Item Sets - A Small Tweak

Item Sets are both a very cool and very useful addition to LoL.  I like them a bunch and they're the answer to a lot of different problems that people had with baseline builds and having to waste time searching the shop.  

However that doesn't mean that I believe there is no room to improve.  There is one small change that I believe would be very nice for Item Sets.  And that's a Buy All option.

What I mean by this is that you should be able to toggle a button on any section of your item set, or perhaps even have different kinds of items sets that have this option, which would enable you to click this new button and buy everything that is in the set.

Example:

You have an item set for support Thresh.  The first "Block" which is your starting items has rejuv beads, two green wards, one pick ward and two health potions.  Now suppose you have enough gold to buy all of these items (which I would were I to run Thresh since I run extra starting gold).  If you have the gold for these items, the button which I suggest be added would be clickable.  And if you were to click that button, it would buy all of these items instantly.

If you did not have enough gold to buy all of these items, the button would not be clickable, it would be as if you were trying to buy anything else in the store that you didn't have the gold for.

Essentially this change would make getting out of the starting area easier for champions that have to buy a large amount of items.  It would even the playing field on getting to important destinations quicker against champions such as ADCs who many times only need to buy a Doran's Blade.

Viktor - Changing The Hex Core

As of now Viktor is the only champion that essentially has only 5 item slots instead of 6. I believe that it is this and not so much the rest of his skill-set, laning, end-game, etc that is the reason that he is so underplayed.

This situation is problematic for him because not only does it limit what he can build for endgame, it also limits what he can have on hand during the entire course of the game.  So he'd either have to go without buying a piece of a larger item or go without wards or pots when any other champion could do so.  It would be one thing if this were an option, but as of now the Hex Core cannot be sold back to the store.  So unlike someone such as Rengar with his Bonetooth Necklace, if Viktor wants traditional items he doesn't have that choice.

So my suggestion is that instead of making the Hex Core and any augment he gives it a permanent part of his inventory, make the Hex Core something along the lines of a reagent that can be used to augment an ability.

Here is the description of the Hex Core from Riot:

Evolving Technology - Viktor starts with a Hex Core that provides him with stats and can be upgraded in the store to augment one of his abilities. The Hex Core can only be upgraded once, and cannot be sold back to the store.

Here is the more detailed explanation from LoLWiki:

Evolving Technology

Hex Core: Grants Viktor 3 ability power per level

Viktor starts each game with  the Hex Core, an item that takes up one of his item slots, but provides him with stats and can be upgraded in the store to augment one of his abilities and improve its stats. The Hex Core can only be upgraded once, for 1000 gold, and cannot be sold back to the store.

I would like to see it changed to something like this:

Evolving Technology

Hex Core: Grants Viktor 3 ability power per level

Viktor starts each game with  the Hex Core, an item that takes up one of his item slots, but provides him with stats and can be upgraded in the store to augment one of his abilities and improve its stats. The Hex Core can only be upgraded once, for 1000 gold, and once upgraded disapears as the power is used to improve whichever ability he chose.

Basically the Hex Core starts as an item in his inventory as it does now.  But instead of upgrading it to a new item that helps one ability, it is used up in making one ability more powerful.  This keep his gameplay exactly the same, doesn't really mess with the idea of the augment choice but allows Viktor the same six item slots that everyone else has.

Evelynn - Agony's Embrace

I'm sure this suggestion has already been made elsewhere by plenty of other people but I wanted to make a post throwing my own opinion behind a change to this ability.

Simply put, it needs to have a base damage that it does if the % current health is too low.

The fact that Eveleynn can't use her ult and finish someone off at 10 health is to me ridiculous.  As far as I am aware there are literally no other abilities, let alone ultimates, which do only current health damage and have no base damage to speak of. So, I believe we should add something to Eve's ult so that it does some damage even if the enemies current health is very low

It could look something like this:

Agony's Embrace

• RANGE: 650
• COOLDOWN: 150 / 120 / 90
• COST: 100 mana

ACTIVE: Evelynn impales all enemy units in target 250-radius area, dealing magic damage equal to a percentage of their current health(100/150/200) damage minimum) and slowing their movement speed for 2 seconds.

• MAGIC DAMAGE: 15% / 20% / 25%(+ 1% per 100 AP) of enemies' current health
• SLOW: 30% / 50% / 70%

Evelynn siphons their pain, gaining a shield that grows in strength for each enemy champion hit and lasts up to 6 seconds.

• SHIELD STRENGTH PER CHAMPION HIT:150 / 225 / 300
• MAXIMUM SHIELD STRENGTH: 750 / 1125 / 1500

The underlined part is what I myself added to the ability.  Essentially it would be like a Mundo cleaver, that it does a base damage if the damage it would normally do is lower than the base.  It wouldn't affect the ability at higher health but would make it at do at least some reasonable damage when the target is very low.

I wouldn't say that this is a necessary change for Eve's viability so much as something I believe should be done in terms of spell balance.  An ultimate should not do 15 damage to someone just because they have 100 health left in my opinion.  And this change wouldn't buff her ultimate in other situations, just in the ones where it shouldn't do the low damage it does.

New Summoner Spell - Accelerate

So one thing I haven't seen since I started playing League of Legends is a new summoner spell.

So I figured I would come up with something that I think might be an interesting addition to the summoner spells we already have.

So let's take a quick look.  We have healing (Heal).  We have damage (Ignite).  Mana (Clarity).  Slower total map movement (TP).  Quick short distance movement (Flash).  Movement speed (Ghost).  Vision (CV).  Objective control/damage (Smite).  Revive.  Anti-CC (Cleanse). Slow/damage reduction (Exhaust).  Shield (Barrier).

These are the categories for items:

Attack:  Damage - Attack Speed - Life Steal - Critical Strike

Magic:  Mana - Cooldown Reduction - Mana Regen - Spell Damage

Defense:  Armor - Health - Health Regen - Magic Resist

Misc:  Movement - Consumable

One could argue that all of these are in some way shown to an extent except for one.

CDR.

CDR doesn't directly relate to doing damage, shielding, giving vision or anything specific because it is different to every champ.  It's pretty easy to say that Heal covers life steal, health, and health regen.  You could argue that Ignite covers damage, spell damage, attack speed and crit.  Clarity covers mana and mana regen.  Flash/TP/Ghost cover movement.  Shield could cover armor and MR.  But CDR could mean anything.

So what if there was a summoner spell that directly affected the cooldowns of your abilities?  We could call it:

Accelerate

Reduces the cooldown of all champion abilities with a baseline cooldown of less than 30 seconds by half of their current cooldown timer.

Obviously this wouldn't be set in stone and it would need extensive testing for balancing.  However I think this would be an interesting addition to our list of summoner spells.

QoL Change - Going Into Spectate/Games

This isn't a major issue by any stretch of the imagination but I think it's a realistic request that doesn't have any negative consequences.

As of now, if you enter spectate mode or a game, as far as I am aware, the respond function has no use until you are actually messaged from within that game.  What I mean by this is if someone messaged you before you went into the game, you could not type in /r to respond to them, you would need to whisper them normally.

I think that a nice little change would be that no matter when you start spectating/playing, as long as someone has messaged you while you have had LoL open during the current session, the /r command will respond to the last person to message you.

To put this a little more specifically, if you are using the client and talking to someone through PMs and then enter a game or start to spectate, no matter if they messaged you while you were in the game or not, if you type in /r and start typing, it will choose the person you are whispering to as the last person to send you a PM, as if they had sent that PM in the current way things are, during that game.

This change will make it so that if you were having a conversation outside of a game and enter into a game while the other person is waiting for a response you will no longer need to type in their summoner name to whisper them.  You would simply be able to type in /r and start typing your message just like if they had messaged you while you were already in the game.

Like I said, it's not a big deal, and the work around is usually pretty simple, but it would certainly make continuing conversations from the client into games easier.  It would be especially helpful in regards to people who have characters in their names that need alt codes etc.

Follow Up - Fixing Double Golems In Bot Lane

In my last blog post I talked about the need for some change on the map to make Blue less strong.

Since posting that I have had a new idea to help the problem that shouldn't have too many unforeseen negative consequences.

The solution is actually rather simple.  Make double golems spawn later than other minor minion camps.  Make them spawn at say, 1:55.

I don't believe that there is any jungler that starts at double golems and then heads to their buff so those routes won't be upset.  There's not really any way that a jungler will finish their buff before the golems spawn.  Doing the golems at their new starting time will make the laner get to lane quite late and miss minions mitigating any advantage they would have from doubles.

It won't fix positional issues such as where the Tri is located or getting to lane late because of helping the jungler but it will make it so that getting doubles early on won't be a problem and will fix it for both top side Red and bot side Blue.  Essentially from what I can forsee this change won't have any big affects on the game at large except to avoid early lane dominance based on which side you are on which is a negative aspect that I believe we will be better off without.

Blue Vs Purple(Red)

All joking aside, all comments about locked camera aside, I think that map imbalance is something that really needs to be looked at.  

As of now, on Blue side, you have a few distinct advantages.  One is that for bot lane, you both don't have to leash at blue, you have the option of killing the double golems.  Essentially this means that for Blue side bot lane, you go into the lane with more experience/gold and a few minions ahead depending on how long the enemy laners helped their jungler.

Now one could make the argument that top laners have the opposite problem but there's a few big differences.  For one, top laners cannot do doubles nearly as easily because there is only one person.  They cannot juggle aggro and they only have access to one spell instead of two.  So taking doubles as a top laner is usually a large investment, forcing them to pop multiple pots instead of maybe just one.  Top laners also do not take as much of a risk heading to lane through river since they only have one person in lane against them. So, they can leash for blue and usually not miss any minions at all on Blue side.

A second major difference that gives Blue an advantage is that the Tri-Brush top side isn't on their side of the map.  In other words a jungler can come through Tri to gank Red side much more easily than it can be used to gank someone Blue side.

Again, you could make the argument that the situation is reversed for Bot lane but there are two important factst that make it less important.  The first is that bot lane has two people.  Meaning that any ganks are going to be 3 vs 2 instead of 2 vs 1.  3 vs 2 are much better odds than 2 vs 1 so jungler presence is going to usually have a lower significance bot lane.  The second important distinction is that bot lane has a support.  One of support's major jobs is to buy wards and get a sightstone.  So, bot lane will almost always have more vision than top because one person's job in the lane is essentially to grant vision.  These differences significantly decrease the effect having the Tri at your back has for Blue side bot lane.

One might still have the suggestion to change lanes.  Yes, this can be an option and it can make the differences swap to an extent, however there are two major problems with doing so.

If Red side switches top and bot to give their "bot" lane doubles and early laning dominance, they're essentially giving the advantage to the lane that is already going to get this advantage anyway.  2v1 lanes should always essentially be won.  Having that edge at the beginning isn't going to be a super big deal when you're already giving the advantage to both bot lanes.  And doing this essentially takes away a huge chunk of your dragon pressure.  With a 2v1 right next to dragon they can easily push, pink ward and take dragons.  This can't be said for Top since getting early barons is incredibly hard and usually takes a full and fed team.

Now aside from drastically changing Summoner's Rift there are still a few options that could make this situation better.  One is to make taking buffs at the start of the game less challenging.  If buffs didn't need to be helped on so much early red side bot lane could get to lane at a reasonable time before they lost the first few minions.

Another change that could be made is to make taking doubles harder for non junglers.  Perhaps what could be done is to make hunter's machete reduce jungle minion damage and then flat increase jungle minion damage by the same amount.  Then junglers would be able to jungle with the same effectiveness but taking early jungle camps for laners would be challenging.

I'm sure there are plenty of other options but I do believe that something should be done.

Taking a look at some win rates for both sides is somewhat troubling.

http://www.elophant.com/league-of-legends/charts/other?region=na&tier=all

Overall, for all tiers in NA, Blue side has a 10% higher win rate than Red side.  53% - 43%

Even looking at Diamond, nearly the highest level of play, shows a 10% win difference, 55% - 45%

That difference is far too big.  It needs to be made smaller if not non-existant.

Clairvoyance - A Small Change

Let’s take a moment to look at the summoner spell Clairvoyance.  It’s completely global, meaning it can be used anywhere on the map from anywhere else on the map.  It has no range limitations.  It has a low CD for a summoner spell, the lowest there is.  However, aside from giving you vision, it doesn't have any potential in combat.  It doesn't slow someone down or raise you and your teammates health.  It doesn't mitigate any damage or do any damage to the enemy.  In other words it’s essentially only useful in regards to utility.

While Clairvoyance has its benefits, it also has some major drawbacks when compared to the other summoner spells which is why CV almost never sees use in league.  I would like to change this.  I would like to see CV come back into play if only because it would be interesting to see the plays people could make with it.

So, my suggestion is that the vision given by Clairvoyance should be counted as assistance enough to be an assist on kills.  By this I mean that were you to use Clairvoyance on an enemy and were that enemy to die within assist timers, the person having used CV should get an assist on the kill.

To take this from a purely logical stance, this change makes perfect sense.  While vision can’t always change how a fight would go, it certainly Can change how a fight will go just like any other ability that gives players an assist.  Vision can allow you to see areas with Fog of War so that you don’t get juked.  It can allow you to properly line up skill shots into areas where there are Fog as well.   CV can give you vision of important objectives long enough to make plays into the area, especially if it’s  pinked or someone on the enemy team has an oracles and is constantly clearing your wards.

From a balance perspective, making this change would meet the goal I spoke about earlier, making summoner spells more on even ground in order to see more use of different spells.  If you could get extra assist gold from CV then it might be picked at least somewhat more often than it is now.  And doing so wouldn't change the game all that much.  Stacking CVs to get everyone assists would be pointless since assist gold is split between those getting it. 

It would also have the added benefit of giving the support, who would most likely get this skill, more incentive to be more observant and give them more reasons to fill the as-of-now least liked spot of supporting.  At the same time it would give supports more options in regards to vision without making them feel as if they are crippling themselves by not having exhaust or ignite.

Statistics - A Mathematical Approach to Ranked and Luck

Lots of people believe that they always get the rotten luck.  They say that they always get the leavers, they always get the trolls, they always get the feeders.  Now, for sure, there is a small possibility that they are in fact getting massively bad luck.  Anything is possible and there is a chance, no matter how small, that one person queuing a lot of games can get bad luck despite the odds.  However, for the most part, this belief that one gets only trolls, AFKers and generally bad teammates is flawed when it is confronted with simple logic.

Let’s take a moment to look at the math.

To begin, we’re going to have to make the assumption that the LoL matchmaking system is NOT actively working against you.  This is a fairly safe assumption to make considering that it’s a program and has no ulterior motive.  In other words, there is no reason to believe that the system is purposefully working against anybody.

If you are part of a team of 5, let’s call this Team A, that means that there are 4 random people who you do not know and yourself (assuming you are not duo).  The other team has 5 random people who you do now know which we will call Team B.

Let us take the chance that a random person will AFK/Feed/Troll as X in terms of a percent.

On the other team, the chance that they will have no leavers/feeders/trolls is equal to 100%*(((100-X)/100)^5). For your team, assuming you yourself do not leave/feed/troll, the chance you will have no leavers/feeders/trolls is equal to 100%*(((100-X)/100)^4).

We know that (100-X)/100 is going to be equal to less than 1 because 100-X will be between 0 and 100 which divided by 100 will have to be between 0 and 1.  So, this value raised to the 4^th will actually be greater than this value raised to the 5^th.  

For example, let’s say that the chance of someone leaving is 10%.

100 – 10 = 90

90 / 100 = .9

.9^5 = .59049

.9^4 = .6561

When we multiply these values by 100% we get the chances for nobody on the other team to be a leaver/feeder/troll is around 59% while the chances of nobody on your team being a leaver/feeder/troll is around 65% or 66%.   What this means is that not only are you not more likely to get a negative member on your team, in fact you are less likely to get one because you know that you yourself will not be the negative member.

Conclusion:  If you yourself are a positive influence on the game, over a long period of games in which random chance is negated by general trends you will always be more likely to have a positive team than those that you fight against.

The only people that will see negative trends in their games more than other people at their ELO are people who are themselves negative as long as they play enough games to negate random chance and they are not some incredibly small statistical improbability.

Skill Floor Vs. Skill Cap

This is a topic that I see across a lot of games.  I took a pretty comprehensive look at it originally in regards to World of Warcraft.  These terms aren't officially sanctioned in either WoW or LoL as far as I am aware, but their meaning is important whether it be in the form of these words or others that are close.

First we have what I like to call the Skill Floor.  The Skill Floor is the level of ability that you need to play, in LoL's case, a champion at a reasonable level.  This means that were you to play with an average group of the populace, you would have at least average if not above average results in general.

Second we have what I call the Skill Cap, or to some the Skill Ceiling.  This is in regards to the amount of player skill one needs to essentially master a champion.  Obviously complete mastery is impossible because of the human factor, but the Skill Cap refers to the challenge it takes to play a champion at the highest level of competition.  In LoL that would be Diamond - Challenger levels and the professional scene as well.

A champion with a low Skill Floor is easy to pick up.  Soraka and Sona are good examples of this.  They have pretty simple mechanics, you press a bunch of buttons.  Sona has her stun but it's pretty huge and hard to miss at a basic level.  Soraka has to choose between giving mana or using her silence but both options aren't challenging.

However, as we've all seen at LCS, being a good Sona isn't simple.  Sona at competitive play levels is always in danger because of how squishy she is.  The other team understands she has her massive AoE stun and landing a good one against them can be challenging (just ask Rhux and Elementz).  So while Sona's Skill Floor is quite low, her Skill Cap isn't necessarily low as well.

Why are these terms important?

They're important because communication is important.  When we are all talking about this game we love, when the people who balance the game are discussing changes, we should make sure that we all understand each other.  Proper change is so much more challenging when we can't communicate effectively.  Also, I enjoy explaining these things in clear terms.

Volibear - Max Rank Q

I propose that this change be added to Volibear's Q:

At max rank, this spells activation allows Volibear to ignore unit collision for the duration of Rolling Thunder.

This is a change that I've been thinking about for a while.  It's not so much that I think Volibear needs a buff or that it's a pure QoL change, but I think it would be interesting to add to his kit, especially because it will make Volibear players think more seriously about maxing Q anything but last.  One thing I like to see in LoL is maxing different abilities at different times based on the enemy team.  I think it's cool when a champion's spells are close enough together in relative strength that situation A has you maxing spell A and situation B has you maxing spell B.

Essentially this would make Volibear choose between maxing CC, Mobility or Damage.  E, Q and W respectively.

Solo Lane Nunu

So as a few people have no doubt seen, laning Nunu is quite silly.  He has ranged, high damage, non skill shot harass on his E.  Mobility in his W.  Mana sustain in his passive.  Crazy health sustain in his Q.  Now while I don't want to take away his strong laning phase, since late game AP Nunu isn't all that scary to a lot of teams, especially ones with any kind of AoE hard CC,  I do believe that as of now he is too strong in lane and needs a change.

It's not abnormal to have twice to three times as much CS as the person you are laning against because of how hard it is to handle AP Nunu in lane.  ( I see this disparity fairly consistently in regards to AP Nunu vs. most mids).

So I propose two changes that should curtail the problem somewhat.

1 - Increase the mana cost of his Consume.

2 - Increase the CD of Consume.

What will this do?  Well, for the first, it will make Nunu rely on his passive more heavily in order to avoid going oom.  Since his consume will cost more mana, if he is using it on CD along with his snowball, in order to keep up the pace he will need to use Visionary.  In order to use Visionary, he will need to AA more.  By AA-ing more, he will push his lane and put him into a position to be ganked.

In other words, it changes his kit such that he will be put into more danger to get CS and will therefore have another weakness that can be exploited in lane.

The second change to increase the CD of consume, will make it so that Nunu can ignore less harass than he can as of now.  While Consume isn't a short CD, it isn't overly long either.  He can use it fairly often and that early in the game most champions don't have enough damage to get through the constant healing without playing much much better than him.  Which I think is a problematic design, that one has to play that much better than the person you are against to beat him.

Item Prices - Changes to Encourage New Starting Items

While I like what Riot has done as of now with the potion and red elixir change, I feel there are some adjustments that could be made still that would bring more options with starting items.

I would like to propose the following price changes:

Amplifying Tome - 400g

Boots of Speed- 300g

Null-Magic Mantle - 300g

Why?  Well, let's start with the Amp Tome.

As of now if you want an item that builds into core items, gives offensive power(AD or AP) and can be bought on the standard 475g starting limit, your option for AD is Long Sword and your option for AP is Amplifying Tome.  Long Sword is 400g, and allows you to buy two potions.  Amp Tome is 435 and only allows you to buy one.

I don't particularly see the reason for this.  The difference between two potions and one potion might not seem like a lot, but it really is.  It's double the lane sustain.  It's reasonably to lane for a good period of time and avoid enough damage to only need two potions before backing for items.  It isn't nearly as possible with only one.

By making Amp Tome only 400g, AP champions can buy early damage and enough sustain to reasonably stay in lane for a proper amount of time.  It would put them on par with AD champions who can already do this with a Long Sword.

Next is Boots of Speed.

Honestly, I feel as if the nerd to Boots without any change in price was a little harsh.  You can only get 3 potions with your boots and it isn't really that much MS at all.

If Boots were only 300g and you could start with 5 potions just like if you were running cloth armor to handle AD lanes, I feel as if it would see a lot more activity in games.  It would also be bought earlier in general since as of now boots are so often not bought until quite late on many champions.

Finally we have Null-Magic Mantle.  

The idea for this change is somewhat similar to the reason for the Amp Tome change, balance between AP and AD.  I believe that it should be on the same level as cloth armor, that starting defensive allows you to get 5 potions.  This would give resourceless champions more starting defensive items not to mention anyone in lane against a high magic damage dealer.

Recipes could easily be altered to keep prices for bigger items the same in all of these cases.

Overall I believe these changes should be made because balance between AD and AP helps to keep both sides being used in games.   It also gives more options, viable options, for starting builds so that summoners can run their early game in different and interesting ways.