Thread: League of Legends

The 4.20 patch notes are released, and big changes are coming to the rift once the servers come back up. I am personally dreading all the changes, I think the game was in a really good spot as it was, and Riot has practically apologized in advance for breaking it (similar to the beginning of season 4, which almost caused me to permanently quit the game).

Quote from Riot 4.20 patch notes:
"There are... a lot of changes here and, with so many variables at play, we're expecting the game to be disrupted, imperfect, and requiring even more work over time."


After reading the entirety of the patch notes, here is what that I take away from them and some of my predictions:

Games will be longer - I see this happening for several reasons:
1. Jungle assassins are not going to be as strong as they were before. This will cut down on 4v5 situations that often lead to tower objectives.
2. Early game power spikes have been toned down, winning the race to level 2 on bot lane and forcing a fight has been weakened due to changes in base stats and how champions scale. This will also have a direct effect on snowballing a leading lane, making the level advantage gained after a kill less valuable than it currently is.
3. Dragon kills do not award global gold, and a reduced amount of experience. This makes a huge difference, especially early in the game. Getting that 225 gold from dragon would often let you pick up your first major component of an item before the opposing team (think BF Sword/Large Rod). Getting 45 flat AD is a lot more beneficial than getting 8% of your early game AD (you're most likely going to gain somewhere around 8-12 AD when the first dragon is killed)
4. Vision control is getting easier thanks to the new jungle spawns in the river.
5. The power of blue and red buff has been toned down, making siege more difficult
6. Respawn timers have been lowered across the board
7. The changes to turrets seem HUGE (continued in next section)

Tower Siege will be more difficult - It seems that many of the changes Riot has implemented in relation to turrets were in response to two very different compositions - Poke Comps, and Split Push Comps. Outer turrets have remained essentially unchanged, then changes start to happen at the inner turrets, and all hell breaks lose when it comes to base turrets.

Poke Comps - You all know the idea. Sit outside of the enemy's engage range while constantly barraging them with an annoying assortment of harass. After the enemy team has sustained substantial damage, force the enemy team off the turret by making an aggressive forward move, and then take down the turret. Good luck doing that now! Inner turrets now have a regenerating shield in addition to applying a growing shield to every ally within 1100 range (to a maximum of 200 health).
Split Push Comps - As if the inner turret changes weren't enough, Inhibitor and Nexus towers are even more powerful. Ignoring an insane 82.5% of their target's defense, reducing their damage by 15%, and slowing their movement speed by 10%. It's also worth mentioning that turrets now gain 200 armor (75% reduction in damage) and 100 magic resistance (50% reduction in damage) when being backdoored. Good luck split pushing against that. Oh, did I mention that these turrets also have a laser that deals even more damage?

Item building makes more sense - Some changes I actually agree with! Cloth armor can now be upgraded into Chain vest. This will be helpful in certain lane matchups. I ran into this problem quite often while playing Malphite top. I would be laning against an AD opponent, and wanted to start with cloth armor, but knew that I needed to build Merc Treads. If I pick up the cloth armor, I literally will not be able to use it until after my sunfire cape + boots are complete. This made it feel like a wasted purchase, and I would sometimes skip it entirely in favor of boots just to be more efficient earlier.
Similarly, Negatron Cloak has been removed, and Magic Mantle will increase in price by 100 gold, while granting more MR.
Mejai's and Sword of the Occult both start with 5 stacks, but lose more on death - I am totally fine with this, they are a risky purchase and needed a bit of help to get rolling.

As previously mentioned, I am dreading these changes. Riot has a bad track record of seriously screwing up their game, only to slowly revert it back 3-5 months down the road. I think that the changes that have been done to objectives like dragon/baron are terrible and hugely game-altering. Riot has stated repeatedly that they want to emphasize "strategic diversity" which I take to mean "different than it is right now". Assassins have been nerfed (via the jungle), poke comps have been obliterated, and the sting has been taken away from split push comps. I see the meta shifting back to tanky champions (hello season 2) and late game comps with tons of engage. I'm predicting champions like Amumu, Maokai, and Shyvana to become common bans again and will even go as far as to say that we will see the resurgence of Zac. God help us all.

TL: DR - Tank meta is back baby

For Zac to be bac (I'M SORRY FOR THE PUN), his blob mechanics would need a touch up.

I personally like the jungle changes. I'm hoping they'll lead to more than 4-5 "acceptable to play" junglers.

I like the elixir changes. Red elixir seems like a good buy on a jungler that provides a lot of gank pressure (duration extends 30s for each kill/assist).

As for split pushing, yeah, Nasus walking up to try and q a tower to death isn't going to work as well if he doesn't have minions. Ultimately, it just means you have to learn to micro your minion waves.

Honestly, I'm glad for that. It's always felt weird hitting ~250AD and just not having to care about turret aggro. Now, juggling aggro is more essential for dives (albeit it's harder than before, turret aggro mechanics changed). Might see a resurgence of reset based characters (kat, akali--already on the resurgence, etc.) or ones who can port in, nuke, and port out (lebonkers, zed, etc. ; maybe shaco since he could Q out).

Cloth could always go towards thornmail before, which I actually liked after the changes that made IE+dorans+shiv a common start. Without the Bloodthirster rush, they wreck themselves. I'd still rather get my first armor item (if not ninja tabi) to be something with health most of the time. Cloth+mana crystal also build eventually into a few useful items. Then again, I really only like frozen heart on ryze and Iceborn on Ezreal and sometimes on Kassadin.

I also really want to go buy Kalista, but I'm going to wait for the IP price to come down to 6300. I mean I could get her now (~13k IP) but patience...

Also, yay for good behavior IP boost.

LCS Season: Details on LCS head coaches | LoL Esports

Originally Posted by DJ Mr. White

I also really want to go buy Kalista, but I'm going to wait for the IP price to come down to 6300. I mean I could get her now (~13k IP) but patience...

Also, yay for good behavior IP boost.

I bought her and just played a game with her . . . first impression . . .she's hard as hell to play.

Her auto attacks are super slow, which makes it easy to cancel and do her little dash early on (early lane power felt really strong) but you lack damage. I started building IE first and immediately regretted it, I think botrk is the way to go for her, she has really short auto attack range and needs the attack speed to really put out any damage/stack her Rend ability.

Her ult has very situational use. If you have a tanky, melee range support (Alistar comes to mind) it might be amazing to engage. I had a Karma and it was basically a useless ability. If you have a squishy support, you might be better off soulbinding the top laner or jungler so it will be useful later, though it will make you significantly weaker in lane (Kalista gets bonus damage if she and her soulbound teammate both attack same unit).

Also, once you start getting some attack speed, it becomes increasingly more difficult to cancel your auto and do the dash. Easiest way I found to do it was using the attack move command, then immediately clicking the regular move command. If you do it too quickly, you just walk to where the move command was placed (because you never started your auto), and if you do it too slowly you fail to perform the dash. It gets pretty confusing when you're trying to do that and focus on the actual fight. You cannot use Attack Move command to perform the dash, as it does not actually move if a target is in range.

I see her as an amazing chaser/duelist that will be very difficult to use properly in team fights.

I thought you could rebuy the spear to rebind it?

Originally Posted by DJ Mr. White

I thought you could rebuy the spear to rebind it?

Not sure about that actually. The description of the item says "the item is consumed and the pair are soul-bound for the remainder of the game". I didn't notice it in the shop to rebuy, but I wasn't actively looking for it either.

It may have been only on the PBE.

Also, Doublift is streaming Kalista on Twitch.

It's still early and I'm sure some new strats will come from the changes...but I think laning phase will be longer now, and thus the remainder of the game. Rolling consecutive turrets with a team advantage will be tougher now too. Last night we won a team fight, and were able to get both mid turrets and mid inhib before the enemy team was back up, sounds like that won't be as likely now.

On the bright side, I do love playing tanky - It might actually open up a new meta where tanky supports can solo hold towers. I'd love to do see what a double tank lane could do...mostly because I'm dumb and my stupid ideas get the team killed

Eh, probably not. Shield doesn't refresh if the turret stays under attack.