League of Legends Dev Tracker

4 - RoA has more interesting item combo opportunities (Mana build w/ tear vs. Liandry's combo build)

5 - Eternity effect is simplified, more satisfying intellectually, and most rewarding of natural combat patterns rather than spellcast frequency optimization.

3 - Get to experiment with "reduced sustain from non-champions" rather than our standard single target vs aoe split. I expect this to be a more appropriate take on a reduction model.

2 - RoA provides an avenue for sustained damage mages to get some combat sustain, and its output is deferred to later in the game, where it is less historically concerning/problematic.

1 - Haunting Guise now builds into another item and it (hopefully) makes sense. We should avoid having mid tier items that only build into one legendary item where possible, as it bloats the shop out in the middle.

I also got a task to make RoA interesting and relevant, which at least @RiotKingCobra has been asking for for awhile. #lifeofapatch

May not have time for something this big, but here was my rough starting point and some design considerations I discussed with the team:

I took the task of looking at balancing solo lane Pyke for 9.13. Anyone got any ideas? #lifeofapatch

Lifesteal-like effects can be good for the game in enabling some amount of solo snowball and individual agency.

tl;dr: IMO we should regulate early game systemic healing especially, and Grievous Wounds isn't in a great spot. Other sources can be tuned healthily at that point.

The next issue is that Grievous doesn't do its job effectively, and that the game is less fun if it does. I'd prefer we rework the effect or remove it from items entirely (maybe put it on some more kits?) and balance mid and late game healing around its nonexistence.

I think early game systemic sources (runes and early items) are the biggest issue. Because these account for so much of champs' early power, when they can be stacked, everyone can become a sustain monster. Many champs need attrition to work against them in order to be fair.

Since we're doing this #lifeofapatch thing, I wanted to comment on the healing conversation that rose on reddit today now that I'm done for the day and have a couple moments. Main thoughts:

Healing is generally out of whack, yes. It's too prevalent in the game in some cases.

Healing isn't always bad.

It can fulfill an exciting playstyle or fantasy well on an individual champion basis.

Sustain is good when it helps players stay out on the map and press advantages in later stages of the game, but it tends to feel unfair if it comes online early.

We also were notified of a bug where Master Yi's Double Strike stacks were lasting shorter than intended, so that should also be fixed in 9.12.

Got to add some TK stuff to the patch that should make him feel a bit less overbearing in top lane but a bit smoother in the reactive ally Devour case.