[Massive Post] Pre-season Predictions and Wishes
Alright so this is my collective thoughts on what we are likely to see or what I hope to see for Pre-season.
Nerf to ADCs, especially their itemization. Since the tank update (and slightly before that) ADCs have been blessed with the best itemization in the game. This has caused a LOT of issues as we've all seen and I do believe some ADCs stand out as hard offenders while many of the items they own are also just too good. The main things that need changes here are;
Caitlyn in my mind doesn't need buffs or nerfs but a hard readjustment. Since her series of nerfs she has been amazingly bad and I want to see Caitlyn get at least played. So what I am calling for is some good shifting of power.
- Increase Trap arm time
- Decrease amount of Traps being held from 5 to 3
- Shift some power back into her kit.
The hope for these changes is to take away power from her traps and allow her to at least function without them. With reduced traps she has to be smarter about placing them and is rewarded for sieging an area longer. It gives people a chance to fight her while she only has 3 down, but punishes them for failing to act sooner. The increased Trap arm time is basically to prevent chain CC with them. This is a feature that should have never existed to be honest and it should have been fixed ages ago.
Draven has been pretty strong for a while and in my mind he should be rewarded for hitting and catching those spinning Axes. So my idea for Draven is to have his Q ramp up the damage he gets each time he catches a Spinning Axe.
So it would start at like 10+5% AD and each time he catches an Axe it could go up like 10+15%/25%/35%/55%/65%/etc. Then make it reduced against minions so he has to hit enemy champions to really get the most out of it. It rewards the highly skilled Draven's while also making it harder for the lesser skilled. Even I am terrible at Draven but I can do good because Q damage is THAT stupid.
just remove E's ability to hit towers. Maybe rework her Passive and make her the diving Marksman. The crazy gunner that jumps around and gets resets. She shouldn't be that, while being a late game marksman AND a tower taker. These are why she is so busted so often.
Twitch is a very difficult champion to make work in my mind. I do believe he should see some kind of nerf and maybe that should come on his ult. Reducing the AD bonus he gets on it maybe?
Just do what the PBE had with the Q rework thing. That was a good idea. Ult was kind of shit so don't do that.
No idea what to do with him. He is basically a mid laner at this point but he needs something. Maybe just go full ham with the AP marksman and have him be full AP. Something. Too difficult to build against at the moment. Also way to safe in lane.
The other Marksman's I think will be fixed with the item changes I want to look at.
For these 4 items I mainly want to give them something different to make them special. Right now, they all just bleed into one another and it becomes a game, which one is the strongest. We really need to take a good hard look at these and give them each a role and focus them into it. Why am I buying Shiv over Rapid Fire.
Ideally I wish they would strip Crit away from but I know that isn't happening.
Price Bump. 3400 to 3500. It seems fair to me.
I do think Lifesteal is an issue in the game. However, I don't think we should touch it for now. I am mainly bringing these items up because they sometimes get brought up in talks and I do want to say they are problems. But Lifesteal is a problem for another day.
Made Melee only OR reduce the slow to 20% for ranged. Really with the new Rune this should just be removed from the game completely. The design is terrible for this item and it should have a cooldown really. Freezeray rune should just replace this item completely.
This item is a pretty shit for a lot of champions. However, some champions abuse the ever loving hell out of it. This item is meant to be the On-hit love child but that means only some champions really like that. This item needs a big overhaul and I am not going to bother going any further on it because it is kind of silly. Maybe shift some stats, make the passive proc less on ranged and with on hit effects make it 50% less effective? I am not sure what to do with it.
So with this, I think a lot of the most problematic issues with the Marksman class would at least be solved to some degree. This would at least give these guys some balance. Don't worry, the next offenders on this list will effect Marksmans too!
Alright time to look at the next class that frankly has had a large part in making Marksman's OP, Support. I will touch on some champions but I want to focus on mainly the items, what I believe to really be harming Support and Marksman.
Janna is a champion that I don’t really want to talk about but if I don’t include her here, I know people will bring her up. Basically, I don’t believe gutting the freelo wind lady will be good. Her kit is frankly far too simple and if we try gutting her more, she is either still going to be good, or complete trash. She needs full scale work and for now, I rather just nerf the items surrounding her and leave her playable, then worthless. She is a great champion for beginner supports and I want her to stay somewhat viable.
Another champion I rather leave alone but I know will be brought up. For some reason people love to hate on thresh. So here I got a hot nerf for you that MASSIVELY effects him. Remove Flay’s bonus passive damage. Done. Thresh has been massively nerfed. Now let’s move on.
TOO LONG HAS HE REMAINED CHAINED. IT'S TIME PEOPLE! TIME TO RAISE OUR DONGERS!!!
Cough Right. Sorry about that.
Karma is in a terrible spot. Too many changes have turned her into the one thing supports should avoid, a shield bot. Right now, karma is too focused on shielding and not on the aspects that make her cool. She needs work and there is people more fit to talk about what she needs then me. So I’ll leave it as – needs further work.
So the change I would pin as good for Lulu is sapping power from her E, a stupidly strong ability, and putting some damage back into Glitterlance. Only this time we put a handy 50% damage against minions so she isn’t as attractive in solo lanes. She will be a lot more aggressive but that is good. It’s interesting. It isn’t just shield my Kog and win.
Depending on the other supports, I believe for now it is best to just leave them. Item changes will affect the rest of them so I’ll just poke at those main ones and hit items now. First up,
Gut this. Remove it. Do something. This item is basically the most inactive piece of shit in the game. Let's be real, it has no skill. The reason it is so stupid is because unlike some items, there isn't any thought put into this. Stat-checking is a ancient design and we should try to avoid it at any given chance. Supports need to be supports again, not Ardent Proc'ers. Maybe make it an active shield that grants those effects?
This is a cool item but it's also kind of shitty. Would love to see this buffed in some way!
Just saying, we need Ohmwrecker to be viable.
Passive gold to good. Putting this item I am targeting the WHOLE line not just the final item. Nerf this, don't buff the other items.
When was the last time you saw this item? I would like to see it updated in some way. Maybe make the user a beacon that once active, buffs minions for a couple of seconds? I am not sure but this item is kind of weak.
Similar to many items I could see a minor change for this item. No idea what.
Make this item less attractive for tanks. Simple as that. I would like to see this rewarding to the tankier supports but not a go to tank item.
Now I want to touch on a little point that a couple of items have; 10% bonus to healing and shielding. Remove this stat. Make it super exclusive like putting it onto just 
. It is a needless stat checking stat that Redemption, and Ardent have that I don't think is healthy for the items. Hell here is a good idea for you, split the passive. Redemption gives 10% bonus healing while Ardent has 10% bonus shielding. Then the two items fill different niches; the healing item and the shielding item. It would at least be more interesting and grant the player choices. Make them a named passive so they don't stack either so the player can only make use of one of them.
With this, I think a lot of the headache that is adcs would be fixed. By nerfing the support items or offering meaningful changes, we make adcs less unkillable or annoying. I of course didn't offer a ton of recommended changes because that would make this post even bigger than it needs to be! So if you see something I listed then offer up a change of your own. Maybe point out stuff I missed! Now onto the rest of the stuff I want to see changed.
Runes are being changed. This is happening and I just am pointing it out as this is post is just predicting or recommending changes.
Jungle is always in a weird spot. Junglers hate it when the jungle changes but this time I do think we need to touch on some changes. First I want to touch on the plants.
Blast Plant - Frankly this plant should either change or be shifted out. This plant was never one I cared for as it added unneeded mobility to champions. Now that Shyv has lvl 1 mobility that she didn't have before. It's unneeded power that doesn't offer balance in my mind. It has always been the plant that is just a the get out of jail free card for people and never offered much though. I don't like it and I would like to see it removed.
Vision Plant - I like this plant frankly. Offers some thought to players as they can hit it 360 and they have to decide where they want that vision. It offers vision control which I like! Maybe it could be hit will a small nerf to it's size as it's maybe too good at giving vision at the moment. Not sure but this one is pretty much fine to me.
Honey Fruit - Love this plant. No problems with it in my mind and I think it should stay.
Next I want to touch on the jungle catch-up exp. Right now catch-up exp is helping people TOO much. This isn't a terrible thing but people that are behind because you out jungled them hard for them to be completely caught up to you is a little dumb. Let's make this a little less effective for junglers so a skilled jungler that sets behind someone actually gets value out of it. It makes effective counter jungling or hyper farming junglers pretty much worthless. I can see this being touched on for sure as it is killing playstyles and champions a little too hard.
Now I want to talk about the big bads of the Rift. This would be Herald, Baron, and Dragons.
Rift Herald is without a doubt in my mind, too good. This mainly has to do with the reward you get, for the ease this can be taken. Rift Herald is too easy. As a top laner, I can solo this bad boy any time I get a chance to hard shove the lane in. With a jungler or support, it's even easier. Herald needs to be at least somewhat challenging for the rewards of almost always removing a tower off the map. Also there needs to be a audio queue to let players know it died. Too many games I didn't noticed it was taken until it was active. Let's give it a baron or dragon effect so players know! Also update us who has it. Why are we unable to know who has it and when it was taken? Seems really silly to me. Basically buff it so more people need to be on it to take it and give it more clarity when someone takes it.
Baron needs more. Right now Baron is a bitch boy. He isn't scary and there is so many elements that cause it to just blow up. Give it more threatening attacks or make it a massive debuffer. Take a note from Vilemaw. Vilemaw is a massive threat in most causes that an enemy team can use to their advantage. Due to massive debuffing, the team that starts it is often at a real disadvantage to be caught doing it. Make Baron like that! Make it something you actually need to plan around doing then, "Lol let's get Baron."
Dragons are the last thing I want to touch on in regards to jungle. Basically, I would like to see Drakes be less random. I don't really care for their random nature in the slightest nor do I like their just passive stats. They don't sit right as a team with 3 earths or 3 fires is always going to be default better than their enemy. It's also an element that plays to the damage creep and should be changed. It is meant to change the players game plan more, but it often just doesn't do that OR it becomes a win harder button. Let's sit down and figure out what works and what doesn't for these. Elder Dragon is fine. It's the combat, objective one and honestly it's okay. Maybe give it more threat value like more attacks or something. It doesn't feel very epic most of the time with just it's little bites.
Now for the rest of the stuff I hope to see changed.
AP items - This is a section I know many people are crying out for. I think with ADs and Supports getting hit, mages will start to come back. However, I do think some of their items need some attention. While the class will find a better spot overall, it will need some small changes most likely in the future towards it's items, to be really peachy.
Assassins - Something people will bring up. Nerf duskblade and then leave it. We need to focus on each assassin one at a time. No class update. No buffs. Let's see what the rest of the changes above do and then act upon that information.
Tanks - Frankly I think tank items need to be more attractive then support items. Tanks as a whole are in a weird spot, a worse spot then Assassins or Mages in my mind. All the champions need work in their own way, mostly nerfs, while also making the tank items we buy somewhat interesting or good. We shouldn't be buying support items like a second support because our own items are so lame.
Meddler should follow thru with that E hitbox and E Flash change. Will help us work with Gragas a lot better in the future and judge what works and what doesn't.
Does Q do less damage to minions? Let's do that.
Give Q more mana maybe? That would reduce her aggressive nature and make her have to play smarter rather than just Q when near vital. Maybe reducing the healing she gets on passive would also be a good hit. I don't play Fiora but I know a lot of people are pissed she is getting buffed (Even though I kind of agree she needed it).
Give Skillshot Boi some more buffs. Kind of needs it. W change could help. Must be a skillshot though.
Remove DFT interaction with her E and give her something for teamfighting. She can do well in lane but she falls off like a god damn boulder.
RAISE THE DONGER
Remove on of his MANY passive buffs. Too many hidden elements that just play to stat-checking.
Yo give these to a gameplay update.
Give him a dash Kappa
Probably going to get buffs before Preseason. 30% winrate last time I checked.
Make her Ult's hitbox not as funky.
Give him power out side of his Ghouls and Maiden. Something to let him actually do something in teamfights.
Full revert. He was fine before.
Ha this guy needs a high elo buff and low elo nerf. To lopsided.
Make me want to play Garen over Darius.
This item and what it goes into need work. That or we slow games back down a little so it means something. Maybe make it more attractive for Mages and Mana-hungry champions? It just doesn't stack fast enough in most cases to be viable.
Alright I think that is it! These are all my wishes and some predictions as to what Riot will do for pre-season. I am fairly positive ADCs and Supports will see work but the rest are just some guesses to what Riot may do. Pre-season is going to be bat shit crazy so leave some ideas of what you think Riot is going to do. This is a good place to share ideas and point out as players what we want to see from League. Thanks for reading.
