I'm Usually Not A Fan of Mass Changes But...
...I have to admit I DO like a lot of the upcoming changes.
I imagine I'm not as much in the minority as some would like me to believe, when it comes to not liking a lot of the preseason changes. Not all of them were bad (obviously) but not all of them were good (at least in my opinion). That being said, I actually like the majority of the changes upcoming, with some exceptions.
- I do overall like the changes to turrets. Not what I wanted to see, but it is going in a positive direction regardless.
- I liked the change to
but wouldn't have been against it going a bit further to be quite honest (would take too long to explain so take that with a grain of salt). - I like some of the Mage changes, and I am happy I think with all of them but Syndra, as I don't feel it made enough impact. We will see if it helps her, but I think the others did a good job.
- Even after messing around on the PBE, I'm still not certain my full opinion on the itemization changes for AP items specifically. I think part of this is liking the state currently of some of what was changed, but I can see the benefit in some of the changes for champions that are less played, and could make them more played (I see Galio for example going up considerably in play amount).
- The jury is still out on the Dragon changes, but I will say that I think has this been the original change to dragon, over what we got before with the stacking, it would be more well received. So I guess with that being said, I think it will end up (for once) really hitting the desired outcome Riot is looking for.
With that being said, there are some things I'm not a huge fan of.
- The buff timers are just bad. As someone who actually isn't a jungle main, I think it is going to impact other lanes a lot more than people realize. I won't go too in-depth to keep this post shorter, but I think it really simplifies things and removes a bit of an interesting skill set.
- I understand the need for it, but I'm not a fan of removing boot enchants. I wouldn't mind them being properly reworked, but I guess I can say it saves me a few hundred gold. I'll just say I'll miss distortion and leave it at that.
- I think the Rift Herald change was unneeded in the form it took. Making it spawn once and never again, changing the buff so drastically, and making the duration what it is makes my eyebrow raise. I get the point, but I think the execution is going in a very wonky direction that will make it much less prioritized now.
tl;dr - I like these changes a lot more than the preseason patch changes that felt more like "change for changes sake" and I think this will overall improve things over just changing things. I didn't like everything, but I liked the majority of it.
Those are my own personal take aways, and while I know there are other things, those are just the ones that stood out to me as not so much a player, but as someone that does analyst work. With all that said, I could be wrong about any of the things I liked or disliked (and to a degree I don't mind that, as I tend to learn more from being wrong than from being right).
What's everyone else's personal takeaways? Was there something you REALLY liked or something you REALLY didn't?