This morning's red post collection features Xypherous with a heads up on numerous itemization changes that are planned for patch 4.3 and will be hitting the PBE soon, Riot Scruffy with more on the Skarner Rework follow through, info on a new LoL Starter Pack Bundle that's now available in the shop, Meddler commenting on a bug with untargetability effects, and more!
[ Update ] Continued 4.3 Itemization changes discussion
Xypherous returned to his thread on the tentative 4.3 itemization changes that will be hitting the PBE soon, answering a ton of questions and responding to feedback in the thread.I've tried to separate and organize the feedback by item / category so it's easier to digest.
Feedback to Consider
"Going to catch a couple hours of sleep as I've been stalking this thread for around 12 hours now~.
Thus far on, based on your feedback, the list of issues that I have to address next week are:
Curious ones to dig through that need more explanation:
- Doran's Shield - Hp/5 Adjustments, potentially to 6 or 7
- Tier 1 Targon - HP/5 Adjustments, most likely oversimplified
- Tier 2 Spellthief - Readjust stats to make room for Ability Power on the item
- Tier 2 Coin - Gold generation relative to the other items needs to be re-evaluated
- Tier 3 Spellthief - Potential end-item stat efficiency adjustments
- Ruby Sightstone - Greater slot efficiency for complete items
Discussion points I'll have with my team are:
- Multiple nerf perceptions/comments on gold items without pointing to specifics
Good night. Keep leaving comments, I'll be intermittently checking on this thread over ze weekend."
- Closer examination of usage rates and data points around Boots of Lucidity.
Goal of Support Item Changes
Xypherous commented on the items in general, noting that these changes are aimed at cleaning up the tier 1 and tier 2 as the tier 3 actives are much more messy:
There are other problems with the current gold generation items / support itemization lines but evaluating the scope of that change seems to imply that it's probably a larger scope project. I highly doubt that these items will be purchased in parity (and it's probably unrealistic to expect them to be purchased in parity).
That said, this cleanup is intended to smooth out the other routes, rather than trying to perfect parity. I don't actually think aiming for parity is necessarily a realistic goal, as Coin is more universal than either Targons or Edge's playstyles.
That said, you're looking solely at the end result of the items. This is more focused on cleaning up the Tier 1 and Tier 2 of the items themselves.
I know the Tier 3's are horribly unfavorably stacked against each other - but that's kind of a known issue with the core system itself. They kind of always will be. However, attempting to resolve that with any force in this system would probably entail making something really dangerously OP or gutting an item that is probably okay without other major changes."He also replied to someone suggesting the coin line is too powerful because it has the old Shurelia's Reverie active and that the active might be better suited on an item junglers have access too:
"Quote: You need to either buff those two to obscene levels, nerf talisman to the ground, or just bring back Shurelia's and change Talisman's active. I know making it a support only item screwed over a lot of junglers that needed that move speed to gank, like Skarner."
"I know. There are severe issues with this current system. This step isi ntended for cleanup only and to better streamline the mini-games/items. I don't think for an instant that this will solve the underlying problem with the system - but removing Reverie from the equation necessitates some other fundamental changes which would be a much larger project."
Boots
When asked to give more context on the changes to Boots of Mobility and Boots of Lucidity, Xypherous commented:
Boots of Mobility
Boots of Mobility has always sat at the edge of overpowered/unhealthy. Additionally, the price point that it sits on heavily favors one Jungler being far behind the other. In that, somewhat slower Junglers who cannot afford mobility is costing his team dramatically in terms of sheer presence and roam potential.
The changes are intended to give an actual tradeoff for the jungler with full-map presence. There is almost no combat advantage that is bigger than outnumbering someone 3 to 2 or 2 to 1, for example.
Conversely, for the support player, Boots of Mobility allow players to reach areas of the map with experience and gold gain. This again means that any support who can take advantage of Boots of Mobility should certainly do so, as no amount of boot statistics can really compete with levels and assist gold.
Given this, we could nerf the boots by raising their cost - but that only partially solves some of the problems. So this approach instead tries to opt for real trade-offs and some counterplay opportunities from the opponent.
You will suffer the loss of some combat-mobility in exchange for a greater map presence but there is a larger window in the game where if you rush Boots of Mobility and your opponent has not upgraded because of the gap in boot prices, you can capitalize on that window.
It also subtly encourages you to build some form of %MS with the item - Not only would %MS items bring you back up to par in terms of combat mobility, but %MS synergizes fantasically with the large flat movement speed increase on it. (We've been poking around at better supporting some generic movement options in items as well)
Boots of Lucidity
This one isn't so wall of texty. They're not really useful in terms of players actually using them.
When they are bought, we're not particularly happy about who is buying them and why they are
doing so. Also not particularly happy with the state of 5%'s in the world due to the granularity of our mastery/rune structure.
There's some rationale behind making cheaper boots and enabling some early enchantment strategies - but that benefit will mostly come after doing a pass on enchantment costs.He also commented on the feeling of boots eing "slot inefficient", saying:
"I think the thinking behind boots being slot inefficient is essentially that if they're required in every game, then they're not truly slot inefficient. If something was truly slot inefficient - you'd opt to skip the item entirely.
The price of flat Movement Speed is artificially low because of the needs of the game (Map Size needs to shrink over time for better game flow) - not because of their actual combat effectiveness versus gold ratio. It's also why there isn't some hypothetical Boots 2 that is only 600 gold and 45 movement speed for example.
Following up on your point directly - since boots are generically available to anyone - it's kind of the default way to make sure things are available to anyone - but without any kind of control over who gets it, the statistics you get from boots are generally pricier than if you get it from any other source, minus ones that already lock you into a class.
You balance the boots for the class that is most likely to benefit from it - to the detriment of everyone else, because if you don't, you've just locked the class that most benefits from it into that specific boot. That's not to say that our boots are doing well - but if we wanted variety on boots, it'd be easier to go and make the MPen on boots non-stackable with Haunting Guise or something and then create some other items that have the mobility or tenacity passives.
There's probably a hole in that logic somewhere (it's late, forgive me.) but I'm unsure turning the boots slot into yet another slot to get more stats is a good way to go about 'creating variety' in boots. More likely, you simply lock every champion into the boots with the stats they want - superficially, they have different appearing but they all really just have some random +stat item wedged into their boots.
It's true that you could create variety by inserting new and unique passives - but you could do that just as easily by removing the statistics from boots entirely - you don't need to jump through the hurdle of adding a bunch of superflous stats to do so."
Spellthief Line Discussion
Expanding on the lack of AP on the Spellthief 's line and summoner concerns this is a damage reduction, he commented:
"At tier 2, the proc adds 90 damage over a minute. With 20 AP, you will need to hit 4.5 AP ratio. For Lulu, this is anywhere from 4 to 6 Pix/Glitterlance combos, depending on how many targets you hit with lances.
Realistically, this is not a net damage loss in most cases. However, it is true that it is a net trade loss if you factor in the loss of absorption from shields/alternative sources. That starts looking more like a valid argument - which does point to Tier 2 Spellthief's needing another stat pass like I've mentioned earlier."He continued:
" Quote: While you might get more or equal damage from the additional damage effect, you gain no bonus on your heals/shields"Many people have indirectly hinted at this - but you're the first one to do it directly that I've seen.
There's some other various concerns with non-typed AP buying it that I agree the next iteration should probably try to figure out how to get some amount of AP back onto the item, even at the cost of the damage proc on the item."
He also commented on some scrapped ideas for Spellthief's Edge, saying:
"We tried Spellthief's Edge with mana restoration at some point. It's basically a feast or famine scenario when Mana Restoration is tied to the proc itself. If you are able to hit spells, you can hit more spells. However, if you can't hit spells, you lose out on the spell and mana for more spells.
The item was much more binary that I would've liked it to be considering that it's already fairly binary to begin with."
Face of the Mountain Active Changes
As for the changes to Face of the Mountain's active's DAMAGE ( not shield ) scaling off of the target's attack damage, he commented:
"While that's true - the main purpose of Targon's is to shield a target, not to inflict burst damage around them. If the desire for damage overcomes the desire to shield or save an ally then for all intents and purposes the item isn't doing its job and clearly needs more shielding and less damage in terms of overall functionality.
That said, enough people have suggested the AP idea - which I suspect will mean that if I add the AP scaling, people will then ask for hybrid scaling. Worth trying out duo scaling I suppose."He continued:
"As you and several others have brought up - this is most likely true. We want to avoid Face of the Mountain's active being optimal to cast on a Tank if at all possible. That leads to some terrible pre-cook burst damage scenarios that the health cost was trying to keep out.
And then everyone bitterly hated the health cost approach to it."
He continued, elaborating further on FotM Active:
"More of a desire to avoid the item simply being a 400 damage self-nuke.
Targon's current active has the problem of simply adding more burst damage to tanks - which is why the high health cost is there to begin with. One of the major points of feedback was that no one actually likes using the shield due to the health cost - but without it, you can't stop this case from being the ideal.
(I.E. Leona precharges Targon/W and goes an annihilates a carry well past the phase of the game where she should be able to.)"
Helpful Feedback
Xypherous also commented on the community feedback, explaining why just saying "these are nerfs" doesn't help at all:
"It's a bit late - what I really want to know is, if you think these changes are a nerf, you're going to have to point to the direct nerf and call it out. Saying 'these are nerfs' don't really help me drill down to what you're actually concerned about.
Essentially, it's qualitative feedback - but I also can't act on it.
For example a statement like 'Coin's regeneration is nerfed, thus I cannot be aggressive in the first 5-8 minutes' is something I can act on/respond to because then I actually have an idea of the situation you are referring t.
Or perhaps a statement like 'Spellthief's edge AP removal hurts because I rely on a combination of shielding and harass on my characters' is a completely valid statement also something that I can act on/respond by adjust numbers or price point to return AP to the item.
However, without calling out specifics, I cannot actually address your concerns, which is really the point of the thread / PBE tests to begin with. More than happy to iterate on stat-line and numbers though. There's more than likely a lot of number tuning that has to be done."
Sightstone
When asked about making a divergent Sightstone Line, he commented:
"The idea has been pitched more than once - we have, but at the same time, unless you do something with interesting passives, you're not really adding a whole lot of value. There is very little functional difference from making an AP Sightstone versus buying an AP item.
When you get to interesting ward passives though - that becomes slightly harder to balance. We'll just have to evaluate it in the future but there are higher priorities in the realm of vision to solve."As for the lack of incentive to update Sightstone up to Ruby Sightstone, he commented:
"That depends on how okay you are with certain item upgrades being luxury - or simple improvements to improve slot efficiency - at that point though, the slot efficiency has costs of its own.
There's no real reason to upgrade to Ruby unless you need more health at zero slot cost - which is kind of the point of it now. There's a real concern that increased incentives towards upgrading Ruby Sightstone would delay meaningful purchases towards stuff that is cool and enabling (like Chalice)."
Offtopic
"I did like Health being the goto defensive item for bruisers - mostly because it seemed like a statistic that both had the most counterplay from life leech and the most sensible for bruisers given that they have to wade through every type of damage
Unfortunately, that sentiment is not shared by the community and I can see why - Warmog's doesn't quite have a special enough niche for it to be viewed as an item with intelligent decision making.
We do have ideas on Warmog's - the leading one being Warmog's regeneration acts similarly to Garen's regeneration (Strong OOC regeneration) but it's not clear that they would be decent changes in the current state of the game."
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Recent News
[ Planned 4.3 ] Itemization Changes for Boots, Duo Lane Gold Items, Doran's Shield, and Ruby Crystal
Over on the PBE community, Xypherous has posted up numerous tentative item changes that will be hitting the PBE soon - including changes to Boots of Lucidity, Boots of Mobility, All of the support item lines, Doran's Shield, Ruby Crystal, and Sightstone.
"Hey, just a quick heads up over changes that will be coming soon to the PBE (Next major PBE Deploy) just so that I don't catch anyone offguard and you guys will be able to focus test a little.
Goals: Retune, rebalance and clean up a lot of early game purchases - especially for support characters. There's a lot of items that are slightly too big for the early game budget and we wanted to do a pass to clean up whatever superfluous costs that might exist that impede early game purchasing power.
This isn't intended to be a long term solution to anything, we just wanted to do a cleanup pass for the items on live. We do want to streamline and enhance support itemization more in the future (as current support items are functional but really aren't synergistic with the individual support champions) but as that project will most likely take a while, we'd rather ship what minor improvements we were iterating on.
Boots
Boots of Lucidity
15% CDR --> 10% CDR
1000 Total Gold Cost --> 800 Total Gold Cost
Notes: I'm aware that Lucidity boots can be used to "smooth" over the extra 5% CDR from masteries / runes etc. However, the usage rate of Lucidity Boots seems to indicate that this is, at best, viewed negatively as an optimal strategy compared to any other boot option.
We want some cheap boot options, especially cheap boot options that would be useful for supportive roles. We'll have to figure out the dangling 5% CDR problem somehow - perhaps we can add 5% CDR to some niche items.
Boots of Mobility
Base Movement Speed 45 --> 25
Enhanced Movement Speed 105 --> 105
1000 Total Gold Cost --> 800 Total Gold Cost
Notes: Boots of Mobility have consistently been a powerful option, to the point where it can dictate a lot of Jungle or Support games. While that's not entirely true at present - it presents a sizeable obstacle in terms of controlling out of combat movement speed at its current power level.
That is, if you can reasonably put Boots of Mobility into your build, you should. We could have just straight nerfed Boots of Mobility but this would have put it out of reach for secondary uses such as duo roaming or ensuring slower characters catch up to their team. We opted instead for a more tangible tradeoff - slightly worse combat potential in exchange for a potential incredibly early pickup.
Starting Support / Duo Lane Items
We want to clean up some of the mini-games and do a polish pass over some of the gold items. We're not entirely happy with the current system and would like to revise the support gold system when we do a larger support item pass - but for the present, we want to clean up some of the items and get them into a cleaner state.
Coin Line
Ancient Coin
3 HP/5 --> 0 HP/5
Favor: Now also heals you for 5 health whenever a nearby enemy minion that you did not kill dies
Nomad's Medallion
11 MP/5 --> 10 MP/5
10 HP/5 --> 5 HP/5
2 Gp/10 Unchanged
Favor: Now also heals you for 5 health whenever a nearby enemy minion that you did not kill dies.
Talisman of Ascension
Stats Unchanged
Favor: Now also heals you for 5 health whenever a nearby enemy minion that you did not kill dies.
Notes: Coin's general game is one of holding out - you are rewarded for staying in lane as long as possible. The additional regeneration is an additional incentive to persist in lane.
As a side note, Tier 2 Coin is probably generating a little too much gold at the moment, we'll probably have to address that.
Spellthief Line
Spellthief's Edge
10 Ability Power --> 0 Ability Power
3 MP/5 Unchanged
2 GP/10 Unchanged
Tribute:
- Your spells and attacks deal 10 additional damage to champions and towers and generate 4 gold.
- This can happen up to 3 times every 30 seconds.
- Tribute is disabled for 12 seconds if you kill a minion.
Frostfang
20 Ability Power --> 0 Ability Power
7 MP/5 Unchanged
4 GP/10 Unchanged
Tribute:
Frost Queen's Claim
- Your spells and attacks deal 15 additional damage to champions and towers and generate 8 gold.
- This can happen up to 3 times every 30 seconds.
- Tribute is disabled for 12 seconds if you kill a minion.
Recipe Changed: Frostfang + Fiendish Codex + 330 Gold = 2000 Gold Total
50 Ability Power --> 40 Ability Power
0% Cooldown Reduction --> 10% Cooldown Reduction
10 MP/5 Unchanged
+4 GP/10 Unchanged
Tribute:
Active:
- Your spells and attacks deal 15 additional damage to champions and towers and generate 8 gold.
- This can happen up to 3 times every 30 seconds.
- Tribute is NOT disabled if you kill a minion at this upgrade level
- Free Target instead of Enemy Targetted
- Increased Cast Range to 850 from 600
- Area of Effect size decreased to 300 from 400
- Magic Damage increased to 50 + 10 per champion level
- Now applies an 80% slow that decays over 3 seconds from a flat 50% slow over 2 seconds
- Updated particles
Notes: Spellthief's Edge is the riskiest of the three options, one which commits to total harassment. We've retuned the Tribute passive to support harassment styles as well as make it trigger on towers. If you harass successfully and push enemy champions out of lane - you will then be able to use excess tribute cooldowns on towers.
Previously, Spellthief's Edge was an option only if your character could harass at all favorably. We've retuned it to augment harassment patterns and so you can now opt in to a harassment heavy style if you choose to on champions that might be slightly ill-suited for it.
Targon's Line
Relic Shield
50 Health --> 75 Health
6 HP/5 --> 0 HP/5
Spoils of War:
Targon's Brace
- Heals your ally and yourself for 40 Health upon killing a unit.
- Grants gold equal to the kill to your ally, but does not grant the additional +5 on live.
- 2 Max Charges, 60 second CD Unchanged
175 Health Unchanged
12 HP/5 --> 4 HP/5
Spoils of War:
Face of the Mountain
- Heals your ally and yourself for 50 Health upon killing a unit.
- Grants gold equal to the kill to your ally, but does not grant the additional +5 on live.
- 3 Max Charges, 30 second CD Unchanged
Recipe Changed: Targon's Brace + Kindlegem + 300 Gold = 2000 Total Gold
Stats Unchanged
Spoils of War:
Active:
- Heals your ally and yourself for 50+1% of your Maximum Health upon killing a unit.
- Grants gold equal to the kill to your ally, but does not grant the additional +5 on live.
- 4 Max Charges, 30 second CD Unchanged
Notes: We want to position Targon's as for the all-in characters but we also wanted to provide a bit of healing for the user as going to last hit a minion exposes yourself to serious threat. Looking at this initial stat pass - HP/5 values are most likely off by a bit.
- No longer costs Health to activate
- Damage now scales based off of 150% of the target's total Attack Damage
The additional bonus gold scaling was initially put on there to smooth the transition as we feared Targon's would have a hard acceptance rate but currently is deemed unnecessary for its future.
Probably over-simplified on the tier 1 a little. It probably needs some of the HP/5 back but we've been streamlining.
Ruby Crystal
475 Total Gold cost --> 400 Total Gold cost
180 Health --> 150 Health
Most items that build out of Ruby Crystal have been adjusted to keep the same total cost and total statistics.
Notes: We don't expect Ruby Crystal to suddenly be a good option to start with. This is mostly a cleanup change as Ruby Crystal is a bit too large of an item to work with as a basic component. Although I have heard of some theorycrafters out there attempting to make this work.
Sightstone
925 Total Gold cost --> 850 Total Gold cost
180 Health --> 150 Health
Items that build out of Sightstone have been adjusted to keep the same total cost and total statistics.
Notes: We just want to chip away at Sightstone's cost a little, while keeping the overall flow of Sightstone intact. We'll probably look at Ruby Sightstone in the near future in terms of slot efficiency and make it more of a worthwhile upgrade.
Doran's Shield
100 Health --> 80 Health
10 HP/5 --> 5 HP/5
Block Passive Unchanged
Notes: I'm just reiterating the current DShield nerfs that I posted a while earlier. I suspect that HP/5 nerf is too harsh, but I just wanted to bring it up again so that it fits better within the overall context. Full context can be found in this earlier thread: Doran's Shield"
Replying to a comment about the removal of AP from the early Spellthief line items, Xypherous noted:
"This is true - however, the raw effective power of 10 to 20 AP to your spells is staggeringly small compared to the base power of the spells themselves. This is in stark contrast to Attack Damage, which needs to compete with a far smaller base that doesn't grow.
Your autoattack and spells will deal additional damage, as long as you have charges remaining.
If you deal the damage with a spell, the spell will deal +10 magic damage. If you deal the damage with an autoattack, the attack will deal +10 physical damage.
It's true that you won't get the benefits of supportive ratios on these abilities but those vary too drastically to make Ability Power feel good by itself. Ability Power just isn't very good in the early game in general, unless you need to wave clear. ;x
As for the Coin line of items getting it's regen switched to health restore, he commented:
"Not quite a straight up buff. If you roam between lanes to place a ward, for example, or walking back to base or being pushes too far back, you will lose the health recovery. It's not a guaranteed 5 HP/5.
We'll also probably have to look at the gold generation on tier 2."
As for the changes to the CDR boots, Xypherous commented:
"As with any ironic statement, there's more than a grain of truth to it.
Over time, it's been apparent that CDR on boots isn't actually enough of an identity to make it an actual option in terms of boots. There is a point where you might potentially be able to put enough CDR on them so that they'd be bought - but you'd pretty much just have an overpowered item there.
Then when appropriately priced, you go straight back into never bought territory as they'd look something like 2k gold for 25% CDR or something inane. :/
So we're opting for a different tactic here and simply making them one of the cheapest boot options which allows tactics like earlier enchants or earlier movement speed rushes.
However, no change is final. Essentially, they aren't bought - we're not happy with their current niche and we're going to change them until we get to a point where we are happy with them."He also commented on the current 15% value on the CDR, noting they don't mesh well with the combo you can currently get with masteries:
"Yeah - this is more of a problem with the fact that our masteries/runes are so granular so you can never enter the game with even values that mesh well with other systems. It's probably something we'll have to clean up in a seasonal thing."As for Kha'Zix and Talon being hurt by the CDR boot changes, he commented:
"Given the rate at which Khazix or Talon purchased these items - it's probably a safe bet to say that they won't really be affected regardless of how Boots of Lucidity change.
You're probably right that this change is not intended to help them. Bluntly, Talon won't really be healthy or good for the game unless he stops single target assassinating people with massive AoE damage. Being totally honest, if AD/CDR was better supported - you'd most likely see intermittent nerfs to almost all AD Casters. Most AD Casters are fairly overbearing now to play against and better itemization for them would push them over the top.
That's not to say they shouldn't have better AD/CDR itemization. That's more of a statement on the size of the project and what would most likely have to change around it. It'd probably be a healthy change to the game overall though if they had better itemization."
Continuing on the topic of boots, he also briefly chatted about the Captain's enchantment:
"I'm currently finding it difficult to justify working on Captain's enchantment. The power level of the item is high but the item is fairly difficult to notice or appreciate. :/
We could reduce the cost but that wouldn't really help the satisfaction issues - it just feels more like a burden. Though I agree, we should find time to rebalance enchantments out a little, at least their respective gold costs if nothing else."
Xypherous also mentioned that items with a Ruby Crystal have just had their recipe price increased by 75g to even out with the early reduction:
"They've just gotten their combine costs increased by 75 GP for each ruby crystal in their recipe.
So Catalyst now looks like:
Essentially the extra gold value of Ruby crystal is 'pushed up' into anything that built out of it."
- HP/MP unchanged
- Combine 325 --> 400
As for his thoughts on Leona's strength, he commented:
"I think a lot of Leona's current strength comes from the DShield situation - so I'm inclined to look at it after the DShield changes. That said, a lot of Leona's strength also comes from the fact that she can buy items now and the tank path is generally a lot more accessible than the AP paths."
[ Planned 4.3 ] Trinket Cleanup ( Shop / Tooltips )
Xypherous also mentioned a few trinket changes we can also expect to hit the PBE soon. While they won't be changing in functionality, how they upgrade is being cleaned up."Just a quick note, we've done a quick cleanup pass on Trinkets.
Trinket functionality won't change at all but there are two major changes:
Trinkets no longer self-morph themselves at level 9 - instead they just gain bonuses at level 9+
This was kind of a relic for when we had Trinkets automorph several times throughout the game. Towards the end of the process, we realized a lot of them were unnecessary.
For Example:
Instead of:
it is now simply:
- 'Warding Totem becomes Greater Totem at Level 9'
- Active: Place a 60 second ward - 120 second cooldown.
- At level 9+ ward duration increases to 120
Trinkets now have a level requirement to upgrade
This means you can immediately buy the last tier of the trinket in the shop as well as making Trinkets more like real items in the shop.
This has actually required a significant amount of refactoring / reorganization 'under the hood' in order to facilitate a cleaner back-end so I'm pointing it out in case issues pop up."He continued, elaborating on what he meant by saying you can immediately buy the last tier of trinket:
"Currently on live, trinkets are a bit of a mess organizationally. In order to upgrade a trinket, you have to sell your current trinket, then you have to buy the tier 1 of another trinket. Then you have to wait a second for it to 'self-upgrade'. THEN you can upgrade it.
With this, you can just sell it and buy the highest tier without going through that pain, like any other item in our game."
[ Continued ] Skarner Rework Follow Through
( If you missed the initial discussions on the upcoming Skarner Rework Follow Through, check out these posts: 1, 2 )
"This has been very useful feedback and looking at early data suggests that he's struggling much more in the early game than the late game. I'm tentatively looking to put together some changes for next patch:
-E missile width increase
-E slow values increased (especially at low ranks)
-Maybe mana cost improvements
A few things about these changes:
-We don't want to over buff him and have to nerf him again in the future, so keep that in mind.
-We want to make E a much better 1 point ability to help his early ganks
-We want to generally increase the CC payoff for hitting the E because of the difficulty/risk of landing it
These changes aren't final so please share your feedback.
-Scruffy"
He continued, mentioning the problems with the "permaslow" that was on Skarner's old Q:
"To answer your questions:
-Yes getting permanently slowed by his Q was frustrating to play against, but there are actually other gains that we were trying to achieve with the change.
Permanent slow in melee range often only created two situations for Skarner, the case where he catches someone and they can never escape and the case where he can't ever engage on his target. The winner of fights often revolved around who had more items, not who made the better plays. We hope to create more situations where Skarner catches a target in the first place, but more opportunity for escape one the target has been caught.
-I don't have the lane vs jungle data yet, but I will definitely see if there is a significant discrepancy for his lane case
-The mark with E and hit for a longer slow is a reasonable idea, but in that case we would probably just make the E slow last longer baseline to reduce the mechanics clutter."He continued:
"In the case of assassins, we are actively working to not make it the case that when an assassin jumps on you, the determining factor for the win is items not skill (looking at you kassadin).
I don't think anyone thinks slows are toxic, the design philosophy is that when both players have the opportunity to make plays and change a fight it results in more engaging fights and a more skill based game overall."
In response to examples of frustrating gameplay with other champions, he commented:
"These are pretty good points and we acknowledge that many champions (including some listed by you) are not perfect. Over time we try to make improvements to the game that allow for more skill expression and player agency on both sides of a fight. Even if a fed Lee Sin engages in a fight with you, wouldn't it be cool if you still had a chance to outplay him for the win?"Scruffy elaborated on this a bit more, saying:
"If there is no way for an opponent to possibly win against a character in a fight, at that point the game is effectively over. Allowing for both players to determine if a fight is won or lost is a core element to skill based competitive games. Items can give advantage to the winning player but there should always be some chance for the behind player to win.
We haven't succeeded in creating this balance with all characters but this is what we are trying to move towards."
When asked what the previous post has to do with Skarner, he reiterated:
"It relates to the mechanics of Skarners old q that gave him fewer ways to fight from behind and his opponents fewer options to fight him with when he was ahead.
That said I do think we have shifted his power away from cc into more reliable dps which is not strengthening the fantasy for his core players."
In a final statement about Skarner's current power level in relation to other junglers, Scruffy commented:
"Ya I'm hearing this loud and clear. We will be continually updating him until he as useful and powerful as other characters in his role."
Finally, Riot Scruffy commented:
"I'll put some changes up on PBE next week. Focus will be on increasing the focus and power of CC in his kit/role. Likely they will be tweaks, not new mechanics."
[ Continued ] WIP Rengar Rework Discussion
( If you missed the initial discussions on the upcoming Rengar Rework, check out these posts: 1, 2, 3, 4 )
Riot Scruffy also had a few more comments on the work in progress Rengar rework:
He continued to discuss the tentative second stealth they have added to Rengar's ult, noting it triggers right as his bonus movement speed from activating R wears off:
"Yes, the second stealth triggers right as his speed wears off."He continued, explaining how they arrived at the decision to give him a second stealth:
"Originally we had the second stealth trigger on kill, but we quickly shifted it to a set time because we think it actually allows for some more interesting situations. We want it to be possible for Rengar to go in, not get a kill, then leave if he thinks the fight is going poorly. Alternatively, he could decide to all in with the second leap and trade his life for a kill in some situations. The fixed window has more general usage that doesn't revolve around Rengar being ahead.""When asked what the new trinket version of Bonetooth Necklace will do on modes like Dominion and Twisted Treeline, he commented:
"We will probably just make a version of the bonetooth trinket with no active for those maps."
LoL Starter Pack Bundle
A Starter pack bundle is now available! This new bundle features eight 260 RP / 450 IP champions, a 4 win IP boost, and a 10-win XP boost for a mere 530 RP!
Here's DontHassleDaHoff with more info:
We’re always working on ways to make the League of Legends experience better for new players. Lately, we’ve gotten a ton of feedback that new players want a slick beginner bundle to kickstart their killing sprees. To fix that, we’ve handpicked some newb survival gear and rolled it into a Starter Pack: 8 champs, a 4-win IP boost and a 10-win XP boost for 530 RP. So, if you’ve recently gotten a friend, sibling or significant other to join you in wrecking face on Summoner’s Rift, you might wanna let them know about this bundle.
The Starter Pack includes the following champs and boosts for 530 RP:
- Annie, the Dark Child
- Ashe, the Frost Archer
- Garen, the Might of Demacia
- Master Yi, the Wuju Bladesman
- Nunu, the Yeti Rider
- Ryze, the Rogue Mage
- Sivir, the Battle Mistress
- Warwick, the Blood Hunter
- 4-win IP boost
- 10-win XP boost
Untargetablility Effects Bug
Meddler commented that they are currently investigating a bug causing untargetablility effects to not properly destroy missiles shot right before the target becomes untargetable."We're currently looking into a bug where untargetability effects are not destroying missiles inbound for a target that's just become untargetable (Fizz's E, Vlad's W etc) which is the issue you're seeing and not something intentional. That isn't an issue for Zhonya's Hourglass, since it also grants invulnerability, most of the untargetability effects do not also make the target immune to damage however, just very difficult to apply damage to in the first place."
EU League of Legends TwitterAccount
Keen on Social media and play on the EU servers? Well good news for you - Riot has just launched a new Twitter account aimed at European summoners!Here's Riot weecore, social media coordinator, with more info:
"Summoners,
Today marks the official ALPHA STAGE SOFT LAUNCH OF EU TWITTER 2014 (unofficial name)!
Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/loleu
We acknowledge that the League of Legends social presence could be better in Europe, and this is a first step in an extensive plan to overhaul our communication. Our goal is to use Twitter to localize and curate the most pertinent European news, highlight events in specific regions, and more deeply delve in high-level social conversations.
Our larger plan is to establish a stronger social media presence for each region and country. Honestly, this may take time. Right now, we’ll be using this account to represent the whole of EUW/EUNE.
Feedback is essential for our success, so remain vocal. We’re always listening and adjusting our social content to better serve each community.
<3weecore
Additionally:
Remember to follow @LeagueOfLegends for general League news, @lolesports for LCS action, @lolstatus for the latest updates on server activity, and your local Community Managers/Coordinators for quips from your favourite Rioters."
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