Riot has graciously stepped onto the E3 news scene with its own explanations of the champions and features in development for League of Legends. Thank god. That Gamespot video just wasn’t cutting it.
The video rehashes a lot of the information I’ve put together on Yorick, Leona, and Skarner, though Paul Bellezza did expand on Skarner’s design direction a bit. In case there was any doubt, it looks like Tanky DPS is here to stay. Bellezza called Yorick a “tanky fighter” who can “pretty much tank down anyone.” Skarner is a “vicious and aggressive fighter tank” (the extent to which that’s different from a tanky fighter is unclear) who allows you to “focus on enemies and the more you attack them, the more you debuff them and are able to take them down.” Wedged in between these two is an archetypal tank with some crowd control abilities. If ever there was a bad time to be a squishy, July and August will surely top it.
I’m hoping that those releases will also come with some itemization/character updates that help deal with Tanky DPS. The idea behind tankier champions is a fine one – longer fights means you get to play the game more – but when it comes at the expense of so many characters and when so much of the playstyle revolves around skills like Jarvan’s passive, the gameplay isn’t very fun. This is the big reason I don’t play Tanky DPS toons – they aren’t enjoyable. It’s fun to get a ranged carry farmed up and burn through enemies. It’s fun to drop Tibbers on a group of opponents and see huge chunks of health fly off. If Riot can find a way to make these longer fights similarly enjoyable, I’ll gladly take the addition of more Tanky DPS champions to the League.
Several of the major news outlets have had a chance to take a look at Yorick at E3, bringing us a first glimpse of his skillset and artwork. The following information comes from PC Gamer, which should have a video of The Gravedigger later today.
Yorick’s skillset is based around summoning ghouls. The ghouls work sort of like Malzahar’s Voidlings, attacking the nearest champion, though they cannot be controlled by the Summoner. His three skills are as follows:
Necrotic Ritual: Summons a green ghast that explodes in a cloud of poison, slowing the enemy and dealing damage over time.
Devouring Ritual: Summons a red ghast that siphons life from his attacks and channels it to Yorick. It also empowers Yorickâs next attack with a hefty amount of lifesteal.
Spectral Ritual: Summons a blue ghast that embodies the powerful Summoner Spell Ghost, with increased movespeed and the ability to walk through units. Best of all, he bestows the same buffs to Yorick for the duration of his brief existence, ensuring that Yorick can chase down his target.
The ghouls currently last for roughly four seconds, though there is talk of increasing that number to six or eight. Yorick’s passive also grants him stat bonuses based on which ghouls are active. His ultimate sounds a bit like Rumble’s – a line skillshot that slows or possibly roots enemies caught in its path and either dealing nuke damage or damage over time.
Frankly, he sounds a lot like Rumble to me. Looking at his skillset I can only think one thing: lane presence. Yorick will have it in spades. A poison/slow, health regen, and a built in ghost for getting through minions – he’s going to be one bad dude to lane against. Hopefully I’ll be able to snag that video footage later today to share with you. Until then, check back soon for previews of the two champions set to follow Yorick – Leona and Skarner.
With the rise of tanky DPS came another frustrating aspect of the metagame: chained crowd control. Many of the tanky characters in League of Legends are equipped with one or more CC abilities, be they slows, silences, knockups, snares, or stuns. I’ve played against many teams recently in which my deaths have felt like a one-shot, from 100 percent health to nothing without a chance to fire a single shot. That sort of stunlock mechanic is extremely frustrating in a MOBA, especially if you’ve chosen a champion with limited mobility (there are things from which even Flash can’t save you).
With the rise of tanky toons and the inherent rise of CC, I wonder if we won’t see some sort Black King Bar brought over from DotA. For those that don’t know, Black King Bar (BKB) was an item that granted the bearer magical immunity for a limited amount of time on activation. With BKB you couldn’t be stunned, slowed, feared – none of the CC options – but you also didn’t take any magic damage. Obviously this poses a balance problem for those one-and-done mages (Veigar comes to mind). With that type of item, we’d sort of be back to Flash breaking projectiles, which isn’t very fun.
Another option would be the introduction of some sort of diminishing returns on repeated CC on a target. Even giving Quicksilver Sash the Cleanse treatment – allowing it to reduce CC for for several seconds after use – would give players more options for dealing with the current metagame. Whatever the case, we need something to avoid the incredibly frustrating stunlock deaths.
The Rumble spotlight went live last night and, though I really wanted to dump all of my impressions out at midnight, I decided to wait until today to hopefully give a more balanced look at the League’s new champion. I’m not sure it worked. Rumble seems like the worst parts of the tanky meta all rolled into one little bundle.
First of all, the shield thing has got to stop. Rumble not only gets a damage shield, which likely scales with AP, he also gets a movement speed boost with it, and it’s on a crazy short cooldown. At level 7 Phreak’s shield had a 5 second cooldown. Granted, it didn’t look like it shielded much, but 5 seconds? Yuck.
Rumble also appears to be able to abuse the minion aggro AI in lane because he can cast so often. Minions typically don’t aggro on champions if they’re using spells on one another, an issue typically balanced by the fact that lane casters are fairly squishy. Still, you already know some frustrating exceptions to this rule. Mordekaiser, for instance, can dish out a lot of champion damage without taking aggro from minions because he’s dealing spell damage. The same seems to be true for Rumble, which will be extremely frustrating for the softer characters in lane.
I’ll be interested to see how he actually plays in game. For right now, I’m worried Riot has added yet another bruiser class character to the game, even if he relies on spell damage to bring down opponents.
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.
