Quick Gameplay Thoughts: September 20

RiotMeddler·Sep 20, 2017·1 votes·57,858 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 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

Not doing starting items in pre-season

We'd previously mentioned that we'd taking a look at starting items (changes and new ones) during pre-season. After some investigation into options there we've decided not to do so, instead putting more time into runes, base stat changes and some other systemic changes. Starting items still looks like a good space to work on later, with things like an item for bot lane mages as an alternative to marksmen particularly promising. We'll give it another look next year as a result.

Jungle Ezreal

Been seeing a few questions about our thoughts on Ez getting jungle play crop up. Looks really cool so far to us is the short version. Nice to see a champ getting play in a different way. Early days yet, but counterplay seems fine, the lack of which is what's lead us to nerfing/changing champs out of certain positions in the past (e.g. Malz bot lane or Janna mid). If it ever starts to look too strong we'd tone it down, but wouldn't want to squash it if we could avoid it. If Ez did end up as a jungle only champ we'd want to do some work to let him lane again without pushing him out of the jungle if possible too. Similar situation to Ziggs as both bot laner and mid laner.

Ornn Balance

Ornn's been out a while and received a fair few buffs after a weak release. We're still seeing a lot of people struggle with him, at the same time though a lot of Ornn play is still coming from people getting their first few games on him in. We won't be buffing him further in 7.19 at the least, want to avoid overbuffing him and we think there's still some learning curve going on. Planning to check in on him in each of the next couple of patches though, see how things are going and if we should throw a bit of power his way or not.

Bramble Vest

We're testing some Bramble Vest stuff at the moment, with two possible directions. Main issue is that Bramble Vest is too powerful for its cost as a general item, rather than a more specific niche buy. We're considering either increasing its cost significantly (around 300g) with a slight stats increase, both nerfing its gold efficiency and delaying its lane impact. Or reducing its stats a bit and pushing its cost up slightly, nerfing its gold efficiency but still leaving it fairly accessible in lane as a counter item if desired (rather than by default). At time of writing one of those versions should be on PBE, possible we test the other as well shortly, though might still go back to the first one depending on how things go.

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

315 Comments

Report EvelynnSep 20, 20179 votes

Any News on Evelynn?

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 201716 votes

VGUs are like new champs, we won't mention as many details about them pre-release as smaller updates, especially around exact release timing.

Should still expect to see her before pre-season though.

DeathBurstSep 20, 20179 votes

Not doing starting items in pre-season

I'm really sad about that, but at least it's only postponed, not completely canceled. ;/

Any detail you can tease about the whole project? Did you try something for melee carries bot lane?

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 20177 votes

We've talked about stuff like that yeah. Melee carries bot lane's a pretty big challenge though given all the difficulties they face. More likely to have changes to things that are closer to effective already, hence the call out on a mage carry bot lane item as something we'll want to look at again.

Malicious MetalSep 20, 20175 votes

What about melee mages? :^)

DeathBurstSep 20, 20178 votes

Jungle Ezreal

Ezreal has been for a very long time a poster child for champs who can healthily support various different builds. AD Ez vs AP Ez exists for ages, even AD Ez itself is somewhat diverse, with Blue vs Triforce builds. And now we get that Jungle build.

What do you think make Ezreal so adaptable? Can you learn something from Ezreal to apply it to more champs?

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 201710 votes

A few things I'd argue contribute to that, in particular in combination with each other:

His Q breaks a usually strongly established rule (you can't apply on AA effects at long ranges). That allows for some creative use of effects in different ways than other champs usually get to use them.
That's counter balanced by a lack of a lot of other things on his kit (no CC, no sustained mobility, no protective effects beyond his blink/range, no target agnosticism etc). Getting powerful effects from different builds doesn't leave him overloaded.
A lot of his output's unreliable (skillshots in his case), meaning even if something removes counterplay in other ways there's always some degree of inherent response available to all opponents.
There's a strong enough core to his gameplay identity that it doesn't get drowned out under his items (he's still Ezreal, rather than just a bunch of different stats/unique effects).

DCYOUNG888Sep 20, 20174 votes

What do you mean by "target agnosticism"?

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 201711 votes

Oh, sorry, bit jargony. A champ can be described as target agnostic if they don't care so much about who they're hitting, generally because there are effects on their kit that let them be good against tanky targets as well as squishies (% health damage, true damage, % pen/shred etc).

CàneSep 20, 20177 votes

I remember that there was a shyvanascope rework planned for Aurelion Sol. Any news on that?

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 201712 votes

Got cancelled back around March. Short version is we didn't feel the direction involved would address enough, but would likely be fairly off putting to a lot of existing ASol players.

SkyroarSep 20, 20177 votes

Hi, I'm a diamond ASol player. Here are some less drastic changes that I recommend to make ASol more accessible to new players:

Allow him to move through units (makes hitting the stars a lot less clumsy, which is currently a tough barrier of entry).
Allow him to cancel his Q early, so he doesn't feel like a free punching bag versus divers (it currently creates a really bad impression to new players who want to learn him).
Increase the power of his non-W passive, so it's more rewarding and not quite as niche as it currently is, considering the screen clutter it adds to the game versus its actual usefulness.

But those things do not fix how oppressive ASol may be to his opponents, right? And they are straight buffs to a champion that's already strong, right? So let's look at things to tone down now:

Make his W passive deal less damage, but perhaps give it a more niche/ context-specific utility. This, alongside suggestion n.3, forces Asol players to get closer in range and rely less on the safety of W's radius.
Alternatively, make his passive scale in damage with each hit, starting weaker but gradually growing stronger the more times you hit it on the same opponent during a short window of time. This gives time for your opponents to go back and avoid being killed.
If n.4 or n.5 end up weakening Sol too much, consider adding some damage back to his skill shots.

TLDR; Make ASol less clunky, make him rely more on his non-W passive for riskier plays and riskier farm, make him rely less on his W passive to avoid lack of counterplay in certain matchups.

There, no need to drastically change the passive of the champion, like your earlier proposal intended to.

RainfallSep 20, 20176 votes

meddler,irrelevant to this post,why has riot stopped visiting and commenting on posts in the gameplay boards?

DeathBurstSep 20, 201710 votes

Because most of the "good" discussions they were participating on in Gameplay now happen here instead. People know Meddler is relatively easy to reach and those who really want to discuss (as opposed to just complain) make the effort of coming here.

EDIT: Also, I'm pretty sure they still read what happens on Gameplay every once in a while, even if they don't participate.

RiotMeddlerSep 21, 20174 votes

{quoted}

Because most of the "good" discussions they were participating on in Gameplay now happen here instead. People know Meddler is relatively easy to reach and those who really want to discuss (as opposed to just complain) make the effort of coming here.

EDIT: Also, I'm pretty sure they still read what happens on Gameplay every once in a while, even if they don't participate.

Yeah, I'll still read through a chunk of the Gameplay board a couple of times a day, just spending time I used to spend posting there here instead.

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 201736 votes

I can't speak for all of Riot. For me personally it's a combination of time and echo chamber effect though. Time wise there's only so much time in most weeks I can put into communication on Boards and I've felt I can offer better visibility into stuff through preparing these posts a couple of times a week and then responding to stuff here.

In terms of echo chamber it feels like an awful lot of the time Boards is dominated by a lot of threads by a small proportion of users saying the exact same thing, with pretty negative treatment of people trying to discuss alternate viewpoints. People looking to shout more than talk. There's still a bunch of good stuff out there, but it's a lot harder to have those discussions than it should be IMO.

Overlord ForteSep 20, 201718 votes

Might be worth raising the issue with whoever is in charge of the boards administration (communications team?). The reddit-style voting system is subject to flagrant abuse and manipulation techniques without having the same security (afaik) as Reddit ... even then, mob-mentality rules over all. I'm not wholly convinced it's a tenable style of a discussion forum without an equally aggressive moderation unit filtering out problems.

RainfallSep 20, 20172 votes

yeah this has been said a lot of times and even posted by volunteers,that there needs to be a new category for posts based on views/comments and not the voting system

Deep Terror NamiSep 20, 20173 votes

We've discussed disabling voting for Gameplay threads, and there has been a lot of support for that, but not quite enough. We definitely welcome this kind of discussion over on Discuss the Boards, so if you guys have some input please head over there and let us have it! We want to do you guys right and absolutely listen to this feedback.

ProfDrDeathSep 20, 20174 votes

Quite a lot of people tend to use upvotes/downvotes as a feature to signify agreement/disagreement, myself included.

It would be cool if upvote/downvote became agree/disagree, and a possibility to recommed for reading (for the Hot category) after agreeing/disagreeing.

RalanrSep 20, 20176 votes

What about removing one of the effects of bramble (like the thorns or the GW passive) and putting on the full thornmail? Often I don't see much of a reason to finish thornmail and sell bramble later for a omen as I don't find myself needing it over other items anymore.

martincastillo2Sep 20, 20176 votes

When will you do larger work on Rengar?

Aatrox Mid 1v5Sep 20, 20175 votes

This question is kinda selfish but I'm curious, what do you guys think about kennen?

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 20174 votes

Seems fine, will reassess of course after pre-season hits.

PsyrikSep 20, 20176 votes

Will we see the stat changes for every champion when rune rework hits? (please dont forget to give reksai some attack speed stats, everyone runs either AS quints or Reds and its a needed part of her core stats. Thanks for all you do Meddler <3)

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 20175 votes

For the Live launch at least yeah. Probably on PBE at the same time too, though possible the base stat changes follow slightly later (and they'll probably get adjusted further while on PBE too regardless).

VekknaSep 20, 20176 votes

How are you guys handling magic pen? I keep asking this because buffing MR across the board is going to be very detrimental to pen-reliant champs.

Most of my matchups in mid lane are against opponents who run 0-4 MR in runes while I run 13-20 mpen in runes. Removing early mpen options while buffing base stats (MR) is going to crush my laning, and an early pen advantage is honestly the only thing keeping my preferred mid laner remotely viable in that role.

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 20178 votes

We'll likely be reducing starting MR across the board, not buffing it, so while champs won't start with flat magic pen like they used to they'll be facing lower MR values, both from champ starts and generally from pre-game.

DeathBurstSep 20, 20172 votes

I guess it's a bit too niche to dedicate much time to it right now, but please keep in mind the odd Mage Jungler, if you can. Nerfing the Flat Pen they start with will really impact their first clear, and that was already their biggest problem in the current system. Especially if this is combined with the loss of Spell Vamp Quints.

AtanchanSep 20, 20177 votes

I mean, most of the jungle camps have negative MR, so magic pen does absolutely nothing to them.

It would impact clearing the big wolf, big raptor, and red buff, though.

DeathBurstSep 21, 20171 votes

I'm pretty sure Flat Pen just makes their MR even more negative, it's not wasted. Only %Pen is wasted on negative resistance targets.

SohleksSep 21, 20177 votes

Pen stat doesn't help past zero.

You might be thinking of Abyssal Scepter's original design. It had a special 20 magic resist reduction aura which was different than pen. It did help with jungle clear or wave clear [before they nerfed it vs. minions] because it literally subtracted MR from enemies nearby. But if a champion only had 30 MR and lost 20 from abyssal with your magic pen runes you don't get much from sorc shoes because abyssal's reduction works first lowering their MR before you hit them before you do dmg and count your penetration. So your pen would be overdone.

So in the jungle you are wasting stats getting magic penetration reds for pve at least. That's why AP jungles like Elise as an example sometimes runed attack speed red.

SteelflameSep 20, 20173 votes

Mage junglers actually tended towards not using pen in the jungle clear pages. You tend to take AD reds and AP blues/quints. Most mage/AP junglers have AS granted in kit (Eve, Diana, Elise) to utilize the AD runes far better than Mpen, and while it tends to faintly hurt mid-game damage vs champs, it is made up for in the increased clear speeds allowing them to itemize more effectively. This is because you will auto a ton, but only cast spells some of the time on most mage junglers. About the only excepjtion would be Eve, only that her two primary damage abilities have AD ratios anyway, so it doesn't matter and still is better for her to take the AD over Mpen. Many jungle monsters also have no base MR, so Mpen won't take effect anyway.

Overall, the change to champs starting with lower base MR is actually a buff to mage junglers more than the removal of the Mpen runes ever would impact them.

ßiggie CheeseSep 20, 20175 votes

I play Ornn a fair bit (see Icon) and have some suggestions on some changes.

What Ornn mostly needs is some changes to make him feel less "clunky" to play. The Pillar spawn time is slightly too long and not being able to cast in anywhere within it's capable range feels bad. Make make Q pillar spawn decrease on how close the spell is casted to Ornn (Probably should not fall bellow 1 second).

Another issue is mana costs. We Ornn players understand the power of his passive, but he is currently forced to build mana items because of this budget power. It the same opportunity cost for Sion , having to have a low base health to compensate for the permanent health gaining mechanic passive from W; Basically Ornn is forced to build mana for this passive. A slight buff to his base Mana pool would help.

His ultimate, designed to be niche, is a little difficult to pull off. If you cast it when you need it in a team fight (as a tank you are in the middle of the fight) then you likely be CC'd when you need to recast the ult to bat the ram. This forces Ornn to cast to Ult from the side of the fight, but sacrifices the position he needs to be in as a tank. I don't have any suggested buffs for his Ult (he may not need it) it is designed to be niche.

What he DOES NOT need is damage buffs or CD buffs, just more QoL changes.

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 20176 votes

Mana costs in particular are something we're also talking about. More thoughts, and/or changes cropping up on PBE, likely to follow about those soon.

PsyrikSep 20, 20174 votes

{quoted} If Ez did end up as a jungle only champ we'd want to do some work to let him lane again without pushing him out of the jungle if possible too

He IS a jungle only champ at the moment. Havnt seen him adc in ages

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 20176 votes

Jungle Ezreal's still quite a new thing, he hasn't been getting meaningful play there for that long. It's also getting more play than bot, but hasn't effectively removed bot play entirely. We'll look at him again after all the pre-season disruption's settled/been somewhat balanced, but aren't going to jump onto changes when it's still a new thing and hasn't become the only way he's played either.

Meta NoirSep 20, 20174 votes

Starting items still looks like a good space to work on later, with things like an item for bot lane mages as an alternative to marksmen particularly promising.

Insanely hyped, that you guys finally decided to look for actual ways to support other options as marksmen in a duo lane and I would love, if you guys could give Melee Champions a similar treatment! Thanks so much for trying to make this possible and please hang to this, till you guys found a fair and working way!

Would it maybe be possible to dive deeper into this specific topic here or maybe even in a Nexus post in the future? Would be awesome.

Because you adressed it in your post above in a very similar way to what I wrote a few days back, I add my post from one of your last QGT's and hope it is okay for you (sorry in advance if you already read it)…

Hey Meddler,

because you wrote about Runes in the long term here, I wanted to ask you and maybe even give ideas, about the possiblity to give farming melees in a duo lane an actual tool via Runes (Melee only) next mid-season/pre-season and by this making them at least semi-viable?

For example:

''Passive: Mordekaiser gains bonus experience for killing minions near allied champions.''

This could get removed (a lot of the playerbase are really sure, that Mordekaiser will be one of the very next Relaunches after Swain – overall insanely outdated and a crazy bugfest) and turned into as mentioned above? The team could, just to maybe give inspiration, add a short cooldown in case an ally/support starts farming to prevent abuse?

The amount of possible duo lane combinations would add a lot of refreshing fun to the game and people could come up with very creative picks and strategies. The community (including Rioters!) had enthusiastic conversations about such a huge change in the past (I remember Fearless & Ghostcrawler) and I think the most will agree, that such a thing is long overdue.

Another Rioter wrote a short while ago, that you guys plan on giving more support to melees in general regarding problems against range and crowd control… maybe it would fit to adress this by combining it with the proposed change in one big change cycle in the future?

Thanks for reading and I would love to read your thoughts about it!

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 20176 votes

Repost's all good, I didn't see this one the first time. We'll definitely talk more about trying to support classes in other positions once we've got something a bit more concrete to talk on, about all I can confidently say is it's something we'll want to look at more.

In terms of offering tools like that to support melee duo lanes I think there's potential there, though I'd do it through starting items rather than runes. That's because, particularly in solo queue, being able to co-ordinate stuff like that in champ select can be trickier. Starting items give a bit more forgiveness, even if you're last pick or someone's alt tabbed after locking in.

The EqualizerSep 20, 20173 votes

What's going on with Rumble ? The orange bar QoL change seems to inadvertently nerfed him pretty hard (can't use E while overheated, Danger Zone bonus not applying to E sometimes). There weren't any intended nerfs were there?

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 20179 votes

Yeah, looks like a couple of bugs got introduced, either as part of that change or around the same time at least. We've got some fixes underway.

Tiniest TurtleSep 20, 20171 votes

Will there perhaps be Evelynn related summoner icons after her release? O . o At least for a future skin? C'mon, Make an Eve main happy.

[sg-soraka]

GaliöSep 20, 20172 votes

Goodluck with the rework making you happy. Same team as Galio.

Ill pray for you.

Tiniest TurtleSep 20, 201710 votes

{quoted}

Goodluck with the rework making you happy. Same team as Galio.

Ill pray for you.

I think prayers set Eve mains on fire, actually.

MetaKaizerSep 20, 20174 votes

They said Eve's rework is a modernization so expect her to have most of her abilities

Chromatic EagleSep 20, 20171 votes

Since you clearly enjoy Ziggs, what did you think about his comic?

RiotMeddlerSep 20, 20175 votes

I enjoyed it. The mainly kindred spirits relationship between Jinx and Ziggs, with some stark contrasts at times, worked pretty well for me as a reader. Not sure it's a strong enough theme to solo carry future stories, but was really happy to see it done.

GirlsAlwaysSuppSep 20, 20171 votes

Why did pressing like 5 butons on Azir take you a year of work? I mean yeah, we reduced the range and gave him more attack speed. How did that keep you busy for a year?