[4.13] Live Gameplay Forecast

Hello Riot, can you PLEASE address Kha'zix and Hecarim now?

With Kha'zix , you guys literally contradicted your mission statement after you gut him(which in itself is a contradiction of your desire for balance to begin with)

By loading 99% of his damage onto his EVOLVED Q...and ONLY when it's against opponents dumb enough to isolate themselves you...

a) Made it 100% mandatory to evolve his Q...not because it's any good, no, but because he does no damage other wise.

b) There is ZERO decision making in how to evolve him. His Q is mandatory by necessity, his E is mandatory by being the sole worthwhile evolution, W and R do not offer anything significant at all.

c) In his initial rework in which he dealt % damage regardless of isolation, you made it very clear that people avoided evolving his Q because it was far too situational, because it was completely useless unless the opponent is isolated.

And now? You completely ignore all the threads pointing out all of the problems with Kha'zix. Your attempt to bring him back to any bit of fun at all was to give insignificant love-taps. Your attempt to make W less worthless was a whole bunch of pointless "buffs" that has no impact.

Why won't you start a discussion thread talking about Kha'zix? Why do you continue to force him into the AD Assassin role despite the fact that AD Assassins have proven to be your achilles heel of your balance team?

As for Hecarim , this is simple. His late game is pretty strong. His early to mid game is REALLY weak. Why does his mana costs have to be so ridiculously oppressive? Why must Blue Buff be so essential for a champion so easily counter-jungled?

Why does his W and E have over 20 seconds of cooldown? Especially when his W serves such a vital function to his existence? He NEEDS his W to stay alive in a fight against champions. But at the same time, he needs his W to stay health while jungling.

You nerfed every part of his kit because you felt he was too strong. You nerfed him without hesitation. Yet with Lee Sin , you treat him like a precious baby and you're trying so frustratingly hard to retain his strengths, you're trying so UNFAIRLY hard to keep Lee Sin FUN to play for Lee Sin players.

But what about Hecarim and Kha'zix players? You guys nerfed them without a second thought. You never thought about how players of those champions would feel. But Lee Sin? Lee Sin is immune to nerfs because you are afraid of angering Lee Sin players?

**edit: **WHOOPS! A little too impassioned at the end there. Sorry :p. I do feel a little frustrated that you just nerf and ignore certain champions while others get such special treatments though. And I do feel that Kha'zix is a failure in design in regards to his evolution mechanic. Those I sincerely believe in.

short and sweet

Them competitive diversity picks: At the heart of all of this, our core goal with patch 4.13 (and 4.14) is competitive diversity. There are a few champions we're looking to give small buffs to, and others who are, by nature of being the best, skewing picks into who can play against them and who can't. You'll probably see a lot of smaller changes in this line of thought.

The problem with trying to improve "competitive diversity" is that it isn't wholly balance that dictates what champions are being played competitively in the different regions.

The champion pick homogenization is a result of the pick/ban phase moreso than perceived balance.

Because we only have 6 bans, all of which occur before you've shown any piece of your overall strategy with picks, the best way to prevent your opponents from getting all of their desired or comfort champions is to learn to play those champions yourself. In some cases, certain OP champions are unquestionable ban or first pick, but in other cases, the champions being picked are the most versatile or safest options available (Lucian, Lulu).

Attempting to increase "competitive diversity" doesn't have positive rammifications for the competitive scene; they have limited amounts of practice time, so the best way for them to practice is to just focus hard on what everyone else is already playing. The teams that can't do so successfully are the ones forced to innovate in order to try to keep up. Attempting to increase their champion pool to up-and-comers is a risk they don't have the luxury of taking with close standings in LCS regions.

With Worlds rapidly approaching, many of the top teams will bootcamp with/against one another prior to the event, which will sift out the picks and homogenize all over again with a new top 3-4 picks per position and a few oddballs here and there (primarily in mid lane), just as we always see. The teams not picking those champions will be the ones that didn't get to practice against the other top teams and will be coming in at a perceived disadvantage for not having the experience to play against those strategies (though, this logic could also be flipped.)

Could I have a statement on Janna please?

You finally buffed Ali because he was on a very low tear as a support, but Janna gets ignored after the nerfs completely.

Her winrate dropped by 6%, if you would ask people what support they would like to have in their team more than 90% would say pretty much "everything but Janna".

Her laning phase in higher levels of play is a horror because people know that pretty much every other support outdamages her and she is forced into passive and "surviving" type on laning.

Now that we have Braum (even though he is mostly banned) we have a support that even peels better than Janna and that was pretty much the sole reason people would accept her on their team.

I am a Janna main, I love this champion and it hurts me to see her in such a state because ever since I reached Diamond by playing mostly Janna only I cant keep playing her in most of my games anymore because of the reasons listed above.

Please, I beg you, stop ignoring this champion. I would really appreciate an answer.

Sorry if I was offensive somewhere and for the lingual mistakes - English is not my native language.

I'm fine with the whole 'small number changes to a large amount of champions' thing. That's what DotA2 tends to do and I really that sort of thing. The Ahri changes this patch were a good example; they help, certainly, but they're not gonna make her a must pick.

I am slightly irritated that you're focusing on competitive diversity instead of solo queue diversity, but hopefully the sheep that make up solo queue will stop playing the champs that are in every game if there aren't champs in every game.

I think bloodthirster should be reverted back to the old passive with 70 AD and 12% life steal. BT was a more efficient and reliable item for ADC's with the old passive instead of an over shield. The over shield can easily be broken in one shot and wears away quick. With the old passive you would have to spend a few minutes building up stacks, however, the time was well spent to have bonus AD and life steal. This allowed the ADC to join team fights earlier instead of having to build more damage or attack speed items. I do agree with keeping the life steal on bloodthister UNIQUE to avoid players from taking advantage of the item by stacking 2-3. Keeping the price at 3500 would also be reasonable to balance to item. Patch 4.10 has made bloodthirster irrelevant until it is the fifth or sixth item in your build. Also it has a higher price with less overall AD and life steal (until patch 4.12 with +20% life steal) than the old bloodthirster.

Key Points: (OLD) +70 AD (OLD) +12% Life Steal (UNIQUE) (OLD) UNIQUE Passive: Grants +1 AD and +0.2% Life Steal per stack (Max +30 AD and +6% Life Steal). Gains 1 stack per unit kill (MAX 30 stacks). Half of the current stacks are lost upon death.

Build Path: B.F. Sword (1550) + Vampiric Scepter (800) + 1150 -> The Bloodthirster (3500)

Conclusion: Pre-Patch 4.10 Bloodthirster. Price = 3500 UNIQUE Life Steal I'm not saying the over shield is a terrible idea for a NEW item, but it is not a good a idea for a CHANGE on bloodthirster.

I don't want to sound like I am telling Riot what to do, I just want to state the opinion that almost every player has on bloodthirster after patch 4.10.

An in-depth analysis on bloodthirster (before and after 4.10) can be found here.

Aaaand thats all?

If nothing is done to my underplayed midlaners then everything's fine !

I'd really like to see some love for our forgotten midlaners... and probably some others. They just need a few tweaks to bring them up to date, their kits are fine, so I hope to see them in these upcoming patches.. fingers crossed

Please do something about Quinn for 4.13! Coming from a Quinn main, she needs some attention!

So out of everyone being "tweaked", who's going to be getting the most love this patch? Anyone specific or is this just too small all around?

I think in terms of the markman approach. Everything seems to be centered around AA heavy marksmans. (Kog, Trist, Twitch). Instead of caster AD's (Corki, Ez, Graves) because you lowered the BT damage potential and made blade stronger on hit. I think if you took caster carries like I mentioned above, and maybe made their ratios a bit better they would be able to keep up with the AA heavy marksmans.

Also as a jungle main and the early game jungles you mentioned. They will always continue to be strong in their own unique ways (Lee mobility and Q execute, Elise mobility and sustain with spiders tanking, and Eve stealth and clear speed). I don't think there is anything that could be done to nerf them to make others stronger, I think other champs need to be buffed to help them when they get invaded. Whether it is increasing their base healths, or early damage.

Dear Based Rito,

I have been dying for a 3v3 solo queue. How hard would this be to implement? Do you ever have plans for it? I find 3v3s a great way to skip a lot of the boring parts of the game, like farming nonstop and what not. 3v3s take true mechanical skill to win, and having a solo queue ranking for 3v3s would be terrific, something you can brag about. It would bring a lot of players to it also. Starcraft 2 has a ranking ladder for each of their game modes, so should this game. (Yes I also mean dominion.)

Please consider this, a person who has friends that have no inspiration to play this wonderful map with him lives for the moment that there is a solo ladder for the Twisted Treeline.

Why isn't Sion here??

Few champion hope they buff or fix their kit to current meta right now

1. Taric- He's just a weak version of braum expect for the heal but it's really not noticeable. Wish he's feels more like a paladin.
2. Cassiopeia- So much weakness and not enough strength. She lost half of her mana to pull off her combo.
3. Garen - his ult is such a long cooldown. He got plenty of weakness like being kited, pretty length cooldown in early game, and can be bullied in lane due to no gap closer to pull the damage. It's justified to make his ult to have a bit shorter cd.
4. Hecarim - His jungle sustain and jungle clear is pretty bad. Maybe reduce his base stat for his kit and bad scaling. Have high base damage on his q but low scaling making him very weak in mid to late game.
5. Kha'zix - Since his nerf, he is feel so weak in every aspect of the the game. He really does not contribute to the team, really hard to pull off his isolation damage and dies very easily.
6. Mordekaiser - need to really to improve his strength to dish out more damage or give more armor shield in his passive. That's all
7. Nautilus - needs to fix his shield to actual does damage on late game in team fights. His shield is easy to pop with either a bruiser, ap or adc. Suggestion is make his shield scale with hp or still keeps his damage ampler for few second even with the shield is gone.
8. Miss Fortune - Needs more strength to her ability to zone in laning or ampler her team fighting capability.
9. Rammus - his kit needs a more modern form of his kit similar to maokai. he's too depended on items and needs all of his ability to be lvl 3 to really notice effects.
10. Sejuani - have too much items depended. she need cd, mana, hp, and armor/mr. Not very reliable damage pre 6 since she needs to stick to her target and very long cd on all her kit. Needs a more modern form of her kit to not be so depend on every aspect of every stat in the game.

Who can you say for certain is being changed in Patch 4.13?

So, I have to question, as far as increasing marksman diversity, do you intend to attempt to bring back high-AD lane bully carries like Graves, albeit in a lesser position than Lucian was, or are you happy to bring immobile, high damage ADCs such as Tristana, Kog'Maw, or perhaps even Twitch back? Do carries like Varus and Jinx meet the criateria for what you want to bring back? I do so enjoy Varus.

Sorry but wtf? Elise is fine, she already got enough nerfs. Don't touch her.

Quick Question: will the next new champion come out before or after worlds?

: Why not include in its build path, seeing as it is supposed to help with mana problems, which are really a menace early. Would really like a Rioter to explain the reason with this :)

Will you keep your eyes sharply on ? To see how the changes pan out?

One thing you could possibly target for without major impact is the AS slow of Cripple, I think.

Will get nerfs? And , too? Maybe the revert of a few buffs he received after the rework?

Please give content to the Vel'koz changes. They are a completely unjustified and massive nerf to his early game.

You say that minor changes to champions is your goal, but I the Vel Koz changes are extremely drastic on the PBE. His power curve is now extremely towards late game and he is no longer viable as a support if they go through. What puzzles me is he is considered balanced by a large section of the community and professional scene(though not overpowered, which is why he isn't picked often at that level) It seems like a contradiction of this post to make a change of that magnitude.

How come you put more attention towards champions that have fallen off at one point or another due to meta changes or straight up nerfs, like we've seen in 's recent buffs, while champions that are never played and could be given an easy bump with some number tweaking? for instance could benefit from a bit more mana regeneration or lower mana costs in general, would be a more viable jungler if her W managed to kill camps in a timely fashion (bonus damage to jungle monsters?), 's ult is still pretty damn expensive even in short bursts, etc.

I'm not the type to say anything that isn't played in LCS is not viable, on the contrary, I think teams could achieve much with some out of the box thinking, but some of these champions have such tremendous disadvantages.

Also, when the hell are you going to fix that ult bug? Like, hot damn, how can you have a champion disabled for two seasons.

Olaf needs another rework.He doesn't need small buffs.His win rate is low because he is kiteable,not because he is a bad duelist.IF you buff his dueling power,he will be splitpushing for all day. All olaf players wants is be a teamfight monster like old days.... splitpushing is not even fun at all.

I really think in order to balance Lee Sin they should decrease his max energy and/or increase energy costs, forcing people to choose which style they want via rune set up, in-turn creating more usefulness with energy runes in general.

For Example they want to do infinite ward hoping lee sin, they can get full energy regen, or they want to bust they QQW Ninja kick you into my team combo, so they go with increased max energy. or a mix of the 2 for a more diverse set up. or they can go full early game and get a ton of flat AD.

This route will give players the option of customization and be more fulfilling as well as balanced, and advanced players will be able to spot what set the enemy lee sin has by stat checking.

One thing I thought you could do per season, was have weekly, monthly, and or full season BAN List that pro players and certain tournaments abide by. I really hope something like this is considered, for it would definitely add diversity to the LCS which will create more exciting games and so much more like actuall well thought out team comp strategies.

Hello Riot Jag, Thanks for sticking around to answer questions! I just had a quick one: will this/these upcoming patch(es) focus mostly on champions, or are there some itemization/other changes in the works too? Thanks again!

Do you guys have any plans about buffing vel'koz? He just doesn't seems to be quite viable, which is sad since he's really cool :(