Reign of Gaming

Summoner's Challenge - Forum Contest

The first question for the Summoner's Challenge will be tomorrow. It will be a very easy question if you know your LoL Champions. For more information check out the Massive RP Giveaway contest thread.

Vi bug fixes/buffs incoming!

Hey guys,
At some point in the future a patch will come out. Contained within it will be a multitude of bug fixes for Vi. Wanted to give you guys some clarity on what exactly some of the fixes are and how they're going to affect you as a Vi player.

-Vault Breaker (Q):

-Vault Breaker will now always refund its CD and mana when interrupted
Currently Vault Breaker is sometimes being put on cooldown when Vi gets CC'd during its charge time. This is not the intended functionality. As a melee champ who focuses on autoattacks, losing the VB charge is already punishing enough for Vi. She should not be losing her move-block on top of that.

-Vault Breaker will now always stun for the intended amount of time (.5 seconds)
Currently VB, when hit at max range, is not stunning champs for as long as intended. Going to fix that.

-Vi will now always attack enemy champions after hitting them with Q
Currently Vi sometimes won't attack her enemy after landing a VB. Now she always will. Should be a good feel change. Q + Auto + E should flow right into each other much better now.

-Excessive Force (E)

-The responsiveness of Vi's attacks after using Excessive Force is being increased
EF currently hits twice as fast as a normal attack. This creates a longer space between an EF empowered strike and the attack following it. The end result? Excessive Force feels rather clunky and sluggish. 

I'm decreasing the wind-down time Vi will experience after hitting someone with EF. This means the attack after EF will now come out slightly faster. Should feel a lot better and also add a good amount of power (faster attacks = more damage and dueling potential).

-Assault and Battery (R):

-Assault and Battery will no longer be canceled by stealth and the damage won't be negated by characters with CC immunity.
Currently A&B is getting dodged by things that shouldn't be able to dodge it. Not intended. The ONLY ways a champ should be able to avoid A&B is by going untargetable or putting up a spellshield. Olaf and Morg will no longer stop its damage and Akali will no longer be able to twilight shroud herself out of danger.

-Champions affected by Assault and Battery will no longer be able to cast spells after being knocked into the air.
Currently targets of A&B are able to cast spells like flash, troll pool, and tumble for about .25 seconds after being knocked up. The CC wasn't being applied early enough in the animation. This change should put an end to ADC's flashing away AFTER you hit them.


Not going to beat around the bush here. While these changes, from a design standpoint, are all intended to make Vi more consistent and improve her feel/flow, many of them are buffs. Will be watching her and tweaking as needed.

RiotHippalus on Snowdown Showdown Icons

Hippalus hit reddit with some information on the Snowdown Showdown icons.

The Snowdown behavior data is being analyzed by the Player Behavior team and the final batch of Santa Baron icons will be granted when that is complete (next week at the latest). They are more concerned with identifying the right players than with getting them out quickly.

The Shopkeeper icon will then be granted to anyone who earned at least 4 of the other icons (for playing a premade, gifting RP, gifting a champion, gifting a skin, and/or behavior).

Thank you for asking politely!

That's a lot of behavior to be analyzed. Is it just for the time period of the Snowdown for most people?
Players can earn the Santa Baron icon for exemplary behavior during Snowdown or during all of 2012.

But how do you judge if someone had exemplary behavior? You can't exactly read through every chat log to ever exist in 2012 - and I feel using word filters to judge what was exemplary behavior and what wasn't is wrong.
That's why the PB&J team has PhDs and other smart data dudes.

But yeah, unlike the other icons, it is not an exact science and a few good LoL citizens will likely be missed, while others may slip through. That is the reality of any approach to player behavior, but over time as we get better at initiatives like this, players that make the game more fun for others will be consistently rewarded while players who don't will have to get very lucky.

Thanks for the response! Glad to see my post got noticed :). I put your response in the main part of the thread, to show others that Riot has responded on the matter. Sorry for asking like this, I just haven't heard anything about the topic recently, so I thought I would ask as I really love the Santa Baron icon. But I do have another question about it. I understand that it takes some time to determine who deserves the icon, but will you be notifying us when the final wave of them goes out? Just a little post mentioning that they went out will be more than perfect!
I'm guessing the community will know pretty quickly when the final wave hits, but I'll keep an eye on Reddit and correct any major misconceptions.

Masked Shaco Available Now

Shaco’s wicked grin hides serious thespian talent. To celebrate the one year anniversary of our Korean launch, the Demon Jester has shed his courtly garb in favor of the colorful attire of a masked dancer. Masked Shaco’s new animations and spell effects, including whirling fan-blades and talchum-inspired boxes, highlight the cultural tradition of Korean mask dance.



Add a layer of comedic mystery to your next match on the Fields of Justice for 975 RP, available now in the League of Legends Store.

 Creative Design AMA - Vi, the Piltover Enforcer

Harrow is holding an Creative Design AMA over on the official forums. You can also check out in a much easier format over on our red tracker for the full rundown.

AAAAAAWWWWWWWWW YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

Let's do an AMA for Vi, everybody. If you have queries about her personality or background, I'll be answering questions posted over the next...21 hours. Hit me!

Format for the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) North American Qualifier

Summoners!

We’re modifying the tournament format for the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) North American Qualifier on Jan. 11-13.

Day 1

• We’re not using a round-robin format on Day 1
• This avoids the need for a tiebreaker formula or a lengthy tiebreaker playoff
• Instead, we’ll run a “dual” tournament (a type of group play popularized in Korea)
• In this format, each group of four teams will play until each team has either won twice or lost twice.

Day 2

• The first-place team from each of the four groups will face one of the second-place teams from a different group in a best-of-3 game series
• Winning teams receive LCS contract offers and join pre-qualified teams TSM, CLG and Dignitas

Day 3

• The four remaining teams play in a best-of-3, single-elimination bracket
• Winner receives an LCS contract offer
• Becomes the eighth and final LCS NA team

We will be seeding the teams as following.

Season Two NA Regional Semi-Finalist: 
1) Curse

Season Two NA Regional Quarter-finalist:
2) Team FeaR

Partner Tournament Qualifiers (in order of qualification and finish):
3) Meat Playground
4) Azure Gaming 
5) Cloud 9 (formerly ex-Quantic Gaming) 
6) Dirt Nap Gaming
7) Good Game University (formerly Team Dynamic)
8) The Brunch Club (formerly SSSWL18)

Riot Online Qualifier Semifinalists (in order of seed in Online Qualifier):
9) Pulse eSports (formerly young based god)
10) EPIK Gamer
11) 1 Trick Ponies
12) Team MARN

Riot Online Qualifier Quarterfinalists (in order of seed in Online Qualifier):
13) The Salad Bar
14) Falafel Gaming
15) Tower Dive TV
16) compLexity (formerly heating up)

Teams will be assigned to Groups A-D via “snake” draw (ABCDDCBA). Within each Group:

• The top-seeded team will face the lowest-seeded team and will advance to face the winner of a matchup between the 2nd- and 3rd-seeded teams in the upper bracket
• The losers of each matchup move to the lower bracket
• The winner of the upper bracket game will be declared the top qualifier of the group
• The loser of the upper bracket game will then face the winner of the lower bracket group
• The winner of that final game will be declared the second qualifier of the group

Following the Group stage:

• The top finisher from Group A will play the second-highest finisher from Group D
• The second-highest finisher from Group A will play the top finisher from Group D
• The top finisher from Group B will play the second-highest finisher from Group C
• The second-highest finisher from Group B will play the top finisher from Group C
• The winners of these four games will receive an LCS contract offer
• Once the first four LCS contract slots have been won, the remaining four teams will play a single-elimination bracket to one final winner, using the following structure:
• Loser of Group A Winner/Group D 2nd-place match vs. loser of the Group C Winner/Group B 2nd-place match
• Loser of the Group B Winner/Group C 2nd-place match vs. loser of the Group D Winner/Group A 2nd-place match
• Winners of Matches 1 and 2 will face off for the fifth and final LCS contract offer

Good luck to all the teams.