Boards›Gameplay

Rioters working on LeBlanc need to be more transparent

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWÆ·7/29/2017, 12:14:41 AM·123 votes·7,195 views

About 2 months ago, Meddler stated that they wouldn't be reverting LeBlanc due to her being problematic:

In terms of reverting to old LB we did talk about that as an option. Conclusion was that since old LB was highly problematic too that wasn't the right call, creating additional work, balance cost and disruption without getting her closer to the right long term changes.

Ironically, balancing old LeBlanc would create "additional work" but they've been dragging on a rework for months.

I have a slight problem with his post: He did not indicate which aspects of her kit were problematic.

I guarantee he was referring to her old WQR poke, but that's easily fixable. Just shift mark/detonation damage from 50/50 to 40/60 or less. Give her a minor buff to mana costs/W AP ratio/W radius/chain CC duration/anything to keep her overall strength similar and voila.

Some other 'problems' he might've been referring to are her QW trading and late game insta-oneshots. LeBlanc's QW is not an automatically won trade. Instead of running away, enemies can easily trade once her skills are on CD. Watch Faker's 0/0/1 LeBlanc trade with a 0/1/0 Viktor. Guess who wins? Maybe this is a greater problem in lower elos. But if Riot doesn't want low elo lane bullies, shouldn't Darius have been changed too?

As for instant oneshots, I think that was a defining aspect of her gameplay. LeBlanc, unlike other assassins, has no on-demand invisibility or untargetability and compensated by being fast. Despite Riot's vision, being fast and fluid (i.e. not deception) was the core element of her gameplay. You could tell who was a good LeBlanc player by how smooth and decisive they could make her look. Faker was regarded as the best LeBlanc player because he could manipulate the champion with such ease and precision, not because he was good at deceiving with her. He knew the ins and outs of the champion better than anyone. Is this not one of the most hype pentakills you've seen?

Now, I have trouble differentiating between a good and great LeBlanc player. What even makes a good LeBlanc player? Whether they choose to mimic R(E) instead of R(Q)? The placement of their R(R) clone? LeBlanc is so boring to watch and much less exciting to play. Faker's signature champion is gone. If you gave me an anonymous gameplay video, I wouldn't be able to tell you if that was Faker or any other Challenger/Master tier player playing.

without getting her closer to the right long term changes.

If by "long term changes" they mean counterplay, counterplay is not simply an indicator that states I will deal damage to you in x seconds. Old LeBlanc had well defined weaknesses such as lack of waveclear, high mana costs, dashing into melee range for early trades and waveclear, and weakness against grouped teams. This rework exchanged all that for new Sigil. Her new passive made her much stronger and arguably even more unhealthy than her old state.

The biggest controversy is that LeBlanc was reworked for the sake of change, not to make her any more satisfying to play. If you look at other reworked champs (such as Poppy, Fiora, Sion, Galio, etc.), they all had small playerbases and (debatably) low skillcaps. Most importantly, they were champions that the majority of players agreed needed to be reworked. Their reworks made their kits more satisfying and interactive. LeBlanc had a large playerbase and high skillcap, and, in particular, was agreed to not need a rework. By many's standards, the new LeBlanc is much less satisfying to play/play against and is less interactive.

Here is a list of high elo player opinions on old vs reworked LeBlanc.

The complete lack of transparency/justification from Rioters makes me feel like nobody at Riot plays her, so nobody understands how she's really supposed to work. Over the years, the archetype of the champion grew to be fast, fluid ranged AP assassin. Instead of embracing this facet, it was actually removed with the justification of "deception" shoved down her throat. In one fell swoop, the LB playerbase was alienated because people played her to be an assassin, not a deceiver.

Funny enough, I don't even feel as though I deceive the enemy when they accidentally blow a cooldown on my R(Q/W/E) clone. It feels like luck/enemy misplay. R(R) is just a glorified blue trinket and skillshot blocker. It doesn't fool anyone above plat.

phroxz0n, ricklessabandon, Meddler, 20thCenturyFaux, please give this a read as you prepare for the upcoming LeBlanc changes.

Much appreciated, Leblanc mains everywhere.

93 Comments

BleKz7/29/2017, 12:27:07 AM41 votes

I second this man! I'll post my thoughts on LeBlanc here

First of all, I wanna compare new LeBlanc with old LeBlanc

LeBlanc's kit is about to roam and snowball early/midgame and finish the game as fast as possible, you don’t wanna commit into lategame teamfights, so you have to do your job starting at laning phase : LeBlanc's old laning phase was about having kill pressure onto the enemy midlaner, not allowing him to get in range for Q,W so a lot of mindgames were involved there, you didn't have good waveclear, so your roaming capability was based around how good you could zone your opponent and take that time you created as an advantage to roam. New LeBlanc's laning phase is about landing W on minions (and maybe opponent if slightly miss positions), Q the wave and enjoy a free roam because you cleared the wave before the enemy could do anything, meaning no skill nor counterplay exist here Let’s get into the midgame : Old LeBlanc needed to use W aggressively in order to get kills and start her snowball, going even when midgame started was almost never an option and you had to take risks by W'ing the enemy back lane, meaning you really had to be skilled and know what you are doing New LeBlanc uses W as a repositioning tool, since her damage no longer belongs to that ability, meaning the enemy team can't punish LeBlanc miss plays, because she can't even do miss plays (for the most part) Also, her new kit allows to start snowballing just for getting your core items, no matter if you are behind, meaning even less risk and skill is needed in order to get to your beloved midgame, where you can just roflstomp the enemy team Lategame : If you get to lategame even with the enemy midlaner (unless it is another lane bully) playing any version of LeBlanc you already lost your winning condition at the middle lane, but lets keep going Old LeBlanc had to severely commit for aoe damage and almost always exploded if focused correctly, so she had to play very carefully against the enemy team and search for risky flanks onto the back lane New LeBlanc always has that W, RW, W, Q combo (with no counterplay btw coz you spawn clone with RW and they can't target you) that has an unavoidable 1.6 + base damage aoe ap ratio, you also can just play like a peeling champ and stay with your adc since your chain + passive deals enough damage to defend them, again, because you don't need W for anything else than reposition yourself. "healthier" means how can you interact with a champ in the game itself, not in a rotation of spells, so, imo, old LeBlanc is a better way to start working on her So basically, here are my thoughts (and for the most part all of the LeBlanc mains out there)

She shouldn’t have bounces on minions, needs less waveclear She doesn’t feel like an assassin anymore, and she was really the only ranged assassin in the game (maybe ahri but she is more like an hybrid), that’s because you don’t have to be melee range anymore with the new kit and the passive Passive damage is busted, making other abilities underwhelming to use, basically everything seems like a form of applying passive Max Q is boring and unhealthy, not against point and click nukes, but not as core ability R-Spell interactions are frustrating to play against because the clone is so random and doesn’t really fit the deceiver theme, it’s more like “lol 50/50 clone or me” W should be the core ability, it’s what makes LeBlanc LeBlanc, but actually… well, you know what happened to W New rework created a lot of good combos, but without being so sigil of malice reliant the champ could be even better

I would like to see something like this as her passive : out of combat, you spawn a LeBlanc clone that goes by your side and mimics everything you do, until you damage an enemy. This way, you’ll have to juke opponents, miss positioning yourself intentionally when entering a fight so they would think your clone is actually you, I think it’s a nice idea (at least on paper)

NO MORE BULLSHIT WAVECLEAR MAGE, NO MORE MOBILE DISRUPTOR, GIVE US OUR ASSASSIN LEBLANC BACK!

droolfang7/29/2017, 11:54:50 AM10 votes

If they reverted it, and made Q/R(Q) do 40/60 on the proc, (40 on inital so it does little dmg like akali q, 60 when u pop it) or reduced dmg if you pop a sigil with another sigil, get rid of the WAVECLEAR SHE DIDN'T NEED (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) & remove the current passive, she will be fine. She also needs to not mimic whatever she can b/c she can just hold on to R(W) & use it when u need to escape! XD Please revert this failure of a rework. It will never work.

ZT Xperimentor7/30/2017, 6:30:08 AM8 votes

"Rioters working on LeBlanc need to be more transparent" They need to discuss more in general, instead of forcing their will on us all the time; it's no wonder nobody takes the bpe seriously anymore, and these 'pro' patches just point out their ignorant arrogance.

SaltBlanc7/29/2017, 6:23:17 PM8 votes

67 upvotes and still no red-post here.. kinda pathetic, isn't it?

[zombie-brand-mindblown]

AlekWithK7/29/2017, 2:07:41 AM5 votes

Well said. I have a hard time understanding why reverting LeBlanc and then toying with her numbers is not A) The easier option for Riot and B) The option likeliest to appease the most players. Many of us LeBlanc mains want the old PLAYSTYLE back. W max with high mobility and low wave clear. That's why I started playing her and why I stuck with her. It's one thing to nerf a champions numbers, it's another entirely to mindlessly nerf the heck out of a single spell without any consideration for what that might do to the champions overall IDENTITY. We want assassin LeBLanc back, not LeBlanc "The Other Chain Warden."

WrÆth7/29/2017, 3:49:00 PM5 votes

I've played around with LeBlanc a bit lately, and maybe its just me, but it feels like she can't even do her job anymore. Someone has to be at like 1/2 health or so to even be in range of lethal (assuming an average game) and that's just the carries. You could argue that "oh well its only fair because she has the ridiculous mobility to escape and she can just w back after her combo with no coutnerplay". Yeah, you wanna know another champion that can do the same? Zed. Except Zed on the other hand has a lethal range around 7/8 health on carries. It may not seem like much, but its a HUGE difference, especially come late game where adcs get bloodthirster and such and just heal back half their healthbar. On top of this, just as LeBlanc can just "w back" Zed can just press R, or even w with the e reset. I'm not saying that Zed is broken. I think he is quite strong with the lethality changes. But I think that LeBlanc (in her current state) a complete nightmare to balance. And I mean that her kit is just intrinsically stupid. Why should she have the waveclear of Viktor but at an earlier point? Why should she have so much mobility? Why does she have a snare that can''t even be flashed out of? Something major needs to change in her kit.

Karfuss7/30/2017, 1:51:59 AM4 votes

I must admit, I never considered old LeBlanc that problematic. She forced herself into melee range as part of her rotation, and she was hard shutdown by area CC, silences etcetera. She was an assassin, and of course she would bully people. That is in their nature.

But the most ironic thing I find, is that LeBlanc was reworked for being a low ELO lane bully. While you have Yasuo, Zed, Kayn, Malzahar, Ahri, Darius, Pantheon, Fiora, Gnar... You can go on and on.

She wasn't hard to balance. She needed a powershift from her QR, which undeniably was a pointclick nuke. Instead we got this shallow rework that took away everything LeBlanc had, trading mindgames for waveclear, and is far less deceitful than her previous self.

THE RlVER KlNG7/29/2017, 5:05:16 PM4 votes

i hated old lb but this is a well written post and new lb is arguably still as problematic if not more so

upvoted

Blakiepug7/29/2017, 3:29:40 PM4 votes

I really dislike how their response to reverts is that they won't happen because the old champion was problematic too. To me this seems like a hollow excuse to keep the work they have already done. If they dug a little deeper and actually tried to have a discussion about it, then they'd be questioning which of the two kits (old and new) is more problematic? Was the original kit actually as problematic as we claim (Zac)? Which kit was more fun for players and does this outweigh some of the problems we claimed the champion had before?

Fizz Enthusiast wrote a real interesting article regarding this last question, and I would really love to see Riot's balance philosophy move back to this type of question to consider with balancing as opposed to right now where it seems like they don't know what to do so they either do nothing or entirely dumpster a kit hoping players won't care. Link to article: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/6EEk9efX-musings-on-fun-and-clunkiness

NineTailedMystic7/29/2017, 2:33:22 AM4 votes

If by "long term changes" they mean counterplay, counterplay is not simply an indicator that states I will deal damage to you in x seconds. Old LeBlanc had well defined weaknesses such as lack of waveclear, high mana costs, dashing into melee range for early trades and waveclear, and weakness against grouped teams. This rework exchanged all that for new Sigil. Her new passive made her much stronger and arguably even more unhealthy than her old state.

Because her combo had little to no counterplay. For a class that's high skill cap, high risk, high reward and all about "sick outplays", they weren't very subject to being outplayed themselves. Unless you had a displacement, there was very little you could do other than "don't be in range". Her problems were mechanical issues, not her macro weaknesses.

As for waveclear, LeBlancs was fine. It just had the same drawback Fizz E does being that if you use it you put your high CD damage and escape ability on cooldown. Mana costs are irrelevant past first back now, I wouldn't want to see old LB in today's League. Dashing into Melee range isn't that big of a deal when you can blink back instantly (ex: why Zed got his instant R blink removed) short of diving 1v5 when they have all their cooldowns up. And a weakness against grouped enemies is something all Assassins shared.

Assassins needed a paradigm better than farming their laner early game, and while the Assassin Update was hit or miss on that, they definitely missed the mark with LeBlanc which is why they're going back to her and a revert is not the correct action.

LostFr0st7/29/2017, 2:13:33 AM4 votes

What's problematic is her E. Just play once vs a decent one and it's pretty obvious.

She pretty much gets a 100% passive proc (it's very hard to avoid getting proc'd if she latches you due to the tether range) and uses W to make it harder to miss. It's just unfun to play vs.

At the same time, her current kit falls apart if she doesn't have it. I'm really interested to see what they'll do.

hallfro7/29/2017, 8:44:52 PM4 votes

Very well said! Comprehensive and collected. Upvoting in hopes that Riot listens!

LBmyBB7/29/2017, 3:40:27 PM3 votes

I absolutely agree. Deception was literally forced, and it doesn't even work. Sorry, ahem "deception" they call it. The only reason they dont wanna revert is because people will complain about the QRW combo tho.

FilDaFunk7/29/2017, 12:57:33 PM3 votes

I remember, when i bought LB, she was the most difficult champion.

Roukaysa7/29/2017, 1:53:23 PM3 votes

Oh man you just reminded me of how much I miss old Leblanc... LB (pre rework) and Heimerdinger (pre passive rework) were the mid lanersI enjoyed to play the most! Now she is just boring and keeps getting nerfed every patch. RITO bring old LB back!

A Liberal7/29/2017, 3:06:04 PM3 votes

I loved playing old LB but now she just feels super clunky and unfun. Maybe I haven't played her enough, because I felt the same way about Kat's rework at first but I wasn't going to stop playing her and now I like it (or maybe I just got used to it and accepted it x-x). I would LOVE to see an LB revert because I really hate new LB.

Talinis7/29/2017, 9:47:20 AM2 votes

[{quoted}](name=LL Autistic,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=kdsQnEds,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-07-29T00:14:41.856+0000)

As for instant oneshots, I think that was a defining aspect of her gameplay. LeBlanc, unlike other assassins, has no on-demand invisibility or untargetability and compensated by being fast.

Leblanc is compensated by having the highest on demand mobility among assassins, having her whole kit basically be ranged (which makes her mobility doubly potent) besides her mobility spell damage and a hard CC on a basic ability.

Compared to Fizz who is entirely melee outside of ultimate and less mobility (NO PORT BACK on same spell/double E). That is why fizz has untargetability. Leblanc should spend extended time in retaliation range if she is to be a ranged champion with that much mobility.

Much like Zed needs to have the 1 second delay before port back on ult, Leblanc needs the same thing. It is one thing to get a kill or assist like kha and kat and another thing entirely to go in, fail and have a free get out of jail card every time.

On another point, Leblanc is now classified as a mage because unlike every other assassin in the game, she has ranged autos and ranged basically everything. She is an Ahri, who is a kite mage, NOT an assassin. All current assassins have large part of their kits (including autos) revolving around melee. Leblanc currently does not.

The great thing about leblanc not being an assassin means riot can create AP assassin items (which they couldn't before) and slap melee only tags on them to prevent ranged abuse as all AP assassins are melee.