Statikk elaborates on possible changes to Akali, huge talk of the future of Melee Carries, Morello discusses Sion, Rengar, Alistar and others, Scarizard with a future buff to Karma’s Renewal, jungling items on laners and more!

Akali in Diamond

Squishy Melees – where do they stand?

Melee Carries – from Offensive to Defensive

Buffs for Melee Carries! Do they need them?

Improvements to Karma’s Mantra’d Spirit Bond

Morello Posts

Jungling items in laning builds

 Akali in Diamond

Akali seems a bit on the weak side in Season 3, especially on the competitive scene. What has Statikk in store for the Shadow Dancer?

The Risk/Reward ratio of Akali

 Statikk: Firstly, I’d like to thank you guys for putting such effort into this discussion.

I’ll start with the definition of “risk” that our team operates on:

Risk

Risk is the opposite of safety and reliability. A risky champion is one whose success and contribution to a game is volatile, uncertain, and by no means guaranteed.

Risk can manifest itself in several ways. One common way is a champion with extremely low survivability (lack of defensive capabilities), but that’s not the only way a champion can be risky. For example, a champion can be risky because they have poor end-game scaling and thus must execute their early game flawlessly in order to end the game before they fall off. Lee Sin is a champion with great survivability (via decent defensive capabilities and amazing mobility), yet is still overall a risky pick because his power curve drives him to snowball games before the late game arrives. Lee Sin may not die a whole ton, but he still has to subject himself to risk in order to suceed.

For champions like Akali and Kassadin, their intended risk is to have weak laning phases where they can be shut down by their opponents and thus unable to snowball into the later parts of the game.

To an extent, every healthy champion in the game has some form of risk built into them since they all should have weaknesses that enemies can exploit. It’s more of a question of how risky any given champion, which is dictated by several different factors (namely the reward a champion receives for incurring the risk).

How does this affect Akali?

Defining risk as strictly low defensive capability (tankiness) and reward as strictly high offensive capability (damage output) is dangerous because it constricts the potential design space we have for giving power to our champions.

What about other avenues of power such as mobility or utility (crowd control / disables)? Sure we could design a high risk / high reward champion who had 1 base Health but had 10,000 base Attack Damage, but would that actually provide a satisfying / fun experience for that champion and/or their opponent? Probably not.

There are a lot of inherent reasons why Akali was not a risky champion: having access to free Spell Vamp, having Energy as her primary resource, having access to a ranged nuke, etc. These all contribute to why pre-nerf it was extremely difficult to shut her down. You guys are definitely right that removing the requirements on her passive definitely made her less risky, but unfortunately some decisions help us in one area and hurt us in another.

At the end of the day, yes I agree we overnerfed her (I think we’ll disagree by how much though). That should be apparent in that we are giving her some buffs in the upcoming patch. At this point, it is more about re-increasing the reward for playing Akali by giving her fun and interesting gameplay tools that she can use to outplay and outwit her opponents rather than reverting her to a point where she simply has more raw stats and damage numbers to brute-force her way through games.

Are we fully getting there with the changes in the upcoming patch? Maybe not, but it’s at the very least a good start.

What changes to Akali do you have in mind?

 Statikk: I think adding little tricks is a great way to start to see if we can edge Akali back into a place we feel is appropriate and where she still feels powerful.

I’d really like to see where she sits after this upcoming patch before moving forward.

As far as the nerfs we chose, we reduced her base damage but increased her ratio simply to hit her laning power but not reduce her late game scaling. Perhaps the ratio increase wasn’t enough to actually make it more of a tradeoff since it crosses old values at 300 AP. Maybe 200 was a more reasonable crossover point, but this is always a scary proposition considering Akali’s late game damage potential to squishy targets is still deadly when she snowballs.

 To be honest, the ult CD change may just have been flat out the wrong direction. It was essentially an attempt to reduce her ability to use her R’s simply for free damage harass at level 6 and force her to be much more thoughtful about its use, but it seems to have had a larger snowballing effect on her power level than we originally intended. This is why we’ll try to revert back half way to the original ult cooldown along with the addition to her W.

Interestingly enough, our data shows that the 5 HP Potion limit has really had no significant effects on champion performances across the board. It might be that some other changes in the patch offset its effects such as nerfing Red Elixir, but our internal data shows very little fluctuation of power levels due to last patch. If you think about it, many of the opponents she was going up against were also abusing the mass HP Potion strategy so it may have off set this advantage as well as other factors to consider such as the relative value increase of innate Health sustain on champions (ex: her passive Spell Vamp). This doesn’t mean the HP Potion cap hasn’t reduced her power level, but it does seem to point towards the fact that it might be perceived as a bigger hit to her than it really is.

As far as your ideas to completely change her E, that’s certainly a possibility if we feel that she can’t be both balanced and fun with her current setup. I’d be fairly hesitant to add another semi-ranged ability on her kit though, since she is after all supposed to be melee. I understand how it would be useful when she’s behind, but I would worry how it would function when she gets ahead in the lane as an addition to any Q harass.

Part of the problem with Akali (and several other squishy melee DPS / Assassins) is that she provides very little individual counterplay for her opponents once she begins to snowball. With the ability to long range dash up to 3 times on the same target, she just presses all of her buttons on the squishy person on the enemy team and the victim just has to hope that teammates are around to do something about it. That’s kind of the issue with squishy melee characters in general: the current counterplay is taken out of the hands of the individual getting killed and rather put upon the teammates to do something about it. That can feel really awful when Akali’s lane opponent loses and then you’re the squishy bot lane AD carry getting jumped repeatedly with no valid course of action to take.

Either way, I’m not led to believe that drastic measures are needed just yet. It feels like we messed up some numbers and we can get back to a good place if we just address that. I’m sorry if the current upcoming changes disappoint any of you guys, but I’m genuinely interested in seeing how she performs in the next patch.

 Statikk: Yeah I’m not sure on exactly where we can add more interesting gameplay hooks into Akali. The Twilight Shroud giving her vision of the area is definitely a cool start which gives her vision utility and the ability to jump to stuff that was previously in fog of war.

I thought about different ideas for the majority of last weekend. Some ideas (these are mostly random ideas by the way that most likely will never be implemented) were allowing her to Shadow Dance to allies or the center of her Twilight Shroud, allowing her to have multiple Twilight Shrouds on an ammo system, etc.

I’m actually pretty happy with what is going into the next patch. Our team is currently spending a lot of time figuring out where and how we’d like to see squishy melee champions like Yi, Fiora, and Akali succeed in League of Legends.

 Statikk: I think increasing her Movement Speed while within the Twilight Shroud could be a pretty cool change. It does further add complication to an already fairly complex ability (stealth, Armor/MR, slows enemies) though.

How about lowering the cooldown between her dashes?

 Statikk: Although a change like that feels great for the Akali player, it reduces the time window her opponents have to react to her engaging them. Since the pace of fights speeds up as the game goes on though, it makes sense for the cooldown to scale down between dashes.

Are these changes aimed at the competitive scene?

 Statikk: We were and are still fully aware that Akali is not a strong competitive pick (she was a surprise pick before the nerfs in tournaments but was extremely rare). The nerfs were not aimed for competitive play whatsoever.

Going back to the melee counterplay discussion, you guys are right. As players become more skilled and more coordinated, they naturally execute the counterplay to squishy melee champions by grouping together, focus firing effectively, and peeling for their allies. When the only counterplay to a champion exists is solely team-based, then there are huge disparities between high Elo and low Elo play. This is not an ideal situation.

Akali is currently in the same boat as many other squishy melee champions such as Master Yi: if/when they are balanced in competitive play they become unhealthy for lower levels of play due to the fact that the majority of their counterplay is dependent upon allies not screwing up. The solution here is what Sayath has been saying: increasing the skill ceiling on these champions and in turn increasing the depth of their counterplay.

Like I said before, this is something Xypherous and I have been putting a lot of effort into lately and our 2 first focuses are Akali and Master Yi.

 Squishy Melees – where do they stand?

Note that some of these comments are again tied to Akali.

Items that counter specific mechanics

* Add Lightbringer and Hextech Sweeper to Summoner’s Rift, or add alternatives. The Trap Detection aura is probably unneeded in Summoner’s Rift, and the duration of the reveal is possibly too long. I currently use Pink Wards and this might honestly be enough, but it’d be nice to have an item that fills the slot late game. (I’ve attached an image that I think appropriate describes the frustration with Oracles)
* Improve Executioner’s Calling so that it actually feels like a viable item, even if it arguably is already. Making it apply to all physical damage is the first thing I *really* want from this item, as it’s hard for melee champions to apply it to ranged champions.

Being able to see her and to cut her sustain in half are means to counterplay her.

Statikk: Strategic counterplay via items is typically something only higher skilled players tend to latch onto. This is why Evelynn’s old stealth was extremely problematic. Sure it was counter-able with Vision Wards and Oracle’s but accessing these counters were neither naturally obvious nor fun or satisfying to accomplish.

Although strategic item and team coordination counterplay will always exist and play a role in League of Legends, healthy champions will always have some kind of natural, individual-based counterplay to their gameplay such as having to land/dodge skillshots.

Aren’t you removing reward rather than adding risk with these changes?

‘

Statikk: No, I think you’re equating risk to “early game weakness” and reward to “late game strength.”

That pattern exists on a champion like Vayne. It’s definitely 1 way to create risk and reward on a champion, but it’s not the only way.

For example, I would say both Lee Sin and Taric are champions who have dominant early games and fall off later in the game in their respective roles. Yet Taric is not a risky pick because he is very consistent and does what you expect him to do with little regard to external factors due to his straightforward mechanics / gameplay and generally low skill ceiling. Lee Sin, on the other hand, has a huge skill ceiling and you never know what to expect when you have one on your team — he might utilize his mobility to gank early and carry the game or he might completely fall flat and feel useless.

Lee Sin’s risk is “falling behind and being weak later on” and his reward is “extremely potent early gank and snowball potential.”

To an extent due to individual player skill / performance, all champions have some variance in success, but I would definitely say Lee Sin is a much more volatile and risky champion than Taric despite similar power curves across game time.

What changed for Melee Carries between Season 2 and 3?

Statikk: I can’t exactly pinpoint 1 reason why Akali became such an issue because honestly as you guys have pointed out there are always a multitude of factors that come into play that add up. One of the bigger shifts from S2 to S3 is that in S2, ADCs had stronger and more effective itemization, especially in terms of gold efficiency. I really do think that the extreme power of ranged ADCs kept many potentially strong squishy melee champions down. I would say though that Akali’s kit has never had enough depth and counterplay that would allow her to be balanced in a healthy way. I would say the same about Talon as well.

Breakdown of the Assassin

Strength:

• High Mobility,
• Single target threat
• Very High Scaling Damage
• Burst Potential

Weakness:

• Little to no CC
• Longer then average CD
• Single target oriented
• Low base damage

Ultimate goal. Take out the highest threat on the opponent by either killing or crippling the target through the use of positing tools/mobility.

Buffs for Melee Carries! Do they need them?

A few words on Akali, Master Yi and Fiora since they’re among my favourite champions. As Statikk explains, currently, the risk they take is often too great to justify the benefit of playing them. While some may disagree, on the competitive scene that is absolutely true and in fact, the balance team is working on future improvements to these champions. Some of the ideas discussed by Rioters for Akali include an ammo system for Twilight Shroud where she could lay multiple cloaking fields quickly and hop between each one’s center using Shadow Dance or even the ability to dash to allies! For Fiora we have the long-awaited promise from Morello to allow Riposte to repel on-hit CC abilities. No word on Master Yi, since he’s an odd case, being able to build AP instead of AD.

Riot is still looking for possible nooks to fit Melee Carries in. Obviously, in the current meta, without looking into specific comps, they’ll require something grand to become competitive picks, be it a new item or a mechanic. The issue is these champions are supposed to be the epitome of crushing power, but power levels in the League have generally been reduced, leaving only the glaring issue that Ranged Carries perform just as well, but from a safe distance.

One mechanic I’ve seen many MMOs implement to combat this is added buffs to melee champions – things like reduced crowd control duration or % Damage Reduction from the get-go. Rioters have stated they don’t want to just up the stats on Melee Carries, but right now, they lack the hook to be picked on a consistent basis. They have great mobility and solid upfront damage with no way of mitigating damage other than perhaps a short invulnerability or stealth. All this melds into a kit that’s fun to use, but highly situational – not exactly a favourable choice.

So you have an inherently weak champion with abilities that can lead to heavy snowballing but can also be countered effortlessly by an organized team. That has “pubstomper” written all over, as people generally lean towards picks that are strong during all stages of the game. The weak laners are most often found in the jungle and are rarely relied upon for hard carrying. With that being said, maybe we’re playing these carries wrong entirely? Wouldn’t Akali benefit from a CC-heavy support? Doesn’t Fiora fare infinitely better on the bottom lane? At the very least, these champions could use a team composition that helps them snowball.  Squishy melee assassins slaughter individuals, but can be camped easily by junglers and get shut down in larger fights. Not saying champions such as Akali, Fiora and Yi are in a good spot in terms of viability, but then again if you have a team-reliant champion on your team and you’re not assisting him in any way, that’s solo queue mentality.

And finally, a quick summary of Absolute 42‘s idea of giving Melee Carries enough defensive abilities so they become self-sufficient and competitive. The big thing here is making these visually distinguishable. Most defensive spells feel really lackluster in terms of animation cues. By giving players a clear warning of when, for example, Fiora will parry, or specific mechanics so that Yi and Tryndamere healed in a more obvious way, it allows the balance team to make bolder choices in terms of spell numbers and higher reward mechanics. Another potentially revolutionary idea is to make their kits more defensively-oriented. This would again allow them to stack up on damage items without being a detriment to the team versus competent players.

So we have stronger abilities for sustaining in a teamfights, while having a delay on casting and relying on positioning, and a defensive kit with the intention being on building glass cannon. And as we saw, a lot of this matches Morello‘s opinion! In closure – because Ranged Carries deal so much more damage, simply dealing even more damage isn’t enough to make Melee Carries viable.

Improvements to Karma’s Mantra’d Spirit Bond (R+W)

Since Karma’s remake, all her Mantra abilities feel significantly more powerful and worthwhile. All except one… What’s Scarizard‘s opinion on the currently underwhelming life steal from Spirit Bond?

 Scarizard: Looking at tackling this in the next patch. Overall, i’m pretty happy with how Karma’s been playing on live, with the W2 being the only sore spot. We have a QoL fix for her Soulflare coming in 3.7 (it’s not going to pierce minions or anything wacky) but should definitely help the spell feel better.

In the 3.5 Balance Update, we made a change where Inner Flame and Soulflare both would detonate at the area of missile impact instead of auto-locking to the center of the area hit. This was a pretty nice fix for Inner Flame, making it easier to both farm and harass champions near minons (previously, you would Q 3 ranged minions in a line – and instead of exploding and hitting all three, the impact zone would lock onto the left-most or right-most minions, meaning you’d hit two of 3. Feels bad, man.) However, in the case of Soulflare this has kind of been a nerf – you clip more people with that radius than you did before, but it increased the ability for champions hit spot-on to walk out of it due to the zone spawning with them mostly outside of it already. It’s small, but it’s something we could easily change and have.

Looking to the future, though (as this thread is about W2), i’ll be working on and testing an iteration of Renewal that hopefully makes the healing more reliable and useful in the dueling scenarios. She’s getting a lot more mantras than before, but with 1 of her 3 choices feeling ‘wrong’ even when the situational read was correct, it’s certainly not helping her play experience.

Do you think Renewal (R+W) needs a buff?

 Scarizard: The change the W2 isn’t intended to be a huge increase in power, but most likely will be a buff due to the fact that W2 isn’t used/is underpowered right now. We’re pretty much on analysis watch for Karma at this point (we don’t usually give two rounds of significant buffs to a champion and then keep going), and W2 is the last thing on my plate currently in terms of Karma.

This isn’t to say she won’t get buffs in the future if she’s consistently weak. This is true of all our champions – but Karma’s seen a spike in power with recent buffs and sometimes champions who aren’t in the limelight sit at a lower winrate until discovered. I remember a certain Void Mantis, Shadow Ninja and many others who had a ~45% winrate until seeing play.

I’m not just going to turn off my karma-sensors after the W2 fix goes out, so don’t worry about feedback going unheard. We just want to make sure we understand that if she -is- still weak after all of the changes that we don’t just give her ‘more buffs’ (which the community has said they don’t want) and instead are able to pump power into the parts of her kit that players enjoy, or that are defining to her.

 Morello Posts

Update on the Rengar changes, talk of Sion’s rework, Alistar, the concept of a healing champion and more!

How’re the Rengar changes coming along?

 Morello: Still getting it fleshed out. It’s more substantial than just numbers, so requires more to test.

Community ideas for the upcoming Sion rework

Here’s my own input:

1. Visually/Artistically/Thematically: I think this guy fits in the Shadow Isles theme more than he fits the Noxian theme. I wouldn’t mind seeing a drastic rework on his base skin and analogies to make him fit there even more thematically. What do you think of this?

2. Gameplay: To be honest, there’s not much to say here since our opinions coincide quite a lot. I like him as what he was designed to be, and I don’t like his AP gameplay. I would like to see him in line with the new champions though, I think that not giving him new mechanics will make him feel -or be- outclassed.
Regarding the AP thingy: As I said, I don’t like it. But there’s people that are heavily attached to him, and I do think that his kit can be remade to contain both the AP and AD gameplay. If you would like to hear my idea, I’d gladly provide it (actually, I’m not posting it straight out because I want to know you saw this, and because I want to know whether you’re interested in something like this.) What you’d do with that from that point and on would be totally up to you.

Thanks for hearing me out, I hope I get to discuss with you.

 Morello:

1) I think Noxian or SI could work. Depends on what story there is to tell – the undying, revered champion of Noxus, or something more supernatural?

2) Yeah, I just think for this character to have any cohesion, this is where we need to go. It’s a cool direction, but a character that has two gameplay attachment styles will always have to pay a sacrifice to be fixed.

If you’re unfamiliar with this discussion, you can check out my article on it here.

Why not use Dota’s itemization for Melee Carries?

 Morello: I’m not willing to make BKB just to add a new class to the game. Game becomes way, way worse for it.

For those confused by the post, BKB (Black King Bar) is an item in Dota and Dota 2 that grants magic immunity for a few seconds.

Why not make a healing champion? Like the Monks in Guild Wars?

 Morello: And Monks are the most fun healer design to play that I’ve seen, agreed. Monks also dictate everything about Guild Wars’ PvP. The whole game IS the Monks. Monks being fun comes at the cost of every other class feeling way worse.

That’s why dedicated healers are not a good design in PvP.

Why did you let AP Yi exist for so long? He was incredibly toxic.

 Morello: You’re right – it is toxic and we agree. It’s not overpowered, but it’s definitely bad gameplay interaction. We’re working on something a little bigger to fix Yi more, so we’re waiting for that (which shouldn’t be too much longer).

Alistar is incredibly powerful by design. What’re your thoughts?

Alistar is by far the best peeler in the game. 7 second CD (max cdr) on W and Q makes it almost impossible to “dive” his carries during a lategame teamfight. Knockback and knockup CC’s are invaluable, partially due to how tenacity works. Because of this, it might as well be impossible to “nerf” this aspect of Alistar without remaking the champion. You can lower the stun duration, you can raise the mana costs, you can raise the CD’s, and Alistar will still do the very same thing.

This is why you are correct to assume that the imbalances reside in his E. I would argue that his ult could also use a change. When Guinsoo remade Alistar, I urged him to leave the flat AD on Unbreakable Will. This is because I was an advocate of AD Alistar (trinity+CDR). Nowadays, the usefulness of the flat 60/75/90 AD has phased out. If I’m going to build a Sheen, it’s building into an Iceborn Gauntlet. Rarely do I even complete that item in the first place, because I find myself buying Sightstone, Kindlegems, Boots 5 and oracles.

To sum up what I’m trying to say – it would be pretty hard to ruin what “Alistar is”. If you are going to nerf/change his sustain (and rightfully so), please take a look at mana costs and how it will affect his laning phase vs long range poke. If you change his ult (I urge you to), consider removing/changing the AD portion of it. AD Alistar simply isn’t a viable build at any respectable elo where your gold income is spent on health, wards and utility. His abysmal attackspeed is only alleviated by items like Trinity and Zephyr – items that supports simply don’t have money to buy.

 Morello: Great feedback – Statikk and I will discuss these specifics. I’m likely going to make E not a lane sustain tool, but maybe something else helpful when aggression and peeling is what’s happening (Alistar needs the risk of being worse when he’s behind, like other good tank supports).

 Jungling items in laning builds

Lastly, we have Statikk discuss laners building items suited for junglers and whether or not that’s an issue.

 Statikk: It really depends on why the item is being bought. I actually don’t mind things like Ezreal building Spirit of the Elder Lizard. I think it actually provides more diversity to the game.

If the item is simply being bought because it is extremely overpowered, that’s not ideal. On the other hand, if it’s being bought because it provides unique strengths that aren’t offered by any other items, I think that’s really cool. Interestingly enough, I think all 3 of the Spirit Stone upgrades currently provide unique niches in the game.

For example, I think a champion buying Spirit of the Ancient Golem in order to open up the potential buy Boots of Mobility instead of Merc Treads is great. I think a champion buying Spirit of the Ancient Golem because it’s just more stat efficient than a Warmog’s is not great.

I do think we need to do a deeper analysis in terms of how much junglers should be benefiting more from these items as opposed to laners, but I think it’s fine as long as they are only alternatives to different strategies and not just strictly always superior choices.

Aren’t Spirit Items too strong right now?

 Statikk: Well, we just have to take into account that jungle efficiency when we assess the power level of the items.

To be honest with you, yes I do think that there is a good possibility that the Spirit items are a bit too good right now, but I don’t think at a fundamental level it is bad if laners ever buy them. As with any item in our game, it’s a problem when any item becomes the only dominant choice, but it’s awesome when they are an alternative.

Materials used:

Heavily edited icons and splash arts from LoLWiki, all of which belong to RiotGames.

Edited artwork of Bloodmoon Akali by artist gaby14link on Deviantart. He does lots of awesome LoL art, if you’re interested.

What’s your opinion on the topics discusses? Share below!

If you have any questions feel free to ask me, again in the comment section!

A small balance patch (including the new shield mechanics for Lux and Diana), no changes for Shyvana for now, Poppy’s Heroic Charge improved, Map and Champion-specific item sets and a new lore piece, courtesy of Ezreal!

Balance Changes

Shyvana changes delayed

Poppy’s heroic charge reworked!

Improvements to Item Sets

An ancient mystery in Runeterra

Balance Changes

     Diana

Pale Cascade ( W )

• Now stacks instead of refreshing.

        Lux

Prismatic Barrier ( W )

• Shield increased from 50/65/80/95/110 + 0.25 AP to 80/105/130/155/180 + 0.35 AP (reverted to normal).
• Now stacks instead of refreshing.

      Nunu

Consume ( Q )

• In the tooltip, “Lizards” has been replaced by “Reptiles”.

   Shyvana

• All changes have been reverted. Read below for more.

Shyvana changes delayed

   Shyvana

Flame Breath ( E )

• Damage lowered from 80/125/170/215/260 to 80/110/140/170/200
• Tooltip now applies a DoT called Cinders for 5 seconds.
• 15% Armor Penetration buff removed
• This effect is applied to all enemies if cast during Dragon Form

Dragon’s Descent ( R )

• Now brings enemy champions along the path with her

 Xypherous: I just pulled this from the 3.7 patch.

While we want to do things to Shyvana – she just isn’t testing well enough for us to be confident in shipping her in 3.7. We know that ‘E’ feels lackluster and that her ‘R’ could be cooler, we’re just playing around with what specifically.

Poppy’s heroic charge reworked!

Improvements to Item Sets

The following PBE announcement has been placed on the official community site:

Summoners!

After reviewing your feedback, we’ve made some big changes to Item Sets. We’re still working on it (for example, you are not yet able to stack items), but we’re ready to make it available again on PBE so we can start another cycle of discussion.

What’s new?
———-
-Page Management:

–The drop down menu has been replaced with a full list so you get a broader overview of all your Item Sets.

- Map and Champion Associations:

–You now have precise control over which champions and maps your Item Sets can be used with.

–When you get into a game, you’ll only see the Item Sets relevant to your current game, ordered by their specificity.

———-
As with everything we bring to PBE, we will continue to iterate based on your feedback. Don’t forget to report any issues you encounter.

Thanks!

So as you see here, I’ve picked Blitzcrank and have assigned to him a Starting Set for Dominion. That’s right, you can now choose your sets for each champion and game mode! You can associate your builds with each map or champion or you can go into specifics – the choice is yours! (well, at least on the PBE it is)

An ancient mystery in Runeterra

An interesting lore piece has hit the forums:

Hey, everyone. Ezreal here.

Normally, I wouldn’t ask for help. I’ve come across a lot of interesting relics in my travels, but never anything like these.

I’ve gathered everything on my desk for all of you to take a look. The important thing is that these relics were found all over Runeterra, and they date from different and completely unconnected eras. The thing is… they all share one similarity: they show a dark figure, clearly inhuman, wielding a jagged blade. 

This is a mystery I’m not sure I want solved. From what I can gather so far, this dark figure has been at the center of many bloody conflicts and tales of war.

What do you think? Who is this figure, and what role has he played in Runeterra’s history? 

Oh, and if you really want to hear some of the stories about these things… I’ll tell them, but some of them aren’t pretty.

Stay tune for more juicy lore bits!

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

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

Xypherous on Patch 3.7

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

Catch up:

• PBE Champion Update
• PBE Zed & Item Update

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

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

Minion Damage Reduction?

Minion Damage Reduction

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

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

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

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

Akali

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

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

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

Nunu

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

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

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

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

Warwick

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

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

Caitlyn / TF / Varus / Zed / Zac / Rumble

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

Diana / Lux

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

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

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

Cassieopeia

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

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

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

Galio

* Changes reverted

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

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

Items

Mana Manipualtor

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

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

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

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

Mikael’s Crucible

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

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

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

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

Q&A Session

Champion Balance

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

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

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

What are the reasons behind the Galio changes?

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

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

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

Why are you shifting Galio to a support tank role?

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

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

What are your thoughts on Caitlyn?

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

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

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

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

Why did you give Quinn such poor range?

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

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

Can you clarify on the Lux/Diana shield changes?

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

Do you consider Rammus a viable pick?

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

What are the problems with Warwick?

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

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

Why is Olaf being neglected?

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

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

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

Can you fix Leblanc’s powerlevel curve?

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

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

What about making Nami’s passive scale with level?

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

Minion damage & PBE Community Website

Why are you reducing minion damage?

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

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

Will the minion damage reduction mastery return?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melee AD Discussed

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

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

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

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

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

The problem with Melee Carries is:

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

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

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

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

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

Rengar buffs soon!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How do you plan on buffing Rengar?

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

Will you change how Rengar feels?

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

What will his role be in the end?

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

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

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

Potential champion concept leaked!

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

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

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

The Hunt will soon be on!

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

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

 PBE: Zed Changes

        Zed

Razor Shuriken ( Q )

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

Shadow Slash ( E )

• Cooldown increased from 3 to 4 seconds

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

PBE: Item Changes

Mana Manipulator

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

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

Shard of True Ice

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

Mikael’s Crucible

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

PBE: TPA Skins

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

Dr. Mundo

Model\

Ezreal

Model

Nunu

Model

Orianna

Model

Shen

Model

Future improvements on Sion and Viktor

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

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

Sion, the Undead Champion

Feel No Pain ( Passive ) 

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

Heavy Blow ( Q )

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

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

Ferocious Charge ( W )

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

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

Enrage ( E )

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

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

Cannibalism ( R )

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

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

Kairon, the Undead Parasite

Soul Harvest ( Passive )

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

Hypnotic Gaze ( Q )

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

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

Death’s Caress  ( W )

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

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

Essence Transfer ( E )

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

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

Gonna Take You For a Ride ( R )

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

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

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

Why makes splitting Sion’s kit difficult?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The True Evolution

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

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

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

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

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

THE EVOLUTION IS NOT-REALLY-SOON(TM)

Will you keep his gameplay intact?

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

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

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

Map-specific Changes

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

 RiotNome: It’s shipped!

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

Will these changes affect Summoner Spells?

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

Will you balance ARAM?

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

50% Off New Summoner Names!

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

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

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

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

What about inactive accounts above level 10?

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

When will the names be freed up?

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

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

More PBE Balance changes introduced! Rioters discuss Lux and Diana’s shields changes, Udyr stealth nerf, preview of the legendary Blackfrost Anivia, a Freljord mini-website and the next Champion/Skin Sale announced!

I’ve organized the content in the following categories:

PBE: Balance Changes
Lux/Diana
Udyr’s Tiger Nerf!
Explore the beauty of the Freljord
Freljord Summoner Icons – here’s how!
Blackfrost Anivia
Champion/Skin Sale – May 3rd – 6th

PBE: Balance Changes

     Diana

Pale Cascade ( W )

• Damage readjusted from 20/35/50/65/80 to 22/34/46/58/70
• Shield lowered from 55/80/105/130/155 + 0.45 AP to 40/55/70/85/100 + 0.3 AP
• The second shield now stacks with the first, instead of replacing it

Read CertainlyT‘s comment on the matter below.

      Elise

Spider form ( R )

• No longer grants bonus armor or magic resist.

      Galio

Resolute Smite ( Q )

• Damage lowered from 80/135/190/245/300 + 0.6 AP to 80/125/170/215/260 + 0.5 AP
• Mana cost lowered from 60/65/70/75/80 to 60 flat
• Cooldown lowered from 7 flat to 7/6.5/6/5.5/5 seconds
• Movement speed reduction now only lasts for 2 seconds down from 2.5

        Lux

Prismatic Barrier ( W )

• Shield lowered from 80/105/130/155/180 + 0.35 AP to 50/65/80/95/110 + 0.25 AP
• The second shield now stacks with the first, instead of replacing it

Read CertainlyT‘s comment on the matter below.

Miss Fortune

Impure Shots ( W )

• Damage lowered from 6/8/10/12/14 to 4/6/8/12
• Number of stacks increased from 4 to 5
• Tooltip updated to state maximum damage from stacks as 20/30/40/50/60 + 0.25 AP

      Nami

Aqua Prison ( Q )

• Stun duration increased from 1.3 to 1.5 seconds

     Nunu

Consume ( Q )

• Now gains bonuses for 120/150/180/210/240 seconds based on the type of creep he has consumed.

• Golem – 10% maximum health and 10% increased model size

• Lizard – Your attack deal an additional 1% of your maximum health as magic damage.

• Wolf / Wraith – 15% bonus movement speed on kill for 3 seconds.

• Damage increased from 500/600/700/800/900 to 600/700/800/900/1000
• Heal decreased from 125/180/235/290/345 + 1.0 AP to 90/130/170/210/250 + 0.75 AP
• Cooldown increased from 16/14/12/10/8 to 17/15/13/11/9

   Rumble

Electro Harpoon ( E )

• Damage lowered from 55/85/115/145/175 + 0.5 AP to 45/70/95/120/145 + 0.4 AP
• Bonus damage from Danger zone increased from 25% to 50%

   Shyvana

Flame Breath ( E )

• Damage lowered from 80/125/170/215/260 to 80/110/140/170/200
• Tooltip now applies a DoT called Cinders for 5 seconds.
• 15% Armor Penetration buff removed
• This effect is applied to all enemies if cast during Dragon Form

Dragon’s Descent ( R )

• Now brings enemy champions along the path with her

     Varus

Piercing Arrow ( Q )

• Minimum damage increased from 10/43/77/110/143 to 10/47/83/120/157
• Maximum damage increased from 15/65/115/165/215 to 15/70/125/180/235

Hail of Arrows ( E )

• Damage lowered from 65/105/145/185/225 to 65/100/135/170/205

        Zac

Elastic Slingshot ( E )

• Damage lowered from 80/130/180/230/280 to 80/125/170/215/260

Let’s Bounce! ( R )

• Tenacity lowered from 75% to 50%
• Damage per bounce decreased from 160/240/320 to 100/150/200
• Tooltip no longer states that enemies hit more than once half damage.

Lux/Diana

Read below to discover the reasoning behind the Diana/Lux changes, as well as insight on Udyr’s live stealth nerf!

On the changes to Lux and Diana

 CertainlyT: These data mined “patch notes” often completely miss the boat, since they are just grabbing numbers without context into associated mechanics changes. We should probably develop a better system for communicating PBE changes to players as we put them on that environment. We just need a way of doing so without making speculative efforts seem like certainties.

The change to Diana/Lux that is on PBE for testing is that their shields have lower values, but if the second trigger is met (3 orbs broken and boomerang double hitting respectively), the shields will stack instead of renew. Volty feels this opens up new opportunities for premeditated gameplay (like stacking a monster Lux shield on your team as you engage), while making aggressive counterplay more rewarding since hitting a Lux shield with the projectile still airborne can feel like an exercise in futility.

Udyr’s Tiger Nerf!

      Udyr

Tiger Stance ( Q )

• The damage on-hit can only be procced within the first 5 seconds of activation
• Damage on-hit is lost when swapping stances

Why does Udyr’s proc on-hit disappear when I switch stances?

 Pabro: This is intended. The temporary attack speed from Tiger Stance lasts 5 seconds, swap stance or not, but the first attack bonus can only be applied if you are still in Tiger Stance. Upcoming changes to the tooltips and buffs will make this more clear.

Is this change game-breaking? To an extent yes, you lose a 1.5 AD Scaling Spell if your target slips away and you have to switch back to Bear Stance. It basically ruins Udyr’s already limited combo.

But wait, there’s more! Statikk is here to present a far more detailed explanation on the matter:

 Statikk: Sorry guys, I’d like to start by apologizing because we definitely screwed up here both in terms of what we put into the game and what we failed to communicate out to you guys, but let me clarify what is and what is not intended with Udyr’s Tiger Stance.

What Is Intended:
- Udyr can “prime” Tiger Stance’s damage-over-time proc indefinitely as long as he remains in Tiger Stance
- Tiger Stance’s Attack Speed bonus carries over into other Stances

What Is Not Intended:
- Udyr should not be able to use Tiger Stance’s damage-over-time proc while in other Stances

With the new patch, we removed his ability to get the Tiger first hit proc unless he used it within the first 5 seconds of being in Tiger Stance. This is not intended. Udyr’s first hit after switching into Tiger Stance should proc the DoT regardless of how long he has been in Tiger Stance, but the instant he switches out of it he will not be able to proc it.

I know removing the ability to proc the Tiger DoT while in other stances is a nerf, but it is intended. Frankly, it doesn’t make sense for him to apply his Tiger hit in other Stances from several perspectives (gameplay, visuals, or thematics). Tiger’s proc, Bear’s stun, and Phoenix’s Flame Breath are all intended to be local to those stances. At the end of the day, if the only reason to use Tiger is to switch into it and then immediately switch out of it…that seems to point to a core problem that Tiger Stance is simply not attractive enough on its own. So we’ll deal with that if that’s an issue.

TL;DR
We will be giving Udyr back the ability to prime his DoT indefinitely as long as he remains in Tiger Stance. Removing the ability to proc the Tiger DoT while in a different Stance is an intended change.

Explore the beauty of the Freljord

A spectacular mini-website has been released to honor Freljord’s champions!

Scroll sideways to see all the artwork and click on the blue crystals to reveal hidden lore pieces!

Freljord Summoner Icons – here’s how!

Remember these three?

Here’s how to get them!

Choose your tribe

 Pabro: Welcome to the frozen North – a windswept and war-torn region home to some of the most resilient people in all of Runeterra. Here, three great tribes vie for control of their icy homeland. The Avarosan, led by Ashe, strive to unite the Freljord under a banner of peace. The Winter’s Claw, boldest and most warlike of the three, follow Sejuani on her campaign of conquest. And the Frostguard, secluded and mysterious, bide their time haunting ancient ruins alongside Lissandra, the Ice Witch. As they prepare for war, something ancient and sinister stirs deep beneath the earth, threatening to corrupt the land itself.

Click here to explore the Freljord

Choose your tribe

You can join the battle for the Freljord by declaring your allegiance to Ashe, Sejuani or Lissandra. At the start of the event, you’ll be able to choose from the following three summoner icons:

Frostguard

Choose the tribe you want to support by selecting their banner as your summoner icon. Win 10 games without changing your icon, and you’ll unlock it permanently. Win a game with a different tribal icon and you’ll have to start over, so choose wisely!

Choose your tribe FAQ

 Pabro: During the Freljord event you’ll have the opportunity to permanently unlock a summoner icon featuring the emblem of your favorite tribe. At the start of the event, all three tribes will have icons available. Winning games wearing the icon associated with your favorite will earn you points toward unlocking it permanently.

How do I unlock a tribe’s icon?

After accruing ten wins with a tribal icon, you’ll permanently unlock an upgraded version. This upgraded icon is a badge of honor reserved only for loyal members of the tribe.

Which game types count toward my wins?

All matchmade games against human opponents count toward unlocking the banner of your chosen tribe. This includes all normal and ranked games on Summoner’s Rift, the Crystal Scar, the Twisted Treeline and the Howling Abyss.

Custom game or co-op vs. AI wins won’t help you join a tribe.

How long do I have to unlock my chosen icon?

The Freljord event will run until 5/14. Victories within this time period will count towards joining a tribe.

Temporary icons won’t be available once the event’s over, so be sure to join a tribe before time runs out.

What happens if I change my icon while accruing my 10 wins?

Playing a game with the icon of a new tribe will reset any progress you made toward unlocking any of the others. Non-Freljord icons have no effect on your progress toward joining a tribe.

How long after I complete my 10th win will I receive my icon?

It can take up to 48 hours for you to receive the icon of your chosen tribe. You’ll know you’ve successfully completed the process when you find an upgraded version of the tribe’s icon available in-client.

Can I unlock more than one icon?

No. You can only join one Freljord tribe, so choose your allegiance wisely.

You can switch tribes over the course of the event by winning 10 games with a new icon. At that point you’ll gain your new tribe’s icon, but lose your previous tribe’s icon.

I’m still confused. Can you give some examples?

Sure. Here are a few examples for the sake of clarity.

Example 1:

• Morello wins seven games for the Winter’s Claw, then changes his mind and wins one game for the Avarosan.
• Result – Morello currently holds one win toward unlocking the Avarosan icon. He needs nine more wins to join the tribe. If he switches back to the Winter’s Claw banner, he needs 10 wins to join them.

Example 2:

• Phreak wins 10 games for the Frostguard, successful joining the tribe. He then wins nine games under the Avarosan banner.
• Result – Phreak is still a member of the Frostguard, but he has nine wins toward unlocking the Avarosan icon. If he wins another game for the Avarosan, he’ll join that tribe and replace his Frostguard icon.

Example 3:

• ByronicHero racks up 100 wins in a row, but changes his icon to a different tribe every time.
• Result – ByronicHero doesn’t unlock any icons, because no tribe wants to be associated with a dirty, noncommittal flip-flopper like him. Don’t be like ByronicHero – join a tribe so you don’t get left out in the cold!

What do these icons represent?

 RiotVox: Crown + arrow = The Avarosan (Ashe’s tribe), axes = The Winter’s Claw (Sejuani’s Tribe), and the dark sinister looking eye = The Frostguard (Lissandra’s Tribe). We’re working on getting this reflected in the post better, stand by!

Do I have to play that champ or just use the icon?

 RiotVox: Just use the icon . Once you pick it in the client, just play 10 normal or ranked games with that icon selected to unlock the icon. Co-op VS. AI games do not count toward your 10 played games.

Does dominion count?

 RiotVox: Yes, every map counts.

Blackfrost Anivia

Join the Dark Side with Anivia. Her Blackfrost remake is available for 1820 RP at the store (Legendary skin)

Splash Art

Model

Flash Frost (Q)

Flash Frost (Q) Explosion

Crystallize (W)

Frostbite (E)

Glacial Storm (R)

Recall Animation – Part 1

Recall Animation – Part 2

Rebirth (Passive)

 Champion/Skin Sale – May 3rd – 6th

For the next three days, you can pick up the following champions and skins at half price:

Champions

• Fiddlesticks – 292 RP
• Morgana – 292 RP
• Xerath – 487 RP

Skins

Infernal Alistar – 487 RP

Galactic Renekton – 260 RP

Shadow Prince Malzahar – 260 RP

Go forth and win ‘dem Summoner Icons!

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

Zed’s mechanics revamped!

        Zed 

Living Shadow ( W )

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

Shadow Slash ( E )

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

 Statikk: These Zed changes are aimed towards 2 goals:

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

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

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

Does the new CD reduction work per champion hit?

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

Jungle Zed is still viable!

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

Karma buffs, Scarizard discusses!

    Karma

Inner Flame ( Q )

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

Focused Resolve ( W )

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

Inspire ( E )

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

Mantra ( R )

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thresh’s Q passive on E

Death Sentence ( Q )

• No longer has a passive magic damage on-hit

Flay ( E )

• Now has the passive from Death Sentence (Q)

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

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

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

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

New Summoner Icon Progression

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FAQ:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New icons are on their way:

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

Scattered Red Posts, Unite!

Has the Norse Darius skin been scrapped?

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

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

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

Do you guys plan on buffing Rengar?

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

Urgot improvements on the PBE:

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

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

Thanks in advance! ♥

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

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

Major buffs to Quinn, Runaan’s Hurricane and Tiamat, Lissandra’s bloody incarnation, changes to the League Tutorial and a few announcements – all in today’s article!

Champion Changes

      Lulu

Glitterlance ( Q )

• Mana cost increased from 40/50/60/70/80 to 60/65/70/75/80

• Mana cost decreased from 90/100/110/120/130 to 90/95/100/105/110

 

 

     Quinn

 

Heightened Senses ( W )

• Now also grants a 20/30/40/50/60% Movement Speed increase when attacking a vulnerable target as Quinn and 40/50/60/70/80% as Valor.

 

Vault ( E )

• Now also stuns the target briefly upon impact

 

Tag Team ( R )

• Bonus Movement Speed when activated increased from 80% to 80/90/100% when out of combat and 20/30/40% in combat from 20% at all ranks.

 

 

    Sejuani

Frozen Domain ( W )

• Duration increased from 6 seconds to 8 seconds
• Mana cost increased from 50 to 60
• Cooldown changed from 16/15/14/13/12 seconds to 15 seconds

 

 

 

Item Changes

 

 

Boots of Swiftness 

• Recipe Cost decreased from 650 to 550 gold

 

 

 

Ionian Boots of Lucidity 

• Recipe Cost decreased from 700 to 650 gold

 

 

 

Runaan’s Hurricane

• Recipe Cost decreased from 1000 to 700 gold

 

 

 

Tiamat

• Recipe Cost decreased from 665 to 265 gold
• AD decreased from 50 to 40

 

 

 

 

Bloodstone Lissandra

 

 (Click on the pictures for sweet full resolution!)

 

 

Model

Ice Shard (Q)

Ring of Frost (W)

Glacial Path (E) First Cast

Glacial Path (E) Second Cast

Frozen Tomb(R)

 

 

New Tutorial

 

The Howling Abyss map has currently replaced the Proving Grounds as the Tutorial map on the PBE. Check out a preview below:

(Inb4 terrible Ashe players building Thornmail)

 

 

The Loading Screen

Welcome to the League of Freljord!

Garen’s 2D Origins

Not for chatting!

Boom.

A bigger boom!

 

 

New Free Champion Rotation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week’s free list includes:

• Ashe
• Karma
• Karthus
• Lee Sin
• Maokai
• Morgana
• Teemo
• Wukong
• Zac
• Zyra

 

Champion and Skin Sale (April 16-19)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Champions:

• Galio
• Blitzcrank
• Volibear

 

Skins:

• Northern Front Swain
• Hyena Warwick
• Gothic Orianna

 

 Cross- Atlantic Server Transfer available!

Lastly, Community Coordinator RiotYmir shared this exciting news on the forum for all American players wishing to switch to European servers and vice versa:

 RiotYmir: Starting today, players will be able to skip over the Atlantic and transfer between the North America and EUW or EUNE servers. This upgrade has been a long time coming and we’re stoked that players now have more flexibility to choose where they play!

To purchase a transfer, head to the in-game store and click on the Other tab. Intercontinental transfers are one-way and run 2600RP, so always double check you’re heading to the right server. Additionally, European players who joined the North American server prior to June 1st 2010 and weren’t able to move to the European platform when it opened will receive a free one time transfer token.

For the full scoop on eligibility, transfer options and more, check out this page on our Knowledge Base.

If you do not meet the criteria below we will be unable to merge your account!

 RiotYmir: A small number of you have asked if you can merge your NA account with your EU account. Unfortunately, that’s a very time-consuming process that we really can’t offer on a broad scale. Some veteran EU players, however, have accounts that pre-date the launch of the European service. Since these players didn’t have the option to create their first (primary) account on home soil, we’re offering them a very special, one-time opportunity to merge their two accounts into one account on the EU server.

Merging’s very labor-intensive and requires special attention from the Player Support team. For that reason, we can only offer mergers under special circumstances.

Here’s how to qualify for a merger:

• You need to have created your account before June 1, 2010
• Most of your games need to be from a European IP
• You need to verify ownership over the two accounts you’re merging

Unfortunately, because this process is so laborious, we’re going to be buzz-kill sticklers about the rules. No exceptions! Also, this is an extremely slow process, so – while we will answer all eligible requests – it might take several weeks to complete your merger.

We can only transfer certain data to your EU account, so please read carefully before you apply. Here’s what we can merge:

• Your summoner level
• Your purchased content
  • You’ll be compensated for content you unlocked on both accounts
• Your IP and RP totals
• Your competitive season rewards

The following aspects of your NA account will be lost during the merger process:

• Your stats
• Your MMR
• Your rune and mastery presets
• Your honor score
• Previous and unused referrals
• Your justice review rating
• Your friends list

Once the process is complete you can’t use refund tokens on content you merged from another account, and your NA account can’t be recovered. So make sure you’ve bid fond farewell to your summoner on this side of the pond prior to requesting the merge!

If you’re interested in merging your NA and EU accounts, meet the criteria and have read through the process, please a send us a ticket with the subject “Account Merge Request”. Also, if you meet the requirements and you’d rather just move your NA account to EU without merging, you can use your free transfer token in the store right now.

We want to thank all the seasoned vets who waited so long for this option, and we hope we can make your merger as painless as possible. If you have any more questions, ask them in this thread!

What if my EU and NA account names match?

 Iniquitee: If you attempt to transfer you will be prompted to change your username if it is occupied on the server you are trying to go to. The messaging that says you cannot is incorrect and will be updated shortly.

Will I get to keep my Summoner icons?

 Iniquitee: Yes, you will keep your summoner icons.

As far as free transfer tokens go – we just finished distributing them to eligible players. Please check the store again!

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

Check out the latest champion coming to the league, Lissandra, as well as the long- awaited reworks of Trundle and Sejuan and the newest frosty skins for Shyvana and Volibear!

 Lissandra

Model

Iceborn (Passive)

Every 18 seconds Lissandra’s next ability costs no mana. Iceborn’s cooldown is reduced by 1 second whenever Lissandra impairs an enemy’s movement with an ability (does not apply to movement-impairing effects from items).

Ice Shard (Q)

Range: 725 || Cooldown: 6 / 5.5 / 5 / 4.5 / 4 || Cost: 85 mana

Throws a spear of ice that travels in a line and shatters when it hits an enemy, dealing  75 / 110 / 145 / 180 / 215 (+ 65% AP) magic damage and slowing its Movement Speed by 16% / 19% / 22% / 25% / 28% for 1.5 seconds. Shards then pass through the target, dealing the same damage to other enemies hit (but not slowing them).

Ice Shard (Q)

Ice Shard (Q) Impact

Ring of Frost (W)

Cooldown: 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 / 10 || Cost: 70 mana

Freezes an area around Lissandra, dealing  70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 60% AP) magic damage to nearby enemies and rooting them for 1.1/ 1.2 / 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5 secs.

Ring of Frost (W)

Glacial Path (E)

Range: 1050 || Cooldown: 24 / 21 / 18 / 15 / 12 || Cost: 80 / 85 / 90 / 95 / 100 mana

Casts a claw of ice that moves forward in a line, dealing 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+ 60% AP) magic damage to all enemies hit. Reactivating this ability transports Lissandra to the claw’s current location.

Glacial Path (E)

Frozen Tomb (R) 

Cooldown: 130 / 105 / 80 || Cost: 100 mana

On enemy: Freezes target champion solid, stunning it for 1.5 seconds.

On self: Lissandra encases herself in dark ice for 1.5 seconds, becoming untargetable and invulnerable but unable to take any actions.

Dark ice then emanates from Lissandra’s target dealing 150 / 300 / 450 (+ 70% AP) magic damage to enemies. The ice lasts for 3 seconds and slows enemy Movement Speed by 20%.

Frozen Tomb (R)

Lissandra’s Death Animation

Trundle Rework

Model

King’s Tribute (Passive)

Whenever an enemy unit near Trundle dies, he heals for 2% of their maximum Health.

Chomp (Q)

Cooldown: 4 seconds || Cost: 30 mana

Trundle’s next attack lunges at his opponent, dealing 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 (+ 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 / 120% AD) physical damage. This attack increases Trundle’s attack damage by 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 for 8 seconds, with his opponent losing half of this amount for the same duration.

Chomp (Q) Cast Animation

Chomp (Q) Bonus Damage Buff

Frozen Domain (W)

Cooldown: 15 || Cost: 60 mana

Trundle coats target location with ice for 8 seconds, gaining 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% Movement Speed, 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80% Attack Speed and gains 8/11/14/17/20% increased healing and regeneration from all sources.

Frozen Domain (W) Active Area

Pillar of Ice (E)

Range: 1000 || Cooldown: 23 / 20 / 17 / 14 / 11 || Cost: 60 mana

Trundle creates an icy beacon at target location for 6 seconds, becoming impassable terrain and slowing all nearby enemy units by 25/30/35/40/45%.

Pillar of Ice (E) Skillshot

Pillar of Ice (E)

Subjugate (R)

Range: 700 || Cooldown: 80 / 70 / 60 || Cost: 75 mana

Trundle immediately drains an enemy champion of 20% of their maximum Health and 40% of their Armor and Magic Resist, then drains them again for the total of these amounts over the next 5 seconds. Lost resistances slowly return over 5 seconds after the drain effect ends.

Trundle gains these stats for himself while the target is being drained and slowly loses them after the drain ends.

Subjugate (R)

Trundle also visibly grows during the duration of the spell:

Subjugate (R) Growth Effect

 Sejuani Rework

Frost Armor (Passive)

Damaging enemies with an ability or basic attack now grants 10/15/20/25 Armor and reduces movement-slowing effects on Sejuani by 10/15/20/25%  for 2 seconds. If she already has Frost Armor,  damaging an enemy increases its duration by 2 seconds.

Frost Armor (Passive)

Arctic Assault (Q)

Range: 700 || Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11 || Cost: 80/85/90/95/100 mana

Charges forward, knocking enemies into the air and dealing damage equal to 40/80/120/160/200 ( +.4 AP ) plus 4/5/6/7/8% of target’s Maximum health. The charge stops after knocking an enemy champion into the air.

Arctic Assault (Q)

Flail of the Northern Winds (W)

Range: 350 || Cooldown: 10 || Cost: 40 mana

Sejuani’s next basic attack deals 40/60/80/100/120 ( +.3 AP ) bonus magic damage to the target and enemies near it. She then swings her flail, dealing 80/120/160/200/240 ( +16% bonus HP) (+.6 AP ) magic damage to nearby enemies over 4 seconds.

Flail of the Northern Winds (W)

Permafrost (E)

Range: 1000 || Cooldown: 11 || Cost: 55 mana

Passive: Abilities and basic attacks apply Frost to enemies for 4 seconds.

Active: All nearby enemies with Frost take  60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 (+ .5 AP) magic damage and are slowed by 50/55/60/65/70% for 2/2.3/2.5/2.8/3.

Permafrost (E)

Glacial Prison (R)

Range: 1150 || Cooldown: 130 / 115 / 100 || Cost: 100 mana

Throws a frost-forged bola in a line. If the bola hits an enemy champion, it shatters, stunning the target and nearby enemies for 1.5/1.8/2 seconds. If the bola reaches its maximum range it shatters and slows enemies by 90% for 1 second instead.

All enemies in the shatter area take 150 / 250 / 350(+ .8 AP) magic damage.

Glacial Prison (R)

 Runeguard Volibear

Model

Rolling Thunder (Q)

Frenzy (W)

Majestic Roar (E)

Thunder Claws (R)

 Ice Drake Shyvana

Model

Twin Bite (Q)

Burnout (W)

Flame Breath (E)

Flame Breath (E) Mark

Dragon’s Descent (R)

Enjoy this Freljord Special!

Big changes to skin prices, balance updates, limit on how many health potions you can start with, map – specific champion tweaks and the end of the Freljord journey – all in one!

We’ll start with something that will please everyone- cheaper skins! 79, to be precise. To balance that out, 18 skins will be going up in price. In addition, a new 750 RP pricing tier is being introduced.

Skin Prices

 Hippalus: As you’ve probably noticed, the quality of champion skins has increased dramatically since we started creating them way back in the day. This upward trend in quality is something that we’re always looking to advance while continuing to provide good value and affordable prices to players. With that in mind, we felt it was time to revisit RP skin pricing and come up with improvements for 2013 and beyond.

975 RP has become an extremely broad tier, encompassing skins of wildly differing production quality. We wanted to better define the value of your purchase, and will soon implement a couple of big pricing changes as we move skins into more clearly defined RP tiers and establish two new tiers at 750 and 1350 RP. By positioning skins into tiers based on their features, you’ll have a better idea of what you’re getting for your RP and be able to make more informed purchase decisions.

Here’s a breakdown of the new skin prices with what features you can expect for each skin:

390/520 RP skins

• These are outdated tiers used for skins that only featured texture changes, a new splash image, and at times slight model changes.
• 36 skins in the store at the 975 RP tier will have their prices lowered to 520 RP
• No new skins will be created for these tiers, but existing skins in the store are eligible to be put on sale.
• Example: Loch Ness Cho’Gath, Aviator Irelia

750 RP – New tier

• Skins in the new 750 RP tier feature new texture and model work as well as a new splash image; and some skins in this tier will feature new animations.
• 40 skins from the current 975 RP tier will have their prices lowered to 750 RP
• We expect that 10-20% of skins in 2013 will be released at 750 RP, and they will be eligible to be put on sale.
• Examples: Little Knight Amumu, Explorer Ezreal

975 RP

• 975 RP skins feature a new model, textures and splash image; some skins in this tier will feature new animations, visual effects and sounds where appropriate for the theme of the skin.
• We expect that 50-75% of skins released in 2013 will be 975 RP, and they are eligible to be put on sale.
• Examples: Haunted Maokai, Jade Dragon Wukong

1350 RP

• Skins in the 1350 RP tier will feature a new model, textures, splash image, animations, visual effects and sounds. In some cases, these skins will also have processed voice overs.
• This tier is intended for skins that go above and beyond the quality of 975 RP skins but don’t quite reach legendary status.
• 3 skins from the current 1820 Legendary tier will have their prices lowered to 1350 RP
• 18 17 skins from the current 975 RP tier will be moved to the 1350 RP tier
• We expect that 7-15% of skins released in 2013 will be 1350 RP, and they are eligible to be put on sale
• Examples: Blackthorn Morgana, Arcade Sona

1820 RP – Legendary skins

• A legendary skin completely changes the look and feel of a champion.
• These skins feature a new model, textures and splash image as well as completely new animations, visuals, voice over and sounds.
• We expect that 6-10% of skins released in 2013 will be Legendaries, and they will not be put on sale.
• Examples: Battlecast Prime Cho’Gath, Brolaf

3250 RP – Ultimate skins

• An ultimate skin is a complete reimagining of a champion that includes an evolving model and additional features and bonuses, such as summoner icons.
• 3250 RP skins feature a new model that evolves into different forms, textures, splash image, animations, visuals, voice over and sounds, as well as additional content.
• We expect that 2-4% of skins released in 2013 will be Ultimates. They may have initial promotions or discounts, but will not be put on sale.
• Examples: Pulsefire Ezreal

The price changes will all go into effect at 9am PST on April 25th, so there is plenty of time to plan any purchases of skins that are impacted. Partial refunds will be automatically granted for all past purchases of the three legendary skins (Astronaut Teemo, Lion Dance Kog’Maw, and Piltover Customs Blitzcrank) that are decreasing in price, as that is a price-protected skin tier. No other refunds will be granted in relation to these changes.

That’s it for now! All of the skins that will be changing in price are listed below. Let us know your thoughts in the comments – we’ll do our best to address your questions.

PBE Update

There have been a number of changes, including a wider shop interface, limit to how many health potions you can buy and a bunch of champion tweaks.

Balance changes:

      Nasus

Wither (W)

• The Attack Speed reduction debuff is now equal to half the % MS slow instead of being a flat 35%

      Quinn

Blinding Assault (Q)

• Now scales additionally with AP (0.5 ratio)

Tag Team (R)

• Coldown reduced from 140/120/100 to 140/110/80

     Sejuani

Arctic Assault (Q)

• Mana cost changed from 70/80/90/100/110 to 80/85/90/95/100

   Trundle

Subjugate (R)

• Armor and Magic Resist drain increased from 20% to 40%. Also drains 20% of target’s maximum HP

      Udyr

Tiger Stance (Q)

• Damage dealt reduced from 60/115/170/225/280 to 30/80/130/180/230

Limit to Health Potions bought

Currently on the PBE, a player can buy a maximum of five potions at the start.

If this change seems ambiguous to you, Communications Coordinator Riot Pwyff is here with a helpful explanation:

 Riot Pwyff: Hey all, I just wanted to talk about the changes we’re making to limit health potion stacks. While this is the PBE and things are subject to change, I’d still like to give some context behind this particular change.

At the moment, we are planning to limit the maximum number of health potions you can hold at any time to five. This change was intended to combat super high sustain starts, where champions (particularly those going top and mid lane) would buy as many health potions as possible (and a ward or two) in order to sustain in lane forever. The problem is that this really destroys any incentives players have to interact. Resourceless champions in particular benefited from these starts and, for champions with mana pools, we’ve actually seen that some literally do not have enough mana to burn through that much sustained HP.

On that note, we arrived at the hard limit of five health potions because this should have the least impact on standard starting builds while still targeting the high sustain problem.

Hope this gives some insight into our approach to these changes.

What about champions with a weak early game? Have they lost their viability because of this change?

 Riot Pwyff: Some champions do have a deliberately weak early game, so that’s a weakness that the team would like to bake in. For example, Nasus has a very bad laning phase because he – technically speaking – scales to infinite and beyond.

That being said, if the 1350 HP sustain start was the only thing that kept a champion from being complete rubbish, then I think attacking super sustain will expose that imbalance and will let the team address that down the line. Super sustain just has a lot of innate problems.

Shop Interface tweaked

 The end of Quinn and Val’s journey

We have the final diary entry from Quinn! At last she can return to Jarvan to… discuss her findings. Here’s a short, but sweet lore piece:

Southern Freljord

 We’re finally heading home. It’s been a long journey, and I’ll be happy to see Demacia again.

I’ve begun preparing my report for Jarvan on the state of tensions in the Freljord. I believe he’ll be surprised with the results. There is much more to the Freljord than Demacia assumed, and the threat of war is very real. Ashe has a strong vision, but not all of the Freljord’s tribes are willing to unify under her leadership. Some have left her to ally with Sejuani, a warrior whose ferocity and strength are legendary in this land. I can’t prove it, but Lissandra may be a third force to consider. The Frostguard are mysterious and isolated, and they clearly have their own agenda. A united Freljord led by Sejuani or Lissandra could pose a true threat to Demacia—perhaps all of Valoran.

What happens next might be the spark that lights the fire of war. Knowing what I’ve learned, I think it’s safe to say that we will be watching.

In case you’ve missed any of the previous lore entries: 

• Journey Into The Freljord I: The Avarosan
• Journey Into The Freljord II: The Winter’s Claw
• Journey Into The Freljord III: The Troll King
• Journey Into The Freljord IV: The Frostguard
• Journey Into The Freljord V: The Ice Witch

Good luck on the Fields of Justice!

 A moment of silence for the fallen Achievements tab…

This update sees a shift in the powerlevel of Akali and Udyr, with the intention being to highlight their carry potential, not their early game pub-stomping. Also many somewhat forgotten picks such as Morgana, Nami, Nunu and Nautilus are getting a healthy decrease of mana costs and cooldowns on their abilities. And Sejuani is getting a whole bucket of changes.

Of course, the star of the show is the option for players to tailor their Recommended Items to their own liking, but first…

 Balance Changes:

      Akali

Mark of the Assassin ( Q ):

• Damage lowered to 35/55/75/95/115 from 45/70/95/120/145.
• AP ratio increased to from 0.4 to 0.55

A higher scaling to compensate for a weaker start is Riot’s answer to balance Akali during all stages of the game.

      Corki

Missile Barrage ( R )

• The Big One missile now activates after every third hit, down from every fourth.

Dark Binding ( Q )

   Nautilus