About Kog'Maw Changes on PBE @Meddler

MilamberZ·Feb 16, 2016·11 votes·9,200 views

Kog'Maw Attack speed lowered to .558 from .665

Isn't that too harsh? When he can see the light of a good play possible without being too weak, you nerf more than he was previously. That nerf will not help him to being a hypercarry, neither the buff done previously. If you are going to nerf him like that, give it to him a speed growth for compensate, and with that, he'll be more "hypercarry" on late, without be too strong early-mid with those nerf of his speed.

49 Comments

RiotMeddlerFeb 17, 201611 votes

We'll probably end up around 0.625 at a guess. The designer working on the Kog changes wanted to start by testing a pretty extreme change though, hence that value at present.

QuephaFeb 17, 20164 votes

{quoted}

We'll probably end up around 0.625 at a guess. The designer working on the Kog changes wanted to start by testing a pretty extreme change though, hence that value at present.

Kog'maw's winrate curve by game length already seems to correspond with him being an early game bully who falls off late, won't this attack speed nerf hit his late game harder than his early and further exacerbate this weirdness?

MessaigaFeb 17, 20161 votes

He's not an early game bully, its his mid-game that became significantly stronger. This is because around the time indicated on champion.gg where his win rate is quite high, he likely will have Rageblade and Hurricane completed, and be level 9 or higher. His win rate drops off later because he is squishy and while he has immense damage, one death can be very impactful later in a game.

HellioningFeb 17, 20163 votes

Can you just revert the change that put Q's passive onto W?

I really don't understand why it happened. Now Q is a 0 point wonder.

Vistha KaiFeb 19, 20161 votes

Kog'Maw has an ability under Q?

AlsekFeb 17, 20161 votes

I'm seriously having a hard time understanding these changes though. Kog'maw definitely too strong at the moment but even in his rather silly state he feels like he falls off post 40 minutes which is really contrary to his past identity. Wouldn't a nerf to his base attack speed make that even worse?

LoLKiruFeb 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

We'll probably end up around 0.625 at a guess. The designer working on the Kog changes wanted to start by testing a pretty extreme change though, hence that value at present.

I'm genuinely curious as to why we couldn't simply revert the change to his Q (while allowing his W to keep the 15 minimum damage and then reevaluating where he is after that), since that definitely seems to be the thing that pushed him over the edge, since he now powerspikes significantly earlier.

Is there a specific reason for this?

Edit: If Kog was still too weak after having his Q change reverted, surely there could be other ways to buff him in ways that actually alter his lategame (perhaps giving him another passive steroid on his E to increase his power further as the game goes on?)

MilamberZFeb 17, 20161 votes

If i'm not mistaken, it was the initial value on the marksman change, before the small buff he got some patch after no?

On a more long ranged period, any plan for give it to him more synergy into his kit? I began to play kog with the preseason, and i loved it when i tried it on pbe. But with more and more game, i feel like the Q and the E doesn't fit well with the rest of his kit. It should be possible to make some interaction between each of ability.

On an other side, since i like AS champions (like Kog, Aatrox or Nocturne), any concern about their itemisation? Attack speed item, marksman excluded, haven't really many options (devourer on jungle, botkr, and guinsoo are the only items providing speed and some damage, one is only for jungle lane, guinsoo is a conditionnal ).

Anyway thanks a lot for the previous quick answer

Nanuk PihoqahiakFeb 17, 20161 votes

If you're seeing that Kog'maw is too strong, couldn't it have something to do with the extremely lazy 'buff' he was given when the design team shifted his attack speed from his Q to his W?

YumeiiFeb 17, 20163 votes

6.2 Kog'Maw Considered "garbage." I'd argue otherwise but I'm not the majority.

6.3 Kog'Maw Passive attack speed from Q moved to W, suddenly "god tier." At level 18, there is effectively no difference between 6.2 and 6.3 Kog'Maw.

6.4 Kog'Maw If this PBE change goes through, he'll be weaker than both 6.2 and 6.3 by level 18, which is the opposite of what Riot wants for a "late game hypercarry," which they've said time and again they want Kog'Maw to be.

If they wanted to bring Kog'Maw back down, I'd much prefer they just go back to "garbage" 6.2 since he'd actually be stronger late game than this currently proposed 6.4.

I'm not really even understanding why Kog'Maw's W should be overloaded with all-of-the-things in the first place. Isn't there simply too much power in that one skill? I feel they should step back to 6.2 and consider alternatives rather than plowing forward from 6.3.

YCitizenSnipsYFeb 17, 20162 votes

He's weaker late but still strong early. The reason he was so "garbage" in 6.2 is because his early was being overly abused.

Going backwards wont solve anything.

YumeiiFeb 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

He's weaker late but still strong early.

Except the entire point of Kog'Maw was supposed to be the exact opposite of that. Weaker early, strong late. You know, a late game hypercarry? I can't be the only one who remembers the definition, can I?

Riot's been saying that repeatedly for Kog'Maw and yet, here we are.

If his early was too weak, then buff his early a bit. That's fine. But reducing his already lackluster late when that's the time he's actually supposed to shine is just counter-productive.

RebonackFeb 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Except the entire point of Kog'Maw was supposed to be the exact opposite of that. Weaker early, strong late. You know, a late game hypercarry? I can't be the only one who remembers the definition, can I?

Riot's been saying that repeatedly for Kog'Maw and yet, here we are.

If his early was too weak, then buff his early a bit. That's fine. But reducing his already lackluster late when that's the time he's actually supposed to shine is just counter-productive.

For the life of me I can't figure out why this is so hard for Riot to grasp.

If they straight up rolled Kog back to where he was after his hotfix buff and then added a small amount of flat base damage to his W that increases with level that would allow him to have a great late game with an easily tuned early game.

But nope, Riot seems intent on going full steam ahead with early/mid game powerhouse Kog despite literally every Kog player saying that's a bad route to take.

YumeiiFeb 17, 20161 votes

Exactly.

I mean, I highly doubt that anyone is saying to revert and stay that way... forever! We're saying to revert and do something else, which is vastly different. Just in case people need a diagram...

Riot's current method 1 -> 2 (bad patch) -> 3

Revert and look at alternatives 1 -> ~~2 (bad patch)~~ -> A

Here's an example, because I like examples. Let's say a soap company introduced a new chemical that cleaned better, but then they learned it caused skin cancer.

Should they... keep it and put in a new chemical that slightly reduces the potency of 2? 1 -> 2 (cancer chemical) -> 3

Or should they... take that crap out and find another way to make their soap clean better? 1 -> ~~2 (cancer chemical)~~ -> A

Reverting is a perfectly acceptable way to make changes. It is in no way going backwards or ignoring progress.

VamedocFeb 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Should they... keep it and put in a new chemical that slightly reduces the potency of 2?

I agree. Udyr is cancer and should be removed. If that's what you mean.

But it does not work that way, a "bad "patch (like current ryze) can lead to changing a champion's play-pattern for the better, nerf them, then buff them in other areas. Oh you were talking about Kog. Same applies. Though gotta fall before you ryze (did I just do that?) https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3qEwsWdqf-s/maxresdefault.jpg

YumeiiFeb 18, 20162 votes

Yes, you did do that. Don't be ashamed. Embrace it!

And I get what you're saying and I'll grant that it's not always soap with cancer chemicals situation. But that doesn't mean moving forward with a bad patch is the only available option either. However, it seems to be the only option Riot's been taking. The other one is available and valid but consistently ignored.

There's a difference between a bad patch that requires reverting and one that doesn't. If they changed stuff in a way that (like you said) changed things for the better, but the champion ended up in a bad place, by all means keep the change and mess with the numbers to improve them. I don't think anyone's really complained when this happened.

But if you change things in a way that just made things worse all around, there's no shame in reverting it and do an alternative. This is what ends up getting all the backlash, because Riot seems to refuse to take this option. No one's saying this option must be taken every time, but it isn't taken even when it's a good time to do so.

Kog'Maw's attack speed passive being moved from Q to W is an example of the latter. Before, it made you think about what you needed: more attack speed and shred from Q, or more range and lower down time for W. Now it's W, no question. Before, the power of each individual skill was slightly more balanced, though W was still a tad overloaded. Now W is completely overloaded with all-the-things.

And on top of all this, it moved Kog'Maw into OP status somehow. Messing with the numbers at this point may "fix" his status, but his changes still left him in a worse state, not a better one.

YCitizenSnipsYFeb 18, 20161 votes

Whens the last time a late game hypercarry has actually had a weak early and been a good pick that wasn't overshadowed by another pick. Wanna know why every one was picking Jinx and Vayne last year but not Kog, because despite all three being hyper carries two of them didn't have a weak early.

When is the last time you have seen a Jax or a Nasus be strong without a stronger than usual early game.

Hell even Cassiopiea and Azir had FoTM's last year because they were lane bullies and hypercarries.

The only way to have hypercarries even some what relevant is to shift the meta to focus late game again like it was in the past. And no one wants to go back to the league of late game where we endlessly clear waves and stall and the game is decided by a single baron fight.

LaughingStaplerFeb 17, 20163 votes

The way they're nerfing him is stupid and showcases a typical inability to revert bad changes on Riot's part. It actually really makes me lose hope in them because it shows an arrogance and lack of flexibility that is rare to see for a professional in any type of work. Nerfing Kog's base AS hurts every build and role for Kog while forcing you to max W even more than before regardless of whether you're up vs very tanky teams or squishy ones. It also hurts his scaling with AS runes, items or any other source so it takes a champion that was supposed to be good late game and makes him FAR worse than even before the 6.3 changes.

Keeping AS on Q would made sense before to make Kog choose between less downtime and more range or more damage but less safety. It gated his power and gave him a more typical hypercarry curve. They had a really dumb idea to put AS on W and give him access to his level 18 power at level 13. Now, instead of accepting this and being smart enough to revert it, they're moving forward with it but nerfing Kog's scaling. Kog players chose him because they wanted an immobile hypercarry with massive damage and good scaling, not another mid game carry. All they had to do before was reduce the ult. mana cost slightly and he was fine for both mid (a role left in the dust) and bot.

Dominick DestineFeb 17, 20163 votes

And here we have another example of a champion that is not protected vs. one that is.

Udyr near 60% win rate,high pick rate and Riot chose to nerf everyone else instead of him. KogMaw viable for one patch, gets a straight nerf immediately after.

RiotMeddlerFeb 17, 201614 votes

Udyr's also getting directly nerfed in 6.4.

Dominick DestineFeb 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Udyr's also getting directly nerfed in 6.4.

Thank you Meddler sama, I know this means nothing to you, but I feel a lot better knowing that Udyr is actually getting brought down to balanced levels rather than continually nerfing everyone else (Cough Runic Echoes Cough).

In any case, thank you for the information, I mean it.

Solidair3Feb 17, 20163 votes

What are they? I don't see any on the pbe right now

JalkanFeb 17, 20161 votes

Then wait for them to appear.

Krys StarFeb 17, 20161 votes

I believe he might mean the nerf to Runic Echoes. 7% down from 10%. Another protected example though would be Zed. The community already despised the champion, then Duskblade came out and now everyone's too terrified at the thought of dealing with him that he's nearly permabanned atm. It's Darius all over again, post-juggernaut rework.

Solidair3Feb 17, 20162 votes

I mean yes, but I would consider that indirect rather than direct

Krys StarFeb 17, 20161 votes

That's true, yeah.

RiotMeddlerFeb 17, 201612 votes

60-200 on Turtle Shield (from 60-220) 40-180 on Phoenix AOE (from 40-200)

Jesus is SaviorFeb 17, 20164 votes

{quoted}

60-200 on Turtle Shield (from 60-220) 40-180 on Phoenix AOE (from 40-200)

Why would you nerf Udyr when you're also nerfing his boots and his jungle item?

Especially when Udyr hasn't been touched in 2-3 years?

Solidair3Feb 17, 20165 votes

because he has a 60% winrate.

Also, they don't look like super hard nerfs if we're being honest. They are factoring in the item nerfs, I think.

Jesus is SaviorFeb 17, 20164 votes

{quoted}

because he has a 60% winrate.

Also, they don't look like super hard nerfs if we're being honest. They are factoring in the item nerfs, I think.

The turtle shield nerf is huge. In a long skirmish that could be 200-300+ effective health lost.

delonixFeb 17, 20163 votes

Unless I'm mistaken, there's no change at rank 1 and a -20 change at max rank of turtle stance. If you have 100 armor and 100 mr, that's 40 effective health per activation, so the "long skirmish" would need to be 14-27 seconds to get to 200-300 effective health at 40% cdr, or 13-25 seconds at 45% cdr. That's a really long skirmish.

It's also important to take into account the AP you get from Runic Echoes. Compared to a Devourer build Udyr, Runic Echoes Udyr has +30 to his shield at all ranks (assuming they build the same amount of AP after the jungle item). This nerf can be seen as a reaction to Udyr's synergy with the recently added Runic Echoes.

AndrionarFeb 17, 20161 votes

Especially when Udyr hasn't been touched in 2-3 years?

Thats why.

VamedocFeb 17, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=That Evelynn,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Jc9EAkmU,comment-id=00030000000100020000,timestamp=2016-02-17T02:24:27.874+0000)

Why would you nerf Udyr when you're also nerfing his boots and his jungle item?

Especially when Udyr hasn't been touched in 2-3 years?

Oh, poor Udyr, his items got nerfed, let me cry you a Riven. It's time to touch him IYKWIM.

Gut the Bearman.

DreadlocksFeb 17, 20162 votes

silver 1 Aatrox main = salt loooool.

VamedocFeb 17, 20161 votes

gold 1 FreeloBear abuser = denying the Phoenix needs his fire put out

Udyr item 3070

DreadlocksFeb 18, 20161 votes

I don't need Udyr to be higher than Silver 1 j/s

VamedocFeb 18, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=We Rektum,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Jc9EAkmU,comment-id=000300000001000200000002000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-18T00:00:27.148+0000)

I don't need Udyr to be higher than Silver 1 j/s

So, you do agree that Udyr needs nerfs. ty (tho I've seen less of him now)

or tweak. I don't want him weak. Just less annoying.

DreadlocksFeb 18, 20161 votes

I'm saying I can play other champions and still have a higher than silver 1 rank lol

VamedocFeb 18, 20161 votes

Yep, but your comment foreshadowed if you needed to break into mid plat or something, you would take Udyr. That's the point I would take from that, please. Also this constant dis/dat rank. Don't look like an idiot.

DreadlocksFeb 18, 20161 votes

You mean a champion that is almost always banned? Yeah sure dood, w.e helps u sleep at night.

VamedocFeb 18, 20161 votes

That is the point, there is a reason why he's banned, being too strong, which might be/is because of itemization. Jumping from one point to another, not answering the current questions, tsk-tsk. If you feel only finding flaws, not contributing. kk

DreadlocksFeb 18, 20161 votes

Yeah dood i'm only gold 1 cuz i play Udyr.. lol how ignorant are you that you cannot understand simple statements.

lolipopevelynnFeb 17, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=That Evelynn,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Jc9EAkmU,comment-id=00030000000100020000,timestamp=2016-02-17T02:24:27.874+0000)

Why would you nerf Udyr when you're also nerfing his boots and his jungle item?

Especially when Udyr hasn't been touched in 2-3 years?

udyr has slowly gotten stronger and stronger throu indirect buffing ever since his release. he is WAY over due for a nerf. and the thing is the nerf he is getting is a very very very small slap on the wrist. it wont affect him in the slightest.

unless you really think losing 20 points on his shield is something. should be 180 if you ask me.

[{quoted}](name=That Evelynn,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Jc9EAkmU,comment-id=0003000000010002000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-17T02:50:12.085+0000)

The turtle shield nerf is huge. In a long skirmish that could be 200-300+ effective health lost.

wow, you actually DO think this. excuse me, let me laugh a bit.

good udyrs dont even use the shield in "long skirmishes". he was always a hit and run type of champ.

Acidic PuddleFeb 17, 20162 votes

Why does him not being touched warrant him not being touched. This is actually so dumb.

VamedocFeb 17, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Acidic Puddle,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Jc9EAkmU,comment-id=000300000001000200000004,timestamp=2016-02-17T18:00:46.132+0000)

Why does him not being touched warrant him not being touched. This is actually so dumb.

gotta break the habit

EcodeathFeb 17, 20162 votes

ty, but where are lee nerfs? he is sporting a 48% winrate

lolipopevelynnFeb 17, 20161 votes

{quoted}

60-200 on Turtle Shield (from 60-220) 40-180 on Phoenix AOE (from 40-200)

sadly i dont think thats enough. that champion has so much versatility in his kit that nerfs like this wont even make him blink. kinda like lee sin... he has to be nerfed harder.

MoobeatFeb 17, 20161 votes

Udyr nerfs should be on the PBE tmrw according to RiotAsyrite

"Udyr nerfs should be in for PBE tomorrow. Base Shield for turtle down 20 at max rank, phoenix proc damage down 20 at max rank."

LadyRenlyFeb 17, 20162 votes

I'd rather they just revert his buff and leave him as he was, he was actually good, but people didn't give him the time of day because people keep circlejerking about "there is no late game!!!" and "20 minutes!!!"