Despite issues with burst damage, the dual support item meta, and some absolutely busted builds, Riot is happy with how League of Legends season 14 is playing out, with its February 29 dev blog exploring how the team is combatting issues in ranked, as well as toning down those one-shots.
As an enchanter support main in League of Legends, season 14 has been equal parts a blessing and a curse. While supports overall feel a lot stronger, the level of burst that the MOBA‘s assassins and control mages have been putting out has, in some cases, felt impossible to deal with.
Bot lane specifically has really struggled, given that, by nature, the champions are more squishy than their solo-lane counterparts. My partner, who plays ADC primarily, has shifted to the likes of Yasuo and Swain in an attempt to survive the burst, and we’ve even pulled out the likes of Aatrox and Darius in ranked to try and hold out against that 7/1/13 Fizz who’s just demolishing everything.
Yet, despite the issues with burst damage, Riot is happy with the current state of the game, noting that it’s made changes to temper one-shot damage and bring it back in line with levels post-Durability Update.
As lead gameplay designer Matt ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison notes, “we’re happy with the state of gameplay balance, stability, and the new objectives. We also feel good about the current state of champion balance, game pacing and snowballing, and the new Void objectives.
“That said, it wasn’t all smooth,” he continues, noting that the shift in champion damage vs item damage led to a lot more burst, made worse by some busted new items like Bloodsong. “We’ve taken steps already to address this, but we’re continuing to make adjustments to get closer to where we were after the Durability Update.”
Burst damage aside, though, there’s also been issues in ranked, with players (myself included) feeling like they’re stagnating. A single loss seems to result in a slew of bad games (often because of odd matchmaking), and while Riot has previously claimed that this is “normal,” Leung-Harrison has confirmed that changes are on the way.
At Emerald, nearly half of players were apparently stuck in a rotating door of negative LP gains, with over 85% of players in Master feeling the same. According to Leung-Harrison, this has been decreased to just 5%, and as a result climbing should feel easier over the next few patches. As someone who has been struggling to ascend even a rung of the ladder, this is good news.
Other updates include the new Crystalis Indomitus skins (set for Kha’Zix, Xerath, and Nautilus), which will be debuting in the League of Legends Mythic shop, and an update on the next two Prestige skins, pegged for Leona and Yuumi. And here I was about to buy Prestige Battle Academia Leona this time around – I think I may just wait it out.
If you’re looking for some new cosmetics, we have a list of all the League of Legends skins that are currently on sale. Or, if it’s the ranked changes that have piqued your interest, we have a rundown of the LoL ranking system so that you know what you’re signing up for.
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