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Patch Chat 6.12 - Keystones and Catalyst and Marksman Items, Oh My!

RiotSkarnye West·6/14/2016, 6:48:12 PM·1 votes·96,098 views

Hey all,

Welcome back to Patch Chat! We’re Riot’s Playtest Team, a group of high ranking League players whose job it is to play the hell out of things (lane tests, competitive testing, etc) and give actionable objective feedback to designers.

Every two weeks (concurrent with the release of patch notes), we’re going to be hosting a discussion here on the state of balance on the current patch. Take this opportunity to ask us any questions about the state of the game.

It’s been a few weeks of Patch Chat, and we’re still iterating on the format. With three new members starting in the last few weeks, we welcome any feedback about the format of Patch Chat. What do you like about Patch Chat or want to see in the future? What do you hate?

Patch 6.12 is being called the ARAM Patch, but it also sees changes to ADC itemization, Youmuu’s Ghostblade, Catalyst items, and Grasp of the Undying.

With sustain for tanks (as well as Catalyst mages like Swain) lower on this patch, and marksman damage upped somewhat, tell us how see the meta shifting!

Curious what it’s like to work as a Riot playtester? Have any questions about the patch as a whole? As usual, feel free to ask any questions about balance or what exactly our job is. We will be around for the next few hours and will try to answer as many questions as possible.

Playtest Team

Adam "Afic" Cohen
Preston “Hinder” Bunker
Ben “Cezium” Burkhardt
Shawn “I Am The IRS” Currie
Nicolas “Gleeb” Haddad
Miles “Daydreamin” Hoard
Bao “Bao” Lam
Mattias “Gentleman Gustaf” Lehman
Nicholas “Nickwu” Smith
Blake “S0be” Soberanis
Trevor “ThEntropist” Thernes

541 Comments

Nameless Voice6/14/2016, 7:37:10 PM35 votes

So, Zed has over an 85% ban rate in Plat+, and least over 60+% at all other levels.

That should make it really obvious that people really do not like playing against him.

When is he going to get some actual proper changes to bring him to a state where people can actually bear to play against him? Adding an indicator around his shadows does nothing to make him less oppressive.

The patch notes say that "Zed's inherent frustration is intended". How can a champion that is intentionally frustrating to play against be justified as anything but bad game design?

Sure, dying can feel frustrating, but it should always feel fair - like you died because you made a mistake or the other player played better than you. No one feels outplayed by Zed. He does not feel fair to play against. (There are a few other champions with the same problem.)

His laning phase is completely oppressive. He can easily push most mana users out of lane. He has strong waveclear and incredibly tower-killing ability - on a champion who is supposed to be designed to kill enemy squishies. He has practically no costs - meaning he can stay in lane forever. He is AD, making him much freer to take defensive runes, since AD does not conflict with MR, unlike AP. He can rush Hexdrinker which makes him almost impossible to kill (while mages have no equivalently strong item to build against him.)

His assassination is top-notch and has very little counterplay. He gets in range, and then either the Zed player hits all his skills, or he doesn't. There's little space for his opponent to make skillful plays to avoid or reduce his damage, except if they have instant/skillshot hard CC or a shield.

He is relatively safe, both in lane (shadow escape) and even more so in all-ins. His tiny 1-second window does almost nothing to make him vulnerable for someone with an untargetability-gapcloser and near-instant escape. He can apply all of his damage in 1 second and then run away with almost no opportunity of counterattack.

In short: he is really strong at laning. He is really strong at taking towers. He is decent at roaming. He is very good at assassination. He can escape easily. The item system also favours him heavily, especially against mana users.

People hate having to deal with that. Even in games where you win, you have to suffer being miserable for the entire laning phase until he finally starts to fall off a bit in teamfights (if he hasn't managed to get fed too much by then, and your team brought enough tanks.)

Explain to me why a champion like this is considered to be a healthy addition to the game?

SnugglePuggle946/14/2016, 7:19:29 PM17 votes

How has Nidalee been fairing with her recent, awful, nerfs?
Can you guys actually hit Zed with the nerf bat instead of giving him love taps? It's not cool he gets Riot's favor while other champs are being ignored or nerfed to the ground for no reason.
AP items- the past 2 updates (immobile mage and marksmen) completely destroyed our itemization. Can some AP be put back? We barely have any damage.

CLG Mercenary6/14/2016, 8:42:31 PM10 votes

Why do you hate tanks?

Quepha6/14/2016, 7:25:02 PM7 votes

Fizz's auto range kept at 175 but now his hitbox size was increased, does this mean he can now attack targets slightly farther away from his center?

Lightsaw6/14/2016, 9:08:43 PM3 votes

So will we be expecting a nerf to Jayce or Viktor anytime soon. How about Vlad aswell. All 3 of them do so much damage and are ranged. Overall i Think All 3 of them need a nerf.
When will Urgot be reworked? I feel his ult doesn't fit in with his kit.
NERF DARIOUS!!
NERF TRYNDAMERE'S ULT

Thanks for your time <3