- Champion and Skin Sale 8/7 - 8/10
- Red Post Collection: August 5th Patch Update, GP Champion Insights, Fiora Bundle, NA Server to Chicago, and more
- 8/6 PBE Update: Juggernaut Balance Changes, Randuin's Omen icon, and more!
- 8/7 PBE Update: More tentative balance changes
Table of Contents
- Tentative Fiora Buffs
- wav3break on Teemo's R granting Vision
- Context on Lee Sin PBE Buffs
- Meddler on Mobile Assassins
- Garen Rework Discussion
- Extended Attack Range on Juggernauts
- Chat with Riot interns on 8/10!
- /ALL Chat | Are All Fizz Mains Jerks?
Tentative Fiora Buffs
"We're with you that Fiora seems to be pretty underpowered and are working on a set of buffs for her at the moment. One of those will increase her mobility, overall though at least for a first set of changes we're looking more to add baseline effectiveness to her. From the look of it we ended up being significantly too cautious about her balance overall.
Current changelist (note, work in progress, so not set in stone) looks like this:
HP / level 80 >>> 92
AD / Level 2.5 >>> 3.3
Q CD 18/16/14/12/10 >>> 16/14/12/10/8
W CD 21/19.5/18/16.5/15 >>> 19/18/17/16/15"
"Quote:
if aimed right and timed right would it essentially brake the channel when it returns damage or would fiora not go into "suppressed" mode at all?
Just curios because google didn't answer my question
If Fiora's mid Riposte when an enemy uses a surpression like Malz ult on her she'll block the effect, basically in the same way a spellshield would."
wav3break on Teemo's R granting Vision
wav3break commented on this, explaining the effect was unintentionally removed:
"Specifically for point 3, mushrooms were never granting vision of poisoned enemies. They were actually revealing a very large radius around the explosion and thus it felt like poisoned enemies were revealed by the poison because they were slowed and could not escape the revealed radius.
This functionality was unintentionally removed (my bad), but we are rectifying it by actually making mushroom poison reveal the targets it hits for this coming patch like Caitlyn traps.
We are still evaluating his performance and will likely respond with appropriate changes in the coming patches to help him out if he needs it!"wav3break also commented on this over on reddit:
"So it never "actually" gave vision to poisoned targets. It just revealed a huge radius around the explosion (something like 700 units). So this effectively meant that most targets hit by the mushroom would be revealed until the poison timed out since they were slowed at the same time.
Removing this functionality wasn't documented and unintentional, sorry about that >_<. But it revealing a ridiculous radius on explosion was power that didn't really make sense on a trap that already functions as a mini-ward. Thus this change is focused on not only returning the satisfaction of seeing poisoned enemies die, but also focusing the power of the vision it used to give on the actual people that get poisoned."
Context on Lee Sin PBE Buffs
"These are buffs intended to give power particularly to players who aren't amazing at Lee Sin. We like that Lee Sin's got a pretty steep mastery curve that really rewards practice, but it's a bit too extreme, making it really hard to put him in a good spot balance wise (if he's balanced in top tier play he's very weak for the average player, if he's at least tolerable for the average player he's probably too dominant in top tier play). They will add a bit of power to competitive Lee Sin play too, we're looking to avoid too much of a buff there though.
As far as the specific changes go:
- Ult now deals damage to people hit by the champion knocked back based off the bonus HP of the champ kicked. If you can Insec well, this isn't going to be a very appealing play generally. If you can't however, and are regularly using the ult just to get enemy divers out of the fight for your team this will offer a bit of extra power to try and optimize. Will be some niche cases where it helps out in high level play as well, we expect those situations to be pretty niche though.
He continued:
- Energy restore from passive now frontloaded onto the first auto attack (20 first auto then 10 second auto, instead of 15/15). This buff will help out both new and experienced Lee Sin players, expectation is it'll be significantly more useful to newer players though as they learn energy management and when to weave auto attacks in between spell casts. A frequent source of failure we see from new players is constantly trying to weave in 2 autos per cast, even when that's a really poor idea or, at the other extreme, running out of energy frequently. Giving people room to learn and grow's great of course, we'd like to get some signalling in there to encourage people to consider 1 auto per cast more often when they're first learning though."
"'Balanced for who?' is one of the questions behind this work. We choose to balance for high level play, with some reigning in of massive outliers at lower skill levels. If the difference in performance between experienced and inexperienced player gets too far out of line however that means we're forced to make a champion really hard to succeed with and unsatisfying for the average player if they're to be balanced at high level play. Making a champions skill floor a bit more accessible, without lowering their skill ceiling, is an approach we feel's valuable as a result, and this work is, in part, an example of that."Meddler continued, noting several champions that currently have changes testing on PBE for 5.16:
"5.16's also got changes to a number of other champs we believe also need some help. Currently in testing stuff includes:
Kassadin (ult AP ratio)
Le Blanc (partial reversion of the W speed reduction)
Lissandra (self cast ult heals Lissandra)
Lucian (W MS bonus can now be triggered by allies)
Nami (buffed passive, ult applies double strength passive)
Twitch (lower Q mana cost and very slight ult damage increase late game)
Vel'koz (secondary missiles on Q have more range)
Zed (shorter delay until ult can be reactivated)
That's all potential stuff in testing, so not guaranteed to go live of course, but Lee's definitely not the only champ we're looking at in that regard.
Yorick's a champ we believe needs a full kit overhaul, in the same way old Sion did/Poppy does. He's not in a terrible spot power wise so, given we don't believe he's good for the game, we don't want to add any power to him at this point."
Meddler on Mobile Assassins
"Quote:
After the Leblanc and Zed nerf it got me thinking.
Is Ahri and flashy champs like Fizz getting nerf on their mobility soon?
Would be awesome if you guys can reply.
We're putting a bit of power back into Zed and Le Blanc in 5.16, in both cases partial reversions of the previous nerfs, they got hit harder than intended.
5.16 also includes an overall nerf to Ahri's passive (same healing at level 1 and level 16, less healing at the levels in between though).
Fizz we're still talking about. He's a possible candidate for work in 5.17, depends in part on how 5.16 goes though and how the state of the game does or doesn't change."He continued, commenting on the Ahri passive nerf in the 8/7 PBE update:
"We think that, given her flexibility overall, she shouldn't have as much sustain as she currently does (champs with good pick potential or all in capability often shouldn't have the ability to recover well after a trade)."
Garen Rework Discussion
"I am the guy working on Garen. I'm also the guy that worked on Ashe. What about the changes to Garen is making you unhappy?
Edit:
I read through some responses. This won't answer all questions and address, but it may get a few of them. These aren't direct quotes, but more summaries of the kinds of questions people are asking.
Q: Why the W stack mechanic instead of the 20% Armor/MR?
A: The stacking mechanic is quite achievable in your average game (120cs), and it reinforces the value of minion kills on a champion intended to be good for beginner players.
Q: Why flat resists on W instead of percent?
A: Flat synergizes better with Health stacking, and Health is present on almost all the items Garen builds. By affording him this synergy, he'll have his baseline defenses covered (lots of Health and some resists), and be able to grab an extra offense or luxury item.
Q: Why does Q silence duration need to be nerfed?
A: Having people sit in a Judgment that deals immensely more damage than it used to for basically the whole duration is insane. Shorter silence duration means more play for opponents, but also more room to pump damage into the Judgments.
Q: Why do I need to put points into W to stack it?
A: You don't, that was removed because it was tedious.
Q: Why is he slowed while hitting champions with Judgment?
A: He's not anymore. That was removed sometime earlier this week.
Q: Why are you just nerfing Garen on basically every way skill?
A: Heavy tuning requires give and take. These changes are not intended to be net nerfs to Garen, and I am all but positive they are actually very significant buffs. Most questions like this seem to be due to change aversion or misunderstanding more than anything else.
Q: Why did you take the Tenacity from W? It's so boring now.
A: Yes, it was boring before, and it's even more boring now. However, it's important that Tanks and CC supports feel good about their efforts in peeling the tanky, high damage juggernauts, because with the changes being given to them, if they're not peeled, people start dying around them fast.
Q: REVERT EVERYTHING!!!!
A: This is so clearly not going to happen, and when people post things like that, anything important to them that they are actually trying to say easily gets glossed over.
Q: Why do you keep acting like Garen is difficult to peel?
A; Garen, though historically seen as easily managed, has a few more things going for him that he didn't use to have. First, as of a few patches ago, slows don't stack anymore. Second, Dead Man's Plate gives him a lot of chase/stick later on in games. Third, Black Cleaver stacks even faster now that Judgment ticks faster. This whole package can make him substantially stickier than he used to be.
Q: Why does he deal reduced damage with Judgment when hitting multiple targets?
A: Judgment does a real substantial amount of damage, so giving it some optimization cases for Garen and opponents to play around is good for the character. Though I'm confident he won't deal too little damage following these changes, that's easy number tuning."
"Quote:
So what reason do I pick Garen, other than I like him, over Darius/Wukong/Hecarim (other similar juggernaut top laners)?
There are a couple potential reasons that I could see to pick Garen (outside just liking him). First, he'll still be a lane bully for several matchups I imagine, and picking to win your lane can often be a good idea. Second, relative to other tanky top laners, Garen will have possibly the best combined package of sustained speed, durability, and damage. Basically, he's a good pick when you need a tanky damage dealing presence and you can anticipate fights that will move a lot. Strategically, he may be the perfect pick when you have a team that can support him (especially with speed buffs, like Lulu or Sivir) and the opposing team has only one or two damage threats (bonus points if at least one of them is a melee threat). This is the ideal pick scenario for him because the opposing team needs their limited damage dealers to get fed in order to win the game, and if they get fed, they become the Villain. Having that extra effectiveness against that Villain when the opposing team is heavily reliant on them can actually be a big deal.
Another fun interpretation of where I think Garen is a good pick, though it isn't strategicwithin the game is when you know the opposing team relies on a certain player to get fed in order to win. This could potentially translate to competitive play, though I think it's more applicable and fun to pre-mades with friends. When you've got that one Diamond guy in your premade that you know is going to stomp a bunch of Silvers, pick Garen against him and show him who's boss in the late game.
What does this rework solve that he had a problem with?
Before making any changes to him, Garen was in the unfortunate situation of:If you are interested in Garen's PBE rework or more upcoming changes, check out Riot Repertoir's PBE changelist and feedback thread.
This update doesn't change the former. In fact, he statistically becomes slightly worse at getting to people. However, it is intended that he'll have a huge impact if he actually manages to get to people now. Whether or not the exact numbers we have on PBE right now will perfectly accomplish that goal, that is indeed the goal, and I'll work to get him there if he falls short of it on release. At the end of the day, Garen is never going to be able to compete with champions like Irelia, Hecarim, or Riven (this isn't to say that any of these three characters are necessarily balanced either) when it comes to getting to specific targets, so he should be meaningfully more impactful than them in some way if he pulls it off. In his case, he's just going to deal a ton of damage to things he sticks to.
- Having to work super hard to get to people in fights (this used to be the standard in LoL)
- Not being all that impactful if he actually managed to get to people
"Taric's design work was actually finished early this year, but he's getting the full deal as far as updates go: model, animations, effects, sounds, lore, icons, gameplay.
He'll be a Sion-level rework, and he should probably come late this year or early next year.
I did his game design work, so if you hate it when it hits PBE, feel free to let me know then."
Extended Attack Range on Juggernauts
As part of their Juggernaut gameplay updates, Darius' attack range has been increased to 175, Garen to 175, and Mordekaiser's to 200. When asked about these attack ranges that are above the normal 125 attack ranges, Meddler commented:"Quote:
Most melee champs have 125 AA range whether the model is small like Akali or big like Alistar, however:
Tahm 200, as well as the expected reworks: Garen 125>175, Darius 125>175 and Morde 125>200. Why are new melees getting such a higher AA range? I don't think it's fair to other melee champions that have also been stuck with 125 AA range for years like these guys.
Historically we've almost always used 125 range for melee champs, with a few exceptions. When working on the juggernaut changes however we came to feel that range of of melee attacks was a lever it would be appropriate to vary more. Slightly increased attack range on immobile melee characters allows us to give them a little bit of extra target access without having to give them additional mobility or CC tools. Highly mobile champions by contrast we feel should often have to take the risk of getting right up to their targets to AA as part of the price they pay for that mobility."
Chat with Riot interns on 8/10!
Several Riot interns will be hitting up the boards on August 10th to host a Q&A on their experiences at Riot!
"We’ve got fifteen current Riot interns ready to talk about their experience this summer and answer any questions you may have about the NA internship program. They’ve worked in a variety of fields including Publishing, Data Science, Engineering, Art, and Esports, so whatever your interests join us on 8/10 at 1 PM PDT for some Q&A!"
/ALL Chat | Are All Fizz Mains Jerks?
Last up we have a new episode of /ALL Chat!
"What does your main say about you? Are you as hotheaded as Brand? Trolly as Trundle? On this week’s ALL Chat we ask plat streamer and mid player KayPea the tough questions about matching personality to play style. Summoner Showcase brings on cosplayer extraordinaire Okageo in his Varus cosplay to help the hosts feature your awesome stuff.
Let us know what you think!"
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