Patch Chat with the Playtest Team - 7.2 Warwick rework

RiotAesah·Jan 25, 2017·1 votes·16,168 views

new "Minions" art created by inkinesss!

Hey guys! Welcome to Patch Chat, a Dev Corner thread we make to talk about our new patches every two weeks: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-72-notes

I'm Aesah on Riot's Playtest Team, a group of Diamond+ players who play with the new champions, reworks, balance tweaks, items, and map updates before they are released. It's our job to the test the changes that our designers come up with and ensure that we're introducing positive changes to LoL in terms of both balance and fun. We'll be watching this thread to answer as many questions as we can.

The big change we're looking forward to (well some of us, anyway) in 7.2 is the Warwick update. Warwick is a juggernaut/diver who we expect to shine primarily in the jungle. Underperforming champions that received buffs include Akali (slightly overcompensating Gunblade nerf), Gragas, Graves, Lulu, Master Yi, and Nidalee. On the other hand, Darius, Katarina, and Yasuo received nerfs to bring their power more in line with the rest of the cast. For items, Lethality as well as Duskblade and Edge of Night have been buffed to be more enticing to some of the struggling AD assassins. Support items have been slightly rebalanced (Redemption was crowding out other options). Gunblade's active component was nerfed as well.

All of us on the Playtest Team are avid gamers so feel free to talk to us as fellow LoL players!

Adam "Afic" Cohen Ben “Cezium” Burkhardt Don “Aesah” Ding Nicolas “Gleeb” Haddad Dan “penguin” Hardison Robert “ROBERTxLEE” Lee Nicholas “Nickwu” Smith Blake “S0be” Soberanis Trevor “ThEntropist” Thernes Arnor "TheLastAirbender" Halldorsson

58 Comments

Shadow HazardJan 25, 201710 votes

What on earth was the team thinking with the camp damage changes. Yea sure it will hurt the top end junglers so that they aren't as enter lane->murder->return to full clear, there are A LOT of junglers that are in a poor to even non viable spot even before 7.2 and this will just hammer down the discrepancy.

Aatrox gets honerable mention for the issues he has been having for way too long but at least that has been recognized and hopefully the team is working on something.

Fiddle has been a very poor jungler thanks to the camp changes specifically and the recent change to him really only made his lane ability more viable as a support/mid champ, either fix his jungling or do a reverse of what you did to nid and push him completely out of the jungle.

I don't even think fizz or ekko are even viable at all as junglers anymore, they aren't even niche picks anymore they are flat out non viable.

Kindred, the marksman made very specifically for the jungle is outperformed by every other marksman that can jungle and unlike them kindred doesn't have the option to go into lane at all, since it is flat out unviable. The excuse of the ult giving kindred something unique to offer isn't even a good one, bard, taric, kayle, and zilean offer similar niches to varying degree's and also benefit for not being useless for the rest of their kits.

Nid's buff is counterproductive with the amount of increased damage that will be received.

there are many others. how did a change like that go through without thinking outside of the one who will be toned down but instead will just be absolutely screwed over. Was there any actually sandbox test for the clear's of the non outlier junglers.

Riotvo1d seekerJan 27, 20178 votes

The goal behind the camp changes was to reduce the influence junglers have on the game because we believe it is currently still too high. Top tier junglers such as Hecarim and Vi are dealing with indirect nerfs through their keystone CotC, so we wanted to see how that affects them first to avoid nerfing champions who are also going to suffer from systemic changes.

Fizz and Ekko have both had the parts of their kits that enabled them to jungle effectively removed with their mini assassin updates and are currently balanced around laning.

ShacownzFeb 7, 20171 votes

I don't understand, if Vi is so top tier in the jungle then why we have 5 small raptors and like 20 krugs spawning at those camps because Vi can just Q -> E and hit them all, you guys reworked the jungle because singletarget champions had a too strong clear time and dominance but now you just reversed the situation, champions with AOE dominate the jungle, singletarget champions just suffer a lot to clear.

Couldn't you find a solution in the middle? IE: the faster you clear the camp, the less XP given directly on first monster kill and the more small monsters appearing in the camp giving in total same amount of XP, this way junglers who are too fast need to stay in the camp longer to get the XP and champions who suffer from jungling will have more chance to succeed by getting the same XP killing less monsters in the same amount of time. Doesn't sound like more balanced?

hunterspecJan 25, 20177 votes

when you removing autofill?

dominusxJan 25, 20176 votes

We need towers to ramp up more dmg. outside early game they can easily be ignored by anyone with a single armor item that isnt a mere ninja tabi. And reduce 1st blood tower value so the game in high elo isnt merely a race to who dives bot 1st. Also about the surrender vote i hope you go through with it. kinda tired of the NA open mids lately.

Lord DesertJan 25, 20174 votes

I would like to hear your personal opinion on the state of towers, especially the inhib/nexus towers! I think they need some increase in defense and should get the 75% ArPen back, 30% is not enough, tanks and even squishys can tank them far to long! Again this should not be an offical riot statement at all, its more of a "do you also think they could use some attention?" Typ of quesition :D

And have you already had the chance to test some of the ChoGath experiments meddler mentioned? And if yes was there something promising/nice/awesome? Im not interested in the exact stuff... well i am, but i know you can not say anything about it and thats ok, but i would really love if i could know if there is something cool in testing for my beloved Cho :D Thx for your time

IAmNeverViableJan 25, 20174 votes

How do you feel about increasing damage creep over the past few seasons? (Not power creeps where new champions suppresses the old one, but damage has been increasing too much over the past few seasons.)

In the past few seasons, teamfight and the games took longer to finish. Now this season, fights last too shortly and games are decided predetermine. In season 3-4, most champions cannot 100-0 someone in a full combo rotation. Now most champion can 100-0 someone over just 2 items.

RiotRiot ThEntropistJan 26, 20179 votes

I actually feel the opposite. To me games have felt tankier and less bursty from when I started in season 3. I miss the days of DFG katarina or LB one shotting people.

So personally I'm not feeling this damage creep the same way you are explaining it.

Edit: Want to throw in that I am the assassin player on the team. My views here are not all of my teammates, I would actually be surprised if they did not disagree with me. They are just my thoughts as a player of the game.

LankPantsJan 26, 201710 votes

I actually feel the opposite. To me games have felt tankier and less bursty from when I started in season 3. I miss the days of DFG katarina or LB one shotting people.

Well yes, that's because DFG was an abomination that should have never existed. The time you're talking about is an outlier though, season 3 was when tanks were basically unplayable and assassins were straight up retarded. I also consider S3 to be one of the worst seasons I've ever played, S2 was vastly superior and even with the Lee Sin every game fuckery in S4 it was still better. If you compare anything at all to S3 it's going to be low damage.

So personally I'm not feeling this damage creep the same way you are explaining it.

When people talk about damage creep they're talking insane amount of damage all champs (including tanks) can get from the mastery trees. It's why assassins like Lebroken and Slutface are running around oneshotting everything in existence and why tanks like Poppy get such absurdly high damage output. They get, for no real investment a straight 5% increase in damage mastery.

Edit: Want to throw in that I am the assassin player on the team. My views here are not all of my teammates, I would actually be surprised if they did not disagree with me. They are just my thoughts as a player of the game.

I still don't see your point, on average assassins are the most stupidly broken class right now. Champions like Katarina, Leblanc, Kha'zix and Rengar make the game a hellscape because of how absurd their burst is. Lethality also just got buffed so I'd be surprised if Zed and Talon don't join them in the pool of flat out retarded assassins.

CrimsonCobra3Feb 3, 20171 votes

I still don't see your point, on average assassins are the most stupidly broken class right now. Champions like Katarina, Leblanc, Kha'zix and Rengar make the game a hellscape because of how absurd their burst is. Lethality also just got buffed so I'd be surprised if Zed and Talon don't join them in the pool of flat out retarded assassins.

I think it's really weird, because prior to the assassin updates, the only assassins I would see were Zed and the occasional Talon or Leblanc. Or Katarina, if you're counting her as an assassin. I always thought of here as a [completely convoluted] melee burst aoe mage--like a battlemage, with no survivability. I extend the same concept to Fizz. And the only time I saw Akali was when she went tank top. However, now that assassins are good again, I see at least one a game on average. I know the update intended to give assassins diversity, and other means to win the game besides some linear 'run in, murder the adc, and run out' strategy, but to be honest, that's exactly what they're still good at. It's by far easier to kill the adc than anyone else, and if they can burst down anyone else in seconds then they're probably broken. (Or obscenely fed. Exception: full ap mages.)

All of that said, I think that's a problem with the class, not the update. The update just didn't fix it. I like the new thematics and playstyles of the updated assassins, I just think that they're still the classic assassin. Interestingly enough, I find playing other characters, with off-assassin kits, such as Wukong, Xin Zhao, Shaco (He's actually full assassin, but he's also weird), Jayce, Fiora, etc. to be fun, and usually a little more manageable. I'm not entirely sure why. (Most of those are Divers, my favorite class, but some are... not. (Shaco, Jayce.) NOTE: Jayce can be a pain.)

IAmNeverViableJan 26, 20172 votes

I can agree that the game felt tankier from the past seasons, but the damage has also drastically increased over the past few seasons. I was not talking about burst, I was talking about the amount of damage in just one combo. I remember Jax in season 4 takes about 5-7 auto attacks with tri-force and botrk to finish a carry. Now the Jax could finish someone with 3-5 auto attack.

I want to know what change from the past seasons compare to season we have now? Do you think we can revert changes to stabilize the damages?

Nameless VoiceJan 26, 20175 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot ThEntropist,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=pGVpHwMx,comment-id=00100000,timestamp=2017-01-26T00:25:21.061+0000)

So personally I'm not feeling this damage creep the same way you are explaining it.

This comment makes me feel like I'm not playing the same game as you are.

Right now, it feels like everyone deals so much damage that whoever strikes first tends to kill their opponent before they can do much (most specifically against squishies), and so reliability has become one of the most important things in the game. If everyone can kill opponents quickly, then the one who can reliably land the first blow (e.g. with non-skillshot abilities) has a huge advantage, even if they technically deal less damage overall than a less-reliable champion.

With more damage flying around (combined with greatly reduced vision), it also means that jungle ganks tend to end up in kills much more often (again, especially against squishies), and that champions who are fragile and take a while to kill their opponents (such as ADCs) feel like they have much less agency because they are so easy to delete by tanky divers (who build tanky to avoid reprisals but get enough free damage to still eliminate a glasscannon quickly.)

The same also applies to glasscannon-vs-glasscannon interactions, where whoever has more reliable damage tends to make the other feel like there wasn't much that they could do.

Basically, it feels bad to be a glasscannon damage dealer right now because everyone's damages have gone up so much that you die almost instantly, while the overall higher level of damage doesn't affect tanky champions quite as much because they are building defences while still dealing high damage - which usually makes them tough enough to survive that initial burst.

SkiasJan 26, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Nameless Voice,realm=EUW,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=pGVpHwMx,comment-id=001000000002,timestamp=2017-01-26T02:21:32.538+0000)

This comment makes me feel like I'm not playing the same game as you are.

Right now, it feels like everyone deals so much damage that whoever strikes first tends to kill their opponent before they can do much (most specifically against squishies), and so reliability has become one of the most important things in the game. If everyone can kill opponents quickly, then the one who can reliably land the first blow (e.g. with non-skillshot abilities) has a huge advantage, even if they technically deal less damage overall than a less-reliable champion.

With more damage flying around (combined with greatly reduced vision), it also means that jungle ganks tend to end up in kills much more often (again, especially against squishies), and that champions who are fragile and take a while to kill their opponents (such as ADCs) feel like they have much less agency because they are so easy to delete by tanky divers (who build tanky to avoid reprisals but get enough free damage to still eliminate a glasscannon quickly.)

The same also applies to glasscannon-vs-glasscannon interactions, where whoever has more reliable damage tends to make the other feel like there wasn't much that they could do.

Basically, it feels bad to be a glasscannon damage dealer right now because everyone's damages have gone up so much that you die almost instantly, while the overall higher level of damage doesn't affect tanky champions quite as much because they are building defences while still dealing high damage - which usually makes them tough enough to survive that initial burst.

I also feel this way. Full Tanks generally deal plenty of damage to instantly explode Glass Cannon champs. It feels pretty terrible to go glass, especially as someone like Yi.

SkiasJan 26, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot ThEntropist,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=pGVpHwMx,comment-id=00100000,timestamp=2017-01-26T00:25:21.061+0000)

I actually feel the opposite. To me games have felt tankier and less bursty from when I started in season 3. I miss the days of DFG katarina or LB one shotting people.

So personally I'm not feeling this damage creep the same way you are explaining it.

Edit: Want to throw in that I am the assassin player on the team. My views here are not all of my teammates, I would actually be surprised if they did not disagree with me. They are just my thoughts as a player of the game.

Are we going to see further adjustments at a kit level for Braum and Taric? playing both of them into champions like Malzahar, Ziggs, Zyra and Brand feels super terrible at the moment. It often feels like there is zero response to the extreme threat they offer, even with someone that is mostly utility like Taric. I've just plain stopped picking him bottom because I feel like I'm 100% ineffective. The slight MR increase hasn't felt like it made an impact.

Will Riot reconsider giving Taric a small mana refund on Bravado against champions? (not enough to cover all of his costs, but perhaps to take the edge off the extreme harass he has to sustain to trade against the high damage bot.)

venomous frostJan 25, 20173 votes

What do you think about the "darius is only a low ELO ban" statement?

And how do you feel about the argument that higher AD on monsters forces sustain and waveclear junglers more to the top, and junglers that don't have this more to the bottom, creating more jungle inequality?

RiotAesahJan 26, 20174 votes

Darius is solid at higher levels of play but he is particularly successful at low ELO where players just want to constantly all-in each other and Darius tends to win those.

SpideraxeJan 25, 20172 votes

I heard if you comment first, that Afic himself will give you a high five. But more related news, how do you guys feel mid lane will be impacted with the ghost nerfs

RiotplaytestpenguinJan 30, 20173 votes

Sorry for the delayed response, but generally I don't think midlaners will be hit too hard by the ghost changes. They just have to pop ghost earlier than previously -- so it'll punish "greedy" holding of ghost in scenarios where you're being ganked.

Lord CaelistisJan 25, 20172 votes

How do you feel about champions like Teemo that may not be particularly strong or overpowered, yet are frequently banned at certain ELOs because of the frustration they provoke in players? Is there any strings you can tug to try and make them less "obnoxious"?

Subsidiary but very related question : how hard is it to stay impartial when balancing the game?

(Props to the Yi buff, very well made)

RiotAesahJan 26, 20178 votes

Player perception is important. Yasuo was nerfed this patch despite him not being played in pro games or having a particularly high winrate, but there is a lot of player frustration around playing against this character.

La BelloJan 25, 20172 votes

Why choose to buff Duskblade the way that you did? whats the context behind it? why not just buff the amount of Lethality it gives?

RiotAesahJan 25, 20173 votes

Well Lethality itself is stronger per point as well, so that also kind of happened.

LuIuJan 25, 20172 votes

Do you think Lulu will soon get buffs that will actually make her a viable support again? (instead of these last two little buffs that barely change things)

RiotRiot ThEntropistJan 26, 20177 votes

She's already quite viable as a support. http://champion.gg/champion/Lulu

These buffs should definitely make her good enough to take in the support role.

So will she likely get more buffs? I sure hope not.

ShaolinToiletJan 26, 20175 votes

Why link champion gg

warpenguin555Jan 26, 20171 votes

She actually hardcore shits on Malzahar

ShadowParkerJan 25, 20172 votes

So, I've been loving new Talon. I usually do super well early and mid game and these buffs will just add to that.

That said, what are your guys' thoughts on his late game? When everyone is at the point of full build, Talon feels pretty bad. He can't reliably assassinate anyone. On top of this, it feels like if the Adc builds any sort of defense Talon's useless altogether.

Is this intentional for his character or the class?

RiotAesahJan 25, 20176 votes

The class in generally pretty weak lategame and Talon is no exception- assassins tend to excel in skirmishes/small-scale fights, and lategame revolves around 5v5 fights where they can't safely take out their priority targets due to the enemy team protecting them.

RiotplaytestpenguinJan 30, 20173 votes

Talon falls off like humpty dumpty but he has some of the best map mobility, so generally you want to end the games early and if your team can't manage to close then you'll likely lose.

Kei143Jan 25, 20172 votes

sorry if these have been asked / answered already. Gonna fire the questions first while you guys are still around

Please share funny things that happened during ww development
Most enjoyable moments when testing ww
most frustrating moments when testing ww
How stomping would yi be now at lower elos?
How stomping would jayce be at low elos?

RiotAesahJan 26, 20172 votes

enjoyable: everyone arr-whoo'ing constantly

frustrating: the damage reduction on his E was (still is!) annoying for me to play against

RiotplaytestpenguinJan 30, 20172 votes

CC immunity on warwick's jump actually made me rage a lot because it's already fast and I felt skilled for landing CC on him during the jump. It makes sense for the character but that doesn't make me nerdrage less.

VeraskaJan 25, 20171 votes

How do you feel kha'zix and rengar (who are already pretty strong) gonna be affected by the lethality buffs?

RiotAesahJan 26, 20172 votes

Nothing in the works that I know of for Kha'Zix, but I suspect there's a good chance he'll have to get nerfs. Rengar we've been talking about already.

TheOnlyBruceJan 25, 20171 votes

Why does scuttle eat honeyfruit now? How do you expect this to affect gameplay?

RiotRiot ThEntropistJan 26, 20176 votes

Cause they are hungry too.

How will it affect game play? probably not at all.

Mysticman89Jan 26, 20171 votes

Is this only 'popped' honeyfruit on the ground? I didn't quite get that patch note, or had the chance to test.

RiotRiot ThEntropistJan 26, 20173 votes

yes, only when popped

LongHair FoxJan 26, 20173 votes

A minor thing i know, but it would likely have been a good idea to write in the patch notes that it takes them a good 4-5 seconds to do it and they can be chased away when they try.

C9 Squeeky Jan 26, 20172 votes

Hadn't tested it yet but when Scuttler eats the fruit, will it also gain health back like champions do?

warpenguin555Jan 26, 20173 votes

because it's cute as fuck

Never FF BoyJan 26, 20171 votes

Do you believe that those buff for Yi are enough to make him viable ? The buff was really good and smart, but it feels like Master Yi need more of a small rework than just a small buff.

He's pretty similar to Shyvana and other jungler who are tanky while doing damage and being more reliable, so strategically he's not very interesting at the moment since there is Yi but in a better version (Shyvana, Kha Zix, Rengar ...) who bring damage more reliably.

I'd like to know what are your thoughts about him at the moment and what are your plans about him.

Thanks !

SkiasJan 26, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=i e v e n,realm=EUW,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=pGVpHwMx,comment-id=0011,timestamp=2017-01-26T02:18:32.518+0000)

Do you believe that those buff for Yi are enough to make him viable ? The buff was really good and smart, but it feels like Master Yi need more of a small rework than just a small buff.

He's pretty similar to Shyvana and other jungler who are tanky while doing damage and being more reliable, so strategically he's not very interesting at the moment since there is Yi but in a better version (Shyvana, Kha Zix, Rengar ...) who bring damage more reliably.

I'd like to know what are your thoughts about him at the moment and what are your plans about him.

Thanks !

I played him the other day and never really noticed either changes. I mean, the charge up W was helping during gromp and drg. I didn't notice him being anything different the rest of the game. I think I saw the double strike change... twice? It's QoL but definitely not enough to make a big difference.

RiotAesahJan 26, 20172 votes

The Yi buffs this patch are really minor- he'll probably still be a bit weak but definitely viable.

Never FF BoyJan 26, 20171 votes

Do you think he's viable in lane ? It's so sad that Jungle Yi is the only way to play him now when he used to be a mid AND Jungler.

SkiasJan 27, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Aesah,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=pGVpHwMx,comment-id=00110001,timestamp=2017-01-26T19:40:20.847+0000)

The Yi buffs this patch are really minor- he'll probably still be a bit weak but definitely viable.

So far, I haven't really noticed them. The W charge up hasn't been super useful in practice and the double strike works sometimes. Nice QoL increases but I don't even really think they increased his power at all.

CarnicoreFeb 3, 20171 votes

So... should we expect more buffs in the near future, or do you think he's in a decent enough state that you can focus on other champions?

OmìJan 27, 20171 votes

Just a question, was it intentional to make warwick have to click on the next target for his Q to activate?>

Eskimo503Jan 31, 20171 votes

At first i was super bummed about the Darius nerfs in tandem with the ghost and CoC nerfs (these two were responsible for his small winrate spike IMO), but I think you guys were really smart about it. Thanks for not hitting him too hard. I believe to further reduce cheese on his early laning, his W slow should scale with level into it- worse at early, better late? This way its less stressful for lane opponent that CANT fight him to go farm, not a death sentence. It also forces choice between E max and W max (after Q). I main this champion in low diamond elo, so im not just venting about him, but trying to reduce community frustration so his damage doesn't get nerfed again. Good day and please give a love tap to Riven when in the hands of an experienced player, she concerns me.