PhreakRiot

PhreakRiot



17 Jun

Comment

Originally posted by Phr33k101

Respectfully, that seems counterintuitive. Top lane as a whole has been complaining about lack of agency for quite some time - tanks included. Nobody really feels like they have much impact at all. These changes seem to take part of the little agency that tanks have and redistribute it to fighters. Now, don't get me wrong, I'll be glad to see more fighters in pro play, but this feels like it's going about it the wrong way. The goal should be to have all top laners feel like they have more agency, whether they are fighters, tanks, mages, or adcs. I hope I am wrong, but from your explanation it sounds like Riot is robbing Peter to pay Paul with this patch.

This is not the silver bullet to top lane agency. The primary goal is a pro play meta shift. The tactics are those that ask top lane to care more about gold income.

Many top laners are better than all bot laners at converting early leads to game victory. Few top laners are better than the average bot laner at converting mid game leads to victory.

The calculus is not as far off as many people think, but it would require many more changes than these to reach parity.

Comment

Originally posted by Ok_Regular_9436

so it is a late game nerf

And a substantial early game buff. The changes are a buff unless you built the item 3rd+

Comment

Originally posted by ImSoFar

Some of the champions in that list are not even picked in pro play(they're not even that popular/strong to begin with) and you don't increase top lane agency by nerfing their champions. Tanks also do care a lot more about gold since their items cost more.

You're idea is just to turn top lane in a better hunting ground for the so weak jungle that sure doesn't deserve nerfs.

Most of the intended-neutral changes are being pulled. It’s mostly strict buffs to weaker fighters and strict nerfs to overperforming tanks.

Comment

Originally posted by Its_Da_Muffin_Man

Yeah those morde changes are absolutely disgustingly huge, entirely gut his jungle build and make top quite a lot worse.

Junglers gain more gold and less xp than top laners.

Comment

Originally posted by OceanStar6

Having crunched the numbers on many of these changes, some of them actually appear to be nerfs. I'm hoping either I'm drunk and my math is just wrong, or Riot typo'd these or something.

For example, the Sett change to his second punch is a nerf until he reaches 226.666666 bonus AD which is going to be like ~4-5 AD boosting items which is turbo lategame after he has likely either won or lost already. The R buff is also going to take a few items to really make a difference as well.

The Morde change is very similar, and is saying he's down ~50 damage on his Q and breaks even at 333.33333333 AP which is sorta a lot. Most Morde's like to mix a few tank items in so he doesn't just get blown up, so again it appears to be a nerf? I guess if he goes a rocket belt full AP build it will begin to climb past the typical Q amount, but I'm not sure if that's really what Morde wants to be doing.

Ok but in the same breath you’re assuming 4 items you’re also assuming level 18. Both are atypical in the average game. Why does Reddit see the level 18 value and just only do the math there? This is a common trend.

Comment

Originally posted by Ok_Regular_9436

the ER changes are a nerf to intended users when the item isnt that meta atm , kinda weird

edit: so they are nerfing ER instead of nerfing rengar?

Requires like 200 bonus AD, aka 3+ items for 15% bonus to be stronger than 30% base. Fake news.

Comment

This won’t be the final change list.

Voli W damage ratio shouldn’t change. I’m sure QA woulda caught it but that’s unintended, as is the malphite slow change.

Morde Sett aren’t changing this patch.

Stormrazor changes are different. Shiv is getting some tweaks. A few more changes are coming Tuesday.

Goals are to shift pro play toward fighters and overall increase top lane agency and team attention: no point in ganking or winning your lane if one of the champions doesn’t care about gold to begin with.

Comment

Originally posted by FruitfulRogue

Question, do you think there could be a benefit in making IE a more "enticing" choice by adding an effect that is adjacent to the damage increase? /g

I feel like Mythics have built up a reputation as being rather exciting purchases and IE unfortunately breaks that expectation a bit by being purely passive.

I don't think IE needs more complexity. It uniquely provides crit damage and it's appropriately strong. That's a reasonable spot for an item to sit.

Comment

Originally posted by WoonStruck

Do you think there's a bit of overlap between IE and Navori on champs with crit damage scaling abilities?

Do you think that reworking and making IE's purpose more defined than "crit" would be beneficial, even through the lens of satisfaction?

As an example, a strong focus on the basic damage type (complete exclusion of abilities and on-hits/attacks) as opposed to solely crit?

There is overlap but honestly it's reasonable. Quickblades is a really narrow item. If players built rationally for their skill level, Quickblades would be the least-built crit mythic.

Comment

Originally posted by Lyoss

Yeah I think a lot of people really underestimate the damage increase on IE compared to other items, yes, you give up utility but IE affects a majority of your damage profile if you're a crit focused auto attacker

Yeah you ultimately can't oversimplify either.

Galeforce sacrifices some consistent damage for mobility.

Infinity Edge sacrifices mobility for higher consistent damage.

You can oversimplify either one to "It's not worth sacrificing X for Y" but the real answer is that some champions can and some can't.

Comment

Originally posted by XRay9

Phreak says in his patch rundown that Gragas was nerfed because people complained that he was picked too much, particularly in pro. The problem with this nerf is that it kills Gragas' ability to lane almost entirely, as his sustain was the main thing making him viable. He's not strong early, scales well but not incredibly so (and relies on player skill unlike some other scaling champs), maybe in the future they can kill Phase Rush and give him the ability to scrap early.

Not entirely accurate.

We elected to change him and specifically his passive because it washes out lanes too much.

Comment

Originally posted by Dust2chicken

Infinity Edge is now the least bought ADC mythic (20%) , even lower than Navori (23%).
On the previous patch, Jinx was the only champion whose most popular mythic was IE. As of now, even Jinx has bailed and Galeforce is her #1.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but maybe IE should've just stayed a legendary captsone item like Rabadons.

IE outperforms Galeforce on most champions for most players.

At the start of the season a bunch of people incorrectly moved over to Rageblade because it's new and quirky. Then a bunch of people moved over to Galeforce because they realized it's OP. Kinda like now where most people are still on Stormrazor despite it being weaker than the other options now.

So players are making choices but they're largely making the wrong ones.


15 Jun

Comment

Originally posted by Brief_Ad_7105

Hey Phreak thanks for great video again. Azir seems to be picked in LCK quite often(of course data isn't enough yet and global presence is not that high so far), do you think he will be nerfed soon or later? if so, what kind of nerf are you planning?

56% presence so far.

Also the pros aren't trolling their builds, which is nice to see.

I'd be pretty happy with Azir at ~50% presence for the rest of the year. I hope we don't have to act.

Comment

Originally posted by bobbybobsen

Also, there is a bug where if you overheat with E (instead of Q or W), your first auto attack while overheated doesn't get the increased AS bonus. Makes jungling a lot more painful, as you have to pay a lot of attention to what spell you use to overheat ( u/PhreakRiot ).

Hmm, I'll look into it. Could be in how the abilities apply your buff. I didn't change any of the scripting around applying the passive activation so this may be an old bug, but still a worthy fix.

Comment

Context behind Shiv's disable:

If Renata ults someone with non-basic attack ways of applying Energize (Yasuo, Yone, Ezreal, MF as examples), the underlying Energize scripting wasn't setup to properly reset what team you're allowed to damage until you discharge Energize with a basic attack. This bug obviously can't affect someone like Lucian since he can only discharge it via basic attacks.

Weird amalgam rules like "You can't buy Statikk Shiv on Yasuo/Yone/Ezreal" was potentially a reasonable option but something like "You can't buy Shiv if Renata is on the enemy team" creates were draft constraints: What if you locked in Kai'Sa or Varus attempting to play the hybrid build but then they picked Renata? That's pretty troll.

Anyways I fixed this bug in 13.11 once we learned about it.


14 Jun

Comment

Originally posted by Ok_Raspberry_6282

Any thoughts going towards Triforce Kindred // Hecarim right now? I don't think they are autowin, but they both seem to be very strong right now

They're quite strong right now.

Comment

Originally posted by whitedarkwhite

Phreak seems to be quoting Reddit a lot when it comes to changes. I wonder if the balance team have people that browse the Korean or Chinese equivalent of LoL discussion and see what they have to say about balance.

We use a lot of survey data. It's really interesting what kinds of things players in other countries consider big issues. Obviously it's really hard for most of us to interact on non-English social media.

Comment

Originally posted by HepABC123

Ah, that makes sense! Thanks.

You're welcome :)

Comment

Originally posted by HepABC123

Perhaps I misunderstood you, a clarification might help?

Saying they “no longer interact” lead me to believe that Kraken’s passive will not ever proc with Guinsoo’s double-proc passive.

Phantom Hit does not interact with Kraken Slayer.

Kraken Slayer activates every three auto attacks regardless of items.

Rageblade has the strongest synergy with Kraken Slayer of any mythic.

Comment

Originally posted by HepABC123

Welp Kraken is effectively dead on a lot of champions in that case. Pretty sad.

No it’s not. Kraken still has more synergy with Rageblade than any other mythic.