Quick Gameplay Thoughts: June 23

Hey 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

---

Some more 10 ban data

We did a bit more analysis of the impact of 10 bans earlier this week. Particularly interesting there was the distribution of how many unique champs are banned per game, which ended up being a higher number than expected. Two key data points from that below, bear in mind that these are averages though and will vary based off your MMR and the server you play on:

• Around 70% of games have 9 or 10 unique champions banned
• Less than 1% of games have 5 or 6 unique champions banned

We'll keep monitoring how ban usage changes over time of course, so more info to follow again at some point. Overall we're still really happy with how the revised ban system in matchmade games has gone, particularly the amount its sped up getting into game (lets players spend a larger proportion of their time on the more fun bits).

---

More Runes info probably next week

We've got another dev blog on the new runes system, looking at some more details of how the system works, along with talking about some more specific runes, some of which are brand new and some of which are existing masteries that have been converted over. That blog probably comes out next week

---

Cho'Gath

Looks like we should be able to ship those previously mentioned Cho changes in 7.14. What we're currently testing there is changing E to an active rather than a toggle, where it empowers Cho's next three auto attacks with the AOE spikes that deal % max enemy hp as magic damage and apply a decaying slow. CD's really short when leveled. Goals there include giving Cho a more juggernaut like damage profile (able to hurt beefier front lines better if they're all he can reach), putting a bit more interaction into use of the E and adding a bit of power.

---

Singed

Changes won't be shipping in 7.13 after all. We want to make building damage a better choice, but don't feel we've got the right changelist for that yet. Going to be exploring passive modifications for 7.14, though not guaranteed we'll necessarily ship anything (this is still budgeted as balance work, not an update, though one of those at some point could make some sense too).

---

Lethality Item Changes

Should also be in 7.14 based off current progress. Key changes current being tested include:

• Serrated Dirk/Poacher's Dirk - Removing the out of combat movement speed and instead giving it a passive where after killing a large minion, monster or champion your next damaging spell against a champion deals 50 bonus damage. Goals of adding a bit of optimization to its use and removing the need to put out of combat MS on everything it builds into.

• Duskblade - No longer has out of combat movement speed, proc damage a flat number (so a more viable first item), has CDR and a very brief slow on application of the Nightstalker proc (think Trundle Q like) plus a cost reduction. Looking to make it a reasonable alternative to Ghostblade as a first major item.

• Ghostblade - More OOC MS, less AD. Cementing this as the strategic mobility choice.

• Black Cleaver - Testing an internal cooldown on how quickly you can add stacks to an opponent (0.5s at present). Aiming to preserve its impact for slow/regular speed stackers, while making it less dominant on those with sufficiently split up physical damage it gets stacked almost instantly.

As per usual, this stuff's not finalized and more details to come.