Mid Year Mage Updates - Low-Scope Mage Directions

When we began talking about the Mid Year Mage Update a while back, we mentioned that we’d be taking a sweep through the rest of the class and not just reworking the ‘Big Six’ and calling it a day. Similar to the Marksman Update, we’ve targeted 9 champions with low-scope changes to their existing kits, aimed at improving their feel and thematics. These champions weren’t in need of in-depth playstyle changes or visual work like the Big Six did, but were great opportunities to apply a fresh coat of gameplay nonetheless. Like the other direction posts you’ve seen, we’ll do a rapid-fire breakdown of why we picked these champions and what you can expect coming into midseason.

Let’s meet the team.

Fiddlesticks

What we’re happy with:

• Sneaky. Fiddle’s always looking for the perfect opportunity to jump-scare the enemy team (and often wins the game because of it)

What we’re less happy with:

• Low-engagement passive is just a stat-boost that’s hard to feel
• Perma-drain on targets without CC to stop you lends itself to dull gameplay for both parties

What we hope to see coming out of the update:

• Fiddlesticks’ passive feels impactful and interactive
• Make some general game health improvements and remove some of Fiddle’s overall clunkiness

Veigar

What we’re happy with:

• AP Stacking feels like you’re actively growing Veigar’s strength
• Nukes a single target. We like Veigar’s presence in a game being meaningful for both teams - ‘how do we best enable his burst’ vs. ‘how do we defend against it?’
• Strong fantasy. ‘Getting revenge on the big guys’ is a strong theme for someone that ultimately catches you out and destroys you.

What we’re less happy with:

• Veigar has no optimal (or suboptimal) way to use his ult. He points and clicks and the output is always the same.
• Current passive just feels like an excuse to give him higher-than-average mana costs

What we hope to see coming out of the update:

• Veigar’s passive feels aligned with his thematics and overall game plan
• Players understand when and why they get destroyed by Primordial Burst

Kennen

What we’re happy with:

• Mark of the Storm lets Kennen show his mastery over chaining abilities to get stuns
• Zone Control. Kennen generates a lot of threat over tight-spaces which creates tense pre-fight situations.

What we’re less happy with:

• Slicing Maelstrom’s RNG makes it confusing for both teams to get a clear expectation of what Kennen’s going to contribute when the fight breaks out.

What we hope to see coming out of the update:

• Increased payoff & satisfaction when setting up the perfect Kennen Ult
• Strengthened identity of ‘skirmisher with lots of crowd control potential’

Ziggs

What we’re happy with:

• Perfectly captures the Mad Bomber thematic.
• Fills a unique artillery role by lobbing bombs constantly
• Mega Inferno Bomb creates some high-moments and big plays

What we’re less happy with:

• Has the ability to stall out games by keeping multiple minion waves pushed
• Doesn’t distinguish himself enough from the other long-range mages (like Lux and Xerath), meaning you tend to just play whichever is the strongest

What we hope to see coming out of the update:

• Ziggs fulfills a strategic niche that rewards you for picking him over other mages in the right situations
• His ability to stall a game is diminished to the point that a strong Ziggs doesn’t delay the outcome of games by large lengths of time

Xerath

What we’re happy with:

• Keepaway. Xerath has a lot of tension built-in to wanting to be just far away to poke, but never close enough to be in threat range.

What we’re less happy with:

• For a mage that feels like he’s ascending to ultimate power, Rite of the Arcane can feel really lackluster.
• Playing against Xerath can feel like some of his abilities cheat in his favor

What we hope to see coming out of the update:

• Reinforce the use of his abilities at long-range while making them more fair to play against
• Make Rite of the Arcane feel like a meaningful crescendo for Xerath’s poke-pattern

Swain

What we're happy with:

• Sturdy. Swain's one of the few mages that can live on the front lines and take a punch.

What we're less happy with:

• Damage-over-time spells, while central to Swain's damage output feel very 'fire-and-forget'.
• Give Swain more meaningful decisions around his target selection rather than 'click on the nearest champion'.

What we're hoping comes out of the update:

• Introduce more interesting decisions to Swain's pattern while keeping him familiar. If you like drain-tanking and DoT's, this won't change.

Anivia

What we’re happy with:

• Strategic niche as a zone-control mage with R and W feels well-defined.
• Feels very thematically tied to Ice

What we’re less happy with:

• Effortless waveclear makes her hard to interact with when strong
• ‘Feels old’ from a usability standpoint. Anivia’s one of our first champions and it shows.

What we hope to see coming out of the update:

• Focus her strategic niche by increasing the power and game health of her zone control
• Improve her usability so she feels crisp to play

Viktor

What we’re happy with:

• ‘Glorious Evolution’ thematic and Hex Core feel unique
• Multiple cast paradigms make playing Viktor different from other mages

What we’re less happy with:

• Viktor’s primary contributions to his team are overwhelmingly about getting damage off quickly, lending itself to a flat experience overall.

What we hope to see coming out of the update:

• Viktor provides a team unique ways to play around enabling his huge teamfight potential rather than feeling like a one-man show

Syndra

What we’re happy with:

• Syndra’s interactions with Dark Spheres give her a unique combo feel
• She’s an imminent threat that forces opponents to react to her as more Spheres pop up

What we’re less happy with:

• Transcendence feels lame and forgetful compared to her fantasy’s promise of ultimate power

What we hope to see coming out of the update:

• Give her passive some visceral power that Syndra can feel excited about
• Follow-through on the promise of making her abilities evolve to allow stronger play-making

And that’s the squad! We’ll be sticking around in the comments to answer questions you may have about anything you see above - otherwise, we’ll see you when Midseason rolls around soon.