Balance Team Q+A #2 - Ask Us Anything (Again!) [COMPLETE]

RiotScarizard·Oct 23, 2015·23 votes·116,755 views

EDIT: AMA'S DONE FOR TODAY! Thanks for coming out and asking questions - If you're reading this and missed this one (or if we missed yours D:), we'll be doing two more this month at the same time! We'll see y'all at 12:30pm pacific, on Friday 10/030!

If you have follow-up questions or want to stalk us on the internet, you can follow almost all of us on ze twitters at (@RiotJag) (@RiotFeralPony) (@RiotTimeWizard) (@G_mang) (@ManWolfAxeBoss) (@SmashGizmo) (@ricklessabandon) and (@RiotScarizard)

Hey folks,

We're back again for our 2nd AMA this month - another week of worlds has gone by and a new patch is on the horizon, and we still have tons of your questions to get to! Got something to say about balance, your favorite champions, or how free SmashGizmo's sheik is? We've got you covered.

If you want to check out our Q+A last week, here's a link to that one too! M O R E C O N T E X T

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/miscellaneous/vWEoZ6X0-balance-team-qa-ask-us-anything

On deck, we've got:

RiotTimeWizard (thousand-year-dragon in training)

ricklessabandon (all lowercase, all the time)

SmashGizmo (plays 5 colors in EDH like a scumbag)

ManWolfAxeBoss (fire and blood)

**RiotGmang **(keeps talking so nobody explodes)

**RiotJag **(has a cool motorcycle)

FeralPony (photoshop artiste)

and yours truly! Got a burning question or top-of-mind curiosity? Fire away and we'll start answering in an hour! (1:30 PDT)!

If you want some more behind-the-scenes insights on how League's balance goes, check out these devblogs by RiotJules and King Jag The King, RiotJag himself!

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/riot-official/xORLd02r-data-and-champion-balance-part-1

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/riot-official/cBUqHAm5-data-and-champion-balance-part-2

484 Comments

Malicious MetalOct 23, 201516 votes

Hey there, thanks for doing these AmA's. Love 'em. Now then, Let's address the Elaphant in the Room; Mordekaiser.

Yes, we Mordekaiser fans have been pestering since day one to make his Slo lane viable again and Meddler even mentioned trading his duo lane power for enhanced base stats. Hooray!

His base stats are in fact abysmal; 1750 base health 20 base armor, 325 MS. It gets worse if you compare him to Darius with 2300 base health, more MS and 30 base armor. So here's an avenue where to buff him for Solo since he should be scaling really well into the late game. AKA give him more health/level and maybe even nerf his base health to compensate.

His Iron Man passive feels rather lackluster if compare to pre-rework and I'd like to know your stance on it. Due to the loss of 10% shielding ratio and nerfing his AoE damage it's rather difficult to maintain a strong shield and actually make it FEEL impactful. Any thoughts on buffing its champion conversion rate to pre-rework levels around 30-35 % BUT cap his minion rate at 10 % (For reference; his current shield gain from minions is 12.5% and pre rework it was 17.5%) It would entice him to actually brawl more and make his bully nature somewhat more bearable. It's a fair trade off that would make him healthier, allow his passive to feel like the real Iron Man again and still make it balanced.

And lastly the worst offender; HIs W being restricted to duo use. Can we just get it back? Please? Heavy Metal please with cherry on top? On a serious not though, it is where most of his frustration and problems in solo lanes comes from. Might be worth looking at.

Anyways, I'll be happy for ANY information regarding the Master of Metal...Erm...I mean IRON REVENANT :D

~M.M

RiotFeralPonyOct 23, 201510 votes

Power-wise we feel Mordekaiser's too strong currently in the duo lane and too weak in the solo lane case. We're generally okay if duo is his main role, but the disparity between those roles is currently too high. His solo lane is too weak and his duo lane is too strong.

Mordekaiser W is totally worth revisiting in regards to the solo vs duo cast, it can feel pretty lackluster and is a good spot to target to help bridge the gap between the Solo lane/ Duo Lane case. Not sure on specific changes we'd make, but we'll be looking into Morde specifically more after the first big preseason patch (PBE Soon(tm)!)

I'm unsure specifically on % of shield conversion values. He's pretty damn durable atm, and I feel the minimum shield threshhold helped him a lot more in lane than is getting generally credited, but adjusting the W sustain could grant us the option of increasing his shield growth since that skill in particular is currently double dipping in generating shield and restoring health.

warpenguin555Oct 23, 201515 votes

I have alot of questions to ask, i even split them up in multiple posts XD.

Are there any plans to add more summoner spells to the game?
any plans for AP mages to get a new CDR + AP item? most CDR + AP items aren't very good on very many AP midlaners.
Any balance ideas you guys thought would be a really good idea on paper but just were hilariously bad when tried out?
Why are Azir, Ryze, and Kassidan so hard to balance?
Have you ever considered allowing a Community made patch of sorts, where most, if not all, changes would be sugestions from the comunity. (if not, this could be a pretty entertaining idea for a featured game mode XD)
How closely does the balance team work with the design and reworking teams?(also, tell the design team to do Q&A's as well XD)
Any chance of ranked ever getting more bans?
What patch will the preseason start?
People like to bring up crit removal, is it a thing that might happen or not.

so yeah thats pretty much it for my questions (for now) Thanks for hosting the Q&A

RiotSmashGizmoOct 23, 201516 votes

No concrete promises on this, but we are exploring some options to make the Summoner Spell system more interesting. Really have no idea when we'll be ready to deliver on this, but yes, Summoner Spells are on our collective radars as something that could clearly be improved upon.
I mostly just disagree with this statement. Morellonomnomnomicon and Athene's are both reasonably powerful in my estimation and we still usually see mages rush one of these two. I do think there's a small gap here in terms of AP/CDR itemization for non-mana mages, but I also think this is a very niche market that we're hesitant to provide easy CDR for due to how overbearing a, let's say, Vlad can be when he can easily rush both AP and CDR in lane.
Literally tons. A lot of our early iterations on Rengar's Q in the rework come to mind, where we did stuff like using ferocity on Q would give you 3 stacks to make it the sustain damage option on him, but really basically just made him murder you even faster.
Different reasons on all of these. Kassadin's the most straightforward, where it's just about how his mobility profile gives him perfect control over when fights are happening, so the second he crosses a certain power threshold, he just consistently runs away with games. Ryze is currently mostly about the mechanical needs of the character and just how much power a player gains from properly executing his passive combos, which means that he looks very weak for our average player, but is secretly one of the highest winrate characters for experienced players. I could probably write a book on why Azir is a balance nightmare at this point, but in the interest of being able to respond to more posts today, I'll just say that it's very difficult to balance a hypercarry who has reliable means of ensuring their own safety and that Azir pushes the limits of both being a hypercarry and reliably ensuring his own safety.
I've idly thought about what this would look like, but I don' think there's any chance of this actually happening.
Very closely. We try our best to give them good counsel on how to balance their characters pre-release and they try to give us advice on how to balance their characters while retaining their intended identities.
There's a chance, but I think we're really hesitant about taking this route, as it does really limit players ability to pick the character they want to play in any given game. I know there are some folks looking at pick/ban structure and I wouldn't be surprised if over the next few years the pick/ban system changed significantly, but it's not something we're directly looking at in the short term.
5.22, HYPE!
Not in the short term. There will be some crit shifting around in the pre-season, but we're not going to do anything so drastic as fully removing it in the near future. I think long term, trying to shift random crits to conditional crits (like, say, every 3rd attack crits, or all your attacks from brushes crit, etc), might have some promise, but we've never really gotten a good enough model of this working to ship.

Sweetie BrellaOct 23, 20159 votes

Well, after you managed to "miss" this on the last Q+A, I might as well have another go.

I think the changes to Zilean's passive are interesting, though I still think there are a lot of passives that are incredibly outdated or are just downright bland. Is there any chance you are reviewing things like this to make the game more interesting? Here's some of the worst offenders IMO

Heimerdinger His current passive (techmaturgical repair bots) has neither interaction or impact IMO. When his gameplay was reworked, the only interesting thing about it (the unique ability to heal towers) was stripped away, and that was really it. All we're left with is half an Aegis aura that also heals your turrets absurdly slowly. Is this really the best thing the inventor can come up with?

Shyvana I know this is partially because of the clarity demanding you shift the wording, but this is really little more than a ball of stats (which I'm pretty sure you're not too fond of, right?) Again, can't we make it more interesting.

Karma Jayce I'm pushing these two together because for me, they both suffer from the same problem. Their passive is literally an extension of one ability (both being their "not" ultimates). It feels like a band-aid fix to a problem you had in development of putting too much "power" onto their active abilities then compensating by effectively giving them no passive at all (even if this isn't true, that's the conclusion I've drawn). How is this right in a world when there are new champions with effectively two passives?

Zyra You've probably heard about this one a few times already, but I'll throw in my two cents. The problem here is that plant thematic cohesion aside, this passive just doesn't work. Apart from Karthus, all the other "strike back after death" abilities allow the player to chase down their killer or allies to some degree. Karthus still works due to his devastating E damage and uninterruptable Requiem making dying a viable option. None of this is true for Zyra. You get one restrictively narrow skillshot on an immobile mage who is trying to be as far away from the enemy as possible. It is way too easy to sidestep them attack with the time before you can make the shot. Not too mention her lore specifically highlights the new risk of dying. Why should anything in her kit require her to die if this is the case?

That's probably not an exhaustive list, but that's the ones I personally dislike the most. I doubt anything's going to change from this, but I'd like to at least know some of the designer's thoughts on these particular abilities.

RiotRiot GMangOct 23, 201511 votes

Good question, and I agree that there are plenty of passives that leave something to be desired.

Regarding your examples: Some of the champs you mentioned have also been singled out internally and gotten some experimentation (like Heimer, Shyv, and Syndra), though I can't speak to how they are prioritized among other projects in terms of urgency and which ones are planning to move forward (within our team specifically, the only one that springs to mind is Syndra, though no promises on exact ship date atm hah).

Regarding passive quantity: This is a controversial topic, but I wanna just share a bit of context here. It's important to keep in mind that we don't design passives in a vacuum and then decide how many each champion gets. Passives are designed to serve the needs of a particular champion.

Say I'm a champion designer making a new kit, and I start with a particular gameplay loop that fits nicely on Q W and E slots. The kit is somewhat functional and unique, but there are still things to figure out (let's say the W and E have some usability issues, certain lane matchups are very one-sided, my abilities late-game are confusing team mates, my spell rotation feels too unreliable, wave clearing is too easy, and my build paths don't scale right). What I do with the Passive and R slots--indeed, what I do with **all **slots--are going to be about problems like these or addressing other higher levels goals (like delivering the fantasy better or more unique or something).

The answer to those problems might involve any number of changes, possibly demanding 0, 1, or 2+ passives. If I do add 2+ passives, it's **not **because I just want the champ to be cooler or have more stuff than others. And it is going to come at the cost of power budget and complexity budget, not just added on top of an otherwise finished, balanced champion. A solution might even involve removing/nerfing passives so that we have more complexity and power budget to put on actives!

In the end, individual slots are not supposed to be balanced between each other, nor are "my champ passive(s)" vs "your champ passive(s)." Entire kits are supposed to be balanced between each other. "2 passives > 1 passive" doesn't always follow. It's very possible to design a kit with high agency, complexity, and fun with just actives, and it's also very possible to design a super lame kit that has several passives! And it's those kinds of properties (agency, fun, complexity, clarity, etc.) that we care most about: if a champion's multiple passives leaves them with too much control over the game, or too much complexity, or something like that, that is a big concern for us (and we definitely aren't perfect about these things!). But the actual quantity is usually not inherently good or bad.

Regarding passive quality: Lemme give a different example: say we have a high-complexity champion who has everything BUT the passive slot locked down (you might have even had an awesome passive during development but it ended up being extraneous as other slots developed further). As in, "if our game hadn't already set the precedent, I might actually give this champ 0 passives." This can be a tricky spot: players expect each of their slots to feel fun and distinct, including the passive slot, but you don't want to disrupt the balance and fun of your existing pattern/slots.

A lot of these passives end up being lower-budget passives: we could have made Jayce get multiple intricate passives, but he's already so complicated and multi-faceted that it would probably detract from the kit to do so. Sometimes you make the call, "this champ is about these cool actives, and we should avoid detracting from that here."

This isn't to say that "lame passives" are a good thing, but sometimes the cost-benefit of trying to discover a perfect passive is outweighed by the value of delivering the champion to players with a not-stellar passive. The opposite is also true: sometimes we have a champion that's bloated in complexity/abilities by the time we're reading to ship, but we're willing to make the trade-off for the sake of delivering what we feel is a good product to players.

All that said, improving lame slots is definitely on our radar; I just wanted to give context. I hope that provides a little clarity for why passives compare/contrast in the way they do!

VersaceLemonadeOct 23, 20159 votes

How do you guys deal with the stress involved with the game? I feel like every time I go to see news about League of Legends on twitter, Reddit, Facebook, or the boards there is ALWAYS some commentary about the game not doing enough in terms of skins, balance, server management, etc. I can easily see how being a part of the balance team (or any team at Riot) can quickly become overwhelming, and I would love to hear how some of you deal with stress involved.

I know for a fact that I can deal with stress in a much more safe and constructive manner and I was hoping to see what things you lovely folks do to help manage.

Thanks for all your hard work in making an incredibly fun and diverse game! Hope to hear from you all soon!! Yasuo Yasuo Yasuo

RiotMANWOLFAXEBOSSOct 23, 201520 votes

As a team, we usually relieve stress by backseat gaming SmashGizmo while he solo queues.

As an individual, I try and go to the skatepark at lunch and convince other people to listen to Riff Raff.

RiotRiot Time WizardOct 23, 201523 votes

Cycles of overusing dank memes.

Starbomb album on loop keeps me sane while I feed in solo queue.

RiotRiot GMangOct 23, 201512 votes

+1 We've literally had retrospectives where an action item was "use more dank memes" because they help keep spirits up.

RiotScarizardOct 23, 201517 votes

You get thick skin doing this kind of work, but it'd be unfair to say that it doesn't get to you.

I think the key thing to understand is that even the most angry, vile and vitriolic statements come out of passion for the game we all love and work on. Those people telling us we should be fired, and that we don't know what we're doing? They just want to have fun playing a balanced game, same as we do. In many ways, these can be viewed as motivators - when people are upset, we have a job to do.

It's often thankless, but I think the nature of the constant, ever-evolving puzzle of a Live environment is a big draw for some. I'd also say we have a big emphasis on communication and teamwork within our group, and I've never felt like I've worked somewhere where I was both valued as an individual contributor and as a friend. It's that 'band-of-brothers' (and sisters) feeling that means no matter how deep in the trenches we are, there's always someone else with you ready to help out and make that next change the best it can be.

In the end, everyone's got their own ways (many folks play other games in their off-time, many of us keep up with the gym, pursue art or personal projects, rick plays ffxiv, etc) but having a team of homies to back you up makes it all easier.

KeevalroyOct 23, 20159 votes

They just want to have fun playing a balanced game, same as we do.

Do you though?

Or do you want to continue keeping your focus on the spectator event while you shield the problem children of League, nerfing the ugly, boring, and outdated kits until their 'eventual' reworks so they aren't being seen by the public?

RiotScarizardOct 23, 201533 votes

We want a fun, balanced game - but I can understand how that sentence is hard to read with all the tin-foil in the way.

KeevalroyOct 23, 201511 votes

Keep sweeping the problems under the rug. Maybe if you keep telling yourself they aren't there, they'll disappear.

RiotScarizardOct 23, 201517 votes

If you think there's a problem that's under a rug that isn't actively being worked on right now, I'd like to know. I'm not entirely sure I understand what exactly we're being accused of here.

RetillinOct 23, 201514 votes

I think he is saying this:

"You are making a tv show (LCS/Worlds) and not a balanced game. So you are building champions for 'flash' instead of substance".

Btw, your first reply reads very snarky and your "You get thick skin doing this kind of work" doesn't seem to be true.

RiotScarizardOct 23, 201521 votes

I tend to tease/snark more than most folks, but I'll pull back if I'm worried it's not coming off as playfully as I intend. That said, with regards to the idea that we're making a TV show - that's pretty false. We care about what League's viewing experience is, but far far less than we care about what League's playing experience is.

I'm happy to respond to Keevalroy's specific concerns in this area, but to assert that we just balance for the cameras borders on conspiracy theory.

Pika310Oct 23, 201510 votes

Sona

LankPantsOct 24, 201511 votes

Thresh

Fedora GenocideOct 23, 20157 votes

I'm interested in what you all speculate will become of Kindred, buff or nerf wise. I heard that for the most part, she seems like she's in a pretty good place. I'm curious to hear a/some rioter(s) personal opinion on it. I personally agree with the team. She is not too strong, and when played right, makes a pretty balanced champ.

RiotMANWOLFAXEBOSSOct 23, 20158 votes

They're still pretty new to the Rift and have a fairly steep learning curve, so a slightly lower than average win rate right now is appropriate.

I personally feel that they'll be strong once people figure out all their tricks. Just give it some time.

MasterVidallisOct 23, 20157 votes

Any plans to make upgrading the warding trinkets less awkward? Right now due to both the lv 9 and 250g requirement there is a lot of randomness that goes into being able to buy it early enough to matter, if you're forced to back at lv 8 you can't even if you have the gold. If you're forced to back at lv 10 but can either upgrade it or finish a key item, that's not a fun strategic choice. The cost just feels awkward to fit into your buy progression.

A lot of players just put it off until it's too late in the match. You already pay for extra trinkets, and items, and pots. I feel like the FREE trinket upgrade should also just be, free, at lv 9. Since the counter to it, scanners, would also get a free upgrade. Seems like it balances itself out. Thoughts?

RiotScarizardOct 23, 201513 votes

I'd be looking for something along these lines with the upcoming preseason. I agree that it's a major frustration to have people put off trinket upgrades for so long, and the entire trinket system has been a hot topic for the Systems team for 2016.

FchyoOct 23, 20157 votes

Hello there, I'd just wanted to know if u guys have anything planned for Lissandra.

Lissandra - Since she was out you guys nerfed her damage howerver always putting more and more utility, but i guess she kinda needs to have her mana costs lowered; or i'd like to suggest an addiction to the passive ,along with the no mana cost spell, she could have like extra damage maybe scaling with level only. Another suggestion would be lowering the E dmg ,since it's mostly used to escape/engage, and put some damage on the other abilities.

Thanks for the time!

RiotMANWOLFAXEBOSSOct 23, 201510 votes

We very recently put in the change to her ult where she heals on self cast. Spell costs were something we looked at, but didn't feel like she really needed anything there. The passive definitely has the biggest room for improvement. I messed around with some changes where she would spawn black ice around her and gain bonuses if she cast on top of them, but ultimately didn't have time for that patch. Definitely something I'd like to continue work on later though.

That being said, we've seen her in a few games at worlds so far and think she's in a decent place in terms of power.

TerraRisingOct 23, 20156 votes

With Flash almost a necessity for most players in most situations (Hecarim and Singed notwithstanding), is it time to make Flash a mandatory selection and have a third Summoner Spell?

If not, is there a consensus why?

RiotRiot Time WizardOct 23, 20157 votes

Currently, we have no plans to implement a third summoner spell slot, nor do we have plans to lock Flash in for everyone.

We are looking into ways to diversify Summoner Spell choices, and that includes considering how Flash relates to other Summoner Spell.

droodftwOct 23, 20156 votes

Hey thanks for the Q&A! My questions are a little more about a career in game balance.

Did you know that balance was what you wanted to work in when training to work in the industry? If not, what brought you to balance?
What's an average day like with you guys? Do you get reports/feedback from somewhere and asked on how you would want to balance it? I would imagine you do a lot of testing, but what else?
How do you feel about the current meta? How would you define the term "balance" in terms of League of Legends? (i.e. For me, I'd say having as many champions be competitively viable in high-level/professional play as possible.)
I myself am recently graduated from college in Comp Sci/Game Design and balance is a topic I'm very interested in working in. Any tips for how to be (for lack of a better word) more attractive for being hired as a balance specialist? For example, what could one do with their resume/portfolio that makes a balance team say "We really should bring this guy on!"?

RiotSmashGizmoOct 23, 201512 votes

Can only answer these personally, might be interesting to get other people's perspectives.

100% yes for me. I came from a background of clinging onto competitive games for the long haul (been playing MtG for almost 20 years now, Smash Melee for 10, League for 6), so balancing and preserving the fairness of a game was always something super important and interesting to me.
We work in 2 week sprints on each patch. Once during each sprint we plan out our work on what we want to ship in the upcoming patch, which is a combination of the things we see as off as players and the outliers in terms of metrics like pick rate/ban rate/win rate. Once we take on projects, we rapidly iterate and test changes until we get to changelists we're happy with. We're also constantly re-evaluating our work so that if something super broken emerges we can hop on it ASAP (for instance, runeglaive Ezreal).
This question is waaaaaaay too big to adequately answer. I guess the tl;dr for me is that I'm happy we've hit the sort of diversity numbers in Professional play that we're seeing in Worlds this year, but that I still feel like some things are really off in terms of feeling like a fair and enjoyable experience for most players. I won't dive too deep into this, but basically, Professional diversity is great and certainly one valid measure of how the game's balance is doing, but I don't think it captures the full picture by any stretch of the imagination.
Make yourself visible as an expert on the game you're trying to work on. This is pretty broad, but encompasses both getting to a relatively high rank and demonstrating your knowledge on the state of the game. Stuff like blogging, writing articles, and streaming can all be good means of getting exposure and demonstrating that you get the game on a very deep level. Also, perpetually seek the feedback of people who are already working on balance, as they can give great feedback about how you might be limiting your thoughts.

ToonyOct 23, 20156 votes

A few things, thanks for the AMA I do quite love these.

? I don't really think I need to say more, he's arguably unbalanced. Are there plans to tone him down without taking him completely out of meta?
.. The hit on tailwind, Howling Gale, and Monsoon all at once? Any tone-up in consideration?
How do you feel about Kindred's current state?
Lastly, the adc "Rework" that's appearing. I'm not too informed on it, but has proper consideration been taken as to how supports will change as an inevitable result? Or are the changes not significant enough to entail such? Then again..if they aren't significant enough, could you really call it an adc rework? That's about it. Even one answer would satisfy me I'm sure you guys are getting flooded with questions though (:

RiotRiot Time WizardOct 23, 201511 votes

TahmKench has definitely got some strength packed in that big ol' belly. If we do try to tone him down, it won't be an attempt to push him out of the meta or seriously hit his viability. After all, he's only started picking up steam over the last couple of patches, so we wanna give him some more soak time before we make any changes!

Janna is in a pretty damn good place right now, as far as average win rate (across all ELO) goes. Her disengage power in Q/R is a reliable way to counteract the current menace of classic juggernaut types. She doesn't seem to be in need of any boosts at the moment, but that doesn't mean we aren't thinking of her. We'll need to re-evaluate a lot of champs, including her, when pre-season lands. :)

Kindred is experiencing what nearly every new champion does. Extremely high ban rate in games, steep initial mastery curve...everyone is still trying to figure them out. They've proven to be powerful (not egregiously so, mind you) in the hands of experienced players (amount of games played). We tend to follow-up within a couple patches on new champions, and we will likely do something to adjust Kindred's power soon. Again, pre-season will be touching many characters and systems, so we don't want to be hasty in assessing a new champion's current balance!

Regarding the ADC rework: since it won't be much longer, all I can say here is "wait and see". We don't expect that supports are going to be adversely affected by the Marskman changes, though.

Edited because I'm dumb and somehow clicked Jarvan and not Janna

ZielmannOct 23, 20154 votes

When did Jarvan get a sex change? :P

Solidair3Oct 23, 20153 votes

Clearly he's referencing the fact that the j4 we know is actually LeBlanc with an illusion over herself!

RiotFeralPonyOct 23, 201512 votes

Clearly this.

MasalarOct 23, 201513 votes

You uh...may have mixed up pictures there. Unless lore team has some more info about J4.

RiotRiot Time WizardOct 23, 20158 votes

this gave me a p. good laugh

Setts ßoyfriendOct 23, 20156 votes

Which champions do people ask you guys to nerf the most?

RiotJagOct 23, 201527 votes

Earlier this year: Akali, Fizz, Kassadin, Leblanc

Lately: Vayne, Fiora, Darius, Morde, GP, Garen, Skarner

Always: Lee Sin, Riven

Jeddy017Oct 23, 20155 votes

Ok,I don't have a lot of original questions.So I ask for some simple stuff.

item 1054 - On a scale of 1 to 10 what do you think of this item?1 being a "must rework or delete" & 10 being a "must buy 6 of these on every champ".

Nasus - My favorite Dog in League.If he was made today,what would he be like?

Crazy ideas - If you could come up with a crazy idea that would completely change league,for better or for worse,what would it be?These ideas could range from stupid ideas that only exist in your head to ideas that maybe be worth considering to.I'll provide an example,add an area past top lane with an epic monster.The idea here is to make top lane a more important part of the map rather than the "island" full of tanks & split-pushers.Plus it would help with the whole "Party down Bot!" TP meta.What are you crazy ideas?

summoner 4 - Is it possible for just one patch during preseason to remove Flash temporarily?Just to see how hard things shake up.

RiotMANWOLFAXEBOSSOct 23, 20159 votes

item 1054 9/10 - Situational buy that does its job when it needs to.

Nasus The Cane - If he were made today, I assume he'd be classified as a juggernaut and not have an infinite scaling mechanic. If he does ever get reworked, the late game raid boss fantasy is a must and I'd be sad if stacks got removed, but could live with that I suppose.

I love the idea of movement silences. Get to kill Ezreal more. Lesser elixirs (think 75g and your next attack has 100% lifesteal or something). Flash only usable outside of combat. Shrink the entire map by 25%. Lots of neat stuff that would be fun to experiment with.

summoner 4 A dream of what may never be... ; ;

AbyssphereOct 23, 20155 votes

I'm not sure I really want to know the answer to this but I've been wondering about Elise

She's been really dominant at Worlds up to now, so I think we all know a nerf is inevitable, but I'm really worried about what it'll be. The recent Elise changes have been really good in my opinion, with the ratio buff on spiderlings and the Cocoon change allowing her to max W second both being changes that favoured her being built with pretty decent amounts of AP. Her nerfs have been good too, removing quite a lot of the free damage she gets in her kit, which is something that's caused huge problems in the past.

What I'm wondering is how intentional this has actually been - do you want Elise to be an AP fighter? As much as she's overtuned right now it feels easier to balance her as an offensive champion than as a tank (seeing as she's actually building damage to do damage now, and is only really viable as a tank when she can blow people up without building AP), and I think she's delivering on her gameplay fantasy right now better than she ever has. Even when tank Elise was undeniably the best build a lot of people still preferred maxing W and building some AP just because it was way more fun than going tank, even if it was bad. But I never really got the impression that you guys preferred AP Elise, particularly as you seem to have a preference for what we see in competitive play, and that means you'd like tank Elise more.

tl;dr is there a particular direction you want to push Elise in? Am I right in thinking that the playerbase seems to find AP Elise more fun, and if so will you take that into account when you do her next balance changes? It's very self-involved of me but I've been having a blast with AP Elise recently (even though lots of losses over the last few days ;_;) and I really can't imagine getting the same satisfaction from "tanky stun bot Elise".

RiotricklessabandonOct 23, 20159 votes

hi, hi~

a lot of what you've been picking up on has been intentional—elise should have a path open to her that allows for gold to be spent on increasing her kill potential, and for less of that threat to be available 'for free' in the form of base stats/damages. since elise is a six-ability form swapper it's more important for her overall fairness to ask elise players to use their early-game power spike to earn a gold advantage and then invest it wisely in order to keep that strength going later into the game. i personally think it helps her feel more like a mage/assassin pairing (which seems more aligned with who she wants to be), whereas the elise of old felt more like a support/tank pairing.

if i had to guess as to what areas we'd look at next, it would be ones that would let us stay on course with the last few changes—base damage past level 7 should be monitored closely, and scaling with gold should feel appropriately rewarding (and tied to success). if we ever needed to go harder on her, i'd imagine it would be thinking of cool ways to replace her w spells that would give us more 'balance levers' while keeping her feeling great to play.

hey im joesuOct 23, 20153 votes

Thoughts on Nami? I thought she was strong even before her recent buffs, which only made her better. Is there anything more planned for her in the near future?

RiotRiot Time WizardOct 23, 20158 votes

She definitely wasn't weak prior to her buffs, but she does get harder and harder to succeed with as the game goes on. While people start to move faster with boots and items, her Bubble becomes trickier and trickier to hit. Would definitely be interested in doing even more cool things for her :)

Solidair3Oct 23, 20153 votes

Will you guys revisit options for Syndra after preseason changes settle down?

VanilliteOct 23, 20152 votes

What are your thoughts about ap Rek'sai? :)

RiotRiot Time WizardOct 23, 201513 votes

my thoughts are WHY WOULD YOU WANT THIS?!

AMYS GRAVEOct 23, 201521 votes

Rek'sai wants a nice hat. item 3089 RekSai

HesitationMarksOct 23, 20152 votes

Hi! Any plans for Katarina? If you look at the rework announcement back in 2012 you'll find something along the lines: "The first problem that Katarina players often faced was weak performance very early on, primarily related to the steep damage curve of her core damage ability, Bouncing Blades." and other things concerning Kat being weak early, unreliable etc... well I think it describes her current state, which makes me super sad... She was my first main, I really love her lore, concept, well generally her whole persona, but it makes me super sad to play her nowadays. Either I get smashed early, pray for ganks or pray for some random kills or successul roam... ooor I'm lucky enough to snowball and then enemy team will flame the heck out of me for playing a "facerolling champ, which doesn not require skill at all, and they wish me all the worst" Let's say she's a pubstomper in bronze- low gold divisions, and then let's say not that great in higher divisions. At this point I don't care about what changes could be made I just really want to play her again.

RiotricklessabandonOct 23, 20157 votes

hello!

so, we'll probably need to take a look at her sometime after the new season starts up (if nothing else, just as part of a follow-up pass on the different roles) but we don't have any kat-specific changes already in mind. part of the issue with katarina is that, at present, she is intended to be more about 'chasing a high moment' and as such will rarely feel as fair as a lot of the roster (the players playing as, with, or against are kind of playing a zero-sum game over happiness/fairness).

we came around to that intention pretty explicitly around the time i put some very experimental changes out on the pbe, which i believe was about a year ago. essentially, we took a stab at what a more 'healthy and sustainable' katarina would look like. what came of that is that while we might have ended up with a katarina that more people could have been more happy with if she was commonly in their games, league of legends as a whole would have lost a type of character/playstyle that was one of the more unique offerings in the game. we likened it to the experience that draven provides—to make the 'draven experience' feel as fair as someone like lucian would almost certainly make our adc pool feel less diverse/rich, if not the game as a whole.

that's kind of the long and short of it. for the time being, katarina represents a play experience larger than herself. if we ever reevaluate and decide that that experience doesn't align with katarina, then we'll certainly give her the time needed to give her the appropriate changes. outside of that though, she'll likely remain in the 'chasing a high moment' camp. that said, i think more than a couple assassins could use some love right now, so she might be suffering from compounding issues—we'll be sure to look into that once the next season gets rolling.