Quick Gameplay Thoughts: November 10

RiotMeddler·Nov 10, 2017·1 votes·76,757 views

Morning 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 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

Pre-Season Balance assessment so far

So, pre-season's here. We've been poring over games, discussion, stats etc to build up an understanding of the state of the game, it's still really early days though with a lot of experimentation going on. Collection of things on our minds below, most of this is more of a watch list than an action list though.

Nothing's too crazy

Some stuff's quite strong or quite weak, nothing that's been on fire enough to need day one attention though, which is a relief with a patch this big. Some bugs that will get hotfixed, or have already been so however and we’ll potentially do a bit of champion balance hotfixing today or Monday.

Strong Keystones

Some keystones are performing quite well, with Aftershock, Guardian and Summon: Aery being ones we're watching particularly closely. Aftershock goes really well on some champs for example (those with pick/lockdown combos). Aery seems to outperform Comet on some champs who should be good Comet users, assumedly because of its higher reliability.

Unsealed Spellbook

Unsealed Spellbook's showing a really wide range of outcomes, from looking pretty powerful to not contributing much depending on the player and champion in question. Makes sense given it probably got one of, or the highest, learning curves of a keystone, so wouldn't want to judge too quickly there, definitely one to watch though.

Non Keystone Runes

Nothing to note here yet beyond that nothing seems crazy or useless so far.

Strong Champs

Yorick's potentially too strong. That's more likely a result of Q affecting towers adding more power than expected, rather than anything Runes specific.
Sona's looking really dominant with a range of different keystones. Not yet clear at time of writing if there's an issue with her, or just that she's taking better advantage than most of keystones that might be too strong.

Weak Champs

Nunu and Ivern are both struggling quite a bit, assumedly in part due to a lack of obvious keystone they do well with as a default. Guardian seems to work fairly well on them, especially relative to the alternatives, but it's also stronger again on other Guardian users. Might need to buff them soon if they continue to struggle as much as they are.

Rune Path Popularity

For anyone interested we're seeing some pretty strong trends in terms of what players are using so far. Precision/Domination and Domination/Precision are the clear favorites, though generally not the most effective on many champs. Lot of people seem to be avoiding Resolve/Inspiration as secondaries when they'd be great choices (e.g. tough lanes). That's not surprising though, we figured there'd be a lot of double damage tree use early on given that looks fun and with the ranked season over people aren't playing quite as competitively. Inspiration's the least popular primary path, which is also unsurprising given its got a lot of stuff that's not to everyone's taste and for some champs just doesn't work too well.

None of the primary/secondary pairings are looking too dominant power wise so far at least, it’s just popularity that’s varying a lot. If power does become a concern we’ll then use the stat bonuses particular pairings offer to bring them up or down in effectiveness as needed.

Skin Portrait Updates

Patch 7.23's going to have tweaks to quite a few of the skin specific portraits on the in game HUD, zooming some of them out mainly that are too close to the face at present. Those are on PBE already, thoughts on how they now look appreciated.

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

344 Comments

Solari FortuneNov 10, 201723 votes

Can I suggest an CD indicator for Manaflow Band. It a little annoying not knowing exactly when it will come up or if you close to it being up for a free spell

shekurikaNov 10, 20174 votes

THIS! The mana-bar indicator looks awful as well (it gets light-blue because of the manaflow band, right?) and a timer would not only be useful it feels very necessary imho. Also, do you think it's in the right spot atm? I felt like I was running oom permanently on syndra despite having morello and mana-flow, felt like having less mana than before and you give up quite a bit of power for manaflow imho

J EevoNov 10, 201711 votes

Honestly feels like Arcane comet is really underwhelming on artillery, which is weird since I thought that was one of the target audiences - Checked the Stats of damage done by it on Xerath(BTW GREAT JOB on the new ingame rune tab, I love that we can see the impact the runes have in real time, with stats available ingame, and everything being tracked) seemed like Comet contributed to my damage just about 1/3 more than Scorch(with Scorch not being keystone) when the hitrate of comet was slightly above 52%. Especially sad since Aery seems to outdo it despite it requiring less effort to deal damage with aery than with comet. On the other hand Comet seems great on champs that brawl and skirmish a lot like Ryze and Swain so maybe it's just how the uptime's lower when your spells are single target, might want to look into it, as Aery seems just better regardless, and it'd be nice to have a choice between reliable damage of Aery and higher but requiring more work damage of Comet, which currently doesn't seem to be the case.

Also seems like Glacial Augment is way less impactful than I initially thought it'd be, since you mentioned Inspiration being underused figured I'd ask whether you consider doing something about it, I know it's a slippery slope, can't have people run around with permaslows from level 1, but it seemed really not that useful with the brief and weak slow that the ranged champions do.

Tychusfindlay918Nov 10, 201711 votes

Anything on darius? The statistics sites seem to all be updating with his win rate absolutely PLUMMETING.

Any chance we can see some reverts to nerfs that have accumulated over the past year?

Early/mid game noxian might nerf? partial revert on q blade width nerf?

Anything? Please? The guy got shafted to shit with the loss of fervor which was his only bandaid.

The Green GamerNov 10, 20178 votes

I think the distinct lack of attack speed in Runes Reforged (without opting in to precision) is kinda punishing a lot of champions who relied on that attack speed in the early game. I saw someone yesterday pointing out how much it affects Ekko (and responded to them), I know for a fact that it hurts Diana because I play her a lot, someone in this thread mentioned Vi, etc etc - it just feels like champions that don't want to opt in to precision have no way of gaining early attack speed. And I know you as a company mentioned possibly adding in a new Doran's weapon (or something of the like) that gives attack speed, but then these champions would have to sacrifice the mana sustain from D Ring, lifesteal from D Blade, or even make an inefficient early purchase in order to be an effective jungler (buying some sort of Doran's item instead of upgrading a machete, etc).

I was thinking maybe it would be beneficial to have passive benefits tied to each tree so that you can pick and choose stats you'd like to have? Currently, you get a passive benefit from your primary tree after you select your secondary tree, but what about getting passive benefits from both your primary AND your secondary tree? You could opt in to defensive stats from Resolve as a secondary tree, or attack speed from Precision, AP/AD from sorcery, Magic Pen/Lethality from Domination, a combination of stats from Inspiration - you get the gist. I just think this would be a better way to allow players to pick and choose the stats they get, rather than only getting stats from their primary tree.

SerednickiNov 10, 20177 votes

Any info or news on Swain? How is he coming along and feel?

Btw what a great success with these rune changes!

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 201726 votes

He's getting there. We're still getting some of his abilities sorted out, visually he's looking really sweet IMO.

SerednickiNov 10, 20173 votes

Thanks for the update and what a great theme he is to be working on!

Is there any specific struggles he's currently facing?

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 20179 votes

A lot of it's the usual VGU challenge - trying to keep as many of the good aspects of the old kit as possible, while at the same time solving the gameplay problems that are one of the reasons for doing the VGU in the first place.

ThryaleNov 10, 20174 votes

plz be sure to focus on his battle mage and strategic prowess instead of making him yet another lightning speed reflex champ for all the cod players like Lee.

My reaction speed is garbage, but I'd like to be able to do well with him.

(PS: I'm still bitter you made veig's Q a skill shot AND an AoE that doesn't even hit 3 targets, so it no longer makes spell vamp good on him for lane sustain)

EROTIC RAID BOSSNov 10, 20175 votes

Id be surprised if they tried to make swain a lot harder to play. His theme isn't some crazy assassin thing where I would make sense like katarina

Sw4deNov 10, 20177 votes

Revert fizz rework pls, if you fly me out to LA i will beg on hands and knees.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWÆNov 10, 20176 votes

I heard you guys just tested a new iteration of LeBlanc. Since it qualifies as "contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship", I'd like to ask:

How did that go and what can we expect?

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 20173 votes

It didn't go great. Resulted in an interesting playstyle we might want to use on a new champ at some point, didn't feel like LB though. We need to figure out what to do instead as a result as soon as pre-season stuff's been dealt with a bit more. Given LB work's been going on a while that probably means prioritizing something faster over trying for a larger overhaul.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWÆNov 10, 201718 votes

Please give this a thorough read.

Your first instinct when you see "revert" might be to ignore the comment, but hear me out: until you guys find an appropriate solution, why not just revert her to her previous iteration?

Current LeBlanc has a massive list of problems which make playing/playing against her a bad experience:

New LB has a ton of bugs I assume no one will address because she is being reworked eventually.
New LB's kit is too complex. Because she is balanced around her maximum potential and her skill floor is high, she is too unfriendly for low elo/new players to pick up. Old LB had a simple design while having a high skillcap, which made her rewarding for low and high elo players alike.
New LB lacks predictability. Being able to mimic W at all times ensures an escape, whereas old LB was punishable if W was on CD and Q/E was cast last.
New LB is only made viable by awkward itemization. Building an AD/AP hybrid item feels horrible on an AP ~~assassin~~ mage.
New LB demands too much key input precision. Pressing R locks you out of snapping back to W. Accidentally fat-fingering R twice is extremely punishing when you mean to use R(Q/W/E). Karma and Heimerdinger don't have this issue.
New LB is too slow. Static delays on W, Sigil cook, and Sigil cooldown remove the smooth, combo-reliant identity of the champion. An increased cooldown on R, the fact R takes two button-presses, and enforcing Q over W max are just some auxiliary factors that further slash the tempo of her gameplay.
New LB has a non-interactive laning phase. The current Q max Pantheon-style laning phase is extremely oppressive against melee champions, since she does not need to use W offensively and can just E if they jump her. It's boring to play against and boring to play as.
New LB lacks tradeoffs. With the old W max and shorter R CD, LB was forced to decide between trading/skirmishing or waveclearing. Each option was punishable: W'ing to trade and potentially getting ganked, CCed, or even out-traded, waveclearing with W-R but not having R for a fight, or saving R and being unable to clear the wave quickly. Each option was exploitable and made playing as/against her interactive.
New LB suffers in an era where shields/burst mitigation are prevalent. Nullifying Orb, Hexdrinker, Sterak's Gage, Death's Dance, and shielding supports make her 1.5s delay brutally pronounced, particularly in teamfights. Old LB had natural/organic time delays with her mark/detonation system that telegraphed her spell rotation (Q/R(Q) telegraphs the use of W or E), and allowed her to match the burst of enemies that might kill her in less than 1.5s (i.e. late game ADCs, mages, assassins).
New LB's SFX sucks.

All of these factors, among others, make the current LeBlanc extremely unenjoyable to play. Old LB was not without faults, but she was balanced and enjoyable to play. New LB has been reduced to a state where she feels awful without being any more healthy to play against (except a static delay, compensated by overblown Sigil damage and unnecessary utility on R). Even Riot phroxz0n agrees that new LB feels "not so great" to play.

I believe that there is inadvertent bias against LeBlanc since nobody on the balance team plays LeBlanc, so there is no one to play devil's advocate. From your team's perspective, it's understandable why you oppose a revert:

conceding to the demands of players casts weakness and doubt on the gameplay designers.
designer time spent on current LB's FX, design, and gameplay would be for naught.
the playerbase would have adjusted to current LB now, and a revert would force players to re-adjust.
mains of Rengar/Fizz/Shaco would be in uproar, demanding the same for their champions.

I can assure you the player merit gained by making her kit simpler/predictable/enjoyable again far outweighs the disadvantages of this change. Let Reddit and the LoL boards be a telltale sign: any discussion about old LB is met with swaths of players reminiscing of old LB's enjoyable playstyle. Even high-elo players sympathize with this sentiment. In Korea/China (which are underrepresented on Reddit), LB was extremely popular due to the mechanical and macro demands of her kit, which Eastern players excel at using to potential.

Compared to the other assassin reworks, there is no doubt that LeBlanc's was of highest controversy. Old LB had pronounced weaknesses (poor waveclear, single-target damage, waveclear/mobility/damage spell tied together) that were exploitable. New LB (and subsequent changes) had these weaknesses removed and was given power, but that was stripped away bit-by-bit, leaving a shell of a clunky champion sitting in limbo. A change at this time of year would be well-met since preseason is prime time, if anything.

Everything in consideration, I ask that you cast aside any pride, any prejudice against LB/LB players, and any visions you may have for the game balance/design in regards to LeBlanc. Even if it's temporary, reverting LB to her old self would show you have the players' best interests in mind.

For that, many casual, hardcore, and pro LB enthusiasts would be dearly grateful.

Leblanc

Lebłanc BotNov 11, 20177 votes

^^^^ THIS plz riot this is literally ever lb mains dream :)) at least get ride of her 1.5 sec cd her waveclear and revert the sfx plz make lb great again plz Leblanc

DonatellaVersaceNov 11, 20174 votes

Everything about this....is beyond the shadow of a doubt...correct. At this point, its time to admit that LeBlanc's rework was and is an absolute failure. Was she balanced before? No. Would a few tweaks that could have been done in a simple patch been done that would fix her? Most certainly. This rework needs to be reverted.

SnackShieldNov 10, 20176 votes

anything on evelynn i feel like she's pretty weak early on like really weak she get bully by other jgler until u get lvl 6 and even them u still dont have enough dmg to 100-0 them

SpideraxeNov 10, 20175 votes

Hey Meddler can i ask for your thoughts on concerns for potentially too high of variance on Kleptomancy, despite being a super super fun keystone

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 201710 votes

{quoted}

Hey Meddler can i ask for your thoughts on concerns for potentially too high of variance on Kleptomancy, despite being a super super fun keystone

It's possible it's got too wide a range, there's quite a bit of control in there behind the scenes though on what drops when. We'll tighten that up if needs be, especially if that variation's impacting early game too much.

Kei143Nov 10, 20175 votes

on the topic of kleptoed items, is there a way we can see what the items actually do? Specifically Elixir of Adaptation as it doesn't show the effects while hovered in the item box or the icon when active.

RaxistaichoNov 10, 20175 votes

AP supports in general are really strong due to no more flat magic resist on adcs. Same deal with AD assassins in mid lane and mages not getting armor. Any plans to address these?

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 20174 votes

Early damage due to lack of mitigation's one of the things high on our watch list. Things we're looking at there include:

Are defensive options available (Resolve, plus things like Taste of Blood or Celestial Body elsewhere) effective enough?
If they are, or are at least close, are players taking them in the right circumstances or, given it's pre-season, just going double damage more often than is optimal because double damage sounds more fun?
Was the Spellthief's buff unneeded?
How are champion base stats looking?
Etc

Zagula BiggsNov 10, 20175 votes

Hi Meddler,

Thoughts and plans on the state of my homie Fizz?

I just want your opinion on the health of the champ. You have improved his play pattern to give opponents such telegraphed mechanics that made playing against him much easier. Any thoughts on his health for the player controlling him? I find it disturbing that he wasn't mentioned in the list of small reworks.

ddoANov 10, 20174 votes

There was a gameplay thoughts posted 2 months ago (here) where you mentioned that after LeBlanc rework Rengar will probably get one after her. On reddit leblanc mains Rioter showed up and asked for mains to come to Riot office for testing LeBlanc rework, so as there is already work on LeBlanc, will Rengar be your next one?

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 201712 votes

We'll want to get back to looking at LB again once pre-season stuff's been stabilized enough. Not certain yet who'll be next for a smaller update after her. Rengar's one option some people have suggested, I think there are also good cases for a range of other champs too though (Kalista, Karma, Ezreal with a focus on his W etc).

IxtaliKingNov 10, 20172 votes

How many smaller reworks are you able to work on at a time?

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 20174 votes

Depends on what else is going on. Over the course of this year we've generally had a couple being worked on at any one time, not everything works out though of course so some don't ship.

DrAlphaChadNov 10, 20173 votes

Meddler i know you at Riot have a lot of stuff to do . There are maybe champions that need more help than Rengar in terms of being healthy to play against etc. But we out of all communities have requested an update for Rengar because he is not that fun to play anymore.

SpideraxeNov 10, 20174 votes

Also I loved your stream yesterday on Beyond the Rift, you should chat more about that inky champ

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 201712 votes

Thanks! We might revisit that ink mage concept someday, a lot of things sounded much cooler and more practical on paper and then didn't work out anywhere near as well in game though alas.

SpideraxeNov 10, 20174 votes

Also feelsbad Scarra didn't know who you were and when is Qt taking over your job ;)

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 201720 votes

{quoted}

Also feelsbad Scarra didn't know who you were and when is Qt taking over your job ;)

Qt's being nice and not taking my job until I'm able to take his. At the rate my ADC play's currently improving that'll happen in about 54345 years.

0racle0912Nov 10, 20174 votes

Are there any changes in mind or at least acknowledgement of the unrewarding BE crisis? :u

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 20176 votes

I'm not a good person to try and answer that, given most of my focus is in gameplay changes rather than out of game systems like BE/XP/IP. The folks who do work on that stuff though are working on a bunch of thoughts and possible plans to share, should be a bunch of communication sometime next week is the impression I get.

TNing of PineNov 10, 20174 votes

I know this isn't QUITE your area but it overlaps a bit so maybe you are familiar enough to comment on it...

Has there been any discussion about changing the UI for selecting Runes in Champ Select to feel more like "select your runes for this game" as opposed to "select one of your rune pages (and possibly edit your pages in the process)"? The high price of pages feels super limiting when you have to actually modify one of those pages every time you're customizing runes for a particular game, and it puts a barrier in front of experimentation: "I'd like to use the preset Precision page but tweak it slightly" should be easy, but it really isn't if you've only got the default two pages and you're already using them both.

sebsauve34Nov 10, 20174 votes

Better nerf Yorick who barely has a 52% win rate in low elo and a 48% win rate in high elo, game breaking champion tbh, Malzahar isn't a problem with his 56% win rate in every elo.

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 201711 votes

{quoted}

Better nerf Yorick who barely has a 52% win rate in low elo and a 48% win rate in high elo, game breaking champion tbh, Malzahar isn't a problem with his 56% win rate in every elo.

Disclaimer first: Win rates aren't everything and it's entirely possible a champ at 52% or even 48% could still be too strong and need a nerf because, when played by good players they were excessively dominant. Azir and Ryze have been clear examples of that over the years.

Yorick specifically: Is above 56% so far for this patch, at highest win rate in the game. Those figures you're quoting are from before 7.22. If win rate was all that matters we'd have hotfixed him immediately, rather than taking some time to see what he's doing, how people are responding etc.

QuešNov 10, 20174 votes

Hey there.D1 euw Yorick player.I just wanted to ask u not to nerf his actual kit/numbers and if he is too strong,just please revert his Q on buildings change(or make Q consume on buildings,similiar to Mordekaiser Q).What I feel right now is Yorick pushes really freaking fast,even if he feeds he just 2 shots turrets after sheen with Demolish rune(maybe its not only Q,but demolish + Q).You cant be bulied by him in lane without teleport,because after around level 7 he can just push ur tower in 1 wave.He was fine b4 changes,a little bit weak if you compare him to grand splitpushers like Fiora Camille Jax ,but he was perfect for us,Yorick players. I cant sleep after you announced nerfs,just dont hit in other parts,clearly problematic is his last "Q the towers" + Demolish feature.

DeathBurstNov 11, 20174 votes

Yeah, the "buff get consumed but doesn't apply bonus damage" is a middle ground that should be used more often, I think. It allows to at least benefit from the aa-reset without giving too much power against towers.

DeathBurstNov 11, 20174 votes

Agreed with Gques here, for empowered basic attacks on tower, "the buff get consumed but doesn't apply bonus damage" is a middle ground that should be used more often, in my humble opinion. It allows to at least benefit from the aa-reset without giving too much power against towers.

Ryden7Nov 13, 20172 votes

Ive been playing Yorick consistently since after his rework. Its obviously the rune pages that are pushing him out of control, and the fact that you're probably going to gut him because of that is absurd. Why not cut the root of the problem with the runes instead of destroy the 2 useful champions we have in top lane.

If you nerf Yoricks kit, then your balance philosophy is bullshit. You're pushing your own agenda when there are champions in other lanes that are clearly in a far worse state of the game (Malz, Sona, Leona, Kassadin, J4, etc)

Son FokuNov 10, 20173 votes

Non Keystone Runes

Nothing to note here yet beyond that nothing seems crazy or useless so far.

Do you have any data on how many people actually use the item for increased minion damage?

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 20172 votes

I believe it's the least popular rune so far. We figured it would be pretty niche, but that it was correct to have some pretty weird, niche stuff in the system. Hopefully it'll start see some good specialized use over time, if not we'll replace it.

EllundorNov 10, 20172 votes

Speaking of which... What was the intended functionality behind minion dematerializer?

Comrad BlackNov 10, 20174 votes

Not Meddler but: when you use minion "strategically", for the damage increase, it's actually a decent improvement to pushing power, giving you ~10k damage to minions per game (champ/situation dependent of course). There's a lot of champs that won't want it because their basic rotations already overkill minions, but low-efficiency split pushers like Shen (theoretically) get excellent value out of it, significantly increasing their waveclear speed because of the AA time it cuts.

Personally, I like it's strategic niche, but I don't think the implementation is very well done. I'd like to see the dematerialization aspect just removed, and the design as a whole refactored into something less gimmicky and more inviting. As in something that more clearly communicates "This will give you (mini-PvE) Sivir late game".

ApocalypsicNov 10, 20173 votes

@Meddler, is there any solid data Riot is seeing in regards to lop lane after this patch?

For instance as Riven player the removal of fervor is crippling and press the attack is not a suitable fervor replacement on her as it doesn't work well with her spell weaving combo based play-style.

Aerie is a band-aid for it I guess but it just doesn't scale very well compared to the other option which is electrocute, which forces her to build lethality.

I want to build bruiser Riven again and not be a burden to my team by being out scaled by tanks before mid game even hits.

Dope SoloNov 11, 20173 votes

Now that preseason has started, its past due to please fix this game breaking trash already. Zed Yasuo No more excuses. Zed's damage is too high for early game. Its too easy to perform and escapes with zero effort. The high damage threat effectively zones off a laner almost completely from farm. There is no good reason for an entire team to have to play around 1 broken champ.

SlythionNov 10, 20172 votes

Curious as to whether Electrocute + Thunderlords are supposed to be different in that a lot of "2 attack thunderlord proc" cheeses don't work anymore: ex: lux e + auto

Also, when are we gonna see some Syndra bugfixes? Her Ult bug where she bugs around after casting + her W bug are still in effect. While the ulti bug really just causes headaches and doesn't matter too much, not being able to throw your W to a desired spot is quite serious and should be addressed :(

RiotMeddlerNov 10, 20174 votes

Yeah, Electrocute's deliberately different in that it requires 3 separate effects which means some things like that Lux combo don't allow you to trigger it as easily. That difference is the reason we renamed it rather than sticking with the old name like we did with Grasp of the Undying (which didn't change too dramatically).

Not sure on the Syndra bugs sorry, I'll check in with the QA folks though.