Boards›Gameplay

@Meddler Heimerdinger in Pre-season!

Time42·9/16/2016, 1:42:17 AM·6 votes·4,117 views

Hello. We spoke briefly at LeagueFest, and I couldn't think of any questions apart from "what do you think of Teemo?". xP Hope you've been well since then! I've thought of a (hopefully) more interesting question. :P

-> Are you going to take advantage of the Aegis changes to take a look at Heimerdinger?

I don't think he's in a bad place per se, just in need of a few quality of life changes.

Reading about the Aegis stuff reminded me of Heimerdinger because item 3060 is a fairly popular choice amongst a certain amount of Heimer players and streamers.

So.. since Banner of Command is integral to Pusherdinger (turrets + banner + zz'rot top for example), it seems (from the outside) like a good time to solidify Heimer's strategic identity.. because this change will affect him regardless. :P

A couple of thoughts:

*** Any possibility of adding visibility to his passive? **

Even if its just as simple as adding one of his stored turret indicators to allies under the influence of his aura. Ally appreciability of his passive is practically non-existent. To be honest it could actually be pretty broken numbers wise, but we can't really tell.. the effect is invisible and has been for a long time.

*** Is a split-push play style something you want to continue supporting?**

I know ranged champions in top lane can be a contentious issue (to be honest I don't know why top lane Quinn fell out of favour), and Pusherdinger can be particularly annoying to face. I also know that for some players, split-push Heimerdinger is their preferred play style.

I guess it partly comes down to the perceived future of split-pushing in League. Yorick's been Riot's most recent exploration in that territory; as I understand it the feeling is that to be able to split-push effectively you have to make a choice and give something up for that to happen (i.e. you give up The Maiden's teamfight threat when you send her down a lane).

With Heimerdinger that's not really there to the same extent. He can easily move to another lane and set up his turrets there. item 3060 and item 3512 allow him to make up for his shortcomings. So he can protect lane turrets and prevent enemies from pushing, whilst at the same time moving inexorably towards their base.

*** What about strengthening his identity as an anti-siege champion? **

I wasn't playing League for Heimerdinger's release or rework, so I don't know what the rationale for his passive was. My assumption (pls correct if wrong) is that it was placed there to keep both Heimerdinger's turrets and his whole team in lane longer - aka to combat enemy sieging.

Ziggs had some nice tweaks in mid-season. ahh.. I still love the turret execute. <3 Anyway. Ziggs' changes reinforced his artillery and structure dismantling / deconstructing / demolishing theme. :D

Yes. I am going to suggest turret healing. I am that guy. :P

Okay, so this is just a small suggestion. Being able to execute turrets was ruled out a while back, just as Turret healing was. It doesn't need to be repairing Turrets to max health. At max W, Ziggs can execute towers that are at 35% health or below. Why not go the other way with Heimerdinger and allow his aura to repair towers up to 35%? Obviously this would be accompanied with power changes in his kit.

Peoples, please remember this is just a suggestion and I'm not asking for it to be put into the game immediately. xP

*** Tweaking stun grenade's speed and hitbox? **

~~Possibly bringing it closer to Nami's bubble? ~~ Okay I thought about this one, and making the stun easier to hit would need to be accompanied by an overall reduction in damage.. or else Heimerdinger would just be broken. xP

I'm not advocating Pusherdinger over Turtledinger (or vice versa), just interested to see if some improvements can be made either way. :>

I hope that's all understandable.. it's 02:40 and I'm half asleep. :P If it's not, I'll clean the post up later!

P.S. Heimerdinger mains... what are your favourite builds / play-styles / lanes? Are you worried about Banner changes? Couldn't care less? Comment if you like. :D

16 Comments

RiotMeddler9/17/2016, 12:17:34 AM6 votes

Oh, hey, good to talk to you again! Hope LeagueFest treated you well?

We don't have any specific plans for Heimer in pre-season. Banner of Command I can talk about a bit though. Current plan is that some form of Banner of Command will still exist, just without the aura. I'd expect its stats to be about as appealing to Heimer as the current ones are. That could still change of course, we're still partway through pre-season development, that's where we're up to now at least though.

In terms of split push that's a style of play we do want in the game. When we've made it pretty ineffective the game's lost a fair bit of strategic depth. At the same time though we're constantly trying to find ways to make sure it's an interactive and interesting approach. Some types of split push hit that well (e.g. a champion you can send one of your team to duel who you'll fight or be able to catch like Nasus), some don't (e.g. champs who'll just disengage and never engage with you like Shaco often does, or champs who constantly push, rather than having windows you can take advantage of).

Improved visibility on Heimer's passive, at least for the Heimer player, seems like a great addition. We'll add that to a backlog of work and probably get it in at some point. Probably Heimer only healing text and visual effects on a heal every 5 seconds or something rather than a constant aura effect (same gameplay, just with a bit more concentration and visual support).

Regarding healing towers that's something we've generally wanted to avoid, given its potential to lead to long, stalled out games. It's a really unique space, so would be cool to find the right way of delivering on it, would want to make sure we had a fair bit of time to try different directions if exploring that idea.

GULAG 4 U9/17/2016, 2:58:17 AM3 votes

No. He is extremely oppressive and cancerous when viable, I don't ever want to see him viable again.

Piltover Customs9/17/2016, 11:31:01 AM2 votes

I've actually got a pretty good write-up on Heimerdinger I'm fine tuning (adding graphs/charts/video). Banner/Rot is not a good build on Heimer ;) but I could see how people would want things to change.

The gist of my write-up is that his turrets need better AI and he'd be perfectly fine. You mentioned the stun, I've rarely any issues in landing it. Sometimes though it'll bug because I know I hit my stun and it doesn't :P

Linna Excel9/17/2016, 1:21:56 AM1 votes

I kind of think riot should move heimer's passive to someone else... like Janna or Soraka.

IMO he lacks counterplay and is no fun to play against when he's played right and his passive is just a bit too much.

SaltyKracka9/17/2016, 5:05:53 AM1 votes

Wouldn't that have to wait until he's not cancer to play against?