Reign of Gaming

Note: IPL 6 has been officially canceled.

Blade of the Ruined King Being Hotfixed

A patch has just hit the LIVE download servers, it looks like Blade of the Ruined King is getting nerfed rather fast! The following compares Live Air v248 & Live Game v152 -- to -- Live Air v247 & Live Game v151
NOTE: this patch is currently only on the download servers, and has not been pushed to players at this time. (These changes are not in effect VIA the client yet)

Update: Riot posted the official notes for this hotfix. There is one change added that is NOT represented in the tooltip of the item: "Active heal amount is now reduced by the target's Armor"

Hey guys,

We’re hotfixing Blade of the Ruined King tonight based on community feedback and the state of the live game. 

Blade of the Ruined King - Hotfix 
• Attack Damage reduced to 25 from 30
• Combine cost increased to 1000 gold from 650 (total cost increased to 3200 gold from 2850)
• Active heal amount is now reduced by the target's Armor
• Maximum damage dealt to minions and monsters reduced to 60 from 90

Blade of the Ruined King is simply too cheap for how powerful it is
As an item that should be primarily used for countering health stacking, it was simply too cheap for its current utility. To reduce its cost effectiveness, we are slightly reducing Attack Damage and increasing combine cost.

The active heal will now be reduced by the target’s Armor
Currently the active heals for 15% of the target’s maximum Health regardless of the target’s Armor. With this change, building Armor will now reduce the amount of health obtained from the active making Armor an even more effective counter to Blade of the Ruined King.

We're reducing the maximum damage dealt to minions and monsters. 
Currently Blade of the Ruined King provides far too much power against neutral objectives (ex: Baron, Dragon) and unintentionally trivializes these difficult encounters. By reducing this aspect of the item, we can focus on its core purpose of countering high-health enemies.

iBlitzcrank and Steel Legion Lux to be Fixed

Players have reported issues regarding Blitzcrank's grab. Morello hits the forum to say this will be fixed ASAP

We'll be fixing this and agree - this skin is too hard to read. I don't have a date, but it's a priority and we will get it ASAP.
My bad on not being diligent enough on this one.

How about Steel Legion Lux's E not distorting light and making it harder to see. Are you guys aware of that?
We'll fix this too, but it's less egregious overall than iBlitz's Q. But this is the other example that stands out.

Blade of the Ruined King to be Nerfed

Today both FeralPony and Xypherous hit the forums with topics about the Blade of the Ruined king with Xypherous' topic reaching over 4 pages in our red tracker alone!

 I’m hopping in this thread because there is a lot of positive discussion is going on and I wanted to give you guys a heads up as to what is happening with the item. We will be hotfixing this item and I want to give some heads up as to our changes and why. 

The item is too cost effective.
We’ll be increasing the cost a bit and we’re shaving a few points off of the AD when you upgrade the item. BotRK is geared towards attack speed and making these changes helps bring it in line and keeps its intended purpose while keeping the unique elements of the item intact and powerful. 
As yashinihao mentions earlier this thread a lot of high tier items are cost effective. This inherently isn’t a bad thing but in this case in particular due to the power of the unique effects we really want to keep the power of the item into its unique elements and not be just about the stat efficiency so we’re lowering the cost effectiveness overall a bit. It is currently too effective compared to comparable choices.

The active heal will apply post-mitigation instead of pre-mitigation.
Currently Armor is the proper counter to this item and although many players have not made the transition to purchasing armor items we feel the active heal is too strong atm. This may not be the most elegant change to the problem as it does make the heal more effective against low armored targets instead of tanks and fighters due to their substantially higher armor values. We will however, continue to assess and test different approaches but we did not want to ignore this issue in the short term. 

We're reducing the damage cap of the item versus minions. 
This item’s identity is that of a counter to high health enemies, currently it is providing far too much power in securing global objectives (baron, dragon, spider boss) and almost trivializing these objectives. By reducing this element of the item we can focus on its core power as an item meant to counter high health enemies.

How about they replace the two daggers with a recurve bow, and keep the combine cost the same? It makes it harder to rush (can't build in pieces), and increases the gold by a bit.
This is something we've talked about but it is not a good candidate for the hotfix, since they tend to come without the attention and heralding the accompanies the normal patch cycle and can catch players by surprise for pretty minimal gains. Picking up daggers because you are expecting to build them into an item that no longer requires them causes a lot of negative impact in game. This is a better change for the normal patch cycle if we want to go down that route. 

I do think it would be nice for recurve bow to have another build option though.

----

So let me talk about Blade of the Ruined King a little - and what kind of led to the state of the item as it is on live.

Let's get this out of the way first - I screwed up here, if only by judging from the reactions and the state of the competitive solo queue. People feel that their AD carry builds are being unduly constrained and they feel the need to buy the item to counter itself. That, in itself, the AD carry versus AD carry case - is a problem.

So, let's get into the crunchy design portions of the thing and talk about it

1. The item is DPS efficient on squishy characters

Kind of.

Fundamentally, any item built off of current health will always look overpowered when it works. This is because the optimal case for current health damage never actually happens in game.

For example, let's say that BoRK breaks even with BT at 1700 health for the target. What this actually means is that BoRK breaks even with BT at 1700 health for the target assuming there is no other damage sources affected the target at all. 

Given that almost every character has base damage on their skills and the like - the balance of numbers shifts terribly - For example, if your mage deals 600 AoE damage to the enemy team - BoRK needs to be extra-efficient to still be a valid HP counter at this point.

This is also why the active is as strong as it is - The use of the active nerfs the passive damage of the item.

2. Current % Health Paradigms are flawed - because the AD carry will follow after the burst casters

This is somewhat true to a certain extent - but the goal of a counter-item is to counter niche cases not strengthen already existing cases. The current BoRK for example, excels at self-peel and is especially good in 1v1 case against bruisers (regardless of what class you are.)

And the current health paradigm allows the item to essentially self-nerf itself when other elements of the game are strong (burst casters). 

3. It is a mush-rush first item for a carry?

Kind of.

Again, this boils down to - How much damage is your support adding to your combo? In a Leona lane, for example, you'd be hard pressed to argue that their HP pool is actually 1200 - or how effective your autoattacks are.

4. The active adds more burst than the previous incarnation.

Potentially but it's generally weaker than the previous active - and that's why it rolled out - it was viewed as net neutral in most contexts.

150 + 0.5 TAD on an item with 45 AD roughly breaks even with the previous active at 1466 health - which is an HP threshold that only tanks/bruisers break early. 

But the item is clearly overpowered on live and ruining the game experience!

Most likely. However, I'm more concerned with whether the item feels counterable at this stage. Rest assured though, we're not going to wait on the next patch to fix it. We knew going out that the item could have come out pretty crazy - and watching it over the weekend - it has been pretty crazy at is.

So we'll be hotfixing this as soon as we're comfortable with the server situation (Along with some other bugs.)

IMPORTANT: Due to this thread being so long check out our red tracker to see all 4 pages of replies!

Curse March Gaming Bracket Challenge

Each week in March curse will be giving away an Alienware x51 in our March Gaming Bracket Challenge. Each week head over to the bracket page to vote for your favorite characters!

This week you can look for characters such as:

• Blitzcrank VS Thresh
• Vi VS Sarah Kerrigan
• Fiora VS Aveline de Grandpré