Quick Gameplay Thoughts: April 27

RiotMeddler·Apr 27, 2018·1 votes·48,771 views

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

8.10 and 8.11

8.11 is the patch that will have some marksmen item and base stat adjustments in it, along with some other stuff including some tweaks to early jungling. Those changes will be on the PBE during the 8.10 cycle (so starting next week) and we'll have some context posts about them up just before that.

8.10 also has some stuff in it too of course and wanted to talk about some of that:

Bounty changes (solo gold instead of team gold) will be in 8.10. After those are out, and the 8.11 changes have had some impact on how much teams look to marksmen to carry versus other positions we'll then consider rolling out further changes aimed at getting more solo carry potential back. Doing so over a series of patches rather than all at once to avoid swinging too hard and creating other problems (e.g. things like excessive early snowball).
Potentially some follow up balance work on mana items and/or mages, depending on exactly where the 8.9 changes land. If we need to add power to individual champs a common starting point's going to be adding more impact to abilities, rather than defaulting to giving them mana back (don't want to just reintroduce the issues we're trying to fix with these changes). Definitely possible mana is what will be appropriate in some cases where spell impact's already high as are mana needs though of course.
Some regular balance/game health work, including Kha'Zix (R evolution gameplay needs work), Sion (low interaction waveclear), Sterak's (making it more relevant to more champs by reducing or removing Triforce synergy and providing other power).

8.9 and Baron/Herald

We've been testing changes to Baron and Rift Herald's stats for a while and those are going out in 8.9. Figured it was worth mentioning even this late in the 8.9 cycle since that doesn't seem to have got that much attention.

Baron:

Whether or not your team can take an early Baron is currently too dependent on whether not you've got a strong tank who's in a good spot around 20 mins. That can lead to games that are effectively over dragging out until the winning team feel safe taking Baron and puts more pressure on team comps to include tanks.
We're distributing damage more evenly across teams during the Baron fight as a result. Base damage at 20 mins is down to 285 from 400 for example, AOE damage however is up (to 120+0.3 AD per second, from 60+0.1)
We're also seeing Baron get taken too quickly, which doesn't give opponents enough time to contest and force a fight. That takes away a window for comebacks and can make a brief period of Baron control too influential in deciding that game's outcome.
We're adding more base health to Baron as a result (9000, from 6400).

Rift Herald:

Rift Herald's not always delivering on its intended purpose at present. It's frequently better to just take a tower direct and not consider Rift Herald. It's also not serving to help games that are functionally over resolve quicker.
As a result we're reducing the damage it takes when hitting towers (150 less) and increasing damage it deals to towers (was 25% of own health +150, now the greater of 40% of its current health and 1500).
To avoid it being too impactful on even games, and better reward intended counterplay, we're also increasing the damage the summoned Rift Herald takes when you hit it in eye (was 20% max hp, now 40%). Quick response will shut it down quicker than before, if unchecked it'll more consistently take at least one tower.

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

253 Comments

Sun Wu RyuumokuApr 27, 201816 votes

What's the plan for item 3814 ?

What's your thought on item 3147 since the last nerf/adjustement ?

And globaly what do u think about lethality ?

ARE YOU PC BROApr 27, 201811 votes

When KARMA gets her re-work make sure to hire her old V.A. Danielle Mcrae! She's still so passionate, her twitter is full of Love for Karma as well
https://twitter.com/DanielleMcVO/status/989775150106132480

BadPiriPiriApr 27, 201811 votes

Any plans for Ashe ?

I would like that item 3042 was an ad scaling item just like item 3040 , do you have any plans on making it more viable on more champion (the only one who use it is Ezreal )?

TormentulaApr 27, 20189 votes

Anything for Elise ?

She honestly doesn't feel too great right now, she can't even kill mini krugs with her AoE spell if she takes percision for faster clears. Her human Q feels very weak and right now she feels outpreformed as a jungler, seeing that you guys want to nerf early game clears, Elise is super reliant on that early and falls off mid game, any potential changes that might help her out this mid season? I don't know what runic echoes changes would help her more then it does now unless it gives CDR or pen, but nerfing early game junglers when her clear was already nerfed from worlds doesn't sound too good for her in theory.

CoronetApr 27, 20186 votes

Hello, I've been bringing this topic up for several weeks now, so here it goes.

I want to talk about Malzahar.

After his most recent nerfs, his W has become much more important part of his kit (as other parts of his kit get weaker, the other ones become relatively stronger), to the point that he is entirely reliant on this ability.

He can't waveclear without it, he cannot do damage to people without it.

Could we perhaps hear some thoughts about whether this situation is alright for you at the moment?

Me and virtually any Malz mains from Malz subreddit agree that W is his least reliable, interesting, fun and skillful ability, while being also his most important. We don't play him for his voidlings, we play him for his sustain damage, CC and AoE ability and most importantly for his dark mage thematic.

It feels really bad using his R, E and Q and doing subpar damage, because you don't have voidlings out.

Could we redistribute the damage from his W into the rest of his kit so the champ himself has more punch and feels better to play, instead of being a CC bot for his own voidlings?

Thanks!

Zoli BenApr 27, 20185 votes

Anything on Urgot ? Repertoir was thinking of QoL changes last time I heard.

CyberBaltApr 27, 20185 votes

Do you think Liandry's has any room for buffs at all? It seems a fair bit weaker than the old one. 1% max health vs 2% current health is approximately equal, but the other passive is not worth losing the 15 Mpen IMO. Would you consider increasing the maximum bonus damage from damaging abilities, or maybe a larger max health shred? Or does it not look like it needs buffs?

ΚAΤΑΘΛΙΨHApr 28, 20185 votes

Hi Meddler,

What is your opinion about Riven? She can not start anymore with CDR, so abilities has more cooldown than before, is it good for her?

Radiant SeraphApr 27, 20184 votes

Will we get a detailed post about 8.11 ADC changes?

RiotMeddlerApr 27, 201813 votes

{quoted}

8.10 and 8.11

8.11 is the patch that will have some marksmen item and base stat adjustments in it, along with some other stuff including some tweaks to early jungling. Those changes will be on the PBE during the 8.10 cycle (so starting next week) and we'll have some context posts about them up just before that.

Radiant SeraphApr 27, 20181 votes

Will we get a detailed post about 8.11 ADC changes?

ModWulf HelhammerApr 27, 201810 votes

That's what he said. There will be context posts on ADC changes starting next week.

Solari FortuneApr 27, 20184 votes

Any other Leona buffs coming possibly or you guys happy with just 20 damage back into her W?

Also which role/lane would you say has the most diversity issues?

RiotMeddlerApr 27, 20185 votes

Nothing else currently planned for Leona, though as with every champ we'll see post midseason changes.

Bot lane farming position (currently just ADCS) IMO has the most diversity problems, given it's effectively single class controlled, leading to high similarity in what output you can get from it and therefore restricting team comps a lot.

Solari FortuneApr 27, 20182 votes

Anything you think might affect supports in 8.10? Other than all the adc changes shaking things up down there?

RiotMeddlerApr 27, 201810 votes

Not too much directly in 8.10 or 8.11, though possible we might have an item aimed at helping supports buff AP champs (kind of like an AP Ardent Censer you buy if it looks more valuable to focus on buffing a snowballing Ori mid, Rumble top etc).

Might look at shields in general a bit post midseason, need to see where things settle though and still got a lot of midseason polish to get done beforehand regardless.

Sw4deApr 27, 201815 votes

I logged in just to reply say i literally cannot believe you are giving supports even more power lol, i actually cant fathom it. Holy moly, are u really so out of touch with ur own game

Solari FortuneApr 27, 201811 votes

this is more to help supports not just be slaves to their adc only

LethalTempo JhinApr 27, 201810 votes

Which gives even more power to supports.

When the issue is that supports have way too much power in botlane, and Marksmen are getting dicked because of that, because queue times.

Aurelion SolariApr 27, 20184 votes

Just saying if you think adcs lack agency bot you’re not doing it right

fabfanApr 27, 20184 votes

Hi @Meddler, you made another change on Garen’s W but I hope this is not the end of Garen's change because it will not fix anything.

Will you try to do something like this:

-Give a in combat sustain to Garen on this E (like Darius/Illaoi Q)

-Buff the damage of Judgment (base damage/ratio/add %damage on HP)

-Maybe give him CC immunity on Courage for the first 0.5 seconds only

-Change/Remove the villain mechanic just because nobody likes it (Garen's player and Garen’s opponent)

In my opinion you should try this, the PBE is made for test new stuff (and for bug fix too), you have nothing to lose to do that.

It’s the only thing me and all Garen mains ask you, make a significantly buff for Garen to make him viable in high elo once and for all.

This PBE cycle is certainly our last hopes so please, don’t ignore the Might of Demacia.

onionsan01Apr 27, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Hi @Meddler, you made another change on Garen’s W but I hope this is not the end of Garen's change because it will not fix anything.

Will you try to do something like this:

-Give a in combat sustain to Garen on this E (like Darius/Illaoi Q)

-Buff the damage of Judgment (base damage/ratio/add %damage on HP)

-Maybe give him CC immunity on Courage for the first 0.5 seconds only

-Change/Remove the villain mechanic just because nobody likes it (Garen's player and Garen’s opponent)

In my opinion you should try this, the PBE is made for test new stuff (and for bug fix too), you have nothing to lose to do that.

It’s the only thing me and all Garen mains ask you, make a significantly buff for Garen to make him viable in high elo once and for all.

This PBE cycle is certainly our last hopes so please, don’t ignore the Might of Demacia.

What really garen needs is a PASSIVE that works IN EARLY. That is his sustain because in mid game his passive works . In early it doesnt.

As a garen main. The villan passive is fantastic. So it doesnt need to get removed.

Maybe as you say. The w could change from 0.75 sec dmg and tenacity to 0.75 immunity cc and 60% dmg reduction

His q is fine and he is gonna get buffed on 8.9 so is ok.

Judgment is perfect too. It is balanced. Maybe reduce the magic resistance could be good for his ult and maybe if he buy sunfire cape. And for the ally team

fabfanApr 28, 20182 votes

{quoted}

What really garen needs is a PASSIVE that works IN EARLY. That is his sustain because in mid game his passive works . In early it doesnt.

As a garen main. The villan passive is fantastic. So it doesnt need to get removed.

Maybe as you say. The w could change from 0.75 sec dmg and tenacity to 0.75 immunity cc and 60% dmg reduction

His q is fine and he is gonna get buffed on 8.9 so is ok.

Judgment is perfect too. It is balanced. Maybe reduce the magic resistance could be good for his ult and maybe if he buy sunfire cape. And for the ally team

I'm agree with the passive it need some change, I love the idea about CC immune on the W and yes his Q is fine (maybe make the animation faster).

For Jugdment I don't know, that why i hate the juggernaut rework on Garen in season 5, I deal not enough damage in early game and i don't have the time to deal a entire E on enemy in mid/late, that's why I think it would be cool if he gets his old base damage and his AD ratio.

10 / 22.5 / 35 / 47.5 / 60 (+ 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55% AD) (God i miss the old Garen early).

About the villain mechanic well..., it can be good but to random and bugged in my opinion (for example I have an enemy Thresh who is marked as the villain but he only got 1 kill and the Tristana with 12 kill will never be vilain until I kill her without the vilain passive).

It's my opinion and i understand if you do not agree with everything.

Anyway, it's really cool to talk with another Garen Main, and I really appreciate you respond to my comment ^^

Big LincolnApr 27, 20184 votes

What's going on with Garen? I hope it's not just gonna be flat buffs. There's so much more you could do with him to put him in a lasting good spot

WhiteAcresApr 27, 20184 votes

Hey Meddler,

Are the recent changes for Poppy that were on the PBE going to be shipping in 8.9? Do you happen to have any insight as to what sort of impact those changes were having on her early, mid, and late game based on internal testing?

DrLuauApr 27, 20184 votes

Since you've already changed the Garen W buff, and also seem to want to remove the Trigage synergy, can you maybe look into giving Garen some extra power since he will be hard hit by any change to the Sterak's + Triforce interaction?

Hipster buildApr 28, 20183 votes

We Garen players are like a band of brothers. CTRL+F garen comments to bring awareness to his stale state and revert him to former glory.

1moretimeApr 29, 20184 votes

Garen is going to die if you nerf steraks gage or trinity force, the current buff suggestion for 10 mr and shield cap increase is very petty. If you nerf those items with that petty buff a lot of garen mains including me are gonna abandon him.

SpideraxeApr 27, 20183 votes

Hey Meddler can I ask which champs you guys are looking into next cycle and how you feel about Irelia after her last round of changes

Rayjay RedfangApr 27, 20183 votes

What do you mean by sion's low interactive waveclear and does it mean that his waveclear will get a nerf?

RiotMeddlerApr 27, 20185 votes

That's likely yeah. We're currently testing moving damage from E to Q with an increased penalty to Q's minion damage. That's just gone into testing though, so it's far from final.

Rayjay RedfangApr 27, 20186 votes

As a Sion main, I look forward to an e to q damage shift because I hate the "poke e with comet" playstyle. The Q reduced damage to minions kind of worries me but I think it should be fine.

The Yetii RiderApr 27, 20181 votes

Sion misses with his Q constantly, though. There are times when it is most beneficial to Q in a spot the enemy team is not in, just so you can zone them off that spot for a bit while your team runs away or recovers or something. Taking damage out of a longer range, more direct ability and putting it into something with a lot more counterplay is going to lower his damage to champions overall, especially at lower ranks.

I dislike Riot constantly increasing the skill cap required to play champions. Making champions more difficult just because high ranking players are mastering them isn't fair to everyone else, all 85% of them or more.

Glory ln DeathApr 28, 20183 votes

Sion needs to not be a poke mage. E nerfs are very warranted, and Sion mains have been suggesting it for months.

ZaNJeTsUApr 27, 20183 votes

Hey Medller,

Any thoughts about these keystones: 1- Conqueror 2- phase rush 3- Grasp of the undying

RiotMeddlerApr 27, 20186 votes

Conqueror and Grasp - Fulfilling their intended functions, reasonably balanced, decent range of users, seem fairly appreciated.

Phase Rush - Is a consistently good choice on a few champs and a situational choice on a few others. Power often isn't recognized, leading to a perception it has no good users. Poor on quite a few champs who were good Stormraider's users, leading to further perception it's always bad.

meteorbreakerApr 27, 20183 votes

Hello Meddler! Are there any specific ideas for Zyra? Her flowers still have too many bugs (lack of its Al and instant death from aur spells (W mumu,), single-target spells of all kinds (E Cassio, Q Annie, etc.) Maybe you should pay attention to it yourself? Maybe it be necessary to transfer its power from the flowers to it?A little increase in sustain, for example, and scaling by AP ratio, to reduce all these delays in casting spells. Now many Zyra’s mains are turning to you, so please turn to all our proposals.

Thank you for your attention;)

SeeKerŻApr 27, 20182 votes

When is the mid-season patch ? Around 8.12 ?

RiotMeddlerApr 27, 20183 votes

8.11

VediusApr 27, 20182 votes

Hey Meddler, I know it’s been a bit of a talk lately but what are your thoughts on AP mid rakan. Is he out of line when played in other roles? If you were to nerf him a lot of us rakan players would rather just a revert on the ap ratios. We don’t want him worse off them when he was buffed.

PopCorn Chick3nApr 27, 20182 votes

Hi Meddler, I have a question. What do you think of Zyra's current Q shape right now compared to the old circular shape?

The rectangular shape was introduced to synergy with Zyra's current passive and its primary job was to "summon plants"? Yet you nerfed/changed its AI so many times that it required Zyra to land her abilities for the plants to priority the enemy champs. Other than that, it doesn't go well with any other part of her kits. I'm a little confused because the new Q shape primary job is to just summon more plants out but awkward to use/harder to land but plants won't priority champs if you don't land it. Since plants are so weak right now.

My question: why are you still keeping Zyra's current Q shape when the old Q can basically do the same thing with an outer layer of what the current Q has but easier to use and more synergy to her kit? Thank you for reading.

Elegant EgoisticApr 27, 20182 votes

hey Meddler ! any future plan for karma ? are you considering her for an Aatrox scale update ?!

Illâoi Evê SiônApr 27, 20182 votes

You'll be making a lot of changes with very little review time, followed by (what I assume will be) immediate adjustments on the first or second patch afterwards alongside additional changes (8.9: Mage changes, 8.10: Mage adjustments + solo gold changes, 8.11: further Mage adjustments + universal adjustments because of solo gold changes + Marksmen changes, 8.12: lots and lots of adjustments + whatever else you have planned). This seems pretty chaotic.

When the dust settles in 8.13, can you please take some time to reflect on all of this to spot any possible mistakes and avoid long-term problems?

Sir NopeApr 27, 20181 votes

Morning meddler.

Regarding the mana changes, this was designed to circumvent mages farming without risk of going mana-starved, correct? Yet these changes also affect single-target abilities as well. What convinced you and the dev team that this was an acceptable and/or malleable tradeoff?

RiotMeddlerApr 27, 20186 votes

Our two primary goals are:

Nerf waveclear in later laning phase and onwards (mana nerfs later in the game). That's much more about how easily mages can clear waves and either roam or just hang back.
Buff mage ability to play more aggressively, especially against auto attackers who aren't at all mana constrained, early laning phase (hence the early regen and starting mana buffs)

There'll be some cases where it also means mages have to AA a bit more to farm and can't do so as safely. That's probably a secondary benefit, but not our starting point nor would we do these changes for that alone.

In terms of impact on mainly single target dependent mages we'll need to see where they end up. Possible they're the most likely to need followup buffs. Having said that, most mages bring at least a fair bit of AOE.

Sir NopeApr 27, 20182 votes

That makes sense. Thanks for the reply.

I might be a little late for a follow-up question, but I remember seeing the Lux work on PBE so I gotta ask. I see there’s a push to move her power to more supporting abilities, but has there been any discussion to try to seperate her CC strength from her spell damage, or at least force a trade between the two?

RiotMeddlerApr 27, 20185 votes

It's less trying to make her more supportive and taking power out of something that's low counterplay/highly consistent (E) so we can buff a bunch of other things that lead to more interesting and potentially higher upside if used well play.

AdalvarApr 27, 20185 votes

Have you considered the possibility of slightly pushing up AP on certain items that to restore that single item spike feel such as item 3285 item 3030 item 3027 ?

item 3027 in particular isn't playing up to it's scaling fantasy role and since you guys tried to touch up on that recently i'm wondering if you could spare some time to revisit it's theme as a scaling item (maybe add the old 700 range aura of item 3001 to it once it fully stacks).

Linna ExcelApr 27, 20182 votes

What wave clear? Way too often I've seen an ADC get an early tower and then getting all the CS from that point of the game onward.

If riot really thinks wave clear is an issue, shouldn't you guys be looking into item 3087 and item 3085 which both allow for a lot of waveclear and don't use any resources in doing so?

TeCoolMageApr 27, 20182 votes

One thing I disagree about the mana changes is the exact numbers, increasing lvl 1 mana by 25% and decreasing mana growth by 50%. While it may seem consistent, it isn't really in that Cassiopeia is nerfed lvl 4 onwards as an aggressive single target mage while Azir is nerfed lvl 7 onwards as an AOE waveclearing mage. The changes favour low mana growth with high lvl 1 mana. And that the mana nerfs range from 300 to 200.

It should've been a simple +x at lvl 1, breaking even at lvl 6, -y at lvl 18. (So it'd be flat amounts like all mages gain 90 mana and their growth is nerfed by the same amount)

Even then I think mana changes should be held off because I feel like mana numbers weren't well thought out in the first place (a lot of old champions probably had their mana costs and pools decided way back in 2009 and items/design was different back then). Like I don't think it was an intentional design choice at the time for Anivia to need so much mana with Archangel's RoA back when she'd just ERR (and oneshot lol) instead of keeping ult channeled.

I just don't think the interaction between costs, pools and items were thought out explicitly. Designer just went "hey this champ should build mana items because she/he's blue and mage-y, so let's make their costs high" puts 100 mana cost spell without doing math on how much mana per second it would use on average, or how niche/bread and butter the spell is "okay I playtested this champ and keep going oom let's increase the mana pool" gives a random number of buffs until it feels right

It would explain why a lot of older champions have above average mana pools and decently large costs before getting reworked to have like only 60 mana per cast. Low mana pool and low costs might not have been seen very differently from high mana pool and high costs (in fact the latter could be seen as more mage-y and caster-y signifying more powerful spells and a larger reservoir of magical energy, even though it would decrease efficiency with mana items! With the exception of Archangel's mana - AP % passive)

Mana pools, items and costs as a whole should be looked into at some point with the interactions between them explicitly in mind at some point, namely:

Higher consumption decrease synergy with mana pools and items (more mana for the same amount of damage, therefore less efficiency)
However, higher consumption increases demand of mana pools and items (going oom less is very valuable)
Higher mana pool decreases both need and synergy with items (why get 500 more mana when you already have 2000?). Growth and base pools decide when this need and synergy is at its highest or lowest.
Item mana changes will buff and nerf the class as a whole manawise

Or if you wanted to go for some easy shortcut you could make all mana items give a % of your base mana to cut down the factors, but that would be serious laziness and would do things like make mages either heavily gold, or heavily level dependent