Quick Gameplay Thoughts: May 16

RiotMeddler·May 16, 2017·1 votes·76,834 views

Morning all!

Quite a few words below today so let's jump right in.

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

More 7.11 Balance Changes

Context on some balance changes in testing:

Rumble

Looking at game health and roughly power neutral changes. Moving some power into Overheat AAs out of Q, reducing W duration slightly to reward specific timing more versus cycling for Heat. Testing out some improvements to auto attack feel as well (potentially animation improvements and/or a bit of extra range/movement speed while Overheating).

Malzahar

Changes in testing last patch cycle are back, both changes to Voidlings and putting some damage into the beam, not just pool, on the R. These felt close to there last patch, we ended up delaying them because of how late the beam change went in though and how little testing it consequently got.

Kindred

Detailed write up of changes by Wav3Break can be found here:

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/nJbMhriw-upcoming-kindred-changes-looking-for-feedback

TLDR is we're looking to shift power to late game, improve overall satisfaction. Marks now grant bonus effects on abilities rather than damage on auto attacks (Q gives AS, W gets current health % damage from Wolf hits, E increases missing health damage). Every 4 marks Kindred also get increased AA range (currently 50 the first time, then 25 each set of four thereafter).

Caitlyn

Headshot no longer stacks multiple times per attack with Hurricane. Caitlyn's lacking in clear enough weaknesses and one she should have is lower single target DPS late game than most marksmen with similar builds. Hurricane's currently making it so her teamfight single target damage is higher than we suspect it should be however, at the same time also constricting her build paths. Testing a change as a result.

Ninja Tabi

Trying a test where we reduce the % reduction on auto attacks (down to probably 10% from 12%), but also make that reduction apply to on hit effects as well. One of the things making BotRK particularly effective at present is that its proc damage isn't affected by the Tabi reduction.

Ahri

Almost certainly needs a nerf. Direction not certain yet, two main ones being considered being higher Q mana cost (hit waveclear/pressure early) or shifting damage from W/R into E.

Zac VO Threshold

We're adjusting Zac's voice so it doesn't start getting higher as he loses health until he's below 30% health (rather than the current 60%). Its an effect we think should happen less frequently than it currently does (a 'Zac is pretty low' thing, not a 'Zac's somewhat hurt' thing). That just missed the 7.10 patch cutoff, should be in for 7.11 though. If you're on the PBE and playing around with it feedback much appreciated.

Unusual Playstyles Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMAAfm095tg

For anyone that hasn't seen it we put out a video yesterday talking about our thoughts on unusual playstyles in LoL and how we should be supporting or adjusting them etc. Short version is we love seeing new things get discovered and played, believe whether not not someone's trying to win is what matters and have sometimes had to adjust some builds/champs because while they were inventive they were really unhealthy for the game (lack of counterplay as with AP Trynd etc).

Thoughts on such playstyles and how we should approach them much appreciated. Feedback on my delivery in the video would also be really welcomed. Video's not a format I've dealt with much yet, so thoughts on what could be better, what works, what doesn't etc would be great if you're so inclined. It's not something I take to as naturally as some Rioters but it's certainly something I'd like to improve at (really useful skill to grow).

421 Comments

ÀhríMay 16, 201727 votes

@Meddler Regarding Ahri, and I play a lot of Ahri across 3 accounts. I think changing her numbers over to her E is a reasonable change. Hurting the mana on Q is so crucial to her laning phase when she actual has a bad matchup, I feel it will be too much after her previously gutted passive. It's almost like all of her kit is going to get changed to justify the movespeed added to her Q in the first place. There's times even now when Q is just not enough to push a lane back against some opponents and W is essentially a useless landing tool because of its mana and early damage. People who play Ahri consistently will actually take 5% attack speed in order to help last hit and control the minion wave better. Her charm mana is already crazy, where fishing for charms will net you OOM rather quickly. I think shifting the power to a more skill shot oriented focus is an excellent change and will really curb that skill gap between the great ahris and the flavor of the month ones. Her W and R are also always what people complain about because she "missed" her abilities and I still died. Even when DFG was around W and R was the deciding instagib factor. In my opinion the mana change is the wrong direction and adding a bit of skill to the kit is the right one when foundationally she's been viewed as balanced for a long period of time.

Meggy is YoursMay 17, 20176 votes

Ahri has been balanced over time because she is an old champ and nobody thought she needed a nerf for months Her mana cost increase sounds ridiculous since her skills cost alot of mana already in low levels

Yuumi or LoseMay 16, 201711 votes

Yo my dude wus good son let me get to the biz wasup wit Ohmies? Been garbo, still garbo, will always be garbo wit dat passive. Yall peeps gotta stop playin too much. Ohmwreck needa go home. Put that boy to sleep.

EternvlMay 16, 20177 votes

Item should have been deleted instead of Zephyr

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 20178 votes

It's very likely we remove Ohmwrecker, at least in its current form, this pre-season.

SpideraxeMay 16, 20172 votes

Woah but isn't it a RAF reward

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 20176 votes

The name is yeah, we'll want to shift it to something else as a result. That could be another item in a way that makes it clear it has different functionality (e.g. Fist of Ohmwrecker), a mastery, a champion ability etc.

DreampodMay 16, 20177 votes

When you guys fully rework Heimer you could use it as part of or a replacement for the name of his electro grenade since an ohm is a unit of measurement for electricity and it sounds like the sort of thing he would name a device.

HalcyonDwellerMay 16, 20173 votes

This works especially well because Ohm is a unit of resistance. Making it on his upgraded grenade would be like calling the grenade the 'resistance-wrecker' because you could wreck teamfights with it.

[slayer-jinx-catface]

KoboldMay 16, 20173 votes

Just want to point out the reasons Ohmwrecker is so bad atm.

Turrets are very weak damage wise and not as useful in defending you as in the past
Tanks/Skirmishers/Divers practically ignore turrets on dives now.
Its a tankish item instead of a utility/support item (see 1 and 2)
Horrible build path makes its time to complete not worth it (see #2)
Active too impactful to be a earlier game item so the active has been reduced to a very weak state.

misfortunasMay 16, 20179 votes

Can you guys please address LeBlanc? We LB mains have been waiting for months now for any significant changes. No one, neither the LB mains nor the enemy players, likes the current LB. You the current designer working on changes for her stopped to change Heimer. Now that Heimer is done with, what about LB? Leblanc

AhristocatsMay 16, 20178 votes

Hey meddler, i have A LOT of questions concerning league balance

Ahri what do you think about a cooldown nerf in early rank on her Q? right now it's 7 seconds all ranks giving her a lot mobility damage sustain ect... in early game

Jhin what's your opinion on this dude? 46% win rate, all my high elo adc friends (broeki, AeQ bigfat, I solo lost it) stopped playing him since 3 months now. He really feels bad to play, can't kill tanks, can't kill squishies as they kill him with item 3153 in a short time before he kills them

so recently i started to support a lot of mordekaisers, but i realised that the supports he synergyses with cripple him as they take item 3401 and prevent him from using his XP passive to all its potential would be it broken if he gained bonus xp from his W passive on creeps killed by his supports with relic shield?

my best intentions Janna

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 20176 votes

Ahri - From memory the two issues the team believe are most worth looking into are reliability of damage and early farming/waveclearing. Early game champs are often more mana than CD gated, especially when it comes to pushing, hence the consideration of higher Q mana costs. In terms of reliability the Q's much less reliable than W/R hence consideration of those for possible nerfs. If looking to reduce early safety or harass Q CD could be a thing to hit though certainly.

Jhin - I'd expect Jhin to do poorly in a meta with BotRK as a really good early buy. We'll probably need to trim a bit off Blade which should help him a bit. Looks like we might have overhit the Lethality items as well, so might put a bit of power back in there at some point which, depending on what form that takes, might or might not help him out too.

Morde - I'd be surprised if Morde getting XP off Relic shield kills by allies was enough to break him if it's not happening already. He's currently in a pretty stable spot though, which is tough with a kit like his, so wouldn't be inclined to take the risk without stronger reason. It's unintuitive and a bit feel bad however, so seems like a solid fix whenever we want to give him a little bit of extra power.

AhristocatsMay 16, 20176 votes

I hope you continue to make those threads Meddler

because they aren't pointless, i understand a lot thanks to your explination and everything you said makes sense so thanks

and regarding Mordekaiser you're completly right he doesn't need buffs however it's just a "feel bad" something like you said, as it's unintuitive

consider doing this small buff if something happened to morde

ChønklordMay 16, 20176 votes

Jhin How about instead of going back and forth buffing/nerfing Lethality items and stats, you just fucking give Jhin some tiny buffs to be able to compete in the meta.

Oh, I don't know.... maybe something like one of these:

Reduce his crit reduction values from 25% to 20%
Decrease his reload time after 4th shot
Increase AD ratios
Reduce mana costs for Q
Revert his ult slow nerfs

Something in there should stick, to help him out. Lethality doesn't need buffs, it needs balancing.

Ahri Just get rid of her movespeed passive whenever casting a spell. That shit is broken when she can get halfway across the map so quickly with no movespeed items. Hit her safety.

Lethality One of the problems with Lethality items is all the passive movespeed you guys threw on there. Oh hey look, extra mobility creep all over the place. Nerf that shit. Then increase the Lethality numbers a bit.

item 3142 Make YGB slightly more expensive to build, and increase its lethality numbers back to what they were before or slightly higher. Reduce the active's movespeed duration, compensate with slightly more active movespeed. Remove the passive movespeed component.

item 3814 Remove the movespeed passive altogether; slightly increase shield active duration, compensate with nerf to the CD for shield.

item 3147 Reduce this item's overall cost; increase the 'sweeper effect' cooldown duration. Increase lethality numbers slightly, remove the movespeed component (or hard nerf movespeed on it).

item 3252 The fuck is this thing? Get rid of this. Not even LCS pro's use it.

Mordekaiser I don't know much about this guy, except that OTP's and Mains of his have been crying for years for help. You broke the champion when you reworked him to be a "bot lane mage carry", then gutted him completely.

Apparently he also has a buglist the size of texas. Fix that shit first, maybe then he'll be better/easier to play. He needs some QoL fixes.

NineTailedMysticMay 16, 201713 votes

Just get rid of her movespeed passive whenever casting a spell. That shit is broken when she can get halfway across the map so quickly with no movespeed items. Hit her safety.

Please, at least know what you're talking about before you say shit. She only gets MS for casting Q.

DreamerPMay 16, 20178 votes

So you're nerfing Caitlyn and not touching Lucian??? [zombie-brand-mindblown]

RiotRiot AxesMay 16, 20175 votes

We're also looking at Lucian this patch cycle.

Krys StarMay 16, 20173 votes

Have you considered not having Cait's auto attack timer reset when a trap is stepped on? Feels a little too advantageous in Caitlyn's favor when she autos, and gets an immediate auto after upon trap triggered.

Also, on the topic of Lucian, why not give him the same treatment Miss Fortune has in relation to cooldown reduction? The more cooldown reduction Miss Fortune has, the less refund she gets on Strut/Guns Blazing when proccing Love Tap. Why not give Lucian the same treatment where the more cooldown reduction he has, less refund he gets on his dash from proccing his passive.

I hope that makes sense?

Echo KazemMay 16, 20177 votes

Any thoughts on Diana? I thought she was in a bad spot for a while before 7.9 but the changes really hurt her. Banshees gave mages great lane itemization versus her while the abyssal changes removed her best buy versus them. Feels outclassed by other champions at basically everything she does right now.

OleandervineMay 16, 20177 votes

Why, pray tell, do you believe that Caitlyn, League's original sniper, should have less single target damage? Snipers are pretty well known in every game/IRL to be most effective against single targets, often instantly killing them with well placed bullets. It stands to reason that Caitlyn should actually excel at single target damage output instead of being bad at it. Her multi-target damage should be where she falls flat, and I would think that it would make more sense for her thematically to weaken her siege potential and strengthen her single target DPS.

The FastMay 17, 20171 votes

The issue is that her single target damage is being augmented too heavily by her ability to charge headshot much too fast, due to Runaan's AoE. She needs less because 1-2k damage autos should not come out every 3 autos. On that note, if you are using Caitlyn's fantasy as justification, we know that she does a pretty bad job of fulfilling it. League's resident Sniper is Jhin as it stands, Cait's just got an automatic rifle with a good scope. She needs a rework before she can be balanced around that fantasy.

OleandervineMay 17, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Knight Kore,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=lMQyGnlO,comment-id=007d0000,timestamp=2017-05-17T15:34:31.372+0000)

The issue is that her single target damage is being augmented too heavily by her ability to charge headshot much too fast, due to Runaan's AoE. She needs less because 1-2k damage autos should not come out every 3 autos. On that note, if you are using Caitlyn's fantasy as justification, we know that she does a pretty bad job of fulfilling it. League's resident Sniper is Jhin as it stands, Cait's just got an automatic rifle with a good scope. She needs a rework before she can be balanced around that fantasy.

My point is that even outside of her super charging of Headshot due to Runaan's, her single target damage output shouldn't be remotely close to being weaker than other ADCs. Considering her kit has relatively little AoE and excels at activating Headshot via the net and cupcakes, and finishing off with R, her single target damage output should actually be slightly higher than other ADCs, and should definitely not be something she's weak at.

I Lost My MortyMay 17, 20177 votes

Caitlyn So about the Caitlyn Hurricane nerf, Would that apply to Jinx Late game AOE rockets with hurricane? Or maybe Twitch twitch passive? I've been thinking for a while that Caitlyn could use armor pen/% missing HP on her headshot proc and with this nerf it can be easily implemented to reward Caitlyn players who actual use brush.

RaamEsiroteMay 16, 20175 votes

Are you guys still planning on coming out with an updated sub-class list?

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 20177 votes

We are. Lemme check in on that today, see how close Statikk is.

ƒrostγMay 16, 20171 votes

{quoted}

We are. Lemme check in on that today, see how close Statikk is.

=D That's great and thanks for the reply.

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 20177 votes

Welcome.

Mid next week's the current expectation.

StrangerLMay 16, 20174 votes

For 7.12 support items changes, I wonder if there are any plans for item 3174 and item 3222 ?

SilverjustMay 16, 20176 votes

they should remove 10 CDR from item 3174 and increase the other stats

Lebłanc BotMay 17, 20174 votes

Any update on Leblanc changes? I know you said the rioter working on heimer is now working on Leblanc am I right ?

RiotMeddlerMay 17, 20177 votes

Lemme see if I can get some LB context together for the next post.

LostFr0stMay 16, 20173 votes

For item 3047 changes:

Trying a test where we reduce the % reduction on auto attacks (down to probably 10% from 12%), but also make that reduction apply to on hit effects as well. One of the things making BotRK particularly effective at present is that its proc damage isn't affected by the Tabi reduction.

Is that for all on-hits or just physical ones?

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 20174 votes

All on hits is the intent, not sure if it's hooked up to affect everything yet though. Depending on just how powerful that then proves to be might need to make other adjustments to compensate too.

ZerenzaMay 16, 20172 votes

I feel like...it might become a must buy on everyone if it reduces all on-hits. The other boots might need to start looking more appealing in that case or BoRK might just need a nerf.

Side note, Guardian Angel is very slowly becoming a must buy and very obnoxious first buy on many ADC's.

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 20176 votes

Yeah, I could see us hitting its Armor for example to avoid buffing it.

We're about to look at some GA changes too (current consideration: Significantly higher CD, reduced whenever you die).

The Yetii RiderMay 16, 20174 votes

That's not a great solution. We need armor to reduce the ambient physical damage that is everywhere in the league, especially for melee champions. Wading through minions to get to team fights, rushing in to dragon or Herald and drawing aggro, flashing under tower for a last hit, there is a lot of physical damage in the game that does not come from champions and we need armor to reduce it on melee champions because they need to get a lot closer and take a lot more of it.

Currently there are few armor items in the game worth rushing. Ninja Tabi is one of them. If there were another armor item we might enjoy building early, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal, but item 3143 sets you really far behind, item 3110 doesn't protect you against magic damage, item 3742 has a giant combine cost and item 3068 is trash and doesn't stack with Cinderhulk.

LandorinMay 16, 20177 votes

Won't this absolutely dumpster AP on-hit based champs? Adaptive Helm + Tabis would basically reduce their damage output by 25% without much of a downside.

HalcyonDwellerMay 16, 20171 votes

I think they mean on-hit effects that trigger with auto-attacks.

Unless you are also talking about on-hit builds that use AP such as Nashor's Tooth and Wit's End.

LandorinMay 16, 201710 votes

Yes, of course that's what they mean. I'm talking about how it will affect champs like Teemo, Kayle, and Kog'Maw who deal on-hit magic damage. Adaptive Helm is already extremely strong against them (less so against Kog), and now flatly reducing their damage by 10% against anyone who builds Tabi is another massive nerf that they probably don't need. I don't see why Tabi shouldn't work like Adaptive Helm does for magic damage and only reduce on-hit physical damage.

Hyper StanMay 16, 20172 votes

We know you see Zac as a bit on the weaker side, but what are your toughts on current Maokai and Sejuani? Sejuanis still getting banned and Maokai is being built as a full ap support, and im wondering how you will react to this. i feel like people are wasting bans on sejuani myself tough

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 20177 votes

Maokai - too much power in Saplings, early in particular, not enough in Q. Moving some around as a result, get healthier play.

Sej - Suspect she may still be too strong, not acting just yet though (needs more time to settle).

SpideraxeMay 16, 20172 votes

Hey Meddler can I ask for your own personal opinions on Ziggs. Just because he's your own champion

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 20175 votes

I think he's in a reasonable spot at present? Both mid and bot have ok counterplay, strengths/weaknesses. He's been problematic sometimes in the past when he'd just stall out games with endless waveclear, shifting some of his power from waveclear to turret taking and the changes to Baron buff a while back seem to have addressed that fairly well though.

DrFlapjackMay 16, 20172 votes

I don't understand why tank Ekko was unhealthy, but tank Fizz is ok.

Impish YordleMay 16, 20179 votes

Both are unhealthy. Also tank Fizz gets nerfed on the upcoming patch.

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 201717 votes

Yep, tank Fizz has issues too, working on him.

KubetzkoMay 16, 20171 votes

make ahri ult into a charge system like akali r,

ƒrostγMay 16, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=teemo is cute,realm=EUW,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=lMQyGnlO,comment-id=0030,timestamp=2017-05-16T17:30:11.907+0000)

make ahri ult into a charge system like akali r,

ty

Doubt she needs buffs at this point.

RiotMeddlerMay 16, 20178 votes

Yep, that'd be a noticeable power increase. That was actually how the ult worked in early prototyping and it made her a lot safer and harder to play against.