Matt Leung-Harrison@RiotPhroxzon
Patch 26.14 Full Preview!
Mages Bot
- we've pulled brand from the patch given the concerns around mages bot
- that said, we know this is a contentious topic, and I'll give some high level thoughts on how we see the situation (and more detailed thoughts in the patch rundown)
- we see mages bot as creating healthy diversity for the bot lane experience overall (roughly 4:1 ratio of traditional marksmen to mages), even though for some traditional marksmen, they can be quite frustrating
- it's important that players experience a mix of games at high intensity (eg. Playing adc against rengar/talon + mages bot) and also games that are more comfortable and low threat (maybe ivern jungle) as it creates the variety and flow state that keeps the game fun
- too much intensity or too little intensity would make the game unfun in the long run as you'd never really feel those spikes of cortisol and triumph (which is one of the reasons assassins need to be strong for example) or be constantly stressed
- marksmen are still the most popular bot carry in both pro and regular play
- mages bot also need to be viable picks to allow teams to undoom themselves in champ select for an ad mid pick like zed/yone/Yasuo
- that said, mages bot have pretty high winrates (often the highest), so aren't they overpowered?
- The winrates don't really tell the full story, but they are definitely strong for several reasons. Mages, especially simple ones like brand, veigar or Swain for example have quite shallow mastery curves (usually only gaining 3-4% after playing ~50 games and also starting very high on game 1) in addition to not being deeply played in bot lane (ie. many mage bot players haven't progressed the mastery curve that far when you encounter them AND the mastery curve is not that steep) -> a similar effect to if you played autofilled malphite top (high skill floor)
- adcs by contrast are typically harder to play but also reward that mastery depth more, meaning their winrates are relatively suppressed compared to mages bot
- I'm not saying that mages at high levels of mastery/skill are weak (see them in pro play or high elo ranked), but mainly saying that winrates don't tell the full story and we see them as relatively similar in power level overall, just often more forgiving and can be more tolerant of matchup
- adcs also have accelerated 3 item spikes in this season (compared to the other roles) due to bot quest, which also presents an interesting strategic balancing point (the mages a bit stronger on early item spikes and weaker on later ones)
- another balancing aspect of mages bot is that they typically represent a composition tradeoff. Eg. ori + yunara/lulu bot lane and win on 2/3 items or AD mid plus ziggs+engage bot and need to end the game fast
- if struggling with mages bot, champs like ezreal/sivir/zeri can be quite effective against them (dodge skills and have strong 2/3 item spikes and out scale)
- anyway, a nuanced conversation that I'll dig into more in a video later
Azir
- players have been complaining about a bunch of bugged functionality for Azir ever since we made the changes to make on hits work on him
- the team has fixed the vast majority of these bugs, eg. Things like jungle monsters not getting shuffled, pta not working, conq stacks, etc.
- thanks to all your bug reports in helping track these down and keep them coming!
Proto Harness
- when looking at our jungle nasus nerfs, we ended up deciding that a better nerf would be to target proto harness
- other users like shen jungle are also pretty strong, so we think pulling the champ nerfs and nerfing the item instead is a better direction and helps retain the power level of top nasus for example
The other changes in this patch are relatively straightforward, but lmk if there's any more detail wanted and I can cover them in the rundown next week
