Quick Gameplay Thoughts: Feb 24
Hey folks,
More stuff on our minds below. Will touch on current crit marksmen thinking (our bad on patch note phrasing/thinking on how 7.4 affects them) and lethality at least a bit on Monday or Tuesday.
Bond of Stone
Has been in a sad state for a while. We've got a new version that'll be hitting PBE soon (today maybe?) aiming to make it a better choice while still positioning it as a thing you take if you want to be tankier and keep your allies alive. Mechanics we're testing are:
- You get 5% max HP for taking it.
- Enemy champs you CC get a mark on them. Other allies who auto attack that mark get healed. Healing scales with your max health.
Given the mechanics are pretty different, and it no longer directly absorbs damage, we'll also likely change the name if this approach continues to test well. Suggestions highly welcomed, in particular ones that thematically suggest big/tough (max hp boost/scaling) and helpful/protective (the heal).
Quinn, Talon and Ashe
We've been testing Quinn and Talon nerfs on the PBE on the assumption that after the Ghostblade, Edge of Night and Mastery nerfs they'll still both be too strong and will need individual attention. We're not confident we'll have a clear enough picture on that at this point by the time we need to lock 7.5 down (mid next week) so we'll be pulling those changes from 7.5 and reintroducing them into 7.6 if appropriate.
For Ashe we're on the fence as to whether the E nerf is currently needed. Thinking's trending towards not at present, looking to get some testing on it both for a possible future change if needed and so we've got the option for 7.5 if we decide it is needed. Might vanish from the PBE at some point soon.
Doran's Shield
Change has potential, but needs more time than just the 7.5 patch cycle to be done properly. Will vanish from the PBE at some point, with possible return in the next patch or two or potentially in mid-season with other defensive item changes.
Practice Mode and Bugs
We're still getting some really good bug reports helped by practice tool. One thing I did want to call out though was that there are a number of spells that will behave in a buggy way in practice tool if you're using cheat CDs because the way they're set up doesn't behave well if their CD is shorter than it would be in an actual game (buffs/debuffs that normally time out before the spell could be available again still being around etc). The intent's highly appreciated, but calling out bugs that only happen in those circumstances is much less valuable than ones that can happen in normal conditions. It's unlikely we'll fix oddities like that if they're just slight practice tool weirdness - better to put that development time into fixing other bugs that affect actual games etc.
Couple of Hotfixes yesterday
For anyone that missed it the Edge of Night hotfix nerf went out yesterday (apologies for patch notes still representing older thinking), with AD dropping by 5 and CD going up from 30s to 45s.
We also put out a hotfix to a Scuttle Crab bug where in some circumstances kill credit would be incorrectly awarded to the enemy team if they were nearby. Apologies for anyone that saw a bit of weirdness from that yesterday.
