Mid-Year Mage Update

Mid-Year Mage Update

Ought to bring more distinct things to a team:

• Vel'Koz - Really distinct to play as, cohesive, feels fair to play against. Doesn't bring enough distinct to a team though, so lacks a clear strategic niche or specialized tool offered. Goal with him will be to offer clearer situations where he's the right pick when you want AP poke.
• Brand - Pretty similar to Vel'Koz overall, in that he lacks a clear enough niche, so primary gameplay argument for picking him is when he's the most damaging AOE mage. Needs a somewhat more distinct toolkit basically.

• Distinct, but have significant game health challenges:

• Vlad - Does distinct things, but can be really unhealthy. Work on Vlad's going to involve a lot of 'how do we preserve the core of what he does while adding ways to play against him'.

• Malz - More game health issues than anything else. Counterplay's not great in particular, with Malz needing to just click on you and kill you given his squishiness, immobility, lack of reach, vulnerability to item system counters. Has a lot of distinctive stuff going on though.

• Untapped potential/Confused identities:

• Cass - Confused identity, unclear niche (sustained damage almost marksmen like pattern, versus poison spreading potential, versus stacking power, versus counter initiator etc). Work on Cass will need to start with constructing a clear picture of what her concept should be (suspect that'll include stripping out the stacking gameplay, though that's a guess).

• Zyra - Does reasonably distinctive things, but has the potential for quite a bit more. Also ends up either a strong bully or struggling to function a bit too often.

Finally, as with the marksman update in preseason, we'll also be making some small tweaks to a number of other mages at the same time as these bigger changes (things like the Q reset on Twitch for example)."

As for why Fiddlesticks isn't getting larger work, Statikk explained:
"Fiddle is also a champion we considered, but ultimately felt wasn't the right fit. To do a quick rundown on our perception:

1. Distinct - Fiddle is extremely distinct on the roster. Playing as and against him offer unique experiences.
2. Cohesive - Fiddle is decent in terms of cohesiveness. He has a somewhat niche thematic as a terrifying scarecrow, but it's understandably cool. It could probably be pushed a bit further especially in terms of the satisfaction from all his base spell (Drain, Terrify, and Dark Wind).
3. Healthy - This is debatable, but Fiddle is certainly not the largest health problem in the game. Tactically, his spells' gameplay could probably be more robust in terms of interactivity (counterplay). Strategically though, there are many ways to deal with Fiddle whether through vision, knockbacks, stuns, etc.

Fiddle is certainly a bit dusty and old-feeling, but that means he may be more in need of a visual / polish pass more than anything. It's not like he wouldn't benefit with some more significant work, but he's a champion that we feel can be a put in a decent spot even with just some minor number tweaks."

When asked about Galio and why he isn't a part of this update, Riot Scruffyadded:
"Galio is in a similar situation to swain. This type of 'group update' where each character gets roughly 1 skill change wouldn't do Galio justice. He needs the full deal."He continued:
"The big high level thing is that he is really underdelivering on mythical antimagic gargoyle. We could do so much better in many ways."

When asked about Malzahar'schanges with respect to AD and AP build's voidlings,Repertoir noted:
"The hope is that Voidlings can be a meaningful source of damage and gameplay for Malzahar regardless of build."Riot Repertoir continued:
"Quote:
I am fully aware that Malzahar is considered by 99.9% of summoners to be a mid laner, but whatever you do to him, please be wary that are a few of us that play Malzahar in the jungle (you can check my match history ).I can't guarantee voidlings will be exactly the same as they are now, but this perspective is something I'm trying to strongly consider when working on Malz."
When asked about where Ryzefalls into all this,Meddlernoted:
"Quote:
Where's Ryze on this list? I feel that his rework really missed and made his kit toxic in that it's unfun to play against and is heavily dependent on ping to use to the best extent. For a 450 ip chammpion, he's also way more mechanically intensive than he should be. If you mess up his combo during his supercharged state, you are punished immensely.We're going to try and tackle Ryze before the mid year, we think he's enough of a problem we need to act sooner . Unclear whether that'll mean some degree of rework or just significant balance changes."

 

EDIT:

When asked about Swain and why he isn't on the big six list,StatikkPermalink
"Swain was definitely very high on our "want to do" list. What it really came down to is that we feel he really needs a full-on rework (gameplay, thematics, visuals) similar to Sion or Poppy in order to really deliver on an awesome version of Swain. A large reason why we have chosen the current 6 is based off our confidence that we can deliver a solid update given the more limited scope they will get being as a part of a class update. We're being a lot more careful about over-reaching since it's definitely bitten us in the past."Meddler added:
"Quote:
Does this mean we're going to have to wait a year or two, or even longer, to see anything significant to Swain? Is he to become the new Yorick, left at the bottom of the list for an unknown amount of time? I really hoped this would be his year.Really substantial change for Swain's likely to be quite a way off yeah (highly unlikely this year, can't predict so usefully beyond that). We do think he'd benefit a lot from a full overhaul, he's certainly not in Taric, Yorick etc tier though, they've got significantly bigger problems than he does."

As for why they are taking a crack at Vladimir in the updates, Meddler explained:
"Our main problem with Vlad is his Q. It's a low CD, targeted, resourceless spell that restores health. It doesn't have much interesting decision making for Vlad, if it's ever strong early he just shuts a lot of people out of lane and the main ways to deal with it are to either sustain even more or to punish Vlad really hard when he trades. Vlad's also got a bit of a 'stat check' issue, where he'll just reliably outclick a lot of opponents 1v1 without sufficient avenues for being outplayed. That's not ideal, it's a lesser issue though since it doesn't kick in until later in the game when 1 v 1 counterplay is less important than team v team counterplay."
As for why Xerath isn't on the list, Riot Repertoir commented:
"Quote:
Xerath. This champ's in a weird spot right nowwhat did you guys think about him?I'm interested to know why you think Xerath is in a weird spot. Is it because of the state of the meta-game? Or is it that there's something he's failing to deliver that he seems to be intended to be doing? As far as what we thought, Xerath seems to be up to par in Distinction, Cohesiveness, and Health. I've seen some people argue his gameplay is too similar to Lux to be considered distinct, but we actually see Xerath as more of an extreme range DPS mage, whereas Lux is more of an extreme range burst caster that relies heavily on catching squishies out and killing them with quick full combos."

When asked about Vel'Kozbeing on the big six list,Statikk explained:
"Quote:
Don't you dare touch Vel'koz! He's perfect.Vel'Koz is a great champion, but he honestly lacks Distinctness. He has some hints here and there of uniqueness (Q targeting, true damage from Deconstruct, etc.) but none of them are pushed to a point where it truly differentiates him. Don't worry, even within the 6, the amount of change each champion will see is pretty drastically different."Statikk added:
"Quote:
Honestly I think Vel'Koz is completely fine the way he is. His abilities are unique enough and his true damage gives him his own identity, I think he is already pretty distinct from other mages.I think you guys will be pleasantly surprised, we're pretty aligned on where there is potential for Distinctness in Vel'Koz's kit. We just don't agree that he's there just yet."
Riot BelugaWhale added:
"We hear all of you on Vel'koz, and our opinions on him are actually very similar to yours. We love his combos, his geometry, death laser, and true damage. There is very little likelihood that his abilities will be changed in how they are used (with possible exception of his W), or his play significantly altered. However we also want players in a draft to see their comp, their opponent's comp, and pick Vel'koz thinking "this would be a great game specifically for Vel'koz" rather than simply "this would be a great game for any long range mage with a lot of AoE". For scope context, currently the plan for Vel'koz is much more along the lines of Caitlyn, who also kept essentially her entire kit, but had it unified around headshots."
Meddler also chimed in onVel'Koz, noting:
"Quote: On VelCoz, if you change him he will keep his q e r right?
His w and passive might need work but those are champion defining abilities.
Q: What is the scale of the velcoz rework?
Q2: Will he keep Q/R?We're not going to be ready to talk details of what will/won't change for quite a while. It's likely that Vel'Koz's changes will be at the small end of the spectrum though, he's fundamentally solid apart from his lack of distinct enough outputs (what he does isn't distinct enough, how his does it is very distinct though)."Meddler continued:
"We understand there are a number of people that don't want changes to Vel'Koz and as discussed think there's a lot about Vel'Koz that's already really good. Not disputing or ignoring that sentiment. We believe though that every champion needs to bring a distinct purpose to the their team and that Vel'Koz doesn't deliver well in that regard. That makes him a great candidate for some work - good generally, but with a specific problem area that brings him down overall. In terms of scope the changes to most of these changes are unlikely to be large, do expect them to be bigger than 'hardly noticeable' though."

When asked for any more details on Zyra, Riot Repertoircommented:
"Quote: for zyra I hope for a new Passive and more plant interactionWe haven't yet started work on Zyra other than ideation, but one of the things we tended to be excited about was more plant interactions, like she brings the forest alive around her. Not sure where that means we're going to take her, but I am excited to see what the team comes up with."

When asked if there are any plans for Heimerdinger orAnivia, Statikk commented:
Heimer didn't make it far. We feel he is really Distinct and Cohesive as the turret dude, and mainly lacks in terms of game Health (mastery and counterplay surrounding turrets in particular). Similar to Fiddle though, he has huge strategic weaknesses and strengths that opponents and allies can play around. He is still a prime candidate to get some tweaks and tuning with the sweep though. Anivia was actually very close to being selected. Ultimately though, Anivia is already pretty Distinct (all her spells outside of E are pretty unique), Cohesive (frost phoenix), and fairly Healthy. We think Anivia can shine even with something as little as a ramping effect based on how long enemies remain in her R (this is all hypothetical off the top of my head...) and few other additional number tweaks.

 

This is not live.Riot will create this in JUNE.(Myb)