Ryze work on PBE

Hi everyone,

This PBE cycle you'll notice some pretty significant Ryze changes coming to the PBE. They're a bit of reshaping to the existing mechanics on his kit aiming to bridge some of the gap between solo queue and pro performance. While there are no new spells coming to the kit, there are some big enough mechanics changes that it probably merits an explanation of what's going on. A few weeks ago, Meddler mentioned in one of his Gameplay thoughts that we may do a last big mechanics pass on both Ryze and Azir before accepting balancing them strictly for pro long term, so you'll be seeing those changes coming to the PBE now, starting with Ryze. With that out of the way, here's some goals stuff, followed by the current (subject to change) list of changes going to the PBE for Ryze.

Ryze Goals

• Ryze is more vulnerable in the early lane especially. Adding a mechanic that necessitates him regularly casting Rune Prison in lane aims to create more moments where you can catch him with it on cooldown.
• Ryze's dps and dueling power is pushed to later parts of the game.
• Slower wave push across the board, especially in the laning phase. Looking to achieve this through a change to how E->Q deals its damage, as well as reduced Mana ratios (early/mid game damage) and increased AP ratios (mid/late game damage).
• Reduced reliable lockdown. Base W is a slow instead of a root - upgraded version is still a root, but duration is down a bit.
• This means that if Ryze wants to Flash root you, he has to throw an E at you first, giving you an extra .25 seconds to react (with your own flash or dash, for instance). It also aims to reduce the power of his gank assist in a coordinated setting slightly.
• More baseline reliable dps added to later game Spell Flux (E).
• E cd is reduced a bit later on, and E and Q bounce rules favor bouncing between champions by using edge checks.
• E->Q's damage bonus is changed to true damage at half the current magic damage values, in addition to scaling with Ryze's level rather than any of his spell ranks so that there's no way to get it fully online before end game.
• Realm Warp (R) has a longer range to make it easier to use per cast, but its cooldown is waaaaaaay up. More accessible baseline, but fewer opportunities to cast.
• Yes, this does make Realm Warp a more powerful spell per cast, which may seem unintuitive. However, the intention is that the extremely long cooldown means it's something that solo queue players have to think about less as a portion of their total success, but also something that pros are able to utilize less as a portion of their total success on the champion. If this ult cooldown gating is successful, it's something we could potentially consider applying to other champions with pro-warping spells.
• I'm sure some will ask "why not just replace Realm Warp?" The answer is that Realm Warp does exciting things for the champion that we like, but that the primary satisfaction driver of the champion is his core combat loop, so we'd like to keep that intact and just adjust R to be less important overall.
• Bonus Improvement - all spells benefit from spell queueing.
• This is actually tentatively being applied globally across all champions in 8.9, but it's worth calling out for Ryze especially, because it will tend to benefit characters that cast rapidly the most. We put some tech in with Irelia to make the game process your spell casts a bit better, so if you've noticed how smooth she feels, this is likely a large contributor.

Ryze Tentative Changes

• General
• Improved spell queueing for Overload, Rune Prison, and Spell Flux
• Overload (Q)
• Spell Ranks :: 6 (1/3/5/7/9/11) >>> 5 (1/3/5/7/9)
• Damage :: 60/85/110/135/160/185 (+45%AP) (+3%BonusMana) >>> 60/90/120/150/180 (+50%AP) (+2%BonusMana)
• NEW :: Deals (14+2perLevel)% additional damage as true damage to enemies with Flux (replaces E bonus damage mechanic)
• Cost :: 40 >>> 40/50/60/70/80
• Shielding :: (60+5/lvl) >>> 50/75/100/125/150
• Movement Speed :: 25/28/31/34/37/40% >>> 20/25/30/35/40%
• Rune Duration :: 4 >>> 5, renewing on taking or dealing damage
• Rune Prison (W)
• Cooldown :: 13/12/11/10/9 >>> 15/13/11/9/7
• Damage :: 80/100/120/140/160 (+60%AP) (+1%BonusMana) >>> 80/100/120/140/160 (+60%AP) (+4%BonusMana)
• CC type :: roots for 0.75 seconds >>> applies a 50% slow that decays over 1.5 seconds
• REMOVED :: Mana Cost
• NEW :: Casting Rune Prison restores 6/7/8/9/10% of Ryze's maximum Mana
• Spell Flux (E)
• Cooldown :: 3.25/3.00/2.75/2.50/2.25 >>> 3.5/3.0/2.5/2.0/1.5
• Ability Power Ratio :: 30% >>> 40%
• Bonus Mana Ratio :: 2% >>> 1%
• REMOVED :: Overload Damage Bonus (replaced by Q true damage mechanic)
• W Bonus :: Increased Root Duration >>> Roots instead of slowing
• Spread Damage :: 50% >>> 100%
• Bounce Radius (also applies to Q) :: 350 >>> 275
• Bounce Rules (also applies to Q) :: Center to center >>> edge to edge
• Effectively makes bouncing between minions the same, and bouncing to champions a bit easier
• Realm Warp (R)
• Ranks :: 2 (6/11) >>> 3 (6/11/16)
• Range :: 1750/3000 >>> 4000 all ranks
• Cooldown :: 180 >>> 300/240/180

That's the current plan for Ryze. I'll check back in to answer questions where appropriate, and as always, I expect only your highest effort memes.

Azir

As mentioned above, Azir is also expected to see some work this patch. For Azir, I think the approach is much simpler, but will be like ripping a band aid off. The tentative plan for him is to make his soldier attacks fully single target (only dealing damage to the target the attack was order was issued on), and with the power budget that provides us, be able to buff him back up to where he was when his recent rework was shipped. The goal here would be to reduce his wave control significantly while retaining his core satisfaction as a high dps, medium/high ranged mage. More on that coming soon,; hopefully something to the PBE later this week if it seems like a reasonable path.

Thanks, Repertoir