Amazingly Small Unofficial PBE Changes from 1/14

Thresh

• Flay [E]
• Now deals 65/105/145/185/225, up from 65/100/135/170/205

Thresh Updates from New Deploy

Thanks so much for all of the bug reports. They have been instrumental in getting Thresh closer to release state. This is the final push, so everyone please report any bugs you find over the coming days.Below are a list of bugs that should be fixed with this deploy:

Q Passive visual buff scales more smoothly;
No game lag on lantern initial cast of the game;
Thresh health bar is closer to his body;
Thresh ult goes on cooldown he dies while casting it;
Skarner and Blitzcrank can no longer press the lantern while hooking;
Thresh now has a different temp icon for Q2 (but not the final icon!);
Thresh can no longer cancel the animation for Q by casting it during an autoattack (not sure this one made it in);
Jax/Lee Sin/Katarina can now Shunpo to Thresh's lantern;
Thresh can now gain up to 999999 souls;
Thresh souls now have team coloration;
Thresh souls now move a bit on spawn to be easier to see;
Thresh now has a hidden passive;
Thresh's death animation now plays more smoothly;

We couldn't have identified and solved a lot of these without your help.

Morello on Various Topics

Morello hit the forums in two topics today giving out some good information!

TL;DR - Were the ideas you've tossed around years ago just empty ideas to keep LeBlanc players quite, or is there something in store for LeBlanc? These 'Season 3 changes' are destroying this character and I'm getting tired of waiting.. it's been two years now.
Hey - good post and good sourcing of the ideas you're asking about! <>

Shurelia's ideas weren't finished off - while one good thing about Riot is that we empower people of any seniority level to drive changes and own stuff, one downside (luckily, rare instance) is that if someone leaves, there's potential to lose the work. Especially in those days where it was even more hectic (mother of God...  ), this happened in this case.

Looking back, I think LeBlanc's real problem is the binary nature of the burst kit - and pretty much since I made the original post, burst never made the comeback since. Additionally, I think Veigar (and potentially Annie) provide more utility than LeBlanc, and overall better scaling generally.

So, problems as I see them today:

* Burst is still bad, especially if that's all the character has.

* Annie and Veiger, conversely, offer at least noticable control. LeBlanc's utility is weak in a gamestate rule by utility mages.

* LeBlanc's scaling is worse than that, generally speaking, of similar mages.

What are your thoughts on that?

And even Veigar and Annie are not used
You really gotta do something with AP casters here, because even the ones who proived AoE burst and utility are not being used

Maybe give them some armor item that they can get earlier, instead of shurelias, since assassin murder them and obligate them to go tabis, or die(they die with tabi anyway)
For AP, we think there's an item gap here. Xyph and I were just chatting about this the other day. The goal is to give an AP/armor mid-tier item. It needs to let you start cloth/5 for keeping mid AD honest, build into a new late-game item (maybe not initially, but want to do it) and replace the chain vest in Z Hourglass.

Smart Idea Morello.You could also try
1. Maybe also change the needlessly large rod in the Hourglass to 2 blasting wands.
2. Like an hexdrinker. Amplifying tome + chain vest
2 is where it's at, currently.

We are! We didn't say patching every day! 

We're not at "stable" yet, so there's more to do!

I don't understand, then, Morello.

What does "watching like hawks" mean when you have the same patch-release schedule as before? I might be off-base about this but S3 patching seems to be on a very similar timescale to S2.
It is - it's just a different mindset. Because we know everything's disrupted, more things are likely to be mistuned or problematic, so we need to watch more moving parts simultaneously than, say, items we knew were a problem but waiting for this to overhaul. It's a scope thing, not a frequency thing.

It's been WEEKS
This cycle, particularly, is longer due to holidays. We're back to normal now though!

I'm a special forces combat veteran with a degree in economics who played WC3 and WoW professionally; should I apply to Riot?

thanks, g
While off-topic, if you have the right skillset and attitude from those experiences (which are strong experiences), then yes

Simple Question for you, Morello: Can we expect the penetration formula change reversion to stick?
Armor is a much weaker stat now, especially considering champs with built in ARpen. Consider Darius with a Cleaver, last whisper, E passive, Weapons Mastery, and Flat penetration reds. (Yes, I play that.)
Will we see changes in the upcoming patch, or is this shift permanent? I imagine it will make the game a bit more aggression-oriented and action-packed. What's the big idea behind this?
For now, I believe that's the plan (my first day back, though the guys have been here the last couple weeks). I think we agree tuning of either the formula, costs, defenses, etc needs to happen.

BTW, about the hawkeye on Warmog's: Has Xypherous figured out a way to keep it a heavy health item that can give late-game ridiculous regen without becoming a rushed mid-game monster; but avoiding the "Tear of the Goddess" conundrum where you have to make it terribly cost-efficient and rushed early to have a late-game effect?

Also, has Xypherous been saying anything about AS/On-Hit itemization? He mentioned before he didn't want to go overboard and give Stinger the Warden's Mail treatment because Runaan's Hurricane was going to make AS/On-Hit dangerously more multiplicative than it had ever been before. Is there room here, or is Hurricane crowding out other options?
Warmog's is a nasty problem - I totally agree. Your diagnosis of this is fairly accurate too - the timing is the biggest issue here, something that's core to the item in a few ways.

I haven't had a chance to ask Xypherous his plan here - I will when I see him next.

Morello, can we get a confirmation that Diana's nerfs are being somewhat withdrawn next patch, and perhaps some specifics on that?
Yes, though I don't have line-item details. We'll not be fully reverting (we did want to nerf her from there), but finding the middle ground - we did overnerf her.

Could I inquire about how much content is to be changed on these coming patches?

Is more to be tackled at once?

Are we going going to see more plentiful changes or meaningful changes this season?

Just curious. Always cool to see you guys on the forums, it's funny to think you can see what you guys have to say openly. It's a really nice touch with the community.

Anyways, good luck on all future changes. I am sure this game is going down in history.

Cheers!

Yar!
I prefer ~3 week (usual) frequency, and more accurate, targeted changes. One advantage of this longer cycle is the additional certainty we can have with changes. We can avoid over-reaction (Diana!) when we do it this way, which is nice.

And now the latest Season 3 Patch:


Morello, I understand what you are saying but nothing about what you say is tangible - the size, scope, and release-schedule of patches appears to be as standard now as they were before.

I know some of my examples contain new features or remakes - I disclaimed or omitted what I though may be too "one-timey". There are small patches that balance out the big ones, after all, and I would say that the Vi patch was average at best.

I can see no results showing that Riot is watching like hawks and ready to swoop down with needed changes - can you help me on that data at all? I really want to believe you but I'm finding it difficult to.
Early in the lifespan of a big overhaul like this, fast changes (see Diana/Rengar for a good example!) can be wildly inaccurate, based on the data being a blip rather than a trend. We were not likely to change things immediately as there is a learning curve on the patch to adjust to - removing that bit of uncertainty is valuable.

Since then, we haven't had a patch go out since - and we can only do balance changes on patch days (hotfixes can only address certain types of issues and are more limited). This patch will fix a couple certain issues, and the one at the end of the month has a slew of changes as well. Since we haven't patched (and I forget I do so much of our design chatting on the forums sometimes!) and we haven't had a ton of conversations, it feels like we might think everything's fine or we're not working on things - I can understand how that occurs.

Basically, patching every 3 weeks is a very rapid cycle - and going off three weeks for now has made it seem like an eternity. Some good is gained in being more certain about what's wrong (AP Trash-tier is still overstated and hyperbolic, even though an issue exists) so they we don't just layer on new levels of disruption to the game.

Rengar? Bonetooth stats?

I remember Statikk posting something about working with Meddler about how they also agree to overnerfing Rengar. Will he be making it through this next patch or will it be another month of just....terribleness.
Different approach, but same idea - we overnerfed, though what we buff might be NEW buffs as opposed to rebuffing some of the nerfs.

I'm beginning to fully understand what is going on here. In summary, Riot is currently treading very cautiously with how they will change the game since S3 began - Rengar/Diana are good examples of Riot swooping down to quickly fix problematic champions, except even more problems erupted when that philosophy was taken, so it seems it's better to be extra cautious with their choice of fixes in this new environment.

Morello, I really want to thank you - you answered 3 of my questions today, in a nicely-detailed manner. I won't spam more, it would be pretty rude to take more of your time than I have already, but I appreciate listening to a single player like you have.
np, thanks for being patient 

Vacation = 100% charged HP bar for forums. Wooo!

Ill be as patient as you want me to be with the preseason schedule. I trust yall to take your time and do things right.

I just want to know... Trundle rework where???  Please Morello? ANY insight AT ALL!
We ARE working on Trundle's art, and will be doing some gameplay tweaks - scope on that is still a bit up in the air.

Not soon, but soon(tm).

His gameplay isn't good? I thought people just didn't play him because he was ugly. Most times I see Trundle used he is pretty strong.
It's impossible to read and has lots of invisible power. I'd like to at least pump up the visibility of it.

morello do you guys even test champions before you release them anymore? **EVERY CHAMPION** released in the past year has been over powered just so you could make easy money from people wanting the best champion. Maybe pull your head out of your ass and start testing **** again.
Yeah, we should have nerfed Syndra, Hecarim, Varus, Ziggs, Sejuani and Fiora a lot sooner...

How do you feel about the common trend of 9pot 2ward /flask ward 5pot on laners? I feel as though It makes the early levels of top laning a little bit silly- It becomes much more difficult to earn a kill via out-trading the enemy at level 1 or two. 
While this allows certain champs to become more viable in certain matchup (say, nasus) It also makes counterpicking feel less useful. Where before I could capitalize on riven's level 1 with a ranged champion with a dash (say graves), auto attack harrassment draws minion aggro, pushing the lane, while not "sticking" on riven, who can then easily reach level 3 and gain an advantage with little counterplay option (since the alternative is not auto attack harrassing- riven simply reaches 3 unopposed). 
Do you feel as though the massive amount of early game sustain is a problem, or do you prefer a game with less snowballing simply through pot spam?
I saw a good post on reddit about maybe limiting potion stacks to 5, maybe that would help!
Agreed - we're hitting Flask this patch to help with this, I'm not certain it's enough, but it will definitely at least help.

So if you have an HP bar, then what is your secondary resource bar?
Balls.

No mention of Nami.

You heard it here first folks, Morello hates supports. It's a conspiracy.
Haha

Champion & Skin Sale: Earth, Wind & Ninja

• Greetings, mortals! It is I, Scorched Earth Xerath. An aborted apocalypse and a passing year have given me cause to reevaluate my (unending) life goals, and I have found myself pining for a new career, one that will take me away from destroying absolutely everything in my path. I… I have always loved music, you see, and had hoped to use my arcane skills to rock a double bass or two. Now’s my chance! 487 RP
• I have spoken to Hextech Galio about joining this ensemble of mine. Our harmonies are quite spectacular, you see, and he’s taken a liking to the maracas. Imagine the freeform jazz segments! 260 RP
• Surgeon Shen has auditioned as our funkalicious drum guru, and things seem to be going splendidly. He’s just ordered some extra cymbals for his interpretive percussion work. Soon we’ll be more famous… than Pentakill! Hahaha! 487 RP

With an almighty smash, Scorched Earth Xerath is suddenly crushed under a mighty coffin dropped from the skies. The lid falls open, and out steps the gargantuan form of Pentakill Mordekaiser.

• These fools know nothing of Pentakill! Xerath can cast lightning, but do you know what a little spark does to the dark power of metal? Absolutely nothing. Take this broken fool away from me! 487 RP
• As for you, Galio, you should have known better. A stony gatekeeper does not a rock god make, little pebble. Leave the metal to the pros. 440 RP
• And Shen… my dear ninja. You do not taunt metal fans, and you do not feint. These are the tricks of kiddie rock. 395 RP

These musical clowns will be back on their feet before long. If you’re interested in drilling these pathetic fantasies out of their heads, act between January 15 and January 18 and let no other band, mortal or otherwise, aspire to be as great as the mighty Pentakill!