Boards›Dev Corner

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: June 2

RiotMeddler·6/2/2017, 4:01:33 PM·1 votes·80,578 views

Hi all,

Longer post here catching up on the lack of a post earlier in the week.

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

Runes Reforged

As I'd imagine almost everyone's seen already we've got some big changes coming to runes and masteries at the end of the year, with the two systems getting merged into a new system that's still called Runes but free and modifiable in champ select. Detailed explanation of how the gameplay works from yesterday can be found here:

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/features/coming-preseason-runes-reforged

A few other things important to note about the new Runes system:

  • It's still pretty work in progress. We're talking about this stuff far in advance because we want to give you folks context into what we're doing and to get feedback on the design while it's in development. That means some things will change from what we show, some questions aren't ready to be answered yet (e.g. what happens to existing runes/runepages?) etc.
  • Speaking of showing content in development we'll be continuing to reveal work in progress runes for discussion every couple of weeks or so. Goals there are to help people get a better understanding of the system and get feedback as we work on individual runes. Given how far out numbers certainly won't be final and other details, or even the concept of a specific rune could change. Feedback on how you'd expect a rune to be used, what sort of choices it offers/skills it tests etc's going to be really helpful. Comments like 'that's busted and will break the game' or 'I don't like it' by contrast need good explanations paired with them otherwise they're not very useful.
  • The updated Runes system has been called 'Perks' internally for quite a while. That's never intended to be a final name, but we did want some way of clearly distinguishing it from existing runes while we were working on it initially. Mentioning that since it's all but guaranteed that someone (probably me...) will refer to Perks at some point while we're talking about Runes over the next 5 months.

Some 7.12 Changes Context

  • Doran's Shield - Good to see it getting used when you want to give up lane offensive power for survivability. Looks a bit too strong though. We'll likely increase its cost a bit as a result, shift it to a 1 health pot start item instead of 2.

  • Singed - We're testing some Singed changes at the moment aimed at letting him be a more meaningful damage threat later in the game. That means shifting some power later in the game, giving him better AP ratios to reward builds that mix some AP and some tankiness. These changes won't be ready for 7.12, so expect to see them vanish from the PBE at some point soon, we'll be continuing to investigate them in future though.

  • Xayah and Rakan - Looks like Rakan's a bit weak and Xayah probably a bit strong. We'll likely buff Rakan (E CD probably) and might nerf Xayah a bit, now or next patch (most likely targets: W attack speed and/or ability to AA while Q missiles fire).

  • Support Items - We're working on a big pass on Support items at present too, looking to allow more build diversity and iron out a range of smaller issues. That includes things like Locket having a smaller base shield but gaining a bonus HP ratio so it's more rewarded with some build paths than others, Athene's giving AP based off your % mana regen etc. That work's still going through some iteration, so expect to see ongoing changes over the next few days (e.g. Talisman's build path is likely to go back to something similar to its current one).

Warded Ping

Can't make any guarantees on timeline, we're gonna be looking at this though.

Ancient Coin Hotfix

We fixed a bug earlier in the week where the Coin line was giving non mana resources to champs with other resources. Most visibile with Rengar getting a bunch of Ferocity whenever he picked up a 'mana' coin. Script was set to restore resource, not mana specifically. Oops.

New Champs and VGUS (full updates)

Now that we're past Xayah/Rakan we should be back to generally alternating new champions and VGUs again for a bit. Up next's a new champ, then Urgot, then another new champ, then Evelynn.

278 Comments

DorkunedAuras6/2/2017, 4:06:34 PM37 votes

Hi, have you heard that a lot of people are dissatisfied with Rek'Sai's new ult? It's very unreliable. It can fly through people, enemies can side step it easily, it just feels like an ability that cannot be relied on to do its job. Do you have any input on that?

zaphod4246/2/2017, 4:31:23 PM8 votes

Hey Meddler,

Can i suggest that with Leblanc, you consider a revert and rework, the majority of LB mains dont like current leblanc, and she seems impossible to balance, so the best approach, as far as i can tell, would be to give up on current LB, and go back to how she was before, take the lessons learnt, and do a small heimer style rework to old LB.

if u do take this approach tho, can i ask that you revert the rework soon, and keep her in her old state until such time as you are ready to update her, if necessary, as old LB was much better balanced, and imo, much healthier to play against, as well as more fun to play as. Leblanc item 3070

Firestorm6/2/2017, 9:22:19 PM6 votes

As someone who has managed to get near 80% xayah winrate over ~50 games across 2 accounts (in mid plat and low diamond) the very first thing that I think should be nerfed in her kit is W interaction with turrets (especially with the rakan interaction on top of it). The 20% damage increase working on turrets on top of the already good AS steroid makes her as good at pushing as trist or jinx and I'm fairly sure this is not one of the things xayah is supposed to be good at. It's literally the same problem as when reworked ashe Q worked on turrets. This needs to be adressed before you consider doing anything else to her. Removing QautoE snare combo would make her a little bit clunky. If her Q was castable while on the move a la syndra Q this kind of change would've been necessary but with the way her Q works now I can't agree with it. QautoE is truly strong only with RFC (which is otherwise vastly inferior to PD/runaans) and it has a fair tradeoff: if you go for QautoE even with full CDR you can't E again for 5 seconds (with less CDR and less than 5 points in E it's much longer than that). That's a ton of damage and utility gone in exchange for a 1s root. It's worth doing if you have a teammate with damage in range to follow that up or if you're so ahead you can kill the rooted target on your own with no need to E. If you're looking into addressing xayah's overall performance would be to give her a bit of jinx rockets/caitlyn treatment: reduce the scaling with bonus AS a little. Something that would keep her earlygame AS unchanged but tone down the attack speed values she can reach later a bit. The amount of autos xayah can pump out in a short amount of time with ER + double zeal item or ER zealitem zerkers is pretty ridiculous. Just be very careful with this kind of change because it would be twofold, not only decreasing direct autoattack damage but also lowering potential E damage. Rakan E cooldown is pretty ridiculous early on (20s base cooldown rank 1). With the post release set of changes he received that was trying to push him away from maxing E and into maxing Q (or perhaps W?) E is now used as a one point wonder and could definitely use going from 20-12s to, say, 17-12s. Rakan's bulids generally don't involve much CDR (unless you were to sacrifice a lot of defense) so the E is nowhere near close to being abusable as some free escape (especially without xayah). Out of other ideas for changes to rakan: the Q heal is not very satisfactioning, especially later on when people have a lot of health (a 4k HP zac will never even notice he got healed by 150). Throwing in a small % missing health ratio on top of it (2,5%?) would make it much nicer. That would make for a "my team's tank will be aware he got healed by me" heal without at the same time making it a "I top off my ADC from 80% to full" heal. I know that % teammate's HP heals are pretty volatile because the same amount of HP is actually a lot more effective HP on a tank/bruiser. The only heals like this I remember existing throughout the time I play league are pre-rework karma RQ (long gone) and the previous iteration of mikaels crucible (huge cooldown, also gone). I think rakan's Q is a good candidate. Lastly you should consider making rakan count as melee, opening him up to using relic shield line, full gold from bandit and full effects of knight's vow. That change alone would be enough to make him strong right now, I don't know how that would go with the upcoming pregame setup overhaul and support items changes though. I definitely agree with the dshield change and I would like to point out that it affects one more thing that was probably not the intended target of the nerf but I agree with it nonetheless: it prevents the possibility of starting double dorans if you manage get first blood in an invade. This is a bit of an edge case but I have seen it happen a few times and it was disgusting every time. The "warded" ping will definitely be a very welcome addition. None of the currently existing pings are a clear enough message that a place is warded and stopping to type that is often not an option. This resulted in many unnecessary awkward situations with junglers and supports. As it was already brought up reksai ult needs to be fixed, I understand the necessity of a targetted dash ability not dealing its damage if the target moves too far away but that is meant for the "ezreal E'd and flashed away" situations, not the "anivia with tier 2 boots walked in a straight line" ones. In fact I would like to see reksai's ult possibility to miss embraced more strongly: my suggestion would be to give its target the ability to see how wide the zone within which they will take damage from it is, make that zone aim directly at the point where the target will be if they continue moving in the same direction with their current movement speed (you can probably borrow some code for that from draven's axes). This will allow counterplay to her ult in similar fashion as already existing counterplay to her burrowed E: make her use it in a certain direction then walk in the opposite direction. This is of course not always possible (you aren't exactly going to turn around and walk back into the enemy laner when ganked very often) and it will give her much more counterplay in 1v1. Especially if the "new" reksai turns out overbearing in top lane a change like that would maker her ult not be like "I am slightly below half HP and reksai has touched me with something within the last 5 seconds - that means I am dead, period". Also reksai ult could leave a tunnel behind it - it already visually spawns one except it disappears right away. Make it not count towards E tunnel cap and be on cooldown at first (so that it can't be used by reksai to get out right after until later into the game) and if not that then at least give it a slight cooldown refund if it misses. An ult like this would make for nice prey/predator gameplay with meaningful decisions to be made by both sides and not just some generic dash with damage.

Overall I like a lot of the recent balance decisions. Good work, keep it up.

patmax176/2/2017, 4:57:24 PM5 votes

Welcome back! How was your trip? ^_^

Silver Singed6/4/2017, 2:28:47 AM4 votes

Hi meddler!

I'm a singed main. I was wondering if you guys have considered options for singed that let him choose to build AP items (when he wants them) by making him more innately tanky.

The way I see it, there are two things the kind of person who plays singed wants out of the champion. (it's not ult + Ghost + RG derp tank initiations.)

We're looking for a reason for the enemy team to chase us (so that our team can get objectives) and the utility, tankyness, and speed to escape when we are chased.

We're primarily interested in global map pressure and disruption. Ideally we provide our team with unparalleled split pushing power and a unique form of indirect objective control.

While the extra damage is very nice, I don't feel like it addresses most of our primary concerns with our main. It feels like we have been relegated to a team-fight oriented role lately because we lack the tools to survive when the enemy comes for us.

Thanks so much for looking into our main and sending some attention our way!

-Silver Singed

Archlord Aatrox6/2/2017, 4:27:57 PM4 votes

Hey Meddler, this might be a question for Reav3, but when can we expect teasers for Urgot (if any)? Any hints or tidbits of information of what he's like now? And I believe you or Reav3 answered this already, but when will the next state of the champion blog come out? I'm super curious as to whom the next two champs are slated for VGU's (fingers crossed it will be Pantheon and Nunu).

BarbaJhini6/2/2017, 5:15:58 PM4 votes

Nothing planned for Jhin? Some threads ago you mentioned he was being looked at, is he still or he is in a decent spot right now? Are you happy of how BotRK nerf impacted the game,only a few champs were building it after crits item were buffed and many had already switched to DD and BT, thereare even more of this now, pls do not make the mistake of slowly nerfing all the items and bring adc back to the awful spot they were in at the beginning of the season.

StrangerL6/2/2017, 6:05:27 PM4 votes

Love the changes with item 3174. How about item 3222? Any changes for its active?

Also, it looks like we will have 3 building paths for item 3105. item 3060, in my opinion, will never be an appealing choice for anyone given the base stats and passive are not that useful to any class of champions. For supports, tank sup will still choice locket, and aim for HP CDR defensive items afterward. Mage sup won't find it useful at all. Enchanters still find locket and new zeke's more useful because of its passive. I think this item passive should be reworked and its build path should move away from Aegis.

58697132DEL16/2/2017, 5:37:09 PM2 votes

Do you think any of the current Keystone Masteries might find a place in runes reforged?