Dominion/TT changes coming in Patch 3.11, Riot show off a legendary skin for Janna, four new bundles available until August 19th, Zileas discusses game design in Morello‘s original thread, a collection of amazing champion skin sketches, courtesy of Ze Ocelot and, as always, the latest Sale!

Patch 3.11 Teaser

Stay tuned for Forecast Janna

Red Post Collection

New bundles live in the Store

Community Art

Champion/Skin Sale – Expires August 16th

Patch 3.11 Teaser

A small list of changes coming in the next patch.

  ManWolfAxeBoss: Disclaimer: These changes are on Dominion/TT.

These are still up for change and more may be added, but here’s what’s going onto PBE for now.

Champion Changes

      Lulu

Wild Growth ( R )

• Cooldown increased from 110/95/80 to 120/110/100 seconds

   Wukong

Stone Skin ( Passive )

• Bonus Armor and Magic Resistance decreased from 4/6/8 to 2/4/6 per rank 

Cyclone ( R )

• Cooldown increased from 120/105/90 to 120/110/100 

     Yorick

Omen of Famine ( E )

• Cast range decreased from 550 to 500
• Cooldown changed from 10/9/8/7/6 to flat 8 seconds

Items

Sanguine Blade

Recipe Changed: Pickaxe + Vampiric Scepter + 500 gold = 2175 Total Gold

Explaining the changes

 ManWolfAxeBoss: Sanguine Blade damage will be 50 base and will be available on maps that Sanguine Blade is available on.

Lulu has a very strong kit on Dominion. Hitting her ult CD will just mean that it won’t be available for every fight (Max CDR at rank 3 was 48 seconds). She will still be strong, but now enemies will have a longer engage window when they don’t have to worry about Wild Growth.

Can we have better CDR itemization for mages?

 ManWolfAxeBoss: It’s coming 

And speaking of which, one of the things I’ve been considering doing with sweeper is making it build from Kindelgem + Fiendish Codex > 20% CDR and remove the MS.

NOTE: CONSIDERING

Will you keep the MS buff on Hextech Sweeper?

 ManWolfAxeBoss: MS would likely be moved to another item. Would like to split up the active and MS, as having them both in one item is Mike Tyson strong. The item was originally overloaded to get people to buy it. Now that they do we need to tone it down a bit.

Stay tuned for Forecast Janna

An exciting announcement – Janna is getting a legendary skin!

Missed any recent updates? Check here!

Are Leagues better than S2’s Rating? Morello on LoL’s core design, Nerfs planned for Master Yi, Lucian still not live, Rioters object to Mercy Voting, No plans for Udyr VU and the new Sale!

Mercy Vote: Anti-AFK System, Update to Galio, Lyte on Positive features, Visual Overhaul for Summoner’s Rift and the latest Sale!

Patch 3.10 – Big Changes to Elise/Master Yi/Ryze/TF, New MR Items, Jungle Nerfs // Rioters discuss Skarner and Rengar!

Ask Lyte: Positive/Negative Players and State of Tribunal; Spellbreaker removed, Tristana’s E and Season 4 Changes!

PBE: Nerfs to Vayne and AP Lucian, Xypherous on Phage, Arcane Helix, LoL’s New Site, Update to Olaf’s Kit and the latest Sale!

 Follow me on Twitter!

A community idea for an anti-AFK system, the Mercy Vote, a quick update on Galio, Lyte on reinforcing the current Honor and Champion Select systems, a brilliant community compilation of suggestions to improve SR’s visuals and the latest Champion/Skin Sale!

Mercy Vote

Quick update on Galio

Lyte on Community & Forum features

Visual Overhaul: Summoner’s Rift

Champion/Skin Sale – Expires August 5th

Mercy Vote

This is an old thread that only recently received attention from Reds. Let’s see a community suggestion to resolve the issue with AFK-ers in Ranked.

Do you believe that the toxicity of this community should change? Is cultivating a more positive gaming experience important to you? If so read on!

A Brief Look At Toxicity

People are toxic because the tools to be toxic are simple and readily available – the ability to control their character and communicate. Emotions tend to run high, and can negatively impact individuals when things do not go as planned. Over the years I’ve played the game I’ve seen a decrease in toxic behavior across the board. I believe that creating tools to be positive is to be credited for this – from the tribunal to the honor system and beyond. I believe that giving more avenues for positive behavior can continue to improve the community as a whole.

The Problem

4v5 games are painful. It isn’t fun for me to be on the losing side, knowing I’m about to waste 20+ minutes for no good reason. It isn’t fun when I’m on the full team, either. Unbalanced teams take a lot away from the strategic points of this game and lead to something much less interactive. Many players have tried to think of ideas to combat this, but inevitably ideas fail for the following reasons:

• Too easy to abuse
• Promotes trolling
• Offers no incentive to be positive

The Proposal

What I propose, is a mercy slash command or ui element. This command will only be available to the team with 5 people, and only when certain conditions are met: There is a player that has been disconnected or idle for x seconds/minutes, AND the idle/disconnected player would cause unbalanced teams (a 4v4 would not qualify for mercy).

When the team with more players pass a mercy vote successfully, the short handed team will get a vote option popup to accept or decline mercy. If they choose to accept mercy, the game ends immediately. Instead of “Defeat” showing in game and on the match history, it would simply read “Mercy”. A mercy would incur less penalty than a defeat for the short handed team – whether it be lp, mmr, etc. The team that passed a mercy vote will also get a nice counter on their profile page next to the honor counters that indicate how many times they have passed mercy on outnumbered enemies.

The short handed team could also vote to decline mercy, and battle on taking their chances. If at any time the dc player reconnects or the idle player becomes active, the mercy vote is immediately nullified.

Now let’s get into how this type of system combats the flaws of other ideas brought forth by other users (as represented via bullet points above):

• Too easy to abuse
  Since it is now the enemy team placing the vote, there is nothing that the 4 man team can do to abuse the system. They do not have the control.
• Promotes trolling
  This system inherently promotes positive behavior instead. I’m much more likely to pass mercy on a team that remained positive than one that fought in all chat.
• Offers no incentive to be positive
  This system offers a direct tie-in to the honor system, and can reap any rewards Riot chooses to do in the future (banners, icons, etc). This system mutually benefits everyone, as it allows you to end a game without wasting another 15-20 minutes if both teams use their votes to show that the outcome is already known.

Hot Points Brought Up So Far

This is a question I’d like to target more towards a red if I could, as it’s come up a couple of times now in the discussion. I know that as far as an individual’s own mmr goes this system over a long period of time would have them placed a bit more accurately to their proper mmr.

One idea to combat inflation, as stated by a couple of posters in this thread, is to simply apply the “floating” mmr loss to the person who left the game as an extra deterrence to afking or leaving. I question how much is too much with this particular idea, but would definitely like a red to get involved one way or another! Personally, I’d imagine something like -25% loss to the four people that stayed, and that -100% total loss that’s now floating around could be applied to the leaver. 200% total loss given to the leaver would prevent inflation, and as someone who’s experienced a couple power outages in my time (2 over the past two years) I don’t think it’s too much. After all, not only did you guarantee a loss for yourself but a loss for 4 other people as well! In this scenario, getting counted for losing 2 games if you leave 1 seems fair.

Well, it’s a voting system. Meaning if I’m on the winning team I’d have to believe that the match was worth a mercy. Not only that, but if I’m on the losing team I have zero interest in taking a 200% penalty just for a chance that random strangers don’t get impacted negatively from a lost game. Clearly this is a tool meant for solo queue!

–
I truly believe that this tool could ONLY have a positive impact on the player base – allowing us to send out and receive more positive energy. If you agree, please bump. If you disagree, please state why so that we can work together to make this community better!

And now for the epic visualization concepts!

Here’s a mockup variant for allowing mercy at the end of a game:

 Reds’ Opinion:

 Riot Baconhawk: I just want to say this is an interesting concept and I’ll put it before eyes that are more qualified than mine.

A likely issue: Players harassed into leaving

 Riot Neurocat: I like the concept. One potential problem is that if you offer rewards (reduced LP loss, promo series loss nullification, etc), you create incentives for a team to harass a player performing poorly to leave. Even if the enemy team doesn’t actually decide to show mercy or the teammate you harass doesn’t actually leave, the tradeoff in the minds of the losing team is:

“I don’t harass my teammate and hope they leave” > ‘Guarenteed’ loss
“I harass my teammate and hope they leave” > Possible mercy, which means potential loss mitigation

The expected value for LP gain increases with teammate harassing behavior in that case.

However, I can’t immediately see problems with the system assuming mercy losses count the same as normal losses. This lets you end the game at 10 minutes if its super one sided, without forcing people to AFK in well.

Won’t the double LP loss discourage leaving?

 Riot Neurocat: Its true that the double LP loss on leaving is a strong disincentive to not leave. However, that doesn’t necessarily remove the incentive on the teammates of the feeding player to not harass. There probably exist some players who just don’t want to deal with the game anymore over taking that LP loss.

Wasn’t this system on the PBE awhile ago?

 Riot Neurocat: I believe you are referring to Equalize.
What would be interesting is if Equalize changed death timers in a way such that if it was a 4v5, if a player on the 5-team died, their death timer wouldn’t start until another person on their team died. Effectively always keeping one dead member in a state of “limbo”. Of course this would need to be completely opt-in on the side of the 5-team, but it could be a way to even out that disadvantage, if both teams want a fair match.

Just a completely unrelated idea  I don’t necessarily think its a good idea or something that we would implement (I don’t speak for those who would), but just an interesting thought.

Quick update on Galio

A small list of possible improvements to Galio, courtesy of ricklessabandon, he who defies capital letters.

How about making Galio’s spells scale off of Magic Resist?

 ricklessabandon: I’m actually experimenting with something like that currently. Galio as he is on live effectively has Magic Resist ratios on his spells, which gives us the opportunity to do something different/additional with his passive if we think that puts him in a better state overall.

Once we start working on the 3.12 patch the PBE might see something from me, but that’s far enough into the future that plans could change.

Will this cause a power-shift in his spells?

 ricklessabandon: The plan is to look at him as a whole and make sure everything’s in a good state, so power can be shifted where appropriate.

Lyte on Community & Forum features

A small update on Lyte‘s recent Player Behavior & Matchmaking discussion.

Suggestion: Detecting toxic speech in chat, bringing negative players faster to the Tribunal

 Lyte: We have a team of analysts and predictive modelers who have been doing research in this space. There’s a lot of potential, but like I mentioned in other posts, we’d rather use our resources for more positive reinforcement systems like the Honor Initiative or our new Champion Select solution. So for now, we probably won’t keep enhancing the Tribunal to be even more accurate–we believe we’ve optimized that system to the point where we are hitting diminishing returns. There’s a lot more value to players if our team tackles a brand new space like Champion Select or Honor.

Can you resolve posts about non-tribunal bans made in the Ban inquires sub-forum?

  Lyte: Hm, I’ll have to see what we can do with forums. Too much segregation among the sub-forums isn’t an ideal situation either.

Could behavior alerts be unnecessarily freaking neutral/positive players out?

  Lyte: Yes, there was a huge concern among the team about whether behavioral alerts would scare some players and determining what is the impact or damage of a behavioral alert that is sent to a neutral or sportsmanlike player. We’re diving into the data and looking at these specific questions.

Visual Overhaul: Summoner’s Rift

A community proposal to bring the visuals of League of Legends to a new level!

We all know that Summoner’s rift looks old right now, specially since the release of the new TT and HA…but, what are the most important factors that make SR look old, outdated or just ugly?

__________________________________________________ ___________________
Things that need tweaks, improvements or remakes:

Cliffs:

This is the one that deserves urgent attention…the cliffs look so empty, most of them are nothing but a textured polygon…not to mention its side textures look like a Minecraft grass Block.

Suggestions: tweak the textures applied to the cliffs, make them look more “complex”…also, adding grass, trees or other objects on the top of cliffs would help to make them look better…

Trees:

I know the game is famous because of the cartoonish and handdrawn feel of the game graphics….but the trees are one of the weakpoints of the game art…this is more noticeable in large groups of trees…
The main problems are:

• The lower part of the tree model doesnt blend with the terrain (the trunks) and makes them look out of place
• The proportions are messed up (trees need larger Crowns and smaller trunks)
• The height of the trees needs more variety…I know there are visual limitations with this(so trees dont block champions or roads, but still…

Baron’s nest:

Doing baron is a very special event in a LOL game…but, visually, it doesnt feel that special…I mean, the Baron’s nest is almost a Copy-paste from the Dragon’s one….It needs to bring a more”Epic” feel than what it is now (its almost empy).

White torches: 

I hated this ones since the SR visual upgrade, they just dont fit the map style….they look cathedral themed while SR is all about forests and wilderness…

Objects and decorations:

Some of the map objects are overused, specially torches(as seen in the attached image)

Turrets:

Well…nothing to explain here, the turrets look very ugly and outdated compared with the HA ones
The nexus could get some love too…

__________________________________________________ ___________________
Things that must be preserved:

The overall “”Fairy Tale styled forest” feel of the map

Some people who are new to LOL dont know about this but this is one of the aspects that makes LOL unique.
Every other moba’s 5v5 map is dark-creepy themmed while SR is a forest full of flowers bushes and such…while some people think this doesnt suit the genre, I think its part of the magic of SR, and it would be a shame to lost it in a VU.

Keep the “Single themed maps” policy

Please dont turn the purple side into a dark dead forest like Hon and Dota did….it gives people another reason to not want to be placed at the purple/blue side…
This is another thing I love of the direction art of LOL…SR is a bright forest, TT is a dark forest, HA is a frosty bridge, Dominion is a Steampunk monopoly and Magma chamber is a Magma chamber (lol)….
Different variations of the same map would be awesome like the old ones (ex: Halloween SR, Winter SR, etc) or even day/night cycles (purple lighting for night, so it doesnt affect visibility)

Fountain Circle (Lazor range indicator)

This is a VERY important aspect of the game…it needs to be there so we know the range of the fountain Lazer…in HA, for example, this area is nonexistent and its very hard to tell the lazer’s range.

Map proportions

Personally, I think the proporsions of SR are close to perfection…thats why people can play the same map over and over without getting tired of it…theres no need to change this in any possible way.

>Support for low spec systems< – IMPORTANT

TT and HA destroyed some laptops and low specs systems to the point of becoming unplayable maps for some…meaning some people can only play SR and dominion now….I dont think they will be happy if they cant run SR anymore…a possible solution is adding more custom options to the visuals of SR (shaders?, lighting options?, etc).

Remember this first post reflects my personal opinion on the subject and not the absolute truth of what shall be done to SR in a future VU.

Feel free to add your own feedback on this thread!

Reworking the Golem camp area

Champion/Skin Sale – Expires August 5th

Enjoy the following champions and skins at a discount until August 5th!

Champions:

• Malphite – 292 RP
• Malzahar – 440 RP
• Syndra – 487 RP

Defender Leona – 375 RP

Galactic Nasus – 260 RP

Nemesis Jax – 487 RP

Missed any recent updates? Check here!

Patch 3.10 – Big Changes to Elise/Master Yi/Ryze/TF, New MR Items, Jungle Nerfs // Rioters discuss Skarner and Rengar!

Ask Lyte: Positive/Negative Players and State of Tribunal; Spellbreaker removed, Tristana’s E and Season 4 Changes!

PBE: Nerfs to Vayne and AP Lucian, Xypherous on Phage, Arcane Helix, LoL’s New Site, Update to Olaf’s Kit and the latest Sale!

PBE Updates explained, Morello on Janna/Aura items, Xelnath examines Rengar, Future Caitlyn

PBE: Golem Spirit Nerf, Morello on Poppy/Karma/TF/Jungle Issues, New Rengar buffs

New PBE Update brings changes to Karma and Twisted Fate‘s Passive as well as a brand new feature – an Undo Last Purchase button! SmashGizmo discusses Olaf’s Combos and possible improvements, Morello reviews the state of Warwick and where Riot is taking his concept as well as revising the current Champion Roles and Scarizard drops a few suggestions regarding Rengar‘s Savagery and benefits from Bonetooth Necklace. All this plus the new Champion/Skin Sale!

PBE Update:

• Champion Changes
• Items
• Undo Last Purchase

Overview of Warwick

Update on Champion Roles

Savage Gameplay – Rengar Improvements

Wild thoughts on Olaf

Champion/Skin Sale – Expires July 22nd

PBE Update

Champion changes

    Karma

Gathering Fire ( Passive )

• Basic attacks reduce the cooldown of Mantra by 2 seconds, up from 1

Inner flame ( Q )

• Slow amount changed from 25% at all ranks to 20/25/30/35/40%

Focused Resolve ( W )

• Cooldown reduced from 16/15/14/13/12 to 12 seconds at all ranks

Soulflare ( R+Q )

• Slow amount increased from 50% to 60%
• No longer deals bonus damage on initial hit
• Damage on detonation increased from 50/150/250/350 ( +0.6 AP ) to 80/230/380/530 ( +1.1 AP )

Renewal ( R+W )

• Leash heal changed from 20% ( +0.01 AP ) of missing HP to 30/70/110/150 + ( 0.3 AP ) (heals for the same amount if the leash is not broken)
• No longer deals bonus magical damage

Defiance ( R+E )

• Ratio decreased from 0.6 to 0.25 AP
• Ally shield now has a base amount 40/85/130/175 (+ .25 AP ) instead of half  the amount of Inspire – 40/60/80/100/120 (+ .25 AP).

     Lucian

Ardent Blaze ( W )

• Range increased from 900 to 1000

  Master Yi

Wuju Style ( E )

• Passive bonus damage decreased from 15% at all ranks to 7/9/11/13/15%

       Olaf

Vicious Strikes ( W )

• Bonus attack damage changed from 1% of Max HP + 7/14/21/28/35 to 20/35/50/65/80
• Lifesteal and Spellvamp decreased from 9/12/15/18/21% to 8/10.5/13/15.5/18%

Twisted Fate

 
NOTE: The changes to Jayce, Karma and Olaf have been reverted and will be available in the next patch.

Items

Boots of Speed

• Now states: “Limited to 1”. (for anti-trolling purposes)

Blackfire Torch (Twisted Treeline & Crystal Scar)

• Cost decreased from 3770 to 2400 gold
• Now builds out of a Blasting Wand + Fiendish Codex instead of a Kage’s Lucky Pick + Fiendish Codex + Haunting Guise
• No longer grants 250 HP
• Bonus Cooldown reduction decreased from 20% to 10%
• No longer grants Passive magic penetratio
• Unique active changed – Now deals 20% of target’s maximum health over 6 seconds as magic damage. Also increases any additional magic damage taken by the target by 20% during this duration

Deathfire Grasp

• Can no longer be bought on Twisted Treeline and Crystal Scar

Moonflair Spell Blade (Twisted Treeline & Crystal Scar)

• Cannot be bought by Melee champions
• Now builds out of Seeker’s Armguard + Negatron Cloak instead of a Blasting Wand
• Cost increased from 1200 to 2000 gold
• Now grants an additional 50 Armor and 50 Magic Resist

Needlessly Large Rod

• Can no longer be bought on Twisted Treeline and Crystal Scar (nothing builds from it anymore there)

Wooglet’s Witchcap

• Now builds out of Seeker’s Armguard instead of a Chain Vest + 2 Blasting Wands
• Armor increased from 40 to 45

 Undo Last Purchase

Located next to the SELL button in the Shop is the option to sell back the last item you’ve purchased. This refunds 100% of the gold cost and does not expire over-time.

Overview of Warwick

Warwick’s getting some much-needed attention from Rioters. Morello covers the basis for future improvements.

 Morello: Alright – again, thanks for your patience. We’ve chatted a bit about Warwick, and I’ll try to lay out what we see the problems, concerns, and our direction we’d like to take while fixing things to bring him up to date.

Let’s start with what’s holding Warwick back, currently;

He has weak pre-6 game presence:

Because of the reliance on his ultimate, Warwick’s ability to make plays, gank, or finish a kill is really poor until he hits 6.

He has a very flat pacing that disallows skilled duels, which keeps him weak:

Most reasonable Warwick builds have enough cooldown reduction to keep W up almost all the time, spam Q quickly (and E, of course, is a passive). Over time, this has lead Warwick to having few levers for us to adjust and make him have both a satisfying and balanced place in League.

Blood Scent is only helpful if Warwick is ahead:

Since the skill is passive, and conditional on the enemy being low, this thematically-great skill doesn’t make a lot of opportunities for fallback patterns or make ways to outplay an opponent.

These are likely the first places we’d look to fix with him. Next, where do we envision Warwick living in the game, and what should he do?

Warwick should be a staple in the jungle:

Warwick has historically been a jungler (and for a lot of older players, THE jungler!), and we think this should be where he primarily lives. His lifesteal focus is easier to balance there, and could be used to make for strong counter-jungling safety with the right adjustments.

Warwick should be a consistent, sustained lifesteal fighter:

This is largely what he is now, and I don’t see any need to change that identity. I think details will need to change to bring him up-to-date, but the identity is a fine one.

I’ll give you some very initial thoughts on what direction we’ll take. I’m not going to comb details much in this thread (that’s going to likely be handled by someone on the team!), but just give you an idea what we’re thinking.

Improve Blood Scent and improve pre-6 ganks:

This is a pretty cool skill in the way it sells “hunter,” but mechanically, it needs some work. This skill is also the first place for us to look in ways to add new decisions (which will show more/less skilled play between players) and enable pre-6 ganks so he can actually perform his job as a jungler.

More wildly adjust numbers, especially cooldowns:

The lack of pacing spoken to earlier will need to change if we want to buff Warwick. Even other fighters like Jax or Irelia have windows of downtime that more knowledgable players can capitalize on to turn engagements. Without this, we can’t really up Warwick’s power much – this will be a part of it. It may also include mechanical tweaks on skills like W, E, or his passive.

This likely won’t happen for several patches:

While we agree something needs to occur here, we do have bigger fish to fry before we do this. I’d love to get this out after World Finals patches are stabilized and we can focus on more opportunistic work like WW.

I’m sure there are some unanswered questions, so I’ll try to get to what I can.

How do you plan on making Warwick a “sustain tank”?

 Morello: Part of this is by making him a primary jungler. Lifesteal tanks are much more problematic in lane (especially melee) because there’s not tons of options to deal with them, and the combat windows are long and support sustain. From the jungle, they can use it to get an edge during ganks, but not become sustainbots.

Will Warwick get a Visual update along with his Rework?

 Morello: Bigger offenders on the VU list, but I’m sure he’ll get one when it’s his turn

Updated Champion Roles

Morello discusses the upcoming distinctive name-changes of Champion Roles, complete with descriptions of each one.

 Morello: Hey Summoners,

After much discussion, we’ve decided to update our champion role names to more accurately reflect how we think of roles in League of Legends. While most of these roles (maybe not one!) may sound familiar, we wanted to share our thoughts with you and to get everyone on the same page before the changes go live in-client on the champion info tab and leagueoflegends.com with Patch 3.10. I’m also going to take this as an opportunity to give some insight into the live design process and how we differentiate between role archetypes that exist in League of Legends and the positions they can play in a given game.

Let’s start with defining what role means.

A champion’s role roughly defines the type of value they contribute to a team, or else communicates the fundamentals of their playstyle. It sets expectations for what a player’s experience will be like and what they can do for their team. At Riot, we see a champion’s place in the game as some combination of primary and secondary roles from the following list.

• Assassin

An assassin is an agile champion that specializes in killing or disabling high value targets. Focused on infiltration, deception, and mobility, assassins are opportunistic hunters who find favorable moments within a fight before jumping into the fray. Regardless of the size of the enemy team, assassins specialize in positioning and artful killing. They strike when the time is right – no sooner, no later.

• Mage

Mages are mostly ranged champions who prioritize powerful abilities over basic attacks. Typically mages are characterized by some combination of long-range, area-effect or high-utility spells to get the job done. A skilled mage can have a huge impact on any team with their versatile skillsets and flexible playstyle.

• Tank

Tanks are durable, front-line champions that help lock down enemies and start fights. They’re usually found leading the charge, choosing the right times and situations to initiate aggression. Many tanks can also protect their more fragile teammates by stunning or pushing around dangerous foes and limiting their damage potential.

• Support

Supports make plays by enabling their allies through buffs and heals, or by disrupting enemy lines through crowd control. From laning to late game teamfights, supports create advantages and opportunities for their teammates to capitalize on. A skilled support gives their team the edge it needs to claim victory, and can turn the tide of battle with just one well-timed play.

• Fighter

Fighters are melee combatants that possess a mix of offensive and defensive capabilities. While they don’t have as much utility as a tank or as much damage as an assassin, a fighter’s damage will add up over time to make them a major threat. Each fighter has a unique blend of mobility, damage, disruption and durability.

• Marksman

A marksman is a ranged attacker that sacrifices defensive power and utility to focus on dealing strong, continuous damage to individual targets. Typically focused on using their basic attacks more than their abilities, marksmen have the capability to scale and deal out devastating levels of damage in the late phase of any game.

By the way, using the term “marksman” over the colloquial “AD carry” is deliberate. Calling the role marksman defines it in a more clear and accurate way – plus AD carry is a bit of a holdover from when an AD player was always expected to carry a team. League is a game about teamwork and it’s inaccurate to say that marksman is the only role, or even the primary role, to carry teams to victory. A lot of people will still call it AD carry, and that’s fine, but for the places we use this officially, we’ll be using marksman. It’s a semantic change, but it’s important to note here just to let you know it’s coming.

Some of these roles are obvious fits for a champion, like Brand being a mage or Nautilus being a tank, but others are more nuanced or embody a combination of roles. This helps us define what the champion brings to the table and lets us get on the same page about the types of expectations you can have for a champion. For example, Mordekaiser is primarily a mage, but also a fighter. It’s also worth mentioning that we’re relatively stat agnostic when it comes to considering roles – Pantheon and Annie are both mages, for example, because they rely primarily on their abilities for damage, but the former is attack damage based while the latter is ability power based.

Since I’m here, I’d also like to address a common misconception about position and how it differs from role. Position refers to the places a champion can go, so a champion going mid could be a mage, assassin, or a fighter, but they’re still playing the mid position. This is the part of the game that players define and evolve, and we frequently like seeing surprising things here (as long as it supports good counterplay, of course)!

Let’s look do a thought exercise:

What is Teemo? Besides adorable, or pure evil, depending on who you ask, he tends to go top lane. But that doesn’t make him the same type of champion as Jax, Irelia or Jayce – champions that also go top lane. What it means, in terms of our discussion, is that Teemo is a marksman/mage. That’s his role from a design perspective. The fact that he is commonly played top is a matter of position. Lux is a mage (role) that is commonly played in mid (position). She is also played bot in more of a support role. Kha’Zix is an assassin who people like to play top, jungle or mid.

None of these position choices affect the DNA of the champion at all – they still bring the same ability kits and have the same core playstyle, but their position can affect what they do for that game. Naturally, some champions will be more suited for some positions, but there are also variables that affect even that. Team composition, for allies and enemies both, will influence a champion’s effectiveness, and item build synergy can enhance a champion’s ability to perform within a certain position. The different items players buy when playing Jarvan IV top lane as opposed to jungle Jarvan show us how items can enhance and define the two positions, even on the same champion. Ultimately these things can affect current game balance, but not the champion’s core role.

The long and short of it is that role and position are different concepts, and we approach them differently as designers. Players can use this information to better understand what to expect from a champion, and what their strengths and weaknesses can be. By all of us speaking the same language on these concepts, it’ll make for better discussions on more complex design issues.

 Will Melee Carries like Master Yi now be classified as Assassins?

  Morello: Yes, his pattern is a bit carry-ish, a bit assassin. Melee carries were the hardest in here, and it was hard to justify a role name for a handful of characters. It won’t change how we treat them, really – we still know this design space is needing work.

Do AD Casters fall in the “Mages” category?

  Morello: We debated this – maybe so. I think since they were colloquially “AD Casters,” anything that implied casting was OK. Mage and Caster was a hard word to pick, actually!

What categories will Urgot fall under?

  Morello: Probably Fighter/Marskman or vice-versa.

Will Lux/Karma/Morg/Orianna be Mages or Supports?

  Morello: Mages. They can be played in the Support position, but their role is mage.

Why is Mordekaiser labeled as “Fighter”?

What constitutes a “Tank” Champion?

Full Metal Pantheon – 487 RP

Ravager Nocturne – 260 RP

Sun Goddess Karma – 375 RP

Missed any recent updates? Check here!

 Rengar Changes, Yorick’s new Kit, Aegis/Locket Talk, Free Transfer to Russian Server

PBE: Jayce/Olaf/Aegis/Locket Changes, Hired Gun Lucian, Queue Dodge Penalty

PBE: Lucian & Yi’s kits / Changes to Sivir’s looks, Olaf and Xerath

Patch 3.9 Preview, Lucian revealed and Themed Bundles

Heimerdinger Rework, Lucian Revealed, RP Summer Sale & Art Thread

Cheaper spells and changes to Oracle’s Elixir in the latest PBE update, Xelnath goes in detail on Xerath‘s remake, various tidbits from Xypherous and Scarizard, Ironstylus discusses the issues with creating skins as well as ideas for future ones, Woad King Darius available in the store and the latest Champion Rotation and  Sale!

PBE: Champion Changes

PBE: Item Changes

Xerath reforged

Forum discussions

• Scarizard – On Shyvana’s Changes
• Xypherous – Oracle’s Elixir & Stealth
• IronStylus – Skins for Diana, Rumble and Bikini Leona
• IronStylus – Difficulty in working on skins

Woad King Darius available!

New Champion Rotation – Week 20!

Champion/Skin Sale – Expires 21st June

PBE: Champion Changes

 

       Brand

• Previous changes to Pillar of Flame and Conflagration have been reverted.

Pyroclasm ( R )

•  Mana costs still reduced from 100/150/200 to 100 at all ranks

     

       Corki

Valkyrie ( W )

• Mana cost reduced from 100 to 50 at all ranks

Missile Barrage ( R )

• Mana cost reduced from 30/35/40 to 20 at all ranks

   

     Kennen

• Base attack damage reduced from 51.3 to 47

Mark of the Storm ( Passive )

• Duration reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds

     

       Nunu

• Health per level decreased from 108 to 96

Consume ( Q )

• Damage reduced from 600/700/800/900/1000 to 500/625/750/875/1000

PBE: Item Changes

Manamune

• Mana per charge reduced from 4 to 3

Oracle Elixir

• Duration reduced from 5 minutes to 4

Xerath reforged

You’ve seen Xerath’s evolution discussed in a recent article. What’s the outcome of all these changes? See below!

  Xelnath: So what’s happening with Xerath?

• Basic VFX direction is solid
• Design direction is complete
• Ability design is basically locked in
• Balancing phase is starting

We almost cut the auto-attack replacer, but after several playtests where playtesters insisted it was the most fun thing on his kit, we decided to keep it.

What is Xerath now?

Q) Xerath’s Q is still a line-nuke which instantly deals damage along the entire length. W) Live Xerath only has 2 spells with an obvious flow. E->Q. W->Q.  Then his ultimate combo E – R – Q – R – R.   To resolve this, we “split” Locus of Power’s play pattern into two parts.

• The W -> Q poke combo has been baked into “Q”. Arcanopulse (Q) can be charged, charging the attack takes slightly longer than W-Q, but you can move while charging.
• The W -> R total annihilation combo has been moved into the new “R”. Read down to see more.

New W) We’ve given Xerath a new basic spell, name TBD, which works like 1 pulse of Arcane Barrage with a mild slow on a short cooldown. However, it has a “bullseye” effect in the center which deals bonus damage.

E) The new “E” has all of the old range W gave to Mage Chains baked in baseline, plus its now a skillshot missile that stuns, making Xerath’s targeting paradigms line up smoothly.

R) During the new Locus of Power, you are immobilized and your spells are free, but you drain mana over time. You can remain in R as long as your mana lasts. Your spell ranges increase dramatically. Instead of 3 huge pulses, you have a very large number of smaller attacks that bombard the target location with aoe explosions. R has a reasonable, but high cooldown. Passive Xerath’s passive provides early game mana regen, plus bonus spell penetration as he purchases mana items. This gives him early game sustain, allowing him to farm into a large-game mage hypercarry  if left unchecked.   Problems we’ve run into and their solutions:

1. Major Mindshare during ultimate is insane
2. Major 3000 range with nearly unlimited duration is overwhelming.
3. Major Xerath is regularly unaware when he is under attack in locus.
4. Minor Xerath E isn’t reading naturally as a stun.
5. Minor Xerath ultimate auto-attack replacer was impossible to land.

1) Mindshare

  Old Xerath has 2 spells, plus a bursty moment when R was up. New Xerath (Xerath 2.0) has enough spells to keep him busy. So much so that during his ultimate, getting a free 5th spell has proven almost overwhelming. One option was to cut the auto-attack replacer completely, but it was so consistently positively reviewed that we instead decided to make it cost additional mana during Locus of Power.   This means that casting your spells is your primary task, but if you need to finish someone off, you can drain your mana pool to fire a rapid sequence of small attacks to finish them off.

2) 3000 range with unlimited duration is overwhelming.

When we made Xerath’s R duration limited by his mana pool, it meant that the length of time he could remain in Locus was much, much higher, based on build. So to counter it, we are allowing Xerath to be knocked out of locus of power when stunned. During Locus of Power, Xerath is immune to knockups/knockbacks and pulls. However, they will cause him to be stunned briefly and end Locus of Power. This gives enemy teams a strong objective. Get to Xerath and stop his ultimate! His max rank range has been slightly reduced so that seeing Xerath attack you means you can reasonably reach him.

3) When Xerath is under attack during R, he doesn’t notice.

We’re hoping that by allowing opponents to stop locus, it makes the moments where you need to turn and fight the guy attacking you more clear.

4) Xerath E isn’t reading as a stun.

We’re going to make the new effect more lightning “shocky” feel and perhaps steal some visual queues from Syndra.

5) Xerath’s R is too hard to hit.

As an auto-attack replacement, Xerath’s R attack was too hard to consistently time and land.  We’ve since removed the effect from his auto-attack timing. Instead, during Locus of Power (R), he cannot auto-attack, but his right and left clicks will trigger a missile under his cursor every 0.5 seconds. These attacks can be queued up by dragging your cursor across the screen while holding down right click.

tl;dr I’m feeling *very* positive about this direction. His R feels like the same “blow up the world” feel, but less toxic and frustrating than his old R. It brings area domination on a good cooldown. His new “W” gives him a fun core experience without his ultimate. His new passive, while needing good tuning, makes him feel like the same strong late-game character.

How does Xerath auto-attack during his ultimate?

  Xelnath: Basically, during his ultimate, he ceases to auto-attack, but when you right click you fire a missile barrage at the location below it. You can hold down the cursor to fire these as a stream, draining your mana rapidly, but dealing continuous damage.

How do you justify having so many mechanics on his ultimate?

  Xelnath: Only Xerath could do this – we don’t have another long-range character whose defining quality is being immobile. Him being sessile has opened up several control paradigms that can’t work on anyone else.

What’s the cooldown of his ultimate currently?

  Xelnath: We haven’t finished the tuning phase, so numbers don’t mean much. It is currently 90/60/40, but I’ll double or halve those in a heartbeat if it means League is a better game afterwards.

When will he be available for testing on the PBE?

  Xelnath: I believe we have a while to go before Xerath will be on PBE. There’s a few other things which need testing there first. I need to talk to Pwyff about the timing of Xerath among other things.

Here is the current skillset of Xerath that I gathered based on Xelnath‘s posts:

     Xerath

??? ( Passive )

Grants Xerath increased mana regeneration and additional magic penetration based on his maximum mana.

Arcanopulse ( Q )

Xerath fires a line-nuke which instantly deals damage along the entire length. Can be charged to gain extra range. Xerath can move while charging the spell.

TBD ( W )

Xerath fires a single blast that damages and briefly slows targets in an area. Enemies caught in the center of the AoE take bonus damage.

??? ( E )

Xerath fires a line-nuke which deals damage and stuns targets hits. Range is comparable to what Locus of Power was granting to the old version of E.

Locus of Power ( R )

Roots Xerath in place, granting him massive cast range but draining mana-over-time. During this time all of his spells are free-to-cast. Xerath can stay in Locus mode for as long as his mana pool allows it.

But wait there’s more!…

The second part of Xerath’s ultimate lets him fire multiple small blasts that deal damage in an AoE. This part has a relatively high cooldown, but the mana-drain stance doesn’t have any  so… this is quite confusing.

Forum Discussions

Scarizard – On Shyvana’s Changes

In case you’ve missed the changes to Shyvana, you can click here for an update.

Dragon Form doesn’t have its CD reduced with CDR items or while Shyvana’s dead

 Scarizard: To touch on this, the current changes aren’t just to increase fury generation per auto-attack – Leveling Dragon’s Descent also increases the rate at which you gain fury passively – thus lowering the maximum cooldown the spell can have. This should mitigate the feeling you have about her being ‘forced’ into attack speed, but Shyvana is also designed in such a way that basic-attacks benefit you immensely. Building fury is just the tip – Decreasing the CD of your double-attack, increasing the duration of your Burnout and damaging targets with Flame Breath are all pretty powerful when combined with even a moderate amount of Attack Speed.

The basic goal of the changes to R are to first allow her more up-time on Dragon Form, especially for how reliant she is on it for any meaningful late-game fighting, but to also increase the amount of time she can stay in that form while in combat. The counterplay to it is still present – kite her, and she’ll run out of dragonbatteries – but now when a Shyvana’s deeply entrenched into the front lines of a fight Twin Biting repeatedly (and on multiple targets) should make you feel like you’re actually prolonging a window of power. People should -want- to blow cooldowns and make the decision to get you away from a battle, rather than just ‘oh lemme ignore shyvana cause dragon form’s just gonna time out anyways.’

tl;dr is that these changes -do- decrease the cd of dragon form passively (though not at rank 1 – the values are unchanged) but more fighting=more beastmodes

Xypherous – Oracle’s Elixir & Stealth

If you’ve missed this PBE update to Oracle’s Elixir, you can see the changes here. Or you can check out Xyph’s explanation below.

Just updated the Oracle elixir stuff with the secondary set of changes

 Xypherous: Oracle Elixir

• Now persists through death
• Reveal Radius reduced to 600 from 750
• Duration reduced to 4 minutes from 5 minutes
• Now has a particle denoting the radius of effect

We are aware that making Oracle’s elixir persist through death decreases the risk involved in the item and reduces the overall skill in using Oracle’s.

The question is whether or not the skill involved in using Oracle’s is the right skill we want to encourage for the game – the answer right now seems to be no: It promotes camping the Oracle’s wielder and oracle users not participating in team fights. It also funnels the responsibility of Oracles only in champions that either cannot die or do not fight.

We also wanted to stop the snowball factor from influencing Oracle’s as much because frequently Oracle’s is only an option for champions who were not at risk of dying – something that is much more likely for the winning team than the losing team. While the counterplay to the current Oracle’s is clear – it is not actually doable in most settings when Oracle Elixir is in play – we want the decision points around Oracle to be ‘How do I use this effectively? When do I use this?’ rather than ‘Man – How can I avoid participating in anything that might murder me for the next 4 minutes?’

Note: I just put in these changes now, so they won’t be reflected on the PBE build that is there currently but will happen with the next PBE build.

Aren’t you indirectly nerfing stealth champions like Evelynn with these changes?

 Xypherous: Evelynn reveals herself to champions within 700 units of her.

The new oracles reveals champions within 600 units. Oracle Elixir has never actually been effective at combatting Evelynn from revealing her early and now effectively never actually does anything versus Evelynn.

How does the Ward bounty system work?

  Xypherous: Basically, the ward bounty system simply checks for nearby Oracle holders and whoever placed a Pink Ward and credits them for a portion of the gold. If you kill a ward without the usual resources – it still does this check, because we didn’t want to create weird pressure incentives where ‘man – I shouldn’t kill this ward as soon as I see it, because then the ward gold will be split.’

IronStylus – Future Skins for Diana and Rumble and update on Sunbathing Leona

You’re working on a skin for Diana?

   IronStylus: REMEMBER! “In the works” can mean months out from actual release. We aren’t yet to model with this skin yet, so depending on prioritization, could be a little while. However, we’re cognizant of the fact that she hasn’t gotten a 3rd skin post-release.

What sort of theme are you going for?

   IronStylus: Next skin will be a bit more.. pretty(?) than DV. Little less dark, a little more elegant. That ok?

What will her hair be like?

   IronStylus: Snake hair is one of the aspects about her we probably don’t want to ditch just yet. It’s a big read in game.

Perhaps a helmet like on the Dark Valkyrie skin and cloth armor instead of metalwork?

   IronStylus: I didn’t put a helmet on this one, but I gave some headdress stuff to it. And yeah, I want more cloth.

Any love for Rumble?

   IronStylus: So, not to derail this thread, but I can offer some insight on this. If we’re going to make any skin for Rumble that involves anything that isn’t his current wonky mech, we have to essentially completely remake his rig and animation sets. This is one of the reasons it’s been difficult to get the bandwidth for a Rumble skin that isn’t just a geometry shift.

There are tons of amazing pieces of fanart I’ve seen of Rumble skin ideas, and some fantastic ideas! The only catch with putting Rumble inside anything from a high-tech mech, to a Sherman tank, or any other contraption, is that he’s almost a completely new champion in terms of rigging and animation. That aspect of a champion, or skin, is a lot of work. It’s presented problems in the past when we had more restrictions on bandwidth.

Fear not though, we have something in the works. Animation right now is going to have the bulk of the work for any subsequent Rumble skin however.

When will Sunbathing Leona be released?

   IronStylus: It’s coming along nicely 

If you’re unfamiliar with this skin idea, you can find an official concept art here.

Iron Stylus – Some champions are harder to work on than others

 Which champions are the hardest to make skins for?

Originally Posted by Metronomotopoeia 

Just from a development standpoint (not asking for timelines), are there any other champions that fall under the umbrella of “hard to create a new shell”? The third outlier in the “skin pls” threads after Udyr and Rumble is probably Skarner. Is it hard to give him something that isn’t a scorpion body because of animation, or is it just hard to think up a skin for him that isn’t spider/scorpion?

   IronStylus: Oh, that’s a really great question. Skarner isn’t as hard as you might think. You can make him into pretty much anything, from a bug, to a lobster, to a robot. Not sure the particulars as to why he hasn’t gotten a skin yet, though.

Hmm, actually it’s sort of multifaceted. Because there’s champions who are hard to make skins for logistically (lot’s of assets/models/particles/etc to make), conceptually (base lacks large silhouette landmarks, “big hook”, etc), or technically (older champions, outdated rigs, etc).

So, here’s a list of what just comes to mind for various reasons:

• Evelynn – Technical.; Outdated model/rig/animations/etc
• Fiora – Conceptual. Lacking large visual landmarks, she’s mostly just a lady in a costume.
• Heimerdinger – Technical. Mostly, outdated.. everything.
• Lissandra – Logistical. Holy ****, so many particles! All of those particles are separate models with seperate, and possibly, custom animations on them.
• LeBlanc – Conceptual. She’s actually one our most standard of standard human females.
• Malphite – Technical. Not so much unusable rig, but still has it’s challenges.
• Master Yi – Technical. Pizza feet…
• Rumble – Technical and logistical. As stated.
• Shyvana – Logistical. Basically two champions in one.
• Sion – Technical. Yikes..
• Sivir – Technical. Outdated model/rig/animations/particles.. So yeah, rework first.
• Swain – Technical. Outdated assets, basically also two champions.
• Taric – Technically outrageous. Outdated assets.
• Teemo – Existential. Every subsequent skin we make for him unlocks another gateway to hell.
• Twitch – Technical. Very outdated assets, he’s actually missing legs I think.
• Udyr – Technical and Logistical. Fairly outdated, but pretty much 4 different champions depending on complexity.
• Varus – Conceptual. Dude with a bow and purple pants.
• Xerath – Logistical. Piles of particle work and strange rig voodoo I have no idea how to even describe.
• Zac – Conceptually and logistically. Virtually no differentiated landmarks on skins, pretty much all texture or animation behaviors can be leveraged.
• Zilean – Outdate assets, but not really an animation nightmare. He floats.
• Zyra – Conceptually and logistically. On her body, not a ton of distinquishing landmarks. All of her plants require new models and new animations.

REMINDER! The above list doesn’t mean these champions a) will not have a skin for them any time soon b) are huge challenges to overcome c) don’t already have stuff in the works despite challenges listed. This isn’t a blacklist, this is just what comes to my mind when I think of champions we’ve had challenges with. Each of these challenges can be solved in it’s own particular way. Things are solved sometimes in just updating the assets, like in the case of Tyrant Swain or Battlecast Urgot, or sometimes with a complete rebuild like any relaunch/VU we make. Very much depends on the champion and what we have to work with.

Woad King Darius available!

Who wouldn’t pay 975 RP to see a Game of Thrones version of Darius?

 

New Champion Rotation – Week 20!

The following champions will be free-to-play until June 25th!

• Blitzcrank – 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Caitlyn – 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Gangplank– 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Jarvan IV – 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Jax – 1350 IP / 585 RP
• Quinn – 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Taric – 1350 IP / 585 RP
• Vladimir – 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Warwick – 450 IP / 260 RP
• Xerath – 6300 IP / 975 RP

New Champion/Skin sale!

Enjoy the following champions and skins at a discount until June 21st!

Champions:

• Olaf – 395 RP

• Orianna – 440 RP

• Rengar – 487 RP

Bandito Fiddlesticks – 260 RP

 

Baron Von Veigar – 487 RP

Woad Ashe – 260 RP

… reworks, reworks everywhere…

Join Xypherous as he discusses the changes that are currently on the PBE server and lends his opinion on Galio, LeBlanc, Nunu, Nami, Warwick, Quinn, Caitlyn, Lux, Diana, Olaf, Rammus and more! Learn about the problems with balancing Melee Carries, the future of Rengar and the mysterious templar who’s been stalking on the forums!

> Xypherous on Patch 3.7
> Q&A Session
> Melee AD Discussed
> Rengar buffs soon!
> Potential champion concept leaked!>

Xypherous on Patch 3.7

Xypherous discusses the changes that will be coming in the next patch, some of which you’ve already seen in the latest PBE updates.

Catch up:

• PBE Champion Update
• PBE Zed & Item Update

Xypherous: Hey guys, I’m going to be talking a little bit about some of the more subtle things that are in Patch 3.07 that we’ve been tentatively working on – as well as hopefully stir some conversation up over the changes that should be in the PBE patch, depending on when that gets deployed.

Note that this isn’t a full list of changes, only ones I have sufficient context to talk to you about or are things that are hard to notice, and they reflect the content in the next PBE build, so certain things like the minion damage reduction isn’t currently on this version of the PBE patch – but will be in a few days.

Minion Damage Reduction?

Minion Damage Reduction

* Ranged Minion Damage goes from starting at 23 –> 22.

Spell dominated top-laners are currently problematic right now in top lane, forcing a wide variety of heavy sustain starts in order for proper play to exist against them on anyone but other spell dominated top-laners.

Rumble and Renekton, for example – are both problematic spell based top-laners. They both benefit from having a harassment pattern that frequently doesn’t draw minion aggression, leaving more traditional auto-attack centric harassers behind.

We’re well aware of the dominance of certain traditional AP or AD ability based bruisers but the disparity of performance between melee basic attack centric top-laners and spell based top-laners was becoming increasingly obvious that if we balanced around the current damage disparity, we’d have to significantly overshoot or undershoot the power level of the top-laners involved.

Akali

* Twilight Shroud now grants vision around the area of effect.
* Essence of Shadow charge time reduced to 30/22.5/15 seconds from 35/25/15

We hit Akali’s lane dominance in the last patch – but we’re still unhappy with how Akali feels like her defensive options are limited to basically overpowering her opponents.

With the following two changes in concert – this gives Akali the ability to perform some interesting jungle and lane jukes by first casting twilight shroud to gain vision of a jungle monster, and then using shadow dash as an escape tool. While we don’t think this will dramatically increase her power – it should be a new cool neat little trick that Akali can do.

Nunu

* Consume now heals for less (roughly 75%) – both base and AP ratio.
* Consume now deals more damage with a slightly longer cooldown
* Consume now gives bonuses depending on if he used Consume on a Monster for 2-4 minutes
* Lizard Type monsters (Red Lizard / Dragons / Nashor / Mini Lizard) grant Nunu’s attacks and spells bonus magic damage equal to 1% of his max health
* Golem Type monsters (Blue Golem / Golem / Mini Golem) grants Nunu increased size and 10% maximum Health
* Wolf and Wraith type monsters grant Nunu “After he kills a unit, he gains a 15% MS buff for 3 seconds”

This is undoubtedly a nerf to lane Nunu, whose effectiveness is questionable for the majority of our playerbase – in many ways Lane Nunu simply won his lane and lost the game, while being annoying and frustrating along the way. This wasn’t the greatest of patterns – especially while Jungle Nunu sits there on the sidelines where the cool objective control and gank patterns are being unused.

Above all, we want Consume to be a cool spell. Consume has traditionally languished as being kind of useless late game, for everything besides objective control and making Consume an attractive spell by adding this level, I feel, better fulfills the fun part of the spell (big Yeti running around eating tasty things) and gives Consume a strong rank-up incentive.

This is also a test to see if players would like to see more of these Jungle monster type interactions – if people find them cool, it opens up space for us in two ways: We’ve introduced this mechanic as a precedent and it allows us to play around in this design space.

Warwick

* Infinite Duress channel time reduced to 1.5 from 2.1 (total Suppression duration unchanged at 1.8)
* Infinite Duress now places Warwick in front of the target, rather than at a random spot around him

Just QoL stuff for Warwick. It’s a little silly given the current speed of the game for Warwick to be channeling longer than his opponent is suppressed. The positional change is mostly such that if Warwick is trying to stop a fleeing opponent, he directly bodyblocks his opponent but is in a riskier position – but if Warwick is trying to stop a charging opponent, he remains closer and out of risk of being interrupted by the enemy team.

Caitlyn / TF / Varus / Zed / Zac / Rumble

I’m not really qualified to talk about nerfs or buffs, other than – we’re kind of iterating on what we’d like these nerfs to be overall – but regardless these characters need to be tuned down as they are all slightly too dominant at the moment.

Diana / Lux

* Shield values generally nerfed across the board
* Shields stack now instead of refresh

We’ve been unhappy with the power level of these shields, mostly because their maximum effectiveness case is both swingy and out of the control of the user a large portion of the time.

We’re trying out a stacking system rather than a refreshing system to see whether or not these shields can still fulfill the multi-hit scenario without necessarily being randomly excessively powerful based on what/when they refreshed.

Cassieopeia

* Twin Fang is now classified as a single-target spell for the purposes of item effects

And I am terrified – but it should give Cassieopeia builds more flexibility, something that she has traditionally found hard to access and made worse by the fact that Cassieopeia play tends to be demanding and damage-focused.

What this allows her access to is Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, Muramana and Furor Boots – all of which actually kind of make sense in her arsenal.

Galio

* Changes reverted

First, let me get this out of the way, Galio is not intended to be an AP mage that simply destroys other AP mages because he scales off Magic Resistance.

As for the changes, we were experimenting with Galio to give him lower cooldowns for the later game – allowing him to more freely use his Resolute Smite ability as a consistent peeling / initiating ability for later game team fights. However, the net results of this change seemed weird in isolation – as the rest of his kit doesn’t feel quite right in the support tank role. While Bulwark and Wind Tunnel seem to work currently, they both seem to be lacking somewhat in the support tank role. We’re going to continue looking at Galio so that we can bring him more in line with his role / intent.

Items

Mana Manipualtor

* Recipe is now: Faerie Charm + 120 Gold = 300 Total Gold
* MP/5 Aura reduced to 5 from 6

* Shard of True Ice total cost reduced by 100 gold due to this change.

Third time’s the charm – Let’s see if Mana Manipulator can feel good as a starting item before we work on upgrades for it.

As an aside, I really wanted to improve Shard of True Ice – before realizing that no matter how good I make Shard of True Ice, getting Mana Manipulator always feels narrow and constraining at the moment.

Mikael’s Crucible

* Recipe is now: Philosopher’s Stone + Chalice of Harmony + 920 Gold = 2500 Total Gold
* 300 Mana –> 0 Mana
* 0 HP/5 –> 7 HP/5
* 9 MP/5 –> 18 MP/5

* Active now changed to heal 10% of the target’s maximum health instead of 15% of their missing health.
* Missile speed is now fixed at 0.2 seconds, from variable depending on distance to target.

Internally, Mikael’s Crucible was a very different item until the very last moment, when it got changed from healing the target based on your current mana to a combination heal and cleanse effect.

We’ve seen some players use it well – and it generally hasn’t been too toxic to the game to allow supports access to it, so we’re going to adjust it to be slightly more usable with more synergistic statistics (high MP/5 + Chalice passive) and slightly less target constrained (Not caring about missing health). We don’t want Mikael’s Crucible to be a mainstay to any build – but it should be a valid tool in the support arsenal.

Q&A Session

Champion Balance

Will Nunu be able to keep more than one buff up?

Xypherous: He will be able to have all 3 of them up at once.

They also persist through death – as it might be slightly annoying to recollect all the buffs every time you die.

What are the reasons behind the Galio changes?

Xypherous: As I said originally, the intent was so that Galio could have a spammy CC spell on a super short cooldown with higher CC uptime.

Galio has trouble peeling or initiating consistently a lot of the time, because he only has one true CC spell – the intent was to lower the cooldown of the spell considerably such that Galio could grab picks and targets much more frequently.

We’ve since reverted that change because it felt weird in isolation. His kit just doesn’t quite work as a support tank overall without some more changes.

Why are you shifting Galio to a support tank role?

Xypherous: An AP mage that destroys other AP mages because he’s immune to their damage is way more fun than most characters. It’s also something that can never be competitively viable, because on a strategic level – it just means that Galio shouldn’t exist.

A champion who auto-wins lane is obviously fun – it’s also not something that actually belongs in this game where we kind of assume players can do meaningful things against each other in lane.

What are your thoughts on Caitlyn?

Xypherous: The essential problem with Caitlyn is that for a large porportion of our audience, they can’t fully utilize Caitlyn’s ranged strength.

Range tends to be the most powerful statistic in the hands of competitive play – but using above average range to its maximum potential is always going to be something that it only going to be seen in the highest tiers of play.

Unfortunately, it’s just kind of a truism that when different champions have different strengths, they’re going to be vastly more powerful or less powerful for different audiences. That’s basically Caitlyn in a nutshell – vast power – but terribly hard to appreciate strengths.

Although to be fair, I believe the changes we’re doing now is making it so Headshot doesn’t stack on towers and adjustments to her attack speed scaling with items (I.E. slightly less base attack speed, slightly more attack speed per level) – essentially nerfing the super heavy push Caitlyn strategy that is seen in high level play.

Why did you give Quinn such poor range?

Xypherous: Range is a double edged sword. It’s the most powerful statistic in the game – but also one of the hardest to use well when it is above average, which makes it so that the character’s true strengths are only seen in competitive play a lot of the time.

As for Quinn specifically, I believe Volty’s design intent was to create the most melee centric ADC that still had a ranged autoattack in lane. And the strengths of the rest of her kit are pretty damn overpowering to make up for it.

Can you clarify on the Lux/Diana shield changes?

Xypherous: It is an intended nerf for these characters. The correct number was actually pretty hard to assess for Diana – because often in lane the shield is popped early without incoming damage from the opponent, simply due to the fact that Diana has dived in the enemy minion line – so the average case in lane has typically stayed the same or gone up except for her tower dive case, which is lower overall.

Do you consider Rammus a viable pick?

Xypherous: Overall, Rammus is very effective – but he’s not seen a lot. However, if you pick Rammus, you’ll win far more games than you’ll lose – right now I think of him as a sleeper, perhaps lacking in a bit of competitive viability due to the current push based meta – but very effective if people remember his strengths.

What are the problems with Warwick?

Xypherous: The issue right now with Warwick is that he’s still a sustain/safety jungler – but almost every other jungler duels better than he does early. It’s a tricky problem.

He’s billed as a jungler – but jungler strengths have increased around him such that his current kit, while effective, isn’t really what you want in a jungler. His power level is really high – but he doesn’t bring a whole lot of strategic utility that the other junglers do.

Why is Olaf being neglected?

Xypherous: Olaf’s strengths tends to be competitively oriented.

He’s also a simpler character archetype which, oddly enough, means you need a high degree of mastery over every other aspect of the game to take advantage of his strengths.

In short, yeah – we’d want to make Olaf better – but with his current kit design, he tends to be a very volatile force in high tier play. Essentially, Olaf’s power is too inacessible and often only good against players who are very skilled – and thus any changes to Olaf either has to be reorienting his power or making his power more relevant to a wider range of opponents.

Can you fix Leblanc’s powerlevel curve?

Xypherous: Right, Leblanc fits in the same profile of assassin who brute forces her way to effectiveness – rather than outplaying her opponent.

Roku actually really wants to take a step back and look at augmenting Leblanc so that you can have more clever plays – but thus far, none of the mimic experimentation seems to be doing that well, unfortunately.

What about making Nami’s passive scale with level?

Xypherous: Making Nami’s passive scale with character level might be a decent idea – I’ll pitch it to Statikk when I get a chance.

Minion damage & PBE Community Website

Why are you reducing minion damage?

Xypherous: In Season 2, top laners reduced minion damage by 4 through masteries – 2 from minion block, 2 from damage block. This made them effectively immune to minion damage a lot of the time, as it was post-mitigation.

While this probably isn’t going to make a huuge difference overall, it certainly helps us to not having to make bigger changes to characters than needed. Consider how many 6 second engagements there are in a typical lane scenario – and then think about us having to adjust someone’s health or damage by 18-20 per engagement. It adds up.

Will the minion damage reduction mastery return?

Xypherous: It might be a good idea to introduce this as a defensive mastery – but generally, it becomes a “must-pick” to survive in lane kind of mastery. It’s a hard rope to walk on.

Why doesn’t Riot post patch notes on the PBE?

Xypherous: Because our patches are often in a severe state of flux over the days. We push / test / pull / etc. extremely quickly in our environment.

Everything that we’re currently working on and playtesting, you are almost seeing the exact things on a day by day basis. We are actually incredibly transparent about what is our build and what is going out – it just makes the exact book-keeping of all these changes incredibly hard to manage.

For example, whenever I do a thread like this, it generally consumes 2 or 3 hours of my time. If I were to do that on a consistent basis, I would talk more about the patch than actually work on stuff in the patch. 😡

There’s also things like translations / localization / etc – that we simply don’t have time to do on the schedule we operate on. Stack that on top of the fact that we ship the last known good build to PBE means that daily patch notes is actually incredibly time consuming. Apologies – but the gains here aren’t worth the significant time investment we’d have to sink in. 😡

Melee AD Discussed

If you recall from a previous article I posted, Fiora, Master Yi and Tryndamere are currently being looked at for future improvements.

What’s the current state of Melee Carries and how will you change them?

Xypherous: The actual win rates for the vast majority of melee carries is actually hovers around 48 to 51% in the vast majority of solo games.

Does this mean they are competitively viable? Probably not.
Does this mean they are strategically viable? Probably not.

They’re hardly in the dust, however. They’re actually doing well in most games. If you play these characters, you will win roughly half your games.

The problem with Melee Carries is:

1. People expect to be able to build glass and accomplish what a Ranged AD carry does. This will simply never be true, due to the nature of the game.
2. People expect Melee Carries to be consistently performing, rather than wildly swingy. This is something that won’t be true, due to the nature of their kits (Fiora or Yi, for example.)
3. These characters do not have a proper strategic role to fulfill – therefore they are not viable in competitive games as they cannot be cornerstone strategic pieces.

These all point to these problems being kit-centric rather than item-centric – and the win rate data suggests that it’s not a effectiveness criterion that’s lacking either.

It’s something more intrinsic to how we’ve designed these characters from a base.

The question is: Are these characters worth protecting like a carry? Can these characters output significant team fight contribution if they are protected? Right now, the answer is ‘No’ to both of these.

However, silly changes like buffing their damage or their health doesn’t actually make them into better examples of the melee carry role. It just makes them more effective at whatever they’re doing now – but what the vast majority of them are now are either fighters or assassins.

Rengar buffs soon!

You’re probably aware of Morello‘s recent announcement to work on our forgotten Pridestalker. Well, now we finally have news and it’s from non other than designer Classick!

Classick: I may not be Morello, but figured I can provide some insight on the Rengar changes for you guys .

The main point to emphasize is that we’re not trying to change Rengar’s feel at all. What we do want to change is some of the not so appreciated components of Rengar that make him difficult to balance.

One of these problems is the fact that his Ferocity effects are more powerful based on the rank of the spell. As seen since Rengar’s release, builds that capitalize on double casting the ability you’re maxing has been problematic (early double Q all-in builds/Tank splitpush double W build). The current solution for this problem is scaling his Ferocity effects with his level across the board (like his heal currently does).

This will make the Ferocity effects equal in power regardless of what you are maxing, allowing you to choose the Ferocity effect that is best suited for the situation you are in instead of being obligated to use whatever spell you have the most points in. This will also allow us to put more power into his base stats and base abilities which should help with his jungle clear.

Another change we’re currently looking at is tweaking how his ultimate works. Currently Rengar jumps at you out of no where and it’s very hard to react to him because there’s not much information being conveyed to the opponent. Now when Rengar activates his ultimate all enemies that Rengar sees will be made aware that he’s in the area. What this does is gives the opponent more information so that they can react to the situation.

With this change it allows us to put a lot more power into the ultimate, increasing the duration and speed. While Rengar may lose the ability to jump on an unsuspecting enemy, it enables him to create really cool mind games and toy with his opponents which we’ve seen from internal testing. On top of that Rengar can get to a location much quicker and stay in stealth much longer retaining the feel of hunting down wounded opponents or scouting an area for priority targets.

Nothing here is set in stone but it’s currently the direction we’re going, hopefully that helps shed some light on the upcoming Rengar changes.

Edit: While Rengar may lose the ability to jump on an unsuspecting enemy is getting misinterpreted as his leap is being removed from his ultimate. Should have described this in another way :P, he still will keep his leap while the ultimate is active.

How do you plan on buffing Rengar?

Classick: The current idea is adjusting the values of the Ferocity effects to scale with his level, so similar to the heal on his W the damage for the Ferocity abilities will scale with his level. We can also use other tools such as AD scaling for Ferocity Q which scales with the game as you get more items, but leveling up Q will not affect the damage of your Ferocity Q. This will give the Ferocity effects a smoother curve throughout the game.

Will you change how Rengar feels?

Classick: From internal testing most of the feedback has actually been that his ultimate feels much better than what it currently is on live. We were able to put a lot more power into it which made it feel much more ultimate, and allowing new strategies now that he has the ability to play mind games and create a large presence in team fights.

What will his role be in the end?

Classick: The goal is to be able to choose which path you want to go based on what you rank / choose to use for Ferocity / items built. With these changes where we can achieve a better balance for Rengar we can make his assassin build more viable as it won’t create nearly as toxic of an experience.

What are you changing to Rengar’s taunt during ultimate?

Classick: It will now play for anyone who is within his vision range during the ultimate, including enemies in FOW.

Potential champion concept leaked!

Here is an interesting piece of art by Eoin Colgan, a fantasy artist who has previously worked for Riot.

He is referred to as Lucian, the Gun Templar. Note that this picture is a leak, meaning it’s unconfirmed. Buut, given how the industry works, leaks like this tend to be legitimate. =P

If you enjoy Eoin’s work, I urge you to visit his art blog.

The Hunt will soon be on!

More champion and item changes, TPA Skins to be released for 750 RP each, Riot on the future of Sion and Victor, an upcoming discount on Summoner Name Changes and more details on Map-specific changes!

PBE: Zed Changes
PBE: Item Changes
PBE: TPA Skins
Sion, the Undead Champion
Kairon, the Undead Parasite
Victor,The True Evolution
Map-specific Changes
50% Off New Summoner Names!

 PBE: Zed Changes

        Zed

Razor Shuriken ( Q )

• Damage to enemies past the first target lowered from 60/92/124/156/188 to 45/69/93/117/141

Shadow Slash ( E )

• Cooldown increased from 3 to 4 seconds

Zed’s been getting plenty of ability tweaks lately. If you haven’t caught up to his changes, here‘s my article with Riot’s opinion on his current state.

PBE: Item Changes

Mana Manipulator

• Price lowered from 400 to 300 gold
• Now builds out of  one, not two Faerie Charms
• Recipe cost increased from 40 to 120 gold
• Mana per 5 bonus decreased from 6 to 5

The mana manipulator is now less effective but cheaper to make – ideal for supports and perhaps a first item option, along with wards.

Shard of True Ice

• Price reduced from 1700 to 1600 gold
• Mana per 5 reduced from 6 to 5

Mikael’s Crucible

• Price increased from 2200 to 2500 gold
• Now grants 7 HP5
• Mana per 5 increased from 9 to 18
• Active now heals for 10% of maximum hp, changed from 15% of current
• Now builds from a Mana Manipulator and a Philosopher Stone
• No longer grants 300 mana

PBE: TPA Skins

Commemorate the success of Taipei Assasins with the TPA Skins for Ezreal, Mundo, Nunu, Orianna and Shen. They will be available for mere 750 RP each! If you wish to know the origin of this news, you can learn about it here.

Dr. Mundo

Model\

Ezreal

Model

Nunu

Model

Orianna

Model

Shen

Model

Future improvements on Sion and Viktor

Morello stepped in to discuss some of the changes to Sion proposed by fans on the forums. Due to the hybrid nature of Sion, players are leaning towards splitting him into two champions. Here are some ideas for two brand new kits that I really like:

Note: These are fan-made ideas and in no way reflect Riot’s intentions for updates to Sion.

Sion, the Undead Champion

Feel No Pain ( Passive ) 

Sion ignores up to 20 + 2% of his maximum hp worth of damage each time he is hit by an autoattack. The damage reduction is calculated before armor and percentage damage reduction benefits are taken into account.

Heavy Blow ( Q )

Cost: 50/60/70/80/90 HP || Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 seconds || Range: 400

Melee skillshot. Sion holds his axe high above his head with both hands and channels for up to 1.5 seconds before slamming it down in front of him. You may recast Heavy Blow while its charging to reorient Sion towards the cursor and immediately release the attack. It deals 50-120 / 70-170 / 90-220 / 110-270 / 130-320 (+ Bonus AD) (+10% Sion’s Maximum HP) scaling physical damage in a very short 90* cone. If charged the full duration it also stuns for 1.5 seconds. [Sion will flash from about .75-.9 seconds after charging – if you recast Heavy Blow then, it will do full damage as if you had charged it the full duration. unsure if this adds good gameplay or just makes it needlessly complex]

Ferocious Charge ( W )

Cost: 50/60/70/80/90 health  || Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 seconds || Range: 600

Sion dashes forward in a line, dealing 60 / 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 (+ Bonus AD) (+10% Sion’s Maximum HP) physical damage to each enemy he passes through and knocking them slightly aside. He gains a shield that lasts for 10 seconds with life equal to half the amount of damage dealt to enemy champions with this ability.

Enrage ( E )

Toggle, Cooldown: 7/6/5/4/3 seconds

Toggle While toggled on, Sion has 25 / 35 / 45 / 55 / 65 increased attack damage at the cost of 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 health for each autoattack. While Enrage is active, Sion permanently increases his maximum health whenever he kills a unit with either his attacks or abilities. This effect is doubled against champions and large units.

Cannibalism ( R )

Cost: 15% of current HP || Cooldown: 90 seconds

For 20 seconds, Sion gains 50% / 75% / 100% bonus lifesteal, 10% / 20% / 30% bonus spellvamp, and 50% attack speed. Additionally, Sion’s spells and autoattacks will heal surrounding allies for 25% / 37.5% / 50% of the damage dealt.

Kairon, the Undead Parasite

Soul Harvest ( Passive )

Kairon permanently increases his maximum health by 1 / 2 / 3 (increasing at 6 and 11) every time he kills an enemy. This effect is doubled against champions and large units.

Hypnotic Gaze ( Q )

Cost: 100 Mana, 8% of Current Health || Cooldown: 12/11/10/9/8 Range: 550

Kairon’s gaze hypnotizes a single enemy, dealing 70 / 125 / 180 / 240 / 300 (+ 70% AP) (+health spent to cast this ability) magic damage and stunning it for 1.5 seconds.

Death’s Caress  ( W )

Cost: 70/80/90/100/110 Mana + 8% Current Health || Cooldown: 8 seconds after shield is gone

Kairon surrounds himself with a shield which absorbs 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 / 300 (+ 70% AP) (+health spent to cast this ability) damage for up to 10 seconds. After 2 seconds, if the shield has not been destroyed, the ability can be cast again to explode and deal 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 / 300 (+ 70% AP) (+health spent to cast this ability) magic damage to surrounding enemies. It will explode automatically after the 10 seconds have passed

Essence Transfer ( E )

Cost: 80/90/100/110/120 Mana || Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6 || Range: 475 || Leash Range: 700

Kairon creates a leash on a target and channels for up to 5 seconds. If the target leaves the range of Kairon’s leash, he will stop channeling.
On enemy cast: Deals 40 / 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 (+ 25% AP) magic damage each second and heals Kairon for 50% / 55% / 60% / 65% / 70% of the damage done.
On ally cast: Kairon sacrifices 5% of his current health each second to heal the ally for 80% / 90% / 100% / 110% / 120% of the health lost.

Gonna Take You For a Ride ( R )

Cost: 100 Mana || Cooldown: 60 || Leap range: 500

Kairon leaps onto target champion, attaching himself to them for a period of time. During this time Kairon moves where that champion moves, can cast Essence Transfer without channeling and his other spells freely, and can autoattack the attached champion if its an enemy. Kairon may reactivate this ability to end the effect.
On enemy cast: Kairon latches onto an enemy champion for 3 / 4 / 5 seconds, slowing their movespeed by 30% / 40% / 50%. This also silences the enemy for half the duration.
On ally cast: Kairon latches onto an ally champion for 6 / 8 / 10 seconds, speeding up their movespeed by 20% / 25% / 30%. The shield from Death’s Caress will protect both Kairon and the attached allied champion.

Here is a link for these fan ideas, both of which belong to Summoner plasmatorture.

Why makes splitting Sion’s kit difficult?

 Morello: Really well-laid out suggestions – thanks for taking the time to propose this in-depth.

Let me clear up one thing, though – there’s no world in which we make an old champion with a schizo kit into two complete champions. This is really about resource allocation usage and efficiency, as it obviously takes 2x the work to make 2x the champions, and whenever we’re doing one thing, we’re not doing another thing (and there’s lots to be done!) Sion being reworked faithfully is not worth another rework not coming out, another champion who brings something new, or any myriad of other fixes we could be doing.

Additionally, and while I understand very well the attachment people can have to a champion, I think retaining Sion faithfully is exactly what I don’t want to do. “Why?!” you may ask!

Sion’s AD kit has some bare-bones tools that can apply well to a lifesteal guy, but those could use updating as well (AS on this guy…hmmmmm), but importantly, the AP kit has little-to-no counter play or interaction at all. There’s something to be said about the shield being interesting, but I think it’s bad when combined with a single target stun and as a burst nuke overall. Additionally, he’s basically a creative mess – a Zombie Axe guy that casts spells and does an assortment of disjointed things with old Arnold movie quotes. The only reason to even consider that is for legacy – which has value – but not enough on its own in many cases.

In this case, unlike someone like Urgot who is just niche, Sion is a low attachment character with low counterplay, interaction, and no creative hooks. What I do think could be interesting about Sion isn’t his kit, but the idea behind him – a massive, unmovable undead lifesteal tank. That has legs (heh) and can really be developed into a resurgence/HP Steal character befitting of the idea, and it gives us lots of opportunities with the art.

Thought I’d just update our direction here so you guys could see our thinking and there can be discussion. I know there will be people attached to original Sion, but in this case (and this is not by any means a default stance for me), I think it has to play second stage to making the character something not-bad.

If people like Sion’s kit currently, why should it be changed?

 Morello: People like it, but it causes problems if it’s ever good – some I laid out above. That is the harm in leaving it alone.

Why don’t you follow the community’s wishes?

 Morello: Because “do people like it” is not the only axis. If so, someone likes everything, so that’d invalidate change at all 

When thinking about the game holistically (I think about this on the gameplay side, but art and creative have important roles there too), the harm outweighs the good. This is similar to my stance on dedicated healers.

Why don’t you use Sion’s Q and W on another champion?

 Morello: Mostly because we don’t want AP Sion’s pattern at all due to the problems it creates – that would make us, likely, just make his rework AP Sion+ if we did.

The True Evolution

 Solcrushed: Alright guys, I will be looking at Viktor and his augments as my next project after Xin Zhao. Since the mega-thread when I was working on Xin was quite helpful, why not do another one on Viktor?

Viktor players: Why did you decide to play Viktor and what do you like/dislike the most about him currently?

Non-Viktor players: Have you ever even considered playing Viktor or played him in the past? If so, what turned you off Viktor/what did not meet your expectations?

Any kind of general observations/suggestions about Viktor is also welcome!

As with the Xin thread, I will not be replying to most of your posts but I sure will be reading them.

THE EVOLUTION IS NOT-REALLY-SOON(TM)

Will you keep his gameplay intact?

 Solcrushed: Pretty much, I do not see myself changing his base spells too much other than synching ranges ./ moving things around a little.

He will always be a very high skillcap champion unless I decide to change his laser, and I don’t plan to become minced troll meat anytime soon. :0
I am aware that many players that play Viktor are drawn to him for his uniqueness and I will definitely be preserving that.

Note: Also, the bug with Victor’s E where the laser disappeared sometimes (mostly due to odd movement) will be getting fixed.

Map-specific Changes

This is an update by RiotNome on the topic of future Champion changes for every map. If you’re unaware of this announcement, here‘s my article on the discussion.

 RiotNome: It’s shipped!

Tech is done, which means the next step is working with our UX and user testing guys to figure out the best way to communicate changes to players. Once we get that done, we’ll be ready to roll out the first set of changes.

Will these changes affect Summoner Spells?

 RiotNome: Nothing with Summoner Spells right now. The first wave will be targeted solely at outliers. We’ll evaluate those changes and figure out if we want to take it further afterwards.

Will you balance ARAM?

 RiotNome: I don’t plan on doing any hard balancing for ARAM (at least initially). Part of the allure to ARAM is rolling an awesome pick–you can’t have highs without lows 

50% Off New Summoner Names!

 Hippalus: When Patch 3.7 arrives in May, we’ll be rounding up inactive accounts to make those summoner names available to players. To make it easier for you to pick up a new summoner name, we’re also putting name changes on sale for 50% off.

An inactive account is any account level 5 or below that hasn’t played a game since January 1^st, 2013 or any account level 10 or below that hasn’t played since January 1^st, 2012. To keep those accounts’ names, you’ll have to log on and play at least one game between now and Sunday, May 12^th, at 11:59 PM PDT. If you miss the deadline, don’t worry – your account is still active, but you’ll be prompted to choose a new summoner name when you log in next time. Only inactive accounts are at risk to lose their summoner names.

From the release of Patch 3.7 through May 26^th, summoner name changes will cost 650 RP, down from their normal 1300 RP price. With Season 3 in full swing, it’s a great time to showcase both your skills and your creativity to your opponents.

We look forward to seeing your dazzling new pseudonyms on the Fields of Justice soon!

What about inactive accounts above level 10?

 Hippalus: The plan is to continue to raise the level limit each time we do this (the last cleanup was only up to level 5) but we want to be careful not to take a name away from someone that has invested a lot of time into the game but has stopped playing for a good reason (illness, war, family, prison, etc). For someone that has reached level 23, they will probably have to be inactive for a couple years before we free up their

When will the names be freed up?

 Hippalus: They will be available immediately after patch 3.7 is live, which will be sometime in mid May.

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

North and South Latin America servers announced, Morello discusses balance, design and his work in a massive thread and new Champion and Skin sale has begun – from April 26th to 29th!

Server split for Latin America soon!

The League of Legends Facebook page for Latin America has been updated with some exciting news – alpha testing for the North and South Latin America servers has begun! Aside from separate servers, the client will feature a Spanish translation and full voice-overs, which have already been featured on LoL’s soundcloud.

For those anxious to get on the servers, fear not! According to the infographic below, closed alpha testing will be followed by an open beta test! (“inscripciones abiertas” meaning “open enrollment”)

Also, if you’ve ever wished to see Nika talk in Spanish, here’s a small teaser.

Reworks, balance and more!

Behold the Red Post legion, led by Morello. For easier readability I’ve split all of his posts into several sections – Champion Balance, General Balance Discussion, Game Design, Skins and Non-Related + Personal.

Champion Balance

Is Heimerdinger being reworked?

 Morello: He is!

Are you planning on reworking Poppy?

 Morello: Eventually. After Heimer, my prediction is Poppy is the “new Eve.”

Where do Ziggs and Skarner stand in Season 3, in your opinion?

 Morello: Ziggs, I think, has fantastic laning and little reason to be on a team late-game. I’d like to look at the second half of that.

Skarner represents a fighter with a lack of good counter-play. I want to fix that comprehensively before buffing.

Any plans on buffing Talon?

Seems Khaz and Zed have placed the bar for AD Assassins WAY higher than where Talon stands now.

 Morello: We’re taking a look. Not sure on the diagnosis the guys have on this yet though.

Warwick is struggling in Season 3

This guy has been needing help since the beginning of Season 2. Yes, you technically did help his speed but 30 seconds at the cost of half his total sustain wasn’t exactly a fair trade. He has the same problem as Shyvana where a lack of pre-6 CC making them a weak jungler and and bullied in lane.

 Morello: WW does need help – we’re investigating what direction to go.

Wukong is weak pls buff!

 Morello: I disagree – Wukong is really strong. His success rate is really high overall.

General Balance Discussion

How do you decide which champion to nerf?

How is that possible that champions after being barely touched (either nerfed/buffed) for years get nerfed quite hard and considered OP? How can you determine that it’s either just an outcry from people getting owned hard or it’s actually a considerable opinion?

The latest example for this is Lux.

Other can be the state of Morgana. I think she is not in a good spot at the moment. Can you tell us a little about your opinion on this?

 Morello: I answered this in sole of the original threads;

Champion balance is relative. As such, it fluctuates based on factors that are not directly the champion themselves. If we nerf X, it’s possible that previously balanced character Y becomes too strong as a result.

The other answer is that one for of power creep people often don’t notice is player skill. As players become better, they learn and expose new power ceilings on champions. This may mean the champion was always OP, though no one knew how to get that potential out.

Do you believe in perfect balance?

Do you believe that there is actually a point of true balance in the game (or somewhere close to it), where you think “yes, I am satisfied with how all the champions are, and relate to each other”? Or is it a never-ending void that continuously complicates itself as the game evolves.

And in determining which champion needs balancing, is it solely based on numbers, win-rates and other data you have access to? Or does the community’s view play a huge part in it? (because my opinion is that, player’s biases can further push the balance process into trouble)

I am not criticising your methods, I really applaud your work as each tweak you do to the game must have a reason behind it even if a lot of people complain.

 Morello: I don’t – I think that “perfect balance” doesn’t really exist in teamgames with the number of options in League, but I also think that’s OK. I prefer variety and how that fights against “staleness” as opposed to a perfect balanced state.

Community perception is an information point, but it rarely tells the whole story. It can cause us to question something under our radar, or approach the problems we fix with more information, but a million people asking for a nerf on a champion that’s balanced would not cause us to nerf it. Data trends and gameplay health analysis are bigger factors.

Will a new 6v6/10v10 map be released?

 Morello: If I have my way, it won’t. I have some massive threads discussing this very topic in-depth!

And here are some of the threads I’ve found on this matter:

@Xypherous/Morello – Response to New Maps Post

Morello: ‘no 10v10 map on my watch’

Morello is against the idea of a new map  (probably the biggest and most expansive)

Check ’em out, both Morello and Xypherous present some clever arguments against creating a new map.

Late Game Magic Resist items are terrible!

It feels awful to buy Negatron Cloak upgrades at the moment. Sometimes I prefer to just sit on 2 Negatrons because Veil wastes stats on mana, and Catalyst is an awkward build path, the passive on SV feels wasted, QSS is pretty weak (MR-wise)for its slot if you can’t make use of the Scimitar, and Abyssal, well, it’s Abyssal. I dunno, maybe I’m not thinking about it right, but when I already get so much health out of buying armor items, and what I really need is MR, it feels like I’m being screwed by unnecessary stats. 

Randuin’s gives me 70 armor and 500 health as well as a very useful passive and active AND the build path feels great. Spirit Visage has a passive that can feel wasted, its build path is meh, and I get 50 MR and 200 in the slot from it. That feels really weak late game, when even as a tank I’m being torn apart like wet tissue due to what feels like low MR.

And Bulwark feels lackluster for personal MR because you also have to buy armor and health regen. And the jungler and support usually get it, so it doesn’t feel like an option for a top laner. 

 Morello: I think MR is pretty “good,” but agree we’re not making it feel very cool or good, especially compared to armor. I think this is a good thing to look at, agreed!

What do you think of the Double Golem advantage?

Do you think the game would be better if double golems spawned at 1:45 or 1:50 to remedy purple side bot lane disadvantage/ Super crazy level 2 cheeses from powerful purple side earlygame top laners?
Or, alternatively, why don’t we lower the power differential between levels 1 and 2? it seems like so much of gameplay revolves around hitting level 2 first and snowballing the advantage, which might be more of a problem than the double golems advantage

 Morello: I do. We’re experimenting on what that would mean if we did that.

Game Design

How do you feel towards linking champion sets with their lore?

 Morello: We’re very concerned, though this is a non-objective look, and instead a statement that you dislike the direction of the new Trundle (and especially is driven by attachment of the original concept). That’s fine, but don’t turn “a cop pulled me over for speeding” into “cops are abusive tyrants who hate people.” 

Just look to Vi, Thresh or the Sejuani rework with a more objective eye, and I think our commitment is clear.

What’s your opinion on skillshot indicators? Are they easy to read?

I know that old Karma thread has been beaten to death but user Daeron07 had a nice idea including skill shot indicator changes (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/…86685&page=574)

This would add a lot of readability to users playing Karma, any thoughts?

Any thoughts on indicators in general; their usefulness, how to clean them up etc?

I am curious, from a design perspective what kept you from adding something like Urgots lock-on indicator much longer ago, or auto attack range indicators?

Is there ever a time when too much readability becomes a problem?

 Morello: I love this stuff – skillshot indicators are an idea we want to get our hooks into more. The problem is the people who can do this kind of thing are really busy with other important things.
Readability is massively important, and is not as good as I want it to be in LoL.

Skins

New Skin Prices and Champion Priority when releasing Skins

 Morello: I -think- it will allow for more skins as we don’t have to throw the kitchen sink at every skin now, but I’d have to check with the skins dudes specifically to be sure.

It’s a bit of black magic how we prioritize. We try to balance it out, but with things like events and differing difficulties/timelines on skins, this is really complex.

Non-related + Personal

Will future patches follow the Freljord example, i.e big on content, slow to release?

 Morello: No, most patches will not, but we like these types of events!

Why do I lose 10 LP for dodging a promotion match?

 Morello: Because we don’t want people dodging to prevent themselves from fighting powerful comps. Yegg and the team can speak more to this.

New Players are neglected on the forums!

Well I understand this isn’t exactly your department, I’m not sure Riot has anyone that’s responsible for my concern. Something thats been bugging me ever since I joined in July is the near total disregard of new players. While you guys have a excellent repertoire with the lvl 30 community, pre 30 Riot doesn’t acknowledge except once in a blue moon. Seriously I’m sure you can see how many Riots have posted in the New Player forums in the last year. Take a look.

This comes across almost as a hazing. On top of learning the basic game mechanics new players have to deal with toxic individuals who simply make new accounts and abuse actual newbies over and over. The new players have few options to voice concerns and there is no concrete proof that they are being heard.

Perhaps I’m seeing this as a larger issue then it is but how many accounts are abandoned pre 30? These are potential customers and I think having even 1 person spend a couple hours a week on the new player forums would prove to not only make new players feel they are being heard, but it could very easily translate to more paying customers and it would certainly be in line with Riots statement of being the “most customer orientated company in the industry” (I cant remember the exact phrase but you know what I mean.)

 Morello: Agreed. This is not my area of expertise, but I think it’s something we really could use to improve. Smurfs, especially, make this really painful. I wish I had more information for you 

Are you working on a champion who wields a whip?

 Morello: Not right now, but I do think we will visit this at somepoint.

How did you choose your online name?

 Morello: Like many 18 year olds, I chose “Morello” as a character name in FFTactics after the lead guitarist for one of my favorite bands, Rage Against the Machine. It stuck really well even alllllll these years later 

Are you satisfied with how Zyra turned out?

 Morello: I’m a little disappointed we weren’t bolder with her – some mistakes I made there. I love the character, but I think creatively especially, we could have been more “all-in” on the infestor concept than we were, and that flattened it out a bit.

How often do you get trolled by your coworkers?

 Morello: Not as often as I’d expect. I’m disappointed!

Do you like the extra emotes added to your latest champions?

With Vi you included a lot of auto-emotes such as her blocking Cait’s shot, or ult-ing Jayce. Would you consider those additions to be successful towards what you guys were hoping for, and if so, do you see your design team adding more of those sort of interactions to existing champions?

 Morello: I want to see more of these, yes. I think our fans love them, and they make our game more “alive.”

How have you changed during the course of working on League of Legends?

 Morello: I think my values haven’t changed radically, but my priorities have changed with the games’ (and I’ve also learned more about how to accomplish them). A healthy game is still very important, but I think we, as a company, are better at balancing Game Health and fun more effectively. 2.5 years of working on League will definitely teach you a few things too.

Champion & Skin sale (26 – 29th April)

Starting April 26th, the following skins and champions will be available at a discount, for a limited time (three days):

Champions:

• Ziggs – 6300 IP/487 RP
• Leona – 4800 IP/440 RP
• Wukong – 4800 IP/440 RP

Skins

• Earthrune Skarner – 260 RP
• Fiddle Me Timbers – 375 RP
• Shurima Desert Zilean – 487 RP

Don’t keep calm, go nuts! Victory is achieved with passion!

Changes to Karma, Thresh as well as Zed, a new Summoner Icon, Progression System and dozens of Red Posts!

Zed’s mechanics revamped!

        Zed 

Living Shadow ( W )

• Cooldown reduced from 22/20.5/19/17.5/16 to 18/17/16/15/14 seconds 

Shadow Slash ( E )

• Hitting enemy minions and monsters no longer reduces Living Shadow’s cooldown
• Hitting enemy champions now reduces Living Shadow’s cooldown by 2 seconds, up from 1 second

 Statikk: These Zed changes are aimed towards 2 goals:

1) Reducing his lane safety
Currently, Zed has little need to actually manage Living Shadow’s cooldown due to the interactions with lane minions. Zed’s that get ahead are able to push and harass with impunity since in these situations Zed’s Living Shadow has a fairly negligible cooldown.
This is not intended as Zed is by design a high risk, high skill cap, high reward type of champion.

Zed’s Living Shadow, especially early on in the game, should be something both him and his lane opponent need to keep track of. When Living Shadow is down, Zed’s lane opponent should be able to take advantage of this window of vulnerability to punish him and Zed should have to play defensively until it comes back up.

2) Allowing Zed to actually achieve Living Shadow resets in team fights
With Shadow Slash’s increase to cooldown reduction upon hitting champions and the base cooldown of Living Shadow being reduced, Zed actually has a legitimate shot at very quickly resetting his Living Shadow cooldown in actual team fights depending on the situation and his execution. Zed can now potentially open up fights with Living Shadow, land 2-3 solid Shadow Slashes, and have Living Shadow back up in order to exit the fray or continue chasing down his targets.
Like stated above, all of the changes are tenative as of now, but I just wanted to give you guys some insight into the thought process here.”

Does the new CD reduction work per champion hit?

 Statikk: “It is for EACH champion you hit. So yes, if you ever hit 5 champions, it would reduce the cooldown by 10 seconds.”

Jungle Zed is still viable!

 Scarizard: Just a reminder- while this change will impact Zed’s jungle mobility – it doesn’t actually reduce his damage output in the jungle, and as such shouldn’t affect his clear. Double-casting Shadow Slash doesn’t increase its damage – so while he won’t be able to cast W in the jungle to dart about quite as much, the changes to the cooldown of Living Shadow (4 off the top, 2 off the bottom) should help mitigate this, especially early-game with Blue.

Karma buffs, Scarizard discusses!

    Karma

Inner Flame ( Q )

• Damage increased from 60/110/160/210/260 to 80/125/170/215/260

Focused Resolve ( W )

• Cooldown lowered from 16/15.5/15/14.5/14 to 16/15/14/13/12

Inspire ( E )

• Cooldown lowered from 12 seconds to 10 seconds at all ranks
• Movement speed boost increased from 20/30/40/50/60 to 40/45/50/55/60

Mantra ( R )

• Cooldown lowered from 45 seconds to 45/42/39/36 seconds

 Scarizard: These changes address a couple of things that i feel are pretty important to Live Karma’s success. Let’s talk about the big one, and that’s Mantra’s CD Reduction with Rank.

In the past, i was reticent to make this change due to how insane it -could- get with Gathering Fire and multi-champion hits; but from testing, it seems like this change could be just what the doctor ordered. From my POV it accomplishes two things:

1. More Mantras, More Decisions, More Fun – Something that’s been brought up a lot in this thread is ‘TWO MANTRA WHERe’; fundamentally, if ‘High Impact Mantra’ is to exist, double-cast must be out. It’s something i think works on Rengar but fails here. How cool can Q2, W2, or E2 be if you can cast them independent of the cooldown on the base skills? How much weaker do the ‘Empowered’ versions have to be? This was a failing of the old kit that we felt was to be solved on a new Karma. Old Karma had a shield that was literally just a damage shield (Trivia: the only shield in the game that had no special effect) that needed to eat a Mantra to feel even baseline effective as a spell – because she had two charges, neither Mantra cast could be independently powerful, leaving some things to be straight up overtuned (read: shield damage, scaling, range, etc) for you to even feel functional as a character, regardless if everything else fell short.

The vision for new Karma is that, while i would give you more Mantra casts they would be spaced out so that we could drive the impact for each individual Mantra higher. [Now, dear readers, this is where i’ll admit we undershot – the promise that i and the team made to you the players is that this Karma would legitimately be stronger, but along the way of balancing fell short of delivering a powerful champion. There are a lot of factors that go into this, but if the reality is not matching the intent then we will continue to address it as i have been in this changes. Back to our regularly scheduled wordvomit] The Mantra CDR going down with rank (as well as the Gathering Fire/Focused Resolve buffs last patch) create a more fluid mid/late game wherein at the extreme, Karma can almost instantly refresh her Mantra – loading another big moment and meaningfully contributing to that engagement, not just matching the baseline effectiveness of other champions.

2. Itemization! (Less block-of-text) – Lowering R’s Cooldown (As well as W + E) means it’s easier for Karma to build more efficiently. Are you still gonna want 40% CDR? Most definitely – but it’s no longer a hard-cap requirement ‘oh my god get it immediately or you aren’t even a real champion’ as it was before. 40% CDR is easily attainable – Athene’s/Morello’s, but that easily leaves you under the AP Curve relative to other champions despite being a necessity due to high CD’s. Easing this means that while it’s highly likely one of those two items are a first buy, there’s more flexibility in what you can buy and at what times you can buy them due to the fact that your spells scale to much lower CD’s naturally than they had before.

But why tell me about these changes if all i want is Old Karma back?

Like i’ve said before, i’m committed to new Karma and making her an experience that’s fun for players. That means holistically that while i listen to/process feedback, that i’m focused on the future and where we go from here. The changes above are a step to achieve that – they are not a final, perfect fix. A lot of you have mentioned that she’s boring because of similarity to other champions’ spells – and i totally understand that. It’s the gameplay associated with the frequency/generation of Mantra that is meant to tie this kit together, both in flow and feel. Once the machine is well-oiled, we can see if she needs a new engine (so to speak).

I do apologize for prolonged silences – the whole ‘working at riot thing, keeping busy talking about/implementing awesome stuff for players’  it gets pretty busy, but i’ve been refreshing/checking the thread since this morning. Even if we don’t agree on Karma, Balance or who’s the best pokemon (Hint: It’s Nidoking), i hope y’all understand that i appreciate your feedback, positive or negative and that you care enough to share it with me. Thanks again for being patient, y’all.

Thresh’s Q passive on E

Death Sentence ( Q )

• No longer has a passive magic damage on-hit

Flay ( E )

• Now has the passive from Death Sentence (Q)

 CertainlyT: The goal of these changes was not to directly nerf Thresh (though I feel it will likely result in a reduction in his power — particularly at levels 1-2, as a poster above mentioned). One important purpose of our skill rank up system is to let players make meaningful choices with their skill point allocations. After the change, Q=Control, W=Utility, E=Damage is more clearly defined, though perhaps not 100% there yet.

Think of it as a new iteration, or version, of Thresh — one that is a cleaner and generally better design.

Will this change bring support Thresh in line with other picks?

 CertainlyT: The goal is definitely to open space for more of our supports to shine. We’ve consistently received feedback from our pro teams especially that Thresh and Lulu crowded out most of the competition.

New Summoner Icon Progression

 BlueFire: Hello Summoners!
We want your help. You’ve seen us add icons in unique ways for events such as The Harrowing, Snowdown Showdown, and most recently the Lunar Revel.

We wanted to test some icon granting functionality. How does it work?

First select one of the following default icons (all accounts have them) as your icon in the client:

Then you have to win 10 games and you will unlock another “10 win icon” based on which one you selected:

1) You can’t win with another of the 3 icons between your 10 wins!

EX: If you win 3 games with the  icon and then win a game with the  icon, your win counter will be set to 1 for the new icon and 0 for the old icon!

2) You can only have one of the “10 win icons” at a time!

EX: If you earn the  icon and then earn the  icon you will lose the  icon!

3) No Co-op vs AI games or custom games are counted!

FAQ:

What if I get a win with an icon that is not one of the three you showed?
Nothing! Only WINNING with one of these three icons will affect your wins for the event.

Are you going to use these icons / do the exact same event on live?
No. This is merely for testing purposes.

Will I lose my icon if I win one game with a different icon?
You can only lose your icon by winning another icon!

How long do I have?
We hope to run this for at least a week on the PBE but may extend/shorten it as necessary.

How long will it take to receive my icon after my 10th win?
You should receive it within 24 hours. If you do not, please let us know here.

What games count?
There are two rules. No custom games and no Co-op vs. AI games. All other games will count (ranked/unranked/dominion/etc).

What happens if I lose?
Nothing! Only wins are considered in this event.

Can I see my win counter anywhere?
Unfortunately you cannot. So please keep track of your wins.

If I find a bug what do I do?
Describe it in detail here! Also be sure to include the summoner name of your PBE account so I can investigate.ve seen us add icons in unique ways for events such as The Harrowing, Snowdown Showdown, and most recently the Lunar Revel.

We wanted to test some icon granting functionality. How does it work?

First select one of the following default icons (all accounts have them) as your icon in the client:

New icons are on their way:

 BlueFire: We don’t have any current plans for re-using these icons. It is purely for testing purposes.

Scattered Red Posts, Unite!

Has the Norse Darius skin been scrapped?

 Morello: Not scrapped, just still have some cleanup work to do  No ETA dudes, sorry!

Are you planning on nerfing Anivia? She’s proven to be really strong.

 Morello: I agree, but the team (who I tend to trust a lot on this stuff) disagrees for right now.

Do you guys plan on buffing Rengar?

 Morello: We do – though I wanna keep the details tight as Classick’s still fiddling with it.

Urgot improvements on the PBE:

 ricklessabandon: I made a change that I hope will improve Urgot’s quality of life a little bit. Urgot players will now see a range indicator when near an enemy marked by Noxian Corrosive Charge. The indicator shows the max range at which he can acquire a missile lock with Acid Hunter.

Anyway, this change is live on the PBE right now and I’d love to hear any feedback (bugs or feel/usability) you have after playing with it. I’m particularly interested to hear feedback regarding its accuracy, ‘noise’ levels, and/or responsiveness.

Thanks in advance! ♥

These are all the news from the testing server for now, stay tuned for more!

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

 

Have you been wondering why the latest updates have brought so many nerfs? Morello has stepped up to answer this and to share some insight on the recent power reduction in the League and the issue with power creep!

What’s with the constant nerfs?

 Morello: Let me answer, in some detail, why nerfs have been heavier overall more recently.

The first high-level point to reconcile is that power creep has gotten out of hand. Much of our Season 3 initiative was directly centered on letting us fix that exact problem – which may be unintuitive at first.

Power creep? What does that matter?

Power creep is very insidious over time, because it happens slowly and gradually – and a game with new content has greater risk of succumbing to it than more static games. This leads to a problem to where power gets in the way of decision-making an counter-play by creating an arms race between competing factors (champions, in many cases).

Arms race?

Basically, to compete with the most powerful characters, you have to bring better/more/faster/etc. We really saw this between Fighters, tanks and AD Carries in Season 2 – carries were doing such explosive DPS, that defensive itemization had to be tuned to allow near-invulnerability to anything else just to live for a few hits from an ADC. Fighters had to have overtuned everything to both live and do noticeable damage.

But you changed the items – why nerf champions?

Changing the items was step one – get the right baselines for these values. Now, with that settled, we need to undo the arms race by bringing total power in League of Legends down. Some of that was done with AD items, some of that is nerfing fighters and doing other changes. Many of the sweeping changes you’ll see are revolved around these classes as we get their power back under control, or enhance gameplay/counter-play loops.

Why do you not buff champions too?

We actually do quite a bit, but these tend to be more easily-forgotten than nerfs. Additionally, some really outdated champs (Heimerdinger, for example) need heavier work to get them up-to-par. We have a relaunches team who is focused on just that!

One other factor is when a champion being good creates poor gameplay or interactions. League’s design direction involves a heavy dose of decision-points and counterplay. And not just countering like champ X beats champ Y, but action A can be responded to in skilled and interesting ways. Nerfing AP Tryndamere is an example of this, where gameplay fidelity is extremely diminished if that concept is powerful.

Who causes power creep and are nerfs the appropriate response?

 Ralik098: I don’t understand why you think nerfs are a good way to counteract power creep. Correct me if I’m wrong, but power creep occurs as you introduce new champions into the game and their new mechanics push older champions out as they just can’t keep up. For example, what happened with Udyr, the mobility in the game just made him irrelevant since it was so easy to just kite him. Nerfs will do absolutely nothing to solve that, no matter how many little 5-10 points of damage you shave off of other champions, Udyr never would have been viable without the increased mobility that you gave him. The only way nerfs will counteract this is if you change how the skills of other champions function, which is an even bigger mistake than just buffing the UP champions imo as you are then changing their style of play and feel.

Again, I have to say that your obsession with fighters is really worrisome considering they are still one of the only classes along with assassins that you can leave out of your team comps and expect to win with. You can’t go without other classes and expect to have the same degree of success. AD carries are still broken, both ranged (OP) and melee (UP).

 Morello: Because, like in my example, new champions are only one source of power creep. In many cases, this creep occurs because of the underlying concepts that create the arms race. Fighters were tuned to the point of being so strong that “being strong” is all they could do. Either they were straight-up more powerful than another choice, or worthless. In some cases you’re right that heavier work is needed as opposed to buffs or nerfs.

In Udyr’s case, we buffed him, so we agree nerfs weren’t the answer there 😛

What are some of the other sources of power creep? (Ralik098)

 Morello: Player skill and optimization is really the other big one. When players get better and discover more optimal strategies, they unlock new potential and find new interactions that increase overall power. We obviously don’t want to stop players from learning this stuff, but we do need to react to new information presented in this way. Players’ skill ceiling going up raises the skill floor slowly, when the skill floor increases, the baseline power increases as well.

No mistake; champions contribute and we have to deal with that as well (the Mobility Creep is valid), but manytimes it’s a nuanced interaction of systems and mechanics.

Any plans to fix the currently underplayed junglers? (Shyvana talk)

 Krimson62: But what about the jungle changes in Season 3 and champions who have obviously needed help for months – something that most players agree on!

Champions like Shyvana, Rengar, and Mundo in particular have been behind the curve for a while with all the new changes.

You can nerf Zac, Shaco, Amumu, Jarvan IV and Xin all you want without completely changing their kits and you’d be hard pressed to make these three champions listed above more tantalizing to pick simply because the new itemization and jungle changes left them behind.

Look at shyvana after her last nerf… less resistance on ult and a “bugfix” that made it so she lost two seconds from her W despite it matching the tooltip. Season 3 lifesteal nerfed, HoG removed, FoN removed, attack speed items nerfed, counterjungling less profitable…. every single one of her core items was nerfed… and she got the Blade of the Ruined King as the only “compensation” item for all that was lost…

 Morello: But buffing them before establishing baselines just makes more champions broken, not bringing more champions to a good median comparable power level. This would be the case for why nerfing other fighters takes precedence over buffing a champion who is a bit weak.

How is nerfing FotM champions justified?

 Isist: Lux being the same for 8 month, suddenly OP as hell. Akali doesn’t need special runes anymore, suddenly OP as hell. Morello, please explain, how are people going to develop new champion playstyle and meta if Riot nerfs everything that stomps because the opponent got caught in surprise?

If the player refuse to counterplay a certain champion, it is the player’s problem.

 Morello: Because you’re equating a nerf to “it won’t be good anymore.” These characters being good is awesome, but small nerfs to good champions rarely kick them out, just make them less ubiquitous.

Wasn’t it obvious that fighters were going to be overpowered eventually?

 Zerglinator: Okay, I have to ask, but how did creating a champion who scales damage off of building HP, True Damage, Free Armor Pen, and CC Immunity not signal any warning bells when he was made?

Seems like an example of power creep.

 Morello: That whole period was a desperate attempt to answer, in the wrong ways, how to make melee good. We learned a lot since then, though those fighters made us in the arms race already. Irelia and Jax are other good examples of this.

Will you be fixing Irelia? (Ralik098)

 Morello: I want to really badly, hard to prioritize vs bringing up some of the other really outdated folks and doing things like the events. Eventually, but not likely as soon as I’d like.

Did you remove the CC reduction from Trundle’s W from fear of power creep?

 Morello: Nah, it was basically very powerful and had no gameplay, so we thought we could trim there to add to other areas.

Personal thoughts on Fighters and Power Creep in Season 3

A little background for those who are unfamiliar with how the fighter issue came about. I’m sure many of you know, but back in Season 1 and the beginning of Season 2, the AoE meta was incredibly popular. The so-called “R button champs” (Morgana, Galio, Kennen), the bane of squishy champions, ran rampant and that’s when bruisers began to shine. They could take the brunt of the initiation and destroy these comps after their ults were down. That’s when the meta you see today began to form, as a counter to those burst-heavy picks. There had to be a healthy mix of tanking and spanking – a comp you can’t beat with just five ultimates and one that scaled harder than bruisers in the late game, due to AD carries. This is the key word here and the reason why melee fighters were so crazily buffed in Season 2 – if you’re going up against a champion who hits you for roughly 1000 damage each second. you had to be way better statistically to even stand a chance.

The issue transitioned into Season 3, but by then some fighters were so rigged skill-wise (Jarvan IV, Xin Zhao, Vi and Hecarim are the most obvious examples) that they could single-handedly deal with the ranged AD. They had to, with armor being shredded left and right and carries still hitting for absurd amounts. As health became the dominant survival stat, it meant these champions would become an even bigger nightmare for the rest of the team to deal with them. What followed was the Riot standard – targeted nerfs to reduce the popularity of FotM picks, mainly fighters. Those stats they got for free from skills in Season 2? They had to go. As a side effect of these modifications, many champions had to gain % Maximum HP damage to remain strong in the current meta. This is an artificial mechanic, one we’ll hopefully see go away, but we can’t currently do without.

So why did champions such as Shyvana and Mundo become undesirable? Simple, they failed at their job of initiating the carry and killing him before he killed them. They had no reliable CC and burst, which is what pushed certain bruisers above others in the fight to be competitive. Newer champions were built around this design to circumvent the issues that plague older champions lacking the mechanics to be strong in Season 3.

Of course, this isn’t just about fighters. As you’ve seen so far during Season 3, many forgotten champions suddenly gained popularity only to have their fame quickly extinguished by nerfs. Like how Katarina was picked up by the competitive scene or that DFG made Evelynn the single most destructive force on the playing-field. Play Miss Fortune, buy a Cleaver, press R! The end result of these experiments was that champions became overall weaker and this reduced the fun factor. Can you really pick up this guy/girl/amorphous blob/void monster after what Riot did?

You have to understand the philosophy here- it’s not without flaws by any means, but it’s obviously the one the balancing team have endorsed. To keep champions in line, they nerf those who are obviously above others. This is problematic, mainly because players constantly improve their skills and so they find these avenues to success that other players aren’t yet ready to deal with. Riot most often choose to listen to the majority in these cases, who are in favor of nerfing this new-found winning strategy. On the one hand, it keeps the pressure away from the developer- they’ve done their part, they’ve listened to the community and they’ve fixed the issue without causing further damage (this is why considerable buffs are so rare nowadays) But at the same time, you can’t constantly be trimming champions’ power or else you make the gameplay stale.

Is the right decision to nerf these strategies? Very few are actually considering counterplay – the act of thinking, instead of complaining.

What do you guys think is a good method of solving power creep issues?

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Interested in how Trundle’s new looks and lore came to be? Join Creative Designer RiotRunaan as he lays down the philosophy behind these decisions!

 RiotRunaan: “Hey guys,

We’ve been reading to your posts over the past few days and we wanted to jump in to say that we hear you. Trundle’s Visual Upgrade (VU) is a big change from what he was, so I want to share some of the story around how and why Trundle, the Troll King came to be. This might be a bit of a huge brain-dump… sorry if I get a little long-winded. Bear with me!

Trundle’s VU began as a piece of concept art for Trundle as a frost troll. Looking at and thinking about this path for Trundle got everyone super excited. Everything about it made sense. The idea of frost and ice fit the theming of his kit. The visuals were strong and compelling. It was a huge opportunity to strengthen Trundle as a character. We met, talked through the pros and cons, and felt that Frost Troll Trundle would be the best version of Trundle. We knew some would still prefer old Trundle, and we made the Traditional Trundle skin for those players.

On the creative team, we faced a challenging question: if Trundle was going to be a frost troll, how could we make him into the “coolest” frost troll he could be? How could we incorporate the key elements of Trundle’s personality into this new narrative? What we came to was an approach that preserved what we felt were key elements of Trundle’s personality, but with a fresh new identity that built him into the story of the Freljord and provided huge opportunities for storytelling in the future.

Why a new identity?

You guys are right: Trundle’s old story was compelling. It was a strong arc with a cathartic ending that finished the story of Trundle’s involvement with his tribe. The thing is, that story was effectively finished. Any evolution from the point at which Trundle decides to doom his tribe felt arbitrary when we discussed it internally.

We explored evolving Trundle into a frost troll as a solution to the problem of his story feeling complete. For example, we tried stories like “ice of Freljord slowed the disease” or “the Ice Witch cured him,” but they felt like Band-Aid solutions to get from Story A to Story B. This would not have been meaningful character development; it would have been an excuse to move the story forward in an inorganic way. A fresh start allowed us to create a strong, compelling, and open-ended story for Trundle.

Trundle’s old story was essentially finished, but new Trundle’s story is only just beginning. It’s essentially Act 1… where will the rest of the Troll King’s story take us?

With all of that in mind, we took a great deal of care in preserving elements of Trundle’s old story in his new. These themes didn’t take the exact same form, but here’s a run-down of our thought process.

The Underdog

In his old story, Trundle was the underdog. He was a runt, underappreciated and mocked by his tribe. In Trundle’s new story, these themes carry over. Trundle is by no means the biggest and strongest member of his tribe in the Freljord. When he perceives that the troll chieftain he follows may be leading his people down a path of destruction, Trundle challenges him, but the physical conflict only ends in humiliation for him. You’ll notice that when Trundle departs his tribe, he leaves to “the familiar sound of laughter.” Like his old story, scorn and mockery are familiar territory to our poor troll.

For the Tribe!

Trundle of the past was willing to bear the curse of his people at great cost to himself, despite the humiliation he’d faced at their hands. New Trundle faces a similar challenge: he recognizes the danger his people face, and he’s willing to undertake great risk to save them. It may be a bit understated in the bio (we’ve only got so much space to tell stories in that format), but venturing into the Ice Witch’s territory is no easy task. Trundle should have died—the Frostguard who live in that area of the Freljord have access to dark and terrible power. Through his strength and his cunning, however, he prevails.

The Trickster 

Old Trundle’s character had a great deal of cleverness and wit to him, especially in his in-game voice over. For Trundle’s VU, we completely embraced this and further incorporated it into his story. Trundle’s encounter with the Ice Witch presents him with an option: he can surrender, or he can twist the situation to his advantage. Trundle chooses the latter. He sees an opportunity to use the Ice Witch’s powerful presence to further his own goals for his people. An alliance with the Ice Witch will allow the trolls a chance at conquering the Freljord and ousting the humans that hold it—and, when the time is right, Trundle believes he’ll be able to defeat the Ice Witch herself.

The “Nice Guy” Turns Mean 

Many of you have mentioned that this new iteration of Trundle is a selfish creature, but in Trundle’s old Judgment, he reveals a darker shade of his personality. Trundle learns that bearing the curse for his people didn’t save them at all and they are, in fact, still doomed to die. He’s granted the option to save him… but he doesn’t. The bitterness and scorn he feels at being treated as an unworthy runt his whole life finally catches up to him. He leaves them to rot.

New Trundle undergoes a similar transformation, though it may be a touch more subtle. When he becomes the Troll King, the power may have begun to go to his head. He’s never been looked up to, he’s never been treated with respect, he’s so used to humiliation that the right to rule has added a darkness to him that may or may not grow into something more.

Things like this give us a lot of storytelling potential for Trundle in the future—let’s talk about that!

Story Possibilities 

So, where do we begin with Trundle, the Troll King? Where can we take him from here?
One key factor is that Trundle is still the underdog of the Freljord. Ashe, Sejuani and Lissandra seem to be the main power players here, but Trundle is the unexpected fourth force in the grand scheme of things. There’s a lot ahead of him, but can the Troll King rise to the challenge and reclaim the Freljord in the name of his kin?

We’ve put him in a very interesting conflict with the Ice Witch. They’ve forged an alliance of convenience—each needs the other to advance their plans, but where will that end? Lissandra herself is a master manipulator whose cleverness and guile will go toe-to-toe with the Troll King. Will the alliance have unforeseen consequences? Who will turn on the other first?

I hinted at this before, but Trundle’s character flaw—the fact that his newfound power may go to his head—opens up a lot of possibilities for us, too. He began his journey because he wanted a greater future for the trolls of Freljord, but will his hunger for greatness ever put them at risk? Power is an unwieldy, tricky thing, and Trundle is a made leader, not a born one. What challenges has he NOT considered?

“But I loved the old Trundle!”

We hear you. By no means do we think that Trundle’s old story and personality were a detriment to our game. We know that Trundle was beloved to some, which is why the Traditional Trundle skin exists. This preserves the fantasy that Trundle once held. If you want to be Trundle, the Plague Troll, that character still exists for you in all his glory, complete with classic voiceover and updated character art and visual effects.

In Conclusion 

We’ve taken a lot of steps to make Trundle the greatest frost troll he can be while still preserving the key elements of who he once was. This opens up a lot of opportunities for stories and serves a greater goal of building out our world into a more cohesive, unified whole. We’ve only just begun to talk about the coming war in the Freljord, and now Trundle can play an important part in that conflict. We hope the evolving story of the Freljord and Trundle’s new role there really give you something to dig into for League of Legends lore.

Thanks everyone, and keep on trollin’.

Community Concerns

Here are a few select quotes from the ever- helpful designer IronStylus:

Some champions have no reason to be where they are

 IronStylus: That’s a problem. It’s a big problem. I want to emphasize that this is very much something we want to avoid. This is something we are reconciling as you see to the changes in lore that are happening, the assigning of factions, allegiances, etc.

We never want to complete out a champion’s lore from inception. We want to have lots of room to tell a lot more stories. We don’t want to conclude to a hard certainty because that closes the arch of a character. Integration with other characters, factions, etc, strengthens characters because it allows for continuous interactions, cross pollination and alliances. One-off-ism makes things not only confusing, but puts our characters at such distance from each other they may have no way to have a reasonable trajectory with each other. We need opportunities for characters to cross paths, to have relationships, to create conflict.

Can we expect more champion relationships based on lore?

The involvement between characters makes certain moments, like a Rengar vs Kha’Zix lane, much more enjoyable and immersive if you’re aware of the story behind it. I hope we see more specific taunts/in-game nods to allegiances and rivalries.

 IronStylus: I personally would like us to pursue such interactions.

More Voice Overs!

I think champions should be very dynamic with each other. Graves showing off a bit of his ego by blinding Nocturne is a good example of this. All of these champions, especially if they are from similar regions, should have some kind of interaction. Kind of like another game, another moba, one made by a monlith.

…

 

When Elise kills Teemo she should hiss “That’s gotta sting” it’s a reward for killing Teemo, it’s spiteful, just like Elise.

 IronStylus: That’s cool. I can see that happening.

Champion Relationships – everything is here!

If you’re interested in finding out more about the relationships in the League, Summoner Engrailed has made a brilliant schematic showing every champion, where he/she comes from and who he/she has had any interactions with.

Original Thread 

Overview of Trundle’s Remake

Trundle was sort of the forgotten champion of the League, both in terms of his lore and the actual number of people playing him. More than anything his story and involvement in the fantasy world of Runeterra were mostly over. Stuck in a position where he has to accept the curse because it’s the only thing keeping him alive, he didn’t have a strong stimulus to be a continually evolving character. Old Trundle was the rut of the clan, he was shunned by everyone and was left alone to deal with his terrible fate. In this sense he couldn’t remain the indifferent, cheerful troll that we’ve come to embrace. He had to live up to the merits set by the Freljord conflict and in doing so he’s become more assertive, cunning, devious. After all, he wouldn’t have been king of the trolls with that goofy look on his face, right?

To clarify, I’m not a fan of Trundle’s new lore. I simply believe he had to be redone entirely for his frosty rework to make sense in the world he inhabits. Did he have to change his personality to fit a more compelling story? Most certainly yes. Did he have to lose the smirky attitude in the process? Maybe, maybe not, but that’s what Traditional Skins are for. If you feel more connected to Trundle’s past rendition you are free to enjoy him (with crispier textures and more polished animations).

The future of Champion Lore

Look at the past few weeks and what Riot has done in terms of immersing players in the lore behind their game. You have Zac’s lab reports, the Howling Abyss, Quinn’s journal, Lissandra’s reveal, Sejuani and Trundle’s reworks – all done to create a more complete experience. It’s a wonderful, albeit underdeveloped part of the League that’s only now beginning to grow.

In the future we’ll hopefully be treated to extended voice overs, like the ones you see in DotA 2. More dialogue that builds on character relationships, like the Graves/Twisted Fate story or the Kha’Zix/Rengar rivalry. If Leona and Diana are so different in their philosophies, how come we don’t see any of it in-game? Doesn’t everyone hate Teemo? There are so many opportunities in the League to create unique personalities that players can feel attached to. “I’m a champion, I fight, because I must!” – does this slogan inspire any emotion? Most who fight in the League do so because of a certain political involvement. That’s not very enticing, is it? How about “By my father’s name, I shall end you, devil of Noxus!” It’s a new direction, but I’m confident Riot can pull it off.

Where do you see the game’s lore heading?