Master Yi visual upgrade and kit rework

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Master Yi’s slated for a visual upgrade and kit rework in a coming patch. In addition to a new model, more polished animations and expanded voice over, each of Yi’s abilities are getting updates to address issues with his popular AP and AD builds. His kit should still feel familiar to both AP and AD enthusiasts, and we’re hoping to retain most of the fun aspects of both playstyles. 

We had three basic goals with the Master Yi updates:

  • Polish up Master Yi’s art and aesthetics so they hit the same level of polish as new champions
  • Merge the most enjoyable aspects of AP and AD Yi into a single cohesive playstyle
  • Place more emphasis on mastering Yi’s abilities so he’s less frustrating in lower level play and scales better with player skill





Why’d Master Yi get a new look?

Master Yi was one of the first League of Legends champions ever created. Back then the game had a less established artistic identity. We’ve learned a lot over the years, but we also thought it was important to preserve his core look and feel as a part of LoL history. The differences are subtle, but when you check out the new Yi you’ll notice his proportions are more in line with his fellow champs, his animations are more polished and he has some sweet new acrobatic moves on Alpha Strike, Double Strike and Highlander.

Why does Yi need a design update?

Most of AD Yi’s power comes from his basic attack combined with the steroid effects on Wuju Style, Highlander and Double Strike. Without AP, there’s almost no incentive to master your active skills – Meditate’s not a very effective disengage and Alpha Strike can actually make you lose DPS since you could be attacking during the cast animation. By contrast, AP Yi requires careful management of Alpha Strike, Meditate and Wuju Style to maximize damage and survivability, but doesn’t do a whole lot with his basic attack until he gets Lich Bane.

While both these playstyles are interesting in their own right, they don’t necessarily have to be mutually exclusive, and there’s probably a unified design that offers the best of both. Moreover, while AP Yi’s a rather compelling late game fighter, he’s extremely frustrating to face in lane, so scaling back Alpha Strike and Meditate was a necessary part of the update.

What’s happening to AP Yi?

While straight AP probably won’t remain a prominent build, AP Yi players will find many of the familiar elements of their playstyle intact. While Alpha Strike and Meditate are scaled back so they’re less overwhelming in lane, carefully managing your active abilities will play an important role in staying alive and maximizing your DPS. You’ll also have the added power of AD Yi’s basic attack to make up for your less devastating Alpha Strikes.

How’s the new Master Yi play?

We imagine the updated Master Yi will work well in both mid lane and the jungle. We definitely want to skew his itemization away from the typical tank-heavy fighter builds. The updated kit rewards glass cannon DPS builds that rely on disengaging with Alpha Strike and Meditate to stay alive. Most of his power still comes though items rather than natural scaling through levels. Overall, Master Yi players should have more strategic options, and more incentive to master his full kit to fight effectively.

New Updates Regarding Xerath

So what’s happening with Xerath?

  • Basic VFX direction is solid
  • Design direction is complete
  • Ability design is basically locked in
  • Balancing phase is starting


We almost cut the auto-attack replacer, but after several playtests where playtesters insisted it was the most fun thing on his kit, we decided to keep it. 

What is Xerath now?

Q)

Xerath’s Q is still a line-nuke which instantly deals damage along the entire length.

W) 

Live Xerath only has 2 spells with an obvious flow. E->Q. W->Q. Then his ultimate combo E - R - Q - R - R. To resolve this, we “split” Locus of Power’s play pattern into two parts.

  • The W -> Q poke combo has been baked into “Q”. Arcanopulse (Q) can be charged, charging the attack takes slightly longer than W-Q, but you can move while charging.
  • The W -> R total annihilation combo has been moved into the new “R”. Read down to see more.


New W)

We’ve given Xerath a new basic spell, name TBD, which works like 1 pulse of Arcane Barrage with a mild slow on a short cooldown. However, it has a “bullseye” effect in the center which deals bonus damage. 

E)

The new “E” has all of the old range W gave to Mage Chains baked in baseline, plus its now a skillshot missile that stuns, making Xerath’s targeting paradigms line up smoothly. 

R)

During the new Locus of Power, you are immobilized and your spells are free, but you drain mana over time. You can remain in R as long as your mana lasts. Your spell ranges increase dramatically. 

Instead of 3 huge pulses, you have a very large number of smaller attacks that bombard the target location with aoe explosions. R has a reasonable, but high cooldown. 

Passive

Xerath’s passive provides early game mana regen, plus bonus spell penetration as he purchases mana items. This gives him early game sustain, allowing him to farm into a large-game mage hypercarry if left unchecked. 

Problem we’ve run into and their solutions:

  1. Major Mindshare during ultimate is insane
  2. Major 3000 range with nearly unlimited duration is overwhelming.
  3. Major Xerath is regularly unaware when he is under attack in locus.
  4. Minor Xerath E isn’t reading naturally as a stun.
  5. Minor Xerath ultimate auto-attack replacer was impossible to land.



1) Mindshare 

Old Xerath has 2 spells, plus a bursty moment when R was up. New Xerath (Xerath 2.0) has enough spells to keep him busy. So much so that during his ultimate, getting a free 5th spell has proven almost overwhelming. 

One option was to cut the auto-attack replacer completely, but it was so consistently positively reviewed that we instead decided to make it cost additional mana during Locus of Power. This means that casting your spells is your primary task, but if you need to finish someone off, you can drain your mana pool to fire a rapid sequence of small attacks to finish them off. 

2) 3000 range with unlimited duration is overwhelming. 

When we made Xerath’s R duration limited by his mana pool, it meant that the length of time he could remain in Locus was much, much higher, based on build. So to counter it, we are allowing Xerath to be knocked out of locus of power when stunned. 

During Locus of Power, Xerath is immune to knockups/knockbacks and pulls. However, they will cause him to be stunned briefly and end Locus of Power. This gives enemy teams a strong objective. Get to Xerath and stop his ultimate!

His max rank range has been slightly reduced so that seeing Xerath attack you means you can reasonably reach him. 

3) When Xerath is under attack during R, he doesn’t notice. 

We’re hoping that by allowing opponents to stop locus, it makes the moments where you need to turn and fight the guy attacking you more clear. 

4) Xerath E isn’t reading as a stun.

We’re going to make the new effect more lightning “shocky” feel and perhaps steal some visual queues from Syndra. 

5) Xerath’s R is too hard to hit. 

As an auto-attack replacement, Xerath’s R attack was too hard to consistently time and land. We’ve since removed the effect from his auto-attack timing. Instead, during Locus of Power (R), he cannot auto-attack, but his right and left clicks will trigger a missile under his cursor every 0.5 seconds. 

These attacks can be queued up by dragging your cursor across the screen while holding down right click. 

tl;dr

I’m feeling *very* positive about this direction. His R feels like the same “blow up the world” feel, but less toxic and frustrating than his old R. It brings area domination on a good cooldown. His new “W” gives him a fun core experience without his ultimate. His new passive, while needing good tuning, makes him feel like the same strong late-game character.

Source: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=38786873#post38786873

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6/14/2013 Context Post - PBE for Patch 3.09

Hey Summoners,

As you know, we use the PBE servers as a testing ground for a lot of our experimental changes, but we’ve run into situations where sometimes a change requires a bit more nuance to understand. As a result, we’ll be driving these PBE context posts when we can offer some more context.

Also note that these changes are tentative, like anything else on the PBE, so they are all very subject to change.

Brand
Pillar of Flame

  • Mana cost reduced at later ranks
  • Delay normalized

Conflagation

  • Mana cost increased

Pyroclasm

  • Mana cost reduced at later ranks


Draven
We wanted to lower Draven’s high early game damage output from his passive, as it was not adding much in terms of real gameplay. Unfortunately, to get the numbers right we realized we would need to reduce his passive damage to a point where it would be even more unsatisfying. We instead opted to rework Draven’s passive into something that reinforces his current gameplay and can be appreciated by both him and his opponents. Welcome to the League of Draven.
League of Draven (New Passive)

  • Draven gains a stack of Adoration when he catches a Spinning Axe or kills a minion or monster. When Draven kills an enemy champion, he cashes in half of his Adoration stacks, gaining gold per stack consumed. Draven loses up to a certain amount of stacks of Adoration upon death.


Elise
Spider Form / Human Form

  • No longer counts as a spellcast for the purposes of items like Tears of the Goddess, Sheen, etc.


Jayce
Transform: Mercury Hammer / Mercury Cannon

  • No longer counts as a spellcast for the purposes of items like Tears of the Goddess, Sheen, etc.


Kennen
We’ve tuned down some of Kennen’s early game lane harass, especially given how much teamfight potential he has.

  • Base Attack Damage at level 1 reduced
  • Attack Damage gained per level increased

Mark of the Storm

  • Mark duration reduced


Leblanc
Leblanc’s Mimic was less a decision point and more of a tool to one-shot someone with Sigil of Silence. These changes are aimed at improving the patterns and decisions around using Mimic. Our most obvious adjustment is the fact that mimicked abilities will now deal their own base damage instead of amplifying the base spell. This means players will be able to use Mimic in more creative ways at level 6, rather than holding it for Sigil of Silence. Additionally, Sigil of Silence will now deal less damage up front but more damage on detonation in order to better promote LeBlanc’s multi-skill interaction.
Mirror Image

  • The Mirror Image will now attempt to run instead of standing still

Sigil of Silence

  • Mana Cost reduced
  • Impact Damage decreased
  • Impact AP Ratio decreased
  • Mark Damage increased
  • Mark AP Ratio increased
  • Silence duration reduced

Distortion

  • Cooldown now starts on cast rather than after returning to your Distortion

Ethereal Chains

  • Slow duration (and time until root) reduced
  • Root duration standardized across all ranks
  • Cooldown increased at earlier ranks

Mimic

  • Mana Cost decreased at early levels
  • All mimicked abilities now deal their own base damage instead of amplifying the base spell. In all cases, the mimicked spell will deal higher damage than the base spell (due to higher base damage or higher AP ratios).


Leona
Solar Flare

  • Delay normalized


Nidalee
Aspect of the Cougar

  • No longer counts as a spellcast for the purposes of items like Tears of the Goddess, Sheen, etc.


Shyvana
We’re repositioning Flame Breath as a core tool for objective control and faster jungle clear while also emphasizing its use as a “burn down” ability to be followed up with auto attacks against more tanky fighters. We’ve also increased Shyvana’s Fury gain at higher levels of Dragon’s Descent to help her engage in team fights more consistently at late game. Lastly, we’ve moved Shyvana’s old passive effects to the actual ability tooltips to help centralize information.
Fury of the Dragonborn

  • Remade. All Fury of the Dragonborn effects are now located on the ability tooltip rather than the passive.

*NEW PASSIVE*: Dragonborn

  • Gains bonus Armor and Magic resistance. This bonus is increased per level. These bonuses are doubled in Dragon Form.

Flame Breath

  • No longer reduces Armor by 15%
  • Now passes through all units hit instead of stopping at the first
  • Debuff duration increased
  • Damage decreased at higher levels
  • On-hit magic damage to debuffed targets changed to a % of the target’s Maximum Health from 15% of Flame Breath’s damage.

Dragon’s Descent

  • Passive Armor/Magic Resistance component removed
  • Fury Gain per hit increased at later ranks
  • Passive Fury Gain increased at later ranks


Swain
Nevermove

  • Delay normalized


Veigar
Dark Matter

  • Delay normalized


Ziggs
We wanted to make it easier and more rewarding for Ziggs to use Satchel Charge offensively, whether he’s detonating it immediately or leaving it down on the battlefield to zone. We also wanted to make Satchel Charge noticeably easier to use for players with a moderate or higher amount of latency.
Satchel Charge

  • Can now be reactivated while in flight, causing the Satchel Charge to detonate on landing
  • Missile speed increased
  • Increased knockback distance
  • Cooldown now starts when spell is cast, not when Satchel Charge detonates


Items
Wards
We’ve changed the reward structure for killing wards to alleviate the gold pressure that can accumulate on supports as they push for vision dominance around key locations. With Oracle’s Elixir already on a timed duration, no longer making it expire on death means players can be more aggressive with oracles, rather than passively clearing warded areas they know to be safe. We want the focus of Oracle’s Elixir to be more of an opportunity cost rather than a safety liability for the Oracle user.

  • Vision and Sight Ward are now worth slightly more gold
  • Wriggle’s Lantern Ward is now worth slightly more gold
  • Reward structure for killing wards has been changed to the following:
    The killer of the ward gains 50% of the ward’s base gold value
    Nearby allied champions with Oracle Elixir or allied champions that have placed Vision Wards nearby split 50% of the ward’s base gold value


Oracle’s Elixir

  • No longer expires on death
  • Sightstone and Ruby Sightstone now display the number of placed Ghost Wards in their inventory tooltips


Tear of the Goddess
We feel like players were able to build tear items up too quickly, especially in the case of Manamune with its fairly cheap cost.

  • Mana gain per spell cast or Mana expenditure reduced


Manamune

  • Mana gain per basic attack, spell cast, or Mana expenditure reduced


Black Cleaver
Previously, characters like Jarvan who applied multiple physical damage sources on a single attack could apply multiple stacks of Black Cleaver’s shred. We’re cleaning up the item to make it more understandable. Character’s like Shyvana or Renekton that apply more than one basic attack at the same time will still stack up multiple shreds as normal.

  • Can no longer apply more than one stack of Armor Shred per basic attack.


Maw of Malmortius
We’ve made Maw of Malmortius’ passive bonus easier to understand at a glance. Now Maw will grant its maximum AD when the shield procs, so players will know exactly when they’re at their peak power.

  • Now grants slightly more Attack Damage
  • Now grants slightly more Magic Resistance
  • Passive now grants 1 Attack Damage for every 2% Health you are missing, up from 2.5%
  • Passive now capped at 35 Attack Damage, down from 40

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