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Red Post Collection: Alistar's Nose Ring, Kalista's Free Week to be Extended, Rune Page Sale delayed until Jan, and MUCH MORE!

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This morning's red post collection features IronStylus mentioning on the return of Alistar's Nose ring to his PBE visual updates, Hippalus noting that Kalista's free week will be extended and that next Rune Page sale is delayed until January, comments on several bugs introduced in 4.21, and much more!
Continue reading for more information!



Table of Contents


Alistar's Nose Ring

Alistar currently has visual updates on the PBE but he's missing his nose ring!

In a reddit thread asking for the reinstatement of his nose ring, IronStylus noted:
"Remember: PBE 
Supply feedback and we'll evaluate.
"UPDATE: We've taken the pulse of the team, and barring any major blockers (animation scope or other technical problems) we're going to reintroduce the nose ring. I've talked to the 3D artists about it and they're cool with it. Just want to still emphasize some caution because I'm not sure if there might be some sort of technical repercussions of adding that geo. Murphy's Law and all."

Kalista's Free Week  to be Extended

While Kalista is in this week's free champion rotation, she's been disabled since the launch of patch 4.21 due to a bug with her ult.

The issue has since been corrected and Hippalus has confirmed her free week will be extended to make up for the issues.
"Good point - Kalista's free week will be extended."

2 for 1 Rune Page Sale coming in January

Following up on his comments from earlier this year, Hippalus has mentioned that the next 2 for 1 Rune Page sale will not be until January.
"Delayed until January - sorry :( Someday I'll learn not to make timing predictions."

Context on Rek'Sai's Ultimate

Meddler tunneled his way on to the forums to drop a bit of context in a thread commenting on Rek'Sai's ultimate feeling "underwhelming", offering an explanation on it's design in relation to the rest of her kit:
"With Rek'Sai we deliberately did something a bit different with her ultimate. Given she's a form swapper, with more than the usual 4 skills, she already had access to a pretty large set of tools to use in combat and didn't need another. As a result we opted to go for a more strategic, less mid combat ult. Something that's used to get around the map, in preparation for combat/objectives/counter jungling/split pushing etc, rather than to put you into a great position to fight almost immediately (like TF, Panth, Nocturne can do for example). 
It's not as powerful as many other ults in the game overall either and that's also deliberate for a couple of reasons. Having more spells than average means each individual spell's going to have to be weaker than average for the sake of balance and we wanted to put a lot of power into the defining, most distinctive parts, of Rek'Sai's kit, her Tremor Sense and Tunnels. 
It can definitely be pretty tough getting, and keeping, a sufficient tunnel network to ult well, particularly as your enemies get better at stomping her tunnels quickly in all the 'best' places. Figuring out where to put them, when, whether to ward around them, which enemies to track etc are some of the key skills we expect to see dedicated Rek'Sai players get really good at though. That's something that's pretty exciting to us since those aren't skills that other champions test in particularly similar ways."

Design Value of Non Mana Using Champions

Meddler also commented on the advantages and disadvantages  of non mana using champions from a design perspective:
"Some of the values we see in non mana using champions:
  • It allows us to create champions with different feeling and acting kits. Shen for example's always going to have to really think about when he Shadow Dashes, given the high cost on it and that's something he can't get around with item purchases (can't buy so much energy the cost becomes irrelevant at some point).
  • It helps create variety of play experience, particularly when it comes to power curves and playstyles over the course of a game. Mana using champions go from being limited in lane to almost always using spells on CD in late game teamfights. Non mana champs, whether Heat, Energy, Fury or CD only, instead have similar limitations across the game, making laning in particular feel pretty different, both as them and against them.
  • Removing mana from a champion opens up some potential for interesting team comps. A non mana using mid for example means you're more able to pick a mana heavy jungler or give blue to another lane.
  • Non mana users value many items differently, since the mana and mana regen on them are irrelevant, so favor somewhat different builds, creating variety both for themselves and, to a much lesser extent, other people playing with them. 
There are certainly costs as well of course. Mana's a really useful lever in balancing some abilities, particularly those that give easy wave clear or poke, limiting the amount they can be cast during the early game in particular. Resource management's also a really important skill in LoL (e.g. conserve mana better than lane opponent, bully them out once they're OOM). As a result if removing it from a kit you're going to want to ensure that either the alternate resource offers sufficient skill growth potential or that the rest of the kit has a deep enough mastery curve to not need it.

Statikk looking at Evelynn

In the wake of 4.21, Scarizard commented in a reddit thread that Evelynn has not been forgotten and  Statikk is currently has his eye on her::
"We're definitely aware - Statikk, the dude behind her Gameplay Update is deep-diving into her problems to make sure she gets the right kind of love, which is why it wasn't included in this patch.

I don't want to set an expectation on when help will come (MAGMA CHAMBER???) but Eve's a hot topic within our team at the moment. TOP MEN ARE ON IT.

TOP. MEN."
He reiterated this in another thread where a player offered his advice on how to play Evelynn in the current meta:
"Hey, really informative post here - thanks for taking the time to put it all together :D

Statikk, the original designer of her Gameplay Update is actually diving pretty deep into Eve right now and what her larger issues are - i linked him this post because i think it's really valuable - would you mind hitting me up with your Summoner Name? (can PM it to me if you don't want to post it here) I'd like to get you two talking, as he has a lot of similar ideas to what you've posted here"

Context on Champion Spotlights

In the reddit thread for the Rek'Sai champion spotlight, Fizznchips popped in to comment on the evolution of champion spotlights and why they no longer mention things like runes, items, or masteries when introducing players to new champions:
"Holy cow that's an old video. And to be fair, things have changed a bunch since early 2010. We have a whole team of Rioters helping out with scripts, video editing, production and audio these days. Hope you like the changes, though, and let us know if you have any feedback! We're all ears. Except the parts of our bodies that are not ears."
He continued:
"Yep! Basically, we want Spotlights to stay relevant regardless of small changes to the champ and broader changes to the game itself. We leave items, runes and masteries out because they're liable to change, and we avoid referencing specific figures (X stuns for 2 seconds) because they ALWAYS change."

On Lissandra's Low Mana Regen and Passive

When asked about Lissandra's lower than average mana regen rates and if he is still planning on changing her passive, Meddler explained:
"Deliberate choice on the balance team's part to keep her at lower regen rates than other mages as per before the stat rebalancing. 
Still thinking on passive, part of the challenge there is finding something more satisfying that isn't more satisfying simply because it's far more powerful. Particularly with the amount of play Lissandra's been seeing recently in OGN and at IEM San Jose adding power seems risky given the current state of the game, at least in competitive play."

SR Terrain Changes on PBE

In the 12/11 PBE update, two new openings were added to each base on Summoner's Rift.
Riot Reinboom commented on these tentative new openings, saying:
"Also, we put large openings in the bases on SR that only the team aligned with the base can pass through. Also on PBE now. :D"
She continued:
"You can't see through them. Only one side can pass through them (enemies can't pass through yours and you can't pass theirs)"
She continued:
"Exactly. This is an exploration of a "defender's advantage" that's not just pure stats. Something more interesting."

[BUG] Rek'Sai E Tooltip


In a board post commenting that it seems Rek'Sai's E is not properly benefiting from cooldown reduction, Beat Punchbeef popped in to note it is just a TOOL TIP bug:
"Yeah, this is just a tooltip bug. Will be fixed in the next patch. Sorry about the confusion."

When asked if this would be hotfixed, Meddler noted:
"Extremely unlikely. Hotfixes don't follow the usual implementation/testing cycle, which means they're higher risk than normal changes (they do get tested of course, but don't get weeks of visibility). As a result we only hotfix things that its really important get addressed ASAP."
He continued:
"Extremely important generally means game breaking (or at least champion breaking) bugs. Broken as in 'I can't move ever after casting my Q', 'My ult applies damage multiple times', 'baron never spawns' etc. To hotfix on power grounds a champion would have to be extremely nuts (see release day Le Blanc or Zyra for example, who were both stronger, on day one before people had time to learn them, than Warwick was last patch). We're also currently in the Pre-Season period, where we're more experimental, looking to see what gets abused, how, and how people potentially counter it, to help build a better game in the long run. Start of each season's pretty variable, end of the season's pretty focused basically. 
Finally in this case this is also only a tooltip bug. There's no power actually being missed, just some very understandable potential for confusion and frustration."

[BUG] "Charge Spell" champions 

In a reddit thread pointing out that Xerath can no longer do a Flash + Q combo while he is casting Q as of patch 4.21, ZenonTheStoic replied:
"This is totally not intended! We recently cleaned up a lot of stuff around the summoner spell system (nothing really that you guys should have to worry about--just making it cleaner internally, allowing us to do more things with fewer bugs) and while doing so we may have caused this issue. The team that worked on this is aware and looking into it.

Thanks guys!"
Riot Gypsy added:
"We'll be fixing this for all "charge spell champs" btw. It's affecting Varus and Vi as well."
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