Vesh

WizardCrab

Recent News

Renekton Balance Discussion

Vesh

"So, even though Renekton's win rate is pretty much exactly 50/50, that doesn't mean that he's in the best place he could be in. Right now his early game is extremely strong and he tends to fall off really hard late game as other characters (especially range AD) outscale him with items.



I'm going to be looking into doing some changes that takes down his early game dominance just a tad so that we can give him a stronger late game and also keep him from just shutting out most top lanes before level 9."

"I definitely think the sustain on Renekton in particular is a problem early and contributes to how he can consistently out-trade his opponent. Going to test out some changes with a slightly less powerful heal on Q initially that will scale back by level 9 to what it is on live currently."

"The healing cap makes it so you have to his literally 12 minions at once to hit the cap. It's mostly to prevent abuse cases where a super wave is pushing and he could heal to full without the cap and also to make him not heal crazy amounts with an empowered Q in a teamfight where he manages to hit 4-5 people.""

Vesh

"He definitely falls off late game (we have teh dataz). Totally agree on the heal and I agree that the damage feels good and probably isn't the problem."

Vesh

"Like I said, his late game is weak so if we take away some of his power early that's going to need to be added to his late game power. There's a number of ways to accomplish this (raw stats, utility, etc) and it's worth exploring all of them. One option that might work out well is giving his Q/E total AD ratios instead of bonus AD. Then his spells can keep getting more powerful with his champion level as he gains his AD per level. Not saying this is the option we should definitely go with, but it's definitely one I'll be taking a close look at."

Vesh

Renekton's

"I would definitely like to do something with the E besides the shred. Most people use that accidentally while ulting and would rather have had an empowered Q. The shred can be situationally very powerful but is totally invisible.



A slow could be one approach, but I think it could also be really cool if we look at the dash itself, possibly giving it more length on empowered state, or maybe a third dash altogether if used with fury. Few options here, probably going to be testing a number of them."

"It's just one option that can be considered - in no way am I saying that's the best approach or then one we should take.



It would be a tradeoff however. It costs fury so if you get the extra dash you will lose out on an empowered Q or a longer W stun."

Vesh

"I agree that his passive isn't the most interesting thing in the world, but I'm not sure I want to risk "changing a core system of his too much when the goal is to even out his power curve. Definitely something to look at it in the future, but I suspect that lowering his sustain early and possibly giving him some more damage after that point will make the passive a bit more meaningful."

Skin repricing Update

WizardCrab

"Hey Summoners,

Last April, we lowered the price on 79 skins and raised the price on 17 others to solidify our new skin pricing tiers. Though a primary goal of this skin price restructuring was to more uniformly correlate the effort put into skins with their cost, since the repricing it's become obvious that a few of our skins were in tiers that didn't make sense to you guys.

We realize that any two skins which received the same amount of effort won't always reflect that work identically in the final product. For instance, although Frostblade Irelia's particle effects took about the same amount of work as Arcade Sona's, they are far more subtle and therefore not valued as highly by players.

We've decided that skin pricing would make more sense to you guys if it's based not only on effort spent, but also on how obviously that effort is shown in the finished skin. With this in mind, we're adjusting the prices of the following skins:

Armor of the Fifth Age Taric - now 750 RP (formerly 975 RP)

Frostblade Irelia - now 975 RP (formerly 1350 RP)

Wildfire Zyra - now 975 RP (formerly 1350 RP)

These changes are effective immediately. Summoners who have purchased any of these skins in the past two weeks will automatically receive a refund for the price difference.

We aren't planning on any additional skin price adjustments but will be taking this new criterion into account when pricing our new skins. Of course, the "obviousness of effort" metric is highly subjective, and I know many of you will feel that certain skins should also be adjusted. Unfortunately this is the downside of implementing another level of subjectivity. But in general we feel that this additional evaluation will help us to align our pricing with your expectations.

I'm happy to answer questions about this update, but I probably won't be engaging in too much back and forth about why X skin versus Y skin is in a certain tier or another. Like I've said, it's highly subjective.

-WC"

"We've already gone through all of the skins and these are the only ones whose prices we plan on changing."

WizardCrab

"I feel like I've already answered this question a lot. Armor of the Fifth Age Taric is not a recolor. My understanding is that it took more work than your average 520 or 750 skin. There's an earlier post in this thread that details all of the model changes in Armor of the Fifth Age Taric. Because of that work and extra changes, we priced it at 975. Afterwards, many community members seemed to think that that price wasn't justified because they saw the skin as just a recolor (even though it is not). We then realized that the amount of work it took to make a skin doesn't really matter as much as the perceived value of those changes to the community members. Since Pink Taric's value to players wasn't as high as the amount work put in, we lowered the price."

Urgot Changes Still in the Works

Meddler

"Short update - done some prototyping, found some things that didn't work and a couple of things that might. Nothing definite enough to be worth talking about yet, just wanted to let you guys know this isn't forgotten about."

Fiora Discussion

Morello

"Thanks for the reminder - I do want to get some Fiora updates (not rework, just changes she needs)."

ricklessabandon

"fiora is the kind of project i like taking on, and i do like her quite a bit, but i currently don't have plans to work on her. if no one else gives her attention by the time i clear out my work queue, then i'd love to take a look at her! i think there are a couple other guys that have been talking about her at the office though, so it's more likely that someone else would get to fiora first. :3"

ricklessabandon's thoughts on Mordekaiser

ricklessabandon

"mordekaiser is…complicated. he's crazy strong right now as a solo queue pick, but really hard to make work in organized play. he also does one of the worst jobs of communicating mechanics to his opponents—he's guilty of non-visualized aoe damage, isolation mechanics, and deceptive resilience. he's also really damn cool and has some interesting gameplay around his passive and his ult. he's complicated because when we do end up doing work on mordekaiser it's very likely that we'll have to go hard, but i feel it's especially important that we don't tinker around unnecessarily. in effect, we'll have to effect a lot of change while ensuring each change is very purposed. that's kind of the general philosophy anyway, but it gets put to the test when the workload is high (and i suspect that will be the case with morde).



tl;dr is that when we work on him, we'll probably need some extra time to iterate. that doesn't mean he's more or less 'risky' than other champs, just that he'll need more time and as such won't be rushed ahead of the line so to speak. i don't know who would do the work on him, but i'm sure the team as a whole would be involved one way or another when the time comes."

Rework Timing & Release

Meddler

"Generally we'll aim to release reworks as soon as they're ready. For the bigger ones, like Sion, there are a lot of different things needed (gameplay, new art, new sound etc). They're roughly the same amount of work as a new champion in most regards, so that sort will come out gradually. Gameplay only, or primarily gameplay, reworks or smaller changes (like that potential Kog'Maw Q change for example) on the other hand we can be more flexible with. That potentially allows us to release multiple changes in a single patch (e.g. it's possible, though not yet guaranteed, that the Skarner and Xerath reworks might end up coming out together for example)."

"Nothing currently underway. I expect we'll do a bit of work on his kit whenever his visual upgrade rolls around at the very least though."

Kayle Rework Not a Priority

Morello

"Currently no - we reprioritized a total list based on a wide range of factors (Scruffy's leading that effort for us right now) and Kayle didn't make it near the top of the list when we have long-needed ones like Sion, Soraka, and Shaco."

Issues with Vintage Skin Borders

Riot Navigator

"Greetings Summoners,

We have had reports that the vintage skin border is not displaying properly in the loading screen for some Champions. We are working on a resolution and expect to deploy it in a coming patch."

1/20/14 - Yasuo Disabled

Riot Riva

l

"Summoners,

Due to a bug where Yasuo's Last Breath ability can cause enemy champions to not be able to move, we are temporarily disabling Yasuo while working on a fix to address this issue.



We will keep you updated as we work on this bug, and we do apologize for the disruption."

Tonight's red post collection features adiscussing potential balance changes forwith comments on skin repricing and price reductions for, and, several rework related topics ( including timing & release,, and), a note on problems with the Vintage Skin borders, and much more!Continue reading for more information!Earlier today,hoped into adiscussion thread to comment that he is currently working on a set of balance changes for the Butcher of the Sands - including nudging down his "early game dominance":He continued , notingCull the Meek (Q) healing as a target for change:He also commented on whyQ has a cap on it:also commented When asked about some of the ideas for buffing up his late game,also floated a few ideas around onfury bonus on E state:He continued, replying to discussion on how powerful a 3 dash E would be:also commented onpassive, saying stopped by the general forums to share drop off a small update on skin pricing, including price reductions for, andWhen asked if any other skins were going to be reduced, he replied When asked whywas 975 RP despite it being "",While he doesn't have any specifics to report,did s wing by the forums to remind summoners that he's still working onchanges:In the big reworks thread, commented that the team would live to do some Fiora updates but "not rework, just changes she needs":also chimed in about potentialwork, saying also shared his thoughts on, noting their are no plans to change him yet and , since he is complicated, he won't be rushed to the head of the rework line.Speaking of reworks,left a few comments explaining how the timing of reworks and what factors play into their releases:He also followed up by answering a question ifhad any changes in the pipeline, saying Ages ago,showed interest in wanting to do heavy work onkit.He commented in the "Why do we do reworks" thread noting that this has now changed as the team has re prioritized their efforts:A few summoners have been reporting problems concerning their vintage skin borders not showing up.Here'sAs you may have seen in the client,was disabled earlier today due to a few bugs with his ult.Here's