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[4.7] Live Gameplay Patch Forecast

RiotJag··22 votes·33,032 views

Hi guys, the Live Gameplay team is back with the Patch Forecast for 4.7. Here are the major issues we’re looking at. Keep in mind that since we just released patch 4.6, we’re still collecting data and analyzing how the latest changes we’ve done have affected prominent in-game issues.

1) Reworks Follow-up (continued)

Gragas may still have a few flaws holding him back from fully transitioning into his new role as a fighter/bruiser. Even after the recent changes in 4.6, we are still unsure if Gragas is in a good spot. Specifically, we want to ensure he can compete in the early game, and also ensure he has the ability to make big plays with his Barrel Roll and Explosive Cask. We’re looking for ways to continue buffing him as a disruptive team fighter, so look for more utility adds to his kit.

Kassadin recently received a few buffs, particularly when fighting against other magic damage dealers. We’re keeping a careful eye on Kassadin to make sure that he isn’t completely removing aspects of counterplay with his new damage/shield model. Rest assured if he gets picked in ranked games we’ll nerf him again (kidding).

Skarner is still being worked on carefully. We feel that stickiness is a significant part of his character fantasy, and that aspect is somewhat lacking, so we’re continuing to explore solutions!

2) Top Lane and the “Renekton Bar” (continued)

As Statikk stated in his last forecast (http://community.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/live-gameplay/BdiOr6zf-46-patch-forecast), we’re continuing to look at champions that we think have interesting top lane gameplay and giving them stronger tools to survive in that environment. We feel like we’re seeing a little more diversity lately (Jax and Ryze have seen a resurgence lately), so we'll be slowing our approach, but look for Jarvan the 4th and Malphite to get a few minor adjustments to better equip them at fighting in the top lane.

3) Jungle

We continue to see Junglers taking over games. In particular, damage focused junglers frequently outlevel, outfarm, and outdamage their laning teammates without the level of risk that their counterparts are forced to endure. We are looking into to altering the total gold/experience output that the jungle can provide. Additionally, we mentioned that Spirit Stone might be weighted a little too heavily in favor of DPS-focused junglers (especially health vamp), so we're taking that into consideration with our changes.

4) Kha’zix

True to his lore, when we change Kha’zix, he evolves and finds a different gameplay pattern to continue to be effective. The live version of Kha’zix does not have the same need to be opportunistic as the other assassins in League of Legends, and opponents tend to feel like there are very few windows available to fight him. We are looking into some changes that make him a little more vulnerable to fighting back against him, particularly when he is under the effects of his ultimate.

5) Watch list

Feral Flare - The vision we had for Feral Flare does not currently reflect the reality of the item on live. While we were hoping this item would add diversity in terms of class selection in the jungle, its effect has been the opposite, as this item is almost dictating jungler picks (as in who can or cannot use Feral Flare effectively) at an extremely high rate.

League of Legends team dynamics in general lead to this item having distinctly anti-teamwork and anti-play patterns, as junglers will feel compelled to ignore their lanes for 10-15 minutes so they can farm up their stacks, while their laners will pay the price for his less team-oriented choices. While we created Feral Flare to be a more 'selfish' jungle item, its current optimal use is to be completely noninteractive on the map. The future of this item may reduce some of the combat stats it gives or reduce the value of the Maim proc at all evolutions. In exchange, we're hoping to buff teamfight-oriented stacks that contribute to the progress of Feral Flare.

Soraka – Solo lane Soraka has started to exhibit a lot of the frustrating laning patterns that Solo lane Lulu did before her recent changes (although the patterns differ mechanically). In other words, Soraka has a virtually unending supply of easy wave clear and ranged harass, while having very few windows for opponents to fight back without significant jungle help. Champions need to have clearly defined weaknesses as solo laners, or they end up bullying out a large portion of choices in that lane, and we want to do some analysis into if those currently exist for Soraka's solo lane play.

As a side note, we do think that her current rise to dominance may be due to some of the larger systems changes we've made to the game lately such as the changes to the Summoner Spell Heal. We'll have to take these into considerations as we move forward as well.

Leblanc – Similar to previous cases like Zed and Kassadin, skilled Leblanc players have the ability to snowball games while not providing a lot of counterplay for her opponents. She has very high mobility, high burst damage, consistent wave clear, and a large array of crowd control to deal with. We’re exploring finding a vision for a Leblanc that has more healthy gameplay.

On that note, we’re aware that her win rate is on the lower side compared to many problematic champions, but win rate is a data point that must be weighed in with other considerations. In this case, the pattern in which Leblanc engages champions is frustrating and significantly lacking options for the enemy player; when she is ahead in the game this is particularly debilitating for the side lanes she will roam to.

6) On the horizon

We are keeping our eyes on various champions that may become a problem, but many of them are tied into system level issues. Two of the major ones are ADC Itemization and Competitive lane swaps, and the systems team will also be doing a patch forecast soon for their take on these topics.

313 Comments

AnxiusFelis34 votes

Increasing the stacks needed to get flare really didn't do it any justice, as junglers will now ignore lanes for another 5 stacks. So that was kinda counterproductive to what your statement above dictates.

Oca2 votes

In my honest opinion, spirit stone and feral are two styles. Extending feral 5 stacks will make it more different that spirit stone, therefore you can not expect feral to do well in the two styles of jungling set by these items. In a perfect world for junglers, feral would be the best item for farm junglers and gank jungles, but that just can't be.

ProfDrDeath2 votes

One thing with FF is, though, that it leads to rather binary gameplay when used optimally: The best course of action is to farm the item 3154 into the item 3160 as fast as possible, ignoring lanes (as interacting with them does not contribute to the process). That only leaves two possible outcomes:

  • If your lanes are even or even winning, you win even harder now.
  • If your lanes are losing, due to the other jungler having more presence than you, you'll be hard-pressed to use the advantage you gained with FF.

A good example for that are the first two the three TSM/C9 matches.

JimMaru1 votes

That could be true too. Maybe they should give the trinket treatment. Evolve always at lv9 but keep stacking for the damage before it. Since you won't see any difference until lv 9 which is halfway your leveling you should try to force getting objectives.

ProfDrDeath3 votes

Not sure about that. The damage calculations would be way, WAY off.

I'd rather see kills and assists contributing to the transformation, albeit with it being a thorough trade-off: Do I visit lane X now, or do I farm 3 camps for stacks?

Also, I still think the way the on-hit heal of FF stacks (1:1) is too strong.

RiotJag9 votes

The logic behind the 4.6 stack requirement increase was that the only way this item could retain a large power spike was for it to continue trading away early game jungle pressure. To be clear, we are probably changing our direction of Feral Flare; the proper tradeoff may have been in reducing the stats/effectiveness of the item instead of the point at which it starts interacting with the map.

majulito3 votes

does that mean going back to 25 stacks and making each stack on flare do less (like 2 stacks give 1 health on hit) or keeping the 30 in addition to making stacks do less. Because if you continue to nerf the item it will just result in a lot of champs being benched again.

Glarblar25 votes

There needs to be an appropriate balance for risk/reward between farming and ganking, which item 3160 currently has none. So there are 2 problems here:

  1. FF's ramp up promotes behavior that is counteractive to jungler role of interacting with lanes.
  2. Once FF is created it scales out of control into late game.

Balance must come from both places, let's first look at #1

The point of item 3160 is to provide an item for junglers to use who do not currently benefit from the current ones, not to affect the playstyle of the jungler. Therefore, to correct this item 3154 evolution should be affected with Kills and Assists, with proper Risk/Reward, like 3 per kill/assist and 1 per large monster. This presents the jungler with a choice in the laning phase: Do I farm more and guarantee stacks, or do I potential get a kill from a lane, granting more stacks.

Now let's look at point #2

item 3160 is supposed to be competitive with item 1080 builds so let's look at the passives:

item 3160

UNIQUE Passive - Maim: Basic attacks deal 100 bonus magic damage (33% against champions) and heal 10 Health on hit. This damage and heal increases with kills, assists and large monster kills.

UNIQUE Passive: Gain 30% increased Gold from monsters.

item 1080

UNIQUE Passive - Butcher: Against monsters, deal 30% bonus damage and restore 6% of damage dealt as Health and 3% Mana.

UNIQUE Passive - Conservation: Upon killing a large or epic monster, grants up to 40 bonus Gold, based on the last time Conservation triggered (Max 80 stacks of Conservation).

Gold Generation:

FF emphasizes farming all the monsters all the time, while SS emphasizes killing a camp every so often. Consistent with the goal of the items.

Extra Damage:

SS helps you farm and provides a variety of base stats, however only affects monsters. FF helps you farm EVERYTHING. Look at this passive, there is no upper bound to it. It is one of the most snowball items in the game, This is item 3141 or item 3041 ... On Steroids. But not only does it affect damage, it affects regen too, So not only is the jungler killing everything in sight, but any damage done is recouped. There needs to be a limit, or a tweak, or something to put this more in line with SS.

Suggest: Heal only affect monsters, upper limit on stacks that can be accumulated or something to keep it contained like Mejai's or Occult. Or buff SS to also apply to Champions?

TL;DR

  1. Make item 3154 earn stacks from Champion kills/assists

  2. Decrease Cost of item 3154 to start earning stacks from Champions sooner

  3. Adjust number of stacks requiring item 3154 to transform into item 3160 in order to properly balance timing of acquisition.

  4. Cap item 3160 to prevent it from being a snowball Item

  5. Tune the heal on item 3160 so that it only affects Monsters, or make item 1080 items affect champions and Tune both

Hyrum Graff5 votes

I agree with the "less power, earlier" direction. It should still be a scaling item, but it's just too dominant lategame right now. A team shouldn't lose just because they don't have a FF jungler.

Ratastok22 votes

Any plans to nerf Nidalee and her Anti-fun-toxic-nocounterplay spears-heal-scape-free LW/VS with waveclear?

kapate6 votes

She is not op! Just dodge her spears and she becomes useless. They should just decrease her heal strength a bit

FatMansRevenge10 votes

If it's so easy to dodge Nidalee spears, then why do we consistently see pros getting hit by them? When there is a spear flying from off-screen every 4 seconds, it doesn't matter how good you are, one is going to land eventually. There is no downside to throwing a spear, the cooldown is short, the damage/range combo is staggering, and the mana cost is negligible after the first 10 minutes or so. Her heal means she wins any extended trade, and her cougar form mobility makes positional mistakes much easier to escape from.

TL;DR: Even if she isn't OP, that doesn't mean she isn't broken. She is definitely top 5 in most irritating, and frustrating champions to play against, and that frustration doesn't come from her being OP, it comes from her being so damn safe, with no drawbacks.

Remlap122318 votes

Your forgetting about Nidalee. Her overpowered Q and bloated kit offer very little counterplay late game. The fact that her Q can insta kill an adc is ridiculous, especially on that low of a cooldown. Last game I played she damn near one shotted Alistar, for heaven's sake. She needs a Kassadin esque rework, because she is probably the most unbalanced champion right now.

JimMaru3 votes

They probably won't touch Nidalee until a rework. She only has one "reliable" damage spell on human form, so they can't change it without making her the new Poppy / new old Evelynn.

Same thing as Zilean.

The way game goes a character needs to have multiple sorts of damage or extremely powerful utility (Blitzcrank)

FatMansRevenge5 votes

The problem is that we've been talking about Nidalee being broken for over a year now. She continues to be a high priority pick in the pro scene, and it's been shown that she holds more power than just her human Q. Her heal has an insanely high AP ratio for the type of skill it is, and her Cougar form mobility has no counter play, because it has such a short cooldown.

Yeshe3 votes

From what I know there is a rework in plans for Nidalee because "After extensive research, it turned out Nidalee is anti – fun. Rioters are on the case to bring Nidalee a shift in balance, along with some welcome QoL changes to her Cougar form." along with Fiora and Warwick.

Remlap12231 votes

Gotta link? I'd like to read that.

Yeshe3 votes

here you go :)

http://www.newsoflegends.com/index.php/red-posts-nidalee-fiora-reworks-state-of-rengar-warwick-relaunch-guinsoo-returns-and-more-17425/

C9 Vamp139 votes

you guys forgot to fix nidalee :(

Ban Lebroken9 votes

Riot.. can we PLEASE change Nidalee already? she arguably has the most toxic kit in the game. She's the defenition of "low risk high reward"Nidalee

DennyBraids7 votes

The problem with feral flare jungle is, I think, simple one. When you get 25 stack (30 now) it improves into item that then stacks not only with monster kills but also with kills and assist. I think it is understandable that FF junglers therefore want to get FF asap, because any successful gank pre FF still feels like wasted time and only delays your power spike...

The nerf of the item in last patch, only shows that nobody in riot gave it enough thought. It was viable on about 20 junglers that have not been seen in jungle this season yet, and yes, made like 5 of them overpowered. But everyone of them was still trying to answer the question: "Is this item viable if I dont afk farm for first 15 minutes?", and with the change riot gave us absolute answer: "Hell NO!".

My proposed change would be this, if anyone is interested. Let the stacking start with the purchase of Madreds razor, but let he madreds razer already show you the stack count and most importantly give you a stack also for kill or assist. Then you can tweak the numbers what amount of stacks is right for FF transformation, but one fact would remain: You can now farm first five camps, go back, heal, buy madreds and start ganking. There are a lot of junglers: Nautilus, Sejuani, Xin Zhao, Lee Sin, Jax to mention just a few, that would perfectly fit this playstyle. And item would be perfect for them, as it gives them better clear speed during whole game, and keeps them viable to late game.

There would still be junglers who prefer to afk farm, but that I think is balanced trade off, as you are risking that all of your lanes would lose, which is usually situation that not even most farmed carry can save.

Another issue for the item is, how much baron/dragon control it gives over spirit stone item. I think dmg to baron and dragon could be the same as to champions - 33%. Those two monsters should be team fight objectives. Doing solo baron at 21st minute might feel good, but totally doesnt feel right...

wapster5 votes

[deleted]

RiotJag4 votes

The Spirit Stone item that we find most problematic right now is Elder Lizard. The junglers that you mention use Ancient Golem; we're unlikely to make them worse, relatively speaking, to other jungle champions.

iWukong1 votes

I know win rates only go so far, but ever since you decided to nerf Elder Lizard in 4.5 the carry junglers win rates have decreased. What exactly is too strong about the item?

Gahlo2 votes

The problem with Elder is how fast it helps champions clear. It adds damage through the AD, which is then even further added by the monster bonus damage. Then you top it all off with the true damage dot. In the end, you have champions that are meant to deal damage clearing faster, ganking hard, and leveling sooner than their tank counterparts who don't gain damage through Golem or gain very little.

I think the correct way to go about nerfing Lizard would be to hit the bonus monster damage or possibly remove the true damage dot for a stacking AD buff like on Wraith.

JimMaru10 votes

Keep in mind that the characters that use Ancient Golem are usually true junglers, who can't exist anywhere else in the game. ANY change in the jungle, for smaller as it may seem, will affect them more than anything else.

I understand that Riot is trying to make more junglers viable, but I just can't see WHY carry junglers. Why they should even exist in the first place? All the "carry" junglers that are benefiting more from the Feral Flare are light fighters that could be played Mid without any problem. I can understand J4, Nocturne or even Xin jungle. They at least have some form of peeling and tanking, I just don't think junglers should be able to build glass cannon.

When you make offensive junglers too strong things like: Amumu Maokai Sejuani Nautilus just cease to exist.

They don't have other places to be played. They can't go top or mid. With the existence of Thresh now they are even worse as gimmick supports...

I really think that jungle should be first be balanced around the "True Junglers" and all other picks should be niche. I don't mind seeing Yi or Trynd in the jungle, as long as they are picked for specif team compositions. They should be the exception, not the rule.

Can we get some insight on this? It really seems like we're getting pushed "variety" for the sake of variety and that's having the opposite effect. It's like buffing all ranged mages because they "don't work so well with autos like marksmen and that should be an option for them" to the point that real marksmen would barely see any play...

The Bardic Gay5 votes

No Nidalee changes? A pity. Her playstyle promotes a poor game environment where a singular skills dictate a game. I could understand if said skill was an ultimate, and it had an associated risk (or at least was a long CD utility-only a la crystalize or wind wall) but it's a low-ish CD long range skillshot, which bugs me. The less risk Nidalee applies to the skill, the more reward it gives, which just seems so backwards. I could understand riot's hesitance to nerf the spear since it's nid's big ticket, but for a champion who supposedly sacrifices having an ult so she can have 3 additional skills, it's kinda lame that one of her skills can effect the game just as much if not more than some ultimates.

Gixia4 votes

In regards to Feral Flare, I feel that one of the reasons why it promotes selfish farming to a possibly unhealthy degree is the fact that kills and assists only contribute stacks to the item AFTER it has transformed into Feral Flare. I imagine that changing it so that kills and assists also add stacks to Wriggle's would encourage more teamplay by making it less punishing to gank a sideline, as a successful gank would no longer hinder your ability to transform the item as needed and assist your team at the same time, while maintaining at least some level of risk as a failed gank will still set you back on your farm and slow down the item completion. Of course, doing so would ultimately make it easier to make the transition from Wriggle's to FF and would likely require some stat nerfs in order to offset this, but at the very least it would steer the item towards more interactive/healthy play patterns, would it not?

ProfDrDeath3 votes

This should be done carefully, for not to break the item (again). But it should be done, nonetheless. item 3154 needs an incentive for you to interact with your lanes, instead of powerfarming the jungle...

However, it would need to be coupled with some nerfs to item 3160 . And I think what should be targeted here isn't necessarily the damage, but the sustain. Meaning, the flat, on-hit heal.
Personally, I think a version should be tested where FF only gets one bonus sustain point for 2-3 stacks, POSSIBLY with a clause that doubles the sustain against monsters. As it currently is, buying FF into tanky stuff is way to much survivability.

Tycosnh4 votes

I really hope you guys don't make support junglers the new thing. No one liked them, including me. I will personally stop playing the game if I'm forced to play Nautilus or Maokai again.

I understand that the jungle might be a bit dumb with feral flare, but please don't nerf the shit out of the jungle.

RiotJag5 votes

I don't think we'd like to remove damage based junglers from viability entirely, but we would like to see them have to pay certain tradeoffs for the benefits they bring. Nautilus and Maokai don't have to be the dominant junglers for the system to be healthy, but some of their unique advantages like sustain should have comparative value over damage junglers, instead of being co-opted by health vamp on Spirit Stone items.

Renegen3 votes

I do want to mention that a major reason why tank supports aren't played is the current state of bot lane. I remember season 2-3 when not having engage meant you lost the game.

These days, a Leona/Thresh/Morgana is all you need in terms of initiate AND they have tons of gold to be great at it. Why take Nautilus (who is quite good right now IMO) when you have Leona already? Tank junglers have just been replaced by tank supports, you can't force them back in unless you do something about bot lane.

JimMaru6 votes

For me it's the opposite.

Now that having damage in the jungle is optimal tank/support/initiate/CC junglers can't be played. Therefore teams need tankiness on another lane (top and bot) and CC/initiation too (bot).

That's why Thresh and Leona are such great pick. They fill the void damage junglers left in the team now they have gold to build tanky. Also why top lane is so stale and playing squishier characters there is sub-optimal.

Having damage-oriented junglers was a big mistake, it wraps the game around it because junglers used to have more impact on teamfights than they have now. Not as in they got to kill things, but they ENABLED their teams to do so reliably. So a jungler used to complement a team and let other picks to happen since they had synergy with them.

J4 is great at keeping people in place for AoE comps, Maokai great to counter those comps, Malph great for wombo-combos... What about Lee Sin, Trynd or Yi? They are generic. They work on any comp because all they do is do damage? (lee not so much). Then you have to build comps around the fact that the jungler can't make plays when he ganks, you have to make the play for him... That's just not interesting and bad for the game...

Hellioning18 votes

Really? So, because I like the support junglers, I don't exist?

Everything wrong with the league community right here, folks! 'No one liked this thing that I don't like'.

I get that you prefer the damage junglers like Vi and Kha'Zix, and that's okay! People can like different things. But please don't say I don't exist because you disagree with me.

Jack Rendar4 votes

Any news regarding Gangplank ?

PaintedFox3 votes

Man, Riot just can't seem to make up their minds on jungling :/ it seems they're either "supposed to have gold and be able to carry" or "supposed to assist lanes and not be selfish".

Carrying=selfish play. Not trying to bash Riot's design team or process, but I dunno how both of those ideals can be fulfilled at the same time. Like Tabzz said recently, carrying can't be in the hands of all 5 players; in that case, it's not carrying anyway.

I love that you're trying to make every position seem impactful, but this isn't working very well in my opinion. Which isn't really your fault Pwyff or Morello or anyone, it's just something you'll have to spend some more time on.

RiotJag9 votes

It's a difficult balancing act to decide what level of impact we want junglers to have on the map. We're usually not happy with them ganking the whole game, nor are we happy with them farming the jungle the entire game either. I think we'd like to provide enough versatility in terms of champion/itemization choices where jungle players have multiple playstyles available to them, but I don't think we're there yet either.

Granty6 votes

I think the Conservation Passive (or whatever the Gold stack passive is called) was very healthy for junglers. The passive doesn't make you want to powerfarm all game, nor does it want you to go to lanes all of the time.

You say that you aren't happy with junglers that power farm the entire game, but isn't that exactly what the Madreds>Wriggles>Feral Flare item path forces you to do? Even if the Feral Flare path did get balanced to be more like conservation, a new problem would arise because both Lizard and Feral are item choices by AD/Auto Attacking junglers, meaning there wouldn't be enough difference between them making one of them always the better option than the other.

RiotJag4 votes

The Feral Flare path was intended for you to be heavily incentivized to farm your jungle up to a threshold (the Wriggle's->Feral Flare transformation), at which point you try to group with your teammates more. As we said we're going to turn away a bit from that, but there's still room for Feral Flare to fulfill more of a carry item niche instead of just "the Elder Lizard item for autoattackers". If the two items do end up being very poorly distinguished from each other then we have knobs we can tweak further (i.e. we can amplify the weaker early-game/stronger late-game power curve of FF through the stacking mechanic).

TheShyest 0210 votes

Honestly wouldn't it be viable to make it so instead of granting stacks from large monster kills (after Feral Flare is active), you grant 3 or 4 stacks on a champion kill, and 2 or 3 stacks on assist?

Timjin3 votes

@RiotPwyff It's good to hear that you are looking at making Skarner more "Sticky".

If I am reading this right, does that mean that we may be seeing buffs in 4.7?

Or are you saying that it may still be a while before we see anything on the PBE because you are still experimenting with concepts.

Please clarify for us, so that we don't get our hopes up too early, and have a repeat of some people feeling ignored.

I'm super pumped at the thought of being able to play him as a peeler again.

4dmiral2 votes

Feeling good about Rengar, then? Not sure I am yet, but just wondered why he isn't discussed on the forecast.

RiotJag3 votes

We're keeping an eye on Rengar. He falls under the category I mentioned of 4.6 changes that we still need more data to assess.

Thales1 votes

Will the changes to LeBlanc try to remedy that extremely low win-rate overall? Or is making her power more accessible itself problematic, even if that power is reduced?

RiotPWYFF7 votes

LeBlanc is still currently in ideation, but I don't think we ever try to 'remedy' a low win-rate. Win rates tend to be reflective of champion health, so, as an example, LB's low win rate but high effectiveness in high-level and competitive play indicates that she's got a very high mechanical skill ceiling and a very low skill floor (low skill floor meaning when she's first picked up, she's extremely hard to get rolling).

[edit] as an aside, win rates tend to be "pointers" to health (or an inability to adapt to a current meta). Win rates are very rarely powerful indicators in and of themselves.

Spitballing here but a change to LB would probably entail trying to offer more forms of counterplay (similar to S3 Zed / Fizz, who LB's play patterns roughly embody) while potentially examining her skill floor to give her more breadth in use (ie: fallback patterns when you can't execute a w-dfg-q-r-e combo in <1s).

Thales2 votes

That's fair. I was more referring to the later part there. Speaking for myself, my fingers aren't on par with xPeke's, but I'd rather his mastery with a champion not leave that champion forever inaccessible to the rest of us.

I quite liked the Zed changes (ult-shadow now having a clearer use-case for us novices while being weaker for the uber-Zed plays of the masters), but I'm unclear how Fizz's gameplay patterns have been changed. Could you elaborate on that a little?

RiotPWYFF6 votes

I think Fizz may have just gotten a damage reduction as his gameplay patterns are healthy when he's not dealing astronomical damage.

Insofar as a champion's skill ceiling dictating balance changes across the board, that's absolutely something we need to be aware of when taking this approach. LeBlanc in particular (and I'll make sure of this as an LB main!) has high degrees of mastery associated with her identity, so that'll be taken into consideration.

Wolf Akela2 votes

I think you guys can safely just move some of Leblanc's damage from W to Q or E. Her old lane counter was to shove the lane against her so she couldn't roam or farm. The change to R's damage not being related to the levels of QWE enabled her to max W for waveclear and still have good single-target burst.

Rukin5 votes

LeBlanc's early game damage and high skill cap is necessary to even survive in this meta as an assassin. You say she is effective in high level play but when looking at the statistics from LolKing, from all regions in CHALLENGER SoloQ as of the 21st, LB has a 42.75% winrate (http://www.lolking.net/champions/leblanc&region=all&map=sr&queue=1x1&league=challenger#statistics) Then you also said in competitive play, so I looked up Ranked 5v5's and as of the 21st it dropped to 33.33% (http://www.lolking.net/champions/leblanc&region=all&map=sr&queue=5x5&league=challenger#statistics)

With these exhaust changes and these insanely well scaling champions like ryze and jax she is barely surviving, please keep her the way she is, as least let me have some fun as I fail to carry my team. pls

Hugify Your Tlts1 votes

I'm very happy to see that LeBlanc is getting looked at. Honestly, I'm okay with her having the strong burst she has, but not with that strong waveclear too. I'd be happy with these three changes:

  1. Make W no longer damage minions. This maintains her strong burst but gives her the weakness of poor waveclear
  2. Make LeBlanc have to wait at least 1s when using W before she can jump back to her original location. The QW combo in lane has no counterplay besides staying out of her range. If she has to stick around at that location, she at least has a window of vulnerability.
  3. Remove the slow on E. Whenever I play against LeBlanc, it feels absolutely impossible to get away when she lands that E, which is very easy for her to land because she can waveclear with W and silence with Q, leaving little counterplay.

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