Quick Gameplay Thoughts: June 29

RiotMeddler·Jun 29, 2018·1 votes·67,897 views

Hi 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

Patch 8.13 will be a 3 week patch

In order to get our patch timing to sync up with various events later in the year we need to do one three week patch, which will be 8.13 (the patch that's on live now). That means most things for 8.14 will just spend some extra time on the PBE and then the patch will go out as normal, just a week later. To reduce the time between balance adjustments though we'll be doing a mini patch via micropatching halfway through the 8.14 development cycle. An 8.13b basically, like we did 7.24b last year before the holidays. Details of what will go in that next week once we've got them figured out, will primarily be needed balance changes that shouldn't have to wait another week and a half until 8.14.

ARAM dev blog

For anyone that missed it we've got a Dev blog on the ARAM changes that were tried recently and why some are and aren't sticking around permanently.

https://nexus.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/2018/06/dev-aram-changes-roundup/

TLDR We're keeping:

The bench where rerolled picks go
Early surrender time
Delay until you can leave base
Faster early XP .
Dark Harvest ARAM specific nerfs
AOE health relics

We're Removing:

The three new items (mixed results and experiences with/against, might explore some of them again at some point)
Butcher's Bridge (back at some point, gone for now, talking when/how to do so again)
Warmog's. Poke without it's too strong. Will replace it at some point with an anti poke item designed for ARAM that gives needed poke resistance without all the issues Warmogs also brings.

Fizz W

We're going to take another stab at Fizz W changes on the PBE this cycle, aiming to incorporate elements of the new and old Ws. TLDR:

Passive - AAs apply a DoT Active - Next attack deals magic damage. If it kills, it resets. If it doesn't, Fizz gets magic damage on hit for 6s.

As with the previous changes we were testing feedback much appreciated, especially if you get the chance to play with them directly on the PBE. Numbers won't necessarily be correct initially, so looking particularly for how it feels to use and what such a skill does to Fizz's gameplay pattern, rather than exact balance tuning.

Tooltips

We've got some work going on on updating LoL's tooltip style at the moment as you might have seen with some partial changes on Aatrox's tooltips. That will be a gradual process and, like the cursor update, will involve a lot of showing stuff, getting feedback, and iterating on it. More details from the team working on that shortly, including what our goals are, what features we'll be adding that our current tooltips don't deliver, what sort of timeline to expect etc.

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

251 Comments

give me resetsJun 29, 201818 votes

Hi Meddler,

Are there any changes planned for Katarina in the near future?

RiotMeddlerJun 29, 201830 votes

Hi series of posts from Reddit Katarina Mains. No, I don't have anything new to share about Kat since Wednesday.

KagusutchiJun 29, 20188 votes

Hi Meddler, so I'm going straight to the point since the topic hasn't been treated yet : Katarina right now, feels clunky to play due to her cast time on shunpo and her dagger delays. Every kat main agrees that she lost her feel of being a fast assassin who could strike quickly and blink all over the place in a few seconds. The clunkiness of her kit wasn't that noticeable before the shunpo nerfs, but now we're feeling it and it makes her feel like a mage not an assassin for a lot of us.

In that regard, we think that two options could give her back her identity of a fast teamfighting assassin :

First, we think that removing the cast time of her shunpo would remove a lot of awkward situations she faces and could make her feel faster. For example when she shunpos at the last moment when a morg's q or nami's q are about to hit, she manages to shunpo but she gets ccd and basically dies because of this.
Finally, we think that decreasing her dagger delays would really give her some speed back and remove the major issues of clunkiness of her kit. That being said, we would definitely trade some damage for more speed.

So do you think there's any room for one of these options to be taken into consideration ?

Having fun with the champion we love playing is more important than everything. Thanks for reading our thoughts and have a great day !

Ronin TamosJun 29, 201818 votes

Having fun with the champion we love playing is more important than everything

E.G. Removing every single weakness from a champions kit, making it straight out broken and unfun to play against -> Every entitled champion main ever.

AurorJun 29, 201812 votes

Do you think that what actually made Irelia strong was lack of mid lane mages that could answer her?

After the nerf to mages, they all but dissapeared from the (pro) game, apart from Swain, who is a RoA user, Vlad, who has no mana and Zoe, who is broken.

I don't really think Irelia was too strong, just that her competition wasn't strong enough to punish her.

If you have to play Renekton or Darius mid against her, maybe its because Syndra, Malz or Orianna are too weak.

I definetely think you went a little overboard with nerfing mages, or at least not compensating them enough somewhere else (damage, scaling, durability) and you basically killed the class.

Top mid laners are now AD assasins (Talon, Zed), AD bruisers (Irelia, Yasuo), AP bruiser not reliant on Lost chapter items (Vlad, Swain) and Zoe, who is a champion that should not exist in her current form.

Any plans on further tweaking the mage class so it sees some play apart from those special cases?

RiotMeddlerJun 29, 20187 votes

I do think Irelia was too strong pre 8.13 at least, even just based off her performance in top. Agree mages being weak's a potential factor in her strength mid though, will be useful to see how putting power back into some of them affects her there.

Biggish BrainJun 29, 201810 votes

Are we going to be getting any buffs for Katarina? A lot of Kat mains are complaining about how her damage is really delayed now and the cast time on her e is really long. Kat just doesn't have the speed to be an assassin like before and every other assassin can one shot faster.

TerozuJun 29, 201813 votes

Shes a battle mage assassin hybrid.

She gets to do massive aoe damage continuously throughout a fight other assassins could only dream of.

WintersWardJun 29, 20189 votes

What about Karma tho? Still no buff on the PBE :c

AdalvarJun 29, 20189 votes

You recently stated to have a new Lissandra passive on the works...can you share details yet, or is it too early in development?

RiotMeddlerJun 29, 20187 votes

Only went into test this week, so a bit early. Will share details, if it's still testing well, end of next week. Downside of it is it would need a moderate amount of new art/sound, so would take longer to get to out than other approaches might.

The IcebornJun 29, 20183 votes

{quoted}

Only went into test this week, so a bit early. Will share details, if it's still testing well, end of next week. Downside of it is it would need a moderate amount of new art/sound, so would take longer to get to out than other approaches might.

Thank you for updating us on that... I hope that the new passive can make her somewhat stronger! we shall see

AdalvarJun 29, 20181 votes

Hum, neat. Assuming from your statement that early testing is going well for this new passive idea?

RiotMeddlerJun 29, 20182 votes

Yeah, so far so good, though we're more at the 'This idea excites, I want to try it in game' stage than the 'I've played enough with this to be confident I enjoy it' stage.

GitarinJun 29, 20187 votes

Any info you can share about how the mage buffs are going?

ArtemiaJun 29, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Any info you can share about how the mage buffs are going?

I would definitely be interested in seeing what things will be done to champions like Ahri and Syndra.

QuešJun 29, 20187 votes

Will we see more Aatrox buffs(Because he still feels very weak after laning phase)?

RiotMeddlerJun 29, 20185 votes

Not yet. The micro patch added quite a bit of power to him. We want to wait a while and see where his learning curve takes his performance for now. If he's struggling next week would be a potential candidate for 8.13b, trying to avoid over buffing though.

EreldraJun 29, 20187 votes

Any news on what champions will get some balance changes next patch, particularly the mages you mentioned in your last post?

Also maybe some thoughts on Ahri specifically? Do you think the changes to her some time ago were successfull or do you see some room for other changes?

ChawooraJun 29, 20186 votes

He Meddler, any thoughts on the state of tank junglers?

I started off the season with good success on a few tank junglers (Sejuani and Nautilus mostly for me). I saw my win rates slide with the nerfs to Cinderhulk and Warmogs, with the removal of Tracker's Knife (Zombie ward nerfs too, but that was OP), and with direct nerfs to Sejuani. Then patch 8.10 hit and I gave up on tanks in the jungle...I just could not impact the game being 2 levels behind Graves/Xin/Udyr/etc.

Most of the tank junglers have been sitting around 46% win rate for several patches. I know some people hate tanks, but it also seems like the lack of tanks in games these days also contributes to the full-on-damage-fiesta feel that frustrates a number of players. Personally, I am very frustrated that half of my jungle champ pool is in the gutter.

PopCorn Chick3nJun 29, 20185 votes

What happened to Zyra's plants changes? Did the riot who was working on her never got back from work after illness?

Solari FortuneJun 29, 20184 votes

Any info on plans for the likes of Ashe and Xayah given their unique crit interactions?

Also how have the Jinx and Trist buffs done so far?

RiotMeddlerJun 29, 20182 votes

ADC wise we'll be looking at items and some of the ADCs who are struggling the most next. Ashe/Xayah unlikely to be in that next round of changes as a result.

Jinx - Looks to be in a pretty strong spot at this point post 8.13, as does Twitch.

Trist - Is still quite sad. She's one we will be looking at, though with some caution around what happens when she's got a strong lane and a strong late game.

Pink WardJun 29, 20184 votes

Any info/opinions yet on Adaptive abilities?

VekknaJun 29, 20184 votes

Zyra plant fix when?

Thoughts/testing on 24 > 8 decaying health?

[sg-shisa]

lNFIDELJun 29, 20184 votes

What going on with Azir ?

Cant he atleast be buffed a little dmg wise so he can be playable :/

XxCryoPhoenixXJun 29, 20184 votes

I have a question about the tooltip updates. Is it possible to add timers for how long an enhanced attack can be used? For example, Vayne Q has 7 seconds, which is also seen in the tooltip. But for many other abilities like this there is no information about their timers :(

LankPantsJun 30, 20184 votes

Any future plans for Sejuani, considering she's back to more or less a competitive pick/ban while maintaining an abysmal <46% winrate in solo queue? What I'm really hoping for at this point is a revert considering how badly the rework has failed and the fact that Sej has never been a fair or balanced champ since the rework.

IzzŸJun 29, 20183 votes

For Tooltips: I would love to be able to see the scaling ratios for abilities in game, like with the expanded view Aatrox had on the PBE for a while. But if there are two tooltips and a toggle; there also needs to be an option to lock it to the expanded tooltips so people who want to see everything don't have to learn a whole new mechanic just to look at data.

A possible option is to show the ratios only when in the shop or something?

Would love to see some creative ideas here and plenty of end user customisation if there are toggles and the like.

InfernapeJun 29, 20183 votes

Why not put Overlord's Bloodmail in ARAM as Warmog's replacement (and make it melee only with some adjustments because of ARAM's kill heavy nature)?

Or wouldn't making an ARAM specific version of Warmogs that either regens your health for an amount equal to a percentage of the damage you took in the last few seconds or one that will only regen your HP to say 75% be a better option?

Korend SlicksJun 29, 20182 votes

Hey Meddler, the tooltips on Aatrox are a pretty cool idea. If you all are planning on converting all the tooltips to be similar to Aatrox's, would there be an option to have the tooltips remain on the detailed version without having to press Shift?

RiotMeddlerJun 29, 20182 votes

Yeah, we'll be looking at ways to toggle on so you don't have to hold down Shift all the time. Thoughts on that and a bunch more to come from the folks working on the tooltips update.

Vast WarderJun 30, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, we'll be looking at ways to toggle on so you don't have to hold down Shift all the time. Thoughts on that and a bunch more to come from the folks working on the tooltips update.

As someone who **_always _**looks at the detailed tooltips on new Aatrox, but understands that if you put 100 things in 1 place it's difficult to find anything, I loved the way tooltips were done with Zoe, where you have the most important stuff in the main text, and then the most important details in darker, smaller font at the end of the tooltip: https://i.imgur.com/yHXpG0S.png

I think this approach is perfect. It hides the details a bit so - at least for me - although the tooltip is longer, it doesn't feel that way. It doesn't distract from the main tooltip.

I prefer this sooo much over the newer appraoch with Aatrox, where if you want to look at the other tooltip (no matter which one you've looked at first) it's kinda confusing because you have to search for the changes. And of course pressing/holding Shift is cumbersome, and although I could live with a toggle I feel like a tooltip all in 1 font gives less overview than one with the main part in big+white and details at the end in grey+small. It has the same problem again where it's just a long tooltip - a Zoe-style tooltip of the same length would feel so much better to me.

Ov3rcomeJun 29, 20182 votes

Hi Meddler, not a question but I just wanted to say I haven't had as much fun with League as I had during these last 2 patches. Nerfing ADC's made the game seem a little bit more enjoyable, I think as long as you guys bring them back to a viable state without overtuning them again this game will be perfect.

Lonely ShadowJun 30, 20182 votes

Hi Meddler, Is there any plans on giving zed a buff to help his early game at all

Daddy AntsJun 30, 20183 votes

[{quoted}](name=Shadøw Master,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=Y8q9wl4r,comment-id=0087,timestamp=2018-06-30T14:05:03.070+0000)

Hi Meddler, Is there any plans on giving zed a buff to help his early game at all

NO MORE ZED BUFFS

60% ban rate in Bronze. 63% ban rate in Silver. 61% ban rate in Gold. 50% ban rate in Platinum. 35% ban rate in Diamond.

That to me is a sure sign to NOT buff this champion further.

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/current/platinum/plus/champion/Zed/

50% win rate is healthy for a champion who is supposedly mechanically intensive.

Lonely ShadowJun 30, 20181 votes

you play jungle and bot lane and based on previous games you play a lot of twitch you seem to just be hating on zed for the sake of being a marksmen main. Zed's early game is atrocious his damage is non existent. if you manage to get 3 items being youmuus duskblade and either edge of night or lord dominiks regard you then have a big damage and even then the slightest amount of armor does make zeds damages significantly less. i think you should try to play zed before you speak on whether he is good or not because all you have here is a few numbers some of which are irrelevant such as the low elo ban rates. i would also like to point out i started my post with "hi meddler" followed by my question if you dont like it just down vote it, im simply asking a question and you went all caps stop being a hater

Daddy AntsJun 30, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Shadøw Master,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=Y8q9wl4r,comment-id=008700000000,timestamp=2018-06-30T21:28:32.939+0000)

you play jungle and bot lane and based on previous games you play a lot of twitch you seem to just be hating on zed for the sake of being a marksmen main. Zed's early game is atrocious his damage is non existent. if you manage to get 3 items being youmuus duskblade and either edge of night or lord dominiks regard you then have a big damage and even then the slightest amount of armor does make zeds damages significantly less. i think you should try to play zed before you speak on whether he is good or not because all you have here is a few numbers some of which are irrelevant such as the low elo ban rates. i would also like to point out i started my post with "hi meddler" followed by my question if you dont like it just down vote it, im simply asking a question and you went all caps stop being a hater

I'm presenting valid stats and you're brushing it off as me hating.

Ok.

He maintains a consistently high ban rate across all ELO's.

This isn't just a "low elo" thing, he's even banned 35% of the time in high elo.

GaliöJun 29, 20181 votes

Why is this patch so small so far? Even if you want to let meta settles there should be SOMETHING other than a relatively small kalista and fizz change.

Edit: I just realized this is a 3 week patch.

Any thoughts on giving Galio back his on being hit heal instead of DR ;)

I'm prob just going to spam this for the next few years.

RiotMeddlerJun 29, 20183 votes

Yep, 3 week patch means it'll be later in the patch cycle before stuff's on the PBE.

GenemanJun 29, 20182 votes

I miss that heal very much myself. Especially in ARAM, i loved to just catch a nidalee trap and heal myself up with it.

AgentAl21Jun 29, 20181 votes

Hi Meddler any potential changes to Sona kit ? She feels kinda bland nowadays and is outscaled by almost every support in terms of utility,heal or plain damage

AbarnJun 29, 20187 votes

Sona outscaled? Sona is literally one of the strongest lategame supports in the game, still.

If you mean outclassed, I'd completely agree with you early/mid game.

Headmans PrideJun 29, 20182 votes

Sona is best lategame support

The23rdGamerJun 30, 20183 votes

{quoted}

Hi Meddler any potential changes to kit ? She feels kinda bland nowadays and is outscaled by almost every support in terms of utility,heal or plain damage

Ello. Local Sona Sona main here. <3

Her weaker early game (at least compared to champions like Nami with her heals or Brand with his damage) is compensation for her incredible late game scaling as well as her teamfight power. There have been times where her early game was more comparable to Nami (or other champions who tend to do well earlier on) while she still maintained her incredible late game. This was incredibly frustrating to play against and hasn't been allowed to persist for very long spans of time due to this.

I love her kit and I can't imagine that there would be many reasons to massively change one of the easier to pick up kits in the game, at least not right now (though obviously I don't speak for Riot). There are still ways for Sona to outplay by using her kit to the max, albeit it may not be as mechanically challenging as LeBlanc or Katarina or Kalista or something anyhow.

Danger PenguinJun 29, 20181 votes

Hello Meddler, Do you have any further thoughts on funneling strategies currently? So far it seems if you hit one of the combos with champion specific nerfs (yi and taric for example), the pros just find the next best person to funnel to (kaisa being popular to the point the team can lose hard for 20 minutes and then win in two, see G2, but also seen it with Lucian, irelia, and others).

My personal opinion is that the funneling strategy is incredibly boring to watch (I watch a lot of league, lck, lpl, na, eu, so if someone picks this strat I just skip the game), but is also very frustrating to play against (every game I've played with or against this strategy is easily the worst experiences I've had in league). I think this needs more attention than just hitting specific champs.

Just one man's thoughts.

RiotMeddlerJun 29, 20183 votes

We do want to find wider solutions to the mid/jungle funneling we're seeing at the moment. The directions we looked at during 8.13's development all had excessive collateral damage to regular play though, so we opted for champion specific changes. We're going to keep working on systemic solutions, though whether we'll ship those before pre-season or in pre-season will depend on how disruptive they are.

Danger PenguinJun 29, 20182 votes

I completely understand the complexity of the issue and it can be difficult to solve, I'm glad to know it's on your radar as an issue, which is reassuring.

But I would caution you if you are unable to find a fix before preseason. If worlds hits with this strategy in full force, and we end up with tank/peel top, support jungle, and both bot positions going support as well, and a hyper carry mid, I think it would be detrimental to diversity and enjoyment. Only speaking for myself, but after not missing a single worlds game in the past 4 years, I wouldn't be interested in watching that and I would be skipping games.

Truly wish you the best in finding a solution and thank you for your dedication and responding to my initial comment.