Quick Gameplay Thoughts: February 20

Currently, Shen is in the worst state that he's been post-rework since launch. The idea is to keep him balanced around pro play. His post rework kit is centered around teamwork and coordination with nerfs to his solo laning. Creating a very lackluster experience when playing him top. Early levels in his q is still insufficient to farm under tower, the idea of his empowered Q autos is a neat mechanic the problem with it is having to constantly reposition it to make use of it which leads to being at risk of being out of position, you can be punished by the enemy top laner as well as getting caught by the enemy jungler trying to reposition your sword.

With his high Q cooldown early game you have to either use it to trade with an enemy laner when they go in for harass or use it to kill minions to farm effectively due to Shen's low base damage. This ability currently suffers from very low reward for what it's supposed to do. Shen in the top lane, suffers from many bad match ups usually resulting in him getting shoved under tower. Leaving Shen to scrap up what he can and wait until 6 to make a play elsewhere on the map. The problem with this, due to the current meta of tower plating, the enemy top laner will just take free plates resulting in Shen being even further behind. His W, is very powerful when going for an Ult play to save an ally, and comes in handy to mitigate damage in a team fight, again in Solo queue the lack of coordination can cause this ability to not be used to its greatest potential but has a ridiculously long cooldown as well.

His E has always been extremely satisfying to use, landing a taunt on multiple people can change the fight entirely, but also has a long cooldown. His ult has been standard, nerfed at times, but a lower cooldown teleport at 3 minutes and 20 seconds at level 6, and 2 minutes and 40 seconds at level 16. Pre-rework Shen was ultimately more satisfying to use. his in lane sustain with vorpal blades, the on hit heal, as well as his old passive ki strike which made shen a decent duelist as he built more health. The most important thing that made pre-rework Shen enjoying to play was his build diversity, ranging from Tank, bruiser, on-hit, as well as Ap off-tank. As opposed to current Shen's cookie cutter build Tiamat/Sunfire, and the non-AD ratios make building any sort of AD useless on Shen.

Shen is supposed to be Zed's counterpart; a kickass ninja fighting in the name of balance, his current abilities doesn't fit that thematic. It's to the point where playing Shen is a constant frustration, he's just not fun to play in his current state. Shen is considered a tank but with one of the lowest base tank stats in the game, even below some mages and marksman.

Any thoughts on maybe removing the mastery points being shown in loading screen?? It's making champion mains lives hell.

2 kill bounties still feel like overkill and a bit off. Killing sprees in general have always been a 3 kill ordeal. I personally would want bounties to be moved back to 3 kills because killing 2 people and then being worth 1.5 kills feels really bad. I guess at the very least I think the 2 kill bounty should be reduced from 150 gold to 100 gold.

What does Riot see as far as the future of Supports is concerned? There was a lot of hub-bub over the changes to Spellthiefs Edge, though it seems to have quieted down to a degree.

Basically what I’m asking is will the way Supports are played be changing or is what we have currently to remain status quo?

Thank you for your time.

in Patch 9.4 we will get the VFX update for Riven

but i'm really disappointed that Championship Riven wont get updated!

i know CS already has unique visual effects but i rly think you should add a few things from the update!

if you dont update the Championship Skin then her rarest skin will have the worst visual effects of all her skins! and that would suck so much ... rarest skin but worst VFX :(

updates i would like to see for the CS skin:

• updated Ground damage VFX from her 3. Q currently the cracks are only there when she lands - in the updated version they stay for a very short time

• add the new "impact visuals" from her 3. Q i like the updated version where she blows up dust when she lands her 3. Q the new impact visuals feel way heavier and way stronger! currently CS 3. Q only has a very slight shockwave when she lands which cant keep up with the new visuals
• add the blast from her W currently CS W is pretty much the same visual as the W from her (current) base skin the shockwave from her W is a great improvement and that should be added to CS as well
• update her Windslash (2. R) to the new version the new R2 looks so clean and cool and it makes it feel more like a "slash" currently CS shoots out 3 weird looking metal parts with her R2 i think the idea was that she shoots out her sword parts? which doesnt rly make a lot of sense (and it doesnt look like it) the new slash feels way more satisfying and fitting!
• while you're at it: fix the bug from CS Q + R theres a bug for a long time now where CS Rivens 1. Q doesnt have any visual effects while her ult is up that should be fixed as well

i really hope Championship Riven will get some visual updates as well! Riot pls! dont ignore this awesome and rare skin!

Good info on CS bounties. I agree they aren't very transparent or easy to understand the triggers, etc.

Can you tell us if Zyra's plants will be getting hp fixes? Or if you're concerned about Lissandra trending toward an "elo gap?"

Hey Meddler! Now that the crit item changes have settled, any plans for ? She's not doing too well since the changes and most of that seems to be due to how heavily she was balanced around the previous items and the earlier powerspike of Stormrazor. Without it her weaker laning phase and now slower power leads to her often never really coming online before she's past the point of relevance in most games. Is there any chance some of her stat nerfs could be reversed now that the problem items that required them no longer exist?

After the bounties, ranked, and marksmen changes settle, what is the main goal of midseason update?

What about lowering the overall damage in the game ?

Any news on Twisted Treeline? It feels so neglected. Worse, it feels forgotten. It's not even included as a game mode for earning tokens with the event pass.

Any thoughts on changes to Tear and Archangel Staff? Archangel Staff feels kind of useless in this meta, wheras Luden's is always the better option.

Thoughts on just making cs/kill bounties into gold based bounties. More/less gold you have than the average on enemy team, the more/less your bounty is, with equal gold being 300 gold bounty.

Greetings Meddler. Any planned work on Jax? He needs some nerfs to the late game like nerfing his atspeed and the bonus stats from some builds?

Any thoughts on skarner? The least played champ in 9.3. In the current situation he feels more like tank with potential in esport instead of jugernaut he supposed to be.

The CS Bounty system feels terrible, personally. In my ranked games, I'm currently bronze (have never been bronze before, until now) and I'm trying to climb. When playing with supports that miss every skillshot or laning alone while being camped and absorbing that pressure, the best someone can do is last hit the best they can. In my ranked games, I usually have inting team mates. That's a universal cry that isn't going to change. But the one way I have to claw back or try to stay in the game when so far behind of a fed enemy team is to CS well. But instead it puts a bounty on my head and in the end my team gets punished even worse by me generating gold. There's got to be some way to even that out.

So you ignored your playerbase when they were complaining about cs bounty but when the pro scene adapts the 0 cs playstyle you act?

Hey Meddler now that they are revealed, mind me asking a Kayle and Morgana question. Are you guys afraid that you guys may miss the one opportunity to work on her by doing very small scoped changes on her. And do you have concerns that Kayle may look too strong late game

Hi Meddler! Great post as always.

Although it is a bit off-topic (well, it's actually very off topic), would you happen to know the reasoning behind Syndra's name (origins and roots), as you were the lead designer on her? I've done some research but couldn't find anything conclusive...

Also while I'm at it, how is she in the current meta?

Love you [sg-ahri-2]

Is going to scale with elder in 9.4? Can we remove the decay on her W?

Hey Meddler!

Speaking of bugfixes, any news on the charging/channeling spells issue from 9.2? Did any of the teams manage to get a fix for 9.4?

Regards, Caenen

Intended lane for Kayle?

Do you think the double hit passive from rageblade is healthy for the game and particularly good for the overall balance for champs that build it. I feel its a problem when a chunk of its stats are wasted on champs like yi and vayne but not only do they continue to build it, the double hit makes them extremely strong way earlier than they were intended to be.