League of Legends (Old)

[animorpherv1]

I'm so sad that Sona dies tomorrow. :[

... what? Almost all of what they did with Sona's rework is fix her passive and give her W a shield on top of a heal...

[ActionDan]

I might buy this champ. He's the kind of thing I like to play + I need to learn how to manage energy/rage champs.

[Iecerint]

I'm so sad that Sona dies tomorrow. :[

... what? Almost all of what they did with Sona's rework is fix her passive and give her W a shield on top of a heal...

They drastically reduced her aura radius, made them no longer persistent, gave them weaker effects, reduced her healing ratios, and reduced her Q powerchord damage.

The shield is replacing the armor/magic resist aura, for example, though you have to get way way closer to the action to apply it at all while being the squishiest champion in the game and setting up AoE combos for the other team.

Similarly, the AD/AP is replaced by a short-duration lichbane-esque effect and the MS on E is replaced by...erm...well, needing to be closer to apply it (though I think this one did get a small buff, though then they nerfed the buff on the PBE)....

As compensation for having to be closer to the action, they gave her 3 armor (rofl) and reduced her base HP (rofl) while improving its scaling.

[ActionDan]

I think the 'closer to the action' is realistically already something she does anyway. She maintains a certain range to ult and q, a range I'd say that most of her allies will be keeping as well which means prior to a team fight, she's within range of supplying auras. Which means if everybody gets jumped she's in okay position and if everyone goes in, it's not that big a deal to follow.

[quadz08]

they

reduced

her base HP?

monsters

[Papa Zito]

they

reduced

her base HP?

monsters

She's downgraded from cannon minion to melee minion now.

[Iecerint]

Yeah, though she catches up and surpasses it at level 4. I'm actually OK with a really squishy, really damaging early game as a feature of her character. It makes the first few levels really tense and fun.

I forgot a nerf: her W and E also had a short-term AR/MR/MS effect on top of the persistent effect, and they're gone, replaced only by the new short-term effects.

It's true that she briefly has to position dangerously for R already and maybe sneak it for a Q/aa at 550 range, but that's different from having to be 350 from Master Yi at all times. It's true that positioning can mitigate this risk a little, but that's often going to have a trade-off that's not present currently, and she's not really getting any meaningful compensatory buffs.

[Iecerint]

But we'll see, I guess. ^^

People were all whining about Skarner 3.0, but he's great. I always thought he looked strong, though, so w/e.

I am protective of my Sona. :[

[animorpherv1]

Her auras were changed from invisible, passive stats to effects that can be noticed, but at the cost of range. Quite simply put, these stats combined with her current 1000 range would make them flat out broken.

Q: 20 AD/AP to 110 on-hit magic damage on a single attack. (This can be argued either way. You need 6 autos off as an ADC in Sona's Q stance currently to theoretically get the damage amount of damage off WITHOUT counting MR/Armor.)

W: 10 Armor/MR to a 150 HP shield (Not counting the fact that her heal scales with % missing health (up to twice the current heal), and a rank 5 heal has the same base heal either way. This is a buff.)

E: 20 movespeed to 20% bonus movespeed (This is a buff. 65 movespeed for 3 seconds at minimum with champions with 325 base movespeed will remove any immobile champion from danger).

Sona's base HP is only lower from levels 1 to 3. It's around equal at 4 and greater at 5.

[BROseidon]

How do I survive early game as Ryze? I just got owned by Ahri really badly.

Ryze has a decent matchup against Ahri post-6.

Pre-6, she's gonna be able to push you around. Don't let her charm you, just let her push. You aren't going to be able to bully/fight/punish her that well, so use q to farm under turret to get to your tear.

Once you hit 6, you can fight her really well. If you stand near minions, her w and ult damage are largely mitigated, and you can hold her in place with W. That means she can't all-in you, so you're safe to farm up or even kill her if she is dumb/if you get a gank/countergank. Eventually, you'll be able to push her around (once you hit tear/RoA, probably), so then you can just win.

[BROseidon]

Sona's probably fine, all things considered. I don't think these changes affect her power level too much, it just moves stuff around.

Also, I'm so happy to see Gnar in his final form. The "have to transform" aspect is something that's gonna be really interesting.

[Iecerint]

Her auras were changed from invisible, passive stats to effects that can be noticed, but at the cost of range. Quite simply put, these stats combined with her current 1000 range would make them flat out broken.

They made invisible power visible and then nerfed it. That's a nerf.

I do like the concept of finding ways to make aura-type abilities more skill-expressive and visible, so I like the change in principle. But if you make something harder to use well (e.g., making something a skillshot, lowering the aura radius such that you don't just give the boost to everyone at a distance), you should also make it stronger. Kog'Maw's Q was changed with this principle in mind.

Q: 20 AD/AP to 110 on-hit magic damage on a single attack. (This can be argued either way. You need 6 autos off as an ADC in Sona's Q stance currently to theoretically get the damage amount of damage off WITHOUT counting MR/Armor.)

W: 10 Armor/MR to a 150 HP shield (Not counting the fact that her heal scales with % missing health (up to twice the current heal), and a rank 5 heal has the same base heal either way. This is a buff.)

I'd forgotten about them literally giving Sona Soraka's passive. That is a good point re: balance that I had forgotten, mainly because I thought it felt ridiculously lazy. Does it really go up to a 100% bonus, though? That's gnarly.

But a good point is that they hinted at a Soraka rework soon ("the next gameplay update will be bananas!"), so maybe they'll give Soraka a totally new passive, anyway.

Your treatment of her Q ignores that AD/AP enhances more than just auto-attacks. Doubleplus wonderful with champions who have hybrid scaling. The W really gave 20 AR/MR if you used it correctly, which is lots. Come to think of it, her new 150 HP shield only lasts as long as the 10 AR/MR that you're ignoring as inconsequential. :p

You're also ignoring that you basically always gave the aura to everyone before, and that's not guaranteed anymore.

EDIT: Actually, her shield is even briefer, at 1.5 seconds versus 3 seconds for the "forgotten" part of the AR/MR. XD

E: 20 movespeed to 20% bonus movespeed (This is a buff. 65 movespeed for 3 seconds at minimum with champions with 325 base movespeed will remove any immobile champion from danger).

I thought they nerfed this back some? But this is indeed a buff provided that you want to get within 350 range of your teammate who just got ganked. Probably pretty feasible to do to fix being overextended during lane, though.

Sona's base HP is only lower from levels 1 to 3. It's around equal at 4 and greater at 5.

Yep, 's why I framed this as a compensatory buff and said as much.

[animorpherv1]

Eh, I think Sona's going to be just fine, honestly. About only a few of the current ADCs can utilize AP and AD effectively (Ez, Lucian, Kog, MF, Corki, Varus), and many of the rest revolve around autoing (Draven, Vayne, AD Trist, Cait, Ashe, Twitch). I'd say that Q was a buff for everything that can't utilize AP and AD well.

Max rank W can give you almost 500 effective health between max rank heal w/ current health scaling and the shield. I think 500 health > 10 armor/MR, personally. Hell, I'll take 300 health over 10 armor/MR. Especially considering most of the champs who can 1-shot me build so much pen that the armor/MR was effectively 5.

I think they did a pretty good job at making Sona's auras more noticable, but more risky.


-----

Anyways, Gnar. For what it's worth, he's sitting at the lowest base auto range of every ranged champ (400 from what I hear). He also has 3 slows and 2 stuns on his 7 abilities (6 if you don't count the W passive). That said, he's going to be a tough champ to learn - but I think he'll be really stronk if used well.

[Iecerint]

The game isn't over after the laning phase. Now-Sona really starts to shine when you put her into a 5v5 teamfight, especially if the other members of your team have mixed scaling.

I guess Censer will synergize well with Sona being useful in autoattacking parties, though, so that's a cool interaction. I guess they had to be mindful of that. Janna can have 100% uptime on one person plus her ult and locket, but Sona can have 100% uptime on the entire party indefinitely if she budgets her time carefully.

Her maximum heal is 210 + 120 shield = 330 HP of damage, presuming that the target has very low HP and they take 120 damage during the 1.5 seconds that the shield is active. That is different from 500. Am I missing something? I'm pretty sure the 210 number is the healing ceiling rather than the ceiling of the bonus, if that's where you were getting it. (Also, 20 > 10, etc.)

[animorpherv1]

Yay, I miscounted haha.

[Iecerint]

Oh, the patch notes are all the way released now.

[theelkspeaks]

Dear former Sona mains,

Nami is your new friend.

(But seriously)

[BROseidon]

I come in already knowing his play pattern and knowing that I'm going to suck at it.

Brb sticking with Jayce top.

[BROseidon]

I'm sad that I can't play any of Gypsy's champs particularly well

[animorpherv1]

I'm sad that I can't play any of Gypsy's champs particularly well

Neither of Jinx or Vi are particularly difficult to play well at a base level, honestly.

[Iecerint]

I do like the buff that Sona's hair got. ^^

@TES - I do like Nami. :p

[BROseidon]

Vi is really easy to fuck up with OMG MUST GO syndrome.

Jinx is more that I generally suck at ADC and don't have a Jayce/Malz type champ I can stick in there and play well.

[Maestro]

Jayce/Malz

What is their collective archetype...? Been thinking of trying him since I want to increase my top game - he and now Gnar intrigue me. Any tips on starting to learn Jayce?

Also I love Jinx to death but I'm not as familiar on Vi.
SMASHBAMBOOM, that's about all I know. Any tips for a not-good / not-often Vi?

[Maestro]

TECHNICALLY A SIVIR BUFF:

Fixed a bug where Time Bomb's explosion ignored spell shields

LOL RIOT

UNINHIBITED EXCITEMENT:

JINX NOW GETS EXCITED WHEN SHE CONTRIBUTES TO KILLING AN INHIBITOR!

Glad that got fixed / changed.
Seemed like a bug to me.

Vayne's always been one of the best examples of a hyperscaling markswoman, as she has to pay the cost of a weak early game before being rewarded with an extremely strong late game. So we buffed that.

SNUGGLE ZONES:

Sona's new particles now indicate the area of effect of her auras

SHOW ME YOUR MOVES:

Enemies now dance 50% faster while stunned by Crescendo

I srsly love patch notes. One of my favorite things from their dev team.

The match loading buff is awesome, as are the new Debonairs.
THIS is why I wanna pick up Vi - the coolest champs get the coolest skins.

[quadz08]

Oh man, I didn't even notice SHOW ME YOUR MOVES

that's excellent