Red Post Collection: Xelnath continues Yorick Discussion, Morello on 2v1 Lanes, More from Grumpy Monkey's Art Thread, and Oceania Tid bits!

Continue reading for another installment of Xelnath on Yorick's rework, Morello on 2v1 lanes in high tier play, a slew of new pictures from Grumpy Monkey's Art Thread, and a few tidbits about the Oceania servers!

Xelnath on Yorick continues
( This is a continuing series of developement for Yorick's rework. Check out the rest of the discussion: 1, 2 , 3 )
Xelnath reemerged in the "Let's Talk About Yorick" thread, ready to share another brainstormed Yorick kit.

"Basic Theme: 

Melee Bruiser who also has a lot of adds.

"

When asked if he could whip up something a little more necromancer-y, he replied:

"I can, but so far every time I've tried, this thread explodes with people saying "No, he's not a necromancer and shouldn't proxy-cast spells from his ghouls. He smacks people with his shovel." 

What I am hoping they really just mean "he's not a guy in cloth robes and casts spells and avoiding fighting."

It's unfortunate that people are so attached to him as a top lane bruiser. There's a far, far more rich design and gameplay space when you're not building a fat HP sack who auto-attacks."

Following comments of "Xelnath we already have a lot of bruisers!",  Xelnath elaborted on a new outlook he had gained after discussing things more with Morello.

"Since this thread has grown up into a frenzy, I pulled Morello aside after a meeting and basically threw this question at him. 

"The player base is very split between fighter and necromancer. I am confident I can make an excellent kit for either. What direction should I take? Are we saving the cloth necromancer for another champion?" 

His reply was quite succinct: 

"Yorick is the necromancer champion for League of Legends. I have 50 tanky guys who auto attack. I don't have a guy who uniquely commands minions, provides awesome counterplay and fulfills the fantasy of an undead summoner.

The design space for this direction will be richer. The mechanics will be more fun and the game will be better as a whole for having a cool ghoul-commander champion.

That said, he doesn't have to be a squishy caster. Let him have lots of HP and build AD, but focus the counterplay on avoiding or shutting down his minions." 

This direction is clear, its unique in a way that only Yorick can satisfy (Darius commanding 3 Noxian soldiers is just not as cool as an undead guy with a ghost posse). That said, I do like the "minion rush" ultimate.

I'm going to spend some time thinking more about the kit that best expresses this."

He closed out the discussion with:

"I feel like I have a solid amount of information and direction to work with for now. It will be a very, very long time before you see Yorick on PBE, but this has gotten me off to a good start. 

I'll comment again on Yorick when I have a kit I think is worth gathering up feedback. :)
Thanks guys,

-Xelnath"

Morello on Top Lane and 2v1 Problems
Morello jumped into a forum thread today to discuss a few problems currently affecting melee champions - ranged bruisers top and 2v1 lanes.

"This problem is really being overblown as "melee suck, how could you do so much to ruin melee", when this is a specific set of problems in competitive (Diamond or higher) that are trending currently; 

* Top lane has dominant "ranged bruisers" that are warping it right now. Jayce is the biggest offender, Kennen and Elise not being far behind. This changes the DNA of matchups top lane as long as these champions have lower tradeoffs for their range (I mean, it's not like Draven's going top...). This is a simpler balance issue, though the impact on top lane is pretty high. We'll be fixing this shortly (IE, 3.9). 

* 2v1 in competitive is insanely abusive to pure melee. 2v1 is actually a problem - it invalidates laning phase which (while interesting strategically) really smooshes the champion pool down and removes characters who can be picked for laning strengths. It'd be OK as an occasional gambit or risk, but not as the most effective way to win in the most situations. More on this later.

So we agree that pure melee are weaker in the last two patches. I don't think that equates to a direction (as mentioned in my earlier thread) and surprises me a little that there's Fighter disenfranchisement right now. We're not looking to remove melee characters from lanes."

Elaborating further:

"For 2v1, yes. Statikk is working on something that we want to get out before finals. Details are still being ironed out (it's mostly a complex math problem), and I'm interested in sharing more about this when we have a bit more info"

Even More from Grumpy Monkey's Art Thread
Here's even more concept art pulled from Grumpy Monkey's illustrious art thread - this time for Yi and Lulu! This is quickly becoming one of my favorite threads ( just wait until you see the derpy donut )

"Here are some things that got done for Master Yi, the original paint over that was made on the current model, some super derpy concepts for the Chosen on skin, and the Assassin skin. I am only putting these up to show that in production, the idea and execution are priority. The concept shows the shape, and as for colors we used what was already in game. There was some discussion on assassin Yi, whether we should make him straight black and grey like he is currently or to use the colors that are used in the splash. We chose to use the splash because we don't like using straight black on anything in our game. 

I also found some stuff on Lulu! I worked on her when I first Joined the Champion team. Did you know that her polymorph spell originally turned you into a ladybug?? I know right! I thought it was awesome too. But here's the thing, design wanted something that would give more of an audio queue as to when the spell has taken effect. So we messed around with making her turn you into a pig. Well there were some cultural concerns with that one so we nixed it. I was goofing off one day and pitched a flying pig that farted rainbows, was good for a laugh, but was a no-go.

CaptainLX suggested we play around with woodland creatures, so I started concepting little critters, we eventually settled on a cute little two tailed pink squirrel type creature we called a "Squil" because that's how my daughter said it. Oh and did you know that Lulu used to be called "Waena" in production? I still think its a cute name, and can't remember why we changed it, I think it was hard for some people to pronounce.

Also, for the dark candy skin at one time we where playing with the idea of turning you into a Derpy Donut. Cupcake is way better lol."