He did not need this. He's currently sitting at a 52% WR in Jungle right now and this will make him insane. As someone who enjoys the champion I would rather not have him nuked down the road because these buffs went through.
External link →Except the skin team and balance team don't talk and skins are planned like a year in advance
Yeah, I buffed off-meta builds for Kog and Nunu because I had some spare time and felt like making them more viable was pretty low-hanging fruit (high fun-for-players:work ratio, putting some newly viable (hopefully) builds in the spotlight without a lot of time invested since no mechanical changes were needed as the champs had pretty good build separation already). I sure wish there was a Nunu skin too so I could get my fat commission, though /s
Don't worry dude, I'm sure you can throw a sneaky lux buff in the next patch for an easy bonus.
Great, thanks, now I have to wait a couple more patches to throw you off.
Even if it were the case, I fail to see the issue with buffing underplayed champions while giving them new skins. It’s a good thing no matter how you look at it.
And thanks for the buffs ! I used to love AP Kog, can’t wait to play it again !
Cheers, I've been happy to see other people from the olden days reminiscing about AP Kog and excited to give it another spin. Have fun!
How much does the balance team take ARAM into account? AP kogmaw was already hell post-16 before that massive buff
Not much—the modes team balances ARAM separately, and we're confident that they'll follow up appropriately if anything ends up being out of line. The reason we mostly disregard ARAM is because there is already an incredible number of constraints on any balance work when you consider all of the audiences (MMR, Role, Pro/Normal) that play the game even just on SR.
Guys, we found a member of the balance team in the wild.
Get your pitchforks!
I work mostly on preseason now, not patch balance. Just saw an opportunity to add some fun. :)
Would you consider adding an AP ratio to Ashe's W?
A bit of context: I've played support Ashe since 2013. Back when Ashe's passive was Focus, it made for a really strong laning phase with high powered instances of poke. She's always been a great Black Cleaver support champion and it's incredibly fun to play.
Why an AP ratio though? Ever since they added Stoneborn Pact to the game (Font of Life in runes reforged) additional strategies opened up for support Ashe because of Frost Shot, particularly using Ardent Censer on autoattack based comps (everything Ashe does triggers Font of Life, allies heal from it and gain the buff). The problem is the item itself feels fantastic to buy, but the path feels miserable. AP does nothing for Ashe except for adding 1/0.5 AP to her ult, so spending money on a Wisp is a low point.
Support Ashe can also build a couple of AP items viably, like Twin Shadows and Liandry's, but again, the AP only really affects your R casts and your ratios from runes. An AP ratio on W would have minimal effect on ADC Ashe's balance (it would increase her W damage on Baron take only) but it would be godsent for those of us who play Support Ashe, which is incredibly fun and deceptively powerful.
I hadn't considered this one. Thanks for the thorough explanation. Can't promise anything, but I'll put it on my list of backlogged "maybe this could be good" champ changes.
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