Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-05-25

[re: affected by stealth rework?] Only in the Oracle's interaction. No changes slated (currently!) here.

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Hecarim Patch 2012-04-17

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Fiora Patch 2012-02-29

[updated]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-29

This is part of the expectation that's just off - Alistar has fantastic utility...lane sustain, CC and movement manipulation. It stands to reason that a champion like this shouldn't have mega-damage - where would the trade-off be?

Our most problematic characters are ones with ill-defined or straight-up missing weaknesses. old AP Alistar is a great example of this. A character full of utility is typically brought for the utility, and I really don't see any problem with that.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-29

The point is that I don't think Alistar should be a Tank/Mage/Support :P I don't think he should have burst at all, or really spec into AP much, unless it's a weird off-build.

It's hard to make this good but not silly when a character has skills that are actually good even if they don't have damage.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-29

[re: calls for new passive?] It could - I can see that. This passive was in the lines of helping him farm, but that was before 0 CS was in play. Although fixing 0 CS without pushing supports out of the game is the better fix, that will take some voodoo to get right.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-29

[re: increase AP ratio?] Maybe slightly so it "feels" a bit better if he gets farmed, but the expectation is that it's not a competitive damage character in reality. I'll bring this up with the team.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-06-04

Hehe, it's just not fun for me personally. Mummy's really good.

Despair and Tantrum add up fast - and tanks that do slow over-time damage is how they should hurt people. I'm just not experienced with mummy and scared to blow my ult without it being a big win

Besides, me not liking a champion's playstyle doesn't really mean much. He's not bad for the game or anything.

Originally Posted by Patch 128 2011-11-01

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 113 2011-03-15

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-11-30

Other examples [of optimized nuance] are Brand (very simple, but great Brands stand out from merely good ones) and Anivia. There's a lot of tools in some of our older champions that are not only understandable, but represent this design principle.

Originally Posted by Brackhar 2012-01-19

Hmm, since her attack animation has come up a lot I'll mention it to the animators and see if they're interested in adjusting it. It'd be low priority, but perhaps we can slot something in.

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-02-04

[re: let her melt her wall] That might be a neat polish point - I think we'd have to add like a 0.5 to 1 second cooldown before you could melt the wall to avoid possibly double tap scenarios in high latency environments.

I'll ask around about it - There's some design implications - mostly because Anivia's pretty solid at the moment but it sounds fairly reasonable.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-20

Anivia is in really good shape.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-07-24

[re: fix Annie] I would if she didn't actually have good tradeoffs with other casters who are powerful; Anivia, Karthus, Malzahar, Brand, Orianna, just to name a few.

Originally Posted by Patch 122 2011-07-26

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Ziggs Patch 2012-01-31

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-01

Mostly this. Ashe, just virtue of her utility (something that's unique for a ranged carry) is useful in the teamfight portion of the game, especially by giving you a non-tank initiate. Her only real problem is she gets bullied out of lane too easily.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-01

We've considered [doing something about her passive]. This would be more in the "let's make it cooler/more fun" than the way to buff her and make her comparable, though.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-09

It's hard to get a good one, but a fantastic Blitz bot is a nightmare to fight against.

Originally Posted by Lulu Patch 2012-03-19

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-06-29

Brand is fanatastic, and Dreamhack only supports this. Brand outshines Annie in total damage, AOE potential, damage-over-time, and range, and loses in raw burst and AOE disable. I actually think Brand is one of the most properly balanced champions in the game.

Originally Posted by Patch 125 2011-09-13

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-11-30

Other examples [of optimized nuance] are Brand (very simple, but great Brands stand out from merely good ones) and Anivia. There's a lot of tools in some of our older champions that are not only understandable, but represent this design principle.

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-31

This is true - [Miss Fortune's] not weak, it's just hard to compete with Graves/Vayne/Cait because of their great threat/lane control (as appropriate). MF actually has really solid overall damage, but I still think we have a few that are too strong.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-01

(People thought Cass was pretty bad, and she's less of a secret every day).

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Patch 113 2011-03-15

[updated]

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2011-03-30

Cho'gath is still fine

Originally Posted by Classick 2011-04-07

Post nerfs I have seen him used consistently in ESL over the last two weekends and I have had PMs from multiple players who were in those games saying Cho'gath is still too strong. I also still see Cho'gath in a lot of my games, and he generally always does well.

Originally Posted by Zileas 2011-08-22

[re: Cho'gath's ability to stack in Dominion] Good question. I'll check up on this.

Originally Posted by Meddler 2011-11-05

[link] He's got really strong poke still, the nerfs to his Q do seem to have hit him pretty hard though. I know the live team have some plans to give him a bit of help but dont want to throw so much extra power or utility at him that he returns to being such a completely dominant AD carry choice. Instead I gather he'll be getting a pretty small buff to be followed by more later if appropriate to gradually put him in a good place balance wise without overshooting (something that has occurred with champ buffs in the past, GP for example).

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-27

Not exactly, but you have the right idea. CC was too much there, but the skill should have had some other additional flavor or coolness to compensate the loss there. Corki, previously, was an example of too much (good burst, CC, escape, and auto-attack damage). Until we removed one of those, he was the most powerful carry for a very long time.

Originally Posted by Statikk 2011-09-24

Classick is currently working on Mundo. We want to give him better late game scaling while also toning his early game a little. We are currently testing a version of Mundo's ultimate that heals him based on % of his missing Health which allows him to become a regen tank in team fights but is not nearly as abusable as a sustain mechanic. Unsure if this is the direction we will go ultimately but Mundo is currently in heavy testing iteration.

Originally Posted by Classick 2011-10-11

[re: buffs/rework] It's going, I have had a bunch of larger tasks that distracted me from working on him.

Some current problems I have with Mundo is he becomes extremely problematic in small scale fighting (twisted tree line) and becomes rather useless in large scale fights (SR). Some other issues is that he does not scale that well into the late game, with the exception of having tons of health.

I would like to tone down his power slightly on TT and make him better on Summoner's Rift, also I'm hoping he will fall into the right place for Dominion with these changes.

I've also been trying hard to keep the feel that Mundo is extremely powerful at low amounts of health, it's generally a very hard thing to pull off in large scale fights such as 5v5 scenarios but I'm attempting to make it work. His kit generally tries to do this but instead of trying to homogenize Mundo to make him better I'd like to keep this feel and try making the kit lend its hand to this even better. Also, more importantly Mundo still needs to go where he pleases .

I don't want to go into very much detail about what I plan on doing with him, but a few high level things I'm fixing is Base Stats, allowing him to scale into the late game, and changes to his ultimate to further help him sustain at low health so he can take advantage of Masochism.

After the changes Mundo would be a good jungler or a good top lane. He would also have a lot of viable build options. HP stacking Mundo which is a generally more tanky build with sustained damage, or a glass cannon mundo that goes lots of AD with big crits.

Originally Posted by Classick 2011-11-11

Good post, you have some very interesting ideas in here. Specifically the idea with the cleaver is intriguing as I had a different way of accomplishing the same goal but it is a little bit unclear in comparison to this. Will certainly consider this post when I get back to finishing up his rework(soon I hope). Thanks for the feedback

Originally Posted by Classick 2012-01-04

The short answer is yes [we care]. Not only is it frustrating for you guys, it's frustrating for us. There are a few projects such as Stealth/Dr. Mundo that have sat on the back burner for a long time and we really feel bad about this. I can give you nothing but my sincere apology, unfortunately priorities get in the way of these projects.

These characters are not completely ignored I can genuinely say that I think about these characters a lot and I feel bad about them, not just the characters power levels themselves but the fact that we have promised you guys something for so long. As time has gone by they are moving up the list and I'm very excited to finish them.

It is definitely an initiative of mine to give these characters the updates they need but I'm in no situation at the moment to give an estimation on their completion. Some of these projects do actually take a very large amount of time to finish for a releasable state. Sometimes we go through a month plus of testing just to find out we want to try something completely different (Mundo has fallen subject to this).

So yes, we do care. The large amount of threads that pop up daily about Stealth, Mundo, Etc. are read and not ignored.

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-17

We're still discussing - we have ideas ranging from crazy (one I like a lot, but needs some testing) to more conservative. Mundo's needed the help for a long time, so we thought some interim numbers tweaks would be better than nothing while we work on a more complete fix.

Originally Posted by Statikk 2012-01-27

Pertaining to Mundo, we do intend to eventually make changes, but he is not an active project at the moment. The main issue we would be looking to solve on Mundo is assessing his early vs. late game potential, which would probably involve giving Mundo access to some more utility. At the same time, I think we would take the opportunity to solidify the risk vs. reward gameplay surrounding Mundo being at low levels of Health, constantly teetering back and forth to create advantages and bait enemies in.

Originally Posted by Patch 109 2011-01-18

[updated]

Originally Posted by Xypherous & Shurelia 2011-07-12

[Many red posts throughout the thread, omitted here due to size. For full content, look through the thread or refer to http://www.leagueofreplays.com/redpo...ostid=11317983 or http://clgaming.net/redtracker/topic/8921]

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-15

What we are going to do though, is to give these characters the tools necessary in combat to not have to rely on that type of escape. Evelynn for example is getting an on-command stun that is no longer tied to her stealth mechanic, and Twitch is getting a sniper barrage from which he can attack from the sides of combat to poke before going in for the kill.

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2011-07-29

I personally have nothing against Eve but others at Riot have determined that we want to keep her overnerfed until the remake is complete.

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-29

This is the current prototype Evelynn kit. [Content omitted due to size. Follow link for full content.]

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-29

[re: stun range?] Current ravage range.

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-29

[Q] has the same targeting mechanism as her old Q, but instead of spiking 2 nearby units, it fires a line missile (very fast, pretty much instant) at the primary target, which passes through all other enemy units. It applies damage and her passive to all units struck.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-10-21

I have to look into the difficulty of the ult bug, and we've talked about Hate Spike - Guinsoo had some worries about that [prioritizing champions]. I'll see how easy this is to do.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-08

We have [Evelynn/Twitch] on PTR, but they got delayed but us wanting to do the Season 2 changes. Evelynn is testing pretty well, while Twitch needs quite a bit of help. This is not on the immediate horizon still, sorry for all the delays =/

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-01-31

[re: stealth remake]

Very Quick Summary Version
Twitch needs work.

Wards needs work.

I'm not actually allowed to work on it with a 10 foot pole after I finished the basic mechanics - and I can't get on live to shepherd the process - so... yeah.

Although, the rework is on PTR at the moment I believe.

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-01-31

Surprisingly, everyone is mostly happy with Evelynn, I think, on PTR right now - I could be way off though - I don't have direct access there.

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-01-31

I believe her stun is still attached to her step ability, yes.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-03-15

While there's no comment other than "it's done!" I can give that will make people feel good about this, let's be frank for a moment;

* Yes, the stealth rework was a majorly mismanaged project that took far too long. We own up to that.

* Eve is purposefully nerfed to being as poor as she is - her damage to how badly she was kicking new players out of the game in frustrating was beyond unacceptable. Not optimal in any means, but the right decision overall. Our plan was to not take forever, which was the failing point. This is the only thing we've ever nerfed this hard on purpose.

* Talking about progress is meaningless until I have real, concrete information for you, which I don't at this time.

* We won't disable her because some people have fun with her, despite peer pressure. You're speaking to a player behavior problem that needs to be fixed (there will always be a weakest champion - whether real (this case) or perceived.

* We understand that you're frustrated and why you are, and luckily, we've stopped mismanaging and incorrectly prioritizing this set of work - unfortunately, it's a lot of work.

That's all I can add that's useful, currently.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-18

Stealth (Eve and Twitch reworks, essentially) is being worked on as the primary task for both Statikk and Classick.

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2011-10-30

Ezreal: Yes, I looked into him and found a number of usabilty updates that Live agreed with. Make Essence Flux a bit wider, cost less mana, and have a shorter cooldown), increase AP ratio on Mystic Shot, etc. This buffs were mainly focused on making the champion easier to use / AP boosts, while not dramatically increasing power of his AD form. However, Ezreal has taken off in the Tournament scene so we opted to hold off on making these changes immediately. Give it time, I'm sure they'll be pushed through eventually.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-31

I'm fine if no one in NA catches on to this. If nothing, there's been nothing but a pattern of regions dismissing other metas and then adopting them, acting like its always been theirs

When China and the US match up again, you're likely to see Ezreal there. This is usually how it goes.

Originally Posted by Ziggs Patch 2012-01-31

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-01

People think he's weak - it's amazing.

He doesn't absolutely outperform every other ranged AD anymore, but he's not weak.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-01

Based on what we see in the Chinese tournaments, Ezreal largely suffers from a perception problem of comparing raw DPS and how applicable it is. I think he's pretty balanced, but since US and EU players saw god-mode Ezreal, anything short of that will be perceived as weak (even if the final result is not).

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-01

This is fair - there could be a QoL tweak that could help. I think that's as far as I could see him needing.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-03

[re: what's going on with AP Ezreal?] Nothing I'm aware of, unless one of the live guys have something up their sleeves.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-29

[re: quality of life changes] Something like this is the type of direction we'd consider, yeah. I'll bring this up with live folks and see what they think the risk is.

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2012-03-14

Well, I've mentioned it a couple of times, the Ezreal buffs that I talked about previously have been put on hold. Basically the champion is doing well, especially in our eastern markets (I've even heard him called the Terror of the East...which is such a cool nickname!). I still hope to see them come down the line some day, but he just isn't a high priority change right now for the live team.

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2012-04-03

We held on [AP Ezreal buffs] for a few reasons. The main one was the tournament, however, that was not the singular reason we held off on the buffs / feel improvements. The live team was getting numerous reports that Ezreal was 'overpowered' in other nations. He also had a fairly high win ratio, which was not in line with what most players were preaching. So we opted to not make the changes. I'm sure a few of the changes, especially the feel ones, will make it in eventually.

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2012-04-03

[re: arcane shift prioritze champions] Honestly, I am starting to become more and more alright with that proposition. If the live team can be convinced, I won't block it (where I previously have).

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-20

[re: remake?] No, Ezreal's awesome.

Originally Posted by Patch 123 2011-08-08

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-05

Two of the slower junglers have some of the most devestating Level 6's - namely WW and Fiddlesticks. Gank quality is something you can measure vs speed as a quality...if you want top speed, there are better choices.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-05

I'm a pretty bad Fiddle, but my assessment is correct - Fiddle has always been slower, safer, and had fantastic level 6 ganks.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-29

[re: jungle capability] Can do it, but is a bit slow. It's something I wanna watch on launch.

Conversely though, she's a good top lane. It'd be cool if she could do both well.

Originally Posted by Fiora Patch 2012-02-29

[released]

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[updated]

Originally Posted by Fiora Patch 2012-02-29

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Classick 2012-02-21

Hey guys, Rjcombo did definitely talk to us and as and we are making a couple small changes to help mitigate these problems you are experiencing.

We have a change on PBE which will now increase the damage radius so that you'll always do damage to someone affected by Galio's taunt unless they manage to get out of it. We also did a small change that will fix a bug that would allow you to walk out of Galio's ultimate as a ranged character if they were just on the edge.

We feel Galio's power level is in a pretty good place so we want to make changes that will help reduce frustration when using his ultimate without adding power if possible.

Originally Posted by Fiora Patch 2012-02-29

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 127 2011-10-19

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Patch 125 2011-09-13

[updated]

Originally Posted by Patch 113 2011-03-15

[updated]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-03-17

I think Gragas is really underrated. I'm actually not sure why he's not popular when he's extremely good. Kind of like Morgana :x

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2011-03-24

Gragas is fine.

Originally Posted by Phreak 2011-04-19

Gragas is still good.

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2011-04-24

Gragas, the other rallying cry, is competitively viable for high elo but not for lower elos.

Originally Posted by Zileas 2011-06-10

I think that Gragas is good if used correctly.... The reason he's not popular is that being an overweight, balding drunk guy is not aspirational for most gamers. I mean, I'm already an overweight, balding drunk guy. I don't need to be a character like that in a video game to truly experience it, you know?

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2011-07-29

In general, we want to add [ability-vision] for all champions that "need" the vision in the brush in so much as they change how they use the ability or other abilities based upon that knowledge.

Cassiopeia is probably most important, since she needs to spam cast Twin Fang while the target is poisoned. Gragas is also a pretty good case since you want to detonate it if there are enemies in the area, though a weaker case since it's a nontargetted spell and Twin Fang is targetted. In general I think we plan to add it for abilities like these, and remove it from abilities where you don't change your behavior based upon this result. In most of those cases, that's a leftover bug from the time when we didn't have the tech to create unattached world effects without creating vision (we had to create a minion to 'hold' the Tormented Soil for example).

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-16

Because [smokescreen damage] isn't actually contributing as much to his power as the things we did change. We wanted the nerf to be effective, though the damage on Smoke Screen is something I'd like to remove (and give something else) when he's more stabilized.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-16

May not be enough - we'll be watching this one for sure.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-31

This is true - [Miss Fortune's] not weak, it's just hard to compete with Graves/Vayne/Cait because of their great threat/lane control (as appropriate). MF actually has really solid overall damage, but I still think we have a few that are too strong.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-18

Because we're not trying to make the fastest jungler with the best ganks. Pre-6 he's alright, and post-6 has godly ganks...you have to counterbalance it so Hecarim is not the only viable jungler.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-18

Sure - I could see [adjusting rampage damage reduction] if needed. Lemme keep an eye on it (I was at PAX when he was on PBE) and see where he falls.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-18

[re: mentality affected by wording] I think there's a lot to this perception. And maybe it's not fast -enough- to be good (that could be the case), but he's reasonably safe and has good ganks. I just think there's a difference between WE TOLD YOU HE'S THE WORST AT ALL THINGS OMG and "Hey, Hecarim's strengths don't make up for his clear speeds."

Originally Posted by FeralPony 2011-06-12

[link] Grenade speed is certainly on my agenda. It is crazy slow currently.

Originally Posted by FeralPony 2011-07-12

[Content omitted due to size. Follow link for full content.]

Originally Posted by Classick 2011-07-26

[re: getting any love?] Yes, and we can buff him after we make some pretty large changes like tweaking his ultimate.

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-29

FeralPony is working on Heimer. I think it involves some kind of turret ammo or something. I haven't seen it though.

Originally Posted by Patch 123 2011-08-08

[buffed]

Originally Posted by FeralPony 2011-08-23

[link] [Content omitted due to size. Follow link for full content.]

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2011-09-18

I can say that we are not thoroughly impressed by his current passive. We would like to change it, however, there are a number of more critical changes that we would rather focus on for his kit (i.e. the anti fun of his long range / turrets, and the lack of fun in using his ultimate). So at the end of the day, while we would like to update it, it would take a backseat to more important changes.

Originally Posted by Statikk 2011-09-24

His remake is still in the works currently being handled by FeralPony. The remake is currently focused on making his turrets a more temporary and offensive way of engaging enemies rather than strictly a passive and defensive one.

Originally Posted by FeralPony 2011-12-07

[link] Overall the kit changes feel solid. Main focus now is to upgrade turret AI. He isn't my top priority at the moment, but I imagine he'll be good to go relatively soon after the holidays. Don't hold me to much to that date though, stuff can always come up which can cause delays.

Originally Posted by FeralPony 2012-01-15

[link] There has been some progress but since it a project I've been mostly doing in my spare time it's pretty slow moving unfortunately. I'll have more information as it's closer to being released. Turrets and the ult were the primary focus of the changes though.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-08

Feral's doing some major work on this after he's finished with his current champion project. I don't have details on this as of yet.

Originally Posted by FeralPony 2012-02-11

[link] [Turret AI] is something I was addressing in the Heimer remake actually. It's been a while and I can't actually recall what the old targeting method is to be totally honest. The current iteration of the new turret AI is as follows (all things subject to change as always).

1 - The last Champions Heimer hit with his wrench
2 - The closest enemy Champion that recently attacked Heimer
3 - The last Minion Heimer hit with his wrench
4 - The same target the turret was previously attacking
5 - The closest enemy unit to Heimer

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2012-03-14

Unfortunately we put Heimer on the back burner for now since we wanted the illustrious Feral Pony to work on a brand new champion!!! Once he is done I'm sure he'll go back to Heimer, or potentially pass it on to another live designer.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-05

[re: push Jarvan/Irelia/Nocturne into more specific roles?] In the long-term, sure, we'd like to, though that's a little after a few other things. People are also really attached to this admittedly-bad design pattern, and anytime we do something unpopular, we have to weigh the disruption-to-player value ratio. In this case, if we take our time, I think we can get a good balance there.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-03

No plans currently, though eventually we might take a weedwhacker to her (both buffs and nerfs to not make her the sort of metabruiser she is).

Originally Posted by Lulu Patch 2012-03-19

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-17

As you said, Irelia makes too few compromises for too much gain, and that's the core issue, but your analysis is that the True Damage is the real culprit as opposed to the sustain.

I actually think you're right here. Non-scaling damage sources on Fighters is what lets them go ultra-tank and allow the damage we can see sometime, and this is a classic example (we'd discussed this a bit before her nerf as well).

I'll revisit this with the team. I do retain Irelia's kit needed nerfs, but I'd prefer to cause her to make some compromises, or remove needless power on her (in order to allow others to be more powerful).

Thanks (and to everyone who weighed in on this). I'll try to get an update on this in the next few weeks, and bump to remind!

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-09

[link] Janna is a good paradigm for support - fun, powerful and impactful without creating a lot of additional stagnation.

Originally Posted by Lulu Patch 2012-03-19

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Hecarim Patch 2012-04-17

[updated]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-05

[re: push Jarvan/Irelia/Nocturne into more specific roles?] In the long-term, sure, we'd like to, though that's a little after a few other things. People are also really attached to this admittedly-bad design pattern, and anytime we do something unpopular, we have to weigh the disruption-to-player value ratio. In this case, if we take our time, I think we can get a good balance there.

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-31

That's a live thing we'll have to work on. Jarvan is balanced now, for example, but he's not nearly as fun when balanced because of some of the overload on basic skills. Luckily, we change **** all the time, so we can make adjustments

Originally Posted by Coronach 2012-04-05

And yeah Atreiyu, I can bring up J4's mana issues to live tomorrow. While his costs don't seem out of line, his regen is a bit on the low side.

Originally Posted by Lulu Patch 2012-03-19

[updated]

Originally Posted by ZenonTheStoic 2012-03-23

[link] [quoting Classick re: dodge inconsistencies] "Technically, Ezreal's Q is an autoattack while Shaco Q isn't. There are some inconsistencies with Jax's dodge, which we don't like and want to fix eventually."

Originally Posted by Hecarim Patch 2012-04-17

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 114 2011-03-29

[updated]

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2012-02-06

[link] Karma has been pushed to Doran's Workshop (PTR). Can't wait to try her out in a real game situation.

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2012-02-22

[link] Gotta figure out what to do with Karma. Dat OP silence.

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2012-02-22

[link] I think the new Karma is very fun. She has a knock away on her upgraded Heavenly Wave (like Janna)

Originally Posted by Coronach 2012-03-15

While there are significant under-the-hood tweaks and some mechanical changes, I think current Karma players will still enjoy playing her. Many of the same thought patterns exist, while having a bit more options. Spirit Bond is the only one that I think will feel like a tradeoff instead of a buff. Which even if you don't favor the shift towards support on that spell, it shouldn't really change how you play AP Karma early. Guinsoo is doing a really solid job in trying to keep the parts that work while hitting on a lot of what players have brought up as frustration points on her.

Originally Posted by Coronach 2012-03-15

[re: what are the frustration points?] Just some general problems that immediately jump to mind:

• Rank 6 of spells not feeling impactful
• Confusing use cases for the W
• Mantra effects not feeling ultimate enough
• Ineffectiveness in bottom lane
• Dependency on allies knowledge of Karma (probably the highest burden of knowledge for any lane partner in the game).

I think the W is still the one ability that's not entirely crisp yet, but it is definitely a better support tool with some tweaks to be more forgiving when cast on allies who don't know how to play with Karma.

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2012-04-10

We're trying to improve her viability as a support while keeping her viable as an AP or hybrid champion. In our opinion Karma is both underplayed and underpowered, not just underplayed.

Mostly, she's getting straight buffs. I just saw her beat Garen top on Doran's Workshop so she can't be entirely ruined.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-05-11

For example, Karthus is a top pick/ban in comp play over tanky men, which is indicative that tanky men aren't the only possible option. This is probably much closer now overall.

Originally Posted by Patch 130 2011-11-28

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Ahri Patch 2011-12-13

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Statikk 2011-12-13

The re-cast window [of Riftwalk] is actually 8 seconds which still makes it possible to stack at rank 1, but I agree it does affect the usability in stacking it early on as the window has significantly decreased. Will watch this one closely.

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2012-04-03

Additonally, some of these champions are primarily banned because of the state of the meta. Take Kassadin for example. We don't believe that Kassadin is overpowered, we believe that he will be seen as balanced as the state of the meta evolves over time.

Originally Posted by Patch 130 2011-11-28

[updated]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-11-28

We don't think she's in a good spot, though less far-off than people think. She's on our "wall of projects" as something to fix, but slightly lower priority than both weaker and more outdated champions.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-03

We just discussed this, and I agree [W] is the area to hit.

I want to do a few cool things here. What I'm very against is making her ult any different - the high-risk/high-reward thing is awesome here. The real issue is that her risk doesn't pay off, she can't really -do- anything else.

Making her basic skills more reliable will help this without taking the fun out of her.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-03

Really want to retain the counter-play of her ult so we don't have to take the teeth off it. I think great Katarina players should be mastering this aspect (and compensating for it with things like BV, Black Shield Morg, etc).

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-18

Sure, though I KNOW this is going to come back and bite me. Bookmarking this to reference later :P

I think the problem with Katarina is that when her high-risk/high-reward ult (which is awesome) is shut down, she's just pisses around and doesn't offer much. Her base kit doesn't give her anything to fall on due to W being a modification skill.

I'd like to change W into "Fan of Knives" and let her keep her other stuff, addressing power as needed (like breaking up the power on Killer Instincts and distributing it to the kit as needed). This makes her stay fun, allows her to have a unique role as a massive damage PBAOE character with the tools to support it, and lets her have the ult she does without compromising it.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-20

[re: sad state, needs full rework] We actually agree. Classick and I are talking about the new skills and gameplay patterns we want to explore.
I agree we didn't go all-out here, partially due to some constraints we've solved on resources and organization. Kayle needs an overhaul.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-20

Depends on which direction we go. My goal, though, is to ignore tradition and make Kayle a great character. Adhering to tradition will get you to the types of things we did last time.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-20

The direction was more along these lines. Here's the summarized direction discussion;
Live Bros: "So what should we do with Kayle? She needs a lot of work."*
*Shows awesome splash of Kayle*
Me: "We should make this new champion. She's an awesome angel knight."
So, there's what we're working with right now

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-03-15

Chainsaw to Kayle, and agreed it needs a lot.

I'm done pussyfooting around this champion when we work on her. No mercy for what's there, I want an awesome, Zealous angel champion.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-03-15

[re: time estimate?] Unsure still, behind Stealth, Katarina and Karma at least.

Originally Posted by Hecarim Patch 2012-04-17

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Statikk 2012-04-18

Just want to confirm, this was not the rework.

There are 2 main reasons we did these changes:

1. Her W was underwhelming.

2. She is not inherently a toxic champion to the game's health, so we don't mind making her a viable champion in the mean time since we know Kayle's full rework will be a long-term project.

Originally Posted by Patch 123 2011-08-08

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Brackhar 2011-10-21

Kennen has historically done quite well on [Dominion], particularly when used as a hit and run caster to leverage his mobility and poking.

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Patch 112 2011-03-01

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Coronach 2011-06-09

That's not a bad point. W and E have significant utility built in compared to Q to hopefully offset this imbalance and still provide value in double blinking or double chaining someone. Double blinking rarely is a scenario where the damage matters (chasing people or running away), but the chain may feel bad at lower ranks.

Originally Posted by Coronach 2011-06-09

There is a bit to this paragraph. I don't believe that she has low AP ratios on her base, nor on her ultimate which multiplies those ratios. This may no longer be the case with the direction the live team is pursuing, but I do believe that they are within reason for what we want a burst caster to be.

In my opinion the core issue is something you mention above, in that even the slightest MR has a significant impact on caster damage output. I believe LeBlanc is the prime example of how it has a negative impact on gameplay. The balance between Magic Resistance and Magic Penetration is way off if we want to have MR be as strong of a counter as it is.

The fact that she has to put herself in harm's way is deliberate. A character with the amount of CC and mobility would be incredibly frustrating to fight against if she wasn't constantly drawn back into range for counter-gameplay. Sigil of Silence, Distortion, and Ethereal Chains all have aspects of them to keep her in check. I'd hope that this creates more compelling moment to moment gameplay knowing that you're not completely safe. I don't think we want to break this pattern and introduce significant frustration for her to be viable in high level play.

Ultimately, I believe the right fixes for LeBlanc reside outside of character design.

Originally Posted by Coronach 2011-06-09

[Mimic determination] should be on spell cast. I'll look into this for the next patch.

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-08-01

She sort of has a binary nature by design... she's a single target caster-assassin.

We're trying to just normalize it a bit, but it will hard for her to fit a role competitively.

As for timeframe, I worked on it a little today. Classick had some suggestions of reducing her base damages slightly, increasing the APR slightly and giving her a percent magic pen passive on her ulti.

Originally Posted by Statikk 2011-09-24

Shurelia did research on LeBlanc and as a team we decided it is okay to have a champion with her power level curve (extremely strong early and mid but tapers off late). Unless the community really wants us to homogenize her power curve we have no immediate changes for LeBlanc. Strictly buffing her late game in her current state would make her OP.

Originally Posted by DarkShurelia 2011-09-26

I've actually been researching LeBlanc a lot and playing her. (We're talking about me playing AP LeBlanc for all you haters out there, inb4 "but you play AD leblanc")

I originally wanted to change her early game to be a little weaker, and increase her late game power through passive magical penetration on her ultimate. However, after playing several games I doubled back on my thoughts and decided that she was relatively "ok as is".

Now before you flame me, here is the reason why:

I wanted to keep her as an early game powerhouse because I think it is a very fun reverse power curve in relation to some of our other casters who are more linear and "normal". I feel like LeBlanc would be a pick for people who want that early buy in, at the cost for a much more difficult late game in which she transitions to a more "supportive/cc off dps" role.

There are a lot of casters that fulfill the "standard caster role", but I think LeBlanc is definitely unique and I wouldn't want to kill that.

I think any changes that could be made to her would involve minor QoL tweaks such as slightly less cooldown on chains and her dash, and perhaps slightly lower costs.

How do you guys feel about that?

Originally Posted by DarkShurelia 2011-09-26

You see the thing is.... you can't really buff her late game to be on par with other casters when her early game is so strong. You would need to reduce the power of her early game in order to increase the power of her late game... which would drastically shift the play style and feel of the character.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-11-30

I want to fix Karma. LeBlanc and Karma are two that we had problems with and didn't know how to do those designs correctly. We're going to go fix some of those older champs (live team's new big goals is cleaning up underused champions, or sub-par kits). They'll be the same core idea, but with stronger direction.

Originally Posted by Classick 2012-01-27

You're pretty close, the nerfs are fairly minimal. We like the fact that Lee Sin is a high skill cap champion with a high reward when you execute on his abilities. It's just currently we think you are rewarded slightly too much, which is why the nerf is minimal.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-27

Lee Sin was stronger, comparatively, in the old jungle than he is the new. He's been dominant in both, so we did some minor nerfs.

This really isn't as much of a death knell as people make it out to be, Lee Sin is just really popular, so he's getting a lot of attention when we nerf him.

Originally Posted by Ziggs Patch 2012-01-31

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-01

Man, that still-really-good Lee Sin being nerfed was rough.

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[accidentally nerfed]

Originally Posted by Minor Patch Notes 2012-02-21

[accidental changes reverted]

Originally Posted by Patch 123 2011-08-08

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-08-09

This is mostly it. If we ever move away from the support/carry bottom lanes and see other roles there, she'll be good. She has all the tools, but every meta isn't for all characters.

Originally Posted by Statikk 2011-09-24

Power-wise we feel Leona is okay. With the nerf of the sustain lanes, players are starting to understand she can be played as a strong duo laner bot and I have heard of some success as her solo top (ask Shurelia >.>).

Shurelia was working on some usability tweaks for Leona such as her W having less build up time but nothing is concrete yet.

Originally Posted by Volty 2011-09-24

First off, thank you for your commentary and suggestions Dimise. I wanted to reply your ideas because I think they're good ideas but I have some issues with both points.

One reason to not do part 2 above is that Leona would want her stacks to stay up on her target to boost her own damage, but her allies would often be taking them away. This would probably be frustrating for the Leona player, since you can't control how quickly your allies are snatching up the charges.

Part 1 is, by itself, still an interesting change, but I'm hesitant to do it because as it plays on live Leona has an incentive to weave her attacks with an ally. That's pretty advanced play, but I'm happy that this opportunity exists right now, even if a lot of the time it can be difficult to weave so precisely. Letting sunlight stack up does make it easier to ensure that charges aren't wasted though, which reduces the variance in the skill, generally a good thing. Which is more important to you in this particular case? Opportunities for high-skill play or consistent results?

Originally Posted by Volty 2011-09-24

I'm really a fan of letting melee swings lower Q's cooldown. (Played Skarner yet?) But I worry if that could create the wrong item incentive for Leona: attack speed.

Originally Posted by Volty 2011-09-24

We have discussed letting stun duration on, say, Q scale with AP or maybe Armor/MR as a means of giving her late-game scaling. If it went from 1 second to say, 1.75 seconds depending on either AP or the sum of Armor and MR, would that be interesting? Balance might have to be compensated for elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-11-30

[re: failed experiment heroes] Leona is in that batch? Reaaaaally? Leona's great dude.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-08

I think Leona's in a pretty decent spot. She's very functional in a bottom lane setup, and I don't see the need to give her the added power to allow her to jungle. Furthermore, to do so may compromise what's currently fun about Leona to balance her in this new role - something I think would be a net loss for Leona players.

It's something we talk about regularly, but right now we're not really looking at making changes here.

Originally Posted by Classick 2012-04-11

Lulu is pretty powerful at the moment I agree, we generally think that her Q+passive poke is pretty difficult to deal with in the solo lanes. More than likely we'll be looking at taking action in that area but we want to be sensitive to the fact that she can play as a solo mage or support. That's a cool thing that we don't want to take away!

Originally Posted by Statikk 2012-04-17

We are generally in agreement that solo lane AP Lulu is a bit over the top right now, on the other hand we like how she is playing as a bottom lane support.

We're just being careful to make sure we are hitting the exact things that are making AP Lulu too strong while leaving Support Lulu's feel and power intact.

Originally Posted by Ahri Patch 2011-12-13

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Fiora Patch 2012-02-29

[updated]

Originally Posted by RiotStatikk 2011-07-09

We actually plan on giving Malphite some small buffs that increase his jungle speed and sustained teamfight damage so he is in general a stronger ramping threat like many other tanks/fighters.

We are also experimenting with a new addition to his ultimate, but it's risky and we may have to pull it after internal testing. Haven't had much time to test it due to all the craziness associated with the current patch.

In general, we don't feel that Malphite is too far off. Just want to make sure he's still fun to play.

Originally Posted by Patch 123 2011-08-08

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 126 2011-10-05

[updated]

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Fiora Patch 2012-02-29

[buffed]

Originally Posted by RiotStatikk 2011-05-05

Malzahar is indeed perceived as "not-so-great" in most tiers of play (due to difficulty of play and reliance on farm) but he is actually considered god tier in competitive play (ask any top tier player especially in EU). The reason he only sees "some" competitive play is because he is banned in 99% of those games. The only time I've seen Malzahar been able to be picked is when Reginald and Team Solo Mid manage to get him in the draft against other not-as-high tier NA teams.

We are not remaking Malzahar at all. We are really just aiming to tweak some of his high end extremes (which should only mainly affect high tier play) and make his damage output more consistent between different tiers of play. This mainly has to do with the insane potential damage Null Zone can do combined with Nether Grasp and other coordinated CCs. The amount of damage Malzahar can do is pretty absurd in a skilled and coordinated environment, I can math it out if you like but I'm sure you can come up with the numbers yourselves. It is a normal thing for Malzahar late game to kill enemy champions with Null Zone (W) + Nether Grasp (R) alone. To me that's unacceptable.

[..]

TL;DR
Alistar and Malzahar are considered top tier picks in competitive play but "trash" in other tiers due to their reliance on farm and/or teamwork. We are not remaking Malzahar but we do intend to tweak his high end numbers and make him overall more consistent in his damage output.

Originally Posted by Patch 120 2011-06-22

[updated]

Originally Posted by Patch 122 2011-07-26

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2011-07-20

[link] Master Yi is hard to balance because he snowballs very hard with high stats and the cool down reset on his ultimate. We'd like to make him better for pro games but it would be hard without making him dominate the newer players.

Originally Posted by Patch 123 2011-08-08

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2011-12-13

[link] Master Yi's Meditate is granting too much Ability Power ratio. What do? Don't really want to nerf AP Yi. Leave it I think.

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2012-01-21

[re: rework/change?] There are no plans for it now. Though I would like to see us remove the randomness from Alpha Strike, and simply make it do massive bonus damage to minions. That would help him have a more consistent game, get more gold, and snowball like we all know he wants to.

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Ahri Patch 2011-12-13

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-31

This is true - she's not weak, it's just hard to compete with Graves/Vayne/Cait because of their great threat/lane control (as appropriate). MF actually has really solid overall damage, but I still think we have a few that are too strong.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-05

[The indirect nerfs are] actually calculated in the buffs. Our last change wasn't a full reversion (we did some reversions, some partials) - the Hextech hits his late game a lot, but the initial nerfs were aimed at lane power. We want to maintain some of the changes there - we'll definitely evaluate the effect of this after they come out.

Originally Posted by Ahri Patch 2011-12-13

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-14

Just because we didn't do the exact change suggested, I don't think that means "buffs didn't do anything."

This is a decent buff to his laning, and it was never our intention to revive old Mordekaiser. We reverted one of the nerfs, and then went to a mid point on the shield. The damage on E is not insignificant here, especially for his own harass.

Does this make Morde perfect? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not convinced he needs more after one day of looking at it, and while that could be the case, this seems to be an expectations issue informing this thread.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-15

We didn't want to [adjust health costs] this patch since it does give him some more attrition, but with the shield like this, I'm still open to this idea. I think the scaling-per-rank is the most suspect thing here (costing more health when you rank is the strange bit).

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-15

When Morde was extremely strong, he had these health costs. There's no evidence to point that out as a single point of failure that prevents the character from being successful (in fact, what I just said is counter to that) but more how the costs play vs the other things he has.

Originally Posted by Patch 126 2011-10-05

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-05

[re: being better than average is not enough for a nerf] Especially if there's counters, I agree. This is why we don't mess with Morgana despite her high ban rate (send Talon in that lane and watch the fireworks...). Meta can change power of champions, and if alternate strategies and other options are available, we're fine with champions being considered better or stronger for awhile.

Originally Posted by Ziggs Patch 2012-01-31

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Patch 123 2011-08-08

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Statikk 2011-09-19

Yes, Nasus is an extremely powerful champion right now. The competitive scene especially in EU is starting to catch on to this and I believe Hotshot is finally starting to bring him into CLG's tournament games. If you do not shut down Nasus' farm in lane or you happen to let the game simply go on for too long, you're in for a lot of trouble.

Originally Posted by Statikk 2011-09-24

When I was working on Nasus, I had Dominion in mind, but we could not reach a solution that would satisfy our goals for making him good on Dominion without angering the current SR Nasus players.

Nasus is an extremely viable pick right now on SR even in the competitive scene.

If we are to do any changes to Nasus soon, we will probably lower the Q on-kill mechanic but raise Q's base damage in return.

Originally Posted by ArvX 2011-11-21

[link] [From a non-Rioter report of a chat with the Rioter Classick:]
No changes he knows of coming down the pipeline, they toyed with changes for a while then let [Nasus] be.

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[released]

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-03-04

This kind of feedback has been on my eyes for a while - I'll have to see where it goes. Generally speaking, the play pattern I would like to encourage is for people to hold a nuke for when his shield goes active to burn it down and deny him that damage contribution in a fight.

It's definitely something Live is watching overall as to his CC/Damage/Survivability ratios - We tried to control this early by making his base defensive stats fairly poor without items and giving him one of the weaker forms of mitigation (Some of the lowest AR/HP gains in his class, for example - with one of the longest shield CD's ever) - but it's definitely on watch for us as to his power level.

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-03-30

In general, I think Nautilus is in a fairly okay state - while there may be some slight annoyances or imbalances, I think overall he's turned out very close to where he needed to be in order to be balanced.

Coronach has expressed a slight annoyances at point-blank R's having the capacity to miss and I wish we had somewhat better terrain checking for his Q. Dominion towers count as fake terrain. :/

Hm.. actually now that I think about it, his 'E' might actually be harder to land multiple hits if their hitbox is wide enough... I'll take a look at it when I have time.

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2011-08-24

Having said all this, I think we're definitely open to giving Nidalee a little more armor and magic resist in cougar form. We've also experimented with giving her Spell Vamp and I rather liked that solution except the problem was it worked with Javelins and Bushwhack traps.

Originally Posted by Patch 125 2011-09-13

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-09-17

Jarvan, Nocturne and Irelia are the three that have some of this [utility/power overload] pattern. [..] Nocturne would be more OK if an assassin as intended, but the amount of free stats granted there pushed him into a fighter role, and therein lies the problem (though the shield + fear combination makes counter-play largely non-existent).

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-11-30

Using the overload specifically as a lesson (actually, Nocturne's ult is a stroke of genius by Ezreal), not sure on the future here. I'd love to replace a mechanic on Nocturne and push him into balls-out assassin.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-05

[re: push Jarvan/Irelia/Nocturne into more specific roles?] In the long-term, sure, we'd like to, though that's a little after a few other things. People are also really attached to this admittedly-bad design pattern, and anytime we do something unpopular, we have to weigh the disruption-to-player value ratio. In this case, if we take our time, I think we can get a good balance there.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-27

That's the idea, though this is a slower burn because you don't want to flip the game on on its head in a single patch. Slowly, characters who are too flat will likely get a mechanic or stat removed and then a buff on their powerful aspect (or, if they're too powerful, just a nerf). An example would be removing some of the mechanical overload on Nocturne's basic abilities, but giving him more damage or more power on his ult instead.

Originally Posted by Patch 125 2011-09-13

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 128 2011-11-01

[updated]

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Fiora Patch 2012-02-29

[updated]

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2011-11-06

You've basically raised the concern that throughout the buffs and nerfs, the intent behind the skill was lost somewhere - That's actually kind of a cool realization - I'll talk to live about that.

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-11-30

Orianna's more in the realm of what I'd consider OK [in terms of optimized nuance] - she makes sense, but is pretty tough to get "down."

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-01-31

Orianna right now might be a little weak in most player's hands, but there's some UI things that are coming in 2 or 3 patches from now that will help players out. We have someone working on improved targetting UI for more complex skillshots and such, so you can get a much better feel for where the ball is and such.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-31

I think the zoning potential of Orianna getting hit made her more manageable to play against, but also took the edge off her. I'd like to get back to this again, though I think with her different play pattern, some of the concerns you bring up are fine (WotA not being as good on her is not a problem, imo).

I don't think she's trash, but I do think you have to work pretty hard to not get something special out of her currently, where this is not true with other mage pics that are more sideways-comparable (Casseopia, Anivia). This is something we'll be trying to solve, though timeframe is not set there...a lot of that depends on how effective our initial set of changes are.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-01

Yeah, she's a strange character so her balance is a bit more sensitive than others. I do think she needs a little more oomph to get back into a position where she can be a threat, but she needs to have some additional downside so she can be dealt with in lane.

Originally Posted by Hecarim Patch 2012-04-17

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 123 2011-08-08

[reworked]

Originally Posted by Ahri Patch 2011-12-13

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 120 2011-06-22

[updated]

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2011-08-07

Yes, we are starting to become worried about Poppy's power level as she generally one shots people when fed.

Originally Posted by RiotStatikk 2011-08-12

Poppy's late game burst damage is really out of line at the moment, but she can easily get shut down by a strong opposing lane. We're looking to normalize these a bit by strengthening her early game but weakening her late game.

Poppy from the outset was designed as a tank/fighter but is currently optimally used as (in my opinion) the strongest burst caster in the game if played well. We're looking to address this by pushing more of her output into sustained damage rather than upfront burst. This change is less about "removing" her AP build and rather more about pushing forward her AD/Tank build.

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2011-09-18

1) We feel that Poppy has always been generally problematic creates a few pain points for the game. There aren't any real new changes.
2) We are not changing Poppy because of Dominion, Dominion has simply put her a bit more in the limelight.
3) We are not looking to nerf poppy, simply to get her into a better place for the health of the game.

Originally Posted by Statikk 2011-09-24

We plan to do tweaks to Poppy as announced before. We want to up her laning phase and sustained damage but also lower her late game burst potential. This was being worked on by Classick but has now been handed off to a designer you guys have never had the pleasure of meeting yet. Not a rework.

Originally Posted by FeralPony 2012-01-21

[link] Yeah there are some Poppy changes being looked at, I was working on a couple for a little while, but I'll have to sync up with Live Team to see if they have any current plans for her. There are a couple of core design issues with Poppy but my focus was more on toning her down a bit on Dominion and helping her out on SR.

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Lulu Patch 2012-03-19

[updated]

Originally Posted by Patch 115 2011-04-12

[updated]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-07-25

[link] I wonder how much it's J4 and Irelia...though I think we need to take a look at Renekton. I'll bring this up with the team this week.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-08-10

I think after the tanky DPS meta, we've been cautious on Tanky DPS balance, but I agree Renekton can probably use some love. I'll bring this up with live team for a future patch (not the next one, for a number of reasons )

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-01

Renekton could use some help - though I may want to go slightly crazier and give him bigger moments based on Fury. I think it's a little "flat" right no, so we could definitely do some things here.

Originally Posted by Patch 127 2011-10-19

[updated]

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Patch 121 2011-07-08

[updated]

Originally Posted by Patch 121 2011-07-08

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-08-10

[re: add mana scaling to E?] Haven't really put this on the table lately, but could bring it up to the team. Seems reasonable.

Originally Posted by Statikk 2011-09-24

He's really strong right now though his ultimate is currently very lackluster to use. I would like to see AP be an attractive stat on him again, but we have no immediate plans for Ryze.

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Hecarim Patch 2012-04-17

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-05-25

[re: affected by stealth rework?] Only in the Oracle's interaction. No changes slated (currently!) here.

Originally Posted by Riven Patch Notes 2011-09-13

We plan more Box AI improvements in the future!

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-10-21

The unfortunate thing about game development is that it's essentially an industry of juggling priorities. There's no rational human being who would claim the clone -should- work like it does, it just does because we have extremely limited pet technology currently. It's why we don't have an actual pet champion, and why Shaco's clone suffers from especially heinous usability issues. Hell, this hurt on on some LeBlanc ideas we had originally, too.

The fix for this is extremely difficult to prioritize compared to what other major bugs we can fix in that time - and those fixes that effect more players more often. Will we fix this? I'm sure. Will we prioritize it over everything else our live bug guys are working on? Probably not right now, due to the issue of time consumed vs. gains for LoL players.

This is a hard truth to hear, but we always want to do tons of things at a time, and have to choose the most important, or less important ones that can be done quickly. This sits in that "hard, and not as important" bucket currently. =/

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2012-01-21

[re: box nests] We're looking into it.

Originally Posted by Lulu Patch 2012-03-19

[updated]

Originally Posted by Minor Patch Notes 2012-02-21

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Lulu Patch 2012-03-19

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Lulu Patch 2012-03-19

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Patch 126 2011-10-05

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Ahri Patch 2011-12-13

[updated]

Originally Posted by Ziggs Patch 2012-01-31

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-12-05

Skarner's 6 gank is strong, true. It's a little less reliable [than Warwick's] due to no blink, but not by much.

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[updated]

Originally Posted by Classick 2012-01-16

One thing to keep in mind here guys, Skarner was released before the new jungle. So while it may seem like he's being reverted to when he was "bad" he did not have the new jungle then which he is significantly stronger in. So previously he had some mana problems yes, but now it's not such a problem in the new jungle.

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Lulu Patch 2012-03-19

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-09

[link] If something is nerfed a lot, but is still a really strong pick, that means it's not overnerfed

Soraka's there right now, and if all she has to offer, currently, is unlimited mana, then we can rebuff to compensate once we allow her to run out of gas in lane.

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[updated]

Originally Posted by Patch 122 2011-07-26

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Statikk 2011-09-24

Swain is actually still a very strong champion. If you watch streams you will see top players such as Voyboy and Shushei playing him. Classick also plays a very strong Swain internally. Our only concern with Swain right now is that he is hard-countered by Ignite, but that is a higher level system issue that concerns more than just Swain. We don't have plans to change Swain in the immediate future.

Originally Posted by Hecarim Patch 2012-04-17

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-10-27

Still a bit too strong in lane. Rake damage too high/cost too low/CD too low. Changing one of those will put him in a good place.

Originally Posted by Patch 128 2011-11-01

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-11-30

I really like Talon - he's clean, fun, and has clear weaknesses. I don't mind less crazy kits, but I like clear disadvantages.

Originally Posted by Patch 126 2011-10-05

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 130 2011-11-28

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Fiora Patch 2012-02-29

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Hecarim Patch 2012-04-17

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-07-02

I still maintain that Trist and MF would be a good pick in the absence of Corki's current power level.

Originally Posted by RiotStatikk 2011-08-14

I'm of the opinion [Caitlyn] is also currently the strongest AD champion, but not to the point where she rules out other picks (not to say this is the entire balance team's opinion -- Classick actually believes Trist to be the strongest).

Originally Posted by Patch 129 2011-11-15

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Fiora Patch 2012-02-29

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2011-03-10

We considered Trundle buffs, but then when we started playing him he started rolling us in internal tests. I believe he is just underutilized and thus people don't appreciate his power.

Originally Posted by Volibear Patch 2011-11-28

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-29

Basically, the crux of this issue is that AP Trynd was something you used to enjoy and is no longer viable. If extrapolated out, you'd also say you wish there were more weird off-builds for champions that were also good.

Overall, that makes plenty of sense and I wouldn't disagree.

I don't like removing stuff like this (as it does remove fun, in cases like this), but sometimes you have to in order to make a character overall more viable and still be fun. The changes to Tryndamere have clearly made him better in his classic AD role, and the cost was his AP role. Sometimes, we have to weigh costs-vs-benefits and understand the big picture, and sometimes a subset of players can feel the cost more heavily than others (AP Trynd, for example).

It doesn't mean we can't mess with it a little to get some of that feel back, but with Fury working the way it does, it'll never be what it used to. These are the tough kinds of decisions we have to make sometimes for the entire game, and while we'd obviously like to only make players more happy, very little is free in terms of improving the game overall.

Originally Posted by Ahri Patch 2011-12-13

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 109 2011-01-18

[updated]

Originally Posted by Xypherous & Shurelia 2011-07-12

[Many red posts throughout the thread, omitted here due to size. For full content, look through the thread or refer to http://www.leagueofreplays.com/redpo...ostid=11317983 or http://clgaming.net/redtracker/topic/8921]

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-28

I can give a breakdown of the changes. [Content omitted due to size. Follow link for full content.]

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-28

Anytime you attack or cast it will break the passive for a few seconds.

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-28

Yes [the new E] is a skillshot. It is similar to Caitlyn's skill shot except it passes through units, has no windup time, but is narrower. It also doesn't deal bonus damage (right now).

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-28

[re: total poison damage up or down?] Reduced in total.

Oh I forgot to mention that expunge no longer consumes the poison.

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-28

[re: expunge still based on poison stacks?] Yes.

Originally Posted by Shurelia 2011-07-29

[re: E] Cannot hit towers.

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2011-10-03

We are actively working on the stealth rework. EpicWall is the owner, but I am also working a lot on it.

Right now we are scaling Twitch back - at this very moment we're testing him out with exactly his old kit (including unlimited, tracking but still passthrough missiles for Spray & Pray) with the remade Stealth. We will adjust him as needed from here. But so far people are enjoying him a lot. However I make no promises as some people did like his remade kit, too. We'll see how it tests with further feedback.

We will be getting more widespread (PTR) feedback soon. You guys may not have heard but we have a functioning Test Realm again. In fact, we are doing our Live Design daily playtests out of PTR, meaning we actually can play with players to test these remakes and system changes. It's pretty **** exciting.

Also Twitch is making a bit of a comeback on live anyhow... he's definitely not trash tier like people think he is.

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2011-10-03

Well, the most widely fun part that people liked seemed to be the new line missile attack, and I'd say that's probably what we might be most likely to add back in. The part that got the most negative/controversial feedback was moving Expunge to the ult, so resetting to the previous kit and moving forward from there seemed to make the most sense. There also was a strong movement suggesting that Twitch has one of the more interesting, nuanced, deep kits and that must be taken into account. I think there were definitely favorable aspects that we can draw from, however.

Also, the most IMPORTANT part of the remake (that she worked on) was the Stealth mechanic itself, which we are not abandoning.

Originally Posted by Guinsoo 2011-10-03

How would you guys feel about it if he had some sort of adaptation of ammo missiles on his ultimate slot, and kept his Debilitating Poison and Expunge mostly the same?

The biggest feedback I'm hearing is that you want a 'cooler' or even better or more intuitive targeting solution for his Spray and Pray, but I don't think we're too far off with the two perspectives. I think the ultimate is mostly where the work needs to be done.

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-01-31

[re: stealth remake]

Very Quick Summary Version
Twitch needs work.

Wards needs work.

I'm not actually allowed to work on it with a 10 foot pole after I finished the basic mechanics - and I can't get on live to shepherd the process - so... yeah.

Although, the rework is on PTR at the moment I believe.

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-01-31

Honestly, I have no idea - All I know was that the paradigm we tried of Spray and Pray being a basic ability with ammo fell pretty flat.

Originally Posted by Phreak 2012-02-16

[link As we get closer to [the stealth rework] being ready, we will definitely provide more details. All I can say right now is that it is actively being worked on by our live design team.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-18

Stealth (Eve and Twitch reworks, essentially) is being worked on as the primary task for both Statikk and Classick.

Originally Posted by Ahri Patch 2011-12-13

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Statikk 2012-01-29

I agree with you, removing Dodge on Udyr's passive without compensating with something interesting to take its place was not ideal. His passive definitely lost some of its flavor.

We tested different replacements such as Armor and flat Movement Speed, but at the end of the day he didn't need it and it would have put him over the top.

Originally Posted by Patch 114 2011-03-29

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2011-07-15

Yes, we have our newest live designer working on Urgot right now. We mandated that Urgot become less frustrating to fight against!!! Though that will come with an associated suite of buffs. We also found that he had a number of feel issues which I would like to see fixed up.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-11-30

[re: Urgot and Karma subpar?] Design-wise? Yes. Do people have some fun with them? Yes.

Originally Posted by Zileas 2012-01-31

There's a fair amount of this. One thing we are seeing more of with so many people playing LoL worldwide is more cases where a champion like Urgot is found to be a plausible tier 1 pick in one area of the world, while no one else has caught on. Sometimes this is because the metagame slightly favors one character over another in an area, other times its' because no expert ever fell in love with the character and tried to master them.

Urgot is probably an example of one of those. I tend to think he's balanced, and not OP, but it's really hard to know until the experts kick the tires for a while. I seem to recall that Urgot was popular amongst some pros in one of the Asian environments a month or two ago, but I could be mistaken.

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-16

Vayne has been the dominant carry consistently for a long time - this is obvious. Her power is disallowing most other carries to even come into play right now.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-16

This is just a poor analysis of the situation. Vayne has a ton of tools to escape/chase, great burst, and strong steroids. Vayne has a multitude of strengths that are typically unavailable to ranged carries.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-16

And she tears up other carries in raw damage, but doesn't have enough heavy disadvantages to pay for that strength (where, say, Kog does).

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-01-31

This is true - [Miss Fortune's] not weak, it's just hard to compete with Graves/Vayne/Cait because of their great threat/lane control (as appropriate). MF actually has really solid overall damage, but I still think we have a few that are too strong.

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-11-30

[re: what Veigar remake?] Something we're passively poking at. No concrete plans.

Originally Posted by Classick 2011-12-05

Veigar is getting playability changes next patch so we'll have to see how he is after that and go from there .

Originally Posted by Ahri Patch 2011-12-13

[updated]

Originally Posted by Ziegler 2012-03-06

Hey guys! I meant to reply to this, but I got super busy with some work. Thanks for all the feedback. I like a lot of the ideas here, and I'm actually quite in awe of the conviction you guys have towards making Viktor closer to the machine awesome that he is. We'll be looking into upgrades in his next tier augments in the coming future (Statikk and I have already started talking about this quite a bit), and will leverage a lot of this feedback to gauge if we're heading in the right direction.

The main areas we're looking to tackle, are as you guys have noted in this thread:
-- How to make choosing augments more effectively tackle choice in playstyle
-- Maintaining a sense of balance to Viktor, in the sense that we want to make sure that he's balance-able with specialized items.
-- Make item purchase choice and upgrade feel impactful, in the sense of "are you getting your gold/item slot's worth?"
-- Scaling Viktor into the late game more elegantly.
-- Making Viktor generally more usable, while keeping his skill ceiling high.

Thanks again for all the feedback, and as usual, keep it coming!! You guys rock.

Originally Posted by Lulu Patch 2012-03-19

[updated]

Originally Posted by Coronach 2012-04-05

What issues do you see on Viktor aside from the Q you mentioned? I'd like to see us tweak his augments to be a bit more meaningful and track down some inconsistencies with the E laser applying at the source, but overall he feels really powerful and underrated atm to me.

Originally Posted by Coronach 2012-04-05

Yeah, I think you're hitting a core issue (pun intended). He's not really a burst caster, but if you don't think the shield is effective enough for protection, then it should feel like you can improve your survivability through the Q augment. That survivability is what should enable his R to be able to deal it's full effect. While the E remains vector targeted it will likely have some of that difficulty to use within team fights. As for removing a slot to use the core, it's possible we could investigate other alternatives later in the future. I'd like to see us giving it a shot though where each augment feels powerful, before moving in a more drastic direction.

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[updated]

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Sejuani Patch 2012-01-16

[updated]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-02-03

Mostly [through changes] in his early damage, so while still a slower-than-AOE jungler, not criminally slow like now (kill creeps faster via damage).

We're not doing massive overhauls or reworks here, just balance updates with this goal in mind.

Originally Posted by Nautilus Patch 2012-02-14

[updated]

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2012-03-14

[re: single target junglers] Well, if they are underpowered then we will look at them. I believe we are working on Warwick now.

Originally Posted by Patch 128 2011-11-01

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Patch 126 2011-10-05

[released]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-10-27

While this is a little "doomsday" in the problems you speak about, I think there's a few takeaways we're looking to change:

* Passive: Xerath doesn't actually need this passive, and instead should focus on one that emphasizes ranged play. We'll be making this change in the next couple patches.

* Seige Mode: Should not lock you down - that's an unusable character in LoL. Using it to pulse one long-range spell or to set up for a longer barrage is fine. It gives it multiple ways to use it, which I'm fine with.

* Stun: If we do remove the passive, he'll never survive a real teamfight without this. Mages need CC and/or mobility to function. If we remove the free tankiness, this will apply even more.

I appreciate the feedback (always!), but I'm generally happy with Xerath's design other than his passive, which we're going to change. I think the difference between "man, I wish this were better" and "THIS IS THE WORST WTFFFF" is pretty wide

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-20

[re: passive change scrapped due to gameplay issues] This - we liked the idea, but in practice it was insane if we ever made the number meaningful.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-04-20

[re: meh passive] That's our thought too. We'll likely poke at it as opportunity arises, but we'd rather focus live's efforts on Karma, Stealth and general balance for right now.

Originally Posted by Ahri Patch 2011-12-13

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-03-15

Xin's a good candidate for a bit of skill rework (not total kit, since he's fun and with adjustments, could be made to be good), but he's in that old Tryndamere spot - specifically if he's good, he's too good, and if he's not too good, he's not usable.

A few primary problems with Xin's kit from a high level:

* "Flatness" syndrome. Since Xin was created when we were in "holy **** how do we make melee effective" stage, he has a little of everything, sort of like Irelia does. This creates an experience of things being very muddy and getting a bit of power from a lot of sources, making balancing more difficult

* CC Potential: Xin's CC scaling is pretty insane when he hits critical mass, which greats a situation where his damage/CC/durability ratios are spread out, and making any of the others good results in a problem.

* Lack of Counterplay: This is my biggest issue with Xin. His suite of abilities don't leave much room for back and forth, or smart counter-play. This puts him in a state of "Yi balance" where you either kill him, or he kills you without recourse. That, added with the Flatness effect, creates a difficult champion to balance for high-level play without having him be a steamroller in non-professional games.

Classick and I have talked about this one and agree something should happen here, but it is lower priority than champions who've needed the work longer, or need it more (Eve, Katarina, etc). Though I agree with you that this is something we should address.

Originally Posted by Morello 2012-03-15

Your comparison isn't accurate - you're comparing, in many cases, champions dedicated to the mechanic you're using as an example. IE: Of course Shen, as a Tank, has a stronger CC skill than Xin (which late game, that's even debatable). This is the exact problem with Xin - he does everything, and as soon as he does any of it well, he's crazy. And with these mechanics, if he's not crazy, he's weak.

As I said before, it's going to take some skill reworking to allow us to buff Xin into a place where he can be balanced, and not just pubstompy or overpowered. And given the choice between Xin being too good and removing the ability to play any other fighter, and having him not be competitively viable, the latter is better overall for the game until he can have his work done.

There's a lot to do, and we have to prioritize what we work on. Xin's on there, just not quite yet.

Originally Posted by Geeves 2012-04-05

He seems a bit weak atm. We're looking at either buffs or quality of life improvements on him.

Originally Posted by Solcrushed 2012-04-12

Hi guys, thanks for the overwhelming responses. They have been very helpful (notice I did not say 'all'..... jk.) While I will not be able to respond to individual suggestions I will be reading them all so keep the constructive posts coming.

I will obviously not be implementing all or even most of the ideas here but they help me formulate a vision of what people want for Xin and how I can change him toward that direction.

Originally Posted by Solcrushed 2012-04-15

Xin is still in the iteration phase and unless I want to start going "Hi GUISE I gave Xin all AP scaling cause I wanted to hear everyone facepalm" "On second thought cancel that" in the thread I won't really be able to inform you about it until he reaches a stable point.

All I CAN say at this point is that he will probably lose something to gain something else. (I am so informative)

I'll be sure to tell you guys when I have more confidence in how he will end up looking like so keep the faith!

Originally Posted by Patch 123 2011-08-08

[buffed]

Originally Posted by Ezreal 2011-10-30

Yorick's a toughie, we want to make larger changes to him in order to fix his overall kit...but those changes would take a serious amount of time. I believe he will have to sit on the backburner for now.

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2011-11-06

[re: Orianna changes] Let me state my opinion on this very clearly: Someone's major strength being only that you can completely zone someone else out will never be an acceptable power for someone to have.

Yes, Yorick, I know - but we're looking at that.

Originally Posted by Coronach 2012-02-13

Agreed on Yorick needing some work. Xypherous has put some time into him, and I'm looking to take over that work in progress. We think he can be more fun to play as and way more fun to play against.

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-02-15

I'm experimenting with some multi-minion AI models that Coronach didn't have time to do when he was working on Yorick and then passing that research off when things are more settled.

Yorick right now has some pretty crazy self-sustain in lane but has poor chasing ability and a somewhat confusing mixed ranged/melee playstyle that is hard to get into - The goal is to get him to flow better into attacking alongside his ghouls, rather than treating ghouls as ranged spell nukes that summon minions.

It's a slow burning research project at the moment - due to tinkering with AI models and stuff - some interesting stuff has fallen out of it though.

Originally Posted by Xypherous 2012-02-15

The aim would be to give Yorick more control over his ghouls and actually feel like they are fighting or protecting you.

For example, a simple change you can do to minions is making sure that the spectral ghoul always attempts to attacks what you attack and it attacks in rhythm with your attack, or you could try shifting movement speeds so that when Yorick is farther away from his ghouls, they run faster to "catch up", for example - Just stuff like that.

Originally Posted by Coronach 2012-02-15

Playing as: Yorick's ghouls don't feel cool. in an effort to make him not feel like a SC Carrier (float around while ghouls do the work), we pushed them too far so the ghouls don't feel important. The middle ground is when you feel like you're fighting with your ghouls.

Playing against: Killing the ghouls does not offer sufficient reward/counter-play due to the point above.

For example, imagine if Omen of Famine's ghoul would start out small while summoned and each time it hit an enemy grew larger and larger. You could click E to consume the ghoul to heal based on how large it's grown at the cost of losing it's damage output. The CD of the spell is modified to trigger after the ghoul is consumed.

(For this thought experiment: Consider Yorick's passive changed from damage reduction per ghoul active to gaining a property of each ghoul that is active. In this example, Yorick has 10% lifesteal while the Ravenous Ghoul is active)

In my mind this presents better gameplay than what is currently on live because the opponent has the opportunity to:

1. Remove the lifesteal effect from Yorick
2. Reduce the damage output for a guaranteed amount of time
3. Directly reduce the burst healing by killing the ghoul before it can grow to the maximum size.

Meanwhile, I think this is more fun for Yorick because:

1. Your ghoul has more personality (through the visceral nature of it's size corresponding to heal potency).
2. We could remove the 5 second lifetime of the ghouls which make them feel transitory and not worth your attention after casting.
3. His passive creates more gameplay and decision making.

I really feel like we missed an opportunity at a much cooler character here. Xypherous' string of characters is cooling down soon, and my work on Co-Op finishing up (BuffMePlz will continue to kick ass on that feature), so I hope we can realize it.

Originally Posted by Coronach 2012-02-16

I appreciate your point of view NessOnett. I definitely don't want him to feel like like a fragile necromancer casting pets. The vision that I'd like to realize is what if you combined Diablo 2 Necromancer pets on a Death Knight. Yorick should feel like a burly tanky DPS character. You should want to kill his pets, not just because of what the pets do, but what effect they're giving Yorick.

I can promise you that our desire to work on Yorick is not out of a desire to improve played numbers, drive skin sales, or anything on the business end. From a company perspective, it would be better for my time to be spent developing new characters than revisiting old ones. I really hope current Yorick players like the changes more than anyone - cleaner mechanics with more depth, choice, and strategy.

Originally Posted by Fiora Patch 2012-02-29

[nerfed]

Originally Posted by Patch 113 2011-03-15

[updated]

Originally Posted by Morello 2011-04-06

Some characters (Ashe, Anivia, Zilean, etc) will always be good, yes. That's because they have abilities that are core to the kits that are very strong. Changing the thing that's strong about these will ruin characters who have, generally, interesting play.

Originally Posted by Hecarim Patch 2012-04-17

[buffed]