Just want to know the direction you are really aiming at with the drastic ult cooldown timer increase to both of them.
Are they experimental or likely to go through?
Why are they such harsh nerfs straight up?
RiotMeddler14 votesIrelia - doesn't have sufficient downtime on her ult early game especially, resulting in lack of windows to fight her, particular after returning to lane. That's been a long time problem, now that she's strong and we need to take a bit of power off her it seemed like a good time to address it.
Swain - We're interested in a model for Swain ult where when he turns it on during a fight is a significant thing for enemies to play around. At a 10s CD, especially with a decent amount of CDR (which he'll get) there's just not sufficient downtime there for it to matter enough. Testing significantly longer CDs as a result, looking at an approach where he gets one ult activation in an average fight, two in particularly long fights.
For both champs both the concept and the specific numbers are still being tested. It's early in the patch cycle right now, so hard to give a useful answer as to whether they'll go through without more testing. We do like both changes directionally so far though.
SaltyKracka2 votesSpeaking from my experience with Irelia, the greater part of lack of windows to fight her when she's ahead comes from the E-W combo winning trades for free.
Do you think this might finally be the time to take the equal health clause off of E?
BloodyTompon4 votesEqual health- I doubt it. It has to go one way or another and I'd say it's better less bad to have Irelia have the benefit of that since she is the one making doing the action in that situation.
Raxistaicho4 votesIrelia - doesn't have sufficient downtime on her ult early game especially, resulting in lack of windows to fight her, particular after returning to lane. That's been a long time problem, now that she's strong and we need to take a bit of power off her it seemed like a good time to address it.
As an Irelia player, I actually agree with this and it's a good way to hit her without being too severe. With her ult having such a ridiculously low cooldown even at rank 1, it's often the case where "Is there some way I can use my ult right now?" is met with "yeah, why not, it'll be back up soon."
I mean, I rarely hesitate to use it just to push the wave when I'm planning to recall. Odds are it'll be up again before I need to all-in, particularly if I'm walking back to lane instead of teleporting back.
Just please leave it at this unless her win rate doesn't drop much ^^; She already got an indirect nerf this patch with Fervor's changes.
Flemman2 votesis it the same for blitz ult? Nerf him till level 16 seems a bit unfair knowing supp didn't reach the 3 point ult level that often :s
could that mean some other change for him in the next day, like longer silence or less painfull debuff on W? (cause with that ult cd, he lose a lot of his early game pressure, the only thing he has for him atm)
RiotMeddler8 votesYeah, similar issue on Blitz, he's too strong and can lack windows early game. Changes are targeted again at laning in particular (R shouldn't be up quite as often when you land a Q, putting the R on CD early should involve a bit more of a trade off when losing the passive).
Critmaster Garen5 votesYeah, similar issue on Blitz, he's too strong and can lack windows early game. Changes are targeted again at laning in particular (R shouldn't be up quite as often when you land a Q, putting the R on CD early should involve a bit more of a trade off when losing the passive).
anything planned for garen?
i dont know what it was, but something in 1.9 hit him hard. my personal guess is boots. he was really well balanced before that patch hit. decent at least into plat (finally after years).
from the looks at his stats he doesnt even seem to be strong in bronze and silver right anymore, which is just weird. its like he totally crashed with that patch.
it has been 3 patches now, and there hasnt been any visible attempt to help him back on his feet.
pls take a look into him.
BloodyTompon1 votesWhere do you get stats for below plat out of curiosity?
Critmaster Garen3 votesWhere do you get stats for below plat out of curiosity?
that you can get on lolking by filtering only ranked games and then the individual divisions.
i actually dont care much about that skill range, since its not where im playing. but garen has been a champion who was always strong in bronze and silver throughout the years.
if hes weak or mediocre even there, its a pretty good indcator that something is seriously wrong.
DeathBurst2 votesOh, and here I was, poor Garen main, thinking I had a hard time just because I climbed into higher divisions. Well, it's true I climbed, from S3 in 6.9 to G5 now, but apparently it's not just me...
And I honestly don't know what happened for his winrate to drop. Personally I went from 61-62% winrate to ~58%. I'm not sure it's the boots, because I have a harder time in lane, before the point where I usually bought boots and enchant before.
aCzRBkJWNO2 votesEuw garen OTP and I completely agree. Swiftness boots was an indirect nerf on a champion who already isn't even strong right now.
Against the high cc, high mobility %health dmg tanks it's harder for garen to find a place even in bronze / silver.
Feurin1 votesHuh, thought it was just me. He was in a good place, but all of a sudden you can't beat hardly any top laners any more. I can't really put my finger on what though, might have been related to the boots changes.
GKVisionary1 votesIt's mostly that awful early game. It isn't justifiable by his late game like it used to be. Has a terrible early game and a slightly above average late game. I would like to see his early game durability given a slight buff. Like base health or a shorter cd on his w active early levels. Garen is balanced in terms of damage output and utility but it's his encredibly lackluster durability early on when he has few items that cause him the biggest problems.
Sythriel Draken2 votesShould also take some of his damage off his Q as well :P
Photos of Ghosts6 votesTurning off Swain's ult was fundamental to not run oom as soon as someone flashes a wall...
Spellvamp Garen1 votesFrom 30 sec CD to 60 sec CD on rank 1 of ultimate seems very excessive. I don't think many blitz players have a problem with the 30 sec timer as most bought some cooldown items anyways.
There's a difference between "windows of opportunity" and BIG, GAPING DOORS.
MetalGearTeemu1 votesSweet, when ranged support is dominating the meta it sounds like a great time to further nerf someone who can fight them.
SiG DxD1 votesyou know about lack of early windows ,when lux and irelia can ult wave and back ,lategame they can ult more times than backing.
I am Razgriz1 votesYou really need to change the ult Passive. There's so many better ideas.
darkdill1 votesHas any more thought been given to changing Irelia's ult to heal based on units hit rather than damage dealt? Armor still makes that healing worthless in team fights.
Irelia Bot4 votesIt kinda was like that in a way a long time ago.
It did "true healing" since the healing was based off the damage numbers in the description and not the damage done.
They did not view this bug as good unlike some bugs that have happened.
Best KhaZix Void5 votesIrelia - doesn't have sufficient downtime on her ult early game especially, resulting in lack of windows to fight her, particular after returning to lane. That's been a long time problem, now that she's strong and we need to take a bit of power off her it seemed like a good time to address it.
Swain - We're interested in a model for Swain ult where when he turns it on during a fight is a significant thing for enemies to play around. At a 10s CD, especially with a decent amount of CDR (which he'll get) there's just not sufficient downtime there for it to matter enough. Testing significantly longer CDs as a result, looking at an approach where he gets one ult activation in an average fight, two in particularly long fights.
For both champs both the concept and the specific numbers are still being tested. It's early in the patch cycle right now, so hard to give a useful answer as to whether they'll go through without more testing. We do like both changes directionally so far though.
Have you thought about maybe fixing the fact that she punishes you for winning against her? esp with E max beooming so popular? she either completely destroys you or she's absolutely unapproachable because any time you try to step up she stuns you for years and runs away with the trinity movespeed.
sêrg 2 votes40 seconds on Irelia's ultimate is just way to much
Hataráku5 votesNo its not. She deserves even more nerfs tbh.
Irelia Best Loli1 votes40 seconds on Irelia's ultimate is just way to much
Yeah, even with 40% CDR her ult is gonna be only 4s shorter CD rank one than before the changes, so its gonna hit her duealing potential early on quite heavily as well as might eliminate the option of wave clearing with her ult or using it as a quick way to heal up. we gonna have to obviously pick our fights better now and think twice before we waste our ult, I might even run scaling CDR runes on her now, but thats gonna eliminate the option of Black Cleaver as a secondary AD item, as well as the deaths dance/spirit visage combo (I like 2 AD items with on hits on Irelia), as the CDR stat will be wasted. Honestly I would just revert the buff on her Q or lower the stun duration on e (gotta admit, stunning the ADC and killing them before they can move again is kinda OP) instead of nerfing the ult as the flexibility in uses of it were one of the things that made Irelia a great champ to me. They could also make the E a skillshot...? The blade were supposed to be bent to her will after all so why not make it something like the new taric stun. Avoidable, therefore theres counterplay.
KGB watching U1 voteswith this nerf irelia is pretty unplayable, irelia ult is pretty weak but was good because of low cooldown, now is not; compare with other ult IRELIA: per blade 80 / 120 / 160 (+ 50% AP) (+ 60% bonus AD) TOTAL DAMAGE:320/480/ 640 (+200%AP = 0)(+240% bonus ad) cd: 110/85/60
DARIUS: MAXIMUM TRUE DAMAGE: 200 / 400 / 600 (+ 150% bonus AD) COOLDOWN: 120 / 100 / 80 = pretty same cd but deal true damage and has a reset, plus is a single target so you can't miss while you can miss irelia's blade
CHO'GATH: TRUE DAMAGE: 300 / 475 / 650 (+ 70% AP) cd 80 same, true damage single target unmissable, lower cd.
EKKO: ult does lower damage but can be used as disengage and heal ekko, same cd, but is better than irelia ult, practicaly ekko can't lose 1v1 in lane vs irelia
MALZHAR: TOTAL MAGIC DAMAGE: 25 / 35 / 45% (+ 7.5% per 100 AP) of the target's maximum health, CD: 120/100/80, whaat we are talking about? same cd, but is a 2.5 second suppress and oneshot
WARWICK: same as malzhar, suppress, oneshot and same cd as irelia ult
OLAF: cd 100/90/80 his ult buff him for 1v1, lower cd than irelia ult, so irelia can't trade with him in lane
FIORA: same cd as irelia ult, but more damage and more heal
if we compare irelia ult with tank/engage ult is the same, irelia ult with so high cd is weaker than all ult hard engage ult like: malphite does pretty same damage but has hard cc and only +20 sec cd; sejuani is the same little higher cd but more usefull ult
long story short: irelia ult with this cd is useless in lane and in teamfight, in teamfight ult only does not high damage but no cc, in lane has same cd of more stronger ult. Plus you nerfed irelia after trinity change, so now trinity is mandatory: if someone wants to start with difensive item (malmortius or some armor item) because he is behind, he'll go more behind without trinity
now downvote me without reply, that's how it works
Arekualkhemi2 votesIrelia's Ult procs Hiten Style's healing, that is the reason why it is not allowed to have such a low cooldown. Also there are no diminishing returns on how many targets she hits.
KGB watching U3 votesHiten style's healing works only on aa
d e a t h y y y2 votesHer ult doesn't proc hiten style, but it does heal for 25% of the damage done to champs, and some amount less to creeps. 10 or 15% I think.
Barakun2 votesHow about reversing how her stun works not rewarding her for losing the trade? 2 second max rank point and click stun doesn't seem healthy for the game.
Xaximbo6 votesAs a swain player 30 second ultimate will hurt him incredibly during laning phase.
During lane you activate ultimate in order to do this:
-For 2-3 seconds in order to heal from minions. -To harass/finish off someone that got caught by Q/W (most obvious) -To last hit in turret (a must, you activate for a brief second and deactivate again) -To waveclear (a must in some matchups, take for example viktor,ziggs,xerath they will always push to your turret, they're counters this will only make the matchup worse) -To avoid ganks.
As you can see there are many situations where you'd like to pop the ultimate for a few seconds and then deactivate it. Not to mention that since patch 6.10 for some reason i sometimes disable my ultimate and i don't know if its something im doing by accident or there's some sort of bug- previously you couldn't disable it by double clicking.
Keep this change ahead and i foresee a <50% winrate, for a champion that due to his playrate and being a niche pick has always been 50%+ winrate, yet considered trash in high elo.
Phedme3 votesWhat about the Kindred nerfs, with removing her W-passive healing? Can you give any insight on that change? I mean, isn't they in a good state at the moment?
Titanium707 votesWell I mained Swain for a long time (was forced into another champ by his riddiculous high Pick/Ban-Rate.. thx btw) but in my opinion, doing the maokai on him is a terrible idea....
First of all Diversity: We have alot of different Champs and even more different Spells in this Game, we have the game-breakers like Shen and Karthus, we have the Transformers like Nida and Jayce, we have massive CC or DMG... AND we have the Gamplay changers (spells that completely changes the way a champion is played after 6) Anivia and Swain are the examples here! After 6 your stance on lane switches, not until you've used your ult, no, permanently! That's the magic of those champions, that why I picked both of them up in the first place!
On old Swain there was a simple problem you always had to calculate, your MANA BAR! (I knew lowering Swains mana costs and buff mana items is a bad idea .. just saying...) In a Teamfight, you always had to think about when to turn your Ult off (NOT IF). You needed to get those kills/Asissts for Passive, and your enemys could play around your mana costs quite well!
With the 30s Swains gamplay looks like this - Ult on -> all in(exactly like Mao), never toggle off. That's it, such wow, much gameplay, great decision making... No short poke, no baits, not even clear a camp to get some health back...
Looking at build paths: 
+ 
has no alternative, because you have to Ult for a long time, espically when fighting exactly those Tanks YOU SAID Swain should counter quite well.
Guess we're seeing a Timelimit on Swains Ult soon....
I dont say, bring old Swain back (although this would fix alot of problems.. especially mine)... But is there really no way to balance a Toggle-Ult???
ThaddeusMike1 votesI'm really wondering what Swain's new buildpath will be. I don't think that forcing him onto AA/Seraph's will feel good. I'm generally not a fan of the Roa+tear build anyway (not a Swain thing, delaying your power that much just doesn't feel good to me unless the game time is reliably long). Will you just be essentially locked out of building early defenses?
I also agree with you that this looks like it will alter Swain's gameplay paradigm, and not in a way that I think will enrich the game. If this does wind up removing a decision point, it would be all the worse for being on the master tactician champion.
EXP IS RNG3 votesOn the topic of Irelia, what about the fact that she gets 40% CDR from Tri+Kindlegem+Warhammer. The last two are components of a very viable core buid (Tri+SV+GB+Tabi).
I feel like the last tri force changes basically gave her "free" 40% CDR which covers up one of Irelia's laning weaknesses. Many matchups that used to be able to abuse her were centered around being able to fight on a shorter window than her W cooldown (Renekton, Riven...) but are both in positions where their trading window is almost equal to hers and is significantly weaker than hers.
A huge part of the strength of Irelia on the last two patches comes from this ease of getting 40% CDR with items that she very much likes. Before Tri force had CDR, the core build was FH+SV to give 30% CDR, but it only did this after spending over 3k gold on defensive items (FH+kindlegem) after Tri Force, on the current patch the same can be acquired by just completing Tri Force and Kindlegem. The result, is also that she can have a hybrid damage-tank lategame build (Tri+Ghosblade+Visage+tank) which gives 40% CDR from relatively early in the game (by 20 min she has 40%) which gives her Q a cooldown of under 4 seconds, basically rendering the Q reset mechanic irrelevant as she doesn't have to be careful about when she uses it.
I would have proposed that the stats on tri force are returned to AD/HP and possibly some AP, bringing it back to a 10% or 0% CDR item. And that her Q cooldown is increased to around 8 seconds when maxed. Also,** it would be nice to see some changes that allow the return of early-dominant champions like Renekton, Riven, Pantheon, Olaf, Rumble, and maybe even Darius** that allow her to be countered in lane, as her Irelia's identity has always been a moderately weak early and late balanced by a spiky midgame.
Irelia Best Loli1 votes@Riot Meddler Dont you think this is a perfect opportunity to fix the Q bug where it resets/doesntreset on a whim when last hitting minions?
l Helios l6 votesI'm slightly uneasy about the philosophy behind the swain nerf in how it's based on him getting a lot of CDR in his build. It feels weird to balance around a subjective stat that may or may not be present in any given game. Swain may have 40% CDR by 20 minutes or he may have 10%. That feels like saying, "We should nerf blitz's AP ratios because he can build damage and one shot people." It makes sense for Swains that have 40% CDR at 25 minutes, but it drastically hurts those at 11 minutes with no CDR beyond blue buff.
I get the concept of playability windows, but the problem seems to have more to do with the functionality of his ultimate as a sustainable shape-change that deals damage, heals him, and costs a large amount of mana if he wants to maintain it for a long time. It feels like playing around Swain ult atm is dependent on making him go oom to fight him, which is obviously bad. At the same time, Swain loses a lot of sustain because he now has to wait about 3x as long to actually heal from minions and champions. It makes him more likely to try and get as much out of the ult as he can by keeping it on longer so he can heal more/deal more damage. That could lead to bigger mana problems because he doesn't want to use a 30s CD for nothing/not a lot of benefit.
Any thoughts on that balance philosophy? It seems like it creates another problem while trying to solve one.
Mandang02 votesIt's so easy to just walk away from Swain if he ults, let alone use a displacement. Now Swain's down the majority of his kit for the next 30 seconds and you win the fight hands down.
Arakadia3 votesFor Swain could you put it at say, 12 seconds but make it immune to CDR? I mean 30 seconds changes his playstyle a crap ton. It would be like giving one of Udyr's stances a 20 second cd but much stronger form.
SiG DxD1 votesmeddler god ,remember ? irelia has even -5 s lower at all ranks ult like when talon had 75/65/55 ,irelia 70 60 50 ,with a first item triforce ,no cd
talon R Cooldown increased to 100 / 80 / 60 from 75 / 65 / 55. Mana cost increased to 100 at all ranks from 80 / 90 / 100.
next should be lux and not have 40 s ult spammable like back
SGT Entrails4 votesThis is ridiculous. If you do this, you'll be killing swain. The whole point of his ult is that skilled players will know when they have to turn off the ult to not run oom, and then there's a window of opportunity in which to kill swain extremely easily. OR the enemy team can just purchase GW items like they're supposed to, to counter swain. People still complain about swain, but almost no one builds for GW, it's ridiculous. Unless his ult is SIGNIFICANTLY buffed, this change will make swain utterly unplayable. Swain is in a fine spot right now, people in low ELO just don't know that building GW is the right thing to do. Stop messing with swain until the VGU, please. The changes in the MYMU were already extremely half-assed and made him clunky as hell, the only reason he's seeing play is that you guys gave him ridiculous numbers to counteract the clunkiness of his kit. Please get someone who actually plays swain to work on a VGU, and not shinkazuo, he's a joke.
Kr1sys2 votesSwain - We're interested in a model for Swain ult where when he turns it on during a fight is a significant thing for enemies to play around. At a 10s CD, especially with a decent amount of CDR (which he'll get) there's just not sufficient downtime there for it to matter enough. Testing significantly longer CDs as a result, looking at an approach where he gets one ult activation in an average fight, two in particularly long fights.
You do realize that Swain doesn't really do a lot [read:any] of burst damage and relies heavily on steady damage to do damage. Making a massive portion of his sustained and aoe damage on a long cooldown is gutting for a champion where you could easily curb that ability by increasing mana costs or ramping up damage and mana over time.
Aptest1 votesespecially with a decent amount of CDR (which he'll get) there's just not sufficient downtime there for it to matter enough.
I feel the core of the problem is CDR becoming an overly common "40 for everyone" stat. Although i do put Swain in my list of champions that should get easy CDR access.
Swain's "power fantasy" is that of a 4-skills champion with no "ult" that deals high DPS. a 30 second CD on his ult outright deflates this fantasy.
Maybe a better way would be to decrease the overall offensive power of swain's ult, but add an interaction with his E, that will enable "tank busting" ?
SaltyKracka4 votesThey're hideously OP, Riot wants to nerf them.
Given the ROA changes in 6.12, I'd say the Swain nerf is more experimental than the Irelia one.
BloodyTompon2 votesI'm a little surprised at the swain nerf given RoA's change tbh.
RiotMeddler3 votesYeah, Swain one could change depending on the impact of the Catalyst/ROA stuff in 6.12. Will assess once 6.12's been out for a bit, doubt it's going to hit him that hard though and he's extremely strong right now.
Brutusness5 votesBut his ult is his main form of defense. Unlike most champions he has no mobility in any shape or form, so his ult is the only thing keeping him alive. He's near useless in his human non-ult form, after Level 6.
SaltyKracka3 votesAnd right now he's absolutely unkillable in his ult form, and he has no reason to ever come out of his ult form if he's fighting another champion because Catalyst (and ROA) is giving him absolutely retarded levels of sustain right now.
Hence the nerf.
SpookyJugular1 votesThe problem is that he heals so much not that he can use it too often. Due to his immobility if he doesn't have ult in a 2v1 he instantly dies so that means if you use it to farm that you can't walk up in lane for 30 whole seconds.