He builds practically every item they're buffing with the change. If you don't believe me, just wait and see when he becomes FoTM and impacts whether you win or lose every single game until he's nerfed.
tonzillacrayon19 votesjust wait for 
with the new patch (:
ShinTwist21 votesI'm excited, I actually play that little shit.
tonzillacrayon4 votesi dont too much but i play kayle and she gets buff from it as well
ShinTwist5 votesHybrid champ high five.
tonzillacrayon2 voteslol yeah. i mean i play her strictly for elo but shes somewhat become attached to me
OyddAWqJ5r3 votesBet you're one of the few that's gonna like the Nashor's change then. I was just kinda like... that's cool, I'll still never build it xP
ArkenStorm2 votesYou devil you. I can't decide whether to upvote or downvote
RiotFeralPony19 votesIn a change set like the AP item changes, with so many moving pieces, it's a bit unclear to what extent champions will be buffed/nerfed and more importantly to what degree. While sometimes it's useful to address champion balance preemptively, that can sometimes be a trap - we saw this pretty recently with the DFG removal. We vastly overestimated the effect of removing DFG (which did next to no real change for almost all the champions power levels) - and the compensation buffs we included in that patch (Ex- Ahri) were totally overkill. It's also possible if a specific item is out of whack after the changes we would make a followup change to the item, instead of changing the X champions it impacted.
That said, there are a few champions we're keeping a close eye on that could be buffed by a good margin after the changes (Vlad and Rumble are among them) which can addressed in the next patch once we as designers, and folks in the community have a better grasp of the impact and adjust to the changes.
-Feral
Jeddy0171 votesJust so people know,we are talking about these AP item changes going live with 5.13 & the follow up nerfs we're talking about would happen in 5.14 or later,right?
RiotFeralPony12 votesNerfs and/or Buffs, but yes. 5.13 is the timeline for the AP items, 5.14 would be the following patch where we could make adjustments.
Synx72 votesNerfs and/or Buffs, but yes. 5.13 is the timeline for the AP items, 5.14 would be the following patch where we could make adjustments.
If I may ask. Why do you change the AP items in the first place?.. this will bring so much hassle around
RiotFeralPony8 votesCheck out Xypherous's PBE thread for the full list of details.
BodyByDave6 votesDon't you guys think making a big sweeping change like this right in the middle of the season is a little risky? I mean the game is in a pretty good state of balance right now and worlds are around the corner. Best of luck with the changes.
RiotFeralPony7 votesDepends on your definition of risk. There is "risk" in any action you take, and this includes inaction. In terms of destabilizing world's, there is still tons of time to have things shake out and adjust as necessary so I'm personally not concerned. I feel the greater risk at present is actually allowing things to stagnate.
BodyByDave3 votesCool, I suppose you guys are iterating a little faster nowadays than I seem to remember being the case in the past. I guess my hesitance is stemming from really loving what you've done with the game this year. I think it's the fairest to most of the champion pool as it's ever been.
Perhaps you can't speak to it yet, but you seem to be making a pass at chunks of item pools. Any thoughts as to some MR love at some point? MR seems to have been systemically stripped from items in favor of giving it to champions deemed fit for it as they level. There are quite a few options on the alternate maps that are interesting.
. I find that sometimes with enemy compositions that are very AP bursty I am unable to buy my way out of the pain as a champion like say... 
who does not receive scaling resistances. Even with twenty rune pages there's only so many things I can play around.
Also really missing executioner's calling, but I kind of feel like that item, while unloved by many, kind of broke certain champions when it was available. The lower health requirement on 
seems a lot more fair.
Thryale8 votesin other words: it's only fair to let some champs have their time in the sun before being ushered back into the dungeons again.
aperson16 votesDon't you think it's better to preemptively nerf? Since if they wind up overpowered they'll dominate games for the entirety of the patch, but if you accidentally make them underpowered you would still get an above-average amount of data since everyone on day 1 wants to try their "old main" [insert champ here] who got "majorly buffed" by item changes.
RiotFeralPony20 votesDepends there are two basic approaches if you're convinced a champion will get a significant power spike after an indirect change. 1- You pre-emptively change a character. This can be potentially a perception problem if the community disagrees with the assessment, or a balance problem if you're wrong. 2- You wait and assess the changes. This runs the risk of not reacting quickly to problematic game balance states, but since we patch often this risk is relatively low, but gives the bonus of being able to learn from the changes and make a more informed decision.
However, if you're uncertain of the extent of the changes, like in this case, taking action in an uncertain system muddies the waters, making it more difficult to understand what actually happened, and can backfire heavily if you're wrong. As a result we're choosing the wait and see approach, so we get a better understanding of the impact of the changes before taking action.
Solaxo1 votesDepends there are two basic approaches if you're convinced a champion will get a significant power spike after an indirect change. 1- You pre-emptively change a character. This can be potentially a perception problem if the community disagrees with the assessment, or a balance problem if you're wrong. 2- You wait and assess the changes. This runs the risk of not reacting quickly to problematic game balance states, but since we patch often this risk is relatively low, but gives the bonus of being able to learn from the changes and make a more informed decision.
However, if you're uncertain of the extent of the changes, like in this case, taking action in an uncertain system muddies the waters, making it more difficult to understand what actually happened, and can backfire heavily if you're wrong. As a result we're choosing the wait and see approach, so we get a better understanding of the impact of the changes before taking action.
Don't we have PBE for that? :/
BADxW0LF5 votesThe PBE is a smaller community where they aren't 100% testing out how OP a champion/item is, but rather look for bugs. Sure, the changes could affect how OP/UP a champ will be, but that's for the larger spectrum (live) to test out. Think back to the beginning of cinderhulk. It was super overpowered, but couldn't get those statistics really in PBE. The larger community on live was able to give much more feedback because it was more popularly used and became a meta. The same will go with Vlad with these changes. The PBE will test the scalings of the items and whatnot and live will test the OPness of the champs who use said items.
ArkenStorm3 votesexcept everyone on pbe called it to be too strong :P
DarthSpectrum2 votesHonestly, this decision to "wait and see" just feels irresponsible.
We all know how oppressive Vladimir can be, and it is undeniable that these AP changes will be helpful to tanky AP champions. Riot's constant stance to just release new content before properly balancing it has led to so many problems in the past. Take for example Ryze's ability to permanently root melee champions just a patch ago.
Had Riot conducted any extensive play tests on Ryze before these changes went live, these issues would have been noticed immediately. Likewise, had Riot tested Ryze out after the initial rework, he would not have been released in such a weak state which warranted such overpowered buffs. Now Ryze is likely to be nerfed back into the ground once more and shelved.
The way Riot balances champions are simply ineffective. You release a champion in an OP state, nerf him/her/it to the ground, buff them back, and nerf them again once they get popular.
If you the Riot Balance team is unable to properly asses how strong champions such as Vladimir will be with the AP itemization patch, just don't release the AP itemization patch until the team can make the proper adjustments to these champions.
Lichblade4 votesThat said, there are a few champions we're keeping a close eye on that could be buffed by a good margin after the changes (Vlad and Rumble are among them) which can addressed in the next patch once we as designers, and folks in the community have a better grasp of the impact and adjust to the changes.
-Feral
Although Rumble could be a possible character to be too strong after the AP core item pass, is it possible to re-evaluate his laning phase pattern?
If you are a melee opponent against a rumble, how is it possible to avoid his Q? all he does is hit Q when ever its off CD doing insane damage and not drawing minion aggro.
Laning against that is already a poor experience, many times the Q visuals doesn't even matches the damage radius, for example i'm running out at the very tip outside of the fire animation and I still get damaged.
As a live balance designer how would you feel if Rumble's Q specifically trigger off minion aggro? So that there is some thought into using it and play-around-it against a melee vs. melee match up.
This also brings up why Vlad is also a problem, same as rumble, they have near unavoidable poke damage that feels really bad to experience as a melee laner, mainly due to because its from a spell, and spells don't proc minion aggro. I feel like this could be a system level problem with lane minions in general - as in currently only AAs can draw minion aggro, but spells don't. What if we made it that spells draw minion aggro too? I feel like that could solve alot of low interaction spell poke from champions like Vlad and rumble.
RiotFeralPony9 votesI'd be hesitant to usher in a systems change of that level simply to address the behavior of one or two spells. There is a reasonable argument that could be made for changing the system as a whole but I don't think it's one to be made lightly as that's a system that we've tuned and balanced the game around since launch, and not one I'd want to adjust because some AP items might be overtuned.
I do agree though it could help some of these characters laning patterns, so it's something worth exploring, though that style of change is one we'd be more likely to make in the Preason since it's so far reaching. The system already is fairly confusing and unintuitive so I'd personally be a bit loath to add additional special cases to it to address one or two champions.
Partholonian6 votesThe system already is fairly confusing and intuitive so I'd personally be a bit loath to add additional special cases to it to address one or two champions.
I assume you mean "unintuitive" or "counterintuitive" here. But isn't the existing special case where AAs aggro minions and spells don't (except for spells that are also AAs) one of the things that makes it confusing and counterintuitive? Towers draw no such distinction -- you hit champion by any means, you get tower aggro -- and players will quickly learn those rules or die. Doesn't having a separate set of aggro rules for minions make it harder to learn?
I do understand where you're coming from on the size of the change relative to the size of the problem, though. It may be a change to contemplate at some point, but this is probably not that point.
Budupops2 votesWhen you guys balance rumble, can you please make it so full ap mid rumble is still good? He is my favorite mid laner :). (and only one i dont suck at)
RiotFeralPony5 votesI think Rumble mid has always been good.
DJ Di018 votesHe's almost like that even now. They seriously better nerf him.
Lordofthepittt9 votesThey better not touch my Vlad. He is awesome and severely underestimated.
manbearswine60 votesThey better not touch my Vlad. He is awesome and severely underestimated.
Vlad underestimated? How high are you right now?
Kingsgrave34 votesThey better not touch my Vlad. He is awesome and severely underestimated.
In what fucking universe?
ponkzy3 votesop is thinking of dominion where games end before lvl 9
T RexHasTinyArms1 votesLol you should be praying they do, or that the ap item changes don't do what everyone thinks they will. Otherwise you will be a sej main on 5.6 or 5.8 or whatever it was that she was like 90% ban rate. I know that I for one will ban vlad every single game (and anyone I duo with will too) if he gets as strong as expected from these changes. You're either looking at nerds incoming to balance the ap item change boost, or never being able to play vlad in ranked.
Lordofthepittt1 votesI don't play ranked, so it doesn't matter to me jajajaja
T RexHasTinyArms1 votesOh, well then it won't matter bc if you don't play with bans the whole reason to play is either leveling fast (get games faster in blind) or screwing around (pub stomping with heimer bot lane instead of adc lol), so balance doesn't really matter anyway.
Edit: Plus then I'm super happy bc vlad goes on perma ban and I don't have to deal with him. He is by far the worst match up for heimer, and even winning against him just isn't fun bc he is such a hard counter that even a shitty vlad does okay.
Lordofthepittt1 votesI disagree on the statement 'Oh, well then it won't matter bc if you don't play with bans the whole reason to play is either leveling fast (get games faster in blind) or screwing around (pub stomping with heimer bot lane instead of adc lol), so balance doesn't really matter anyway.'
That isn't true. I'm still playing in a competitive manner and with games lasting just as long. Just without the toxicity that is the typical draft pick and ranked game.
T RexHasTinyArms1 votesEh, maybe it's just my experience. My normals mmr is so much lower than my ranked mmr, the only way the game isn't pretty stompy (at least in lane, and usually the whole game) is if I don't play my favorite champs and play stuff I'm learning or not good at. So for me normals end up not being very competitive because I and everyone I play with just screw around if we're playing normals. I don't have a friend who I've played w/ this season in ranked who will play their ranked mains in normals. I don't know about other people, but for me at least, it's not super fun to go from laning against mid gold players w/ a champ to laning against mid/low bronze players (where my normals mmr is) with the same champ. I get lazy and complacent and there's the risk that will show up in my ranked games so I just don't do it.
Also, it may be different in bronze (I started the season in bronze but still don't remember it having more rage/trolls than blind pick) but blind pick is definitely more toxic than ranked at high silver/gold level. Yeah you get rage and stuff in ranked, but blind pick is all about "how fast do you connect and call stuff" and personally I like having pick order so people (myself included in blind pick) don't just argue about roles. Personally If I'm not a solo lane or jg in blind pick I just play heimer bot lane bc heimer is my favorite champ and I'm good enough w/ him that the team won't lose bc I do it, it just means I may not carry hard from bot lane. I think it'd be pretty simple to assume part of it is my behavior, but I know so many people who don't take unranked seriously I just don't play it most of the time bc I build bad habits (and for me, I'm not motivated to focus on improving when I don't have rank to track how much I'm improving, so my play doesn't get better if I spam normals).
Drunk Rummate6 votes~Implying Vlad isn't already broken.
Terff6 votesWell he's not. He is exactly the same as he was S4, and nobody complained about him then.
junglerboy1611 votesYou couldn't be more wrong.
Vlad is nowhere near the same as he was, because the meta is drastically different. His own personal kit may not have gotten changed in that time, but he is certainly far stronger due to several item and meta changes. All of you people who say "X hasn't changed since Y time, so they're just as strong." are legitimately clueless about how balance works. You're almost as bad as the people who think that win rate means everything/nothing.
Vlad isn't broken, I'll give you that, but he is most definitely not the same as what he was last season.
Gavran1 votesPeople picking champs that can't capitalize on the weaknesses of his early game does not mean the meta made Vlad OP. That's not a Riot problem, that's a player problem. Nerfing Vlad because people pick champs that can't capitalize on him is like nerfing Nasus because you picked Soraka top against him.
JimmyNtheKudos5 votesNerfing champs because of changes in itemization is bad practice. There are item changes all the time.
Gare Jordans12 votesThis is practically a change to the majority of the AP items, meaning AP champions kits that are currently synergizing with these items, will do it differently based on the item changes. In Vlad's case, he'll be synergizing even better than before. We don't need that because he's already a superbly strong pick.
JimmyNtheKudos2 votesI agree he's strong, but a wait and see approach would be MUCH better. I rather have to deal with a strong champ for a week, than see another champ gutted like Elise who is just NOW gonna receive buffs.
ChargeItDownMid9 votes[deleted]
Hobbsgoblin2 votesA weak champions is far less damaging to the game than an overpowered one. Remember 4.20 warwick? He ruined far more games in one patch than elise did in the past 9 months. Hell, 4.20 warwick ruined far more games in that one patch than the current underpowered version of warwick for the entire season 5 so far. An overpowered champion will effect 80-100% of the games that are played while an underpowered champion will rarely effect more than 5%. It is always better to nerf first and buff later than wait.
Not wanting to state the obvious but thats because underpowered champions are underpowered, so of course the won't ruin games, they also won't get played.
TheUntitledKing2 votesWhat you're saying is true, but at the same time isnt really comparable.
Warwick is one of the lowest-interaction Champions in the game, especially since he is a jungler. When he was 4.20 Weedwick, the general practice was farm uninteractively until 6, gank. Repeat until you no longer need ult to win fights.
Comparatively, Vladimir has a steeper learning curve than Warwick (while he's not 
, he's certainly harder to play than 
) - between managing E stacks, knowing when and how to use your W, and dealing with the early laning and his short-range, high cd Q.
Secondly, Warwick's ease-to-play makes him incredibly accessible as a Champion, meaning that non-Warwick players could easily pick him up during his reign of terror and wreck face, whereas Vladimir's higher difficulty (as well as his much-cited abysmal pre-9 laning) makes him less accessible and thus has a lower chance to be in that bracket of 80-100% of games.
Again, Vladimir isnt super hard to learn, but he's not as easy as Warwick and thus wouldn't have as much of an impact since not as many people would be willing to play him.
Furthermore, on your opinion of nerf-then-buff - there are inherit problems with that. While on the one hand the example doesnt cause problems by being overpowered and impacting games, we get the dual problem of a) not knowing what about them made them overpowered and b) leaving them (and their playerbase) in the gutter. Why was Warwick strong? The immense synergy of his ult's on-hit and the new Devourer item + red smite, as well as the ease of which he could be played. We know this because he was "allowed" to be overpowered for a little while, and that was what Riot nerfed when he needed (granted they went a little overboard with his W nerfs too, but that's another story).
Sir Yamazuki7 votesNerfing champs because of changes in itemization is bad practice. There are item changes all the time.
No, it's not. Changing or adding items a champion will abuse greatly, especially when they are already one of the most played or are strong, without compensation nerfs is a mistake. Just look at what happened with Warwick when Devour came, he had a 60% win rate and pretty much HAD to be banned or you would basically lose even if the person picking Warwick was bad. Then there was the issue with Sej, already one of the best junglers who then got Cinder and ended up with a high ban rate for a long time.
JimmyNtheKudos1 votesLook are WW now thou... My point is made.
Sir Yamazuki6 votesLook are WW now thou... My point is made.
Uh, he's still strong. Over 52% win rate, so top 10. So, what was your point?