Red Post Collection : Midseason Durability Discussion, Karma Legacy Skins & Bundle, and more!

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Midseason Durability - Goals and Direction 

"Hi everyone, 

In the near future, some changes to durability in League are going to hit the PBE in anticipation of the upcoming midseason patch. Before that happens, I wanted to give some brief info on what kinds of things you can expect to see, as well as why we wanted to work on these things. Please note that this post in particular will be more about goals and direction than specific changes, so take numbers with a grain of salt, and know that things are still subject to change pending feedback/tuning. With that brief intro out of the way, let’s get right into it. 

MR/lvl for all 

Since this is pretty straightforward, we’ll get it out of the way first. Every champion that has no MR/lvl is planned to gain a small amount. This change will probably go mostly unfelt, but should help to curb some especially crazy burst damage cases on squishy champions, and though we have no current plans, it puts us in a better position to do things like use MR/lvl as a tuning level in the future, similar to how we do for Armor/lvl already. 

Tank Item Stat Rebalance 

Many of the game’s end-tier tank items have approximately half of their gold value in Health and half of it in Armor or MR. With the midseason coming, we’re looking to change some of those proportions slightly so that the items have more of their gold budget in the Armor or MR stat on them. The goal of this change is reduce how spiky first and second item purchases on tanks tend to be, while simultaneously increasing their ability to grow their builds satisfyingly throughout the game. 

For an example, Sunfire Cape currently gives a good amount of Health and a good amount of Armor, and with these changes, we’re aiming for it to have slightly less Health and slightly more Armor. By doing these changes, a tank rushing an Armor item like Sunfire Cape will be less effective defensively against the opposing team’s magic damage dealers until they manage to round out their defenses through other items. So in this case, Sunfire Cape has 75 less Health but 10 more Armor. 

Tank Item Unique Effect Sharpening 

While working on the tank item side of durability, we wanted to increase the excitement of items by making them a bit more about their unique effects. Throughout the items changes, you’ll see small changes to items’ uniques that aim to make them more effective at their intended purpose (and sometimes less effective at more general purposes). For instance, we have some changes that make Dead Man’s Plate deal no bonus damage except at max stacks, and also lose some stacks when basic attacking without max stacks. However, it also stacks up more quickly and its slow no longer decays, both of which help the item better perform its main purposes. 

New Defensive Items 

In addition to changing some existing items’ effects in the shop, we’re also looking to add a couple new ones. These primarily aim to add a few options that tanks can opt into to protect themselves against common threats they need to deal with. As an example, we’ll be putting a new Armor/MR item on the PBE that is statistically very inefficient, but doubles its Armor/MR when around enemy champions. This positions it as a great choice when you know you need to get in the middle of the enemy team regularly, but not so attractive if splitpushing is a core part of your strategy. 

Repurposed Items 

Some items in the game have stats and unique effects that conflict with each other. To this end, you’ll be seeing some changes aimed at reimagining existing items to either have new stat lines and build paths, or that simply have their effects swapped with other existing items that we felt would be more fitting. To speak to one of them, Guardian Angel can often not feel like a particularly helpful item. Its stats are attractive to tanks, but its unique effect isn’t very fun for the game on tanks. Its unique effect would be a welcome addition to some damage dealers, but its build path usually feels far too inaccessible or inconvenient to get to. As such, there are some tentative changes on the way for Guardian Angel, as well as a few other items in similar positions. 

Closing 

Again, things that end up on PBE will be subject to change and/or removal before shipping for midseason. One final thing to note is that, following these change, there will still be some items that aren’t in great shape and are going unchanged for at least the time being. However, our hope is that we’re setting up a good framework around which we can work on individual items in the future and find them good homes in the item shop. 

That about does it for the precursor to the midseason durability changes. I probably won’t go into too much detail on individual changes here, but if there are questions about goals and direction that were unclear or that you’d just like some more info on, I’ll try to answer some comments. 

Thanks,
Repertoir"

"Quote:

So will the the midseason basically be connected to/focused on the tank rework or no? Sorta like the assassin rework how we got new changes and all that.

This portion of the midseason will be largely connected to the tank updates. However, this should feel different from other recent class updates in that it won't be only the targeted class of champions getting new items to play with."

"Health scaling champions will be affected somewhat negatively as a result of this particular change, however with the introduction of some new items and the fact that a couple primary Health items are going unchanged (or even getting buffed), they seem to be in a pretty good spot."

"Cinderhulk isn't currently planned to get any changes to its Health values or its passive bonus Health since junglers tend to operate on lower economy already."

"Quote:

What is your goal on tank scaling?

Early lane largely unchanged (except for possible changes to Doran's Shield). Mid game slightly weaker against mixed damage, slightly stronger against singular damage threats. 

Late game probably comes out a bit stronger overall due to the addition of some new options in the shop. That said, there are some small measures taken in the changes that reduce tank damage from items as part of a general push toward making tanks be a little tankier but deal a little bit less damage later in the game. These types of changes will be clearer in the first PBE build.

How does this interact with penetration items?

The value of penetration items would increase slightly, and the value of %HP items like BotRK would decrease slightly most likely, but there are also some small changes planned to keep penetration in check that will hopefully hit PBE soon as well.

Will tanks be getting a new Hp/Armor/CD item to reflect the Spirit visage for MR?

This specifically is not planned, but we have given consideration to tank builds so that they can effectively include CDR in them, and based on those considerations, there will be some simple (but notable) stat line changes, at least in the first PBE push."

"Quote:

Ok, so new items will give more MR/Armor which will make rushing early void staff/last whisper twice as efficient. 

And late game ADC with lord dominiks melts tanks like nothing.
And 1 thing bothers me even more that when i perform well on tanks i still do not feel any impact in the game because my ADC/APC feeds.
If i would pick vlad or any other carry i have a chance of winning vs enemy fed carries, while as tank i just can't do a thing because ADC fed melts me, fed Ziggs melts me. 

I do not ask what should i do when enemy ADC/APC is fed, i ask how will you make tanks more impactful so that even from behind they can carry.If i am not mistaken tanks purpose is to soak damage and provide CC so that your carry can deal damage and etc., what if your carry can't do anything?

Mentioned this in a response above already, but we're giving a look to penetration items as well."

"Quote:

Warmogs is definitely an avenue of curiosity. It does have some differences from Visage, but Visage appears to overshadow it, especially now since BortK is in full force and Liandry's is as strong as ever. There are so many times playing Garen that I've wanted to build warmogs, but I feel like if I haven't build Visage first then I skip it.

Warmogs currently has some small buffs planned for it (reduced Health threshold for the passive, stronger passive, reduced passive CD against minions/monsters, I believe) while maintaining its current stats, so it should be a decent outlet for people looking for a big Health item. 

Again, that's subject to change, but this is currently what's in testing."

"Doran's Shield is likely getting some change that make it more agnostic to the user's base stats."

"Quote:

Keep up the great work. I really hope you guys find suitable change for Doran's Shield because I'm climbing in D4 with Garen using CORRUPTING POTION. That's right, a champ with zero mana. I used to love Doran's shield but I feel like it's utility for toughing out lanes is so inferior to an item that can just give me 375 health in 36 seconds and refills, plus gives combat stats.

There's some DShield stuff that should at least make its way to PBE for testing. Riot Axes has been working that particular change, but it at least looks good on paper?"

"Quote:

What's happening to Thornmail?

Thornmail needs some attention in the future, but we didn't get a singular good direction on it, so it will mostly remain as niche (unappealing?) as it is now for the time being. Moving forward, however, we hope that with the defensive item side of the shop being in a generally good spot, we can tackle a project like Thornmail in a single patch cycle."

"Quote:

As long as BotRK is such a strong earl, mid, late game item - even good against anyone that doesn't build HP - for every ADC and other AA based champ, pure HP items will never make any sense. You need the Armor and other sources of dmg reduction to protect your HP pretty early and so a warmogs would only make sense as one of your last 2 items but then the pure HP items are already mostly useless still and all the armor and/or HP gets countered by 2 items.

Even without any change to BotRK itself, it takes some amount of hit from these changes due to resists going up a bit and Health pools going down a bit.
That said, should probably have more info on this soon, but we are also looking at a slight cost increase to BotRK (power down) and a slight cost decrease to crit, likely IE (power up)."

"Quote:

Fighters tend to die way too quickly after entering a teamfight. They're CC'd and focused down and in many cases are killed before they can even do a single spell rotation. As a result they're almost always forced into a splitpush situation and gain advantages through their 1v1 strength. On the flipside tanks are great in teamfights but get absolutely dicked in 1v1s by fighters. 

This creates a situation where, in a fighter vs tank matchup, if the fighter gets slightly ahead they can force a spitpush game and the tank is worthless or the tank gets ahead force a teamfight game where the fighter is worthless.
Are there going to be any changes to increase the overall durability of fighters and increase the dueling potential of tanks?

We're probably unlikely to increase the dueling potential of tanks, because the game state turns pretty questionable when we turn up their damage in the late game especially (very hard to do without also just making them do more ambient teamfight damage as well).
Fighters should have at least one new option in the shop that gives them some more teamfight potential, though it willgenerally be better on pure tanks, and probably more situational for teamfighting fighters."

"Quote:

Doubling resistances when around allies? I can't wait to build it on Poppy.

Specifically that item's resists"

"Quote:

Will we have Armor Item for AD Champions?
AP Champion have both Armor and MR items

Hopefully. Still in testing, but should at least make it to PBE."

"Quote:

Any work planned on Righteous Glory? It's supposed to be a great items for vanguards, but it's rarely used

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