Red Post Collection: More on Rengar, Nome on PBE Dom/TTL item changes, more on SGU!

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More on Rengar
Following up on the Rengar discussion from the last two days, Scarizard dropped off an update before heading to Spain.

"So i'm finishing up packing and heading to bed before my flight in the morning (For those of you who missed the previous post, i'm heading the Spain for the EU Pro Player conference for a couple of days) but wanted to let you guys know about the iteration we just clocked - while i won't be around for playtests on thursday or friday, Wav3break will be tuning numbers and driving it while i'm gone. 

I'll update the original post as well, but the changes look something like: 

Savagery
- Attack Speed reinstated, -slight- buff to %AS, -slight- nerf to base damage. 

Empowered Savagery
- In addition to dealing bonus damage, grants Rengar 3 Ferocity. 

So what does this mean? Basically, Rengar's Empowered Savagery sets him up for a potential Ryze-like spell chain. Feedback from this thread has been that (Triple Q or no), you guys really like stabbing. With this setup, you can Q2 -> Q, W, -> Q2, E. Q ->Q2 again, with a higher degree of Attack Speed than before. I've played around with the changes a bit with a few people and i have to say it looks pretty awesome tbh. You lie in wait, ready for the kill....and then you proceed to maul your target's face off. 

Another cool thing about the 'Q-Train' as Volty calls it, is that you can end the cycle at any point with Empowered Battle Roar or Emp. Bola strike and call it a day, winning trades or flatly disengaging. We still need to see what this does in laning situations, but from i can tell it drastically increases his engagement windows but highly rewards him for 'keeping up' his combos - all while hacking away like a madman. 

I suspect it will be slightly OP with this version, but we can always tune. One idea we had is to slightly lower the damage further of Empowered Savagery, but instead have it apply a debuff making your next Emp. Savagery deal 50% more damage (probably only stacks 3 times?). This option feels unnecessary at -this- point, but can proceed to it if his laning is obnoxious but we like the pattern of Q2. Also drives home a lot of the 'single-target mauling predator' feel if you can single out your prey and make their lives hell. 

Feeling more confident about this version, but everything is always subject to change. Could possibly see Bola's slow% being increased to accomodate Rengar's knifing around if he's having too much trouble gettin' to the folks he needs. Looking into using Battle Roar as a slot to provide a mechanic that helps him survive endgame without making his solo/dueling cases feel unbeatable - some of you guys have suggested a Wukong-like 'Less defense, but stacking with nearby targets' and i'd like to try it and see how it goes. 

Even to those who think i'm not listening - your voices not going unheard. Thanks again for all of your posts, y'all. 

EDIT BECAUSE DOUBLEPOSTING IS TACKY -

Quote:

I think a +movement speed when not visible to enemy team might be a cool perk for the necklace to offer. Kind of along the lines of boots of mobility, but just any time he isn't able to be seen by enemy teams. It'd also open up some strategic counter-ward play.

Catching this before i leave - i think something like this sounds really cool. I know i mentioned earlier that we were looking at +MS% in brush. What do people think about similar version? 

'Rengar gains X movement speed while not visible to the enemy team (or out of combat). This bonus is doubled while Rengar is in brush.' ? 

A lot of the bonetooth ideas specifically have been pretty interesting - Wav3break's heavy lifting is going to be focused on BTN, but i'll make sure to keep passing these along."

Wav3Break also added in:

"Just to buffer Scarizard's post, I am currently tuning the new "Q-Train" destroyer knife cat damage window and I'm not gonna lie, this thing feels freaking awesome to pull off. You will knife more than you ever could and stab peoples faces like no tomorrow. Now time to balance and test it more :P. Again everything is subject to change. 

I would also like to ask some questions: 

How would you guys feel about Bola Strike being a skill shot? 

How would you guys feel about Empowered Bola Strike bringing a little bit more team utility?

P.S. I think Bone Tooth is feeling pretty healthy building out of a Hunter's machete for all of you jungle Rangos out there :).

Continue to give us great ideas guys we will continue to iterate and try our best to make sure Rengar becomes an awesome and healthy character!"

Nome on recent PBE changes for items on DOM / TTL
"The BatNome" has posted up a few comments on the recent Dominion / Twisted Tree Line exclusive item changes on the PBE - including the reworking on Blackfire Torch and removal of NLR from item recipes.

"The idea here is twofold. 

1. Old BFT is being replaced by Liandry's.

2. NLR is a burden to purchase on TT/CS, so we're removing it from the map. This leaves DFG in an awkward position, so we remade BFT to fulfill a similar role at a lesser cost."

He also commented on the addition of the new Moonflair Spellblade item, saying it isn't the only new item coming:

"We're also going to be adding additional TT/CS CDR options as well :) 

This isn't all of it!"

Spirit Guard Udyr discussion
Since it's release last night, several Rioters have taken to the forums to discuss the snazzy new Spirit Guard Udyr skin.

First up is Riot2Mosh, an animator, with a few points on the poses / stances:

"Hey everyone!! 

I just wanted to introduce myself really quickly: I’m Riot2Mosh, I’m an Animator at Riot Games. I worked a bunch on Spirit Guard Udyr. I wanted to give you all an opportunity to ask me (or the team in general) anything that might be on your mind about SGU. 

A bunch of other people worked on him, but I’ll let them jump on the thread as they see fit.
To start off, here is a basic overview of what I was trying to accomplish with SGU from an animation standpoint: 

1) My focus was to give him very unique and powerful poses for each of his forms.

2) I gave each form a general movement thematic:

• Bear “Powerful/Open/Blunt”
• Turtle “Internal/Closed/Snappy”
• Phoenix “Graceful/Circular/Flowing”
• Tiger “Ferocious/Forward/Quick” 

3) We decided we wanted to avoid making him actually act like an animal, so I let various martial arts styles inform the stances. However, it was not the goal to represent any martial arts style specifically. I changed and adjusted things to better fit SGU wherever there was an opportunity. 

For instance: The tiger stance was initially a one legged pose- like a crane stance. The idea at the time was “nimble” but it ended up not feeling right, and the more ferocious animalistic stance that is there now ended up working better. 

4) For animating the spirits themselves, I tried to use them to accent his movements, rather than taking over. This was meant to keep Udyr himself as the star, as he has now conquered his rage and is in full control.

Anyway- I hope you guys enjoy him, he is close to my heart.
Happy gaming!

:-)"

and

"So I can really only speak to animation stuff. I can definitely tell you guys, that from a movement/animation perspective- this was a complete re-imagining of Udyr. If I were to go in with the purpose of doing a VU, I would have gone a completely different route with how he moves.

For me, the base Udyr is all about wild rage and unbridled raw movement. I strove to make SGU the complete opposite: SGU is all about total control and very precise (sometimes borderline graceful) movement. Animation wise, it is almost directly opposing what his base character is. For me, doing a VU on base Udyr would be an entirely different set of challenges- to show complete rage and wildness!"

RiotBamDragon also commented:

"Hey Guys, 

I would like to chime in here. 

SGU is much much more than a VU. Everything was touched and re-crafted to hit the highest quality bar possible. Tons of care into all his forms, combat, and movement. The VFX team did such a great job here, and also put in a lot of time and care. His animation list is BIGGGG.

I will talk to some other Rioters and get you more this.

Riot2Mosh is one of our amazing Senior Animators, and so you can get some great stuff out of him about animation, working on the team, his exp. the ups and downs. things like that. Ill try and help with the rest."

JesterCapp also popped in, answering a few different questions:

[ How long ago did you start working on him ? ]

"SGU as an idea has existed for over a year. That said, everyone involved has been working on tons of other cool stuff... other skins, champs, etc. So in terms of exact man-hours, that'd be hard to say. At some point early in the process we saw the opportunity to push the execution way further and try to raise the quality bar, so that's what we did. :)"

[ How did you rig this one up  and could it be used for a future VU? ]

"This question is right up my ally. Hello, did some of the rigging for SGU along with ironJellyfish. :) Yes, we totally re-did his rig/ skeleton for this skin, and I would say that the new rig is definitely superior. We might re-use parts of it on future things, and we can just strip out bits that don't work for future skins. Unfortunately I couldn't really say specifically regarding a VU, because I simply do not know.

tl; dr - When making skins with heavily re-imagined animations, it is likely we'll often totally re-make the rig to fit with more current standards. "