I know it’s only been one day since the patch but the servers were up so quickly I’d imagine people were able to play a number of games yesterday. So, how are the new tenacity items treating you? Have you been buying them or just sticking to your trusty Merc Treads?
I think I’ve only purchased the Cloak and Dagger in any of my games so far, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I really like that it offers an opportunity to buy Ninja Tabi or the cooldown boots, which are really the only boots I tend to use on my DPS characters. Occasionally I’ll get ‘Zerker’s Greaves but that’s rare.
So far, I think the new items will mostly be for niche uses, like Gangplank. He gets a lot of benefit from Cloak and Dagger, where other champions would probably do better to spend the cash on more damage. I am a little worried that some of the tankier toons will benefit from it as well. I’ve already seen more Warwicks in Sorcerer’s Boots than I care to.
The preview for tomorrow’s patch is now live, bringing with it some very interesting news regarding the future of crowd control in League of Legends. As I mentioned in a recent post, crowd control is more prevalent than ever and in need of more counter-itemization than just Mercury Treads. Tomorrow’s patch delivers just that, introducing three new items that reduce crowd control under a new name, Tenacity.
Tenacity works just like the old Mercury Treads CC-reduction, reducing the duration of stuns, slows, taunts, fears, and snares by a percentage equal to the amount of Tenacity (at least I’m assuming so). Tenacity now also includes blind and silence reduction but the effect cannot stack with other Tenacity items.
It’s also worth noting that Tenacity is no longer a percentage value, likely so it can be assessed for potential diminishing returns should Riot decide to let Tenacity stack. I’m glad to see that sort of mathematical conversion. It goes against some of the design simplicity of LoL and the “burden of knowledge” design standard, but the game has been complicated enough that I think this kind of thing will be necessary.
You can see the new items in the picture at right. Notice how cheap they are? Obviously the items are meant to be an early game Mercury Treads replacement, so the cost is fairly similar. Cloak and Dagger is 1450g, Moonflair Spellblade is 1290g, and Eleisa’s Miracle is 1200g, the same price as Treads. These items will allow players to do a couple things.
First, we can now get the defensive benefits of treads while building offensive/support stats. This is huge, especially because there is no tanky version of these items. The bruisers in the game rarely itemize for AP or attack speed/critical strike, with the possible exception of Rumble. Essentially, the lower health champions should see some enhanced survivability in with a little early game damage.
Second, the items allow for different boots. This is really a secondary benefit because the other boots currently in play aren’t very good, at least not for physical carries. We’ll probably see quite a few carries with Ninja Tabi for the extra survivability, but against AP heavy teams, Merc Treads are still probably the best option. They get better CC reduction than any of the new items and they also add magic resistance. This will be a somewhat nicer buff for the AP/support toons out there, since magic penetration can be hard to come by if you don’t roll Void Staff. Early Sorcerer’s Boots with the Spellblade/Miracle will make AP/support both durable and deadly.
This is such a big mechanic change that I’m going to hold off calling it one way or the other. For now, I think it’s a step in the right direction. My guess is that the numbers will need tweaking, and I think there’s a very good chance we’ll see stacking Tenacity in the near future. The 25 percent reduction offered by the new items might fall short of what’s necessary for players to see a real benefit from the item.
As an apology for last week’s patch day downtime, Riot credited any player who had logged in over the past month with 350 free RP. It was a nice gesture, especially considering the scope. I’ve had a couple thousand RP sitting around for a while now for no real reason. This extra boost put me at a level that required a little spending, so I threw down on Leprechaun Veigar. I had yet to see it in game, but let me you, if you like Veigar even the littlest bit you should get this skin. He drops a pot of gold for god’s sake. It’s awesome.
So how are you spending your free RP? I thought about buying Apocalyptic Brand, but since I’m starting up the Champ of the Week column I probably won’t be playing him a ton. I can stand to wait a few weeks for a skin sale at least.
The rise of tanky DPS brought with it the fall of ranged DPS, a change I was initially glad for but have since grown to loathe. For all the pain that ranged DPS has brought on me in the past, I much prefer seeing a squishy guy kill me than a brick wall with 2800 HP do the same thing. At least with the squishy guy I know there’s a bit of risk involved in killing me. Bruisers don’t have to think twice.
Among the changes this patch, which I didn’t have the time to cover in full, was a buff to Infinity Edge. BF Sword is now 200g cheaper. Agility Cloak is 50g cheaper. And finally, the combined item got a 5 damage buff, up to 80, and a 5 percent critical chance buff, up to 25 percent. The idea was to get damage dealers up to that critical damage point earlier in the game. Unfortunately, I just don’t think it’s enough.
Part of the problem is character design. Many defensive toons now have built in shields, which can completely negate an attacker’s damage. This is especially painful if the hit was a critical strike – with normalized critical strikes you might not get another one before you die. In the case of a champion like Malphite, the shield even scales with defensive stats, making it all the more painful.
Another part of the problem is dodge. Dodge is hugely problematic for physical attackers because it completely negates their attack without any real cost to the target. Granted, most dodge stats are pretty low, but the complete negation of an attack is a brutal penalty, and its inflicted with the same effect at all levels.
The last issue is itemization. Sure, you can address the dodge issue with Sword of the Divine, but that armor penetration is virtually worthless on a target with 200 armor and 3000 health, to say nothing of the laughable 100 magic damage proc. I know I boisterously supported the Last Whisper nerf in days of yore, but I think it’s time to give the item its attack speed back. Damage dealers need that big DPS boost around level 12-15.
I almost suggested the creation of some kind of health/AD item, but that would be such a monster buff to the bruisers that it just wouldn’t work out.
I can’t think of another metagame that has been quite as contentious as the current tanky DPS game, and for good reason. Tanky DPS is infuriating to play against, even more so than the old poke/heal or R->win of days gone by. It lengthens games to a ridiculous degree. It encourages tower humping. It slows teamfights to a crawl. And, unfortunately, I think Riot underestimates just how bad it is.
Just check this noncommittal post from Guinsoo. He talks about all sorts of testing that’s going on, but in his final paragraph says that it may or may not pan out, may or may not release, may or may not do any of the things they’re supposed to do. Add to that the fact that Riot seems to be trying anything to shorten games except significantly nerfing the bruisers and it seems that tanky DPS is here to stay, at least in the meantime.
I’m actually fine with the idea of a consistent metagame. It gives players a chance to settle into a routine, which isn’t such a terrible thing, especially for a competitive game. In the case of tanky DPS, though, the metagame makes the game a lot less enjoyable. I’m pretty comfortable saying that my average level of fun has decreased dramatically in League of Legends over the last couple months. Games are so long these days that I’ll get one, maybe two games in before I’m so worn out that I don’t have much interest in playing further. I think that can be mostly attributed to the prevalence of tanky characters. Tower diving doesn’t work. There’s too much health on the board to bother taking risks. It just isn’t fun.
I’m hoping the game takes a serious shift some time soon. Several of the designers have mentioned items that directly counter the tanky meta, but when will we see those? I’m guessing 6-8 weeks. Until those items release, tanky DPS will reign supreme.
