Sona's got a new tune, and we're talking competitive balance changes.
Welcome to the Patch Rundown.
Hey, guys. Ms. Pudding here.
This patch is one of the last leading to the championships...
...so we're making a ton of changes aimed at promoting competitive diversity.
Though we're tweaking things for every role...
...on today's panel we're only gonna be talking about Sona...
...aggressive junglers and assassins.
I'll start with a mini summary of those changes
...before jumping into a more in depth discussion with our designers and experts.
If you want to skip to one of those topics, mouse over and click it.
Okay, specifics: Sona's got a gameplay update.
No worries, her play style has not really changed...
...but now she's giving bigger buffs over less time.
Also, instead of being a floating stat booster, Q, W and E are more impactful...
...so maybe the good Sona's will be recognized...
...for something other than a single flash crescendo.
Though tanky junglers and jungle items got buffed in 4.11...
...their more aggressive friends Elise, Evelynn, Lee Sin are still too dominant...
...and they're bullying everyone else out of champ select.
All three are getting changes, with Elise losing range on her initiation...
...Lee losing his attack speed slow...
...and Evelynn getting a small power shift to the late game.
Assassins are gonna be happy about these 4.13 changes:
Exhaust doesn't shut down your damage as much...
...Banshee's Veil has a longer reset on the spell shield...
...and Chalice gives just a bit less MR.
On the other hand, there is a DFG nerf, with that cooldown going up.
We'll talk about this and all of the above in our upcoming panel.
Finally, there's a ton more I haven't mentioned...
...so definitely check out the patch notes for additional changes and details.
To talk about the updates for this week's patch...
...I'm joined by Scarra from Team Dignitas...
...Statikk from Core Gameplay...
...and Fearless from the Champions Update Team.
-Hey, guys, thanks for coming out. -Hey. No problem.
I'd like to start with Sona, who got a big update with this patch.
What were we going for with the shift in her gameplay?
We wanted to move her out of the invisible power stat auras...
...and into something where she creates gameplay when she uses her abilities.
A big problem of the stat auras has always been...
...that the amount of power they need to feel satisfying...
...is too much power for the game to support or to be healthy.
And just for clarity, that's like when she uses her W...
...and then she's standing around and there's a passive armor.
There's all this armor and MR.
But the amount you need to feel good about it...
...is so much that it's just a terrifying amount of gold...
...to kind of give out to your whole team.
So what we tried to do is condense the effects into, one, much smaller auras...
...so that Sona actually interacts with her lane a whole lot more...
...but also, the bonuses she gives are temporary...
...but have really high impact when she gives them...
...so that the decision-making in the Sona will also have a lot more importance.
We wanted to make Sona have more power when she does Sona things.
So crucial timing, better positioning.
All those sorts of things that she was already doing.
Originally when I first found out about it, I thought it was--
It would shift away the aura power to make it stronger nearby...
...because they reduced the radius from 1000 to like 500...
...but what I was told...
...is that they actually don't have any invisible power anymore...
...which I think is interesting. I think that it might be a little bit bad...
...because she's at a good power level in terms of competitively now.
Like, she kind of fills in the whole lane bully with Nami.
She also can heal, she does a lot for her specific role...
...but this now shift in power may make her even more dominant in lane...
...at the expense of her being positioning reliant.
Which I think is nice.
It's cool to have interactive things...
...where you're required to be in a good position at a good time...
...to get great benefit for it.
And while we are talking about a full gameplay update...
...one of the big focuses on this update...
...was making sure Sona still really felt like Sona.
Even if you didn't read the patch notes or see what was new...
...you'd figure it out really fast, cause your Q is still going to be shooting out the bolt...
it's still going to be nuking people down.
The W actually heals more for injured allies...
...so she'll be doing less of the really maintenance-oriented topping people off...
...and has some power to make some really clutch heals.
So, I mean, she's still, I think, going to have some of that really strong laning pattern.
One of the cool things now is that second auto attack...
...or the auto attack right after her Q cast.
Instead of just kind of whittling you down with a little bit of bonus AD...
...it's a noticeable proc that both your ally should maybe even capitalize on...
...Sona will have to capitalize on...
...and your enemies actually realize why they're getting chunked...
...instead of like, "This hurts 4 AD more," they actually see like:
"Oh, that was a laser that shot out of Sona. That probably seems pretty bad."
To be clear, she still has the heal from long range.
I don't think we changed the heal range.
Even if she's in the back she can still heal the front line...
...but to get the extra bonus, the shield, you're going to have to go up--
Sometimes you're going to have make hard decisions.
Sometimes you'll make the wrong decision, go in and then die...
...but that's "League of Legends," I think.
Last thing about it, I did want to ask about the ultimate...
...because we switched up the VFX and it looks really different in width.
Did we actually change that?
So the gameplay functionality of the ult is completely unchanged.
It's the exact same width, speed, everything. I did not touch that.
What we did change is we got some really gorgeous new particles that--
The art team did such an amazing job on the character.
I think she looks really awesome.
Everyone involved with the art did a tremendous amount of really cool stuff.
And Crescendo especially. Crescendo just flat out lied before, it was--
It was gigantic on screen.
So it felt like you missed a whole lot and we wanted to fix that.
Players deserve to know what their ults do.
So the new Crescendo is much more honest about how it functions.
It shows it's a projectile, which-- It's a projectile, everybody.
And then it also shows just how big the affected area is...
...while still looking like that huge high moment.
So when you make every person on the enemy team dance--
They dance slightly faster now, which is awesome.
It's important. This is important, all right?
Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.
But now you'll still have that huge moment when you make them dance...
...but you'll know who you're actually going to hit.
So the theme of this patch is supposed to be increasing competitive diversity...
...I assume in champion picks.
I'm seeing a lot of the changes focused on the top three junglers right now...
...Evelynn, Elise, Lee Sin.
-Why are we targeting them? -It's hard to say we only targeted them.
Before this patch, obviously we were doing a lot of changes.
Like we added Quill Coat, and we wanted to bring back tank junglers, you know?
We've seen success in a lot of levels of play with these characters.
Like Maokai, Nautilus, Rammus and Amumu...
...are definitely pretty prominent in a lot of levels of play...
...but at the competitive scene we're seeing a lot of just early skirmish duelist guys...
...Lee Sin, Elise, Evelynn, these are the guys we see every game.
We're like, "What's going on?"
We wanted to attack it from a different direction...
...but honestly at some point you have to realize...
...these guys are drowning out the other possible picks.
The first thing I have in mind is like, "What was the idea behind not nerfing...
...any of the early damage, or any of the damage from Elise or Lee Sin?"
Like you said, a lot of the reason why they're popular right now...
...is they're skirmish junglers, they do a lot damage early game and throughout the game.
So why were the balance changes not focused on the damage portion?
Right. Whenever we make a change to a character...
...we want to make sure we're not removing...
...something players love about the character or really play them for.
I feel like Lee Sin and Elise are largely defined...
...by their ability to duel and have damage early.
You could argue maybe there's too much there...
...but we'd prefer to look at other options, and I think we did this time around.
Okay, on Lee Sin, I saw that you took off the attack speed for Tempest.
That was very crucial in late game team fights, early game skirmishing as well.
Why was it the decision to completely remove it...
...and not lower it to, let's say, a flat rate on every level?
Yeah. I mean, we actually--
To just tell you guys about the change...
...we think that attack speed slow is also something that's really strong late game.
I mean it basically shuts out an AD carry...
...and we've been kind of going with this philosophy of Lee Sin as like--
He's an early game champion.
He focuses on trying to snowball the game out.
And having that utility, we're like:
"One players probably don't appreciate it as much"...
...but also it's just really powerful and we think he needs some late game fall-off.
But we did try a version where it was 20 percent attack speed slow at all ranks.
At the end of the day, it didn't feel like it was noticeable.
We were like, "Hey, can we just make it cleaner? Can we make it less complex? Cut it out and then see--?
If Lee Sin needed something else we could maybe look at other parts of his kit and give it there."
Well, that makes sense.
I really like what you guys did with Elise's rappel range.
I feel like there is no reason for a champion to have a 1000-range gap close in the first place.
-It is 1000, huh? -Yeah, it's something crazy like that.
Nerfing the range on that was vital...
...to be able to stop her, like, insane gank potential and all that stuff.
I think the width decrease on her E is actually pretty significant.
I'm not sure how big that would be until I see it in game...
...but it's already a skill shot that's missed quite a bit...
...and nerfing it by, I think 20 percent almost...
...on the terms of the width, is going to be huge in seeing people hit it or not.
Yeah, I mean, our goals are just:
"Hey, we feel like Elise has a bit too much reliability when she goes in.
She can basically get to any target she wants, and cocoon is--
Yes, it's sometimes hard to hit...
...but the cooldown is low. You get to shoot that out a lot.
Also, if she rappels right onto you and she does a point blank cocoon...
...there's going to be less chance that she'll hit you with it.
Right, and I guess the last thing I really want to bring up is...
...what is the initial thoughts on the fact that you nerfed these three champions...
...that other champions will come up in their wake?
For instance, right now, I feel like Eve isn't even a part of the holy trinity.
Like, there isn't a trinity right now.
Or if there is a trinity, Rengar is actually the third best champion.
Eve's kind of fallen off recently and Rengar's replaced Eve...
...as a more reliable initiation against the current meta pokey mids...
...and he is one of the most reliable forms of initiation in the game.
I really feel like Rengar is so strong and his ulty cooldown is really, really low...
...and he essentially functions as a superior version of Nocturne.
What are your general thoughts about that?
I mean, it's hard for us to, like, predict everything that is going to happen, right?
Obviously we saw problems with Evelyn we didn't like.
She rushes Randuin's really quickly in the game, which is really odd for us.
We think she is more of a squishy type champion.
She's like an assassin-like champion.
She should be building more aggressively, which is what I think the changes reflect.
As far as Rengar goes...
...I think there is still some work we need to do on the character...
...but he is someone who is rising...
...and we want to give it time to see--
Understand what are his patterns, what is going on, why is he so dominant, if he is.
But going in and changing him before we understand it...
...I think is maybe a little bit-- You know, it's just happening to fast.
Okay, let's go ahead and move on to assassins.
We haven't been seeing a lot of them lately, and especially in mid lane...
...we have been seeing a lot of long-range mages with a lot of wave clear.
Do you think that's a problem with mages being too strong now...
...or assassins not really having a lot of strengths?
I think it's an amalgamation...
of everything we've done in the last couple patches, or maybe just this entire season.
We've been looking to make healthier assassin play.
In a lot of cases, that didn't nerf the power of those characters...
...because they became less reliable and just weren't as consistent of assassins.
Also, we've done changes like we've buffed exhaust, we buffed heal...
...a lot of things that counter characters who need to go in and do the burst.
And if they can't get that done, then they are not as useful...
...so I think it is a combination of some of them being slightly weak...
...some of the game just not favoring what we've done, so yeah.
I really think the start of the exhaust's change...
... really shut down a lot of assassins...
...because 50 percent damage reduction is ridiculous for them to go in to.
It's hard to understand. It's only 10 more percent than it used to be.
-But that's a lot, apparently. -Right.
And so the new change to exhaust, like shifting 10 percent less...
...is going to help at least a little bit.
But another big thing is just the fact that the meta kind of shifted...
...to where a lot of people group up more and more.
It's very hard for you to find those meaningful early snowballs as assassins...
...outside of maybe solo kills in your lane...
...or when the jungler comes to gank and you get a 2v2 skirmish and you get ahead.
It's really hard for you to get these kind of picks and create pick comps around assassins.
Generally, right now, you'll see a lot more team-based...
...death-ball style full 5v5 team fights.
-I love the word "death ball" -"Death ball."
Assassins tend to really underperform in situations where it's full 5v5s...
...unless they are very farmed.
Also, the item changes to Banshee's and Chalice...
...how are those actually benefiting assassins exactly?
Right now you would poke down a Banshee's Veil and like--
It's back up before you could do anything, so the idea behind that change is just:
"Maybe we can open up a slight window where assassins can catch someone out...
...or maybe they pick him off with a CC and then an assassin goes in or something like that."
So maybe it could help them there. It helps everyone against Banshee's Veil...
...in like kind of turtlely kind of compositions.
Well, there is an interaction point of, an assassin really has to commit for their kill.
-If they lose a spell.... -It's pretty much over.
Right, like they have lost out a tremendous amount of that fight.
When Ziggs throws out a Q and it hits a Banshee's Veil...
...he's waiting for a couple of seconds and then doing his whole thing again.
So I feel like giving them more time to capitalize...
...on when someone is actually vulnerable...
...could be a huge improvement-- Or a big improvement.
It definitely will be for the competitive scene because Banshee's is used as a fail-safe.
It's really helpful in sieges.
It's hard to dive anybody with Banshee's now...
...and since the cooldown is so short, you can get a recharge on every creep wave.
Yeah, that was the turning point there.
There's not much counter play when you can literally just pull back if your Banshee's gets popped...
...and wait for the next creep wave and try something else again.
So that's stalling out games a lot.
As far as the Chalice change goes, we're just reducing some of the MR.
We think it's just a bit too gold efficient for the item.
You should be buying it for the mana regeneration.
It will make them more vulnerable to magic damage.
I don't think it will have a huge effect, but it will have some.
So with these item changes meant to benefit assassins...
...why did we then decide to raise the cooldown on DFG so significantly?
It seems like kind of an opposite....
It's definitely something that can look very confusing...
...but the idea is-- We love assassins.
But like we said, we want to make healthy assassins.
We want to make assassins we think are good for the game...
...that allow people being assassinated...
...to have actions and reactions against them.
So what would you consider an unhealthy assassin in that sense?
A lot of the characters that do use DFG...
...are often using DFG to amplify, you know, an unhealthy pattern, essentially.
An unhealthy pattern is one that is very fast, very reliable.
Basically, DFG, you just click the guy, right?
He has no way to do anything against it. You're just in range of the character.
And then they follow with as many spells as they can in that instant...
-...to just try to one-shot you before-- -So full combo from 100 to zero.
I think assassins can be able to do these big burst combos...
...but things like skill shots, or things that I can dodge...
...things that I can react to are important.
I think Zed's Deathmark is cool...
...because you can barrier it, things like that.
He doesn't instantly kill you even though he deals a ton of damage, you know?
Okay, thank you Scarra, Statikk and Fearless for joining us today.
If you are looking for more information, check out the patch notes.
We'll be back in a couple of weeks, but until then...
...check out the link below and leave us your comments and questions.
Thanks for tuning in.