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Quick Gameplay Thoughts: September 13

RiotMeddler·9/13/2019, 3:49:02 PM·1 votes·97,369 views

Hi folks,

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 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

Clash

The recent test in Korea went well. Still on track as hoped towards the Global Beta later in the year as a result. Next up we've got some testing in a couple of regular sized regions, with EU West as a bit of a pre global beta miniboss to beat on the horizon.

State of the Pro Meta going into Worlds

The next patch (9.19) is the one Worlds will be using. We'll be making some individual champ adjustments to outliers in it but aren't going to be doing anything that should majorly shake things up. We believe the pro meta's in a really good state overall, including state of game pacing and early conflict. Very excited to see what the clash of different regions in Worlds brings as a result.

Some possible champs for small scale balance changes in 9.19 below. This isn't a list of champs definitely getting buffed or nerfed it's a list of champs we're currently assessing. Likely some get removed, possibly one or two get added.

Buffs: Ashe, Blitzcrank, Cassiopeia, Fiora, Graves, Heimerdinger, Mordekaiser, Orianna, Ornn, Rek'Sai, Riven, Sion, Twisted Fate, Vayne, Veigar, Xin Zhao, Zac

Nerfs: Gragas, Karma, Sejuani, Sylas, Tahm Kench, Yuumi,

TFT PVE Drops

So far we think the revised PVE drop system in TFT is showing good promise but also needs some polishing. We believe it's doing a good job of reducing unfairness (mainly) while keeping a lot of variance of game experience. We're looking at adjustments to things like Spatula drop rate, how early players can get 4 cost units, whether we're now injecting a bit too much gold into the system, where on the battlefield drops fall etc. Expect to see changes to address a range of issues in 9.19 as a result. If there are particular issues you're feeling with the changes now's the ideal time to talk about them in terms of our ability to implement and test changes for the next patch.

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

198 Comments

Sir Rouge9/13/2019, 4:16:50 PM24 votes

What is the direction of the Karma nerfs? I'm assuming the nerf is pro focused, so maybe target something that really affects pro?

Maybe hit the RE movement speed? Or another type of nerf focused on RE?

This one would affect solo q a lot, but maybe take off a bit of RQ damage and transfer it to W?

Anything but base stat nerfs and base Q nerfs hopefully.

Tomosuke9/13/2019, 5:30:52 PM22 votes

Why is Karma getting gutted all the time? If thats the case, give her a new reincarnation. Being one of the first to get a new visual update, at the time she fit. Now since League has changed so much and newer champions with complex kits have emerged-- accompanied by improvements to tech-- she needs a new coat of paint with those improvements; instead of constantly tweaking numbers or just removing something.

Go back to the drawing board and decide on what you want her to be. Is she going to be a Mage main who can support? Just a support? What? As of now, she does multiple things, but never fully exceeds in anything and late game always reduces her to just being a shield bot. I main her for years, even before she was now noticed again by pro play. Even when she was literally forgotten or got unnecessary kit removals. I'm kinda annoyed that everything in League is centered around pros who just pick a champ because they found an edge and will quickly dump them once an unqualified nerf takes away that 'edge'.

From her lore, to her looks, to her gameplay-- its dated. Whats worse is the fact that other champions disregard her. Irelia talks down to her. Akali threatens to kill her. If she is supposed to be this regal well known inspirational leader of Ionia, her kit needs to show that. Her interactions need that too.

TL;DR: Who is Karma? What exactly is she supposed to be? If that can't be answered, she is doomed to constant nerfs and patch works-- followed by more nerfs.

Wukong Airlines9/13/2019, 6:33:50 PM13 votes

[deleted]

Dªenerys9/13/2019, 4:22:40 PM13 votes

Please help me to understand why you are nerfing Yuumi ? In_** Diamond+ ELO she has a 44% winrate**_. Riven immediately gets a buff when she drops to 48% WR... I'm sorry but I'm very confused.

IlyaK19869/13/2019, 4:24:39 PM10 votes

Hey Meddler, question...

What happens to all the champions that have been utterly destroyed as a result of pro presence once Worlds is over? Irelia, Akali, Sejuani, Yuumi, Aatrox, Azir...the list goes on and on. Are they just going to continue to be "champions you hope never to see on your team"? Or will something be done to get them to 49.5%-50.5% in solo queue play? I'm not just talking about average tier here. I'm talking about the fact that LOLalytics has Irelia at below 47% winrate pretty consistently in DIAMOND and higher, worldwide, when it's generally a really, really bad thing when a champion drops below 49% win rate unless they're extremely popular.

You can't possibly make the argument of "we're happy where <> is" when they have such awful winrates that nobody trying to climb would ever want to see them on their team.

Considering how often Riot says "this is a pro-play nerf", what about the opposite of that, which is a "solo-queue focused buff"?

That is, can we please get an acknowledgement that other individuals (in fact, the vast majority of individuals) besides the 300 or so pro players globally play this game, and that they should also be able to play champions they want to, as opposed to being essentially forbidden from playing champions so undertuned because a few teams play under exceptionally coordinated circumstances that solo queue players generally can't?

AIQ9/13/2019, 4:13:55 PM9 votes

Hey Meddler please answer what you can.

Warwick was recently touched on his W, the bonuses are still dropping due to targets being between him and his hunted target. To me this bug is too game breaking for WW to justify leaving him in this state. do you know if the team was unable to deal with the W at least?

WW also suffers from other issues, but maybe a small buff to survivability would help him. Buffing his E or making his Q instantly heal vs with a delay could help him a lot.

Shyvana Can she have a QOL buff where she gains fury while dead? And scale with Elder dragon? These are not huge, but will make Shyvana feel a lot better.

Swains Q spread is still too much, can we narrow it by 10 units or so, it can be compensated by a decreased % for additional Qs, but targets 150 units away will only get hit buy 2 maybe 3.

Jungle EXP is in a horrible place. Red side is clearly too valuable, and ganking / leeching is too rewarding. Do you think reducing the re-spawn timers and moving some EXP to blue side would assist in increasing the overall EXP and punish gankers a bit without changing too much?

Thanks

xox BaByDoLL xox9/14/2019, 1:40:55 AM9 votes

I would genuinely love to know why you guys refuse to touch one of the more broken champs in the game - Pyke. Easily S+ OP status as a "support", insane gold in-come and isn't nearly punished enough for bad engages. You have mediocre players playing Pyke and getting a MUCH higher value on him than a really good player would get on the majority of the other champs in the game - yet alone supports who don't have hooks.

These Yuumi nerfs are harsh, but fine imo since she's a support - not a solo laner or ADC, but what I don't understand is why you nerf her and others repetitively and desperately try to bring her to a proper status as a support (aka, not able to assist but so-much in kills), a champ that isn't S+, S, or even A tier in most ranks and has a crap win rate.....but you continuously let pyke skate.....a champ that's not S, but S+ tier, and absurdly popular because of how cheap and powerful he is right now.

I don't understand the logic. You keep nerfing Akali into the ground, yet Pyke skates. LOGIC? Also, some of the other buffs going on.....it really does seem like you are indeed playing favorites. I try to ignore people saying it's favoritism and bias, or that you guys purposely are trying to push certain champs into play at Worlds, and give you guys the benefit of the doubt..... but I'm running out of reasons for a lot of the balance changes you guys are making.....there is literally no other reason to keep letting pyke skate...

And what's bad about champs like Pyke being in the shape he is, is that you have mediocre players thinking they're really good...and this goes on for too long....and then when the busted champ they main is brought down to where they need to be, the player gets frustrated because suddenly they're not doing good anymore. I personally know people who main Pyke and do fantastic on him but literally are mediocre af on nearly every other champ and can seemingly not do well bot support without a hook, and even then it's not nearly as good as they do on pyke. I also had an Akali main friend that thought they were so good until she got the hammer and now won't touch her, or the game, because they're mad that they can't do as well. That's a problem, and the longer you let it go on the longer you screw with people's progression/gameplay experience. Thing is, you guys are at least dealing with Akali over and over and over again, but Pyke keeps sliding under the radar...

Hadriel9/13/2019, 4:47:34 PM9 votes

Why nerf Karma when she doesn't meet any of the nerf criteria you guys outlined for nerfs? Presence at last competitive patch was 54%, nerf line is 80 for 2 consecutive patches or 90+ in a single patch. No soloqueue lines crossed, not even close. Presence is actually going down in competitive patch to patch, 100% in 9.12, 90% 9.13, got nerfed, and patch to patch presence since then has been 70, 56, 54, 36% at current patch (low sample).

Squii9/13/2019, 8:18:03 PM9 votes

"We'll be making some individual champ adjustments to outliers in it but aren't going to be doing anything that should majorly shake things up."

proceeds to slaughter Karma's core ability

evilsforreals9/13/2019, 5:58:39 PM8 votes

Is Karma being moved into purely support? It seems strange to be nerfing her now while her pick and success rate have been down. Hopefully maybe making some changes that add additional skill ceiling or interactivity could definitely benefit her from being relegated to just a shield/ms bot in the late game.

DJBlackVoice9/13/2019, 4:01:20 PM8 votes

About Shaco, is possible have any buff on E before 9.23/9.24? His state is pretty a joke right now, and since Lee can be buffed every 14 days, dont get why for shaco we must wait 4 months more.

insejuaniwetrust9/13/2019, 4:36:59 PM7 votes

Why sejuani nerf when se has 44 win rate in soloq, just rever sejuani she is not unbalanceable for proplay just rever the stupid retwork #revertsejuaniSejuani

NotSoEvilDead9/13/2019, 4:43:45 PM7 votes

revert the awful aurelion sol rework

thanks

Galiö9/13/2019, 4:23:50 PM7 votes

Scale back the Riven and Ori buffs please

And dont nerf Gragas. Karma and Tahm!

Kthx

(My brain hurts too much to bother making a dissertation as to why those changes should be averted)

Coolkipp9/13/2019, 4:29:44 PM7 votes

Nice finally some ashe buffs, she feels so much weaker than picks like cait or kaisa right now.

I understand that ashe is supposed to have the tradeoff of utility in her crowd control, however her damage and cc are extremely lacking right now compared to the hyper mobility in the game. And picks like cait and kaisa have extreme offensive and defensive utility compared to her and still do not suffer damage penalties for it.

Here are some current qol suggestions/fixes for ashe which would give her more options/effectiveness without hard buffing numbers:

  • Fix the q buff running out interrupting your current auto attack.

  • Allow guinsoo's rageblade to grant extra stacks of focus for q. Kai'sa is allowed to double dip on rageblade with her passive damage+execute as well as e cooldown, kind of a large power differential there.

  • Q stacks (not the active) being refreshed by ability usage like jhin 4th shot.

  • Add the true auto reset back to q.

  • Allow Q to stack on turrets. Like caitlyn headshot.

  • There is currently a bug on her w that reveals her in fog when she uses it - I have footage and will provide it when ready, but it is pretty straightforward to replicate. The ability is treated as a single target ability due to it only dealing a single instance of damage to each target regardless of how many arrows hit it. Therefor revealing her when it will done (it reveals her if they are in the aoe and leave) or has done damage.

  • Buff q dps somehow it's super weak

  • Buff passive crit scaling in compensation for ie nerf.

  • I have been having to take fleet+approach velocity to actually be able to kite/chase people properly due to the movement creep. I do not know what can be done to fix this outside of buffing ashe's base movespeed from 325 to 330 or 335 like kaisa, especially given kaisa has way more tools to help with her positioning.

Here are some other qol which would be great for the champion but are probably considered larger scope changes.

  • Allow e to be cast while moving

  • Lower/remove the mana cost on her q, a mana cost can be added to e (as it does not have one) or w cost made to scale up a little in return.

  • Make e reveal stealthed/camouflaged champions in the explosion radius.

  • Add knock-down to her ultimate so that she can freeze enemy dashes reactively - it is described as a knockdown on the wiki but it does not in fact interrupt dashes.

  • Q given a bonus attack speed scaling like varus passive or allowing it to break the attack speed cap.

This is the original post these were taken from: https://www.reddit.com/r/AsheMains/comments/anblfn/ashe_really_needs_some_modernization_to_keep_up/

Also please consider reverting lissandra q nerf, her main community has died out so hard because the cooldown change ruined all of her all in combos and snowball potential for higher damage builds.

Silverman439/13/2019, 4:18:34 PM6 votes

Hello Meddler, any thoughts on Maokai?

He has hardly enough sample data on OP.GG and he feels kinda meh across all his roles; toplane, jungle and support. There currently isn't any reason to pick him instead of any other tank due to how unreliable his only form of tankyness/sustain is. In addition to this, his current ult is almost unnoticeable if you can't cast it from long range and even then it is quite slow and one frontliner can just completely deny it if the rest of his team stands behind him.

Many Maokai players, including me, would like to see a new (mini-) rework for him at this point. The biggest reason is that many would love to see his ultimate more in the style of his old ult. I know damage reduction for his whole team is too OP, but there are multiple ways to give him a part of his spell eating tank identity back.

Thanks

Jenivie9/14/2019, 9:03:46 PM6 votes

Like.... is there a reason you pick 6 to 7 people to respond to on each of these posts and just ignore the rest? Lol...

Naalith9/13/2019, 4:27:29 PM6 votes

Are you planning on buffing back champions who took some hits due to pro play on 9.20?

PowerOfDrainAge9/13/2019, 3:50:59 PM5 votes

For Xin Zhao, could you please not make utility buffs on a champion that used to be a carry duelist at the lvl of Jax? Reduce his early strength a tiny bit and push his lategame a lot instead.

Staph! Yuumi and Catfish are already dead :(

Also looking forward for some light cassiopeia buffs. Can definitely be satisfying to watch her in pro play too.

Bliss Ocean9/13/2019, 4:56:08 PM5 votes

Any planned changes for item 3303 and the Midlane Rejects aka Brand Velkoz Xerath who ruin bot lane as supports.

Zemasu9/13/2019, 5:07:44 PM5 votes

Why are you buffing Riven this much, while leaving Asol in that state?

Asol rework did 2 things well: Q that follow you if you are faster, and E that goes faster and further. Unfortunatelly you will go faster than Q only with a leveled E, so one time each 60+ seconds.

But. E passive removal and W change ruined the champ. Why should I play Asol as a burst mage he is now, when i can play another burst mage, safer and with a better poke-sustained damage and range?

If you wanna keep him in this state, while you overbuff your monkeychamps to get moneys, at least try something you did in URF.

You can make Asol feel better and funnier to play with 2 changes:

  • Number of stars increase by 1 at level 6,11,16 like we see in ARURF. (He is the 'Center of the Universe', so what could be cool if not a space dragon that really feels as something really cosmic?)
  • Q damage increase with distance traveled. Maybe not like zoe, but i would add at least a 150-170% modifier to the base damage. (Right now a maxed out Q is a meme, you will never hit any mobile or immobile champ, it works only in ARAM, and if you hit congratulation, you stunned ppl for a short amount of time and healed them).
  • Also the Q 20% mov speed is cool, but you'll still go slower than the old 10% with E passive.
Shahamut9/13/2019, 8:00:30 PM5 votes

Is there anything being looked at for my favorite champion Skarner ?

Its been, what, 4 years since his jugger-fail change? There have been so many threads, many of which got a lot of attention from the community, but on the whole it feels as though we are being ignored by you guys. I know that I specifically got this response from a rioter in a gameplay+ thread:

RoitMapleNectar

Going to take a mental note of this thread. Skarner was one of the champs on a short list of champs we were willing to explore at sort of a Xin Zhao level, and one of the leading ideas was to remove spires and replace it with something else. Unfortunately I don't have much beyond that to add here at this time, but you clearly put a lot of thought into this, and I'll forward it along to the designer who ends up taking on that project in the future!

but this is the most we have seen and this was a year ago.

Please, anything is better than nothing.

Support Position9/14/2019, 3:41:29 PM5 votes

The next patch (9.19) is the one Worlds will be using. We'll be making some individual champ adjustments to outliers in it but aren't going to be doing anything that should majorly shake things up. We believe the pro meta's in a really good state overall, including state of game pacing and early conflict. Very excited to see what the clash of different regions in Worlds brings as a result.

Do you even play the fucking game anymore...? If not... Can you stop bothering with dev posts... As truly... This company is making me throw up :/

Groove Crusader9/13/2019, 4:13:00 PM4 votes

Hey Meddler,

Since Aatrox is pretty dead after the last patch, and ideas on what potential gameplay work he might see to make him not that?

CSDragon9/13/2019, 7:29:55 PM4 votes

Can some less popular under-performing champs get some love

Quinn feels useless everywhere

DeathBurst9/13/2019, 3:57:31 PM4 votes

Hey Meddler o/

Any news about the Sona ammo bar? Did you manage to ping someone? What did they say?

The Cane Master9/13/2019, 5:21:23 PM3 votes

In the last couple of months, all top laners have been buffed. This includes Nasus ’ hardest counters in Darius , Fiora , Trundle , Illaoi , Kled , Renekton , Shen , and Olaf. In spite of these buffs, you haven’t compensated Nasus whatsoever? For crying out loud, even DrMundo got buffed and now they are Riven and Sion buffs pending? Ignorance and/or incompetency to the max.

GEZZEY9/16/2019, 8:18:17 PM3 votes

wow only 6 replies what a waste of time