Quick Gameplay Thoughts: November 17

RiotMeddler·Nov 17, 2017·1 votes·82,326 views

Morning 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

Possible 7.24 balance changes

We're looking at potential changes for 7.24 (final patch of the year) at the moment. For 7.23, which goes out early next week, we wanted to just hit major outliers and give things time to settle down. We're now at the point where we'll want to do a fair bit more tuning of things around the new state of the game however. That work will involve looking at both Runes and Champions, so in some cases we'll need to either account for changes to one when changing the other or may need to circle back and do a follow up round of changes early next year, depending on how things go. That will be particularly true if we do end up adding any new runes to fill unserved champs, though we won't be doing that in 7.24 at least.

Sections below covering possible buff/nerf/investigate targets (none of this is final). It's also almost certain some of these things won't get changed and some other stuff will get added to the list instead as work on the patch goes on. These are also generally notes about things we'll be looking at, not as you'll note a list of what we'll actually be changing. That's because we haven't yet done the work to figure that out in most cases.

Possible Rune Buffs

Fleet Footwork Underperforming even on its best users.
Lethal Tempo Though need to make sure this is weak, that it's not just Press the Attack being strong.

Possible Rune Nerfs

Press the Attack Generally too strong on a fairly wide range of champs.
Aftershock Armor/MR granted is currently inappropriately multiplicative with temp Armor from stuff like Leona W or Rammus W, fixing that at least, might also be too strong in other respects.

Possible Champ Buffs

Galio Got smacked too hard when we over corrected his AP build just before pre-season.
Jhin Has been weak for a while, Runes have amplified that a bit.
Aurelion Sol Particularly hard hit by the change from Stormraider's to Phase Rush. Other champs also affected, many of them have better alternatives to swap to though, even if they haven't done so much yet.
Bard Struggling noticeably, need to investigate why.
Riven, Darius, Camille All are bruisers struggling in the new ecosystem, in particular because attack speed's not so valuable on them so Precision keystones are less applicable. Possible other candidates should also be considered here, also possible there's a missing rune needed to support some of these champs. Or that buffing them in general and letting them pick from a wider range of runes is the better call.

Possible Champ Nerfs

Taric, Leona Both are performing extremely well. Need to assess how much of that is Aftershock though.
Twitch, Trist Were strong before pre-season and have continued to be so.
Yorick Wanted to let him sit a while, rather than nerfing him immediately in 7.23. Fairly confident now he'll be too strong long term so we should be working on him.

Need to be assessed more at time of writing

Ezreal How much did that bug fix help bring his power down? If he's still too strong how much is Klepto?
Corki Some of the team think he's sleeper OP, lot of debate over that though.
Kleptomancy Definitely isn't weak. Its power is all very visible however, which can make it feel stronger than it is. Might be a good candidate for some tuning up for champions with less ability to proc it, tuning down for best case users. Some degree of champs being synergistic with particular things leads to really interesting play and trade offs though, so wouldn't want to normalize that too much.

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

476 Comments

AmaroqNov 17, 201738 votes

Have you guys considered giving camille ult true sight on her target, I dont see it making her broken or op. Its a minor change that wont make everyone want to play her just to shut down vayne or akali. It just gives her a fighting chance against champs that stealth her entire ult duration making her worthless in team fights or when 1v1ing them in a split push. It seems like an over sight that should have been on the ultimate to begin with in my opinion.

tts01008Nov 18, 20174 votes

Shouldn't you choose who you're gonna ult? Same as you wont use Javan's ult on people who can easily jump away from his walls, and Cho's ult on people who has an extra life.

AdalvarNov 17, 201719 votes

If Ezreal is being placed under assessment, then maybe it would be a perfect time to shift some extra resources into such work and look deeper into his kit, specifically the massive imbalance between his Q and his W.

One is a premier poke tool with multiple spell and item interactions, which has also received multiple buffs over time and has been one of, if not the, core reason of Ezreal's game-breaking rises to the top over the years.
The other skill has almost nothing to offer: minimal damage, no waveclear, no scaling, no disruption and only a gimmick buff to help with sieging and objective, which has failed spectacularly in doing any of those even in a meta where attack speed and double ADC comps have been highly valued.

So to summarize, maybe you guys should take some time and resources and rework Ezreal's W into a useful skill, so you can then drain power from his Q, without destabilizing his entire kit and send him nose-diving to the bottom of the pack again and leave him a more stable state so we won't have to come back here 4-6 months from now over the same song and dance.

SirPurrrNov 17, 20173 votes

{quoted}

If Ezreal is being placed under assessment, then maybe it would be a perfect time to shift some extra resources into such work and look deeper into his kit, specifically the massive imbalance between his Q and his W.

One is a premier poke tool with multiple spell and item interactions, which has also received multiple buffs over time and has been one of, if not the, core reason of Ezreal's game-breaking rises to the top over the years.

The other skill has almost nothing to offer: minimal damage, no waveclear, no scaling, no disruption and only a gimmick buff to help with sieging and objective, which has failed spectacularly in doing any of those even in a meta where attack speed and double ADC comps have been highly valued.

So to summarize, maybe you guys should take some time and resources and rework Ezreal's W into a useful skill, so you can then drain power from his Q, without destabilizing his entire kit and send him nose-diving to the bottom of the pack again and leave him a more stable state so we won't have to come back here 4-6 months from now over the same song and dance.

I think people really underestimate the AS boost W gives potentially 2-3 on his team in teamfights and at Baron. It's not as useless as it feels.

AdalvarNov 17, 201711 votes

Maybe not, but it falls under the concept of "invisible power" that Riot's design philosophy keeps talking about and as such this should not exist either. So many skills and items have been removed over less than this. It may have its uses, but when compared to other items, passives, spells, etc, it feels very bad. To the point where alot of people skip even putting a point into the skill until level 13, much less level it up early for objective taking purposes

Compared to Lich Bane users, Demolish users, teams with multiple Mountain drakes or dedicated DPS character like Karthus, Cassio or Azir who can actually melt objectives, it's a spec of dust. Even in the Ardent meta with hybrid caster ADC's such as Lucian or Corki being played as midlaners, Ezreal was nowhere to be seen outside of some cheese jungle games, even though on paper his W should have been scaling catalyst for botlane hypercarries such as Twitch for instance.

The skill has little to no visible impact or way to grasp how it affected the scenario. And because of how passive and niche this skill is, Ezreal has repeatedly gotten buffs to other parts of his kit (especially his Q) due to having fallen off favour. End result: item shifts cause him to spike massively in performance until said item or his Q (or both) are nerfed again and he falls into the abyss again. Rinse and repeat

Alistar was another character who had the same issues with his passive and E providing too many minor and invisible/passive/niche gains, while his core gameplay was focused too heavily into a single thing which was one-way initiation.

Miss Old RengarNov 17, 201714 votes

Meddler, i have 2 questions for you about Rengar's (announced)possible update. So pls take a look at this.

What will you focus most on his update(his abilities,his gameplay,playstyle,balances(nerfs,buffs...))?

What are the chances that the Rengar is being updated?

ßiggie CheeseNov 17, 201712 votes

Ctrl + F: Volibear 0 out of 0 Cries in Ursine item 3070

RankOneUgandaNov 17, 201712 votes

Riven has ~50% winrate

http://na.op.gg/champion/Riven/

in platinum+. am not sure why is she included here. shes a fairly difficult champion and has a fairly high playrate. similar case for camille.

there are champions for much lower winrate. I don't get why do both of these and fiora have to get buffed whenever they aren ot at 50%.

darius by comparison is an easier champion and has winrate among the other top lane troll picks in vayne galio and lissandra

I mean. Riven has near unparalleled kill pressure top lane. any trade you take with her you're losing half your health from level 3 on. I would absolutely hate it if she gets buffed.

Ars ArcánumNov 17, 20177 votes

Classic Riot favoritism. Riven can't go a patch without having a 50%+ win rate, even though she's picked a lot.

Noxian PrideNov 17, 201710 votes

{quoted}

Riven, Darius, Camille All are bruisers struggling in the new ecosystem, in particular because attack speed's not so valuable on them so Precision keystones are less applicable. Possible other candidates should also be considered here, also possible there's a missing rune needed to support some of these champs. Or that buffing them in general and letting them pick from a wider range of runes is the better call.

This is completely untrue. It's not that we don't like attackspeed. On the contrary, it was normal for a majority of Darius players to run AS quints. It's just the precision tree itself is horrible for Darius as a primary tree, and item-wise we need tankiness more than we need AS. By all means, give us more AS, we'll welcome it happily.

That said, Fervor was extremely valuable to us too, and the lack of an equivalent replacement is one of the big things that hurt (this also hurt Riven players that didn't run TLD). Something to this effect would be nice for the "missing rune"

atomicwitNov 17, 201710 votes

I think Press the Attack needs a melee separation and scaling. Just like the adaptive damage scales on levels, the expose damage should start at half the value.

Seviel VoroseNov 17, 20179 votes

Can we get some insight on bugfixes for Syndra? She's performing very badly because of them.

DarkeusNov 17, 20178 votes

As long as we are not looking at Sona anymore ;-)

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 201714 votes

Apologies, but, we're considering a second pass on Sona as well (not listed here since we just started talking about). She's still potentially out of line.

DarkeusNov 17, 20174 votes

{quoted}

Apologies, but, we're considering a second pass on Sona as well (not listed here since we just started talking about). She's still potentially out of line.

Sona item 3070 Make me cry.....

[sona-playing] Lol

GinoSoldierNov 17, 20176 votes

If i may;

I'm the guy who plays Sona straight AP on a delete-or-be-deleted playstyle, and IF you ever decide you want to hit her mid-late game power, here's a suggestion: Nerf her E AP scaling. It allows Sona to run around without ever buying/upgrading boots for speed necessities (stacking way more AP yo), works amazingly well with the Celerity rune, and provides a ridiculous amount of mobility overall. I keep myself at a constant 5-600 MS due to constant E (with Lich's and Luden's built) usage late game, which puts next to no strain on my mana due to me building Tear early.

Lower safety could mean a transfer of power budget into other aspects of her kit, which she may make better use of.

Similarly, Sona right now starts out as one of the slowest, squishiest champions in the game; if you decide you want to buff her early safety (perhaps as a tradeoff for something else?) you could increase her base %MS on the spell.

Muf için TufNov 17, 20172 votes

I don't think they should give her some early power. Sona is already a lane bully and can provide sustain, mobility and CC. Giving her a stronger early game means they will touch her up a bit mid-late game which is her best time to shine. Her ultimate passive makes you able to spam stuff more frequently. It isn't the most appreciated thing in her kit but it you can really notice the difference if you play her a couple of times.

For the mana cost thing, even with tear, you will be out of mana in a minute or two, spamming all your stuff to reach the ecstasy of mid-late game sona. I don't think they should touch his Q,W or R. Her Q provides some significant mid game power and I don't think they can touch her W since it isn't the best ability on a single target (multiple targets is amazing). I agree with you on her E but you level it up later into the game anyways so her impact shouldn't be as much as you wrote and it should noted that not many people in high elo play her full ap and support players usually have around 200 ap if not less late game. That means she will provide a 3 second 26% movement speed aura every 3.96 seconds later into the game.

I jumped into the practice tool and tested it myself, with 167 AP you will get 71 bonus movement speed. This is almost a permanent (with 0.96 seconds delay) effect. In comparison 3 cloud drakes gives you 75 movement speed.

Sona was and is the biggest Ardent Censer abuser in the game. She is also the biggest Cleptomancy abuser in the game right now since she can proc cleptomancy multiple times in laning phase because of her spammable abilities. They didn't touch her up because her early game is squishy (like most of the caster supports). Si in conclusion I think she should stay the way she is.

GinoSoldierNov 17, 20175 votes

Keep in mind, in my post i was talking mostly about power shifting. Late game, nerf her E scaling (lower mid-late safety) but increase either her W or Q scalings slightly. Or inversely, make E worth putting a point into earlier by not having the spell give out a measly 11% MS (more early safety), but either lower it's scaling, or lower something else, like say, Powerchord damage.

Sona as a champion can pretty much only be balanced around numbers due to her simplistic nature. If she's in a fine spot now, doesn't mean she can't be just as fine with numbers altered appropriately.

DicerXNov 17, 20176 votes

{quoted}

Apologies, but, we're considering a second pass on Sona as well (not listed here since we just started talking about). She's still potentially out of line.

Mate, we the 0.8% Sona mains are discussing this in our subreddit as well, see what we think about a Sona Nerf. Currently, we are desperate when playing this champion; please do balance the system instead, give our Sona a fair chance.

IdolsNov 18, 20174 votes

{quoted}

Apologies, but, we're considering a second pass on Sona as well (not listed here since we just started talking about). She's still potentially out of line.

Isn't it better to see what the nerfs to Aery and Kleptomancy do first? A lot of players are understandably worried about the concept of nerfing Sona, then nerfing part of what makes her strong and just leaving her in a shitty spot; even nerfing her W and armour sucked because her heal does next to nothing anyway especially compared to Soraka

UzumeTennouboshiNov 17, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Darkeus Wolf,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=rwFEZcUi,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-11-17T17:25:18.789+0000)

As long as we are not looking at Sona anymore ;-)

I don't think you realize that besides NA, Sona is not even in the top 10 win rates. It's only the meta of NA being a wildcard region along with all these people just saying she's op that people think so.

ThornyZyraNov 17, 20176 votes

Are Zyra buffs canceled?

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 201712 votes

We've got some Zyra stuff underway aimed at helping her solo lane out. Goal would be around power neutral for support Zyra. Possible those changes make it in for 7.24, we thought the same thing about 7.23 though and then other stuff emerged that was more urgent so we'll see.

ThornyZyraNov 17, 20175 votes

{quoted}

We've got some Zyra stuff underway aimed at helping her solo lane out. Goal would be around power neutral for support Zyra. Possible those changes make it in for 7.24, we thought the same thing about 7.23 though and then other stuff emerged that was more urgent so we'll see.

Thank you so much for answer Zyra

Lesba ZyraNov 17, 20177 votes

Hey, Meddler. Let me introduce myself. Maybe you've heard about me. I've got thousands games with only mid/top Zyra in dia - chall elo. from S3 to pre S8. My game nickname is Lesba Zyra EUNE (had Lesbian Zyra)

Finally I'm glad that you wanna buff mid Zyra only. Her current state as a midlaner is really weak. She needs to buy 2 items that costs over 2 600 (that's mask + pene boots) to deal a decent dmg. Yet. It's easily countered by a simple item for 450g (+25 mr). This means that I don't wanna buy pene items unless I know that enemy wouldn't build that. With old runes I had somewhere around + 21 magic penetration at level 1 that was giving me a nice early spike to win my lane.

I can't buy Banshee or Zhonya since I wouldn't deal any dmg, because of missing magic penetration. She has balanced dmg only with true dmg (that means an enemy has less than 10 MR, because of MR pene items). Her E is hard to hit (very slow skillshot, easily dodged, countered .etc). Usually I am able to burst squishy that has no MR items, if i will buy flat magic penetration.

I was playing against people rushing hexrinker or mercury (or both). I wasn't able to deal any dmg and to be honest, plants are easily killed. I was playing against tanks on top. They bought abyssal mask + mercury and it was over. Early burst did over 33% dmg to that tank.

What's the difference between mid Zyra and bot Zyra?

Mid can farm and is playing a dangerous game, because of junglers. Not saying that enemy jungler can't gank bot too, but it's harder for mid Zyra to survive. Also midlane is full of assasins, jumpers .etc so it's so hard for a casual mid Zyra to survive or play the game. Sometimes I've managed to go 1/8/0, because of an assasin + enemy jungler babysitting me so hard. Or just anyone sitting my lane. Yes. I can play def, yet, plants are always pushing.

What does that mean? She should be rewarded with a nice late game. Something like Nasus, Veigar, Anivia, Kassadin .etc

My idea is giving Zyra a passive that is able to stack just like Nasus or Veigar. I've been thinking about flat magic penetration.

For every 3rd killed cs, she gains +1 flat magic penetration. That would give her a huge late game spike as any other dps mage should have. I'm talking about Anivia, Orianna, Viktor, Velkoz .etc

I know Zyra is designed to play with her (plants),yet, these plants are dying quickly, especially during TF against huge aoe dps dealers or dot users like Singed, Hecarim, Anivia. Anyway she should be able to deal dmg as a midlaner as any of others. For Example Heimer is able to deal extreme burst dmg, so he's got both things. Burst + Aoe control. Same to Azir. If he will use his ult perfectly, he is able to burst too.

She has mostly 'A good dmg graph' only because of poke + mask. Did you ever think playing Zyra without mask? You would see a huge difference. Poking tanks with tons of HP brings a different kind of dmg graphs. or against healers, shielders .etc so I don't believe dmg graphs that much.

To be honest. I've been always prefering burst Zyra over dps. That's why I'm rushing protobelt to gain more burst potencial. Unfortunately she is able to do that only with her ultimate. So I have no other way to decrease ult timer, because I've got to buy full magic penetration build (mask, boots, void).

So in the end, if you will give her this passive (3/4 cs = 1 magic pene), then she can build other items like HG, Banshee, Raba, Lich Bane .etc It can make her a really interesting midlaner. A squishy non-mobile champion should be rewarded with something, don't you think? And you can easily balanced her by increasing/decreasing magic penetration gain.

Thank you for your time to read my ideas and experiences.

Sonic AdventureNov 17, 20172 votes

Don't buff her too much please. She's in a good spot now and it'd be boring to see her every other game. Ty.

-D5 Zyra main.

Lesba ZyraNov 17, 201710 votes

[{quoted}](name=Keytar Dragon,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=rwFEZcUi,comment-id=000600000007,timestamp=2017-11-17T22:17:13.450+0000)

Don't buff her too much please. She's in a good spot now and it'd be boring to see her every other game. Ty.

-D5 Zyra main.

He is talking about mid Zyra. As a midlaner, she has really weak spot now.

Solari FortuneNov 17, 20176 votes

Don't go too hard on Leona please. At least wait until you see what Aftershock nerfs do then decide if she needs nerfs herself

Thien Chau1Nov 17, 20176 votes

I agree. Leona and Taric may only seen strong because of the active/passive armor they gain that puts them at an advantage since we don't have armor runes anymore rather than the Aftershock rune.

IxtaliKingNov 17, 20176 votes

Hey Meddler, you've mentioned the possibility of small mechanical changes to Karma early next year - if you go through the update, will you take the opportunity to add her missing animations/particles? (Haste, shield, twin dragons etc...)

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 20175 votes

Karma work sometime next year's likely to be very gameplay focused. We'll be able to make changes to animations/spell effects/audio as needed for kit changes, but won't have that much scope for other work.

ThryaleNov 17, 20173 votes

speaking of karma work, are you able to give us yer preliminary thoughts on her, and where you'd like to take her?

MetaKaizerNov 17, 20176 votes

Thoughts on Mordekaiser ? Would u consider him in a "balanced" spot or too weak?

DarkrownNov 17, 20175 votes

any changes for Quinn underway? o:

MrKyngNov 17, 20174 votes

I would love if Relic Shield item 3302 and it's upgrades item 3097 item 3401 item 2303 got a little display like smite showing how much damage the execute function will do on a minion so that I am not doing the "check my item's hover info and then click on a minion to see how much health it has to make sure I share the canon minion before my adc takes it all for himself" game.

I don't get to last hit very often so making it as easy for me as possible would probably be good. =)

DısdaınNov 17, 20174 votes

Can you confirm what happens after the Leblanc mini-rework? Is Rengar high on the ladder for the next mini-rework?

One35Nov 17, 20174 votes

Hi Meddler, are there any plans to tone down the ridiculous lane harass potential Teemo has right now? His AA procs Scorch and double Aerys, and people consider him one of the strongest top laners ATM in community tier lists.

Here's a link explaining the details of Teemo's over-synergy with new runes: http://www.nerfplz.com/2017/11/fotm-report-teemo-rune-domination.html

QuešNov 17, 20173 votes

Hey Meddler. Can we get some insight on possible Yorick nerf?

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 20175 votes

Not sure yet sorry, as above:

"These are also generally notes about things we'll be looking at, not as you'll note a list of what we'll actually be changing. That's because we haven't yet done the work to figure that out in most cases."

QuešNov 17, 20173 votes

I ve suggested it before and I ll say it again ... Dont nerf his trading if possible,his pushing potential should be looked at imo.

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 20178 votes

Feedback noted. Given his interactions with Triforce/Sterak's Yorick did gain more than most off the increased base AD in 7.22 though, so it's not just his pushing power that recently got increased.

QuešNov 17, 20173 votes

That is true.But every triforce champion got buffed by this,because every triforce user got +8 AD.

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 201710 votes

Agreed, Yorick gets extra benefit as one of the smaller number who also builds Sterak's though. A number of TriForce users, Yorick not included, also lost some power with Fervor not getting directly replaced. Yorick by contrast did not.

zecastarNov 17, 201712 votes

{quoted}

Feedback noted. Given his interactions with Triforce/Sterak's Yorick did gain more than most off the increased base AD in 7.22 though, so it's not just his pushing power that recently got increased.

Please don't buff Riven lol! she's not weaker... see Viper.

I don't think Corki's sleeper OP at all. In fact, he was one of the few midlaners who used to take a full MR glyphs page. It was very useful vs most matchups. For example, today I died vs Syndra in a situation I know for sure I'd have been OK with my full scaling HP and scaling MR page (~level 8). On the other hand, traditional AP mids only tended to have 3 MR glyphs because they wanted CDR. I know he's supposed to be a scaling/farm lane early but he feels weaker than before till TF-Sorcs.

He's a well-known champion with a decent playrate and as lolalytics shows, he is simply mediocre atm. Even his late game winrate is only 50% despite him being an ADC and some expectation of indirect benefit for this patch. Corki's always overrated because people see his damage and that's a very visceral strength point. It's similar to how people think Zed's OP after he has some clean kills... ignoring that it's literally all he can do and it only occurs in specific conditions. Getting blown up is very raw and quickly leads to complaints even if in fact, the said champion isn't OP at all. I don't even main mid but it's frustrating that Corki has historically been overnerfed a lot nearly every year. Even when he was popular in pro play, his performance was nothing special. He wasn't actually pick/ban - he tended to be the mid that was let through after priority bans like Syndra. Moreover, just like in SQ, he was highly overrated in competitive - as his simply average performance showed (and this is with comps. built to have extra CC/frontline to help him excel).

As an ADC, Corki's supposed to be strong late and yet I don't think he truly outscales many of mids (Veigar, Anivia, Azir, Karthus, Kassadin, Cass, Malzahar, possibly even Annie etc.). Of course, as an ADC, if he is facing only a single target for an extended time, he probably would outdamge many mids but simply having more damage in that specific case is expected and isn't about overall scaling. He's also much more gold reliant than other mids since his kit has no CC or other contribution to teamfights. Those weaknesses are actually really significant even if more subtle (and people naturally think they deserve that situation since they made mid be behind). For example, an Anivia who is behind still has fantastic waveclear, can slow the enemy team, controls where they walk, can stun them etc. Corki can throw an R or two. He requires either decent gold or to be ahead of the game/have his rather telgraphed roams work out.

I think Malzahar might still be a problem though. It's not clear to me since again, it's an easy champion to overrate because of his "haha I killed you with RW" feeling. I still detest facing Anivia more though. I'll also say that I'm shocked Kassadin with Ultimate Hat isn't performing any better. Anti assassin, high mobility champions tend to excel in squishy metas.

StinrygarNov 17, 20175 votes

{quoted}

Please don't buff Riven lol! she's not weaker... see Viper.

I don't think Corki's sleeper OP at all. In fact, he was one of the few midlaners who used to take a full MR glyphs page. It was very useful vs most matchups. For example, today I died vs Syndra in a situation I know for sure I'd have been OK with my full scaling HP and scaling MR page (~level 8). On the other hand, traditional AP mids only tended to have 3 MR glyphs because they wanted CDR. I know he's supposed to be a scaling/farm lane early but he feels weaker than before till TF-Sorcs.

He's a well-known champion with a decent playrate and as lolalytics shows, he is simply mediocre atm. Even his late game winrate is only 50% despite him being an ADC and some expectation of indirect benefit for this patch. Corki's always overrated because people see his damage and that's a very visceral strength point. It's similar to how people think Zed's OP after he has some clean kills... ignoring that it's literally all he can do and it only occurs in specific conditions. Getting blown up is very raw and quickly leads to complaints even if in fact, the said champion isn't OP at all. I don't even main mid but it's frustrating that Corki has historically been overnerfed a lot nearly every year. Even when he was popular in pro play, his performance was nothing special. He wasn't actually pick/ban - he tended to be the mid that was let through after priority bans like Syndra. Moreover, just like in SQ, he was highly overrated in competitive - as his simply average performance showed (and this is with comps. built to have extra CC/frontline to help him excel).

As an ADC, Corki's supposed to be strong late and yet I don't think he truly outscales many of mids (Veigar, Anivia, Azir, Karthus, Kassadin, Cass, Malzahar, possibly even Annie etc.). Of course, as an ADC, if he is facing only a single target for an extended time, he probably would outdamge many mids but simply having more damage in that specific case is expected and isn't about overall scaling. He's also much more gold reliant than other mids since his kit has no CC or other contribution to teamfights. Those weaknesses are actually really significant even if more subtle (and people naturally think they deserve that situation since they made mid be behind). For example, an Anivia who is behind still has fantastic waveclear, can slow the enemy team, controls where they walk, can stun them etc. Corki can throw an R or two. He requires either decent gold or to be ahead of the game/have his rather telgraphed roams work out.

I think Malzahar might still be a problem though. It's not clear to me since again, it's an easy champion to overrate because of his "haha I killed you with RW" feeling. I still detest facing Anivia more though. I'll also say that I'm shocked Kassadin with Ultimate Hat isn't performing any better. Anti assassin, high mobility champions tend to excel in squishy metas.

AP Trist was similarly overrated. "OMG SHE 1 SHOT ME!!! SO OP!!!!!!" I wish Riot wouldn't listen to such clowns and make balance decisions off it. Although, in this case it was also very gimmicky and snowbally (not the most compelling gameplay). She basically hoped you didn't understand her level 3 damage (getting a kill most times - kind of like Talon did level 2) and that let her constantly stay in 1-shot territory. However, her CDs were pretty long so if she didn't get ahead enough to 1 shot, she'd be basically useless. Her waveclear was atrocious and her DPS was pathetic too. Her kit didn't offer anything else useful if behind either. She was actually a weak mid laner if people played vs her competently but people didn't want to deal with the "my mid's clueless and now Trist's just going to reset off our entire team and kill every lane" situation. Despite all the complaining, I doubt even her winrate was good. My point is that AP Trist was never OP objectively but damage, especially high burst, always makes people scream OP even if the champion they're facing is actually terrible overall.

Never FF BoyNov 17, 20172 votes

Still no change for Yi ? He's still weak, even with the runes ... I'm seriously gonna think you hate that champion.

SkiasNov 17, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=i e v e n,realm=EUW,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=rwFEZcUi,comment-id=009b,timestamp=2017-11-17T20:30:49.299+0000)

Still no change for Yi ? He's still weak, even with the runes ...

Yi feels so terrible now, I agree. I've tried him a few times, it's just awful.

SpideraxeNov 17, 20171 votes

Hey Meddler can I ask how you got into game design from a field like transportation as someone who wants to get in as well

RiotMeddlerNov 17, 20175 votes

Riot looks for people for design from non game industry or computer science backgrounds, with a preference for people with analytical experience (e.g. hard science, engineering, law etc). I was working as a Civil Engineer (transport modeling specifically) and spotted a job opening being talked about on the old LoL General Discussion forums which I followed since I was playing LoL.

In terms of more general advice the biggest thing I'd recommend is finding opportunities to get hands on design experience. Stuff like making mods for existing games, board/card game physical prototyping, written analysis etc. It's possible to learn quite a lot that way and, importantly, it also gives you things you can talk to prospective employers about. Someone with a playable Starcraft 2 mod or home made board game they've been playtesting for a while for example will look like a much more promising candidate than the same person without.