception with it meant that he couldn't effectively chain-slow from his now incredibly weak wall slow, and pushed him further towards RoA AFK farm.

The sad part here was that RoA AFK farm Karthuses will find similar success but Rylai's-based dueling Karthuses are hit hard, so his general winrate floats at a decent level and you see no reason to help him out overall. Suppose if AP Ekko was gutted but he was still strong as a tank, so you saw a 50% winrate on him and thought - hey, he's doing fine, no need for increases to his AP damage.

3)Finally, the Exhaust nerf.
Exhaust clearly needs a nerf, but it's the key facilitator of the highest-level Karthus' strategies. They use Exhaust to all-in level 1-3 and get first blood. The 10 MR reduction removal is akin to giving those Karthuses 10 less Mpen for several seconds during their early-level all-ins. It heavily gimps his early kill potential, which was already fine-tuned to such a point that these high level Karthuses often secured the kills only by weaving auto attacks between Qs.

Then I opened this thread and saw you mentioning the possible need of an item to deal with sustained magic damage. Bluh....

So, with this all in mind, I'm pretty afraid that you're cramming him tightly into a playstyle of 'Buy RoA, take Teleport, farm for 40 minutes, press R'. Any chance of a slight change to help the more skillful Karthus playstyle - that is, something to reward him better for landing Qs, or maybe a revert to his wall nerf to encourage him to go for Qs?

Thanks for reading. Please tell me your personal thoughts as well as whether he's been mentioned internally at all.

MinaZer0Mar 7, 20174 votes

what happened to the Lissandra changes/buffs?

PredatoratorMar 7, 20173 votes

Honest question, how is volibear struggling? i'm not sure about his clears, but he actually seems pretty ok, he can get tanky in a good amount of time, and yet he retains good damage. but hey, i may have missed something. Any thoughts on skarner?

wogselMar 7, 20171 votes

Dunno why skarner has so low priority... And mordekaiser has higher, but both reworks are just unsuccesfull... Skarner was classed as a juggernaut,but he cant stay under other juggernaut ( darius,morde) in early game because his extremly weak...moreover he has super high manacosts. He says "I will tear them apart", "I will show you a monstrous" but even malphite can solo him. Is that really a juggernaut?? Juggernaut that loses against 90% champs 1v1? I am raelly disappointed.. his only common feature with juggernautis that he is super slow (335 ms) Please make his rework a higher priority, because skarner actually is super boring,and he somentimes reminds a worse version VI or Heca.

PredatoratorMar 8, 20171 votes

I'm fine with morde being a high priority. what bugs me is how low of a priority apparently skarner is. i mean, both reworks were busted, but morde got a very decent and consistent followup, which brought him in a far better spot, while skarner only got his numbers nerfed, and still 50% of his power tied to fixed, contestable zones in the jungle.

right now skarner is more of a vanguard than a juggernaut, due to him having more cc than innate damage, in comparison with other juggernauts. it's really just that juggernaut items still work on him. oh yeah, and he also got stripped of his "sticky dps fighter" identity, to have instead a supposedly "premiere objective controller" niche, when actually is the "involve team effort to hold the crystals, or else you'll get 50% of me" niche, and still lots of champions have more objective-taking potential than him.

i hope he'll get worked on a bit in the mid-season update. because i don't see actually volibear to struggle more than skarner.

l MrD lMar 7, 20173 votes

do you feel like the items for AD champions and AP champions are more favoured to AD? It sort of feels like AD champions have too much variety? want MR with damage maw or edge of night or just a simple deaths dance or steraks gage could help beat a mage. For AP champions need MR? abyssal! but this isnt very efficient on all champions. The AD items feel too rewarding IMO and its not just but what are your thoughts?

robotmasterMar 7, 20172 votes

What's happening with crit marksmen? Do you believe they are in an ok spot or need some more work?

RiotMeddlerMar 7, 20178 votes

We're looking at crit and % pen for mid-season. Nothing concrete enough yet to talk about beyond that though, don't want to set any expectations there until we've got changes more tested.

HäxelMar 7, 20172 votes

Hi, i would like to hear your thoughts on 2 ideas i have heared and thought about myself too: 1: Regarding Ninja Tabi's, do you think making the amount of % damage reduction from the passive scaling with bonus armor would help to tune it down, so the actuall 12% work just for tanks going armor and not for assasins like talon/Zed, which with only bonus armor from runes should have than maybe something like 4-8% reduction? 2: If you say some tanks die in some circumstances too fast how about an item which reduces %healthmaxdamage dealt to the user? Like current game state has much %healthmaxdamage, even on supports if you look on malzahar and brand support. So if a tank gets ulted by malzahar and 2,3 people attack him he rly melts down. This new item would help against that and you could combine it with your idea of an item beeing strong vs sustained magic dmg.

RiotMeddlerMar 7, 201719 votes

Making the Ninja Tabi effect scale with tank stats would be an effective approach if the desire was to make it so they were generally only bought on tanks. That's not a goal at present, though something like that could make sense if it someday was.

%maxhealth damage is intended to be a counter to tankier defense stackers in part, so we wouldn't want to blunt that. Options we're thinking about are things like a Sterak's for tanks (burst of one off survivability), a Wukong passive item (more defense per nearby enemy), AOE damage reduction in some form (lot of the problem is the ambient damage that's not even targeted at melee they have to eat anyway) etc. That's still at the brainstorming stage though to be clear, not stuff we're committed to or anything.

Linna ExcelMar 7, 20179 votes

I think Ninja tabi are getting more popular because lethality is out of control. They are an easy way to cancel out a ton of lethality by midgame.

I think if you solve lethality, people will stop buying tabi as much.

FTWolfMar 8, 20171 votes

Not really ninja tabis have always been a great buy

Linna ExcelMar 8, 20172 votes

I don't disagree with that.

However, with people being annoyed with Lethality atm, it also seems like some of the uptick is people are rediscovering the item because they are looking for an early answer to stay alive.

I am RazgrizMar 8, 20174 votes

I think if you solve lethality

Make Lethality only affect spells.

WarWorkMar 7, 20172 votes

Speaking of Wukong, what are your thoughts about him as well, do you think he needs a full VGU or a class update will suffice?

I ask because is seems a LOT of divers need help in a class update and you guys seem to be wanting to tackle less and less as it relates to class updates.

RiotMeddlerMar 7, 20174 votes

Class update would be my pick.

SpideraxeMar 7, 20172 votes

Hey Meddler can I ask for your thoughts on if J4 needs larger scope amounts of work

RiotMeddlerMar 7, 20179 votes

I personally think he needs a clearer set of strengths or weaknesses to put him in a more balanceable long term position. He's also showing his age visually. Overall though he's in a much better spot than some champs, so certainly wouldn't advocate for a VGU for him in the short to medium term.

CarnicoreMar 7, 20171 votes

Do you think Jarvan is outclassed by Camille? They have awfully similar skillsets. Obviously their ultimates, but also the long dash range and somewhat arbitrary attack speed steroids both of them have on E.

EMetaMar 7, 20174 votes

When they're both in a good state, they have very different damage profiles. Camille has almost all single-target damage AND cc, while almost all of J4's kit is AoE. Cam should be able to out-dual a similarly fed J4, but not be quite as devastating in a 5-on-5.

Whether that's actually true or not is largely a numbers issue, and they're now looking at those.

SpideraxeMar 7, 20172 votes

What about class update when you guys get to divers

RiotMeddlerMar 7, 20176 votes

Very possible, though there are a lot of divers that also make good arguments for themselves.

SpideraxeMar 7, 20173 votes

And a bit of an OT question do you guys have official or internal name for the smaller scope reworks like for Shyvana

RiotMeddlerMar 7, 20176 votes

Nothing too solid name wise. We've kicked some terms around but haven't yet found a really strong candidate.

Yandere YandereMar 7, 20172 votes

SKGU: Small Kit Gamehealth Update

MRU: Minor Rebalancing Update

MGU: Mini Gameplay Update

TSR: Teemo Sized Rework

SKR: Small Kit Rebalancing

To give you guys some rough idea´s.

SyldaenMar 7, 20172 votes

out of all these junglers , i didn't see udyr getting any changes , we already only see him once in a bloodmoon , this patch is a good one to help him out in it

RiotMeddlerMar 7, 20177 votes

Oh, yeah. We'll be looking at Udyr, separate piece of work though so it slipped the mind even though he shares those problems.

MakeItEasy4LolisMar 7, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Oh, yeah. We'll be looking at Udyr, separate piece of work though so it slipped the mind even though he shares those problems.

so this patch or not? do we have to wait more?

RiotMeddlerMar 7, 20173 votes

Not sure yet.

ÜdyrMar 7, 20172 votes

THE FER!

-Trogdyr

PoluactMar 7, 20172 votes

Have you considered buffing Hunter's Talisman to help tank and mage junglers with early clears?

HäxelMar 7, 20172 votes

i think that would be kidna to much considering not every talisman champ is weak, some even lead the ladder like ivern, eve, elise. Not every ad champ goes the other one, hecarim goes talsiman too for example. And some doent feel the need of the healht and mana reg being buffed like seju, seju is jsut not the fastest of all i would say.

CoballzMar 7, 20173 votes

Not too sure what you mean when you say 'lead the ladder', but Eve's early clear is pretty shite. Not to mention Ivern and Elise aren't Talisman users as much as they are Talisman-because-Machete-does-less-for-me-buyers. Hecarim has a pretty painful early clear as mana is concerned too - unless you start on blue, which solves next to everyone's mana problems - and slow clearers like Sej could definitely do with some increased healing. To be fair, I'd just like to see the healing be part up front and part over time so autoattacking Talisman-buyers would be aided ever so slightly.

ShadowwalkerMar 8, 20172 votes

Hey Meddler do you think Aatrox will be subject to any base stat buffs at least? Or some buffs as you guys observe people play him?

RiotMeddlerMar 8, 20173 votes

Depends on how he performs, which we should start to see very soon now.

Solarus17Mar 8, 20172 votes

Hello meddler I'm Solarus17 I have over 1 million aatrox mastery points and was diamond 4 and the 3rd best aatrox in na. Today I quit my champion and maybe league. Change is good and I waited 2 years for change but the changes down with aatrox put him in a much worse spot then he was before.

The main issue is the passive. It is very hard to stack a huge nerf when compared to before and the revive being on a 4 sec window hurts so much. Lane is much weaker not to mention jungle aatrox which is dead. You are going to see his winrate tank. And this is a disgrace to all aatrox mains who waited wars for changes.

I am part of the aatrox main discord and everyone hates ricklessabandon right now. I have followed all aatrox news everyday I look up aatrox changes and am utterly destroyed at what you did to him this patch. I'm getting messages from all my friends who just read the patch notes which are so badly misleading and I have to explain to them how it's a NERF not a BUFF

Everyone on the aatrox mains discords understands this but obviously we have more experience with the champ than your balance team and than ricklessabandon

I'm just so frustrated that after to years waiting for a buff you NERF him.

You are selling a product and are in charge of balance. That is your job. Ricklessabandon needs to really pay attention to what he's doing because a lot of people had a lot of hope in this update which we were promised would buff him and help him out till a total rework but you did the OPPOSITE.

Next time do a better job

SqkergMar 7, 20171 votes

Any thoughts on Kindred? Do you think the marking qol buffs on the PBE will be enough?

RiotMeddlerMar 7, 20177 votes

Longer term we'll probably want to do some work on how they scale and therefore which items are appealing to them late game. It's likely we'll wait until plans with crit/pen for mid-season are clarified though, rather than doing that work twice.

Illâoi Evê SiônMar 7, 20171 votes

You're changing Shen's ult a little because it's used too aggressively too often, right? What's to stop Galio from combo-ing his ult with a Diver for the same effect? He is supposed to be a Warden, right?

RiotMeddlerMar 8, 20172 votes

Galio's ult doesn't track the target, instead going to the ground beneath their feet at time of spell cast. Much harder to use with a diver who's usually moving as a result.

Illâoi Evê SiônMar 8, 20171 votes

If a teamfight breaks out around an Amumu ult it wouldn't be as hard. Shouldn't enemies have other ways to respond than to just run away when that happens (which might not be as effective considering his E range)? Or at least, shouldn't Galio lose some kind of bonus for not using his ult defensively?

I honestly don't know, so I'm really asking. I haven't played him yet, I've only seen imbalanced streams. I'm just concerned.

Sexy Jack RabbitMar 8, 20173 votes

To be fair massive Wombo Combo's have ALWAYS been a thing. It's like saying that the classic Amumu or Malphite + Orianna combo lacks any other way to respond besides running away.