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

 

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

 PBE: Zed Changes

 

        Zed

 

Razor Shuriken ( Q )

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

 

Shadow Slash ( E )

• Cooldown increased from 3 to 4 seconds

 

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

PBE: Item Changes

 

Mana Manipulator

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

 

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

 

Shard of True Ice

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

 

Mikael’s Crucible

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

PBE: TPA Skins

 

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

 

Dr. Mundo

 

 

Ezreal

 

 

Nunu

 

 

Orianna

 

 

Shen

 

 

 

Future improvements on Sion and Viktor

 

 

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

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

Sion, the Undead Champion

 

 

Feel No Pain ( Passive ) 

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

 

Heavy Blow ( Q )

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

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

 

Ferocious Charge ( W )

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

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

 

Enrage ( E )

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

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

 

Cannibalism ( R )

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

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

Kairon, the Undead Parasite

 

 

Soul Harvest ( Passive )

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

 

Hypnotic Gaze ( Q )

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

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

 

Death’s Caress  ( W )

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

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

 

Essence Transfer ( E )

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

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

 

Gonna Take You For a Ride ( R )

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

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

 

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

 

Why makes splitting Sion’s kit difficult?

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

The True Evolution

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

THE EVOLUTION IS NOT-REALLY-SOON(TM)

 

Will you keep his gameplay intact?

 

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

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

 

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

Map-specific Changes

 

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

 

 RiotNome: It’s shipped!

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

 

Will these changes affect Summoner Spells?

 

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

 

 

 

Will you balance ARAM?

 

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

50% Off New Summoner Names!

 

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

What about inactive accounts above level 10?

 

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

 

When will the names be freed up?

 

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

 

 

 

 

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

 

 

“We’re mostly concerned at the moment with the early laning snowball case of this item, rather than the teamfight potential…
… the majority of the pain point of Warmog’s should be how well it allows you to win the lane by mere stubborness and be immune to ganks.”

 

Warmog’s Armor has proven to be quite an issue for the balancing team in Season 3. According to Riot (and the majority of players), the biggest problem with it is how it allows you to become nigh immortal very early on. Making lanes unwinnable and letting bruisers get absurdly tanky with little farm is a flaw that makes the game binary and stale.

There are two dominant changes currently suggested- one is Riot’s idea for a nerf, the other is a clever playerbase solution that makes the item a bit more complex.

 

Regeneration lowered to 1% from 1.5%.

 

VS

 

Stats: +640 health
Passive: Gain 20 x Current Level in Maximum Health
Unique Passive: You gain health regeneration equal to 1.5% of your maximum health every 5 seconds.

 

Xypherous, technical designer for Riot, had this to say regarding the latter:

This particular idea reduces down to:

Punish players for finishing an item early – by making it so that the earlier you finish the item, the weaker this is and the more gold-inefficient it is.

To be perfectly fair, it is a path that works on certain statistics, particularly late-game statistics like % penetration – in which the disincentive is to gently guide people into realizing when the item is truly good.

However, this is a case where you are taking an item that is already not cost-efficient for raw health – punishing players that finish it early by making it even less cost-efficient thereby merely making anyone who finishes Warmog’s armor before the health-break even point into an ineffective build. The problem is compounded by that fact that it is Health that you are gating so the most desirable early game statistic is not available by finishing the item – thus what is most likely going to happen is that players will merely stack Giant’s Belts to get around your attempted fix.

While this will nerf the item, most definitely – it does so merely by making it a foolish option to upgrade the item until the numbers pan out. Did you buy Warmogs before level 15 to 18? Congratulations, you made a mistake. You should have bought another Giant’s Belt because you have tricked players into buying an item with negative gold efficiency until you deem it to be “correct.”

Players should be rewarded for finishing items that they want to buy – That is intrinsically the point of items – This change effectively “solves” rushed Warmogs by giving rushed Warmogs negative reward – punishing players who are doing well rather than solve the gameplay that a rushed Warmogs presents. Don’t get me wrong, this tactic is certainly valid in some games – if you want to be really heavy handed about it – but at a certain point, you should just say “Warmog’s Armor – Level Requirement: 15″ and be done with it. It’s a much cleaner way of accomplishing what you want innately. It’s no real surprise that most RPGs do use the idea of level restrictions for this very purpose.

However, level restricting an item doesn’t really fit into what we want for itemization.

 

THE PROBLEM:

 

I think Xypherous has dismissed this idea without much consideration and it’s because the numbers are quite off. 640 health is far too little, but it doesn’t mean the idea itself is flawed. Warmog’s should punish you for rushing it early. The very idea of its passive is for it to be effective once you have a high health pool, so if you have everyone rushing it, then obviously it doesn’t work as intended. Making the health bonus scale with level means it’s a less desirable choice early, but is still an overall great tanking item that helps vs both AP and AD. With the stats it provides, Warmog’s should not be a binary item. It can’t just have its stats nerfed, it needs tweaks to its design.

 

One more idea, this one not as radical:

 

Stats: +1000 health;
Unique Passive: You gain health regeneration equal to (0.1% * Level) of your maximum health every 5 seconds.

 

It suffers from a similar problem to the original one in terms of punishing you for statistics that you don’t want to see early – but since the magnitude isn’t as big, it’s not *as* bad.

However, structurally – it follows the same pattern – just on a much much smaller order of magnitude.

 

 

 

LEAGUE OF BRUISERS & STALE ITEM CHOICES

 

This is a discussion on the current fighter class – having a strong early and mid presence with multiple free stats, which ultimately leads to very lopsided battles.

 

Q: So I suppose my question is; is that where you want itemization to be? You want a cookie cutter build for certain roles that really only changes one, maybe two, items a game?

 

A: I suppose the answer to this is very champion specific. Some champions are going to have cookie-cutter builds. They have certain requirements that they *need* to have in order to function – and for the most part, that’s kind of fine.

However, some champions should be able to build with far more flexibility – like supports or mages – because their jobs tend to be far more flexible. The carry should also be able to build with far more flexibility to his needs – because his needs tend to shift the most depending on the enemy compositions.

However – for fighters, their job/role doesn’t change much. They are heavy divers that try to get to the backline. They don’t have as much conditionals – and I don’t really expect their items to diverge too much – as opposed to every other class who actually have shifting priorities. This may be a problem with the Fighter class as a whole, perhaps – but that’s something we’ll also have to solve on a more champion specific basis as well.

Q: So, in your opinion, the current ‘League of bruisers’ is actually a problem and you are trying to balance the items to make their role not so… I’m tempted to say dominant, but their job IS to be dominant, so I’m going to say not so snowbally/beefy/unkillable if fed?

 

A: So, I’m not going to lie – the vast majority of champions that are crazy now are bruisers with free resistances or resistance shreds of their own. I kind of knew this going in – that shifting baseline itemization was going to cause a lot of the things we did in the past to bite us back.

Like for example, Kayle, Xin Zhao, Jarvan. Notice a trend? Shreds. A lot of free damage. A lot of free resistances. Why did they need it? Because they couldn’t actually deal damage in S2 or live in S2 without a bunch of free statistics – but now that the classes are more balanced around each other – those free things that made them function are the same things that are making them crazy.

In the end – I think we’ll get there slowly, by either taking away offensive power and keeping the resistances, or taking away the resistances and keeping their power – but in many ways taking away a lot of the unnecessary tools they have now that they desperately needed in S2.

 

THE PROBLEM:

 

Xypherous believes bruisers are very straight-forward and that makes them troublesome to fix. There is no doubt about that- most dominant bruisers have either free resistances or really powerful steroids. They don’t need much in the way of offence, since they can easily overpower the enemy carries with their superior stats. True, most fall off in the late game, but by that time they’ve contributed to their team as both a tank and a damage dealer.

Bruisers jump to the carry and chase him relentlessly, that is their one and only job in a teamfight- unless they have strong peeling abilities with which to protect their own carry. A standard role doesn’t mean a standard item path, however. If you hinder the ungodly amount of free stats most of them get, you open branches in the offence section, making bruisers more diverse, more fun and, most importantly- more fun to play against. The idea of having a somewhat item-dependant champion on the team that can both survive and be a threat is solid, but at the moment most of them snowball far too much from this advantage.

With the vast changes from Season 2 to 3, champion design needs to move forward. Having stats inherently given as passives limits the viability of items. It ultimately means the bruiser needs to spend less to do just as much as everyone else and since resistances are now less effective, the issue is even more apparent.

 

Q: So in essence you want anything that isn’t a pure damage and/or cc move to come from items as opposed to the champ’s kit?

 

A: Not really. I just want the champion’s kit to have exactly what it needs to be unique and stand out on his own. Every single tool that we have (damage / cc / statistic) is something we use to make a champion feel more unique and his own.

Items should let players customize the champion to whatever they want – but what’s important is that we don’t feel forced to put certain things on certain champions because they need it because that’s the only thing making them work. You know? Like, the statistics shouldn’t be holding them up and viable – the statistics are yet another tool we have to make the champion feel awesome.

You don’t know the number of times we had to tack on a random AD scaling thing just to make a champion relevant late game – in a way that even our players don’t really like. “Why does Darius have 25% Armor Penetration for free?” – Because he really needed it, strangely.

 

Q: You don’t fear that this is going to make the game bland?

 

A: The statistics of a champion needs to synergize with the playstyle of the champion. In some cases, the character really needs the shred because that’s who they are as a character. In some cases, a character doesn’t need the damage because that’s not who they are as a character.

The analogy would be something like this: You have a unique character – then you have to glue a random ball of stats onto him to make him work. The random ball of stats obscures the uniqueness of that character somewhat.

Nautilus, in many ways, is defined by his lack of mobility – Yi, in many ways, is defined by his incredible free mobility from stats. Both of these are completely core to how the champion feels and the stats help to make the characters more unique.

However, Kayle randomly shredding your armor/mr doesn’t really make Kayle more Kayle. Her old AP/AD passive made Kayle feel even more like Kayle.

Free stats are a powerful force for uniqueness – when used correctly. However, in S2 – these characters needed so many other free stats that every fighter started looking like ‘Okay, here’s their free resistance steroid, here’s their free damage amp / item efficiency / armor penetration steroid – here’s their burst mitigation stat – and now we can actually make the character.’

 

Q: Is that to say you consider warmogs on champs like Kat or AD carries a problem?

 

A: I don’t consider Warmog’s on AD carries a problem – I feel like there’s a real and pretty awesome healthy debate on which is the best defensive item for AD carries. RO? Locket? FroMallet? Warmogs? GA?

While this might settle back into ‘you buy X on AD carries, it is the best defensive option’ – that’s much more of a concern.

I kind of want to push that even more – if an AD carry feels like he can really choose between 5 or 6 defensive items for his one defensive item and really choose between 5 or 6 really good items for his attack speed item – then mission accomplished.

However, we generally frown upon tank mages that deal a ton of damage – mostly because what they really are at that point is AP Fighters that weren’t ever really designed to be AP Fighters – thus when that happens, we try to retune them close back to the original view.

(It should make sense for Graves to want a Bruiser item as his defensive item. He’s a Ranged Carry that is 30% Fighter. It makes sense for Caitlyn to want a Frozen Mallet as her defensive item – she’s a ranged carry that wants to kite or train. Etc.)

 

Q: If an opponent gets Warmog’s first, I *must* get Ruined (if your plan goes through) next. If an opponent get’s a high-armor item, I *must* get Last Whisper next. How does that help customize my champion?

 

A: Not the goal – BoRK is ideal to get against Warmog’s – but that’s only if you decide that bruisers are your highest priority target.

If your goal is to still destroy everyone else on the team, IE/PD is still your best bet for damage.

If you want to counter someone specific – you are tailoring your builds to their builds to try to stop them – but recall, you have a lot of priorities as a carry, over and above just that bruiser.

In general, cutting a problem from multiple angles helps to stem the evil from any one angle from getting too out of line. Yes – the problem you describe exists – but that’s if we completely solve the problem only using this line of thought.

 

CONCLUSION:

 

Hitting stats gained from skills is a daunting choice. For one thing it may make bruisers obsolete, as these free stats are exactly the reason why some of them are currently dominant. With that being said however, we have an amazing opportunity here to finally shift the meta in a different direction. No longer will we be forced to pick someone with massive survivability for a top laner. Champions who were forgotten may become viable. Although the most pressing issue right now is fixing Warmog’s powercurve, it can easily be a stepping stone for adding a ton of variation to builds in general.

Warmog’s is loosely tied to Blade of the Ruined King. As Xypherous mentioned, resistance items are connected to shred items currently. This is a very dull approach to matters and it would be far more appealing if these choices were based on the enemy champion’s strength. For that to happen, items would need a more unique role. I’m not talking about active abilities, but merely having interesting solutions for unfavourable situations. Seeker’s Armguard is a step in the right direction- working to counter the champion himself is far more satisfying than merely buying a Last Whisper if he has a lot of armor, of BotRK if he’s stacking health.

Xypherous thinks in absolutely the right direction. Having champion design brought down to a more unique, less stat-dependant level means more variety in game-play. Many items that were considered a weak pick before may suddenly become viable. I dare call it the magic of DotA, where almost every item has a place and fuctions brilliantly on certain champions. No one expects every item to be comparable- niche choices are just as vital to a MOBA game.

 

Got any suggestions on fixing the current itemization? Share below!

 

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

Riot have decided to shift the EU schedule around for the coming week:

 

This was a very good call. Previously the buffer between the EU Super Week Friday and the four NA games that are set to take place after was very small. The EU LCS has quite often run a little behind schedule and with twelve games in one day there was a real possibility of significant delays to the start of the NA LCS. Further, it also meant that for those who wanted to watch the whole show that they would have had to spend 16+ hours straight glued to their monitors. This change means that twelve games is the most that will get shown on one day (twelve for NA, starting later today, and then eight EU + four NA on Friday).

We’re all pretty excited for Super Week over here at NoL, you can check out Riot’s hype video below.

- Jaszon ‘Lightblind’ Alexzander – @Ravus

 

See the PBE changes to Amumu, Kayle, Nidalee, Vi and Xin Zhao, as well as the new radial ping menu and the revealing artwork for Quinn!

 

 

Balance changes:

 

Amumu

• Bandage Toss ( Q ) damage lowered from 80/140/200/260/320
  to 80/130/180/230/280
• Tantrum ( E ) range lowered from 400 to 350
• Curse of the Sad Mummy ( R ) damage lowered from 150/250/350 to 150/225/300

 
 
 
 
 
Kayle

• Base Magic Resist reduced to 30 from 30.75 (+ .75 per level)
• Reckoning ( Q ) slow changed to 25/30/35/40/45% from flat 35% at all ranks
• Reckoning ( Q ) slow duration reduced to 3 seconds from 4 seconds

 

 

 

 

Nidalee

• Base Magic Resist reduced to 30 down from 30.75 (+ .75 per level)
• Cougar Form no longer grants bonus Magic Resist or Armor

 

 

 

 

 

Vi

• Denting Blows ( W ) damage reduced from 6/7/8/9/10% to 4/5.5/7/8.5/10% of Maximum HP
• Assault and Battery ( R ) damage lowered from 200/325/450 to 200/300/400

 

 

 

 

Xin Zhao

• Audacious Charge ( E ) damage lowered from 70/110/150/190/230
  to 70/105/140/175/210
• Audacious Charge ( E ) cooldown increased from 13/12/11/10/9 to 14/13/12/11/10
• Crescent Sweep ( R ) damage reduced from 125/225/325 to 100/200/300
• Crescent Sweep ( R ) cooldown increased from 100/90/80 to 120/110/100

 

 

Quinn Artwork:

 

Posted from IronStylus under the words “Hand to the ground. Eyes to the sky.” is a lovely art picture of Riot’s upcoming champion, Quinn:

 

 

Introducing the Ping Menu (aka more ways to be annoying) :

 

Holding the Alt button on the PBE and clicking will bring up a circular menu with pings to select. These are visible to allies both on the minimap and the actual map and each is associated with a certain message. Hold the button to select your ping, then click again anywhere on the map to place it!

 

 

How do you guys like the upcoming content and changes? Share in the comments below!

 

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

Are you a fan of Swain? If so, great news! Morello has officially stated that the long- awaited Dragonmaster Swain skin is in development!

 

Check out the forum thread here or see some of the Red posts from it below:

 

Creating a community – driven idea:

“We will do this skin – I’m sure of that.”

 

 

 

Just because of us?

“Swain doesn’t actually need a new skin (<3 Tyrant), we’d be doing this one JUST to meet the community request. It’s a cool skin idea, so we’ll make it.”

 

 

 

How soon?

We’ve actually known we were going to do this for awhile. Marking to remind myself why I shouldn’t have said anything in 3 months when everyone’s yelling that we failed to dleiver on our promise.

It’s not going to come out immediately, or maybe even soon at all, but we’ll do it.

 

This isn’t relevant to the new Swain skin, but I thought you guys might find it useful:

 

Featured Discussions ( by RiotOpti ):

Wanted to speak to this specific topic in this post and let you know that the Featured Discussion project is actually a Community team initiative. Morello doesn’t stick these posts, though I can totally understand why it would seem this way, given that a lot of the threads featured involve his posts. In fact, the intent of this program is to highlight forum threads that show particularly interesting player-Rioter interactions. As you know, threads move really quickly on these boards, so we thought it would be cool to make these kinds of threads more visible and easier to access for the average forum-goer.

 

What do you guys think of this community idea for a new skin? Share in the comments below!

 

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

 

 

 

Rioter RiotKiddington recently posted in a forum thread about the dodge penalties in Season 3. Chime in on the matter here, or check out some quotes I’ve selected below, as well as my opinion on the subject!

 

 

Why the penalty?

 

Queue dodging is a complex problem that involves much deliberation and consideration. We have a queue dodge system with a queue dodge penalty because we need to strike a balance between the need of players who wish to play the game and those who want to dodge the game (of any reason). Why Riot not just have a “free queue dodge” system of some form? The answer to this question is simple because it is too prone to abuse.

 

Regarding ARAM:

 

There is another segment of our player base that will queue dodge for competitive reasons. Let’s take current ARAM game mode as an example, the ARAM mode supposed to be all random in champion selection, and by logical extension of ARAM design, there should never be any “troll pick” or “mid or feed”. In reality: ARAM games currently have one of the highest queue dodge rate. Based on this information, have you considered why that is the case? Were these queue dodgers indifferent about their games? Or they cared too much about their games, and they will, at any instance of perceived disadvantage dodge the queue? One can’t deny there is a segment of our player base that would utilize the dodge system to enhance their competitive advantage if no strong discouragement exists. We need the queue dodge penalty to keep this group of players in check.

 

Failing to start a game:

 

One group of players we also need to take into consideration are those who want to play the game. There are times when I have a perfect team and the other side queue dodged (for whatever reasons), and this really sucks for me. Now if this happens 7 times in a row, it would really make me feel bad. This is not without history, we have seen last year when the Dominion queue dodge system failed to enforce queue penalty for months, the consequences of that bug were devastating. It will take 7-8 tries before a player can successfully launch a game. Once we fixed the dodge penalty bug, the number of tries needed to launch a game dropped dramatically.

 

 

 

Overview:

 

I‘d like to discuss Ranked games in particular, because to me ARAM is a chill mode and far from competitive. Obviously Riot wants to eliminate the threat of trolling, so much so that they are willing to reverse changes that many agreed with. It’s a reminder of the loss of Elo system we parted with back in Season 2, where if a player dodged a lobby in ranked, he/she would lose 10 rating. The system’s changed, it’s no longer Elo, it’s League Points, but the idea is basically the same. I myself gladly used, without abusing, the time-penalty system that preceded the current one. It was a safe way to dodge trolls or otherwise unpleasant figures. Two people arguing since last game? Leave! Someone picked ranged carry just because the guy in front stole his role? Leave! It was rather alleviating, it felt… justified. In my mind decent players should never be punished for being stuck with people who are less than eager to commit to the game.

Of course, that’s just one side of the problem. For the good of the community in general, the penalties were reintroduced It’s not fair for everyone but what is? I’ll leave you with a few suggestions that have been wandering on the forums that I, personally, agree with:

 

Kick/Ban system in lobby: Test it out, introduce it in a careful manner because it’s a system that can easily be abused. Best case scenario, this will be the end for a vast majority of negative experience in Ranked games. Maybe this shouldn’t work for duo premades?

Make the time penalties even more punishing: This is also a dangerous move since many people don’t have the time to play a lot of League of Legends, especially during workdays. But, many will agree that time penalties are the lesser evil. And they don’t even have to increase steadily. First leave could be a 30 minute punishment, but the next would jump to 2 hours and so on, making it less abusable than it currently is.

Add a report function to Champ Select: This is seriously needed as many of the players who troll are often dodged and left unpunished for their actions. To me it is a much cleaner example of terrible sportsmanship than in-game failures. It would help establish a level of mutual respect in lobbies, since the Tribunal threat would be present even there.

Automatic leave for Random Locks: Let’s face it, Random locking in Ranked is a sign of a player either trolling or AFK-ing. The feature itself doesn’t need to go. Why? It’s a great way to identify such actions as punishable! Drop the player from the Champ Select and set a penalty only for him/her. No drawbacks here.

 

 

What do you guys think about the dodge penalties? Should Riot once again punish players with loss of rating? Or can we find a middle ground in Season 3? Share in the comments below!

 

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

Source

Today Riot Lyte announced a new system for detecting and punishing Toxic Behaviour and it’s hitting the PBE today.

As an example, we have implemented a system on PBE that will automatically detect toxic behaviors and ban the players the same day—this system will go live today and will immediately punish 167 players with a 7 day ban. Depending on the consistency and severity of the toxic behaviors, this system will hand out bans that range in severity from a 7 day ban to a permanent ban from the PBE environment. This system will start off conservative and may have hiccups at first, but we hope to ramp up the aggressiveness of this system while maintaining a goal of 99% accuracy with a false positive rate of less than 1%.

 

An automatic system: capable of being judge, jury and executioner with 99% accuracy is the goal. Riot’s focus on removing the truly toxic players has always been very human, with the players (tribunal) or Riot themselves doling out the punishment. This will remove the human factor completely from day-to-day bans. It will be more efficient, but will it be better? Only time will tell. While it’s only coming to the PBE for now, and something as complex as this will almost certainly have a long testing phase, Lyte had one last thing to say:

Yes, all effective experiments will be promoted onto live environments.

Beep Boop, Ban the Baddies.

-Jaszon ‘Lightblind’ Alexzander

In the past few months we’ve seen Riot cracking down on toxic players in the professional scene. Harsh punishments have hit IWillDominate, Absolute Legends, Linak, and Envision. However, today, the hardest swing of Riot’s banhammer has come crashing down on Team Solo Mebdi.

Khaled “StunnedandSlayed” Abusagr and Nicolaj “Veigodx” Jensen have received lifetime bans and as of today are ineligible to compete in any Riot-affiliated events indefinitely. A third member of the team, Simon “Rayt3ch” Näslund, has received the standard one year ban from competitive play. Naturally this means Team Solo Mebdi will not be playing in the European LCS Qualifier.

StunnedandSlayed was reported in an absurd 18% of total matches and has had three other accounts permabanned in the past. One account is the infamous DarkwinJax, who has the highest harassment score ever recorded in the history of the EU West server. To add to the ridiculousness, he was reported over 1000 times during a 375-game period and threatened to physically assault a Riot employee. Jensen was completely unapologetic for his past actions and as seen above, has been caught engaging in DDoS attacks. He’s also been banned twice in the past under the names Wizikx and Wizikodex. While Rayt3ch was the least serious offender he’s still in the worst 0.01% of all European accounts.

Source

Yes, that’s Lance Armstrong. Google it.