Category: league of legends (Page 11 of 163)

The minion change I would have liked to see

December 7, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

With Volibear’s patch came a change to one of the longest-standing mechanics in the game: minion damage versus champions. Minion damage against champions was nerfed by “about 15 percent.” I would love to know the actual numbers behind the nerf, if only because it seems like champions are taking much less damage than even that.

I think the change is problematic for a couple reasons. First, it was a nice way to slow down those heavy physical damage dealers. I know, I know, lane passivity and all that, but I actually think minion damage contributed to lane activity. Riot seems to be confusing “aggressive gameplay” with “mindless gameplay.” Aggressive gameplay doesn’t necessarily mean champ-on-champ battles with no outside influence. Aggressive gameplay, at least as I see it, is encouraging more activity in lane than just minion farming, and minion damage does just that. The more potential damage sources against a champion, the more likely that champion will get low, which opens up opportunities for kills. That’s aggressive gameplay.

Reducing incoming minion damage also limited a lot of the counter options available in the lane. With the old damage, I could be losing in lane but bait an attack with a large minion wave and manage a kill. I had more options, and my opponent had a more interesting decision to make around whether or not he could get the kill. He had to factor in more variables, which means more chance for error. These are all good things.

What I really think Riot should have done is make magic damage dealers draw minion aggro the same way physical harass does. I usually don’t think additive solutions are very good – just look at the current health situation – but in this case I think more damage in the lane is better.

Current Affairs, league of legends, News

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Nine Tails Fox mechanics revealed

December 7, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

A couple months back, Riot gave us a look at an upcoming champion known as the “Nine Tails Fox.” She now has a name – Ahri – and something of a skillset, which means we could see her in the next couple patches. I’m going to try to avoid saying “Akali 2.0” as much as possible, but looking at her skillset it’s difficult to avoid that kind of comparison.

Here’s an excerpt from Morello’s post about Ahri:

Ahri’s gameplay style revolves around mobility and managing position to aim her spells. When played properly, Ahri darts around teamfights, picking off wounded stragglers and harrying soft enemies.
This is largely accomplished through her ultimate, which allows her to dash multiple times before going on cooldown. Ahri can either use all three quickly to chase, burst, or escape, or she can spread out their uses to keep enemies guessing and juke around the battlefield. Combining this with her high magic damage and her Seduction ability to lock enemies down, she can strike from unexpected angles or bait enemies into overcommitting to disadvantageous situations.
Ahri’s major gameplay decisions are based on her assessment of risk/reward. Her burst is high, but must be in short range to maximize it. This creates a dynamic that requires her to endanger herself to reach full potential. Play it safe and have more light damage, or commit and go for the kill? Use your dash for damage, or save it for escape? The choices are constant with these opposed strengths and weaknesses.

So her ultimate is a three-dash ability, though it sounds like it has limited duration. It also seems to be untargeted, which could make her even more frustrating to play against than Akali. I’m also a little concerned about giving such a mobile champion an ability that can “lock enemies down.”

I was happy to read this line, though: “This creates a dynamic that requires her to endanger herself to reach full potential.” As long as that’s true, I’m willing to wait to pass judgement on the character. One of Akali’s biggest balance issues is that she does not have to put herself in harm’s way to deal big damage. Twilight Shroud allows her to avoid a lot of incoming damage while still abusing her opponents. It seems like Seduction with Ahri could do the same thing, but I would guess that’s a single-target ability, which leaves Ahri open to enemy fire. Still, she could devastate a solo lane, and we all know what it’s like to play against a fed assassin. No fun for anyone.

Champions, league of legends

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FG LoL Mondays tonight – 9:30PM EST

December 5, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

FG LoL Mondays

I was planning to let FG LoL Mondays slide through the holidays, but I have some extra time on my hands tonight so I figured, let’s play a few games together. I’ll be online around 9:30 this evening to play a few games and experience that new jungle with you guys.

If you’d like to play, jump online and join the channel “Fearless Gamer” in the PvP.net client. You can always find me online as “The Wiggin Boy” as well.

FG LoL Mondays, league of legends

FG LoL Mondays

Why is Riot so anxious about the jungle?

December 5, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

I hesitate to write this post, because it’s entirely possible that I’m overanalyzing the situation, but the changes around the new jungle are so bizarre to me that I just can’t help it. The latest in this new saga is that Zileas, Riot’s Design Director, is digging around the official forums for feedback on the latest round of tweaks. Zileas comes and goes on the forums, so it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but he hasn’t been largely involved in the feedback on this project, so why now?

For one, the playerbase is clearly upset. There have been forum threads since the jungle changes were announced crying foul. What’s more interesting to me is that Riot seems to care so much. There have been issues in the past that upset the community – what makes the jungle changes different? I can only think that Riot is seeing some sort of statistical or high profile pushback on the jungle changes that merits Zileas’ personal oversight. I know some of the streamers have been unhappy, but just how many is hard to say.

I only mention the statistical angle because Riot seems interested in quieting people down as quickly as possible, and there has to be some backing to that. We’ve seen unpopular changes in the past that lingered for a long, long time. Why is this one so different?

I give Riot credit for being willing to change one of the longest standing conventions in the LoL style of play, but I wish the company was standing behind it. The change needs time to permeate. Sure, we’ll get a few million hours of playtesting done in a week, which provides a decent chunk of data, but it takes much longer than that for playstyle changes to trickle down through the playerbase.

Current Affairs, league of legends

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Jungle changes went live yesterday

December 4, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

The proposed jungle adjustments have finally made it through testing and are now live. Here’s a peek:

Increased total base Health in the jungle a bit, focusing on the larger monsters. This is to help accommodate single-target focused junglers.
Increased base Damage in the jungle a bit. This is to add some additional counter-jungling danger, as well as making sustain-based junglers, such as Warwick or Fiddlesticks, fill their specific niche again.
Increased Experience rewards of the jungle, both base and scaling. Simply put, this should make sure the jungler stays somewhere between the solo and duo lanes in most cases, as opposed to closer to the duo lane.
Reduced the Health scaling on the small golem camp. This is to adjust the difficulty/reward ratio on these monsters as the game goes on.
Moved around Gold and Experience rewards so that the Blue Wraith, the Giant Wolf, and the Medium Golem give a higher percentage of the reward for defeating their camp. This is a specific change to increase the viability of counter-jungling. Stealing big monsters will be more impactful.
Monsters now will start to accumulate more reward if they remain idle on the map for a certain amount of time. While we like there to be tradeoffs between ganking and farming, this should somewhat reduce the penalty of failed ganks and reward successful ganks more. Additionally, counter-junglers can steal these monsters and reset their “bank” of additional rewards.

More thoughts after the weekend when I have a little more time to play.

league of legends, News