@Xelnath Smashgizmo Morello, A look at Rumble

Jingerbeardman·Apr 3, 2014·2 votes·290 views

Now that Rumble has the BEST skin in the game hands down, it would be nice to see him become a bit more viable than what he is now. Rumble has a very weak early game, he farms poorly, has extremely weak mitigation without a ton of ap, unreliable sustain since the spell vamp nerf to AoE abilities, and his major redeeming quality in his ult was removed in the middle of season 3. After that nerf to his ult he has barely been seen from again. The Mechanized menace could use some love.

Rumble is typically picked as a Top lane champ since he does not have major burst which makes him an extremely niche pick for mid. His low damage output early on is not enough to allow him to jungle proficiently and his lack of hard cc without abilities that benefit his team directly leave him out as a support. The current top lane meta thrives on champions able to outlast their opponents or do enough damage to make them have to recall. Since Rumble cant really do either of those very well he is pretty much SoL.

When it comes to itemization Rumble is somewhat limited. He has no mana so that and mana regen are wasted stats for him to get. He is extremely reliant on ability power to maintain his damage in fights which steers him away from less expensive defensive items. Cooldown reduction is not very good for him as you wind up overheating to quickly. After the spell vamp nerf to area of effect damage, that doesn't pay anymore. So where does that leave him? With a bunch of items he cant afford because the instant he tries to farm early on he gets crapped on by whoever he is facing. Since they do get to farm they come back to lane stronger and stronger while Rumble has to try and muddle his way through.

I think now is a perfect time to give rumble some love. Maybe its reducing the time you spend overheating if you build cooldown reduction. Maybe its changing scrap shield, increasing its base numbers and ratios in exchange for only letting the base value of the shield benefit from the 25% increase during danger zone. See if adding some form of sustain while rumble is overheating, like recovering 15% of his missing health, could be tried. Until the fighter issue gets addressed, which seems like it never will at the current rate, champs like Rumble are going to be benched and collect dust since there is no way for them to compete.

15 Comments

RiotMorelloApr 4, 20144 votes

Right now, the balance team is looking into Rumble buffs for an upcoming patch. With All-Stars, we're unsure if that will be 4.6 or 4.7 (or later...), but there's a few top laners we'd like to bring up - Rumble is one of them.

Wizz KalistaApr 4, 20143 votes

Morello plz don't let them overbuff him. I would rather him be where he is (see Balls level rumble plays) than watch him get abusively nerfed due to an overbuff.

RiotMorelloApr 4, 20147 votes

I think something really light is in order.

KittoesApr 4, 20141 votes

What do you think about his ult range? I personally feel that it's the part of his kit that makes him so incredibly strong.

N49Apr 4, 20141 votes

One thing that would be nice is to give his ultimate a Jinx style indicator.

The current one is notorious for being inaccurate, seeing as it's a scaled up version of a much smaller one.

RiotMorelloApr 7, 20141 votes

Good point. Resources might be a problem for the release, but I like the idea.

Wizz KalistaApr 4, 20143 votes

ty, I agree, some small usability QOL buffs and maybe miniscule number alterations and he should be dandy. Just not the repeat on the flamespitter "QOL" buff that made him broken for a month :P Out of curiosity are you still in charge of the "higher order design direction" or do you interact more with balance again or something completely different?

SiachiApr 4, 20141 votes

I feel like perhaps one QoL buff could be that his passive has a cooldown timer that indicates when Heat stacks start falling off.

NullDragonApr 7, 20141 votes

I'd like something maybe utility oriented. His Q is already very annoying in lane, E is similarly annoying. Safest, I think, would be a buff to his shield. Extra movement power or defenses wouldn't directly add to his harass power like straight damage buffs.

exec3Apr 5, 20141 votes

But isn't Rumble one of the worst in terms of the fighter problem? His gameplay pattern pretty much involves running at the enemy until they're dead. At least in my experience which is why I never bought him because he got dead boring after only a few matches.

JingerbeardmanApr 5, 20141 votes

Thank you so much for responding. I will be looking forward to what you guys come up with :)

On another note, there has been something that is starting to bother/worry me. I try to keep up with most of the things said here on the forums and I watch the trends that roll out with each patch. It looks like instead of trying to reduce the power of the fighters that are overpowering in fights, instead you are trying to creep other roles and champs up to match them. I fear this may cause a slow domino effect over time resulting in an unhealthy power creep in the game.

It has been stated that you do not want to nerf champs out of viability anymore which is extremely admirable. But some of the most recent tuning that have been done are simply shifting the problems around rather than addressing them. It likely takes a lot of time to really grind out a change that truly balances a champ that doesnt out right obliterate them from viability or destroy their playstyle and identity. If things keep going the way they are though another role is going to replace fighters as the overbearing presence that threatens the health of the game. Then it will be rinse and repeat. Sometimes it really is best to bite the bullet and take some power away for the benefit of the game and not find some spot to shove it back in.

RiotMorelloApr 7, 20141 votes

A lot of this is because the champions with really bad power profiles do need reworks, which takes more design work and is more resource-gated (new skills take new VFX, animations, etc) than balance changes.

Though, I think this is one of the biggest causes of player pain. Part of re-earning that trust is us following-through with change sets (like what you saw with Grags' nerf-then-rework that makes him viable, but not ultra-mage-tank-fighter-peeler.

JingerbeardmanApr 7, 20141 votes

I see your point with regard to reworks as it does take a great deal of time and resources to make things from scratch. What I am wondering is why smaller nerfs are not being done in the meantime. I'm not talking olaf level, across the board gutting here. For example, Renekton, one of the most frustrating things about facing him is that he can simply Q his health back and stay in lane nearly forever. Why not reduce the heal he gets from minions a bit so it is a little more possible to push him out and make him back.

Then there are champs Like Vi and Kha'zix. What were thought to be nerfs ended up being huge buffs for them. It is hard to believe that they are in need of reworks when there are so many other champs that need them more. By the time they did get a rework the cycle would just start over. I guess the underlying question is why are you not choosing to simply nerf right now but instead go the route of moving base numbers and ratios?

XyltinApr 6, 20141 votes

Really? Rumble. He is a hard coutner to the better top lane TANKS (e.g. Shen). Rumble spams his Q at high range and pushes and needs to be stopped by a counter pick or a gank (predictable => counter gank). At one point it is stupid to get into 600 range of rumble cause if you want to all in, he kills you, and if you stay behind, he will harass and push freely.

Sure, he is not a Renekton or Shyvana. But what about other top laners? Riven, Shen, Jayce, Garen, Mundo and Darius? Some remakes and maybe a decent top lane itemization for bruisers.

If you buff him only a little bit, you have to keep in mind that a last picked top laner with the chance to pick rumble means the enemy team has a very limited amount of picks, and I thought that is something that you don't want. Hard counters and that a champ makes other champs a really, really bad pick.

ploki122Apr 8, 20141 votes

While you're talking about a few top laners you'd like to bring up, I'd wish to know what the current state of Poppy among your team currently is.

I know that she skirts a fine line between "Fuck it! Too problematic. We'll handle her when people start picking up on her..." and "This thing cannot stay as-is in the game, we have to change her. Nao!".

So first question, what priority level do you give to a Poppy rework (let's be real, she can't be fixed with any amount of tweaks unless that amounts to at least 75% of her kit)?

And while we're talking about Poppy reworks, as a Poppy-fan, I'm kinda wondering what you guys' take is on Poppy. I see the rework team often comment about how they wanna keep the character intact, or simply reforge the fantasy in something cleaner/clearer... But what is Poppy's character/fantasy. Is she a diplomat (Hammer Diplomacy doesn't count, that's called butchering)? Is she a blacksmith? Is she a mourning blacksmith's daughter who wanna exterminate Noxus from the surface of the earth and does it with cuddly eyes? What is Poppy from a "person" point of view? Also, how does that translate into a kit (for instance if you make her the royal smith, she probably has quality defense in limited availability that can be recharged between fights)?