Discussion: Patch Notes: March 26th, 2015

So first we should establish what the goals of the revamp were:

• power creep reduction
• ability count creep reduction
• more strict adherence to costing of stats and abilities

The goal, of course, was not to make runes shoebox, or unplayable, even tho that was the result of many runes, particularly higher costed ones (usually higher rarities). The "cheap spam" has been lamented by various players.

Certainly, we don't want undo the goals, but one of my goals is to address the shoebox problem, and also to remove some of the blandness from many iconic champions who lost a lot of identity. For many themes, this is also an issue, with many champions now overlapping on similar roles due to similar abilities and upgrades. These things make sense when you look at the runes individually, but when designing a new rune for a theme, for example, you want the new rune to plug some hole, not just compete for the exact same position as an existing champion.

In the case of runes like Shallaxy. the revamp, as you said, left her bland. The changes to her, however, do not make her "almost exactly the same as she did pre-revamp" at all to my mind, especially not on the power level side of things.

Her pre-revamp build had Gravity Well, Deploy: Rock Trap AND Wicked Aura base, along with access to Battle Drum AND Deflect on upgrades (so she had a multi ability combo on her own, plus a global AP ability as well as a high value defensive ability). This for 85 nora, along a great state line of with 12 DMG, 6 SPD, 1-3 RNG, 2 DEF and 54 HP.

Now, she has had Gravity Well/Deploy: Rock Trap returned, but Deploy: Rock Trap is on an upgrade slot. She has access to Deflect still, but also upgrades. She costs less, but has a weaker stat line (75 nora for 10 DMG, 6 SPD, 1-2 RNG, 1 DEF, 50 HP).

Players like @Pedeguerra and @Strings have highlighted how "cheap spam" isn't fun (which is a symptom both of the cheapness being efficient, but also the fact that many of these higher costed runes simply don't offer anything compelling relative to the stat-heavy counterparts), and this change helps that. At the same time, we'll continue to hit the runes that are over-efficient relative to the current state as well.

I'd also say that the goals of the revamp were preserved with this change - the unit has not been powercreeped back to those levels (at least in my opinion), no ability count creep occurred, and we restored some uniqueness and flavor to her.

So that's how I see it. The goal is not to roll back to pre-revamp power levels (and it'd be fairly disjointed if runes were that way), but rather to bring back what made some of these champs interesting and fun to play compared to their "cheap spam" counterparts, something I think most players are on board with - they want to play with champs with interesting abilities, not bags of stat.

 

To expand, Skywing Imperator is actually pretty different, I'd argue, when pre-revamp he had access to 2 Cones for which 2 the Acolytes for, and tanked with Majestic while healing himself via the Cones. Post-revamp he had largely just lost Majestic, and retained the other elements, and that hasn't really changed with this update - So if he's somehow "almost exactly the same" then you'd really have to say he didn't change much with the revamp to make that argument in the first place.

This update largely gave him a different AE ability that he never had before and fits him more into the Sand Theme (and offering him something to do on the off-turns post cone nerfs), while shifting him even farther from his roots by moving both Acolytes to upgrades. So yea, pretty different.

~

Lightning Elemental is probably the closest of the examples, in terms of what he looks like pre-revamp and now. But he actually didn't change much with the revamp either, losing 1 SPD and going to 3-5 from 2-5. The problem here is that 3-5 really makes him super awkward with 6 SPD, particularly since he has Bolt, so it just really didn't work (and was probably just overlooked during the revamp). Now, he is 1-4 (which is arguably better than 2-5 for him, tho he has Mobility both pre- and post- revamp), but he still is 6 SPD instead of 7.

~

So I'd say, in regards to the Lightning Elemental, which didn't change all that much with the revamp, is also exactly the kinds of things we SHOULD be addressing - because it is definitely not the goal of the revamp to create really awkward stuff that isn't runnable or fun to play with.

 

Oh, and do keep pointing it out if you think we are rolling back to pre-revamp. Because I want to be diligent in ensuring that is NOT what is happening (either in new design or in buff rounds).

I will definitely examine the runes in question (as I did here), to make sure we aren't going backwards in terms of progress.