Red Post Collection: Ahri PBE discussion and Comments on Eve's skins & her future VU

This morning's red post collection is short and sweet - it features IronStylus with a few comments on some ideas for the Evelynn VU and ricklessabandon responding to feedback on the current Ahri PBE changes.

Continue reading for more information!

Evelynn Skins and VU talk

When asked if Evelynn has any skins coming down the pipeline, IronStylus commented:

"Eve unfortunately, most likely, not get more skins until we do a VU on her. Her rig is mighty busted and not really fit for a lot of technical work. Same issue with Twitch honestly. Most champions that need VU's need them for the purpose of skins because there's so little to work with currently. If we make a legendary skin we can sometimes go from there due to a rig being updated, but sometimes doing that amount or work might as well be making another champion. A lot of champions that are in dire need of VU's are sort of off limits to skins depending on how outdated their assets are. As soon as that VU is done however, concepting on new skins can begin immediately.

Sorry, it's piling more into that promise of a VU, but it's what has to happen before we can technically do anything with her. It's a logistical and quality matter. Fear not though, I think her VU, when it does happen, will be really satisfying."

When asked if  Evelynn would keep her dance after a VU, he noted:

"What's her dance again? Can't remember off hand. Depends. Again, we only have so many art points in our mastery tree. They have to be allocated to where they will make the most impact with the time and resources we have."

He continued, commenting on what Eve could be:

"Agreed! She could be so much more impactful in the sadistical-kill-you-dead-from-the-shadows feel. Something we'd definitely like to leverage in a VU."

He also speculated about her overall look, saying:

"*Wild speculation time* 

This is just my hunch, due to the current iterations in concept that we're doing, but my guess, as it stands now, is that we'd do a traditional skin for Eve. Her current outfit is just.. nothing. It's pink bondage gear. What does it even mean? Sure, maybe it says sadistic, but it sure doesn't scream to a deeper thematic. She needs a jump-start in my opinion.

I would want to see her occupying a thematic space like Lust from Full Metal Alchemist. A real sadist, possibly touched by something supernatural or corrupted. We could still go that sadistic bondage route, but it would actually mean something if we gave her.. let's say.. a non-grotesque Hellraiser type vibe."

Discussing Ahri's PBE changes

ricklessabandon has put up a big batch of discussion regarding the Ahri changes that are currently testing on the PBE.

"so, relatively big post incoming. given how far behind i've gotten on the thread, it's probably faster to pull posts that seem representative of sentiments i haven't addressed…but this method may read much less coherently since the quotes/replies aren't arranged in any meaningful order. so, apologies for that.

speaking of apologies, sorry about the fairly long delay between me trying to catch up and me finally posting some responses. to keep the excuses to a minimum, "life got in the way" and i'll leave it at that. thanks to those that posted messages via twitter and relayed what little information i gave at the time back here—that was very cool of you. 

anyway, on with the meat of it. i'll consider myself 'caught up' with anything before this post, so if i missed something (which i'm sure i have) then please feel free to bring it up.

Quote:

make it to where a target may only be hit by multiple fox-fire bolts if they are charmed! 

this was actually one of several possible directions back when i first started 'whiteboarding' different ways to go about these changes. i initially liked this idea very much back before anything was implemented, but eventually talked myself out of it. one of the reasons i didn't opt for that direction was that it changes some of the feel/flow from ahri without direct gain. essentially, the new targeting paradigm of that fox-fire wasn't inherently attractive—it was more of a solution than a mechanic that stands on its own. adding doom to charm accomplishes many of the same things, but also retains the same control of fox-fire (needing to be close for guaranteed multi-hit). it also makes charm more integrated with all of ahri's abilities instead of having a special relationship with just one ability, which makes the kit cleaner overall.

Quote:

i'm an ahri main and i want to know why you think spirit rush's multi-target damage dealing is a problem. It's the only change that's unjustified and i think that at the very least, you can at least communicate why this is happening. I just want to hear a legitimate response so i can rest my heart and believe that ahri will be in a good place after the changes.

to be honest, this mostly came down to the numbers being a a little bit too high given everything else the ability does. early on, there were suggestions to hit the missile range or the spell cooldown, but i felt that it was the least disruptive to adjust the damage values. the downside to this is that given the current mechanics of the ability, the fact that ahri can reliably hit a target three times with this ability means that it needs to be balanced as if no dashes are ever wasted (i.e., if ahri chooses to not damage an enemy with a dash, that option would be as/more valuable). the long and short of it is that having a reliable 255 (+105% ap) aoe ultimate would be considered strong if it only did damage—given how flexible the ability is outside of its damage potential, and how cool that flexibility is, it follows that if something were to give here it would be the damage. now, it could be that my exact numbers are off (and i'll adjust accordingly if so), but given the most recent update i'm fairly confident that these numbers are close given the current mechanics.

Quote:

one major concern that has been repeated 9001 times is that making ahri completely dependent on charm doesn't get rid of her assassination potential people cry about and ends up making her 1 dimensional... Far too predictable. 

i'm of the opinion that having 'predictable' patterns is actually very healthy for assassins as that becomes one way for them to outplay their opponents—prey that assumes you follow a set pattern can become vulnerable to variations within that pattern (assuming meaningful variations can be made)—giving assassin patterns ways to create emergent opportunities tends to work toward making their experiences richer. we'll see how it plays out, but my hope is that i've added a bit more of that play to ahri's kit.

Quote:

does foxfire(w) still apply the full spellvamp or it reduced to 33% due to aoe? Since rylais interaction is still the full slow due to the revert. 

foxfire's spell type was reverted to what it is on live, so it gains the full benefits from both rylai's and spell vamp.

Quote:

in other words, if you have no ap, the passive barely does anything at lvl 1.
Imo the base heal should be raised a bit and the scaling dropped a bit. 

while there is a little bit of healing lost here, i think the scenarios in which ahri starts with 0 ap and uses her passive before she hits level 2 are pretty rare—i don't think this will be much of a factor (if at all). if it turns out to be an issue though, one of the benefits of reworking the passive like this is that it can be adjusted to have any values/curve necessary—if the base needs to be higher early and worse late, we can control that with very fine accuracy.

Quote:

i figure that if these changes blow over and she's still a good champion, great. In contrast, if the forecasted ahripocalypse does happen and she's complete trash, riot will probably restore some of her power. 

yes, of course! if these changes end up being too much, it's very easy to adjust. nowhere in my goals did i state i wanted ahri to be swept under the rug.

Quote:

Now she has to build and rely on things like dfg to do any form of noticeable damage, which is horrible if you consider what happens when dfg does get nerfed. Where will that leave ahri? 

ahri's tuning is not being done around exclusively around deathfire grasp—she does very appreciable damage without the item and that's intentional—she is meant to scale off of damage items though, so big-ticket damage items like void staff and the three needlessly large rod items should give her the biggest returns for kill potential. that's more about the nature of mage damage scaling with ap than anything ahri-specific though.

Quote:

it's supposed that these changes are to decrease the damage of her assasin side, but you're hittin more the mage one and strengthening the other. :/

holistically i think that ahri's mage patterns got the better end of the deal—orb of deception is still as good as it always was, and the lower mana cost on fox-fire combined with the scaling on her passive give her a bit more staying power in prolonged fights/sieges. the areas hit the hardest were ahri's ability to fish with charm, and her 'sudden burst' all-in pattern that starts without charm. both of those tend to be tied to ahri's assassin patterns. the point is fairly moot though as the goals of these changes were not to beat down 'assassin ahri' and promote 'mage ahri' (which seems to be a recurring misunderstanding). these changes are more about making those patterns more clear."

If you need a refresher on what the tentative Ahri PBE changes are looking like, here's the current changelist:

"Ahri 

Essence Theft

• Now heals Ahri for (2 + Champion Level) +9% AP each time her passive-enhanced spells hit an enemy (from 35% Spell Vamp) 

Fox-Fire

• Mana cost reduced to 50 (from 60)
• Diminishing returns effect on same-target hits increased to 70% (from 50%) [Best case is now: 100% + 30% + 30%] 

Charm

• Mana cost changed to 85 at all ranks (from 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110)
• Now increases the magic damage Ahri deals to the target by 20% for 4 seconds [Also affects Orb of Deception's true damage] 

Spirit Rush

• Base damage reduced to 70 / 110 / 150 (from 85 / 125 / 165)
• AP ratio reduced to 30% (from 35%)"