LeBlanc returns to competitive status, Draven gets a new passive, Ghost Bride Morgana is now available and Morello elaborates on the design of Aatrox! Oh, and late news of a sale. :/

 
PBE: Champion Changes
PBE: Tooltip Changes
PBE: Item Changes
Ghost Bride Morgana
Damiya on Future PBE Update
Design flaws of Aatrox
Champion/Skin Sale

PBE: Champion Changes

Brand

Pillar of Flame ( W )

• Mana cost reduced from 70/80/90/100/110 to 70/75/80/85/90

Conflagration ( E )

• Mana cost increased from 60/65/70/75/80 to 70/75/80/85/90

Pyroclasm ( R )

• Mana cost decreased from 100/150/200 to 100 at all ranks

Draven

League of Draven ( Passive )

• Passive now states: “Draven gains his fans’ Adoration when he catches a Spinning Axe or kills a minion or monster. Killing enemy champions grants Draven bonus gold based on how much Adoration he has.”

To further elaborate, Adoration caps at 100 stacks. It acts like a Statikk Shyv, minus the lightning action. Phreak has shared more information on Draven’s passive below:

Phreak: Statikk is the real guy to talk about this, but here’s what I’ve gleaned from talking him to about this:

Draven’s laning phase is stupid OP, but his late game is pretty rough. Spinning Axe is really fun and awesome and we always want that to feel good. However, the extra damage he’s getting from the bleed is fairly underappreciated and doesn’t really scale all that great into the lategame. We looked at the numbers and said two things:

1. We don’t want to touch Spinning Axe.
2. It’s hard to find numbers on the bleed that look even remotely good for Draven players while simultaneously having a meaningful impact on his early laning.

So we want with a fun mini-game where Draven farms up stacks and then has to cash them in by executing someone. We want the overall changes to be a net nerf (he’s OP), but not much. There is a lot of power lost by simply ripping the passive out. We want this passive to be meaningful and have impact for Draven.

For example numbers, Statikk got Adoration up to 100 in just 5 minutes of laning from last hitting and Spinning Axe catches, and he’s not even an expert Draven. This number is going to get high.

Are adoration stacks expended upon killing someone?

Phreak: Lot of details are being worked on.

Plan I last heard about was you consumed partial stack on kill, lost all stacks on death. Adds some tension when you build them up, makes you want to go kill someone so you can cash in and go big!

LeBlanc

Mirror Image ( Passive )

• LeBlanc’s clone will now run when triggered, instead of just standing idle.

Possibly the best improvement since sliced bread.

Sigil of Silence ( Q )

• Mana cost lowered from 70/75/80/85/90 to 50/60/70/80/90
• Damage lowered from 70/110/150/190/230 ( +0.6 AP ) to 55/80/105/130/155 ( +0.5 AP )
• Mark trigger damage increased from 20/40/60/80/100 ( +0.3 AP ) to 55/85/105/130/155 ( +0.5 AP )
• Silence duration reduced from 2 seconds to 1.5

Distortion ( W )

• Mana cost increased from 80/85/90/95/100 to 80/90/100/110/120

Ethereal Chains ( E )

• Cooldown increased from 10 seconds at all ranks to 14/13/12/11/10
• Shackle now needs 1.5 seconds to immobilze the target, down from 2.
• Immobilize duration changed from 1/1.3/1.6/1.9/2.2 seconds to 1.5 at all ranks

Mimic ( R )

• Mimicked Sigil of Silence now deals 100/200/300 ( +0.65 AP ) magic damage on both instances, increased by ranks of Mimic, up from 77 / 121 / 165 / 209 / 253 (+ 0.66 AP) at level 1 Mimic, which was increased by ranks of Sigil of Silence.

The damage listed applies to level 1 Mimic with a non – triggered sigil. At level 3 a triggered Sigil will deal 462 ( + 1.26 AP ) magic damage, compared to 600 ( + 1.3 AP ).

Ethereal Chains now deal 100/200/300 ( +0.65 AP ) magic damage on both the shackle landing and immobilizing, up from 44 / 72 / 99 / 127 / 154 ( + 0.55 AP ) at level 1 Mimic.

At level 3 Mimic Ethereal Chains will deal 392 ( + 1.4 AP ) total magic damage, compared to 600 ( + 1.3 AP )

• Mana cost reduced from 100/50/0 to 0 at all ranks.

To summarize the changes – in the early game, LeBlanc players will now be encouraged to follow-up on Sigils to maximize damage rather than spam them like generic nukes. As such, the damage on triggering Sigils is going up, falling off a bit in the midgame only to rise substantially in the lategame (in comparison to the old numbers). More aggressive plays with lower mana costs and a bigger incentive to combo LeBlanc’s spells are all great changes. I can’t comment on Distortion yet as the AP ratio hasn’t been added, but I will say that in combination with the now free-to-cast Mimic, this could be a great farming tool. It’ll give LeBlanc the opportunity to push lanes, which has been holding her back on the competitive scene. Ethereal chains now provide great damage output when Mimicked, even without being leveled up. A little less CC, but, as QA Analyst Roku explains below, this is needed for counterplay.

While on the outskirts it seems like LeBlanc’s been nerfed, that’s really not the case. She’s actually got tons of improvements this patch and hopefully this will be enough to bring her back to former glory. She’s a very dynamic concept with a clear powercurve. One false move in the early game and you’ll be struggling to keep up. I think we’ve been missing champions like LeBlanc on the pro-level scene – ones with clearly defined strengths and weaknesses, rather than AoE powerhouses that never really seem to struggle.

Feedback on the changes to LeBlanc

Roku: As a reminder, these are on PBE, subject to change and still tuning. Also, the posted changelist doesn’t encompass the full set of changes. A couple not listed:

- Distortion’s cooldown now starts on cast rather than when you return
- Sigil of Silence’s mark detonation has its own AP ratio, which was increased to match the damage as well (to .5 from .3)

Overall, the changes intend to increase Leblanc’s versatility (make her less binary, more viable throughout the game rather than just in the first 20 mins), reduce the frustration that Leblanc puts on her opponent, and encourage her to make slippery and opportunistic plays. Distortion should be a core decision point in how you land your other abilities, how much risk you’re taking, or how much risk you’re averting.

Putting the damage more on the detonation of Sigil of Silence encourages you to use your other abilities (which have more gameplay within them) to gain an advantage, rather than just spamming a targeted spell.

As for the CC nerfs, Leblanc doesn’t need long duration CC in order to accomplish her goals. Shortening these reduces some of the frustration opponents experience and potentially allows the opponent to respond after Leblanc’s ‘turn’ is over. This allows us to encourage the damage and mobility aspects of her instead.

Could you elaborate on her passive?

Roku: The changes I talked about before (making it move rather than just stand still) have tested really well. There are a few of these ‘under the hood’ changes in testing that won’t quite be noticeable until she’s on PBE and people play with her.

PBE: Tooltip changes

Brand

Pyroclasm ( R )

Tooltip now states: “Brand unleashes a devastating torrent of fire that will bounce to nearby enemy units, priotizing champions. Deals 100/225/350 ( 0.5 AP ) magic damage per bounce. Can strike up to 5 targets and may strike the same target multiple times.”

Syndra

Dark Sphere’s ( Q )

Tooltip now states: “This spell can be cast while moving”.

Force of Will’s ( W )

Tooltip now states: “This spell can be cast while moving”.

PBE: Item changes

Oracle’s Elixir

• Tooltip now states: “Revealing a ward in this manner grants a portion of the gold reward when that unit is killed.”
• Now always lasts for 5 minutes, regardless of whether the user dies during the duration.

Maw of Malmortius

• Attack damage increased from 55 to 60
• Magic resist increased from 36 to 40
• Now grants 1 AD for every 2% of missing HP, up from every 2.5%. Caps at 35 bonus damage.

Tear of the Goddess

• Each charge grants 3 mana, down from 4.

Vision Ward

• Now Reads “(Revealing a ward in this manner grants aportion of the gold reward when that unit is killed.)”

Ghost Bride Morgana now available!

For in-game screenshots, please visit this article.

“The beautiful terror of Ghost Bride Morgana haunts the battlefield. Inspired by the tale of La Llorona that’s told across Latin America, she’s the territory’s launch skin. New particles lend her attacks a spectral quality, chaining her foes to the ground before sending them from this world to the next. When she heads back to base with the spoils of battle, her horrifying new recall animation gives voice to the Ghost Bride’s lament.”

You can get this spooky version of Morgana for 975 RP.

What to expect from the next PBE Update

Technical Analyst Damiya shares details on future changes to the runes tab on the PBE:

Roku: In the next PBE patch, we’re making a few quality-of-life improvements to the way runes work. Most of the changes are subtle, and you might not notice them unless you’re looking for them, but they should make things a bit more responsive the next time you’re setting up a rune build.
Here’s a rundown of the changes:

• If you filter out all the runes of a specific type (marks, seals, glyphs, or quintessences), the name of that category now turns grey to indicate it’s empty

• Reverting the changes in the runebook no longer changes which page you’re editing

• When browsing your rune inventory, you can now open more than one rune type at a time

• When you’re right clicking or double clicking to rapidly add runes you don’t have to wait for the animation to finish playing

• We’ve shifted the rune slots slightly to reduce certain gaps

• The scrollbars on your rune inventory and stats pane should be more responsive and easier to click

• The dividers between effects in the stats pane now scale down when the scrollbar appears

• Dragging a rune into place no longer highlights slots near the drop target

• Rune combiner animations are simpler

• Rune combiner filters are now more consistent with rune page filters

The next time you hit the PBE, try fiddling with your runebook for a bit. We’d love to hear your feedback on the improvements, along with any bugs you uncover while testing.

What can we expect to find different?

Roku: This was an under-the-hood rework of the code that powers the Rune Book screen. In order to get the performance benefits out to you guys sooner, we very deliberately avoided doing anything to significantly alter the player experience.

The big gain should be in client performance; as we start to apply these tech improvements to various screens, the client will load faster and be more responsive. When we release the reworked Champion Inventory, you’ll find that the profile opens *significantly* faster. From a development perspective, theserework also makes it easier for us to implement the improvements that players have been asking for (such as page reordering).

The main reason we’re being so open about this process is because these are very sweeping changes to the core client code. We want to partner with the playerbase to ensure that these changes are released with few bugs and better performance. While the immediate benefits are minor, in the long term this is going to help us make the PVP.net client better than ever.

Issues with Aatrox

Isn’t excessive sustain a toxic mechanic?

Morello: This is a confusing issue because it’s being oversimplified that the mechanic is bad in all cases. Let me shed light on why Aatrox’s healing paradigm is OK, and what the issues are.
First – and a bunch of you guys have picked this one up – Aatrox has real, meaningful health costs to access any of his power. This means instead of something like Vlad who just steals health and has minimal health costs, Aatrox’s sustain is his resource management. An Aatrox who just sits and sustains is woefully weak at getting anything done.

Second, being modal (stance-based) means you’re balancing damage output and sustain. When compared to say Irelia or Vlad, this is not true – you’re doing it all at the same time and never opening windows of opportunity or weakness.

Third, because of the costs on his damage, Aatrox never just sits there at close to full health and sustains unless he’s just trying to farm. He’s always bouncing his health around the ~60% mark from paying costs, eating harass, and getting health back. This is different than being at 100% and instantly erasing harass (while those champs probably being as powerful as other characters on other fronts).
Fourth, fighter sustain and Soraka are unrelated in why they’re problems. I probably have 500 posts on why dedicated healers are poisonous design, but we still have health potions, lifesteal, spell vamp and things like Nidalee heal, Kayle heal, etc. We’ve clearly delineated this issue.

In a lot of ways, this is the original design intent we had with Vlad but never achieved – big health costs, but a way to recover those costs. If you just sit and sustain with Aatrox, you’re not going to be good. If you just attack without managing your health income and costs, then you’ll die. Melee also introduces more risk on the kit than a caster would (and so it easier to make actually work correctly).
I understand the confusion, but this is not an inconsistency of “sustain is bad on my favorite champ, but is OK here” – this is a good example of how otherwise scary mechanics can be used with the appropriate tradeoffs. I think, personally, the better critiques on Aatrox are about how his E and Q are not really cohesive with his other skills, and are a bit flat. His sustain/cost paradigm and auto-attack focus is exactly what this character is meant to.

Is there any counterplay to his passive?

Morello: We have our eye on the passive – this one has been tough, I agree. Some of it is the longer revive time that allows you to disengage, or set up a follow-up, but I’m not sure that’s enough.

Wasn’t Aatrox supposed to be a Melee Carry?

Morello: Originally, he was Melee ADC, but moved to “light fighter” in some balance testing.

What do you think is problematic about his kit?

Do you agree that Aatrox has too much sustain for melee champions to handle?

Morello: I think that’s a great time to go look and see what’s going on mid

Why do you feel his passive is stale?

What’s wrong with his Q and E in your opinion?

Morello: I think they are a little boring and not even needed, or that they should be slower or have more decision-making.

Is the problem with Aatrox his lack of mana?

New Champion/Skin Sale!

Enjoy the following champions and skins at 50% off until June 17th!

Champions:

• Diana – 487 RP




• Shaco – 395 RP




• Singed – 292 RP

Mercenary Katarina – 260 RP

Rageborn Mundo – 487 RP

Waterloo Miss Fortune – 260 RP

Morello: You don’t want to know what I want to do – I want to demilitarize. You thought you’ve seen nerfs? You have not seen nerfs.

Major work on Ashe, Hecarim, Kha’Zix and Sona, Malady removed, changes to jungle timers and Spirit Items, laser-proof Poros, ninja nerf to Caitlyn and a game-crashing bug with Nashor’s Tooth!

Champion Balance Changes

Bug Fixes & Quality of Life Improvements

Item Changes

General Champion Notes

Changes to Slow Zones

Maps

• Summoner’s Rift (Jungle Changes)
• Twisted Treeline (Enabled Items)
• Crystal Scar (Changes to Tear Items)
• Howling Abyss (Enabled Items)

Game Interface

League System

Player Behavior

General

Critical!

Champion Balance Changes

      Annie

Summon: Tibbers (R)

• Tibbers’ Health increased from 1200/1600/2000 to 1200/2100/3000
• Tibbers’ Magic Resist increased from 25/45/65 to 30/50/70
• Mana cost reduced from 125/175/225 to 100 at all ranks

We’ve made some changes to Tibbers to make him a tankier and more threatening presence in late game team fights beyond his initial burst damage.

 Morello: We thought this was a cool way to give Annie some more unique, non 100-0 presence with taking towers and tanking objectives like Dragon. It’s small, but one of those things that you can take advantage of that has a strategic niche.

      Ashe

Focus (Passive)

• Ashe gains 3/6/9/12/15/18 stacks of Focus for every 3 seconds spent not attacking. At 100 stacks her next attack is guaranteed to crit. Her Focus stacks will then reset to her current Crit Chance.

This change allows Ashe players to use her passive in more strategic ways beyond a level one poke or incidental crit.

If you’d like to read more on why Focus was changed in such a way, you can follow the response here.

     Caitlyn

Ace in the Hole (R)

• If the target disappears in the Fog of War while Ace in the Hole is being channelled, the ability goes on a full cooldown.

I found about this nerf on Reddit and tested it for validity. Basically, if you lose sight, your ult will go on its full cooldown rather than the short 3 second one before.

    Hecarim

Devastating Charge (E)

• If Hecarim’s target is beyond narrow terrain, Hecarim will now leap over the terrain to the target

Onslaught of Shadows (R)

• No longer deals damage at the end location
• Rider damage increased from 100/200/300 (+0.4 AP) to 150/250/350 (+1.0 AP)

As a strong sustain fighter, Hecarim was blowing up squishy targets with Onslaught of Shadows’ high damage and on-impact fear. To balance the ability out, we’ve taken away the landing damage and shifted it to the riders that travel with Hecarim.
The Devastating Charge buff should let Hecarim jump over small walls and ledges to his opponents when he dashes to them. Keep in mind that when we say small ledges, there are only a few in the game like the river ramp ledges and very thin jungle walls.

       Karma

Inner Flame (Q)

• Mana Cost reduced from 50/60/70/80/90 to 50/55/60/65/70
• Explosion radius increased from 230 to 250

Renewal (R+W)

• No longer heals over time for 25% Missing Health
• Now heals Karma for 20% (+1% per 100 AP) of missing Health immediately upon casting and another 20% (+1% per 100 AP) of missing Health if the leash is not broken.

Focused Resolve was impractical because whenever players wanted to use it, they needed the healing up front, not over time. This change still emphasizes the “leash break” gameplay, but now appropriately rewards Karma for using Mantra on her W and keeping her enemies close.

    Kha’Zix

Taste Their Fear (Q)

• Bonus damage from “Isolated” debuff increased to 45%. New damage is 100/145/190/235/280 (+ 200% bonus AD)

Enlarged Claws (Evolved Q)

• Evolution adds 8% of missing Health as damage (Can be further increased by Isolation)

Void Spikes (W)

• Now slows targets hit by 20% for 2 seconds
• Mana cost reduced from 60/70/80/90/100 to 55/60/65/70/75
• Bonus Attack Damage ratio increased from 0.9 to 1.0
• Can no longer be cast during Leap

Spike Racks (Evolved W)

• No longer consumes passive to apply effects – instead just fires three missiles

Void Assault (R)

• Damage reduction while in stealth increased to 50% from 40%

The changes to Kha’Zix are ultimately about giving him more viable choices when picking evolutions. Evolving Void Spikes granted such huge damage, high poke, and great utility that it was crowding out his other evolutions. Now Void Spikes gets a slow as part of the base skill, so its utility is there even at level one. Taste Their Fear’s evolution was previously reliant on having targets isolated. Now it works whether they are isolated or not, but does more damage against isolated targets, making it a more reliable choice. We also increased Void Assault’s damage reduction while in stealth to make it a slightly more enticing choice and to remind players of its additional utility.

  Lissandra

Ring of Frost (W)

• Cooldown reduced from 18/16/14/12/10 to 14/13/12/11/10 seconds
• Mana cost reduced from 70 to 50

Glacial Path (E)

• Cooldown now begins upon initial cast rather than upon recativation or at the end of the missile

Frozen Tomb (R)

• Self-cast duration increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds
• Slow increased from 20% at all ranks to 20/30/40%
• Damage reduced from 150/300/450 to 150/250/350

For a control mage with the kit she has, Lissandra was throwing out a lot of front-loaded damage. The intention of these changes was not only to lower her damage, but to also better highlight her in-fight control as her core strength.

   Nautilus

Titan’s Wrath (W)

• Damage changed from 30/55/80/105/130 to 40/55/70/85/100

If Nautilus gets ahead in levels, he ends up with both high damage and high tankiness when leveling Titan’s Wrath first. As a strong initiator tank with high crowd control, we’ve reduced some of that mid-game damage output so he’s less overwhelming when he snowballs.

     Sejuani

Flail of the Northern Winds (W)

• Bonus maximum Health ratio reduced from 16% to 10%

Permafrost (E)

• Slow duration reduced from 2/2.25/2.5/2.75/3 to 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 seconds

Glacial Prison (R)

• Stun and slow duration reduced from 1.5/1.75/2 to 1.25/1.5/1.75 seconds

Sejuani’s rework left her incredibly powerful in terms of overall damage and crowd control potential. We’ve tuned back some of those strengths to bring her more in line with other initiator tanks.

        Sona

• Base Health increased from 410 to 450
• Base Armor increased from 9.3 to 11.3

Power Chord (Passive)

• Base Power Chord damage changed from 8 + (10 x level) to 13/20/27/35/43/52/62/72/82/92/102/112/122/132/147/162/177/192

Check here for more information on these changes.

Aria of Perseverance (W)

• Duration of Diminuendo (W Power Chord) reduced from 4 to 3 seconds
• Bonus Armor and Magic Resistance to self and healed ally reduced from 8/11/14/17/20 to 6/7/8/9/10
• Aura bonus Armor and Magic Resistance changed from 3/6/9/12/15 to 6/7/8/9/10

Sona is a consistently strong support, so after we fixed a long-standing bug with Power Chord: Diminuendo we felt she would be a dominant pick without additional balancing. On that note, we’ve reverted some of our older changes to Sona. These changes are designed to maintain her parity with other supports by lowering her early game burst and her late game durability while making her a little more forgiving in the early game.

Bug Fixes & Quality of Life Improvements

       Corki

Missile Barrage (R)

• Fixed a bug where Missile Barrage would sometimes fail to deal damage

     Karma

Focused Resolve (W)

• Now correctly gives vision of the unit while rooted

Defiance (R+E)

• Fixed a bug where Defiance’s mini-shields weren’t applying the Ability Power ratio

   Kog’Maw

Void Ooze (E)

• Fixed a bug where the slow wasn’t reduced by tenacity

 Lissandra

Ring of Frost (W)

• Fixed a bug where the root failed to apply if Lissandra died

   Nautilus

Titan’s Wrath (W)

• Fixed a bug where the Ability Power ratio on hits was lower than intended

      Poppy

Heroic Charge (E)

• Spell has been refactored to better detect terrain

Poppy’s Heroic Charge and Vayne’s Condemn now have a skillshot indicator that show where the target will go. You can find a screenshot of the update here.

     Thresh

Death Sentence (Q)

• Fixed a bug where Thresh could cast Flash while casting Death Sentence

      Varus

Piercing Arrow (Q)

• Fixed a bug where casting Piercing Arrow while targeting an enemy would cause Varus to stop moving

       Vayne

 Condemn (E)

• Spell has been refactored to better detect terrain.

          Vi

Blast Shield (Passive)

• Fixed a bug where Blast Shield’s cooldown at higher levels was 1 second longer than intended

Vault Breaker (Q)

• Fixed a bug where casting Vault Breaker while targeting an enemy would cause Vi to stop moving.

Boots of Speed

• Cost reduced from 350 to 325
• Items that build out of Boots of Speed have had their recipe costs increased by 25

Doran’s Ring

• Cost reduced from 475 to 400
• Health reduced from 80 to 60
• Mana restore on-kill reduced from 5 to 4

Doran’s Shield

• Cost reduced from 475 to 440
• Armor removed (previously 5)
• HP/5 increased from 8 to 5
• UNIQUE: Passive block damage increased from 6 to 8

Doran Items

We’ve lowered the price on a number of starting items to give players more options with consumables and general builds.

• All instances of Rend as a passive have been changed to Maim
• Maim is now the passive that refers to dealing bonus magic damage to monsters with every basic attack
• Butcher is the passive that refers to dealing percent bonus damage to monsters from all sources

 Jungling Items

We’ve removed the randomness on Madred’s and Wriggle’s to increase consistency while allowing players to plan out their jungle routes better. Wriggle’s wasn’t very enticing so we’ve tuned up its stats to be worthy of a slot later in the game for those who can take advantage of it.

The following jungle items have all had their Unique passive Rend changed to Maim. Read above bullet points to understand what that means.

Hunter’s Machete

• Now deals 10 magic damage to monsters per hit

Spirit Stone

• Now deals 10 magic damage to monsters per hit

Madred’s Razors

• Now deals 60 bonus magic damage to monsters per hit
• No longer deals bonus damage to minions

Wriggle’s Lantern

• Now deals 100 bonus magic damage to monsters with every basic attack
• No longer deals bonus damage to minionsAttack Damage increased to 25 from 15
• Life Steal increased to 15% from 10%
• Armor reduced to 25 from 30
• Combine cost increased to 500 gold from 100 (total cost increased to 2000 gold from 1600)
• UNIQUE Active
  • Ward duration reduced to 90 seconds from 180
  • Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds from 180

Spirit of the Ancient Golem

• Bonus damage to monsters increased from 25% to 30%

Spirit of the Elder Lizard

• Attack Damage reduced from 45 to 35
  • Damage bonus to monsters increased from 25% to 30%

Spirit of the Spectral Wraith

• Ability Power reduced to 40 from 50
  • Damage bonus to monsters increased from 25% to 30%

Spirit Items

A few patches back we buffed a number of jungle items to make them more enticing for junglers. The changes, however, made these items so efficient that even lane champions were buying them with no regard for the Butcher passive. We still want lane champions to consider these in strategies that center on poaching jungle camps or helping with map objectives, but we ultimately want these to feel like the optimal choice for junglers first.

Recurve Bow

• Cost reduced from 950 to 900

Malady

• Removed from the game

For more on why Malady was removed, click here.

Nashor’s Tooth

• Combine cost increased to 920 from 500
• Ability Power reduced to 60 from 65
• Additional Passive – Basic attacks deal 15 (+15% of Ability Power) as bonus magic damage on hit

Wit’s End

• New Recipe: Recurve Bow + Null Magic Mantle + Dagger + 700 gold = 2400 gold
• Attack Speed increased to 42% from 40%
• Revised Passive – Basic attacks steal 5 Magic Resist from the target, stacks up to 5 times

General Champion Notes

• Targeted wall-jump abilities now check both sides of the wall for the closest location of the cursor, so players don’t fail-jump into a wall, when the other side was clearly in range.
• We’ve added new targeting indicators to show how far the target is knocked back for the following abilities:
  • Alistar’s Headbutt
  • Lee Sin’s Dragon’s Rage
  • Poppy’s Heroic Charge
  • Vayne’s Condemn
• We’ve improved consistency for abilities that behaved inconsistently when the targeted enemy uses Flash. We’re cleaning up these interactions so that either the ability won’t cast or Flash won’t be used up (it will be one or the other, never both).
  • Jayce’s Thundering Blow
  • Singed’s Fling
  • Skarner’s Impale
  • Volibear’s Rolling Thunder

Changes to Slow Zones

All slow zones now update on a quarter-second interval, meaning when you move out of a slow field, the slow will wear off almost immediately unless you’re hit by an ability that applies an individual slow (like Kog’Maw’s Void Ooze). What this means: your champion’s movement speed will be restored more quickly when leaving a slow field, but the slow within the fields have not been changed.
This change should make interacting with slow zones more intuitive while rewarding players who react quickly (as stepping out of a slow field will reward you faster). This is a small nerf to most of the champions affected, but we will be closely monitoring champions affected by these changes.

• The following abilities have had their slow refresh rate reduced to 0.25 seconds:
  • Singed’s Mega Adhesive
  • Lux’s Lucent Singularity
  • Gangplank’s Cannon Barrage
  • Lulu’s Wild Growth
  • Miss Fortune’s Make It Rain
  • Trundle’s Pillar of Ice
  • Varus’ Hail of Arrows
  • Viktor’s Gravity Field
  • Vladimir’s Sanguine Pool
• Lux’s Lucent Singularity also applies a 0.25 second slow to targets hit by the detonation
• Kog’Maw’s Void Ooze missile also applies a 1 second slow to targets struck

Summoner’s Rift

We’ve increased the initial spawn times of jungle creeps to get rid of the frustrating experience advantage players could get by killing certain jungle camps before laning phase. This was a much requested change from a lot of pro teams around the world, as the only real counter was to switch lanes or to try to prevent it altogether.
The other changes are to reassure junglers since they won’t be able to start wolves or wraiths before heading to their buffs. Faster spawns will also help some champions who have exceptionally high clear times and want to just stay in the jungle. Overall, this will be a buff for junglers across the board as we’ve opened up additional jungle route options for them.
On that note, junglers traditionally have high impact in the early game, so there is some concern that these changes may be making them too strong in that area. We will be closely monitoring the situation to see if we need to balance further.

Wolves

• Now spawn for the first time at the 1:55 minute mark
• Respawn time reduced from 60 seconds to 50

Wraiths

• Now spawn for the first time at the 1:55 minute mark

Golems

• Now spawn for the first time at the 1:55 minute mark
• Respawn time reduced from 60 seconds to 50

Ancient Golem

• Base Experience gained increased from 220 to 340
• A particle effect has been added to display who the buff has been transferred to

Lizard Elder

• Base Experience gained increased from 220 to 340
• A particle effect has been added to display who the buff has been transferred to

Young Lizard

• Base Experience granted reduced to 10 from 40

Twisted Treeline

• Enabled several items
  • Hunter’s Machete
  • Spirit Stone
  • Spirit of the Ancient Golem
  • Spirit of the Elder Lizard
  • Spirit of the Spectral Wraith

Crystal Scar

• Added Dominion variants of several items

Tear of the Goddess (Crystal Scar)

• Mana per charge increased to 5 from 4

Manamune (Crystal Scar)

• Mana per charge increased to 8 from 4

Archangel’s Staff (Crystal Scar)

• Mana per charge increased to 10 from 6

Rod of Ages (Crystal Scar)

• Now gains stacks every 40 seconds, down from 60 seconds

If you want more context on this change, click here.

Howling Abyss

• Enabled several items
  • Hunter’s Machete
  • Spirit Stone
  • Spirit of the Ancient Golem
  • Spirit of the Elder Lizard
  • Spirit of the Spectral Wraith
• Shop close distance is now calculated from the spawn, not the shop
• Shop close distance increased to 1600 from 1400
• Fixed a bug causing players to become stuck if they wiggled behind blue laser turret
• Poros have gone through an 80s action movie training montage and now have some resistance to lasers

Minimap & HUD

• The Player’s nameplate will now always be drawn last, causing it to always appear over ally and enemy health plates.

Item Shop

• The search terms “Spooky Ghosts”, “Bork”, “Botrk”, “AA”, “NLR”, “SOTO”, “SOTD”, “dshield”, “dblade”, and “dring” have been added to the in-game item shop.

Custom Item Sets

• Item sets will no longer be lost when a player changes their Summoner name.

For more information and a preview of Custom Sets, click here.

Game Menus

• The Key Binding page has been reorganized to be easier to use

Gifting Animation 

• Gifting animation has been updated

Custom Game Mini-maps

• Custom Game Mini maps updated to include unique mini maps for each map

• Added the ability to spectate players and teams in challenger tier via an option in the leagues menu.
• Added notifications to inform players when they are close to hitting LP decay for inactivity in ranked queues.

Behavior Alerts

The PVP.net client will display new warning alerts for players with spikes of negative activity, in order to help course-correct them as soon as possible with quick and direct feedback.

• Players with recently detected unsportsmanlike behavior will see a warning after the End of Game screen.
• Alerts will not follow every player report; alerts are targeted toward players that exhibit uncharacteristic spikes of highly negative behavior.

• The Loading Screen no longer appears off-center in your monitor after Champ Select, when in Borderless or Windowed mode.
• Included a possible fix for an issue that would cause LoL to open in the bottom right of the screen on computers under heavy load
• Logitech monochrome keyboards should no longer clear their display when the last two heads-up buttons are pressed.
• Logitech keyboards should no longer change their brightness when your champion is dead.

Critical!

Do NOT smart-cast Nashor’s Tooth or your game will crash! Even though the item has no active ability, if you somehow click on the wrong smart-cast hotkey with the item in that slot, you will suffer an immediate error! I found it on Reddit and checked for validity. This issue was also discovered and reported on the PBE, so hopefully Riot is aware of it by now and is working on a hotfix.

“Poros have gone through an 80s action movie training montage and now have some resistance to lasers.”

Volty comments on unannounced Sona nerfs, Xypherous discusses the potential for future AD spellvamp items, Solcrushed with a few ideas on Viktor’s passive rework and the latest Rotation and Sale!

PBE Changes to Sona

Xypherous on AD Spellvamp

Viktor’s future uncertain

New Champion Rotation – Week 19

New Champion/Skin Sale – Ends June 14th

PBE Changes to Sona

Sneaky, sneaky nerfs…

      Sona

• Base Health increased from 410 to 450
• Base Armor increased from 9.3 to 11.3

Power Chord (Passive)

• Base damage changed from 18/28/38/48/58/68/78/88/98/108/118/128/138/148/158/168/178/188 to 13/20/27/35/43/52/62/72/82/92/102/112/122/132/147/162/177/192

Aria of Perseverance (W)

• Bonus Armor and Magic Resistance to self and healed ally reduced from 8/11/14/17/20 to 6/7/8/9/10
• Passive Armor and Magic Resistance bonus changed from 3/6/9/12/15 to 6/7/8/9/10

The odd part is the Power Chord nerf was not included in the recent PBE update, as Summoner Hostile Miku points out. Game designer Volty stepped in to fill us on the details of these rather surreptitious changes.

 Volty: We have a number of tweaks coming for Sona in the next patch, as a consequence of this change:

- Fixed a bug where Power Chord: Diminuendo was not decreasing damage dealt.

Yup, that’s right.  Power Chord: Diminuendo hasn’t been reducing the damage dealt by its target.  This bug has been particularly tricky to detect because it was reducing the damage numbers displayed, just not the actual damage inflicted.

So after fixing this, we took a step back and asked, what will this do to Sona’s balance?  Given that Sona is already borderline “always pick” we were quite worried that she’d gain must-pick status after this fix.  We asked what we could do to Sona to make her less powerful at high Elo and competitive play, where she is already most dangerous and the fix to Diminuendo is likely to have the largest impact.  We also wanted to not hurt Sona’s performance too much for other players, and she’s not as relatively strong there (but still strong).

Looking at what makes Sona strong in competitive play, we identified that her early game burst is a major source of power, especially for competitive play.  While it’s important for champions to have comparative strengths and weaknesses, Sona is a bit too strong in this dimension, even beyond providing a unique strategic niche for her compared to other supports.  In short, we think we can make some reductions here while preserving her unique strategic niche and playstyle.  Here is the changelist:

- Base Power Chord damage changed to 13/20/27/35/43/52/62/72/82/92/102/112/122/132/147/162/177/192 from 8 + (10 x level)

(This refers to the base, which is still doubled by Power Chord: Staccato.)

These numbers were chosen to hit her early game the hardest, and only provide minor reductions during other parts of the game.

We also identified that late game Sona can become really quite durable, more so than we would like.  So we also targeted this as an area to remove power.  This was where feedback from players was most valuable to informing our decision, as I asked for and specifically received a lot of input on which durability mechanics on Sona were most important to / noticed by players.  Keep in mind though, that reductions here are largely offset by the bug we’re fixing, so the overall reduction in durability isn’t that big.

Aria of Perseverance
- Bonus Armor and Magic Resistance to self and healed ally reduced to 6/7/8/9/10 from 8/11/14/17/20
- Changed aura bonus Armor and Magic Resistance to 6/7/8/9/10 from 3/6/9/12/15

We wanted to compensate for some of these reductions by increasing Sona’s early game durability, which is comically low on live.

- Base Health increased to 450 from 410
- Base Armor increased to 11.3 from 9.3

These are reverts of an earlier nerf we did to Sona’s durability in lane, which we no longer feel is necessary.

After testing, we were finding that we hadn’t actually lowered Sona’s late-game durability perceptibly, between these changes and the bug fix, so we also added this:

- Lowered the duration of Power Chord: Diminuendo to 3 seconds from 4

4 seconds is just a really long time for most debuffs, and we didn’t feel that this needed to actually last that long to still have a major impact.

We’ve been giving Sona a lot of attention in playtests and will of course be watching her performance closely following the patch.  I personally really enjoy playing Sona and I’m pretty confident that the last thing that these changes will do is make her unpickable.   Ok, I hope this provides some context for upcoming changes, thanks for reading!

 TL:DR

Let’s summarize. A bug was discovered and fixed where a Power Chord attack while in Aria of Perseverance did not decrease the target’s damage output. (20% less damage for 4 seconds) To avoid a power creep scenario that was already present with Sona, the Riot team further nerfed her early game damage output with Power Chord.

Xypherous on potential AD Spellvamp items

Who wants Spellvamp on AD assassins? Not Xypherous, apparently, and here’s why!

Who will benefit most from such items?

 Xypherous: Xin Zhao and Irelia actually wouldn’t do well with AD / Spell Vamp – they’re better off building life steal / attack speed in many cases.

The champions in question that benefit from AD / SV the most are tanky fighters with a lot of non-autoattack base damage and the durability to stand there and soak – Essentially, if you can output a consistent steady stream of damage – while being durable enough to benefit from high amounts of in-combat regeneration.

For example, Lee Sin / Udyr / Shyvana oddly enough would benefit the most from an AD and Spell Vamp pairing because they are durable enough to make the non-autoattack drain pattern work and have relatively decent scaling with AD. However, the goal for the AD / Spell Vamp item – as people have continuously requested – is to make Glass AD assassins viable in lane (characters like Talon or Pantheon.)  However, as the item tends to work better on these types of tanky spell damage fighters – this poses a problem in more than one way.

It gets exacerbated by the fact that these tanky spell damage fighters are the ones that the Glass AD assassin characters have the most trouble with in the first place.  We saw this in Twisted Treeline with Lord Van Damm’s Pillager.  It was a good Talon item, to be sure – but it was a great tanky Lee Sin or Darius item that then they used to wipe the floor with Talon.

In the end, if the goal is to help Talon and Pantheon out – it seems counterproductive to release an item that is better on the people who they have the most trouble with.

On lifesteal from physical AoE

  Xypherous: That said, I actually do want to focus on seeing if I can make some kind of physical damage lifesteal thing work, that nicely gets it away from the magic damage / true damage dealing characters and focuses it much more on characters who do heavy attack damage scaling spells without a lot of autoattacks.

Running into trouble with it though as the heal numbers tend to be ridiculously insane or pitiful depending on the AoE coefficient I put on it.  It’s odd that so many of our glass AD assassins use AoE damage as their “burst” combo.  It never actually seems to work coefficient wise.

New AD caster items will help glass melee assassins stand against bruisers

Fair – if the goal here is simply to introduce more options for AD itemization, I can be on board with that.  I’ll just make the point that AD / Spell Vamp tends to be counterproductive in the long run as the item tends to simply make glass AD casters less viable at the expense of tanky AD casters – and thus, the additional itemization will simply sacrifice a portion of these type of characters (the squishy AD assassins) in favor of more itemization for the tankier portion of this type of character.

What’s the state of Talon at the moment?

  Xypherous: Looking through the data on champions, Talon has done consistently well in the past several months.  He may not be a competitive pick that will be seen in LCS – but Talon has one of the highest win rates in the game – frequently in the top 10.  That doesn’t mean that Talon is fine or overpowered – it just means that if you pick Talon, you’ll generally win more games than you’ll lose.  I’m not going to say that Talon doesn’t have his problems or that Talon can’t fail – it’s just that the people playing Talon at the moment win much more than they lose.

The rise of Zed has kind of diminished Talon’s pick rate somewhat but in that time frame, Talon consistently shows better raw win results – perhaps due to the mastery of the Talon population.

  Xypherous: Definitely a fair point and always a danger when dealing with statistics as you can interpret them in a lot of ways – Again, I’m not saying Talon is fine, overpowered or unsatisfying – just that the current players of Talon seem to be doing okay with him.

  Xypherous: I’m not saying Talon is fine, overpowered or competitive.  I’m simply saying that the current Talon players win far more games than they lose.  This is probably due to a combination of them being experienced or familiar with Talon and his matchups and Talon’s actual power level.

I’m not saying that Talon doesn’t have problems – simply that it seems to indicate that Talon isn’t completely dysfunctional at the moment compared to other champions we’re working on.

Why not cut lifesteal from AoE down to a third of the LS from auto attacks?

  Xypherous: It’s an interesting thought definitely but the scary portion of this is that you’d have to introduce a heavy ranged / melee split in order to prevent Miss Fortune or other heavy AD-scaling ranged carries from becoming dominant with lifesteal being the way it is.

Why did Akali, Talon and Zed get nerfed?

  Xypherous: Talon performs consistently above his peers at the moment – whether that’s due to the skill of the Talon population, that remains to be seen.

Zed is mostly an issue of how he warps competitive play – in fact, Zed suffers from the same problems that Olaf suffered in a lot of ways – Zed is much much more effective at high competitive play than he is at low competitive play, so even when Zed has a subpar win rate for the majority of our player base – we have to hit him because he’s so overwhelmingly dominant in competitive.

That’s also why you see the attempt at shifting his playstyle because with his current pattern, it is almost certainly going to ensure that if Zed is balanced and a good competitive pick, 95% of our players shouldn’t pick Zed because they will lose.

I don’t have the full context on Akali, I apologize.

What’s your opinion on Spellvamp?

  Xypherous: Honestly, if it were up to me I’d like to phase out Spellvamp entirely and pursue vamp based on specific damage types – like Physical Vamp and Magical Vamp – It makes the purpose of the item a lot more clear.

I think I’ll have time to really drill on it in a couple months – currently we’re working on cleaning up some of our other systems that feel worse.

Does Talon feel underwhelming?

  Xypherous: I agree with you that Talon doesn’t feel as satisfying or as versatile as Zed or Kha’zix.  In fact, when Talon has a bad game – you have a really bad game.

In fact, even when Talon has a good game, the first 15 minutes of that game is typically – “Oh my god, I am getting the stuffing beaten out of me in lane.”

I’m not saying Talon is in the greatest of spots from a satisfaction or a team versatility standpoint, he’s clearly not but he doesn’t seem like he’s as dysfunctional as some other characters we’re churning on.

Will spell vamp on AD assassins improve the game?

  Xypherous: You’re right in that adding sustain options on AD assassins (or even improving the AD assassin pattern) doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of gains for the players facing them – nor does improving their primary pattern seem to hold a lot of gains for making the game more fun for anyone but the assassin.

However, the goal here would be to create backup patterns for these assassins when things go poorly.  If an AD assassin cannot burst a character in lane – we should not be providing itemization for him to automatically burst you down, we should be probably some kind of plan B, where he doesn’t *need* to burst you down in order to properly fit on his team.

In short, you’re right in that we probably can’t make burst assassin’s primary patterns a whole lot better – but what we can do is give them alternative strategies for when that gameplan doesn’t pan out so that they can still do something that game, rather than being incredibly swingy feast or famine characters.

  Xypherous: This holds for a lot of characters – but there are some standout characters in which this isn’t a good fallback.  Pantheon has some great fallback patterns because his ultimate and his aegis give him some degree of flexibility.  Talon or Akali don’t really have this option.
To be fair, it could point to the fact that their kits should be restructured a bit to introduce more skillful play or fallback patterns – but see above.

Won’t an item that regains health be useful for all AD champions?

  Xypherous: Oh definitely – I agree with you that this item would probably be applicable to a lot of champions – however, in the items world – all you pretty much have to do is ensure that it doesn’t benefit their direct competitor more and you’ve done the class a net plus – while also allowing for some fun off-builds.  This is my main concern with AD / SV, for example – is that what happens is hurting the class that you originally wanted to help.

BoRK does this somewhat for carries – really good for some carries as a self-peel – but also a decent fighter and assassin item for sticking and initiation.  It just happens to be better on carries than fighters, for the most part although I will agree that this case is debatable.

In the end though, this logic is best applied to retuning the champion’s kit itself – rather than itemization.  Itemization is a fairly broad strokes approach and you have to solve things on the right level.  However, champion redesigns are typically more disruptive and harder to undo than itemization adjustments – so there’s some tradeoffs between costs and control.

Viktor’s future uncertain

Here’s an unfortunate update of the recent announcement that Solcrushed is working on fixes for Viktor.

 Solcrushed: Bad news guys 

The tech we need for the proposed iteration of Viktor will not be available for a long time (Think like S4)

While I liked the direction, I do not want to delay this for that long and will be exploring other directions. I’ll make another post later in the day about an iteration I am considering. Sorry guys 

TL; DR: I suck.

Now, onto some good news! Information about the upcoming changes to his Hex core passive was revealed:

 Solcrushed: So the iteration I’m tossing around in my head right now is something like this.

1st tier: Similar to how it currently works on live (with some effects moved around etc.)

2nd tier: Grants a flagship unique item passive (that will not stack with said item in question) among those that are currently in the item shop, while increasing stats.

For example.
Power: Liandry’s
Gravity: Rylai’s
Death: Lich Bane

This takes Viktor in a different direction from the previous iteration (where he became PERFECT) to more of a item master, more in the scientist-ish I would think. (The coolness factor being that Viktor will be the only one to have the passive with a unique mix of stats, for example he can have rylai’s effect with CDR) What do you guys think?

p.s.: “I would prefer the previous iteration even with the wait” is also a great answer, please say so if you are more inclined in that way.

 Solcrushed: You can’t do double your AP damage on autos if you have AugDeath2 and Lichbane.

The tier 2 effects don’t match the corresponding augmentations

Quote:

Originally Posted by imweasel09  Those effects don’t quite seem to match what the augments already do though. Rylai’s on gravity I can kinda see, but how often is a viktor maxing/augmenting E going to be in range to chuck autos. Someone going Q is going to get much more use out of that since they’re goign to be kiting with the speed boost but shorter range on Q. But that means moving the liandry’s on E but that makes it kinda bland because t1 is burn and t2 is burn + more burn.I could also see maybe rylai’s on Q, making it more of a literal power transfer. He’s not just stealing HP to make a shield anymore he’s making you slower while he gets faster, effectively transferring movement speed which I would think works thematically with him. I don’t how how powerful that would be balance wise though (especially if he went furor boots) and I wouldn’t’ know what to put on W as a replacement since tacking damage effects on gravity would feel weird. These are all sort of initial thought i had, I quite like the idea and it might actually make his passive worth an item slot.

 Solcrushed: Good point, I haven’t thought through this completely and Liandry’s makes more sense on pokes. I was going to test an iteration for T1 where instead of the burn, the laser sweeps back (retracing its steps). If that works out Liandry’s would make a lot of sense on E2.

Won’t double laser be overpowered?

 Solcrushed: Oh it will have to deal reduced damage if a target gets hit twice  The number I was going to try out was 50% if the target had already been hit with D-ray.

 New Champion Rotation

Starting tomorrow, the following champions will be free to play until June 18th!

• Ahri - 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Ashe - 450 IP / 260 RP
• Fiora - 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Janna - 1350 IP / 585 RP
• Kassadin - 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Rammus - 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Shyvana - 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Vayne - 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Xin Zhao - 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Zyra - 6300 IP / 975 RP

New Champion/Skin Sale

Champions:

• Nami

• Nidalee

• Renekton

Marble Malphite – 260 RP

Monarch Kog’Maw – 260 RP

Superb Villain Veigar – 487 RP

(Insert quirky comment about the Microsoft E3 conference)

Join for a lengthy discussion on Europe West‘s recent server overload and the consequent 20-win IP Boost reward! Also, check out Damiya‘s explanation on the PvP Client instability as well as the latest Champion/Skin sale!

 
AMA – EUW Server Issues
> Server Instability
> Player-focused
> Non-related questions
 
PvP  Client
 
Champion/Skin Sale

AMA – EUW Server Issues

Rioters Demorphic, Riot tmx, sonicdeathriot, ScottThruDaHeart, Riot Pwyff and Riot Banksy discuss the recent server instability on EUW and the 20 win IP-boost compensation that’s now being sent to accounts affected by the issue.

  Demorphic: Hi everyone!

I’m Matt “Demorphic” Elliot, and as promised we will be kicking off an AMA today at 6pm UK time with three members of Riot’s senior technology leadership:

Scott “Scott Thru The Heart” Gelb, Vice President of Technology Ron “sonicdeathriot” Williams, Vice President of Operations David “RiotBanksy” Banks, Technical Director.

Joining us will also be Tomasz “Riot tmx” Ankudowicz, our Live Services Producer for Europe.

We’re here to talk with you about the recent service disruptions you’ve experienced on EUW, and to answer any questions you have about how the League of Legends service operates, and why it sometimes breaks badly.

I’d humbly ask that you focus your questions on the service/technology side – the Rioters with me today are super busy working on improving the network infrastructure behind League of Legends to avoid issues like this in the future, and they don’t often get a chance to hop in and take your questions.

They will also be fielding questions from multiple European languages, so please bear with us. Realistically we will not be able to answer all questions live. However, we have commited to following up this session with a more comprehensive set of questions and answers before this coming weekend.

We’re going to be doing more deliberate community communication like this moving forward – we understand that not getting this kind of face time with the team at Riot HQ is also a big point of pain for EU players, and we hope this is a valuable step in the right direction.

Please kick things off and we will be jumping in at 6pm UK time. You then have our undivided attention for 2 hours. So fire away!

EUW Server Instability

How will you communicate with EUW players during technical issues?

  Riot tmx: Beside keeping the platform in good health, communication is our main goal. It always was, but we know we didn’t really do great job here. So, about plans:

1) We’re working on standardizing Live Incident communication in all languages. These will be high quality, automated and localized announcements posted regularly during the incident and we know it’s going to work better, than our current system. We’re still finalizing the scripts.

2) We introduced new program called Post-Incident Messaging. Every time our platforms come through the issues, we’re going to tell you about it within next 24-48 hours. We will summarize our efforts, tell you what we’ve done, what kind of problems we noticed, what was the impact and how did we mitigate the incident. We will be actively answering all your questions and we really want to put our best effort into this.

3) We’re also working on improving the communication within the client, as we know that some players don’t even check forums for service status. More info coming soon.

Any plans on avoiding future EUW server overloads?

 sonicdeathriot: Service quality across the many regions League of Legends runs is actually about the same when looked across a full year of data, however sometimes a certain region will have a bad run of issues that can last several days.  Also, when issues happen our biggest regions do tend to have extra player impact when issues occur.  This is due mainly to:

1. When a big region has an issue that kicks a lot of players out of the game or off the platform it puts a lot of stress on the systems that let players back into the system.  This creates complications that lead to the need for us to limit the number of players per second we can let back into the service which means in large outages it can take several hours to let everyone back into the service.   Also when this kind of load is placed on the system it can sometimes create secondary issues that will extend the unplanned downtime.   There is a lot of work going on in our Operations and Development teams to greatly increase how many players per second we can let into the service and also improve the stability of the service when it is under stress when huge numbers of players are trying to log back in after an outage at peak times.

2. Our biggest regions like EUW are also our most complicated infrastructures to maintain.  This means that new release can take longer to deploy, troubleshooting problems can take longer, and there are just more things that can break, be misconfigured, or have other issues.   EUW and EU Nordic are both currently being rebuilt in Amsterdam on brand new servers, network, and secuirty gear (note that game servers will continue to be availble in Frankfurt with even more being added in Amsterdam).  This will give players the latest architecture we have been testing for the last several months to ensure EUW and EU Nordic can continue to grow larger and have even better service stability.  It is a huge undertaking but coming soon.

  sonicdeathriot: I wanted to share a big wall of text for anybody who’d like to go deeper into the tech today. This write-up describes some of the big problems that were impacting all the regions in Europe (and other platforms outside of Europe) until about mid-April (and more recently for Korea):

EU Core Switch Summary

Since late October there have been several major outages in Europe that were related to scaling problem with our core switches in Frankfurt.  Our Korea players also suffered from this issue recently along with some other painful problems.  Last week we finally figured out the root cause of this painful issue.  The root cause around the malfunction of the core network switches was that our game servers were redundantly connected with two network interface cards (NIC) that were setup in an active/active load balancing mechanism we use in all of our environments around the world.* The network load balancing was accomplished through the use of a “smart” algorithm that dynamically moved traffic from one NIC to the other.* Since each server was connected to the network twice, every time the server flipped its active NIC, the entire Europe network would have to change its network packet forwarding tables to account for the change.* Specifically the MAC address table inside the switches needed to be updated constantly.* Typically updating a MAC address table isn’t as issue with just a few servers, but it becomes an issue as the server count increases when those severs are using “smart” load balancing. * When the game servers change their active NIC this has to be propagated across the entire network.* It starts from the top of rack switch that the server is directly connected to, sends the change to the core network switches and then is distributed out to all devices connected to the network.  As network traffic increases, the servers will swap the active NIC more often to distribute the load, which causes the MAC address tables to be updated at a rate that cannot be handled by the core network switches.*  In the case of our  Eruope (and Korea) game servers this means the MAC address table was updating millions of times per second during peak playtimes.  North America was spared this pain because we have fewer game servers on the core switches than we do in Europe (or Korea).

*

This is where the network flooding starts that would eventually crash the core switches that support the entire Eruope service. *Inside the core network switch, the MAC address table stores a MAC address mapped to a physical network port that is uses for forwarding and filtering network traffic. **As the rate of updates exceeds the capability of the switch, the switch falls back into a fail-safe mode where it sends the packets to all ports on the switch.* Traffic that is normally only sent to the destination that it addressed for, is now being broadcasted across the entire environment.* As a result all of our servers started getting lots of unneeded network traffic.** This had the net effect of essentially creating a denial of service attack across the entire network.* Welcome to meltdown city. *And when the core switches crashed they did not keep any diagnostic information we could access to help troubleshoot the problem.

**

To mitigate the above issue, we have done a few things:

1.*******Short Term Fix: *Disable secondary NICs on the game servers.  The idea behind this is that if there is 1 NIC and 1 related MAC address per game server (instead of 2), this completely removes the possibility of traffic jumping around from one NIC to the other.* The network will no longer have to update itself as a result of any server side load balancing.

2.*******Long Term Fix: Change the environment to use active/passive failover on the NICs.* The server will have a backup connection but it will only use it in the case of the primary path failing.* This will stabilize the environment greatly but still allow us to provide high availability in the case of a localized failure.

*

3.*******Upgrade the core network infrastructure with hardware that can handle a huge amount of additional load.* Why not, I mean, more power is better, right?!
a.       Upgrade the core switches so if we get surprised again with extra traffic for whatever reason, we are ready for it. *Different designs can keep up better with MAC address table updates which would allow us to better handle the load should something similar happen in the future.*
b.       An improved design will also reduce the chance of one switch failure crashing everything in the data center.

*

Current Actions:

We have been working on a daily basis with our network switch vendor (the same one used by the leading Internet companies and other leading websites). During the outages we’ve been passing the switch vendor logs we gather as we make changes to the Europe (and Korea) network infrastructure, and have been working alongside of them to diagnose the root cause of why the core switch isn’t able to handle the rate of change to the MAC address table. * We have also been working with the vendor to expedite the new network gear to upgrade Europe’s network, gear we placed orders for several weeks ago, but due to the very big capacity of this new network gear, it is built to order by the manufacture.  Some of this gear is already in installed and has helped stablize EUW and EU Nordic’s network since mid-April 2013.

We are sorry of this inconvenience, it has been a very difficult problem to track down and fix.  We have learned from this issue and are building a better network to protect the quality of the service in Eruope and in our other service areas.

Will this time communication between Rioters and EUW Community be better?

  Riot tmx: Since we’re in Europe and we work on LoL in 10 different languages, it’s quite demanding to support forums in all languages the way we all wish. We have our Community department, but we feel it’s not enough. Obviously we’re going to improve and we’ll eventually reach our point, but it’s quite different comparing to our US HQ, where most of Rioters speak and comment in English.

Our plan for this is to encourage the entire Dublin office to be more active on forums: to be part of discussions, to talk to you about champions, new maps and other features. Obviously we’re all swamped with our daily work, but being active on forums is another part of our work. And we want to be closer to our community, for sure. Also, we’re actively hiring more folks to our Community department in all languages, so this should be noticeable pretty soon.

Any plans on splitting the EUW servers?

  ScottThruDaHeart: We currently do not have plans to split the EU-West platform. We are constantly upgrading the infrastructure and adding additional capacity to support the growth of EU-West, one of the largest League of Legends regions in the world. We recently addressed one of the technical challenges we’ve faced with the scale of our core network. Ron Williams, our VP of Operations, is going into more detail on the specific issue and how we’ve solved it in a separate post (http://euw.leagueoflegends.com/board…23700#11923700). We have engineers working around the clock to fix the stability issues and dedicated teams that are focused on scaling our systems proactively to support the live service.

  Riot tmx: We don’t want to split EUW, I think this has been messaged out already. What we do instead  is to improve our infrastructure even more. We already have top quality devices in place, but life brings us new solutions every month and we’re constantly upgrading our systems.

We recently performed large maintenance in the Frankfurt data center where we completely re-designed our network infrastructure or replaced all the database drives with the high-end solutions. It all gives us some additional power and if you take a look a year or two behind, we’re now able to provide service for over 100% more players comparing to the past. Also, not sure if you noticed, getting back on EUW platform is now quicker than ever, as we’re able to throttle players in much faster in the peak times or during the incidents

Will you be able to react to such problems faster?

   Riot tmx: Yes, we know this can be improved on our side. First decision the live producer takes after getting alerts about serious incident is to turn on the Compensation Mode. We always do it, and, if executed properly, your loss should be prevented. If it’s not, that means we pushed the button a bit too late and that’s completely on us. We understand the importance of this compensation though and always think about your disrupted games.

Communication, troubleshooting & compensations

 Riot Pwyff: While this is a very tech-focused AMA (given our subject matter experts), there was a specific wall of text that hit some good points, so we’ll try to address those. I’ll note here that this is outside of the scope of the AMA but silence can sometimes be interpreted as being ignored and that’s absolutely not the case.
Side note: Demorphic will be addressing compensation in this AMA, so that won’t be covered here. Just trying to get some other information out there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by abuzeus Let me start of by giving my opinion on EU forums. I don’t really care that much for red activity. Most development or policy insights are only available from the NA devs, and those don’t post here (more on that below). I also don’t particularly care whether community coordinator X likes champion Y, or whether she will play ARAMs with the community now. Those posts are nice to have though. What I care about in EU is reaction to incidents. When there is something many people care about, there should be a red response. If the servers go down, we want that to be acknowledged within an hour. Sure, there is no hope to beat the hundreds of reddit threads that will pop up, and the “better give NA RP” joke is getting super old really fast, but sometimes it (feels like it) takes two or three hours until there is something going on in the service status forums. During the incidents over the Pentecost weekend, the responses felt super delayed at times. If the server just disconnects for a minute and then there is a small queue for 20 minutes, that is maybe not something that needs to be discussed, but if this happens very frequently, or the downtime exceeds a few minutes, there should be a red post.

Communication on live incidents has been a pain point for you, and that’s something we’re looking to fix in the long term. Going to echo something Riot tmx mentioned in an earlier post: “We’re working on standardizing Live Incident communication in all languages. These will be high quality, automated and localized announcements posted regularly during the incident and we know it’s going to work better, than our current system. We’re still finalizing the scripts.”
So things are on the horizon to address this!
—

Quote:

Originally Posted by abuzeus Or take the recent discussion about Riot Korea giving out Silent Night Sona. A lot of people wanted to know what happened here. It was very obvious that the problems in EU had reached the point that some compensation would be handed out, and, in retrospect, it was also very obvious that Riot Korea caught you out cold there. However, it should not take eight or nine hours for a response to come in. When angry threads flare up before noon, then people expect an answer during normal office times, and not late in the evening. This answer does not have to be comprehensive, but a quick “I can confirm that KR gets X, we can’t say anything for EU yet, hang on” would be nice. Also keep in mind that you are already an hour behind the majority of the EU crowd. If a response is not out at 7 pm UK time, many people on the continent will be back from work and: no red response yet… Maybe another problem here is that you (Riot) refrain from posting, because you feel that a red response carries so much weight what it has to wait until everything is ironed out. I feel that this problem could be ameliorated a bit by having more “fluff” posting going on. Because then it’s “Oh, Demorphic said something about X issue” instead of “This is one of five Riot posts in the last three days. It *must* be super important and it *must* have gone through all kinds of review”. Haven’t thought this really through, though.

Waiting too long to respond to issues in an official capacity is a tricky subject, but on your point (that sometimes we wait too long and are too careful) is a valid one. Speeding this up and getting you the right information as it develops is something we really want to bolster going forward, although I will note we did basically say that “I can confirm that KR gets X, we can’t say anything for EU yet, hang on” on that day!

Quote:

Originally Posted by abuzeus By the way, I agree with the decision not to give out a limited skin (even though I don’t have it and I really like it). The IP boost is okay, although I feel that a 10 win boost and some monetary or other gesture would have been nice (maybe 200 RP, or Aatrox going on sale the first week or something). Personally, I don’t care about a small amount of RP (I can buy those, after all), I care more about the gesture of saying that the recent incident were more serious than a normal cluster of downtime with the associated 4-win IP boost. I do feel though that Riot needs to teach their departments more to think about the impact of their decisions on the other regions. Obviously, Riot KR did not think about the angry crowd popping up in Europe. Or two weeks ago, when some NA dev made a poll on what the community wanted the Madred’s proc to be, this happened only on NA. No big deal, and I think people blow this out of proportion, but still: There is this nicking feeling: Why not here too? Such polls never happen in EU (okay, it happened once, and then angry NA players forced a sister conversation on NA).

Also valid. I’ll add one caveat here in that our designers do tend to go “heads down” on their work, so asking them to stay cognizant of a global communication strategy in addition to their work is a tough one. That’s certainly not an excuse, however, and it’s something we’re actively working on. To give some concrete examples to that, we have people working directly with our live designers to bolster their communications, but it’s an ongoing process.

Quote:

Originally Posted by abuzeus A thing that is being brought up all the time is that most dev interaction is centralized on NA. Some devs, e.g., Morello, have explicitly said that they will only read NA General Discussion. While it certainly is annoying, I can understand that most devs can not handle the logistics of keeping multiple conversations over multiple boards. Since everyone is free to post on the NA boards (and Riot is not being overly zealous with the inactivity purges), I think it’s okay the way it is. I think that it’s a laudable effort of Xelnath to talk about the Xerath changes on multiple boards, but I can see that this won’t work for the high-level devs that have to talk about a lot of stuff. For a while, we had FeralPony and Meddler as the dedicated EU devs, but that seems to have died down to intermittent “batch mode” posting. Still, I can live with the current solution. It’s surprisingly easy to get something out of Morello when you have the right timing.

As you’ve noted, bandwidth is a huge issue for key designers that you want to talk to and I understand there are frustrations with the situation being something like “go to Twitter to talk to Morello!” or “Time your windows with Xypherous being on the NA forums to chat with him!” and so forth. That said, this is such a broad issue that it can be difficult to mandate a single solution without completely burning everyone out (IE: Posting schedules, etc). A very small part of me wants to say that communication is a two way street, so making an effort to go to someone is part of it, but sometimes that’s not a great experience for you and I get that. What I can say on this front is that it’s something we’re aware of, but the issue is fairly deep. Not a great answer here but we’d like to work with you to get there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by abuzeus Do you agree with my assessment that EU summoners can sometimes feel a bit behind when seeing all those things play out against them (even though none of the decisions and issues behind these things are *meant* to screw EU)? If yes, can you think of ways to give *us* something cool, given that changing most of the things I outlined above seems either pointless or useless, seen from a cost/benefit point of view?

This is a super leading question! Being very careful here, I would just say that making you feel unique is far more important than making you feel like you’re ahead or behind any other region. It’s on that note that I won’t try to debate you on points that you feel EUW was left behind because that will inevitably lead me to draw comparisons to other regions and so forth. As I said, being careful here because this is drawing us to some odd conclusions in the first place, but wanted to at least throw out something vague so it doesn’t look like it’s been deliberately skipped.

Quote:

Originally Posted by abuzeus Are we going to be in 2011 again? The recent server pains and the increasing frequency of server hiccups makes me fear that there will be capacity issues again. Are there? (Of course it’s not nearly as bad as in 2011. Yet?)

There are some huge plans (including a move to a brand new data center that can handle some fairly staggering capacity loads) in the works, but there will always be hiccups in transition. Just know that we’re consistently pushing to improve our service.

How to resolve lag

  sonicdeathriot: There are a few things players can do to minimize the chance of lag:

1. Playing through wireless connections increase the chance of running into issues that can create lag.  If you have to play through wireless, try setting your wifi router to a different channel.  Most wifi routers sold ship on the same wireless channel, so if you around other people using wifi it can create interference that will affect the speed of your wifi connection from time to time.

2. Ensure your PC’s network is dedicated as much as possible to the game.  If you are running other programs that use the network like music streaming, video streaming, file downloads, etc. these could be overwhelming your Internet connection for short periods of time.

3.  Make sure you are seeing lag, video card framerate dropping can appear like lag. Check the FPS counter in the upper right corner of the game screen.  If it drops below 20 you could see symptoms that look like lag but are actually related to something overloading your PC’s CPU, memory, or disk resources.  Shut down other things running in the background and if you are constantly seeing low FPS numbers then you might want to consider upgrading your video card or other PC resources.

Can the players help in any way to resolve technical issues?

  Riot tmx: Most of the issues are on our side and we’re able to track them down relatively quickly. But sometimes we do ask for Bug Splat logs, tracert/ping details, screenshots, champion bug videos or r3d logs. These might actually be very helpful in the investigation or at least speed things up.

  Riot Banksy: When issues arise, players can always contribute to helping Riot debug.

• Providing detailed information about what happened from the player’s perspective
• Including screenshots when appropriate
• Posting logs from the session

__________________________________________________
Instructions on how to obtain a DxDiag file
Where to find your game logs

Player-focused

20-win IP boost to compensate

  Demorphic: I want to address the fat elephant in the room: the 20 win IP boost we’re delivering as compensation. We will be going into more details about this during the AMA.

First up though:

We’ve started running the script to add the 20 Win IP Boost to your accounts, but it might take up to 3 days to complete, just because of the large number of players on EUW. Thanks for your patience!

How do you know which players to reward?

  Riot tmx: We’re giving this compensation to players who were affected by our poor service. In other words, if you tried to log-in during this period at least once, you’re on our list and you will be compensated. Other story is if you tried to log-in and were unsuccessful for full two weeks. It should not happen, but if you are one of these unlucky players, please contact our Player Support and we will get back to you.

Why IP and not RP for compensation?

   Riot Pwyff: I suspect we’ll be answering this multiple times down the road but to reiterate:

We’ve never given RP as a widespread compensation for server instability. There was one case where less than 1% of NA players were unable to access their purchased content for more than a week and we compensated them with RP. To reiterate: we have never given out RP for any server instability in any region.

Followup

Originally Posted by Spooned Yeh, that’s not true at all. As far as I remember, there’s been given out RP two times since ‘League of Legends’ launched (one for 350RP and another for 550RP). I’m sure of the 550RP one, and I even found a link for you: Post by Tryndamere. I’m sure you’re in a better position to inquire for the other. This was in direct relation to server instability as well, so your statement is completely wrong.

  Riot Pwyff: AM CAUGHT. In this regard I’d rather not argue technicalities (it’s DDoS attacks!), so I’ll just go ahead and eat this humble pie.
Apologies, this is actually a demonstrable case where we’ve given out RP for this specific type of server instability. On that note, giving out RP to our players has problems outside of cost (of which IP boosts actually have a monetary cost as well), so this isn’t a simple case of greed.
Final note, and not meaning to be too jovial here, but I find it rather ironic that the one demonstrable case of giving out RP for server instability was… Europe. Sorry. HAD TO POINT IT OUT.

   Demorphic: Moving forward, compensation is a concept we’re going to have to reevaluate. It’s clear that IP boosts arent good for everyone anymore. Also legacy skins aren’t realistic for established platforms. This causes as much pain as it solves.

Should we have service disruption in the future, we’d like to be able to offer an apology that’s satisfactory to as many players as possible. We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear.

All I can do is promise that we will be smarter about communication both internally and here with you guys when it comes to compensation.

We get you if you don’t accept this apology, but we still hope to earn back your trust in the future.

I still can’t connect, what should I do?

 Riot tmx: Yes, we’re still working on this issue and I’m sad seeing some players still having connection error. Our recent fix was based on the network configuration changes and we know it finally worked for majority of players. Connection Error does not happen to players facing this issue week ago. If you still can’t connect and it lasts for days, please contact EU Player Support and ask them to forward your e-mail address over to me. I’ll work with you directly to get it resolved. We did it in the past with some other players.

What about LP lost during server instability?

  Riot Pwyff: On that front, because it’s just so difficult to clearly prove a loss due to server issues (and at what point we apply a cut-off point) that retroactively compensating LP is nearly impossible for the entire player base. We do turn on loss forgiven mode as soon as we know issues arise, but there can be delays and we apologize for that.

Is the PBE involved in the technical issues lately?

 Riot tmx: We do use PBE for testing our deploys, patches, hotfixes, etc. It’s in constant use for client-based issues and new releases are always first deployed to the test server and many bugs are caught this way. It does not cover all the re-configurations (this word is unfortunate, but I’m talking about all platform changes, firewall policies, drives, front and backend applications, database modifications, Coherence tweaks, etc) we perform on our network and system infrastructure. On the other hand, PBE lives in our datacenter and is hosted from some of our standard game servers, so in fact it is a part of our bug investigation.

Non-related questions

Why was the decision to split European servers made?

 sonicdeathriot: EUW and EU Nordic do not share the same servers.  They do share certain network switch infrastrcuture today.  We are currently completely seperating EUW and EU Nordic from any shared network gear to prevent a network gear issue from impacting both regions at the same time.   It will always be possible that Internet or Data Center facilities that suport EUW or EU Nordic could still create issues that affect both services.

What happened to the Custom Sets tab?

 Riot Banksy: Soon after the 3.7 release, we started to see potentially similar service disruption issues globally. We quickly ascertained that the root of the issue was network related and wanted to quickly nullify any variables that may be causing the issue. As a result, we decided to revert the 3.7 client to remove the possibility that we were in fact creating a self-inflicted problem. In the roll back to an older client, we removed Custom Item Sets. This feature will be returning in an upcoming release.

How was the server issue in Korea different from the one in Europe?

  sonicdeathriot: I just posted a long read on the core switch issue that has occasionaly affected EUW and other regions over the last 6 months.  We upgraded the Europe based networks in April to eliminate this problem (we did not know root cause at that time but we thought we would try a different architecture with even larger capacity equipment to see if we could make it go away, and it went away).

Once we saw Europe improve we ordered more gear for Europe and gear for Korea.  As mentioned in my long read, this gear takes a long time to get from the manufacture as it is made to order (it is too expensive for them to keep it sitting on the shelf waiting for someone to order and it is customized for each customer’s needs).  So around the first week of May we ordered for Korea but knew we still had the problem to deal with until we could get the new gear shipped into Korea and installed.   So we continued to work on root cause of the problem in Korea with the manufacture of the core switches.  Wednesday the 22nd of May we pushed a change to the Korea core switches in an attempt to address what the manufacture thought was the root cause.  Things worked well for a couple of days until Korea hit their Friday night weekend peak player load.   Korea crashed twice at their peak Friday night the 24th and then every peak time for the next 4 days.  Creating huge login queues and multiple additional off peak outages as we tried to stablize the service.   On Weds the 29th of May we finally stablized the Korea service during peak times but continued to deal with daily outages as we had to clean up lots of small problems still affecting them.  We don’t have Korea fully out of the woods yet, we are dealing with another issue that has affected 10′s of thousands of players about every other day at peak times.

PvP Client

Rioter Damiya shares a few words on the dreaded Adobe Air Client, as well as opinion on the way lore is implemented in the menus.

Will you be switching the Adobe Air Client?

 Damiya: There are no current plans to move away from Air.

  Damiya: I’ll be the first to admit there are some problems with the client as it exists right now, but Air (and more specifically the Flash ecosphere) is not the culprit. PVP.Net is a complex piece of software that has to be shipped out to over 30 million people twice a month (more or less); improving legacy code designed for a more humble 10 thousand players is somewhat akin to replacing parts of an airplane engine… While midflight, over the Atlantic, at about 35 thousand feet. It’s a delicate process, and the number one priority is ensuring the continued stability of the player experience.

That said, the process of improving parts is ongoing; the Login screen was reworked a few months back, and with the 3.9 PBE patch, we’ll be rolling out a rewrite of the view code for the Runes screen; it should be more responsive and less buggy.

Keep an eye on the PBE forums for more info on that in the near future.

Will you improve the way lore is presented?

 Damiya: We’re  aggressively exploring options to improve the presentation of lore in  PVP.Net. I feel like Freljord was just the tip, as they say. Of the  iceberg, that is

I’m a huge fan of the stuff Kitae’s team is doing

I’ll bring up the Ping thing but I don’t know that there’s a really good way to do that.

Champion/Skin Sale

Pick up the following champions and skins at a discount until June 10th!

Champions:

Karthus – 395 RP

Sejuani – 487 RP

Swain – 440 RP

Almost-Prom King Amumu – 260 RP

Foxfire Ahri 487 RP

General Wukong – 375 RP

Good luck on the login queue!

More on Sivir‘s visual update, Xelnath on some radical Xerath changes, LA Servers available for beta testing, new bundles coming to the store soon and the new Champion Rotation and Sale!

Magic & Booty – IronStylus on Sivir

Xerath reworked (again!)

Latin American Servers Beta Test

Flexible RP Bundles

New Sale – expires 7th June

New Free Champion Rotation

Magic & Booty – IronStylus on Sivir

This continues the recent discussion on the upcoming update to Sivir’s visuals.

How about a mercenary look on her?

 IronStylus: On the idea of maintaining/further pushing the mercenary angle I’m quite on board. I really like the idea that she is a gun (blade) for hire, that she’s compelled by wealth, or the acquisition of wealth, possibly even a treasure seeker of some sort, someone who enjoys collecting the spoils of battle, or the wealth to be gained by a adventure. She’s already ripe for that sort of story, let’s capitalize on it.

I can see her solo or even at the head of a mercenary band. I think there’s aspects of a leader in her. Something involving possibly her the boastful and powerful mistress of battle at the head of a band of scoundrels, or opposite, honorable friends, seems fun.

Tropes that resonate I feel are, of course, the Xena one, possibly Sinbad, in the adventurer/seeker of wealth.

There’s been discussion about “why introduce story?” when we’ve created loose ends, or haven’t yet continued stories in a meaningful way. I’m not going to go to far into it, but part of setting up an IP for further storytelling in the form of comics, shorts, animated series, live action movies, narrative driven game spin-offs, whatever, an IP must establish that groundwork of compelling stories with creating compelling characters. So when the time, if that time does arise, where suitable and deliverable vehicles can be spun up, we have a wealth of compelling characters that are primed to be introduced into a narrative format.

Sivir is in it for the booty!

Maelkor: Think of pirate crews. Of course she’d share the rewards, but she’d keep the lion’s share. Also, gotta remember that, being filthy rich, and interested in money, Siv also seems the kind of gal who’s in for the thrill. As much a party goer as a party crasher. She could have a small band, shoot for difficult, premium targets that are both enticing and challenging (think Lupin). That alone is plenty of motivation to join the League.

As for her weapon, I don’t really think it needs to be a relic, a heirloom or a prized possession. If anything else, she could have a collection of the things – each one different, bejewled and opulent, like a pricey ornament befitting a thief princess. It doesn’t need to be magical crystals, runes or what have you; she could just steal the things, or have some of the most expensive and skilled craftsmen in Runeterra handle their making.

 IronStylus: I like this a lot. I also like the idea of a Lara Croft angle. LC very much has her basics taken care of.. (at least in the movie, bleh, I know) but she’s in it for the thrill. She’s also boastful and attracted to beauty.

I see a parallel in Sivir as well. An attraction towards baubles, opulence, the finer things. Also adventure. Facilitated by the fact that she’s pretty well taken care of. I think she could even have a streak, as someone mentioned, of protecting a band of comrades, or tribe, or whatever. This ties her in and gives her purpose, on multiple levels. She needs options is how we see it.

I will say that the direction we will most likely take her is one which gives her weapon significance. Not necessarily significance as Sivir might realize at first. We want her at the surface to be interested in spoils/treasure/bounty, whatever rewards seem fit. We want her to regard it as a befitting trophy, weapon of choice, and item of ostentation. Whether some hidden significance of the weapon is apparent to her is something up for debate. I would prefer that people who posses something unique might not be privy to just how special it is. Not everything has to be Excalibur, handed directly to the character by the Lady of the Lake, but weapons/tools that have significance, based on the construction, choice, or power of the user (Jayce, Draven, Leona, etc) is compelling.

On the other hand, sometimes, like in the case of Darius, an axe is straight up just for dunking.

Will the new Sivir look gorgeous?

  IronStylus: RiotTeaTime is helping to ensure that.

Will you improve the way the weapon goes back in her hand?

  IronStylus: I’d love to figure out a logical way for the thing to get back to her. We’re discussing possibilities with animations, but timing, especially if you build attack speed, probably wouldn’t allow for a physical return at a fast enough pace. Not sure though. Maybe we’ll come up with something inventive.

Fiora All Night: Just had an idea for Sivir’s weapon return. What if her actual weapon was a small, hand-held thing that CREATED the big cross-blade, which can then be thrown and another one generated? It could be a pretty bauble thing that Sivir found that turned out to have this cool weapon use…and maybe it could do other things that she doesn’t know about yet.

  IronStylus: Well that’s interesting… I hadn’t thought of that. Like, the main cross of the weapon had protruding blades that would click out past the main housing? Bad analogy, but like a box cutter with those long replaceable blades clicks out one after another, refreshing once one is dead. Huh, I’ll have to spin on that.

HAH!

A magical weapon will complete Sivir in terms of her lore and spells

  IronStylus: We’re of the opinion that it’s Sivir herself that is the driving force over a weapon which only she commands. The weapon isn’t what makes her, her. Sivir makes Sivir Sivir.

Some significance could also be derived from a unique weapon to give her spell shield an interesting reason to be, as some have suggested.

Will her skins get the rework treatment as well?

  IronStylus: As per usual, all the skins will get a pass. I’m actually using a couple to stretch my 3D skills. I think Spectacular Sivir will certainly need some love!

Obviously we’re going to have to change a few things here and there to fit any new base geometry. I think also we can have some fun with the basic designs of the skin, get them feeling a little more special and polished.

What about a Traditional (Classic) Skin?

  IronStylus: Most likely not. The new base won’t be so distinct from the current base in terms of primary visual reads and costume landmarks.

Xerath reworked (again!)

Since the latest discussion on Xerath’s upcoming rework, Xelnath has been pushing hard with some radical changes. The following list is what I’ve managed to gather from the most recent update by on Xerath’s new skillset. Further explanations are provided below.

Overwhelming Power (Passive): Increases Xerath’s Magic Penetration based on his maximum mana.

Arcanopulse (Q): Thinner skillshot, same cooldown, can now be charged for up to 400 additional range. Cooldown starts after release, not after charge-up.

Locus of Power (W): Single AoE blast that may or may not do bonus damage at the center of impact.

Mage Chains (E): Thin, pass-through skillshot, 1000 range, stuns for anywhere between 0.75 and 1.25 seconds.

Mana Rift (R): Immobilizes Xerath and grants him 1100/1600/2100 bonus range (calculations done based on this post). Cooldown increased, now drains mana-per-second. While in Locus of Power, Xerath’s spells are free to cast.

Be aware that Xerath’s rework is still heavily in development and what you see above will likely change in the near future.

Why the charge-up on Q?

 Xelnath: Locus of Power is being moved to a long cooldown + supermassive range for a simple reason:

With the change to allow hold Q to charge-up to its old 1300 range, you no longer need Locus of Power to do poke/sniping on a regular basis.

Thus the “concept” of a stationary, super-range steroid on your basic spells becomes available, now that we’ve concentrated the cool parts of W->Q into just Q.

Will Arcanopulse get a new cooldown?

  Xelnath: 8 sec at rank 1, 5 sec at rank 5.

However, Q’s cooldown doesn’t start until you release the attack, so your sustained DPS over time will be less if you are always max-distance charging it. (Max charge-up time is 1.5 sec currently)

You can move while charging, but your movement speed is reduced.

This rework seems to be going pretty fast

  Xelnath: Perfect storm of time, opportunity and resources. We’ve still got a while before he shows up on PBE. I just feel like communicating about these topics now gives everyone visibility into our process and input into our decision making.

I generally have good instincts when it comes to the direction a design needs to go and Morello, Volty, Xypherous and I also were pretty aligned about what Xerath should be. That helped short-circuit a large number of “back to the drawing board” iterations that often happen. However, the remaining details are the crumbly bits that still need a lot of polish work. This is my weak area and it will probably consume the majority of the rework time.

This process is very similar to ones I’ve used in the past. The primary risk is that it people start expecting to see the rework soon. I feel confident in our direction now, but the final numbers remain to be seen.

Will the loss of 40% spell penetration be compensated for?

  Xelnath: Yes. You now get to use Arcane Barrage on a 20->10 sec cooldown with permanent spell pen as his passive.

Why are you giving Xerath mana scaling?

  Xelnath: This is more about giving you the option to build mana to become “I care less about any given spell, but I am spamming spells all of the time” guy vs “I build raw AP. Every spell *must* count since I will hit like a truck, but I go oom sooner” guy.

In practical terms, I expect most players to pick-up archangels as a 2nd or 3rd item. I don’t expect to see many people stack only mana, based on current tuning. This is mostly gum & guesswork though. We’ve got a lot of testing to do to prove if this works or not.

Will “Arcane Barrage” get its name changed?

  Xelnath: Not sure. Maybe we should call it “mana rift”.  Or maybe it should go back to being less damage, but two charges. Playtesting will reveal the best course of action, I hope.

How will the massive range from Locus of Power be balanced out?

  Xelnath: Opportunity cost. Keep in mind his basic Poke is built into his Q baseline.

<This means his ultimate is about making use of the right situation. If he has to cancel early, he blows his cooldown. If he stays inside, he's immobile for an extended period of time, leaving him vulnerable to flanking, split pushing/retreat gameplay or dive comps.

 Beta Test the Latin American Servers!

If you want to test the new LA Servers, all you have to do is go to the in-game store and purchase a temporary server transfer ticket. Closed beta participants will receive 800 Riot Points, all champions unlocked during the beta testing (thanks to Vileno for the translation!), a unique Summoner Icon and the LaLlorona (Ghost Bride) Morgana skin! Open beta participants will receive only the icon and the skin.

You can visit the North and South announcement websites, as well as follow the LA LoL Facebook Page.

 
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Exclusive cheap bundles!

Brand new thematic bundles are coming to the store!

 Udyr: Summoners,

You might’ve noticed that the bundles section of the store is a little sparse. We noticed too, and are offering some new thematic deals and introducing flexible cost bundles to spruce things up!

What’s a flexible cost bundle and how do they work?

Instead of one flat rate for a fixed amount of content, flexible cost bundles automatically adjust their price based on the content you already own. Now you can purchase content at lower bundled prices even if you already own some of the content offered. Bundles will have a minimum cost but pricing is otherwise flexible based on what you own.

First, we’re permanently removing the Gamer’s Choice bundle. We’re changing the Champions Bundle and the Digital Collector’s Pack to new flexible cost bundles:

• Champions Bundle – 3410 RP

• Sivir will replace Nunu
• Huntress Sivir will now be included
• Minimum flexible bundle price: 975 RP
• Nunu will replace Sivir
• The Riot Points and tier 3 runes have been removed. The total cost has been lowered to compensate
• Minimum flexible bundle price: 975 RP

• Digital Collector’s Pack – 2520 RP

We’re also adding the following brand new bundles for one week, until 11:59 PM on June 10:

• Commando Bundle - 50% off - 2600 1300 RP (3100 RP if you need the champions)

• Skins included:

1. Commando Lux
2. Commando Garen
3. Commando Galio
4. Commando Jarvan
5. Commando Xin Zhao

• Champions included:

1. Lux
2. Garen
3. Galio
4. Jarvan
5. Xin Zhao

• Grab Bag Bundle – 30% off – 3675 2572 RP (4490 RP if you need the champions)

• Skins included:

1. Deep Terror Thresh
2. iBlitzcrank
3. AstroNautilus

• Champions included:

1. Thresh
2. Blitzcrank
3. Nautilus

• Damsels Causing Distress Bundle – 25% off - 4875 3656 RP

• Champions included:

1. Lissandra
2. Syndra
3. Diana
4. Zyra
5. Ahri

• All Star Bundle - 50% off – 4340 2170 RP (4467 RP with champions included)

• Skins included:

1. Resistance Caitlyn
2. Hillbilly Gragas
3. Debonair Jayce
4. Mecha Kha’Zix
5. Wicked Lulu

• Champions included:

1. Caitlyn
2. Gragas
3. Jayce
4. Kha’Zix
5. Lulu

Head to the store to pick up these new bundles now.

 
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New Champion/Skin Sale

Get the following champions and skins at a discount now until June 7th!

Champions:

• Irelia – 440 RP

• Rammus – 395 RP

• Zed - 487 RP

Count Vladimir – 260 RP

Hillybilly Gragas - 260 RP

Sandstorm Katarina – 487 RP

 
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New Free Champion Rotation – Week 18

The following champions will be free to play until June 11th!

• Amumu - 1350 IP / 585 RP
• Brand - 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Hecarim - 6300 IP / 975 RP
• LeBlanc - 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Miss Fortune - 4800 IP / 880 RP
• Nami - 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Nidalee - 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Pantheon - 3150 IP / 790 RP
• Singed - 1350 IP / 585 RP
• Twitch - 3150 IP / 790 RP

Spoiler: Nedd Stark dies.

Huge change to Xerath brought to you by Xelnath, new splash arts on the PBE client, TPA Skin Sale extended and a Champion/Skin sale Varus and Koggy players will enjoy!

Xerath Revamped

Word on the new Xerath

Item Changes

Splash Arts

TPA Skin Sale extended

Champion/Skin Sale until June 3rd

 Xerath Revamped

New visuals, new mechanics – Xerath’s true power comes to life!

 Xelnath: Hey guys,

It has been a week since I last posted here. There’s a lot to cover and much to say. I’ve been spending most of the last week working on engineering level tasks to support Xerath with RiotSamemayhem, working with Davin on analyzing the results of the Xerath survey, working with the elusive and brilliant VFX artist who is crafting new visuals to support the work we’re doing on Xerath and reviewing and revising our goals for Xerath with Statikk, 20th Century Faux and Gmang.

I barely know where to start. So let’s start with your feedback.

It was a hard decision whether to talk publicly about the results of a survey like this. However, I felt confident that you guys are responsible, mature and capable of being level headed with the results. We reached out to 700 players to ask for their input on Xerath and what direction they would like us to take him. This doesn’t mean we intend to design by committee; we’re still going to do the high levels of concept and polish that you expect from Riot Games.

Now it wasn’t just 700 random players that we picked to survey. We picked 350 of the most hardcore Xerath players in all of league of legends. These are people who are hardcore Xerath fans, who play him in tons of games on a regular basis. Then we picked 350 players who have been very active with Xerath in the last month and have shown a preference for him. In a nutshell, these are 700 of the top 3000 people who play the majority of Xerath games in North America.

We wanted to include other regions in this survey, but our outreach teams have been dedicated to restoring service to Korea and EUW. We know Korean players particularly like Xerath, so we will reach out to them once we’re confident we’re doing the best we can for them. If you didn’t get on this survey and you feel you’re a hardcore Xerath player, understand it *was* a random sampling within these extremely strict qualifications.

So with that aside, what did you say? I know after reading this thread and reddit, I was a bit nervous. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of what most Xerath players would say.

So who are Xerath players?

Xerath players are mostly max level players over the age of 18.
Xerath players play league at a normal rate.
Xerath players are more likely than average to watch tournaments.
Xerath players are dramatically more likely to visit the forums, but not post, than to not visit the league forums at all.

Those factoids aside, let’s get to what you care about.

The most important part of the survey was understanding what players perceive Xerath as being.

Overwhelmingly, Xerath players expressed their love for Xerath as a long-range mage sniper.  You overwhelming expressed a desire to see Xerath become a powerful, long-range artillery champion. Players felt that he should be fragile, awesome and constantly unleashing arcane power.

Almost no players expressed a desire to remove the immobilization from Locus of Power. In fact, more than 46% of Xerath players described it as the one of the extremely fun things about Xerath. That said, many players did express dissatisfaction with how Locus plays out. You guys generally agreed that Xerath has a rough time killing people without his ult, but most players indicated they felt they could still get kills without it.

When asked what we should do in a Xerath rework, most Xerath players expressed both significant interest in seeing him reworked and fear that they would not be as strong with him afterwards.

Where it gets interesting is *where* players expressed interest in changes. An overwhelming majority of hardcore Xerath players would like to see Locus of Power become a more meaningful, tactical and skillful play choice. Similarly, they felt Xerath did not offer enough opportunities to exhibit skillful play. Likewise, Xerath players expressed a significant interest in spells that hit harder, on longer cooldowns over many spells which hit for less.

Furthermore, the response to Xerath’s new visuals was possibly the most unanimously positive response in the survey. Thought a few players did feel his new visual was a little too “glittery”.

So what did this mean?

Well, in response to this feedback we’re making some changes to our plans in development for Xerath:

Because Xerath players have expressed significant interest in fewer spells, which hit harder, we’ve eliminated the CDR / Doublecast passive and replaced it with a new passive which grants significant amounts of % spell penetration, which scales with your maximum mana pool.

Similarly, I have removed the 2nd ammo charge from Xerath’s W (Arcane Barrage) and instead dramatically increased its damage and AP ratio. I moved the power off of his base W ability and instead dramatically increased the radius and damage of his AoE explosive attacks during his ultimate.

Because of how overwhelmingly consistent the perception of Xerath was as a long-range mage, we’ve decided to push this factor to the extreme.  Xerath now gains +600, +1000 and +2000 range to all of his spells during Locus of Power. (Numbers subject to change before launch).  However, this power comes at a price – Locus of Power drains mana per second while active and has an ultimate level cooldown, but in an unusual act of buffery, Morello insisted that we make all spells cast during Locus of Power completely free.  This means that your time in Locus of Power is all about deciding which attack will provide the most value to your team, not which spell will force you out of mana fastest.

Due to the overwhelmingly positive response to the new Xerath VFX, we’ve started the engines and all of Xerath’s spells will be getting replaced with new, updated visuals. We’ve even toned back the “glitter” a few players commented on in the feedback and made sure to make Xerath’s visuals more powerful and brutal.

As you can imagine, all of this feedback has taken a lot of time and energy to process, but we’re going to do our best to deliver on the long-range, sniper artillery mage that so many hardcore players insisted we pursue. Now, naturally there were some players who were concerned about a rework, some players who loved him exactly as he is now. However, the majority of players who were concerned, expressed concerns about his power level.

Now, I won’t promise everything we do will be exactly what you want. I can’t do that. However, what I will promise is that I’ll do everything in my power to bring together a cohesive theme that turns Xerath into a powerful contender in the league of legends.

As a special treat, here’s a first pass on Xerath’s new Q artwork:

New Arcanopulse (Q) Preview

 (The second shockwave visual glitch is being resolved.)

What’s the state of Mage Chains (E) ?

  Xelnath: It is currently a 1000 range, sniper-thin, pass-through line stun for 0.75-1.25 sec.  We are naturally very wary of the power of an ability like that, and are keeping an eye on it… but it’s so far looking okay.

Why did you remove the lightning element from Xerath?

  Xelnath: You know, the attachment to Lightning is a fair one.  Let me elabourate on why we didn’t keep the electrical theme.

Xerath is a mage about overwhelming power. Destroy from from hopelessly far away, with erupting internal energy that is all about raw magic. However, when the character was initially created the particle artist who worked on him didn’t know the engine well yet and could only make lightning.

However, here’s the important thing here: None of Xerath’s abilities are mechanically connected to lightning.  This means that while Xerath exists in this form, he’s consuming a lot of the creative design space for a true electrical/storm mage.

My initial pass at Xerath actually involved making his Q arc between, replacing locus of power with a ground-placed relay beacon that bounced the lightning around, etc.  However, we univerally agreed that wasn’t Xerath.  Xerath is not the ultimate lightning mage for league of legends.  Xerath is about unleashing the raw power of magic.

I totally understand the attachment to his current VFX theme. However, we gain a ton of future opportunity by upgrading Xerath to electrically hinted plasma attacks.

Will shooting Arcanopulse in the dark reveal Fog of War?

Xelnath: Probably not sight, but I will at least give some audio feedback if you clip someone with Q.

  Dannamoth: This would add a really nice, subtle power increase for him. This has always been something that has been missing for me when playing Xerath (audio feedback on landing a Q in FoW).

Just to assure players in this thread who care a great deal about our favorite unchained, arcane steroid-ed, power hungry, disembodied mage; I been watching Xelnath iterate with Xerath. He has some great ideas that are really helping fulfill what Xerath should be, without losing the important things which make him who he is now. Our favorite Champion is in good
hands.

For those who don’t like changes

  Xelnath: I understand how nervous a lot of you guys are about change. It’s healthy and natural to be afraid.  I was very nervous about this rework too.

Then we brought in Morgaggeddon, a Xerath player with > 100 ranked games played on him to give some initial feel feedback on the revised Xerath by playing him against other Rioters in our daily playtests.  If he’s around, perhaps he’ll feel comfortable talking about how the new Xerath felt as a player.

Thoughts of an experienced Xerath player

Hi everyone!

Xelnath was kind enough to allow me to talk to him about the current rework, express my opinion on Xerath and the differences between old kit to his new one, and also test him out to see how I thought he felt as Xerath.

…

He is Xerath: A mage designed to unleash damage from range and have a powerful feeling with every ability he uses. It also means you might lose some of his previously unparalleled 1v1 dueling ability, but you gain the ability to punch every single person in a 5v5. He feels good with the rework, and with minor modifications to numbers, I think you’d like his new kit and enjoy the larger impact he gained.

  Xelnath: Thank you for taking the time to detail this, Morgageddon. Please keep in mind, numbers tuning and balance have a long ways to go guys, so let’s not fixate on those details yet.

Word on the new Xerath

First, a short list of the upcoming changes:

• Locus of Power (W) will once again grant spell penetration, but it will now scale with maximum mana
• While in Locus of Power (W) mode, Xerath will gain 600/1000/2000 bonus range on his spells
• Locus of Power (W) drains mana-per-second while active, but will make Xerath’s spells free to cast
• Mage Chains (E) is now a thin, pass-through skillshot that stuns for anywhere between 0.75 and 1.25 seconds
• Second charge of Arcane Barrage (R) will be removed, AoE and damage will be increased
• Arcanopulse (Q) will have new visuals (as previewed above)

Note these are not all changes coming to Xerath and some of them are likely to be tweaked (numbers specifically)

Xerath is one of those champions you really have to dive into to appreciate. When you play him for the first time, he’ll feel clunky, extremely mana-hungry and just lacking in terms of damage. And then you’ll recall, get some AP. go back and basically 100-0 their mid in 3 seconds from across the lane. In terms of gameplay and how it ties to his lore of being this unchained being of immense power, I’d say the Riot team nailed him. He scales hard, he has a very fluid combo that doesn’t follow just one pattern and, need I say it, his voice acting is badass. So what’s wrong with him?

 Xerath needs time to unfold his true potential and most players don’t feel like committing to master him. As a result, he’s severely underplayed and that’s the reason he’s getting reworked. Another problem that non-experienced players face is how they basically have to root themselves to chain a long-ranged combo. That’s not so much an issue of character design as is of the current meta – you need movement abilities to survive ganks, gank yourself and not get focused in teamfights. Xerath simply introduces a new style of playing mages – where you’re relying on smart play over mechanics to not get blown up in teamfights.

 A few things that bug me- the scaling on Locus of Power and the changes to Mage Chains. With his spell penetration scaling with maximum mana, Xerath may be pushed into glass cannon-only items such as Tear of the Goddess/Seraph’s embrace. These are alright picks for someone who can get in and out in a hurry (Ahri, Nidalee) but Locus of Power practically turns you into a sitting duck. Also, Mage Chains is Xerath’s only reliable nuke in close combat. He struggles against champions who move around a lot and this will further exacerbate the issue. More than anything else, it made his gameplay characteristic – that E into Q combo was a classic open-up for ganks and I feel he’ll be losing a part of what made him truly unique. Xelnath is basically making a thinner Arcanopulse that stuns.

Overall I’m excited for these changes because they keep the core of what makes playing Xerath feel special – a hard-hitting artillery mage with a still awesome ult name (looking at you, Lux). With Locus of Power now extending the range of his spells as mana drain toggle, there is now more than an ever an incentive to capitalize on the insane damage increase through magic penetration. It feels like Xerath won’t stray much from what made him appeal to his fans in the first place.

PBE Update

Item Changes:

Maw of Malmortius

• Attack Damage increased from 55 to 60
• Magic Resist increased from 36 to 40
• Passive now gives +1 AD for every 2% of missing health, up from every 2.5%. Capped at 35 AD.

Splash Arts

 Justicar Aatrox

Justicar Aatrox Splash Art

Woad King Darius

Woad King Darius Splash Art

TPA Skin Sale extended!

If you’re looking to get your hands on the new Taipei Assassin skins for Mundo, Ezreal, Nunu, Orianna and Shen, you’d best hurry! The sale will expire on June 4th!

 RiotWenceslaus: The TPA commemorative skin sale has been extended! Players around the world requested an extension, so we’re keeping the TPA skins and bundle available in the store for a little longer. TPA Shen, TPA Orianna, TPA Ezreal, TPA Nunu, TPA Mundo and the 25% off TPA Team Bundle will remain in the store until 11:59 PM PST on June 4.

After June 4, these five skins and their bundle will be retired to the legacy vault.

Champion/Skin Sale

Get the following champions and skins at a discount before June 3rd!

Champions:

• Maokai 440 RP

• Sona – 395 RP

• Vi – 487 RP

Arclight Varus – 487 RP

Deep Sea Kog’Maw – 487 RP

Junkyard Trundle – 375 RP

“Power laning, power farming, power ganking, power kills! So many kills! Four-hundred kills!”

IronStylus talks Sivir, her quirks and appeal, all the while elaborating on how the Rework team does its job. Aside from that, we have a discussion on Quinn‘s ongoing design issues and, of course, the newest Rotation and Skin Sale!

Sivir’s Visual Update

Was Quinn rushed?

New Champion Rotation

Champion/Skin Sale: May 31st

Sivir’s Visual Update

Your favourite concept artist discusses the long-lost vixen of the League!

 IronStylus: So, again, can’t disclose much, she’s not releasing any time soon. But, we have a solid direction, and it allows us to take her current look and update it significantly. It means changing it in a direction that makes it right contextually with her background while trying to maintain, what, if anything, people find in her current look that resonates. I would submit that not much really resonates in her current state. Yellow, black, copy-paste-front-back tabard, yikes.

That said, there’s some iconicism that we have to maintain.  She doesn’t need to be decked out in anything too heavy, she needs to be light and swift, she’s the warrior-princess archetype, she should have some badlands/wasteland/desert/nomadic feel. Maybe a little female Laurence of Arabia jazz. For lack of a better term, Battle Jasmine.

The goals are for her to feel like an actual character, not a one-off, not something obtuse and obscure, but something that hits on familiar tropes but still feels uniquely “Sivir”. It’s hard to nail that, but I think we have a solid solution. She needs to feel connected to the world, and have a look/feel that plants her in that world, and the aesthetics to fit into her faction/region/super-friendship. Artistically with costume, leathers, cloths, a little bit of metal armor here and there, about as much as she has currently, but better defined with nicer material separation and texture work.

Right now Sivir violates a ton of stylistic rules we’re implementing. Her silhouette is unique right now but for all the wrong reasons most likely. Pizza feet. noodle arms, rigid static swoop hair, etc. We’re want to keep large reads, flowing hair, top/middle/bottom blocks of form and color, boots (not huge though), gauntlets, weapon, etc.

She’s extremely loud and noisy, a lot of flickering in her texture. She has a lot of detail that reduces to noise. We want to eliminate that. That will come from decreasing contrast. No blacks to yellows to whites. Those transitions are too intense and don’t allow the detail to breakdown into graphic shapes when zoomed out. There’s no material separation currently, and we’d like her costume to feel appropriately weathered or used, not just cards of flat color pasted onto her.

She absolutely needs actual.. anatomy.. removing the spaghetti arms, and probably giving her the more “Heroic Female” build ala Wonder Woman (Note: gotta keep the midriff!) I don’t think she needs as much boobs as she needs kick-ass abs. The boob area is ripe for some interesting costuming and storytelling components, rather than the bikini top it is now. It’s wasted real estate I feel, we could be giving her something more interesting/fitting/pretty/stylish there. Gotta keep the sexy, but have to crank it in one direction.

Right now she’s a bit of everything and a lot of nothing. It’s hard to make sense of that, but we’re taking what we can graphically break down as identifiable Sivir iconography and transplant it to a new body and costume. We have to imbue that overall look with what’s appropriate for her origins and story line. The artistic really has to gel with the creative here. That’s what I feel yields the most powerful result!

Oh, also, that weapon has to mean something.

TL:DR Version

 IronStylus: Abs. A non-Anglo face. Material definitions such as regionally appropriate cloths and leathers. The blade to have some sort of significance. Some asymmetry. A mature and commanding character that has a lot of confidence without being hokey.

Sivir needs to look mature

 IronStylus: Sivir shouldn’t be terribly young. Honestly, my brain puts her somewhere in her late 30′s, but still.. ya know.. really hot..

Shouldn’t Sivir look more athletic?

 IronStylus: This is our feeling as well. RiotTeaTime has helped me a lot in ideation and execution. She certainly knows the ladies. One thing we very much agreed on is that this isn’t the voluptuous body type of Miss Fortune, and it’s not the svelte athletic body type of Akali. This is tall, a bit amazonian perhaps, and more muscular.

Our “heroic female” body types probably encompass such champions as Leona, Sejunai and Sivir. Women who don’t have as large of a bust size, rather they have a more powerful frame. Usually still a fair amount of curves, but nothing as intense as to boarder on overly seductive. Wonder Woman, Xena, all of those tropes apply.

What kind of headgear are you planning for her?

 IronStylus: Circlet/tiara sort of things are pretty.

How about warrior-woman themes?

 IronStylus: I think a neck scarf would feel nice.

Sivir should retain her playful character

 IronStylus: I think that should stay the case. That’s more VO/creative stuff. But I think she certainly needs a bit of playful sass.

Will the new design be symmetrical?

 IronStylus: Asymmetry in her costuming. No need to have such consistency from left to right, top to bottom, given that she’s not in any formal role. I think she needs a little something different on the throwing arm. That blade is dangerous!

If you’d like to know more about Sivir’s planned Visual Update, feel free to check out this previous article of mine.

Was Quinn Rushed?

Quinn enjoyed a lot of quality background, specifically her lore pieces paving the way for the entire Freljord saga. But, according the Riot, the gameplay doesn’t quite match the rest of her design. 

 IronStylus: I’ll get back to this in detail, but yes. She was rushed.

 IronStylus: Quick note: Personally this isn’t a quality issue to me, this is a pipeline issue. That said, you will notice some stylistic differences because these models represent 3 different modelers and 3 different texture artists. There’s going to be some discrepancy between them.

“Looks bad” is a relative and fairly moot argument that is far too dependent on preference, so I’m not really going to touch that too much, but I can go into more detail about our challenges with Quinn in the ways that really mattered and how I would address them today.

 IronStylus: So the deal with Quinn..

From the beginning we had some issues. I jumped on the project when we were ideating on the falconer trope. She was just called “Falconer” at the time. I had returned to a lot of skin production work post-Diana and work on Falconer involved me jumping teams for a little while. I had learned a lot from Diana. A whole lot. I had a lot of aspects of Diana’s ideation and production logged in notes in order to help project some of the process onto any subsequent champions I worked on.

Rewinding a bit, Diana is viewed to be one of our more successful champions in terms of character development. She is a very well rounded champion thematically which is portrayed in all aspects of her “triangle”, creative, design, and art. She also represents one of our more successful pipeline experiences in that due to the front-loaded work on creative and art, there was no iteration time needed post-approval/greenlight. The day she was approved she went into production. Production wise, she was mostly without headaches, she was straight forward, and a lot of the hard stuff was done at the beginning. At least the stuff that would cause headaches down the line in production, iteration in the 3D stage, or other tweaks that would require a lot of manpower, were avoided. So, successful in many regards.

Quinn suffered from the opposite. She stumbled in many ways at many points in the ideation phase. This is due to a lot of reasons, and I’m very much responsible as anyone. At first, in terms of art, she was actually a melee character. Two handed sword assassin. We sort of took a Batman approach to creative, that she was the secret superhero of Demacia, “The hero Demacia needed but not the one it deserved”, etc. Gameplay wise, it was a lot of mark the target, follow-up.

These parameters changed a lot, obviously. We went in pre-approval with a very different direction post-approval. We didn’t have as clear goals as were needed to make the production and further character development smoother. Mind you, this is not always something that’s easy to track. With a lot of people working collaboratively, the noise in the room can be loud, and we can have difficulty in distilling a character’s goals. Morello is exceptionally good at establishing goals for characters, so he and I have shared that we feel Quinn could have been a bit more cohesive in retrospect.

Additionally, unlike “Team Diana”, where myself, Volty, Runaan, and Harrow were very much the owners of that champion from the beginning, our little group did not coalesce until later, after Quinn began production. At the time though, we weren’t really wise to the fact that some of our more hazy goals from the beginning would cause some pain later on.

Her story shifted, we hammered a lot out as production continued. I think it went in a very good direction actually. I’m quite fond of Quinn the character, in that I think she’s compelling and unique. Design progressed, and Volty had some really interesting ideas about her. We felt confident in that. Art was tricky. I was having some issues in making her unique. I had finished off production art of her and Valor, handed it off to 3D, and was happy, but I didn’t quite realize that a problem would arise.

She ended up suffering from the exact thing Diana did not suffer from, iteration in 3D. When we got her in game, when our model was fleshed out and animation was rocking, there were concerns that she wasn’t quite different enough. I agreed. I had already moved onto relaunch so I needed to hop back onto Quinn, work with the 3D artist, and do some model tweaks. Before doing this, I met with a few artists and brainstormed what we could do. We basically went back in and did something we didn’t quite hit on initially, we created a solid goal. She was a quintessential ranger when we distilled things.

Now, yeah, duh, that’s what Quinn is, a ranger. We’ve said that before. However, oddly enough, it didn’t quite dawn on us how clear this made certain art choices. I took a look at what we had, and I really cut into her. We changed a lot. We introduced some elements into her design, we created some bigger reads, etc. We did succeed in making Demacia’s version of a Ranger, but it wasn’t as smooth of a  process as I would have preferred. Myself and the 3D modeller assigned to her did a fair amount of extra work. In the end, we came up with what I felt was quality, but I realized that if I had some simple questions answered up front, the process would have been a lot easier.

All that said, there was something funny that Diana and Quinn shared. Truncated timelines. Diana was pushed up in our slotting due to some pipeline changes. Quinn had the same thing happen to her. The difference is that we had the majority of the goals for Diana solved up-front, but Quinn didn’t quite have as solid of a foundation. When that foundation was poked at, we had to approach things a different way, and iterate at a stage that’s much more difficult to iterate during. Since all of Diana’s thematics were front-loaded, that early work compensated for her being pushed up in the release schedule. With Quinn, we actually had to push her back a bit to hit the notes we wanted to hit.

In the end, I do really like Quinn. I do think she’s unique, I do think she’s something different in the scope of fantasy rangers. I like the place she occupies, and I think she’s a very well fleshed out character. I do however feel that we could have more smoothly figured out her goals and made the correlation between what they were, and how they would directly impact art and other aspects.

I think she hits our quality standards really well also. If you look at the sculpt, texture, animations, etc, they’re very well done. They do show differences in respect to other characters because they were made by different artists. Additionally, Vi, the example shown here, was in development much longer and was given the benefit of more marination time. That’s not to say Quinn came out half-baked, it means that stylistically, we could have brought them more in line. Even currently we’re working on reconciling how our characters fit with each other, and with the game environment.

That’s a lot of style guide work which myself and other seniors are involved in. That work is directly applied in Relaunch, where Grumpy Monkey and I work to get our assets updated, or in-line with each other stylistically. We’re working on the principles and the practice at the same time. It’s fascinating and fun, but we do learn all the time. It can make the target move a bit here and there.

So, while yes, there were hiccups in the pipeline, we made choices in places where it was more difficult to make iterations in. I feel we hit quality, but given the choice, I would reapproach Quinn differently, with our goals better established. I would take what we know now, about goal creation and adherence to those goals, about small group investment in a character early on, about stylistic consistency and visual design across champions.

This is the more interesting and sometimes difficult part of the job, and the challenge of being a developer. These are all learning experiences. We are lucky to be in a position to learn from the processes we engage in and change how we approach things in the future. We constantly learn so that we can produce something better. Yet, we’re human. We’re going to trip up and misalign at times, so I’d be an idiot to say “EVERYTHING WE DO IS PERFECT AND WE MAKE A TEN OUT OF TEN EVERY TIME.”. We believe in what we produce, we wouldn’t put it out if we didn’t feel that way, but because we’re iterative, we have the blessing and the curse of learning over and over. We know that circumstances will change each time, goals and processes will shift. Character development can be really tricky, and sometimes you can think everything is solid and rock-hard, only to find that when you look back at what’s been created, you see a slew of other options, solutions and opportunities you didn’t notice the first time around.

Hope that helps clarify. Sorry for the essay.

What’s holding back your quality control?

  IronStylus: Not so much quality control, but being on the lookout for emergent issues in a character’s development or physical production. We need to front-load more. We need to have small groups do big things, which is when we get our best results. When a champion idea materializes, people rally to it. That excitement causes use to really want to churn on it. This creates lots of discussion, discussion creates goals. Mind you, this is happening, this does organically come into fruition, but it’s not exactly a science.

I think sometimes we don’t establish those goals up front intentionally. We get a lot of awesome content and amazing characters, but sometimes those things more or less fall together. It’s hard to standardize a process like that. Draven was just.. Draven.. from the beginning. Boom. How do you make that into a processes that’s trackable?

The closest thing I can think of is what we did with Diana. I’m going back and again looking at what I learned from that. Morello and I have talked about it a lot, and it’s something I’m keeping very much in mind as I work on the next champion I’m involved with.

There isn’t one singular choke point, or a bottleneck so to speak, it’s a long pipeline, with a LOT of variables. But early goal lock-down and extrapolating what those goals mean for the character is the big focus for me.

Can your team handle constantly improving champions’ visuals?

  IronStylus: It’s a big task, but we’re up to it. The team is always growing, and it’s changing. I’m taking on 3D currently, going to try to be a rounded character artist which can handle concept, modeling and texturing. We’ve recently nabbed a new animator. VFX is our bottleneck at the moment. They’re an awesome team but VFX artists are hard to come by.

We’ll grow, and we’ll take on more. We currently have 2 big pushes we’re on right now, and 2 more in the immediate afterwards of those. The thing is it’s actually easier than champion development because we’re not dealing with mechanics most of the time. The last relaunches have come with a host of kit reworks. That complicates things. When things are more explicitly VU’s, that’s when we have a lot of smooth sailing. Good case being Sivir. Mostly Visual changes, nothing balance related at least not that I’m aware of. The opposite example is Sion. He’s a major project.

Relaunches can sometimes take less than 2 months to do. Champions can take 6 months to a year depending on how long each phase of ideation/pre-production/production is.

 
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New Champion Rotation

The following champions will be free-to-play until June 4th:

• Cho’Gath – 1350 IP / 585 RP
• Ezreal -  4800 IP / 880 RP
• Garen – 450 IP / 260 RP
• Graves –  6300 IP / 975 RP
• Leona –  4800 IP / 880 RP
• Nasus – 1350 IP / 585 RP
• Skarner -  4800 IP / 880 RP
• Viktor –  6300 IP / 975 RP
• Ziggs – 6300 IP / 975 RP
• Zilean – 1350 IP / 585 RP

 
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Champion/Skin Sale

Get the following champions and skins at a discount until May 31st!

Champions:

• Akali – 395 RP
• Corki – 395 RP
• Cho’Gath – 292 RP

Coral Reef Malphite – 375 RP

Pentakill Sona 487 RP

Prestigious LeBlanc 260 RP

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

Catch up on all the things that have happened this week and some new ones!

Champion Changes
Neutral Monster Camps
Item Changes
Skillshot/UI Update
Magma Chamber
TPA Skins Available
Xypherous on Hybrid Items
Offtopic Discussions
A Twist of Fate Cinematic & Behind the Scenes

PBE Updates

Champion Changes

Aatrox

Blood Well (Passive)

• Duration of regeneration after “death” decreased from 4 seconds to 3

Blades of Torment (E)

• Bonus AD Ratio increased from 0.4 to 0.6.
• Range increased from 900 to 1000

Massacre (R)

• Magic damage to champions changed from 15% + 0.01 AP to 200/300/400 (+1.0 AP)

Neutral Monster camps

 
Wolves

• Now spawn for the first time at the 1:55 minute mark
• Respawn time reduced from 60 seconds to 50

Wraiths

• Now spawn for the first time at the 1:55 minute mark

Golems

• Now spawn for the first time at the 1:55 minute mark
• Respawn time reduced from 60 seconds to 50

Ancient Golem

• Base Experience gained increased from 220 to 275
• A particle effect has been added to display who the buff has been transferred to

Lizard Elder

• Base Experience gained increased from 220 to 275
• A particle effect has been added to display who the buff has been transferred to

Item Changes

Wit’s End

• New Recipe: Recurve Bow + Null Magic Mantle + Dagger + 700 gold = 2400 gold

• Attack Speed increased from 40% to 42%

• Passive now steals up to 25 Magic Resist from the target and gives to the user

Nashor’s Tooth

• Combine Cost increased from 2500 to 2920 gold

• Ability Power reduced from 65 to 60

• Passive Added: Your attacks deal 15 + 15% of your Ability Power bonus magic damage on-hit

Note: The 20% Cooldown Reduction passive has not been removed.
 

Malady

• Removed from the game

Boots of Speed

• Cost reduced from 350 gold to 325

The changes to spawn timers will deny junglers the ability to get Wolves before the Ancient Golem buff or Wraiths before the Elder Lizzard buff. On the same note, blue side has officially been denied early double golems for bottom lane. This means that balance between the two teams has reached near equilibrium, with the exception of camera angle issues, which are not as game- breaking as the XP lead. All-ins with certain combos at level 2 easily dominate solo queue.

With experience gained for both blue and red buff going up it means junglers will have an easier time reaching level 3, which translates to quicker ganks on their side. This is an excellent change, given that Season 3 has presented a plethora of opportunities for laners to keep the river and brushes warded from the start. Now junglers may become a fearsome early-game force again, removing the element of passive gameplay that occurs in certain matchups. Another cool feature of this patch is the decreased respawn time on Wolves. Seeing as you won’t be killing those with the help of your teammates before the Ancient Golem spawns, it pays for the camp to appear again in the same timeframe.

And finally we have the cost of Boots of Speed to talk about. 25 gold less means Summoners have access to more consumables at level 1, for example, Boots + 2 Wards, or better yet, Boots + 1 Ward + 2 Health Potions.

Keep reading for an explanation of the changes to Wit’s End, Malady and Nashor’s Tooth.

Apologies for missing these changes in the last update.

 

Skillshot/UI Update

 
Several neat additions have been implemented for champions with odd skillshot patterns.

Update to Lux’s Final Spark (R) Skillshot Indicator

Vayne Condemn (E) Skillshot Update

Vayne and Poppy can now get indication where their target will head during the knockback.

Magma Chamber

Remember this?

This isn’t it! But Magma Chamber has indeed been revived- if only as a 1v1 and 2v2 duel map for the All-Star Week.

All-star showdown on Magma Chamber

When your all-stars take the stage in Shanghai, China, you’ll see them face off mano-a-mano (and two-on-two, in the case of bot laners) for the right to claim they’re the best top, mid, bot or jungle players in the world. You’ll also get a look at the upcoming Magma Chamber map, which is specially designed for individual and pair competition.

Why preview Magma Chamber at All-Star Week?

Watching the best players in the world duel it out for honor and glory is pretty damn exciting. If you were following the all-star race, you probably caught the epic showdown between Wickd and Soaz. Matchups like that are really fun to watch, so we wanted to make sure we had a proper battlefield for individual grudge matches. Since it’s only natural to wonder who the best player in each role is, we thought All-Star Week was the perfect venue to give you a sneak peek at the map, and let the pros settle the score while we were at it.

How does a head-to-head match work?
 

One vs. one competition actually has a pretty long history in the League of Legends community. The first one on one tournament actually took place in beta, and we’ve seen many more battles of this nature since. We tried to stick close to the existing one vs. one conventions.

During All-Star week, players will win a match on Magma Chamber in any the following ways:

• Kill 100 minions
• Destroy the enemy turret
• Score first blood in 1v1, or score 2 team kills in 2v2

When can we play?

While you can watch the all-stars treat their favorite champions to a magma tan today, remember this is a sneak peek and the public release is still on the horizon. We’re targeting before the launch of Season 4 while we tackle the following:

• Tech challenges: A one vs. one map is unlike any game mode we’ve ever launched, and releasing it to millions is a lot different than letting the all-stars play on tournament realm. Before launch we need to load-test the servers and make sure we have the right supporting hardware in place.

• More testing and optimizing: So far, Magma Chamber’s only optimized for tournament hardware, so there’s a lot of polish and bug sweeping left to finish. Before we can launch, the map needs to run smoothly on our full range of hardware, from the humblest min-spec to the most impressive gaming rig.

• Game balance: Getting a map ready for live requires a lot of iteration on the design side. Right now we know it’s fun to watch the best players in the world throw down one vs. one, but we need more testing (including a full tour on the PBE) to make sure it’s balanced and fun to play!

We know Season 4 seems like it’s a long way off, but we’re using that time to get Magma Chamber shipshape and ready for launch. Stay tuned for more as we get closer to the new season.

TPA Skins Available!

Celebrate the victory of the Taipei Assassins in Season 2′s World Championship with Dr. Mundo, Ezreal, Nunu, Orianna and Shen all decked out in special uniforms! These skins will be available for 750 RP each or as a bundle for 2812 RP if you own the champions! If you don’t, you can grab those at a 25% discount, meaning all 5 champions + their TPA skins will cost you 5358 RP.

TPA Dr Mundo

TPA Ezreal

TPA Nunu

TPA Orianna

TPA Shen

And yes, Mundo does indeed throw Championship cups.

Xypherous on Hybrid Items

Curious about the changes to hybrid items on the PBE? Xypherous is here to shed some light!

Why are hybrid items bad for the game?

Xypherous: I don’t claim that hybrid builds are bad – I claim that focused Hybrid items are bad for the game because they lock the character in question to only using hybrid items when they are balanced *or* the character is overpowered when they aren’t.

If you think about the breadth of itemization that a champion has – an item that appeals to hybrids would have to offer more statistics than one standalone AP or AD item. This means that the item in question is far more efficient for that character than any other item because it provides mixed statistics that no other character can take full advantage of.

Now think about what happens if this is a core item for the character build in question: Either he needs the increased statistics from the hybrid item (which means his AD / AP ratios are artificially low because this item exists) – but then almost every standalone AP or AD item now sucks, or more likely, the character is overpowered because he has decent ratios for AP and AD – but now there’s an item that gives him a wealth of both and he now simply has more raw damage or scaling than any other character.

To put it in concrete terms: think about what Gunblade did to Akali’s balance and ratios – I would rather a world in which Gunblade never existed so that Akali could simply have higher AP and AD ratios – and then she could then use more items that suited her from the normal pool of AP and AD items. However, because Gunblade exists, everything about Akali’s scaling is toned down around the fact that there’s this keystone item giving her 50% more statistics and thus everything that scales about her had to be toned down or she would simply be massively overpowered.

One could argue that Gunblade is the overpowered item in this case – however, break that down. If Gunblade wasn’t overpowered in terms of statistics for hybrid builders – why bother getting it when you could get an AP item *and* an AD item? By necessity, in order for an item to be appealing to hybrid characters – it has to offer a surplus of both statistics.

Note that this says nothing about hybrid builds – A hybrid build consisting of getting a Bloodthirster and then a Rylai’s scepter is interesting and compelling. However, focused hybrid items destroy a lot of the power of a hybrid character’s dual scaling – it takes away from the character being able to build whatever they want in terms of AP or AD – thus losing the benefit of a lot of good unique passives and actives.

Is the extra magic damage from Wit’s End gone?

Xypherous: It remains as 42 magic damage.

Wit’s is probably slightly too cheap now – still trying to re-evaluate numbers / actual gold value of the two passives.
 

Won’t Nashor’s Tooth be too strong on champions like Teemo and Master Yi?

Xypherous: As a third or fourth item, Nashor’s is going to make AP Teemo very strong – but Teemo has enough AP Ratios such that rushing 2900 gold on making his autoattacks stronger is going to cost him in other ways – such as blinding dart or mushroom damage.

It essentially adds another multiplier on top of their AP damage and potentially these characters might have to be looked at in the future – but I do think it’s important that the AP/AS builds have a keystone item to build around if they choose to do so.

Xypherous: To do 100 magic damage with 15% on hit requires 566 AP. If one slot is Nashor’s Tooth, the other slots would have to be really heavy AP items. You’d have to have at least 2 Needlessly Large Rod items, one of which being Deathcap.

As to doubling Teemo’s poison – Teemo’s poison has an 0.3 AP Ratio and then another 0.4 AP Ratio as the DoT ticks. While this will increase Teemo’s power quite a bit once his build gets going – it’s not to that degree.

Yes – it’s scary – but a character with 566 AP, perhaps, should be terrifying.

Why do you consider Nashor’s Tooth lackluster for pure AP builds?

Xypherous: Basically, just opportunity cost. If you have AP abilities – spend 2900 gold on AP/CDR with no Mana or MP/5 is going to cost you in more than one way.

Contrast – Athene’s at 2900 which gives you the same CDR and also gives you Mana to fuel it, or Deathcap – which just gives you 3 or 4 times the AP (depending on how much AP you have.)

What are your plans for hybrid items in the future?

Xypherous: In my opinion, focused hybrid itemization is kind of a misstep, overall.

The advantages of having both AP and AD ratios is that any item is good for you – not that there’s a specific class of items with 30% more stats because no one can use it correctly and thus it is good for you. When hybrid items are in vogue, like gunblade – it simply leads the detriment of any champion that can use it well.

The end result of that is that once you’re balanced around hybrid itemization, you have 70% of the ratios of any other champion *and* you’ve effectively locked yourself out from any cool AD or AP itemization, defeating the point of being hybrid in the first place.

Why did you remove Malady?

Xypherous: The drive to remove Malady was that there was some obvious benefits from shuffling the passives that we liked around. Revamping or removing rageblade at this point without an obvious direction to take would be premature. Basically, I don’t have a great idea for it – so leaving it like this at least has no *new* net negatives.

Why are hybrid champions struggling to implement AD in their builds?

Xypherous: Convincing people that the best thing for their hybrid characters is to have no hybrid items at all is difficult at best.

The other aspect of this is that the hybrid characters we have don’t actually take advantage of hybrid scaling – they need a much heavier focus on basic attacks if they were to dip into the advantages of AD.

You have a handful of characters who hybrid scale – but don’t actually benefit from a hybrid playstyle of attacks and spells – hence the drive for sheer raw statistical power. They don’t actually benefit from building any of the AD items – nor does their playstyle synergize with some of the more focused AP items like Zhonya’s and the like. If you take a look at the line that connects Kayle, Akali and Jax, the common thread is that they almost all rely on going nuclear at some point through sheer statistical might.

Why is it a problem that these champions aren’t locked into a certain role?

Xypherous: It’s not a fundamental difference in the problem. It’s a difference in expectation.

When you pick a ranged carry – you expect to do ranged carry like things. Kill dudes with your ranged attack – harass with spells – train on people. You have a specific set of needs and you are trying to accomplish them.

Similarly, when you pick a mage – you want to kill people with abilities. You could care less for your basic attack. You hit buttons – they die in a wildfire.

However, what do you expect out of a hybrid character? The flexibility to do both – or run a range from whatever you want it to be. Focused hybrid items kill that – because they demand that you build them. You don’t get to choose what range you are from ‘burst caster’ to ‘sustained drain-tanker’ – you only get to build the hybrid items because your ratios have been tuned around these inflated items to exist.

It goes against the base expectation of flexibility or ‘jack of all trades’ nature that the hybrid scaling seems to promise you in the first place.

What would the perfect hybrid champion be like?

Xypherous: If you want the bluntest expression of a hybrid character – recall Kayle’s old passive which I will always miss even though it made her explode and hyperscale.

You *could* not be anything but a hybrid character with that passive. Your attack damage was ability power and vice-versa. Every item improved every facet of your character, whether you wanted it to or not.

It’s blunt, crude and possibly the purest expression of what it means to be hybrid to me.

As for playstyle changes – it depends on the passives and statistics which you favored. A hybrid playstyle looks remarkably similar to every hybrid character – except for the player playing him who is familiar with exactly how he wants to build or play.

Why doesn’t Akali benefit more from AD?

Xypherous: Akali as a hybrid character and it’s odd because she really doesn’t want to autoattack much. Nothing gives her a chance or an opportunity to – which is why I suspect the AP build is the default – and that any hybrid items created simply augment the AP build, if they’re good.

I’m not sure what you could do to change that – or if making Akali more AA focused would be a good change now. It certainly doesn’t fix her current problems if you made AD stronger on her.

Why not tune the hybrid items and make hybrid champions viable without them?

Xypherous: That’s definitely a good approach to take – the issue you run into there is that any hybrid item will then be seen as prohibitively weak by any non-hybrid character. How big an issue of that is up to you to decide – but they’ll be seen as dead items by a majority of the character pool.

In a world where there was many hybrid champions – that’d definitely be the ideal approach to take. In a world dominated by more standard scaling champions – it’d be mostly taking up space in the item store.

What’s the purpose of Nashor’s Tooth now?

Xypherous: Nashor’s tooth allows the potential for a large group of existing champions to branch out into a subtype (autoattacking) and synergizes with champions that work well with it.

However, core hybrid itemization, when balanced, does not allow either AD or AP to branch out in such a fashion. A balanced gunblade does not help any AD or AP character aspire to any aspect of their character.

As for dual penetration %, think about how much % penetration it would take to rival Last Whisper or Void Staff. You are dealing split-damage already. Thus, any advantage of % penetration is cut in half. This is mitigated somewhat by lopsided resistances of the opponent – but then it’s hard to argue that Last Whisper or Void Staff wouldn’t simply be better in that regard then.

Aren’t hybrid items currently limiting hybrid champions instead of helping them?

Xypherous: I can easily point to Gunblade limiting hybrid champion build options because whenever Gunblade has been good at had to be balanced around, we’ve continuously nerfed the AP ratios of the characters who could use it.

If I removed those 3 hybrid options from the game and simply increased the ratios of hybrid champions, now instead of those 3 items being their only options they now have access to every other AD or AP item in the game. It’s the fact that balancing around hybrid items simultaneously forces them into those items and also takes away existing items that is so criminal here.

Offtopic discussions

 
Here you’ll find talk about Hecarim, Nautilus, Renekton, Doran Items and more!
 

Can you explain why Hecarim’s passive was changed?

If you recall from a previous PBE update, Warpath’s collision ignore was removed.

Xypherous: I don’t really have any context here at the moment – sorry.

The reason why this context post isn’t being posted by me is because the vast majority of the changes are being handled by other people. The few changes I’ve made on this patch are mostly starting item oriented and the removal of Malady.

As far as I know, I think the assessment is that Hecarim doesn’t need it and it’s greatly increasing his dive strength and escape power. I believe that while ‘E’ is up, he will still ignore unit collisions however. I believe the contention here is that Hecarim is still really strong and further numerical balance without removing this strength would start to get pretty dire, in terms of nerfing his end-game survivability and damage.

Ignore Unit Collision is a terrifying fighter statistic – as I’ve said before when this was brought up for boots.

Why were Doran items nerfed in price?

Xypherous: The problem we had with the old Doran’s items starting with a potion is that no one ever died. Health Quints, starting potions and Doran’s items created an odd environment where most people started with 650 to 800 health and a potion.

We live in a very different world now – where level 1 fights are terrifyingly brutal. Some starting items with a little bit of health to them is probably healthy in this world where max health quints and max health early in general, is very difficult to rune / mastery for.

Will the new Doran Shield make melee champions viable on the bot lane?

Xypherous: Hopeful – but most likely it won’t. For Melee to compete in the duo lane space – they have to somehow be able to farm at range and be item scaling rather than level scaling.

Is Warmog still being looked at?

Xypherous: It’s regarded as weak – but more likely in a decent spot.

Why doesn’t Locket of the Iron Solari build out of Emblem of Valor?

Xypherous: Locket doesn’t built out of an Emblem of Valor because it was re-designed as a sister item to Aegis of the Legion. In effect, because Locket and Aegis function so well together – we didn’t initially want to introduce anything that caused the pairing to clash.

As for why Aegis builds out of Emblem of Valor now – it was some weird principle that the keystone aura item should be an aura item at all points, including lane – which is ironic given that Aegis is frequently built by the Jungler.

Can you explain the changes to Nautilus and his W damage?

Nautilus
 

Titan’s Wrath (W)

• Bonus damage on-hit changed from 30/55/80/105/130 to 40/55/70/85/100 ( +0.4 AP ) over 2 seconds .

Xypherous: Sure – we took away the thing that held Nautilus back, his early clear – and now his actual overpowered elements are coming into the forefront.

This is one of those cases where a 50% win rate didn’t necessarily mean balanced. Something was holding him back – something unreasonable and out of the player’s control (early clear) and we compensated it with extreme damage. Well, that’s all fine and good, except it means roughly half your games are stomps and half your games, you are terrible. Hence the retuning – removing early weakness – but also removing this unnecessary damage.

What’s your opinion on Renekton currently?

Xypherous: Renekton right now serves as the ‘You must be this tall to enter top-lane’ champion. While he’s kind of obnoxious at this role, he’s not the root cause of it.

He’s probably slightly too strong right now and probably needs his ‘Q’ nerfed a little. Otherwise, he’s kind of the quintessential bruiser man – one of the few we find annoying – but not egregiously so.

Can we expect improvements to Atma’s Impaler?

Xypherous: Quite frankly, it’d be pretty easy to make Atma’s Impaler good (make it slot-efficient, rather than gold-efficient, given how late of an item buy it is) – but we’re not altogether convinced that making Atma’s Impaler good would make the game better – so we’ve been holding off on it.

A Twist of Fate

Finally, we have an intriguing cinematic from Riot Games that was featured at the All-Stars Event.

Definitely a triple-A CGI, but how’s it all made? Find out below!

Pro tip – if you think your champion is extremely strong, don’t spread the word. See the Yorick community? They know he’s overpowered, but they’re keeping it cool.

Huge buffs to Aatrox, changes to Lissandra and Wriggle’s Lantern, Justicar Aatrox previewed and the next Champion/Skin Sale!

 
Champion Changes
Item Changes
Justicar Aatrox
Champion/Skin Sale – May 24th to 27th
 

PBE: Champion Changes

    Aatrox

Blood Well (Passive)

• Grants 35% of the well’s total pool when reviving, in addition to the health stored currently
• Now heals over 4 seconds when the passive is procced.
• Now gains 1% Attack Speed for every 2% in the Blood Well

 Blades of Torment (E)  

• Now deals an additional 40% of total AD as damage. Total magic damage is 75/120/165/210/255 (+ 0.6 AP) (+ 0.4 AD)

Massacre (R)

• AS bonus changed from 25/35/45% + 10% for each champion hit to 40/50/60% flat
• No longer increases Aatrox’s maximum health by 100/175/250 (+ 50/65/80 per champion hit)
• Cooldown reduced from 120/100/80 to 100/85/70 seconds
• Damage increased from 15% (+ 0.01 AP) of Current HP to 15% (+ 0.01 AP) of Maximum HP

The Blood Well change is a terrible one and will most likely bring with it a series of unnecessary nerfs to Aatrox. With just a simple 21/9/0 build, I was reaching an Attack Speed of 0.92 at level 1! This is if you exclude Attack Speed Marks and Quints, which will probably be a staple for his future builds. With this change, Blood Price becomes a DPS tool rather than a calculated burst in-lane. Additionaly, the incredible sustain from the toggled spell, which is about the same as Irelia’s Hiten Style when active! In fact the only change I approve of here is the removal of the HP gain from his ultimate – his passive already makes him incredibly beefy. A full Blood Well at level 18 is 885 Health!

Another potential issue I’ve found is that, with this change, Aatrox can actually jungle quite well! Now why did I call this an issue? To me the focus of the champion is obviously a heavy right-clicker that needs his items. If he’s laning somewhere it’s much easier to organize a gank squad to shut him down, so he doesn’t get farmed. Instead he’s getting mechanics that allow him to achieve this safely and out of sight, unless an organized team is constantly warding his jungle. And if you’re not keen on having a passive jungler that’s of no contribution in the early game, Aatrox ganks extremely well. He has a gap closer, hard CC, a slow and frankly insane early-game damage – all this with the potential to heavily snowball and carry his team to victory in the mid game.

The closest comparison would be a manaless Jax with sustain. He may not be as strong in teamfights (I’ve addressed this issue in AMA article, but he seems to be the kind of champion that will demolish you and outright deny you if he gets any sort of advantage in the top lane. Didn’t Riot address such scenarios as problematic? Why add so many 1v1 mechanics here?

 Lissandra

Ring of Frost (W)  

• Damage increased from 60/95/130/165/200 to 70/110/150/190/230
• Mana cost decreased from 70 to 50
• Cooldown changed from 16/14/12/10/8 to 14/13/12/11/10 seconds

Frozen Tomb (R)

• Invulnerabilty duration when self-cast increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds

    Karma

Inner Flame (Q) 

• Mana costs reduced from 50/60/70/80/90 to 50/55/60/65/70

   Sejuani

Flail of the Northern Winds (W) 

• Damage reduced from 12% Bonus HP to 10%. (double nerf from live, where it is 16)

      Sona

Aria of Perseverance (W)

• Power chord’s on-hit Damage Reduce duration decreased from 4 seconds to 3

PBE: Item Changes

Doran’s Ring

• Mana per unit killed reduced from 5 to 4

Wriggle’s Lantern

• Sight Ward’s cooldown and reveal increased from 60 seconds to 90
• AD increased from 20 to 25
• Armor decreased from 30 to 25

 

 

 

Skin Preview: Justicar Aatrox

 

Model

Dark Flight (Q) – Part 1

Dark Flight Q – Part  2

Blood Price (W Toggle)

Blades of Torment (E)

Massacre (R)

Massacre (R) Transformation

Champion/Skin Sale – May 24th to 27th!

Enjoy the following champions and skins at a discount for a limited time!

Champions

• Elise – 487 RP
• Jax – 292 RP
• Zilean – 292 RP

Deep One Kassadin – 260 RP

Hextech Janna – 487 RP

Stinger Akali – 260 RP

Ride the tides of blood to victory!

Gain insight into the dark forces that stir in the League, as Rioters Aether, Classick, ohmikegoodness and Harrow jump on Reddit to discuss Aatrox in full detail!

General
Design
Gameplay
Lore
Fun Bits
Short Overview
 

General

Who created the concept for Aatrox and how long ago did you start work on him?

ohmikegoodness: Eoin Colgan created the concept for him! Aatrox has been in development for about 6-8 months? I might be wrong… it’s been a blur.

Aatrox was previewed significantly quicker than Zac or Lissandra. Is this the path you’ve decided to take when teasing new champions?

Aether: We feel that the structure of the Aatrox teaser was received pretty well (especially for a first run) so it’s definitely something we’ll consider. That said, in some cases it’ll make more sense to create something over a longer stretch of time, such as the Lissandra teasers. Or something altogether different. It depends on what makes sense for the content.

Do you guys plan on doing more champion teasers like Ezreal’s forum post?

Aether: We’ve been toying around with a bunch of different formats for teasers this year, starting with IronStylus’s Quinn teaser, “Demacia Needs Heroes”. The Ezreal experience introducing Aatrox was another new approach, and one that we feel was received pretty well. You can expect to continue seeing teasers in a variety of formats going forward

How does it feel to finally have a Demon archetype in LoL?

ohmikegoodness: It feels AWESOME to finally have a demon type character in LoL. It was a really a pleasure to animate him, and the other artists on the team were really excited to work on this guy! Also THANKS on the banner stuff! I tried to get a banner feel from them, as we didn’t want to suggest they were used for locomotion! I took some queues from nature and frill lizards when they get angry they open up! Also I’ll pass on the <3 to our modeler Lee Strauss! He did an AMAZING job with the model and texture on this guy!

Why was the teaser for Aatrox so short? Was that an experiment?

Riot Harrow: We’re certainly experimenting with the story teasers – in this case, we came up with this particular idea specifically with Aatrox since he had that ancient history feeling. We’re still not locked in to one particular format for these things, so you can expect…I dunno, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

Will there be future Darkin champions in the near future?

Riot Harrow: Define “near future.” We have plans for the Darkin, but as usual, we can’t promise a timeline.

Design

Was Aatrox inspired by Balrog from Lord of the Rings?

ohmikegoodness: You know, what’s funny is I’ve worked on LOTR games, and yes I guess some of his animations were inspired from the likes of the Balrog and Sauron, but I wanted Aatrox to stand on his own as a highly agile, highly adept sword fighter!

Why make him a dark entity but then give him the Justicar skin?

(I will preview Aatrox’s Justicar Skin following the next PBE update, I had problems doing that in the previous article)

Riot Harrow: Skins are often a place to fulfill an alternate fantasy – but in this case, it also meshes with the base character. Since those he fights alongside often see him as more savior than villain, the skin sort of represents that more angelic interpretation.

Do Justicar Aatrox and Syndra share a theme?

Riot Harrow: They do – both are shooting for the feel of fantasy angels but with an authoriatian, controlling bent to them.

How did the idea for Aatrox come to realization?

Riot Harrow: The visuals, gameplay and story all developed organically, in parallel, around the goal of creating a unique, dark entity. A lot changed in early iteration – as art changed, it would inspire me to tweak the story, etc.

Were you ever concerned that Aatrox’s art/silhouette looked too similar to Kayle’s?

ohmikegoodness: We may have wings like Kayle and Morgana, but because of the way they moved and the way he’s posed, we weren’t worried about an overlap on art and silhouette. But that is something we ALWAYS keep in mind!

Why is Aatrox left-handed?

ohmikegoodness: So we chose the left hand because we wanted his model to look visually balanced in game. If the sword was in the right hand, he’d have lots of metal on one side. Putting it into the left hand made him look and feel a lot more balanced! Also we were able to get a nice contrast between his bare hand and his sword! Unrelated, I made Vi left handed because I’m a southpaw fighter! ;D

Why Aatrox’s sword sometimes jiggle, particularly during crit animations?

ohmikegoodness: Aatrox’s sword is actually organic and alive! I wanted to show it wasn’t just a normal sword by giving it movement. It’s solid in most of the auto attacks, but after the hit frame you can see it moving around. The crit animation he was using it more as a whip

Gameplay

Weren’t sustain mechanics deemed toxic? Why does Aatrox have them?

Riot Classick: The idea with Aatrox was to make him feel dependent on this sustain to help balance out his health costs. A lot of his gameplay revolves around controlling your current health with Blood Price and Blood Thirst. If you’re not using Blood Price you won’t output enough damage, so you have to find a balance between your health costs and your sustain. So while he does have some mechanics that have proved toxic in the past, we think that with his health cost gameplay can help remedy that and make his sustain a trade off instead of just a straight bonus.

Does he play similar to Kayle?

Riot Classick: Somewhat similar to Kayle once he has his ultimate yes, but Kayle has more ways to provide constant harass at range through her Q/E and Aatrox would have to play more of an all-in playstyle to go for a kill.

What’s with the rebirth-like passives? First Zac, now Aatrox?

Riot Classick: It just so happened that both of these characters had rebirth-type passives and ended up being completed at nearly the same time. With Aatrox we felt he needed a soft disengage which allows him to momentarily get out of the teamfight and re position himself after reviving. It also has a feeling of momentum to it as it builds when Aatrox spends health while he stays in combat which gives him windows of vulnerability early on in a fight. If he manages to stay alive over a long period of time he can resurrect with a respectable amount of health to finish off opponents.

Will we be seeing more champions like Mordekaiser, Vladimir, Zac and now, Aatrox, who use Health as a resource?

Riot Classick: This was purely coincidence, we have a large pipeline and Zac and Aatrox happened to be completed at nearly the same time. We don’t have any goals of making sure more champs are not using mana but we do want to make health cost gameplay more meaningful and scale throughout the entirety of the game.

Aatrox’s lore is all about him giving soldiers on a losing side strength and power, yet Aatrox doesn’t have anything like this in his kit. Was he originally designed with a team buff, and the lore wasn’t changed when that spell was scrapped?

Riot Classick: While it may have been a thematic tie in for the character to add something like a lifesteal aura to Aatrox at some point during combat, we found that putting that kind of power that is hard to notice would result in us nerfing the noticeable parts of the character which would overall make him feel less visceral and more cerebral.

In other words we wanted to emphasize him jumping in and slicing down opponents and not more supportive attributes such as a lifesteal aura. We also feel that while it may not be in the mechanics themselves, Aatrox’s playstyle should give that feeling to players on his team and create that experience based off his actions.

Is Aatrox an attempt to revive Melee Carries?

Riot Classick: While Aatrox certainly skirts the line of being a melee carry, he plays more of a fighter role while being auto attack focused. Meaning he brings more more utility to a fight and is slightly tankier, but most of his damage is primarily coming from auto attacking. As an example I would say his play style is similar to someone like Irelia but scales much harder with damage items while Irelia’s damage scales by building attack speed for Hiten Style.

How do you think Aatrox will be played in the current meta?

Riot Classick: I think it really depends on the team composition Aatrox is in, if he has to be the tank for his team then tanky/attack speed is mostly likely what he’ll build. In the case that he has a team composition that allows him to build a lot more squishy (tank such as amumu in jungle, morgana or kayle mid) he can build similarly to a more traditional melee ADC.

Doesn’t Aatrox conflict with your mentality of making top lane less snowbally?

Riot Classick: There’s a couple things that were done for Aatrox to help make him less snowbally, one thing we did with the ultimate is make it scale based on how many targets are hit. This allows Aatrox to scale harder in teamfights and prevents him from being nearly as powerful in 1v1 scenarios. His E ability is also great at letting him get some CS in lane when he’s being bullied.

Can Aatrox be played mid in any way?

Riot Classick: We have done a couple tests with Aatrox mid and found that he can function mid lane, but a lot of his damage comes from auto attacking over time and less burst so it can be hard for him to get kills early in the game.

Will Aatrox be a viable jungler?

Riot Classick: With what we’ve seen from our internal testing he definitely can jungle, I don’t think it’s particularly strong but it in the right scenarios it may be viable.

Lore

What do we know about the Darkin?

Riot Harrow: The world as a whole doesn’t know how many Darkin there are. That’s some privileged information you get as a reader As a bit of a future spoiler: three of the five, including Aatrox, are known to history, turning up in myths etc. The other two are completely unknown to the rest of the world. It’s unclear whether even the other Darkin know of them. They don’t talk much.

Does Kayle see in Aatrox a worthy opponent?

Riot Harrow: I think Kayle would definitely see Aatrox as something that must be destroyed, a bringer of chaos and war that disrupts order. I don’t think Morgana would have reason to think that Aatrox is tyrannical, he doesn’t seem to be trying to rule over anything. I think she’s still be suspicious of a figure she knows so little about, I don’t think she’d make allies easily.

Why was Aatrox teased as a hero of Demacians? Isn’t he a demon?

Riot Harrow: That window was a small part of a larger artwork, but essentially it was created to commemorate Aatrox’s involvement in a battle that Demacians won. It portrays Aatrox as an heroic figure, and since Demacians aren’t down with evil and stuff, it suggests that they didn’t see him as a villain. Raises an interesting question, though – how did Aatrox’s involvement affect those Demacians?

Are Morgana and Kayle related to the Darkin?

Riot Harrow: No, they’re from another world. As far as records show, Aatrox has existed solely in Runeterra.

Did Aatrox side with anyone during his stay on the Shadow Isles?

Riot Harrow: Unsure – it’s hard for people to research the Shadow Isles. Most explorers don’t come back. Or at least don’t come back the same…

Does Aatrox have any relation with the war in Freljord?

Riot Harrow: He wasn’t involved in the war at the Howling Abyss centuries ago, nor has he been directly involved in any recent conflicts. There’s evidence that suggests that he has taken part in at least one battle in the Freljord, however – it’s hard to say why, or how much of an impact he’s had on their history. Aatrox’s motives are hard to fathom sometimes…

Is Aatrox involved in Tryndamere’s lore?

For those of you who are not aware, in his lore Tryndamere is attacked by a dark nightmarish creature after having his home burned down and his clan slaughtered.

Riot Harrow: Well…the dark figure in Tryndamere’s lore sure sounds familiar, huh? And with the Freljord dagger that Ezreal found as evidence, it does seem very possible that Aatrox has been involved in some Freljord battles.

Fun Bits

How do you correctly pronounce Aatrox?

Riot Harrow: Ay-trox. As in “Bay.”

If he were to give up being an ancient warmonger and hit the club scene, he could call himself “DJ 8-Track.”

(not canon.)

What was your favorite part about working on Aatrox?

Riot Harrow: I always really enjoy the collaboration with the other members of the team. When I talk to them about the character and his story etc and then watch them walk away and create something inspired by it…it’s just cool to see your work come to life like that.

ohmikegoodness: My favorite thing about working on Aatrox was the challenge of what to do with his organic sword! Initially we made the sword animations a little more whip-like, but as a team we felt that the whip wasn’t going to be as impactful as a rigid sword. Also, animating a bloodthirsty demon is pretty BADASS!

Why doesn’t Aatrox attack with a banana?

Riot Harrow: We really try and avoid severely overlapping experiences like this in LoL. We already have an epic, powerful banana-combat experience (banana-combat simulator?) in Soraka, and Aatrox with a banana would either diminish her or be eclipsed by the superior banana-wielder. “BUT HARROW,” I hear you cry, “WHAT IF I’M LOOKING FOR EPIC BANANA DUELS?” My response, dear friends, is that LoL allows for champion mirror matches. For a perfectly balanced banana vs. banana experience, just pick Soraka on both teams.

Will he be a Dunk-Master like Yi?

Riot Harrow: I dunno, the Dunkmacia Slammers roster is getting pretty full. He’ll probably get to try out for the team and see how hard he can dunk. He believes he can fly, though.

Do you have teams for every champion? Like, does Irelia have a team and are they masochists?

ohmikegoodness: When we develop a champion we usually have small team with each department represented. Irelia’s team is constantly getting hit with nerf darts.

It seems to me Aatrox’s lips are painted. Why is he wearing lipstick?

ohmikegoodness: What Aatrox does on Summoner’s Rift, STAYS on Summoner’s Rift! ;D

How many mouthfuls does it take Aatrox to eat Teemo?

Aether: One. There’s not a lot of meat under all that fur.

Short overview

A quick summary with what I found most compelling in the AMA. Aatrox (Ay-trox) descends from the Shadow Isles and, contrary to his looks, he’s actually considered a hero among Demacians. Kayle seems to despise his existence, meaning we could possibly see a future interaction between them in the game, kind of what we have with Rengar/Kha’Zix. Also it’s hinted that he’s the mysterious figure who attacked Tryndamere during the massacring of his people.

On the gameplay side, Aatrox uses mechanics that were only recently discussed as toxic to the state of balance- specifically: infinite sustain via health-gaining abilities and no mana pool. The difference here is they tie into the decision-making when playing the champion, meaning the sustain he gets is based on clever play and is not just an added strength. Although Aatrox touches on Melee Carry gameplay mechanics, he falls more in line with fighters and is considerably tankier than champions like Fiora and Yi. He’s a weak mid and a meh jungler – clearly the design focus here was a top lane bruiser.

Aatrox was inspired by a lot of fantasy themes (eg. LOTR). His sword is actually alive and further emphasizes the dark sovereign nature of a creature that, to me, seems exiled and demonic, but not by choice. The most enticing idea of his design, in my opinion, is that he is not just another bloodthirsty demon. Sure, he’s vicious and that’s shown in his animations, but he talks to the Summoner in a very deep, profound tone that whispers knowledge of the world beyond what’s most often found in demon characters.

Balance-wise I really can’t say much. He seems alright so far, maybe a bit on the strong side, but most bruisers tend to leave that first impression. I haven’t yet seen a full-on late game teamfight with Aatrox, which is where I think he’ll start to fall off. He seems quite a capable laner, with the ability to engage, poke and finish off enemies as well as escape ganks. His ultimate is really strong, even in a 1v1 scenario. I don’t like how linear he seems in his design focus – he seems to be condemned to only one lane, but we’ve been surprised by unorthodox roles before, so maybe he’ll find glory in the jungle or even mid! What do you guys think? Do you see potential in Aatrox?

Space Banana Aatrox – coming in at 5000 RP!