Red Post Collection: Quick Gameplay Thoughts: May 11, Pyke Discussion, & More

Today's red post collection includes Meddler's quick gameplay thoughts for May 11th, discussion on Pyke after his champion reveal, red comments from around the web, a roundup of MSI articles and videos, & more!
Continue reading for more information!


Table of Contents


Quick Gameplay Thoughts: May 11

Here's Meddler with his quick gameplay thoughts for May 11th, including thoughts on potential solo carry work, 8.11 changes, and more:
"Hey all, 
Usual Disclaimers 
These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get put delayed or even stopped. If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler 
More solo carry potential work 
We're continuing to work on changes that get a bit more solo carry potential back in the game. 8.10's got the bounty changes (solo gold, not team gold) and jungle changes (junglers not being able to level 3 gank as early). For 8.11 we're looking at shifting some tower gold, on both outer and inner towers, from team gold to solo gold, focus that increased power more on whoever's gained that advantage for their team. 
One important thing to note is that increased solo carry potential is going to result in more cases of single champions snowballing and deciding the game. We think we've pushed too far on teamplay, hence some movement back in the other direction. Does mean there'll be more cases of one person doing well, getting fed and dominating though. If your actions as a single player can carry the game, so can other people's. We think that’ll be good overall, but will come at some trade off. 
Other 8.11 Changes 
Banner of Command:
  • Looking to make it less rushable. We think Banner creates some cool strategic play post laning phase. During lane though it tends to just somewhat degrade laning interaction, particularly on champs who use all of its stats pretty well (hi Sion). Might do something like make the bonuses it gives minions scale with champion level as a result.
Celerity
  • Celerity's currently a strong all purpose choice in its row that drowns out other options too much. As always on movement speed it also contributes to creeping up average speeds. We were going to make some changes to it in 8.10 with the other minor runes balancing, but concluded something a bit larger was needed than just numbers tweaking. Going to be looking at modifications like MS only in combat, or after every ability cast, rather than on all the time as a result.
Shurelia's
  • Currently looks too good on a few champs using it primarily personal power (Vlad, Singed etc) and not good enough on those picking it up to help their team (supports for example). Going to look at equalizing that a bit (team users stronger, other users weaker, or at least not stronger again).
Champions
  • We'll continue work on Taliyah and Kha'Zix that was started during 8.10 but didn't make the cut off for the patch.
  • Other champion balance changes to come too, we're currently trying an approach where we focus on systemic stuff (items, runes, jungle etc) early in the patch and then champion balance implementation kicks off a bit later. More details to come as a result.
  • Likely for smaller changes we take a look at at least Sejuani (hit too hard by recent changes) and Zyra (seeing what we can do to make plants a bit better without putting them back in 'it's not worth paying the cost to kill these' land).
Sterak's 
We'll be holding off on Sterak's changes (e.g. decoupling it from TriForce builds somewhat) until we know where other possible fighter item changes are up to. Will revisit in a few patches as a result."

When asked about other iterations of Stormrazor, Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Is the current iteration of stormrazor on PBE the one that will stay? Or are there other iterations to test?
Still testing changes, likely there's a different version again on PBE next time (assuming the most recently seen one was the proc that scaled with AS followed by stacking AS on proc/crit)."

On TaliyahMeddler replied:
"Quote:
What's the context for Tayliah's work? Also anything in mind for Zed?
Looking to reduce her difference in effectiveness between organised and regular play. Likely means moving power out of waveclear into other places at the least."

On Zed, Meddler commented:
"Quote:
Not really related to the specific post, but what's your take on the current state of Zed and the way the last whisper and other ad item changes will affect him?
LW change is almost certainly a buff for him. Champs like Zed who haven't been LDR users but will favor the new version are some of the highest on our watch list once 8.11 goes out as a result."

Further Pyke Discussion

Here's some discussion on Pyke after his look and abilities were shown off in his Champion Reveal page:

RiotScruffy noted:
"We had to make Pyke a pretty unique assassin for the support role. He trades off pure damage for some CC to set up picks for his team. He's pretty unique. 
Also his jungle is only ok because is clear is slow and he takes a lot of damage. (feel free try try it if you dare)"
 On off-roles, Reav3 commented:
"Quote:
What's preventing him from going top lane? Tiamat takes care of the waveclear and his early trades seem good with the regeneration
If he has any off role my guess is it will be toplane, so try it out!"

He continued:
"Quote:
as a top lane main I am seriously loving you right now.
You think bruiser status? or just top lane assassin?
Assassin likely. Similar to Talon top"

On AD scaling, Reav3 noted:
"Quote:
Does his ult scale with AD?
Yes"

Reav3 continued:
"Quote:
Do all of his abilities scale off AD? What kind of items is he typically going to build as a support?
Duskblade & Ghostblade are both pretty good on Pyke"

On solo laning, Reav3 replied:
"Quote:
So what exactly is stopping him from being a solo laner?
His wave clear is pretty awful for one"

When asked about Pyke converting HP into AD, Reav3 noted:
"Quote:
converting hp into ad sounds super cool and would prevent hiom from ever being played as some sort of bruiser (which i think is a good choice)
He does do that, which prevents him from ever getting tanky"

Reav3 noted Pyke's splash artist was 3rdColossus:
"3rdColossus finally does a new champion splash :)"

As well as other work they have done:
"He did the base splashes for Warwick, Yorick. Galio, Swain, Urgot 
He is currently working on the new Aatrox base splash aswell"

Reav3 also commented on the similarities between Pyke's and Nautilus' lore:
"The waters around Bilgewater are pretty big, and pretty scary so Naut isn't the only one to have come back from those deeps. I would wait until all the lore is released though as I think both Pyke and Naut play out much differently even if there are some similarities. There are many Champions who originate from the void, for example, even if they play out differently despite there origins."

Riot EarthSlug also provided some background on making champion reveal videos and their experience making Pyke's video:
"Story time! This will give you a bit of background into the making of these types of videos. When working on the trailer, we do an "ideation" phase where we as a team try to figure out what we want the story of the video to be. One night after doing a ton of research into pirates, ghosts, and vengeful demon things, I had trouble sleeping. When I finally fell asleep, I woke up and had this silly poem stuck in my head. Here's what I wrote at 4 am after being awoken by dreams of Pyke:
[Narrator voice]Beware the boogeyman of Bilgewater, the BloodHarbor Ripper He stalks the docks and alleys, his blade covered in ichor. There's plenty of room for everyone at the bottom of the sea. 
The bloodwater rippers wrath is in-escapable, his mind shrouded in mist With one blue glowing eye, he'll exact vengeance against all on his list. There's plenty of room for everyone at the bottom of the sea. 
He appears silently from the darkness, his form a ghostly swimmer. And just when you think you are safe, you see his body a shimmer. 
[Pyke] "There's plenty of room for everyone at the bottom of the sea."

Quick Hits

  • Riot Quickshot noted the caster voiceover would be enabled from 5/13 - 5/20:
"So excited to see this as a reality! About a month back Sjokz and I recorded over 550 lines of voice over work to replace portions of the in game announcer. It was just so much fun and hopefully you guys enjoy the lines in game. This isn't exclusive to EUW, the list of languages and casters are below. The voices should be enabled from 13th to 20th May, lining up with the MSI Finals in Paris next week.  
  • NA: Phreak & Kobe
  • KR: Yong Jun Chun & Hyun Woo Lee (Cloud_templar)
  • TR: Kürşad “Regarnur” Demirer & Can “Scarlet” Çaldıran
  • BR: Tacio Schaeppi (Schaeppi) & Guilherme Cheida (Tixinha)
  • LATAM: Óscar "Corsario" Aliste & Érick "Skyshock" González
  • FR: Fabien "Chips" Culié & Charles "Noi" Lapassat
  • ES: Ulises Prieto "Ulises" & Ibai Llanos "Ibai"
  • DE: Jona "JustJohnny" Schmitt & Niklas "Bart" Eigen
  • RU: Mikhail "Olsior" Zverev & Yury "FlashInTheNight" Shilenkov
  • CN: Vincent “Changmao" LEE & Zeyuan GUAN 
This is a small short term hype test to get excited and celebrate MSI. It's not entirely esports focused lines and calls, but has some trolling, some flame and some fun stuff :P Hope you enjoy it and PLEASE let me know what you think of the lines :D"

Reminders

To round out this red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events!
  • MSI 2018 kicks off May 3rd! Check our MSI 2018 Hits the Rift coverage for a look at in-game content such the new Conqueror Varus OR head on over to [LoL Esports] for streams & more!

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