Red Post Collection: Relic, Rakkor, and Face of the Mountain

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Xelnath has published a post regarding the Relic Shield, Targon's Brace, and Face of the Mountain support item, previewing some upcoming changes that are being made in order to bring it down in power.

"Hey guys,  

I'm so glad you've all been enjoying the preseason. As we mentioned, we fully expected our changes to dramatically shake up the League of Legends you've known for so long. We're really happy to see people questioning the fundamental preconceptions they've held about league for so long.

That said, we've heard your concerns and we're going to nudge down the Relic Shield lines to free up some more breathing room for experimentation.

Goals:

• Balance Relic Shield to match Spellthief and Ancient Coin incomes

• Reduce the early game sustain of Relic Shield

• Focus Relic Shield's value on melee champions

• Reduce the midgame pushing power of Targon's Brace

Specific Changes:

• Relic Shield's execute will not proc on ranged attacks

• Relic Shield's charge rate will be reduced by 50%.

• Brace of Targon's max charges will be reduced to 3.

We're not removing the doubling up on Relic Shield yet, because we feel that once we've nerfed the frequency, we're hitting both the sustain and income rate for weakly investing in the item. That should let us clear away the early-game smoke and evaluate the impact of 2:1:2 on the game.

How does the income generation really work? 

Every X seconds, you gain the ability to share the kill value of a minion with an ally with a small bonus.

This can effectively be calculated as GP/5: 

30 sec cooldown -> 16 gold minion ~= 5 gp / 10 

As so many players have noted, Ancient Coin and Spellthief's Edge give smaller amounts than this. So our first step is to reduce Relic Shield's income to put it on parity with the other items. The initial item is just too powerful for its cost, because it has a level 2 income stream on a cheaper item.

Now, let's talk about stacking. When you stack, you give 5 gp / 30 or 1 gp / 10 to your ally. This value might be too high and I'm personally keeping an eye on it. However, keep in mind most of the gold you share is still gold your lane mate could have CS'd themselves. 

We also want to reward coordination and skill expression - so we're OK with the fact that if you execute the Cannon minion, you get more than the baseline cash. This is similar to how you can get extra gold from the Frostfang line if you stack auto attacks *and* spells when you harass.

Focusing its identity 

Finally, we're changing the execute proc so it only triggers on melee attacks. This is because we feel good about about Relic Shield and Brace of Targon create for characters who have to place themselves into danger to last hit. This should also reduce the pushing potential of a lane with ranged characters. We feel safer about melee champions having this pushing power because once they are under tower, their ability to harass the opponent is dramatically riskier.

That said, we will be keeping an eye on the evolving nature of the game and want you guys to continue experimenting with the preseason changes. Once we have the Relic Shield nerfs fully tested and vetted, we'll bring them to you guys. 

Jungle vs 2:1:2 

We like that players are experimenting with the game. However, we want to make sure that whatever meta changes occur have clear trade-offs. Once Relic Shield is adjusted, we'll continue comparing jungler and non-jungler comps and make sure that there's a clear reason for doing them. Jungle should bring a distinct, clear advantage and risks, just as 2:1:2 brings its own advantage and risks.

Again, thanks for working with us to understand the preseason. :)"

When asked how a ranged character is intended to make use of the Targon item line, he commented:

"If you want to proc the Spoils of War effect, you will need to CS normally or use a spell to kill a minion."

[ Editor's note: for clarity, the proc will still work if you kill a minion normally - even if the execute doesn't got off ]


When questioned about Targon's procing off of Zac bloblets, Xelnath commented:

"This is being packaged into a "soon" hotfix "

Responding to a comment about Targon's being a prefered support item for Thresh despite his ranked attacks, Xelnath commented:

"We'll keep an eye on thresh, but thresh has his E build-up which means he has better-than-average last hitting capabilities." 

When faced with criticism on the recent 2-1-2 laning set up now that the community has deemed Targon's appropriately strong enough, Xelnath replied:

"I am a jungle main. I don't intend to allow junglers to disappear. A cursory analysis has shown that you get substantially more XP in jungle than sharing a top lane. Similarly, you get very competitive gold and very strong map pressure which forces lanes to play a certain way.

I'm not sure that 2:1:2 is as strong as people perceive it to be. This implies that players may be enjoying this because its new, novel or perhaps has some strengths that we don't clearly understand. Thus, it warrants further analysis, not brutal murder." 

[ Will continue to update as more posts pop up ]