Red Post Collection: Kalista & Rek'Sai being looked at, Sated Devourer Discussion, new /ALL Chat, Tshirt Sale, & more

Posted on at 1:33 PM by Moobeat
Today's red post collection includes Meddler commenting on Kalista & Rek'Sai, Utora expanding on Tahm Kench's rather robust voiceover, discussion on the new Sated Devourer item on the PBE, a new episode of /ALL CHAT, a reminder that LoL tshirts are currently 30% off in the merch shop, and more!
Continue reading for more information!



Table of Contents


Meddler on Kalista and Rek'Sai

When asked if the balance team has any plans for Kalista and Rek'Sai, Meddler commented:
"We're assessing the best way to trim a bit of power off both Kalista and Rek'Sai this week. 
Current thinking with Rek'Sai is that the frequency with which she knocks up multiple enemy champs may be too high. We're going to test a smaller W radius as a result. 
In Kalista's case we're looking at her power curve, with the working theory being that she spikes in power too hard with early AD."

As of the 6/26 PBE update, the Rek'Sai W nerf is on the PBE. Her knock up area for Unburrow was reduced to 160 from 200.

Tahm Kench's robust diction

In a thread discussion our upcoming and verbose new champion, Riot Utora commented on just how robust Tahm Kench's voiceover is:
"Tahm has interactions with 46 different enemies and 46 allies (most are the same on both sides). Some champs have multiple lines as well...Azir comes to mind right away. Tahm's writer thought interactive taunts was an area to double down on considering his personality. I wouldn't expect this many interactive taunts on another champ in awhile. One thing I like to do with the champs I work on is to find areas within their thematic, personality, and gameplay where we can do interactive and dynamic things with their voice. 
Along with the taunts on Tahm, he has a subset of voice lines that are more aggressive that play when he has at least two stacks of his passive on an enemy or has a target devoured. When he's in this "aggressive" mode we switch to different voice lines for his move lines, attack lines, and basic attack voice efforts."
Check out Tahm Kench's voice over, which clocks in at over 13 minutes, here:


For more on Tahm Kench, check out these links:

Veigar R VFX size based on AP

Meddler also commented on the fun idea of having Veigar's R projectile become visually larger based on the amount of ability power Veigar has.
"Quote: 
Honestly i love Deleting people with Veigar  but it looks like such a tiny particle unless you use Final Boss Veigar. 
So make it so his Primordial Burst scales size with AP 
so like, 45 Units larger per 100 AP. It's only Visual, but still, as a magekiller shouldn't his Ult look larger as he scales his AP, showing the fear he instills on AP Mid Laners everywhere?
Seems like a solid idea to me. We'll throw that into some playtests, see if it feels right in game. That'll likely involve a smaller than current missile at zero AP, same size as current at moderate amounts of AP and bigger than current above that."
He continued:
"Yeah, version in testing's got a cap around the 2k mark. 
Also, just to avoid setting unrealistic expectations, I do need to emphasize this is still the in 'cool thing we're trying' category, not the 'definite change in an upcoming patch' one."

Sated Devourer Discussion

The 6/26 PBE update introduced several changes for Enchantment: Devourer, including it transforming into a new Sated Devourer item after reaching a certain amount of stacks. Sated Devourer has a new unique passive called "Phantom Hit" that causes every other basic attack to trigger a phantom attack that triggers all on hit effects a second time.
Following Sated Devourer's PBE debut, Meddler jumped on the boards to clear up a few concerns;

When asked how the item interacts with things like Sheen and Nasus Q, Meddler explained:
"Quote:
So, will champs with abilities that modify their next basic attack, like Poppy, Darius, Garen, Rengar, Nasus essentially have the damage from the ability doubled if it lands with a phantom proc?
No, those abilities will all be unaffected, since the normal auto attack will consume the buff in question. This is basically two auto attacks back to back, where the second one has no base damage and therefore only applies on Hit effects. Things like Nasus Q, Sheen etc therefore apply to the first auto attack, get consumed, and aren't around for the second attack.

Meddler also reminded that Phantom Hit only works with BASIC ATTACKS so things like Ezreal's Q or Warwick's R - which are not basic attacks - would not proc it:
The phantom attack on sated Devourer's a bit more specific than other on Hit abilities. It only applies on basic attacks, so things like Warwick ult, Ezreal Q, and GP Q that aren't basic attacks but do apply on hits won't trigger the phantom attack. They will still apply the normal Devourer magic damage on hit of course.

As for if this means that Blade of the Ruined King's on hit effect is doubled every other attack, he noted:
"Quote: 
does that means that with every aa botrk will deal 16% current hp?
Yes."

Meddler also noted that for charging abilities like Aatrox's W, Sated Devourer would essentially double the stacks gained on hit  to proc the effect whenever Phantom Hit triggers:
"Quote: 
My guess is that it will speed up how often he procs his W passive, I don't imagine the passive procing twice in rapid succession.
That's correct. Aatrox will proc his W effect every second attack, instead of every third."

Kennen Bug & Tooltip Fixes on PBE

In a board thread discussing what seemed like a duration increase to Kennen's passive stun on the PBE, Meddler noted that it is actually just a tooltip fix and Kennen's passive stun has incorrectly listed on the tooltip for some time:
"This is just a tooltip fix, turns out Mark of the Storm's duration was increased to 1.25s years ago but that wasn't documented (our bad). 
We've also got a second bug fix for Kennen in the upcoming patch that fixes a case where his W occasionally doesn't target enemies recently affected by his ult."

Team Up Shirt Sale Unlocked: All Shirts 30% Off!

As part of the Team Up week rewards,  all of Riot's merch store tshirts are 30% off through July 2nd!
"All Shirts $17.50 (30% Off)!Dive into the Team Up and Pool Party 30% off shirts sale and pick up any shirt for $17.50 USD. This community-unlocked sale lasts now until July 2 at 11:59 PM PDT."
This sale also includes the new Piltover's Finest design (as seen on left) that was recently added to the shop.

Speaking of the Pool Party, remember that we currently have a Party IP weekend going through 6/28!

/ALL Chat | Phreaky Art ft. Gweedo 

Next up we have a brand new episode of  /ALL Chat, Riot's community driven talk show!

"Today’s ALL Chat features Sosenka’s ridiculous makeup cosplay, some phreaky art (heh), a discussion about how to stop feeding, F is for Flash, and Gweedo from Just OK Guides! 
Also, Phreak stops by to guest host while Mel’s on break and things go pretty much how you’d expect them to. 
Tell us what you think!"

Xypherous Hybrid Itemization Discussion

In a PBE boards thread on itemization, Xypherous jumped in to share his thoughts on hybrid (both AD and AP) itemization in general and what he sees as it's flaws:
"Quote:
To me, that is where the flaw existed in hybrid itemization design. I don't think any special consideration should be given to these items just for being hybrid. The catch should be that they are good only if you can actually use all of the stats on them, but if not then you should be shooting yourself in the foot because the item should not be efficient for those champions.
If they're not better than other items - why would you buy them as a hybrid? Because they exist?

Furthermore - if this item is good on you and not particularly efficient - what does that say about your AD or AP ratios and your ability to use other items?

We could easily make a 1800 gold item that gave 40 AP and 25 AD.

For this item to be equivalent to 80 AP or 50 AD - your AP and AD ratios have to be equal to other character's high AD and AP ratios innately. Which means that you scale equally well with this item as any other item - regardless of whether it had AD or AP.

Which then boils down to - why do you purchase the hybrid item to begin with? In what way is it stronger than others? Because if it provides you a non-stat but still a damage spike - it is guaranteed that you will be balanced around said spike and the same damage effects would occur.

You can sidestep this dilemma by stating that hybrid champions would buy this to get access to some other form of utility or sideways benefit that the other items don't provide.

However, in this world - hybrid champions can already use literally every item in the game outside of penetration items well. Penetration items don't carry a ton of utility - due to their natural advantage of murdering squishy targets. Penetration is also a form of damage spike which I'll address later.

Going back to this hybrid item existing as a form of utility - They can already pick and choose the best actives and passives out of the categories - so then it wraps straight back to - why does this need to exist? Why isn't the strength of a hybrid champion already the ability to pick the best items in every conceivable category and use them well?

Compound this with the damage efficiency curves - You'll want to also have a look at the multiplicative items in AD and AP.

AD has Crit, AS and Lifesteal - as well as other neat things like Hydra.
AP has Deathcap as well as other items with AP Ratios on them.

Therefore - what you'll tend to see is that, because other paths have delayed multiplicative synergies to them - that usually going straight down AD or AP will be highly preferable to getting a mix of the two statistics - due to the multiplicative power of other items in their ecosystem. The real crux of this problem comes down to the fact that skills have linear - rather than exponential ratios.

Thus - unless the hybrid item is primarily utility centric - it's not going to have a strong place in either of these builds - because a build full of hybrids with no late multipliers is going to suck - that's not even getting into the problem of defending against hybrid champions innately sucks in the mid-game.

You could try to solve this by giving all hybrid characters scaling AD or AP ratios - but again - that lowers their midgame and early-game power spike potential dramatically as in the current case.
In the late game, tanks are likely to have ~130 magic resist and ~180 armor (at least, I always tend to have more armor than MR). At that point, hybrid itemization isn't as useful because you have no way to effectively cut through the resistance of your opponent.
This heavily presumes that the role of hybrid is to be able to cleanup and sweep through teams. This assumes that hybrid characters end up as carry classes - rather than either Assassin or Utility classes. 
But let's brush that aside, while it is true that your damage potential falls off - you ignore the fact that you've been incredibly hard to itemize up till now - as all your opponent's purchases have had half effect on lowering your damage thus far. 
Then you introduce guaranteed late game damage for these characters - opponents' itemization options will be inefficient in the early, middle or late game. Since you are most likely guaranteed a late game and early purchases have minimal effects - I'm not sure what the effects that would have - but I would assume that you're either going to keep a poor late game - or your mid-game will have to be nerfed to compensate for the fact that you'll never really fall off in the damage curve. 
(Which then brings you back to exactly the same outcome as introducing a high spike item and lowered ratios would do.) 
Edit: Note that there is actually a fairly reasonable answer to the 'why should hybrid characters get a special utility that is only good on them' than other characters - if their kits are so constrained that they need a specific hybrid utility function to be able to function. 
This becomes simply a analogue to the damage case - just in utility."

Last day: How to unlock your Mystery Champion 

Last up we have a reminder to link your LoL and FB accounts through the Friend Discovery feature before June 28th if you want to receive a free Mystery Champion!
"Ding! The community’s moved past level 3 during this week’s Team Up and Pool Party. That means everyone can nab a Mystery Champion (a random champ you don’t own, unlocked for free) by connecting League and Facebook. Friend discovery’s only function is to surface IRL friends that also play League. Add ‘em or not, it’s up to you.
You can find the friend discovery feature by clicking the “Add Friends” button in the client’s friends list. Make sure to connect from 11:59 PM PDT on 6/28 through 11:59 PM PDT on 6/29, otherwise you may not receive your Mystery Champion as expected. We plan to ship out the Mystery Champions by7/1. If you’ve already signed up for the feature, you’ll unlock a Mystery Champion too. If you disconnected previously, reconnect during the time window up above. If you’ve got questions about the feature, we’ve got a FAQ for that.

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