PhreakRiot

PhreakRiot



17 Jun

Comment

Originally posted by Jake_Berube

We were promised a year ago that big top lane satisfaction changes were coming in pre season and they didn’t come and now you are saying IF you ever look at big top lane changes? Can you guys please please please just be 100% transparent with us and tell us if we as top laners should continue to hope for actual help and healthy changes or if we are so far down the priority list that we should just accept where we are and maybe in a few years actually be able to play and have fun again?

I wasn't on the team last year but I don't recall anyone promising time frames.

Comment

Originally posted by Infinite_Delusion

I only build Riftmaker on him (Jaksho is cringe), and you get up to 330 AP late game and about 370 with Conqueror (I think). How are the numbers looking before that for the AP build, because it's hard to calculate when we don't have the +damage per level scaling on his new numbers for Q, since they aren't linear.

Any chance that you guys can instead target his passive, where most of his damage comes from for his tank build? People are always complaining about Morde never hitting hitting skillshots and "microwaving" them.

I'm not an expert at numbers of course, but maybe lowering the %Max HP damage to a flat 1% from 1-5%, then adding an AP ratio to the % Max HP damage could help. The tank build would get hit pretty hard, and the AP build would probably get a slight 1% Max HP buff at full build depending on numbers.

Most of the base hit was after level 13.

Comment

Originally posted by Minishcap1

"It's why Ghost is being nerfed. There is a lot of agency in the ADC's coffers. This can go down somewhat."

But there are plenty of avenues to make ghost less appealing for ADCs while not making it weaker for melee champs as well.

Ghostly overperforms in every role except support. It can do with a simple clean nerf.

Comment

Originally posted by doglop

But my point is he shouldn't be getting nerfs to begin with, I know they aren't big but they still affect his laning as asupp + makes him even less appealing to buy supp items with, which just amplifies his current issues and a lack of caring about his support role which has been a heavy issue since the rework

Again, they aren't nerfs. You're overvaluing the -flat and not valuing the +scaling enough.

Comment

Originally posted by Boudynasr

Question regarding fighters, what is your general opinion about Trinity Force?

from my experience, if a champion's kit can build trinity then it is automatically their best item [whether fighters/bruisers or marksmen]

Trinity Force changes in 13.10 were good directionally but it's a bit overpowered now.

Comment

Originally posted by doglop

most players have gravitated toward top lane TK by a ratio of about 3:1 despite the power levels being pretty close.

It has been historically not close(2-3% depending on elo for the last 2 years and much bigger pre 12.2 and started getting closer post tank item reworks) so a ton of players never actually realized the gap has been closer, cause it had mostly to do with the ranged/enchanter nerfs rather than him getting better. Regardless, support was his "og" role, that's like saying pantheon should be balanced around supp when he was 80% of the time picked as a support rather than reworked and making him way worse as a supp and better as a solo laner, or rumble should be a midlaner cause he was more popular there, when you just changed him to make him better at top. If anything the lack of support to tahm as a support is what is making him less and less picked, would be cool he was getting changes for support, rather than opening the gap even mor...

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I'm fine with Tahm Kench being a viable support. My initial point still stands that I believe you're overvaluing the nerfs in this case.

Comment

Originally posted by Intelligent-Syrup-68

But you understand how a negligible pr inflates wr no?

Common misconception.

Comment

Originally posted by MoonDawg2

IE outperforms Galeforce on most champions for most players.

Wouldn't this also be affected by the item having an active while IE doesn't? Iirc historically active items tend to have lower winrates because of human error, regardless of them being strong or not.

That being said the big issue with IE is that it just doesn't feel impactful even if it is. It's just... There. I don't think every item needs a gimmick, but I do think mythics need to be a bit cooler than avg.

I agree on the SR point. Is this the power level where the item will be kept, or is it planned to be buffed in the future? Feels a bit underwhelming now comapred to other options (please let me enjoy statik for a bit). What is the niche for SR now? Surviviability I guess? It just doesn't stack well with mythics when it comes to damage now

I fully expect Galeforce (and all actives) to be skewed by MMR.

So the question is, should Galeforce be tuned around exclusively pro play? Where's the inflection point? For most players, they will win more games with IE than Galeforce in League of Legends today. That seems reasonable.

I think the goal for item balancing should be that each item is BiS on at least one champion and retains some level of popularity. Some items are niche (QSS) and that's fine. Some items are meant to be common purchases. We know players are slow to adapt to balance changes (Zeri had like a 60+% Trinity Force pick rate on day 1 of 13.12) and players need to come back from Galeforce's overpowered midseason state, which they will.

Comment

Originally posted by No_Arm_Whatley

Winning "an average number of games" is a bit deceptive though isn't it.

Not only his playrate is very low, but as a very simplistic champion it would naturally follow that he would have a slightly higher than average winrate as people who try him are not going to massively lose games in the way they would on many popular high skill-floor toplaners like Yone, Aatrox, K'sante, ect.

Play rate is not an indication of average champion mastery.

Comment

Originally posted by relrax

1) generally appreciate your work
2) agree that all toplane champs should care about gold, so weaksiding top becomes worse. (also pls no janna, bard, zilean top ever again)
3) i just have the personal fear that making toplane more snowbally by increasing the scaling of champions just makes bad matchups even worse, and the lane might become even more counterpick reliant.

3 is definitely a valid point. If we ever take a big holistic look at top lane and try to meaningfully change the lane dynamics, this seems like an important factor to keep in mind.

Comment

Originally posted by Phr33k101

I'm reminded of a quote by Mark Rosewater, lead designer of MtG, who once said at a game dev conference: "Your players are great at identifying problems, but awful at designing solutions". I don't pretend to have solutions to this issue, but I'm also not sure about the notion that top lane doesn't care about gold (or at least, I don't think it's the root issue).

I think it's uncontroversial to say that top lane is incredibly counter-pick focused, and teams generally tend to let top laners have the latest picks possible. Eventually, however, one of the two players will have to pick blind, and in doing so they need to accept that they can (and likely will) be counterpicked. Because of this, the blind picker has an incentive to pick the safest, most stable lane possible, that can operate well even in rough conditions (e.g. Ornn, Malph, Gragas, etc), instead of something that needs tons of gold and which can be countered easily (e.g. Camille). While the second picker often ha...

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I general I think you're right about the landscape. Top lane is the most volatile, that's true.

However, I'd argue that the volatility goes down substantially once more champions get involved. For example, ADCs are actually statistically pretty flat matchup-wise. Obviously there are good and bad matchups but it's nowhere close to other roles. A large part of this is how many other variables (champions) matter.

Maybe a small power shift should also happen: If all top laners deal 10% less damage before level 10 and 10% more damage after, your ability to get all-in dove in the early game goes down but your ability to carry a team fight goes up. If we waved our hands and that change just showed up like the Durability Update, would you enjoy top more? It's going to mean your teammates contribute relatively more to your success in lane than before.

Comment

Originally posted by doglop

Pls don't, those changes kill tahm supp who is already weak(you know, the role he was meant to be balanced around post rework?). No one asked for this

TK support most commonly goes Heartsteel and Grasp and doesn't tend to level much past 11, where the passive scaling stops. This likely isn't as impactful as you think.

Also, most players have gravitated toward top lane TK by a ratio of about 3:1 despite the power levels being pretty close. Regardless of our intentions, that's where he's found the most fans.

Comment

Originally posted by ImSoFar

neutral changes

Why would you sell it like that? These are not neutral changes when top lane already has less gold than a jungler. Making them weaker early game is a huge nerf despite that "they are getting better at 3-4 items". Surviving until that point makes them weaker overall, not "neutral".

Jungle champions are already stupid strong and they deserve nerfs on top of nerfs, but somehow top laners are getting "neutral changes" by nerfing them in the early game. They won't be able compete with junglers and adc at any stage.

If Riot wants to increase top lane agency, nerf jungle champions. There is no reason for jungle to have monsters like Kha, Eve, Fiddle, Rek'sai, Kindred, Udyr, Ivern and Rengar.

The one in charge of these changes should do some big "neutral changes" on junglers, not on top laners.

TK Q heal is better at 500 missing health. If he's full it doesn't matter anyway. That's nearly always on. That's pretty much a strict buff.

TK buys Heartsteel and goes Grasp in most games. It is not hard for him to exceed the level 18 value of his passive.

Comment

Originally posted by Minishcap1

Why do we think that buffing fighters = buffing top lane? Top lane's issues are systemic. It's too rewarding for the enemy jungler to gank bot and play botside. The value of those areas getting ahead should be brought down. All this accomplishes is further power creeping the game (while for some reason nerfing ghost because it wasn't already awful enough to play as an immobile melee champ in this game)

The enemy support being able to perma-roam top while top being unable to respond without getting massively far behind is an issue as well. Why is bounceback exp so powerful for that role?

The jungle role also needs power reduction. The role has been made to be so extremely powerful especially in high elo games because "no one wants to queue for jungle" but making the role unhealthily powerful is not a good answer. Jungle decides the outcome of 9/10 games.

While it's a good goal to make the jungler want to come top, just generically buffing only the fighter cl...

Which is why the bonus AD ratios of Stormrazor and Essence Reaver are being brought down. It's why Ghost is being nerfed. There is a lot of agency in the ADC's coffers. This can go down somewhat.

The reason I'm not trying to make items themselves stronger is because junglers will use those same tools to further empower themselves.

In general, Fighters have more agency over the game than Tanks. I don't think anyone's surprised by this.

There are plenty of things that could change about the game. My tasks were to lower the number of tanks in pro play and shift ADC power curves. While doing so, I attempted to raise overall top lane agency.

Comment

Originally posted by Intelligent-Syrup-68

He’s already weak now though, why do you feel the need to adjust him in place of just making him less shit

He's not weak in his current players' hands, though. He wins an average number of games.

Comment

Originally posted by Its_Da_Muffin_Man

Yeah but the problem is that AP bruisers can almost never reach 330 ap until literally 4/5 items so for morde it's a straight up nerf. Is there a reason he was tarfeted along with all the others? Just curious.

AP bruisers don’t typically reach level 18.

This would shift him toward Riftmaker and away from Jak’Sho. Also don’t discount things like Conqueror and stat shards.

Comment

Originally posted by Ok_Regular_9436

alright, mind showing a spreadsheet for gangplank, mr. phreak? i dont know how to math it out.

Buff before ~200 bonus AD, depending on how quickly you farm vs. level up.

Comment

Originally posted by Intelligent-Syrup-68

Why are you making tahm kench weaker?

Top Kench should be similarly powerful. If the changes miss, we can compensate next patch.

Comment

Originally posted by Aruillavain

I don't understand how getting jungler/team attention qualifies as top lane impact. That's getting impacted not impacting something yourself.

They primary reason tanks don't care about money (in pro play at least) is that the team focused tank items were changed to be support/low income items (Radiant Virtue/ Abyssal). Tanks can care about winning lane and having money if they have a use for that money. In solo queue a tank cares a lot about money if it has to facetank a 15/0 enemy adc and try to carry.

By mid game, winning top lane is less relevant than winning any other lane on average.

So, top lane isn’t important

Making top lane more important (allowing winning lane to mean more) means more of your team is invested in who wins the lane

I don’t think top lane should be 1v1 while the rest of the map is 4v4 and expect to have an equal say over who wins. If you have a different view for what top lane should be doing all game I’d love to hear it.

Comment

Originally posted by HazelCheese

Have you considered doing something like giving IE a VFX / SFX when you crit with it?

It feels weak when you buy it atm because you don't have the stats to take advantage of the crit damage immediately. Whereas galeforce and guinsoo and other stuff like shiz you instantly see the visual change or change in damage application.

Some kind of visual or audio que that it is doing something could really help it's feel and for me always hits my dopamine receptors. Something that makes it feel like "this is the BFG" adc item.

IE crit VFX could be quite cool. I’ll bring it up and see if people like the idea.