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Quick Gameplay Thoughts: August 10

RiotMeddler·8/10/2018, 3:29:19 PM·1 votes·135,062 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

Some 8.17 balance changes

We've just finished work on 8.16. A fair bit of time at the moment's going into exploratory work on preseason as discussed earlier this week. We'll be doing some balance changes in 8.17 too though. Some things we'll be looking at below, we're also expecting some champs will probably need follow up changes after the 8.16 nerfs to burst from runes. Waiting to see where those land though before picking targets.

  • Annie Buff - Getting back to this after other work delayed it. First direction tested will be increasing her AA range back to its previous values.
  • Garen nerf - Garen's too strong at this point. We'll be looking to take power out in ways that nerfs him more in lower MMR, less in high, given it's low MMR that he's particularly out of line
  • Yorick nerf - Same deal as Garen, targeting low MMR
  • Rek'Sai buff - Not sure on details yet, likely just targeting overall power
  • Lee Sin assessment - Our 8.15 changes to Lee were intended to be a slight buff, looks like they’ve potentially ended up being a slight nerf however. We’re considering some followup changes to add a bit more power to him as a result. We tested some stuff during the 8.16 dev cycle, but weren’t happy with it so concluded we’d hold off and assess again in 8.17, see where he was up to.
  • Yasuo assessment - Similar deal to Lee Sin. 8.15 changes (crit items in this case) nerfed him noticeably. We looked at a buff in 8.16, but weren’t happy with the specifics we had in testing. That was an increased AD ratio on his ult. That had the benefit of addressing cases where his ult was getting outdamaged by one of his auto attacks (some bad feels) and helped push him towards heavier AD builds (versus going tanky, which cuts into his counterplay quite a lot). Had the downside of also making more of his damage front loaded however. We’ll be assessing him again during 8.17 too.

The Zoe playing against experience

We’re also doing some work on Zoe, which is less about power and more about improving what it’s like to play against her. Not certain exactly which patch that will be in yet, or what the specific changes will be. Could be 8.17, more likely somewhat later though.

Smite in champ select

Something we're doing with Nexus Blitz is making Smite a required pick for both junglers (gets put on you automatically in champ select). That's not necessarily something that'll be the case forever, but it's how we want to have for initial testing at least. We believe double jungle's optimal, but that's easy to misunderstand when first trying out the mode. We'd like to avoid early testing at least being distorted by people who aren't aware you'll want two junglers per team, hence the forcing smite.

As a follow up to that we'll also be making it so, if you're put into champ select as a jungler on SR, you'll also have Smite as one of your Summoner Spells when you join the lobby. For SR you'll be free to change it should you want to swap positions with someone else, jungle without Smite or whatever (it's a default, not a mandatory thing). Goal there is to remove cases where a player forgets to check Summoners after playing a different position the game beforehand and loads in without Smite unintentionally, putting their team at a significant disadvantage. Still figuring out exact timing on that change, shouldn't be too far away, but will be a bit later than Nexus Blitz going live.

On My Way Pings

Speaking of things that are coming soon, though not in the very next patch, we've got some improvements to the on my way ping. We'll be making it so that the ping also conveys some information about how far away the champion pinging is (really close, kinda close, really far etc). That'll happen both through different chat messages and somewhat different ping sounds. It's something we've been testing internally for a while and as you'd expect have found is helpful in coordinating ganks especially.

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

373 Comments

Critmaster Garen8/10/2018, 3:56:43 PM14 votes

{quoted}

  • Garen nerf - Garen's too strong at this point. We'll be looking to take power out in ways that nerfs him more in lower MMR, less in high, given it's low MMR that he's particularly out of line

can you just wait one more patch until you brough tanks back into the meta, and people are building teamcomps with some measure of cc again instead of 4 to 5 squishy carries and assassins?

celerity is going to get nerfed aswell, which will impact garen, as he uses it to empower his q.

i dont even know why this is a concern. you know that if you nerf garen, hes just going to be replaced by darius as a low mmr stomper (especially when you also plan to nerf yorick). if you nerf darius the patch after garen, hes just going to get replaced by the next guy. there is no balancing around low mmr, hence why you usually dont do it.

at the very least, dont just straight up nerf him, but give him a power shift that allows him to keep his viability at higher mmr, instead of throwing him back into the dumpster.

i suggest the following. revert the 40 damage buff on garens q, but significantly speed up decisive strikes animation in return to make it a better auto attack cancel and to allow garen to cancel out enemy abilities better.

these are mechanics that are more utilized in higher-ish mmr games than the lowest divisions.

make him able to stop a Zed from using his ultimate on an ally, instead of having the animation so slow, that the zed can alway get his r off reliably during garens q animation before it has a chance to connect. there are tons of similar examples to how the slow q animation cripples garen in fights. this is especially apparant at higher mmr, where people have better reaction speeds to be able to cram in abilities during garens q animation.

im not happy about the yorick nerf either, since its for the same shitty and frustrating reason to cater to the bottom player base instead of simply expecting of these players to improve themselves like it would make sense.

Ninetales8/10/2018, 3:52:37 PM13 votes

Hi there Meddler,

I am interested in how you intend to nerf Yorick for lower MMR games without impacting his ability to be useful in higher MMR games?

aezens8/10/2018, 11:55:39 PM9 votes

If Yasuo outdamage his ultimatate with his autoattacks doesn´t that mean he does a little bit to much melee damage? It´s not like Last Breath has bad scaling or base damage. And why would you go less tank items if you get a free 100% scaling on top of your current damage?

MetaKaizer8/10/2018, 3:43:43 PM7 votes

Hi

I tried this in last post, but maybe it wasn't the right time since it was a different talk.

So the latest roadmap of the year got revealed recently and with it we now know the next reworks after Nunu are Ezreal and dual Kayle & Morgana. For the third time now:Can something be done about Morde? Anything really.

Are his statistics good at the moment? If so, why do you think they are?

When the botlane meta was shifted and adc's playrate went down, Morde suddenly became viable bot because some of his worse matchups there(like long ranged Cait and Trist) had a very low playrate so Morde could more safely be brought to botlane.Then after a few patches, adc's were brought back to line, and Morde once again was vanished from botlane. You also have Morde's other lanes:Top and Mid. Morde top has been far much worse since the start of season 8. He got very little compensation for stats when the runes were removed and more champions have been released that have made Morde have a more difficult time staying in top(those champions for example being Irelia and Aatrox). Morde mid seems to be his best lane at the moment. But even then, most of his matchups make laning so difficult that the best way for him to be succesfull mid is to leave the lane and roam with the jungler to look for picks and get dragon ghosts.

So can anything be done about him or do we have to play the waiting game forever until eventually morde gets reworked?

Please don't ignore this and thanks for taking your time to read this.

Hegna8/10/2018, 9:26:49 PM7 votes

Why is there such an eagerness to buff Yasuo? He might not be sitting at the best win rate, but he's an extremely frustrating character to play against for a lot of players. I understand that he's popular, but surely that has to be balanced with the frustration factor and the fact that he's only slightly below 50% despite the learning curve.

WintersWard8/10/2018, 3:41:08 PM6 votes

Thoughts on Pyke after this amount of time? Also any clue if Lulu and Karma are fine atm (I know Karma will get a mini update or something like that but I guess that will take some more time) And any Idea if Nami / Sona might be nerfed? I mean both are (according to Lolalytics) 53.5% + winrate

FafliX8/10/2018, 3:51:01 PM6 votes

I'm kind of sad that Garen and Yorick after years of being nearly unplayable are finally seeing some limited viability, and instantly get nerfed. I get why you don't want them to dominate lower level play, but it still feels bad when other champions can be OP for months and not even get touched.

Is there the possibility of maybe buffing some aspects of them that could make them better at higher levels of play to compensate? Garen is horrible against tanks and will most likely fall off once they come back anyway, and Yorick still has all these problems with his ult never doing what you want and feeling inconsistent in when it does or doesn't choose to help you. Sometimes it just stays in a lane after just moving through it even with a wave being further down the lane, and sometimes it is standing alone in front of the enemy tower and still chooses to follow you once you leave. Also there is still that nasty E bug where ghouls sometimes just don't jump on the marked target. Sometimes they don't even aggro them.

If I was designing Yorick I would let him choose. to leave his ult in a lane by reactivating it. but if you really want to have that flavor of him not being able to control it sure. But at least some buxfixing would be nice to compensate.

Ahrianna Grande8/10/2018, 3:38:11 PM5 votes

Thoughts on Zoe's plans? As a big-time Zoe player, I'm curious if you're going to be touching up on her w (giving it a short cooldown so she cant spam it in teamfights, but giving back some mov speed maybe) or changing the way her E works/shortening the duration.

Spideraxe8/10/2018, 3:32:35 PM4 votes

Hey Meddler now that they are revealed can I ask you for the gameplay reasons and or goals of Kayle and Morgana's reworks

420 grams8/10/2018, 3:45:10 PM4 votes

Could we skip a patch of skins and get a new death recap? I think a good one would really be worth the investment if you make one that will be permanent.

La Bello8/10/2018, 4:47:37 PM4 votes

Garen needs to be made less of a stat check. I think undoing the armor/mr increase on W buff should be good. "Having a bajillion resist for free" is not a key aspect of Garen. Judgment and Execute are. Alternatively you could introduce a AD'scaling cap to Passive same as Evelynn has to try and tone down his early perma sustain while also coercing players into finally building him correctly (Sunfire Garen players YUCK!)

Yasuo honestly needs no buffs whatsoever. Dude is absolute monster in capable hands and still wins nearly any matchup that isn't against a high damage bruiser with hard CC. He pounds you in lane then he pounds you at late game and the only thing you can do is hope he "outplays" himself by pouncing on him as a team when he takes a bad dive.

Lee Sin you guys need to STOP putting so much power in Q and R. Getting dragons Rage+ Q one shot is so unfun. Also dont forget when Lee Sin is popular he is a INCREDIBLY powerful jungler who has both healthy,quick and high damage invades + snowball. be CAREFUL with how much power you put into him. Him and Kha'Zix are like the twin gods of snowball jungling so they can really set the bar sometimes when good (can your champ fight kha/lee? dont pick em otherwise)

Rek'Sai honestly just suffers from a pretty stat check kit so GL buffing her without making her obnoxious. If it was up to me I would make make it so R could be better used a initiation tool or make it so max rage furious bite CONSUMES the rage to heal her or something idk,. I would try and avoid just outright pumping her numbers. You could always of course when you found the time try and do more small scale work on her. Rek'Sais niche was having crazy gank paths and mobility via her tunnel system but now we have Kayn who kinda has the same sorta "look at how I can gank u from these crazy angles bro". Thusly I think Right now there is not much reason for Rek'Sai to even be in the game anymore. patch by patch she just feels more and more like a tanky knock-up bot with nothing else going for her and I dont think making her Q start one-shotting people again is going to change this...

Paxlow8/10/2018, 8:17:22 PM4 votes

I'm confused about your Garen and Yorick statements

Garen nerf - Garen's too strong at this point. We'll be looking to take power out in ways that nerfs him more in lower MMR, less in high, given it's low MMR that he's particularly out of line Yorick nerf - Same deal as Garen, targeting low MMR

Yes these champs are overpowered in Low MMR but Garen is literally never picked in high mmr/pro play due to his inherent weakness. Tagetting champs due to their low MMR power seems counterintuitive and you're missing a lot of champs that are overpowered in low mmr (Akali/Zed/Yasuo/Master Yi). In fact most champs can be deemed as overpowered in low MMR if the person knows how to play them and most assasins are picked by Elo Boosters due to the fact that they can 1v9 and snowball a game out of control.

If us lowbies (Silver 3 myself) become proficient on a champ you're kind of handicapping us to climb by nerfing champs that we can use to get out of doldrums.

a1mex8/13/2018, 12:59:33 PM4 votes

Tbh please dont nerf Yorick!

Iam a Master OTP Yorick and i can say he is definitely not overpowered or something like that @high elo.

Platinium+ he playrate is actually at 1.82% with a winrate of 52.80%. Gold got a playrate of 2.24% and a winrate 52.91%

So why he should be nerfed?

Bronze and silver people abuse him because the enemys dont know how to play against him. But tbh it is so easy to outplay yorick.

It makes me sad to nerf a champion who is rarely played in relation to other champions. After this nerf, no one will play him anmore @high elo for sure.

And than u make a buff after 5 months because no one is playing yorick?

I hope the nerf will be relative. If any would be necessary.

Best regards, a1mex.

(I do not mean that as a flame and sorry for my bad english)

RoboPoke8/11/2018, 8:43:34 AM2 votes

If you plan on nerfing Garen please look into the abuse of Triforce/Steraks as a build path BEFORE nerfing Garen specifically, without that build path Garen doesnt have as absurd winrates. Stormrazor is also abusable on Garen particularly in lower mmr as opposed to high. A lot of champions are also strong with Triforce and Steraks, I believe it is used as a crutch by a few champions who would not be strong without it and some like Garen and Jax are specifically able to abuse it as opposed to just survive with it. I dont have all the statistics a rioter would have but I believe it would be better to look into that than specifically nerf Garen. If you decide to nerf Garen anyway, please make sure you do not forget to compensate him if you end up changing TriGage builds in anyway.

Also what are your thoughts on Ornn. I used to one trick Ornn since his release but his current state is just not fun to play at all, even after his repeated nerfs I was still playing him up until unstoppable was removed which I thought was a very satisfying part of his kit. I understand he needs to be balanced hard due to his impact in LCS but as a solo queue player it just feels unfair, especially because I was a Jungle Ornn player and not a toplaner.

My humble opinion as an ex Ornn one trick is that you should focus a lot more nerfs on his ult than his W. Perhaps also change the shield on his W to dmg reduction for the duration of the flame breath as opposed to a shield that can persist, have it scale so that it is weaker than his current shield in the early game for how much damage it mitigates, but stronger in the late game (to compensate for ultimate nerfs)

I also suggest taking some damage off his W and make it more skill expressive. Im not sure how you would do that but I had some thoughts. Put more damage into brittle if brittle is procced through specific criteria (a brittle procced by a teammates CC does x% more damage, a brittle procced via the knockup of Ornns E does x% more damage, brittle procced by Ornns ultimate does x% more damage, if brittle is procced within .5 seconds it does x% more damage, if not procced within 1.5seconds the maximum damage a brittle proc can do rapidly drops off with a minimum %). My reasoning behind this is that it can take some strength away from his laning phase in particular his zone after landing the last tick of W, but still allow contribution within teamfights, and reward an Ornn for playing well and landing combos or helping his team. I also know that giving Ornn access to more damage if played well can potentially make him a more crucial pick within the LCS but if he was only able to do maybe 2% more max hp dmg than current state if played perfectly, I would be perfectly happy to take hits to the base damage as I would be confident I can play him to full extent. Just some food for thought.

Also I would love to see the return of Unstoppable on his W. But perhaps with a compensation nerf, (if an enemy triggers Ornns unstoppable his dmg reduction/shield is lost for the remainder of the duration). Unstoppable felt like such a natural part of his kit and key part of his playstyle as a lumbering juggernaut. It really helped get in or escape if used well, but now without it, sometimes it feels impossible to escape or deal damage without ultimate against teams with heavy CC.

Those are some really quick thoughts of mine and I am happy enough if you simply take the time to read them, I understand my opinion is nowhere near as weighted without balance experience or in depth statistics. Although if you ever feel like talking to someone who used to main Ornn and had considerable amount of games on him within higher elo brackets (plat 3 - diamond 5) PRIOR to his buffs as well as him becoming meta-dominant. I would love to and be honoured.

Kairoptra8/10/2018, 4:01:34 PM2 votes

I know that this idea was abandoned a while back, but I was wondering if you’d consider resurrecting the idea of diversifying starting items. It was said in an earlier post that you’re looking to separate base stat boosts from rune tree combinations. I thought that more starting items might be a good way to do so.

lakatos szánsájn8/10/2018, 3:43:08 PM2 votes

Hey, what about the nunu rework, can we see them in the next pbe update or later?

Ązur8/10/2018, 4:53:07 PM2 votes

Biggest problems with OMW Pings imo are that they're out of the chat and you can't read anymore who is on the way in case u didnt see it on map.

Danger pings have less sense in the chat but are still in it.

Mysticman898/10/2018, 5:22:05 PM1 votes

For the automatic smite, is that getting put on D or F by default or is it going to try to be smart about it? (e.g. replacing not-flash if they had flash as one of their summoners previously.)