Red Post Collection: More on Skarner, VU discussions, Galio being looked at, LCS Promo / Relegation changes, and more.

Riot Scrappy popped in for a quick update on this Skarner changes, which are currently in internal testing.

"Quick update, the new slow on E decreasing over time didn't feel great with skarner's playstyle of keeping up with the target over the long term rather than up front burst damage. Testing a new version where the slow is a constant 40/45/50/55/60 (by level) for 3s. This should be good.

Also, I am going to do some top lane tests and report back with how that goes."

He also added a quick explanation of what his goals are with Skarner's ult:

"I'll add some clarification for the changes to his ult. Right now I'm trying it so that when the ult starts (it has a cast time before the actual grab) it will root the target in place. This disables flash, dashes and other escape spells. If the target cast their escape spell before skarner's ult started, the spell will still go off. This makes it a situation where whoever pulls the trigger first gets the result that they expected. It feels way more reliable in playtesting so far."

IronStylus chattin' about Visual Updates
When asked about the timeline for Sion's visual update and if we can expect it this year, next year, or even farther out than that, IronStylus commented:

"Possibly. As Morello has stated, the gameplay specific changes are the main challenge with Sion. That alone is going to push him back. Blessing in disguise as it gives us time to make his base and his skins really, really good quality." 

As for Sivir getting a traditional skin, he noted:

"Nope. Changes are along the lines/intended theme of the character. The divergance isn't heavy enough to warrant a traditional skin like Trundle, etc."

As for his previous comments that Karthus could use a visual update over Warwick, he elaborated:

"Karthus is relatively low-risk, aside from a lot of cloth animation, but he's an example of low hanging fruit to stagger with our more ambitious relaunches. We need to stagger heavy overhauls with less involved VU's. Too much burnout if we release completely remade characters one after another."

Galio Being Looked At
ricklessabandon had some good news for Galio players - Galio is on the radar for some changes! Here's what he had to saw after a summoner suggested giving Galio the "Ryze treatment" of putting his MR scaling right onto Galio's abilties.

"i'm actually experimenting with something like that currently. galio as he is on live effectively has magic resist ratios on his spells, which gives us the opportunity to do something different/additional with his passive if we think that puts him in a better state overall.

once we start working on the 3.12 patch the pbe might see something from me, but that's far enough into the future that plans could change."

He continued:

"the plan is to look at him as a whole and make sure everything's in a good state, so power can be shifted where appropriate."

Sword of the Divine on Lucian
Sour news for those hoping to drop bombs using Sword of the Divine to massively increase Lucian's ultimate damage ( as it scales on attack speed )! ZenonTheStoic commented that it just ain't gonna happen:

"Sorry to be the party pooper, but I special cased this :( If you activate SOTD before you activate The Culling, the Culling will ignore the extra AS from SOTD. Sorry!

The reason why I had to do this was that if I hadn't, SOTD would become an absolute MUST BUY item for Lucian all of the time, and that would be dull." 

""Dragon should look like it comes from the same fantasy world as Shyvana.

Seriously, their anatomies are completely different. You guys need to decide if dragons in Valoran have two legs or four legs. There is very little consistency in this game's art sometimes"

We actually deliberately try to separate creatures from champions. We want to keep Shyvanna's dragon form unique to Shyvanna. I agree with you about consistancy. From an Environment perspective we are working to create a cohesive look to our maps, and that is going to be a ongoing effort."

""The towers on Howling Abyss are profoundly awesome though -- they should be considered as a basis for a new iteration"

I am glad you liked those towers. We were initially going to add them in a future patch, but one of the artists here felt like Howling abyss would be much better if they were included in the initial shipped level. He busted his butt to get them in and I think the map is much better for it. 

That being said we would not use them as the basis for future towers because they are themed for the story of Howling Abyss. If you look at the towers you will see a lot of details that explain the conflict between the Watchers and the Ice-born. We intend for future towers will be specific to the context in which they will be used.

There have been several posts that focus on speculation about potential future projects. I would prefer that we keep this discussion to feedback on Summoner's Rift. What do you like about the map? What would you like to see changed? If you could change something, what would you change it to be?"

""I would love to see destructible environments, night and day cycles that are noticeable and weather effects like rain, snow and dust storms. Hazardous environments would be cool. And things on the map that act randomly that can push, root and knock up your champ in a non predictable manner. All of which impact game play in some form or another. Like dust storms could limit your view distance as would night. Snow could cause your champ to slide a bit. Lightning that would randomly reveal the fog of war in some parts of the map. Or acid rain that randomly leaves puddles on the ground that could damage you if walked on for a set amount of time"

Great ideas. Some of these have been on our radar for a while. We are trying to find the right application for varient gameplay modes." 

Promo and Relegation Changes for 2014 Season
If you watched last nights LCS games, you may have heard Jatt say that this season only three LCS teams will fall into the promotional tourney and have to play against the top challenger teams to keep their spot on the LCS.

Here's the official announcement, taken from the LOLESPORTS website.

"Before the start of every split, we hold a Promotion Tournament that determines which LCS teams may get relegated out of the league and which challengers win their way in. As we close out the Summer Split, we've decided to reduce the number of LCS teams that fall into the Promotion tournament from four down to three, which increases the importance of the regular season standings. 

The No. 7 and No. 8 teams at the end of Week 9 will be automatically sent to the Promotion Tournament. The remaining third team to fight for its survival in its region will be the team that places last in the NA PAX / EU Gamescom playoffs. 

In order to place yet more emphasis on regular season standings, the LCS teams choose which of the top three Challenger teams they want to face in their matchup. The pick order will be determined by LCS seed, starting with the losing playoff team and ending with the lowest ranked team in the regular standings. The difference between the No. 7 and No. 8 slots in the LCS just got a lot bigger! 

In the Promotion Tournament, six Challengers will enter and play a single elimination match until three remain. Those top three will battle the current LCS pros for their spot in the 2014 Spring Split. Watch lolesports.com for more details as they become available, including which Challengers have qualified and when the tournament will take place."

Reminder: Be on the look out for our new "This week in eSports" post Sunday!