Category: Champions (Page 3 of 43)

Riven finally catching a nerf

January 14, 2012 / Jeff Morgan

It’s nice to get a little affirmation that you were right every now and again. I make a lot of predictions about LoL (and occasionally other games) on this blog, and though sometimes I get it right I often get it wrong. At least, I often get it relatively wrong. I think certain champions are OP that others think are weak and vice versa. With Riven, though, I was sure I was right. I was even sure I was right before they fixed her animations and gave her some small buffs. I just knew Riven’s kit — particularly since it scaled with AD — was too good from the start.

She’s finally getting a nerf, or at least what seems to be a nerf. According to the patch preview, she’s getting a nerf to her regen alongside a change to her shield that should make her less durable in lane. The change moves some of the damage from her shield to her Broken Wings skill, which should incentivize leveling the skill as more than just a movespeed buff.

That said, I think the combination of Broken Wings and her shield/stun may still be a bit too strong in lane, particularly if she’s getting a damage boost on Broken Wings. That skill gives her an easy way to proc her passive. It’s not a ton of damage on its own, but with a buff to Broken Wings I could see her still dishing out some serious pain.

Champions, league of legends, Patches

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The next champion is…Sejuani?

January 13, 2012 / Jeff Morgan

Riot has used the same formula for new champion releases for quite some time now. They release a champion sneak peek, usually in the form of a comic, and follow up with an ability/lore reveal and finally a champion spotlight. This week they skipped the comic entirely and just dropped an art spotlight on us. People seemed a little confused at first, but since it’s a chick riding a boar, I think we can probably forgive the change of pace.

You can see Sejuani’s model in the spotlight above. I have to say, I like the concept. First off, she has a flail. I know, I can hardly believe it’s not a sword either. Also, she’s riding a giant tusked pig. Again, pretty awesome design. I have to wonder what her skills will be like, though. Some early “leaks” suggested she would be a tanky DPS (shocking, right?) with significant initiation and slowing skills. This part I’m not nearly as excited about.

From the looks of things she should be out next week. Keep your eyes peeled this weekend for her lore/ability announcement. I would assume Riot will give us that much prior to her launch.

Champions, league of legends, Video

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Jax remake retains some of the dodge flavor

January 12, 2012 / Jeff Morgan

With the removal of the dodge stat, Riot inevitably had to remake Jax in some capacity. I was really curious what it would mean for the Grandmaster at Arms, but it looks like he won’t be changing much. In place of the old Counter-Strike, which trigged an active stun ability when Jax dodged an auto attack, Jax now “charges” the ability, allowing him to dodge all incoming attacks for a short duration, followed by an AoE stun and damage effect. Think of it like Sion’s shield, just on a much shorter fuse.

Obviously this has some pretty serious implications for the late game. A 100 percent physical damage mitigation, even for a couple seconds, is a pretty big deal. You will notice that Counter-Strike is now on a pretty long cooldown – more than 20 seconds at rank one – though it does scale down as rank improves.

Jax also lost his old passive, presumably to account for the increased survivability granted by his new skill. In its place, Jax now has the stacking bonus attack speed component of his ultimate on a passive. This allows him to jungle easily from level one, which I think is the scarier part of his remake. If you watch the Champion Spotlight Phreak posted, he takes down dragon at level 7 without losing much health at all.

If you hated Jax prior to this remake, I’d imagine you will learn to hate him all over again. The changes will be going live with the next champion patch.

Champions, league of legends, Patches

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Viktor Impressions

December 31, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

What better way to make my return to the MOBA field than with my impressions post for the newest champion in League of Legends? I’ll tell you. DotA 2. Yes, I’m finally in the beta, but more on that later. For now, let’s talk about the man-machine, Viktor.

You may remember Morello announcing that Riot had plans to introduce more complicated heroes and mechanics into League of Legends over the course of 2012. Viktor seems to be the first of that wave, adding a new item-based skill customization along with a somewhat complicated skillset. While I love the idea of adding more complexity to the game, the actual gameplay needs to support mechanically complex heroes. With Viktor, that just isn’t the case. Hopefully we’ll see more playstyle changes to League as a whole. If not, complex heroes will simply be outshined by champions like Annie and Brand, champs that deal huge damage through a simple set of skills.

Personally, I haven’t enjoyed my time with Viktor, pretty much for the reasons stated above. His skills are too complicated to use without enough benefit for using them well. I feel like I have to work twice as hard for kills that would be easier with many other champions. That’s not all bad – champions with a decent skill ceiling are usually enjoyable to play. In most cases, though, high skill ceiling means knowing when and how your skills should be used, not just that it’s difficult to land them. That’s Viktor. His beam can be very difficult to land in a chase situation – it’s certainly easy to avoid – and without augmenting his stun, he can be pretty easy to outrun.

That said, he has some insane burst. When all of his skills land, he hits hard. His ult works essentially like Tibbers, dealing a big burst in the beginning and a damage over time as it “churns.” With an augment on his beam, he’ll one-shot most any carry.

I don’t think Riot’s going to need to change him much unless a streamer unlocks a truly godlike build/playstyle. Viktor does things that a lot of other champions in the game do, it’s just that all of those things – his stun, his big damage, his AoE power – require a lot more effort than similar champions. He’s also just not all that exciting, which is why I think I haven’t seen him picked much. If I compare him to Fizz, I see one champion with an interesting skillset that adds a couple new mechanics and has a high risk/reward threshold, and one champion that plays like most AP casters. I’ll leave you to sort out which is which.

Champions, league of legends

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Viktor gameplay commentary is up at IGN

December 22, 2011 / Jeff Morgan