Quick Gameplay Thoughts: February 16

@Meddler, what are your thoughts on ?

and will receive different buffs in the next PBE cycle?

Sorry, I don't want to harp on the subject but I wasn't sure if you read my comment last post, I got in from work too late:

Thank you for commenting on Quinn.

I have to point out, while I agree with the things you're saying regarding her current state, some of her historic problems and outlook, I don't think you touched enough on her current power level. I don't think Quinn's current problem is that she's underpowered per se, but she's certainly underperforming. Check the relation between playrates and winrates for the last few months: she used to have a stable, slightly below average playrate and a good winrate that befit her status as a niche champion. Regardless of the logic we use (I saw some objections to my previous take on the matter) I think it's undeniable that a champion that rapidly loses both winrate (3% overall in two months) and playrate (sub 1% now) with no direct changes is under duress. Quinn has always had to compete against champions similar to those in meta, across many different metas in fact, while having the same stable numbers she hasn't shown ever since the preseason, specifically since the lethality item nerfs.

I agree, Quinn players tend to be divided over what they want for Quinn, even though Repertoir was very explicit this version of Quinn was designed to be a solo laner, a facet that Volty wholeheartedly embraced, but I feel like that's a conversation to be had in the future once her rework looms. For now I think it'd be a disservice to simply say these things and not move to improve Quinn's current state, because she's not in immediate rework priority, which, you know better than I do, means that it'll be nearer to two years before you guys can address her.

Returning to my original point, I don't think Quinn is underpowered. I think we'd be insincere to say that she needs a return to former states because there's very good reasons why you guys moved to nerf what you did. But this is a perfect opportunity to move to improve Quinn's feel at the very least, and I do believe there is room given how she's performing to add at least a tad of power as long as it doesn't contribute to alienate melees.

We would really like for Repertoir to evaluate Quinn's state, for two reasons: one, he stated that he would procure that Quinn was always at least somewhat relevant. Two, a year ago said he knew that Quinn's kit has a few pain points he would like to address but Quinn's state at the time did not allow for him to do so on good conscience. I think Quinn can be said to be objectively under the relevance bar, and for the first time since the rework she exhibits room for work.

As for ideas for places you can add power without contributing to abusive patterns, I suggest:

• First and foremost, fixing some of her bugs. Currently, there are situations in which Skystrike doesn't fire at all, or fires and deals no damage. A bug that was fixed previously has come back, too: if you cancel Harrier's auto, you can no longer proc the mark on that target.

• Disallowing creep damage to cancel her ult channel. A 2 second self root is deterrent enough for quick escapes, and it ends up feeling awful to have a single creep auto cancel a nearly complete channel due to erratic creep behavior.

• Easing on the slow inflicted by creep aggro when using her ultimate. Currently, Quinn is massively slowed if she takes creep damage during her ultimate. This mechanic often feels overbearing because she isn't merely slowed by a percentage, her movement speed is set to her base, negating any bonus her ult might have given. The change is extraordinarily jarring, there is no easing into it. We dread it so much we call creep autos during ult "minion glitterlances".

• Improving W's active. This ability feels very lackluster compared to similar vision tools. The cooldown is way too high for a point blank ability, vision doesn't linger long enough to justify said cooldown and it feel like it's overall the place in Quinn's kit where the least power is allocated.

• Make Skystrike deal additional damage to creeps or execute creeps at a certain threshold. One consequence of the nerf to Vault out of ult was that Skystrike lost its usefulness as a pushing mechanic because it deals negligible damage to creeps. I am not exaggerating when i say that Skystrike contributes far more to ruining your ability to CS when pushing than aiding it. It feels awful.

• If you're amenable to bumping up Quinn's power levels, simply increasing W's passive uptime slightly would go a long way in bolstering healthy combat patterns. The buff duration often creates pain points where the sudden change in attack speed induces mistakes, and part of it is lost simply adjusting for the shift. R's mana costs early are also a huge pain point, which puts a heavy damper on what Quinn can hope to accomplish with it during the part of the game where she's supposed to be strong. It scales to cost 0, which trivializes her mana costs late. I think she would benefit a lot from a flat cost.

Summarizing, I commend you for addressing Quinn, but please don't allow her to stay in this state indefinitely, especially now that you're moving to nerf Duskblade. We beg of you.

I really feel bad for every single Azir and Ryze main out there. :(

A nerf to Duskblade's proc damage and potentially some clean up to the rules around how the Blackout passive work.

If you're going to nerf duskblade's damage the least you guys can do is buff ad assassins. Your team gave nearly every assassin a delay to their damage in season 7 (and if no delay has been added then the damage has been gutted instead) so of course they are all going to be building Duskblade/Gunblade so they can actually do their JOBS AS ASSASSINS.

Then supports have been getting buffed non stop after every assassin has already been turned into a shell of their former selves but why stop there, lets nerf their damage items some more because why the heck not?

How do you feel about the crit system how it is atm? Because it is something that can really cause marksmen to become an issue. Especially now that late game carries like Vayne are hitting there late game spikes with merely a shiv and an IE

As for the Plants I feel the first honey fruits can be rather annoying on their spawn time but I know if those spawn too soon Junglers can become an issue or laners could abuse the free healing and mana

So what exactly do you want Azir to do or what place do you want him to be?.. the whole point in the so called "rework" was for him to be in a better spot.. but now he's just being nerfed back to square one.

So uhhhh, why did all the champ dev podcasts get deleted? If for no other reason, they should've been kept for archival/historic purposes..

Hey Meddler, FeralPony mentioned a while back that you guys felt Tristana could use sorta a mini update to sharpen her weaknesses and make her less of a generalist ADC. Do you think she still needs larger work

I really didn't think Azir could be nerfed anymore than he already is. He is going to be old Azir with lower ranges at a 42% winrate for the rest of the season.

So KhaZix is the only one performing well with Duskblade but we're going to nerf all the AD assassins across the board? :/

Please don't do this. An alternative would be to pull warrior enchant AD down to 50 or 55. Please don't kill mid lane AD assassins, they're already in a bad position.

First ADCs like Jhin/MF got lethality nerfed to 18 from 20, and now we get this. Be reasonable.

Any comment about how Ahri changes are going ?

Thoughts on Ezreal? Will he finally get some work on his W?

Any plan for Gragas?

Current thoughts on Swain in terms of balance? Too strong or too weak?

What about this guy at all? He is getting worse, and worse with every patch.

I'm disturbed by the lack of Ahri changes. Playing as Ahri FEELS HORRIBLE! And I think you're putting way way too much stock into her win rate being at 51%. Just because it's over 50% doesn't mean she's actually a strong champion.

Delete her W and give her a real spell. Make it a similar spell but with 3 manual skillshots if you have to, that way it can actually be given damage instead of nerfed to the point where no one even levels it up anymore. And revert the R from 0.25 to 0.3 already, no one likes their ultimate doing joke damage. You know what, having some range on R would be nice too, I remember the days where it worked from outside of melee range.

Hell just revert her back to assassin form. I'll gladly give up the Q movespeed to get back that 50% damage lost, which would mean you have to give us DFG back to reach that number again considering she was designed for E to work multiplicatively with DFG's active. Well... get on it.

That sounded almost sarcastic and I obviously don't expect DFG back. But I expect not to get run down and murdered like an animal at lvl 11 when I'm 10/0/5 by a lvl 8 0/5/0 Maokai. Do you know how it feels like to have your class thoroughly outpowered by all other classes in the game aside from the ADC's servant (unless it's Brand or Zyra, they'll 100-0 you anyway)? Like shit. Combine that with playing Ahri for the worst feeling possible.

Ahri can't do anything unless disgustingly ahead, which isn't easy considering how many champions outright bully her in lane, then she falls off a cliff late game anyway. She's powerless against any tank. Mages need high damage back, change her targeted spells to skill shots if they're that problematic.

Having mana regen removed from the game, mana pots removed, and all AP items losing AP while costing a ridiculous amount more didn't help either.

Hey Meddler, anything coming for Yorick anytime soon? Specifically, his Maiden AI? It's incredibly annoying when you can't call the maiden back from inting under turret. Even just a button to recall her to you would be a significantly helpful quality of life change.

What kind of nerfs on Ryze and Azir, targeting their laning phase or an all stages nerf? And do you think they will need another rework as they are still hard to balance? (more in ryze case where he has 14% winrate difference according to lolalytics)

Also do you think the Katarina nerfs where enough?

Why not do a bruiser itemization pass like you did with APs? You know, like the one for the upcoming patch. Bruisers need better items, not just a keystone.

Zhonya's hourglass changes the way a mage can approach a fight. Gargoygle's/Locket changes how aggressively tanks can engage. RFC/Shiv lets ADCs waveclear and siege from range.

Steraks, titantic, and trinity are items that just give stats, helps bruisers be tankier, and do more damage. That's it. Those items do not fundamentally change the way a bruiser approaches a fight or how he can play it. Give bruisers unique items that allow them to approach a fight differently and make game impacting plays.

If you need help I have ideas for over 10 items.

Any word on Nautilus buffs/rework? He currently doesn't have a position. Lacks DPS and tankiness to be played top, lacks utility to be played support.

in regards to duskblade might i recommend a cooldown on the damage proc? hopefully this will stop kha'zix from cheesing it with his ultimate without hurting other AD assassins too much?

also, what was the reasoning behind making lethality scale with your level and not the target's? if i recall snowballing was the reason flat pen was replaced in the first place.

EDIT: 1. Thank you for the upvotes people. 2. It seems that marksman abuse was the reason for the lethality scaling change. Has using the old scaling with a "melee only" restriction been tested internally? can't imagine plopping into the next pbe cycle and seeing what happens would be too time consuming.

I would like to hear a bit about and how you guys feel about it. I made a Post about it and my personal stance is its a bit strong and probably enjoys the highest overall viability of zeal items on adcs. I'm hoping to get some dev feedback I can share, in the interest of keeping my intent clear.

Also I'm curious if this interaction of and towers is intended?

I like how riot just gave us a new reason to not to play assassins. [zombie-brand-clap]

For Tristana, why not just make using her W for escapes less forgiving in lane? Right now, it only costs 60 mana at all ranks, which is really low for an escape (her E costs more mana). Sure, it has a long cooldown, but usually in lane she just uses it as an easy escape and plays safe until its back off cooldown. Having an ability be defensive is aggressive at the same time is cool, but too much for lane, especially as a hypercarry.

My proposed changed:

W - Mana cost: 100 mana at all ranks from 60 mana at all ranks --> New effects: Hitting at least one enemy with rocket jump refunds 50 mana. Rocket jumps used within 5 seconds of a reset cost 50 mana. This:

• Nerfs her safety in lane by punishing defensive W usage.
• Doesn't nerf aggro plays in lane nor teamfight resets.

Hi Meddler,

Are you allowed to be more specific on the coming Galio nerfs? Is it due to Pro-play usage? Like Ult nerfs? Or something else? He seems to be a weird spot. I only seem to find success with him in the mid lane, you removed the idea of top lane Galio...You gave him great AP ratios.. but it's not really worth building MR on him with the mr scaling for damage/reduction you put on his passive/w/ult/etc.

Any word on that new elemental drake you guys were considering? Has anything looked promising?

When you said making changes to make Dragons more worthy to fight over, were you referring to the non-Infernal types?