[PBE] Before we straight out nerf Pantheon's ult, can we fix the early arrival?

BrainiacOutcast·Mar 20, 2014·6 votes·1,474 views

Pantheon's ultimate currently places him at the target location before he visibly lands. This allows him to W, smite, or whatever he pleases at the target location before he's targetable, and before it makes intuitive sense for him to be there.

Experienced players know that Pantheon actually arrives before he arrives, but most players who don't see a lot of Pantheon don't, and his capability to do things before even landing is a large amount of hidden power in his ultimate. I'd like to see this be fixed before direct nerfs to the range of his ultimate are considered.

16 Comments

RiotMaliceCityMar 20, 20145 votes

Hey, if this is PBE feedback it should go on the PBE Forums.

ShinRaigekiMar 20, 201411 votes

You imply everyone has a PBE account... I can't even register for a PBE Account!

BrainiacOutcastMar 20, 20149 votes

I unfortunately don't possess a PBE account, and signups don't seem to be open right now. This seems like the best place for a regular player to post about (something related to) the balance changes currently on the PBE. The current PBE Pantheon has a nerfed ult range compared to live, and I'm suggesting that the balance team instead tries taking off his ability to act before he lands, and then consider range nerfs if he's still too strong.

If you see this reply, something to consider would be a PBE feedback section for the open areas of the Community Beta, or allowing account signups to the PBE Forums while still limiting who can actually play on the PBE server.

CrimsonBlader24Mar 21, 20143 votes

I don't know about smite, but his W doesn't go off before he arrives. He can certainly set himself up though so that WHEN he arrives, he jumps straight into a stun, which I really like the way it is.

But those range nerfs seems a little excessive, especially at early ranks. It's just like what happened to Nocturne.

exec3Mar 20, 20143 votes

I would LOVE to post on the PBE forums, unfortunately my main is on OCE which can't be used to sign up afaik. I've signed up on this account but you guys are just going to see a lvl5 account with almost no games played so it'll be ignored when my main has 2-3k games played since beginning of season 1. I even had old PBE access which makes me sad. :(

I have the strange feeling that many Rioters think that anyone can post in the PBE forums still like they could before but this isn't the case and a LOT of people are missing out on interesting conversation and the ability to ask questions or make comments or give feedback because they simply weren't lucky enough to get access.

RiotPWYFFMar 21, 20143 votes

SmashGizmo will be posting on this more with our philosophical approach and the problem space he's dealing with, but I'd note that S@20 didn't pull the channel changes we implemented as well... Anyway I'll let him explain on the PBE forums. We may need to push more discussion to here if that whole "I HAVE NO PBE ACCOUNT CAN'T DISCUSS" thing magnifies.

MackleDogeMar 21, 20145 votes

As someone that is on PBE, I don't have this issue, but I guarantee the issue of having PBE changes available to public knowledge by way of third parties is going to continue leading to the issue of the community wanting to be involved in feedback on the general premise of ideas. In my mind, it's rather short-sighted to have someone just say, "Lol, hey wrong forum" especially when people can't just go over to that forum to participate, it's exclusive.

RiotPWYFFMar 21, 20144 votes

Sure - I think Alice's statement stems from what she believed was actual direct PBE feedback (which should be on the PBE forum), when the OP is actually just providing feedback about the information he or she read on a third party website about some (not all) of the Pantheon changes.

At no point are either of us trying to be mean spirited or short-sighted. I'd argue that empathy needs to go both ways!

MackleDogeMar 21, 20141 votes

Oh yes, I didn't mean to imply that either of you were, my bad if it sounded that way :/ I just meant that this general situation is something that happens quite often, and unfortunately I'm pretty sure will keep happening.

Though I have to admit, not sure I get why the actual information about the channel changes couldn't have been included in either of your comments, would definitely help with clarification. And since the OP and a lot of others in the thread don't have PBE access, they have no way of testing it to find out or really any motivation to constantly check the PBE forums. Not trying to be overly critical, I definitely question how Moobeat and the fellows at S@20 missed how the channel changed, maybe just an oversight or something of that nature?

RiotPWYFFMar 21, 20142 votes

It's the way they pull information. It's through a dif parser that runs on tooltips and such (really it's the best way to do so). If we don't 'document' a change via tooltip modifications, you end up being unable to pull the change.

And sorry to be aggro ;P People are just downvote training and I feel like the comment was made in better intentions than "GET OFF MY FORUMS GO TALK PBE THERE." In this particular case, the change was made and checked in and shipped to PBE super rapidly (sort of by accident), so there's little insight unless you're right here seeing the change.

MackleDogeMar 21, 20141 votes

Yea I don't know why they did that (I didn't at least, sort of dislike that particular feature but that's neither here nor there). I completely understand wanting to defend your co-worker, especially if their comment is being taken out of context or misunderstood.

Ah alright, that could definitely explain it. Seems a little odd they wouldn't actually just test it real quick with a custom game or something, but I suppose they're busy since you guys are putting out a lot of awesome skin related material on PBE.

exec3Mar 21, 20141 votes

Well my feedback on the changes based on SmashGizmo's post is that I like the cast time reduction as it would make using the spell feel more responsive and the increased enemy indication time give people more time to react all while lowering the spells duration by a second, a big win I think.

Having said that the silly low cast range is still unjustified. You could almost argue that given the longer duration for the enemy to react there's no reason for the range to be lowered at all but if you have to lower it I wouldn't lower it to any lower than 3500 range at all ranks. It's semi cross map range is an important factor that needs to be preserved imo and at 3500 range jungle Panth would still need to be somewhere in the middle of the lower or upper jungle to drop into the respective lanes.

Kuroi86Mar 20, 20142 votes

If they nerf the range, they'll need to do something to balance it out, otherwise you take away one of the main uses of his ult, his travel distance. Mid to late game, you'll be lucky if you can catch even a single enemy in your ult unless they are distracted in a team fight or trying to take baron.

exec3Mar 20, 20141 votes

His ult does need a minor rework/some touchups, it works really weird and is really frustrating to both use and play against.

Having said that I have little doubt the range changes was some kind of mistake. There's no way rank1 ult has that short a range. It actually gave me a good laugh when I first saw it on S@20. XD

daft inquisitorMar 21, 20141 votes

I definitely think the range was nerfed way too hard. I don't play Pantheon myself (I think I did once or twice when he was on a free week, but have no intentions of buying him right now), however I LOVE to play against Pantheon. The fact that he can literally drop on me out of nowhere makes it so fun to try and outplay him. Nerfing his Grand Skyfall range this much makes it feel like he's losing a lot of what made him a fun character, since he'll almost always been in vision range when Ulting (except when bush stealthing).

I love all the (near-)Global ultimates in this game, it makes it super interesting, and gives me a lot of those "Oh man, it sucks I died, but that was an AWESOME hit!" feelings. Taking away one more just makes it feel like this game is on its way to removing ALL of those kinds of abilities...