Quick Gameplay Thoughts: October 11

RiotMeddler·Oct 11, 2017·1 votes·52,151 views

Hi all,

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

Base Stat Adjustments and Runes

We're still working on base stat and ability changes that will accompany the other pre-season changes at the moment and more of those should be back on PBE this week. One thing I figured it would be good to talk more about there though is what our goals are with those changes. In particular, we're not trying to offer every champion the same gold value of extra base stats. What we are trying to do is give each champ what they'll need to be successful post runes changes. Based off how other changes impact them champs may need more or less base stats added than others to put them around the same spot they were before. Magic damage dealers for example benefiting from MR removal from old runes effectively gain extra power that way, even if they're not directly getting extra stats. Some champs may need much more specialized adjustments, whereas others may be fine with just a bunch of armor. Some champs will also benefit more from the new runes system than others.

The adjustments that go in 7.22 will also just be round one. They're our best estimate of what's needed to begin with, the real polish and tuning will come afterwards though once we've seen where champion balance actually lands, rather than having to just work off predictions. As with every pre-season patch there'll be some champs that have a rough time for a little bit, or do really well, and we'll likely need to further adjust base stats on a number of them at that point to get things where they should be.

Ardent Censer

Looking back we definitely misread how impactful Censer would become and should have nerfed it quicker. We're talking about it a lot at present, including discussion on whether after the 7.19 changes it's still too strong. The version in 7.18 we're seeing in Worlds is definitely out of line, somewhat harder to get a good read on the 7.19 one given how much Worlds impacts what gets played in regular games/what gets talked about, even though they're different patches. At a minimum we'll be both assessing it in 7.21 and looking at it again after pre-season goes out.

Non LoL: the concept of 'piggybacking' in design

This isn't LoL specific, but mentioning it since I know some folks also have an interest in game design in general. There's a lot of good writing around that talks about various game design principles. One example of that I really like is Mark Rosewater's talk about what he calls 'piggybacking' in the blog post linked below. Piggybacking is a way of communicating a lot of complex stuff to the player quickly and easily by using their existing understanding of things. Well worth a read if that sounds interesting even if you're not familiar with Magic the Gathering which is the game Rosewater generally talks about.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/piggybacking-2012-08-16

Few more ping changes coming

We're getting a few more item specific pings in, hopefully for 7.21. Stuff like letting you ping stack numbers of Tear or whether Duskblade is currently detecting something or not (as per the icon on the buffbar already). If you've got thoughts on item specific info it'd be valuable to be able to share with your team would love to hear them.

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

227 Comments

NefasOct 11, 201713 votes

Beyond whether or not Ardent specifically is/is not still an issue, hyper carries and bot lane in general feels to me like it has outsized impact on the rest of the game right now. Hyper carries hitting end game too quickly and too easily and being too difficult to stop along the way except through massive focus bot. Is thing something that is being considered or looked at?

09 04 1336Oct 11, 20178 votes

Yup, agree with this guy, "better botlane win" isn't a meme at this point, if you snowball hard your botlane with an ardent supp you are sure to win the game. If your botlane lose then it's pretty much done if you can't shutdown the adc.

food pleaseOct 11, 20174 votes

if you can't shutdown the adc.

Not to mention the fact that it's damn near impossible to shutdown the ADC especially with 3k health Locket shields on top of the already huge Janna/Lulu shields.

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20177 votes

Yeah, there's a multiplicative effect that hypercarries, tank junglers/tops and Censer supports all have on each other that's pushing out a lot of other parts of the game, in particular on 7.18 (Worlds) but also on Live (7.20). We're expecting pre-season to reset some of that, if it doesn't go far enough we'll need to be heavier handed in getting things back to a more even state.

beanyOct 11, 20174 votes

i think its less censer supports then just lulu and janna, both of them have multipliers in their base kit which synergizes too well, while having alot more disengage than say nami.

ZeeDrakonOct 11, 20175 votes

Doubt its just lulu and janna. Soraka is at the top of winrate and performance in soloQ, so is sona, and Rakan is still the highest priority in pro play.

Ashen RiderOct 11, 201710 votes

I noticed an Ekko change on the PBE that made his passive deal double damage to monsters. Are you guys attempting to make him viable as a jungler again?

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 201717 votes

We are.

RiotAD YuumiOct 11, 201721 votes

[sg-jinx]

RiotZenonTheStoicOct 11, 20177 votes

I don't understand why we're trying to make August happy. That seems like a bad goal statement to me.

D2VincentOct 11, 20176 votes

Can we get something similar for Karthus E? I'd like to be able to consistently JG as my main man the Deathpope :P

Shadow HazardOct 11, 20174 votes

Seeing as I was rather unhappy about the passive nerf to affect tank ekko, gutting his ability to jungle, I have no issues with this. But questions are why now, and why not also consider un-nerfing the passive change for only monsters? Double passive damage I think will pretty well do the trick just the same but in my head I would have assumed that making the passive lock out back to pre nerf points for monsters only would have been the easier more logical choice.

Also on a similar point of an AP champ capable of jungling, have you considered doing something similar for fizz (double passive effectiveness against monsters), since his tank focused nerfs took him out of the jungle too.

Xt0Oct 11, 20177 votes

You say that magic damage dealers are benefiting from removal of MR runes, but aren't they also suffering from removal of Mpen runes.

Martian SpartanOct 11, 20176 votes

Is udyr still going to be given some love?

SheeOct 11, 20176 votes

Do you have any context on the Sejuani E damage changes? Cutting the damage by half seems a bit extreme and will hurt her clear a lot.

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20177 votes

We're looking at Sejuani nerfs because we believe she's too strong. There are a range of things in testing at present, not sure yet which we will/won't ship.

For the E change specifically while the base damage is being cut in half it's a spell with a low base damage itself that contributes a lot more through the max HP% damage on her passive. Given that's not being hit in this version wouldn't expect the loss 20-60 damage to be too crippling.

FirethornOct 11, 20175 votes

Any update when PBE sign ups are coming back? I heard they were coming back in October but no specific date was given

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20176 votes

October's still my understanding, I gather we don't want to announce a particular date though until we're certain it'll be ready and some things are still being worked on.

Solidair3Oct 11, 20175 votes

Hey Meddler, some questions about Karma (I know you're probably tired of this)

When Karma was first reworked, she was reimagined as a solo-laner with support potential. Later, after much balance difficulty, she was instead changed around so that her support would be stronger. During this base stat adjustment, she was given the same treatment as other mid-laners as opposed to other enchanters.

So what's up? Are you guys trying to support her as a mid laner or as a support right now?

Please note: I am not saying I'd rather see her support lane, well, supported, I'm just curious what is happening with her, because it kind of seems like a mess. I actually prefer her as a mid-laner, I think the utility she brings is ultimately more interesting from the mid lane than from the bot lane, but maybe that's just me.

Glad she got a slight buff this patch, though!

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20177 votes

We're treating Karma like other mage or mage ish champs who play multiple positions regularly (or at least have historically) and giving her the same sorts of stats they get as a result (Brand, Zyra, Annie etc).

Sometime next year we'll also do work on Karma at larger scale than just a balance tweak.

AbyssphereOct 11, 20172 votes

Zyra's getting armour though, rather than HP/HP per level. Is that an oversight?

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20175 votes

We'll be swapping Zyra to HP/HP per level (thought that was already in, guessing not, unless it just hasn't been datamined).

LNM EspinaOct 12, 20172 votes

Hi! I noticed Zyra has a problem on pbe, electrocute doesn’t proc on her plants, so we can’t use this as a replacement of thunderlord. I also noticed no Rioter is giving feedback on rune reports on the pbe, the only threads with feedback are from general rune page breakdowns. Is there a way to know if someone noticed the reports?

FeatherPawOct 12, 20171 votes

Not a Problem at all. Electrocute specificly says that you have to land 3 unique spells or attacks, if only one plant attacks 3 times it's the same as a dot spell that ticks 3 times and won't proc the rune. It would only be activated out of plants if there are 3 different plants attacking the target. And if you think about it it's better that way. Electrocute has a way higher cooldown than Thunderlords and has a higher damage aswell. You don't want to use this rune for poke but rather for an all in, so it's better that it's not proced by some random plant that you weren't even meant to summon. Also Arcane Comet is a better choice on Zyra due to ist low cooldown to my mind.

LNM EspinaOct 12, 20172 votes

That was not what I was saying. Currently no plant attacks count toward electrocute. So, an auto, a Q and a plant attack don’t count as 3 attacks, they only count as 2, so you need another auto to proc electrocute.

IxtaliKingOct 11, 20172 votes

Sometime next year we'll also do work on Karma at larger scale than just a balance tweak.

.#MakeKarmaGreatAgain #BringBackShieldBomb #RitoPls

;)

Ronin TamosOct 11, 20175 votes

I read something about light changes to AP itemization further down the road. Could you go a bit more into detail or is it too early with all the preseason changes coming? My Problem with AP items was that they never had a nice difference between % Pen and Flat Pen like AD items do. Is there something planned to help Snowballing AP Assassins or the whole Penetration situation for AP champions in general?

Pommel KnightOct 11, 20175 votes

Can we see another rework for Fizz? The current one removed a lot of his build flexibility, skill expression and overall fun to play. I don't feel like I outplay people anymore, I just wait for my wait time to end and have little to no agency in landing any of my abilities. W is also horrible and too clunky for Fizz, it forces him to wait instead of being fast and slippery.

Can we get any feedback please. With the new runes Fizz will be in an even worse place with the loss of extra attack speed, ad, MPen, Mr, CDR and AP. Also, this is going to end up in a tank Fizz again, the runes are just perfect for him to rise again and with him being really weak mid this is guaranteed, I'll be the first to do it if anything.

MetaKaizerOct 11, 20174 votes

In this new patch, Mordekaiser has recived a change where his passive is displayed not only on the resource bar, but also on his health bar. Why didn't you mentioned this in the patch notes?

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20175 votes

We did a general shield refactor recently that changed how shields work behind the scenes to address a number of bugs and make them easier to work with in the future. Pretty much all of that resulted in no outward facing change (same functionality), so I'd imagine an exception or two like Morde's shield display slipped past people because they weren't expecting a need to patch note stuff.

PennsOct 11, 20174 votes

Ornn overbuffed y/n?

Also Gameplay Thoughts-ly reminder to rework/revert Fizz and give ap assassins items [sg-ezreal]

09 04 1336Oct 11, 20175 votes

If they can revert the rework of Fizz it would be great, they did the same to Kog'Maw :).

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20176 votes

Uncertain on Ornn. We've worried about overbuffing him the last few sets of changes. The previous couple certainly didn't though, which suggests we're not evaluating how much power he's getting from certain things appropriately.

PennsOct 11, 20173 votes

I had an Ornn once since the patch and he looked pretty strong with the max hp damage. Win rate seems to be a bit lower than 50% (better if you ignore Ornn support) now so.. not sure either.

SilverjustOct 11, 20174 votes

Can you change the rune "font of life" to heal like "stoneborn pact". At the moment it only has an onhit heal. I would like, if it would be changed to have an onhit heal for champs with high attackspeed (mostly ADCs), but also a heal over time for fighters/divers/etc. This would create the possibility to help the entire team and not only the adc.

TevischOct 11, 20174 votes

Will you be increasing base ad of all champions a bit to ease csing? Since we're losing the 5 onhit mastery and 9 ad most ad/melee champions ran to make csing easier? Or maybe Doran Items minion bonus dmg buffs?

TomiMan7Oct 11, 20173 votes

Id rather go with Doran items have a bonus on hit dmg to minions that would be more easy to balance

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20178 votes

Almost all AD champs yeah. A few will get other stats instead if they've got unusual needs and weren't taking AD generally beforehand anyway (e.g. Kayle or Yasuo).

RaxistaichoOct 11, 201714 votes

{quoted}

Almost all AD champs yeah. A few will get other stats instead if they've got unusual needs and weren't taking AD generally beforehand anyway (e.g. Kayle or Yasuo).

What about mages who would take Savagery? The loss of the 5 on-hit damage is going to be hard to get used to when it comes to last-hitting.

shakedblu3Oct 11, 20174 votes

Any news about LeBlanc? We havent heard anything about her mini rework for a long time and I'm really waiting for it. Is there any progress? Is there a chance for it to be in the pre season and not after?

DeathBurstOct 11, 20173 votes

+1 for Magic/Rosewater

I had such a problem with an item recently, but of course I can't remember which one right now. I'll do some digging and I'll come back.

RaxistaichoOct 11, 20173 votes

When do you think we'll see Reav3's next champion roadmap?

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20175 votes

Sometime middle of October from memory, though can't recall exact week. Soon certainly.

SenfinaOct 11, 20173 votes

Are Riot sure that bloodrazor being the recommended jungle item for Xin Zhao is optimal?

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20173 votes

Not certain, no, it was the best estimate pre Xin update release though.

DevölutionOct 11, 20172 votes

Can we get some insight on upcoming Urgot buffs ?

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20175 votes

Current version we're testing has a larger radius/shorter delay on Q and a faster missile on R. That's experimental though, we had different changes in a couple of days ago that were trying buffed passive damage instead.

The KoolAidMan1Oct 12, 20172 votes

Hi Meddler,

I never comment in these threads because I feel like it's not the best way to give feedback, but there is an interesting idea in the urgot mains reddit thread that I wanted to see if you were aware of.

Rather than increasing R missle speed make it so that when you recast R to execute people Urget gets a speed boost/possibly tenacity (similar to storm raiders) to reposition before the AOE fear triggers.

I think this would be a very cool way to add some skill expression to the champion and give you another option to be impactful in late game team fights.

Don't need a lengthy reply, but it would be cool to know that you've heard the feedback because I think this would be a very reasonable improvement to the kit of urgot.

Ps love this champ update keep up the good work.

MretiOct 11, 20171 votes

What about the Udyr buffs? They were mentioned recently in the gameplay board

RiotMeddlerOct 11, 20173 votes

Thread where Repertoir talks about some thoughts on Udyr yesterday that we're considering for an upcoming patch:

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/AALRjElo-opgg-doesnt-even-list-udyr-anymore-he-needs-help