general thoughts from 2 days in preseason

First off, while graves has a lot of burst, i don't think he's completely over the top broken without good backup/support. it was very frustrating to lane against him and see him heal 20 hp per auto with a cull, does that mean he applies rageblade, wit's end, bork 4x as well?

got to see caitlyn a bit, did like her overall changes, though i do worry about her being able to drop 5 traps out in front of any objective and just say 'you're screwed if you come to get us' though i never saw a cait get to put more than 2-3 points into her w cuz the games were ending so fast

i know lucian himself wasn't really touched, but i do really love to play him with the new item changes, he feels really good, though i think getting 30-40% cdr from 2 crit items might be a little much.

as for miss fortune, she feels absolutely terrifying to play against especially with her q applying her new passive, if she's going to get so much extra damage (combined with the stacking damage mastery) maybe she should lose a bit of damage for hitting the same target again? i don't just mean not get her passive, i mean maybe 90% of her normal damage if she repeatedly hits the same target, i feel like this would help with the fact that, at later levels, she can kill 2 people as fast as a normal adc would kill 1, i feel like this would help cement her 'wombo' concept, not only with her aoe ult, but being better against multiple people and weaker against a single opponent

still hoping for a chance to play with new phantom dancer, i'm both excited and terrified of what it will do, i feel like any assassin who can use it will dominate, and it's going to be infinitely harder to actually kill an adc who has it, though maybe the changes to ghostblade and rageblade can balance that out, won't know until i get to see it in action

i really do like being able to see the keystone mastery your opponents have chosen by hitting tab, is it possible for this to be visible in spectator too?

rapid firecannon feels like a good idea in concept, but games are pratically over before any seiging gets to happen, and the one or two poke- esque shots i saw it be used for were basically ignored

i do think the teleport hit was well deserved, and though it may be a bit overkill in the long run, it's a breath of fresh air to not see giant tp piles in bot lane, also it's nice to be able to go top and actually try and kill the enemy laner straight out without knowing you're giving up pressure somewhere else.

while i like the idea of rift herald, i've never actually gotten to see anyone use it. because it's so tanky, it's rather difficult to guarantee the laner gets the kill, as they do minimal damage and the jungler is just sitting there 'have smite but can't use it' had once or twice where someone got executed trying to wait for the eye to open so laner could actually get the last hit and once when the eye opened while the jungler was mid swing, making him accidently take it when it still had 1k hp left. also, i'm assuming a call/notification for herald will be coming in spectator soon?

i know it's easy to overlook, as 3s isn't nearly as popular as 5s, but would it be possible to get essence reaver in twisted treeline? there's at least one other item that's not available there, but i can't think of it offhand

with the new champ select coming up, i had a hopeful suggestion to make, instead of just the 'fill' option, give players the option to 'fill except one' personally i've no problem playing most rolls, but i'm a very bad adc, having the option to opt in to the other 4 rolls, except adc would be very appreciated. as i feel it's likely to be 'you said fill why do you suck at x position?" i know that probably 90% of the players will probably say 'fill except support' and even though it can be a pain always being pushed onto the support roll, or waiting longer for a support, it might be better to let people opt out of it than having to sit through at full game on their weakest roll

as for masteries, really like the change up, feels quite a bit more dynamic choosing individual masteries for each champion, however have some issues in general, i'm sure this has been said a million times, but warlord's bloodlust with champs who get free early crit (yas and trynd mostly) is giving them an incredible amount of sustain for free, would like an alternative in the rank 2 of cunning tree for supports, they aren't ever going to intentionally be given jungle buffs, and having the refillable potion last for 1 more second really doesn't feel worth a mastery point. as well, if your champ needs mana more than just hp, you feel rather cheated going from normal biscuits to a refillable potion, having to spend a lot more money on biscits just for a tiny bit of mana isn't really fun. i do really like the resolve tree, though it would be nice to have adaptive armor come back. it's nice to be able to build armor against the top lane riven and have a little bit of mr for the mid lane leblanc. one thing i do have to say though, grasp of the undying feels completely broken. i ABSOLUTELY LOVE the mastery, however with the new limits on pots. i almost feel like it's too powerful, having a tank be able to drain that much for a HEAL and damage put together feels amazing, especially since you can charge it up on minions and then have a free heal when you go to trade. if this is what it's intended for and i'm just using it well, super, but i haven't yet seen someone who has been able to deal with it yet.

as for the games themselves, i know that the minion snowball mechanic didn't go through... and it honestly terrifies me, i haven't had a single game that was 'even' past the 15 minute mark, sure a lot of people are building damage, but that's not that uncommon, games are pretty much just one sided stomps and automatic surrender at 20, if this keeps up, baron will have to spawn at 15 minutes just so players don't forget that he's there, even in the commentary/introduction video, it was mentioned that they had games going incredibly fast, we might as well not have the other 3-4 item slots at this rate because i've never seen anyone use them. blue upgrade for trinket should be available at level 6 because at 9 the game is almost over, and this is WITHOUT the minion changes. i understand the idea was to 'prevent the starvation' idea, but with towers dropping left and right, teams often taking 2-3 in the time it used to take to drop 1, starvation doesn't even matter as the enemy team is so far ahead it doesn't even feel worth playing against. the same for the ward rubble, it's a cool idea, but with the average game length 23~ minutes or less, it hardly seems like it was worth implementing

i don't understand the reason to make towers squishier, in fact i'd rather see them be STRONGER before the 10/15 minute mark, then lose some armor/mr later to help the game end, the idea of 'towers start to scale up after the 15 minute mark' seems counter intuitive, as most people who will want to scale to late game don't have very good early waveclear, maybe make the towers initially stronger, then, instead of making all the lanes auto push, have the towers be weaker if that team is losing in xp/towers? maybe 20 armor lost per tower on that side of the map for example? on the same note, watching someone drop a tower in 5-10 hits, then take 20+ to kill an inhib feels like a severe imbalance, aren't the point of the inhib towers to protect the inhib? why then is the inhib so much stronger than the tower designed to protect it?

building tank or any sort of scaling stats feels almost completely useless as you don't have time to get to a point where those stats can do anything

i do really miss mana pots, and still think that some form of mana regen (maybe pots increasing base mana regen instead of a flat amount?) would be useful, speaking as a support, already had two times today when my adc died because i was oom. the bonus regen helps over time, but in that pinch when your carry dies and you were 30 mana short, all i can think about is 'if only i had a mana potion'

in summary, i like some of the design changes, but the game as a whole is not much fun to play right now as the average game ends in under 25 minutes with no real chance of any sort of comeback from whichever team is getting stomped and i really hope that this isn't the way league continues to go.

(yes i know this is the PRESEASON and things are going to be wild, but if honest feedback isn't given, then nothing can change, just whining 'wah wah this sucks' won't help, so i'm trying to get my honest opinion and feedback heard so that hopefully it matters before the official season starts and riot is hesitant to change anything anymore)