I'm so buying Ohmwrecker for the new Soraka~
Also, Viktor, my Russian accented friend, looks so beautiful~
League of Legends
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You guys enjoying Worlds. Tomorrow is the real test for NA.
Also I knew I should have bought hextech scion when I had the chance. He's probably going to look amazing after this VU.
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The final part of the Sion´s promo page
http://promo.euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/reborn/#[hide]
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Abilities
Glory in Death (Passive)
After being killed Sion will reanimate himself, but his Health rapidly decays while he is reanimated.He can move and attack during this time. He gains 100% Lifesteal, attacks extremely fast and will deal an additional 10% of his target's maximum Health on hit. Max 75 bonus damage against monsters.
All of his abilities are replaced with Death Surge, which grants him a burst of Movement Speed.
Decimating Smash (Q)
"Sion charges a powerful swing in an area in front of himself that will deal damage to enemies when released. If he charges for enough time, enemies hit by the swing will also be knocked up and stunned.Soul Furnace (W)
"Sion shields himself and can reactivate after 2 seconds to deal Magic Damage to enemies nearby.Roar of the Slayer (E)
"Sion fires a short range shockwave that damages and slows the first enemy hit. If the shockwave hits a minion or monster, it will be knocked back, damaging and slowing all enemies that it passes through."Unstoppable Onslaught (R)
"Sion charges in a direction, ramping up speed over time. He can steer his charge slightly with the mouse cursor location. When he collides with an enemy he deals damage and knocks them up based on the distance he has charged."
Lore: "BLOOD.SMELL IT.
WANT. ACHING. NEED!
CLOSE NOW. THEY COME.
NO CHAINS? FREE! KILL!
IN REACH. YES! DIE! DIE!
Gone. Too quick. No fight. More. I want… more.
A voice? Unfamiliar. I see him. The Grand General. My general.
He leads. I follow. Marching. To where? I should know. I can't remember.
It all bleeds together. Does it matter? Noxus conquers. The rest? Trivial. So long... since I've tasted victory.
The war wagon rocks. Rattles. A cramped cage. Pointless ceremony. The waiting. Maddening. Faster, dogs!
There. Banners. Demacians and their walls. Cowards. Their gates will shatter. Thoughts of the massacre come easily.
Who gave the order to halt? The underlings don't answer. No familiar faces. If I do not remember, neither will history.
The cage is opened. Finally! No more waiting. WE CHARGE!
Slings and arrows? The weapons of children! Their walls will not save them!
I can taste their fear. They shrink at every blow as their barricades splinter. SOON!
Noxian drums. Demacian screams. Glory isn't accolades; glory is hot blood on your hands! This is life!
A thousand shattered corpses lie at my feet, and Demacian homes burn all around me. It's over too quickly! Just one more...
The men stare. There's fear in their eyes. If they're afraid to look upon victory, I should pluck those craven eyes out. There is no fear in the Grand General's eyes, only approval. He is pleased with this conquest.
Walking the field with the Grand General, surveying the carnage, I ache for another foe. He is hobbled, a leg wound from the battle? If it pains him, he does not show it. A true Noxian. I do not like his pet, though; it picks over the dead, having earned nothing. His war hounds were more fitting company.
Demacia will be within our grasp soon. I can feel it. I am ready to march. The Grand General insists that I rest. How can I rest when my enemies still live?
Why do we mill about? The waiting eats at me. I'm left to my own devices. The bird watches. It's unsettling. Were it anyone else's, I would crush it.
Fatigue sets in. I've never felt so... tired.
Boram? Is that you? What are you whispering?
Where am I?
Captured? Kenneled like some dog. How?
There was... the battle, the razing of the fortress, the quiet of the aftermath. Were we ambushed? I can't remember.
I was wounded. I can feel the ragged gash... but no pain. They thought me dead. Now, I am their prize. Fate is laughing. I will not be caged! They will regret sparing me.
Demacian worms! They parrot kind words, but they are ruthless all the same. This place is a dank pit. They bring no food. There is no torture. They do not make a show of me. I am left to rot.
I remember my finest hour. I held a king by his throat and felt the final beat of his heart through my tightening grasp. I don't remember letting go. Is this your vengeance, Jarvan?
I hear the triumphal march. Boots on stone. Faint, through the dungeon walls. The cadence of Noxian drums. I shall be free. Demacian blood will run in the streets!
No one came. I heard no struggle. No retreat. Did I imagine it?
There is no aching in this stump. I barely noticed the iron boot. It's caked in rust.
When did I lose my leg?
I still smell the blood. Battle. It brings comfort.
The hunger gnaws. I have not slept. Time crawls. So tired.
How long?
So dark. This pit. I remember. Grand General. His whispering. What was it?
Not who I think.
Fading. Mustn't forget.
Message. Cut. Remember.
''SION – Beware ravens.''
FREE ME!
BLOOD."
Updated skins:
TU Rebalance Round #2
Brand Apocalyptic Brand
Vandal Brand
Cryocore BrandEvelynn
Masquerade Evelynn
Shadow Evelynn
Tango EvelynnNocturne
Frozen Nocturne
Void Nocturne
Ravager NocturneOlaf
Glacial Olaf
Forsaken Olaf
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omg that passive looks fierce. new Sion is extreme.
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How much of "Adnold" is left in Sion?
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FNATIC Season 1 Championship Skins now available!
All of them will cost 750 RP each.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
My first thought on the new Soraka:
Aggressive
Funny passive
Useful in TF
Risky in the TFMy first thought on the new Viktor:
Fun upgrades (just like Kha'zix)
Cheap to upgrade your item.
Auto attack is the way to go (lich bane <3)
900 AP on late game
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Tried out Viktor and Soraka. Raka's really fun, finally she's not a moving fountain (although it took me a while to realize I have a heal on 3 sec cd); her snare is a little bit hard to land though. And short.
Viktor is perfect~ Although I don't know how to buy the augments (like all at once, something in between). Love that finally his q is giving shield right away but his auto-attack animation is a bit wonky. The old one was wonky too, this might be better, but still, at least move your muscles (cords?) a little there Viktor~
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Sion Discussion
With Sion's massive rework now revealed and on the PBE for testing, several Rioters have man an unstoppable onslaught to the forums to discuss our reanimated Noxian!
Lore
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Now that the set of Reborn teasers are all out, Riot Entropy commented:"Thanks so much, I hope you enjoyed the ride. I've enjoyed reading the theories and watching people piece together the story.
Shame there were some hiccups along the way, but I could have asked for this to turn out better."When asked who the Jarvan mentioned in the first part of REBORN is, Entropy confirmed:
"Okay, the reveal is official, I can answer you now. The Jarvan in Reborn is Jarvan the First, so Xin isn't dead or dishonored or otherwise altered by the events you've been seeing."
Meddler also added in:
"The initial part of Sion's lore occurs centuries before the current time, with the Jarvan Sion kills assumedly a distant ancestor of Prince Jarvan the 4th (the playable champ). Couple of extra details related can be found at:http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/cha…ead-juggernaut"
As for all the mystery surrounding the Reborn teasers and all the characters involved, Entropy explained:
"As obvious as it might have been that it was Sion, we wanted the experience to be much more engaging than just telling you all the details. Being knowledgeable in the previously released content gave people the tools to bridge a lot of the gaps, but ultimately if you didn't know all the backstory you could get the gist of what happened to the fallen hero. I had faith people would draw the right conclusions even if it couldn't be said with certainty." When asked if Draythe Darkwill, a character from the family who ruled in Noxus prior to Swain's rise to power, is still alive, Entropy noted:
"Yes, but I wouldn't expect him to be making any public appearances under Swain's regime. Seems like he's got a lot of plotting to get to."
Entropy also commented on Vladimir's presence in part four of REBORN, saying:
"The ritual Vlad leads is the culmination of many arcane designs combining the resources and knowledge of Swain (and by extension Darkwill), the Black Rose, and his own blood magic. Vlad technically isn't raising Sion from the dead again so much as conducting the blood sacrifices necessary to rekindle Sion's mind."As for what's next, Riot Entropy noted:
"Next is never a question I'll be able to satisfactorily answer unless I get to make an official announcement, but there are a few projects in the pipeline for before end of year and other things that are a bit further out."[/hide]
Audio [hide]On the audio side of things, C3Sound commented on Sion's VO and SFX (which are coming to the PBE soon):
"Really excited to have everyone play this guy. There are some really cool SFX and VO features we made for him. Lets see if you can find them all! :D"[/hide]
Gameplay [hide]
When asked what positions they intended the updated Sion to fill, Scruffy commented:
"I hope he is playable in both top or jungle. He plays pretty differently in the different positions, but we want to support both playstyles."
First up, Scruffy tackled a set of questions regarding the duration of Sion's new ultimate, why he discards his axe during the passive, his role identity, and more!
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Riot Meddler / Scruffy, some questions regarding Sion: 1. How long does the Ultimate last, is the Movespeed ramp percentage or flat? Is he CC-Imnune during charge?
2. Why does he lose his axe after Death?
3. What is his core identity now? A heavy-CC Jungler, with tank potential in late?
3. Can Sion solo Baron with max Lifesteal after Death? 1. It's 8 seconds, but that allows him to roughly cover about half of the map length
2. It's actually pretty badass to see him just use his raw strength/fists to wreck people. Also with that attack speed it looks pretty strange with a huge axe.
3. Heavy CC zone control tank is spot on. Also crazy cross map initiation.
3b. Unlikely, but if he dies mid baron fight it can be a gamechanger for his team (in a good way)"
Scruffy also noted that Sion's passive gives a flat attack speed bonus and summoner's are disabled for the duration:
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1. His passive gives to him attack damage and attack speed based on his level?
2. How Ravenous Hydra works in Sion passive state?
3. Can Sion activate ghost / flash while in passive state? 1. The passive actually gives him a set very fast attack speed regardless of items (he usually builds tank) and the 10% max health per hit is around at all levels.2. Hydra works in the passive but it wont splash the max health damage.
3. We currently have summoners disabled during the passive."
Meddler also elaborated on how Sion's new passive works, explaining that it drains a % of Sion's max HP per second:
"Yeah, a % of max health per second - to get a longer passive duration you'll need to be attacking to make use of all the bonus lifesteal the passive offers.In case it's unclear Sion loses access to all his usual abilities during his passive so it's not really a mobile Karthus passive. Instead he's an auto attacker, with bonus damage on auto attacks, lifesteal and a one time boost of movement speed. Dangerous if you let him get on you, often very kiteable though."
When asked about the Sion's potential to monster solo potential with this passive, Meddler noted:
"It's a shorter effect than you'd need to solo dragon - think more of a Karthus passive like duration. Enough time to lock your fingers around a king's throat say."
Scruffy also shared that the longest his passive usually lasts with items is:
"15-20s is pretty much the top end"As for Sion's new Q being a stationary channel instead of a "Vi Q like" channel where he can move around, Scruffy explained:
"We tried this for a time, and it made the Q much easier to hit for sure. So much so that we had to make the impact of the spell (damage and cc) much worse. The high risk/high reward of the immobile Q felt like a much more satisfying skill."
Scruffy also commented on Sion's W shield scaling with AP and HP, saying:
"The shield does scale with his HP, more fitting for a tank. (also combos well with the health stacking passive)" Meddler also reiterated that **Sion'**s permanent health gain on minion kill is still here but as a passive on his W:
"It's still on the kit as a passive on his W."As for confirmation on how Sion's new E works, Meddler explained:
"Roar of the Slayer (his new E) knocks minions around, it doesn't knock champions around though. Champions hit, whether directly by the E or by a flying minion, are slowed instead."[/hide]
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Sion VO
his champion Select Quote: [http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/releases/pbe/projects/lol_air_client/releases/0.0.2.202/files/assets/sounds/en_US/champions/Sion.mp3](http:// http://l3cdn.riotgames.com/releases/pbe/projects/lol_air_client/releases/0.0.2.202/files/assets/sounds/en_US/champions/Sion.mp3)
And the last minor TU goes to…
Blitzcrank
Goalkeeper Blizcrank
Rusty Blitzcrank Boom Boom Blitzcrank
Piltover Customs Blitzcrank
Definitely Not BlitzcraznkiBlitzcrank and Riot Blitzcrank won't receive a TU.
[h=2] Gangplank Ult Change[/h] Here's Riot GMang with a feedback thread:
"Should hit PBE at the next deploy. If you get a chance to try it, I'd love to know what you think! To clarify, this is neither a "ult was the biggest problem" nor a "now Gangplank's in a perfect place." It was just a nice clean upgrade we thought people would like, and didn't have any big reason to hold it. :) Hope you'll like it!"[h=2] Hexakill: Twisted Treeline[/h]
Several more files[h=2] Balance Changes[/h] * Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.
Champions
Akali
- Twilight Shroud (W) no longer grants armor or mr .
- Twilight Shroud (W) now grants 60/70/80/90/100% burst of movement speed which delays over 1 second ( will need to confirm in game)
Gangplank
- Cannon Barrage (R) [looks like now deals damage to everyone in area instead of random locations. Also says "wave of cannon balls" . Will get in-game when pos]
- Cannon Barrage (R) duration now 7 seconds from 6.
- Cannon Barrage (R) cooldown now 125/110/95 from 120/115/110
- Cannon Barrage (R) now listed a damge per second instead of flat damage per cannon ball.
Items
Randuin's Omen
- Passive - Cold Steel attack speed slow increased to 15% from 10%
When AP used to be good:
NEVER FORGET !!
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Gangplank
- Cannon Barrage (R) [looks like now deals damage to everyone in area instead of random locations. Also says "wave of cannon balls" . Will get in-game when pos]
- Cannon Barrage (R) duration now 7 seconds from 6.
- Cannon Barrage (R) cooldown now 125/110/95 from 120/115/110
- Cannon Barrage (R) now listed a damge per second instead of flat damage per cannon ball.
So it will be similar to MFs Make It Rain?
Steam Friend Code ---> 48796480
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So it will be similar to MFs Make It Rain?
Well, here is a video.
About Sion and his interactions…Sion has unique taunts and jokes for:
Galio
?Jarvan IV "You look just like your ancestor: dead!"
"How many Jarvan's must I kill?"
"Four Jarvan's, and you're all still failures! That is funny." Urgot
"Why don't I have coverage for prosthetics ?"
"So, uh, Urgot. We can't hang out any more. I'm cool now."
Swain
"You are not my general!"
"I am not your pawn, Swain!"
"You are weak, Swain! You are no leader!"
Karthus
"Today, we'll see if ghosts can bleed."
"Even death trembles before me."Pantheon
"You will be privileged to die… under my boot!"
Items
Any item:
"The spoils of war."
"I will drench it in their blood."
"I'll bury it in their skulls."
"If it breaks, so will you."
"I'll break it in."
"Hand it over before I kill you."
"Another trinket to be shattered."
"It will do."Banshee's Veil
"No mere spell will stop me." Boots of Speed
"These will wade through the blood of thousands."
"Nothing will keep me from battle."
"Every step will crack the earth."The Black Cleaver
"A sword lacks heft."
"This cleaver… will be red soon."The Bloodthirster
"It longs to kill."
"Yes… I like this weapon."Frozen Heart
"This will stop their flailing!"
"Do you feel a shiver down your spine?"
"Ah… cold fear."Frozen Mallet
"I'll shatter the gates of Demacia with this hammer!"Iceborn Gauntlet
"Cold as the grip of death!"
"I'll feel their bodies grow cold."Infinity Edge
"This will sever a thousand heads."Maw of Malmortius
"Spells… hmph."Randuin's Omen
"Protection from the bites of gnats."
"A dark omen for my enemies!"
"They will break first."Sunfire Cape
"All will burn in my wake."
"They'll beg as they burn."
"Fire… good..."Thornmail
"Leave no wound unanswered."Warmog's Armor
"This was made for war, as am I!"
"This is the only fortress I need!"
"This has seen many battles."
"Battle scarred… I like it."Just a small note, Riot confirmed that Sion killed Jarvan the I...That makes Sion quite old, well..Not as old as Lissandra or Gnar or even Anivia XP, but "old"
EDIT:
If anyone wants, I can post the special interactions of Dunkmaster Darius skin. -
With all these new champs getting item interactions, I'm left to wonder if maybe older champs will get upgraded with the same feature. This kind of thing adds a new dimension to each character. Yet, I wonder if they could get the voice actors again just for that.
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Malzahar and Kassadin buying Void Staff, ninjas buying Ninja Tabi, Brand buying Sunfire Cape and finally champs with no feet (or more than two) buying boots~
But seriously, champion reworks are already doing that (Karthus, Sion), so it's definitely in the making. It's a tad bit more difficult than rebalancing the textures though, but there are always going to be "old" champs.
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what item interaction are you talking about?
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When the newer champions (I think form Braum) buy certain items from the shop, they tell a one-liner. "These shoes are too tight" when Braum purchases boots etcetc.
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ah i understand now
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Just some small things
Sion Login
Warmonger Sion updated (left = old, right = new)
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[/hide]Championship Shyvana Tweaks
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[/hide]2014 Championship Ward (??? RP)
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[/hide][h=2]Balance Changes[/h] * Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.
Champions
Akali
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Twilight Shroud (W) movement speed now 20/40/60/80/100% from 60/70/80/90/100%
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[[B]Context: Akali's W was changed earlier this cycle to no longer give bonus armor/mr and now gives a short duration movement speed boost.]
Kha'Zix
- Void Spike (W) damage lowered to80/110/140/170/200 from 75/115/155/195/235
Yasuo
- Base HP lowered to 380 from 430
- Base movement speed lowered to 340 from 350
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**New stuff in the PBE.
New splash art for Lee Sin**
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[/hide]Championship Shyvana recall animation was updated
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[/hide]Anivia Q was updated
Blackfrost Anivia also has her own version of the new effect.
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Balance Changes*** Remember : The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.*
Champions
Azir
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Base mana regen per second reverted to 1.3 from 1.42
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Base armor reverted to 14 from 16
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Mana regen per second per level reverted to .13 from .15
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[Context: Reverts to earlier PBE changes. Back to live values]
Sion
- HP per level increased to 70 from 60
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Today was the Q&A for Sion, check the link below. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/e3zHQ4A3-sion-champion-update-qa **With his update on the PBE and coming to live soon, we have new dev blog regarding Sion's update and his transition to the Undead Juggernaut!
"Sooooo… Sion. We first toyed with the notion of updating him years ago – now that it’s here, we figured we’d talk about what was wrong with old Sion, and how we created the juggernaut that’s currently crushing skulls on PBE.**
[hide] Old Sion had countless problems: he was a mage with an ax, he’d end up with two redundant abilities regardless of how he built, his model had aged horribly, and he had some pretty… interesting voiceover. Worst of all, none of these “qualities” actually worked together, so while modern champion designs try to create a cohesive identity through their gameplay, story and art, Sion was all over the place. After deliberating as a full group, we - the Champion Update team - decided to undertake our grandest project yet, updating Sion’s art, narrative and gameplay. We basically buried old Sion, ordered the orbital strike, then picked through the rubble to find the diamonds we could carry through in his update.
But where did we start with making new Sion? First, we needed to identify the key pillars that we’d use to mechanically, artistically and narratively define him. This is a process we go through with all new and updated champs; here’s what we came up with:- Undead
- Unstoppable Juggernaut
- Faded Glory of Noxus
Essentially, we wanted Sion to be an unrelenting war machine, a ragged Noxian titan who’d be sewn back together after battle and pointed in the rough direction of the enemy army when they next rolled up. This sense would have to seep into every aspect of Sion’s identity to make him a cohesive champion. Here’s what that meant to some of the key guys behind Sion’s update.
GameplayGameplay design by Riot Scruffy
More than anything, old Sion was just confused with no clear sense of identity. Some of his abilities worked with attack damage, some with ability power, and he sort of functioned as a tank. Thing is, no matter how you built him, you’d end up actively forgoing the effective use of a number of your abilities and stats. On top of that, there were almost no interesting interactions in his kit: Sion had a fixed play pattern with zero skillshots, and abilities that gave players really few opportunities to express their skills or mastery. Basically, when we got together to start working on Sion, we knew we’d pretty much start from scratch with his design because almost none of it – aside from his W and passive health gain - was compelling or consistent.
**So, we knew he’d be a hulking and unstoppable undead warrior, but what does that mean from a design perspective? First off, he’d be slow but tough, a walking cadaver that could take a bunch of punishment before going down. This gave us a basic design concept: new Sion would be tanky and slow with powerful but telegraphed attacks and abilities. This meant that enemies would be able to work around the areas that Sion was about to attack, but also meant that Sion could use that same knowledge to make cerebral plays. Decimating Smash, for instance, has a huge and very visible wind up that shows Sion’s enemies exactly where he’s about to swing his ax. This alone gives Sion immense zone control, but he can also swing his ax early, meaning his enemy has to work around the window of assault that he’s created and anticipate exactly when Sion’s going to attack. Soul Furnace, the only of Sion’s active abilities to survive the update, has a similar psychological element: activating the shield tells your opponent you’re ready to fight, but they still don’t know when or even if you’re planning on detonating it. How you use the ability, and how you use the threat of the ability’s damage, is something that you and your opponent get to play around. What’s more, with his huge area of effect abilities, Sion absolutely thrives in the heart of a fight, where he can hurt multiple targets and zone enemy assassins away from his team’s squishies.Next we wanted to emphasize Sion as an unstoppable juggernaut. We used the idea as a gameplay hook in his passive, giving him the chance to turn berserk and take down enemies as he dies, just as he does in his updated lore. We used the same theme to define his ultimate, Unstoppable Charge, which has huge range and turns the otherwise lumbering zombie man into a terrifying man missile. But again, there are trade-offs: Sion’s hard to steer and has to stick to a largely straight line, so it’s down to Sion players to pick clever locations and figure out optimal timing to ensure that when he does arrive, he charges into an unsuspecting and trapped enemy team. Seeing Sion ult into the enemy after teleporting in behind them during our internal tests was a terrifying sight, and we can’t wait to see how you guys make the most of his Unstoppable Onslaught.** Narrative Narrative design by Riot Entropy
Whenever we update a champion we begin by taking everything we know about them and paring down all that information until we identify the essential elements, the immutable traits that are so core to the champion that changing them might very well turn them into an entirely different character. It might have been easy to write off old Sion entirely and start from scratch, but at the end of the day the core concept of “hulking undead warrior” has always been a solid foundation. The problem was a lot of the elements we hung on that skeleton weren’t complimentary to that core identity. We took Sion down the humorous route, made him bright and colorful, and gave him Arnold Schwarzenegger inspired voice-over, all of which ultimately undermined what was cool about the core concept. This time around we decided to play the concept straight and holistically construct a truly fearsome warrior through identity, art and gameplay.
At this point we knew we were making Sion a giant undead killing-machine, but we still needed to explore what makes Sion unique. Ax-wielding Noxian badass was a space Darius was already doing a good job filling, and with Urgot firmly in the reanimated horror arena there was a need to give Sion some space to thrive. Rather than look at these similarities as redundancies, we used them as inspiration. We started asking big questions: If Noxus can raise the dead, why wouldn’t they have thousands of undead in their ranks? Why did they reanimate Urgot through entirely different means than Sion? Who was Sion in life? Why did Noxus want to bring him back to life? How would Darius feel about Sion, about undeath? How old is Sion, really? How did Sion’s resurrection affect him? What we landed on in the end was a great warrior of Noxus’s past, the first Hand of Noxus who met his end dealing a crippling blow to his nation’s greatest enemy. We made Sion a man who was granted immortality for his deeds, but decided that gift should be a curse rather than a blessing. We found something noble and tragic in the transformation robbing him of what made him great: his identity. Sion is the echo of his former self driven by an instinctual need to feast on life, but we didn’t want him to just be a bloodthirsty monster. We still wanted Sion to be a character capable of supporting a compelling story in the present as well as the past, so we instilled a small glimmer of hope in his condition. In reliving the bloodshed of his former life, Sion begins to remember who he is and realize what he’s become, if only for a short time. Can he hang onto himself long enough to break free of the cycle remembrance and loss he’s bound to? Time will tell.
All of this backstory would ring a bit hollow if the champ you played in game didn’t really reflect the uniqueness of Sion’s condition, so we tried something experimental with Sion’s voice over. When Sion fights with champions or dives into the enemy team he begins to feel more alive and his voiceover set changes to reflect that he’s more the warrior he used to be: exhilarated, brutal and at home in war. As Sion spends time away from the fray, he begins to slip back into the haze of his undeath where his thoughts are clouded and his need is singular. ArtArt design by HUGEnFAST
By 2014’s standards, old Sion looked like crap. There, I said it. He was one of the League’s oldest, and like most other launch champs, had not aged well at all. But that’s not exactly a revelation. In fact, we’d been avoiding eye contact with Sion’s old model for a while, but – knowing the narrative and gameplay guys were equally peeved by him - had to wait for the right time to really pull him apart and figure out what needed to be tossed, and what could be kept. Once we all finally got together, we realized that a decent number of old Sion’s visual hooks – specifically his ax, size, and undead nature - were worth keeping. Thing is, they were poorly executed on, which gave up as a pretty simple goal: to really execute better this time around, and tie new Sion visually to his Noxian home.
So taking his key pillars into account, how did we set about updating Sion? Well, first off we wanted to identify and emphasize the role of magic in the big guy’s resurrection. His obvious source of power might be his ax, but when Swain resurrected him, he also imbued him with a form of magic. So while Sion’s now something of a hollow corpse, his body’s been filled with the red energy most notable on his stomach – the same energy that forms Soul Furnace’s shield. Next we wanted to address Sion’s ax and armor, specifically in relation to Darius, the man who’s taken on Sion’s role of general in contemporary Noxus. There are some pretty clear similarities, including the general shapes and colors (Noxus is… very black and red), but we also wanted to hint at some of the military changes that had occurred since Sion’s initial death. Essentially, Sion’s more brutal, whereas Darius is a little more refined. Sion’s armor is bolder and stronger, and he uses his ax more as a club than a slicing weapon. Hundreds of years have refined Noxian warfare, so while Darius is still definitely brutal, he’s more precise – someone who’ll cut your jugular and let you bleed to death. This carries through in his appearance: Darius’s ax is a relatively refined weapon, and his armor hasn’t got the same sheer bulk or weight as Sion’s.
**Next we wanted to showcase Sion’s undead characteristics. We started looking at his skin hue, and ultimately decided to use an ashen, pale tone that would contrast well with the rich reds and blacks of his armor. Speaking of armor, you might notice a relative lack of it compared to other Noxians. That’s deliberate: we found that as we added armor pieces, he lost the undead feel we wanted. Also, look close and you’ll see that the armor he has is actually bolted on. Sion’s not the kind of guy who changes from his outdoor cardigan to his indoor cardigan after a fight – he’s a living war machine who, when he’s not fighting, is locked away so he can’t rampage his way through his own people. Another change you’ll notice is his hair, or lack of!After trying a few different styles out, we discovered that any hair detracted from the undead feel of the guy. At the same time, we really liked this top-knot look, so we started tinkering around with other non-hair things we could add in to give Sion something unique and break up and otherwise fairly smooth silhouette. The dagger idea was perfect – unique and brutal – and we quickly incorporated it into his resurrection ritual. Speaking of brutality, check out Sion’s jaw: It’s Jarvan I’s crown !** This relatively small touch was just one of the ways we ended up tying Sion’s story to his model, and really emphasized how utterly brutal this guy is – he literally screams at his enemies using the crown of the Demacian king he killed.
Hopefully this article’s given you some good insight into how we went about recreating Sion! We spent many months on his update, and worked to deliver a cohesive and unique champion to League of Legends."
[/hide] Pictures: Live Sion/Dead Sion
Concepts for Sion
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The bit about Jarvan's crown is magnificent. I want to see J4's and J3's face when they see this beast.
Wait… don't crowns work in a way that they get inherited by the next king? I mean when King I dies, he passes the crown onto King II no? So isn't it even more horrible that the first Jarvan died in such a gruesome way, and the Lightshields even lost their crown (after one king might I add).
I maybe looking too much into it :I
Now I'd like to see a video with J4 and Sion and with flashbacks~
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A summery for the Sion Q&A that happened yesterday: [hide]"Why isn't there a traditional Sion skin?"
When asked if the update will increase Sion's IP/RP price and if he will be getting a "traditional" skin like Karma and Trundle, Seb commented:
"First of all, Sion will definitely not be getting a price increase with the update. We're still considering how the increased Champ update pipeline might affect overall pricing (if at all), but that's still pretty long-term at this point.As for your other question, Sion will not be getting a Traditional skin. We focused 100% of our effort on the base Sion and his existing skins, to make sure our new Sion is the best version of Sion we can possibly deliver."
When asked why they waited so long to comment on the lack of a Traditional Sion skin, Seb noted: "Great question, especially since the Champ Update team is usually very vocal about our projects with the community. We made the call to not make the Traditional skin a while ago, but since we knew that some players would be disappointed in the short term, decided to wait till this Q&A to discuss the details. That way, we can have a more reliable back-and-forth about this subject with players."
IronStylus added on to the traditional skin discussion, saying: "In retrospect we discovered the return on creating those traditional skins wasn't worth the redirecting of resources away from the new base. While they were something we emotionally felt in our gut was important, the information we went through and the conclusions we reached made us reach the opinion that traditional skins were not where wanted to focus our effort, despite them being a nod back to the original. They didn't quite "pay off", not in a literal sense, but in a sense of a cohesive new base, the allocation of resources and other factors.
This conversation really has affected how we treat traditional skins in general, and we're going to have to use discretion going forward. My feeling is that we're going to be changing our general stances towards traditional skins, but Seb should be the one to talk mostly to that."
Ququroon also added in: "Hey Arkhammer,**As you've said, we did create three traditional skins a while back. In the past, we used Traditional skins as a way of allowing players to represent the older merits of a character that we may have glazed over during the creation process.
We weren't always confident in what we were shipping, and in extreme cases, necessitated a traditional skin to execute on them in a way they should have been done. This is shown to an extreme in the case of Karma's fans, something that we know we could have done better.**
The team has been doing updates for two years or so now, and we have a bit more moxie as to how this whole rodeo goes. We feel we're able to better respect the old, while pushing the bar as hard as we can. We didn't up and change Sion from an undead to a frozen warrior. He's still the same exact fantasy he was before, just executed in a way that he was originally meant to be.
If the team as it is now existed in the past, there are mistakes that we wouldn't have repeated. Karma wouldn't have lacked her fans. Trundle would have better enveloped the 'leper jesus' he was so affectionately known for. Sejuani would have just realized that a bikini wasn't appropriate snow wear. These are things that could be fixed in the future, but we prefer to continue moving forward, as there are still a large amount of characters that need some love coughpoppycoughevecough.
Essentially, we don't feel like traditional skins are the correct answer- the only way to show our love for older content.
We still push for constant and continuous improvement in our updates, but we want to do so in a way that best shows respect for older content as a whole package."When asked about the future of traditional skins with regard to the above conversation, Ququroon commented: "Well… our current line of thinking is that if we do it correctly and give them respect, we won't need to create a Traditional skin at all. When we make any mega changes, it would still fall in line with who the character is. We can never be 100%, but hopefully we're still getting an A."
Seb elaborated on the problems with a traditional VO later in the Q&A, saying: "Like I mentioned in other posts, we're not doing a Traditional skin for Sion, because ultimately we don't believe that we can faithfully and fully deliver on an "Old Sion experience" with the Sion update within scope. For this particular post I'll focus on the VO aspect:
Some players are really attached to the Arnie quotes, but that's only really describing the English voice-over experience, for a reference most meaningful to only specific players around the world. I'm not saying that delivering on that isn't valuable, but rather that we decided it was more valuable to focus on the more advanced and full VO experience for all Sions and skins that would be meaningful regardless of region or language.
Sion's updated VO is more cohesive with his identity, and for the first time in League of Legends, he is able to ramp up and down in overall intensity as the battlefield conditions change. Retrofitting his existing Arnie VO into this new system and supporting it long-term so that the few players that currently own Sion are able to have what we believe to be a low-quality (non-cohesive and extremely short-script) experience, was not worth it, especially when taking into account how little the existing Traditional skins are owned or used in-game."
IronStylus also commented****on the appeal of Sion having a traditional skin featuring the old Arnie voice: "I'd like to see our sound gent C3sound speak to that but I know there were some serious technical issues in getting all that hooked up. Also, speaking to the audience of Sion players, the voice is really specifically an NA component, and considering the amount of work it would take to technically add back in the old VO, that effort was directed entirely to giving players the world over a quality experience."He continued: "Sorry, let me clarify. English is what I'm referring to. (sorry to lump all that together :P)
Yes, while English speakers and fans of Western media that involves Arnold is charming to us, we're sort of in the minority actually. By a wide margin the accent, the mannerisms, the reference, aren't understood by a huge chunk of the world.
Again, I appreciate the charm, but 1) those fairly "cheesy" chunks of old content don't really translate, and 2) we wanted to really let the new Sion shine and not be diluted by things we wanted to evolve past. We have a lot of confidence in new Sion. This is indeed a bit of a blank slate, but we decided that after a huge discussion on the matter. The call was not made easily."C3Sound continued the new vs old VO discussion, explaining: "I'll chime in here on the VO decision.
Sion before the champion update, while charming, was thematically thin. The "ambiguous" nature of the old Sion lent itself to a very flexible understanding of what the champion should sound like… Ending up with somewhat of a comical decision in making him sound the way he did. What the Champion Update team strives to do is not only up the quality bar of these champions in all aspects, but to deliver what we believed to be the original intention of the champion. The original intention, aside from the comical VO lines, was never for Sion to become less-than-serious champion.
Artistic Reason:
Old Sion VO is different in quality and content than the other old traditional skin VO. Mainly, because the old VO is so drastically different than the new that we couldn't retain the feel of new Sion if we used it. Even from today's skins standards, if old Sion's voice never existed and we were to make a skin - the VO choice that old Sion has wouldn't even be considered unless it was thematically appropriate. Making a skin that would look like old Sion does not thematically connect with the old Voice.Tech Reason:
We developed a very special type of VO tech to use with Sion. It allows the expanded script, what was few lines now over 200, to take advantage of the tech. Unfortunately, the old VO wouldn't work with this tech.We made the decisions on the back of an artistic and technical foundation. (IMO) I think it would be cool if this opened up an ideation for a Body Builder Sion and explore it with a more relevant VO set!
Old Sion VO will live on in our hearts, memories, and YouTube videos. And, in my opinion, is something that old Sion players will all remember as "Back in the day when Sion sounded ~insert heartwarming memory adjective here.~""
[/hide] Gameplay [hide]When asked why they chose to give Sion's passive such high attack speed and % damage on hit, Scruffy explained: **"We want to let Sion player build pretty tanky and still feel like their passive gives them significant damage threat. This is where the attack speed and % health on hit come in."Scruffy also commented****on what happens when Sion is interrupted during his Q's channel time:** "The spell does not go off, but he is given a cooldown refund (sets cooldown back down to 2s).
As a Sion player, I often feel like if I'm eating CC for my team I'm doing my job. He's great at "soft taunting" enemies to focus him instead of his squishy allies."
He also mentioned that Sion's Q charge up isn't visible if Sion is hidden, much like Nunu's ult! **"Currently it will act in the same way as Nunu's ult. If the enemy can't see Sion they wont see the Q charge. Brushes OP"
When asked why Sion's health scaling on minion kills was something the team decided to keep from his old kit, Scruffy explained:** "When we took a step back and thought about what type of gameplay would fit with an "Undead Juggernaught" (with a huge axe) we settled on a very tanky guy that has heavy hitting physical abilities.
**That said, this helped inform us that the W (health stacking) and the shield ability with some tweaking would be good gameplay fits for this type of character."
As for the purpose of Sion's new E, Scruffy explained:** "The E was a move that we wanted to be both a soft setup for his Q and provide some interesting play for him in lane around the minion line. It's early iterations actually had an extremely short (almost melee range) initial cast and he could only hit far away opponents by punting minions. This was actually working out very well when he was in lane, but in mid/late game when a lot of fights were happening away from minions he didn't have much use for it. This resulted in us extending the first cast's range a bit to allow for some medium range use without minions."
Scruffy also noted****that Sion's E was a bit different in earlier iterations: **"The E was originally more of a melee range "backhand" that he used to knock minions into his opponents. When we realized that it was cool in lane but didn't provide him the tools that he needed for mid/late game when no minions are present it became a short range skillshot."
As for what inspired Sion's new ultimate, Scruffy commented:** "We tried a few different ultimates before we eventually found the one you see now. The first few focused on him smashing the ground and creating massive areas of new terrain (think of a giant trundle pillar). As you have likely inferred, those didn't work out because they blocked off too much of the map space creating some awkward gameplay spaces.
We then decided to try the slowly accelerating charge that gave him CC immunity. Then we added the steering, then we made it go a huge distance etc. These things usually start in one place and over days of iteration we end up with something awesome."
He continued: "As for inspiration, I think many of us remember the xmen cartoons from the 90s…"
When asked if Sion's ultimate will stop when colliding with player made terrain, Seb noted: "Yes, he'll stun himself on Anivia walls and such. If you have the reactions to to put a Cataclysm around him, then more power to you!
Related note: being stuck inside a Cataclysm with a Glory in Death Sion is not a positive experience."
Seb also commented****on the camera change that happens when you use Sion's new R: "The game camera indeed follows Sion as he ults, but it is more involved than just locked camera. During the ult, the camera leads Sion so he can see better the area in front of him, and doesn't pay attention to the area behind him. Sion is locked but off-center so you can drive better.
This is a new camera feature we made for Sion and we're still working on it, but we're very happy with how it's working out!"
Scruffy also added in: "What you're seeing is some new camera tech we're trying for Sion. It's similar to camera lock but we focus more on the space in front of sion instead of centered on the character.
Having to both steer and push the screen boundary was creating a pretty bad usability problem so we used this camera setting to let the sion player focus on steering only. It also adds some unique feel to the spell, almost like "tunnel vision" where Sion is so focused on charging that he has his blinders on."As for old scrapped abilities they tried out on Sion's kit, Scruffy shared: "I mentioned in another reply the giant mountain of terrain ult that was scrapped in favor of the unstoppable charge.
There was also an old passive that was letting him root enemies with his auto attacks as a bit of a Q setup, but this ended up feeling like too much overlap with j4 and nautilus
The E as well went through a slew of iterations including a passive where he built up strength the longer he stayed in combat and unleashed the built up power with an active ability."
Seb also commented on a funny bug between Sion and Azir while they were both in testing: "My favorite was when Azir and Sion were both in testing, and when Sion would ult the Azir wall, he'd get knocked back– but he'd still be in the charge. So he'd bounce off the wall over and over, trying to get through faster and faster. It looked like an enormous Noxian fireball jumping on a Shuriman trampoline!"[/hide] Art & Concept [hide] When asked why Sion is so big in comparison to other champions, IronStylus commented: **"Simply because of the character he's supposed to be. If we were to remake Malph entirely we'd probably make him bigger."
When asked about the inspiration glowing red hole in Sion's stomach, HUGEnFAST explained:** "The gaping hole in his stomach serves a few purposes. Mainly, it exposes his core, which attracts and absorbs the life essence of his enemies. This in turn fuels his locomotion and rage. Secondly, it's a way of denoting his zombie nature. You know he's got to be undead of he's as hallowed out as a pumpkin."
HUGEnFAST also commented on why Sion has a peg leg: **"The main idea behind the peg leg was to show history. After decades upon decades of battle, even the greatest warriors are bound to lose a limb or two (or heck, even die once or twice in Sion's case)."
As for the knife in Sion's head, HUGEnFAST explained it's origins as:** "The knife was part of his final resurrection ritual, the equivalent of putting a key into an ignition. It is Noxian in origin and may very well have tasted Jarvan blood in the past…"
HUGEnFAST reiterated these in a later post, explaining: "Glad you like it!
Most of the ideas arise through conversation within the team, particularly when discussing his lore and gameplay. The knife felt very appropriate with his new personality and story. It was a key part of his resurrection. The soul furnace is where he absorbs and processes the souls of his slain enemies and ended up being a cool way to describe how his W functions. His false leg, as I mentioned in another post, was a way to suggest that he has participated in hundreds of battles, as well as a way to enhance his "zombie-ness."
Check out the dev blog, we get into some of this stuff."
Entropy added: "We did, in fact, have a meeting during the concepting phase entirely focused on brainstorming interesting battle wounds and history that we could tie into Sion's visual design. I believe the idea to use J1's crown in some form emerged from that, among other things."ZenonTheStoic also jokingly added: "I also heard that the soul furnace is powered by an evil poro living inside Sion. IS THIS TRUE?"
Riot Phoenix also commented on the visuals of his new R, saying: "For visuals I looked at a lot of meteor reference :) I thought adding a lens flair would be pretty cheesy, so I stuck with the hot leading edge and cone like air waves. Because he doesn't have much left or right mobility I was able to put a nice long trail on him without it looking jittery. Who wouldn't fear a flaming juggernaut barreling towards you? :D"
IronStylus also responded to someone concerned that Sion is too far away from the current champion art style, saying: "Personally I see him fitting in with our current style and setting a bar as to how we execute in the future."
When asked about a new Sion skin, IronStylus commented: "I can only really address 2 here, but a big part of VU's and other updates is getting a champion in good shape for new skins. So while I don't know about any skins specifically in development, updates allow us to make high quality new skins!"
When asked if Sion's skin splashes will be updated to reflect their new look, HUGEnFAST replied: "Yes! We are working on these, along with skin splash updates for previously reworked champions (Trundle, Nidalee, etc)."
[/hide]Lore [hide]When asked about the decision to change Sion's title to "the Undead Juggernaut, Entropy explained: "Sion was always described as a Juggernaut in his original story. A "human battering ram." It was always sort of there, it just wasn't really exemplified in the gameplay. We decided to dig into that angle more heavily this go round."
IronStylus also added in: "Actually "juggernaut" as a concept, being something unstoppable, is one of the key words we used when we had our first meetings on Sion. We often do this when we want to distill a champion down to it's essence and make sure we're building on a solid foundation."
When asked about the writing team for the project and if we can expect similar stories for future champion updates, Entropy commented: "There is a single Narrative team that works with product teams to produce content. Champ, Champ Update, Events, Promotions, etc.
**Currently promotions are developed based on the product, so each might have different needs or desired outcomes.
There will definitely be more, though they won't necessarily try to fit the model we used for Sion."**
In response to a comment on transitioning Sion to a serious character from a goofy character, Entropy commented: **"Interesting question. Adjustments to the tone of a character is something we definitely look at when updating Champs.
We take it on a case by case basis. Being a goofy Noxian killer wasn't really doing Sion any favors, but Twitch being kooky compliments his unhinged personality. Grimdark Heimer was a missed opportunity. >.>**
**I'd say that Swain, Vlad, and LeBlanc already have fairly serious characters (in spite of Vlad being a Punomancer). They all have a lot of potential to be complex antagonists going forward."
When asked about Sion's new unique taunts for Galio, Entropy noted:** "There's a natural opposition between the two that I wanted to lay the groundwork for. The dichotomy between the eternal guardian and the undying destroyer felt really compelling for a rivalry that would endure ages. Plus there's a certain irony to the fact that Galio is an artificial being who's gained a sense of humanity and Sion is a man who's become more of a warmachine than anything.
"Time to cut your strings, puppet." If only he knew."
Entropy also commented on the voice actor casting and process: **"Our casting process has gotten much more rigorous, even within the last year. We start by putting together an audition description with a short sample script, character details, and some references for the actors and actresses to use as inspiration. We work with a few studios that send out the casting call and deliver us the audition reels.
Then we review them all and narrow down our top picks. If we're having trouble deciding on one, we'll usually reaudition that short list with some additional direction and see who really stands out. Once we've made our final pick we then move into an exploratory session. That's basically an opportunity for us to work directly with the talent, give them direction, try out a few different takes and see what works and what doesn't. Provided all goes well, we book our final recording sessions and finish out the complete script.**
Azog the Defiler was definitely one of the character references, so we did have to dial back on things like snorts, snarls, and grunts because he was sounding too much like an orc. We also tried a much more vacant "zombie" style for the death passive that we abandoned in favor of the more feral bloodlust.
We're trying to be a lot more diligent about keeping unique space between the voices and performances of our Champions, so if we see a high amount of overlap that definitely comes into consideration.
Whenever possible we reaudition the original talent for the role and provide them with the context of what we're shifting around. Ultimately we make our decisions based on what we think will get the best performance, even if it means tackling change aversion head on."
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Other [hide] **When asked who will get an update next, Seb commented:
"It's definitely early to commit to anything (we're still trying to make sure Sion is good to ship!) but the most likely scenario is that the team will focus briefly on less high-risk projects to make sure to deliver a good amount of cool stuff as the holiday season approaches. If the team focused on only enormous projects like Sion, we'd be delivering once every couple of months– but we want to become more reliable so people don't have to wait for too long.**
Long story short: there will be some smaller-scope and lower-risk projects coming out after Sion and before the next high-scope project, to maintain reliable delivery and the sanity of the team."
He continued: "As of this moment, Fiora and Warwick are not in progress. Soon after Sion is out, we'll be updating this page that documents upcoming Champion updates with who's coming up next.
https://support.leagueoflegends.com/entries/40116190-Champion-Update-Schedule****"
As for if Riot is planning on slowing down the production of new champions to better facilitate updating older champions, Scruffy commented: "We are definitely focusing more resources and effort to updating the existing champions in the game, as you have seen over the last few patches. This becomes increasingly more important as the game gets older and we have more champions to maintain.
That said, this doesn't affect the rate that we want to put out new champions. Those won't be slowing down."
IronStylus also added in: "New champion cadence has slowed a bit, and I think that, for this team at least, it provides us an opportunity to deliver love to older champions that really need it. Since we're a completely different team than the Champion team, we're able to sort of swoop in and help deliver quality content in the time between large champion releases. We also however can take time to give slightly smaller scope project some attention, like Cass and Renekton which received model and texture updates."
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–- Update From New Post Merge ---
**New stuff in the PBE:
Championship Shyvana splash art (Shyvana looks young in this art)
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Kog`Maw new splash art (OMFG !!!!!!!!!!!! THAT´S SOOOOOOOOOOO KAWAII :wub::wub:)
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[/hide]Notice the helmet in Kog´s splash art, just like the helmet that guy from Vel´Koz promo video was wearing.**
When AP used to be good:
NEVER FORGET !!
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Are they changing Kog's color?
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**In the old splash art, he looks "pinkish", but in game he is gray. So no, they are not changing Kog´s color.
Kog was my 2° or 3° champion, and one of the reasons I bought him was his splash art, but when I saw the character in game, I was sad to see that he is gray, not "pinkish"**.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
New Summoner Icons
We also have a set of three new summoner icons, likely tied to The Harrowing and/or the Hexakill: Twisted Treeline gamemode that is currently testing on the PBE
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Notice the helmet in Kog´s splash art, just like the helmet that guy from Vel´Koz promo video was wearing.
Now, while I'm sure these guys are just random soldiers, I'd like to imagine it's the same guy getting killed by all these monster champs. I'm dreaming that they release him, and all his moves are centered around him getting killed.
New Kog looks great though. I've never liked him, but that seems to fit his "disgusting monster that's slightly cute" design.
Meanwhile, I want those icons. I love their color scheme.
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**Order of the Lotus Karma is now available for 975 RP.
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[/hide]So far, this is the best skin for her, + lots of special effects for a cheap price = worth it
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**New splash arts for
Cho'Gath
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More helmet guys.
Ravenborn LeBlanc
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Underworld Wukong
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[/hide]The special mode selection image for the upcoming Hexakill: Twisted Treeline featured gameplay mode has been added.
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[/hide]No Mordekaiser in the picture. :sad:**
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I don't have skins for wukong and LeBlanc yet, and these look good
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**Champion Spotlight for Sion.
And the future of LoL in 2015.
[hide]** With the season winding down, Ypherion has posted up context on a set of experimental preseason 2015 changes that will be making their way to the PBE soon! These changes look to support more strategic diversity, including significant changes to objectives, the jungle, items, and more!Continue reading for more information! Here's Ypherion with the scoop: "Hey everyone, **For the next couple weeks we’ll be putting out a lot of experimental work on the PBE as we ramp up to the 2015 preseason. As a reminder: some changes will be a bit disruptive - somevery disruptive - but the preseason is our annual opportunity to deepen the League of Legends experience (remember our changes from last year?), so we’re excited to be sharing some early iterations with you. Also keep in mind that these changes are still pretty early in development, so expect a good amount of temporary - or re-used - art, sound and other assets. In some cases this might make new things harder to understand (sorry!) and we’ll try to get them cleared up as soon as we can.
We’ll also be kicking off this PBE deploy with a series of preseason ‘forecasts’ to give some narrative structure for where we’re heading. More official communications will roll out when we get closer to the real start of preseason (so if you just want to know what’s definitely on the table, come back in a month or two), but If you want to get a peek behind the curtains of our 2015 development, read on.
Overall, this preseason we’re looking for ways to support more strategic diversity in League.
“Strategic diversity” is a pretty broad - and kind of vague - term so, to make sure we’re on the same page, we’ll be breaking it down in this series of posts.
When we talk about strategic diversity, we’re really focused on the ways you look to win - the paths to victory your team walks. Players have discovered many viable strategies during League’s lifetime, like teamfight-focused (deathball) strats, split pushing, siege / poke, objective control, and more. In the past, however, when one of the aforementioned strategies was dominant, we didn’t have a lot of ways to bring it back in line other than nerfing the champions that were critical to its success (think Shen back in his split push heyday).
So this time around with the 2015 preseason we want to add more tools to the game so that teams can continue to innovate while, at the same time, we can properly tune when strategies are over (or under) performing. In other words, by creating more paths for players we also end up with more balancing points we can use to make sure that multiple strategies exist without just stomping out the competition. More importantly, this means we have more ways to give power to strategies that seem too weak.
So broadly speaking - and we’ll get a little deeper on some of these topics over the next few days - we’ll be experimenting with changes to objectives (like towers, dragon, and baron), the jungle (a new camp, spawn times, difficulty, items, rewards… well, all of it really), items (more situationally powerful actives!) and some core systems (stats per level, death timers, how health / mana regen works). Reiterating our high-level goals here: we’re going to be laying a foundation on which we can support more strategic diversity, no matter what champions we play on the updated Rift.
Look forward to more focused forecasts in the next few days, and we’d love to hear your thoughts as our first wave of changes roll out! Happy experimenting!"** [/hide]
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Does anyone here have any good idea for a new skin **?
I was thinking that Riot could make a "librarian" skin for zilean.**
When AP used to be good:
NEVER FORGET !!
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looks so good!!!!
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**Server maintenance for the Patch 4.18, has been scheduled!
On October 9th at 3:00 AM PDT for NA, 5:00 GMT for EUW and 02:00 GMT for EUNE, servers will go down for maintenance and the 4.18 patch will be applied.
In this update, there will be:
Sion champion update - new kit, visuals, lore, updated skins.- Four new champion skins: Championship Shyvana, Dunkmaster Darius, Underworld Wukong, Ravenborn LeBlanc
- New 2014 Championship Ward Skin
- New splash art: Cho'Gath, Kog'Maw, Lee Sin
- Hexakill: Twisted Treeline
- ~20 champion and skin texture rebalances - Blitz, Brand, Eve, Nocturne, Olaf.
a new Harrowing 2014 login!
The image of the login
Taric art and theme discussion:
IronStylus has opened up an early, exploratory** thread for players to talk about their opinions on Taric "as a character, visually and thematically". **"Got my eyes on him as of late. This isn't at all a confirmation of any release or production work any time soon, we're just snooping around the concept potential now.
A lot of people have a lot of different opinions on Taric, and many of them differ. This discussion has been had before, I'm sure it will be had again, but I'd like have you guys spitball some ideas. This isn't a mechanics discussion as much as it's an art and theme discussion. Taric as a character, visually and thematically.
There's a lot of nuance that people have gleaned from our Gem Knight, despite him being quite the old and outdated asset. Pizza feet, a whole 16 VO lines and a whole lotta gems. The line that we always have to walk is how to we retain/enhance/reconstruct what makes that champion special while also doing the hard work of an overhaul, which objectively, the character needs.
I maintain that Taric is an interesting and complex case. Almost a blank canvas due to how low fidelity and limited his in-game assets are and even the supporting story and themes around him. However, many people see different things when they see Taric. Be they enthusiasts or newcomers. It can be difficult to parse what's objective reality and what's been created and filled in by the player. Currently, one of my assumptions is that so many people have different projections as to what Taric is because right now there's no solid foundation as he exists. You can pretty much project whatever you like to on him, and currently, that projection tends to be a bit of a joke.
Despite that, there's great opportunity with Taric. But the question is.. what sort of opportunity? What do you see as important aspects to consider, to build upon, or to remake when it comes to Taric?
What would you do? Feel free to throw reference imagery here, personality write-ups, or just drop your 2 cents.
Thanks, guys!
EDIT: You guys are awesome. I'm reading every single one of these comments, just so you know. Keep them coming and don't be hesitent to post even if it's far down. I'm still skimming and reading! Gunna start another thread to ask for some reference that players think would help define Taric's look. Thanks again!"**
In this follow up thread, IronStylus requested design references! "Hey guys,So that other Taric thread is an amazing gold mine (or should I say GEM MINE! AHH? GET IT? Anyways..) of ideas and suggestions. The sentiments and discussions are absolutely fascinating and extremely helpful. I'm always floored by how insightful and thoughtful, you, our players are, and how in depth you go. You have no idea how valuable that insight is.
**What I'd like to ask for here is reference. As artists we constantly look at reference imagery for a number of reasons.
Sometimes it's to look at anatomy, to make sure we're creating a body correctly. Other times it's for light or color, so we can see how a scheme will serve an illustration. In this case however, I'm looking for design reference.**
What does that mean? Armor! Gems! Motifs! Flourishes! Portraits! Anything that could be pointed to and said "Hey, I think Taric could incorporate elements from this!", or, "This image really hits me in the feels, those are the sort of feels
I want to feel when I look at Taric."So while the last thread (which is still going strong, please continue to post in there) there was a lot of visual suggestions, explanations in written format sorta dominated. That's totally fine. Here I'd love to see you throw some images at me!
Thanks!"
Be sure to hop on the boards and leave your feedback!
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To me, Taric is a little feminine paladin-esque man, in a big but stylish armor imbued with gems, who has the most soothing voice in the League. He's humble and wants to use his knowledge to help those in need. He also has a caring personality, but he isn't as loud as Braum but just as well meaning. Maybe a little "smarter" so he doesn't use his muscles as much as his brain.
That's just me though.
Also, I'd like him and Skarner to meet. Not in the "Erhmargerd gemzz" way, rather "crystal-creatures-in-need-of-help-Taric-can-maybe-help-them etc" way.
Also this:
http://akiman.deviantart.com/art/Fan-Art-Rework-Taric-The-Gem-Knight-464690374 -
Also this:
http://akiman.deviantart.com/art/Fan-Art-Rework-Taric-The-Gem-Knight-464690374Just imagine Armor of the Fifth Age Taric if Riot used that. awwwwww yeeeaaahhh
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New stuff in the PBE:
2 new skins: **Reaper Soraka
Victorious MorganaReaper Soraka will have a VO:
2 new splash arts
Jarvan IV
Rengar** Lore ChangesSeveral Shadow Isles champions have received new, short-form lore entries for the client. These are not meant to replace the longer bios on the website. Elise Elise's entrancing beauty and grace conceal the pitiless, black heart of a deadly predator. With ruthless cunning, she lures the unsuspecting with promises of favor from the spider god. Having exchanged her humanity to become something far more sinister, Elise sacrifices the innocent to maintain her power and seemingly eternal youth. No one can fathom how many have been caught in her web, slain to feed her insatiable hunger.
Evelynn Swift and lethal, Evelynn is one of the most deadly - and expensive - assassins in all of Runeterra. Able to merge with the shadows at will, she patiently stalks her prey, waiting for the right moment to strike. While Evelynn is clearly not entirely human, and her heritage remains unclear, it is believed that she hails from the Shadow Isles - though her link with that tortured realm remains shrouded in mystery.
Hecarim Hecarim is a towering, armored specter whose name is whispered fearfully across the length and breadth of Runeterra. He patrols the Shadow Isles, running down anyone foolish enough to set foot upon its cursed soil. As the vanguard of undeath, Hecarim rides forth from the Black Mist, laughing mockingly as he tramples the living beneath his iron-shod hooves.
Karthus Karthus is a harbinger of oblivion, zealously devoted to the beauty and clarity of death. Even in his youth, he was utterly obsessed with mortality, growing ever more relentless in the pursuit of his dark desires. Yearning to be one with death itself, Karthus journeyed to the Shadow Isles and willingly offered himself to undeath. Karthus transformed into the Deathsinger, a dread lich existing solely to deliver the blessed gift of annihilation.Maokai Maokai was bound to a gnarled tree by the dark magic that transformed the Shadow Isles. The once-peaceful nature spirit is now a corruption of his former self. Infused with power that he never asked for, he has become a destructive force, sundering his enemies with wild magic and crushing limbs. Maokai continues to wander Valoran, seeking the means to bring life back to his forest home.
Mordekaiser The vicious wraith Mordekaiser is among the most terrifying and hateful of spirits that haunt the Shadow Isles. Entombed in ancient armor, the Master of Metal is said to be the first of the unliving, a revenant who existed even before the Shadow Isles were wrought. His twisted soul thrives on his own suffering, as well as the anguish he inflicts upon others. Those who dare face Mordekaiser in battle risk a horrific curse: he enslaves his victims' souls to become instruments of destruction.
Thresh Thresh is a sadistic, spectral reaper who relishes tormenting the living and the dead. Once a jailer who mercilessly brutalized all under his charge, Thresh was hanged from his own chains by the prisoners he had tortured. With his vicious essence unbound, the Chain Warden roams Runeterra in search of prey. He derives twisted joy from slowly breaking the minds of his most defiant victims, before trapping their souls within the sickly green light of his lantern.
Yorick A terrifying and tragic figure, Yorick is a ghoulish being that exists on the edge of mortality. Some say he was the last of his family line, dying without an heir to continue its legacy, and that he is cursed to continue to his family's duty even after death. Wielding the twisted shovel he bore in life, he continues his macabre work, endlessly digging and filling graves upon the haunted Shadow Isles.
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Goddammit, that Soraka looks nice. Do I need a second Soraka skin? :I Well, I'll certainly need the icons, so yea…
Finally, J4 gets the splashart he deserves.Also, after like 10 ranked losses, I've won two matches. In one of them, I got the nicest team possible. Like, really, they were all nice, helped out each other, listened to each other, and we have each other tons of honors (I was with Skarner, whom I consider my main at this point). The other team was your typical "wow, you suck" "reported" stuff, but with the help of a flamed Voli, I could safely kill them all! I was Malz, against a Fizz, and a fed Irelia and a Janna. I was so scared that my ult won't work at all, but it seems they underestimated me. And if they tried to kill me, well, ult to their face~
--- Update From New Post Merge ---
Just imagine Armor of the Fifth Age Taric if Riot used that. awwwwww yeeeaaahhh
I hope they keep his "Outrageous" quote.
Nothing's finer than spamming joke on him.
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**Reaper Soraka (1350 RP)
Victorious Morgana (Reward skin for placing Gold or Higher during the 2014 Ranked Season)
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**Sion, The Undead Juggernaut (585 RP or 1350 IP) is now available in the store.
New splash art. [hide]
[/hide]Old vs new
[hide]
[/hide]There is also a bundle with all his skins** [hide]
[/hide] -
**The "End of Season Rewards and the new Master Tier" posts have been updated to specify that the 2014 ranked season will be ending on NOVEMBER 11th! You have about a month to climb the ladder and earn this season's rewards!
As a reminder, this season's** ranked tier rewards include:
BRONZE
- Summoner Icon
SILVER
- Summoner Icon
- Banner Trim
- Loading Screen Border
GOLD+
- Summoner Icon
- Banner Trim
- Loading Screen Border
- Season Icon appears in Game Invite and Friend Request notifications
- Victorious Morgana Skin*
To earn these TIER rewards, you must meet these requirements for each queue:
Ranked Solo
- You are in a tier at the end of the season
Ranked 5s
- Your team is in a tier at the end of the season
- Win at least 10 games in this queue with your team
Ranked 3s
- Your team is in a tier at the end of the season
- Win at least 10 games in this queue with your team
There is also a new ward skin reward for playing on RANKED TEAMS! You score 1 point for a 3v3 ranked team win and 3 points for a 5v5 ranked team win. The version of the ward you receive is based on how many points you as an individual end the season with! The Conquering versions comes at 20 points, Triumphant at 45 points, and Victorious at 75 points, although you will only get one ward skin when the season ends.
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One month till G2 to Plat? Let's see…
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**More things in the PBE
2 New splash arts:** Singed
Udyr **Singed Texture and Model Upgrade + his skins (except Snow Day Singed)
Old/New
[hide]
[/hide]A video with all his skins that suffered update
Singed changes:
Here's SmashGizmo with context on a few Singed changes included in today's update :**"Hey guys, SmashGizmo here from the Live Gameplay team, and I'm here to just give you guys a little heads up on some Singed changes coming to PBE soon. We don't think Singed needs a big push to make his way back into the mix in top lane, so we're looking at some small scale changes, both to give him something new and cool to do and to give him a little nudge up in power. The main changes we're looking at here are:
- When Singed Flings an opponent into his Mega Adhesive, they are snared for 1 second
- Slight buff to rank 3 Insanity Potion stats bonus
The first change is about adding some cool thematic utility to Singed and opening up some big play-making potential when he gets creative with comboing his abilities. We like the core stuff that Singed is doing and we didn't really want to change that too much, but we wanted to give him some new ways to think about his E and W usage and reward players for using them well together. The second change is just a slight nudge up to his late game effectiveness, as Insanity Potion's rank 3 isn't quite as noticeable in the late game as the earlier ranks are in the early-mid game.
Also, Singed is receiving these kit changes in tandem with some visual updates! The model and textures for all of his skins have been updated, so you can look all spiffy as you run by people and throw them onto disgusting puddles of goo."
Changes for 2015:
Fountain Regeneration
Improving feel of regeneration in fountain****[hide]- Fountain Regeneration now heals for 25% of the amount healed on live but ticks 4 times as fast.
Stat Growth Per Level
Champion base stats and stat growth per level adjusted to help reduce the impact of early level advantages- Roughly, characters will start the game with an additional 68% of their per level statistic compared to live.
- Each level, characters will gain from 72 to 128% of their per level statistic compared to live, totalling to 1700% of your per level statistic.
Bounty Changes
With Stats Growth Per Level changes, early advantages are somewhat diminished - thus removing the unpopular gold rubberbanding mechanic from S4 to compensate for the new system of stats growth- Kill gold is no longer reduced before 4 minutes.
- Gold gained from Assists now scales from 25% to 50% over the first 210 seconds of the game.
Death Timers
Shifting Death Timers to be longer based on level for a larger portion of the game to give a team on the backfoot an uptime advantage- Death Timers now increase by 2% every 30 seconds starting at 35 minutes, rather than 2% every 60 seconds starting at 25 minutes.
Towers
Towers have received some changes to change both tower feel and to simplify the calculus involved in determining your damage to a tower
Inner Towers have been given some anti-split push / anti-siege potential. Inhibitor Towers have been given more ramp-up to make it easier to defend against single targets- Towers no longer gain Armor and Magic Resistance over time, but they still gain Attack Damage.
- Tower Armor and Magic Resistance have been normalized to 100.
- Tower HP has been set to the following:
Outer: 2000 Health
Inner: 2000 Health
Inhibitor: 2500 Health
Nexus: 2000 Health - Inner Towers have a new mechanic - Shielding:
Inner Towers have a shield protecting them that regenerates after 60 seconds of not taking damage.
While the shield holds, nearby champions gain a moderate shield as well. - Inhibitor Towers have a new mechanic - Beam:
Inhibitor Towers attack their target continuously, up to 4 times a second.
Inhibitor Towers slowly ramp their damage from 100% to 260% over the course of 6.5 seconds.
Inhibitor Towers slowly ignore their targets armor from 40% to 100% over the course of 6.5 seconds.
Ramp is reset when Inhibitor Towers change targets. - Base Tower regeneration reduced to 5 hp/5 from 15 hp/5
Minions
Simplifying Minion Math as well as removing the ability for resistance penetration to increase wave clear power- Minions no longer gain Armor and Magic Resistance
- Minions gain increased maximum Health at a rate roughly comparable to the old resistance bonuses such that their effect HP is the same.
Homefield Advantage
Wanted to give the defending team an advantage in their base and remove other rubberbanding mechanics- While a character is in their own base, they receive a movement speed and minor resistance bonus.
Inhibitor Respawn
Removing this rubberbanding mechanic as the base buff seems to accomplish the same thing while not dragging the game out artificially- Inhibitors respawn timers increased to 300 seconds from 240.
Blue Buff
Blue Buff, acquired ealy, can lead to some unbreakable siege scenarios. With two buffs, this siege power can extend to 100% uptime. Wanted to reduce the duration on the buff a bit rather than attack the power of it to shorten some extended sieging scenarios- Blue Buff duration reduced to 120 seconds from 150.
Red Buff
Blue buff is incredibly broad in application as it is used to dominate lane and contribute to clearing minions in wave clear, while red buff has some in-combat advantages - we wanted to give red buff some kind of role to play in a siege to give greater rewards to controlling the map before a siege- Grants you 1% of your maximum Health every 5 seconds.
- Duration reduced to 120 seconds from 150.
- Slow reduced to 5-10% / 8-15% for ranged / melee characters from 5-15% / 8-24%
- Burn damage rescaled to 5-56 damage per second from 10-44 damage
- Burn damage now applies to Towers
New Powerup: Still Waters
Adding a pickup to the lanes after 20 minutes to add some incentive to visit this area in the mid and late game, as well as provide some split pushing power- In the top and bottom lanes, at the entrance to river, a powerup will spawn beginning at 20 minutes and every 3 minutes thereafter.
- This buff confers:
+50 out of combat movement speed.
Standing Still for 0.5 seconds grants up to 25% increased vision range and the ability to look over walls.
Elixirs
Replacing current Elixirs with Elixirs that serve more divergent strategic powers, especially in the late game- Elixir of Fortitude and Brilliance have been removed.
- You may only benefit from one elixir at a time.
- Elixirs may only be bought when your champion is level 9 or above.
- Elixir price increased to 400 gold.
- New Elixirs added:
Elixir of Ruin: Grants Health, +% Tower Damage. Nearby minions gain +% Tower Damage and their movement speed is set to 90% of your own, up to 500.
Elixir of Iron: Grants Size, Tenacity and Slow resistance. You leave a trail that increases ally movement speed by 10%
Elixir of Sorcery: Grants AP, MP/5 and bonus true damage when damaging a champion or a tower.
Elixir of Wrath: Grants AD, 10% physical vamp and scoring a kill or assist will extend the duration of the flask by 30 seconds.
Baron Nashor
Attempting to create a greater call to action for the team that has the Baron Nashor buff, rather than passively grind the opponent out- Health and Regeneration removed (AD and AP boost remain the same)
- Baron Buff additionally grants you Empowered Recall, reducing your recall time to 4 seconds.
This also massively heals you and grants you an 8 second movement speed buff once it finishes. - Baron Buff buffs nearby minions around you significantly, causing them to gain up to 90% your Movement Speed as well as specific bonuses on type:
Melee Minions: Gain 80% damage reduction from almost all damage types
Ranged Minions: Gain increased damage and a minor increase in range.
Siege Minions: Gain massive increases to range - such that they outrange towers. Their attacks are 50% slower but are AoE and deal 4x damage to towers.
Super Minions: Gains 75% Movement Speed when nearby enemies as well as 25% Attack Speed.
Dragon
Dragon bonuses adjusted to be more 'back-loaded' so that a team that opts for a fast pushing strategy versus a team that goes for neutral objective control will spike in power at different times in the game- Slaying Dragon now grants you a stack of 'Dragonslayer' which grants different permanent bonuses depending on how many Dragons you've slain.
Stack 1: Increased Regeneration
Stack 2: Increased AD / AP
Stack 3: Increased Movement Speed
Stack 4: Increased Health
Stack 5: Triples all other bonuses - Dragon gives 50% reduced XP, compared to live.
- Dragon no longer grants global gold.
- Dragon deals 20% increased damage to units for every Dragon their team has slain.
- Dragon takes 7% reduced damage from units for every Dragon their team has slain.
**Itemization Updates
Enchantment: Captain's
Removing overlapping mechanics from Elixir of Ruin and Baron Buff - and most people didn't use Captain's for this purpose anyway**- Minion MS amplification removed.
Armor and Magic Resistance
Resistances are inherently reactive buys - and the constraint of Negatron Cloak and Chain Vest makes the act of cleverly reacting to your opponent much much harder than it should be- All Armor and Magic Resistance items can now be built out of a cloth armor / null magic mantle.
- Recipes, gold costs, stats and build paths have been adjusted to compensate for the above change.
- In effect, there is now no meaningful difference between 'Chain Vest/Negatron Cloak' items vs. 'Cloth Armor/Null Magic Mantle' items as they will all build from the same root.
Health and Mana Regeneration
We're swapping from items granting flat HP/5 and MP/5 to increasing a % of your base regeneration + % level regeneration. This allows different characters to benefit from regeneration items differently - as well as allowing these items to more naturally scale as the game goes on.- Items that grant Health and Mana regeneration now grant either % Base Health Regeneration or % Base Mana Regeneration
- % Base Health / Mana Regeneration take into account your champion's Health and Mana regeneration and any Health and Mana regeneration they gain per level.
- This does not take into account: skills, masteries, runes and other sources other than your champion statistic.
**Example: Your champion has 7 mp/5 at level 1 and 18 mp/5 at level 18. You buy an item that grants +50% Base Mana Regeneration. At level 1, this item will provide an additional +3.5 mp/5 at level 1 and 9 mp/5 at level 18.
New Items
Crystalline Bracer
Recipe: Rejuvenation Bead + Ruby Crystal**- Grants Health and Regeneration.
Righteous Glory
Recipe: Catalyst + Crystalline Bracer- Grants Health, Mana and Regeneration
- Active: Grants +60% MS to you and nearby allies when moving towards enemies for 2 seconds. When this speed boost ends, it emits a shockwave, slowing nearby enemy champions by 80% for one second.
Warmog's Armor
- Health reduced to 800 from 100.
- Regeneration triples when out of combat.
- Cost slightly reduced.
Raptor's Cloak
Recipe: Rejuvenation Bead + Cloth Armor + Rejuvenation Bead- Grants bonus movement speed when near turrets or Zzrot Gates.
Zz'rot Portal
Recipe: Raptor Cloak + Negatron Cloak- Spawns a gate at a location that summons monsters. These monsters proceed down the nearest lane and attack minions and damage towers.
**Edit: Not currently in this build. Also no one spells like that.
Ohmwrecker
Recipe: Raptor Cloak + Kindlegem**- Active now boosts the damage of nearby towers by 100% or prevents nearby enemy towers from attacking.
- Stats adjusted to fit the recipe items (Health/Armor/Regen/CDR)
**Jungle
Jungle is different now. For reasons!
Reasons that are outlined in the previous PBE post. Don't look at me like that.General
1. Jungle Difficulty and Rewards have been increased
2. Red and Blue buff timers moved to 2:30New Jungle Camp: Scuttle crab
This neutral objective is intended to add control to the river as a setup for Baron / Dragon or provide protection/enable river ganks in the early game**- Spawns in top and bottom river and patrols the river it is in.
- Is not hostile - tries to run away from enemy champions.
- Grants a speed shrine in the river that provides vision and out of combat movement speed to people who cross it.
**Smite
Smiting a large monster from one of the monster camps will now grant bonus XP and a monster specific bonus when you kill it - this ensures that the Jungler always potentially benefits more from the Jungle than other roles
Brambleback (Elder Lizard)
1. Restores a large amount of Health.Blue Guardian (Ancient Golem)
1. Restore a large amount of Mana.Krugs (Ancient Golem)
1. Grants Gift of Heavy Hands - adding Execute Damage to your attacks.Gromp (Large Wraith)
1. Grants Gift of the Toadstool - grants Toadstool Armor, poisoning enemies that attack you.Raptors (Wraith Camp)
1. Grants Gift of the Eagle Eye - grants you a buff that automatically grants you true sight for a short time the next time you are spotted by an enemy ward.Murkwolf (Wolf Camp)
1. Grants Wolf Sentry - A ghostly wolf patrols that quardrant of the jungle for a moderate time. If an enemy champion enters that quadrant of the jungle, it'll run at them and alert you to his position.Jungle Itemization
Jungle itemization has been overhauled - all existing jungle items have been removed.Hunter's Machete
1. Hunter's Machete now grants 30 magic damage on hit over 2 seconds and grants 8 health and 2 Mana per second while fighting monsters.
2. Hunter's Machete can only be bought if you have Smite as a Summoner Spell.Upgrades
Hunter's Machete now upgrades into 4 items that amplify or change your Smite ability - depending on what overarching Jungle Strategy you want to do: Gank, Invade, Fast Clear, or CounterjungleStalker's Blade
1. After killing 3 monsters, you can smite Teemo enemy champions, dealing a small amount of true damage and reducing their movement speed by 50% for 2 seconds.Poacher's Knife
1. Upgrade Smite to Quick Smite. Quick Smite has reduced cooldown - has further reduced cooldown when you kill large monsters and grants bonus gold if you use it on the monsters in the enemy jungle.Skirmisher's Saber
1. Upgrades Smite to Challenging Smite. Challenging Smite can be cast on an enemy champion - doing no true damage but revealing them for a long time and causing your attacks to deal bonus true damage each time you hit him.Ranger's Trailblazer
1. Upgrades Smite to Desolating Smite - which causes Smite to deal 50% splash damage to other nearby monsters as well as stun them for 1.5 seconds.MOAR UPGRADES
The 4 above items can be enchanted with 4 enchantments that offer bonus statistics so you can customize the item based on what kind of role you want your jungler to transition to
Enchantment: Warrior- Grants AD and Life Steal
Enchantment: Magus
- Grants AP and CDR
Enchantment: Juggernaut
- Grants Health, CDR and Movement Speed
Enchantment: Slayer
- Grants AS, CDR and a stacking AS buff"****[/hide]**
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whoa that is a lot of changes to take in
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2 new splash arts Rumble
Shaco[h=2] Balance Changes [/h] *** Remember : The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.*
Champions
Singed
- Fling (E) now also reads "If the target Singed flings lands in his Mega Adhesive, they are also snared for 1 second"
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Loving these updates.
Btw, has anyone here tried the new Sion? Cause yesterday I was carried by one in a ranked match (yea, I was kinda meh early game).
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Loving these updates.
Btw, has anyone here tried the new Sion? Cause yesterday I was carried by one in a ranked match (yea, I was kinda meh early game).
**I did, he is a annoying AD bruiser. Kinda slow (the Q is so slow ¬¬), but if you combo your W and Q or even better, combo your W, R and Q, Sion will be a monster. His passive is actually fun to use, but people wont focus you in the first place, so when you die in the end of a TF, you can always sweep some low health champions.
The only skill that I didn't like was his E, I know..Slow + Armor penetration (possible stun) but in his combo this skill do a small part.
Don't discard the possibility of a slow with your half charged Q.
His R is awesome, but a little hard to master (dodge, dodge, dodge).**
When AP used to be good:
NEVER FORGET !!
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**I did, he is a annoying AD bruiser. Kinda slow (the Q is so slow ¬¬), but if you combo your W and Q or even better, combo your W, R and Q, Sion will be a monster. His passive is actually fun to use, but people wont focus you in the first place, so when you die in the end of a TF, you can always sweep some low health champions.
The only skill that I didn't like was his E, I know..Slow + Armor penetration (possible stun) but in his combo this skill do a small part.
Don't discard the possibility of a slow with your half charged Q.
His R is awesome, but a little hard to master (dodge, dodge, dodge).**
I hope he's free next week (I'm a cheap bastard and I want two more runepages~)
Played against him, in ranked as well as in normal. His ult is strong as hell, but people in my team always focused down his passive (I didn't and I almost died once).
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**Good news in the PBE:
Here's Saberprivateer** with more information on the new End of Game gifting feature that is currently on the PBE for testing! "Hey guys! We’ve released end of game gifting to the PBE for testing. This is a new way for players to gift fellow Summoners via the post-game lobby. Now, whether you want to thank a friendly player or reward someone’s first Pentakill, you can show your appreciation after the match! Here are the details: • You do NOT have to be friends to send a gift
• You can send gifts to players on both teams
• Only mystery skins and mystery gifts are available at this time
• The prices will be the same as in the store
• Gifts will count towards the daily gifting limit. In other words, you can only send/receive up to five gifts each day (For example, sending three mystery skins from the store and two end of game gifts hits your limit)
• Available in all queues except for custom games **Riot about biographiesCarnival Knights has** whipped up a discussion on the Story & Art boards regarding champion biographies for those champions who will need updated stories due to the recent lore changes: "Continuing an interesting discussion from this thread here****, I'd like to talk about some characters we'll be taking a crack at soon as a natural course of the revamp. As pointed out earlier we still have a lot of champs that have outdated lore, but for the sake of keeping a clear focus I'd like to hold this discussion primarily to champions whose biographies are completely dependent or intricately entwined with the Summoners/the IoW. Without the aforementioned institutions, where did they come from? Why are they here? What do they want? Nocturne, Fiddlesticks, Lee Sin, fourth example. All the champs. All your favorite champs (I make a lot of bad jokes, by the way. I apologize in advance). To give you some insight into our motivations, we're looking at stories holistically, rather than storytelling in a vacuum. What that means is, our goal is to preserve core personality aspects of characters while reinventing the how and why of their stories to create an interesting and vibrant world. For the sake of this discussion, you do not have to adhere to those rules. Offer any crazy idea you can think of! I'll try and check in as often as I can and respond as often as possible. **A couple points of note: this is not a promise to act on any of these suggestions. As well, I'd like this to stay as positive as possible - if you have criticisms feel free to voice them, but I'd rather have a friendly, focused discussion of these champs. Besides their core personalities, they're almost blank slates! Mostly blank. Kind of sort of blank. Ish.
I'll get it started: where should Nocturne come from? Is he a living shadow that kills people in their dreams and impresses nightmares on the waking world in the form of hallucinatory episodes? Or something… more? Share your thoughts! Lets do it!"In response to one summoner's** ideas for Nocturne, Carnival Knights noted****: "One of the things we try to keep in mind is that not every champion has to behave in a humanlike fashion. Sure, we don't want Nocturne to be the League of Legends Freddy Kreuger, but if we make him a dream-stalking Evelynn then we begin to have a) a shadow who is essentially a member of the Black Hand (Hail Sithis), and b) a situation where we're potentially robbing ourselves of more monstrous characters for the sake of JoJ-style interaction, which is the kind of interaction that, with some exceptions (Swain), we'd like to get away from. It also continues a different trend we want to get away from, which is throwing all the X characters into the X themed place (Ionia). And feel free to disagree with me if you like that, it's just what we'd like to get away from it for what I think are fairly valid reasons. **Now, you've correctly identified a problem with telling Nocturne stories: how do we keep him from simply killing people because ahhh spooky dream man? I think that lies in where he comes from, and the heart of what he is, as opposed to what he might do next (which will naturally develop once we figure out who he is). What are your thoughts there?"
Carnival Knights also commented on Fiddlesticks,** elaborating on his title: "The Harbinger of Doom" "I wrote a (very very very very very very early) draft for Fiddlesticks last week, and one of the biggest things I drew from is the fact that Fiddlesticks is, literally and figuratively, a harbinger for something. What that is, I don't know. But I felt preserving the fact that he appeared suddenly and without warning in an out-of-the-way place for who knows what reason is really key to what he is and what he might be. As a The King in Yellow and H.P. Lovecraft fanatic I'm inclined to believe there's something far greater going on behind the scenes of that 'scarecrow.' I'd would love to hear your ideas on that." Carnival Knights also briefly mentioned Ashe, saying****: "While I can't reveal what we're doing with Ashe for obvious reasons, I think you'll find she's anything but a coward. Sadly I cannot say more than that. I'm sorry!" As for the mysterious Voodoo Lands, Annie's origin point in the current lore, Carnival Knights noted****: "The guy who sits behind me reminds me of this every. Single. Day. We've got tentative plans for the voodoo lands, but they're very early along. Might open another thread another time to talk about them, as it's a whole other space of thought."
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**Dunkmaster Darius is now available! This new legendary tier skin is priced at 1820.
Dunkmaster Darius features unique voice over lines for over 30 champions, including: Amumu, Ashe, Brand, Caitlyn, Diana, Draven, Mundo, Ezreal, Fiddlesticks, Gangplank, Garen, Gragas, Janna, LeeSin, Leona, Lulu, Malphite, Maokai, MasterYi, Nocturne, Orianna, Rammus, Sion, Sona, Soraka, Trundle, Udyr, Vi, Vladimir, Zilean, and Zyra!
He also has several unique item lines when purchasing the following in-game items: Boots of Speed, Frozen Mallet, Infinity Edge, Maw of Malmortius, Sunfire Cape, Randiun's Omen, Ravenous Hydra, Stealth Ward, The Bloodthirster, and Trinity Force.**
New splash arts for: Ahri
Blitzcrank
Ezreal
Janna
Kayle
Wukong
Shen
Talon
Tristana
Veigar
Zilean Balance Changes*** Remember : The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.*
Champions
Janna
- Zephyr (W) cooldown reverted back to 12/11/10/9/8 from 12 at all ranks
Quinn
- Attack range reverted back to 525 from 550
- Movement Speed reverted back to 335 to 330
Ryze
- Arcane Mastery (Passive) now states that Ryze's abilities scale with his mana.
- Rune Prison (W) mana scaling reverted back to 4.5 from 0
- Spell Flux (E) [also reverted?]
Zilean
- Heightened Learning (Passive) reverted back to live
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**Upcoming changes to Refer-a-Friend:
Riot Metasystem has** posted up an announcement regarding upcoming changes to the Refer-a-Friend system that are aimed at combating botting and fraud, include changes to rewards and a much lower threshold to obtain Grey Warwick and Medieval Twitch. **"The TL;DR for those of you who just want to get back into game: we’re making some changes to Refer-a-Friend in the upcoming weeks to combat abuses like botting and fraud.
We started RAF to reward players for their part in growing League. Refer-a-Friend has quite the history at this point, with multiple incarnations dating back to the original launch of the game, and it’s been a rewarding experience for lots of players.
However, despite the best intentions of almost everyone, a small group of people have severely abused the system, creating negative play experiences for others, particularly new players.
Any rewards program like RAF runs the risk of some participants trying to game the system, and ordinarily we might tolerate low levels of fringe misuse if it meant we were still doing right by the vast majority of players. However, RAF abuse was increasingly degrading the average players' experience, forcing us to contemplate changes.
We’ll start with the symptoms of RAF abuse - things like account selling and botting (i.e. the use of scripts, programs, or other hacks to automate playing a game of League of Legends). The two are closely related in the case of RAF, as botting referrals enables account sellers to create accounts loaded with currency and skins.
In the past, RAF botting mostly took place in private custom games, where players’ experiences weren’t affected. However, as we said, we've recently seen bot usage swell in volume and spill into places like new player games and into game modes like Dominion. We'll be taking action against an array of offenders with the goal of stemming this trend. Additionally, to most effectively combat this type of botting we have to widen our toolkit to include more than just reactive measures like bans.
Ultimately, the best way to attack RAF abuse is to address the underlying symptoms that make it attractive to abuse in the first place. Specifically, the key cause of most misuse is actually the nature of the program itself.
Basically, abusers could make a ton of RP and real money by conducting large-scale botting for the purpose of selling accounts. Worse still, the average player faces a dilemma where attractive rewards like Grey Warwick and Medieval Twitch are prohibitively difficult to obtain honestly.
Let’s talk numbers. We found that while only about 1.4% of RAF participants attempt to abuse the system, if we isolate accounts with 10 or more referrals the percentage jumps to 70%, and then skyrockets to 99% when you count only those with 100 or more referrals. Consider that Grey Warwick and Medieval Twitch currently require 25 and 50 referrals, respectively, and the issue is clear. We understand that the current RAF reward structure isn’t ideal for the average player, which is why the reactive efforts we mentioned earlier are focused specifically on dedicated and repeated offenders - no one's going to be punished for referring a smurf or two.
We're working on updates to the Refer-a-Friend program to simultaneously remove incentives for abuse and better serve most League players. One of the key issues here is that it’s difficult for a single program to fully meet the needs of both the average player who might refer a couple friends and a hypothetical YouTube personality who might refer thousands.
We found that the majority of League players refer between one and five friends, and we’ve designed the RAF update to reward you for bringing those friends into the game. With the new update, for every friend you refer who reaches level 10, you’ll earn 1000 IP. You can refer a total of five friends, and with three successful referrals, you’ll unlock the Grey Warwick skin. Recruit five friends and you’ll unlock Medieval Twitch.
There are no additional rewards to earn, and everyone who has participated in Refer-a-Friend in the past will be transferred to the new program with the same number of referrals as they currently have. For example, if you’ve already referred four friends, you’ll earn 4000 IP and Grey Warwick.
As you can see with the plans for the updated Refer-a-Friend, we’re still looking into separate ways of rewarding the highest-volume referrers that don't compromise the experiences of everyone else.
Keep in mind that these changes are focused specifically on combating RAF misuse and its impact on the average player. Botting, account selling, and other forms of fraud have causes beyond RAF, and we continue to cast a wide net when it comes to investigating and fighting them.
We wanted to give to you a heads up on upcoming changes to RAF as well as give you some insight into the motivations behind what we’re doing. Please leave your comments or feedback below!"[/hide]**
**"Suggested Player" Discussion:In a** reddit thread discussing the "Suggested Player" feature that offers you recommendations on who to invite to your game lobby, Lyte stepped in to comment on a few issues and concerns players were voicing: "This is a work in progress feature so please be patient with us as we iron out the kinks.
1) We're analyzing the data to see if players need (and want) an option to decline these types of invites from friends of friends. We're noticing that for some players, they have huge social networks so they are getting a LOT of friend invites. We need to find ways to improve the quality of each invite.
2) We're improving the algorithms to ensure that suggested friends of friends fit a certain MMR range so you have better matches (and lower numbers of random invites).3) The system already suggests players you premade with, and players you have Honored. We're tweaking the numbers to make sure each category has the right "weights," so it's possible your friends of friends are weighted too heavily right now.
4) We'll look into the system showing players you already play with often. Right now, it suggests premades you've played with recently, which isn't exactly the same and we realize that!"
In response to the player suggestion of being able to "pin" certain friends to the top of the recommended list, Lyte replied****: "A few teams have been tossing the idea around of a "Favorites" option. This would require some work on the Friends List, but definitely possible."
When asked about friends who you've recently played with not showing up correctly, he noted****: "This should be fixed in the latest patch. There was an error where premades you just played with wouldn't show up that we had to patch up."
He continued****: "This sounds like an edge case we haven't covered. Let me try to explain how the system should work, and you can let me know if it doesn't and we need to fix something.
1) You want to play with a friend, and see him on the Recommended List. 2) You invite him from the Recommended List and he accepts. 3) You play a game together. 4) You start a new game, and the friend should show at the top of the Recommended List.
After #4, does the friend leave the 2nd lobby you've created after they've joined?"
As for the invites showing you more information about the person you recently played with, Lyte noted****: "Right now, it does show Riot Lyte (friend of XYZ) would like to invite you to a game. However, it's possible that the custom invite messages are being missed because players are so used to seeing a default message there.The idea of providing more context/details to help you trigger who a person is is interesting, and an idea we're exploring."
When asked what the purpose of the suggested friend feature is, Lyte commented****: "I think the purpose of the feature varies greatly from player to player.For some players, they aren't too keen on getting suggestions from seemingly random players, even if they have a friend in common. For other players, they want to play with players they have some connection with.
What if the connection was someone from the same university as you? Same city? Would these serve better purposes to you?We're actually finding that these games with players that you are somewhat familiar with result in better game experiences. What if we offered some incentives like IP bonuses to play with more premades, would you then take these invites more often?"
He continued****, expanding on the geographical recommendation comment from his last post: "As you can tell with a feature like this, ideas like geographic location being considered are all possible; however, we have to take into account privacy (and respect privacy!) and all the other factors like whether players actually want to know who is nearby, at the same university, or workplace, or LAN/PC Cafe.
Although many players might love the feature, some will hate it, and we have to carefully balance the experiences." A new, limited time bundle is
following this weekends 2014 World Championship Semifinals! This bundle includes the following champions and skins for 4727 RP, 50% off their normal prices!
- Corki and Dragonwing Corki
- Janna and Hextech Janna
- Jayce and Full Metal Jayce
- Rengar and Night Hunter Rengar
- Rumble and Rumble in the Jungle
**League of Legends Soundcloud:
In a thread asking where to download League of Legends music such as one of the various login themes or get Get Jinxed, Riot Eno** shared****: "For the time being, this is where we share the music of LoL, and you can download everything for free. =)
League of Legends Soundcloud****"
**More Voiceover Lines:
In other audio related news, Riot Eno also** commented on a player's request to add more voiceover lines for older champions including more special interactions: "That's a great idea! We usually try to add in new dialog when a character is getting re-worked/re-launched, or if they are central to the story of one of our events, (i.e. - Shurima.) That's mostly to do with issues of scheduling and efficiency. Bringing in a voice actor/actress to record a few lines isn't as awesome as bringing them in to do a hundred new lines.
Trust me, we love having more voiceover for our beloved Champs! We just have to make sure we're making the best use of the actor/actress' time when we do decide to record.
Cheers! =)"
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Loving these updates.
Btw, has anyone here tried the new Sion? Cause yesterday I was carried by one in a ranked match (yea, I was kinda meh early game).
I did several times and for me he is the best champ released this year so far.
He is just fun as hell to play. And that new model looks just so amazing.
You can build him full tank, getting just one ad item at the end and be an unstoppable juggernaut. I love his skills, especially his ultimate. His passive is such a great way to annoy the enemies in team fights.
Over all great theme, great abilities and great design.
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I did several times and for me he is the best champ released this year so far.
He is just fun as hell to play. And that new model looks just so amazing.
You can build him full tank, getting just one ad item at the end and be an unstoppable juggernaut. I love his skills, especially his ultimate. His passive is such a great way to annoy the enemies in team fights.
Over all great theme, great abilities and great design.
Tried him against bots. Definitely better than the old one. He really feels like the character he is. Big thing that smashes other smaller (or bigger) things. Like Darius, with whom who cut open your enemies to let them bleed out~
then cutting them neatly in half. Wait, neatly in half… omg Darius is T-Bone with and axe! -
Tried him against bots. Definitely better than the old one. He really feels like the character he is. Big thing that smashes other smaller (or bigger) things. Like Darius, with whom who cut open your enemies to let them bleed out~
then cutting them neatly in half. Wait, neatly in half… omg Darius is T-Bone with and axe!Just bought Dunkmaster Darius and I don't even like Darius. But with this skin he is suddenly so fun to play.
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**To celebrate the 2014 season, Championship Shyvana, the 2014 Championship Ward, and 2014 Championship Summoner icon are now available! These three items will be in the store through October 31st and also available together in a bundle.
Championship Shyvana (975 RP)
Championship Ward (640 RP)
Championship Icon (1IP)
**
