Quick Gameplay Thoughts: March 16

RiotMeddler·Mar 16, 2017·1 votes·40,319 views

Hi folks,

Not too much to mention today, we're pretty focused on mid-season work at present so less to talk about right now. As far as mid-season itself goes we should be in a position to talk a lot of details in a few weeks at a guess.

MR/level

One of the issues we've been looking at for our mid-season defensive item work is whether we should be adjusting MR/level to account for the removal of Aegis aura in the pre-season last year. That aura, even at only 10 or 15 MR, composed a meaningful proportion of some champions total MR in many games, which has left those champs significantly more vulnerable to magic damage. We're testing giving a small amount of MR per level (0.5 at present) to champs who don't currently have any as a result.

Karthus

Touching on Karthus since he's been asked about a fair bit recently and he's one of those champs we haven't talked about in a while. We don't have any current plans for Karthus, we are keeping a closer eye on him than usual right now though because of the Exhaust nerf that just went through (want to see how much that does/doesn't impact him).

Some 7.7 Balance Changes

We've just started our work on 7.7. We're still planning out what exactly we'll be focusing on, some likely candidates though include buffs to Lissandra (since we didn't find something we were happy with in 7.6) and Bard plus a nerf to Graves. Less certain are possible Lux and Kassadin buffs plus another look at Udyr and consideration of some other junglers. Aatrox followup's very possible, though what depends on how he performs over the next week or so of course. More details to follow.

200 Comments

SOLOQSUPERHEROMar 16, 201721 votes

What were some of the things you tried for the Lissandra updates?

EmperorPenguMar 16, 201711 votes

{quoted}

What were some of the things you tried for the Lissandra update

Passive changes hopefully

MR OCTOPUSSIMar 16, 201713 votes

@ Meddler I still hope you read this at some point :D What do you think about giving Fiddlesticks a range indicator for his W - Drain like Morgana Morgana ult? I think it would help a lot because the cast range is different from the max range. It would be an easy QoL change while you work on him!

japhibMar 16, 20173 votes

+1 to this idea

RiotMeddlerMar 16, 201713 votes

We've missed the window to get that into patch 7.6, I think we can probably get it onto the docket for 7.7 though!

La BelloMar 16, 20178 votes

hey while your at it can you add a blast plant indicator to Ziggs Satchel Charge to help us direct ourselves?

MR OCTOPUSSIMar 16, 20172 votes

Hahaha, really happy to hear this! Appreciate the work & thank you for reading :) Much love from mr octosticks Fiddlesticks !

Illâoi Evê SiônMar 16, 201710 votes

I would like to give feedback on the Aatrox passive description rewrite on the PBE:

-This is subjective, but the "light red" color of Undying looks more like pink. Would you consider making it purple like Blood Price instead? Then you could change his energy bar to be purple when Undying is off cooldown as well. This would reduce the amount of colors he has, making him ... more complete? I don't know how to describe this. He wouldn't be all over the place. It would also be easier to recognize than the difference between red and light red.

-The closest thing to Hellbent that we currently have is Darius' Noxian Might which just immediately tells you what bonuses you get instead of creating a sub-paragraph and a sub-title for the effect. Would you consider looking at how that's written and then adjusting ~~Undying~~ Hellbent to be similar? League isn't very consistent in its description writing so every time something new comes out or something is changed it would be nice if you could strive to make it as similar as possible to what already exists. Also, using "Hellbent" so often in one description is just weird. Colored Keywords should be used as seldom as possible. And having three paragraphs with each their own titles is also a bit much.

-Volibear's passive also restores 30% Health and doesn't do this, but a lot of new abilities just show the actual value in the correct text color and then the mathematical value in parenthesis (just the opposite of what Aatrox does). Could you adjust that and Volibear's passive, please? (Volibear's passive doesn't even show you how much it heals).

-The current standard for revive effects with a cooldown is to write a sentence that says "This ability has a X second cooldown" instead of putting the cooldown in parenthesis or writing it on the right side. It also shows the number in normal text color instead of white despite scaling with level. Could you either adjust Aatrox's Undying to fit Anivia and Zac or Anivia and Zac to fit Aatrox's Undying?

Jaycen bOrnnMar 16, 201710 votes

Hi Meddler, in one of your previous posts, you mentioned possible buffs to LeBlanc to compensate for the recent nerfs. Is that still on the table for 7.7?

RiotMeddlerMar 16, 20177 votes

We're still watching LB's performance - big thing we want to get a clear picture of is how well she'll do once players are skill ranking appropriately. Lot of people are still maxing W in games where that's no longer optimal, leading to a lot of avoidable failures. Need that mislead to settle down a bit to give us better confidence on whether she does or doesn't need follow up changes.

DracaNovaMar 19, 20179 votes

What about item 3047 , 103.64% gold efficiency without the passive and it costs only 1140 gold so it can easily be bought early game. This item blocks 12% of ALL auto attack damage for 100 Gold. The passive is actually is more gold efficient the more armour the user has. This seems counter intuitive in a system where armour has diminishing returns.

ShahamutMar 20, 20174 votes

stop building 3 to 4 AA AD comps and you will see fewer of these :/

DracaNovaMar 20, 20177 votes

This has nothing to do with comps, 800 gold worth of stats should not purchasable for 100. Also your answer "stop building 3 to 4 AA AD comps" makes no sense seeing as champs that are AD also auto-attack. So to rephrase your statement: "stop building 3 to 4 AD comps and you will see fewer of these :/". So pretty much you have to have 2 or less AD champs on your team, got it...

DessemMar 16, 20178 votes

How do you feel about Ivern at the moment? His shield can feel pretty frustrating to play against, and he's got a suitably high winrate. Currently happy with him, or are you monitoring?

(Also still hype for Lissandra, what changes did you look at that didn't satisfy?)

RiotMeddlerMar 16, 20179 votes

We're watching Ivern, he's a possible future nerf candidate but not one we're confident we need to hit at present.

Win rate can be particularly deceptive on champs like Ivern that have very different playstyles to other champs in the same position. A player who gets good at Ivern can climb to a point if they play him a lot where their MMR is appropriate for their Ivern play, but too high for their play on other junglers that test different skillsets. That leads to a cycle of 'win games on Ivern, climb MMR, play other stuff you can't play at that level, lose MMR thereby putting you at a rating that'll give you easier Ivern games again so you climb back up'. It's a pattern we see on some other champs with odder playstyles too (Singed being a classic example).

Having said all that Ivern also looks like he's potentially just too strong in general. Need to be careful using winrate as too much of an argument for that though given it doesn't reflect objective power but instead muddles success with a lot of player preference, playstyle and meta stuff. Win rate does tend to be better for measuring changes to a champion's power by contrast for a patch by patch comparison, though even then you need to filter out things like the need to relearn how to play as/against a champ if it's more than just a simple numbers change.

DessemMar 16, 20172 votes

Understandable, it's why I pointed out his shield can feel rather frustrating to play against. Because he levels it first and reaches level 9 before other shielding champions (typically only Janna maxes shield first, and she reaches level 9 later), he'll have a stronger shield than Janna with a lower cooldown at that stage in the game. It's augmented by his item builds (which complement his shielding aspects), leading into a low cooldown shield that is rapidly re-applied, and not necessarily weaker than a dedicated duo lane support until later on in the game.

I fielded the winrate as an explanation that it not only feels frustrating to play against, but there's also something about Ivern that makes him wildly successful in games. I think it's because his invades are very good (can steal buff at level 1, which requires laners to dedicate time to stopping Ivern over laning; either lose early lane advantage or lose buff), as well as that unlike other junglers, he doesn't have to surrender gold and experience to provide his laners with a buff.

Having an Ivern on the red side of the map means the top laner can easily pick up a red buff numerous times, whereas a non-Ivern top laner usually doesn't see red buff unless he pries it from the enemy jungler's dead hands.

I think that's probably one of his strongest assets he brings to teams: the guaranteed buff for his laners unless he's counter-jungled. It's possible that just means Ivern needs to be counter-jungled more, but I'm not a jungler so I can't shed light on whether that's feasible enough. I do think it's part of Ivern's package that makes him generally strong, though, since he can surrender buffs to his allies at no cost to himself, whereas traditional junglers do have to pay a cost to give blue to Mid (and virtually never give buffs to Bot/Top during laning phase).

To recap: Ivern has a bunch of things that can feel frustrating to play against, or that provide his allies buffs without necessarily working for them, and his winrate prompted the question whether he's on your radar or if you're happy with him.

Melancholy HillMar 16, 20178 votes

What is your thought on the enemy missing ping? Right now its used to call your team mates idiots more than it is to say that someone is actually mia

DolchstoßlegendeMar 16, 20177 votes

Yeah, remember when you didn't include Karthus in the Mage Update, then nerfed his Wall Slow because Rylai's was too good and then nerfed Rylai's? Might wanna look into that.

shakedblu3Mar 16, 20177 votes

Is there any chance of buffing Lebalnc a bit? From very strong and almost 100% ban in pro games she's now really useless, and even in pro games on patch 7.4 before the huge nerf she isnt rly destroying the team ...

ZielmannMar 16, 20177 votes

Is the state of exhaust for supports going to be monitored? The removal of the AS reduction on it seems a little heavy-handed to me, given that the justification for nerfing it at all was that the resistance reduction made it too good for both offensive and defensive use.

It's a little early, and of course the data on those 3rd party sites is a bit limited, but while exhaust remains the most common second spell on most supports, for many of them, their highest winrate builds have them switching to heal or ignite instead this patch. Before the nerfs, it was pretty consistent for most supports to have exhaust as both the most popular and the highest winrate second spell.

RiotMeddlerMar 16, 20177 votes

Watching it, some degree of champs played in the support position feeling able to use non Exhaust summoners has the potential to be a good thing though. Would be concerned if Exhaust stopped getting used at all, but not necessarily if there's some extra flexibility to grab another Heal or Ignite in some games.

what you deserveMar 17, 20172 votes

The exhaust nerf is a pretty insane buff to Vayne, considering true damage can't be reduced and her only counterplay has always been to reduce her attack speed.

Emmy Cha0sMar 20, 20172 votes

Don't you feel, as someone who personally abuses APCs in the support role, that you're probably VERY biased regarding this issue? I'd even go so far as to presume it was 100% YOUR idea to OVER-nerf Exhaust because YOU got tired of teammates asking YOU to take it over Ignite.

NinjaGuy69Mar 16, 20177 votes

Less certain are possible Lux and Kassadin buffs plus another look at Udyr and consideration of some other junglers.

Can you please, please remove the requirement for 6 spells to be cast around Kassadin before he can use his E? It's a really awkward mechanic that I think adds more frustration to his overall gameplay experience rather than adding more value to his theme as an anti-mage.

WatsonMar 16, 20171 votes

What would you propose to compensate for this change?

In all honesty removing this limiting part of the ability without any cost would make Kassadin plain broken.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I also feel like the way it is right now isn't the correct approach. I'd just like to do some shitstorming.

AmmenMar 16, 20172 votes

I'm no designer but I think part of the charges thing is that it scales Kassadin's power with how much you want to trade as the opponent. If you're playing really aggressively he charges enough to wave clear and keep up. If you just sit back and farm he can't just dive you with a full rotation constantly. Would it feel better if maybe the ability scaled up with casts instead of being binary?

NinjaGuy69Mar 16, 20173 votes

What would you propose to compensate for this change?

I made a post about Kassadin's E a few days ago. I think it's a fairly balanced spell because it's already gated by a cooldown and a mana cost. To compensate for removing the 6 charges requirement from his E you could increase the cooldown to 10/9/8/7/6 seconds from a flat 6 seconds at each rank (the way it currently is on live) so that Kassadin can have a bit more access to the spell in lane while not being able to abuse it. I think it's a reasonable change that would go a long way to making Kassadin a lot less frustrating to play in general.

La BelloMar 16, 20177 votes

Less certain are possible Lux buffs

wait

why would you buff Lux? Isn't her playstyle kinda unhealthy? Lux will never be viable until her entire kit is cured of the Cho'gath/Nidalee problem (core abilities dependent on landing a single skill/even if you dodge 50 Q's it only takes one to screw you over)

I dont think Lux is "weak" by any measure. No her whole Light binding into Lucent Singularity and Final Spark can still damn well one-shot a majority of the squishier cast assuming she is not behind on gold or anything.

I hope you guys arent forgetting that Lux's Q+E+R BnB combo as a whole deals a 1180 + 225% AP ,can be used from a distance and happens in under 3 seconds.

If you want Lux to see more play. You are going to have to dig deep and rework a couple skills or two to grant her more agency in between cooldowns. Create a more dynamic less one-dimensional playstyle and maybe give her some Utility or a Niche. On that note what class does Lux even belong too? She looks like a supportive mage akin to Karma or Lulu BUT she plays like a simple up-front nuker.Often she can be found supporting at bot but she really builds no supportive items instead opting for pure ability power generally a item 3041 .

tl;dr Don't simply BUFF Lux and call it a day. Modernize her as her kits age is beginning to show.

Cut Through YouMar 16, 20176 votes

keep the good work guys i really have no complains about gameplay.[zombie-brand-clap]

Jeddy017Mar 16, 20176 votes

Wait what? Why is Lux being considered for a buff? Did I miss something?

ShadowParkerMar 16, 20176 votes

How has the stonebound mastery been received? I personally don't ever see it so I'm wondering what Riot's thoughts are.

RiotMeddlerMar 16, 20178 votes

Seems to have landed pretty well so far from our perspective. It's got a design that's likely to always be somewhat niche when it's balanced, we're ok with that though provided it's serving the champs who should really want to take it appropriately.

Having said that systemic changes like masteries can also deceptively large in their impact and take a little while to evaluate, so it's very possible we'll be looking at Stoneborn Pact or the revised Warlord's pretty differently a few patches from now depending on how their use evolves.

RaxistaichoMar 16, 20175 votes

Wait, why would you buff Lux? Do you remember what happened the last time you gave Lux buffs that she didn't need? She became the best mid in the game for about half a season before she was finally dealt with.

RavenHuskyMar 16, 20174 votes

Besides her shield which I brought up a few threads ago, what kind of buffs did you have in mind for Lux?

Forhonor321Mar 16, 20174 votes

Why are you considering about buffing Lux? Everyone else thinks she's strong enough right now. Also what do you plan on doing about Ahri? Right now she's looking to be the best mid laner at higher tiers.

As well, what are you looking to nerf in Graves, are their any more big changes to Aatrox we should know about that may come soon, and can you give us some detail about the tank update so far? Because looking back at all the previous class updates, I'm fairly worried at this point since nearly every one of them hasn't completely hit their mark or satisfied players.

MobiusMar 16, 20174 votes

What happened to Shyvana? I feel like the mini rework was incomplete and didn't really achieve anything, since she's performing probably the same as before or slighty worse after the W nerf and passive change. Any plans to make her more viable in general, especially in the toplane? (examples: Q doing more damage early, E hp% magic damage up to 3% max hp, ult giving slighty more hp and do more damage).

robotmasterMar 16, 20173 votes

Do you guys have the list for champ to give smaller tweaks too yet?

Risk of FateMar 16, 20173 votes

[deleted]

Luxanna MagicaMar 16, 201710 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fate Fire,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=Zuddmxm1,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2017-03-16T17:18:40.681+0000)

LUX DOES NOT NEED BUFFS! I would say she needs nerfs if anything as well as someone to actually look at her Q's hitbox. I have, quite literally, hit that thing when it shouldn't (visual was below an enemy teemo, it was a clear miss, yet it still hit). And her damage really needs to be toned down slightly on the ult, having a 25 stack Mejai's with a Void Staff will just melt squishies from full health even with MR.

Lol are u trolling

iahim98Mar 16, 20173 votes

Meddler, is that 0.5 mr/lvl for all chamions or just tanks? As I'm aware, the champions that don't have mr/lvl are mostly ranged champs and some melee, so who would get this buff?

ProfDrDeathMar 16, 20173 votes

The way he worded it, it should be for all champions. Which makes sense given Aegis' MR removal.

DolasaurMar 16, 20174 votes

We're testing giving a small amount of MR per level (0.5 at present) to champs who don't currently have any as a result.

Tanks pretty much all already have MR per level, so I'd say not.

Edit: Meddler said "champs who don't currently have any". So it's not going to be just tanks, and it's not going to be everyone. It's going to largely affect ranged squishies.

ProfDrDeathMar 16, 20171 votes

Was answering to the poster above me - and of his two possibilities, it would be all champions getting MR/lvl.

I know that the champions that already have good MR/lvl will not get that improved - but in the end, all champions will have MR/lvl.

DolasaurMar 16, 20172 votes

Ah, wow, I clearly skimmed/misread that post. The person you were responding to gave two bad options lol, sorry. Editing my earlier response.

RiotMeddlerMar 16, 20175 votes

Correct, this would mainly effect ranged champions who have no MR/level at present and a few melee exceptions who were never granted it. In terms of MR needs for melee folks there's arguably a gap there in terms of what they should buy against sustained magic damage. Might make some item changes to help them out there, testing some stuff at the moment.

WiegrafOfValorMar 16, 20173 votes

@Meddler, It's just a shower thought but wouldn't be more interesting to invest on Aatrox revival thematic and War beast, and to balance him around his passive?

It's hard to understand when I put that way so I'll try to show you what I mean. Imagine if Aatrox had a tanky sustain, low damage kit, but once he died and revive he would comeback as a temporary second form (much like Gnar) for a few seconds where he would have fast AA, lower CD on his skills or a different set of skills, with high % Lifesteal.

I think that would fit his thematic of this dangerous war veteran without making him OPpressive 24/7, and it's easier to balance around since you have the passive CD, the duration of the second form, the lifesteal%, the AA and the second form skills as means to balance him if he would to become more powerful than you want.

What do you think of that @Meddler?

PS: That would create a interesting dynamic, would you focus Aatrox and trigger his passive, or should you ignore him and try to survive his disrruptions? That would make him a unique bruiser, plus your team can play around that as well.