Red Post Collection: September Sales, State of Gameplay: Pre-Worlds Updates and Beyond, Nemesis Draft on Fri, & more!

Posted on at 3:16 AM by Moobeat
[UPDATED: Added in the August early sales available through August 22nd!]

Today's red post collection includes the September sales schedule, Meddler with a state of gameplay post on pre-worlds updates and beyond, Nemesis Draft debuting in RGMQ this Friday, VOD for Ghostcrawler & Scarizard's monthly Q&A, a new episode of LIVE/PLAY, a set of Kled community creations, and more!
Continue reading for more information!

Table of Contents

August Early Sales: 08.19 - 08.22

August early sales are now available through the 22nd! 
"The August Early Sale is officially here! To kick things off, the following non-Legacy skins from the past 4-6 months are going on sale from August 19 00:00 PT through August 22 23:59 PT!"

September sales schedule  

First up is the September sales schedule, including which champions and skins will be on 50% sale next month as well as the next batch of early sales!

Click here to check out August sales as we finish up this month.

State of Gameplay: Pre-Worlds Updates and Beyond

Here's Meddler with a lengthy state of the game post for Pre-Worlds updates and beyond, discussing upcoming system and balance changes as well as looking forward at bans and runes:
"Hi folks, 
It’s been a while since our last update on LoL’s gameplay, so we wanted to share some thoughts around the current state of the game and our plans for the next few months. As with previous updates, this will be focused on gameplay specifically -- so things like towers, dragons, champions etc. -- rather than features like the new client, matchmaking, skins and so on. 
For anyone that missed it, the previous post in this series: State of the Season: Mid-Season Follow-Up 

The Game Right Now: 
Tower Changes

Some of the biggest changes we’ve made recently have been to towers in the early game. That involved adding bonus gold for first tower destruction of the game and the removal of the fortification buff from bot lane towers. Our goal there is to create more early game interaction, in pro play in particular. You can find more detailed discussion here and here
At time of writing we haven’t seen pro-play with these changes, so we’re still waiting to assess them in that context. In regular play though we have seen a bit of impact so far. As per the graph below bot lane towers are now slightly more likely to be the first ones destroyed, with both mid and top towers slightly less likely. We feel that still leaves each lane’s influence over tower first destruction around an appropriate level. Bot lane is significantly more likely to decide first tower down than other lanes; it’s got twice as many champions in it on average, though. Mid lane doesn’t go down first often, but champs playing mid roam a lot and so often determine whether or not a tower elsewhere goes down.
Percentage of turrets taken first in a game of League of Legends. Bot lane turret is the left two bars, mid lane turret the middle two bars, and top lane turret is the right two bars. The left bars are pre-6.15 changes, the right bars are post-6.15 changes. 
We’ve also got a small change to tower AI still planned for before Worlds. Calls for help (towers aggroing onto enemies that attack champions near them) will function if the enemy champ’s under the tower but their victim’s further away. Example below with Varus and Singed. Previously, Varus could have safely shot at Singed, since while Varus was under an enemy tower himself, Singed was outside the tower’s range and the tower didn’t notice the aggression. With this change however, the tower will hear the call for help and start attacking Varus. 
Tower memory by contrast, where towers remember champions they’ve recently been targeting (not just their current target) and prioritize them if they lose their current target, is something we’ll be looking into later. We think it’s got promise as a way to add appropriate risk to aggro juggling; it’s too disruptive for right now though. 
Elemental Drakes 
Cloud Drake seems to be in an appropriate spot in terms of perceived power after its recent buff. Statistically it’s now also quite strong, though not excessively so. That puts all four elemental drakes in a good spot both perception and stats wise. As a result we don’t have any current plans for dragon changes. 
We have seen some feedback that Elder drake sometimes doesn’t feel worth taking. Elder drake’s not intended to be an every-game thing though, more a good option if you’ve got a lot of drake stacks and decent map control (or willingness to teamfight). 
Next couple of patches (6.17 and 6.18) 
Game Balance in 6.17 and 6.18
Worlds is going to be played on patch 6.18, so our focus for 6.17 and 6.18 is more on balance for pro play than usual. We’re going for small changes to a number of champions, aiming to increase champion diversity in pro play by either chipping a bit of power off excessively strong champs (e.g. Ashe, Jhin, Gragas, Trundle etc) or adding power to champions that are almost in the right spot (e.g. Jayce, Draven, Malphite etc). We’re not looking to do major work on any given champion in this period, these are patches that should be about tweaking things rather than significant change. 
Depending on how the 6.15 tower changes play out it’s possible we might adjust those a bit. That would be on the level of slight changes to first destruction reward (+/- 100g?), duration of fortification (+/- 1 minute?) etc, rather than larger systemic changes. 
Game Clarity 
We’ve been looking a lot recently at improving game clarity, with goals like removing visual noise and improving team communication. A couple projects along those lines are already out, others are coming pretty soon. They include things like cleaning up minimap icons (e.g. Corki’s Hextech Munitions showing up for all players, or the size of Rek’Sai’s tunnels), a clear ‘this unit’s invulnerable’ indicator for Taric ult, Kindred ult, etc, more things to ping in team chat (death timers, objective respawn timers, etc), the option to fade out player names/club tags during combat, clarifying circle ground indicators (e.g. do Corki’s allies need to see his Q radius, or does it just add extra noise?), and more. 
Between the World’s Patch and Pre-Season (6.19-6.21) 
6.19-6.21 will be a period of low change. We want to keep the game pretty similar to the patch Worlds is being played on so that the game you’re playing is really close to the game you’re watching. It’s also a time when we’re pretty focused on the development of the upcoming pre-season. 
There’ll still be balance changes during this period -- they’ll be lighter than usual though. In terms of other stuff it’s highly likely the Yorick rework will be out around here. A new champion’s also likely. 
Pre-Season (6.22-6.23) 
So, speaking of pre-season, it’s currently scheduled for 6.22 or 6.23. One of the big focuses there is assassins, with moderate-sized changes to four assassin kits and smaller changes (mainly numbers adjustments) to a few others. We’ll also be making some changes to items to support assassin needs. 
Additionally, we’ll be looking into other issues, like how much of a mandatory buy Aegis can be on supports, gold/xp rewards for farming versus roaming, Ghostblade’s tendency to crowd out other items etc. Some Masteries adjustments are likely, too. 
We’re working on some other projects as well for pre-season; it’s too early to talk about those yet though (still experimental). 
A couple of post Pre-Season things 
After the pre-season, we’ll look into potentially changing to 10 bans in draft games. We’re just starting to gather feedback on that from both regular players and pros. We know there’s some definite interest in more bans. There are some potential issues we’d want to make sure we were able to address though before adding extra bans, including: 
  • We feel champ select’s too long already. We’d want to find ways to not increase its duration further as a result (e.g. multiple people from the same team banning at the same time?).
  • We want to ensure that increased ability to target ban a position doesn’t create issues with how many champions a player needs to be able to play well (extreme scenario, 11 champs for one position - is that appropriate?)
  • Adding four more bans increases the number of champions needed to play ranked by four. Is that a problem? A benefit? 
We also want to take a look at the Rune system sometime next year. We’ve been doing some work to address problems with it, via changes like the permanent sale on common T3 runes, availability of T2 runes from level 1 and T2 runes getting discounted to 1 IP each. The system still has some problems fundamental to its design, however. We’re interested in overhauling runes substantially as a result. We’ve been holding off on doing that until the client update’s out, with that coming along well though we’re hoping to make runes a focus in 2017 sometime (mid-year at the earliest). 
And that’s it for now. Hope there’s some stuff of interest in here. If you’ve got thoughts on this sort of post, questions, or just feedback in general please do throw them into the associated Dev Corner post. I’ll be responding to stuff in there when time permits throughout the day."
Boards discussion thread available here.

Following the post, several reds hung around the boards to answer questions and elaborate:

As for a potential different ban system, Reav3  commented
I'm more curious if the ban phase system will remain the same.
It's something we will be looking into and testing for sure. Currently debating between 5 bans up front, or more of a snake system where there are 3 up front and the other 2 later in the draft. All versions include every player having 1 ban though, it's just about when they get to ban."
Reav3 continued:
"Yeah, some kind of snake draft is definitely a option we are looking into."

When asked about a ban phase that alternates between pick and bans, Meddler commented:
Out of curiosity, what would you think of having different pick and ban phases where it's like Ban two-Pick two and so on. It might be a good idea for pro play, since it might allow for potential increases in champion diversity. However, I'm not sure if it would even work for Solo/Dyna Queue, since that would definitely extend the champion select times. Might also cause a loss at champ select, which iirc Riot doesn't want that to occur at all (But it does happen on occasion).
It's an option, and a particularly appealing one in organized play where teams coordinate more and potentially have some information about their opponents. Not sure if it's as good a solution for regular ranked play though. Something we'll definitely be discussing."

Meddler also commented on general changes to ranked, noted:
"Plans for ranked's not something I'm well placed to talk about. We do have people assessing what our plans are for ranked in 2017 though and that process includes plans to talk about stuff well before the time, gather feedback etc."

When asked about the range of the new tower call for help, Meddler noted:
I think for the new Tower global "call for help", some special cases need to be accounted for- maybe damage over time (Brand, Malzahar, Darius) effects don't proc the global "call for help", as it would be cumbersome to wait for all enemies running back to base to stop bleeding in order to go back to attacking the turret.
Yeah, there's a range limit in there so that shouldn't be an issue (currently 1400, so slightly under vision range)."
Meddler  continued:
How would you treat global damage when figuring out tower aggro? Just thinking how awful it would be to pick up tower aggro on Nidalee because someone stepped on one of your traps, and odds are you wouldn't even notice you had it.
That would indeed be awful. There's a range limit (currently 1400, could change in testing) for how far away a call for help will trigger a tower."

When asked about their feeling on recent competitive games and the 6.16 tower changes, Meddler explained:
You noted that you didn't see any pro play since the tower changes in the article. Now that the LCS Quarterfinals happened and LCK playoffs have been going on (I don't know which patch LMS and LPL are on), what are your thoughts on the changes?
  • Looks pretty good so far in terms of early game action.
  • Need to determine though whether there's too much snowball added or not though, assessing that at present.
  • Also very interested to see whether we see early game action remain higher or whether play becomes more passive as the changes get better understood.
  • Champion picks don't seem to have changed much so far, that might be something that happens more gradually though as teams experiment and practice new characters."
As for new items in the assassin update, Meddler commented:
That means that you wont release new items for the assassins? Damn i saw an item with a cool active from a supposed leak and got my hopes up
We might, not sure yet. Changes to assassin items will be smaller in scope than those to mages and marksmen though and might not include new items, hence that phrasing.
What was the active in question? Almost guaranteed to be fake given to the best of my knowledge we haven't started implementing assassin item changes at all yet (still doing Worlds patch stuff). Curious if there's any good inspiration in it though."
As for seeing item changes prior to worlds patch, Meddler  noted:
Will items receive some changes in the pre-world patchs?
Probably not. Conceivable we make a couple of very small balance adjustments, looking to avoid doing so given how wide spread and difficult to predict accurately the impact from item changes can be though."
When asked about thoughts on balance between offensive and defensive stats, Meddler explained:
What's your current perception of the balance between offensive and defensive stats? What sort of balance do you believe should be between them, and do you think the game is currently hitting that mark? 
Offensive and defensive stats have changed a lot since League first launched, so I'm interested in hearing a bit more about how they apply to the current and future state of League.
Defensive stats feel too universally effective, rather than being noticeably more useful on the classes that should benefit from them the most. That results in issues like tank Ekko/Fizz/Yasuo etc. Offensive stats by contrast tend (some exceptions) to be better focused. Will need to work on that at some point, though not sure if that'll involve systemic changes (how items work, what stats exist etc) or changes to individual champions and items (tanks get defensive abilities that scale with defensive stats to make those items more valuable on them etc)."

When asked about potential changes to TP and the current competitive jungle pool, Meddler commented:
"No plans for TP changes at present. The longer time does block some uses, we're still seeing it get regular and effective play though. 
With you on the state of mid champion pools and the jungle. We're going with nerfing Rek'Sai and Gragas at least, rather than increasing the ability for other champions to clear at really high health levels. Sometimes being well below full health when looking to gank's a pretty important lever in the relationship between junglers and laners."
As for planned Trundle nerfs and bans, Meddler noted:
Are there any more Trundle nerfs planned except E cd increase? 
I kinda like 10 bans. What do you think about system where player bans a champion and picks a champion in the same turn.
Nothing currently planned for Trundle, possible that changes over the next two weeks before we lock 6.18 changes though. 
I think one of the biggest things to figure out with bans is how important it is or isn't that they all occur before anyone's picked a champ (e.g. if you really want to ban Gangplank but he gets picked before you ever got a change to is that good or bad?)."
    Last up is a few group questions Meddler  answered regarding today's post:

    Meddler Group questions #1:
    Some questions and concerns I have: 
    -If you overhaul runes will all our current runes be refunded, or what is the scale of changes we are looking at for runes? Right now it seems to me runes lack a little luster, with a small portion being useful and run all the time, while another portion of them are barely used.
    -Increasing bans to 10 could actually lock out one specific roles. Your team could ban out the 5 best ADCs at the current time leaving them guessing who to play. Is this healthy game-play? (You can already do this with 3, but its best not to because of other roles. When 4 more bans are added there is a lot more possibilities and variety available.)
    -Juggling turret aggro, to me, is a fun aspect of the game that makes it challenging to early tower dive. Huge risk with high reward. If made impossible to juggle it removes early tower dives and the huge risk/high reward becomes more suicide/maybe reward.
    Just looking for some clarity in these. 
    "There is much to learn about this world."
    We don't have details yet on what we will or won't do with runes, how that would affect people's existing rune collections etc. It's something we'd want to talk about well in advance of actual changes though. 
    The potential for some roles to get effectively locked out is one of the big concerns that's been raised about 10 bans. We think it'll probably be ok, given the number of champions in each class at this point and that the extreme case requires both teams focus the same class. Need to confirm that though. 
    With you on agro juggling, both as something that drives cool play and a good skill to test. Concern is that at times/on some characters it can be too free."
    Meddler  group questions 2:
    What day does the season end? 
    What lane is the big focus for preseason this year? 
    Why can't you update the runes and do the client at the same time? Is it the same team involved in both? 
    Who is going to get the victorious, championship, and challenger skins this year? 
    How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck was playing as Darius against a Maokai?
    Not sure yet on season end date. Sometime post Worlds certainly. Historically that's generally meant November. 
    Class updates are a big part of mid-seasons and pre-seasons rather than specific lanes. This year that's assassins. That probably means mid and jungle are the most affected directly. 
    Runes changes need to be built in the new client. Some degree of work can be done in parallel, but there's a fair bit of stuff that's dependent on the client having the right stable foundation in place first. Doing work on runes once that's done is a lot more efficient and less risky as a result. 
    I'll have to leave the skins/competitive announcements to the skins and competitive teams, those are their areas of expertise. 
    Woodchucks are all all Rumble mains."
    Meddler group questions 3:
    Unsorted thoughts. 

    • Indicators should use the colorblind color scheme (Blue for allies, Red for enemies).
    • If Arcade Ezreal can get an arrow to indicate the direction of his ult, perhaps Janna could get something similar for her Q?
    • Certain skin lines look great in-game, but feel much harder to read as a spectator because they look so different (i.e.: Arcade's pixelated particles). 
    Rune changes getting pushed back to mid-season 2017 is a bummer. 
    I really hope there are some plans to fix Normal games. New accounts doing any sort of PvP while leveling find themselves playing against high Elo players and many long time players end up with very high MMR and longer queue times.
    Partially sorted responses!
    • Do you mean indicators in spectator or are you suggesting all indicators should be forced to use the colorblind scheme regardless of whether the player has that on or off?
    • Can see some argument for a directional arrow for Janna and her allies, given how telegraphed it is and how slow the tornado moves wouldn't be inclined to show it to enemies though.
    • Spectator readability's definitely something we value, feedback on skin readability there's always appreciated. It's also why we disable some skins in professional play.
    • Rune changes have always been dependent on the new client so systemic changes in 2016 isn't an option unfortunately. Sometime in 2017 seems quite likely, there's a lot of work that needs to be done there though, so mid-season 2017 isn't something we can promise (would love to, but want to make sure we're being realistic in what we communicate).
    • Matchmaking, smurfing etc are outside of my area of expertise, apologies. With you on the issues though."
    Meddler  group questions 4:
    I think that adding 4 champs to the required number to play ranked isn't a bad thing. It means players have a bit more time to learn the game before diving into ranked. Just my input though. 
    On the topic of the clarity posts I feel like sometimes clarity has to be sacrificed for game knowledge. Honestly it still bugs me that I can't see how much health allied GP barrels have. Considering how much of an impact they have I feel that knowing that is pretty essential, especially at earlier levels when they take a few seconds to reach 1 health. 
    How do you feel on the topic of having a clarity toggle option? I personally would rather have all that information. However that is the way I play games. I love floods of info because that is how I focus. I am that guy who actually reads the FF14 battle log to see when my allies start casting spells, when they finish the casts, every buff/debuff in the game getting both applied and fading away. Most people don't like that info and for them clarity is the most useful. Some of us want to know just what area and Ally Corki Q is hitting in though. A toggle option for this would be wonderful imo.
    Yeah, increasing number of champs required for ranked has some definite benefits. My personal suspicion is that that's probably at least as much a good thing as a bad, it's still something we need to assess though. 
    Clarity's one of those difficult values to work with. We do believe pretty strongly that showing everything is almost never the correct approach though, that ends up overloading a channel of information so badly it ceases to do anything useful. The buff bar's been a good example of that at times. When you get 10+ buffs on there it becomes really hard to pick out useful information quickly, so turns into a source of out of combat information primarily. Showing the few most important buffs by contrast shows less total information but conveys more. 
    In terms of optional toggles for some features that makes a lot of sense and seem really high value (e.g. player name display). There are others though where cost of implementing the option outweighs the occasional value it offers (e.g. a toggle to allow allies to see the range Rengar can leap from brush with his passive whenever it's available). 
    Regarding a combat log that's something I think's got some value, but as a separate feature that doesn't add noise to existing means of communication (not throwing a huge amount of info into the normal chat window for example). Priority on that's quite a bit lower than a lot of other projects we'd want to put time into first though."

    RGMQ - Nemesis Draft Friday + Updated Schedule

    NEMESIS DRAFT debuts in the rotating game mode queue this weekend! In this returning game mode, each team takes turns picking champions for THE OTHER TEAM to play! Look for the queue to come up around noon server time on Friday August 19th!

    Schedule has also been updated to include Poro King returning September 9th through 12th,

    UPDATE: Now up on all servers!
    "From the sand-strewn battlefield of Ascension to the frenetic manatee magic of Ultra Rapid Fire, rotating game modes provide unique spins on the classic League formula. It’s time to kick things off with the next game mode in the rotation: Nemesis Draft is now live!
    Nemesis Draft turns champ select on its head: instead of picking your champions, you’ll choose who your opponents bring onto the Rift. Using your team’s combined champion pool, everyone picks a champion for the opposing team. For example, if you’re blue side, and only Dave on your team has Nidalee, anyone on your team can give anyone on the red team the cat lady, even if none of them own her. 
    As in any rotating queue game mode, we’ve specially tuned Champion Mastery so you can earn points in the mode. You’ll also be able to earn keys for your wins and loot chests for your (or your premade’s) S­-, S, and S+ games, but as always with RGM, you can’t earn Mastery 6 or 7 tokens. 

    August Q&A with Scarizard and Ghostcrawler

    Ghostcrawler and Scarizard returned to the League of Legends twitch channel to host another monthly Q&A, answering player questions on champions, direction, systems, and more!

    Ghostcrawler on Season 7 Ranked

    Similar to a few things mentioned on the monthly Q&A stream - Over on his ASK.FM, Ghostcrawler has noted that next seasons ranked experience will "have a pretty different model altogether":
    Still waiting for you to fix ranked...this whole season has just been a meaningless write off for me
    We're not happy with the way it has played out for sure. We have some additional changes coming for this season, and rest assured next season will have a pretty different model altogether."
    For what it is worth, you can also find a recent PLAYER SURVEY regarding potential experimental changes to ranked over on reddit. While interesting, remember that survey are not a promise or complete preview of upcoming changes - commonly they can be quite different from eventual plans.

    He added:
    That's us doing a survey on a hypothetical system to better understand what players do and don't like about both current ranked and possible alternative systems. It's not any form of committed change.

    Meddler on Ekko in Assassin Update

    When asked about potential Ekko changes in the upcoming Assassin class update, Meddler noted:
    Will he get any big changes to his kit or mostly number changes? I know he wasn't apart of the "big 4" but I'm just curious.
    Probably just number changes, could well be quite a few of them though."
    Meddler also commented on a previous idea to scale Ekko's Q slow with AP:
    "We were really interested in the idea of AP scaling Ekko's slow as a way to appropriately reward AP builds, while removing some problems from tank or bruiser builds. We ended up going with different changes though after testing the change and finding it didn't do what we'd hoped. In particular:

    • Tank Ekko still functioned really well, even with reduced slow strength. Tankier builds have an easier time triggering the passive slow, can take bigger risks with the W and, at least at the time, almost always had the IBG slow in there as well.
    • AP Ekko by contrast's much more reliant on stronger slows, his fallback pattern (utility for team, even if he can't kill people himself) especially. Putting AP scaling on slow strength therefore made AP Ekko much more feast/famine based off his gold income, without addressing tank Ekko much. 
    We do still see tank/bruiser Ekko as having some problems and are planning to do further work on him as a result, with the goal of pushing him towards an assassin or skirmisher playstyle. Current expectation is that those changes will happen in the pre-season patch with the changes to a number of other assassins or champs with strong assassin qualities."

    Live/Play Miniseries - Episode 2: Something Bigger

    The second episode of Riot's LIVE/PLAY miniseries debuted today - check out Something Bigger -

    If interested, Riot Zwill and Riot Jerkee fired up the LoL twitch channel earlier today to debut the new LIVE/PLAY episode and host a Q&A!

    In case you missed it, Live/Play - Episode 1: Be There can be found here.

    The Emman behind The Summoners Orchestra 

    To follow up on the above episode of Live/Play, here's an update on Emman following The Summoners Orchestra
    "Header photo by Jeanine Hill Photography 
    In the most recent episode of Live/Play, one of NA’s own, Emman, showed off a piece he composed and conducted for SummonersCon! 
    Read on to learn about him, his work, and what he’s been up to since the con! 
    What have you been up to since SummonersCon? 
    Since SummonersCon, I've been putting together plans for taking The Summoners Orchestra to Mexico for a performance at Gamacon. We will be performing video game music alongside youth symphonies there. The ensemble will be conducted by guest conductors/composers (some still TBA). 
    TSO will be the opening performance, and we will be performing some LoL pieces for sure. I have also been invited to speak on a PAX West panel with other conductors/directors of video game ensembles from around the world. 
    I've been continually working with the La Verne Symphony Orchestra, a community orchestra based out of the University of La Verne. After the success of our last video game concert, we are currently in the process of planning some kind of video game music festival every year. This would take place during the spring. Unfortunately, that's as much as I know about that right now. I'm still working out details with that director. 
    Can we listen to the piece you composed for SummonersCon?

    Where can we listen to more of your stuff? 
    My music can be found on YouTubeSoundCloud, and Loudr
    I've participated in the two Final Fantasy albums that the Materia Collective has put together. 
    I'm also currently in the process of scoring the game VentureVerse
    What’s next for you? 
    I'm currently leaving my job working at Disneyland in order to continue to pursue a career making music. "Jumping into the deep end" as everyone seems to refer to it. I'm simultaneously terrified and excited :P 
    Good luck, Emman! Don’t forget to check out his work using the links above and tell us about your favorite League-inspired works of art (music or otherwise) in the comments below!"

    Riot Fearless Office Hours 

    Lately Riot Fearless, lead designer on game systems, has been opening his twitter  to player questions in what he calls office hours!

    Here's a series of questions and answers from Fearless including discussion & comments on on preseason / next season changes, masteries, and more!

    What is the plan for jungling next season? We've had some big changes over the last year, and I'm curious how set it is 
    Lot more details to come, but TLDR is reducing complexity that wasn't working and using that space for cool shit."
    what do you mean by complexity reduction on the map?
    Removing very complex mechanics that aren't doing much good for the game, so generally add confusion more than fun."
    What system do you think is in dire need of an update?
    Pregame stands out as in a bad state Items and Vision would love to fix up long term."
    Any directions known for Preseason besides Assasin pass? Things like Runes & Mastery changes.
    Likely some small mastery changes, and some complexity reduction in the map. A few changes for support ecosystem."
    This means you will only change the runes system?
    Want to improve pregame, but that sort of change would take us a fair bit longer."
    could you go into more detail on what you mean by pregame
    Would like to sees both Runes and Masteries be a much better experience."
    Doesnt pregame just end up with 1 OP choice or several boring choices. Also whats wrong with vision? Still too much too often?
    Main problem with vision is the system is too binary. Would like more states between invisible and full vision."
    Should I be afraid of the Yorick Rework, as a fan of the champ?
    I would say be excited. As a dude that loves Yorick, I'm looking forward to his release. <3"
    What is Xypherous up to? I know that he talked a bit about the future of Locket and penetration itemization earlier this year.
    He's been doing a lot of work on complexity reduction, removing locket issues, and doing a bunch of clarity tweaks."
    Besides Locket, what do you think of current support itemization? Ardent/Mikaels changes helped, but it still seems stale imo
    Locket is so warping that it's hard to know the state of anything else. Similar to old IE in the that case."
    Support echosystem changes? In what way?
    Reduce Locket domination, maybe make other options strong if needed. Very hard to know impact of changes before out."
    what do you consider as situational picks for assassins?
    Important that they have teams and windows where they are strong, but don't believe they should be "go to" power."
    Will Fizz get updated too with the upcoming Assasin Update?
    Has some experimental changes, believe most of the kit changes are not yet confirmed."
    could you provide an estimate on when assassin updates as well as yorick and Warwick updates will be relessed
    After worlds."
    is kled ultimate what you were aiming for when you released sion ?
    Nope! Happy they are different abilities."
    Will we get more items like Ardent's Censer aka strong effect with a non-ubiquitos trigger to solidify a certain niche?
    I think this can be a very powerful space as long as triggers still have enough users and not just a champion or two"
    What did Mandrake Ward fail to do to accomplish this? It seems like that kind of information is exactly what you're after.
    Madrake was fairly hard to use, but was an experiment in this space. Would like to do a lot more but need tech."
    least favourite thing about League of Legends?
    Trend of mechanical execution creep. Not enough strategic or decision making challenge, too many input tests."
    What about the general state of resistance vs penetration? Are you happy with how it is at the moment?
    No, not even close. See defensive model in general as causing a lot of balance and game health issues."
    Would love to see in the post game screen a tip to get my letter grade up a level. “More CS to earn an A-!” No question.
    I think ratings as a training tool could do a lot of things like this to make them more useful."
    you mean things like the Sunfire+Gaunlet meta? Or things like Tank Ekko/Tank Fizz existing?
    Both. Tank items make everyone tanky in the exact same way. Leads to dominant items and painful champ builds."
    I heard the following on Reddit: "ADC's in Bot Lane are becoming too mainstream. " Is there going to be another ADC rework?
    No full reworks in short term. Long term, would love to support other duo options. Mage + support experiment was rad"
    Do you feel this is due to the increasing returns on pen/reduc? As soon as you get any, it over inflates the value of the rest
    Problems are universal multiplicative power and very little champion translation of item power."
    What about Liandrys Torment? Xyph said that it was designed as counter to a meta that no longer exists and lost its identity.
    Likely to still exist, in that the meta could come back, and we'd want the release valve."
    couldn't you, theoretically, remove flat stats from items, give tanks really good bases and make all tank items %inc of bases?
    That would be an example approach, but we have a lot of champions that rely on defensive items. But basic idea, yes."
    what can be done to differentiate how well tank items make a character, then? ratios based on defenses not always great
    Would like to have tanks have unique uses on their kit or maybe class? Don't know implementation yet, too far out."
    If you reflect back on Keystone Masterys, were they successful? Why is there a huge difference of strength on all of them?
    They were, in that they proved we could make the choices feel better and clearer, learned a lot about balance."
    if their was 1 fundamental aspect of league that you could change, (crits, mana) would you? Also what would you change?
    Vision is probably closest to this for me, for examples already talked about. Too binary, inaccessible, low feedback"
    Have you ever considered buffing Galio in some way (indirect/direct buffs) or giving him a ranged attack on his auto attacks?
    Have seen interesting things in playtest over the years. No news if/when we try to ship something."
    is preseason gonna be boring update-wise compared to last Season 6's preseason?
    I'm not worried about this in the slightest."
    I feel like the abundance of %health lately might be making full tanks a bit of a volatile role. What do you think about it?
    Very useful when used well, but have seen it show up in spots that probably aren't correct as well. We'll fix it. :)" 
    because vision is so important will there ever be a spot dedicated for just pink wards
    Possible, but there are a lot problems with inventory slot expansions. The problem is one we think about though."
    lets just hope you don't ruin the champion those people like, as you did the last time you threw someone different bot lane
    Our approach would likely be at the item/core rules level, not a champion kit."

    Updated Sion Splashes on PBE, Fiora Next

    With Sion's updated skin splash arts now on the PBE,  Reav3 reminded that Fiora will be the next to get updated skin splash arts but it won't be in 6.17
    iirc Sion and Fiora were being done together since Fiora only needs like 2 of them changed, might be tomorrow but don't hold me to it
    Fiora will not be in this patch. They are both being worked on but we started the Sion ones much earlier."
    In the past, Reav3 has mentioned Twitch is likely next after Fiora!

    Kled community creations 

    Riot Jynx is back with a round up of Kled community creations!
    "Chaaaaaaaarge into battle and enjoy the mayhem of the Cantankerous Cavalier (and Skaarl) in these awesome fan art pieces! Don’t forget to click the artists’ names below to see even more of their work. 
    Blastu and Ghost 

    Lokey. and Moriad 
    WANDAKUN and Ze 
    Blondynki Też Grają


    Have a favorite piece, or more Kled art to share? Let us know in the comments!"

    Kled’s Immortal Skaarl 

    Speaking of Kled, here's a community feature on Cpt Pianta's tank Kled!
    "(Header image by Ze) 
    It’s not healthy to overfeed your steed, but in Kled’s case it’s a matter of survival. 
    Cpt Pianta shows us what happens when you gorge Skaarl on an Olympian diet of health and armor to create a tower-diving, damage-soaking monster.

    Who’s your favorite tower diver? Let us know in the comments below!"

    /ALL Chat | Will It Jungle? Ft Vayne 

    Last up we have a new /ALL Chat segment: 

    "This week, /ALL Chat asks the age old question: will Vayne jungle? Watch as Dash overcomes his ADC demons by hunting them down with Vayne. We’re pretty sure Vayne can jungle but can Dash jungle Vayne? To make matters worse, it seems that Dash has left his rune page at home!"

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