Quick Gameplay Thoughts: June 27

RiotMeddler·Jun 27, 2017·1 votes·52,529 views

Morning 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

Patch 7.14

There's a chance 7.14 might be a bit smaller than usual in terms of number of balance changes in it. That's from a combination of a holiday weekend coming up during the patch's development and that we're putting more focus than usual into some upcoming work (focus on research for qualifiers/Worlds patches, plus other stuff)

7.14 Balance changes on PBE today

Usual deal, some stuff will still be under development so likely to change. Particularly worth calling out that the Udyr and Diana changes are pretty new to testing, so haven't been validated directly yet (possible those don't even hit PBE just yet). Lethality and other item changes are also still going through a bit more testing, so some likelihood of further change there, both since they were last mentioned and between now and the patch locking (Black Cleaver change for example hasn't tested as originally hoped so that's likely gone).

Speaking of PBE today

Not much of a surprise alas, given some stuff went up early, keep an eye out a couple of hours from now though for both some details about our next new champ and at some point some more Darkin details for those of you interested in that side of the lore.

Starting Items

Something we've been finding as we work on the new runes system is that there are some choices existing runes/masteries offer via stats that are interesting choices but not currently included in the new runes system. In some cases that means creating new runes that cover those stats, in some other cases though we've been looking at a wider range of starting items to cover those needs to. A good example of that which we're currently testing is a Doran's Attack Speed item, allowing an AD for AS tradeoff for those that want to go deeper down the AS path. Let us know if there are particular starting item niches you can think of that seem really promising, we still won't want to have too many, avoid overloading the system, but think there's probably room for at least a couple more than there are today.

323 Comments

NinjaGuy69Jun 27, 201719 votes

Fiora nerfs when?

FR0GMANJun 27, 20175 votes

Nerfing Foria is not as big of issues as other things, not to mention its gonna be fine tuning IMO. As a fiora main nothing frustrates me more than people who clearly have no idea how to counter play her at all. she many weakness, and many strengths. I will admit she is strong at the moment, but in no way is she OP. the items they buffed a few patches ago pushed her over the edge by a small margin; so like I said its my hope that they just fine tune her numbers .Fiora is one those champs that if they change too much or bring they nerf hammer down hard, she will be the next Azir, Leblanc, and ryze. she is the 1v1 queen so don't get too upset if you get smashed by her if your support or cc isn't around to help you.

NinjaGuy69Jun 27, 201710 votes

Fiora is one those champs that if they change too much or bring they nerf hammer down hard, she will be the next Azir, Leblanc, and ryze.

No she won't. The problem with champions like Azir and Ryze is that there is such a discrepancy in between the skill level of pros and regular players that the champions become oppressive in the hands of a skilled player and weak/ineffective in the hands of a less skilled player. Fiora isn't anywhere near the level of Azir or Ryze in terms of mechanical discrepancy.

she is the 1v1 queen so don't get too upset if you get smashed by her

I understand that, but I shouldn't be dying to a squishy champion who is stacking AD items if I'm a tank. All the sustain she has in her kit paired with her stacking triple lifesteal makes her unkillable in the mid to late game. If she had a weak laning phase to make up for her power spike in the later portion of the game, it would be fair...but she's strong in the early game too. There is never a point in the game where her opponent can take advantage of her and come out on top. If you aren't playing Darius (and timing her riposte properly), you auto-lose with any other top laner minus maybe Pantheon.

AtanchanJun 27, 20175 votes

{quoted}

I understand that, but I shouldn't be dying to a squishy champion who is stacking AD items if I'm a tank.

So ... you shouldn't be dying at all? That sounds pretty overpowered, man.

FR0GMANJun 27, 20174 votes

Syndra people fear what they cant understand......

in all seriousness Meddler just give some indication as to whether or not Fiora will receive nerfs or if you are planing to just buff counter parts. cause this subject is getting old and sour for most

AminescentJun 27, 20172 votes

I'm sorry but she is in fact in everyway broken her kit is literally just way to strong. Percent max health SCALING ad true damage, mobility, aoe stun, aoe slow, negate all damage in an aoe area attacking you, w in front for your team, attack speed slow, large aoe heal scaling with ad for your ENTIRE team. Riot why is this NOT priority

Whip it goodJun 27, 20173 votes

Her slow is not aoe and the stun is situational and not aoe. You actually need to hit all the vitals in a teamfight if you want your ult to heal.

SpideraxeJun 27, 201717 votes

Hey Meddler can I ask for your thoughts on the Fiora nerfs, you mentioned possibly scrapping them

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 20178 votes

Looking at her still. Current avenue of testing is reduction in movement speed from Passive/Ult, to see whether that's giving her excessive control in match ups where she shouldn't be as effective in particular (e.g. against other mobile champs).

BarbaJhiniJun 28, 20172 votes

Be careful of the maths it risks to completely gut her.

TelosenJun 28, 20173 votes

Any word on divers in general like Xin? Feel left behind in terms of uniqueness of design and 'fun-ness' at this point.

DısdaınJun 27, 201714 votes

Rengar ?

AhristocatsJun 27, 201712 votes

Meddler, i want to thank from the deepest of my heart not only you, but the entire gameplay balance team, the design team, basically anyone who fixed this game. i'm able to have fun again by playing rankeds as most of my games are won through skill and outplaying rather than snowballing and that thanks to new support items and everything that has been made

the only thing that is unfun right now is playing against champions like Fiora Thresh Caitlyn Twitch who have reached a considerable ban rate in high elo what do you think about those ban rate? fiora ban rate is 55% for example, thresh has 25% ban rate, caitlyn has 45% ban rate (all of this in diamond+) Not only this, but their pick rate+win rate is actually impressive reaching more than 15% pick rate, and from 51 to 53% win rate so i wondered if the balance team noticed those things

-Rubick

yoshi2790Jun 27, 20176 votes

Draven Belongs there too

WizZarDJun 27, 201710 votes

Hey Meddler, Is the new champion related to Aatrox in any way?

DethflashJun 27, 20175 votes

Google search Rhaast and Kayn, thats the new champions passive and there is a couple leak videos showing off the new champions passive. And the new champion is a Darkin like Aatrox

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 20177 votes

Probably obvious by now but yeah, they're both Darkin, so there's some strong connection there, both in terms of their nature and shared history. More details on Darkin in general to come at some point (not certain if we're talking about that stuff with Kayn's reveal/launch or later).

DCYOUNG888Jun 27, 20171 votes

I'm a little confused, in Aatrox's case is the darkin the weapon or the demon wielding the weapon?

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 201718 votes

Yes.

RaxistaichoJun 27, 20174 votes

Daniel Z Klein said in a reddit Q&A that Aatrox is actually the sword and the demonic person carrying him around is a host he corrupted long ago.

DeathBurstJun 28, 20171 votes

If you checked Kayn's abilities, you can see that the scythe can possess and take control of the human body. So that probably already happened in Aatrox's case, and the darkin is BOTH the demon and the weapon. At least until the demon is slain and the weapon needs to find another wielder.

DCYOUNG888Jun 28, 20171 votes

I was aware that the darkin (weapon) can possess just by looking at the description, I just wanted to confirm since Aatrox was already a demon in contrast to Kayn who is (mostly) human that may or may not be consumed by Rhaast.

DeathBurstJun 28, 20172 votes

When you look at Rhaast appearance ingame after he transforms, it's pretty similar to Aatrox.

ShapeshiftJun 27, 20179 votes

For new starting items:

CDR(replacement for CDR runes which are absolutely crucial on many champs)

Lethality/Mpen(replacement for precision which is very useful on many champs, as well as mpen/lethality runes)

Possibly glass cannon items i.e doran's scythe with +15 AD, doran's scepter with +25 AP. No HP on these item's like Dblade and Dring, which would be great for people looking to run a much more glass cannon early playstyle, as well as giving up the mana/hp sustain on these items. Again, for early game power. Maybe some other stats on top but idk what, maybe these could even be replaced with the pen items I was saying earlier.

Hope to hear your thoughts!

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 201711 votes

Which champs are you thinking of for CDR specifically? Has a lot of impact on which other stats potentially go there too.

SILVERAMMOJun 27, 20179 votes

CDR for Nasus is a staple. quint and glyph CDR are run on him a lot.

EROTIC RAID BOSSJun 27, 20177 votes

Nasus? I don't play him but I think dedicated nasus players often run a lot of cdr in runes and then overcap with his items. I cant really think of any other champions that want to start off with up front cdr rather than the scaling cdr blues most mages get rn (and that overcharge rune takes care of)

While I think dorans shield or corrupting potion make most sense for nasus rn, he might like an early cdr rune or item option.

DeadUnbornJun 27, 20175 votes

Couldn't Riot's analytics team figure that out more easily? Since they can check which champions take those runes most frequently/ be sucessful with them. From personal experience I would asume the item would serve best for fighters and/or assassins. I have a hard time picturing and item that gives CD to mages and is good enough that it is in par with doran ring's mana sustain

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 201713 votes

We can check data really easily, yeah. That's different to getting feedback from people about which champs they'd personally miss early CDR access on though. One reflects choices taken, the other also reflects strength of feeling and attachment, not just effectiveness.

xPride StaIkerJun 27, 20179 votes

any comments on rengar's current state and whether he is being viewed as assassin or bruiser in the balance team's eyes ?

T8 SpeedwagonJun 27, 20178 votes

Given that worlds patch will be 7.18 and usually you keep that patch and 7.19 not so different to not make difference between what we play and they play at worlds. Can we expect evelynn rework before worlds or closer to end of season?

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 201727 votes

Evelynn's rework will be post World's patch.

Whip it goodJun 27, 20178 votes

what's with all the downvotes in this thread ?

LankPantsJun 27, 20177 votes

There's someone who goes into every one of these threads and downvotes every comment. It's happened in the last 3 or so. It's pretty sad really.

HalcyonDwellerJun 27, 20177 votes

They're literally doing it to just boost some comments and bury any comments they disagree with.

I wish Riot or the moderators would find that person and smite them. Or you know, at least permaban them from the boards.

LankPantsJun 27, 201710 votes

I honestly think the up/down vote function should be disabled on these dev corner threads and the points should just appear chronologically or maybe by the amount of replies (banning people pointlessly bumping of course) so the thread is ranked via discussion rather than pointless circlejerking. Might help to drown out the "nerf Fiora's" a little too since there's no real response that anyone would reply to that with.

HalcyonDwellerJun 27, 20174 votes

This is a great idea!

HalcyonDwellerJun 27, 201710 votes

I've decided to go through the whole thread and upvote any comments that I don't disagree with just to counteract the worthless downvote fairies.

Join me!

AirKingNeoJun 27, 20177 votes

On starting items, the reason ADCs like Doran's Shield is that it's an early game item rather than a mid game item like Blade. Blade is a mid game item because it gives percent lifesteal, rather than HP onhit like Cull. An attack speed based starting item sounds good, but now the question: who buys it? ADCs want Shield or Blade because they give last hitting power. Mages and tanks want ring or corrupting. Unless it gives +5 onhit damage vs minions like Shield, it's not gonna be good. Kayle can't buy it unless the passive from Doran's Ring because a rune.

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 201710 votes

With you on the last hitting, we've been trying +damage to minions on the Doran's AS item as a result.

BlackquillJun 27, 20176 votes

Since you've talked about starting items here: what do you think of the impact of the new Doran's Shield currently? Do you like the items' current position in the game?

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 20175 votes

We think it's been quite positive so far, in terms of opening up lanes to champions who were previously struggling more. Was a little bit overtuned, pretty confident it being a viable starting choice will do good things for the game now though.

LankPantsJun 27, 20175 votes

I pretty much haven't seen a D-Shield on a melee since the nerfs. It's just always better to go Corrupting or even something like Cloth/4 or Boots/4.

I still see it on Vayne and Kog'maw though, so it's clearly doing exactly what you intended.

RenanReinJun 27, 20176 votes

Hey meedler, don't you think instead of create a new doran's attack speed item, is better to adjust the base attack speed of champions that usually takes AS runes? Like every adc these days have aroung 16% bonus as (4% from masteries + 12% from runes), and this bonus is very important early game, because help a lots on farm, so created a doran's as item, maybe could mean less ad, which can also affect the farm and early game. There's a lot of champions that can use AS on runes and masteries, and that feels a lot better to play with it (adcs, junglers, some tops like irelia,jax, I even use on poppy,camille and yorick, and the difference of playing without any AS is HUGE). Something similar could happen with mana regen runes, where no mages/sups champions can use 2 or 3 mana regen glyph to help their mana on lane (some adcs like sivir and jinx for example).

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 20177 votes

We'll do some base stat adjustments too. The issue with base stat adjustments is that it's a one size fits all thing. If you're a player who wants significantly more of something like AS there are cases where we want to make sure we're still offering that sort of choice. Sometimes that'll be possible through the new runes, sometimes starting items look like they'll be a good alternative.

StrangerLJun 27, 20175 votes

On Starting Items, any works for item 3301 are planning or looking at? Next season is a good chance to re-eval this item.

Some champion like Janna and Rakan are forced to build it because of how ineffective it is for them to use item 3303 .

It needs to have a clearer identity and target champions like item 3303 item 3302 lines do, instead of a general support item.

But before the possibility of rework, for now...

How about switching the mana coin into health restoring, switch health regen to mana regen so it benefits from item 3174 ? Champions like Soraka can store health but need to go in and collect the coin.

Again, compare this item to item 3303 , which item 2301 potentially gives you 45 AP with the new item 3174 , item 2302 is very underwhelming. The remove of health gain with the old passive also hurts this item and its usual users hard.

Sir NopeJun 27, 20174 votes

Speaking of starting items, how do you currently feel about the current jungling items? Should they still be built out of Hunter's Talisman and Hunter's Machete, as opposed to them being purchasable straight up (with tweaks, of course)?

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 201710 votes

Current assumption is they'll still coming from Machete/Talisman. Part of the reason that's done, rather than just starting people with modified T2 versions, is because we don't think it's appropriate to give junglers that increased power straight off the bat (their early game influence is really high already).

KillaburnJun 27, 20173 votes

any skins in this patch @meddler ?? like poolparty,stargardian,omega squad,etc.

RiotMeddlerJun 27, 20175 votes

Skins are handled by a different set of teams to the ones I work with so I avoid talking about skins stuff most of the time - I don't have the context to know what it is, or isn't, appropriate to talk about in most cases.