I remember reading that Shyvana-scale reworks were planned for these two champions, and as a jungle main I'm always on the lookout for new things to try. Just wanted to ask for a guestimation on when we might be seeing some stuff on the PBE. Thanks!
RiotMeddler10 votesRek'Sai changes are coming along fairly well, so moderately soon? Next of those style of updates almost certainly. At least a few patches away, potentially more depending on how long the art changes take (we're close on gameplay, but until that's locked down art can't start on needed work).
We don't have changes like that planned for Kindred.
Yadid1 votesSemi-curious. Since we've heard of so many in the work, is there any working plans to release these mini-reworks in batches of "big 4" or "big 6" like class updates?
As always, thanks for sharing.
RiotMeddler11 votesWith updates like this we'll be releasing them whenever they're done. We go with bundles for the class updates because there's value in having a lot of people thinking about one class at the same time, including those working on items in conjunction with the kit updates. For one offs though we think it makes more sense to just put them out whenever they're ready.
In terms of number in the works right now it's just Rek'Sai in a significant way. We were looking at Aurelion Sol too, the directions we were interested in testing didn't hit the mark though. We were experimenting with making his orbiting stars a sometimes thing (activate with W for a duration) looking for increased moments of counterplay and satisfaction. When those changes actually went into testing however consensus was it didn't feel better to play against, people who didn't already play Aurelion Sol didn't feel it was better and existing players felt it was worse. We've pulled those changes as a result. Might look at some small scope tweaks instead, nothing major planned anymore though.
Tomeksz3 votesOnly Rek' Sai? I thought Aatrox was getting mini rework too.
RiotMeddler6 votesWe'll almost certainly do an Aatrox update when we do a diver class update. Would like to find some small stuff to improve him in the meantime. We've been testing some stuff though and haven't yet found a set of changes we think would make him healthier and feel like an improvement to Aatrox players.
Tomeksz2 votesok cool, thanks for replying to me. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]
Lord Desert3 votesI have a neat idea for a Aatrox buff! You know how Vi, Shen etc. can extend/reposition their abilitys? Let his Q be able to reposition with flash midflight! I know its not just a small numbers change, you need to change the actual code to enable that, but this would be a nice idea. He can make plays by getting that Q flash knockup, but it also takes skill to pull that of! All without buffing any numbers, thus potential overbuffing him. What do you think about this idea?
LatetotheRace3 voteseww gross. Why not just give his Q a benefit if he's interrupted. When dashing if you're damaged you fall to the ground immediately knocking up whatever's under you. Fixed
Lord Desert3 votesWouldnt this punish skill? Most knockups are melee so if you interrupt his dash he would knock you up(or at least do dmg). So you dont want to interrupt it, which is counterintuitiv. Because you should be rewarded if you manage to interrupt it. My idea would requiere skill from the Aatrox player to make use out of this mechanic successfully. So your own skill will be rewarded. Or did I not understood your idea fully?
LatetotheRace1 votesThere's... there's not much skill cap on aatrox nor is his counterplay difficult. I figure this would be a little be of love towards a struggling champion.
Lord Desert2 votesThats why i said that we could technicaly increase his skill cap and thus viabililty with this flash Q combo. It is also a straight buff.
LatetotheRace1 votesI was saying that we don't want another cancer flash interaction.
Lord Desert2 votesThis "cancer flash interaction" would be a straight buff, without any drawbacks. The only requierment is that you are skilled enough to pull this off. I may be a bit biased but I cant accept your opinion as better or equal if you dont give me facts. Mere "i dont like it" is not good enough for me to drop or change my claim. You can have your own opinion and totally different from mine and that is completely fine, i absolutely have no problem with that. But when talking about balance and facts opinions become less important, and yes my opinion also does become less important. Facts are not influenced/changed by opinions.
Let me put the pros and cons down.
Pros:
Cons:
This is the comparison, if i missed something very important please tell me! Otherwise this clearly says that giving Aatrox the ability to combo his Q with flash is a good idea. Considering his current state.
I am sorry if this sounded like a personal attack, but i can promise you that this what not the intention nor its purpose! I only stated my point of view and the facts.
Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes[zombie-brand-mindblown] 4 years XD
MakeItEasy4Lolis2 votesWe'll almost certainly do an Aatrox update when we do a diver class update. Would like to find some small stuff to improve him in the meantime. We've been testing some stuff though and haven't yet found a set of changes we think would make him healthier and feel like an improvement to Aatrox players.
meddler, pls stop this. We were told 3 months before December, that aatrox was getting changes at preseason, then you make them be after and set them on Late-January-Feb, and now we are not getting a single change. We aatrox players, have been posting a lot of things on r/leagueoflegends and r/aatroxmains
We just dont believe that you are trying to buff aatrox, so, just buff him. I dont care what is it, just BUFF HIM. We have been waiting several months and now we are seeing that those changes, THAT YOU ALL TOLD AS THAT WILL COME, are never coming
sobi9991 votesWe'll almost certainly do an Aatrox update when we do a diver class update. Would like to find some small stuff to improve him in the meantime. We've been testing some stuff though and haven't yet found a set of changes we think would make him healthier and feel like an improvement to Aatrox players.
Probably won't get answered but is there a teemo tweak/ rework planned? The last rework, well... changes to mushrooms didn't really improve him because of the vision changes so that rework is negligible. I am not talking about buffing him but you do realize how outdated teemo is currently? I can't think of a champ as outdated as him. Not to mention his huge fan base.
ProvidenceNox5 votesNo offense but you guys have been saying that you would give aatrox some small changes in the meantime before a rework for quite some time now, but nothing has been done and the times you said the changes would be here have come and gone.
Bronze Johnny1 votesI feel he would be alright with a small buff to his base hp and hp grow.
La Bello2 voteswhat direction would you consider taking him in?
More of a stand alone fighter or a enchanter/front line fighter?
I know for the longest time one of the biggest gripes was how his gameplay didnt reflect his lore at all. Nothing in his kit inspires bloodlust in his allies that lets them turn the tides.
He sort of just plops himself in the middle of the team and gets to swinging. Would you like to keep the "one man army" aspect or try to tune him towards something else?
AirKingNeo1 votesFixing his Q would be a good start.
Then nerfing the shit out of Grievous Wounds or buffing his healing. You could even give him healing like Warwick: Doubled under half, tripled under 25%.
Fusion Flash2 votesAatrox already gets tripled healing from his W when below half health.
AirKingNeo1 votesI mean something similar. As in even more healing at 25% or less.
IxtaliKing6 votesHey Meddler, a while back you said you felt Karma was bland and not sufficiently satisfying. Do you feel that it's worth giving Karma a mini rework to address her issues once and for all? This has gone on for far too long and everything that has been done to Karma up until now seems to fly in the face of Riot's design philosophies.
ReZisT Lust1 votesAny chance Sols Q can scale with distance but cost hp since it hurts him to blow up stars?
CinnaBon Kittenz1 votesWith updates like this we'll be releasing them whenever they're done. We go with bundles for the class updates because there's value in having a lot of people thinking about one class at the same time, including those working on items in conjunction with the kit updates. For one offs though we think it makes more sense to just put them out whenever they're ready.
In terms of number in the works right now it's just Rek'Sai in a significant way. We were looking at Aurelion Sol too, the directions we were interested in testing didn't hit the mark though. We were experimenting with making his orbiting stars a sometimes thing (activate with W for a duration) looking for increased moments of counterplay and satisfaction. When those changes actually went into testing however consensus was it didn't feel better to play against, people who didn't already play Aurelion Sol didn't feel it was better and existing players felt it was worse. We've pulled those changes as a result. Might look at some small scope tweaks instead, nothing major planned anymore though.
To be honest the idea on making Sol's orbits a sometimes thing would be nicer, you could then adjust his roam power to have stars fly with him.. Not sure what the prob with him is outside low play rate. However I'm sure that'll clear up as more champions get put into line with the reworks Riot pushes out.
Stars Shaper2 votesDoes it mean that you are back to Square 1 with Aurelion Sol?
Also what is your real aim with him? I heard lowering the skill floor and making him more rewarding but that's kind of vague. Are you focusing on giving him more damage when he consinstenly hits the enemy or giving him better windows to deal damage?
Edit: Honestly I never felt that the stars passive without W gave me any profit, the only moment I use them is when I am sure the enemy isn't in lane and I want to save mana, they are really slow and the range is so that sticky melees will stay outside of their reach.
Skyroar1 votesI agree those ideas aren't very... appealing. I've just started practicing with Sol, and one of the cool things aobut him is how the passive is always going on. I wouldn't want to see it removed.
However, he gets hard-countered really hard. it would be interesting if Riot could soften up a bit his coutnerplay (but not remove it entirely, of course).
This way, Sol players would have an actual chance of getting to safety when caught in melee, instead of afking to their inevitable death. At the same time, i don't think they would be too strong.
Velzard of Koz1 votesAurelion Sol is supposed to be Battle Mage so what about adding shield so that he has it easier sustaining in battle for damage and shift his ult to be DPS based, too? The ult might be initiator instead of finisher since it already has such potential by shifting enemies to outer rim.
Basically AS deals some smaller damage to enemies, pulls those too far to outer rim and knocks those too close to outer rim and make them radiant. Stars that hit radiant enemies would deal increased damage or heal AS or would slow them or combination of those.
And possibly make it so that if he heits enemy champion with Q he gets some shield. Or that he heals ("spellvamps") from star hits.
DCYOUNG8883 votesHow come no planned changes for Kindred? She does not seem to be in the best spot right now in the jungle.
Tormentula2 votesBy art do you mean changes to stuff like particle effects? Or texture updates to existing models? (burrows, rek'sai herself?)
Also can we have some kind of context of what's going on for kindred? Just to put the begging for changes to rest? I see a kindred thread almost every time I log in, and we haven't heard a single thing regarding them since those pbe buffs which got pulled and forgotten. At least give us reasonings for why kindred isn't a priority and never was, or what your vision/view on them is or should be and whether or not they're failing in that regard.
RiotMeddler14 votesParticle work, probably a bit of character animation and sound.
We think Kindred's in a pretty balanced spot power wise. There's some mismatch between expectation (scaling power over the course of the game via the mark collection) and actual play pattern though (early game power that tends to fall off). Would like to shift some things around at some point to better deliver on expectations there, not currently being worked on though.
Scopé7 votesI asked similar question quite some time ago. It was regarding aurelion's rework.
How about other champions that are in similar situations (e.g. Kindred)?
And Riot Axes replied:
I don't think Kindred's in a similar situation. They were faring pretty well before preseason - niche but pretty strong - but seem to have been hit pretty hard by the jungle changes. We'll likely do a balance pass on them once the jungle is a bit more stable (or sooner if that takes too long), and that might involve some small mechanics changes to get them feeling better about itemization or something like that, but I don't think we'd do any major work on their abilities in the near future.
So You are not going to make them playable again? I thought that jungle is now stable and we can expect something... And tell me how 33 % win ratio among pros (probuilds) makes You think it's not an underpowered champion. Clear is slow and mana costs are way too high because of the time You need to spend on clearing camps. I want to see kindred in the LCS again in a winning matchup. Since 6.13 they are absolutely forgotten among pros as they have no reason to pick them. Graves does everything kindred could do much better, being tankier and having better clear. I hate Your approach towards the Eternal Hunters left in the Eternal dumpster and I have no idea why do You refuse to work on them with all Kindred players telling You that their main is weak and almost unplayable. Dedicated mains (of any champion) usually have about 65% win rate. Kindred OTP's can't even make it to 60%... How is that fair? If this is balanced then give Kindred difficulity of 10...
PapaGreg218 votesCan you explain how you think Kindred is in a balanced spot? I never see them played in LCS nor in lower divisions. Their win rate is below average and they seems like a champion that has a fairly high skill cap without the payoff for mastering the kit. To the average player, it appears that they are weak. I would argue that Graves, an ADC not even designed to be a jungler, is significantly better than Kindred right now at both the jungle and ADC position.
Àhrí5 votesParticle work, probably a bit of character animation and sound.
We think Kindred's in a pretty balanced spot power wise. There's some mismatch between expectation (scaling power over the course of the game via the mark collection) and actual play pattern though (early game power that tends to fall off). Would like to shift some things around at some point to better deliver on expectations there, not currently being worked on though.
Probably one of the most disappointing things I have read in a while since they are literally forgotten and were clearly gutted to be fixed later on down the line. Reminds me of what happened to Elise back before she got her changes.
Venedictos4 votesPlease, do some work on Kindred. They feel terrible compared to their release state. It feels like your passive really limits your options as to what items you are supposed to build and forces some wierd itemisation choices. Their early game just isn't there anymore, their late game isn't really a thing, the Fervor change hit them hard and to top it off, camps now take longer to respawn so can't claim your stacks as easily. Not to mention, you can't really claim your stacks anyway, since there are so many of their natural predators out there. Furthermore, her ult is a great counter to assassins and divers and this should have been their time in the spotlight, but they are in such a disappointing state. It would be very nice if the Mark hunt wasn't so mandatory and if you could itemise for AD without feeling bad about it. And for the love of god, if you aren't willing to look at Kindred, can you at least bring back the healing on W? Even if it does the same for clearing the jungle, it was such a great tool for teamfights and skirmishes.
LankPants2 votesSomewhat unrelated note but do you have short term plans (preferably 7.4) for jungle balance. Right now it just feels like jungle balance is in the shitter. If you don't play one of the top few champs it feels like you're handicapping yourself.
If you try to play Sejuani, Shyvana, Noct, Yi ext you're gimping your team because these champs just can't compete with the cancer at the top.
Are there any plans to buff up lower tier junglers and nerf some of the other cancer junglers at the top who didn't get hit in 7.3 cough Lee Sin 30+% PR on all servers cough.
tailsjpg4 votesSince you don't have that type of style of changes for Kindred is there a possibility for any changes/buffs or anything for the spiritual duo. They need a bit of love </3
Puttyblo20 votesRek'Sai changes are coming along fairly well, so moderately soon? Next of those style of updates almost certainly. At least a few patches away, potentially more depending on how long the art changes take (we're close on gameplay, but until that's locked down art can't start on needed work).
We don't have changes like that planned for Kindred.
Kindred literally does not have a single match up in the game that's in her favor, they're all out of favor for her. How is that in any way shape or form balanced?
She's also been nerfed across the board significantly in every way to the point Kindred OTPS have to abuse rune and mastery gimmicks just to even be acknowledged. How is that balanced?
Kindred players have to have countless games on her just to even compete with a basic FOTM jungle player. How is that balanced?
Kindred starts, continues, and finishes behind the enemy jungler regardless of how far ahead she somehow miraculously gets. How is that balanced?
Kindred can single handedly lose a game based off of RNG first mark spawn. How is that balanced?
Kindred can single handedly go an entire game without getting a mark if the camp double raptor procs due to the nature of how jungle clearing + levels work. How is that balanced?
Her current winrate in NA is being held up by me and like 15 players in diamond and we're all Kindred players with hundreds upon hundreds of games on her. If a champion being balanced is only being playable by an extremely small hand full of players I'd argue that's not balanced.
Whatever, I guess you better go buff Graves since LCS is coming up. Heaven forbid he's not the strongest champ in the game for yet another season.
V The Support V9 votesCRINGE
They , Them, Their, They're*
Photos of Ghosts6 votesThe particle effect doesn't count as a person.
Frank Ocean3 votesThat doesn't make any of their points less relevant.
Mr Manly1 votesPreach brother !
Keti5 votesThe sad thing is literally all they need is some AD/level to replace the lost fervor damage. They're not even in that bad of a state, just pretty obviously underturned and it seems everyone but riot and salty jungle players realize this. Kinda feels like a slap in the face for meddler to say they're balanced and not "yeah they're weak but inherently unhealthy so sorry we keeping them weak".
I blame moon for playing kindred 1 game in LCS.
Puttyblo3 votesThe sad thing is literally all they need is some AD/level to replace the lost fervor damage. They're not even in that bad of a state, just pretty obviously underturned and it seems everyone but riot and salty jungle players realize this. Kinda feels like a slap in the face for meddler to say they're balanced and not "yeah they're weak but inherently unhealthy so sorry we keeping them weak".
I blame moon for playing kindred 1 game in LCS.
Funny part he was just copying someone else who only had success on it because people didn't know how to play against it. IT took players all of a hand full of games to counter it, and now she's back in the dumpster again x3.
http://puu.sh/tSEg7/1e723cd88c.png
That's the creator of the gimmick. It got him to masters but now that everyone knows how to beat, I'd argue it's even easier to shut down than former Kindred because if you get invaded with your Q down you're done.
Additionally, I wouldn't doubt it, but the sad reality is . . . Moon didn't even perform that well on her. In fact Reignover gave an exact demonstration of what any jungler does to you if you think you're cheeky and level 3 gank with your jungle open.
And I know people are going to reference his KDA, but here's the thing. He was consistently really far down in CS + had a very solid comp and just picking low health people off. He really wasn't doing that much damage, in fact Reksai was 1v1ing her the entire game which shouldn't happen at all except level 3-5-6ish unless you're really far behind. But the 5 armor nerf got rid of that. If anything, the game should have shown she needs a buff, but instead people are just going to go "Well, Kindred got a few kills using an extremely unheard of gimmicky set up to cheese people before they're used to it, so clearly the're balanced. When in reality, it shows the avg Kindred player is always behind other players regardless of how well she does simply because she's undertuned. But whatever.
Namazu Ebisu3 votesPlaying Stormraider Kindred is fun and there is a way to win if you're carefull and good :
http://puu.sh/tSGta/c7aeeaf6cb.jpg http://puu.sh/tT2c7/00060b995f.jpg
BUT i agree they're trash tier hard on early game. It would be cool if they put back the sustain OR add bonus damage on marked targets so we can duel all the crazy juggernauts in the jungle currently...
It just takes too much effort for low reward, more than any champion in the game currently mostly because of the current state of marksmans AND you're a jungler that has to counter...
Keti2 votesYeah dodge lamb is a good friend of mine, and he does tend to be kinda streaky in his games. Maybe I can get him to come speak to this thread himself lol.
I think the biggest weakness that got pointed out by moon's game was that his fast start didn't matter because he got stuck at 3 marks, and marks 4 and 5 are the hardest to get once lane phase ends since they're deep in opposing jungle, and thus risky and have low value outside of the mark itself.
And while Kindred is definitely super weak, one thing to recognize is that the meta is HORRIBLE for kindred right now. High damage/mobility junglers are king as well as high damage zoning supports like zyra and malzahar. The few tanks that are played are all shield focused and counter kindred very hard at low hp. Once the meta swings back around and damage goes down I think Kindred will be a lot better.
Puttyblo1 votesYeah dodge lamb is a good friend of mine, and he does tend to be kinda streaky in his games. Maybe I can get him to come speak to this thread himself lol.
I think the biggest weakness that got pointed out by moon's game was that his fast start didn't matter because he got stuck at 3 marks, and marks 4 and 5 are the hardest to get once lane phase ends since they're deep in opposing jungle, and thus risky and have low value outside of the mark itself.
And while Kindred is definitely super weak, one thing to recognize is that the meta is HORRIBLE for kindred right now. High damage/mobility junglers are king as well as high damage zoning supports like zyra and malzahar. The few tanks that are played are all shield focused and counter kindred very hard at low hp. Once the meta swings back around and damage goes down I think Kindred will be a lot better.
The meta won't shift downwards though. In fact it gets faster every year because people won't stop stroking themselves to Korea ((Whose been proving time and time and time and time again that they are not, as a server, blatantly better than any other server)) They are just an extremely lane dominant, super fast paced, early game style meta server. Their mid and late game is actually super atrocious, and they are some of the most toxic little human beings on the face of the planet. Unfortunately, like the katana, another super hyped up asian thing for absolutely no reason . . . we're going to continue copying their extremely fast paced gameplay which revolves around them playing in cafe's instead of at home. So, the meta will always be fast unless Riot intentionally over powers other champions for absolutely no reason and nerfs offensive items + buffs tank items even further to the point Cinderhulk is the best jungling item in the game. ((it's really good, but they're all balanced right now. A tank jungle meta implies cinderhulk is usually over powered.))
You can tell this is the case because the current lethality builds adcs are building because of KR. Even in master/challenger you see people just spamming lethality builds, even when extremely behind fighting 5 tanks because ((KR does it, so it's obv the best build.)) When the KR build is exclusively to snowball and end in 25 while you're so far ahead you don't even need crit, but this is heavily countered by mid/late game tanks and people don't understand that crit with dominiks is actually the tank killer, not lethality.
I guess what I'm trying to say is in order for Kindred ((in her current state)) to be relevant the meta would have to slow down considerably to the point if she goes for her first mark . . . her entire opposing side jungle won't fucking disappear by the time she gets over there + dies anyways, and since clear speeds have only increased further and further to the point Kindred has to use an hilarious amount of attack speed just to even come close to the other junglers . . . and only on 3 camps. I don't foresee it ever slowing down.
I foresee it actually getting faster and faster and faster, and Kindred growing more and more weaker. I know Kindred players are looking forward to the "vanguard update" MM juicy tanks for Kindred to kill amirite? What's actually going to happen is they're probably going to be over powered and run her down all game long after the massive assassin update flop where only two champs came out relevant and the rest were tossed into the trash can.
And this makes me sad because she's one of my 3 favorite designs, and I know my ELO is basically being held back because I play her =(. If you don't believe me, take a look at Graves winrates on LoLskill compared to Kindred. He's considered balanced btw.
Vëx6 votesCome on, stop this madness guys...
Not a single Kindred main in higher elo has above 60% winrate (excluding Gabbrielle [62%], but he is Korean so he might be playing Urgot jungle with same results).
Give them some armor back and they will be fine. It's impossible to play Kindred with 20 base armor when you need to invade so frequently. Even Raptors feel like an arch enemy right now
Don't throw such an awesome concept in the dumpster
Puttyblo3 votesOH hey look, they're nerfing Kindred again x3. I also noticed the silver/bronze players came with the mass downvote on page one questions. I challenge anyone that down voted my comments to tell me how you can reliably beat the current meta as Kindred without these circumstances happening
Your team is on their mains
Their team has at least 1 autofill.
The jungler is not on his main
are banned
The enemy bot lane does not contain 
The enemy top is not 
The enemy jungle is not 
If any of these conditions apply in diamond + elo, you're on a one way track to losing. Heaven forbid the enemy team is using discord and you're not.
If any one of these occur your odds of winning shrink down to. Well, let's see. Oh, she has a negative against every jungler in the game. So i'd say about a solid 46%. If they main the power champs you have about a 35% chance of winning. If the Jayce is a one trick pony you might as well sit at the base because if he power shots you in your with Graves outplaying you with smoke grenade you'll die anytime you go top side jungle period.
please. Enlighten me.
