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Dopa previewing patch 13.10. This was from before the patch hit, so it’s a bit late, but I still wanted to get it out. I focused on Dopa’s interesting viewpoints, and mostly left out simple reactions. It might be helpful to have the patch notes when you read this. Quotes are from the patch notes.

 

Quick TL Note: Dopa isn’t in the military because he dodged(was rejected from) champ select(bootcamp) due to comp(personal health?) reasons. He may go back, or he might not, but for the time being he’s streaming League of Legends in Korea.

 

Crit items

 

We’ve got a big update to crit itemization with the hope of creating a much more open ecosystem of crit items players are excited to buy. Currently, League of Legends functionally has two sets of critical strike mythic items: Kraken / Galeforce / Shieldbow and Infinity Edge / Quickblades / Rageblade. Ultimately, we feel that Infinity Edge, Quickblades, Rageblade, and Galeforce actually fit the role of a mythic item the best so the other items are being demoted to legendary status and re-tuned to fit that new role.

 

The new mythic items are quite similar to the old versions as they already served their purposes well, with a notable change in Rageblade more strongly filling the hybrid on-hit niche, which should make champions like Kayle and Teemo pay attention.

 

The legendary re-balancing brings down some overly strong items, such as Kraken Slayer losing its true damage, Immortal Shieldbow providing less shielding, and Bloodthirster losing its shield entirely. Meanwhile, underperforming items like Mortal Reminder, The Collector, and Mercurial Scimitar are receiving some simple buffs. There are also a slew of balance changes to epic items to buff underpowered trap upgrades (Recurve Bow, Hearthbound Axe, Kircheis Shard) and nerf overly-powerful ones (Zeal).

 

Woah… Whoever wrote this has a good fundamental understanding of the game. Back in the day, Riot would brute force balance by patching constantly. It felt like patches were being done by a platinum player. These days, it feels like the patches are much more nuanced. Did something change behind the scenes? More than the changes themselves, I like the explanations behind the patches. Like, low elo players don’t know this stuff. The readability of the patches has also become much better.

 

Guinsoo’s Rageblade – The build path is so bad. How are you supposed to buy this thing? It’s as bad as Luden’s Echo, where you can’t buy anything if you’re forced to base when you don’t have enough gold. Compare this to the assassin items – you can just buy more long swords whenever you base. And Rageknife is still bad. The mythic passive is great though, I think they put in mixed penetration to account for the fact that you can’t buy penetration items with Guinsoo’s. Which is a very good choice – Riot has definitely become better at patching. Kayle used to fall off in the late late game because of her lack of penetration, and this looks more like a Kayle item than an ADC item. You can never tell how good Guinsoo’s will be just by reading the patch notes, so I’ll have to try it out.

 

Galeforce & Movement Speed

 

Galeforce is still a mythic? Yeah, Galeforce should be a mythic. If this was a legendary, every ADC in the game would buy it at some point. (Reads notes) 55 AD, 15% AS, 7% movement speed… wait. What? 7% BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED?? Did Galeforce always give movement speed? It was the Mythic passive, right? (Reads chat) It was, what, 2% per item? Sure. But 7%? Are you kidding me? These stats are insane. What is this? The active got buffed as well. Galeforce has to be completely broken. Wasn’t this patch supposed to nerf ADCs?

 

Do you guys not understand how overpowered this item is? Is this supposed to be an early game buff since you can’t buy Infinity Edge anymore? I don’t get it, the power level of Galeforce 1st item is way too strong. (Reads chat) I guess I need to explain how OP movement speed is.

 

In gold value, 1% movement speed is roughly equal to 1.5 AD. So 7% movement speed has roughly the same value as 10 more AD. And this is the bare minimum value. Back in ye olden days, we had a rune system where you could choose from different stats. We had these things called quints, and you could choose between having 1.5% movement speed and 2.25 AD. That’s where the numbers come from. However, in the hierarchy of stats, movement speed is generally more valuable than attack damage. Of course, the value of movement speed, and all stats for that matter, depends on the skillset of each champion. I think about 80 out of 100 champions would take movement speed over AD. I would usually take movement speed quints back when that was still around.

 

But the thing is, movement speed is a lot more valuable on ADCs and mages. 100 out of 100 times, all ADCs and mages will take movement speed over damage. An ADC would never trade movement speed for an equivalent amount of AD. 7% movement speed is so OP, in fact, that this could be an indirect nerf to all other classes in the game. And an active damage buff on top of that? That’s insane. ADCs just keep getting faster. Still, Galeforce builds will get both slower and weaker late game compared to the current version since they can’t build Infinity Edge anymore.

 

(Q. Then does Cloud Soul give insane amounts of stats?) Not quite, because MS has diminishing returns. The important thing is your speed relative to your opposition. If you’re already much faster than the enemy, then you don’t need much more. Still, I value cloud drake and cloud soul very highly – I don’t understand why some people think it’s worse than the other drakes.

 

AP ratios (Vayne, Akshan, Kindred, Kalista) & itemization

 

Isn’t this just a comparative nerf to all the other ADCs that already had AP ratios? Vayne used to go Rageblade even though she had no AP ratios at all, I’m not sure why they felt the need to give these four champions buffs. Still, I like the direction of the patch. Especially the comments.

 

These new ratios aren’t meant to make AP builds strong or even viable on them but instead to make incidental sources of Ability Power (like Rageblade) feel like they aren’t wasted.

 

Itemization in itself is skill expression - you need to buy items with useful stats. This was more relevant in the past, but it’s still true today. I hate buying mage items that have health. If an item has health, you’re paying that much more gold for a secondary stat. The health is useless on a mage compared to AP, Ability Haste, and movement speed. You’re either paying more gold for the same thing or getting less of my preferred stats, depending on your perspective. Total gold efficiency is important, but equally important is knowing which stats you’re paying for. Knowing not to buy “efficient” items with bad options is a skill.

 

Oh, do you guys remember the version of Archangels that gave Ability Haste? Before it was changed to give a shield like it currently does. I thought that item was complete trash on champions like Victor, even though lots of people built it. Why? Because by the time you finish stacking the item, mana becomes a useless stat. Excluding champions like Cassiopeia that actually need the mana pool, you’re taking the gold you used to buy the mana and chucking it in the trash. I saw a lot of people buying the item, and thought they were all idiots. What a waste of gold.

 

The new changes make it so that AP is no longer a wasted stat on those champions. They’re taking the skill expression out of itemization. It’s more of a QoL change than anything else. Riot is doing a very good job of making QoL changes. I remember when buffs didn’t have timers, and there was only 1 type of ping. Not having to time drakes, being able to MIA ping, and easier itemization – these are all changes that benefit newer players. Which is good for the game, but it’s bad for older players like me, since we lose our competitive edge. I hate the changes, even though it’s better for the ecosystem. I guess that’s why only listening to older players is bad for any game. Still, they haven’t patched the mana items yet - people still don’t know how useless mana is.

 

Lost Chapter rant

 

Finally, the change I was waiting for. Tome + Sapphire Crystal + 265 gold? It just got 200g cheaper? (Excitedly) That’s it? No AP nerfs?

 

(pauses for dramatic effect)

 

You may have expected me to be happy. To be elated. I… I am not. And do you know why? It’s because this is how things should have been. This is the natural order of things. When all other champions started off with 0 gold, mages have been cursed to start at -200 gold all this time. How many years have we endured this suffering? How will Riot compensate our lost mental, our lost LP points? Will all of our sacrifices be ignored simply because Lost Chapter has been buffed to 1100 gold? When I realize that the grievances inflicted upon my mage brethren shall be ridiculed and forgotten, it is not happiness that fills my heart. Instead, it is rage.

 

At this point, chat will be quick to decry my pains. ‘It costs 1100 gold now. The same as dirk. What else do you want? Isn’t that enough?’ And to that, I merely suggest that Riot should have given an apology to all mage players, and acknowledge that we have suffered. And yet, Riot has chosen to do the complete opposite. They have the audacity to say that they’ll be keeping an eye on Lost Chapter. This change has risk? Mages tend to be the top performers in pro play? What is this blasphemy? I cannot accept this! Buff lost chapter to 900 gold. Amplifying Tome + Sapphire Crystal + 65 gold

 

Short of that, lower the cost of Amplifying Tome to 400 gold. I dare even ask for 350 gold. Why must we stand by and watch as assassins start with Long Sword and 3 potions? What is the difference between Long Sword 3 pots and Amplifying Tome 3 pots? Allow me to buy 2 Tomes when I have 700 gold, just like assassins.

 

I’ll stop here.

 

(TL note: You can probably tell, but he’s not being serious.)

 

 

Early game adjustments

 

These patch notes are the most interesting ones I’ve seen in a while – is it because a lot of these patches favor me?

 

Minions

 

In the Midseason Patch, we'll also be making some pretty large changes with the goal of making the laning phase more about victories over your direct laner and less about external influences like junglers or roaming, especially in the early parts of the game. We still want roaming to be a powerful strategy, but currently the best way to play the game is finding ways to quickly snowball other lanes rather than decisive 1v1s or 2v2s. These changes should make the two strategies more equally rewarding.

 

So, they do have a clear direction of what they want to achieve with this patch. They want to nerf roaming and buff 1 vs 1 play. They’re right, the entire game revolves too much around diving bot.

 

Minions Gotta Go Fast: Except for the first spawn of minions, Mid lane minions will meet at the same time as side lanes (side lane minions will be sped up). This falls off after 14 minutes.

 

But there’s one thing I question. The crux of this patch is that they’re making minions meet at the same time in top, mid and bot, but I’m not sure if that will solve this issue. In fact, I think that this change might have the opposite effect, and increase the number of roams. Still, if their intent is to decrease the viability of mid roams, they’ll patch it right away if it doesn’t work out how they planned it. I’m not sure how this will affect my playstyle, as it’s hard to tell until you try it out.

 

Tunnel Vision: Minions that are currently attacking an enemy tower will ignore "call for help" signals to target enemy champions. Let them focus.

 

When you crash a big wave into the tower, and keep hitting the tower, there are times when the opposing laner is forced to attack you to make you stop. The minions then target the enemy champion and do about 100~200 damage. They’re removing this from the game, which will make diving much harder. It might make taking plates easier though. The other day, Kanavi told me something interesting. Apparently K’sante is the god of taking plates. In the Sion vs K’sante matchup, assuming the two players are of equal skill, K’sante will take most of the plates with no jungle intervention. K’sante can take plates off of most top champs.

 

 

Mana

 

Being forced to base already feels a bit sad as you take yourself out of the action, but waiting at full health as your mana pool slowly creeps up adds salt to the wounds.

 

‘Adds salt to the wounds’ – what a beautiful phrase. I’m crying right now. You guys knew how we felt? So you chose to increase fountain mana regen. What a great patch. When mana users base, a lot of times we’d be at full health. We had to wait for our mana to regenerate, and that took forever.

 

Previously, mana was a way to gate early waveclear for casters

 

 

Exactly. Mana users used to have superior wave clear, but that’s not true anymore. Champions with no costs have the same, if not better, wave clear. And nobody plays champions that can’t clear waves. Either you have wave clear, or you have some other insane advantage that makes up for your lack of wave clear. Mana skills used to have merits that made up for the fact that they had a cost, but those merits have waned in recent years.

 

Homeguard

 

Back in the olden days of League, 20 minutes was the "end of the laning phase". The game has gotten a bit faster and we're lining up the start of Homeguards with Tower Plates falling. We'll be keeping an eye out on how this affects wave pushing and basing strategies, but for now get excited to see those sweet Homeguard animations a bit earlier.

 

Wow, reading this feels really strange. These patch notes are completely different from the patch notes of old. Those patch notes reeked of low elo. The Balance team is so knowledgeable about the game now. They know about how Homeguard affects wave pushing and basing strategies? This is probably the biggest change of the patch. Most of my viewers don’t know about this stuff. You might pretend to know, or falsely believe that you do know, but you don’t. There aren’t that many people in the world that know how these strategies work – there has to be a pro gamer advising the balance team. These strategies are complicated too, explaining how they work isn’t easy either. It takes way too long. The patch notes are so advanced. Especially how they’re saying they’ll keep an eye out on these strategies.

 

Wait a second, didn’t they use that same wording somewhere else? Didn’t they say they would keep an eye on Lost Chapter? Hmmm… Changing Homeguard to be active from 14 minutes could be really dangerous for the game. It’ll probably be better for the winning team, so the game will be more snowbally. Each sentence in the patch notes is so on point. The very fact that they’re mentioning these things tells you how well they know the game.

 

Blast Cone Spawn Time

 

Interesting changes, but it’s a bad change for me personally. There’s a TF strategy you use when you ‘whiff’ your first ult. i.e. you thought it was a good angle, but it turned into a bad one when you use your ult. What you can do is ultimate to a blast cone, and wait for you ultimate to expire. People let their guard down when TF ultimate runs out, so they’ll walk forwards. That’s when you use the blast cone to gank them. You can probably find a vod of me doing that somewhere. I would even randomly ‘waste’ ult even when the angle was bad just to get the enemy’s guard down. The 30 second difference shuts down that strategy. A bit sad for me, but top and bot laners probably like this patch. You can ward further down the river now.

 

Turret plating

 

We've all been in the situation where a single gank, Rift Herald, or bad mistake in lane costs 2-3 tower plates, snowballing the lane out of control.

 

Oh, definitely. This is my area of expertise. I study how to snowball small mistakes into the lane, and then to erase my opponent from the game entirely. It’s just so fun.

 

Theorycrafting

 

It’s time to bust out the forbidden build, mana regen Orianna. Back in the day, Athena’s + Ardent Orianna would turn ADCs into gods. They would never die, and they dealt insane damage. You built all of the support items as mid Orianna. If you think about it, you don’t need lost chapter if you have plenty of mana regeneration. And if you buy mana regen items, you don’t have to buy useless mana stats, and can buy useful stats instead. And the new cherry on top? Helia’s. You can convert all of your mana regen into useful stats. Imperial mandate isn’t a Mythic anymore, so you build that too. The support items all have heal and shield power, and you stack those. Get out of the way, top laners, because ADC’s are going to run you down.

 

You might have less AP, but it doesn’t matter. The support items are all so cheap anyways. Helia’s + Ardent Censor only costs 4400 gold – that’s the same as Ludens + magic pen boots. If you get free boots from runes, you don’t even need to buy boots. Ardent has 5% MS now, so you won’t be slow either. And since these items come online so early, you don’t even need to sidelane. Just stick to your ADC and mow down their tier 2 towers. As soon as the patch goes live, I’m trying this out. If only I could try it out on PBE – it doesn’t work there because PBE ADCs suck.

 

Think about it. Milio goes Shurelya’s, Ivern goes Redemption and Moonstone, and I buy Helia’s. The perfect comp. And top Shen goes Knight’s Vow. Perfection.

 

ADC’s are going to have around a 7:3 AD:AP damage split now, which is an indirect nerf to mid mages. Especially if the meta ever shifts back to AP junglers. Triple AP top side comps are going to be even worse than they were, especially since AP damage is easy to itemize against.

 

 

TL notes

 

• Hi! I’m Yoon. I translate things here. It’s been a while since my last translation, but I finally got around to doing one. I was actually thinking of doing Cloudtemplar translations for MSI, but someone else beat me to the punch. Shoutout to u/d_Reisfresser for their translations.
• I had to do some digging on the movement speed to AD conversion ratio, because at times it was unclear whether Dopa was talking about 1% MS or 1 MS. I think I got it right, but I could be wrong.
• I intended for this to be out much earlier, but it took more time than expected. I’m so late that Phreak apparently already has patch 13.11 ready – I guess 75 min videos are really long.
• I removed some stuff because the post is too long as is, but I think the remaining stuff is more important.

 

 

TL;DR

• Galeforce is super busted because it gives 7% move speed.
• The patch notes and patches in general have become much ‘smarter’. Before, it felt like the balance team was Platinum, but now Dopa suspects there is a pro player either on or advising the balance team. (Phreak?)
• The minion speed change might have the opposite effect as intended, and homeguard at 14 minutes will make the game more snowbally. However, the new minion tunnel vision will make diving harder.
• If you’re short on time, i would reccomned reading the 'Galeforce' part and 'Early Game Adjustments' - minions & homeguard. Or 'AP ratios' for itemization.

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