- This Week in eSports - IEM San Jose Results, xPeke and Cyanide leaving Fnatic, and more
- Champion & Skin Sale 12/9 - 12/12
- Free Champion Rotation, Week of December 9th
- Patch 4.21 Server Maintenance Announced
- Patch 4.21 Notes
- 12/9 PBE Update: Dauntless Ahri, El Tigre Braum, Alistar visual updates, Smite changes, and more!
Table of Contents
- Dauntless Ahri & El Tigre Braum Discussion
- Context on 4.21 Changes (inc Warwick and Nocturne)
- Context on current PBE Jungle Changes
- Rumble's R & Danger Zone
Dauntless Ahri & El Tigre Braum Discussion
Following their PBE debut earlier today, the two new skins currently testing on the PBE have lead to quite a bit of discussion around their VFX and themes!
"Let me try to explain Dauntless a bit better. It's the antithesis of Championship. So, Championship Shyvana celebrates the end of the season, Dauntless Ahri is celebrating the start of the season. :]"In response to another comment, she reiterated:
"In regards to her being a mis-colored Championship skin, you're not entirely wrong. Dauntless Ahri is celebrating the beginning of the season, where Championship Shyvana, for example, is celebrating the end of a season. The Dauntless skin line is the antithesis to Championship."
KateyKhaos also commented on her armor, saying:
"Dauntless Ahri is just starting out the season, so she's got some light armor, and she's got an opposing color scheme to Championship. The Championship armor is much heavier/bulkier because the Championship skins are at the end of the season, they're gearing up for their final battles."
"This has been consistent for all of Ahri's skins.
The orbs needs to stay the same colors (blue and green) because it's important to see if she's got her passive up or not. We've added some wisps around the orb itself. The charm can't change purely because of the iconic gameplay read."She continued:
"Let me try to clarify a couple things here.
I didn't say that we weren't changing her (Q) particles at all. I said the color wouldn't be changing. This holds true for all of Ahri's skins, including the Popstar skin you're referencing. Her base orb is a light blue, which still transitions to green when when her passive is up. As mentioned in other comments in this thread, the color cannot change for gameplay reasons. We have changed both the hue, and added wisps of color around the orbs for Dauntless Ahri.
Ashe is a bit different since it's a single projectile. The issue with Ahri's orb is that players, both ally and enemy, need to be able to determine if she's got her passive up or not.
In regards to the hair, yes, there's some weird stuff going on. We're working on fixing that!"
"The best we can do without altering gameplay is what we've done with this skin's Charm, and other skins - we've added a bit of color to the trail. For Dauntless Ahri, there's a bit more pink in the trail, as compared to Foxfire Ahri. Midnight Ahri has a bit of dark purple/black added to the Charm's tail, etc. The charm itself has to remain the same for gameplay. It's similar to how we can't do a whole lot with Kayle's ultimate."
Finally, she confirmed that Dauntless Ahri will be a legacy skin.
"This skin will be legacy, like the Championship skins."
"We decided to make the particle a chair because when Braum uses his (Q) he's punching the magic out of his shield. On his base the magic is in the shape of a Ram because of the Ram shape on his shield, we decided to apply the same idea to this skin. So if he punches a chair chair shaped magic flies out. That being said I'll be sure to pass on your feedback to the skins team. :D"
"Back when we first made Braum's launch skin we wanted both skins to be equal, game play wise. We did make the decision to remove that particle because of clarity, simply because we didn't want one skin to have an advantage/disadvantage over the other. When we started making this new skin we reevaluated our stance on changing the particle and decided that changing it didn't detract from game play.
As far as the particle on the Dragonslayer skins goes, we are discussing changing it but no final decisions have been made. I'll make sure the feedback regarding the passive on DS Braum gets to the skins team, but as always no promises. :D"
Context on 4.21 Changes
With patch 4.21 headed to live, Scarizard and Meddler have been hot on the case answering player questions regarding a few things in the latest patch!
First off, Scarizard commented in fixes for Challenging Smite and why it was accidentally killing champions through invincibility effects like Tryndamere's ult:
"Hey y'all, i was posting in the 4.21 Patch Notes thread but i'll respond here with context.
FIRST OFF (and most importantly): I've been told this has been fixed for 4.21, and we're working on getting it into the 4.21 Patch Notes as we speak.
Now, for the explanation - in 4.20, Challenging Smite's debuff wasn't dealing True Damage - it was dealing /Pure/ Damage, which is the damage type used for the Fountain Laser. For those of you that don't know, the Fountain kills through any and all 'GA' type effects like Zilean ult, Yorick ult, Tryndamere ult, and of course, Anivia's passive (mostly because what are you doing in their fountain with all that BM??).
The flag's been switched back, so you can correctly not fear death (kind of) when against Skirmisher's Sabre champs. Hope this helps."
He also commented on the Warwick changes included in 4.21, explaining:
"If we're being fair, the ult cooldown for Warwick was pre-4.20 and didn't really do much to limit him functionally with slower average gank times in Preseason.
As for the other changes, it was intentional for us to do them like this - we weren't unaware of the impact our changes would have. We realized edge cases with Skirmisher's we didn't like (and devourer was really just too much in general) - and after those, felt like Warwick wasn't affected enough - he'd just move on to the next best thing and abuse that as well, so we looked at kit changes that we think would make him 'in line' for the time being.
We don't take these decisions lightly, but in the case of Warwick action had to be taken. While Win Rates/Ban Rates aren't the whole story, 90%+ Ban Rate globally within a few days and a 60% Win Rate (sometimes slightly more per divison/region) is something that the team felt should be fixed. For us, it's about delivering a better player experience - when one champion is /this/ far out of whack, do we take a measured approach with smaller, incremental changes and risk not moving the needle enough to impact him? Or do we go a little harder than usual and push them back up later in that same incremental pattern? (something that we've done successfully to champions like Kayle and Leblanc, most recently?)
At the end of the day though, we're confident that going 'over' on Warwick is a healthier environment for players at the moment than going 'under'. It's a tough decision for sure, and i understand it doesn't feel that great, which is why we try not to multi-hit within the same patch un-warranted. Your concerns are definitely on point here."
When asked about the changes to Skirmisher's Sabre damage, Scarizard replied:
"Quote
If you don't mind asking me asking a question directly, how do the skirmisher's sabre changes work in game? Seeing as how it usedto be 17-51 true damage each basic attack and now 60-162 true damage over 3 seconds. Does every auto attack apply (60-162)/3 true damage at the start and then it goes into a DoT?From the Game System's team (who made the change): "Repeated attacks extend the duration but don't give any immediate ticks. So it's a bit buffed if I'm doing it 'fairly' with auto attacks but abuse cases like Warwick's ult are severely nerfed."
By his explanation, it would seem that Challenging Smite is still functional for basic-attackers, but super fast attack speeds / Warwick Ult cases have been lowered."
Meddler also commented on the Cho'Gath R changes, explaining:
"Our primary goal with these changes was to give Cho'gaths that fall too far behind (lose all/most of their stacks and can't afford to build them much because they need the CD available) some better options for getting them back, without trivializing stack building. Secondary goals/effects of that change should be a bit of a jungling buff and hopefully a few extra interesting trade offs around who to ult and when. Power wise we were aiming for a slight buff overall, so if we were wrong on that and this is a nerf overall we'll likely follow up with a buff somewhere."
As for Nocturne's new E passive that gives him bonus movement speed towards feared enemies, Scarizard noted:
Quote:
But how does his E buff work? Do you get MS when you use E on them or when they are feared? Why would you want MS when they run around in circles and are "CCd" anyway."Once Unspeakable Horror completes (and they become feared), you'll get bonus movespeed moving towards them.
Due to the way that fears have functioned for quite a while now (enemies move away from you), you can effectively use this to 'steer' enemies with nocturne in a direction that you choose, while still slashing them into bits.
Hope this makes sense! P.S. Noc's passive works for /all/ fears, so in the event that you're chasing someone who happens to run into a jack in the box... :3"
When asked about it's range, he replied:
"Checking the files, it looks to be around 700~ range - so think around Jinx's basic attack range and that's where you'll start zooming"
Context on PBE Jungle Changes
The first patch of the new PBE cycle dropped earlier today and it included a few changes to the jungle, particularly Krugs, Gromp, and the Rift Scuttler.
Riot Reinboom popped into a boards thread concerning these changes to offer up a bit of context and more specifics on the Rift Scuttler changes:
Riot Reinboom popped into a boards thread concerning these changes to offer up a bit of context and more specifics on the Rift Scuttler changes:
"Reminder: You're referring to what's on PBE which are experimental.
Much of this, we're doing various thematic explorations of jungle strength (hence the behavior differences of Krug and Gromp). This is MOST DEFINITELY an experiment and even in this experiment it's important to note that smite removes these mechanics off the monster. Basically, smite "steals" their mechanic.
Gameplay wise, we're looking at creative ways to push lane (level 1) poaching back off junglers at high levels of play.
For Scuttler... It's weaker.
The actual change is:
Base health increased by 50.
Health per level decreased by 150.
Health now scales with monster level multipliers.
Scuttler now gives increased gold and experience.
Results:
The Scuttler is easier to take at most levels (exception: Level 12 and 13 where Crab is SLIGHTLY tankier, but by trivial amounts).
The Scuttler no longer has an XP penalty for taking it (because it levels with you)
The Scuttler gives more XP and Gold."
When asked if this makes the Scuttler considerably easier to kill, she noted:
"Probably not. It's still in the same vicinity of an encounter before. This is about a 5% decrease in health on average."
"We do use it for testing, though each developer uses PBE differently I believe.
By far the biggest thing it grabs us is things like "crash tests" and that things like the release and deploy cycle function nicely. Of course, that's not really interesting on a per content piece basis.
For each piece of thing that goes out on the PBE, it very much depends on the type of content and what the window is. It's REALLY hard to change something near the end of PBE, but we do respond to many individual pieces with care.
For a lot of the Preseason stuff for example, we've been introducing it to PBE and then keeping it back for a patch or so just to make sure we get proper testing for it. Zz'rot Portal didn't get released in 4.21 precisely because it didn't have a large enough window on PBE (and rightfully so. I need to fix a lot of things on it!)"
Rumble R & Danger Zone
When asked why Rumble's The Equalizer (R) doesn't have any sort of Danger Zone interaction or buff, Meddler explained:
"Rumble's ult is pretty nuts damage wise already under a best case scenario and has a pretty high effectiveness variance too (dropping it directly on one enemy who steps out versus on a whole team who have to run along it in a jungle choke point for example). That means increasing its damage isn't appropriate, but making it weaker when he's not in the Danger Zone probably isn't a good fit either - it succeeds and fails hard enough already.
If we were happy with a bit more variance though and added a Danger Zone bonus we'd almost certainly have to reduce the current damage to compensate (so lower than current without bonus, higher than current with). Rumble's not too stompy when played by someone only moderately familiar with him, he's got one of the steepest learning curves in the game statistically though, so becomes really effective when played by someone with a lot of experience on him."
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