Red Post Collection: Update on Sivir's VU, Discussion on PBE SV changes, Yi's Wuju Style Particles, and more!

Big red post collection, coming in hot!
Continue reading for a big batch of posts concerning the progress of Sivir's visual update, another set of posts regarding other champion visual updates, Xypherous chatting on the PBE Spirit Visage changes and his thoughts on Barrier, tell of "not yet on the PBE" Wuju Style particles for Master Yi's visual update, and confirmation of more Dominion specific nerfs for Kassadin.

Sivir's VU making progress
IronStylus swooped into the forums to share an update on what's going on with Sivir's future visual update.

"BEGIN HEAVY DISCLAIMERS ABOUT TIMELINES, EXPECTATIONS and FEATURES! 

Good progress has been made. Her base is currently modeled, textured and being animated. Particle work is also progressing. This does not mean there's a timeline for release, but this is the stage we're at. Once the base is mostly done, her skins will be implemented. Those hi-rez models however are complete and awaiting low-rez conversion and retopo. After that they'll get rigged and go in for animation. 

I will say this much: From what we've been seeing so far, I'm extremely impressed with what the team has made. She feels like the same character, but with massively updated aesthetics, though we've significantly added fidelity and new flavors into her. Animations especially. They go miles in terms of reinforcing the character and generally just making for a beautiful product. She feels like a single character where before she was open to a thousand interpretations.

(She's also super sexy now in a warrior princess sorta way)"

When asked if new Sivir has more clothes on compared to her current state, IronStylus commented:

"Eh, I guess slightly more, but it's more like she now has garment where boots and stuff just ended. Better material transitions is really a better way to describe it.

The important fact is that she still has sexy, sexy midriff."

Elaborating more on the midriff

"Yes. Not hyper-chiseled, but sexy lady abs of strongness. "

On her color scheme, he commented:

"Similar, but not nearly as obnoxious. This is very subject to change though. We looked at her in game today and saw she was pretty warm, and might needed some complimentary colors in her texture. It's about what works best for the game at this point, not preserving what was iconic for bad reasons."

As for her weapon, he noted:

"Her boomerang is properly epic and no longer feels it's made of cardboard like she's actually a lady in Sivir cosplay."

Continuing:

"Boomerang is golden with steel edging at the moment. "

When asked how her spell shield is looking, he mentioned:

"It looks great. Feels more tied into the weapon as being a possible source for the shield."

On her run animation:

" She no longer strides. She runs like a badass."

Moving on to Sivir's skins, IronStylus noted:

"All skins are rebuilt from the ground up. Everything is new."

On Warrior Princess and Wonder Women Sivir, he mentioned:

"Both are looking hot. Grumpy Monkey made sure of that."

As for Bandit Sivir:

"Bandit Sivir will be the first 3D asset I've ever worked on to make it into the game :D

It's been my first try at digital sculpting!"

When asked if Pax Sivir was still "SUPER COOL", he noted:

"Personal opinion?

Cooler."

As for ability and kit changes, he commented:

"Small QoL changes I think, but nothing major. Mostly a VU."

Non Sivir Visual Update Stuff
In this bundle of red posts, IronStylus briefly discussed the status of a few visual updates for champions that aren't Sivir.

On Sion's future visual update, IronStylus teased just a hint of an update:

"When I left work Sion's concept was on my screen. 

'cuz I was working on it. 

Cool?"

He also mentioned that Taric and Mordekaiser were "on the list" for visual updates.

As for this mysterious list, he shared his thoughts on who needs what done visually

"Well, you can probably assume a lot of what's on "The List", as most people have guessed, and what would mostly be true, are such low fidelity champions as: 

Sivir, Sion, Twitch, Kassadin, Taric, Eve, Karthus, Singed, etc. 

Those are all agreed to be pretty lacking in execution and have been brought up many times in the community. That's not including "reworks of opportunity" and other changing variables. That also doesn't represent priority, just what we think we can wrap around our head for now. NO TIMELINES ARE PRESENT!

Secondary champions, no where near to planned, but are some the team have expressed and interest in updating, are characters such as: 

Alistar, Blitz, Cho'Gath, Corki, Heimerdinger, Malzahar, Ryze, Nasus, Viegar, etc. 

Then there's my personal hit-list, champions I feel could use anything from a good coat of paint to a complete overhaul and forwarding of their story through VU: 

Caitlyn, Irelia, Jarvan, Morgana, Leona, Quinn, etc. 

We could go on forever, and eventually just do them all, but those are the main ones that stick out in my mind. AGAIN! No promises! This is a lot of what we'd like to do. It all depends on circumstances, bandwidth, and resources."

When questioned about Mordekaiser communicating his in-game nature through his appearance, IronStylus lamented:

"That's actually the inherent problem with some of our older champions. Does Mord look like a mage? Not really.. Does Amumu look like a tank? Eh.. So, when doing relaunches we have to keep this in mind. Unfortunately there's not a ton of reconciliation that we can do when things are that awry from the start. Sure. We can take Sion and still keep him a brute, but it's hard to de-emphasize or re-emphasize a look in relation to a role when a character is so concretely established."

When probed about a potential Kassadin visual update, he commented:

"On the list. Though, damn.. does he ever need one. LUCKILLY! ChaosEidolon, one of our newest 3D artist is a HUGE Kassadin player and may have done his version of a remade Kassadin for his entry portfolio.

Maybe he'll be willing to jump on it eventually ;)"

Xypherous on Spirit Visage / Banshee's Veil / Spectre's Cowl
If you've been keeping up with the PBE, you already know that Spirit Visage is undergoing some changes - it's stats and price have been increased and it now builds out of a new item called Spectre's Cowl. Similarly, Banshee's Veil also now builds out of SC.

Here is Xypherous discussing the whole line of changes, both SV and SC, and noting that the numbers are still in flux.

"It won't go to live with the current numbers. Already hitting the efficiency by hitting the recipe cost by another 125. 

The whole Cowl / Visage / Banshee line needs some more hammering on at the moment - but the goal is to make the clearest possible magic counter item while being the least harmful to burst casters.

Of course, any MR buff / clarity in general will hurt burst casters - but what hurts burst casters the least while still fulfilling the core MR options. We'll have to find some niche that BV can fulfill outside of the SS - because whenever just the shield passive is good on BV, our game is generally terrible. Trying out crazy amplified anti-poke based regeneration at the moment - maybe we'll just have to go complete ham on that portion of the passive and reduce the heatlh / mr part of it."

This conversation lead way to another conversation on Burst Mages vs Sustained mages, leading to Xypherous commenting on the current ideology behind burst mages.

"Probably not with their current end-game patterns. We've long since turned away from 'We burst absolutely anyone and you have no response or reaction' from being desirable gameplay in late game. 

It's kind of a harsh truth - but that's just not a realistic fantasy we can deliver. It's just not good gameplay to expect to faceroll and instantly murder someone before they have a chance to react late game. Early ganks, this might be possible as there's a ton of counterplay in anticipating whether someone will jump out and murder you - but with large scale teamfights and fights being inevitable, that pattern just doesn't fly. If we make tuning in the lines of increasing burst damage - something has to give in terms of letting to enemy react and interact in the late game where fights cannot be avoided.
For example of the above pattern, DFG could have a fixed travel time of 1 second and 1000 range. Then we might actually be able to make DFG a keystone burst damage item because it now has both telegraphing and opens the way for the opponent to take some sort of defensive action before he will get blenderized by Burst.

Essentially - if you give the opponent appropriate counterplay options, you get to have more power. If the opponent has zero counterplay options, you don't get to have high power. Uncounterable quick burst is an example of the opponent having little time to react so it's going to stay weak unless we change things such that opponents can actually avoid being bursted."

When asked if the Banshee's Veil changes were intended to be a nerf to Ryze, Xypherous commented:

"Ryze doesn't even get BV as part of his core build at the moment in the high end. 

Actually, there's so many decent Mana items that Ryze hardly even gets BV until late. :P

I highly doubt it'll actually put a dent into his power level. If we wanted to hit Ryze, removing Mana from items won't get us there."

Xypherous on Barrier.
Spawning from the above discussion, Xypherous also shared a few points about the summoner spell barrier:

"As an tangent, I do kind of wish Barrier had a few more intricacies. Right now Barrier feels kind of like an artificial skill test, in that you could write a fairly trivial script to determine when to Barrier. Not sure if that's a fair analogy though - as you could make that argument about shields and the fact that Barrier's CD is long enough to perhaps make it a strategic level choice."

Continuing

"Quote:

Part of the reason why Barrier is taken so often is because it intrinsically makes sense for AD carries (and sometimes AP carries like Orianna and Lux) to take it due to the nature of their mid-lategame. AD carries ideally have no issue dealing more damage to finish off enemies, therefore they do not require ignite, and in many cases, it is inefficient for them to use ignite because it forces them into a range that is lower than their attack range. A plausible nerf would be to reduce its duration to 1.5 seconds, making it the same as Shen's Feint.

Completely agreed that this is why you take Barrier. I just wish it was a more interesting skill to use or had some sort of neat side utility. 

If you think about what should make a decent Summoner Spell - ideally, the profile of the spell should have a strong gameplay foundation, strong use cases and versatile enough to be used in a variety of situations. Ignite and Exhaust are two of the most focused spells - but they still have at least two distinct use cases - though admittedly these use cases sometimes overlap.

Most of my thoughts on Barrier is not whether it's powerful but whether it's interesting - because intuitively - I feel like Summoner Spells should strike a better balance of power vs. flexibility than some other spells."

Responding to a few summoner questions / ideas:

"Quote:

When barrier is broken your allies get shielded for half the amount?

Unsure of this specific effect - but having procs trigger on the shield being broken would certainly give Fighters and Tanks a reason to run into a fight with Barrier.
Borderlands 2 has a lot of really neat shield effects - it's just that most of them are suited more for PvE than PvP. :P

Quote:

Perhaps change it so that its base cooldown is higher, but the cooldown is partially refreshed if the shield is completely broken.

This makes Barrier more powerful - I wonder if it makes it more flexible though, since the use case still seems to be 'Block as much damage as possible with this' - though there is more play around Barrier which could make it more interesting to use / fight against.
Contrast that with the above, which is 'Man, maybe it's a good idea to take unnecessary damage because the benefits of breaking the shield might be worth more.' 

Not that either of those are ideal solutions - it's just interesting thoughts to have - because at the end of the day, I guess my main feeling is that pure shields are kind of boring - but that could just be the end result of running around with a Mechromancer + Black Hole. XD"

Master Yi's Wuju Style Particles
In response to a few comments that the Master Yi's updated particles for Wuju style "don't feel satisfying", Ququroon mentioned that Riot Dudebro has some sword swipe particles that haven't made it to the PBE yet.

"Would you believe that part of the particle is actually missing? RiotDudeBro made these REALLY AWESOME sword swipe particles for each level of Wuju (None, Yellow, Blue). What you're seeing on PBE right now is just what Inactive Wuju (No AD) looks like.

That should really help with the wow factor on it, and I think it makes it much more satisfying. Keep an eye out for that (trying to get it in for tonight), and let me know if your opinion changes any!"

Riot Dudebro later commented on this, saying:

"Yeah, I wanted to clean up the current Wuju vfx as well as let players know which Wuju stance you are in. I made different swipes for each stance for clarity in teamfight. its new tech which is why I didn't make it on top PBE."

More Dominion Specific Kassadin Nerfs Coming
While Kassadin received a few Crystal Scar specific nerfs in patch 3.9, ManWolfAxeBoss has noted that more are on the way.

"Again, these nerfs are just a start. Kassadin needs more and will get more.

There will be more extensive changes as players get acclimated to map specific balancing."

Similarly 

"We've stated a few times that we're starting very light. We know this isn't enough to get Kassadin in line, but that will come."