What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy.
A couple days ago we took a look at the mechanic that Riot is starting to use a lot recently
in their designs, which was making an ability have a delay.
And I want to continue this topic a bit of discussing individual mechanics that go into
champions, since it really shows a lot about how and why champions are made the way they
are, and the decisions riot makes to bring together an entire champion’s kit.
And today we are looking at what might possible be Riot’s favorite mechanic, which is of
course, 3 hit passives.
Let’s get started.
Today, we’re a bit inspired a bit by Riot Gypsylord, who is probably my most favorite
champion designer at Riot, because I really like his champion design style.
And he’s a relatively new, well I say relatively new, he’s made 5 champions now, but he helped
pioneer the new era of champion design for league of legends which began around 2013
or so, which was when Riot as a whole really stepped up their entire champion design quality,
and a big part of that I believe was because of riot gypsylord and the philosophies he
brought to the company.
And one of those philosophies he brought that evolved over the years was the mechanic of
the three hit passive.
We’ve also seen some 4 hit passives, but they fall into the same category of the 3-hit
passive.
And gypsylord absolutely loves this mechanic, and although he wasn’t the first person
to introduce them, he was definitely one of the guys to popularize them and turn the 3
hit passive into what is clearly one of if not Riot’s actual favorite mechanic to put
on a champion.
And he described the idea of a 3 hit passive mechanic to be “a very brilliant design”.
Now the reason why 3-hit passives are considered to be, well brilliant in the eyes of gypsylord
and the other riot designers comes down to a lot of things, with the overall idea being
that they take something that would normally be a pretty boring element of gameplay, and
well, make it a lot more awesome.
By giving someone a 3-hit passive, you take a typically boring and uninteresting element
of gameplay, auto attacking your opponent, and make it a lot more exciting.
Instead of just whittiling away at your opponent for miniscule damage, you get to have this
huge build up and then massive explosive payoff on the third hit.
On a 3 hit passive that third hit just feels amazing when you get it off, and the champion
gets to make it even more awesome because it allows them to add in extra particles,
animations, and sounds to make that third hit feel super satisfying.
For example take something like jax’s ultimate, which on the third hit gets this huge satisfying
whomp effect and a really nice particle effect to really make you feel like that third hit
is as awesome as it is.
So the third hit is super awesome and makes a boring element of gameplay really satisfying,
as opposed to just extra damage on attacks that are linear and generally uninteresting.
But the thing that makes a 3 hit passive truly amazing design is that it also makes the first
and second hits a lot better as well.
Even though the first and second hits do literally nothing, they still feel really good, and
a lot better than they otherwise would, because the three hit passive gives those two attacks
buildup and suspense on them that leads to that third proc.
And although they don’t really do anything, they feel much better than a linear bonus
damage on auto attacks would because they build up to that goal of the third hit.
And so overall you are left with a character who has this really satisfying pattern of
high moments in it’s gameplay, while also making every single attack feel much better
to land.
And to give you guys an example of how awesome this mechanic is, I’ll use the example that
Riot Gyspsylord used in an interview.
Which is Alistar and his ultimate.
Alistar’s ultimate gives him 50 to 70 bonus attack damage depending on his rank.
When he casts it, his auto attacks start to hurt a lot, but because of the way it works,
a lot of players don’t even notice that it’s there.
And gypsylord said that this is a good example of a place where a 3 hit passive would work
really well.
If you take alistar’s ultimate, and instead of saying okay all of his auto attacks are
going to deal 50 bonus damage, you say hey let’s give him a 3 hit passive where the
third hit does 175 bonus damage, that third hit just feels amazing to land, while the
buildup and suspense make the first two hits feel a lot better than if you had just 50
bonus damage as well.
Every single hit builds you up to that huge satisfying payoff with the awesome sound and
particles to back it up, whereas with just flat bonus damage you wouldn’t get the satisfaction
of the particles or sounds, and you wouldn’t get that massive payoff at the end, or the
buildup leading up to it.
As well, there’s even another aspect that makes 3 hit passives more awesome, which is
how they work when playing against them.
A 3 hit passive is completely healthy and interactive to play against.
It’s a really awesome way of gating power and making the play interactive, by allowing
you as the opponent playing against a 3 hit passive to make decisions based around that
third hit of deciding to commit to a fight to let that third hit happen and trying to
overcome it, or choosing to try and avoid the third hit in small bursts of moments.
It’s a fantastic way to give a champion a powerful ability, while also making it fair
and interactive for the opponent to play against.
For example tahm kench’s devour, which is an insane ability that is incredibly powerful,
becomes engaging to play against because of the three hit passive that is added on to
him.
It allows him to have super powerful abilities, satisfying moments, and an interesting style
of gameplay with a lot of depth to it, while also allowing the mechanics to be relatively
fair for the opponents to play against.
No matter your opinion of tahm kenh, you can’t deny that if his kit functioned in the same
way that it does now, just without the 3 hit passive it would be totally ridiculous and
become just absurd to play against.
The three hit passive in tahm kench’s kit adds in a lot more counterplay than would
otherwise exist.
And it’s the absolute best form of counterplay too.
Counterplay can exist in many ways shapes or forms, sometimes on an item or a summoner
spell, but the best form of counterplay is simply just counterplay through the means
of your own decisions.
There is no item you need to buy, no summoner spell to take, no mechanic you need to have,
it revolves entirely around your decisions and the actions you take in game, which is
just awesome.
If you took it away, it would either make him a lot more linear and boring, or it would
make him a lot less powerful overall as you would have to sacrifice a lot of the big payoff
moments to flatten it out to a linear pattern of gameplay.
Now with that said, do I think 3-hit passives are overused?
I mean maybe, I do think that 3 hit passives are one of if not the actual best individual
design mechanic that riot incorporates on their champions, and it does get a bit more
leeway since it’s such awesome design, but at the same time mechanics like this do get
stale.
Three hit passives definitely don’t fall into the same category of something like auto
attacks that should exist on every champion, and with mechanics like this they do kind
of get stale, and when they become overused they lose a lot of the flavor and excitement
surrounding them.
So yeah three hit passives are maybe a bit overused recently, but I would also argue
that there are a lot of champions from the past that would have their gameplay improved
a lot with the addition of a three hit passive.
Alistar was a good example that we used previously in this video, but a lot of older champions
as well, a lot of their lackluster abilities becoming a three hit passive would make them
a lot more interesting.
For example a champion like warwick given a 3 hit passive on his W would make the ability
a lot more interesting, or maybe master yi getting a 3 hit passive on his E. Now I’m
not saying those champions should get 3 hit passives, just that it’s one of the most
immediate options if you were to try and give those characters more interesting patterns
of gameplay.
However, not every character should have interesting patterns of gameplay.
A lot of characters are boring and uninteresting very intentionally to make them better for
new players, and to cater to the audience who enjoys playing simple champions.
However just because a mechanic might be a bit overused, doesn’t really change the
fact that it is incredible design.
On paper 3 hit passives might be a bit overused recently, and might be starting to get a bit
stale, however I personally think that they are just awesome, and I don’t mind seeing
more in the future, because they really are just an amazing thing to give a champion if
you want to make their gameplay revolve a bit more around their auto attacks.
Especially in a lot of melee tank champions, three hit passives make them a lot more interesting
patterns of gameplay.
Riot gypsylord had the idea of almost every melee champion having a three hit passive,
and how that concept might effect the top lane.
And he mentioned that it would probably make top lane brawls a lot more interesting overall,
since it adds a lot more meaningful interactions into melee versus melee fights which is something
they have historically had trouble doing, and it’s why a lot of top laners might perceive
fights in lane to be boring when playing a tank versus another tank.
So as long as it’s being done in a way that is successful and meaningful, and not in a
let’s give this guy a three hit passive because why not, then yeah It is going to
get stale, but if it continues to be done in the way that it was on characters like
Tahm Kench, like Braum, like Ekko, and a lot of the more recent uses of this mechanic,
I find that 3 hit passives are a good enough mechanic in their own right that as long as
they are used well and designed in a way that really makes a champion awesome rather than
just slapping it onto a kit, that they probably aren’t going to get stale, or at the very
least they will continue to create interesting and exciting patterns of gameplay.
But that’s what riot thinks about it and that’s what I think about it, but I want
to know what you guys think about 3 hit passives, so leave a comment, and as well if there is
another mechanic you might want me to take a look at in a future video leave a comment
and I’ll see what I can do.
And if you enjoyed the video hit that like button and if you didn’t hit that dislike,
thanks for watching, and I’ll see you guys next time.