@Meddler Can we please get some context on the Eve nerfs?

Koechophe·Oct 1, 2015·75 votes·29,709 views

I'm trying to understand why you guys are doing this, but I'm pulling up a blank. She's not a dominant force in normals or in competative, her pick rate is super low which is also backed up by a win rate of about 51% (which makes sense because she's primarily played by people who are experienced with her) and honestly, these nerfs are MASSIVE. She's already freakishly mana hungry, adding even more mana cost to her kit is just going to kill her potential in teamfights, because her kit is already starved for mana and because her base stats are already so abysmally terrible that it's hard to justify picking her. Can you please explain to us why you're nerfing eve in such a massive way? And (if possible) give us some reassurance that eventually this game of "Whenever eve gets viable we nerf her" is not going to last forever?

I would really appreciate clarification on this, ty for reading.

227 Comments

RiotMeddlerOct 1, 201542 votes

We believe Eve should be somewhat more mana gated than she is at present, now that Runeglaive's in the game. We don't want to create a situation where she's OOM all the time, but adding some cost (as opposed to the current free) to the W, thereby limiting either its use or her use of other spells a bit, is we think appropriate.

Power wise we also believe Eve's too strong at present in regular (non professional) play. We don't make changes driven purely by statistics (we aim for data informed, not data driven's). Eve's certainly right up there in terms of raw win rate though, with from memory the 4th or 5th highest winrate in the game at present when comparing champions as played by people with substantial experience on them. Eve's got a pretty steep mastery curve, so if her overall performance looks average it often means that her performance when played well is excessive even for someone on a champion they've played a lot (a phenomena also strongly demonstrated by other champs like Azir and Le Blanc who, if they're showing a 50% win rate in solo queue, are almost certainly very overpowered).

Support EvelynnOct 1, 201556 votes

{quoted}

We believe Eve should be somewhat more mana gated than she is at present, now that Runeglaive's in the game. We don't want to create a situation where she's OOM all the time, but adding some cost (as opposed to the current free) to the W, thereby limiting either its use or her use of other spells a bit, is we think appropriate.

Power wise we also believe Eve's too strong at present in regular (non professional) play. We don't make changes driven purely by statistics (we aim for data informed, not data driven's). Eve's certainly right up there in terms of raw win rate though, with from memory the 4th or 5th highest winrate in the game at present when comparing champions as played by people with substantial experience on them. Eve's got a pretty steep mastery curve, so if her overall performance looks average it often means that her performance when played well is excessive even for someone on a champion they've played a lot (a phenomena also strongly demonstrated by other champs like Azir and Le Blanc who, if they're showing a 50% win rate in solo queue, are almost certainly very overpowered).

If you wanna mana gate her more do it on Q, not W. W should not feel bad to use in fights, it should not be the skill she has to worry about conserving especially considering it is supposed to be a reward for playing teamfights right.

Not to mention Runeglaive only helps with clearing alone.

And if mastery is honestly your excuse, where are the Rengar nerfs? Where are the TF nerfs? Or the Gangplank nerfs? She may be strong but don't give us that reasoning.

I would really love to talk to you about these changes in more detail if possible, if you want to nerf Eve I think this is very much the wrong way to go about it. I have EXTREME experience with Evelynn and I want to make sure she's handled correctly.

TotN TitanOct 1, 20156 votes

[{quoted}](name=Maya Fey,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bKd1UWQl,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2015-10-01T07:27:21.089+0000)

If you wanna mana gate her more do it on Q, not W. W should not feel bad to use in fights, it should not be the skill she has to worry about conserving especially considering it is supposed to be a reward for playing teamfights right.

Not to mention Runeglaive only helps with clearing alone.

And if mastery is honestly your excuse, where are the Rengar nerfs? Where are the TF nerfs? Or the Gangplank nerfs? She may be strong but don't give us that reasoning.

I would really love to talk to you about these changes in more detail if possible, if you want to nerf Eve I think this is very much the wrong way to go about it. I have EXTREME experience with Evelynn and I want to make sure she's handled correctly.

Q is her spammable damage resource and effectively needs to be used as much as possible for her to be any effect in the fight. You add extra mana cost to that ability and there is certainly going to be a revolt. Instead, Riot adds a mana cost to a COSTLESS resource and tells the summoner that now they need to be more intelligent about when they push W. I prefer their logic, as it goes along with their game design of creating choices for the players to make.

Support EvelynnOct 1, 201520 votes

[{quoted}](name=TotN Titan,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bKd1UWQl,comment-id=000300000000,timestamp=2015-10-01T08:49:03.352+0000)

Q is her spammable damage resource and effectively needs to be used as much as possible for her to be any effect in the fight. You add extra mana cost to that ability and there is certainly going to be a revolt. Instead, Riot adds a mana cost to a COSTLESS resource and tells the summoner that now they need to be more intelligent about when they push W. I prefer their logic, as it goes along with their game design of creating choices for the players to make.

Her W already has logic applied, and that's in its slow cleanse. Do you initiate with it and hope for a reset or save it and cleanse a slow? Other than that the ability is her entire in fight mobility and what allows her to get in and out of fights. It shouldn't be punished for being used haphazardly in that way since it's exactly what it's designed to be.

TotN TitanOct 1, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Maya Fey,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bKd1UWQl,comment-id=0003000000000000,timestamp=2015-10-01T08:57:33.075+0000)

Her W already has logic applied, and that's in its slow cleanse. Do you initiate with it and hope for a reset or save it and cleanse a slow? Other than that the ability is her entire in fight mobility and what allows her to get in and out of fights. It shouldn't be punished for being used haphazardly in that way since it's exactly what it's designed to be.

Don't get me wrong, that is definitely a choice you have when using her W now as it is, but there is no actual cost in how you choose to use it right now. There's no punishment for a wrong answer because there is no wrong answer. Use it as an initiate? That works. Use it to cleanse a slow after the fight starts? That works too. A good Eve has built Rylai's, so having to use her speed boost to stick to an opponent is a choice you have already eliminated because of an itemization decision. By adding a resource to spend in order to make that choice, even if it is just 40 mana, you implement a risk/reward to the choice and punishable if you make the poor decision. You can't just spam it when it's up without consequence. And let's be honest, you get 5 times the amount of mana it costs just from building runeglaive, so her mana pool is more than healthy enough for this change.

Support EvelynnOct 1, 201517 votes

[{quoted}](name=TotN Titan,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bKd1UWQl,comment-id=00030000000000000000,timestamp=2015-10-01T09:15:58.394+0000)

And let's be honest, you get 5 times the amount of mana it costs just from building runeglaive, so her mana pool is more than healthy enough for this change.

You do realize that Runeglaive's mana return only works on monsters right?

TotN TitanOct 1, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Maya Fey,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bKd1UWQl,comment-id=000300000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-10-01T09:19:10.179+0000)

You do realize that Runeglaive's mana return only works on monsters right?

The item itself gives 200 mana. The sheen proc is irrelevant.

Adrian UmbraOct 1, 20157 votes

When she already got Sheen quite often, that argument is pretty weak. If Eve went AP, Lichbane was a core item to enhance her mediocre burst. And even WITH the extra 200 mana, she sucks down mana fast enough for it to be a problem in a teamfight. Even if she went in with full.

KeevalroyOct 1, 201561 votes

Eve's got a pretty steep mastery curve, so if her overall performance looks average it often means that her performance when played well is excessive even for someone on a champion they've played a lot (a phenomena also strongly demonstrated by other champs like Azir and Le Blanc who, if they're showing a 50% win rate in solo queue, are almost certainly very overpowered).

The same thing was said about Yasuo, who has been at 50% for quite some time. When is he getting gutted like a fish?

Edit: Nothing? You guys just want to pretend this wasn't said? Just gonna walk away pretending this obnoxious mistake of a release isn't a problem yet again?

LankPantsOct 1, 201548 votes

Yasuo's a flashy champion who makes #LCSBigPlays though. He's just as immune to nerfs as Lee Sin and Thresh.

KeevalroyOct 1, 201514 votes

Nerfs would be great for the time being, but at the end of the day, it won't matter. That kit is a broken mess of overloaded BS crammed into one release. He needs reworked from the ground up if he's to be healthy for once in his life.

Arcana LancerOct 1, 201514 votes

Guess who's the Designer Darius Mordekaiser Kalista Thresh Yasuo Literally all of them have overloaded kits with the band-aid passive or stat as an excuse for being balanced.

KeevalroyOct 1, 201512 votes

I don't need to guess, I've wished CertainlyT would be moved far away from champion design since Yasuo's kit was released.

Slamurai JackOct 1, 201527 votes

{quoted}

Yasuo's a flashy champion who makes #LCSBigPlays though. He's just as immune to nerfs as Lee Sin and Thresh.

Where were you in 2014 when he got nerfed like 8 times? I swear these boards have the most selective memory ever.

UirayaOct 1, 20155 votes

I don't think anybody has ever been nerfed worse than Janna and she still gets kneecapped regularly by the "balance" team. Stuff like this proves they have absolutely no idea what they should be focusing on.

Emmy Cha0sOct 1, 201525 votes

Sona

24 nerfs in a single patch. Around a dozen or more additional direct and indirect nerfs in the same season.

kkanakaOct 1, 201510 votes

God I swear Sona is the support version of "nerf Irelia". Season 3-4 all I saw were nerfs, just due to the fact she was constantly used in the LCS.

ForgotToShootOct 1, 20153 votes

Because she was still good after the nerfs. She offers everything you want in a support. Heals, shields, movement speed, poke, bonus damage, and then her power chord offers either a slow, damage mitigation, or just more damage. Not to mention her AoE stun for an ult. Her numbers have to be hit to keep her many options less powerful than champions who only get to pick a handful of those options.

kkanakaOct 1, 20157 votes

Yeah she did deserve to get a couple nerfs but I don't think they needed to constantly keep going. I mean right now she's just the jack of all trades, but master at none for the support role.

UirayaOct 2, 20157 votes

She's not even sort of decent at the majority of them. She's a Q+ult bot, with what must be two of the worst abilities in the game to go with them.

Pika310Oct 2, 20158 votes

Yet she was a sub-par inferior cookie-cutout of Nami before 4.13 ruined her completely. Now she's just a joke, she's seen more often in hentai than on the Rift.

Voluug13Oct 1, 201515 votes

At this point, Irelia is the toplane version of ''Better Nerf Sona''.

48983507DEL1Oct 2, 20152 votes

Her rework made her initially weaker, but it made her kit easier to balance for future changes, even if it was frustrating to long time Sona players. Auras are just hard to balance.

Emmy Cha0sOct 2, 20157 votes

Then why haven't they done so already? It's been more than a year. Oh right, cause all of that is bullshit. Riot is the only company in existence spouting that horse manure. They killed her on purpose and now that she's dead, they're intentionally keeping her that way.

48983507DEL1Oct 2, 20153 votes

they*

Thresh got nerfed so many times last season, while Lee got a few "gamebreaking" nerfs. Yet all three are still viable. Why? Their kits are ridiculously overloaded, even when numerically weak/balanced.

Slamurai JackOct 2, 20151 votes

{quoted}

they*

Thresh got nerfed so many times last season, while Lee got a few "gamebreaking" nerfs. Yet all three are still viable. Why? Their kits are ridiculously overloaded, even when numerically weak/balanced.

Explain to me how Yasuo's kit is overloaded. Please. I hear that line so much but I've never heard anyone actually tell me how exactly it's overloaded. So please, explain to me how Yasuo, a melee only champion, is ridiculously overloaded.

48983507DEL1Oct 2, 201513 votes

Relatively infinite dashes with 0 cooldown, linear multi-target skillshot that scales with total ad that applies all on hit effects including crit with a cooldown based on attackspeed instead of cooldown reduction, 2x crit chance, passive shield, aoe knockup with cooldown related to Q that's cooldown scales with attackspeed, extended time of suspension to all knockups, 50% bonus armor penetration for 18 seconds after ulting, and windwall to top it all off.

This makes him a utility assassin/fighter/melee adc that can also be built pretty tanky and still do a ton of damage.

But not overloaded, am I right?

JMoormannOct 1, 201578 votes

Nerfs are considered a projectile for the purposes of Yasuo's Wind Wall. If you somehow manage to outposition it and shoot nerfs at him, he can still easily dodge them with his E.

THE RlVER KlNGOct 1, 201521 votes

That was the most clever BS I've ever seen. tips hat

ForgotToShootOct 1, 20158 votes

Give that joke a medal

IllumanatiObamaOct 1, 20152 votes

People seem to have a short memory around here because he was nerfed hard after his release and nerfed harder around the time his Project skin was released. Plus he's barely been seen in LCS for a long time so that excuse is no longer valid.

LankPantsOct 1, 20157 votes

I'd recommend watching LCK and LPL. He's quite popular in both.

Handin Out NapsOct 2, 20151 votes

QQs about Yasuo, meanwhile lux has a higher winrate and a stupid pickrate. k boards.

KeevalroyOct 2, 20155 votes

Lux isn't obnoxious cancer like Yasuo is.

Handin Out NapsOct 2, 20152 votes

idk since were all going off winrate here, she is cancer C:.

KeevalroyOct 2, 20157 votes

You're missing the point. Riot said if he got to 50% he would be considered too strong. He's at that point, and I'm expecting the nerfs that should follow. Much like their reasoning with Eve, although the decision on her position is random.

Emmy Cha0sOct 1, 201529 votes

That's all BS, you're just lying to our faces(again) to cover the fact that all the changes the "balance" team makes are 100% biased and have nothing to do with actual gameplay or critical thought.

I'm tired of being lied to and insulted by Riot employees. Fearless, Jag, Slumber Jack... This is a recurring theme.

CinderDragon77Oct 1, 201510 votes

As one of our more unique and polarizing champions (due to her ability to run away with a lead) Nidalee's been out of the patch notes for some time. For 5.15, it's the same old song-and-dance - increase the risk she has to take on to succeed with her aggressive assassination patterns. Tossing massive Javelins and stalking the weak is most certainly a hallmark of Nidalee's playstyle, but the number of tools she has to choose her engagements leaves her opponents without much of a say. These changes continue to pressure Nidalee to really commit with cougar-form takedowns, instead of constantly fishing with poke from afar. They also open up more ability to evade Nidalee’s attempts to continue the hunt once she’s got her eyes on you.

This was after they had nerfed her durability, that was the patch notes from when they nerfed her casting time and base damage on her spear and cut the vision given by traps to a third of it's radius in I think it was 5.15. Looks like a ton of people are going to be jumping in on nid with their myriad of ways to catch a target, like landing a spear that has been nerfed in every way imaginable repeatedly, i.e. without boots you can sidestep the thing, or having someone walk into a trap due to their own stupidity which may I add does no damage so jumping in after that with cougar will just get you killed(yay lower durability), better pray the enemy has used all of their cc and mobility spells, is completely alone and isn't near anything that can block a spear and does basically no damage, or jumping in gets you outright killed 9/10 times oh and don't forget how she's basically forced to jungle now because they've completely nuked almost any possible way to lane as her anymore(strategic diversity ftw), let's make it even easier to deal with nid but leave thresh/lee/vayne with love taps or even buffs.

They're basically doing the same thing to eve, "insert completely flawed PR statement here", and that's why we decided to nerf eve, because with her average winrate, no complaints about her, and her ability to actually still impact a game as someone that isn't thresh or lee sin is too polarizing, therefore, more mana costs, woo balance. buzzword buzzword buzzword

Voluug13Oct 1, 201510 votes

The difference is that Nidalee's toxic play pattern of ''build mana, chuck spears, heal, chuck spears until a lucky one'' is still there. Which, lets be honest, has basically 0 risk included unless you overpush the lane so she has to go cat to clean (and then you get ganked because you have to be near her tower to punish her while she is cougar form). Her nerfed were completly wanted after she centralized jungle enough. Everyone hated her.

Eve inherently put herself at risk much much more that Nidalee. Heck that is why I fear ganking against things like Riven/LB because they have the early burst enough to erase me if I tried. The only moment, arfter her rework, that the playerbase overused Eve was when she was capable of going midlane - back when her AP ratios where high enough. Now a days she is basically the Malzahar/Heimerdinger of jungle, low pickrate, good winrate.

Comparing Nidalee's situation to Eve's is silly. Riot instead of solving an actual problem, its basically kneejerk nerfing Eve because she doesnt have a 39% winrate/0.1% pickrate.

NostolgicSkiesOct 1, 20159 votes

{quoted}

We believe Eve should be somewhat more mana gated than she is at present, now that Runeglaive's in the game. We don't want to create a situation where she's OOM all the time, but adding some cost (as opposed to the current free) to the W, thereby limiting either its use or her use of other spells a bit, is we think appropriate.

Power wise we also believe Eve's too strong at present in regular (non professional) play. We don't make changes driven purely by statistics (we aim for data informed, not data driven's). Eve's certainly right up there in terms of raw win rate though, with from memory the 4th or 5th highest winrate in the game at present when comparing champions as played by people with substantial experience on them. Eve's got a pretty steep mastery curve, so if her overall performance looks average it often means that her performance when played well is excessive even for someone on a champion they've played a lot (a phenomena also strongly demonstrated by other champs like Azir and Le Blanc who, if they're showing a 50% win rate in solo queue, are almost certainly very overpowered).

so what your saying is Eve is still overpowered cause she can gank early game so u added a mana cost to gate her into loosing her early game by forcing runeglaive instead of giving her jungle item diversity cause lets face it without blue if u dont go runeglaive u still can mana dump fast which was a risk eve players took when buying warrior or any other jungle item as it stands. now by forcing runeglaive and killing her earlier game dmg more; forcing runeglaive more or less forces her into an Ap only build or runeglaive's scale is pointless and the proc becomes useless. in turn the nerf lowers eves early dmg potential but it limits her jungle itemization and diversity (something u guys praised at one point). youalso limit her own build paths and diversity by forcing runeglaive on her and kill her early and mid game imo making her now useless during all times of the game. when compared to jungle champ options eve will now no longer be an option in any situation. and as most will agree you guys have been doing this back and forth with evelyn since beta. just admit you dont want her in the game and either delete her or pls just leave her alone. even this small nerf has got people who hate eve as much as they hate teemo complaining cause they are just as confused and annoyed that once again we are doing the eve run around.

TotN TitanOct 1, 20151 votes

{quoted}

so what your saying is Eve is still overpowered cause she can gank early game so u added a mana cost to gate her into loosing her early game by forcing runeglaive instead of giving her jungle item diversity cause lets face it without blue if u dont go runeglaive u still can mana dump fast which was a risk eve players took when buying warrior or any other jungle item as it stands. now by forcing runeglaive and killing her earlier game dmg more; forcing runeglaive more or less forces her into an Ap only build or runeglaive's scale is pointless and the proc becomes useless. in turn the nerf lowers eves early dmg potential but it limits her jungle itemization and diversity (something u guys praised at one point). youalso limit her own build paths and diversity by forcing runeglaive on her and kill her early and mid game imo making her now useless during all times of the game. when compared to jungle champ options eve will now no longer be an option in any situation. and as most will agree you guys have been doing this back and forth with evelyn since beta. just admit you dont want her in the game and either delete her or pls just leave her alone. even this small nerf has got people who hate eve as much as they hate teemo complaining cause they are just as confused and annoyed that once again we are doing the eve run around.

You may have secretly found a perfect answer. If Evelyn is allowed to go with another enchantment as her jungle item instead of using runeglaive, then the purpose for the item to exist is narrowed to an even smaller pool. There are already only a handful of junglers that use runeglaive and if Evelyn is building a more AD or tanky alternative, it would make the list even smaller.

NostolgicSkiesOct 1, 20156 votes

[{quoted}](name=TotN Titan,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bKd1UWQl,comment-id=000300060000,timestamp=2015-10-01T09:48:29.758+0000)

You may have secretly found a perfect answer. If Evelyn is allowed to go with another enchantment as her jungle item instead of using runeglaive, then the purpose for the item to exist is narrowed to an even smaller pool. There are already only a handful of junglers that use runeglaive and if Evelyn is building a more AD or tanky alternative, it would make the list even smaller.

yes but the point is players should be allowed to make that choice they shouldnt be forced to buy an item cause its not popular. if runeglaive isnt being used atm then it should be ignored like many other items that are never used in the game or removed since its been shown to be an item that is unnecessary or needed in the jungle.

ITakeYoSandwichOct 1, 20152 votes

As a Diana player, I resent the notion that runeglaive is unnecessary. It's a fantastic enchant, and you're just a hater. Don't be a hater, Sky.

TheJinxedOneOct 1, 20156 votes

u havent tried just builidng lichbane and devour im guessing

mirAcIeOct 1, 20153 votes

{quoted}

We believe Eve should be somewhat more mana gated than she is at present, now that Runeglaive's in the game. We don't want to create a situation where she's OOM all the time, but adding some cost (as opposed to the current free) to the W, thereby limiting either its use or her use of other spells a bit, is we think appropriate.

Power wise we also believe Eve's too strong at present in regular (non professional) play. We don't make changes driven purely by statistics (we aim for data informed, not data driven's). Eve's certainly right up there in terms of raw win rate though, with from memory the 4th or 5th highest winrate in the game at present when comparing champions as played by people with substantial experience on them. Eve's got a pretty steep mastery curve, so if her overall performance looks average it often means that her performance when played well is excessive even for someone on a champion they've played a lot (a phenomena also strongly demonstrated by other champs like Azir and Le Blanc who, if they're showing a 50% win rate in solo queue, are almost certainly very overpowered).

If you believe that she HAS to be mana gated at least be merciful with this nerf and make the mana cost on her W scale with level, like 15/20/25/30/40 or something.

Besides, not everyone even builds Runeglaive on Evelynn. There are still working Warrior, Cinderhulk and even Devourer builds.

I am one of the players who mastered Eve. I don't know how my stats affected your calculations of Evelynn's winrate, but as an avid Evelynn player, I can tell you that what I find too strong about her kit. It is her E. And the problem is not the base damage, the problem is that it deals too much damage when you actually have items. It has 1.0/1.0 scaling and procs on-hit effects while being a point and click ability that has no counterplay except not being in range. I would feel okay if it was a skill shot. Or even if it was split into 2 usable charges (it is already essentially 2 hits, right?) like the old Fiora's Q.

TotalJerkOct 1, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Besides, not everyone even builds Runeglaive on Evelynn. There are still working Warrior, Cinderhulk and even Devourer builds.

There's the reason for the nerf, right there.

mirAcIeOct 1, 20151 votes

{quoted}

There's the reason for the nerf, right there.

How is this the reason for the nerf? Champion being diverse is the reason to force it into binary build path like the boring ones? I'd rather have every boring champion reworked so they can have more build paths rather than dumbing down the interesting ones we already have.

CanastusOct 1, 201515 votes

Whatever you're doing on the PBE, it's just baffling. You seem to pick random champions at times while hardly working on those who really need your attention.

That insignificant nerf to Vayne is a joke and the total absence of Cass changes after all those months only emphasizes your lack of understanding for the actual metagame.

Pika310Oct 1, 201513 votes

Not to mention more than a full year since Sona was gutted and still no revert or re-rework.

CanastusOct 1, 20157 votes

I feel your pain. I just made a thread to address their messed up approach for reworks.