Quick Gameplay Thoughts: March 7

Thoughts on Syndra right now? You guys mentioned you were looking into changes to differentiate her play pattern from other burst mages, and she still seems to be struggling - even with the AP item pass. Any update?

1. What's your take on the Talon changes on the PBE (+.1AD on return W)? It seems very underwhelming compared to the power that got taken out of Duskblade and the fact that Talon hasn't been doing particular well lately

2. Any further thoughts on shielding adjustments being made in the next few patches? Is that still actively underway/what's the current thinking?

KARMAAAAAAAAAAAA

any updates?

Hi Meddler,

I know this has been said before, but we really appreciate the effort you put into maintaining a line of communication with us here on the boards. These couple-of-times-a-week updates on what you're thinking about helps to alleviate a lot of pent up concern or frustration among us.

Question:

Would Riot be willing to do more small-scale surveys related to champion thematics, kits, or lore? I hear about surveys going out all the time for various topics, and I've even received one survey that involved ranking issues I care about compared to one another, but I've never received any for specific champions.

I believe that getting feedback from players on how they feel after playing as or against champions could be very useful for identifying what is core to the champion, what upsets opponents the most, and what sorts of changes players would respond well or poorly to.

EDIT: This would have other benefits beyond simply gauging possible player reactions, it could be used to close the loop on feedback after changes are made, and it could be used to help alleviate player unrest from feeling unheard after changes upset them.

Can we get some context on the Rageblade changes on PBE currently?

I like the direction a lot, since many champions that currently would love Rageblade's passive and the stats do not benefit in any real way from AP (thinking along the lines of Irelia, Aatrox, etc) and thus the item is too gold inefficient and delays other core items too hard for them, so they don't buy it.

Shifitng it from a hybrid paradigm to a simple AD+AS scaling works better for a lot of potential Rageblade users and opens up more interesting build paths for some champions. On the flip side, ADC's like Vayne who would never have thought about Rageblade before may likely build it now. Is that something you're concerned with? Even with the slower stack rate for ranged, I feel like this could be abused in some cases.

Lastly, it does hurt some champs that relied on Rageblade heavily like Varus, Kayle, and Kog'Maw. I expect they'd get some sort of compensation buff if these changes go through, right? Granted these champs are pretty strong right now but only because Rageblade is a crutch for them.

Any thoughts on this would be awesome to hear, thanks.

Have you decided how you will buff Rumble?

Hi Meddler!

Could you please tell us what are the plans regarding Syndra?

In the Quick Gameplay Thoughts of January 5, you said ''We talked about Syndra as well as a possible buff candidate for 8.2, she's got a lot of bug fixes in 8.1 though, some of which are likely to add some power to her, so we'll see where she's at after those.''

We're now almost in March, planning patch 8.5. She still has nothing on the PBE and there was nothing mentionned about her since then (even though the bug fixes did not add power to her) apart from Riot Penguin, who said: ''Yeah, Syndra's in a pretty sad spot right now unfortunately. I know she's on the radar of some balance team dudes.''

Syndra has been weak since preseason. Patch 8.4 was another blow to her. Zoe is the only midlaner that is weaker than Syndra, and she's getting buffed. She is also not a good pick in the LCS, so it's not the case of her being strong in competetive and not in solo q.

I'm hopping it's because they're using the opportunity of Syndra being weak to make changes to her ult or her passive Q and put power elsewhere (and that would be why it's taking a long time), but nothing was communicated. Could you please tell us if you know anything?

(Side note, the 8.3 bugfix ''Fixed a bug where Syndra's W - Force of Will failed to make grabbed targets invulnerable to minion attacks'' seems to have partially worked. She doesn't drop the minion from it dying while holding it, but sometimes, when you throw a minion, you get no gold, as if the minion was killed by something else (prob another minion who auto-attacked while she was grabbing it)).

With the Lissandra passive, will the extra damage from impaired movement come from her abilities only or will runes & items also benefit her from this? Glacial Augment for example or GLP?

Now that Zoe's damage output has been nerfed, is there any chance the usability and reliability of her W could be looked at? The randomness of balloon spawns (long streaks of waves without balloons, influence of balloons being on melee or caster minions when laning against high pressure opponents...) as well as the requirement for Zoe to last hit them (causing frustration with careless/unaware allies, as well as conflicting with relic shield users) often makes the ability feel more difficult to use than it should be, especially considering some of her Q's power was moved there

Thanks for doing these posts Meddler.

Has your team been doing any work on Nautilus?

He has been underwhelming at a time when champions like Maokai have been successful in the Top lane and Jungle , where Nautilus should shine. Changes to his E - Riptide last summer have posed long-lasting limits to the viability of my favourite tank jungler: the Titan of the Depths.

The buff to R - Depth Charge had the intended effect of giving power back to him, but this has mostly seen benefit only in the support role.

Finally some love for Lissandra. This champ has been forgotten and nerfed into the ground cause of his power in pro play, but she really needs something to make her viable again. She is one of the most squishy mages in the game at lv 1 (the second after anivia if i'm not wrong, but anivia has her passive to make her hard to kill) and one with the lower range too. She actually has no passive, and now it seems usefull just because her mana costs are really high. She used to be one of the best mages for waveclearing, but now almost any midlaner has a lot of waveclear and push potential in lane, even more than lissandra, and her waveclear has become almost useless since baron buff gave minions magic damage resistance.

She has problems trading in lane with most of the midlaners and her roaming potential has been outclassed by other champions reworked or released in the last couple of years. She has a lot of aoe damage, that's true, but 1. she needs to go melee range to deal it, which forces her into building Zhonyas (it used to give 100 ap when lissandra got nerfed, now it gives 70 and doesn't give lissandra enough damage to be a good buy); 2. She is a single target burst mage too basically, and she is having problems bursting people since supports have so much tools to keep their carries alive nowdays.

Ofc I know lissandra might me not fun to play against if she is too strong, due to her single target lockdown, but honestly she has been outclassed hard by other champions and I really hope the changes can make her viable again.

For this new Liss passive, is the idea for her to cc a target and then use and empowered spell on them right after? Does this mean she has a certain amount of time to hit an empowered ability or how exactly would it work?

Hey Meddler do you think this new passive for Liss fills the niche you originally intended for her since you were her designer

Hi Meddler, I was wondering if there are any updates on how the VGU is progressing? Keep up the great work as always.

Hey Meddler! I recall you mentioning that, after the Cho’gath Effects update, you’d like to give updating the VO of an older champion. Is that still something you guys are chipping away at, or was it shelved due to resource strain/not hitting the mark/innumerable other reasons? Also, any word on how the Cho visual updates landed?