Category: News (Page 51 of 108)

Minion changes to be altered next patch

March 4, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

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It took less than a week for Riot to see that the minion changes do not directly accomplish the goals of ending games more quickly. I don’t want to bag on them too much – there’s no way they can match the thousands and thousands of player hours logged on patch day in playtesting – but still, this should have been pretty obvious. It’s good to know that there is already some brainstorming going on for a fix. Morello dropped by the forums today to lay some knowledge on us.

Basically, minions are too strong, too early, allowing strong pushers like Master Yi, Sivir, or TF to painfully exploit exposed lanes. Granted, the reduced respawn timers actually help with that (even if they’re otherwise bad for the game), but with a well-timed teleport, it’s possible to rock your way down the lane in a very short period of time.

The next patch will move the additional cannon minions to the 40-45 minute range, up from 20, and reducing the cannon minion resistances a bit. While I think the changes will likely be good, I really don’t want this to turn into a trial and error situation. While I think it’s cool that Riot is trying different things to manage pacing, I can’t help but wonder if minions are really the solution. What about the fact that average champion durability on release has gone way up in the past several months? If it takes too long to kill champions at towers, the game becomes more and more defensive as the tower advantage is what really decides the outcome of a fight.

The fact that Riot is turning to minions makes me wonder what the development team thinks about the current field of champions. Do they like where the metagame is at? For now, all signs point to yes. Personally, I think the tanky meta has more than run its course, but maybe that’s just me.

Current Affairs, Editorial, league of legends, News

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Jarvan spotlight impressions

March 1, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

The Jarvan spotlight went live last night, giving us the first look at Jarvan’s skills in action. He does indeed look a lot like Xin Zhao – Riot even used Xin’s in-game badges as stand-ins for Jarvan’s own. I’m not thrilled to see yet another tanky DPS added to the game – the playstyle for those individual champions is usually fun, but I don’t really like what it does to the metagame.

There are a few interesting moments in the spotlight that I think are worth pointing out, just so you can get a sense of what to expect from Jarvan today. Take a look at the 2:12 mark, where Phreak goes after Morgana solo. Morgana ults with plenty of mana to land a Binding/Soil combo when her stun goes off but…her stun doesn’t go off. Phreak casts Cataclysm just as Soul Shackle should stun him and he negates the stun, picking up a kill. I can’t say whether or not this is intended, but it seems Cataclysm takes you out of targetable space for a moment, and that’s not a good thing.

Phreak showcases another frustrating Jarvan encounter roughly 30 seconds later as Warwick, Singed, and Morgana attempt to gank him. He uses the Demacian Standard/Dragon Strike combo to break Warwick’s ultimate. Granted, I think it was mostly luck here. There’s no way he could have known the moment Warwick would ult to properly time Dragon Strike, especially considering how close Warwick got before ulting, but it is interesting that the knockup can be used in that way.

Also, let’s consider for a second the types of skills Jarvan has at his disposal. He’s got a dash (non-targeted, which means it can be used for initiation and escape), a knockup, a passive armor/attack speed buff, an active armor/attack speed buff, a shield, an AOE slow, and a second dash combined with an AOE cage. None of those skills has a particularly long cooldown, either. Honestly, I think he has way too many mechanics at his disposal.

Servers are up – get to playing and let me know what you think.

Champions, Editorial, league of legends, News, Video

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Jarvan ability list announced

February 28, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Is it just me, or does the splash screen above look like it’s from a totally different game than League of Legends? Well, I promise, that’s Riot’s official Jarvan artwork (here’s the proof). With the artwork we’ve got the official skill list.

As I mentioned a couple days ago, I’m not thrilled about the Jarvan release. He looks an awful lot like another spear wielder. Though his playstyle seems a little different, he does have some basic similarities to Xin Zhao. It looks to me like he’ll occupy the same role as Xin: a carry killer with enough staying power to hang with the tanks. Yikes.

Here’s the list:

Dragon Strike: Jarvan IV’s spear extends through his opponent, dealing physical damage and lowering their armor by a percentage. If this ability is cast on the Demacian flag, it will pull Jarvan through to his Standard, knocking up all enemies in his path.
Golden Aegis: Jarvan IV calls upon the ancient kings of Demacia to shield him from harm and slow surrounding enemies.
Demacian Standard: Passive: Grants Jarvan bonus attack speed and armor. Active: Throws a Demacian flag, dealing physical damage and granting passive benefits to nearby allies.
Cataclysm (Ultimate): Jarvan IV heroically leaps at his target, dealing physical damage and creating a circle of terrain around them for a few seconds.
Martial Cadence (Passive): Jarvan IV exploits his target’s opening, dealing a percentage of the target’s current HP as magic damage. This effect cannot occur on the same target for several seconds.

Looking at his first three skills I’d say Jarvan actually sounds pretty cool. I like the synergy between Dragon Strike and the active on Demacian Standard. I’m a little worried about yet another champion getting a shield, especially when a different skill grants him bonus armor as well. My biggest concern, though, is his ultimate. I’ll have to see it in action to really know how it works, but here are a couple points of concern. First, trapping a carry with a carry killer just seems harsh. Second, what about all the different ways characters can escape from this kind of skill? There are so many dashes, not to mention Flash, that essentially negate the ability. Unless it’s some kind of stun, which sounds like a nightmare, or creates impassable terrain, which sounds like it could be buggy, his ultimate could be extremely conditional.

His passive also gives him the interesting ability to switch between targets and deal big damage. Because it deals a percent of current health, Jarvan is most deadly when switching between high health targets. It’s a weird mechanic, but it could make him much more deadly than similar characters. A champion’s ability to deal big damage to consecutive targets is typically limited by a couple factors: cooldowns or farm, and in some cases mobility. Depending how hard his passive hits, Jarvan’s passive puts him in a unique position for dealing damage to multiple enemies. Again, we’ll have to see how this plays out.

I hate to sound like some harbinger of doom lately, but the design on these kind of big DPS melee champions is a little confusing. Check back on Tuesday for my full impressions.

Champions, Development, league of legends, News

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Blitzcrank legendary skin on the way?

February 27, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Riot posted one of the cryptic announcement threads that typically lead to legendary skins this weekend. The post was titled “Blitzcrank Makes the Cover of Mid Lane Magazine.” Obviously, that’s a fake magazine, but the post goes on to describe a Crank skin made by Piltover Heimer.

Here are the details on “Piltover Customs Blitzcrank:”

We took our largest, most gigantic Great Steam Golem down to the Custom Shop to see what the Revered Inventor was really made of. We expected him to be intimidated, but the moment we walked in the door his face lit up. From that moment we knew he was up to the challenge, and we just couldn’t wait to see our old friend Blitzcrank get the royal treatment.
The first thing that we noticed was the finish. Gone were the dings and soot-stains that come from a career of heavy lifting, replaced by a superb paint job that positively emanated speed and performance. A shiny chrome grill glinted in the sunlight, a great compliment to the sleek new exhaust systems.
But the real test was yet to come. We fired it up and the exhaust just roared, giving you that satisfying feeling of a true performance machine. A set of performance tires had replaced the legs, and they gripped the lane for a silky-smooth ride, even when we kicked it into full overdrive.
Our brand new Piltover Customs Blitzcrank hit the mark across the board. If you were still skeptical about whether or not Heimerdinger could live up to his reputation, allow me to put your mind at ease. Take your Golem in for a tune-up today!

With all the model changes and the fact that Riot made a special post about it, you can bet this is probably the legendary Blitzcrank skin. It does sound cool, but I’ll have to see it in game before I decide whether or not to pick it up. I love Blitzcrank, as I may have mentioned, but I already really like Boom Boom Blitz. It would be tough for me to justify buying his legendary unless it’s significantly better than that skin.

league of legends, News, Skins

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Jarvan IV to join the League next week

February 25, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Riot has released the champion sneak peek for Jarvan IV, the prince of Demacia who was previously leaked in PC Gamer. There isn’t much official information about him, other than the fact that he wears some thick armor. I’m a little bit worried about his release, to be perfectly honest. Tanky DPS characters tend to make the game very unenjoyable for the softer characters out there. The potential skills PC Gamer previewed make him sound like a 1v1 duelist with high survivability and damage output. That’s not exactly what the game needs.

Here’s what the PC Gamer leak had for his potential ultimate:

Jarvan’s ultimate has him leap into the air and slam down lance-first into an enemy champion within range. Upon impact, an arena springs up from the ground to create a one-on-one duel between Jarvan and his unfortunate nemesis. This sounds like a combination of Pantheon’s and Poppy’s ultimate abilities, although it was undecided if the ultimate will be global or how long the duel would last.

That. Sounds. Terrible. DotA players may remember this sort of skill from Clockwerk, a robot champion that could trap enemy or allied units in a cog prison for some 1v1 action. Though it was pretty fun to play, it was infuriating to play against. If the skill is global, it becomes even worse. I’m really hoping Riot reconsiders this skill.

I’m also curious to see how Jarvan will be differentiated from Xin Zhao. We already have a spear-wielding locomotive of a carry killer. What makes Jarvan different? Keep an eye out this weekend for the official skill list. Hopefully we’ll be playing him by Tuesday.