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[frostshotgg]

Yasuo as a whole is a mess of design decisions that I really, really dislike. I'd like to sit down with CertainlyT in person and just talk out all the various bits and pieces of him that I hate. He's at perhaps the 3rd layer of abstraction of a very complex web of not-answers. Something that's definitely become more noticeable in more recent champions is trying to sidestep the rock-paper-scissors balance of old, and the way they do it is "Oh, X mechanic is supposed to stop Y, I'll give this character Y in such a way that X no longer is effective against it, but that Y is still effective against Z". In his shield alone, I could probably write a thousand word essay on how fucked up that whole thing is, and how it came into existence.

[Arcvasti]

Yasuo as a whole is a mess of design decisions that I really, really dislike. I'd like to sit down with CertainlyT in person and just talk out all the various bits and pieces of him that I hate. He's at perhaps the 3rd layer of abstraction of a very complex web of not-answers. Something that's definitely become more noticeable in more recent champions is trying to sidestep the rock-paper-scissors balance of old, and the way they do it is "Oh, X mechanic is supposed to stop Y, I'll give this character Y in such a way that X no longer is effective against it, but that Y is still effective against Z". In his shield alone, I could probably write a thousand word essay on how fucked up that whole thing is, and how it came into existence.

^This. His shield is really stupid. Especially with how well it scales. My personal opinion is that that and his Wind Wall are Riot's way of giving him a Trynd-style invulnerability so he can actually DO stuff without being melted in five seconds flat because glass cannon melee champion. Yasuo as a whole is sort of "what". But he's never given me much of a problem playing against him, so I tolerate him.

[frostshotgg]

I mean, if you want to know WHY he has the shield, and why Riot's had a boner for shields lately in general, I can tell you exactly why. 1 - Overwhelming ad damage 2- Responded to with hardcore heavy duty armor stacking 3- Armor nerfed, health buffed. 4- Health is bullshit strong, now everybody gets some form of %hp 5- Everybody has %hp, responded to by everybody having shields which sidesteps %hp.

There are similar progressions in other mechanics if you know where to look, but that's the summary of how Yasuo's shield came into existence.

[Cthulhu]

Yeah I don't really like the way Rito's design mechanics work.  On one hand it's generally more intuitive than Dota, while mastery of Dota a lot of times entails mastery of various unintuitive mechanics and engine quirks, you can probably guess that it's a bad idea to get hit by flying objects which is a big part of League.

All the good stuns are skillshots or very slow projectiles, and most of the reliable CC is slows, so runspeed is disincentivized and blinks and other disjointing mobility moves are incentivized, you can check the champ release schedule for a laugh and look how it went from a pretty reasonable setup with most non-assassins being pretty immobile, especially damage dealers like mages and carries, then starting somewhere around Vayne or so we started seeing more and more mobility, on every champ, until now almost every champ they release has some form of mobility.

Sometimes League feels like dodgeball.  Especially mid-lane if you're better at dodging than the other guy is at hitting, you can pretty much troll him all game.  Lee Sin is pretty much the epitome of this design philosophy.  Flashy, mobility/skillshot based, looks really cool (or at least he used to, I for one am sick of seeing Lee shit though it still seems like they need extra shoutcasters in Lee Sin games just to loudly orgasm whenever he hits a Q), but isn't actually all that hard to do.

[Arcvasti]

Yeah I don't really like the way Rito's design mechanics work.  On one hand it's generally more intuitive than Dota, while mastery of Dota a lot of times entails mastery of various unintuitive mechanics and engine quirks, you can probably guess that it's a bad idea to get hit by flying objects which is a big part of League.

Yep. That's my main problem with Dota. I'd probably like it if I figured out how to do well in it, but I'd have to figure out some really arcane stuff to make it work. That said, I should really at least sample it at some point.

All the good stuns are skillshots or very slow projectiles, and most of the reliable CC is slows, so runspeed is disincentivized and blinks and other disjointing mobility moves are incentivized. You can check the champ release schedule for a laugh and look how it went from a pretty reasonable setup with most non-assassins being pretty immobile, especially damage dealers like mages and carries, then starting somewhere around Vayne or so we started seeing more and more mobility, on every champ, until now almost every champ they release has some form of mobility.

Yeah, mobility creep is starting to get ridiculous. Bruisers and such have gap-closers, which means the squishys need an escape to get away from their engage alive. That means that bruisers and co need ANOTHER gap closed to keep up. The next logical step is all carries need two escapes. Not sure if this will actually hapen or if Riot decides that this is stupid and keep mobility where it is now. If the former, I eagerly still await the arrival of a champion with 5 mobility abilities. And then laugh at all the people who are incapable of doing whatever absurdly complex uber-dashy combo that champ does.

Sometimes League feels like dodgeball.

Yep. Riot is probably OK with that though. It being a contest of "who can dodge better" is better then it being a contest of "who can select champions better" or "who can win the favour of RNG better" in my opinion.

Especially mid-lane if you're better at dodging than the other guy is at hitting, you can pretty much troll him all game. 

That's really fun. When I'm the one doing the dodging, that is.

Lee Sin is pretty much the epitome of this design philosophy.  Flashy, mobility/skillshot based, looks really cool (or at least he used to, I for one am sick of seeing Lee shit though it still seems like they need extra shoutcasters in Lee Sin games just to loudly orgasm whenever he hits a Q), but isn't actually all that hard to do.

Lee Sin has basically all the mobility. That's not quite ALL he has, but its his shtick. I really hope Lee Sin levels of mobility never become normal with new champs. When Riot releases someone with more mobility then him, the age of Lee Sin will be over. And I will break out the popcorn in celebration. And then probably just play something other then League, because Lee is already annoying enough with his infinite dashes of infinite dashing.

It still seems like they need extra shoutcasters in Lee Sin games just to loudly orgasm whenever he hits a Q.

This made me laugh.

I mean, if you want to know WHY he has the shield, and why Riot's had a boner for shields lately in general, I can tell you exactly why. 1 - Overwhelming ad damage 2- Responded to with hardcore heavy duty armor stacking 3- Armor nerfed, health buffed. 4- Health is bullshit strong, now everybody gets some form of %hp 5- Everybody has %hp, responded to by everybody having shields which sidesteps %hp.

There are similar progressions in other mechanics if you know where to look, but that's the summary of how Yasuo's shield came into existence.

Yep. I dream of the day when Riot finally manages to have a game which doesn't need to be constantly shifted one step ahead of these types of things. On that day, DF 1.00 will be released, Half-Life 3 will come out and the Illuminati will complete their plan of world domination. Maybe then I can finally beat 2048. Maybe.

[Skyrunner]

PROMOS
EVERY SINGLE TIME
games are just as civil as normals normally, then as soon as promo starts one game has a dc, one game has a rager, and one game is a civil loss -_- this is like my third time doing this. why even bother getting to gold

[frostshotgg]

God that last game. Vlad + Ryze vs Nasus + J4 in a 65 minute game. That shit was the stupidest thing. Who can raid boss mode harder?

As it turns out, Vlad + Ryze because Liandries is god. And probably because our Ez unstuck his head from his postierior about 40 minutes in. I don't think I've ever been as happy to see "I think I'm going to sell my tear" than I was at that exact moment. Meanwhile, I was chasing Sivir from our inhibitor to the enemy wolf camp, and they just didn't have the damage to compete. But dear god, I never ever ever want to play another Vlad vs Nasus game again.

Sorry, just had to vent for a bit. A game with multiple hypertanks on each team but no hypercarries is suffering for absolutely everybody involved.

[penguinofhonor]

Sona rework stuff!

Basically her auras are all going to be smaller but have more powerful effects so you actually have to run around in the team fight to contribute instead of just being vaguely near it.

[Arcvasti]

"high-impact Snuggle Zones"

This sound neat. Maybe I WON'T regret having bought Sona now.

[frostshotgg]

Some day they'll give up on trying to make Sona's current iteration work and just make her invoker. I eagerly await the day.

[frostshotgg]

Janna's passive wasn't changed because of it's hidden power, by most metrics her current one is just the same. It's because her passive could literally decide lanes halfway across the map, and that kind of thing is why riot hates global anything.

[penguinofhonor]

Quotes giving the other various goals of the rework:

but they weren't well communicated, and didn’t create new gameplay. Sona’s allies didn’t play differently with Sona’s auras, they just did everything invisibly better.

giving these buffs to the entire team requires skilled positioning and more team interaction. It also means that allies can make skillful use of the auras, rewarding teamplay and coordination. The goal was to increase the tactical and strategic choices Sona makes without increasing the mechanical complexity required to play Sona well.

Increasing strategic depth does not seem like an effective way to dumb a champion down.

Second, players don't notice auras. People notice a big fireball more than they notice a little number in the corner of their screen going up by 15. That is not a judgement of anyone's intelligence. That is a basic understanding of how people pay attention to things in their vision. This is not some unproven theory Riot is acting on.

[Skyrunner]

Sona's auras do feel hidden, though, just like vayne's Condemn AA. People rsrely notice it (when I play Sona, I never notice it either), but it probably does have an effect in what'z going on in lane.

And Zilean's passive is probably going to get Janna'd, though that kight make his bonus overwhelming...

[frostshotgg]

I strongly suspect Zilean's passive isn't getting touched until he gets a full makeover. He's nearly as bad as Sion and Poppy in terms of kit-outdatedness

[Flying Dice]

...no more auras...increased cooldowns...more fucking shields...increased fucking cooldowns...removing most of her ability to be active rather than reactive...

This is the real gem, though:

The biggest change is making sure that Crescendo has particles that actually show what it does mechanically. So far, Sona players have been very happy to fully understand what their ult actually does, and be able to make better plays from that information.

Because players are retarded chimps that don't understand the concept of "Big glowing polygon, enemies inside take damage and are stunned for 1.5s."


Seriously, it looks like they're nerfing or removing everything that made Sona entertaining and effective (active playstyle, low cooldowns, auras) in favor of patronization, a shitty on-hit effect, and MORE FUCKING SHIELDS. I fully expect that by this time next year every champ will have a shield, a mobility ability, or both. Why would you pick Sona now that she doesn't have anything worthwhile to counterbalance her squishiness in lane phase, can't contribute nearly as much to teamfights and can't burst people down with R + Q + Power Chord: Staccato?

I mean, shit, aura management was easily half the mechanical pleasure of playing Sona!