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Riot know League of Legends’ Tristana “needs nerfing” – but change is unlikely before Worlds

League of Legends

League of Legends lore has it that Tristana always has a “kind word for everyone” – though in the lanes she’s equally generous with the buster shots to the face. In fact, the yordle commando is currently proving marginally more effective than her peers, and Riot know it. But they’re not planning to get busy with the nerfs until after this year’s Championship Series concludes at Worlds.

“She needs nerfing,” designer Ghostcrawler acknowledged in the LoL forums. “Realistically it is unlikely to happen before worlds.”

The reason? Riot like to host competitive matches on a build of the game that have been thoroughly tested; even unequivocal changes for the better can risk destabilising LoL’s carefully-tuned balance. And the pros have a reasonable expectation that stats won’t switch dramatically over the course of a tournament.

When Riot do take the pliers to Tristana, however, they’ll be giving her “some sort of weakness”.

“If we just lower her damage or something, players may just switch from her to Kog or someone which just substitutes one dominant ADC for another,” mused Ghostcrawler. “Ideally we’d like to give her some trade-offs so that you can choose her for her strengths or avoid her because of her weaknesses.”

It’s a careful process. Not least because tweaks to any champion will have knock-on effects on others. That’s how Trist came to be overpowered in the first place: she used to be weaker in lane, until Riot toned down Lucian’s lane bullying.

“Without explicitly intending to, we removed her downsides,” said Ghostcrawler.

TSM won the NA League of Legends Championship Series Playoffs this week. Have you noticed the pros gravitate towards the crack shot yordle?

Thanks, Reign of Gaming.