3.14 Comments

I will be commenting on the 3.14 patch note changes over the next few weeks and see if the effects Riot intended are coming into effect

Disclaimer: I have not played any of the patch material so everything I say is based on opinion without any experience.

Today’s topic: Vision Changes

There is a ridiculous amount of vision changes for patch 3.14. Many people do not understand why Riot went to such lengths to mess up the current system of wards. Outside of having a new game experience for S4, there were lots of problems with the vision system that became apparent in competitive play near the end of the season. Foreign teams began buying an unprecedented amount of pink wards. While most spectators see this as simple map control, what they don’t realize is that the wards provide the team with fail insurance. If a team is significantly ahead and continues to keep map control, they are pretty much guaranteed to win the game outside of chain throwing team fights and big objectives. By controlling the area of a map methodically through pushing lanes and rotating, a team can control a large area of the map. This will force the enemy to group and overextend to regain map control, as losing map control for a prolonged period of time will lead to a free Baron or getting dove under tower. This puts all of the advantage in the winning team’s hands as they can easily setup a pick in the jungle, force a big play if the losing team is split, or initiate a forced 5v5 near baron. Not only does the losing team have to approach areas with no vision, they have to win potential team fights while being behind in gold/levels and being initiated upon. Even if the losing team wins the engage, if it isn’t by a landslide they will not be able to push their advantages at all. Since the winning team has already secured map control, the enemy team now has to either secure a large objective (not possible most of the times as engages don’t normally happen without sacrifices) or reclaim some map control. By the time the losing team secures a little bit of map control in their own jungle, the winning team has already respawned and will push again. This snowball factor is a big deal as both spectators and competitors do not like it when a team can secure a free win by the five minute mark.

As a result, Riot is proposing a few changes to vision. The change most associated with the snowball factor would be the changes to vision wards/pink wards. Not only is there a cap of 1 pink ward per player, pink wards are no longer invisible. This is a huge deal, and is directly correlated with the snowball factor that I described in the previous paragraph. If you are not 100% adamant about defending your hard earned map control, you will lose it. If you lose a team fight, the map control you earned will be lost. Teams that are behind now have a much better chance at gaining more than some gold and a few levels after going 3 for 3 in a team fight. By taking back the jungle, the losing teams will be in a better spot to group up and actually make something happen. In competitive play, calculated playmaking is generally impossible without proper map control.

The introduction of trinkets as a 7th slot is a unique addition to League of Legends. The burden of warding will not be heavily placed on the support’s shoulders, and warding will also be much more prevalent in lower levels of play. It comes down to having the ability to plant a green ward, sweep an area for green wards, or observe an area from a distance. This will be very important as both top and bottom lanes can abuse vision or lack thereof. Mid laners and jungle combos also love to play off of vision control, so managing trinkets to give slight advantages will be a neat addition. All in all, the trinkets add a small depth to the way the game is played, but does not change the game very significantly.

TL;DR- vision snowballed competitive games hard in S3, by making vision wards non-stealthed losing teams can come back into the game more easily. Trinkets make it so that supports aren’t the only ones burdened by warding but don’t really change too much other than giving map control a more active playstyle