Boards›Dev Corner

[DEV BLOG] Rift Herald in the 2016 Season

RiotPWYFF·11/6/2015, 8:30:45 PM·1 votes·16,195 views

Posting for Riot Jag while he's in preseason patch rundown shoots!

Rift Herald By Riot Jag

Hey summoners, Jag here to tell you all about the newest resident to Summoner's Rift.

The Problem Space

For a long time, the asymmetry of the map for Summoner's Rift gave structure to how teams would arrange their lane configurations, and deepened the range of early game strategic options. At this point in time, however, League’s probably the most objective-focused it’s been in a long time, with Dragon buffs skewing the map to be bottom-heavy. A symptom of this, of course, is that almost all top laners (and now some mid laners) are taking the summoner spell Teleport so they can meaningfully interact with the ‘objective game’ before the 20 minute mark. If a top laner doesn’t do so, they usually feel like they’ve made the wrong choice. To combat this lack of strategic diversity, the most obvious options would be to either a) nerf Teleport, or b) make Dragon irrelevant.

Oddly enough, the answer was a bit of both.

During our preseason development time, we first played with ways to make Ignite or Exhaust more compelling summoner alternatives to Teleport. In doing so, however, we found that dominating map movement in an objective-based game is just too broadly applicable in its use that trying to “match” its strength with other combat spells becomes a terrifying proposition. We could also make small adjustments to the power level of Teleport itself - which we are definitely going to do - but wanted a better long-term solve.

On the other side of the coin, the most organic solution we could provide without just crushing Teleport was to give you a reason to not want to teleport away from the top side of the map. One method of doing that would be to remove Dragon’s relevance in the early game, but for many reasons we feel like having the Dragon objective anchor action was valuable for controlling tempo and game flow. We still want top laners to feel like they have a reason to win their lane beyond arriving at the Dragon fight at the perfect time.

So in light of that...

Enter the Herald

… We put a competing objective in the top side of the map - the Rift Herald.

The Rift Herald is a neutral monster that will hold down the Void Pit for Baron Nashor before 20 minutes (before being permanently replaced thereafter). The Herald is a void-mutated scuttler and has armor that can shrug off ranged attacks particularly effectively (so if you do swap your lanes for it, there are some inherent penalties). That said, Herald’s got a pretty significant soft spot at the back, so make sure you bring a friend to help before taking it on. If you're successful in defeating Herald, your team will be rewarded with 50 gold each and the killer will be given a pushing buff that also enhances their minions. Don’t worry, the minions won’t get extra defenses, so you won’t have to deal with last hitting DR’d up minions in lane, but they will get a lot of offensive power, so teams will have to find a way to deal with the push or risk losing turrets.

Long Term Goals

With Rift Herald in the game, players will have a more interesting range of choices to make. Should your jungler focus your top laner and their half of the map to get them snowballing early? Should the top laner opt for Ignite or Exhaust over Teleport to double down on that strategy? Are you a team that's opting into the 5 dragon win condition, or are you looking to push turrets down by 10 minutes? Our hope is that there is no clear answer until your team has figured out what they've picked and how they want to win the game.

A closing note: while this is a neutral objective that is easily accessible by mid lane (and therefore is heavily subject to the influence of the jungler and mid laner), we really wanted to give top laners a reason to feel good about winning the "1v1 me bro" island and being able to show their team why it was worth making sure they succeed. Consequently, there are several mechanics on the Rift Herald that may result in that split pushing top lane fighter (talking to the Rivens and Tryndameres here) getting some big leads early on in the game. We don't want that to get out of control but, to be clear, we know what we're signing up for. We're giving some room back to the dudes who are brave enough to fight top lane without bringing a Teleport to fall back on.

So beware, cowards.

26 Comments

Pyro11/6/2015, 11:11:43 PM6 votes

Can we have Baron eat the Herald if he stays alive up until the 20th minute?

EROTIC RAID BOSS11/6/2015, 8:54:34 PM4 votes

Maybe im wrong on this but to me it looks like the buff will be more impactful than an early dragon in the early game. You guys afraid this will lead to an early game where the jungler is top all the time? Or that top laners will require early powerful wave clear to counter a herald buff ?

Koechophe11/6/2015, 9:44:35 PM3 votes

I can understand the reason why you guys didn't empower the defenses of the minions with the rift herald buff, but how would top laners respond to champions who have high waveclear, and can just delete the minions before they become an issue?

Hellioning11/6/2015, 10:18:48 PM3 votes

In your attempt to prevent lane-swapping, you reduced the damage the Herald takes from ranged attacks.

You remember you have ranged top laners, right?

Earl Eulrich11/6/2015, 9:12:45 PM2 votes

Have you considered that it´ll just shift to a duolane-mid-meta and thus won´t really affect toplane, but rather mid and botlane? On a side-note...don´t you think it also heavily favours strong early-game junglers (a snowballing tool accessible only during the first 20min) - the same that already dominate the game anyway?

SaltyKracka11/6/2015, 8:46:59 PM2 votes

Have you guys given any thought to the weak laners top (Nasus et al) that took teleport for the ability to survive in lane as opposed to putting on map pressure?

What levers are you putting in to stop early-game champs like Riven and Renekton from just dominating lanes, picking up Herald and snowballing games from there?

And by the by, how many stacks is Herald going to give Devourer junglers?

Escanor v211/6/2015, 9:40:25 PM2 votes

How do you plan on balancing Rift Herald's buffs if it became too powerful in competitive play? - Radovan

Shaian11/7/2015, 10:06:01 AM1 votes

Why does the Rift Herald have the same danceanimation as the bluebuff?

Shíny11/6/2015, 9:39:40 PM1 votes

Any plans for mordekaiser to interact with the herald?

Gixia11/7/2015, 5:57:39 AM1 votes

So, I'll confess this is off topic. I wanted to ask it in the Dev Blog about vision, but I was at work while that discussion was going on and comments are disabled in it now. But Rift Herald is a jungle monster and this is a question concerning jungle so it's sorta kinda slightly but not really tangentially related?

Are there any concerns that the new Tracker's Knife jungle item will just completely crowd out and invalidate Skirmisher's Sabre/Stalker's Blade as the mandatory jungle item? I feel like the added vision control of being able to drop wards and bring a sweeper, without having to invest in a sightstone, is greater than any of the negligible combat benefits of the two smite buffs. Or are you expecting that the reduced number of wards will make sweeper a weak enough trinket option that it's comparable to the two smite buffs in value?

Deep Terror Nami11/6/2015, 8:33:48 PM1 votes

Anyone know if certain champions (like Shaco) will be able to solo the Rift Herald while others are destroyed? Probably going to be important to know who's doing that while top is completely unaware. (I don't have PBE)