Reign of Gaming

Xypherous Goes Over Today's PBE Changes

Hey, I'll be talking briefly about the major changes in today's PBE patch to give you an idea of where we're going and what we're experimenting with so that you guys will be both less confused and more informed about the changes we're currently tinkering with. 

Keep in mind that everything in PBE is experimental and subject to change but as time goes on - I'd like to try to explain some of the more possibly confusing / relevant stuff or stuff that might not be immediately apparent on first glance.

Hopefully I'll get to do these explanations a little more often - I won't do my usual long Q&A at this time since a lot of this stuff is experimental and is subject to further tuning - mostly because testing turns out to be a lot more effective than discussion most of the time.

So let's start:

Bilgewater Cutlass

Recipe: Long Sword + Vamp Sceptre + 200 Gold = 1400 Gold total from 1950 gold.

40 AD --> 25 AD
10% LS --> 12% LS
150 Active Damage --> 100 Active Damage
30% MS slow --> 25% MS Slow
400 range --> 500 range

So, our major problem with Bilgewater Cutlass has been that, while attractive, it never really felt like the utility you purchased was anywhere near the price. It's meant to be a cool utility pickup that offered some lane sustain and gave you a chance at an all-in but it seemed to be just generally ineffective unless your character already had an all-in.

Hence, we're trying to tune it so that it becomes a better utility pick-up and slightly more usable in general at the cost of some of the active power.

Blade of the Ruined King

Recipe: Cutlass + Dagger + Dagger + 500 Gold = 2700 Gold total from 2850 Gold on live.

* 45 AD --> 30 AD
* 0% AS --> 40% AS
* 10% LS --> 0% LS
* Passive now heals you for 30% of your total attack damage, rather than 50% of the damage dealt. This is essentially premitigation lifesteal.
* Active slow/speed duration is now 4 seconds from 2 seconds.
* Active now deals 100 + 10% of the targets maximum life - serving as an execute or a wind-up peel
* Range increased to 550 from 400.

Numbers still need further tuning.

So our problems with the previous iteration of the PBE BoRK was that it still suffered from a number of cross-purposes. This version is most likely way too mathy to be entirely elegant - ideally we'd find a more elegant phrasing of it - but this is kind of the sledgehammer approach. We'll probably try to find ways to refine it.

Essentially, the problem with the 'sustain-tank' approach that the old BoRK was after was simply it gave you the sustain frequently at a time where you didn't need it and as you got low. By the time you wound up needing the sustain near the end of the fight, the item simply didn't give you any sustain - hence the move towards a more flattened sustain approach.

The active is either an execute for those close fights and then further MS to capitalize on cleaning up the fight - or a mid-fight kiting tool.

The approach here is to move BoRK away from being a primary damage slot item and into your attack speed slot as a Carry. BoRK should be ideally competing with your 2nd major multiplicative item, like Shiv or Phantom Dancer - rather than your first big damage item.

Also - I am now deathly scared of Irelia - but at the very least she's not assassinating squishies exponentially faster than tanks with it. 

Taric 

* Shatter no longer gives a flat 10-30 armor aura, instead radiating X% of Taric's armor to allies.
* Shatter has an armor scaling damage ratio.
* Taric's passive changed to deal X% of his maximum mana as bonus damage.


Taric is a generalist support pick that has a success rate far far far above his compatriots at the moment. We have a couple options on where to go with him at this point - but in general, Taric suffers from being a generalist lane bully to transitioning to a walking ball of aura statistics for his team. 

This tends to lead to Taric feeling like he does very little overall to the team - even if he is adding something like 1000 Gold to everyone's base statistics.

Keep in mind, we're still heavily iterating the numbers on him. In the end, Taric should be a compelling pick if you are facing a heavy attack damage team and we'll adjust the aura value until he fits that mold.

Taric's base AD reduction is mostly compensate for his passive attack damage which is still undergoing numerical tuning. 

Hecarim 

* Spirit of Dread (W) heal from damage flattened to 20% at all ranks from 10-30%
* Rampage (Q) base damage increased slightly at all ranks.

Hecarim is a character who is entirely dependent on levels for his major game advantage - The terrific power of his 'W' sustain once he actually gets the levels to fuel it. 

This also leads to his major weakness - in that when he falls behind, he tends to be terrible at almost all ranks. We're essentially flattening this 'W' curve out a bit better such that Hecarim has a more consistent performance. Hecarim is already fairly intensive to play from a mechanics perspective with a lot of subtle nuances in successful 'E' and 'R' positioning so the added level pressure seems superflous a lot of the time.

Warmog's Armor 

* Regeneration lowered to 1% from 1.5%.

We're mostly concerned at the moment with the early laning snowball case of this item, rather than the teamfight potential - considering the way we're trying to position BoRK. Depending on how well the BoRK tuning works out - the majority of the pain point of Warmog's should be how well it allows you to win the lane by mere stubborness and be immune to ganks.

Vayne / Tristana / Ashe 

The current version of PBE has some heavy modifications to these character's attack speed per level statistics.

Vayne: 3.1% --> 4.5% ASPD / Level
Tristana: 3.01% --> 4.5% ASPD / Level
Ashe: 3.1% --> 4% ASPD / Level

The goal of this change is mostly to fulfill the basic promise of Vayne / Tristana. At level 18, these characters are supposed to absolutely destroy the enemy team - so long as you can get them there. They are, along with Kog'maw, some of the truest ranged carries in League of Legends at the moment.

However, with the decrease in power from itemization - these characters are suffering from a mid-game slump and a farming slump - thus power in their levels seemed to make sense for addressing their basic curve. This change basically ensures the power level of these traditionally weaker early-game carries for guaranteed power late game.

As for Ashe, she's kind of the ultimate late game utility/kite carry - thus the attack speed here is mostly so that she is always able to fulfill her role as kiting carry. Attack speed is a major factor in being able to "orb-walk" to poorly use DoTA Jargon (Attack Move fluidity, roughly).

Further Tuning 

We'll be trying to look at the various AS options for this patch and trying to ensure that AD carries have sufficient options for customizing their damage load-outs based on playstyle / needs of the game.

Additionally - we'll probably be looking more at the Bulwark / Locket / Sunfire combination and trying to assess how powerful this defensive teamfight style is, as it's been very effective in LCS thus far.

So the combine cost of gunblade is going up? 
Yes - but the total cost of Gunblade should remain exactly the same as on live.

Taric 
Taric is unquestionably above his peers at the moment in terms of overall power level - so in the end, keep in mind that it *is* intended to be an overall nerf to his laning presence.

Was it too strong early levels? 
Yes.

Xypherous - Are you not worried that the change in sustain type on BoRK will turn it from being an item well used on ADCs against bruisers to an item best used by bruisers? 
The item is best used against bruisers. I'm not particularly worried about it *who* uses it to kill bruisers - only that bruisers have someone to fear.

We're definitely aiming for the rest of the statistics to synergize slightly better with heavy autoattackers. Granted there are some attack speed centric bruisers in the lot but on the whole, the statistics push it to be slightly better for ranged carries.

However, the fun of PBE is that actual games pretty much outweighs any amount of coherent theorycraft arguments I could do.

Also since you guys clearly love the league of warmogs, why not bring in Kitae's Bloodrazor ffs 
Kitae's is the ideal bruiser item to use on squishies - so I'm not sure how it helps.

and if I built the item on her, would the new "lifesteal" effect of Blade of the Ruined King proc with her passive? 
Doesn't interact with her passive at all - her passive adds damage, it doesn't actually increase her total attack damage

However, her ultimate will enhance this effect at the moment, as her ultimate enhances her attack damage.

Could you give a reason behind the Garen nerf? 
Garen is among a very special group of 10 or so champions that are statistically much much stronger than his compatriots. 

That's pretty much it - we had a choice of hitting durability or damage, so we decided to hit the free durability in lane.

Why is Kitae's a good item against squishes but BoRK not? 
1. Consider the damage type that Kitae's does.
2. Consider which class gets MR / Level and is likely to have built some or heavy MR.

3. Consider which class is likely to get the most autoattacks off in a fight.
4. Consider which class wants the least amount of autoattacks to kill a target.

5. Consider which class wants an ideal single-slot item to provide relevant damage for the entire game.
6. Consider which class wants to stack multiple damage items to be relevant and wants to have as many multiplier "hooks" as possible.

7. Consider which class will pretty much always have a Last Whisper in their build at end-game.

Wait Xyph don't you have any comments to make about wriggles and how it is always more efficient to keep it at razor stage and not upgrade it? 
This thread is purely about the current PBE changes and what it implies for this patch.

Is there an issue with BotRK being a first big item on players? I think it's a nice counter to Warmogs which costs about the same. 
From testing - while it's an ideal first big item on some attack speed focused bruisers (like Irelia and Jax) - the item is only really a threat damage-wise late game, due to how the passive scales with the health of the target.

However, on carries, typically a BT or an IE is a much better first item choice for overall DPS at the time in which you would get those items - That is, while BoRK might be the ideal damage item if you have a single damage item fighting 4000 health targets, if you rush BoRk - it's almost always the wrong choice because no one breaks the health threshold when you rush it.

I just really don't want to see him become a gimped champ that doesn't really fit any role, especially considering this is coming off being the best all around support in the game. 
The benefit of being the best all-around support in the game is that, even if you get nerfed, you go from 'best all-around support' to 'a good support comparable with others.'

This is assuming Gunblade loses 0 stats. If it does, then this would actually suck a lot. 
Gunblade actually got 2% lifesteal - because Cutlass now has 12% LS. Why am I allowed to just randomly add 2% lifesteal to the final item? Because overall, during the build-up - you tend to be much weaker... kind of.

The combine cost is also pretty hefty now and somewhat unwieldy to finish - hence additional premium due to opportunity cost.

Another thing about Bortk is that you're killing its usage on champions that don't want attackspeed (Zed, Lee Sin). Aren't you worried about it being too specialized? 
Super Extra Blunt Midnight Edition Alpha Ex Turbo: If you're not auto-attacking on those champions, especially Lee Sin, who has infinite energy when you auto attack you are doing it wrong.

Going back to work now.

Warning - I'm not going to respond to this thread after this point - Mostly because PBE patches come as quickly as we can deliver them and thus it tends to work out better if I watch / test / iterate changes rather than keep explaining them.

Feel free to drop feedback - it will get read.