So, how has CLG actually been preparing for preseason?
Well, I got everyone to like, prepare like, champion lists
essentially and then it like... They're slowly just knocking
champs off like Darshan will play Swain, go 0-10
and be like, "Not the one for me."
And then you just like, slash it off the list.
Okay, so that one is instantly not the thing...
And then the list is like, this big.
[Laughs]
Alright, so you heard it here first.
Darshan will not be playing Swain top probably
in the near future. Okay. -Probably not.
Or will he?
Yeah, this could be the next level.
This could be their... Like, that's why
you agreed to come on the show.
Alright, well aside from leaking possible CLG strats
I want to get some thoughts about Preseason
out on the table.
Last time we were here, we're talking about Rift Herald
we're talking about marksmen, we're talking about
all sorts of masteries, items, crazy stuff.
Has now been in the game, it's been like, a month
since then and I want to check in with you guys.
How are we feeling the Preseason shaking out?
I want to start off talking about objectives.
This is, you know, not just Rift Herald and Dragon
but also like, towers and kind of the pace at which
those things are dropping.
How do we feel like the flow of the game is moving?
Well, I feel like Rift Herald is completely like
underutilized right now. It could be definitely like
you know, abused more.
Have you guys been seeing anything like this?
-I think some of that's still learning curve actually.
We haven't seen it demonstrated
here's how you use the thing really effectively.
Yeah.
The other thing there is, we don't expect Rift Herald
we don't want Rift Herald to be great for every comp.
You know, play around it, you know, have a strong
lineup, someone that can really push and bully.
Fantastic, that should be a great choice for you.
You and your jungler should really care about
that top half of the map.
If you're going for something late-game
you're just trying to sort of survive
the laning phase, you might try and deny it to them
but, you know, you're not going to focus on it yourself.
Yeah, there's also a couple things with Rift Herald
where the time frame that it's up, if I kill somebody
in top lane, the turrets are just so rewarding right now
in terms of pressure with the minion changes and also
the fact that you get more local gold for taking a turret
it's just very rewarding and you want that instant
gratification of that.
Rift Herald also has some risks in it.
It does a lot of damage in that time frame
when it's up, It really just smack daddy's you
really hard. [Laughs]
Yeah, I have died to it, I have seen people die to it...
I've shown up and killed two people at it.
It's so risky to take that early on
and you don't actually have adequate vision
around it at that time, and it's your top laner
and your jungler, right? Like, Sightstone is really
hard to come by. Some people don't always take
the warding smite and then also, it can be stolen
very easily, because you don't want to smite it as
the jungler, you want to give it off to the laner.
It's actually changing that a bit in 5.24
making it so that instead of going to the person
that kills it, you know, drops the thing on the ground.
Your jungler can then smite it.
I totally think that's a great change too.
Yeah, you have a little Herald icon, you go pick it up
and it is only for the team that kills it, so...
Run in...
Yeah, they're gonna be like, "I got it! I got the thing!"
No surprises there.
Yeah, I agree. I think Rift Herald probably isn't
being utilized enough. I think we're going to see
in the middle of the season, it's going to be some
crazy team is like, "Here's the insane strat."
But I find it interesting that people aren't taking it
as much, because it feels like people are taking
Dragons less in my games, too.
You know, I kind of feel like it's like, "Oh well,
if you're not going for Dragon
you'd be going for Rift Herald."
Yeah.
But I think everyone's just like, "Let's just snowball
the game instead."
Yeah, I think that's the appeal.
Like I said, turrets are worth so much gold
and they give you so much pressure in the lane
that turrets are the overall objective
in how you win League of Legends.
Dragon, I wouldn't even say it's being under-appreciated
right now. I think it's being appreciated appropriately.
It's underpowered, right?
It's the later game payoff
and people just want to win now.
Well, don't let Dragon hear you.
That's incredibly rude.
Well, yeah it's under-appreciated in terms of like
what's been given to it in terms of
what it gives to a team, right?
People want first Dragon and then they don't
want to mess with it again.
Like, "The second Dragon? We don't need that."
Third Dragon is okay, fourth Dragon is like
"Well, maybe we can take Baron faster now
but if we were already snowballing the game
we'll get Baron, right?"
That's a trend that predates Preseason as well.
Yeah.
You know, during the World Champs, for example
we're seeing a lot of teams go, "Okay, maybe we'll
pick up a first Dragon. Maybe we won't bother with
that even until 20 minutes. We've got other stuff
we'd rather focus on.
Yeah, it started becoming, this is where you fight us
every 7 minutes or every 6 minutes, right?
There's like Baron and Dragon, come fight us here
and they were used for more of a team fight
as opposed to this is our objective
and we're going to use that to snowball.
Yeah, first Dragon is really, really important later
but towers can give you gold now, so you know
that explains really why anybody, like any team
would take a Dragon, or a tower trade
for a Dragon trade, any day.
Yeah, I think the theme of this patch is
instant gratification. You want what gives you stuff
now, because the games aren't lasting as long.
Yeah, so I have one more question and
you brought up something very interesting, right?
Like, towers are important now, Dragons, it's like
get one, you probably need at least one at some point.
Where do we think the balance between objectives
should be, not just between Rift Herald and Dragon
as like, an early/late thing, but relative to towers as well
right? Cause I think you guys are also touching
on this confusion of I kill the laner, maybe we can
do Rift Herald, but I can also just take the towers.
So where do we want the kind of triangle of those
objectives to be? Where do you think it should be?
I think there should be a genuine choice there
depending on how your game's going
which champions you've got
how you team plays well. That sort of stuff.
If it's always take the tower, ignore the other stuff
cool, we're in the wrong spot.
If it's always, you know, play really safe, just farm
just wait for the Dragon spawn, same problem
and then we'll probably need to skew it back
a little bit more towards Dragon being an appealing
objective in some games, for some teams.
You know, something they really want, but not
something that's a universal, you must do this.
Technically, even Rift Herald is, you know, a long-term
investment. Like, if the trade-off is a tower
or Rift Herald, like Rift Herald can get you towers
but, you know, it has to be the right situation.
But a tower gets you towers.
Exactly, a tower gets you towers. [Laughter]
It's like
like a tower's a tower, but Rift Herald can get you anything.
It could even get you a tower.
You know, it could be, who knows? [Laughter]
Exactly.
I want to move on really quickly to masteries.
I mean, keystones are, you know, now the
new, cool thing, right?
You choose the one and you play around it
or whatever and I kind of want to know how that
has been feeling. I personally, I love it.
There's like a puzzle solving element
to the masteries now that like, I hope doesn't go away.
I hope it doesn't just become like
"Alright, I do this. This is the... what's best."
I don't know. How have you been enjoying masteries
or that customization?
I think it's just really good, because there's
there's never like a cookie cutter way
to like, play the game.
Whereas, like, you know, before, Doublelift would
never change his mastery or rune page, he would
just keep the exact same page the entire split.
So, I think, you know, now that, you know, he has to
like, actually pay attention during champ select, it's...
Yeah, you're just like, do the math once.
Yeah.
Let it sit. Maybe you're like, "Oh, Deft takes 3 points here
that's not normal? What's happening? Okay, I'll just do it."
Yeah, like, things are slightly different based on
what champion you're playing, which is really good.
Yeah, that's my take on it, is it is actually becoming
very bland for me very quickly, because I don't feel
like there's enough keystones in it for me to make
multiple choices. It's like, "Okay, am I a ranged
character? I'll take Feast. Am I a melee character?
Well, I take Double-Edged Sword, right?"
And then you go down to the bottom
it's like, "Do I get crit? I get Warlord's Bloodlust."
And then it's like, "If I'm a mage, Deathfire Touch." Right?
And then, in that regard, I don't know if there's enough.
It's just based on what champion you are
so when I change champions, I pretty much just
change keystone over and that's basically been
the masteries for me.
In terms of like, using every tree, I feel like
every tree is actually in a good spot now
and that I actually feel that there's champions
that want to go down every single tree, instead of
like, this is the offense tree, you take it every time.
So that, I think, has been successful where
tanks are going to go all the way to the
tank tree and going to go all the way to the bottom
because there are rewarding things there for them.
Right, but you're worried that there maybe
isn't enough actual choice.
-Yeah, it's going to get... I think it's
I think it's going to get cookie cutter very quickly
for certain types of champions very quickly.
Yeah, I agree.
That's actually something we are looking into
right at the moment, with one of the plans being to
expand out, especially some of those
sort of tier 1 and tier 2 keystones.
You know, as you say, Feast, Double-Edged Sword
that one feels pretty obvious.
Tier 1 on the Cunning tree as well.
Are you a jungler? If not, here are your biscuits.
Yeah. [Laughs]
So, the sort of plan going forward is, every patch or so
we're probably going to add at least more keystone
I think they started with the tier 1, tier 2 stuff in there.
Cool.
Hopefully, broaden that out. Get some, fingers crossed
some actual choice.
Right, well, I mean, we have the assassin mastery
being added here, as well in this patch
which I think is actually super cool
because, as everyone turns their textbooks and finds
-Kids, open your textbooks.
Yeah, Go to page 7 and find the assassin mastery.
No, I... Like, a light went on in my head
when I heard about this, because we're all having
conversations about like, "Yeah, you know
like, Zed and Kha'Zix aren't doing so well right now
and like, even Riven's kind of, you know, weak
which is like, exploding my brain to think about
and then someone's like, "Oh yeah, well
we're just going to add a mastery."
I'm like, "We can do that?" We can just add masteries
to like, support the class?"
And I think that's really unique. It's something
that we haven't done in the past
and something we can do now, because you drop this
it's going in the tier with the biscuits or the
Runic Blessing, where you get the extra buff duration
and that's like, now, pretty compelling for me, right?
I'm like, "Oh hey, do I... Am I going to dive into
their team solo a whole bunch?
Let me get that thing." You know?
And it's like, now it doesn't just feel
like it's one or the other and so, I don't know
do we have any other plans?
Is there any other things that we want to do here
or are you just kind of like, hands off
like, maybe it gets better?
Oh yeah, we'll be adding a bunch more, like assassin
you know, in future patches.
Can they all be named assassin
and all do the same thing and all stack?
-[Laughter]
They won't be named assassin
but they'll all do completely different things.
No! It's just like, one's like, lowercase on the "A."
It's like, oh, so it's different, okay.
So, how are we going to choose what to add
and what's going to be needed in here?
-Are these going to be reactionary? -We've got. This one, we've got, sort of
two main principles and it is relatively reactionary.
First one, you know, which classes
are really in need of some help?
AD assassins in particular
you're really left out this patch.
Yeah.
AD casters as well to some degree.
Some types of supports, as well
feel they don't have a great choice
in either the Resolve or the Cunning trees.
We'll probably look at them at some point.
The other one is, you know, some of those
tiers where you don't feel you have any choice.
You know, there's something that may be really
useful for you, but there is no trade-off to make
none of those interesting decisions
And so, that's sort of the other one
that we're hoping to get in there.
So, I mean, you were talking about something before
and I kind of want us to get into that now, right?
Which is, there are a lot of champion changes in here
that I don't think people are expecting.
Yes.
Right? It's like, you know, you go into the patch
and you're like, "Okay, what's in there?"
Your like, "Dr. Mundo nerfs, Soraka nerfs, got it."
Then you're like, "Swain, Malzahar
-Brand?
nerfs. Although, Brand, I think the secret's out.
Brand, the secret's out, yeah.
-The secret's definitely out on that.
[Laughter]
Right, well, I mean, how do you feel
reading through the patch notes, Tony?
What stuff has kind of stuck out to you
as you were looking over like
the changes that are happening to champions?
I didn't expect Malzahar, but then it makes sense
like instantly when you think about how it works
with like, Deathfire Touch.
Yeah.
Like, it would be just an insane amount
of damage overall.
Yeah, as far as Swain, I didn't understand that
but, I think maybe it's because Merc Treads
are weaker.
For each individual character, basically we looked at
what strengths they had, what weaknesses
and which of those strengths were either
inappropriate or which of those weaknesses
needed to be amplified.
So, in Swain's case for example
he's a, you know, particularly a sort of drain/tanking mage.
He's got some pretty high sustain damage.
We actually feel that's appropriate for his kit.
Having that degree of early CC however
you know, especially as a one-point-wonder on the W
since that's what we're hitting.
That felt a little bit out of line, so we're taking
some power out of that.
Brand, by contrast, it was, you know
his ability to, you know, harass in some early
and early mid-game that we felt was the thing to hurt.
Yeah, I mean, especially, I mean, you're seeing
I feel like Brand support is like, everybody knows now.
It's like everybody knows, it's just, it's like, you're like
"Support Brand?" You go click on the stats page
you're like, "You just did more damage than my team."
Like, that's just, he was everywhere.
And, you know, a lot of that, I think
you know, it's like the fishing with Pillar of Flame.
You're just like, "One of these is going to hit.
It's going to really..."
-And when it does
-we go in.
Yeah, we're going to know at that point
exactly what's going on.
You talked about Soraka and Mundo getting nerfs
that were appropriate to them.
I actually want to talk about Soraka and Rammus
because when you think of these champions
right now, you think of very frustrating armor
and taunt and then you also think about, for Soraka
you think about, "Oh, she's healing everybody and
Grievous Wounds just doesn't feel as good anymore
because it's self healing.
Yeah.
So, we're changing like, mana costs for her
we're making it so that she doesn't heal
as much in a bunch of bursts
like, we're not actually changing numbers
for her heal value. So, we're keeping these things intact
about these champions that most people
find frustrating. So, how have we selected these things
for these champions and said like
"That's the problem with Rammus
and that's the problem with Soraka."?
So, with Soraka, we do want her to be
the game's premier healer of others, basically.
Designed counter-play there though is
you should be able to kill Soraka.
Hence, the removal of the Grievous Wounds
removal from Wish so that's less effective on
Soraka herself. And in particular
the range reduction on Q, so if she's doing
that whole cycle of, take health from you
put it into her allies, she's having to put herself
at risk and actually be somewhat more killable.
I think this is really cool, because we're not
just saying, "Oh, let's just reduce her healing
amount and let's just reduce Rammus' armor
to like, compensate for that."
Instead, we're going okay, we want those strengths
to still be strengths of those champions
and for the players to actually have that
feeling of, "I'm healing you a whole bunch!"
Instead of getting like, blocked by having
Grievous Wounds on that person.
Ideally, we want to preserve a character's strengths
you know, keep those, sort of, points of distinction
between them, in the same way the marksmen
update was really focused on, you know
getting more difference between characters.
That's not to say we won't sometimes have to
hit just raw damage or healing, but
It's not where we want to start.
Yeah, exactly. And I think these are starting points.
If Rammus still has too much armor
because of Last Whisper, then it's time to...
Sure, then we can...
To look at it, but these are really cool things
that I think will actually hit the win rate
a tiny bit and allow for counter play.