7-3 Red Post Grab Bag

Posted on at 11:03 AM by Moobeat
We've got a lot of news posts today, mostly involving some "clearing up" about the PBE unofficial patch notes, some champion buffs or nerfs, a small quip about the upcoming Cass skin, and a bit of foreshadowing from Morello.


First up is something that I always try to touch on when posting unofficial or tentative content. Morello took to the forums to put out a PSA about some of the changes that pop up on the PBE and how you should react to them.
 Reminder that unofficial notes can be anywhere from accurate to wildly inaccurate. Theory-craft and react at your own risk! Let's remember the Shen and AP Kog nerfs that were rumored :P

PBE is a public beta environment, and not always the final changes. Getting upset at unfinalized changes is getting riled up about rumors!
- Morello, Lead Champion Designer, via the official forums.








In a similar vein as the above, Jatt confirmed that Miss Fortune will NOT be receiving a range nerf to her Double Up ability, as expressed in the latest unofficial patch notes. Instead, she is getting a buff!
I can guarantee you that Double Up is NOT getting a range decrease next patch.

Double Up's effective range is getting increased to match her auto attack range.

It's rather confusing, but spell ranges and auto attack ranges are not calculated the same way. We're syncing up Miss Fortune's Double Up so that she can always use it if she is within auto attack range
 - Jatt, Associate Game Analyst, via the official forums.






Speaking of buffs and nerfs,  Morello also mentioned that Soraka is probably getting a nerf to the armor bonus granted by her heal. He said, specifically, "That's one of the changes in this patch, IIRC.". This discussion thread also has several other points of interest about the mentality behind supports if you want to read a bit more about the subject; Morello expresses himself quite clearly about his opinion on pure sustain supports are stacking up. He also sneaked in, about the Karma buffs/rework that "Still doing it, but it's taking longer to get where we want.".


If you enjoyed Jatt's anaylsis of Lux and why she needs buffs, I have a treat for you. He did the same thing for Caitlyn and confirmed a few buffs for her to be rolling out soon.

Hey guys, I just wanted to give some updates on the state of Caitlyn. In the past She has been immensely powerfull in competitive games. The nerf that took her out of viability was 20 damage off of Q at max rank and a 15 radius reduction on her traps. Obviously, other factors have contributed to her demise; however, I want to stress the fact that she is extremely close to being competitively viable.

Let's talk about what Caitlyn does well:

Caitlyn has 650 range, 50 higher than all other champions at level 1. Q also has 1300 spell range. Caitlyn has enough range and safety that she can sometimes hold 1v2 lanes by herself.

Caitlyn's snap traps have amazing area denial. Back when people played her in pro games, a common strategy was to place 3 traps in middle lane, making it nearly impossible for the enemy mid to manouver around the lane. They are also great scouting tools for bottom lane brushes, or for suspected gank paths from the enemy jungler

Let's talk about where she is weak:

She doesn't have the damage output other AD carries have. straight up. This is an intended trade-off for having a sniping ultimate and the highest base attack range in the game.

When new aggressive laners close to her (Graves!) she doesn't have the damage to fightback, nor the speed to retreat (E has a slow cast time/long delay)

Her ultimate, while doing alot of damage to low armored targets, is a slow channel and is easy to block by tanks.

Solution?

We're lowering the cast time on E to be more responsive. If Caitlyn wants to retreat from aggressive laners she can do so much more rapidly. Conversely, if she sees a window to attack she can go in for a kill and get more damage out faster. 

Ult cast range going up, channel time dropping. While Ace in the Hole had a long range already, it had been failing to deliver on the "sniper" feel that was intended. Making it a faster cast time that can be channeled from further away, should both increase the fun and the effectiveness of that ability.

tl;dr Caitlyn is a unique AD carry with defined trade-offs. As always though we'll monitor what you guys think of these changes once they go live, and make more adjustments if necessary.
- Jatt, Associate Game Analyst, via the official forums.






Nothing real shocking here, but Cassiopeia was 100% confirmed as the recipent of a celebratory skin for the Greek LoL launch event. We pretty much already new this though, what else would the "Greek" Cassiopeia skin in the PBE files be for?

The Cassiopeia skin for our Greek launch is going to be pretty epic. You'll be happy with it, and that's coming from a Cassiopeia player that also wants her to have a new skin
- Tamat, Lead Community Manager, via the official forums.







Lastly, Morello seems to have some "big posts" for us coming soon, about a variety of subjects. In two seperate threads, he mentions that soon he will be a thread on the topic of "the larger subject of monsters " and " diversity of character archetypes ". Both of these comments sparked from discussions about summoners wanting more unique play style champions and more scary, monster sort of champions. I guess we'll just have to wait to see what he delivers here, but I hope it leads to more monster based champions. I love me some monsters.

17 comments

  1. Perhaps you can also include the Oriana change listed by Roku here: http://clgaming.net/redtracker/39441-ori-on-pbe

    The 1s cooldown reduction on max rank Q isn't listed on any PBE patch notes I've seen and is part of the reason so many players believe Orianna is getting hard nerfed.

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    1. I think they cover the orianna changes in the new patch preview video.

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  2. that's op? you'll learn to play one day, son.

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  3. +1 Anon Bro +1...

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  4. Can't blame him :P I remember when I was new 2 lol I believed cait and her range was effin OP and cryed whenever the enemy picked cait :<

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  5. Back when I played Ashe mid, being against a Caitlyn was pretty terrifying.

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  6. *sigh*... still nothing about Xerath

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  7. 'i' before 'e' except after 'c' = Receive

    sepArate not sepErate.

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  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. I do remember when cait was scary but she's just not anymore. I like the changes it will be a good addition and she'll be more viable :) really looking forward to cass' new skin :D and they have seen to xerath its in the notes along with my fave mage ziggs :3

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  10. Did you see the red posts about the ghoul in Bunny Riven's splash art? It's supposed to be some hint to a new champion. Which isn't the first time they would have done that; Vayne's splash art has Yorick's weapon in it, and they've done it before that too.

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    1. I'm looking at it right now and i can only see tyrant swain , vandal talon and beatrice, it's said that vlad and urgot are in there but i can't see them.. :(

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    2. actually never mind it's under her bent foot.

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    3. Voila voila (:

      http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=26497251#post26497251

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