Riot's lead gameplay designer spent a Saturday explaining how ADCs got this strong. His answer traces it to a pile of 26.1 changes that all landed on the same class.
Also inside: why Akshan doesn't get free waveclear, and Drew Levin's apology to Trick2g.
Red Post Roundup
September 16 to 25
Issue #7Riot's lead gameplay designer spent a Saturday explaining how ADCs got this strong. His answer traces it to a pile of 26.1 changes that all landed on the same class.
Also inside: why Akshan doesn't get free waveclear, and Drew Levin's apology to Trick2g.
The short version
Every quote below is modern League. The one League Classic item this week is tagged where it appears.
- Riot calls ADCs extremely powerful after 26.1 raised crit damage, buffed Lord Dominik's Regards and added role quests.
- Top lane's Teleport got buffed in 26.19 because the power top loses at high ranks ends up with ADCs.
- Akshan has to choose between runes that clear waves and runes that keep him alive. Qiyana is the likelier nerf.
- The top of the EUW ladder gets fixed next season. Riot won't touch it mid-season.
- Levin apologized to Trick2g and promised a clear answer on when playing ranked with friends is allowed.
- Team Voice won't make 26.20.
Want these as they happen?
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Open the Red TrackerThe big one: three 26.1 changes stacked up on ADCs
Modern LeagueMatt Leung-Harrison, Riot's lead gameplay designer, picked up a community thread about Lord Dominik's Regards and answered it point by point.
Saw an interesting thread about Lord Dominick's today [...]
1. Agree that Assassins building this reliably is off; champs like Rengar come to mind here, but champs that are building Crit (like Viego) seem more reasonable (you wouldn't expect them to pivot into a non-crit item for late game armor penetration)
The subtle change that was made to it in 26.1 was that compared to previous versions of Lord Dominick's, it now only cares about the target's bonus health (rather than max health), rather than checking how much health delta there is between you and the target.
This was meant to make it more satisfying to purchase broadly, expand the user pool to some melees and make the user not have to worry about buying HP reducing their damage output (which is a weird thing to have to worry about)
2. In 26.1, we buffed Lord Dominick's by a lot as it was a strongly community requested change.
At the time, ADC's were pretty weak, but the combination of Role Quests, Lord Dominick's changes and buffing Critical Strike Damage up from 175% damage to 200% has made ADC's extremely powerful; arguably too powerful in many brackets of play and region.
3. Adding another multiplier back to the ADC class means they have Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Armor Penetration, Lord Dominick's Multiplier and Crit.
This makes their late game DPS unrivaled compared to previous seasons
4. Mortal Reminder generally feels pretty weak compared to LDR, it's hard to feel satisfied when purchasing it compared to LDR, because you're losing so much damage from not having Giant Slayer
Anyway, curious to see what you all think about these changes and whether they were good for the game and what adjustments we should make to the ecosystem
Matt Leung-HarrisonLead gameplay designer, Leagueon X
What it means: Lord Dominik's Regards is the armor penetration item whose Giant Slayer passive hits harder against targets with lots of bonus health. Crit going from 175% to 200% means every critical strike now does about 14% more than it used to. Mortal Reminder is the other armor penetration buy, and it trades Giant Slayer for Grievous Wounds.
I didn't expect Riot to call a whole class too strong in public before a fix was ready. The thread went up three days after the 26.19 preview, so whatever Riot does about it comes in a later patch.
Top lane's Teleport buff tackles the same problem from the other end
Modern LeagueLeung-Harrison had already drawn the line between the two roles in his 26.19 preview, when he explained the buff to the Teleport top laners earn from their role quest.
At present, both statistically, and feels wise, we think Top Lane is underpowered at those higher skill brackets (but not the lower or medium skill brackets) [...]
Part of this is how at higher skill brackets, the power that Top loses appears to be gained by ADC's who are better at positioning, farming and don't get caught out as much, whereas a lower skill Garen for example can often walk up to an ADC and kill them (this still happens at higher skill, but not as often) [...]
Our approach is to buff up the Top Lane teleport as that is better used by higher skill Top Laners and helps to reinforce the side lane raidboss split push identity that many Top laners have
Matt Leung-HarrisonLead gameplay designer, Leagueon X
What it means: in Western regions, top is one of the least played roles at high ranks. A stronger Teleport helps the players who split push one side of the map and still get back in time for fights.
The rest of 26.19 is on our PBE page, including the support item change and Orianna being pulled from the patch. Lucian's mid and bot split got its own section in issue #6.
Every 26.19 change, in one place
Riot's preview gives you the names. Our PBE Changes page lists every buff and nerf Riot announced, then fills in the values as they're read out of the game files on the test server, with each entry marked as announced by Riot or found on the PBE only.
See what's on the PBEAkshan doesn't get to clear waves for free
Modern LeagueAn Akshan player argued he can't survive lane against Viktor and still clear waves. Leung-Harrison answered him twice over the week, and he didn't budge.
In the Viktor example, I think it's pretty reasonable that Viktor has strong laning as a tradeoff for lack of on-demand hard CC and difficulty in moving around the map compared to other similar mages
If Akshan just "had everything" (waveclear, roaming, gap closes/escapes, gank survival+followup, good sidelaning, etc.) then he just has no weaknesses. I don't think that's a reasonable set of strengths and weaknesses (at least for soloq); in organized play, there's a lot of differences
Matt Leung-HarrisonLead gameplay designer, Leagueon X
I still overall think that Akshan (given that he has decently strong laning already) can and should need to opt into things like Focus/Gathering to clear the wave. The alternative is that Akshan gets to clear the wave and also take combat summs like Bone Plating.
That removes a core weakness of being bursted for him, that I don't think is overall good, given his escapability profile (stealth and dash). If he gets caught, he should have a higher chance of dying, especially given that he has so much agency to snowball the game.
Matt Leung-HarrisonLead gameplay designer, Leagueon X
What it means: Absolute Focus and Gathering Storm are damage runes. Bone Plating is a survival rune. Riot wants Akshan picking one kind, so taking the defensive rune costs him his waveclear.
Ekko gets the same deal. Leung-Harrison clarified that his ultimate obviously does damage; the point was that Ekko "can't forcefully hit you with ult as part of his combat pattern like many other assassins can", so he's allowed strong waveclear to make up for it. Qiyana gets no such cover. For her, it's "probably more likely that we tap her down in the future".
EUW's broken top ladder waits for next season
Modern LeagueThe same Thursday reply turned to ranked, and here Riot agreed with nearly every complaint.
Agree that the state of Apex in EU needs improvement and we're thinking about how we can deliver durable improvements here for next season. We don't really want to mess with things as they are right now as it risks further instability.
1. EUW for example has the same number of Challenger and Grandmaster slots as many smaller regions and that exacerbates things like the amount of LP we're seeing for the higher players
2. We acknowledge that the state of Aegis currently doesn't create great incentives and overly advantages certain role combinations. While we wanted to reward being able to play flexibly and be proficient in playing multiple roles, it's clear that changes are needed
3. I think there is a reasonable debate on having negative LP gains at the top of the ladder. On one hand, you're saying you like it. On the other hand, many players point at negative LP gains at the top of the ladder as being unfair and the ladder being degraded
4. Agree on the length of the ladder being demoralizing; we're discussing potential approaches here
Matt Leung-HarrisonLead gameplay designer, Leagueon X
What it means: Apex is Master and above. Aegis of Valor pays double LP, or protects your LP on a loss, when you're autofilled and finish with a C grade or better. EUW is one of the biggest servers, so sharing a seat count with smaller regions packs far more players under the same Challenger and Grandmaster cap.
He also admitted that high-level games can feel stale, and said the balance patches left this year won't fix that. They "aren't the types of changes that would actually resolve the staleness adequately".
Levin apologized to Trick2g and owes everyone clearer duo rules
Modern LeagueOur boosting banwave post covers how Trick2g ended up asking Drew Levin for help, and Levin's replies to the banned players. That evening, Riot's product director posted this.
My apologies to @Trick2g for the off the cuff and incurious reply last night. Feedback very much received from folks more generally that they’d like to see more thoughtful replies from me in general, so I’m taking that as a note to focus more on quality and less on volume of replies.
We’re in touch directly with Trick and co about all of this. Our stance on smurfing and boosting remains the same, but we have heard loud and clear that “how do I know when it’s ok to play with friends” is not something we’ve been clear enough on. I’ll work with the team to get something clearer out on official channels.
Thank you, now as ever, for the feedback.
Drew LevinDirector of Product and Strategyon X
What it means: the boosting rules stay as they are. What's coming is an official line on when duoing with a friend on a lower account counts as boosting.
Asked how a longtime Challenger player could end up placed in Gold, Levin said Riot is "working on matchmaking that actively seeds your rating across queues". Seeding is where the game starts you, so a strong player's rating in one queue would carry into the others.
Team Voice misses 26.20, and the rest of what Riot confirmed
Team Voice is delayed with no new date
Modern LeagueRiot had promised in-game voice chat for NA and OCE in 26.20. It's been pushed back to meet the team's quality bar, with "No new target patch to share yet".
on XBoosting stays near the top of League's list
Modern LeagueReplying to Riot's boosting PSA, Leung-Harrison wrote: "The war on boosters, cheaters, hitchhikers and derankers is and will continue to be one of the major focuses for League." Hitchhikers are players who get carried up the ladder by a stronger duo.
on XLevin is away for about a week
Modern LeagueHe's "off to Europe on vacation for the next week or so". Anything you want the team to look at goes on his pinned post.
on XHEARTSTEEL Live My Life lands in 26.20
Modern LeagueAphelios, Ezreal, Kayn, K'Sante, Sett and Yone all get skins in the line. We've got all six in 3D.
on X
Old Bilgewater joins League Classic
League ClassicThe original Graves, Fizz, Nami and Nautilus are playable now, and Classic's Graves goes back to the bot lane.
on XNext week
Leung-Harrison's Patch Rundown ran late this week, and he's using the delay to cover how the 26.19 changes landed and what Riot does next. Then comes the 26.20 preview, which is the first place an answer to the ADC thread could show up. Our PBE Changes page picks it up as it hits the test server.
Don't wait a week
The Red Tracker carries every one of these within minutes of Riot posting it, plus everything that didn't make the cut here. Filter by subject, search the archive, check it whenever a patch drops.
Open the Red Tracker
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