Here is a little bit of information from RiotStatikk about one of my favorite champions, Irelia. She has proven time and time again to be one of the best examples of a tanky dps champion; typically requiring little more than a Trinity Force to become a wrecking ball. His post gives a bit of insight into some of the things that make the champion so powerful and gives us the impression of some potential changes that she might receive.

Personally, I'd rather have my Irelia remain a Fighter than shift to more of an Assassin, What do you all think?

"Our concerns with Irelia lie less with her overall power and more in her fundamental design.

Fighting against Irelia has very little counterplay. The ball always seems to be in her park.

For example:

1. She deals Physical, Magic, and True damage. There is no good way to itemize against her attacks.

2. Her passive makes use of CC on her ineffective.

3. The lifesteal on her ultimate calculates the heal pre-mitigation. This means that even if you build Magic Resist to lower the damage it deals to you, she will still gain life as if you had 0 Magic Resist.

Right now, Irelia's true weakness lies in the fact that she doesn't scale very well with any particular stat but scales with all of them. This is why people are so incentivized to get a Trinity Force or Wit's End and then just build tank because Irelia has very high bases to make up for the lack of scaling.

To give her a more gameplay conducive weakness, we need to push her either more towards the bursty Assassin or more towards the sustained Fighter role. Right now, she is too much of both and it makes playing against her a pain. I know right now we are leaning towards pushing her towards Assassin but that could change."

 - RiotStatikk, QA Analyst, via the official forums.





EDIT: On an unrelated note, some of you may have noticed a Paypal donation button on the top of the page.  I've added this in lieu of a very kind email from a loyal reader who wanted to know if there was anything he could do to help out with the blog. Said gentleman wishes to remain anonymous, but I can't express enough how grateful I am for his donation. Any money raised will be funneled straight back into the site. ranging from contest prizes to new recording equipment for the videos I am currently in the process of creating.  Thank you all for being awesome readers! this blog has turned into much more than I ever anticipated.

Turns out that the Nunu skin mentioned earlier this week is going to be legendary! From the video below, it seems he has new tweaked animations, new emotes, and a new voice over but the spell effects look the same. Here is the video from the official post.

PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSHPUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH

I hope you spotted all the references to a certain community created video.

Guinsoo swung by with some news about the hotfix that was recently deployed to NA and EU servers. . I am delighted I can still run around as Blue Alistar, but thankful for the others. Pulverbutt ( Combining Q+W on Alister ) is now back!

"1. Fixed a bug where Alistar's Headbutt would lock him out of spells for the duration and a short period afterward.

2. Fixed a bug where Raise Morale would break nearby enemy spell shields.

3. Fixed a bug where Raise Morale would reveal Gangplank to nearby enemy champions.

4. Fixed a bug where Kayle's Reckoning was not showing the animation, and would not be castable again until after you attacked.

5. Fixed a few bugs where Rumble's ultimate was sometimes not showing properly related to fog of war. EDIT: Also fixed some team color bugs.

EDIT: We were unable to get the blue Longhorn Alistar bug fixed in this server-side hotfix. I'm not sure if we will be hotfixing this subsequently, or fixing in the next patch."

- Guinsoo, Game Designer, via the official forums.

Just a quick post to ask you all, my beloved follows, what sort of League of Legends based original content you would be interested in seeing on this blog. Aside from just posting the news and interesting red posts, I'd like to bulk up the blog by including some additional content.

I am strongly favoring the idea of branching out into creating videos for the blog. Perhaps things like
Game Montages / Highlights, Champion Crash Courses, and New Champion Reviews.

Keeping things more traditional, I could focus on authoring more guides or doing posts geared towards new players such as this post about how Flat and Percentage Armor penetration stack.

Be on the look out in the next couple of weeks, I have broken 400 followers and in celebration of my little blog being all grown up I'd like to thank those of you who made it all possible with a Riot Points Card Giveaway. I might also be hosting a few competitions for things such a Fan Art, Design-A-Logo, and Custom Champions if the proper interest surfaces.

Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions in your comments below!

As many of you maybe have noticed, the changes to our beloved scarecrow Fiddlesticks seem a bit weak on paper. Some even go as far to claim this rework of Fiddlesticks of a straight nerf to an already underpowered champion. Classick has made a rather lengthy post detailing the exact intent of all of the changes to clear up a bit of the confusion.

Ok let me explain the fiddle changes in detail for you guys considering how big this thread has become. It was my mistake for making such an ambiguous post originally.

We found fiddlesticks to be too much of a "all or nothing" character, where he either snow balls out of control or is virtually worthless throughout the course of a game. This makes him a very practical low tier stomper and a character who is very sub-par in mid to high tier play. So with this in mind we wanted to make his abilities more consistent and make the character overall feel better when his ultimate is on cooldown.

General

• Base Armor increased to 14.5 from 8.25
• Armor per level increased to 3.5 from 3
• Movement Speed increased to 310 from 300

This was a quality of life change to fiddlesticks overall. His starting armor was just too low, we wanted to make him a more sturdy character in general, and the power of his Drain was preventing us from doing so. He also had a very slow MS making it hard for him to kite during a team fight because everyone would chase him down and kill him very quickly due to his low armor and movespeed. Overall these changes are to help with Fiddle's vulnerability when his ultimate was on CD or when he is ganked.

Fear

• Range increased to 575 from 525
• Mana cost decreased to 65/75/85/95/105 from 80/90/100/110/120

Just a good buff for him, this helps him poke in and out of a team fight with his Fear and Dark Wind when he is not using his ultimate and helps his kiting ability.

Drain

• AP ratio increased to .5 from .48
• Life Steal amount adjusted to 60/65/70/75/80% from 100%
• Leash Range decreased to 650 from 700

In general we felt Fiddle's drain was flat out too powerful, and we wanted to spread his power out from his drain making his usability much higher so that when there is an Alistar on the other team constantly interrupting your drains you do not feel useless in general. The AP ratio change was entirely a readability change, it had nothing to do with power level changes.

Dark Wind

• Damage adjusted to 65/85/105/125/145 from 100
• AP ratio increased to .45 from .35
• Now bounces 5 times at all levels
• Cooldown adjusted to 15/14/13/12/11 from 14
• Projectile speed decreased to 1100 from 1200

Dark Wind now bounces 5 times at level 1, this is a buff to the very early part of Fiddle's jungling route. This allows him to clear the initial jungle faster but he will not be as safe due to the drain nerf, but he does start out with a much higher base armor as well. 

Projectile speed decreased on Dark Wind is actually a buff in big team fights, the slower it bounces the longer it can keep a target silenced overall. So if it bounces very quickly there is a high chance that it will hit the same target twice in a very short amount of time, overlapping the already current silence.

We changed the way Dark Wind works internally, so that Dark Wind now has a higher chance to bounce the maximum amount of times in comparison to the old Dark Wind which on average would not reach the max bounce potential during a team fight due to multiple reasons. Dark Wind is much more practical for harassment as well now, it was a very low chance that you would actually hit a target 2 times or more during the early to mid part of the game(that's assuming you even max dark wind first). Now you will hit the same target twice quite often and do more damage with those two bounces as the game goes on. This makes him a much more practical solo lane caster, where he's not so dependent on his drain which could be countered if the opposing laner had a stun, he now has a pretty dependable form of harassment and his performance in lane is not entirely determined by his match up.

The cooldown was decreased quite significantly making it able to be used much more often during late game team fights, overall putting out more silences and damage considering the information in the above paragraphs.

Crowstorm

• Damage decreased to 125/225/325 from 150/250/350
• Cooldown adjusted to 150/140/130 from 150
• AP ratio increased to .4 from .35

We also felt Crowstorm in general was a little bit too strong damage wise, making Fiddlesticks too much of a "ultimate on wheels". So we adjusted the cooldown to allow Crowstorm to be used more often as the game progresses, so that there are not periods of the time in the game where your team is playing 4v5 becuase your Crowstorm is on cooldown.

We decided to see how these changes pan out before we bump up his AP ratios much more than they were previously, Fiddle was doing very well in all of our play tests. If it turns out that he is still not at a power level that is desired, we can look at increasing his AP ratios some more. I like Fiddlestick as much as you guys he was the the first character I ever played in LoL, but an overpowered Fiddlesticks is a very terrible experience to encounter and we want to take steps to prevent that.

 - Classick, Riot Intern Team, via the official forums.

Here are some videos of the two unreleased skins recorded by our friends over at Jumpinthepack. Both Lord Mordekaiser and Nunu Bot look fantastic. I plan on picking them both up come release day, how about you?

Now that the servers are back up, here are the two unreleased skins tucked into patch v1.0.0.116. You can expect to pick up Lord Mordekaiser and Nunu Bot sometime around next Monday.

Here are the release notes for the v 1.0.0.116 patch that is being applied to the servers as we speak! This weeks patch contains three character remakes, a slew of buff fixes, and the new champion Rumble. There are not many surprises for you diligent readers though, seeing as how much of the remakes and tweaks have been discussed on the forums in the past two weeks. I am loving the small tweaks to AP Ezreal and buffs to Sona! I literally can't wait to try out the new Alister and Gangplank when servers come back up. Which changes are you most excited about?

New Skins in the Store

• Bilgerat Rumble
• Rumble in the Jungle
• Fiddle Me Timbers
• Dreadknight Nasus

PVP.net v1.34.12

• Users can now grant other members of their Ranked or Normal team permission to invite other users.

League of Legends v1.0.0.116

Rumble, The Mechanized Menace

• Flamespitter: Rumble torches the area in front of him with his flamethrower dealing damage to all units in a cone for several seconds. While in the “Danger Zone,” this spell deals additional damage.
• Scrap Shield: Rumble creates a shield blocking incoming damage for several seconds and granting a short duration speed boost. While in the “Danger Zone,” the shield’s strength and speed boost increase.
• Electro-Harpoon: Rumble launches a missile that deals magic damage and applies a stackable slow on the target. A second shot can be fired for no additional cost within several seconds. While in the “Danger Zone,” the damage and slow percentage is increased.
• The Equalizer (Ultimate): Rumble calls down a line of rockets over the target location. Enemies in the scorched area take damage over time and are slowed.
• Junkyard Titan (Passive): Rumble's abilities generate heat. When Rumble is above 50 heat, he is in the "Danger Zone," causing all his basic spells to have additional effects. When Rumble reaches 100 heat he overheats, silencing himself and causing his physical attacks to deal additional magic damage. Rumble loses heat over time.

Alistar

• General
  • Base movement speed increased to 305 from 300
  • Base health reduced to 552 from 582
  • Health per level reduced to 110 from 114
  • Damage per level increased to 3.62 from 3.375
  • Base damage reduced to 58.65 from 62.9
  • Base mana increased to 253 from 225
  • Mana per level increased to 38 from 33
• Trample (new Passive)
  • Whenever Alistar casts a spell, he gains Trample for 3 seconds ignoring unit collision and dealing 10-23 (+10% ability power) area damage per second (double damage to minions and monsters)
  • Added new animations and particles for Trample
• Pulverize
  • Damage reduced to 60/105/150/195/240 from 80/125/170/220/270
  • Ability power ratio reduced to 0.8 from 1.0
  • Cooldown changed to 17/16/15/14/13 from 15
  • Range increased to 365 from 330
  • Stun duration reduced to 0.5 seconds from 1 second (1 second knockup unchanged)
• Headbutt
  • Improved Headbutt's targeting/direction against moving targets
  • Headbutt can now target minions
  • Damage reduced to 85/135/185/235/285 from 90/140/190/245/300
  • Cooldown changed to 14/13/12/11/10 from 12

Brand

• Fixed a bug where Pyroclasm could sometimes fizzle if there was an enemy stealthed nearby
• For consistency with other chain missiles, Pyroclasm no longer is consumed by spell shields

Caitlyn

• Yordle Snap Trap
  • Activation range increased to 150 from 125
  • Mana cost reduced to 50 from 60
• 90 Caliber Net mana cost reduced to 75 from 90
• Ace In The Hole
  • Mana cost reduced to 100 from 150.
  • Range increased at early levels to 1900/2050/2200 from 1600/1900/2200

Ezreal

• Mystic Shot now has an additive 0.2 ability power ratio
• Trueshot Barrage now scales additively with both attack damage and ability power

Fiddlesticks

• General
  • Base armor increased to 14.5 from 8.25
  • Armor per level increased to 3.5 from 3
  • Movement speed increased to 310 from 300
• Fear
  • Range increased to 575 from 525
  • Mana cost decreased to 65/75/85/95/105
• Drain
  • Ability power ratio increased to .5 from .48
  • Life Steal amount reduced to 60/65/70/75/80% from 100%
  • Leash Range decreased to 650 from 700
• Dark Wind
  • Damage adjusted to 65/85/105/125/145 from 100
  • Ability power ratio increased to .45 from .35
  • Dark Wind now bounces 5 times at all levels
  • Cooldown adjusted to 15/14/13/12/11 from 14
  • Projectile speed decreased to 1100 from 1200
• Crowstorm
  • Damage decreased to 125/225/325 from 150/250/350
  • Cooldown adjusted to 150/140/130 from 150
  • Ability power ratio increased to .4 from .35

Gangplank

• General
  • Movement Speed increased to 320 from 315
  • Base mana increased to 255 from 239
  • Mana per level increased to 40 from 34
• Raise Morale (remake)
  • No longer targets a unit (Gangplank can no longer kill allied minions)
  • Passive changed to 3/4/5/6/7% movement speed from 2/4/6/8/10% and 8/10/12/14/16 attack damage from 8/12/16/20/24
  • Activating Raise Morale grants Gangplank 14/18/22/26/30% movement speed and 20/28/36/44/52 attack damage
  • The activation also grants nearby allies 7/9/11/13/15% movement speed and 10/14/18/22/26 attack damage
  • Duration reduced to 6 seconds from 10
  • Mana cost changed to 50/55/60/65/70 from 60
• Cannon Barrage
  • Reduced the size of the area affected by Cannon Barrage
  • Now slows all enemies in the AoE for the duration, but slow reduced to 15/20/25% from 35/45/55%
  • Reduced damage to 65/110/155 from 100/140/180
  • Updated the random algorithm to not favor one quadrant over others
  • Fixed a bug where the tooltip said it lasted for 8 seconds, but it actually lasted 7
• Parrrley
  • Base damage reduced to 20/45/70/95/120 from 20/55/90/120/150
  • Extra gold gain reduced to 4/6/8/10/12 from 4/7/10/13/16
  • Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds from 6
  • Mana cost reduced to 40/45/50/55/60 from 50/55/60/65/70
• Remove Scurvy base heal changed to 80/150/220/290/360 from 70/125/195/280/380
• Grog-Soaked Blade
  • Damage increased to 6-23 per second from 5-18
  • Fixed a bug where it applied 9 damage ticks instead of 10

Leblanc

• Fixed a bug where Mimic: Distortion would not properly show allies if it was ready to cast or not

Lee Sin

• Fixed a bug where Resonating Strike could follow the target over indefinite distance

Nocturne

• Fixed a bug where Paranoia would follow targets over variable amounts of distance depending on spell rank

Ryze

• Overload mana ratio reduced to 8% from 10%
• Desperate Power spell vamp now scales to 15/20/25% from 15%

Sona

• Power Chord
  • Diminuendo duration increased to 4 from 3
  • Tempo slow amount increased to 40% from 25%
• Hymn of Valor's attack damage and ability power aura increased to 8/11/14/17/20 from 6/8/10/12/14

Trundle

• Fixed a bug where Rabid Bite could be dodged

Twisted Fate

• Pick a Card Blue Card mana restore increased to 65% from 50%

Udyr

• Tiger Stance's hit particle no longer plays on turrets
• Udyr's hands will now always display hand particles when his next attack will shred the target

Xin Zhao

• General
  • Base Attack Damage increased to 59.1 from 52.3
  • Attack Damage per level decreased to 3.1 from 3.3
  • Fixed a bug where Three Talon Strike could be activated while it was still active
• Battle Cry
  • Passive Attack Speed is no longer removed while the ability is on cooldown
  • Attack Speed increased to 20/25/30/35/40% from 15/20/25/30/35%
• Crescent Sweep
  • Armor and Magic Resist reduced to 25
  • Now scales and gives 7/10/13 Armor and Magic Resist for each champion hit

Zilean

• Revised Zilean's idle animation loop
• Fixed a bug where Zilean's Chronoshift would sometimes not report to allies whether it was castable

Items

• Randuin's Omen
  • Cloth Armor added to the recipe
  • Armor increased to 75 from 55
  • Total gold cost increased to 3075 from 2775
• Blasting Wand now shows an upgrade path into Void Staff instead of Archangel's Staff

General

• Revised tooltips for Anivia, Dr. Mundo, and Tryndamere
• Updated numerous character bios
• Updated the following 'move-to-unit' spells so they will fail less often: Aegis of Zeonia, Audacious Charge, Bandage Toss, Bladesurge, Cataclysm, Demacian Standard + Dragon Strike, Headbutt, Heroic Charge, Leap Strike, Paranoia, Resonating Strike, Safeguard, and Twisted Advance
• Fixed a bug where Fear spells were slowing the target additively rather than multiplicatively
• Fixed a bug where Summoner Exhaust was slowing the target additively rather than multiplicatively
• Fixed a bug where Evelynn's new attack animations were playing too quickly
• Fixed a bug with Mordekaiser's Taunt animation
• Fixed a display issue with Kayle's Battleborn skin
• Changed the general frost slow particle (ie: Ashe's Frost Shot, Rylai's Crystal Scepter) to significantly reduce frame lag
• Improved the following spell particles: Trundle's Agony, Nunu's Absolute Zero
• Fixed a bug with the Sword of the Divine active particle

The champion spotlight featuring the newest champion, Rumble, is out! He actually looks much more fluid than he looked on paper. I'm glad to see more tanky casters like Swain, Ryze, and Vladamir hitting the scene.

On a side note, what I love about this spotlight is that showcase's all of the upcoming skins at some point during the video. I really hope they keep doing this because it just isn't the same checking out skins in the model viewer.

 Our dear friends over at IP Boost have released the their seventh episode today! You can check out the podcast on Itunes or download it here. They frequently discuss the news topics you read here and much more! This weeks podcast features a champion spotlight on Janna.

The patch preview has been released for the upcoming patch. Coming to us this week in a bit of a different style, the preview highlights the reworks of Fiddlesticks, Alister, and Gangplank being completed. It also mentions the buffs to Xin Zhao that are hitting live.

I am extremely excited to have Gangplank be reworked ( read as: Denial was the most boring thing in the game for both sides ) and I am ready to stampede over some clowns as Alister.

Classick commented on some upcoming tweaks to Ryze's damage output. Personally, Ryze has surpassed Annie as my "go to AP carry" since his massive rework a few months ago. I am sort of disheartened to see the nerfs, but comboing out on an Ashe from full to 0 in 2 seconds is a bit too boss.

"Ryze puts out a little too much damage at the moment for the amount of survivability he has and for how low his cooldowns are. We are doing a couple small tweaks this patch to help put him into a more desirable spot balance wise."

- Classick, Riot Intern Team, via the official forums

Here is an interesting response by Xypherous to a post by WhiteGoblin. In said post, our fellow summoner comments how he doesn't feel that champions with alternative resource systems, a la Renekthon's rage mechanic and Rumble's Overheat, are that unique and they feel too similar to other champions. Xypherous replies with a well written post detailing his opinions on the matter.

Fundamentally, it is true for the most part that a different type of resource mechanic doesn't really add uniqueness until it is tied into an ability of some type.

For example, paying with life and paying with mana in magic isn't really *terribly* different overall in terms of costs. There's some pacing issues, but if, for example, we made all of Annie's spells cost life instead of mana, she really doesn't change much.

That said, I don't fundamentally believe unique complexity equates to better gameplay. Take the classic Invoker case. Invoker is undoubtedly unique and complex. However, when you boil the Invoker down to it's essence, the Invoker is terrible UI for accessing 9+ spells and 3 passives.

If you just had 9 spell buttons that they all had a shared cooldown, you would get nearly 100% of the invokers gameplay without all the tedious memorization and forced FAQ lookups that the Invoker made you memorize. These artificial limiters on being able to play a character and learn how to fight them in general server as artificial gateways to players being able to play a character. 

I understand that these artificial gateways are much loved in certain communities. (For example, fighting games that have 1 frame interrupts or cancels as staples of gameplay, etc.) but in my opinion, these aren't skills that we particularly want our players to be tested upon. These are great for fighting games and such, because of the muscle memory and rythym aspects of those games but our game is a fairly low APM strategy game and so it's a little bit of a mechanics mismatch.

Since unique complexity doesn't typically favor better gameplay overall, we tend to eschew complexity for things that play well. Most unique complex mechanics are things that encourage gimmicky gameplay rather than actual skill-testing gameplay. 

That said, I agree that we can always do better in the unique complexity point but we disagree fundamentally on having unique complexity be the highest priority. Gameplay is my highest priority. I would always in a heartbeat design a simple champion that has fun gameplay and enjoyed rather than something a little more convoluted and mechanics heavy but has less fun gameplay overall. 

I freely admit that this point is actually somewhat controversial, as many people play to be able to evocate their creativity in managing complex mechanics (and in fact, this is why combo-players exist in magic, to manage and pull off crazy things with complex mechanics) but in general, I would try to find those complex mechanics that also bring great gameplay, rather than sacrifice gameplay for complicated mechanics.

- Xypherous, Associate Technical Designer, via the official forums.

This is one question I get emailed frequently, so when the opportunity comes to intertwine a commonly asked question and a red post; I just have to take it. This weeks question deals with the different between Flat Armor and Percent Armor penetration as well as how the two interact with each other. Keep this small synopsis in mind next time you are gearing out your AD carry for maximum effectiveness.

Flat Armor Penetration: Flat armor penetration is applied directly to your attacks and physical abilities. These attacks will deal damage as though your target has less armor than he really does, but will never bring an opponent below 0 armor. For example, if a target has 20 armor and you have 5 armor penetration, you would deal damage as though the target had 15 armor. If you had 50 armor penetration against the same target, you would deal damage as though he had 0 armor.

Percent Armor Penetration: Percent armor penetration applies its benefits after flat armor penetration. For example if you fight a target with 120 armor while you have 20 flat armor penetration and 40% armor penetration, you would deal damage to your target as though he had 60 armor.

Only armor reduction can take effective armor to negative values and deal bonus damage

- EncasedShadow, Customer Support Extraordinaire, via the official EU forums.