R0gueFool

Thanks, but the whole team works really hard on these changes and I'm just the one who needs attention the most =P.

O.o I have wanted to get better at Pantheon (Baron and mid lane mostly), got any tips?

I haven't looked at data on this, but have you tried crit Pantheon at all? I feel like ER, IE, Quickblades, and Shiv(?), have been a lot of fun and makes your empowered 2 really strong. Though I haven't played it enough (or at all in ranked) to have a good read on it.

We're working our way to up 5 bans per team. We started with 3 due to the size of the Wild Rift roster, but it will grow as we add more champions.

Here's hoping, unless you're playing against me. Then I would prefer you don't play your main, deal?

Both MF and Jhin are doing generally fine, but they tend to be a bit more team reliant. If you pair them with a bit of protection/lock down they can do crazy thing for sure. The nerfs to Chargeblade will also help them a bit as it will be nerfing many marksmen, and others will climb as a result.

Rammus is a tricky one. I agree he is actually very strong (53/54% depending on elo). But he isn't as flashy/frustrating/with as much solo carry potential as many other champions so players tend to undervalue him. Nothing for him in this patch, but we are keeping an eye on him to see how he preforms.

Despite reddit player's feedback, Asol has actually been one of our strongest champions each patch for the last year. His play style just isn't as broadly appealing or flashy so not as many players are drawn to him, though his theme/fantasy are broadly appealing so he only tends to be popular when he is CRAZY OP, instead of just OP. This is what makes him so challenging to work on.

If Asol and others end up needing some love after these changes they'll get it, but given that Liandry's champions where very strong with this item I expect they should still be fine.

Kat has actually been much strong in higher elo, and rather weak in low elos. People tend to think she is stronger in low elo because she is "easy to counter" and tend to forget that an experienced Kat player knows to watch for those counters and knows how to play around them, while also knowing how to pilot a mechanically challenging champion.

Ya these shouldn't change her mechanics. We are hitting her passive MS and damage. Experienced Akali players should still feel good about mastering her.

(P) Assassin’s Mark Movement speed :: decreased from 50% >>> 30% Base damage :: decreased from 40-180 >>> 28-140

Her passive, we are primarily aiming to target frustration and Baron Lane power.

Liandry/Haunting Guise is partly to do with Akali and Kat, but really the item has been a bit strong on all of its users. So while Akali/Kat fall into that, it isn't just because of them. Basically a 10% damage amp is strong when you give it to anyone.

Ban rate is a big part of it for sure. Typically we see a high ban rate as a sign of high frustration when playing against a champion, though it can also indicate power or perceived power.

In the past Akali has been slightly weak (when looking at winrate), but recently has just crossed over into slightly strong (and decently strong in Baron Lane). So while these are aimed to reduce her ban rate we geared it more towards the Baron Lane because that is where she has been preforming the best.

We are toying with some follow up changes if her ban rate is still too high. The trick is hitting things that hit her frustration more than they hit her raw power, but yes we want to push her into a place where you can play your main more often.

Oh if only I had that kind of power =P. The changes have been reverted and without players knowing about the changes its hard to get feedback on them. Though I suspect we will be getting lots of feedback on the changes. I'm all for player feedback if you have thoughts to share.

We also need to lock changes much sooner and a day or two isn't enough time. Typically we soft lock changes about a week in advance but leave wiggle room incase something pops up. We need time to account for: testing, approval, QA, patch notes, translation, and making builds, and anything else that might pop up. And even before this patch goes live we are planning for the next one, it doesn't mean everything we plan will make it in, but it helps us react to things when we have such a quick patching cycle.

She definitely makes good use of the item, but I don't think we would want to delete it for the sake of a few champions who are tuned with it in mind.

You are right that her damage would go down without the item, but that is because it is an intended item for her. Its like saying that marksmen damage would drop if we removed IE, while this is true it might not be the best course of action if we were looking to nerf marksmen damage.

Another thing to note here is that on LoLPC assassins have access to Sorcerer's Shoes that give them magic pen. In Wild Rift we removed this from boots and instead made a full item, so if you are looking for magic pen you need to invest a bit more to get the stats you are looking for. This also means that mages are not as strongly bound to a particular boot, and instead get to choose their boots each game.

IO can be strong, and nerfing it is always on the table. The problem is that if we hit it too hard it no longer feels worth ...

Ya, he was released in a very weak state. We expected him to be slightly below average and he would quickly climb up as players learned how to play him. And while this did happen to some extent it hasn't been enough to make up the difference.

Some of these changes will also help him with the transition to Wild Rifts shorter game times. We are increasing the base soul drop rate, and recharge time of Flay's passive, this should help him see souls drop a bit more and not need to wait around so much in lane for a meaty hit.

There is some durability in there too.

That's a big part of why we wanted to bring them down a peg. They are both high frustration champions so we are looking for ways to tap down some of their frustrating aspects without removing who they are. We are looking at some follow-up changes if they end up still being needed.

Our hope is that we can keep them as viable champions, with a reasonable banrate for players who love them without totally gutting them and removing their ability to be assassins. Assassins by nature are highly frustrating to play against so this isn't an easy thing to do.

Sorry that this happened everyone, looks like we made a mistake again. Here is an overview of some of the key balance changes and where we were targeting.

Champions

BUFFED
Akshan (all elos)
Thresh (All elos)
Wukong (All elos, targeting the Baron lane)
Kennen (All elos)

ADJUSTED
Rakan (Due to power with Xayah)

NERFED
Akali (All elos, targeting the Baron lane)
Gragas (Elite/tournament level)
Katarina (High elo)
Kha'Zix (High elo)
Master Yi (All elos)
Xin Zhao (All elos)
Soraka (All elos, mostly high elo)
Ahri (Bug fix, slight nerf)

Items
Solari Chargeblade (Nerf)
Luden's Echo (Buff)
Awakened Soulstealer (Buff)
Liandry's Torment (Nerf)
Haunting Guise (Nerf)
Warmog's Armor (adjusted)

Runes
Font of Life (Nerf)

I'll try and stick around for a bit and answer some questions for a bit. K...

I'm not even sure what changes you are referring to. But to be clear I'm not justifying any changes based on a friends skill level. Going off any one person's opinion or skill is a terrible way to balance the game. I'm simply just sharing an anecdotal story because Rammus continues to be underestimated. If you struggle to play him, don't enjoy him, or don't find success with him than ya you don't need to pick him up. Play who you enjoy.

We do play the game daily, both for work and for fun, we account for jungle clear speeds and we know this has a larger impact at higher skilled play (did you see we gave him a decent clear speed buff?). All changes we have done have been build off of actual data based off of games played on the most recent patch(s) when looking at all elos, positions, regions, winrate, pickrate, banrates, and player perception. Its a lot for a team to manage and any changes will have some (even if its small) effect at all levels of play, and have an effect o...

But wouldn't adding any stats push players to by the boot enchant based on those stats? Right now we see a bit of build variety, I'm going to throw out a number and guess that most champions feel good with 2-3 of the actives.

Gargoyle and Glorious enchants are a bit narrow compared to the rest. But I would argue that this is because the core of what they are giving is stats, while the rest of the boot enchants (Locket, Protobelt, Quicksilver, Redemption, Shadows, Stasis, and TP) all lean more on utility giving them a much broader userbase.

I do think the goal you have is a good one, and spamming the same enchant each game is going to be the wrong move when you could adapt to the situation. And seeing more people do that would be nice, but it is a tricky space for sure.

Na, she has a rather flat winrate across elo. We try to balance the game for all elos. We take into account winrate, playrate, banrate, player perception (closely tied to ban rate). When we want to target balance changes for a particular elo we tend to target different areas. For example base damages and base stats tend to be more powerful at higher skilled play where players are better at taking advantage of an early lead.

Oh, ok. I wouldn't call that strongest, so much as frustrating.

Based on most Reddit complaints I've seen then I think I'd have to say Lee Sin, Eve, or most recently Master Yi.