Red Post Collection: 1/21 Patch Update, The 2015 ranked season is here, Worlds 2015 to be held in EU, and more

Tonight's red post collection includes details on the January 21st patch update that renabled Maokai and Zz'Rot Portal, the start of the 2015 ranked season, the announcement that Worlds 2015 will be held in Europe, Scarizard commenting on the recent PBE assassin changes, and more!

Continue reading for more information!

• Red Post Collection: More from Meddler Q&A, Context on Alistar PBE W Change, Underworld Poro Ward, and more!
• El Tigre Braum now available!

• 1/21 PBE Update: Tyrant Swain TR, Annie and Fizz tentative balance changes, and more!

Table of Contents

• 1/21 Patch Update - Bug fixes!
• The 2015 Ranked Season is here
• Worlds 2015 to be held in Europe
• Assassin Discussion

1/21 Patch Update

The patch 5.1 notes have been updated with documentation of several bug fixes that went out earlier today!

"Maokai

• WHOOPS - Fixed a bug where Maokai could become an untargetable wisp through magical tree magic 

Kalista 

• BUGFIX - Kalista should once again be able to reliably trigger the hop effect of Passive - Martial Poise at high attack speeds

 Zz'Rot Portal 

• BUGFIX - Fixed an issue where Voidspawn were gaining massively increased damage if the portal's owner was disconnected 

 Lich Bane 

• BUGFIX - Fixed a bug where Lich Bane's on-hit proc damage was scaling with ability power at roughly half strength"

The 2015 ranked season is here!

The 2015 ranked season is finally here and ranked queues are back up on all servers!

"After two months of preseason updates and tweaks, it’s time to drop the curtain and begin the League of Legends 2015 ranked season! As with previous seasons, your first ten ranked games will result in your tier and division placement - after that it’s down to you to fight your way up the ladder towards new heights. 

A lot’s changed since the end of the 2014 season! Check out these links for details: 

• 2015 Ranked Season Details
• Preseason Changes
• Summoner’s Rift Update
• Kalista Champion Spotlight
• Rek’Sai Champion Spotlight
• Patch 5.1 

Good luck on the Fields of Justice, Summoners. We’ll see you there!"

Worlds 2015 to be held in Europe

With the season starting and the LCS kicking back off tomorrow, Riot has announced that the 2015 World Championship will be held in Europe!

Here's Redbeard with more information:

"After sharing a memorable 2014 Championship with truly incredible esports fans in Taipei, Singapore and Korea, we’re looking forward to 2015’s final showdown more than ever. Today, before the LCS season kickoff, we’re excited to announce that the 2015 World Championship will be coming to Europe this October.

We can’t wait to head to Europe and bring the best League of Legends pro teams from around the world to fans across multiple cities and countries. Europe has been a home for LoL esports since the very first steps in our journey. It’s the setting for the EU LCS, the host for many memorable esports tournaments and events (including our inaugural World Championship in 2011, IEM, Dreamhack, and last year’s All Star tournament) and the home of some of the most talented players to dominate the game. It feels great to bring the 2015 Championship back to players and fans that have played such a big part in our story.

Continuing a pattern we began last year, Worlds 2015 will be a multi-city, multi-country event -- with our Group Stage, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and Final showdown held in different cities within Europe. Our goal is to bring live esports action to a broad base of fans across Europe and to provide an exciting and diverse backdrop for fans watching at home. Last year’s multi-city journey to Worlds was a fast-paced and exhilarating ride - we learned a ton about the kind of experience we want to offer to competing pros, fans in the stadiums and viewers at home. We’re ready for an action-packed month in Europe.

It’s still too early to share exact details -- we're currently confirming venues, timing, format, and more - and we’ll be sharing those details in the next few months. In the meantime, tune in to cheer on your favorite LCS teams this week as they take their first steps towards Worlds 2015.

For players in Europe and beyond, we can’t wait for you to join us on this journey. See you at Worlds!"

Following this and the earlier announcements regarding the Mid-Season Invitational, the eSports team also jumped on the boards to host a Q&A!

We'll have a better run down of the eSports Q&A in this weekend's esports round up but for now you can check out the "Rioter Rundown" version - including:

• Magus commenting on expanding broadcast viewership
• Magus on  the LPL / OPL broadcasts overlapping
•  Ariel Horn commenting on upgrading the stream quality 
• Janook with a detailed explanation on higher quality streams
• Nick Allen commenting on the Challenges of expanding the # of teams
• Nick Allen on the differences between the Mid-Season Invitational and All-Stars
• Jason Oliver on the EU shoutcaster line up
• RedBeard on World's Venue difficulties

Assassin Discussion

As you've likely noticed in the recent PBE updates and mentioned in the 5.2 live gameplay patch forecast, Riot is taking a swing at many assassin's in the next patch - including Akali, Fizz, and Zed.

In a reddit thread discussing the latest PBE changes ( removing the % damage amp from Ahri's E and adding a damage % amp to Fizz's R), Scarizard commented on the direction of these changes and why assassin's have been so heavily targeted for changes:

[For reference, I've quoted the two separate comments Scarizard is replying to]

"Quote 1:

Just because it's a damage amp doesn't mean the situations are comparable.

Ahri has range, and functions with poke patterns. She got the charm change because she could blow people up too easy. It did stop asassin ahri in competetive, but it still existed so they changed it because they decided they really dont want to encourage asassin ahri, especially since they think dfg was necessary buy. 

Fizz on the other hand is basically 80% basic abilities. Missing ult is no big dea, you still twoshot carries. Now, with these changes he will play more like zed. Ult makes the kill easy. Miss it and you have to scrap and give the enemy a chance to fight back. A lot of champions have got more reliance on ult because of strong base abilities instead of flat out nerfing them totally.

Quote 2:

This is a very insightful comment. 

If we take Riot at their word that Zed is an example of a 'healthy assassin', then these changes provide a lot of context to what exactly they feel is healthy about Zed. Both Zed's and Fizz's ultimates now provide windows of opportunity to assassinate an enemy champion. The long cooldowns (not to mention QSS) provide counterplay and meaningful choices to be made by the enemy team.

popping in to highlight this discussion chain - i think both of you have touched on some really good points. TLDR - a %dmg amp mechanic for assassins is fine, but it heavily depends on execution. ALSO I STARTED TYPING THIS TO BE SHORT BUT I'M SICK/AT HOME AND IT TURNED INTO LONG DESIGN GIBBERISH

as you say, doof, our view of a 'Healthy Assassin' is one where you can feel the back-and-forth, especially when it come to all-ins. Split-second dodging a Fish from fizz and then dying flat out to basic abilities is a major frustration (even worse when the opponent flatly misses and does the same) - A large part of mastering Fizz is not just landing your fish, but creatively seeking the flanks/pathing necessary to catch people off-guard. Fizz players who excel at this already shouldn't see too big a change, imo.

RFine also has a great point - Ahri doesn't /need/ her dmg% from charm due to her poke/kite pattern. If i miss my charm, but still manage to hit you from long-range, i can

A. Rinse/repeat poking you down until you're low enough that i'll kill you with raw base damages (thus landing charm is irrelevant)

or, B. Land my charm after you've taken poke damage, allowing me to just overkill your out-right.

those of you who have followed our assassin dialogue for a while now may be familiar with the notion that we feel assassins require 'variable combat ranges' to build an expectation/tension around their 'all-in' moment. i.e. Zed has Living Shadow + Razor Shuriken, gated by a harsh dropoff on Q's pass-thru dmg and W's high cooldown. Fizz can 'poke' with Playful Trickster in, Urchin Strike out (or vice versa), but at the cost of safety/heavy mana-gating.

this isn't to say 100% bar none every character must have these, but it's a pretty good guideline. There's a reason that champions like Akali can feel excessive to fight against when ahead, because there's no 'back-and-forth' or window for the engagement - it's just a stat-check. When Akali has more stats than X, she kills them. Similarly, when she's unable to execute on this, she explodes and feels binary. Moving forward, we're looking at ways to either introduce more of an importance on these defining, tense moments (Chum the Waters, Death Mark) or find flexible ways that these characters can outmanuever their opponents waiting for the time to strike (Ahri's Q speedchange on PBE)."