Quick Gameplay Thoughts: February 2

Hey all,

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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

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Patch 8.4

Number of things going into patch 8.4 below. There'll likely be a bit more to follow too, and as usual some of this stuff might not ship or will likely change.

Runes Changes:

• Fleetwork Footwork/Press the Attack - We'll likely be buffing PTA and/or nerfing FF. Recent changes to FF make it too dominant a choice in Precision at this point, still debating though whether that means we should bring PTA up and/or FF down though. Lethal Tempo by contrast needs bigger work (thoughts on that once we're starting on it, not as urgent as other Runes work though).

• Resolve non keystones - Likely replacing a rune or two and moving some runes around to make the second slot especially more interesting and appealing.

• Precision Stat Bonus - Splitting with other trees like Resolve does (e.g. Precision+Domination = AS and AD).

Item Changes:

• Tracker's Knife - Investigating (might not change) whether this is just too dominant a choice at this point, which also leads to excessive vision especially in organized play.

• Hunter's Talisman versus Hunter's Machete - Tweaking stats a bit to make Talisman a better choice on champs it should be strong on.

• Jungle items generally - Potentially increasing mana regen to open up the jungle more (mana gating keeps quite a few champs from clearing effectively early relative to less mana hungry junglers)

• Ancient Coin - Looks too weak, even on champions it fits best on (Janna, Soraka, Rakan). Smallish, simple buffs likely as a result.

• Wit's End - Buffing slightly in general and a bit more for melee champs (they'll steal MR faster than ranged).

Edit: AP item changes will also be in 8.4, forgot to include those somehow when writing this originally despite the fact we've been looking at them a lot this week.

Objectives:

• We'll be taking a look at Baron Buff and Elder Dragon buff. At present their impact in really long games seems to fall off too much, which means you don't pay enough of a penalty for playing safe and not trying to contest them. That can lead to drawn out, unresolved games without much happening. In Elder Dragon's case it also means the value of contesting early dragons, regardless of element, isn't as high as it should be either.

Champ Nerfs:

• Ornn - Looking at what enemies should be able to do to respond to him in lane. Details to be determined.

• Gnar - Needs clearer weaknesses enemies can play around, particularly in lane. Details also TBD.

• Kalista - We're still working on pulling power out of Kalista for pro play without hitting her hard in regular play.

Champ Buffs:

• Evelynn - Previous nerfs were harder than intended. Looking to give a bit of power back in a straightforward way.

• Volibear - Fingers crossed will finally get changes in 8.4. We've been testing a range of things in addition to the previously mentioned brief displacement on champs on E. That knockback's still testing well so that's almost certainly happening. Probably a secondary buff as well (e.g. might have Q MS not fall off so aggressively when briefly facing away from enemy champs to move around skillshots or whatever).

• Fiddlesticks - Is struggling quite a bit in the jungle. Buffing as a result, not sure exactly how yet.

• Talon - Struggling in both mid and top. We'd previously been avoiding giving him power because he was doing well in top lane, he's just weak all round at this point though. Likely fairly straight forward numbers buffs.

Other Champion Changes:

• Rengar - Reversion of Q to an on next hit ability will happen in 8.4, along with some smaller changes to other parts of the kit.

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Saved Rune Pages

For cases like 8.4 where we're changing non keystone Runes (replacing some or swapping positions of others) we'll be automatically updating saved Rune pages so that they're still valid. First goal is to avoid forcing people to remake entire rune pages when the system has only changed slightly. Sonc goal is to make sure everyone still loads into game with a full set of at least ok Runes even if they haven't yet edited their pages since the changes. We'll be doing some call outs in the game client as well when stuff changes for people who want to update their pages themselves, getting some defaults in as a fallback too though.

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Zoe Thoughts on Zoe next week. Was going to get some thoughts on how we see her and what our plans are for this post, would like to take a bit more time to talk through issues and approach with the team first though.

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LeBlanc

After Rengar ships in 8.4 we'll be looking at LeBlanc. Current plan is for a similar level of change to Rengar's, likely including some degree of moving back to things about old LeBlanc that worked well (both for LeBlanc players and for game health). Not certain on timing of when that work would ship, goal would be to get it onto PBE fairly quickly and, as with Rengar, work on it for multiple patches while getting feedback on it.

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