Quick Gameplay Thoughts: March 20

RiotMeddler·Mar 20, 2017·1 votes·76,501 views

Hi folks,

More words below. Hope the start of the week's treating you all well so far.

Clarity work underway

We've got some work going on right now aimed at better surfacing various particular bits of information, belief being that some things that could have really interesting and engaging gameplay are being held back by how hard it is to track and appreciate their impact. Some things we're looking at include:

Improvements to the the health bar and surrounding UI to allow it to convey extra information clearly (status effects like the gold invulnerability UI we added last year)
At least a couple of additional end of game stats (likely candidates for a first round at least are damage to objectives and vision granted)
Attribution visual effects that will be used for a range of spells and items that don't currently create a clear enough link between caster and target (e.g. a general looking blue zap that's used if you're on blue team and target someone with Mikael's, Exhaust, Face of the Mountain etc)

Not certain yet when those changes will be ready, possible some of them are in mid-season though.

More balance changes being tested

We're about to start a new PBE cycle tomorrow, all going according to plan. Since my last post we've also started looking at a few more potential changes, which include:

Alistar - buffs to passive and E (update last year made him healthier we think so should be able to put a bit more power into him)
Camile - W no longer healing off non champions, W slow scaling by rank instead of a flat 80% ( targeting laning phase sustain and gank assist)
J4 - buff testing shifting W from bonus shield per champ nearby to max health scaling (part of our pass on junglers that need a bit of help)
Volibear - buff to R, with more bounces and improved bounce logic (another from the jungler pass)

Ninja Tabi

Mentioning this again since it seems to be a point of some confusion at present. We have no current plans to nerf Ninja Tabi. They are being bought a lot, that looks like a natural reaction to a lot of games with multiple AD threats/champs buying Lethality however, rather than Ninja Tabi themselves being way out of line. Right now at least we'll be leaving them unchanged as a result (they're a counter that's being used as intended).

355 Comments

Jano1337Mar 20, 201737 votes

"Damage shielded" needs to become an end game stat. I suppose many support players (including myself) were always curious about how much damage the white HP has absorbed during the game.

Illâoi Evê SiônMar 20, 201720 votes

And "healing done" could be split into "healing on self" and "healing on others". I still have no idea what "healing done" even means. Some games my Marksman will have done more healing than me. Does that mean it includes Life Steal? Health Regen? Does Ardent Censer count for their stat or for mine?

RiotCrabDustMar 20, 201726 votes

Agree, the existing stat is not very insightful. Life steal junglers can outheal a Soraka in the current system.

RiotCrabDustMar 20, 201713 votes

We will probably end up doing this later on, but we are starting with something akin to "deaths denied" to cover the super impactful shields and heals.

Admiral PanicMar 20, 201711 votes

I think most people would rather have "allied healing/shielding" done first over this. I see it on phantom dancer and I still don't know what it means.

WoonStruckMar 20, 201715 votes

They are being bought a lot, that looks like a natural reaction to a lot of games with multiple AD threats/champs buying Lethality however, rather than Ninja Tabi themselves being way out of line. Right now at least we'll be leaving them unchanged as a result (they're a counter that's being used as intended).

If this is the case, why were Malphite and Rammus nerfed after the Marksman Update when you would literally see 3 ADCs on a team sometimes?

Why do you apply certain logic to one case, but not another?

If there were 5 APs being picked on one side as part of a meta (just hypothetical, even if unlikely), would you nerf (old) Galio if he became popular as well?

RiotMeddlerMar 20, 201718 votes

It's possible we nerfed Rammus and Malphite for being too strong when they were just good meta reactions, I admit it's been long enough I can't recall the details from 5.24 and 6.4 respectively. We want to separate out genuinely overpowered from temporarily effective due to game state, we'll certainly get it wrong sometimes though.

WoonStruckMar 20, 20178 votes

Do you ever revisit cases like these with the team and decide whether or not it was the right decision?

It may seem rather pointless, but injecting various 'unfavorables' back into the meta, as far as champions go, could provide a lot of insight as far as the direction the game should go.

I think Rammus and Malphite should be pretty decent in the current meta, but they aren't.

This "Leave X set of champions viable and nerf anything else that becomes popular" rule that Riot seems to have feels like its pushing the game in a worse direction every year as far as diversity goes.

GAARĂMar 20, 201712 votes

any news on Lissandra ? and how exactly is her passive going to be"satisfying" ?

RiotMeddlerMar 20, 201716 votes

We haven't found passive changes we're happy with. Might end up going with simpler power buffs as a result and then revisit the passive again at some point.

Illâoi Evê SiônMar 20, 201714 votes

It would be nice if you could list some of the things that were promising but didn't work out so the people trying to come up with suggestions n' feedback can strike that off their list and/or use the information to come up with better suggestions in the future.

Unless it's just some kind of satisfaction/feeling reason why the changes didn't work out. We wouldn't be able to understand those without trying it out for ourselves.

IronPenguin96Mar 21, 20176 votes

Why not something like:

Passive: "Upon hard CC'ing a champion (W and Ult) Lissandra gains a shield for 10% of her max HP, of ice which decays over 3 seconds (visually it melts a little) (change numbers depending on how much this needs to be for balence). This passive's cooldown is reduced by 1 second every time Lissandra applies crowd control to an enemy with her abilities (including slows so basically everything but E), excluding crowd control spell effects from items. During immunity effects, the shield doesnt decay and will apply around the immunity. (example: If W is used to proc the shield, and then 1 second later Frozen Tomb is self used, the shield will still have 2 seconds left on it after Frozen Tombs immunity stops, but Frozen Tomb would lower the cooldown of the passive by 1 second per enemy hit aswell since the passive is already proc'ed (Zonyas also counts as imunity)) CDR for passive: 40 seconds scaling down to 30 seconds later on in the game (40--31 (0.5 seconds off each level))

PS: Im sure RIOT can improve on the wording of that but I think that helps Lissandra in a large way as currently everything kills Lissandra faster than she can CC them. This would provide insentive for going into a teamfight and casing W, taking some damage and then healing back with her Ult. She could tank slightly more but 10% health is not enough for her to be played as a CC tank to my knowlegde, but would be helped by her core items, such as Liandrys, ROA since that provides more health. It also helps in lane vs her counters that she currently looses vs LB etc as she would be able to shield a little of there damage in lane and since this isant just a magic damage shield, will also mean she can try to counter talon, zed, and assasins in general. The mana passive never helped due to the CC of your spells and the fast that most of the time, you wanted to use Q for the free spell but getting 60 mana for free as a passive felt not satisfying as you stated. The look of the shield would be icey to fit the theme and then would melt off Lissandra over time.

Would love to hear peoples opinion on this. IronPenguin96

MagnumDongChaponMar 20, 201711 votes

What about Aatrox right now ? still need some help ?

what you deserveMar 20, 20178 votes

I'm glad you're nerfing Camille's lane pressure, but I think her W still needs to heal off of large monsters, because Jungle Camille is pretty decent right now.

UnbornHereticMar 20, 20178 votes

What do you think of the current state of MR only tank items? There seems to be a lot of armor items like thornmail and sunfire but not much in the way of magic resist. The only two magic resist only tank items are spirit visage and banshee's veil and the rest are either armor and magic resist items , support items, or damage items. There is more ADC magic resist options (3) than pure tank magic resist options (2) and that is a problem.

VafluxMar 20, 20177 votes

@meddler. what are ur plans for morgana? you said that she would get a small buff, but i noticed that the buff on the pbe got reverted

RiotMeddlerMar 20, 20178 votes

We'll probably look at her again very soon, nothing currently in testing though.

REDREX7Mar 21, 20175 votes

Can you guys possibly just increase her auto attack range?

Selman IIMar 20, 20177 votes

Do you have any details of what the Amumu changes are going to be like, and if he's going to get his very outdated ability icons updated too?

RiotMeddlerMar 21, 201711 votes

Amumu changes should be hitting PBE tomorrow. They're mainly useability and appreciability tweaks around his passive, plus a brief slow on E cast.

We don't currently have new icons for him, that's a good call out though. We'll see if it's possible to get a new set done at the same time as we make new ones for some of the tanks in the tank update.

Evelyn EndwiseMar 20, 20177 votes

Hi Meddler!

There's a lot of fuss about Ryze hitting a 37% winrate in solo queue (Plat+) but we've heard nothing about him from Riot, despite what sounds like a pretty significant problem. Can you confirm if his winrate is indeed that low (Champion.gg's stats have been bugged lately I believe, so it's possible they might be off) and if he's due for any further work? Thanks!

T8 SpeedwagonMar 20, 20176 votes

Any thoughts about leblanc situation? Did you change your mind and now you want to keep her in this state?

6SfoolMar 20, 20176 votes

About the j4 changes- Please don't entirely remove the bonus enemy scaling. It promotes risk-taking, and on a diver that lets him go in without instantly dying in a 1v5. I like the idea of making it scale with max health, but is there a healthy middleground? Something like max health base + flat per enemy, or make large monsters count towards the shield. I don't want j4 to be entirely taken out of the support role just to improve his jungling a little (I personally think j4 support is healthier than jungle)

RiotMeddlerMar 21, 20177 votes

Sorry, I phrased that badly - % max HP scaling on the shield per nearby enemy champion.

Turtles KingMar 20, 20176 votes

is there any planned buffs or mini rework for azir ??? he's in a very bad position now . most midlaner champions can delete him easily , and he cant do much in late game

SpideraxeMar 20, 20175 votes

Meddler can I ask for your thoughts on if you have any plans for Rift Herald for either removal or rework

RiotMeddlerMar 20, 201713 votes

I expect we'll rework or remove RH this year sometime still, unsure if mid-season or pre-season though. Removal would only happen if we didn't find a rework approach that worked.

redfeenixMar 20, 20173 votes

Can baron be made harder and more of a boss fight. I'm not saying it has to be epic like raids, but at least some additional mechanics to make killing baron satisfying.

beanyMar 20, 20176 votes

It's challenging because make it too hard and players simply elect to ignore it. I think they currently have a good balance for objective desirability (outside of cloud drake and RH), so i doubt they would want to tune anything else soon.

InTheoryMar 20, 20173 votes

[deleted]

beanyMar 20, 20174 votes

I mean it's precisely because they are meh that players are willing to do it, in some ways it's also easier for a team to judge whether they can attempt to do baron when the damage is more consistent through the dot debuff and not the aoe spells that they might or might not dodge.

SiachiMar 20, 20175 votes

At least a couple of additional end of game stats (likely candidates for a first round at least are damage to objectives and vision granted)

On this note, could "Damage Shielded" be added as well? There seems to be a fair bit of demand for it, according to this forum search: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/search?query=Shielded&application_id=PEr1qIcT&created_from=&content_type=discussion

YadidMar 20, 20175 votes

Imperative, yet definitely non-sequitur:

Do you do these during your lunch hour?
Did you enjoy your lunch hour? If so, what did you have. If not, can I have it?

RiotMeddlerMar 21, 201710 votes

I generally write these the night before posting, and then give them a quick double check before posting first thing in the morning or just write them in the morning before my meetings for the day start.

Lunch was good thanks, with a chicken salad with a side dish of spicy beef on noodles. Was a combination of lunch and work talk with Riot Axes, talking about mid-season changes to crit ADC itemization (testing fairly well so far, so I'm hopeful we'll be able to talk about some details with a few weeks).

robotmasterMar 20, 20174 votes

Meddler care to make a comment on the 10 sec video that went live on lol twitter?

T8 SpeedwagonMar 20, 20178 votes

They are buffing lee sin. He is getting an implant of a pair of control wards in his skull

RiotMeddlerMar 20, 201722 votes

Looks like a very short video designed to suggest something's happening without giving much detail to me.

LëoMar 20, 20173 votes

Hey Meddler!

I want to ask if you have any thoughts on Vi , meaning any plans for a mini-rework, abilities rework, will she be included in the Diver class update, and also - have you considered working on her, so that she can have a solid laning gameplay (i.e Making her viable outside of the Jungler Role, such as Top lane? Finally, does Vi fill the standards of an up-to-date example Diver/Bruiser, much like you stated that Camille fullfills those requirements for example. Thank you in advance for your response and have a nice day!

Sincerely, Leo

RiotMeddlerMar 20, 201712 votes

No current plans for Vi. She's got some counterplay issues in some circumstances, but is generally in a reasonable spot.

I don't personally feel Camille meets the standards of what a good diver looks like at present (weaknesses aren't clear enough in particular). I do believe with some small to moderate work we can get her to a good place though.

WarWorkMar 20, 20174 votes

Glad ur not nerfing Tabi, but how does the R buff on Voli help his jungling?

RiotMeddlerMar 20, 20177 votes

It doesn't affect his jungling directly. We're looking not just at jungle clear though, not also at champs who frequently jungle who may be underperforming in other parts of the game too.

AlbertoplusMar 20, 20174 votes

How is Warwick doing? Zero changes since his release seems impressive.

And when will his bugs be addressed?

RaxistaichoMar 20, 20173 votes

One stat I might suggest is "damage mitigated", which would basically be the amount of damage you reduced via defenses, %damage reduction, or shields. Smite has this stat, and having a huge damage mitigated score when I play a tank gives me a feeling of satisfaction since it means that was potentially thousands of points of damage that my ally carries_ weren't_ absorbing.

cinderamirellaMar 20, 20173 votes

Let's skip the fact that Lissandra 's passive is garbage. So about the Ice Witch , she is one of the weaker mages of the game right now (with a global 46-47% win ratio in top and mid lane), she struggles to burst a squishy with a complete rotation of her spells, her mana regen sucks compared to most mage mid laners (her passive can't make it up for it) and for some reason, being a mage that is supposed to go deep on the teamfights she has one of the lowest base health for mid laners. Known as a counter to assassins, I'm very angry that now she is having an hard time countering them because she is too weak and any other mid laner brings more damge or utility to a team. Don't forget about Lissandra please....

Seraphic HereticMar 23, 20173 votes

Hey I doubt any devs will see this but I've actually been enjoying a lot of Camille jungle recently. I was just wondering if you could consider making her W heal still work on camps to keep her clear at an acceptable level.

Linna ExcelMar 20, 20172 votes

Is Ashe about to get a new Q or a nerf because of that new Korean build?

YourSh4dowMar 20, 20175 votes

What build? did I miss something? I was not playing LoL for some time bcz of school.

Linna ExcelMar 20, 20179 votes

item 3153 item 3071 item 3085

Basically her Q lets her stack BC extremely fast. With hurricane she can do that on up to 3 targets. Bork gives her sustain in lane against lethality builds and its on hit damage was buffed recently.