Red Post Collection: Xerath Rework, Scruffy on Skarner Rework, Meddler on Ziggs nerfs & Kog'Maw's Q, More on future S4 rune changes, and more!

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Recent News

• Three New January Flex Bundles
• Lunar Revel on the Horizon
• 1/15 PBE Update: Xerath Rework and new VFX, Skarner rework returns, and more!

Xerath Rework is back on the PBE

Here's what ZenonTheStoic had to say about it on the PBE community: 

"Summoners!
We've got the Xerath kit update (with some minor visual updates) back on PBE for you. Here's the TL;DR: 

Q is now a Vi/Varus style channel while moving spell with great range 

W is now a circle AOE spell with what we refer to as a "sweetspot" mechanic (think Leona's ultimate)--additional damage and slow in center 

E is now a skillshot stun 

R is now full on siege mode: immobilize yourself to shoot three super long range missiles. 

-- 

What we're particularly looking for in terms of feedback: 

• Does the ultimate feel good for Xerath and for his enemy? Is it overly stressful to try and dodge it?
• Does Xerath ever hold shots in his ultimate or does he always fire them off rapid-fire?
• How safe is Xerath in lane?
• And finally, what about Xerath in odd positions? Jungle Xerath? Support Xerath? Go crazy! (but don't troll your fellow testers) 

Thanks very much for your feedback! 

To pre-empt some of the more common comments we see on these threads, here's a quick Q&A: 

Does this come with a full visual update? 

Xerath is getting a kit overhaul, focused on bringing his mechanics up to modern standards of what is fun in LoL. There is a low level of visual support, mainly particles (VFX), but this is NOT a full visual update. 

Why remake Xerath anyway? He's perfectly fine and I'm currently on a 23 game winning spree in Diamond I. 

Sorry George, but this remake is not aimed at pure power. Also, when we talk about how fun a champion is to play, we're not just talking about how fun it is to play as the champion, but also how fun it is to play against that champion. Take Morgana. Dodging Dark Bindings in lane is fun. Positioning behind minions so you're save from them is fun. At the same time, landing that clutch binding is super fun for Morgana. Fun for everyone! Yay! Now, Xerath: putting an E mark on a dude and bursting him to kingdom come from outside of his vision is tons of fun for Xerath once the Xerath player has achieved the level of mastery that allows him to survive and farm to the point where he can do this. For the enemy? Not so much. 

This is the core concept of counterplay, which we think is crucial to the success of our game. Champions that take away your ability to act in the game make the game worse in the long run, even if they're super fun to play. 

Why don't you remake X, Y, or Z instead? 

Trust me, we have a very long list of champions we want to update eventually. Sion, Poppy, Yorick... We're getting to them one at a time. Xelnath had a couple of great ideas for Xerath and felt very strongly about the champion. When he moved over to helping with the vision and support gold changes for the 2014 season, I took over Xerath and gave it that last 5% of polish. There's lots of work on similar reworks going on (Skarner being one of them) and you'll see them as soon as they're ready. 

Thanks again!"

He continued, adding in some pictures for the sake of those interested in the ranges and ratios/number:

"I uploaded some pictures for your viewing pleasure: 

http://goo.gl/pHrhvy 

This is Xerath at level 11, 100 AP, all skills at rank 1. The three minimap screenshots are his ulti range at rank 1/2/3."

He also elaborated on why the ult now casts again on hotkey press instead of clicking:

"We went back and forth a lot on the cast paradigm for R but found in the end that with the current paradigm we had considerably fewer accidental cancels at all levels of skill, and that's the big overriding argument for me. Maybe for those who master it it feels better to left/right click to shoot, but if players who are new to Xerath accidentally cancel their ult the first three times they use it, they won't play Xerath again."

Zenon also shared a few points on Xerath's new ult, including the travel time:

"The R missile has a fixed travel time of 0.5s, which is also the reload time of the spell. The instant a missile hits the ground you can fire your next shot."

and on the sort of vision it grants

"It grants vision of a 500 radius bubble at the target location of each of your three shots when you fire off the shot. The vision only lasts very briefly. 

So no, it basically doesn't. Deep warding and having your team spot for you becomes super important."

Skarner Rework back on PBE

"Hey all! The Skarner rework is up on the PBE in preparation for his release. I'll keep the changes up to date here, and we really would appreciate all of your testing feedback. 

Base Attack speed lowered by 1% 

Q
-When target is hit, applies an attack speed buff for 5s that stacks up to 3 times for 8/10/12/14/16%
-Slow removed from Q (moved to E)
W 

-Cooldown lowered from 18s to 16s
-Attack speed component removed
-Max movepseed increased to 20/24/28/32/36 and ramps up over 3s
-Duration remains at 6s
-Shield value increased from 70/115/160/205/250 to 80/135/190/245/300
-Shield AP ratio increased from 0.6 to 0.8 

E
-Mana cost reduced from 50/55/60/65/70 to 40/45/50/55/60
-Cooldown increased from 10s to 14s
-Heal removed
-Targets hit are slowed by 30/35/40/45/50 for 2.5s
-Missile range increased 800->1000
-Missile width reduced 120->60
-Missile speed lowered 1800->1600 

R
-Impale now roots targeted champion during the windup animation
-VO for “feel my sting” etc will happen on successful grab instead of cast start
-Scruffy"

Meddler on Ziggs Nerfs

Meddler swung back by the forums to give a heads up on some Ziggs nerfs that are up for testing - increased Q mana cost and changing his mines back to dealing reduced damage to minions on subsequent hits.

"We'll be testing some alternate versions over the next week or so, starting with having the mines deal reduced damage to minions again on subsequent hits and raising the Q mana cost at low ranks instead of the Q/E ratio nerfs. That may clash a bit with the niche we'd been aiming for for Ziggs of strong siege/counter siege, we'd like to test whether the other recent changes (Q cast style, mine explosion radius, ult damage to minions) were enough to support that by themselves however. If so removing some of the farming power the E offers at present might be a good way to bring him in line. It's possible that the amount of damage a fed Ziggs currently deals, relative to a poorly performing Ziggs, may be appropriate if there's a bit more of a challenge to get that farmed in the first place.

As with my earlier post this stuff's still subject to change as we keep testing. The previous changes, or something different again, might prove to be the best way of accomplishing our goals r.e. bringing Ziggs' down a bit."

These two changes are now on the PBE for testing as of the 1/15 PBE update.

Meddler on Kog'Maw Q

As you may have noticed, Kog'Maw's Q is now a skill shot as of the 1/15 PBE update.
Meddler popped up on reddit to discuss the change a bit:

"Q as a skillshot can be given a longer range, meaning it fits well with the sort of distance Kog generally wants to be at when auto attacking using his W. Current Q by contrast requires you to get much closer than a W empowered auto attack, making it hard to weave in without compromising your position and potentially losing some auto attack time."

He continued:

"Gives you the opportunity to get a bit of safer harass or pick up CS at a safer range without having to use your E. Does mean you lose out on a bit of reliability in closer fights admittedly. My personal feeling is it's a small buff, will be great to get PBE feedback on it from a bigger pool of players than we've got internally though."

He also commented on the width of the spell, saying:

"The width on the targeting indicator on PBE is currently wrong, our bad. The actual missile itself has a width of 60. That's the same width as Mystic Shot to give you a point of reference r.e. ease of threading between units."

Name Changes for IP option permanent for now

WizardCrab commented today that , for the time being, the option to purchase summer name changes for IP are here to say!

"Name change will remain for the time being. We are testing it out though. We're also researching ways for players such as yourself to spend the IP hoards they've gathered. But any solution is still a long way off. I know that's not terribly satisfying, but we are looking into it."

Statikk Shiv Change not in 4.1

Now that patch 4.1 is here, CertainlyT commented that the Statikk Shiv change he mentioned - that Statikk Shiv rolls for it's crit twice - didn't make it into the patch.

"Statikk Shiv was not changed this patch, though it likely will be soon. We did change Yasuo's Statikk Shiv crits to receive the appropriate -10% damage modifier."

Rune Changes In S4

ricklessabandon has popped into another thread to comment on the upcoming changes to runes, noting a tentative time frame for their arrival:

"yes, and the plan is still to make changes. we'll talk about details (and reasons for it being a bit out of sync with the preseason) soon. i think that'll be done for 4.3 judging by the current trajectory."

He continued, commenting on what would happen to owners of runes should be thy be deleted:

"this is also not correct. we've stated before that if we decide to delete any runes, and owners of said runes would be refunded (similar to what we did with dodge runes)."

When asked if one should buy runes now or wait until the changes happen, ricklessabandon commented:

"honestly, it depends on why you currently want to unlock them. if you want to do it because you feel you have to if you want to play adc, then you might want to wait until we post more details. if you want to do it because you play champions that benefit from life steal and/or your preferred playstyle benefits from life steal (e.g., you like farming in prolonged laning phases), then you should be fine. 

the tl;dr on stuff like this is that ideally specific runes shouldn't feel like they're required, so we want to take steps to alleviate that feeling where it exists. 

the easiest example is armor seals—it's a very common sentiment that everyone must run tier 3 armor seals as soon as they're able to, so we're looking at options such as buffing other seals, increasing champion base armor across the board, and nerfing armor seals (or a combination of all of the above). armor seals should still feed good and useful, but it would be nice to have the option to take something else and not feel like you were throwing the game at champ select. that's pretty much all that's going on.

in any case, if you're sitting on a pile of ip, thinking about buying runes, and apprehensive about not knowing more about the changes, we'll have details out in february. apologies for not being able to go more in depth than that for now—thanks for your patience thus far."

Morello on Diana

Morello also shared a few thoughts on Diana's problems, saying:

"I tend to agree with the statement "Q is a skillshot, and therefore you can lean on that for a lot of the healthy gameplay interactions in lane." To me, though, it needs to be slowed down a fair amount to actually function that way - right now, it's a "skill shot," not a skillshot :) 

Diana has a few other issues overall, but if you make Q less reliable, you can make her decent again.

I'd also like to stop having her be an assassin OR stop having her have durability. These together is silly, and she should choose one (I tend to favor durability for thematic reasons alone)."

He continued, noting Diana's intended role of being a durable bruiser:

"That was the intent, but somehow (I'm actually trying to remember!) Diana ended up as an assassin mid. I honestly can't recall what happened to get us there.

I know the VFX on the Q are technically really fragile though, so changing the speed has been difficult for us - I'll reopen the discussion."

Email Verification up on EUNE, LAN, LAS

Following the original announcement a few days ago, it seems email verification is now up on EUNE, LAS, and LAN!

See these links for more info!

• EUNE
• LAS
• LAN