AzuBK

Fixed for 10.4! Lots of our older wrapper spells aren't very precise about what you can target with them, since afterward the script interprets the command and actually triggers the spell correctly (and sometimes we still want to allow you to target someone out of range, so that we can then let you know that you're out of range or display a range circle or similar). The real culprit here was that Guardian never cared whether you cast something tagged as a buff or helpful effect—it triggered when you targeted an ally with anything, including totally untagged "spells" that have no gameplay effect, like wrapper spells. So, Guardian now correctly only triggers on helpful ally-targeted effects, similar to Summon: Aery.

Kinda late, but we put bugs in the patch notes in a pretty ad-hoc fashion. Like, if we think it's either a big bug that's important to let players know about or if we think it'll make players happy to know it was fixed, we'll let Shio Shoujo know so she can include it. We fix a lot more bugs every patch than make it into the patch notes, which is why things like "When Jhin runs his very suboptimal keystone, he will no longer very occasionally become unable to 4th shot" didn't make the grade for me.

Thanks for everything you do, btw. I always appreciate finding your repro steps when I'm trying to stomp a bug.

A classic trope, really.

Thanks for sharing your story. It's always great to get reminders like this of why positive representation is so important, and I'm super happy that you found your acceptance right away. Hold those friends close!

I'm also gay, and, when I first started at Riot, this was shown during our orientation as a sneak peek of cool upcoming stuff. That was definitely a reaffirming moment for my decision to work here and made me more comfortable with my identity in the workplace.

Big oops. Last patch I fixed a bug with Hail of Blades which caused Jhin to sometimes become unable to 4th shot at all. I fixed this by removing a seemingly superfluous check somewhere that reset that spell slot to his crit auto attack. That change exposed a separate issue that already existed—Jhin can be prevented from reloading sometimes, which places him into a state where he has zero ammo and whatever is placed in his spell slot becomes his crit basic attack until he reloads (defaults to his 4th shot, but can also be his Q or E). Before last patch, this would lead to perma 4th shot. Now, it leads to perma 4th shot or perma Q/E (whichever he cast last). This is now fixed for next patch by allowing Jhin's reload to be castable under all conditions.

And no, you can't get his ultimate to replace his basic attack, sadly.

Normally not a fan of this sort of thing on principle, but in this case it was so extreme that I elected to include it. I don't think I've ever seen an example where a choice like this is wrong by so much (between 3% and 4% winrate depending on MMR) and made so frequently (between 45% and 70% take Comet depending on MMR, with most of the remainder taking Aery). A ton of people are making a choice that loses them a ton of winrate, so the practical value of helping players view Yuumi as a viable champion by increasing her average winrate by ~2% purely through spreading information seemed to outweigh the negatives of being prescriptive about a rune.

Not specifically. It would be awesome to live in a world where every champion was pro-viable without being grossly imbalanced in solo queue. A lot of champs are pretty far off from that, though, and we usually have more pressing problems.

hey thanks

Passed it along, thanks

It's fixed! Must have missed it in our patch note documentation, sorry about that.

Not certain, I haven't been particularly involved in these sets of changes. You should see a trimmed down final version tomorrow, though.

No. We aren't looking to completely remove any champions from the meta going into worlds. There's always a bit of guesswork here, but we don't want to make teams play an entirely different meta from the one they qualified on. We're lightening up on the Sylas nerf a bit toward that end (and walking back the Aatrox/Akali nerfs slightly as well).

Author of both sets of changes here. While I think that the previous set of changes were solid (I expected them to be a lower MMR/teamfighting buff specifically), they were also a bit more speculative and might have required followup. Given that we've changed riven several times in the last ~10 patches, we instead went for a simpler, more understood change.

As for why this was the change: In 9.10, we agreed that Riven was too powerful and needed a nerf. The change we made ended up increasing her win-rate disparity by MMR, so for this patch I chose to essentially revert to 9.9 (understood OP version of Riven) and do a simpler nerf of 2 seconds CD on E.

Sure, makes sense.

If you're referring to this statement:

We tried a few variations of the changes, but in the end, it seemed like we couldn’t make a change without being deeply divisive—and we weren’t comfortable shipping something unless the majority of his playbase was on board.

Then no, I think it was phrased accurately. This set of changes was meant to make Teemo players happier (to my understanding), and it didn't seem to be doing that, so we weren't comfortable shipping them.

I'm not sure I fully follow your question. It sounds like we're on the same page. When the goal of shipping a change is to give something great to the community of people that play that champ, then those changes shouldn't run contrary to what a considerable portion of those players want. I believe this is the goal for the current round of Teemo changes, which is why they were pulled upon the community liking them less than was forecast.

FWIW, there are different criteria for different types of work. I wasn't at the company four years ago so I don't know 100% if this was the case for the previous Teemo changes, but if the previous work was done because we felt 10 minute shrooms were unhealthy for the game as a whole, that's something where Teemo player feedback will be weighed, but won't be sole factor on whether it ships. Nobody ever wants a nerf to ship for their own champion (and rightfully so). If we're trying to ship something awesome specifically for Teemo players and Teemo players are divided on whether they like it, then that's a much clearer show-stopper.

Also I do just want to focus on the player-focus line in your comment. We definitely slip up on player focus sometimes, but it's also not quite as cut-and-dry as "listening to what players say on Reddit/Twitter/etc. is player-focused." Sometimes it's correct to make an unpopular decision (or, even more relevant, a decision that appears REALLY unpo...

Disclaimer: I'm not currently on balance, but I am privy to a lot of the discussions surrounding this framework.

If Garen is simultaneously overpowered in Bronze and underpowered in Plat+, that serves as a strong indicator that he needs changes beyond balance, which would be prioritized against other champions in similar situations. So yes, he would get a nerf and be slotted for work to resolve the dramatic imbalance by MMR, as indicated in the following passage from the article:

Translating that understanding into action, our champion balance priorities are to immediately address champions that are overpowered, then address champions that are underpowered across the board, and when those are accounted for, working on making champions balanced across several audiences (for example, in cases where they might only be balanced for one or two audiences).

The initial nerf would also likely be a change that impacts low MMR more than high...