Reign of Gaming

RoG Article Recap

• New Item Previews - Tiamat and Ravenous Hydra
• Interview with TSM AD Carry Chaox: "[NA] is behind in terms of efficient practice and dedication, not talent and innovation"
• Zed, the Master of Shadows, Now Available!

New "Pickpocket" Mastery and Q&A

FeralPony and Roku answer even more questions today, this time giving some information on a new mastery! You can read the first part of the Q&A in yesterday's news roundup.

FeralPony, can you give us any hints about support masteries that help reduce gold pressures? Or will it be generally the same as S2? IE, anything like "Synergy" or some similar concept?

We won't be doing Synergy as there are a few issues with it that Morello talked about in a previous post. Most of the gold pressure reduction is going to be outside the mastery changes through a number of smaller adjustments (gold flow changes, items like the Sight Stone Xypherous revealed earlier etc). 

The one mastery we are adding specifically gold related in Utility is a mastery called "Pickpocket" that grants gold upon attacking an enemy champion. This will allow active supports a bit more gold while harassing their opponents, while also being useful for other character types that spec into deep into Utility.

Since the reason you introduced these two spells in the first place was to replace Rally and Fortify because no one used them... now that even less people use Surge and Promote, can you admit that you failed? You replaced two spells no one used with two different spells that no one used.
Yes - we do admit that they didn't work well.

Promote was OK for its intended use - but we feel like as a strategic choice it is better fit on an item. This allows us to control the effect in many different ways than a Summoner Spell does (who buys it, when it becomes available in a game, and how much cost you're paying for the effect). 

As for Surge - we definitely missed the mark. Originally Surge was envisioned as a team oriented spell, something similar to old Rally. After a few iterations it had to be toned down, but we didn't want to make the user feel worse for taking it. As it stands now, it does come down to which spell is going to give you more damage - Ignite or Surge. In an overwhelming majority of cases, Ignite will actually give you more mileage even if Surge sounds better. This becomes especially true later in the game as Ignite ignores armor / magic resist. Surge was fun to cast, and had good synergy with a particular couple champions - but a majority of the time it was actually a trap. There were some fun aspects of it - turret pushing, clever edge case uses, and getting bigger, but it overall was a false choice.

Any masteries that effect champion pets? Ie: damage reduction, increased damage, duration, etc? I realize this is incredibly niche, but there are more pet champions (8 that deal damage/interact with enemy champions via damage) than there are energy users, and energy users have a mastery they can use.
I had a mastery in Utility that impacted Champion pets and traps but it impacted so few champions it really didn't belong in the mastery trees. We decided to shift this type of functionality into items instead.

Better utility tree = singed buff? :O
Singed should like the new Utility Tree 

Cool idea, but that's a huuuge buff to ranged supports versus melee 
Good point! Currently we have different gold amounts for Ranged and Melee champions, and we'll continue to adjust these values as needed. We want to reward melee champions for the additional risk they take in any engagement from this mastery 

i hope there will be a long internal cooldown on the pickpocket mastery (in the range of 10 to 15 seconds), or ranged carries and anyone who builds attack speed or has attack speed boosts in his kit would have a crazy advantage over other champs.
There is a cooldown before the effect can triggered again.

I was wondering. Are you guys ever going to make a summoner spell that isn't castable and just gives a bonus passive? Maybe with masteries this passive could be strengthened. I just thought it might be possible for laners that don't like to be as aggressive. Or, if it's an aggressive passive, like bonus damage of some sort, then maybe it's beneficial to take for an early game advantage if you want the risk of giving up Ignite or exhaust. Would there be a way to make such a spell without them being overpowered, and balanced with those Ignite/exhaust?
I'd be a bit hesitant for a purely passive Summoner Spell...because clicking buttons and seeing effects is a really fun thing. You lose gameplay and balancing levers when making a purely passive spell (cooldown, uptime, etc) 

However, Heal might gain a purely passive component to slightly benefit the person that picked it.

CURIOUS if Heal is getting a full effect on allies w/out masteries, will Clarity see a similar buff?
Perhaps... 

Season 2 Rewards FAQ

Hey all,

I wanted to create a single place where you can find answers to your questions about the Season 2 rewards. If you have additional questions, feel free to ask them in this thread. I'll be checking back throughout the day to answer questions and add them to the FAQ as common themes emerge.

Why don't I have my Victorious Janna skin?

There was an issue with the Janna skin where players who had it were unable to play games. That issue has now been fixed and your skin should show up sometime today or tomorrow.

My friend already got her summoner icons, why don't I have mine?

The process that grants these icons can take a long time to run in some of the larger regions. During that period some players will receive their icons earlier than others.

How about the Season 1 summoner icon?

This is still being granted as well. You should see it show up in your account sometime today or tomorrow.

Why don't I have my Platinum or Diamond forum badge for Season 2?

A subset of players haven't received the appropriate forum badges. This is not specific to ranked team queues; it also seems to be happening to some players who earned them in ranked solo. We are still investigating the root cause of this and we'll be issuing badges to everyone who earned them as soon as we figure it out.

I got my rewards for solo queue but haven't received them for teams. Why is that?

To earn rewards with a team, you had to either join the team before September 1st or win five games with the team in the appropriate queue.

I had five wins with a Platinum 3v3 Ranked Team. Why don't I have a Platinum border in normal games?

Ranked games show the border that you earned in that particular queue. All other game modes show the border that was achieved in the Ranked Solo queue.

This player purchased an Elo boosting service and yet still has his rewards. Why?

We have not finished the full sweep of Elo boosters as of yet. We will be removing rewards retroactively from players that we identify.

What happened with the players who engaged in win trading?

The players involved received a temporary suspension and those teams were disqualified from earning rewards for their members. However, these players were still able to earn rewards from solo queue as well as other teams that achieved their rating legitimately.

Item Preview Q&A - Tiamat and Ravenous Hydra

If you missed the original article, you can find it here.

What prevents Fiora from going mad crazy with these? 
Tiamat + R, Fiora basically hits a larger area in exchange for not triggering the 500 damage in the splash at level 18. While this is kind of a trade-off - it also means that stacking Tiamats and hoping the enemy team is grouped up is no longer a thing.

Does the active proc with on-hit skills? 
Also, what about Kayle, will it be turned off when her E is on? 
If you're in a ranged form, Tiamat's active and passive will not work. This applies to Jayce/Nidalee/Elise/Kayle/X.

what about gp? 
Parley will still trigger Tiamat, as Gangplank himself is Melee.

Will this still work with ranged on-hit skills like gangplanks Q? 
Yes, but only if you're melee. Kayle becomes ranged - so Tiamat will no longer work during her ranged form.

Will it still work with Fiora's ult because even without stacking it is quite powerful and the larger range will make it still good on her. 
It will still work on Fiora's ultimate - but it will no longer inherit the base damage from Fiora's ultimate - so you don't get silly instant-gib cases. It splashes for a % of your total attack damage.

wouldnt tiamat still stack with malphites passive to make secondary targets take more damage? 
Yes. Malphite and Tiamat would still stack in the way you've described.

So if I'm Sion and I'm ulting and have 100% lifesteal, will I get 110% life steal from ult + hydra, or just 10% from the lifesteal on the hydra? 
Hm. I'm not sure how Sion's ultimate is coded come to think of it.

If it actually gives you true lifesteal, then it will work with the hydra. (As in, your character statistics page shows you have more lifesteal)

For example, Nasus' passive is actual lifesteal so his passive will work with Hydra.

Xyph can you hint if you've looked at rageblade? 
I tried. I still don't know if it's all that great.

How does this work with Crits? Will GP's parley that crits do additional damage to things around the area? 
It currently does not work with critical strikes - it only inherits your base attack damage.

Essentially Hydra --> BT is a very powerful combination while Hydra --> IE is far less so.

1: Though Riven has a good range w/ ultimate, she's still melee, right?
2: How does it work exactly? Take Nid as example, when I aa in human form and shapeshift + enhance next attack, the enhanced effect is consumed on my flying attack. Is it a similar senario on Tiamat? 
1. Riven is still Melee.
2. If you shapeshift, the flying spear will splash right now - as you are currently melee. Yes, this is kind of a weird edge-case that I should probably fix but I mean.. it's the literal functional wording of the mechanic. I'll probably go back and clean this up when I get the chance, thanks for the reminder.

While you're answering special cases, how is it going to work for Shyvana's dragon form Q? 
Tiamat has an internal proc limiter against different targets of 0.05 seconds - so Shyvana's Dragon form isn't going to Tiamat Proc 6 billion times any more and we might be able to add AoE on-hit abilities now. :P

Old Black Cleaver used to proc on WW's ulti due to being on-hit, is it possible you guys can make his ulti deal physical damage to still proc the new Black Cleaver? 
Warwick's ultimate will apply the new BC. It'll still do magic though. We have so few cases on magic on-hit effects that it's cleaner for the BC tooltip to read 'dealing physical damage.' New BC is basically on-hit + on-physical.

(Yes, that does mean JIV applies two stacks of the new BC with his passive.)

Is the AOE range still the same as the old Tiamat, or has it been changed? 
AE range is much larger than the old Tiamat - but you run into damage falloff there.

Basically, around old Tiamat range you get 60% damage. 100 units past old Tiamat range, you get 40% damage and 200 units past old Tiamat range, you get 20% damage.

The Active Cleave is even larger than the passive cleave - and gets to about 400 units.

Silly question, but will Nasus' Q, if he lasts hits a minion(And the cleave 'Last hits' minions around his target), will he still get the points? 
I believe so - based on how Nasus' Q is hooked up. We might need to revisit this in the future but for now, let's see how it goes.

How strong is it if Jayce activates his Max Attack Speed thing and goes into Cannon Mode, allowing him to Hammer a person 3 times rapidly? 
If you're in cannon mode, you're ranged. No Tiamat procs for you.

What's it built from?

Why isn't the Tiamat the upgrade of the Hydra instead of the other way around? 
Tiamat is currently double regen items + long sword + pickaxe - but we've been pondering whether it should be a Health + AD item rather than a HP Regen + AD item and seeing what would be better.

If you get a ravenous hydra and a tiamat will the passives stack like most unique passives or only happen once still? 
Nope - note that their unique passives are both named 'Cleave' - this is part of our new tooltip terminology to basically state that if you have a unique passive named Cleave, you don't benefit from any other unique passives named Cleave.

you say it doesnt work with range, but will it work with parrrley? 
Although Parley is a ranged spell, Gangplank himself is Melee, so Parley will trigger Tiamat.

Since Renekton's W autoattacks twice, can I assume that it will proc Tiamat twice? 
Yes.

It will also proc three times in the rage-empowered form.

Does the active part of those items function in he same way needing damage to be dealt to proc the effect or is it instant damage that can be used in between attacks/casts? 
The active is a separate spell with a short cast time. You can use it in between attacks - but not during a cast.

How will this work with abilities that modify an auto-attack to deal full magic damage? 
Tiamat will always do a percentage of your total attack damage - it doesn't really care what attack applies it at all.

Does this mean that the passive and active components of tiamat and hydra will proc the new black cleaver passive? 
Yes.

What about Ezreal? He is ranged, but his Q applies on-hits. 
Ezreal is ranged, thus Tiamat doesn't work on him.

Why does it need to build out of Faerie Charm still? a few amount of champs who can benefit from it (farm forever champs such as Yi, Tryn, nasus, etc) do not need the minimal mana regen that provides. 
It doesn't build out of Faerie Charm. It only provides health regeneration.

Xyph, I think what that dude was asking about Jayce, is if you are in cannon form (not getting any Tiamat procs, obviously), and hit W, then R immediately after, you'll smack people 3 times with your hammer at max attack speed. So I think we're wondering if those would all proc Tiamat. I would assume so, but hey, ya never know. 
Oh yes, if he's in hammer form, he will rapidly attack them three times, cleaving each time.

Wait, I'm confused. You said in discussion of Shyvana's dragon form Q that it has a short internal cooldown of 0.05 seconds per target.

I thought Renekton's W applied all hits simultaneously, despite the long animation, which would mean that it would work like Shyvana's Q. 
It has a short internal cooldown of 0.05 seconds on different targets.

Meaning that you cannot trigger Tiamat procs on different enemies more than once every 20 seconds.

You are free to trigger them as quickly as possible on the same target.

It just means that there won't be a cascading ripple effect if you apply on-hits to twenty units clustered.

SO, does Tiamat and the new BC proc with Jax's W? And if so, does it do the dmg of his W or his basics? 
If you use empower on a target, you will cleave once, for 60% of Jax's total attack damage.

Will Garens Judgement proc it like it does the new BC?
Seriously doubting this one. 
No, Tiamat is still an on-hit effect. The new BC is an 'on physical' damage trigger - so there's no overlap here.

I'm still a little confused on this. 
Let's say I have 3 champions in front of me. If I use my normal Q how many procs do I get? If I use my Dragon Q how many procs do I get? 
If you use your normal Q, you get 2 cleaves, as you applied 2 on-hit effects.

If you use your Dragon Q, you get 2 cleaves, as you applied 2 on-hit effects to your primary target, then attacked a different target within 0.05 seconds - which Tiamat says 'wait, no, I'm not firing here. You've cleaved recently before on a different target.'

It's basically just a limiter to make sure that you don't cleave from multiple people at the same time - but you can cleave from the same person multiple times - for these simultaneously on-hit effect cases.

Based on my understanding, if Shyv Qs in human form she gets two procs on her target. If she Qs in dragon form she gets two procs on what I would assume is her current right click target (though the other champions take the two this from the Q). By contrast, today I would get a total of 6 procs in dragon form spread across all three targets. 
Pretty much this.

Assuming that the champions were in less than 150 range of each other (that is, if they were touching), they would suffer 6 procs. In the new system, they would only suffer 2 - which means it might be possible to make skills that apply on-hit AoE effects so that we can finally have to stop thinking about Tiamat holding us back from doing so.

I imagine this is in place to prevent something like 12 or more Tiamat procs going off when enemies group up against a Dragon form Shyv. 
Exactly this.

You mentioned Riven being good with the new Tiamat yet isn't the useless lifesteal on the upgrade making it a trap item for her and other AD casters? 
It's not useless. The Ravenous Hydra active benefits from the lifesteal on the item itself, allowing you to AoE lifesteal with the active Cleave effect.

It might be sub-optimal for pure AD casters - but then you might consider not upgrading the item and simply rushing more attack damage if you don't care about life steal at all. The passive nor the active improves when you upgrade it - so feel free to start on your other items once you have the meat of what you want from Tiamat.

Did you by chance mean every 1/20th of a second? 
Yes. Thank you for the edit. XD

Also, again is the splash true damage or not? Ie: does the splash/cleave factor in your enemy's armor or is the damage still quasi-true damage that's based on how much damage you deal to the target you initially hit? 
Tiamat's splash was never true damage - so I'm not sure how this rumor ever started. :x

It's actually functionally impossible to deal physical damage that bypasses armor in our engine - so the quasi-true damage part was never true.

It was possible to amplify an existing attack to deal true damage - but not a new separate instance.

Wait so is the Ravenous Hydra's active just a 1-hit active or does it last for a certain duration? 
It's an instant-cast cleave, allowing you to cleave without having a target.

I recall you, yourself, though, stating the coding was really weird and that it was quasi-true damage...maybe it was another Rioter.
As it was explained if you were melee and dealt 1,000 damage to a target that has 100 armor, you would deal 500 to your target and 250 damage in the cleave radius, regardless of the armor of the target hit by the cleave. 
Hm.. Oh I see how that might happen... that's interesting. No, this version of Tiamat applies a percentage of your total attack damage to all targets, so everyone's armor is checked individually.

No Quasi-True damage here. Sorry.

What is the range on the new Tiamat, is it the same as before? 
It's roughly 2x to 2.5x as big - but suffers damage fall-off the farther out you are from the epicenter.

Essentially, around the old Tiamat splash range, you get full damage - but the farther out you go the less damage you take.

Xyph, I found the post, it was in a "Why is battlefury good, but Tiamat so bad?" post:
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/...55199#19855199
It wasn't you that stated it, it was WhattayaBrian.
Yeah, I see what's going on now. It's not actually using any of the usual damage types. This is no longer true, as I hooked this one up using our standard 'item' damage type, to make it work with things like the new BC.

Also, since the proc doesn't care about any of the damage you're doing, being based off your % TAD - this matters less.

Xyph, if the range of Hydra bigger than Tiamat? 
Nope. It just life steals.

This sounds like a silly question but can you use the actives for the item multiple time if you have several Tiamats. Can I for example get 3 and then use them one after the other do deal massive amounts of damage to one target. 
Nope - notice that it's a unique active and notice that the unique active is named 'Crescent' - this means that these actives are uniquely shared across both Hydra and Tiamat and that multiple items share the same cooldown.

Her twin bite (human) strikes at the same time, but normally counts as two hits. Because these two hits are simultaneous, she would only proc tiamat once. That's a HUGE trap item.You look at that skill and think on-hit... but the most attractive on-hit item so far doesn't work for it. That's a trap if I've ever seen one. 
She procs tiamat twice with her twin strike. The limiter is if you hit multiple people at the same time with an on-hit effect.

does this mean that philo and Kages will have different Unique passive names? 
Yes - but mostly because Kage's has an upgrade that keeps the GP/10 component of it.

how will this new item interact with clone/pets such as Yorik ult, Morde ult, or Shaco Clone...or Elise's spiderlings? As in, if the cloned champ has Tiamat/Ravenous, will the clone/pet itself proc its effect with its auto-attacks?
Also, a little cheating here, but looking at LoL wiki's list of on-hit effect related abilities, will this new item interact as imagined with: Master Yi's passive, Fizz's Urchin Strike (Q), and Irelia's ult (especially curious with this one)?
There are more instances, but those have been answered already (WW, GP, Rene, Shyv)
Also, continuing on with abilities that splash already...will it stack with Diana's passive and Nocturne's passive? (Malph's already answered for)
Another thing is how will it interact with Cho's passive spikes, Udyr's phoenix form, Morde's Q, and Voli's thunder claws? 
It's an on-hit effect, which follows our standard on-hit effect rules.
So Fizz, yes.
Master Yi, yes, twice.
Morde's Q, yes.
Morde's Ghosts, yes.
Elise's Spiders, no.
Spikes / Phoenix / Thunder Claws - no - but these character's basic attacks will apply the tiamat cleave, so they will work with each other, it's just that the magic damage splash attack won't trigger tiamat.

Tiamat/Hydra and Sheen/Trinity Force/Lich Bane procs are not going to spread to to the 'cleaved' targets, just the primary target for that individual proc, right? 
Just the primary target, yes. Sheen + Tiamat is worse now, unfortunately.

Does the lifesteal work on all cleave dmg dealt by hydra? And does it factore in all your life steal? 
Yes.

Does it factor in all your life steal - Currently, no. We're tweaking the ratio of this - but right now it uses 50% of your life steal for the AoE portion of it - but we're still tuning.

How does the Life Steal on Hydra work? Does it take into account total damage after mitigation dealt, add diminshing returns like Spell Vamp, then take into account Life Steal? Or is it LS off each individual target added up? 
It doesn't work with Spell Vamp at all, being item-based damage (like Wit's End). LS is applied off post-mitigation damage.

So this might seem like a stupid question but what range is melee as there have been a few champs that are melee but have longer ranges than normal melee. i.e. a fully stacked Cho'gath has greater range than the typical melee 
Melee / Range is determined, not by your attack range - but by an internal flag.

So you don't have to worry about your attack range. The only characters that swap between melee and ranged forms are Elise / Jayce / Kayle / Nidalee - but they have entirely new attacks.

i'm slightly confused by the sheen/tiamat interaction. suppose i cast a spell, (say, gp uses his e) so that my next autoattack does double damage. does my next autoattack do double damage to all enemies around my target? or does just the target receive 2x damage? 
Just the target receives additional damage.

So If I have 10% LS, 5 targets take 1000 total damage (after resistences), will I get 100 Health, or 100 Life then diminishing returns 
Right now, we only take half of your lifesteal - but we're still tuning the number. So, if you have 10% LS, and you cleave for 1000 damage, you get 50 Life.

If you attacked someone and got the passive cleave, you get full lifesteal off your main target (as that was a regular autoattack) and than half lifesteal based on how much splash damage you dealt to units around him.

Will Shaco's clone apply the Tiamat passive? I ask this, specifically, because Shaco's clone is extremely weird in which on-hit effects it will apply (Ie: MBR's damage is applied, but malady's damage is not.....yet the MR shred is). 
We'll need to go back and tune Shaco's clone a bit - Right now, I have no idea, mostly because yeah. Shaco's clone is weird. I'd have to dig around his internals a bit.

Will a really farmed Nasus Q cleave for a lot when used? 
Nope. It's based off your total attack damage - so it'll cleave for a portion of that. The new tiamat doesn't care about what attack applies it, it always cleaves for the same amount.

So the roundup of this Sheen proc with Tiamat is that Tiamat only splashes and will always only splash based on your total AD. No procs or anything of the sort that boosts an attacks strength without affecting your direct stats will be included in the splash. Is this a good summary? 
Yes.

Hmmm not sure if this was answered or explained but we gain lifesteal from Crescent on Hydra but what about Cleave? 
Both Cleave and Crescent will benefit from lifesteal if you have Hydra.

So i must know, how do you sleep at night knowing you are killing all the fun items in the game(most of which happen to be some of my favorite). 
As a personal rule, I care more about the player who might have negative experiences rather than maximizing the edge-case abuse scenarios. That is, if an abuse can exist and is fun for one person but might also create scenarios where someone can suffer from it - I'd rather remove the suffering. I care more about removing suffering in the general case than adding abusive fun cases.

Now, whether I'm successful or not - you know, hasn't actually panned out as a lot of the things I make often cause people to suffer frustration.

Is splash radius around your champion or your target? 
Passive Cleave is around your target.

Active Crescent is around your champion.

But seriously now, I'm really wondering about passives that already splash (nocturne, diana, and malph). Will each enemy hit with the ability splash proc the tiamat splash? Will this mean the "main" target (lets say the big wolf in wolf camp) will get hit by: main auto attack, splash created by tiamat due to proc-ing from ability's splash on minor wolf 1 and wolf 2? 
No, Tiamat's splash will on trigger off of things that trigger other on-hit effects.

Is it possible to make it impossible to purchase for ranged champions? 
There are awesome people working on it.

If Morde kills someone with his Ult and the target has Tiamat, will the Ghost proc it? 
Ghosts apply Mordekaiser's on-hit effects and the target's unique passives - So if Mordekaiser has Tiamat, the Ghost will proc it.

I think. It's been a while.

So im slightly confused. As far as i was aware, item effects (gunblade / dfg) used spell vamp. Is this something exclusive to this line of items to use lifesteal? and does the tiamat non upgraded version get the same lifesteal effect? 
Items typically don't proc spell vamp. If GB / DFG is proc'ing spell vamp, it's probably a bug.

How short will be the cooldown?Short?Kind short?Very short?Karthus? 
Cooldown of the active? Right now it's 10 - you can see it in the preview.

Will Pantheon's spears also work with new Tiamat? I'm assuming so because it is like a GP's Q. 
No. Pantheon's Spears do not apply on-hit effects - therefore it doesn't apply Tiamat.

So just to clarify, this means in that previous example, the minor wolves will both get hit by: champ's passive splash ability and tiamat splash from main target. Right? Thanks for answering btw 
Yes, exactly right.

Does the target hit by Tiamat receive the splash damage (and thus the full 60% splash) or only those surrounding it? 
No, the target hit does not receive any splash damage.

So you have said that Tiamat passive works on Parrrley. Can we assume it will work on any champ with a similar skill. E.g. Pantheon's spear? 
Parley is a special case that applies on-hit effects. It says directly in the tooltip 'applies on-hit effects.' Pantheon doesn't apply on-hit effects with his Spear Shot, and thus won't trigger Tiamat.

The active on Hyrda. Does it work with spellvamp? It seems to me like this could be a great item for AD casters trying to increase their burst a little. If it works with spellvamp that will strengthen my thoughts on this. 
Items typically don't trigger spellvamp ever. If they are currently, it's probably a bug. In any case, the active on Hydra doesn't work with SV at all.

Does the target hit by Tiamat receive the splash damage (and thus the full 60% splash) or only those surrounding it? 
No, the target hit does not receive any splash damage.

So you have said that Tiamat passive works on Parrrley. Can we assume it will work on any champ with a similar skill. E.g. Pantheon's spear? 
Parley is a special case that applies on-hit effects. It says directly in the tooltip 'applies on-hit effects.' Pantheon doesn't apply on-hit effects with his Spear Shot, and thus won't trigger Tiamat.

The active on Hyrda. Does it work with spellvamp? It seems to me like this could be a great item for AD casters trying to increase their burst a little. If it works with spellvamp that will strengthen my thoughts on this. 
Items typically don't trigger spellvamp ever. If they are currently, it's probably a bug. In any case, the active on Hydra doesn't work with SV at all.

Wont this new Tiamat and upgrade have the exact same effect on any burst AD melees? I can't see how giving every melee AD an extra AD scaling nuke would NOT have a serious negative impact on balance, honestly. 
DFG is a special case, because it's a case of geometrically scaling AP ratios, due to being a % health nuke.

That is, if I halve your HP with DFG, I need half the spells to kill you. And this rises with AP. The more powerful DFG is, the less spells I need to kill you rises at a geometric rate.

This is what caused it to be hard to balance. Basically, by doing a % of your health in damage, you drastically reduce the power level needed of other spells to kill you. But AP was causing this to double scale in a way that wasn't linear - thus the difficulty of balancing DFG.

Put another way - DFG was another % amplifier onto your attack, while linear scaling ratios are simply another linear additional onto your attack.

How does this item interact with a Sheen/Trinity Force, if at all? 
It doesn't interact with Sheen or Trinity Force. Its effects are unrelated.

Don't you fear Riven's teamfight power skyrockets with this and the new items?
Right now a Lv 18 Riven that manages to catch a stacked team and uses 3 Qs and W will deal a ridiculous amount of damage. With Tiamat, she will pretty much carry a whole teamfight by herself, she will just need a good AoE CC from another champion 
As with any large scale changes - yes. I am terrified of the power potentials.

On the other hand, it comes with the territory of trying to make melee DPS'ers viable - so.. that might be exactly what we're trying to do.

Balance is going to be affected by these changes and we're going to need to spend some time tuning in the pre-season once players show us what they can do with the new items.

For example: Currently, post #29's next button and post #31's previous button both point to a non-existent post of yours.
To fix this, please edit post #29 and #31 to link to each other so that people can continue to page through your posts and not get sidetracked/lost by a missing link. This will also enable people to easily see your future posts in this thread. 
I haven't deleted my posts and these links are working fine for me. Unsure of what you're seeing - but it's not what I'm seeing.

Does the active cause sheen to proc on your next attack? 
No, I don't think any of our active items trigger Sheen - though I'd have to check to be sure.

The cleave active - does it count as an attack resetter meaning I could hit a ward, cleave it, then attack it again to kill the thing?
Does it work with Trundle's Q to steal AD from all targets within the area? I'm guessing no but it doesn't hurt to dream. 
The cleave doesn't hit wards, nor does it reset your attacks.

No on Trundle - though that would be kind of funny.

Does the passive work on towers/buildings meaning if I target an inhibitor or tower as a primary target I could kill a minion wave in the mean time with tiamat? Also the opposite if I target minions near a tower will the tower take splash damage? 
I'd have to check this - but whenever we have splash damage work on towers, players hate it because it means accidentally aggro'ing the tower when enemy champions are nearby.

My default stance on this is to have these effects not work if you're attacking a tower to avoid the above scenario.

I'm concerned that a fully built Hecarim, with his W turned on, a Tiamat, some extra lifesteal and a bunch of tankiness will be able to dive into five enemies and kill them all 
I'm pretty sure that a fuly built Hecarim with a Sunfire cape and his 'W' turned out would do the same thing.

Hecarim's 'W' is NUTTY.

Oh God, you're going to be doing item previews every Tuesday? I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I am incredibly turned on by this thread. 
No - It was just a reference to the Tiamat Tuesday meme.

Does videogaming's widespread misuse of the term "cleave" bother you (although at this point it's basically a new word in videogaming..)? 
Nope. Words change meanings as people decide what they mean. It's kind of a given.

Meta meta meta, meta meta meta.

I thought lifesteal getting a change in s3? 
In general, it's harder to get lots of lifesteal from a single item now. While there are more items with lifesteal - each one gives out less total lifesteal.

You state that the active part is around your champion, not your target. Does this mean when you use the active it just automatically casts an AoE ability, or do you need to target something within a certain range with the active - as if you were casting a spell. I assume the former but I need to know for sure. 
You do not need a target to cast the active. Your champion will just stand there and cleave.

Does GP get bonus gold from tiamat kills via parrley on a secondary target as well as the primary target? 
I'm not sure. I think so, based on how Parrley is coded - but that's a Parrley specific thing rather than a Tiamat specific thing.

1. What is the current recipe for Ravenous Hydra?

2. When used in combination with Blade of the Ruined King, are splashed targets also drained as per Blade's passive? 
1. It's Tiamat + Vamp Sceptre + Some Gold.

2. No. Blade of the Ruined King is an on-hit effect and splashed targets don't trigger the on-hit effect.

Hecarim with Tiamat, Lord Van Damm's Pillager, Triforce, Sunfire Cape, Guardian Angel and Merc Treds 
Unfortunately, a lot of the S3 items will be turned off for Twisted Treeline, until that team reviews and decides what items are appropriate for the balance of the map.

My Q turns my next auto into magic damage. Does Tiamat splash do physical or magic damage now? 
Physical, based on 60% of your total attack damage.

Is this a case of sacrificing the awesome nailbiting lifesteal-tanking of carries in close fights for the sake of balance reasons, or is that very gameplay something considered crappy to be on the other side of? 
Lifesteal is a weird statistic. That nailbiting lifesteal-tanking is fun up until the point where the carry can just sit there and autoattack you and gain health while doing no action.

There's this magical line that you cross from 'this is awesome and intense'' to 'I'm just going to stand here and drain-tank off of you because my LS is higher than your sustained damage.'

We're trying to find the right point such that we mostly get the nail-biting moments and not the boring 'Well, Jax/Warwick/Draven are just going to sit on my face and gain health because their sustained vamp is higher than my sustained damage.'

Xypherous, you wouldn't happen to be hinting at anything with that "X" in there, would you? 
Nope. It's just there as a catch-all in case I forgot someone. 

I'm still recovering from a fever and Dayquil isn't necessarily the best mental aid.

Kayle's Righteous Fury gives her autoattacks an AoE splash magic damage. If this was able to combine with the New Tiamat or Hydra, I could see a lot of synergy. Double splash damage via autoattacks. Is this the reason she would be ineligible to use Tiamat? 
Well, Kayle's Righteous Fury literally turns her attacks into ranged attacks - so she suffers all ranged penalties associated with being ranged.

That's just how it's always been.

Out of curiosity have you ever entertained the thought of after you're done with the Season 3 items you help the TT/CS/PG teams revamp their items as well? 
I'd like to focus on PG itemization for a bit after this while we work. I think there are some items that are degenerate and unfun on Murderbridge that should get Murderbridge only options.

Dragon Trainer Lulu and Bioforge Darius Now Available

 Hey Summoners! First off, let me introduce myself: I'm an animator here at Riot and one of my projects was to animate the dragon version of Pix for the Dragon Trainer Lulu skin. I wanted to take a few moments to explain some of our thought process behind making this skin happen.

Originally, this skin was going to be treated similarly to Lulu's other skins with the dragon version of Pix being a very simple character with only few utilitarian animations. However, as we further explored this version of Lulu, the team felt like we were missing an opportunity to breathe life into the character of Pix, which up until this point had a limited animation set. So, in our continuing mission to delight players and raise the quality of our skins, we took the time to really develop Pix into the charming and whimsical being that he was always meant to be. This included adding an entire new animation set to Pix, including attacks, emotes, run variants, and more. I tried to make this version of Pix a fitting companion for Lulu by appropriating some of the silly elements of Lulu's personality that make her so endearing. 

This is the first time we’ve taken a secondary pet character in the game and really given it the full treatment. On top of that, the skin received an adorable new model and what are arguably some of the coolest particles in the game. Not only does this skin open up doors for similar treatment on future Lulu skins, but also provides insight into ways we could bring even more personality to other secondary "pet" characters in our game. 

After all was said and done, we felt the value it brought to the characters of Lulu and Pix as a whole was above and beyond what players would expect from this skin. On behalf of the skins team, I hope you all enjoy the skin and all the hard work and love we put into it.