Red Post Collection: More Changes for Sivir's PBE kit, Additional Morgana discussion and changes, and MORE!

Posted on at 6:43 PM by Moobeat
Note: There is currently an AMA with Riot's eCommerce team going on! As usual, we'll post a recap after it ends :)

Update: Added in some more Heimer discussion!

This evening's red post collection features another round of discussion on Sivir's tentative kit changes - including another set of tweaks coming soon to the PBE , as well as discussion on Heimer's rework, more changes on the way for Morgana's W, and more!
Continue reading for more information

More Upcoming Changes for and discussion on Sivir's tentative Relaunch kit

Statikk dropped off another update on Sivir, this time citing more upcoming changes for her relaunch kit that's currently testing on the PBE.
"Another update after testing some more iterations, here are the changes: 
- Base Attack Speed back to 0.658 from 0.625 (this is back to her Live values)
- Made her basic attack more responsive
- Attack Speed per level increased to 1.6% from 1%
- Ricochet cooldown reduced to 9/8/7/6/5 (going to keep inching this down until it feels appropriately powerful to her kit) 
This is in addition to the last changes (Ricochet bounce damage scaling per rank and her ult duration going back to Live values).

Not sure if all the changes will make it into the next PBE build, but hopefully you guys get a chance to test it out."

For reference the PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED upcoming changes to Sivir's PBE kit were:
"Ricochet

  • Damage dealt to subsequent targets now scales 60/65/70/75/80% from 60% at all ranks 
On The Hunt

  • Total duration increased back to 10 seconds from 6
  • Initial Movement Speed boost duration increased to 4 seconds from 3
  • Cooldown adjusted to 100/80/60 seconds from 80/70/60 "

When asked what he thought of Sivir being able to non stop use Ricochet during her ultimate, Statikk responded:
"Gonna answer this since a lot of people are asking about this. 
Having her Ricochet for the entire duration of the ult was actually one of the first iterations we tested. Unfortunately, we came back to the same conclusion after testing it several times: when there are too many Ricochets flying around, Ricochet is difficult to balance, appreciate, or understand. This is the same reasoning we had when we removed the toggle in the first place.

Such a change essentially spreads her power very thin, to the point that when she is balanced Ricochet would feel really weak and unrewarding unless someone gets hit by all 20 of them during her ult. In addition, it becomes very hard to understand and appreciate the game as a whole when all anyone can see is a bunch of Ricochets on the screen every team fight. There's actually a substantial cost we pay from a visual and game clarity standpoint by putting so many missiles on the screen just for 1 champion to "feel good." 
The old Toggle Ricochet, although cool in its own right, was very passive and had very little gameplay involved. It was more of a passive effect with an insane amount of power attached to it. This is dangerous from both a satisfaction and skill differentiation stand point. 
The current version of Ricochet is hopefully a compromise between the Live version and her old Toggle version. A limited number of Ricochets allows us to pack enough power and satisfaction into each of them while still retaining the fantasy of multiple bouncing blades flying around and decimating enemies. With this version, we have more room for a skilled Sivir player to time and place their Ricochets correctly while also giving enemy players some windows when they know Sivir may be at a disadvantage since Ricochet may be down -- this is something the old Toggle implementation just doesn't allow for due to its passive, "on-all-the-time" nature.

I will admit, I do like the idea of further linking W and R together, and that's probably the most intriguing advantage of this change, but maybe there's a way to do it that doesn't involve devolving Ricochet back into an unhealthy state."
As for something like having Sivir's W have half it's CD during her ultimate, he commented:
"Yeah I thought about this a couple times during her iteration. I'm not sure if it would be noticeable enough to be worth it. It also might be creating some weird optimization behaviors that would once again confuse the use case of R. I think that's the thing that is the biggest cost to any direct damage incentive of using R. I really want players to feel the freedom of pressing R at the exact moment they need the mobility, and any such change will take away from that (though I do understand we would be gaining a sort of viscerality increase to the spell, at least psychologically). I'm just not completely convinced that an offensive incentive to the active is necessary in the long run, though it might be painful in the short term.

As a side note, there was actually a point where during her R her Ricochet would split into 2 Ricochets and bounced away. The weird part about that version was the the person standing next to the initial target usually took way more damage. It was visually very exciting though but once again with fairly poor gameplay implications."

When asked if he was happy with Q's current damage curve, Statikk commented:
"No, I'm not completely happy with the Q damage curve. It feels like it can be very overwhelming to play against early on if you get clean cut due to its crazy high potential early damage. I would agree it feels like it falls off harshly as do many of the old-school ADC spells. 
Off the top of my head, I wouldn't mind shifting some early power into late if possible, but haven't thought through the entire thing. The current tuning allows her to have threat early game to offset her Range weakeness. It certainly forces both parties of the lane to think about the laning phase in a completely different way when Sivir is in the game, which I think at the end of the day is a good thing. At the same time, I'm not sure we would like a world where Sivir Q's are chunking people late game like they were full-distance Nidalee spears (obviously there are degrees between now and this).

For me, it could go either way, but for now, it feels like there's so much changing on the kit that it's best to leave this alone until the rest of her kit gets settled."

When asked if there will be a new AD/CDR item to benefit something like Sivir's kit, he replied:
"I wish there were more AD + CDR items in the game. I've talked a bunch with Xypherous about the current lack of AD + CDR itemization. Unfortunately, it's not something we can prioritize over our current goals as it is actually a decent-sized project. Injecting new items can cause huge side effects and we're already working on a ton of stuff that you guys haven't gotten a chance to see yet. Hopefully, you guys will get to hear about it soon."

More Heimerdinger Rework Feedback

( This is an ongoing discussion: read up on the overall rework and the first wave of commentary here )

20thCenturyFaux returned to the forums to continue the discussion on Heimerdinger's PBE rework.
"Hello everyone ^^

I kept up on the thread over the weekend, but there's been some work piled up too that I need to catch up on. I'll be hanging around, but not as much as on the first day, I think. 
Quote:
On PBE now, the range indicator of Q (450, which indicate that we can put the turrets there without moving) is missing. Sometimes it will be too dangerous for heimer because we are not familiar to the new range and hence let heimer move forward to put turrets and die. Maybe a range indicator like Q of aatrox will be great to avoid such situations. Could we heimer players have that please? 
That was in the last round of changes, I'm thinking they just didn't get in in time for the build. You should see the range indicator the same time the turret resists are fixed."

20thCenturyFaux also commented on the idea of giving Heimer a turret an item that allowed him to better control and move his turrets:
"Hehehe, we did think about something like this, actually--it also would have had the ability to "pick up" Heimer turrets and move them around, Syndra style xD 
We ended up not going with it for a handful of reasons that ball together. Complexity, of course, but also item slot questions--does the item upgrade like Viktor's? How big does it get? Or is it something small you sell later? Etc. 
Giving Heimer direct control of the beams brings questions too. It's awesome for the lane phase, pretty much 100% doing what we want, but we found it broke down in teamfights. When Heimer is kiting away from his turrets, frequently having them shoot while they're timing out while leads the enemy team on a merry jungle chase--how can he beam? Do they beam on their own without his input? If so, how do they decide when to beam on their own or not?

It's a cool idea that I'd definitely explore in a PvE game, but the pressures put on a player in PvP are much higher. Using turret AI that's optimized for cases of "people diving Heimer" lets Heimer focus on stuff he'd rather pay attention to: Turret placement, rockets, pushing objectives, and kiting the enemy. At least, that's where we ended up going with our reasoning on the topic. "
Responding to a summoner concerned 20thCenturyFaux might only be looking at the good feedback rather than those claiming the overall kit is a nerf, he replied:
"So do I! I've watched the feedback like a hawk, here and elsewhere, positive and negative. 
Whether the current kit is OP or UP has been hotly contested, I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable doing a broad buff or nerf of his power level based on data this scattered, but I absolutely am still listening and plan to give him power where the people who are sad need it most. 
The #1 overwhelming point of negative feedback has been 'turrets too squishy', and the resists bugfix should be coming in today-ish, I believe. There's no clear second place point of agreed-upon feedback, but a turret autoattack range buff would hit a lot of the little ones--overall efficacy, support lane, their placement being unforgiving, and the dang caster minions outranging them bug that won't go away. To that end, I plan to buff their attack range.

I don't promise to always agree, but I absolutely promise to listen to every piece of feedback no matter its nature! More data = better than, for all champions but especially for Heimerdinger. Also, it's thematically appropriate xD"

On wdamage, 20thCenturyFaux commented:
"On paper, Heimer's sustained DPS with RQ is far higher than live and he can opt to have a pretty big pile of burst if he can achieve it. The goal is that whether he reaches those heights is up to how he and his opponents play--the skill ceiling is higher and the skill floor is lower. 
If it's too hard or too easy to achieve those heights, balance will step in, but PBE is for bugfixing/gameplay first--it's tricky to get hard balance data out of an unranked environment. I'll be watching/adjusting balance as much as I can, but I can't go crazy without some actual evidence.

It's also worth mentioning: With changes this vast, any sufficiently large pool of players will reveal pie slices of all opinion types. Only time and actual hard data will tell, but I definitely expect to hear that he's OP, UP, perfect, and everything in between. The only thing I am 100% convinced about is that our internal assessment of his balance will be proven wrong by the players. As strategies evolve, the power level of Heimer in games will change, making it impossible to just "figure it out" ahead of time because it is a moving target.

The only way to solve the puzzle for a champ this complex is to get more data, in my opinion ^^"
 He continued, discussing the kit as a whole and mentioning the current bug wit Heimer's Q:
"Sweet, thanks for your perspective! Here's a few things you might find interesting:
You're quite right about Q being bugged, there's scaling resists based on Heimer's level that should be coming in soon (today I think?). I'm also planning on increasing their attack range. That being said, I should point out their dps is not nerfed because now there are 3 of them. They actually deal more damage and threaten at greater range :D 
As for the slow on R, it does survive! It's on the RQ. Easy to miss in the huge tooltip, but if you go something like E Q RQ Q (W if time) Zhonya when an assassin dives you, you can rip them into tiny little pieces xD 
Laser speed is tricky. It bumps against the same limitations as E, actually: We basically didn't want them to be oppressive to champions who came to lane with no boots. Heimer is mainly featured mid, so he's frequently against champs that have base movespeed only. We ended up making the skills slower in an absolute sense, but giving them windows of opportunity.

For example, if Heimer hits a grenade, all nearby turrets will immediately fire their beams well outside their normal AI beam radius. Champions diving into the nest will almost never be able to avoid the beams. Melee champions get hit easily by E. These type of things. 
My point being: We actually have more levers to make turret beams feel good than may initially appear. We can adjust speed / warning time / etc, but players are still figuring out ways to make the beams situationally stronger instead ofgenerally stronger--this incurs less cost to the rest of his kit and lets Heimer outplay his opponents, so I want to give that time to breathe before assessing raw power.

Thanks again for your thoughts, keep on Dingin' ^^"
He continued:
"It's entirely the skill ceiling/skill floor thing. Old Heimer's abusiveness wasn't about his ability to make a nest, or to push like a boss, or etc. It was about the way he didn't let you have any fun while he did it. His turrets were HP Tax for staying in the area--no dodging, no timing, just bag 'o damage. Same for W: HP Tax for staying in the area. 
There's three main components to the fix we're trying: The ult, the beams, and the rockets. All three let a skilled Heimer capitalize on some pretty huge damage numbers (or CC, in RE's case) if he outskills the enemy, but likewise they allow the enemy much more choice. The trick is to always make the skill differentiation both ways. Counterplay without play is counter to gameplay xD.

In all cases, where Heimer affords his enemy the chance to outplay him, he directly benefits from huge power increases when he outplays the enemy. Since his power curve with skill becomes a comfy ~ instead of a flat -, he can be tuned significantly more powerful overall than before."
He also commented on allowing turrets to proc Rylais and LT:
"Apologies, the muramana comment might be a bit of a red herring. I certainly could make them spelltype AOE, the problem isn't that they would be tough to code. 
The nightmare is actually the gameplay that creates. A world where normal Heimer turrets proc Rylais/Liandris hugely restricts build choices and would require draining power out of other parts of the kit just to support how strong those two would be on a turret nest. Liandris alone is less problematic, but special casing Liandris to work and Rylais not to work would be completely counter to how those items are supposed to function. I feel like that option doesn't really exist without changes to the items themselves.

Besides, the main point is "I want Liandris to be good in a turret nest". It isn't 100% necessary to have turret autos apply it on their own as far as I can tell--the important point is that it gets on people and stays on them. I actually suspect that people entering a nest will have Liandri's on them the whole time already anyway.

It remains to be seen for sure, and by all means test it ^^, that's what PBE is for after all! That said, I think spread W does an excellent job of putting Liandris on the whole enemy team, especially with CDR, and once people dive into a turret nest the idea of dodging beams becomes untenable quickly. E poke on its own might actually be pretty nasty with Liandri's, too, because of the slow. It's just a matter of figuring out how best to apply it. I've got an idea or two of where I might want to let Liandri's work better on the kit if it's not there yet, but I want to let people experiment some first."
 Be sure to leave your Heimer feedback here: NA, EUW, EUNE.

Rengar up after the PBE thins out

Scarizard commented on the Rengar update thread noting the PBE is a bit crowded but  that he would like to get the tentative rework up on the PBE "soon, not SoonTM".
"Could you help me understand what more information you'd like? I'd be happy to oblige - but the changelist in the main post as-is is what i have sitting internally, and reflects the direction we're moving in. 
As for PBE, we really only like to use PBE for feedback/discovery on things that are imminent - and while i'm not the most well-versed on PBE shenanigans, we currently have 3 big-ticket reworks there and i don't know how i'd feel about putting him out there especially with him not coming as soon as the ones that are on there now.

THAT SAID - Xelnath seems like he's getting a lot of use out of Xerath's extended-pbe cycle, so as soon as it gets a little less crowded i'm considering throwing him on there. Again, it's 'Soon, not SoonTM' but i -would- like to get you guys playing him ASAP. I'm pretty happy with the direction, but lord knows there's probably a ton of clunky things with him as-is that you guys could spot; working together to make Rengar more fun and cohesive is something i'm up for."
Click here to check out the first page of the forum thread, complete with a tentative change list.

More Morgana PBE discussion + changes

Keeping his promise, ricklessabandon returned to drop off a post on the current Morgana PBE changes! He offered up some more context and another tweak that will be coming to changes soon.
"okay, kind of lied here since it took way longer than i thought to ready up the iterations i wanted for ahri and morgana, so this will be a punctuated post that doesn't include some of the important stuff like 'goals' and 'why' that you guys should have at this point for future testing. 
real quick:
-i increased the base damage on tormented soil to 23/36/49/62/75 (which is still less than live) 
-i already know the above definitely isn't the last iteration, but wanted to nudge these closer while i finish doing a bunch of math/implementation 
-speaking of math, i have a spreadsheet i want to share somehow (probably google docs or something?) that will help you guys know numbers versus champions ahead of time 
-the goal of these changes is to be a net buff for morgana (specifics later), so they won't leave the pbe until i'm confident of them being such 
-thanks again to everyone that ran her in games to get feedback for me—it makes doing this much easier ♥ 
so yeah. going to go nap for a couple of hours, then i'll swing by here again to do a proper 'goals' post. also, we've got someone looking into the masteries bug, so hopefully that'll be addressed in the next pbe update (which might be today?) but i have no idea since it's not related to the stuff i've been working on.

screenshot of the spreadsheet attached for anyone interested."

He continued later, noting his intent to change W from % missing health to a % damage amplification based on missing health:
"tl;dr - i've been in meetings ever since i woke up. ; _ ; (also, better changes incoming.) 
need to make this quick for now because i still have more time-sensitive stuff to wrap up at the office before i can get back into pbe forums, but i wanted to say that after crunching a bunch of numbers, spectating games, and reading reports from testers here i'm going to drop the % of missing health bonus damage and instead try a % damage amp based on missing health (the nidalee takedown and riven ult paradigm). this amp would also affect morgana's ap ratio, and not just the spell's base damage. in addition to this, i want to confirm that i am going to adjust her basic attack properties.

details, along with the overdue context/goals post, should follow once i finish up some work i needed to get to pwyff like yesterday. hopefully in a couple of hours? thanks for sticking with me so far, everyone—sorry again for all the delays."

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