The 201 Years Patch proposal

As the name may suggest, the following is a patch update brainstormed by myself and a friend of mine with the intention of balancing (for how much it is possible) the game. Since Riot prides itself for its 200 years of expertise, we decided to add 1 year on top of that, in part as a joke, in part because we do consider some of their choice with criticism, in part as our way to also not simply dismiss what they did in the following years.

Before starting, a few words.

The following patch was started by yours truly with another aim: the original name was “Ockham Patch”, with the plan of removing everything unnecessary for gameplay from champions, items, runes, jungle, roles, lanes, ecc. Basically, originally the idea started as a total overhaul of the game, with the intention of simplify designs while still adding both counterplay and the possibility to develop AT LEAST 2 different working builds on each champions. In a few words, the objective was to remove a forced meta as much as possible.

After I finished the champions’ changes, I decided to show it to one friend of mine to hear his opinion. After a lot of discussing, he convinced me on 2 things: the first one was to change the scope of the work to champion redesigns; the second one was to concentrate less on what the original idea was, which was clarity and simple kits working well together. After compromises and arguments, we developed together the final product, which I want to expose to you guys as well.

Another thing. I’m well aware that this work has its limits: I’m no game designer or challenger/pro player; Riot or anyone over there can simply ignore the whole thing, making it useless. Neverthless, I still think that any idea, no matter how small, has its own worth in being exposed. Maybe by reading it people may think of better designs. Maybe someone at Riot reads it and proposes some of its points. Who knows.

If you do not share such vision, simply take all this as a way to start a discussion on the general state of champions. My point is not to denigrate (except maybe for my friend suggestions, but you’ll see what I mean), nor start pointless rants. I just want to give our thoughts a voice, even if it will fall deaf

That said, I hope you enjoy reading this brainstorm as much as we did writing it down

PS The list will not touch champions that are about to be reworked, in need of a rework, fine or very new

Symbols legend:

-P-, -Q-, -W-, -E-, -R- stand for the respecting skill, with -P- being the passive

[] indicates that the current ability is a different new ability proposed from the current one

(suggestion) means that the change is not one we’re sure of, basically the stuff we as well didn’t decide for

-WHOLE- stands for a change (or suggestion, if specified) that affects the whole champion, not just a part of his kit

X stands for numbers, be it flat of percentage and with undecided scalings. Since our points are more about concepts, we decided to leave numbers aside, as it is easier to work on those later than on the concepts

Let’s begin

-WHOLE- Abilities cost X health -P- [] Aatrox first autoattack against an enemy champion or large monster (no minions) marks it. Every time Aatrox autoattacks a marked unit, he gains X health back. -Q- [] Aatrox lunges towards a target direction, dealing damage against all units and applying on hit effects on enemy champions. Albeit a dash, the lunge cannot go through walls. If Aatrox hits at least a unit, he may cast the 2nd part for X seconds. [] (2nd Q) Aatrox jumps and slam his sword on the ground, knocking up all units in an area. The jump can go through walls. -E- [] (toggle ability) Each autoattack takes X amount of health from Aatrox, but deals bonus damage -R- [] For X seconds from activation, Aatrox gains bonus attack speed for each time he expends health, up to a maximum of X bonus attack speed. If he dies during ultimate, he becomes invulnerable, cannot move and restores up to X of his health, based on X value.

(comment) The idea about Aatrox is that unfortunately, old Aatrox has been completely scrapped and sobstituted with a whole new champion. From one side, we did recognize that old Aatrox had problems. A lot of them. From the other, simply changing the design is also a slap to the face for old Aatrox mains. This said, I wanted to try and think of a possible design for Aatrox old “drain fighter” that still didn’t come out as another monstruosity. I know this Aatrox design is controversial for the fact itself that the new one has (some sort) been balanced, but I still think his kit (as well as many others) suffer from being unilaterals: either the champion is absolutely broken or a total pushover. My plan was, in a few points: 1) make the rework resemble old Aatrox; 2) give him clear strengths and weaknesses; 3) make him thematically coerent with his “god of war and blood” feeling. Still not entirely sure on his revive, because unfortunately pro play is a thing

-P- (suggestion) [] Everytime Ahri hits an enemy champion with her spells, she gains X mov speed for X seconds and regains X health. Health regained is reduced by X on units hit outside of the first -Q- (suggestion) Remove mov speed

(comment) One thing both me and my friend agree on is that mages should not generally have access to either healing or movement speed bonus (unless it’s heavily thematic and balanced), but most importantly we agree that the idea of stacks is (most of the time) a lazy implementation. Since however Ahri doesn’t seem to give too many problems on this regard, we decided to put this change as a suggestion: we feel like it’s better to semplify her kit and make her bonus costant, so that she CAN activate them if she knows what she’s doing, but she CANNOT abuse the fact that certain skills are so heavily load

-P- [] After hitting an enemy champion with an ability, Akali's next autoattack gains bonus range and is enhanced, dealing bonus damage and giving energy -Q- Remove slow and bonus damage -W- Remove energy restore and mov speed, make it so that she has health reg while invisible inside it -R- Make both dashes targettable with a fixed range (you go over if you use it close), make the first one apply Passive auto enhance

(comment) Leaving aside the changes in the PBE, I do think this maybe be a way to fix her. For starters, it makes her kit simpler and more coherent, making also easier to tune. Then, it gives you a reason to stay inside the cloud invisible instead of abusing it for pseudo-tankiness. Thirdly the changes to R and P should make it both more balanced, both easier for good players to keep their energy levels high (which in this case could be acceptable if the other changes are taken as well)

-Q- Make slow not scale on R -E- Make bonus damage apply easier (slow), but scale less -R- Remove increase gimmick, distance fix and immobilization, but in turn reduce effects and availability

(comment) Now, what I don’t like in a design is convoluted stuff. When you think of a skill, it usually scales with itself, meaning either ranks or scalings. Making stuff from your skill scale on the ranks of your other skills is not what I call a very clear design. Moving on, I understand the R gimmick was introduced because of E abuse, but at this point you could have just made her a champion that deals more costant damage by making, appropriately, her abilities having more availabilty but lesser effects

-WHOLE- Distribute all his guns to skills , choose one of them as his passive. Everytime he switches, the gun does something based also on the previous weapon. If he wants to switch to his passive, he just toggles the current weapon off. Remove ultimate

(comment) Yes, it’s literally ranged Udyr. However, in this way you can also give him clearer weaknesses. A lot of stuff from Aphelios is kinda coming from his ultimate sheningans. By design, Apheslios should be a jack-of-all-trades character, good at everything but master of none. By current design, apparentely he’s master of everything. And yes, I do not accept that a champion is so much of a special case that he needs a personal HUD. Rules exist for a reason

-Q- (suggestion) Remove Focus requirement and duration, make it a toggle ability that costs mana for each shot -E- (suggestion) Remove charges

(comment) I may be a sucker of old Ashe, but I did like the idea that she was gated by mana. As well, I don’t really like charge/stacks systems. But neverthless, this is only a suggestion

-P- Actually give meaning to the minion execute or outright remove it, -W- Remove passive (add it to Passive), make it a toggle ability again, remove mov speed effect

(comment) In a few words, if a champion gets strong only when he can abuse a keystone, maybe the problem is both the keystone AND the champion. If the plan was to simply reduce his ability to roam 24/7, the hit on the E was more than enough. As well, we’re pretty sure he was changed to accomodate the burst meta, but in this way you do remove his niche/special fantasy

-W- Remove 3 soldiers for attack speed bonus, make it so that each soldier beyond the first gives x bonus attack speed

(comment) Considering the past with this guy, we only felt more coherent to make the attack speed scale with soldiers, for clarity issues (yes, we generally hate stacks)

-P- make Passive progression progressive, remove benchmarks

(comment) See Azir

-Q- Revert range -W- Make it so that if he doesn't autoattack a champion he gets slowed -R- Remove marks, make it random again

(comment) I understand his change originally was because people would just spam W and run around, but this hurt Blitzcrank’s other build a lot, forcing him to be mostly relegated to support (apparentely self-cc effects are more oppressive than one may have thought). Our idea for this consists of 3 parts: make bruiser build possible; remove R change to compensate availability; leave self slow, but make it more risky for support Blitzcrank (considering it’s his theme). And no, we don’t care about the Q buff to force people not ban Pyke instead of him. Considering we’re touching Pyke as well, we do not deem it neccessary for the Q buff to remain

-E- Revert cooldown, make it it gets reduced when hitting poisoned enemies, only cures on champs

(comment) Cassio was balanced around the fact that Conqueror was not around. After Conqueror, to make the E such a strong spell brought us to her current state. Unless there are some plans regarding Conqueror, we suggest such change (or revert, considering old Cassio was actually this skill instensive)

-P- Leave Noxian might stack apply, remove bonus attack -E- Remove passive

(comment) On Darius, 2 simple points: 1) you do not solve issues by adding more damage; 2) you do not solve them by adding random offensive stats as well. I know this takes away the idea of maxing E before other skills, but at this point change his ratios instead of handing handholders

-P- (suggestion) Remove bonus attack speed

(comment) Part of me know Diana needs it for the jungle. Another part of me still can’t help but wonder how does this help her now current steamrolling-assassin fantasy

-W- Remove passive

(comment) In our opinion, Ekko already has a lot compared to most champions. Most importantely, adding free stuff to skills that have NO CORRELATION AT ALL with the added stuff doesn’t really help at keeping the designs simple. This will surely hit Ekko jungle, but if you want to compensate just change the numbers of his other skills on monsters, instead of adding random stuff and convolute everything

-P- Change from true damage to physical (leave max% health scaling), remove flat healing (or make it health regen) -Q- Remove ward/structure interactions -W- Make it so that the cripple is applied only if she receives damage from champions -R- Remove passive that increases Passive

(comment) Mostly nerfs, but considering she received only buffs for a long time we think it’s coherent. From starters, Fiora needs a clear weakness. Her old one was the low splitpushing potential, but then she was buffed. We don’t mean to remove ALL spliptushing from her (see, E). Moving on, from one side the Q interactions are too much, from the other the R/P interactions are not that much healthy as well. True damage is never something that should be tossed around so easily. Lastly, her W remains a very strong skill for duelling. We don’t mean to gut it, but at least to give a window of counterplay for those careful enough

-W- Remove "doesn't kill target" effect -R- Make ult changes progressive

(comment) Fizz change is half-clarity, half-stripping. If he already has a on-hit passive, why make it stronger if it doesn’t kill the target? You usually punish a bad use of the skill, not prize it. Or better, the whole idea behind giving him more costant damage is not a good idea: we do love costant damage, but Fizz kit is such that he can’t be allowed to have significant costant damage (see Tank Fizz)

-WHOLE- (suggestion) -P- [] Galio gains a shield equal to X of his magic resistance. The shield cooldown decreases whenever an enemy casts a spell nearby -W- [] Galio shields either himself or a target ally, granting it X armor and magic resistance based on Galio's ones. If an ally is shielded, a percentage of the damage they take is redirected towards Galio. If Galio is shielded, his autoattacks deal bonus damage based on his magic resistance -R- Now gives the passive shield to target ally

(comment) Galio has the huge problem to suffer from an identity crysis: as a mage, he could burst down everyone; as a tank, he can be extremely disruptive thanks to his taunt. Deciding between the lesser evils, I decided to opt more for the tank, mainly because of the old passive which scaled on magic resistance (instead of the pseudo new one on w). This said, the problem remained about 2 things: if he’s tank, he must have a way to control the lane; but at the same time, Riot hates his taunt. My solution was the following: add back old W, upgrade it to also work for when he’s alone. I do realise the concept is not that much convincing, so I decided to put it as a suggestion

-Q- Remove increased damage to minions, make healing on minions reduced

(comment) I’ll be frank, my intention was to completely remove the healing. After discussing, we agreed to leave the healing, but make it reduced on minions. Most importantely, we agreed that having hand-holding in farming is not really necessary, considering the fact that as long as the Q applies on-hit, Irelia will always have an easy time farming

-E- Make it he doesn't have atk speed bonus if he's outside the active aura

(comment) This is more for clarity and thematic issues. If you have passively atk speed and drop a thing that gives that atk speed in an area, we do not see why you should keep the atk speed when outside of it. It’s easier to understand if you consider the trade offs Olaf has on his R

-P- Remove AD reduction

(comment) We understand that this champion is an absolute monster to balance, but we also understand that the only case in which we have a champion dealing less damage with his abilities to champions is Kled. However, in Kled case it follows the idea that his main objective is to remount Skaarl, making it a suboptimal condition for a very special case. In case of Kalista, We do not think that it helps to make such arbitrary moves on champions, it’s like picking any ADC that you want to nerf and slap on him a 10% reduction on all autos. She needs work on, but one that it’s actually coherent with her design and that doesn’t look like an emergency band-aid

-WHOLE- (suggestion) -P- [] After being out of combat for at least X seconds, the first spell Karma casts will be empowered -Q- [] Main has no aoe anymore, Empowered is a targeted area spell, both slow -W- [] Both can be used on allies and enemies (based on thether). On allies, gives increased health regeneration; empowered make the allies' autoattacks deal bonus burn damage. On enemies, deals damage and gives X debuff; empowered gives X debuff as well -E- [] on ally, gives shield; empowered, gives also mov speed and something else -R- [] Karma forcibly empowers her next spell for X seconds. If she casts it, she'll also double the cooldown of her passive (as adding) (ex. 1 sec cd (from a hipothetical 12 secs Passive cd) = 13 secs cd)

(comment) This is my take on a possible Karma rework. Many effects are left as an incognite because my focus was more on the theme. That is, to show a character that is, generally and (wrongly) speaking, a pacifist confronting herself with a violent reality

-R- If Kassadin ults without hitting at least an enemy unit, the mana cost more than doubles

(comment) Yes, free mobility is fun, especially when is backed up with current mana changes where everyone never runs out and has cdr out of its ass. It was the best idea that I came up with to somehow balance this guy (and considering his past, I’m pretty sure I still won’t be able to, even with such change)

-Q- Remove mana cost refound

(comment) Again, we don’t like handholding that turns simple spells into more complex ones. Especially since with the passive changes she can now be a champion at 6 instead of 11

-P- [] Change passive: remove stacks, marked champions either take more damage from Kindred or Kindred's abilities have additional effects against marked champions -W- Put W passive healing on Wolf's attacks

(comment) The W is for consistency, the passive is to actually make her playable. Kindred, as many other champions focused on killing, suffer from the same problems: if the kit doesn’t give proper strengths and weaknesses, the champion is either perma pick/ban or completely forgotten. Most champions with stacks have them apply on units, but here’s the thing: jungle camps are not simple units. What the changes did were to force Kindred into a situation where she should have excellent early to contest marks, but she got nerfed especially because she had that. Since the theme around her is that of a hunter, this was the best compromise I could think of (at least, one that allows both players to play around it)

-Q- Remove grevious wounds

(comment) Speaking of Kled, no: if you have a problem about sustain, you touch sustain; giving random stuff does not help the situation

(comment) No, we do think Le Blanc is ok. I’m just adding her to express my friend’s passionate feelings towards her and his tentative to rework her.

(taken from the chat)

"for how much it regards lb all her spells should be erased change them with a spell that makes a dancing clown on the target location because that’s what lb mains deserve the clown does nothing except dance btw you can put that in the suggestion part the only thing that changes between spells it’s the color of hairs and clothes of the clowns and the honk sound it does when spawning and dying cause the clown can be targeted and killed it gives money 100g and dies in 2 ranged hit 1 melee"

-P- Revert the energy gain, both attacks give back the same amount

(comment) This for sure won’t bring Lee Sin down. However, again, handholding for champions already fine is not a good idea

-P- (suggestion) Revert Passive to old one

(comment) This comes mainly from my friend. Personally, I’d like a complete rework on mana AND THEN add the passive back, because only then it’d have sense. But whatever

-P- [] Everytime Malzahar casts X spells, he spawns a voidling. Voidlings scale also on AD -W- change W back to Null Zone -R- Remove Null Zone from R

(comment) For the love of god bring the champ back to life. Reduce the voidlings’ health, the ratios, the base, whatever. Just, try to make him an interesting champion to play again instead of a literal ult bot (with all your changes being done to prevent that but actually forcing him to not be anything else than that). Yes, this one may be out of bias, but we do think the rework on him did not meet his needs.

-R- Remove passive

(comment) Yi has always been a hard carry, we do not want to touch that. But what we want to touch is the Q resets, since the problem is not that he has them, but that he has 2 ways to reduce its cooldown. If nothing else can be touched from his kit, we think the safest move is to leave only the autos cd reduction

-P- Remove autoattacks passive -E- Remove passive

(comment) Considering that most of his damage comes from passive and Q, the passive auto enhance doesn’t seem to make most sense to us. For the E, see Darius

-P- Remove passive stats

(comment) Again, he feels like you guys looked at top and said “we need a tank, let’s choose one and give him bonus stats”. Considering that he already has 2 passives, we do not think simple addings help for the state of the game (you want tanks, fix tanks and things around them, not slap them with more stuff)

-W- Make it so that taking damage cancels W -R- Remove gold generation, make it only for allies and only a few of it

(comment) We get it, you want Pyke to be slippery. However, there is slippery and then there is un-fucking-touchable and when you give the latter also tools to engage from distance, it doesn’t help. The idea we thought of was to still leave him his tools, but also to think twice which ones use and when (but most importantely, he can actually be countered by ignite). For R, yes, the idea is neat, what is not neat is having a full build Pyke at 10 minutes because somehow he has the safest Draven passive built in his kit. Yes, he can take the carry kills, but he can’t also take over the game because of one single kill

-E- Remove Q helper -R- Remove stun, leave knock back

(comment) Again, no handholding. For R, having a hard CC on assassin is not, and has never been, a good idea unless you make it EXTREMELY situational. Her R simply follows the whole wall and makes her impossible to fight in the jungle, allowing for amounts of CCs that go beyond healthy. Trying to balance it, we decided to still leave it as it is, but make it only a knock back

-R- Remove AP scaling

(comment) Or make full AP Renekton viable. Seriously, you gave it also the lowest damn ratio in the game as well

-P- Remove Bonetooth Necklace, keep the Kha'Zix event but change the prize effect to increased leap range -W- Remove grey health gimmick, give him heals, remove cleanse -R- Remove free critical

(comment) From one, we did not want to gut jungle Rengar by taking away his sustain. From the other, we do think he has more than enough damage to delete somebody, especially in such a meta (without even considering top lane sheningans)

-WHOLE- All of her animations have cast time which she cannot cancel with other abilities or autoattacks

(comment) Rules apply for all champions. Why? Because it allows to actually address problem, instead of leaving Riven to the mercy of the meta because the moment it favours her a little you can bet your ass she’ll exploit it like no other. It’s not difficult, it’s just that allowing problems to persist creates only more problems

-P- Remove Weakened Soul and Relic Cannon passive, remove critical strike chance and reduced drop per Senna minion kills -Q- Leave only the very active effect and the interation with wraiths -E- Remove movement speed

(comment) If you take Senna to her barebones mechanics, she actually seem pretty balanced. The problem here is SEEMS, because the moment I started reading her pages I basically found myself with a wall of bonus stats in front of me. If you have a hole in the wall, you do not stuff the hole with whatever you have. It’s better o break around and remake it properly

-P- (suggestion) [] Whenever Skarner hits an enemy with his abilities, he gains bonus mov speed and attack speed for x seconds -E- (suggestion) Remove cooldown reduction

(comment) A tentative change. I do know he has problems, but I also do not want to meddle with his status, considering he’s THE expression of feast-or-famine

-P- Remove minion execute

(comment) Again, no hand holding

-Q- Remove healing -E- Make it so that allies can see used walls

(comment) I do know I main Talon, but neverthless I think he has a problem: assassin should not have easy access to sustain unless they’re also meant to jungle. Considering that Talon is not meant to jungle (although he does spend most of his time in it), I do not think he needs the heal, especially since he’s sleeper op. About E, clarity

-E- Remove buildup, bonus damage affects autoattacks all the same way

(comment) This one was a hard one. From my side, the idea that Thresh can’t have literally everything. From the other, my friend argumenting that he needs the damage on his autoattacks. In the end, the compromise: he keeps the damage, but it must be applied constantly, no more burst damage (rip AD Thresh)

-E- Remove increasing base damage, add indicators for dashed minions

(comment) Originally I thought more, much more. In the end, we decided to keep it simple. Also, bonus addendum, always from my friend:

(taken from the chat)

"Yasuo the same with LB but with a whole circus"

-Q- Make the second part a skillshot as well, if both parts hit the same unit the unit is pulled towards Zac

(comment) The funny part about Zac is that they made him to be this incredibly disruptive tank that in the end was extremely clunky. Our idea is to remove the need of an autoattack and give him a situational pull for when the target is only one.

And that’s all. It sure did take some time for this one. By the way, comments are extremely appreciated, both on our changes, both if you want to propose some changes (as long as you more or less argument them). After 1 or 2 weeks, depending on feedback I’ll try to post this as well on the main lol reddit

Thank you for your time