Altombre

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Focusing on the rifles for now - SMGs in general tend to have better run n gun capability as one of their relative strengths. We've considered expanding these accuracy changes to other weapon classes, but since we've been focusing primarily on the Rifles so far we're just going to do them first and see how everything lands.

I know, I remember you talking about it awhile back! I’m mainly referring to that the idea of Riot making an MMO isn’t a new one, it’s been talked about internally for ages. I know you were involved with the pitch that actually got approved though, which is dope.

People at Riot have wanted to make an MMO for ages. I’m sure Blau was one of them (alongside myself) but I’m pretty sure other people like Greg Street had probably thought of the idea before too lmao

We’re working on it, hoping it’ll be out in next patch. This change was a consequence of a fix we shipped to stop Omen from glitching under the map with Sage walls + tp, so we’re working on a way to have the same TP functionality while also not allowing for him to break through the map.

Hoping for next patch, might be the patch after that though. Sorry for the pain in the interim

Standard disclaimer: I'm not a designer. I'm insights, meaning I work with the balance team on curating data and our frameworks around how we use it. I'm part of the balance team, but not a designer myself, so keep that lens in mind!

For Omen, I think there were two primary things - pick rate and design goals. Omen's pick rate both in MM and First Strike heavily crowded out other controllers (more than double the pick rate of Viper and Brimstone combined) from being considered for the role. High pickrate by itself isn't a huge issue, but owning the vast majority of the pickrate within a given role across all levels of play was something worth investigating. As we started to work on controller updates and changes, the design team felt there were opportunities to further differentiate Omen from other controllers on the roster (and controllers we'll make in the future) and we wanted to further sharpen his identity. His kit also wasn't driving many economic decisions, as his si...

This teleport change was not intended in our set of Omen nerfs, likely a result of a bug or something else that shipped in the patch. We're talking about it!

Of course! Always happy to talk through this stuff, thanks for sharing your thoughts :) hoping we didn't troll too hard on the number tuning itself, but the next few days should give us a decent idea at least. Good luck in your games!

I think the key difference is that Omen still can provide global pressure, it's just a bit slower. This reduction often results in a second or less of a delay, except at very long ranges, and even so, being able to smoke nearly anywhere on the map is definitely valuable despite the delay. Brimstone just straight-up is not capable of that, and just smoking something gives the team some information about Brimstone's position.

I think it's good to have concerns about why you would pick Omen over Brim - I'm not a designer, but I think our hope would be that Brim is more of the go-to for explosive site takes, due to his triple smoke deploy and ult allowing for explosive takes and his stim's value getting multiplied when you have multiple allies nearby. Omen, on the other hand, should be much better at faking and exerting pressure, since he doesn't have to commit to any of his smoke casts (they recharge), and Omen is much more self-sufficient when working sites due to hi...

He's actually not meant to be the global pressure agent. Omen's a controller who can exert a lot of local pressure and misinformation via his recharging smokes that don't give away his position. He also has out of combat mobility via his C and his ult, allowing him to boost, cross angles, and teleport around the map to break battle lines. Omen can still smoke across the map better than our controllers currently, but the speed reduction was meant to reduce his power in that area since he already brings a lot of other unique aspects to the controller role and we don't want him to be the "global controller" on top of everything else.

We've hired some new designers onboard in the new year, so hopefully we can pick up the pace a bit!

We're working on it, just want to be sure we land it right since shooting accuracy is such a high-impact system. It's probably a patch or two out right now.

I think this an interesting idea for an ability at some point! In regards to Brim's stim, I personally think people are sleeping on it, especially after this patch. But maybe we'll add an agent in the future with some sort of trophy system mechanic, who knows!

This is the plan, for what it’s worth. We’ve got other changes we’re working on and testing right now, we just didn’t want to rush them all out without being confident in them.

We're not nerfing his smoke regeneration time, just the Paranoia cost and travel speed. Leaks are often not credible, beware!

I think the travel speed looks a lot bigger on paper than it is in reality. In situations that aren't throwing smokes across the entire map, we're talking about a second or less of a difference. It's natural for folks to have hot takes when looking at balance changes, though, that's just how things go.

I totally get where you're coming from, and just to be clear - it's perfectly healthy to question our decisions and levy criticism at us. We are definitely going to be wrong sometimes and are learning alongside you all. So don't feel the need to justify your skepticism! It's all good.

I think in general, Brim is a bit more straightforward and less of a playmaker than Omen for sure, and that's a future opportunity in Controllers as a role in general like you said. In regards to your other concerns - Yoru will be the last Duelist for a little bit, so the other roles will be getting some more agents soon, and ranked changes are underway (but I don't work on that side of the project, so I can't speak to anything there personally).

Omen’s entire kit was not very economically demanding and his Q has proven to be incredibly strong on both offense and defense. In making balance changes, we also want to be future-facing and aim to carve out design space for what each controller is meant to provide - Omen having global smoke pressure, recharging smokes, a boost AND a powerful site taking/stalling tool with low ability costs was just making him a bit too good at everything.

If he ends up being too weak, we’ll buff him back - but hopefully these changes can help sharpen why you’d want to pick Omen or Brimstone more clearly.

We’re looking at Duelists in general right now for similar reasons, fwiw.

Yup! You can hear it and it’s stealthed, but you can see it if you’re close enough. You can shoot enemy Yoru beacons to destroy them.

Totally invis from range, there’s a radius around him up close where he fades into visibility. Footsteps are a separate ability entirely - some of the videos coming out soon I’m sure will explain all this stuff better than me!

Correct on both counts, although the hitbox on Yoru footsteps is small so the trips would have to be low to the ground to hit them. Yoru footsteps also trigger Killjoy turret/alarmo and make noises when going through Cypher cages like a player would. He can definitely get into sentinel’s heads and bait out utility (or teleport past it)