Quick Gameplay Thoughts: March 30

RiotMeddler·Mar 30, 2017·1 votes·63,046 views

Hi folks,

More words below, hope your weeks have treated you well so far!

Aurelion Sol

Apologies if I've mentioned this before and forgotten, been seeing some questions about it still. After testing a few different directions we concluded that a mini update on Aurelion Sol wasn't something we thought we should do, at least not in the short to medium term. He's still got a couple of issues we'd like to improve at some point (play and counterplay around star use, Q satisfaction). The possible changes we were testing didn't work out as well as we'd hoped in game though, creating an experience that wasn't more appealing for people who weren't already interested in playing Aurelion Sol and was often felt as worse for those who already play Aurelion Sol. We've cut that work off as a result and are putting the time into other projects that look likely to give more game improvement for the hours spent.

Aatrox

We'll be doing some further followup on Aatrox in 7.8. Primary target's going to be making it so Aatrox has a less terrible time of it if he's jungling. Exact changes uncertain, though we'll be looking at passive interactions as a possibility of course.

Udyr

We should have some changes to Udyr in 7.8 too. Current things we're targeting there are making Tiger a more viable build and adding a bit of power to Turtle. Probably hitting PBE early next week.

Responses to these threads

I'd imagine this is pretty obvious already to anyone who's read through a few of these threads, but for anyone new figured it was worth clarifying how I approach these threads a bit. With the occasional exception I'll put a post up and then put time aside at least once during that day to respond to some of the discussion thread below it. I'll sometimes put time into reading a thread/responding further the day after as well, though that's less consistent. After that I'll have moved on to a more recent thread generally though, so apologies, but anything posted after that's very unlikely to get answered and may not get read either.

In terms of what sort of stuff I prioritize responding to I'm more likely to get into discussions about some of the things discussed in the opening post, talk on major issues/perceived issues with the current state of the game and champions we've recently worked on or are about to work on. Something I'd like to avoid is every single thread becoming a set of 'What do you think of X champion' for every champion in the game every time, so I'll generally skip those questions if there's nothing concrete to talk about.

Doran's Shield Changes

Continue to test pretty well. Highly likely they're part of mid-season as a result.

238 Comments

ÜdyrMar 30, 201714 votes

Meddler - You mention Tiger but no Phoenix changes on Udyr. I see Phoenix in a relatively worse state than Tiger - especially early game. Thoughts?

HammerbjörnMar 30, 20176 votes

I can confirm, Tiger is in a relatively good state right now. You don't have that much difficulties clearing camps when you build Tiamat or when you're counter-jungling, going for the invade/kills. Tiger ambushes are pretty stong, the DOT secures easily a kill after blowing the enemy flash. Meanwhile, Phoenix is just straight weak, it's the supposed to be the "farming stance" but it's outperfomed by other farming junglers like Shyvana who has also better ganking and duelling tools (%HP damage and a burst of movment speed).

By doing these buffs to tiger stance you're asking players to neglect Phoenix Stance and make Udyr players going for the kills with Tiger. His early game gameplay resolves more arround ambushes than ganks due to the atrocious low speed of Bear Stance. It's sometimes wiser to farm against bad matchups but right now you won't get any advantage, usually losing xp due to the low clear speed of Tiger Stance (things Phoenix Stance should be able to perform but doesn't right now).

TL;DR: IMO Your're forcing the Tiger-Tiamat build over Pheonix Stance.

FenikkuroMar 30, 20179 votes

Hey Meddler,

Just a point of concern about the Camille changes on the PBE, I'm aware her main role is top and that's what the balance changes are targeting, but some of us really enjoy Camille jungle, even though her main weakness is her god-awful pre-tiamat clear. That being said making her W heal only work on champions would only exacerbate the weaknesses of Camille jungle. I think the goal of the changes would still be accomplished by allowing her to heal from jungle monsters while removing the minion heal.

RedesignatedMar 30, 20171 votes

The problem I can see this having is Camille utilizing the on-monster heal to dip into her jungle, sweep a camp, and then quickly return to lane with her absurd mobility with health she gained out of nowhere. I don't think Riot's concerned enough with jungle Camille to look into adding a monster-only heal that wouldn't create that kind of situation, unfortunately. :/

what you deserveMar 30, 20173 votes

{quoted}

The problem I can see this having is Camille utilizing the on-monster heal to dip into her jungle, sweep a camp, and then quickly return to lane with her absurd mobility with health she gained out of nowhere. I don't think Riot's concerned enough with jungle Camille to look into adding a monster-only heal that wouldn't create that kind of situation, unfortunately. :/

I don't think that kind of situation is really all that ridiculous. It's not going to be a massive heal anyway, just what it is on live but making it apply only to JG creeps.

SpideraxeMar 30, 20178 votes

Hey Meddler are you guys going to look at Poachers Dirk?

redfeenixMar 30, 20172 votes

Whats that?

Jeddy017Mar 30, 20176 votes

item 3056 's Cousin's Uncle's son.

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20174 votes

Likely will at some point, we do feel it's too weak. We've avoided buffing it however because we've seen a lot of its potential users (e.g. Shaco or Rengar) be too strong for significant periods and haven't wanted to push power into their items until their kits are better off.

xxxDogmanxxxMar 30, 20177 votes

Holy shit, for the first time ever I caught one of Meddler's QGT's just as it goes up!

Meddler! Since you've mentioned before that Xin Zhao's in the Tier 1 list of updateable champions after the Tank Class update, are there any plans/changes for him that you guys are already working on? Any news on him is much appreciated!

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20176 votes

Nothing at present. It'll be a while until we're able to talk about class updates post tanks. Right now that part of the Champion Update team's highest priority is getting the tank updates finished off, so their time to figure out what we should be doing next (which class, which champs) is really limited.

castlecrashsteveMar 30, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Nothing at present. It'll be a while until we're able to talk about class updates post tanks. Right now that part of the Champion Update team's highest priority is getting the tank updates finished off, so their time to figure out what we should be doing next (which class, which champs) is really limited.

Do you plan on doing a pass on base armor/mr much like when you changed armor runes even on those not selected?

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20173 votes

We'll probably be giving a bit of MR/level to those without any at present (mainly ranged champs). No plans for base stat passes beyond that right now.

xxxDogmanxxxMar 30, 20175 votes

Aww... okay then! We appreciate your regular QGT's, by the way. Thanks for the response, Meddler!

Stay CushyMar 30, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Nothing at present. It'll be a while until we're able to talk about class updates post tanks. Right now that part of the Champion Update team's highest priority is getting the tank updates finished off, so their time to figure out what we should be doing next (which class, which champs) is really limited.

The Rek'sai Changes are gonna happen after mid season still right?

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20177 votes

Yes.

AhristocatsMar 30, 20176 votes

Is something going to be done about Lulu?

It's rare for a game to happen in high elo without Lulu being Picked or Banned, and she keeps a high win rate Do you think Lulu is being banned for wrong reasons?

i wonder what you think about this, because it reminds me the case of Corki where he dominated high elo for months before riot realised that he needed nerfs

RedesignatedMar 30, 20176 votes

It's more a symptom of other supports getting nerfed and the game changing around her to let her be viable. She's the only support with an attack speed buff built-in (I'm not going to count Nunu here), BotRK just got buffed, and Lethality just got hard nerfed along with most of the champions that benefit from it.

Plus, her ultimate is a counter against Rengar and divers — current meta strongly favors Rengar and turret-diving bot lane to try and snowball quickly. She can also work well with Rengar and diving if the situation is right, but she's sacrificing her ultimate in an effort to make a play for it and it's usually pretty easy to see coming.

tl;dr less a problem with Lulu, more the entire game getting shifted to favor her.

The Fake ShacoMar 30, 20174 votes

Can we get a comment on the shaco nerfs? We would like to know what you're targetting with the recent nerfs, as we think bruiser shaco is op and needs nerfed.... But these changes hurt AP and AD assassin shaco more than bruiser. (Specifically the q damage removal. As an AP player losing the 80 base and the ratio no longer scaling off the 130% bonus hurts.) If you think all shaco builds needed a nerf that is fine, we just want to know.

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 201711 votes

We do want to nerf Shaco in general. What we're targeting specifically here is amount of damage that occurs right at the start of an engagement (Shaco gets a lot of tricks to play with, so shouldn't be too front loaded). Can see some risk of bruiser Shaco becoming too ideal, will keep an eye on that, that's not something we're trying to make happen.

Pink WardMar 30, 201711 votes

{quoted}

We do want to nerf Shaco in general. What we're targeting specifically here is amount of damage that occurs right at the start of an engagement (Shaco gets a lot of tricks to play with, so shouldn't be too front loaded). Can see some risk of bruiser Shaco becoming too ideal, will keep an eye on that, that's not something we're trying to make happen.

Addressing the nerf to Ap ratio on Q. Was there any thought of keeping just the ap part of it and allowing it to crit like it currently does? I think taking off the ability for it to crit is gonna further diminish the viability of the ap shaco playstyle. This will seem like a rant, but Shaco had 45% ap ratio taken off of E (120% prerework down to 75% along with -20% since backstab is no longer the same) and that damage was put onto Q. This was with the thought that the ratio on Q can crit. You are adding compensation on his passive, but it will be a flat ap ratio. Adding to that, in teamfights, as a squishy ap champion, you will most likely only get one, maybe two backstabs off.

Trash MammaIMar 30, 20173 votes

Does this mean you're targeting Rengar, Kha'zix, Wukong etc.? They do exactly what Shaco does but 10x better and easier

what you deserveMar 30, 20173 votes

{quoted}

We do want to nerf Shaco in general. What we're targeting specifically here is amount of damage that occurs right at the start of an engagement (Shaco gets a lot of tricks to play with, so shouldn't be too front loaded). Can see some risk of bruiser Shaco becoming too ideal, will keep an eye on that, that's not something we're trying to make happen.

Shaco kind of needs a fair amount of his damage frontloaded, because if you don't kill someone in one hit he has no escape. If you're playing him as a squishy assassin, you're not likely to get a second backstab proc off. Unless you want to remove the cooldown on his passive.. But that sounds more oppressive in a different way.

What you want to do is lower the ult damage ration from 75% to 50% and nerf or remove his E passive.

Remember that Riot's policy on assassins has been

The question shouldn't be "can I kill this squishy?" but "can I kill this squishy and get out alive?"

Unless you give Shaco more escapes, he's just going to build bruiser (which has been extremely effective anyway) .

The next thing that'll happen is that you nerf Trinity Force and Titanic Hydra, because they're actually problematic, and then you won't compensate for Shaco nerfs at all.

Warlord ScrapMar 30, 20174 votes

@meddler any word on a Yorick skin its been skin years since he released and he still hasn't received a single skin

Jeddy017Mar 30, 20178 votes

Meddler isn't on the skins team, so he likely won't have any knowledge on the subject.

Warlord ScrapMar 30, 20171 votes

except gameplay has a projection of the next few pbe cycles. Skins are added to pbe before being released on live servers. So a skin that would be released soon the gameplay team would know about

Martian SpartanMar 30, 20173 votes

probably still not his role to release information on regardless.

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20177 votes

Correct. I don't talk about upcoming skin releases at all because that's way out of my area of expertise and the skins team have their own plans for how they want to reveal their work. I'm happy to talk about gameplay issues with existing skins sometimes (e.g. if spell effects aren't clear, a skin's too large relative to the base etc), but won't be commenting on possible or upcoming skins.

Chromatic EagleMar 30, 20172 votes

Can I talk about what I believe to be a bug? Dragon Sorceress Zyra has this weird line coming out of her sometimes. It's really long and goes in weird directions.

KyunseiMar 30, 20174 votes

Can't wait to see what you cooked for us in mid-season update !

Sahn UzalMar 30, 20173 votes

How do you think the changes to Crit items will affect GP? A pretty.. Specific question, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys have lined up for patch 7.9 (hopefully), and how that stuff will affect GP :P

''Do I look like a patient man?'' -Gangplank

RetiefMar 30, 20172 votes

Are there any plans to change bork? I like it, since it makes adcs feel good again, but bork does seem to be overshadowing other starting items.

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20173 votes

No changes in 7.7 or 7.8 at least. Suspect it's too strong, so mid-season changes are possible, that's not a firm commitment though, want to see how it goes for a while first, possible it's around the right spot and we're still just seeing the game get used to it being a decent choice again.

Chromatic EagleMar 30, 20172 votes

What do you think about Lucian currently? He's being brought up since apparently he is really good with BotRK.

Tensa ZangetsuMar 30, 20172 votes

AurelionSol About Aurelion Sol, please just consider the idea about make their Q stun at the moment you throw and reduced cooldown of their ult , just this gonna make him better.

What is your opinion on this ?

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20176 votes

Aurelion Sol's already really strong. I agree those changes would make him feel better, they'd also add noticeable power though, while significantly reducing a needed weakness (often struggles if jumped on). Wouldn't want to make those changes without significant adjustments elsewhere too as a result.

Zenthon PrimeMar 30, 20174 votes

Have you tested amping up the visual or especially the sound effect on larger Qs? It feels incredibly underwhelming when you hit 5 people with a frickin' galaxy and it has the same sound as the 30 microstars you've used for poke and waveclear.

what you deserveMar 30, 20172 votes

Do you expect the Amumu changes to actually go through? Even if you're not building him full AP it feels like having him on a team with a Lux or Viktor would be ragequit-worthy.

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20175 votes

I expect we'll ship the Amumu changes yes. The new version of the passive certainly contributes meaningful power, the flat MR reduction of the previous version however was also extremely strong in many cases if unappreciated. Well worth some quick calculations against targets with different MR values if still concerned about the change.

Blïtz PrankMar 31, 20172 votes

@Meddler hello, the new champion gonna be pre- or post the mid season update?

RiotMeddlerMar 31, 201717 votes

Yes.

[{quoted}](name=Cry n Fry,realm=EUW,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=tcjKBREI,comment-id=005f,timestamp=2017-03-31T03:36:56.186+0000)

@Meddler hello, the new champion gonna be pre- or post the mid season update?

Yes.

RaxistaichoMar 31, 20179 votes

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MathematiciansAnswer

Jeddy017Mar 31, 20174 votes

Perfect answer like usual, Meddler.

ThighoniaMar 30, 20171 votes

There's concerns on the Vlad subreddit that he'll be Azir/Kalista-ed any thoughts on his performance lately and whether or not its out of line?

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20173 votes

No immediate plans, though we'll reassess after mid-season.

MR OCTOPUSSIMar 30, 20171 votes

Hey Meddler, what about the Fiddlesticks fiddle range indicator for his w - drain? :)

how satisfied are you with the fiddle changes? thanks for reading!

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20173 votes

Should be in 7.7 or 7.8.

Fiddle changes landed around as hoped, no immediate plans for other changes.

TidecallingMar 30, 20171 votes

Hi Meddler,

Do you still have any thoughts about bot lane Ziggs at the moment? Like nerfs, tweaks, buffs, etc.?

RiotMeddlerMar 30, 20173 votes

Still looks reasonable.

NorthmundMar 30, 20171 votes

What?Jungle? You guys like to make people go insane right? Aatrox need some passive changes.His early game is super awful and what you get late is not worth. Or you make him better late or makes his passive work without passive stack (only AS). It is super easy to get snowballed on him early.