phroxz0n

To clarify, these are his intended weaknesses, but may not be manifesting themselves in the current state of the game on account of the healing being overtuned as described :sweatguy

Basically this. We get a lot of interest, but have not found people good enough to fill the roles, mainly the combination of game knowledge and design skill. Frankly, the fact that we are still performing as we are is superhuman levels of dedication from the devs.

The ivern scrape is wrong. It's 30 shield when maxed and no damage increase

Like other people said, it's meant to be future facing

Gotta give /u/RiotAugust work to do somehow...

I think there are some players who will always be see champ kill champ. That's fine if they want to play the game that way. There are plenty of others who enjoy engaging in other types of gameplay.

There are lots of directions to go, but we'd test it to make sure different types of assassin players like the things we're offering.

There's some harvester buffs that should help Nida and Elise. Eve gonna be a little weaker (though still fine) for a patch.

We need to do a bit of crafting around what types of strengths different classes are meant to have from a holistic perspective. Some of these can overlap. For example:

• Perhaps assassins are meant to be the fastest class in the midgame.
• Or perhaps they're meant to have a lot of vision denial tools.
• Maybe they're meant to be really good at backstabbing turrets periodically if they can escort the wave in without being hit.
• Maybe they're meant to have different types of vision or map control tools
• Maybe assassins are meant to be really stealthy ;) (I know how much reddit likes stealth), etc.
• Maybe there are meant to be different types of objectives that assassins are specifically better at interacting with, etc.

Lots of possibilities here that make them different from bruisers

We still intend to do some form of the changes, especially to address the fighter item issue. Just going to see how 12.11 lands first and re-evaluate how we're going to give the power back (which may not be burst).

there will be, yes

We're specifically trying not to do this.

I'd love to hear things from players around what things specifically you're worried about going back to the old state? (And what things in the new state feel weak/strong?)

We're not pulling tower damage all the way back. If current is ~20% buffed, the target is ~5-10% buffed relative to previously. However, we think tower damage being too high has some undesirable outcomes.

1. Dives being weaker than intended has some negative effects on punishability of champions and it removes a satisfying feedback loop when playing the lane well. We don't think you should always be able to convert a lane victory into a kill, but if previously, you could dive and escape ~40% of the time after putting the enemy in kill threat range, it's probably closer to ~15% of the time now. This makes the game have less rich decisions overall and less forward momentum (especially in high level play) because the optimal play more often than not is to let them recall, rather than take a calculated risk. This makes the game less fun in the long run.
2. As a person on the receiving end of dives, I can see the perspective that it feels good to be m...

On top of this video, which Curtis put quite well, there are 5 people on the enemy team and 4 on yours. It's more likely that there are trolls on the enemy team than yours, unless that troll is you. If you still think that its not your fault that you're losing, drop a few of the games here from your point of view (YouTube link) and I'll review them for you.

Yep kind of filling a similar slot

The intention of it is to be a good item to buy against squishies and squishies receiving shields (Lulu, Janna, etc.) It's not meant to be particularly good against Sion (that's why it has Flat MPen). Having said that, it's also not meant to carry much power budget and mostly for flavor, since I didn't want its usefulness to be dependent on whether an enemy team comp has shields or not. (That might have been a bad choice)

We didn't want to increase the prevalence of Serpent's Fang effect, because it is harmful to champion design. (Frequently use large shields as functional invulnerabilities)

These names were excellent

If they have room to be buffed per the champion balance framework and we think they have a chance to see pro play (eg. in a counterpick matchup or otherwise), then we may buff them. We generally try and limit this tactic to large pro play oriented patches (MSI, Worlds), or we run afoul of player sensibilities and have power creep, like you noted.

Good question. We have a lot of debates internally about the power of gangplank. We think a lot of the current complaints about Gangplank are to do with "frustration", which doesn't necessarily track to "power". This isn't to say he isn't powerful, but he definitely has weaknesses. Pros are generally mixed on Tri Force build (which is more consistent, but lower damage) and the ER -> Prowlers (higher damage, but very squishy). "Strong laning phase" is insufficiently specific of a statement, though I agree in certain situations, he is strong for the entirety of laning phase.

He has a strong laning phase 1-3 for sure, but he has a very noticeable power trough and is susceptible to be snowballed against, especially in the Level 6-11 area in matchups where he has to use ult defensively. He also has a good number of decent counterpicks, is quite lacking when behind (cannot utilize vision differentials to get barrels off), especially with the squishy build .

He is one of...

Regular player value in being able to play the champions you love, but in different roles.

Yep :)