Meddler's

Table of Contents

December sales schedule

Riot Evaelin

"Check out all the champs and skins on sale this December! Like previous sales schedules, we’re not posting the exact dates for each champ and skin, but they’ll all be on sale sometime next month.

Just a heads up—since we’re publishing these in advance, we won’t offer partial refunds on champs and skins purchased before they go on sale."

Quick Gameplay Thoughts: November 28

Meddler's

Hi folks,

Usual Disclaimers

These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The nature of the work could change or, depending on what we discover, projects mentioned may get delayed or even stopped. If you'd like to see a Tweet whenever a new one of these posts goes up: https://twitter.com/RiotMeddler

Preseason follow up: Part 1

Going to be mainly talking this week about how preseason's gone so far and what our thoughts on follow up are. Today's going to cover a bit about our approach, plus context on how why we're targeting various specific changes in 8.24. Friday's post will then focus on larger issues rather than specific champ/rune balance. Quick timeline:

Last Week - Preseason gets released in 8.23.

This week - We've now had time to get a solid initial picture of where preseason's landed so we're working on getting some balance changes into 8.24. Patch has to be locked down today, so the focus is on hitting a range of quicker to fix issues like individual champion balance that don't require longer development and testing. Those changes will go out next week in 8.24

Later this week and next week - We'll be working on a patch 8.24b which will get released sometime mid December. It's a 'b' patch because it won't contain new content like skins or game features, instead being a purely balance focused patch. Changes will generally be adjustments to numbers, rather than new or heavily modified functionality on abilities, items, towers etc. Expectation is we'll probably work on addressing some larger issues in this patch, though some things could instead be in a patch early next year if they need more than a couple of weeks of development.

Early next year - Goal is to get larger changes into the first couple of changes, then once Ranked season starts, have a more stable period.

Balance Changes in 8.24

Runes



Dark Harvest Nerf - Dark Harvest's still looking too universally effective and on too many champs too powerful. We'll be cutting its base damage (20-60 instead of 40-80) and making it so it can't trigger off proc damage to make it less in-discriminant. Hitting base in particular to reduce its lane bullying potential, would like picking a scaling rune like this to come with more early game trade off. Once those changes have hit we'll then see if we should also be considering changes post 8.24 to the reset (should it be longer, or potentially removed?) and health threshold for the trigger (would 40% instead of 50% be more appropriate?). Don't want to hit too much at once though and overcorrect, hence a couple of changes next week with further follow up if needed.

Raptors - Pushing back the Raptor camp spawn time slightly (1:30 instead of 1:27) so that a few champs (Karthus and Aatrox especially) can't clear it then still get all of the first minion wave as easily.

Champions:

Viktor Nerf - Looking to bring down top lane Viktor in particular, hopefully hitting it meaningfully without pushing him out of top completely. Likely involves hitting Q base and/or CD, then buffing Q and/or E ratios.

Irelia Nerf - Taking some power out through simple numbers changes right now, then likely following up with some larger work in a later patch. Probably removing power from her W primarily.

Aatrox Nerf - Removing Q's bonus damage to monsters to chip mid Aatrox with Smite down a bit (also cleans up an unnecessary mechanic on the Q as a bonus).

Akali Nerf - Taking some general power out now, then looking at larger mechanics changes later. Not sure on direction of either at time of writing.

Jax Nerf - Looking too strong, especially in the jungle. Just taking a bit of power out somewhere.

Camille Nerf - Looking to trim her jungle power in particular, laning to a lesser degree. Might involve lower base AS since that disproportionately affects jungling.

LeBlanc Nerf - Cutting some power. Direction to be determined still, probably something pretty straightforward.

Illaoi Buff - Potentially giving her lower CDs on an ability to two. Confident we should be buffing her a bit, still discussing exactly how though.

Stuff discussed that's not in 8.24

Champs

Pyke Nerf - We think Pyke's too strong when he gets a gold/XP lead going. Going to be looking at his scaling and/or rank ups as a result. Play rate's currently fairly low, but solo lane Pyke's looking real strong, so likely that's a large part of the focus of this work. Likely changes in 8.24b.

Karthus - Has benefited a lot from easier access to Presence of Mind and Last Stand (no forced attack speed), both of which are much more effective on him than on most champions. Still assessing him, including bot lane play, where's he's also looking strong, but still a pretty rare pick.

Taliyah - Starting to see her performance jungle recover after the changes. Continuing to watch for now. Runes and Items

Guinsoo's - No changes currently planned. Changes don't seem to have impacted its users much so far, with the exception of Kai'Sa who seems somewhat less bound to it. More a sidegrade for the others however. Nothing looking out of line, not a clear success at least initially either though.

Celerity - Is a strong choice on a limited number of champs, much weaker choice on many. Not sure yet if it's now too niche, versus its previous too broad status. Possible it's a bit weak/narrow over all, want to take a bit longer to see how it goes though, especially since we're still seeing a lot of players haven't adjusted their rune pages to add or remove it where appropriate yet.

Presence of Mind and Absolute Focus - Are both looking pretty strong, but sufficiently we think they need to be acted on at present though.

Likely topics for Friday's post

Going to focusing Friday on systemic topics we'll be looking into after the 8.24 work above. Likely includes some updated thoughts on ongoing assessment of tower stats/rewards, potential resurgence of gold/xp funneling and/or laneswaps, recent player discussion about power and feel of marksmen."

Meddler

"Threshold change is still a possibility for the future, as above didn't want to change too many things at once with DH though. One thing we've also done since the above was written was reduce the stack rate by half on ARAM, given it's been additionally out of line there. That went out in a hotfix last night.

We haven't found a version of Spear of Shojin we think's both healthy and sufficiently distinct from other items yet. Planning on taking another look at it once preseason follow up work's done (so probably early next year). Don't want to make any promises though, given difficulty we've had getting it into a good spot."

Meddler

"We do think we changed too much in the first half of 2018, so going to avoid doing such a large amount in such a timeframe. Second half of 2018 by contrast was quite light on change, preseason included, so will likely have a bit more than that, especially in future preseasons. No plans to change patch cadence from 2 weeks, though size of patch will vary at times certainly.

I'm assuming from your question you feel rate of change has been too high. Do you feel that way for the more recent months as well or is it more the year as a whole?"

Meddler

"Yeah, it's not really delivering. Expect we'll take a pass at it and either buff it or remove it in the moderate future. Not something we're looking at right now because it's not doing any harm and other issues are more urgent."

Meddler

"I'll double check with the folks working on them, I think expectation is Sejuani and Ornn early next year, Galio potentially 8.24 still. Given challenges we've had with these three we're focusing on being more thorough with testing and changes rather than faster."

Meddler

"That's an ongoing discussion internally right now covering whether this is the sort of unique strength we should be preserving despite its costs or something we should remove because of its downsides, thereby as you say freeing us up to put some power elsewhere. Will update once we've got a conclusion."

Meddler

"On the weak side, though not critically so. One of the likely marksmen candidates for buffs. Still some challenges balancing him for different contexts, given for most players he's a bot laner, at high MMR by contrast he's been a mid laner for quite a while if getting meaningful play in the first place."

/Dev Diary: League Comics & Marvel

Ghostcrawler

"We’re partnering with Marvel Comics to work on multiple new series set in the world of Runeterra!"





2018 Worlds Commemoration Icon

Bilby

Celebrate Invictus Gaming’s thrilling 3-0 victory in Korea with the 2018 Worlds Commemorative Icon, available for 250 RP until December 31, 2018, at 11:59 PM PT.

50% of the proceeds from this icon will be shared with IG and the LPL.

If you’ve purchased any of the IG Worlds 2018 Supporter Bundles, this icon will be automatically added to your inventory for free.





Preseason ranked update for Masters+ players SapMagic for Masters+ players:

"Next week we’ll be rolling out Grandmaster (as well as Iron and some in-client design changes) as part of preseason. To kick off Grandmaster and make sure it’s working just right, players above Masters need to drop in order to properly test Grandmaster promotions and demotions. Here’s how it’ll work: When 8.24 begins: All players currently in Master and Challenger will be moved to Master, 0LP.

Grandmaster and Iron will be added.

Grandmaster and Challenger will be locked, no one can promote into it.

After one week, Grandmaster unlocks and you can promote into it.

After two weeks, Challenger unlocks and you can promote into it.

This change does not impact underlying MMR at all, so matchmaking will be unaffected. Preseason is the time of year to build technical confidence in Grandmaster ahead of season start on January 24. So let us know if anything seems amiss!

Miscellaneous Rornation noted some run animations would be going out with patch 8.24: "League players! Some of the movement animation updates should live next patch 8.24. Karma, Viktor, Shaco, Alistar (E), Fiora. Had issues with Quinn's @Xenogenic is looking into. Will keep you informed on our progress as it happens, hoping to get others in soon. #LeagueOfLegends" Here's Rovient with details on ARAM Dark Harvest nerf that was hotfixed to live overnight: "The Dark Harvest nerf for ARAM only is now live! You now only gain 2 damage per soul, down from 4." He also talked a little about the Summoner's Rift DH proc changes: [1] "More specific details on what "not procing from procs" means on DH change: you can no longer hit an enemy champion at 75% HP with a Varus Q taking them below 50%, only to have DH proc from Scorch or Varus's W passive. Dots like Malz E do still work, however." [2] "Liandrys no longer works either. I was in 2 minds about champion dots that are not the main effects of a spell or ability (such as brand passive, fizz dot passive, darius bleed etc). I've left them alone for now since they're a REALLY muddy collection of effects. " [3] "Muddy example: teemo shroom. It does a chunk of damage and then poisons your opponent. Should his poison proc DH since it's essentially proc damage as a result of the explosion? Isn't the core identity of the shroom ACTUALLY the DoT?"

Reminders To round out this good good red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events! Nexus Blitz will be returning for more testing in Patch 8.24! Check out this post for dates and details, or check out the Current PBE Coverage for details on its' PBE testing! [BACK TO TOP] Here's with an update for Masters+ players:

Today's red post collection includes the December sales schedule,quick gameplay thoughts for November 28th, a new /Dev Diary on the partnership between League and Marvel, and much more!Continue reading for more information!Here'swith the December sales schedule Check outquick gameplay thoughts for November 28, including thoughts on preseason followup, balance in 8.24, and more:When asked about Dark Harvest and Spear of Shojin,On rate of change in League,When asked about Hail of Blades,When asked about, andwork,When asked aboutstealth from towers,When asked about Here's an update fromon the partnership between Marvel and League of Legends to make League comics!Here's with details on the 2018 Worlds Commemoration icon that is now available: