[UPDATED] Preseason 2016 crests the horizon!

[UPDATE #6: Continuously adding new information, see added sections on itemization changes and the keystone masteries!  ]

Preseason 2016 is right around the corner and large batch of changes are headed to the PBE soon, including oodles of marksman champion & item changes, new keystone masteries, changes to vision and support items, the introduction of the Rift Herald, and more!
Continue reading to check out the dev blog on all the upcoming changes!

Table of Contents

• Announcement
• Discussion
• Rift Herald:
• Marksman Changes:
• Caitlyn
• Corki
• Graves
• Kog'Maw
• Miss Fortune
• Quinn
• Vision Changes:
• Itemization Changes:
• Keystone Masteries:
• Other

ANNOUNCEMENT:

Here's Pwyff with full details on what to expect in the upcoming 2016 preseason - "Preseason 2016 crests the horizon":

"Welcome to Preseason 2016. We’re trying to keep the conversation low-key for now with the Worlds final right around the corner but, with a pile of changes hitting the PBE soon, we wanted to get ahead with our gameplay goals for this preseason. After Worlds, you’ll hear more from other teams at Riot -with more than just gameplay! - but we’ll keep this focused on what changes will be hitting the PBE for this preseason and the upcoming 2016 season. 

Let’s talk seasonal goals! 

You may have already seen our early work with the ability power itemization changes in patch 5.13 to the juggernaut update in 5.16, but our goal for 2016 is to make each game of League of Legends feel unique. From the different champion strengths you bring, to the items you take to battle, all the way to the masteries you choose - we want your decisions to matter and have a clear impact on how each game plays out. 

That said, this preseason we’re focusing on... 

Updating Marksmen 

Through the years, marksmen have lacked meaningful differences, with their identities typically centered on the same thing: do lots of damage from range. In cases like these, if you’re being judged on only one competition (damage), you get a pretty obvious power ranking with no real roster depth. 

Our goal is similar to our work with juggernauts, where we targeted a group of champions (in this case six marksmen - Corki, Miss Fortune, Graves, Caitlyn, Kog’Maw, and Quinn) who occupied similar strategic spaces, and gave them a little more ‘uniqueness.’ We’re doing this in two ways: how the marksman plays, and how the team plays with them. For the first, since marksmen are so concerned with their basic attacks we want to make sure each feels different. Should you have brought that shotgun to a javelin battle? Maybe! For the second approach, we want to really push the breadth of what a marksman offers. Much like how you pick Ashe for global stuns, or Sivir for when you gotta go fast, or Miss Fortune when you need some wombo for your combo, we want teams to think different based on who’s joining the fray. 

Marksmen Itemization 

Hand-in-hand with the updates for marksmen, we’re bringing some deep changes to marksmen items like we did with ability power purchases and juggernaut gear. 

When we first tackled AP items, we wanted to accommodate the mages who blow up squishies while also offering equal opportunities for those who control the battlefield. When it comes to attack damage items, however, marksmen will always be focused on what lets them deal the most damage at any given point in time. Knowing this, we're offering more options when it comes to who (or what) you want to fight, and how you contribute to your team through that choice. So whether you want to be a lone gunman, dueling on the edge of the fight, or the nimble spellcaster, or the siege machine and tower crusher, we’re providing you with the right items to buy so you can take out the right targets. 

Keystone Masteries 

We’re updating the mastery system to offer focused, high-impact choices rather than a slew of nuanced micro-math optimizations. Each mastery tree will have three tiers. Each successive tier you invest in, you’ll be able to pick up some stats and a choice of one of three potential masteries (you can only choose one!). Tier 1 masteries will be nice to have (but not game-changing), tier 2s will have a decent amount of strength, but tier 3s - we’re calling them “Keystone masteries” - will be the ones that really augment your playstyle. We’re still experimenting in this space, but an example would be a keystone mastery that lets your damaging abilities also bleed enemy champions for a portion of your bonus AD and AP over time. Or one that grants a movement speed boost the moment you deal a large chunk of damage to an enemy champion. 

By condensing power into clear decision points, the masteries you take from game to game should have an impact on your playstyle, and we want to offer multiple mastery paths for most champions in League. 

Vision & Support Items 

Two seasons ago we did a major revamp of the vision system by introducing sightstones, trinkets, and ward limits. This season, we’re adding more options for those about to ward up (also: we salute you). Our goal with vision is two-fold: first, we want to keep pushing the vision game as a team effort and, second, we want to make vision more dynamic than days past. 

For that first goal, we’re doing things like free trinket upgrades for all, along with the option for tier 2 support items to upgrade into either powerful tier 3 active items or slot-efficient sightstone upgrades. 

For the second goal, we’re removing Stealth Wards from the shop so teams will need to rely more heavily on their pink (and blue trinket!) wards to get the vision control they need. In tandem with this change, however, we’re also adding a new feature in ward ‘debris’ when a ward passes on. By giving you the ability to see the dead bodies of wards who’ve moved on with their lives, you’ll be able to learn more about your opponent’s vision habits as well as your own. 

Starting Items 

In-hand with our goal to offer a diverse preseason, we decided to take a gander at starting items. When there are standard starting item builds for every game of League, the end result is these builds tend to benefit (very slightly) certain champions over others. We’re taking a different approach this preseason by offering more clear opening ‘paths’ so that players can refine their playstyles with real choices, rather than just opting for a generally powerful start. You’ll see these changes reflected in two sets of items: starting power items, and sustain. 

For items you’re bringing to lane, we’re using the Doran’s set (blade, ring, and shield) as a baseline “generalist” group that provide all the broad stats you want. From there, we expanded your options to provide a few more ‘specialized’ approaches, like Cull - a light skirmishing AD starting item that provides less defensive stats than Doran’s Blade, but gives bonus gold for killing a set number of minions. 

As for sustain items: we first started with health and mana potions. Health pots are going up in price to better position them as a purchase for those who just need some sustain to get them past the early game. Any form of long-term sustain we folded into the refillable potions (and their subsequent upgrades) to really solidify their identity (because before, it was… flask and potions to be a ‘sustain’ build). Mana potions, on the other hand, are being removed. Our decision to remove mana pots goes along the same philosophy as starting items. 100 mana tends to benefit certain types of champions over others (with mana costs being balanced against individual champion kits) and can wildly shift from being a mediocre purchase to a very cost-efficient one. By removing mana pots, we can better balance champion ability costs with the mana regeneration stat while also streamlining the ‘sustain game’ of League.

The Rift Herald 

It’s no secret that players who depart for the top lane can end up feeling isolated without a dragon to contest. Rather than just flipping the map on its head, we’re exploring ways to bring some relevancy to the north so top laners can feel like they're interacting with their team before the 15 minute mark. 

Details are still being sussed out, but expect to meet something new on Summoner’s Rift in the early phases of the game. Defeat it, and gain single target buff focused on early game power and pushing down the lane.

Wrapping Up... 

We’ve got a few more changes on the way, but the above are some of our big gameplay plans for this preseason! That said, we’re not going to stop the conversation here. We’ll keep you updated on our progress while also sharing more of our long-term vision, so stay tuned after the World Finals for more on the preseason and 2016 season!"

DISCUSSION

Here's a TON of additional posts on the upcoming preseason changes. I'll keeping adding these in from both the boards and reddit!

Rift Herald:

When asked about the inspiration for the Rift Herald, Jag explained:

"The story behind it is that a Scuttle Crab wandered into Baron's Pit and was warped by the Void. It looks totally badass and I'm blown away by what the artists did here. :)"

Here's Jag with a PBE feedback thread for Rift Herald:

""Hey guys, Rift Herald is coming out and I wanted to fill in some of the details of what's going on here. 

• Location/timing:
• Spawns at the Baron Pit
• First appears at 4:00
• Respawns every 5 minutes
• Despawns at 19:45 unless in combat; hard despawns at 19:55 no matter what
• Encounter details:
• Melee-only attacker - but hits pretty hard. Need to be able to take a punch to tank RH.
• The Eye will occasionally open, exposing RH to bonus damage on attacks from behind equal to 12% of RH's Max HP as True Damage.
• Takes 35% less damage from ranged Autoattacks.
• Reward details:
• 50 global gold to everyone on the killing team
• Drops "Doom's Eve" buff to the killer:
• 10% increase to all Damage (except True Damage) and 40 bonus MS
• Enhanced Baron Recall
• Enhances nearby minions offensive power, same as Baron buff, with an additional attack speed increase. Does NOT increase their defensive power (don't worry, you won't have to deal with last-hitting Baron buffed minions in lane)

We'll be dropping a Dev Blog explaining some more of the intent behind putting RH in the game, but any and all types of feedback are fair game here. Thanks everyone!"

Marksman Changes:

Here's  Scruffy with an overview list of the big notes for each marksman change -

"Yea this is a great question. Here's the high level points for each: 

Caitlyn

• The zone control marksmen (traps are on a charge system now)
• New play feel with headshot combos (trap and E trigger a guaranteed headshot on the target)

Miss Fortune

• The wombo combo marksmen (ult scaling way better, can crit)
• New play feel with impure shots replaced with "love tap" new passive that gives bonus damage when swapping targets (this works well with Q)

Kog'Maw

• The true glass cannon hyper carry (tons of dmg needs protection)
• W now doubles ALL attack speed and allows him to break the attack speed cap (but ad is lowered to 60%)

Corki

• Magic damage marksmen -> passive now does big magic damage instead of true and all spells now do magic damage
• New mechanic: Special Delivery -> every ~5m in the game corki gets a special set of bombs in his base that allow him to cast a super mega W with much bigger range and impact

Quinn

• The map mobility/roaming marksmen
• R reworked as a utility focused spell -> 0 cooldown and gives quinn crazy out of combat speed to quickly move around the map, not used for assassination anymore

Graves

• We finally made his shotgun a shotgun -> up close burst damage marksmen
• Basic attacks fire multiple buckshots in a cone -> more damage up clost
• Q reworked to synergize better with the new basic attacks"

Reinboom also added in:

"There's smaller scope changes to most Marksmen."

For more information, check out this  thread for a SPECIFIC list of changes for marksman other than Caitlyn, Corki, Graves, Kog'maw, Miss Fortune, and Quinn.


Here's Repertoir with a HUGE preseason change list for marksman receiving smaller changes:

"Hi all, 

By now, you probably know we're giving small gameplay updates to Quinn, Kog'Maw, Miss Fortune, Corki, Graves, and Caitlyn. That said, we're also doing small changes to quite a few other marksmen that aim to establish/sharpen their identities. For these characters, please do leave your PBE feedback here. There's a lot of marksmen change going on here, and we're interested in your thoughts, so if you have an opinion, don't hesitate to voice it! 

Changes:
Ashe

• Change Goals
• Allow Ashe to interact with chance-based crit events in a way that doesn't compromise her recently-new passive's steady damage output.
• Follow up the changes made to Ranger's Focus (Q) earlier this year to make the spell a more interesting, engaging part of her pattern.
• P - Frost Shot
• Base slow reduced 5/11/17/23/29/35% >>> 5/9/13/17/21/25%
• Dealing bonus damage via Frost Shot no longer counts as a Critical Strike (bonus damage unchanged)
• Ashe’s Critical Strikes (which once again happen only by chance per all other characters) deal only 1.0 Total AD (as opposed to 2.0 standard), but they apply Frost Shot’s slow at double effectiveness (10/18/26/34/42/50%), decaying to the base amount over the duration of the slow
• Q - Ranger's Focus
• Slow amplification removed
• Can no longer be cast at less than 5 stacks, and passive Focus no longer stacks while the active component is running
• Passive no longer stacks with Volley and Enchanted Crystal Arrow
• Cooldown removed

Draven

• Change Goals
• Make axe-catching gameplay flow smoother, especially later in the game.
• Base Stats
• Attack frame improved by 30%
• Attack Speed per level reduced to 1.5 from 2.7
• Basic attack missile speed reduced to 1600 from 1700

Ezreal

• Change Goals
• Build upon Ezreal's affinity for CDR-centric spellcasting item builds.
• Q - Mystic Shot
• Cooldown reducing effect increased 1.0 >>> 1.5 seconds
• Cooldown increased 6.0/5.5/5.0/4.5/4.0 >>> 6.5/6.0/5.5/5.0/4.5
• E - Arcane Shift
• Cooldown increased at later ranks 19/17/15/13/11 >>> 19.0/17.5/16.0/14.5/13.0

Jinx

• Change Goals
• Playing up what it means to Get Excited! as a path to success through a teamfight.
• Slowing down Rockets' Attack Speed so there's some tradeoff she incurs more of a tradeoff with that weapon.
• P - Get Excited!
• Can now chain together and stack, increasing Total Attack Speed by 15% per stack (Movement Speed portion does not stack)
• Duration increased 4 >>> 6
• Q - Switcheroo!
• Jinx now has -15% Total Attack Speed while using Fishbones, the Rocket Launcher

Kalista

• Change Goals
• Increasing Kalista's affinity for Attack Speed.
• Experimental dash scaling changes that help attack flow and reduce overall power from jumping.
• Base Stats
• Base AS increased 0.658 -> 0.694
• AS per level reduced 3.3% -> 2.8%
• P - Martial Poise
• Jump distance scales with boot tier (as live), jump speed now only scales with AS/Slows (is slower early game but scales up).

Lucian

• Change Goals
• Open up non Attack Speed based item builds, and make The Culling's damage output feel more consistently meaningful throughout the game.
• R - The Culling
• No longer scales with Attack Speed
• Now fires 20/25/30 bullets based on rank

Sivir

• Change Goals
• Increasing Sivir’s affinity for CDR, bringing us back closer to the late game dream of “Ricochet all the time”.
• Base Stats
• Base Attack Speed reduced 0.66 >>> 0.625
• W - Ricochet
• Cooldown now begins on spell cast rather than when the attack buff expires
• Cooldown increased 9/8/7/6/5 seconds >>> 12/10.5/9/7.5/6
• Attack buff duration reduced 6 >>> 4

Tristana

• Change Goals
• Begin to shift Trist away from late game clean-up hyper carry to more of an all-in AD caster.
• Empower mid game all-in strength while stripping some power from late game sustained dps.
• Clean up of minor cooldown returning mechanics in favor of more impactful Rocket Jump resets.
• Q - Rapid Fire
• No longer reduces [E] CD on hit while active
• Attacking [E] Target no longer reduces [Q] CD on hit.
• CD 20s -> 20 / 19 / 18 / 17 / 16s
• W - Rocket Jump
• Dmg Rescaled 80 / 105 / 130 / 155 / 180 -> 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260
• No longer deals increased damage per [E] stack
• Now also resets on Max stack [E] Detonation on Champions
• E - Explosive Charge
• Now detonates instantly on 4th stack (max stacks). Bomb Animation shifted to represent this.
• Tristana’s abilities also add [E] stacks.
• Missile Speed 1800 -> 2400

Twitch

• Change Goals
• Pushing Twitch a bit farther in the direction of the “marksman assassin” by adding an out to his assassination attempts via Ambush reset.
• Q - Ambush
• Added: Cooldown resets when an enemy champion affected by Deadly Venom dies
• Quality of Life Buff: Entering stealth now cancels Twitch's current auto attack order
• R - Rat-Ta-Tat-Tat
• Buff Duration reduced 7 >>> 5
• Quality of Life Buff: casting Rat-Ta-Tat-Tat during Q's stealth no longer cancels stealth
• Cost 100/125/150 >>> 100 all ranks

Urgot

• Change Goals
• Restore Urgot R's defensive steroid function later in the game so that he doesn't get wrecked so hard by all the percent penetration floating around out there.
• R - Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser
• No longer adds 60/90/120 Armor/MR
• Now adds 30/40/50% Damage Reduction

Varus

• Change Goals
• Make R zoning more obvious and powerful.
• Shift R damage from initial hit to Blight procs.
• R - Chain of Corruption
• Now displays max Spread Range to Varus and Enemies if it is spreading to at least one enemy champion.
• Rooted targets gain 3 stacks of [W] Blight over the duration of the root.
• Damage 150 / 250 / 350 -> 100 / 175 / 250

Vayne

• Change Goals
• Silver Bolts is about expected time to kill on all targets (not squishy bursting), and Vayne's path to success needs to come through Silver Bolts.
• Base Stats
• AD/lvl reduced 2.66 >>> 1.66
• W - Silver Bolts
• Flat Damage removed
• Percent Health Damage increased 4/5/6/7/8% >>> 6/7.5/9/10.5/12%
• Minimum damage introduced at 40/60/80/100/120 flat damage

This is probably a lot to process. Feel free to give feedback on as much or as little as you like. Focusing specifically on "Is this a good direction?" would be great. We're pretty open to change on the above stuff. 

Cheers, 

Repertoir"

Here's CertainlyT with a PBE changelist thread for Caitlyn:

"Hey guys, 

This thread is to discuss Caitlyn's changes with the upcoming season. They should be on PBE tomorrow (Oct. 29). As a preview, I'll summarize the changes and why we are doing them. 

Major Changes:
Base stats
All marksmen have received some base stat adjustments; Caitlyn is no exception.
Caitlyn's auto-attacks scale 10% less well with bonus attack speed. 

P
1. Caitlyn's Headshot now scales in damage with her Crit Chance (so at 50% crit chance, it deals +100% damage).
2. Caitlyn can fire a double-range Headshot at targets she has trapped or netted by auto-attacking them. This is independent from her normal Headshot. 

Q
Piltover Peacemaker's missile is now narrow, but blooms into its old wide self on first target hit. Damage up by about 20% on the first hit, but falls off harder on the follow up hits. 

W
1. Traps are now on an ammo system with a very short cooldown but longer recharge time, allowing Caitlyn to quickly set up a fortress of traps but then leaving her without traps for a much longer time if pushed away from them.
2. Traps no longer deal damage -- instead, they interact with your passive. 

E
Cooldown unchanged, but we drained some power and reliability from this spell to make room for power elsewhere. The net missile is a bit narrow, shorter, slower, and deals less damage. Now interacts with your passive. 

R is unchanged 

Why are we trying these changes? We think Caitlyn is in a good spot balance and play pattern-wise, but she isn't perfect. 

1. Caitlyn’s play pattern is enjoyable, but indistinct. Let’s give the Caitlyn player more things they can master that someone familiar with marksmen generally won’t immediately pick up. Let's do that while still making her about her auto-attack.
2. Caitlyn tends to feel either endlessly oppressive or inconsequential. Let’s enhance her laning phase strengths (dominance and fast pushing), but create some meaningful win conditions for the opponent that involve not just outlasting but actively disrupting that plan.
3. Caitlyn has at times been the safe sieger and at times been the blood boil hypercarry. Let’s give her a clearer late-game identity from peer marksmen, focused on zone control to make her the premiere sieger.
4. As always, let's enhance our champion's thematic identity, in this case Caitlyn as sharpshooter."

Scruffy on the new Corki mega W cast:

"When he picks up "The package" he gets a homeguard like buff to help him find a fight/gank. 

The "special delivery" (the mega W cast) is basically this:

• 3x range of normal Valkyrie
• Has a knockaside when it hits enemies
• Damage zone is way more dangerous + it has a slow
• Normal W is put on 0 cooldown after he casts it (to let him reposition)

So this ability is best used to separate a team fight or trap enemies in bad positions."

Here's CertainlyT with a PBE changes thread for GRAVES:

"Hey guys, Graves is getting some big changes this patch and we're eager to get your feedback on the current direction. Here's a summary of the major changes: 

Base Stats
Attack range reduced to 425
Graves' base stats have been adjusted to be similar to a melee champion 

P -- New "Destiny"
1. Graves’ attack is a cone of 4 bullets whose AD ratio scales up by 33% over game time. The first bullet does 0.75-1.1 tAD (by level); extra bullets deal 33% of that. Each bullet can apply On Hit Effects, but only once per target. Graves’ crits fire more bullets (8 normally, 10 with Infinity Edge), empowering him at close range to burst a target and long range to deal AoE damage.
2. Graves stores two bullets at any time. After using them, he must reload. Reload has a longer delay and is reduced only slightly by attack speed. Graves’ time between attacks otherwise is reduced dramatically by attack speed.
4. Unlike other basic attacks, Graves’ bullets hit the first unit they collide with. 

Q - New "End of the Line"
Graves' basic attack is extremely potent, but he needed a tool to keep ranged opponents from running straight away from him and melee from running straight at him. This is where Graves' new Q, End of the Line shines:
Fires a powder round, dealing low damage in a line before landing on the ground
After ~1 second, this will detonate, dealing high damage along the line from which it fired and in both directions perpendicular to that line.
If the powder round strikes a wall, this detonation is immediate\ 

W
Smoke Screen is an extremely powerful ability. It's hard to appreciate that power partially because you cannot know how much vision it's actually restricting.

• Enemies inside Smoke Screen cannot see out, for any reason.
• Cooldown increased (20/19/18/17/16 >> 26/24/22/20/18).
• Now only slows briefly on impact. 

E
Graves needs a lot more defenses to function at the 200-400 range window he now occupies. Quickdraw now gives True Grit's bonus on cast. If you can stretch a fight out, you can stack True Grit up to pretty monumental proportions, making Graves king in long, messy skirmishes.

• No longer grants AS. Instead, resets Graves’ AA and gives him 1 shell.
• Now grants True Grit (Armor/MR) for 4 seconds. This bonus is extended by striking a non-minion with a basic attack and can be stacked if sustained long enough to reactivate E.
• Speaking of reactivating E -- E’s cooldown is reduced by less from autoattacks, but each bullet can trigger this effect. 

R
With a closer range pattern, Graves was getting into a lot of sticky situations. To help him deal with that, Collateral Damage now knocks Graves back substantially, creating a potential escape spell for Graves in exigent circumstances. Offensively it incentivizes “execute” usage over Live's more fire-and-forget R. 

What's the point of all these changes? 

Graves wields an epic-size shotgun. He should feel like he is a classic shotgun figure, with particular emphasis on devastating close range damage. 

Graves has struggled for years with being either strictly better or strictly worse than his peer marksmen (Lucian and Corki, for example). Instead of trying to push Graves and Lucian apart, we decided to flesh out Graves' character fantasy to such an extent that he would never feel like a different version of another champion. 

Strategically, Graves is empowered against close range opponents, particularly beefy divers who want to get up close and personal with him. He's effective at neutralizing them at the cost of sometimes struggling to output sustained damage against flighty longer range opponents. This makes him the perfect marksman for your team when the enemy _will _engage on you due to having better initiation tools than you have disengage."

Scruffy on Graves new basic attacks:

"It works in the same way that is Q does on live. The closer you are to the target, the more projectiles will hit them = more dmg."

Here's Repertoir with a PBE changelist for Kog'maw:

"Hi all, 

With marksmen changes hitting PBE soon, I wanted to get a thread up to discuss changes to Kog'Maw that are coming in the big preseason patch. Kog'Maw's changes are pretty simple and straightforward, and they aim to further emphasize some of the main things we've always known and love about him. Namely, we want him to really shine in support-heavy team comps, and we want him to feel like a really juicy target for opponents. This won't be line-by-line changes like you'd see in the patch notes, but rather summaries of the bigger changes going on here. 

Changes:

• Bio-Arcane Barrage (W) has been changed to make Kog'Maw some kind of vomit-spewing machine gun while it is active.
• While W is active, Kog'Maw attacks twice as fast, and his Attack Speed cap is doubled to 5 attacks per second.
• While W is active, basic attacks deal reduced physical damage, but apply on-hit effects at full effect.
• During this time, Kog'Maw attacks so fast that attack-moving efficiently becomes incredibly difficult, so choose a time when you don't need to move much, and go to town.
• Living Artillery (R) has been repurposed to be less powerful in the average poke case, but very threatening as an execution tool.
• Living Artillery's base damage and ratios have been adjusted, and it no longer deals increased base damage to champions.
• Living Artillery now deals double damage to enemies at 25%-50% current Health, and triple damage to enemies below 25% Health
• Various other changes/thoughts:
• Base Attack Speed stats and Q's passive Attack Speed have been adjusted so he is more dependent upon maxing both his Q and W to really approach his full damage potential.
• For those wondering, AP Kog'Maw will play a bit differently than before, but we believe it to be of about equal power to before.

Those are the main changes. If you get a chance to play Kog'Maw, please do let me know how it goes by replying to this thread. I'll be popping in pretty regularly while Kog is on PBE to monitor his progress and see how players are feeling about him. 

Cheers, 

Dcap"

Scruffy on Miss Fortune R changes for preseason:

"TLDR on what we did with her R to make it relevant at all stages of the game:

• It now has an AD ratio (we actually already put that in an earlier patch)
• Each rank up of the ult now shoots more/faster waves
• Each ult wave can now crit (based on her crit chance) the entire wave will either crit or not

Side note, impure shots (the W passive) will be removed and is replaced with a new auto attack passive."

When asked aabout Strut, Statikk noted:

"Strut will work similarly to how it did before. It's still a passive but it only activates once you get at least 1 rank in W and the amount of Movement Speed it gives is based on W rank."

He continued on W, mentioning:

"Her W active does have an interaction with Love Tap that I didn't mention. 

Her W active is now much stronger but lasts for a shorter duration. Love Taps while the W is active cause the duration to extend potentially infinitely (but not practically - at some point everything is dead =D). 

Her W active still fully activates Strut's Passive just like it does now."

"Hi guys, 

With preseason hitting the PBE shortly and Quinn being one of the six main marksmen getting an update, I wanted to put up a post to gather feedback on her changes for her time on the PBE before release. Rather than a long line-by-line changelist on the PBE, you'll instead find the main changes going on in Quinn's update in the body of the thread, not necessarily in P,Q,W,E,R order. 

Changes: 

• Tag Team (R) has been heavily repurposed into a strategic map mobility tool:
• Tag Team's visuals have been changed from Quinn leaving the game space to Valor flying Quinn around beneath her.
• Tag Team now has a 2-second channel at its start, and no longer has combat spells or basic attacks.
• Tag Team now has no cooldown, and its Movement Speed bonus is now very dramatic.
• Skystrike has been retained, but deals less damage and does not deal increased damage based on targets' missing Health.
• Blinding Assault (Q) has been repurposed (and renamed) into more of a waveclearing tool and less of a dueling tool:
• Q's name has been changed to Aerial Assault, because... the spell no longer blinds.
• Aerial Assault now marks its primary target as Vulnerable (passive mark).
• Aerial Assault now does up to double damage based on targets' missing Health.
• Half of Aerial Assault's cooldown is refunded if it kills at least one enemy.
• Various other changes:
• Harrier (P) attacks now deal a percentage of Quinn's total AD rather than a base and bonus AD ratio.
• Vault (E) has had its dash speed increased, and it should now more reliably return you along the vector you dashed in on.

The above changes are the main ones that should most dramatically change the way Quinn plays following her update. Please feel free to give feedback on any of the above stuff, and do let me know if anything feels off about the character in ways you wouldn't expect given the above information. I did quite a bit of script cleanup on her, so I want to make sure I didn't change the feel of things in ways I didn't intend. 

Thanks all, 

Repertoir"

"We are aiming for her to be optimal as a mid laner, since we feel that this is where Tag Team becomes most interesting/valuable for her team. 

 I know this will be quite a departure for players that played her mostly top lane, but we are hoping you still get to do more of the Quinn stuff you enjoyed doing from top lane in mid lane, except for some of the fighter bullying."

On Lucian changes, Reinboom noted:

"He'll be benefiting a LOT from the item changes."

Axes added:

"He has some light changes to his kit. The bigger thing he's getting is a couple of items that are very nearly perfect on him - I think he's going to be in a good spot come preseason. If he's not, we'll adjust, of course.

Scruffy also added:

"We have some smaller changes in for lucian focused around his ult. The amount of bullets fired will scale up with ult rank now instead of attack speed. It gives him a lot more dps reliability from the spell if he wants to focus on AD or triforce builds."

Meddler on Twitch:

"There'll be a bunch of smaller changes to marksmen other than the 6 listed in preseason as well. In Twitch's case we're looking at a CD reset on his Q when a champion affected by his passive dies plus some clean up around stealth (entering stealth now cancels current attack orders to avoid immediate screwage, R breaks stealth on attack launch instead of when the spell's first pressed, giving a bit less response time). 

On top of that there are also some significant item changes to marksmen items coming too, some of which should be pretty appealing on Twitch (Ghostblade changes for example that include it gaining increased AD)."

Vision Changes:

When asked if trinkets and sightstone still exist for green wards, Axes noted:

"Correct. Sightstone still exists (and has more upgrade paths), yellow trinket still exists, but you can't just spend 75 gold for a one-shot stealth ward anymore." 

As for other vision changes, Pwyff noted:

"You'll see a few changes to support this rather than a raw "strip wards out." Pink wards, for example, are getting cheaper, trinkets automatically upgrade, and sweeper has some new functionality. We'll have more details next week!

edit: Big one: Yellow trinket starts with 2 wards automatically." 

Fearless also added:

"We have a lot more changes to the vision game that we haven't revealed yet. Short story is that we're giving the jungle a few more ways to opt into the vision game, which allows junglers a greater ability to actively augment and control vision. That being said, the prevalence of pink wards, along with their cost reduction, will have an impact on stealth junglers especially. We'll be watching our sneaky friends closely."

As for the updated blue trinket, Pwyff noted:

"TL;DR in this current iteration it drops a permanent 1hp visible vision ward (like a Pink but no stealth reveal) with a massive range. I believe the wards are off the cap, so technically if you drop them on cooldown in random places..."

Itemization Changes

[NOTE: Several folks are reporting new items popping up in match history! Check 'em out here and here.]

When asked for a quick overview of the AD itemization changes, Reinboom shared:

"Sure. 

Infinity Edge is slightly weaker now (little less AD), we shifted power elsewhere so it's less automatic and so that we could add cooler things to the Marksman space. 

Essence Reaver scales its CDR off of your critical strike chance so that it works as a big core item (think IE space). It can now give upwards of +30% CDR. 

Phantom Dancer does stuff other than just be straight up damage. Bonus movement speed while near your opponents and you take last damage from the last champion you hit. Isolate and kill people, basically. 

Rapid Firecannon charges up like Shiv, but when charged instead of prepping you for the thunder, increases your attack range and gives you a fiery hit at the end. 

Shiv does even more damage versus minions. It's specialized further into being the bursty clearing tool. 

Hurricane now crits and the bolts crit. Also movement speed. It's in the PD / Shiv space now, so it should be an option for more Marksman. 

Executioner's Calling is back, but it's a bit different and cheaper. Also it's a component item. It builds into something new. 

Last Whisper is now a component item. It builds into new things. 

There's something called Giant Slayer. It hurts health dudes. 

Merc scimitar has Lifesteal, you should feel comfortable taking it over BT. 

Death's Dance exist. It has something like Lifesteal but better. Also it "delays" damage.
And tons of changes all over the place. This is just some of the marks targeted ones."

Reinboom on Runaans:

"Should be much more valid. 

Hurricane now gives MS + Crit and the bolts can crit. It's not damaging your normal damage scaling by taking it anymore."

Reinboom on Essense Reaver:

"If ER isn't bought over IE on who we made it for, then we'll adjust ER up. 

Currently it's actually been very scary in testing. Essence Reaver now scales up its cooldown reduction with other items.\ 

For example...
Essence Reaver + Zeal = +30% Cooldown 

We want Essence Reaver to be your definitive Marksman caster item."

Meddler on Sightstone build paths and mixing them with tier 2 support items:

"Tier 2 support item + Sightstone = an upgraded Sightstone with upgraded stats from both component items. 

E.g. Frost Fang + Sightstone combine into 'Eye of the Watchers' which has the Sightstone ward active, the Tribute passive and gives Health/AP/GP10/Mana Regen."

For the names, Xypherous added:

Eye of the Oasis = Nomad's Medallion + Sightstone. 

Eye of the Watchers = Frostfang + Sightstone. 

Eye of the Equinox = Targon's Brace + Sightstone. 

Hope that clears it up for you.

Meddler on  Last Whisper now being a component item:

"Last Whisper's now cheaper, can upgrade into a couple of different options, and works against bonus Armor instead of total Armor."

Xypherous noting C. Flask will still replenish mana:

"Flask will still replenish Mana. 

Since Flask is a permanent item that is fairly high cost - it's closer to buying a sapphire crystal than a cheap consumable potion.

He continued:

"The Flask will remain - though it's been heavily heavily altered. Provides Health and Mana... and may or may not set your opponents on fire when you hit them. 

On the downside, you can't stack regular health potions with it anymore - as that combination was a nightmare to balance and really prevented us from having Flask starts be tolerable."

As for champions who find themselves in need of mana posts, Pwyff noted:

"Xypherous is running point on this change, but he's also gone through all champions who rely on mana pots to be functional and has buffed either their base mana regen or their base mana pool. In the future we can also keep a firmer grasp on mana gating and/or champions whose costs are just too damn high."

Xypherous also commented you now start at 500 gold and starting item costs have been adjusted:

"Both. 

Starting gold is now 500. Starting items have had their costs readjusted. 

I... may need to figure out some better tank starting options. It's just hard to make them good without them becoming automatically default. :x"

Meddler also commented on CULL, a new starting item:

"One of the new starting items, Cull, is taking the place of Avarice Blade as the farming/auto attacking gold item. Other components are being swapped into the recipes Avarice Blade was in. 

Cull's a 450g item that gives 5 AD, 3 life on auto attack hit, 1 bonus gold per CS until 100 CS. At 100 CS you gain a bonus 300g and that passive then shuts off."

Axes added:

"Cull doesn't build into anything - it's a starting item similar to Doran's Blade. Both Ghostblade and Statikk Shiv have new build paths."

Meddler alsao commented on a new jungle item - Hunter's Talisman:

"Junglers will have a few options. Starting gold's 500, Hunter's Machete costs 350g (as does Hunter's Talisman, an alternate jungle starting item that gives mana and health regen instead of damage on hit and lifesteal). That then leaves 150g which is enough for either 3 health pots or the new mini flask. That's got 2 charges, each of which restores 100 health, at a cost of 150g. It upgrades (combine cost 250g) into a bigger refillable potion called Hunter's Potion, that holds 5 charges of 60 health/35 mana and gains a charge whenever you kill a large jungle monster."

Keystone Masteries:

[NOTE: Click here for a look at datamined strings for the preseason masteries!]

Gypsylord with another example of a  Keystone Mastery:

"Sure I'll give you my favorite >:) 

Thunderlord's Decree 

Your 3rd attack or spell on an enemy champion shocks the area around them, dealing 10 damage per level plus 20% of your Bonus Attack Damage and 10% of your Ability Power as Magic damage to enemies in the area (30 second cooldown)."

Meddler added on with discussion on the goals of the mastery changes:

"Our goal with the mastery changes has been to keep the total amount of power in the new mastery system roughly equivalent to the old system. The big change though is that a lot of that power will be concentrated into just a couple of masteries per player. That means that instead of 30 mastery points, each with generally equal power, you'll have a few masteries that contribute a lot of power in noticeable ways and a lot of masteries that are smaller stat effects. Thunderlord's Decree's a Tier 3 mastery for example, which means that each player will only ever have one of them (new trees go up to 18 points, with 3 options of Tier 3 mastery per tree, of which you can only take one)."

Meddler on Defensive options for Keystone Masteries:

"We've got some stuff in there that should be pretty appealing on champions looking for defensive options as well. An example of an end tier mastery from the more defensively focused tree: 

"Strength of Ages 

Killing a Siege Minion or large monsters increases maximum health by 20 and 8 respectively, up to 250 health. After reaching 250 bonus health, heal for 100 health when a nearby siege minion dies.""

Redditor molenzwiebel has managed to pull the keystone masteries from the Riot API, here they are:

[NOTE: SOME OF THE VALUES MAY  BE OFF OR OLD INFORMATION, READ WITH CAUTION]

Grasp of the Undying (1 rank):

• Rank 1: Every 4 seconds in combat your next attack against an enemy champion steals life equal to 3% of your max Health (halved for ranged champions).

Strength of the Ages (1 rank):

• Rank 1: Large monsters and siege minions that you or nearby allies kill grant you 25 and 10 permanent Health respectively (300 max). After reaching the max bonus further siege minion kills restore 100 Health.

Bond of Stone (1 rank):

• Rank 1: +4% Damage Reduction. While near an ally this bonus is doubled and 8% of the damage they would take from champions is dealt to you instead (cannot reduce you below 15% Health).

Stormraider's Surge (1 rank):

• Rank 1: Dealing 30% of a champion's max Health within 2 seconds grants you 35% Movement Speed for 3 seconds (10 second cooldown).

Thunderlord's Decree (1 rank):

• Rank 1: Your 3rd attack or spell on an enemy champion shocks the area around them, dealing 10 damage per level plus 20% of your Bonus Attack Damage and 10% of your Ability Power as Magic damage to enemies in the area (30 second cooldown).

Windspeaker's Blessing (1 rank):

• Rank 1: Your heals and shields are 10% stronger. Additionally, your shields and heals increase your target's resistances by 15% for 3 seconds when used on an ally other than yourself.

Warlord's Bloodlust (1 rank):

• Rank 1: Critical strikes heal for 15% of the damage dealt and grant you 20% attack speed for 4 seconds (2 second cooldown).

Fervor of Battle (1 rank):

• Rank 1: Your basic attacks and spells grant you a stack of Fervor for 5 seconds (max 10 stacks). Each stack of Fervor adds 1-8 bonus physical damage to your basic attacks against champions, based on your level.

Deathfire Touch (1 rank):

• Rank 1: Your damaging abilities cause enemy champions to take 6 + 50% of your Bonus Attack Damage and 20% of your Ability Power in Magic damage over 3 seconds (Area of effect and damage over time abilities apply half of this damage over 1.5 seconds instead).

There is also a new utility mastery deep in the tree that increases the maximum CDR cap by 1/2/3/4/5% (so to 41/42/43/44/45% total) and cgrants 1/2/3/4/5% cdr.

Other

RiotXypherous noting jungle monster damage tuned down a bit:

"Yeah - Jungle monster initial damage came down a bit - both to compensate from the changes to defensive masteries and some adjustments to starting items."