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I hate when champion reworks turn into overhauls...

Hemulen Magi·3/1/2016, 1:25:34 AM·4 votes·640 views

I see a lot of players who are terrified that one of their favorite champions will end up on the rework chopping block. I really hate it when the Riot developers go needlessly overboard in champion reworks. Sometimes a champion will have one or two problematic/outdated/boring abilities that could use tweaking (Poppy's old Passive + W+ R, Sion's old Q + E + AP Scalings, Yorick's Passive + E, Taric's E + R, etc.). But then this champion gets handed off to some overly ambitious developer with no respect for the champion's established playerbase who goes...

"Hmmm... I could just fix what's broken and leave this existing champion intact, but I got all these great ideas I want to use. Hardly anyone plays this champion we've deliberately kept dumpstered for years, so I'll delete their entire kit/role/identity and try out some shiny new ideas I've been saving. Maybe I'll even finally get to test my crazy, immobile, melee, bot-lane bruiser experiment... Mordekaiser"

NO! Be conservative with reworks. Respect the champion's established playerbase. The reworks should be designed to appeal foremost to the players who already like the champions, not to random people who will play the champion for 1 week after the rework then go back to whatever is the flavor of the month anyways. Alienating a longterm existing playerbase to mildly amuse an unattached crowd won't create lasting value.

If a champion has a broken mechanic that necessitates it being kept weak, replace just that mechanic. Don't go overboard and remove unique, balanced, fun, interesting mechanics like Yorick ultimate just for the sake of change. If the kit is boring (completely subjective by the way) then add complexity without subtracting from the core concepts of the original kit.

Shen's rework was quite decent because his kit/identity/team-role survived the changes due to his dash taunt and global reposition ult remaining unchanged. Less is more when it comes to reworks. Fewer unneeded changes = fewer alienated players.

Save your experiments for developing brand new champions, not at the expense of deleting something that already exists.

5 Comments

shyv3/1/2016, 10:18:11 AM2 votes

honestly if riot ever reworks another one of my mains im just going to quit league lol. i have almost no faith in their reworks. poppy's was good, imo, but.. shen used to be one of my mains and now i have no desire to play him at all.

i don't know why they ruin champs like that. he was perfectly balanced before and lots of people enjoyed playing him. i guess he needed some pointless fucking minigame though.

bbb3/1/2016, 1:32:23 AM1 votes

I totally agree with you over Mordekaiser, but other than that you're wrong in all aspects. Sion and Poopy had a great rework, theyre much more fun now and great. Yorick and Taric REALLY NEED a rework, I mean just look at Yorick, noone plays him because he's anti-fun, his abilities are ugly and suck. Great that they rework him. The same goes with Taric, i mean should Riot NOT rework a champion just for the max of 3 main out there who main Taric? No. Taric has the ugliest kit in the game, it doesn't fit ANY, I mean ANY TEAM COMP, he needs a rework badly. The same goes with yorick.

TurquoiseYoshi3/1/2016, 2:16:12 AM1 votes

The problem with your analyses of the Poppy and Sion reworks is that you literally listed everything that was changed. Sion had his Q, E, and AP scalings changed, and his other changed abilities (Passive/Ult) just made him into a ball of stats battler. Poppy's Passive/W/R were changed, and the final changed ability, her Q, was another stat modifier ability rather than a true spell. Honestly, if you're working on either of these champions and thinking of giving them a rework, those abilities were major points of outdatedness in these kits.