Category: Patches (Page 4 of 23)

New runes are in the game

December 13, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

This is a strange patch, indeed. It seems Riot has enabled the champion changes and new runes slated for this patch, but Ahri and the Snowdown Showdown skins won’t be in the game until tomorrow.

I’m not sure how I feel about the numbers on the new runes, with the exception of the hybrid penetration runes. Those seem fine. The spell vamp and lifesteal quints come in at 2 percent a piece, which means players can start the game with as much as 12 percent lifesteal with the added health from a Doran’s Blade or 9 percent spell vamp. Honestly, I think the lifesteal will just contribute to the current sustain problem on bottom lane. Giving a ranged carry 12 percent lifesteal on top of a healer will just be insane. Now, it could potentially help the non-sustain supports become a bit more viable, but I would bet non-sustain versus sustain will still be a losing battle.

The gold-per-10 seals grant .25 GP10, for a total of 2.25 from seals. It’s now possible to get 5.25 GP10 from runes alone. With another 2 GP10 from the utility tree, support characters can pull 7 GP10 at level one. That’s a serious amount of gold. By the 20-minute mark that’s almost 800 gold for just standing around.

Check back later today for a gallery of the Snowdown Showdown skins.

league of legends, Patches

gold per 10 seals gp10 seals lifesteal quints new runes new seals runes spell vamp quints

Patch Preview breakdown

December 12, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

I covered the upcoming rune changes in a post the other day but neglected to provide a breakdown of the champion and mastery changes slated for the Ahri patch.

Twisted Fate is getting a little much-needed love. He’ll have better range in lane and his Pick-a-Card will now require target selection. I have to say, I’m excited to see TF again. I can’t help but miss him around this time of year. This is when I started playing LoL and he was the first champion I really loved. Granted, he was OP as all hell, but still fun.

Tryndamere is also getting a small nerf, though I honestly doubt it will be enough. His healing-per-stack on Bloodlust will be reduced in the coming patch. Really, though, Trynd is just too strong in a solo situation. The fact that he has a heal at all gives him more sustain than just about anyone he faces. With the Cleanse change, I think his kit is just too problematic.

Morello also mentioned bringing back Strength of Spirit for Utility mastery lovers. I’m honestly not sure how putting it deep in the tree will make things any better. The tree is just way too focused on a stat that no one really worries about any more: mana. Because of the way blue buff gets passed around, a mana-focused build is only relevant on Singed and Ryze. Beyond that, we don’t need the mana, and the rest of the utility tree is bad enough that even Ryze and Singed would be better off speccing defense.

I’ll be interested to see how the TF buff plays out, but beyond that, I don’t see this patch having much impact on the game.

league of legends, News, Patches

ahri ahri patch patch patch preview ryze buff singed buff strength of spirit tf buff tryndamere nerf

Why is Riot “fixing” the jungle?

November 30, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Leave Well Enough Alone.

After yesterday’s patch I decided to spend a little time on the forums, checking the reaction to the jungle changes. Yesterday’s jungle patch is the most significant change to the meta we’ve seen in more than a year, or at least it could have been. According to recent red posts, it looks like Riot will be hotfixing the jungle to pretty much keep things as they always have been, the only real change being that low-level summoners should be able to jungle more easily. I’m stuck wondering one thing: why does Riot think the jungle needs “fixed?”

Before you go all ragey on me, let’s consider a few things. First, the game as it currently is hasn’t changed in any significant way in more than 18 months. Having a dedicated jungler has been a staple of the game for so long that people forget what the game was like before jungling became popular. Second, the changes have been live for a mere 36 hours. Even Riot was saying players were complaining too early, but a day later they’ve changed their stance.

I agree that current jungle rewards might be a little low, or maybe they just don’t scale up fast enough, but let’s imagine, just for a second, that Riot left the game as it is. Maybe we’d see more duo lanes top. Wouldn’t that be an interesting twist? Wouldn’t that offer more flexibility in lane choices and in-game swapping? As things currently stand, when a top or mid-lane starts to lose lane, there aren’t many options for them to switch out. With two duo-lanes there are more options for addressing problems once the game has started, not just at the champ select screen.

If League of Legends needs anything right now, it’s more changes like these. Changes that shake things up. Changes that make the game different. Changes that make the game something other than what it has been for two years.

league of legends, News, Patches

fix the jungle jungle jungle broken jungle changes jungle hotfix jungle sucks meta metagame new jungle new meta

Volibear impressions (part 1)

November 30, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Volibear

I have no idea how or why the whole “Armored Bear” thing got started on the forums, but it spawned a new, non-humanoid champ and for that I’m happy. I love to see some design variety in the champions, and big bear that runs people down is a nice change of pace. As you might have guessed, Volibear is nearly the definition of Tanky DPS, bringing huge damage the more health you build on him. It’s not a terrible thing for the way his skills deal damage, but it definitely needs a numbers tweak.

In his current form, Volibear relies almost exclusively on Frenzy for his basic damage output. The skill passively increases his attack speed with each swing and provides a targeted nuke after three attacks. That nuke scales with Volibear’s bonus HP and has an execute component as well. The skill is on a long cooldown because it deals some insane damage. I’ve seen numbers as high as 550 before the execute damage before level 11. That’s awfully early to see such a large nuke.

Volibear does well if he can get ahead, which isn’t too hard in a lot of cases. I haven’t been able to play him in every lane just yet, but I’ve played against a couple strong duo teams bot. Volibear’s charge is enough of a threat to zone out most opponents, and his fling can net an early kill or two.

I don’t want to say much more about Volibear without spending a bit more time with him. I did have a few enjoyable games with him today, though he feels a little too cooldown reliant for my tastes. How has he been treating you?

Champions, league of legends, Patches

volibear volibear balance volibear buff volibear guide volibear launch volibear nerf volibear op volibear patch volibear release volibear up

Welcome to the jungle

November 29, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Over the holiday weekend I did my best to stay as far out of the loop as possible. I wasn’t checking my usual gaming sites, I wasn’t reading any of the forums, and obviously I wasn’t doing any gaming. Imagine my surprise, then, when I came back to discover the jungle changes.

I’m not going to do much analysis here. I haven’t been able to spend enough time in the jungle to really assess the changes. For now, it seems like the damage nerf makes jungling possible for a wider range of characters but the XP nerf makes it less viable for those characters. As I get more time in the jungle I’m sure I’ll have more to say. For now, let’s go over the changes.

Smaller jungle camps now respawn more quickly, offer reduced XP and gold rewards (though these now scale with duration of the game), and drop a health sigil from the largest mob. Buff camps are easier to kill and offer extra XP but with reduced gold rewards. The changes are designed to help a wider variety of champions and builds get into the jungle. These changes should also make jungling more viable at lower summoner levels. When I used to play on my smurf account a bit, it was nearly impossible to jungle because of the lack of runes.

Even with the changes, jungling odd champions feels extremely slow. I played a jungle Teemo earlier today and fell way behind the bottom lane. It was partially caused by his reduced speed, but I think the reduced XP from smaller camps really hurt me.

Like I said, I’ll have more impressions in the near future. For now, let me know what you think. Is the new jungle better or worse than the old version? Any strange new build you’ve seen play successfully?