If you had the chance to design a Class Update...

EbonyBladeJ88·Sep 13, 2018·7 votes·6,425 views

Now, I know Riot has stated that they will no longer do Class-specific updates after the reactions some of the more infamous ones got. Mage and Tank strike me as the outliers according to memory, though the Assassin, Juggernaut and Marksmen ones also had their detractors. I might be remembering things wrong though.

So, hopefully this is the right board to pose this question.

I'm asking my fellow community members, if YOU had the chance to design one of the Class Updates akin to the ones we saw in past seasons, what would you do?

What class would you focus on? What champions in those classes? Would you include any changes to the jungle, or objectives such as Dragon, Rift Herald and the like? Would you introduce new items based around the update?

Considering this is hypothetical, we could get crazy and do some really wacky or insane-sounding stuff.

25 Comments

EvilUnicornLordSep 13, 20186 votes

Marksmen/psuedo-marksmen but not ADCs.

Quinn Jayce Graves Kindred Gnar Urgot Gangplank and so on.

They aren't in a wholly great spot right now, either always winning or hard losing and never on steady footing. I'm okay with the concept of up-close-and-personal marksmen that take toplane and jungle, but they're never fun to play against even if you do win and also not so fantastic to play as either.

I can't think of any general blanket change that will fix all the problems of playing with/as/against them but there are a few individual changes I can think of that I would list here if I had infinite time.

Moody PSep 14, 20183 votes

why is urgot here? he doesn't fit anything you described

EvilUnicornLordSep 14, 20181 votes

He's a pseudo-marksman.

He isn't in as much of a problematic state as some of the others but he does have a few slight issues (mostly stat issues, though, I've noticed while playing as/against him that his early game is kind of absurd).

Moody PSep 14, 20181 votes

I disagree, his early game is not really anything special other than that it's exceptionally safe, particularly for a juggernaut. I wouldn't call him a pseudo-marksman; he's more of a juggernaut/artillery mix with how good his poke is for his class.

EvilUnicornLordSep 15, 20181 votes

Then wouldn't Olaf also be a juggernaut/artillery?

Urgot's classified as a unique playstyle but, personally, I would consider him to be a juggernaut/marksman since you're relying more on auto-attacks than you are poke (unless the enemy laner is constantly 100 feet away at all times).

Dark RoyaltySep 14, 20181 votes

Think that jayce and quinn are unhealthy as toplaners and gnar needs a slight rework to make him more interactive in lane i think urgot should be able to use steraks too

GinoSoldierSep 14, 20185 votes

I would hit, in this order; Supports; Tanks; Assassins, with some work on a handful of Marksmen along the way.

Support/Tank update goals;

Tie the Income items to the role so that it no longer causes poaching issues across the game, vastly improve support income via those items.

Reduce the class' dependency on item actives, improve kits to compensate, items give better stats, cost more.

-Homogenize Mage and Enchanter, as well as Warden and Tank itemization. Items to give similar stats, but champions choose items based on what actives/passives they need, whether they want to help themselves or allies.

Example; Luden's Echo 3200G, 90AP, 600Mana, 10% CDR, Personal damage amp passive. Ardent Censer 3200G, 90AP, 125%Mana Regen, 10% CDR, Team damage amp passive.

Locket; 3000G, 400HP, 30Armor, 60MR, Teamwide shield that replaces any other forms of shielding for it's duration (prevents stacking). Stoneplate 3000G, 400HP, 45 Armor, 45MR, Personal HP augment active. Grants extra resistances for being surrounded.

Support champions to work on; Sona, Nami, Janna, Soraka. Take each of their kits and give them now missing item actives. Soraka gets a long CD Cleanse + CC immunity buff, Sona gets a Redemption-like new ultimate, Nami gets a 1 shot cleanse, and so on.

Tanks to work on; Leona, Skarner, Tahm, Volibear. Leona gets a new passive she can actually use; her kit now actually provides some stat scaling from items beyond resistances. Skarner VGU, Tahm damage output reduction, Volibear VGU.

Additional work put into balancing and changing every support champion for viability for solo lane play in either mid, top or jungle.

Assassin update goal;

Make sure assassins are properly designed to require all their damage sources to blow up a full health enemy. Reduce/block access to Armor Pen beyond Lethality, possibly reduce overall damage VS better slipperiness across the board. Remove/highly diminish upfront damage granted by items actives/passives (Duskblade, Gunblade) and balance their kits accordingly.

Marksmen update goal;

Transfer a large portion of their damage from their auto attacks to their kits; make the kits sharper, better defined and unique. Either remove Crit entirely or balance crit around champion kits in a manner that rewards skillful play (Vayne hitting 3rd silver arrow, Caitlyn Headshots, Tristana Bomb) instead of directly on auto attacks.

PheobosSep 14, 20181 votes

This was a very nice read, well spaced out and you made your points very clear.

please tell me why they haven't hired you.. or someone like you?

GinoSoldierSep 14, 20181 votes

{quoted}

This was a very nice read, well spaced out and you made your points very clear.

please tell me why they haven't hired you.. or someone like you?

Well, i for one have no actual expertise beyond reading all the patch notes. And also having a lot of time to define and think about my wants and opinions, but as for finding someone like me... I like to think i'm one of a kind.

[slayer-jinx-wink]

Thank you for the compliments! :)

Dark RoyaltySep 14, 20181 votes

Love it

ModThe DjinnSep 13, 20182 votes

Personally I'd actually hit Marksmen or Assassins again. I think there was some good work done on both, but I also think both can be improved upon more than the other classes as far as gameplay health (regarding assassins) or diversity of gameplay output (regarding marksmen) goes.

EbonyBladeJ88Sep 13, 20181 votes

Hmm... If you don't mind me picking your brain a little bit, what champions might you change in those classes?

Any particular outliers you'd want to look at? I'm not saying come up with some huge essay like this:

Say, if you did Marksmen...

"Oh, I'd change Vayne and her tank-melting Silver Bolts to be more situational. Or I'd finally give Teemo changes that would cement him as a Bot-lane marksman. Then I'd do such and such to Draven , etc. etc."

I'm just wondering, if you have any in mind, who would they be?

I would probably do a second run on Juggernauts, or maybe Divers, since the originally scheduled Diver update got replaced with the Tank one (Or was it Assassins? I can't remember).

ModThe DjinnSep 13, 20182 votes

{quoted}Hmm... If you don't mind me picking your brain a little bit, what champions might you change in those classes?

For Assassins, I'd primarily want to look into itemization and how often their items are being poached. I'd also want to probably look at Shaco, Kassadin, Fizz, and Kha'Zix, as well as do some deciding on whether or not Nocturne, Pantheon, and Diana should be Divers or Assassins (as people are split on those). Main goal would be to look into kill time and available counterplay TO that kill time.

Marksmen is trickier, as a lot of them WORK, and a core part of the issue is that I feel Marksmen in general have too much power in their auto-attacks, which can come at the expense of interesting kits. I'd want to look at Caitlyn, Corki, Jinx, Kog'Maw, Miss Fortune, Sivir, Tristana, Twitch, and Vayne, as I think those are the characters that lack a bit of the output identity that marksmen with more unique patterns can bring to the table.

Moody PSep 13, 20182 votes

juggernaut 2.0

rework to item 3091 - better slot efficiency and less shitty niche value, item 3056

DrMundo Volibear Trundle update these 3

Wacky9Sep 14, 20182 votes

Tank itemization needs some serious help. Tanks have no excellent 3000+ gold items for late game scaling. Tanks themselves aren't too bad but if anything they need more durability not less. I'd probably add a 3600 item that offered 500 health, +50% CURRENT health regeneration and a unique passive that was the inverse of Liandry's e.g. This champion takes up to 10% reduced damage after being in combat with enemy champions for 10-30 seconds.
The true bane of my existence is the singular strategy of crit marksman. Most good marksman are crit marksman (with the exception of one champion that basically gets a free crit). However I find crit marksman to be somewhat boring and I want marksman that are better off going full-AD than trying to build crit. This would involve certain champion changes:

MissFortune would get Love Tap's that crit and complete her transition to a proper crit marksman. Damage would be turned way down and her love taps would go on cooldown instead of adding bonus upfront damage to her first hit against an enemy. This will reduce some of MF's burst and turn her more into a DoT goddess

Xayah should lose all her crit scalings and instead have all around 10% higher AD scalings on her feathers. Her ult would be slightly changed to a cast-recast ability to give her better ways to use it.

Caitlyn would lose crit scalings on her passive changing everything into higher AD scalings. Her traps would be destroyable but give her an execute against enemies she traps (25% of their missing health bonus damage). Her net would be a proper root but wouldn't knock her back. It would give the same execute as her traps. Also she would lose the max traps but they would only last for 60 seconds.

You can see where I'm going with this. Champions like MF and Twitch should be crit marksman because they make sense to be crit marksman, whereas Caitlyn and Xayah would gain more AD and more rewards for setting up their perfect kill.

Dark RoyaltySep 14, 20181 votes

Tank items are too cheap rn if u removed conq tanks and darius would be the only thing played top. I think bruiser items should be changed so that conq can get replaced with a more healthier rune without true damage.

Frosted TipsSep 13, 20181 votes

Fighters/Tanks - Either or a hybrid of both. I think fighters especially AP fighters lack diversity in builds and runes. But why I say both is because Tanks and Fighters use some of the same items and Tanks often times are blamed by Riot why something they want to introduce into the game can't be introduced. It is because tanks abuse it. For example, even though I'm not a huge fan of Conqueror and I know many of you are not either, but IMO it should be adaptive just like any other rune. Riot has blamed tanks abusing it to be the reason they couldn't make it adaptive. I truly think tanks should do less damage to champions on average and equal to minions. So that's my opinion on what I would do.

EbonyBladeJ88Sep 13, 20181 votes

Interesting. Any particular champs or items you'd see as prime targets for changes?

Frosted TipsSep 13, 20181 votes

Champions for fighters Diana Mordekaiser (I know he is getting reworked already next year) Elise Kennen Malphite (possibly if they choose to make him a fighter with rework) They would be looked at for changes in their kits, but many others would be effected by items and may need to be looked into including Rumble Nidalee (she is a hybrid assassin/fighter remember old item 3078 item 3153 ) Chogath Ekko Some item ideas rework item 3091 into an AP black cleaver of sorts, and possibly add a AP trinity force and an AP steraks.

Tanks all need to be looked at regardless of a class update. Their damage to champions is too high and or too guaranteed. They don't absorb enough champion damage rn, and they absorb too much tower damage. I have no clue about any items.

Just to throw it out there item 3056 buff where it grounds targets near the targeted turret and also can be cast on destroyed allied turrets to re summon them for a few seconds.

ankoanko19Sep 14, 20181 votes

Fighters. Change their items make them less oppressive against the opponent for when a bruiser is ahead but at the same time make them less oppressive for when the actual bruiser is behind. Change some bruisers to have more counterplay but at the same time do what they do (So for example, with my favorite character, Irelia, I would change her ult to just be like an utility ult so you dont get any marks off it, but at the same time you get more upfront burst from Q).

EbonyBladeJ88Sep 14, 20181 votes

Now I could be misreading this, but you would want to both change bruiser/fighter items to be less oppressive when a Fighter is ahead, and also less oppressive when they are behind? Like I said, I could be misreading it, but that sounds like a Class Nerf more than a Class Update.

You also said adding more counterplay. By changing items, that's the class as a whole, yes, but are there any particular champs (I see you mentioned Irelia who is a Diver, and thus Fighter/Bruiser) that you would add Kit changes to, in addition to the item changes you bring up? Just curious.

ankoanko19Sep 14, 20181 votes

Fighter items are really expensive. The 2 core for almost all bruisers these days are item 3078 > item 3053 . These cost 6933 gold to complete. But at the same time they give a lot of stats. What I essentially mean is, I would want some sort of rework to the items so they dont give as much free stats as they do right now but at the same time arent so incredibly expensive that you have to snowball inorder to get them. Hence ''Make them less oppressive for the actual fighter if he is behind but also less oppressive for the enemy if the fighter is ahead''.

Yes I would add kit changes to some champions. Irelia was just the champion I listed at the top of my head since I know personally what exactly Riot could do to make her less frustrating (in this case decrease mobility but increase her 1v1 potential). But I would do major changes to some champions like Illaoi Renekton Since these characters are always either trash or really oppressive to play against.