Boards›Dev Corner

Patch 6.15 - The One Where The Towers Change

RiotSkarnye West·7/25/2016, 6:44:25 PM·1 votes·14,736 views

Welcome back to Patch Chat!

I’m Gentleman Gustaf, and here with me is Riot’s Playtest Team, a group of high-ranking League players whose job it is to play the hell out of things and give actionable objective feedback to designers. Think of us as your high-Elo friends who happen to have played the new patch, rework, or champion long before it ever came out.

Every two weeks, concurrent with the release of patch notes, we’re going to be hosting a discussion here on Dev Corner. Take this opportunity to ask us any questions about how we feel about the game or what it’s like to work as a Riot playtester.

Several of our playtesters have competitive experience with lane swaps, so if you want to know how we think they will affect lane swaps - or just regular play - leave your questions below!

In competitive play, we expect to see fewer fast-push lane swaps. Specifically, we expect that lane swaps will now at least be contested, thanks to the value of tower first blood and the weaker bot side towers. This may change after the first five minutes of the game, but by then champions have their full basic kits (no ultimates yet) and can take better advantage of the mechanical aspects of the game in additional to the tactical.

In solo queue, we think that champions who can poke towers early on (Caitlyn?) might have the option of taking towers somewhat earlier, but that it probably won’t have much of an impact.

We will be around for the next few hours and will try to answer as many questions as possible.

Adam "Afic" Cohen Preston “Hinder” Bunker Ben “Cezium” Burkhardt Shawn “I Am The IRS” Currie Don “Aesah” Ding Nicolas “Gleeb” Haddad Dan “Penguin” Hardison Miles “Daydreamin” Hoard Bao “Bao” Lam Robert “RobertxLee” Lee Nicholas “Nickwu” Smith Blake “S0be” Soberanis Trevor “ThEntropist” Thernes

52 Comments

astralwit7/25/2016, 6:58:28 PM7 votes

Any thoughts on buffing Ziggs' W AP ratio? It's a very low 35% AP ratio for a 26 sec. CD ability. Ziggs has the slowest MS of any mage so using his only escape for damage should provide more reward. I often want to play Ziggs in a riskier style with W but it rarely feels worth it.

Frnak8/5/2016, 2:46:15 AM2 votes

Sweet job. Hire me pls.

Also, please fix Malzahar. Rework not grape success. It's cherry bad. "Front lines battle mage" is Ryze's dealio. Malz was heavy punisher. Now he's. Noodley slap man with OMGVOIDLINGSbutohwekilledthem nvm. high level play = QSS lol no damage no suppression with all this burst going on. Can't really go RoA because 20% CDR is vital to him now that his base values and AP values were nerfed into oblivion.

Rito. I've played with him. So much. Even rework I've tried constantly to like it. I TRY TO LIKE IT. I cannot.

He's no longer impactful unless it's to R someone. Or someone tries to 1v1 and forgets to knock off that one voidling.

The Yetii Rider7/26/2016, 12:37:13 AM2 votes

Are you having more success building mana regen or mana on Sona?

With the change from 6.14 to reduce all her cooldowns, it seems more likely that she would need something like a larger mana pool to keep her spells constant in a fight (and with the ridiculous cadence increase, the % mana cost reduction from item 3003 might be good on her)

Suggestions for a full build on Sona this patch?

EROTIC RAID BOSS7/26/2016, 2:51:46 AM2 votes

What are your thoughts on this meta heading into worlds?

It seems to me, once again pretty stale in the jungle especially.

Also seems unfortunate that the meta is so dominated by kind of more boring champions like Malzahar, while fun champions that are hated by... certain players... like Zed, were really very overnerfed. I'll add thresh, kalista, riven and lee sin to the list. This probably won't earn me any popularity points on the whiniest boards I've ever seen, but those champions are fun to watch and they don't deserve to be so low tier either. I'll also say Azir is a lot of fun to watch and he definitely got Olaf'd to hell but I understand he was crowding out mid lane a lot. On the other hand it doesn't seem to have helped open up the mid lane meta much yet

I guess what I want to know is, is the meta wide enough to support an interesting Worlds right now, and is there time to shake it up a little more, before we're locked into super minor changes that don't change anything (ie the ezreal and corki buffs last year)

LongHair Fox7/25/2016, 8:45:16 PM1 votes

As a top lane main I have got to worry: does the change in turret protection mean that turret first blood almost always goes to bot lane? The teleport nerf already makes it hard to affect bot lane from top, and if bot lane gets even more importance than it already has it feels like top will get even less weight on the game.

warpenguin5557/25/2016, 8:49:35 PM1 votes

Super disappointed by Kled. Honestly his Kit is just everything i dont want to play with put into 1 champ

Malicious Metal7/25/2016, 11:35:20 PM1 votes

I sure hope Mordekaiser turning out to be numero Uno Jungler caused some eyebrows to be raised^^ Any thoughts on his current state, outside of Jungle too?

Because I feel he's actually one of the most criminally underrated picks at the moment. (And no, this is no shameless advertisement, nu-uh!)

WaterDonkey7/26/2016, 10:18:25 AM1 votes

Ive been noticing alot lately that jungle camps. mainly red and blu buffs minions will follow you for a LONG time some times all the way to tri bush. Is that intended?

SpecterVonBaren7/26/2016, 1:52:40 AM1 votes

Did you consider adjusting it so instead of bot getting the cannon the same wave as before, mid getting it one wave later and top two waves later that it was instead that bot lane gets the cannon 1 wave earlier than before, mid lane gets it the same wave as before, and top gets it one wave later?

It would make the change a lot less extreme and even be seen as a buff for bot lane instead of just nerfs to mid and top.

Shíny7/25/2016, 7:57:47 PM1 votes

Have there been any interesting developments from top lane not getting a siege minion until wave 5? Seems like there'd be some shifts in power spikes and what not.

InTheory7/26/2016, 3:31:02 AM1 votes

[deleted]

InTheory7/26/2016, 3:36:24 AM1 votes

[deleted]

patmax177/26/2016, 6:30:11 AM1 votes

Thoughts on Kled? What does he excel at? :D

I must admit, the kit seems a bit random to me, I fail to see the cohesiveness (but I guess it will get clearer when I can play him?)

Kei1437/26/2016, 8:41:51 AM1 votes

Hijacking this from the other thread.

{quoted}

Pushing power was the bigger concern than gold income. Cannons make an enormous difference in ability to take down towers, given they both take hits before other squishier minions and take reduced damage from towers.

Asking the pros / people that understand the game better; Not saying that meddler doesn't have the understanding, but the Point of View of a Diamond / Pro player is very different than commoners.

If the cannon minions spawned in the top lane first, how would that affect the tower pushing / lane swap game?

DrDoom129127/25/2016, 8:05:22 PM1 votes

Any thoughts on a Yorick re-work?

Kei1437/25/2016, 8:17:28 PM1 votes

HEY GG, According to patch 6.15

Champion Select We’re testing a feature in some regions that shows how much lower or higher queue times may be based on the positions selected.

We know queue times can vary dramatically depending on the roles a player picks, so we’ve added queue time impact estimates to position select as an experiment in test regions. Now you can decide if you prefer getting into game or getting your primary. We’ll evaluate rolling out the feature to other servers based on the results of the test, but wanted to keep you updated on our efforts either way.

####TIMES TABLES: Position select now displays when and to what degree particular position combinations impact estimated queue times

Do you know which region is in for testing ?