Preseason 7 - Thoughts

Alright, I know this is going to be a little negative, and don't get me wrong, Riot has been doing a lot of good out of game things, like Replays and bringing back solo queue for example, BUT, in terms of the in game mechanic changes, and balance changes and such, I think they've really missed the point this time.

Okay, I don't really mind the assassin reworks to be honest, I think they WERE a good change and are more healthy (minus a few, Kha'zix I'm looking at you, but I think number tweaks could fix him, he was strong to begin with, but they added all the bells and whistles now he's just overloaded.) Aside from him, they ARE pretty balanced. Nice job Rito :D

What I'm really having trouble with getting down, is the changes to the jungle (being a jungle main). First off, the new plants, I feel like they really could be a good idea, and a decent implication into the game, but the way they are now, I think is extremely unhealthy for the game. The reason why i think is, is because they are all ways to cover up mistakes.

Blast Cone - Say you pick a fight in the river early on, and their botlane comes around the corner, which would usually, and rightfully so, result in a kill. You were picking a fight in a spot with no vision, BUT, with Blast Cone, you can just happily attack it once, and boom, free escape, and you live unscathed.

Honeyfruit - You go in for a trade in toplane because you forgot Darius has his e up, look no further! Walk into the jungle and for the small cost of a short slow, you regain ~30% of your health. Again, you fought a bad fight, you should have to pay the price, of either having to back and walk back to lane, or burn some potions, or try to fight it out, BUT you don't have to do options 1-3, surprise! Free health in the river.

Scryer's Bloom - Oh shoot, you forgot to put your pink down in the dragon pit! Oh, how convenient, free vision over dragon and then some! If you don't ward it, that's your problem, there shouldn't be a free Ashe e to make up for you.

League is my favourite game, and has been since I started playing a few years ago, and I feel really bad writing all this haha, but I don't want the changes this season to draw me away from my favourite role and playstyle.

Alright, onto the smite changes. Riot's argument for making these changes, was that they ended up falling off late and not making a big enough of a difference as the game went on. But I don't see really what making it have a longer cd, and giving a heal instead fixes the problem, it only seems to add to it in my opinion. It was removing depth where I really thought it wasn't all that bad, I liked the old smite buffs to be honest. You had to pick which one you wanted to smite early, but instead of something like the new scryer's bloom, which is raw vision, and has next to no trade off for using it, the raptor buff, forced to use your smite on it, and not on red for health or krugs for the stuns on clearing. It added HEALTHY depth, where there was a cost to using it, and not something free for making up for mistakes. Also, the longer cd, if I'm not mistaken, makes it so you can't smite your third camp (unless you clear abnormally slow) which for junglers than don't have a whole lot of sustain early, can force them to back, or fall behind in levels by doing other things.

As for the changes to how the camps are situated and how they work, I think the new krugs realllyyy, need to NOT split at early levels, and have that feature get progressively potent as the game goes on, to the point it is now, where at early levels, it is like it was for S6, but as the game goes on, the krugs start to split more and more. ALSO, same idea with raptors, so that early on, it only spawns with 3, then every time you clear it, one more spawns, with a cap of five, so that most junglers, have an easier time starting on reside, and don't need to start on blue side, if they don't need blue.

Also, off topic, holy moly Vayne is busted right now haha, she can get to that point of being a hyper carry with only ~2 items, which isn't really fair that she gets to her super strong state way earlier now, which isn't super balanced imo, I've, seen so many Vaynes, even before preseason, be 1-5 or something like that, and come in after a teamfight, to demolish 2-3 of us who are pretty healthy, and shrug it off like it was no big deal.

Anyways, pretty lengthy post, but I feel it was necessary to get my opinion across, that I do not think some of the changes will be a good thing for the game, thanks for reading, gl on the rift! Fist bump