R0gueFool

The low playrate high winrate is an interesting case. I was actually talking with another designer, who has worked much closer with the PC team than I have, about this the other day.

It's one of those things that's tricky for me to explain in text, but here is my attempt.

Facts His fantasy (Space Dragon) is broadly appealing. He has a unique/unfamiliar play pattern with a high skill floor. Success with Asol comes more from large strategic plays (roaming/ganking/macro plays), than smaller tactical plays (1v1 lane combat, mechanical outplays, flashy highlight video type stuff) that is generally appealing.

This creates an interesting (and actually more common, than I expected) situation.

A player finds the idea of the champion appealing and tries them for a few games.

Because his gameplay is unfamiliar and his high skill floor, the player does poorly and likely loses each of these games.

They drop the champion and try someone else.

It really depends on how you want to define viable here. In terms of power he is (and has always been) one of the strongest champions.

This goes a bit deeper into skill curves, but he has a high skill floor (and his skill tests are not highly mechanical, that is easier to read/appreciate, but are very strategic). On top of that he is very different than other champions so his skill tests (mechanical, tactical, and strategic) don't transfer to other champions very well, and familiarity with other champions don't transfer over well to him.

This is to say that for hardcore Asol players his winrate is likely MUCH higher than we are seeing, and his currently high winrate is likely lowered by new Asol players giving him a try. To be clear, I haven't looked into his one trick winrate or anything to verify this, but I suspect this to be true given what we have seen, and we saw something similar happen on PC at one point.

So when thinking about how do we make him v...

Ya, the trickiest part is that his theme (space dragon!!!!!!) is very attractive, but mechanically he isn't the most appealing champion to most players.

For Asol players he brings something interesting/unique that isn't overwise offered. This can be a big plus, but it makes any sort of rework tricky when the primary goal of the rework would need to be to broaden his mechanical appeal.

Sorry for the delay.

Ban rates are all relative. There isn't a strict number that is used because as the champion roster grows everyone's banrate shifts. So really what matters is a champion's banrate when compared to the average ban rate. Even within that some champions are just more frustrating to play against and have a higher banrate. So I don't have a great single number for you

This is why banrate is generally a better judge of frustration than it is of power. Champions like Rammus/Amumu have had some of the highest winrates (regardless of elo) but are rarely banned. Where as Akali was rather balanced (from a winrate perspective), but can be highly frustrating to play against and had a massive ban rate. Assassins tend to be frustrating to play against and I expect will always have a higher than average ban rate, the grey area comes in when discussing the bounds of what that should be. Then also factor in their winrate, pickrate, elos, player perception etc. B...

Happy to help, keep the thoughts coming, it's fun and a great way to start getting your feet wet if your interested in game design. It's super helpful to get player feedback. You all often catch things we might miss.

I'm glade to hear you're enjoying it and it's helping you out. I might have some time for a game or two right now if you're interested shoot me a DM.

It's an interesting idea for sure, but there are a few challenges.

The first being how best to give you that option in a clear, quick, and usable way. Something like this would require some large changes to the shop UI, especially if you could change it on the fly.

Game balance would also take a decent hit from moving in this direction. The first being that stats are not all valued at the same rate and an item that swapped between to stats would likely need to be over costed in some situations. Assuming you could swap it after purchasing the item we would likely need to further increase the price due to the added power versatility adds. This also doesn't take into account that effects on MR items are likely over tuned due to the more narrow value that MR as a stat provides.

Item design philosophy would also need to change to accommodate this direction. Right now we can make effects tailored to the items stats and the other way around. Thornmail, Randuins O...

What interaction are you referring to? I just tested FoL+Ardent Censer Singed on live and was able to get the bonus AS whenever an ally proced the heal.

No worries, we changed it to show the damage numbers instead of 300% for this exact reason.

Its on there, it talks about it on the in the section about the Second Cast. What language do you play WR in? Its possible that there is a language bug or something funky going on.

u/zekorei u/thatwasaheadshot Including you both cause I'm a noob who doesn't know if this reply with alert you both.
Akali's ultimate scales with missing hp, this damage scales from 100%-35% of the targets remaining HP, reaching cap damage when at 35%. This cap is 300% of the ability's damage. Rank 1 85(+40%AP)*300%=255(+120%AP)

Many players are still more familiar with pre patch Akali (hell our data is still early on how its shaping up). I expect she will always be a high banrate champion, but I also expect/hope her ban rate to drop a bit with those recent changes.

I read it, I think there are some good points here for sure, and well worth checking out for people who don't play Akali but want to better understand her.

I am interested to see how she looks after the nerfs (data is still early here). But my gut says it's promising.

Font of Life isn't give him Singed much survivability when it goes to split pushing regardless of map size. It could even be argued that on a smaller map it's even more likely that an ally procs it and heals Singed.

Liandrys will hurt Singed, but he, like all core Liandrys users, have been over preforming for a while. I wouldn't say he is in a rough spot, just harder to play given his unique playstyle. If you understand that style you tend to do really well with him.

Oh ya I was going to respond to that other post =P.

Basically I over did it with the Soraka buffs, she jumped up in power, but she won't be gutted by these nerf, and I expect she'll land in a fine spot. Nami is a touch strong too, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her popping up in the patch notes (not hinting at anything, just a my personal take).

To be clear there are no nerfs to Rammus in this patch. I simply am pointing out that he is likely the most undervalued champion in Wild Rift.

He is going to be strong into full AD teams for sure, but he is far from bad in more balanced team comps.

Its very possible those players have jumped off of Kat due to her high ban rate. Its also a very small sample size from a single region of players that you notice. Its not to say its nothing, the highest levels of play will always have a small playerbase but that it is still a small data set.

When I say high elo I'm not referring to a players in any particular tier, but rather their elo and percentage of the playerbase.

Lets say these changes reduce Kat's ban rate, they then get to play this champion some more, she'll be a bit weaker and IDEALLY they get to keep playing a champion they love.

It is worth noting that those same Kat players know to watch for what can stop them and get to choose when they go in. So it is a bit of a dance of who can get better first.

Its a soft nerf for sure, actually something I think you had suggested in previous discussions about Kat =P. However Kat hasn't been struggling at higher elos, that's actually where she preforms the best. She is a highly skilled champion and it turns out highly skilled players can take advantage of that.

Your right that she doesn't benefit from many of the other AP item buffs but the goal is to nerf her at high skilled play and lower her frustration, so it feels warranted. As always though we have follow up patches and if she ends up being too weak/strong we can respond.

Master Yi (everywhere) and Jax (everywhere, but mostly in the Baron lane) had been under preforming for a bit (at all elos) so we wanted to give them some buffs. We over shot it a bit with Master Yi in this last patch, hence the nerfs in this patch.

Yi has only recently become strong after last patch, and we are nerfing him in the very next patch (this one), so I'd say he hasn't been stomping games for too long, just recently.

Tank Garen was in a similar situation. If I remember right (I could be wrong) he started popping up right at the tail end of a patch after the next patch had been locked but he was nerfed as soon as we got a chance.

Rammus is a special case in that I have been saying he is strong for a while now, but he isn't seen as nearly as frustrating as many others. I also wouldn't say we have sat on him, he has popped up in the patch notes a few times. This is where things like pickrate play a role as champions with a smaller playerbase tend to...

You are right though it's a tight rope to walk, we don't want anyone sitting that low. Currently, Akali is sitting right around 50% so she has a bit of room to drop before we hit that point. But bringing down her frustration is the primary goal here.