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QSS / Mercurial change for 6.9

RiotRiotRepertoir·4/20/2016, 12:55:01 AM·1 votes·178,754 views

Hi all,

This change looks like it went unnoticed for the most part, so I'm putting up a thread to talk about it here. The change to these items is that they now only remove crowd control effects rather than all negative debuffs. Functionally, what this means is that it will continue to remove Enchanted Crystal Arrow (Ashe) and Nether Grasp (Malzahar), but it will not remove Death Mark (Zed) and Grand Challenge (Fiora).

The reasoning for the change is pretty much that the cleanse offered by these items was able to functionally negate certain champions' ability to fight the owner of the item. As I'm sure many of you will be quick to point out, the game is balanced around the existence of this effect, and you're not wrong. That said, we think we can get the outliers here to a spot where they are healthy in the game where QSS/MS do not remove all debuffs, and instead only crowd control effects.

By outliers, I do mean the Zeds, Fioras, Trundles, and other problem children there are in light of this change. However, what this change allows us to do is create debuff-focused champions that don't have their kits completely negated with an item purchase and press of a button. With this change, there likely WILL be outliers, and if so, they WILL need to be addressed. The idea here is that we'd like to get to a point where the damage Zed deals with Death Mark (or any other champion with their debuff spell) is fair in the absence of strictly a hard counter item.

Since we're at the mid season point and the next few patches will be in flux, this feels like the best time to try out such a change unless we wanted to wait until the new season.

Currently, you don't see changes to champions on the PBE to offset this item change because we want to start small and react with a million changes here and there without seeing the effect of the change. We could certainly try to preemptively make such changes, but our approach currently is to see how it tests before overreacting. This is, of course, subject to change, so we'll be monitoring the change as it's on PBE and once it's Live if we decide to keep it.

Feel free to leave comments below, even if it's just to reiterate that Zed will be broken.

Cheers, Repertoir

633 Comments

Rickon Stark4/20/2016, 1:03:35 AM119 votes

A fed Zed can kill a squishy with only his QWE and ignite without a single AA (even though he's an AD champion) ... He's broken enough, please just stop.

Nameless Voice4/20/2016, 1:21:15 AM79 votes

A lot of people are going to react negatively because, frankly, Zed and Fizz are awful to play against, even though to be fair most people didn't buy QSS to deal with them anyway.

The overall direction makes sense to me, but I still can't help but feel it's the same thing that you guys do a lot - you address things that are theoretically problematic but which no one is really complaining about at the moment, while seeming to ignore the things people actually are complaining about.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel that the gameplay team's time would be better spent dealing with things like how obnoxious champions like Zed are to play against - things that are heavily sapping players' fun from the game and which are being complained about regularly - rather than focusing on things that, while reasonable, are not really a priority to most players.

Since I'm already ranting, I'll ask this question: why is being able to buy an item and negate a large part of Zed's kit considered unacceptable, while Yasuo's kit (infinite dashes, shield, windwall) negates a much larger portion of the kits of a much larger portion of the champion pool (projectile/skillshot champions)? Shouldn't the things that negatively affect far more champions take priority?

tl;dr: Sounds good in theory, but I question it being prioritised over other things that I perceive to be worse for game health.

Masalar4/20/2016, 1:01:37 AM70 votes

Zed will be broken. There. I said it. The discussion can continue.

Question: Mercurial was just nerfed for being too cost effective. As the active is now nerfed, do you still think it's cost ok, or is now a bit too weak?

Keevalroy4/20/2016, 1:15:16 AM37 votes

Feel free to leave comments below, even if it's just to reiterate that Zed will be broken.

You got it.

Zed will be broken and will need to be addressed immediately. Not only is the QSS change a buff for him, the Hourglass nerf makes it even easier for him to lane against mages. Please, someone help us free up a ban slot.

Hellioning4/20/2016, 1:14:29 AM30 votes

So you preemptively nerfed Zed when you added Duskblade, but you didn't do it when you made this change.

I am legitimately confused; what made that situation different from this one?

AFuzzyMuffin4/20/2016, 3:51:23 AM29 votes

As an ADC Main Mr. RiotRepertoir I have to say while I can understand the changes I do not think the timing is appropriate. A change this massive is going to ripple through league the likes of which I havn't seen since maybe feral flare's initial state and even then I don't think it compares. This is going to be a balance nightmare that will affect not just the key subjects like Zed but I feel as its going to pop up in case by case moments with different champions and debuffs being unable to be removed.

Not only that but I feel as though doing something this massive, with worlds only a few months away and the fact that the balance team is already making tons of changes to mages, mage items, dragon, objectives etc this will put the game even more in a chaotic state and possibly lead to another worlds fiasco where we saw Morde/GP banned every game. I fully support the change but I feel as if doing something THIS massive right now is not a good idea and we will see the ripples of this for the rest of the year all the way to season 7. Also, I really think this is going to lead to champion ultimate reworks, or champion gutting, item removal.

Duskblade, Vlad ultimate, Zed Ultimate, Fiora ultimate, Trundle ultimate, Ignite Exhaust, Darius passive, Diana passive, Morde ulti, Nocturne ulti, TF ulti...and the list goes on.

This is going to really shake up the game and possibly really fuck up worlds please consider that.

I hate to say something like this, but based on pass Riot examples, you guys do not have a good track history of balancing mid season things like this before worlds comes out until the patch after it or the next season. Please keep this in mind.

P.S. In 6.8 currently there are no nerfs for Zed unless someone missed something.

FapFap YumYum4/20/2016, 3:21:03 AM29 votes

Teemo @RIOT: regarding SWEEPING LENS and TEEMO/SHACO traps Shaco

Quoting your new policy...

However, what this change allows us to do is create debuff-focused champions that don't have their kits completely negated with an item purchase and press of a button.

This simple item, far cheaper than QSS (0 cost! no slots!), does far more to completely negate Teemo/Shacos primary abilities. Please reconsider how sweeper works in this manner. It can still reveal, maybe shorten activation range....but SHOULD NOT completely disable!

Note how this doesn't disable visible traps either, only the invisible ones. Its really odd design and completely unfair to these 2 champs.

Plz dont forget everyones most favorite/hated yordle and jester :D

Dazaruk4/20/2016, 2:48:52 AM28 votes

I curious to know how you deal with a fed Zed now. Armor? Too much armor pen for assassins now. Position yourself? Doesn't matter because Zed can ult, blow two abilities and leave + duskblade. CC? Well assuming you aren't lissandra you likely don't have point and click CC to lock someone that mobile. Gank him? Unreliable.

Critkeeper4/20/2016, 1:01:40 AM25 votes

Reduce the cooldown at least. Qss was able to remove summoners like ignite and damage over time effects, and was useful beyond cleanse for that reason too. 90 seconds was appropriate for a "full state reset" but if it only removes crowd control then I feel it needs to have more uptime.

Stellafreyja4/20/2016, 3:32:51 AM24 votes

I'm sure people have brought this up but I will too:

The reasoning for the change is pretty much that the cleanse offered by these items was able to functionally negate certain champions' ability to fight the owner of the item.

Yasuo So we're just going to ignore Yasuo's Windwall completely negating most Mages' kits? It's not even an item, it's built straight into his kit. By LV3 he can completely negate someone's burst combo or ult. I don't care that much about Zed because it means you can gut the fuck out of his ult if he becomes a problem, but don't use faulty logic to justify yourselves.

SilentCynic4/20/2016, 12:26:35 PM22 votes

So, on one hand, we have Riot employees saying that players need more avenues to express skill (See AP item changes, particularly the new Hextech line), but then we also have outright removal of counterplay?

Let's be frank here: ADCs don't stand a snowball's chance in hell if Zed decides to ruin your day, but this is somehow fine, while spending gold and an item slot on an already-nerfed item to mitigate his ult damage (which he often doesn't even need to land the kill) is wrong?

Sterak's has already been altered to be less efficient an item on ADCs, and Guardian's Angel is a borderline futile, given how many of the problem characters aren't exactly lacking in resource or cooldowns. A combination of Ghostblade and his natural mobility renders positioning almost null, unless you wish your ADC to hover far back and have virtually no impact in a fight.

You claim that this change is because the cleanse negates certain champion's ability to fight those who possess this cleanse. So, what, if Zed can't pop his whole combo on someone who's spent a substantial amount of gold in order to specifically protect against it (not to mention the fact that he can QWE and kill most ADCs in any case), that's terrible, but the ADC who's torn to shreds by Zed or Fizz is fine? Does the utter lack of functional and efficient defense against such an attack not also negate their ability to fight certain other champions? Let us not even consider the skillshot champ who is rendered impotent by Yasuo.

Ultimately, more than anything else, I'm simply curious as to your thoughts regarding the frail characters who rely on this cleanse to survive against (very popular and common) picks like Zed. Or are some animals more equal than others?

Lord GiantR4/20/2016, 8:44:21 AM20 votes

Honestly I HEAVILY disagree on this part. The fact that an item exists to counter a person makes it easier to make debuffs.

It allows people to make debuffs as strong as needed so that they feel good for both parties, because you know you can avoid them with ether regular play around them or just buying the item.

In DotA Juggernaut has an ult called Omnislash. It strikes a fuck ton of times doing a fuck ton of damage. He is allowed to do a lot of damage and strike a lot of times because in the items you can get a lot of things to stop him. Invisibility from Lothars, Eul(like Zhonia), Ghost Scepter makes you immune to physical damage, Force Staff might push your outside his vision, etc etc.

You have actual ways to deal with it, and that's why it's allowed to be strong on it's own when the enemies do not have those ways at the moment.

Qss isn't only for Zed Trundle and Fioras. It also allows to outplay other people like QSS Lee Sin's Q, Or Nidalee's mark. You can deny A Darius the execute by QSSing his bleed stacks. There are a LOT of ways to use the item, which brings depth to the game. Please reconsider this change. Right now ADCs do not have that many ways to deal with Assassins as is. Steraks is weak, Maw is borderline bad for an ADC. Dissalowing them to deal with other threats, as mentioned above, will only make them less skill based.

xMancio4/20/2016, 7:25:55 AM18 votes

As always: an item is perfectly fine on adcs, ppl in other roles start using it(tans vs trundle or fiora, everyone vs liss, and the list goes on ) and it got nerfed... Can I understand how am I supposed to survive zed or fizz eg? Praying the good lord to save my soul? And don't tell me to build armor, 30 armor won't change anything(look at perkz 1v2 og botlane with only 2 kills) and, u know, adc deal 0 damage if they retards core items for a complete defensive one. But yes plz, keep on shitting on adcs and buff assassins, so u'll have more "mlg outplay video" on the net for ur community. I'm quite done hearing about "champs are countered with just a click" cause half of the champs that u're indirect buffing was already forcing u into building an mres item while BEING AD; and u need it even if the enemy team is full ad! Now: u give to add base armor/mres and hp to all adc or u give them an ad zonya... Oh, w8, there's another possibility: finish what u have done with morde so ppl will nomore need to play adcs.

Fisherman Fízz4/20/2016, 12:59:00 AM14 votes

Does it remove Fizz's ultimate or not?