Champion Mastery, Agency, and Balance | League of Legends

I hope you enjoy the video!

[@redmouse22]

Phreak: "20 minutes or less" Runtime: 57 minutes Gonna be a good one lol

[@meekumanu]

average phreak video

[@Paul-sh8fq]

2x speed and it's close

[@Aeivious]

@@Paul-sh8fq phreak already talks in 2x speed

[@WeatherManToBe]

I'm letting crying laughing so hard how casually he said 20 minutes or less 😂😂😂😂 Oh, I bet it went to like 27 or 29 mins 😅 Checks.. 57..... 😂😂😂😂😂

[@varelasensei]

Thanks for this video Phreak. Whether I agree or disagree, this type of transparency is insightful and important.

[@joemama9479]

Are you a robot ?

[@varelasensei]

@@joemama9479 No, but you sure as hell are lol

[@lumer1611]

It's a shame that, in r/lol, this exact thing you said is just non existent as almost everyone there is mad about this guy. They don't even hear what he talks about, they don't even know if they agree with him or not, they just throw in the most toxic take or just type nonsense about balance (as if they know more than everyone else)

[@joemama9479]

@@varelasensei And your league rank? XD

[@Icerite]

Timestamps: 0:23 What is this presentation? 1:43 Why do champion balance? 4:57 Champion mastery 11:44 Intuitively high mastery champions 15:09 Unintuitively high mastery champions 18:14 Intuitively low mastery champions 21:07 Unintuitively low mastery champions 25:14 Champion agency 32:47 Agency 1: Power curves 36:46 Agency 2: Kit versatility 43:33 Agency 3: Counter-play 50:14 Addendum 1: Who is the game for? 51:31 Addendum 2: Player sentiment 54:24 Addendum 3: Objectivity vs. design instinct

[@kreeperkiller4423]

Phreak pls pin this guy^

[@Netsuko]

Whether you agree or disagree with Phreak, I think it's safe to say that this level of direct communication between devs and players is commendable and sadly a very rare thing these days, especially when it comes to large games.

[@cloudynguyen6527]

Yeah, reminds me of Valve commentary nodes in many of their games. I love listening to them ^-^

[@ThePolishViking]

No, I don't know if you ever learn that in school but communication is a two way street. If game developer is communicating something to players and take an absolut piss on what players communicating to developers then that's patch notes. He can say whatever he wants but if comes down to listening to players he and his team take an absolut piss which he already proved multiple times since he got to game balance team. As a reminder Vel'koz community being ignored and deminished to "they just complaining that champ is bad", overall community of the game deminished to "all you can hear is toxicity" and don't forget the most legendary phrase "you can type Karthus R" after they buchered the ping system because some sissys were upset. So whether I agree with him or not, he is still designe lead and right now we have one of the most obnoxious meta in years which means he lead his team towards this goal and he is still taking a piss with listening to players.

[@lulgrim]

whole lot of yap there

[@Tofu_Gundam]

Talking a lot doesn't mean anything if you follow it up with months of vendetta nerfs against whatever jungler last smashed your middle-aged pussy in solo queue. Hope he resigns.

[@WorldKeepsSpinnin]

@@ThePolishViking Problem is, league community is one of the worse to listen to. Because most of them are just dumb, or toxic and unhelpful, or both etc. Thats why u have things like "type karthus R" where did that come from? the community. Community is split, and not together at all. So really the devs are mostly just listening to whoever is the most vocal on the platforms they vist the most. and that happens to be the worse people of most communitys. That was the problem with velkoz players, they would only see the dumb peoples opinions and not the people who actually had the answers. Thats the real issue. League has some pretty good devs man, compared to every other game this is the best ive seen. And ive played every game.

[@liare]

Phreak, you're a beast for being so open with the community regarding your thought-process on stuff like this, and having the energy to make this kind of content (on what I guess is your free time). Obvious you really really care about the game. Anyway great vid and looking forward to the next patch rundown 😊🤘.

[@Wigglewaggles]

So thankful the devs communicate this much with the community. Fans of other games know how truly rare that is

[@jeremydelrosario2571]

Another bot comment? Lol

[@Stabidistabstab_PBP]

@@jeremydelrosario2571 me, a human, agrees with this comment, so does it matter?

[@Raiko01]

​@@jeremydelrosario2571Can confirm I'm also a human 🤖🤖

[@dealbreakerc]

To be fair, this doesn't really count as dev communication. This is one guy who happens to have a significant role in live balance but he's doing it on his private channel (private as in belonging to him rather than the company) so the overwhelming majority of players and even the overwhelming majority of ranked players will never see any of this. If they really wanted to be communicating it would have been directly linked to from the client.

[@connormckinley6714]

I don’t know how many of these comments you read Phreak, but I just wanted to say that while you have made some decisions I disagree with before, the vast majority of the work that you do has been strictly correct decisions for the game. Balance changes have gotten much tighter, much less volatile, and far more effective in the time you have been the balance team lead as compared to times past (Been playing since season 6, I would remember). Beyond that you’ve been a major voice in making genuinely major changes to the game like boot prices, item and class balancing, runes, pro skew changes, and many more things I’m honestly probably forgetting. Despite all the criticism you get - a portion of it deserved - I think you have been a greatly positive influence on league of legends, and the value of the advanced insights you have brought to the table during your time as the balance team lead are hard to overstate. League only gets harder to regulate as time goes on but I think the work you and your team have done has - for the first time I can recall - placed the developers at riot one step ahead of leagues complexity creep, and the game is looking better for it. It’s phreak season indeed; and the game would be worse if it wasn’t.

[@joaodebeyssac3772]

For real, I've played from beta to season 2 then returned only in 2021. The level of sophistication they have achieved is unmatched. The amount of champions and their different synergies across different skill levels, while so many of them feeling overpowered in the right places really makes the game feel solid, yet flexible enough that you can make it your own. Whoever days the meta is stale is probably disappointed with other factors like the pressure to climb rank or play whatever meta they put out in the web. I have been playing a lot of top laners in mid and it's been really refreshing.

[@divad_doodles]

As someone in college for Comp Sci and Game Design who wants do do things like this for a living, these videos are SOOOO COOOOL

[@animagamer2]

Hahaha, the running joke of Phreak saying "Let's see if we can get this done in x amount of time" then looking down to see that the video is more than double that length... It's just peak Phreak!

[@scdocarlos1633]

Love these videos on the inner logic behind these patches. Cool behind the scenes stuff

[@gingeas]

This is an insanely refreshing level of communication

[@chasegrange1288]

I love these game designs breakdowns! One of my favorite parts about League and extremely helpful for not just understanding what changes are made but more importantly Why they are made. These videos give me so much hope for the future of League.

[@aGatchaman]

tbh the videos slap harder the longer it goes past his wanted runtime.

[@karmanomicon]

We as a comminity need to acknowledge that this level of communication and transparency is rare in the gaming world, regardless of where we stand with the content. This is good.

[@dealbreakerc]

This level of transparency isn't actually that high. He's making this video o. His own channel rather than a devlog or something else that much much much more of the league community would actually be likely to see. If he really wanted players (not just the ones who follow him personally) to hear/see this, then this would be done on the league site and linked to directly from the client.

[@denthance1793]

Super good video, a lot of people don't understand how rare this amount of communication and transparency is from game developers towards their players. Keep makin videos like this dude :)

[@miraclehuman5262]

people get really angry when people say their champ is easy to play but how hard the champ is to play doesn't equal how good you are at that champ. thats why i usually regardless of the champ try to acknowledge how hard a champ is even if it isnt insanely hard

[@nathanfee9644]

Thanks for this insight Phreak! You're one of the few game devs who's willing to lay it out for the community!

[@yokiabia]

What's up fellow gamer, hope you're doing good. Thanks again for another insightful video!

[@unlimitedpower978]

I appreciate Phreak sharing his perspective. But IMO mobility is underpriced (and thus overpowered) in champion’s power budget. There are situations where immobile champs just don’t get to interact or have agency on the map compared to others but to an extent that seems unaccounted for in the champion’s balancing.

[@jeanegreene374]

Ivern's micro is more intensive than the vast majority of champions, mainly because to get good value out of his ult and his W passive you have to simultaneously kite at low range and micro Daisy so that she stays ontop of people after autoing.

[@lucidcortex8444]

lol

[@ovicephalus5938]

lmao it sounds stupid but it's actually true, you can get Azir, GP or Kalista level apm with him if you are good at micromanaging.

[@mikevos4460]

Is it needed tho? Most of the times nah

[@psdjklgfuiob]

real (im rank 5 ivern world)

[@jeanegreene374]

@@mikevos4460 I mean, the difference between doing it and not is around 300-400 DPS

[@themorellonomicon2757]

I don't think "don't stand near a wall" is as appliccable to Qiyana as it is to Vayne/Poppy. If you overlay all of summoners rift with the radius of her ultimate, and then stack your own champions hitbox radius on top, the resulting space you can exist in is tiny. Add the knockback on top of that and I'd be surprised if there's more than 10% of the walkable area on the map left.

[@stareater4629]

What a really strange hyperbole

[@backslicer2543]

@@stareater4629 It actually isnt. Most of the map lets qiqi ult you to a wall. The only proper safe spots are the center of the 3 lanes. Any other spot you can easily be walled

[@dogeaaron9939]

More communication 👍👍I like this break all the misconceptions

[@ShadowBlade140]

Thank you for taking the time to make this video! Learning this view point is helpful

[@PalPlays]

Never lose the fire, Phreak! Your passion inspires me to keep at my DnD 5th Edition rework in the hopes of being a gamedev one day!

[@green929392]

I still enjoy these videos despite the fact I stopped playing due to vanguard privacy concerns. (so you're doing a good job)

[@michaelcacace1414]

Can you speak more on that? I'm highly interested

[@CHSPART4N117]

@Phreak: Great insights in the balancing process and the video quality is really good. I would bet that you could talk multiple hours about the game, I can really feel your enthusiasm despite all the critisism ❤❤❤. An idea on how to improve Vex: Remove her Qs ability to fear enemies & minions. This would improve her wave clear and she would have more feelable control over her fear mechanic. Keep up the great work, I am looking forward for future videos!

[@Bluuedream]

I very rarely play League anymore, but I'll still listen to these while I work lol.

[@aidanherbert6614]

I appreciate Phreak a lot. While Phreak season is the meme, I actually think the relative balance of the game in the recent seasons has been very good. With a handful of exceptions like Ksante, but I think those are bound to happen. Please keep it up, and continue ignoring haters.

[@Tetronoid]

ryze needs to be more blue, he needed to be more blue YESTERDAY mr phreak

[@alexsolo859]

what do you mean by yesterday

[@XXLepic]

Appreciate the video for insight. Plz do more :)

[@pedroeol]

Phreak likes to talk about League. We like to play and hear about League x) This videos are such a great insight and we appreciate them ^^

[@baryro9192]

It felt like i watched the video on 1.5x speed when it was only 1x. Great video !

[@boldfont]

I appreciate the historical context he takes the time to layer over these topics .I was a lee otp the day he came out , not a lot of energy champs were out yet and I was constantly killing self for a lack of energy xD

[@theghost3813]

Thank you Phreak for your dedication. Your very aspiring everytime i see your work.

[@hookedonphones1681]

I’m getting my degree in game design by watching these videos. Truly a topic that’s gone from being only an art to also being a science

[@Air-wr4vv]

First time stumbled on your channel. But i want to say that League champions are sooo well designed, that every champ feels unique both visually and in gameplay/thinking. I really love this and it's the first game where i feel this way, that every champ is its own, they feel alive Good job Riot Team!🎉❤

[@jiimbv]

Hi Phreak, at the beginning of your talk about agency you mentioned in passing that tanks don't scale very well because of things like percent pen "so they can't be invincible and that's just the way the game is". I'd be curious to know a bit more about this stance from Riot. I'm not exclusively a tank player, but I especially love playing Naut top and feel like I have to build bruiser in order to be relevant and end up feeling roughly as tanky as I am when I'm full tank anyway, which feels pretty bad. Does tank itemization need to scale poorly because of previous seasons where assassins would build full tank? Is it to ensure that teamfights are always over quickly? I'm truly curious, I'm not even sure I'd want tank items to be stronger or not, because I don't know the reasoning and statistics behind the scenes. Anyway, thanks for your videos, they are always a treat ❤

[@SiMeGamer]

He has mentioned in his previous 14.16 patch preview that they are working on a huge item balance sweep and according to their current analysis, Tank items are the worst items in the game. So this might change once Split 3 starts (I think it's 14.18/19).

[@fernandossmm]

I love that the goal right now is to balance against mastery. It feels rewarding and safe to really get into a champion and know that you'll get rewarded for doing so. In this video you almost didn't talk about items. I guess that those are much harder to find a balance philosophy around. However, you did talk about alt builds and, more importantly, adapting half way through a game. I feel that especially tanks (and kinda mages) would benefit from being able of kinda changing your role midway through the game if needed. In specific, tanks could get some MS and AS to become jaggernauts (some already benefit from a spectral waltz) and mages could become partial supports or enchanters, if you're willing to bend the rules a bit. I like the item that heals after a kill, but I would add one that shields allies similar to locket but with mage-oriented stats. Would also be useful for support mages. I know it's not the time to make new items, just something that came to me.

[@calengatt5371]

Your a legend for the time you spend

[@albinotadpole6640]

Thank you for the videos, Phreak. I hope you know this does wonders for the community, probably for good or for worse depending on what day the LoL community woke up on lol. But honestly, I appreciate your thought process and your experiences as one of the League Devs.

[@ASSASSIN79100]

Not a fan of the last points made about how Kog'Maw is allowed to be OP because he's not played a lot and isn't perceived to be OP. The problem about using banrate is that there is a limited number of bans in the game, so you have to pick and choose which OP champ to ban. There could be a plethora of OP champ's, but hey aren't banned simply because you can't ban them all.

[@ItsTheWK]

Imagine if singed had his W to be something of a potion selection like hwei abilitys instead of just glue would add so much depth to him but yet he would remain true to his identity

[@robertovandenelzen4410]

Amazing video it's really interesting Also dont worry about the time man I like how in depth you went Keep it up

[@AI_Is_Awesome]

Phreak making an entire PhD course out of champion design

[@ShadowRaZeV1]

Hey Phreak, thanks for the awesome video. Extremely appreciate your insight and dedication to allowing us a view behind the curtain. I LOVE this kind of content. Please keep making more if possible. Patch is dropped live for 14.6 and although most items are now displaying their stats and tooltips correctly, there are quite a few items that could easily be fixed and I think are incredibly important to your goals overall. Both BC and Abyssal both do not show any of their damage done due to their 30% armor/magic resist shreds. You've talked a lot about these items recently and how you have been encouraging them to fit many champions and classes that can not only be tanky and deal some damage, but also provide supportive damage AMP for their team mates. Both BC and Abyssal are the two items that support this concept most effectively, and I think their current designs are pretty amazing. The one very big downside, is that both BC and Abyssal show absolutely 0 data on the player end of the tooltip and we can literally not see how much use we are getting out of either item, which completely defeats the point of encouraging players to use these items. It's a bit disappointing that these two items have been like this all season long, but especially right now, they need their tooltip's fixed immediately.

[@theboyinorange4]

i'm that one guy that listens to this while doing something else(like aram) then 20 minutes later be like "wWHatTt??"

[@Crucile]

love videos like these!

[@MyEloy1]

Phreak ur lowkey goated

[@Stabidistabstab_PBP]

if you actually cared about the feeling, my incredible hatred for yuumi alone should justify a 10% winrate

[@notgreatatcoding]

Omg Phreak needs to do a Ted talk next :3 all jokes aside looking forward to listening!

[@nick1wasd]

This form of dialogue makes me feel way more interested/invested in the patch notes because I can see why stuff is being done beyond "math is off, fixing it" since that gets dry very quickly. I appreciate that bit at the end about design intent in spite of objective calculations because of human psychology, because *a certain former pro coach* LOVES to rant about objective numbers, and flaming pros for not doing their homework, when human psychology is something that gets in the way of that sort of thing.

[@sapphire--9375]

Yo this is amazing

[@Zerothgal]

Great video and timely given Lexical's recent question about pro vs. casual player base. I find these kinds of videos very interesting.

[@hozimina]

A fair and reasonable video to help elaborate for the majority of players. We may all have personal beliefs but this works as a good rubric.

[@KornelKK13]

Can you make Kayle an ap autoattacker that actually has DPS and heals form autos instead of a range walmart assassin?

[@WTFShawski]

As someone who actually quit the game over the mastery rework and feeling shame for putting that much effort into something i feel the developers "unofficially scrubbed" im glad you are bringing up this topic Phreak e

[@iHollywood_]

Appreciate the video and the work you do!

[@alessgr9394]

I wish riven was rewarding to play with all the hours we mains have on her, yet she is borderlone trollpick

[@exarion2239]

has to be the way she is rn. You can concider giving her quality of live buffs or some small buffs or giving her a rework.

[@backslicer2543]

Back in the day riven was easily the best toplaner by a wide margin when you put in the effort. How the mighty have fallen but she was extremely abnoxious so I dont mind.

[@billybobr2e2]

Her big problem for a long time has been elite gap - elite players are consistently much better than average tier players, by around 3.5% atm. So if she’s buffed 2% for Plat and below players (48.5%) to have more room for error, D2+ will rule top lane at 54-5%. Comparisons: Fiora, Kennen, Darius all at 50 vs 53 (3%), Camille 50 to 53.5 (3.5%), Sett and Garen

[@TheZeki19]

Phreak, awesome video. I love the explanation and analysis that you go through with the roles and champs. Wish I could know more about that. Do you have any youtubers or Content Creators that explain that sort of stuff? Thanks for the video

[@Know-Your-Enemy-27]

"I can outplay because I'm Vayne" LMAO

[@tonyluiscomedy]

Thanks for a lot of interesting insight once again Ritoman

[@Raiko01]

Talking about counterplay made me realize why I always joke around with my friends that you can have a viktor or xerath 20/1 at 30 minutes and he will easily die last teamfight and lose

[@KomandarmKnuckles]

"Not a lot of toplaners proxy" Boys how do we tell him?

[@meekumanu]

realistically, it's true. proxying might be one of the strongest strategies in the game but it's extremely underutilised.

[@DemonicInfinity]

@@meekumanu It has to be a rank thing, because in master + i feel like i'm seeing it every other game, especially with the current amount of ranged toplaner.

[@timothissimo]

hes referring in terms of the average playerbase

[@kreeperkiller4423]

BAUSENMAXXING TOPLANERS WOOOOOOO

[@SumThingFawful]

I do appreciate this type of video. I have to ask, why buff Syndra Ult instead of buffing reverting her Q nerfs? If anything its rewarding those land their abilities to get whoever into range no? You even use her as an example of a champion still being rewarded while not knowing how they should be played Secondly its the one ability everyone watches out for. Why put more power into whats going to be hourglass/windwalled/ shield etc? Never been a fan of Riots seeming want for Syndra to relying on her ult more and more.

[@octo87_c58]

I swear every Syndra player wants this instead of a random r buff but the balance team doesn’t like to listen to the champion player base I guess…

[@Siegram999]

Revert q nerfs so i can syndra adc again

[@OuhHey]

Qiyana's "adjustement" are like 10/20 more damages untill lvl 5 At lvl 6, this is a straight up nerf and it goes downhill the more level and the more items you get Qiyana was already horrendous and not played at all at every elo She deserved straight up buffs on Passive or Q (like reverting the bAD Ratio nerfs on them) Or maybe reverting the bAD Ratio nerfs on Q and Passive, but nerfing the R a bit

[@OuhHey]

With all respect, I've never heard such bullshit about Qiyana tho No counterplay ? Point and Click E deals 0 damage if you Flash/Dash Out And same goes for the EQ If she can't get her EQ, she will likely not kill you even when ahead And the rest of her kit are skillshot in a straightline You can flash out her R You can even flash out / dash out / zhonya / cast abilities / auto attacks / walk out of her R, EVEN AFTER SHE LANDS THE INITIAL SHOCKWAVE ON YOU She has also pretty bad target accessibility (Especially for an Assassin) She often relies on flash or on using her E on CS because of that Also, as you said, you can evade Qiyana's entire combo just by not standing near a wall And recent Midlane change really made it easy Also, she relies a lot on elements and basicslly, she can access either Grass or Water in a good portion of Midlane, and in her base or in the enemy base

[@7u7r8]

I apreciate your transprency

[@scottsteinmetz]

I'd love to see a break down of some of those Agency metrics Phreak talked about being hard to calculate at 30:53, sounds really interesting and difficult to pin down

[@9forMortalMen]

20 minutes or less 57 minutes Love you Phreak, never change.

[@osamamohammed7940]

Thanks for the video!!!! Keep it up Phreak

[@stefanristic9245]

am i hearing him wrong or did he say "nunu is also very difficult to play" at 12:35 like wtf i mean if we are talking about iron players maybe but im pretty sure anyone above plat or emerald can pull off nunu quite well in like 10 games mechanically speaking

[@doglopmaz]

Nunu is in all ranks one of the lowest winrate champs on the first ≈10 games if not more, it is not an opinion, it's data, this might differ in some elos, that's not what he analized here

[@HybridLetsPlay]

I don’t know if someone mentioned it elsewhere but I found the game you mentioned. It was in LCS lock-in 2021 TL vs 100. The only thing you got wrong was Flowers was actually the PBP

[@Phreak]

That's wild that I recalled an entire fight from 3 years ago that I didn't even cast lmao

[@EmrysMerlin8807]

...PHREAK ya dropped one when I was asleep! I missed my intro time!

[@WWFanatic0]

Phreak trying to keep it under 20minutes was the best joke in the whole video. Though I never object to an hour long video on game design...

[@catpotter7208]

I LOVE LISTENING TO PHREAK TALK ABOUT LOL. thank you for your time and passion bro.

[@Inst9727]

I'm hyped, just started watching, but i always love when phreak makes special videos

[@Inst9727]

good video

[@Magicallum]

Thank you for the discussion and insights! Would you ever release the mastery curves for each champion? I think a lot of people would love to see it!

[@xKernNie]

Phreak videos are the highest frequency of 100% viewer retention rate for me.

[@neoishere3864]

Thank you for those videos phreak !

[@VashXTV]

Phreak adcs (SOLO Q) not worlds, not premade duo, ADC SOLO Q is the worst experience humanly imaginable to any sane living person. I truly believe this can be fixed by putting a de-buff on all champs you don't want being played mid & top lane -10% exp pre minute 10 *and balancing them so they actually have agency on bot lane and can control the game, should be simple no?

[@IcyColdStare]

Thank you for your thoughts Phreak! I'd love to hear more of these types of talks whenever you have the idea :D

[@ross2662]

thank you king, hope you are well

[@emiki3332]

surely the section at 21 minutes on unintuitively low mastery champions refers to "low skill floor" and not "low mastery"?

[@vannilja]

Thanks for the video. It's nice to have this amount of transparency. I will also kindly ask for a Sera mid buff. As it stands she's consistently at below 50% wr, I believe 47.7% master plus. This is not normal considering her kit and is objectively underpowered. I know it's an unpopular pick, but with the current state of support, there should be some room for rebalance.

[@Kampsycho]

Great video honestly, this is usually my frustration as a Yorick main, because his agency can be really low and he's weak early but doesn't scale as hard anymore and he's one of the few champs that can legit lose his DPS and lose a game off of it.. Example is lategame or midgame when enemy may be looking to end, I can respawn and not have Maiden, Passive may be shorter now for graves but still reliable on enemy team, thus I may lose just off being unable to scare or kill the enemy off towers. May sound specific but it happens very often, even during lane where ally jg may be getting invaded but alas, no ghouls and if I do have graves, If I raise them ghouls will not follow me, unless they dont see an enemy wave, so I can't rotate and if I do we may lose the 2v2 cause Haha pet champion, can't summon pets during combat, GGWP. A lot of other times this happens is even when I kill the enemy, I reset and come back and they may zone me with or without maiden, I can't summon more ghouls so if the avg toplaner just dashes in or engages to poses to all in if I get closer to the wave, the I may just lose the first trade or all in just off that and my kill meant nothing, this also is why Yorick doesn't even like to group, because his ghouls can die and may take a while to setup to make them follow him, aka raise them once enemy wave is gone or drag them to a enemy jg, but all it takes is an enemy champion being there to aggro them and I lose them or the JG camp or wave not even being available.. This is why I wish for Yorick's passive to be looked at and be made to be more of a juggernnaut that gets stronger over time as you fight him, kinda how Garen gets closer to execute range with E ticks while gaining armor pen, or Darius with bleed stacks, if Yorick could summon 1 ghoul per Maiden %HP proc or if his AA + Spell detonated an effect like Senna passive and that would summon a ghoul, then GG he can fight and is forced to be in melee more often for this bonus. But Lethality is easy burst and cheesy and he doesn't gain any benefit from being upclose because he doesn't heal that much, no free hp or resistances like the rest in his class, so a passive closer to his older one where he gained dmg reduction per nearby pet would also fix this issue of Yorick playing like GP, Because I can land E and W but if I don't have pets and can't even summon them cause they're attached to the damn enemy wave, then I can't function, I thought Arena exposed this weakness and flaw which I mentioned before it even went live to PBE the moment I found out Arena had no minions.. so we got a passive similar to Zyra's but only for that mode, could of easily gotten it for SR with a tweak to it's CD. (Kinda how in Aram grave count is always lower, so in SR Gravespawn would be higher early on and not as short as on Arena, but Alas.. Poor.. Yorick..)

[@ricardolopes4512]

Wait a second you compared Azir skill lvl into Nunu or did i miss something?

[@felixaubert7322]

Stealth Archer is by no means the best class in Skyrim, but I agree with everything else in this video

[@EC___]

Yoooo Phreak love you so much bro... Hey can you tell the Devs to not make champs that don't have to be in the same screen to lane? Thank youuu!!!

[@JaknDax]

Where is the condensed versions of these? Like the ones Morello and company used to do during the early seasons.

[@maxsta4088]

Nice Video. But especially with the appendums. How do you approach ksante then? He feels bad in solo queue even in masters+ and so versatile in pro.

[@nestec410]

Was that an intentional vintage meme reference?? “KAYLE CAN DO IT” 35:52

[@darrak1]

me: "getting killed more times than I can count by kayle pre 6"

[@pyroplushy]

do you think there are any fun champs to play against? Something I've noticed is that the only lane opponents my friends like are winning matchups. There are definitely some champs that are less fun to play against than others but I don't know of any that have fun mechanics. Illaoi is very frustrating to deal with but I think she has interesting gameplay around dealing with her tentacles. The problem with that is each champ is able to deal with them differently. Ranged or auto resets make it so much easier to deal with them. Zyra is on the other end where there's no good way of dealing with the seeds. Everytime I get near them she turns it into a turret and I take at least one hit from it, and when she isn't in lane it doesn't feel like it matters to remove them.

[@wor2xfs250]

Great video Phreak, thanks for the insight on this topic The only thing that icked me a little bit was the Riven bit. What you mentioned about riven agency and matchups is just in theory. Currently Riven has very low agency in most top lane matchups in the early game. And the point of "if she's ahead she has very high agency" is kinda fake, unless you are unbelievable fed. A 0/3 darius can easily beat a riven if she makes a single mistake. In the other hand, a 0/3 riven cannot be in the same screen as a 3/0 darius or she'll literally desintegrate. I agree with the other stuff though.

[@Broboaticus]

E hit on Darius does NOT confirm Q sweetspot on Riven. Idk why you'd think that. She has 4 dashes.

[@dazered59]

@phreak Can we remove the DOT damage bug? I think it would go a long way in nerfing AP junglers. For the uninitiated if you smite a monster, but the enemy has a DOT effect (Morgana puddle or Faded ashes🤬) the objective goes to the DOT. That's because the DOT ticks after the monster is dead which is also when kill credit is checked giving the objective to the DOT user.

[@thosemango2391]

Another banger

[@dragomaster2422]

12:36 I understand we are only at champion mastery right now, but when I look at the list, I don't understand. Why are Riven and Rek'sai considered high mastery alongside ksante and Katarina. Rek'sai is in a role with much more agency and has a much higher win rate. Meanwhile Riven is in the same role as Ksante with a role with low agency, yet the win rate is varied significantly. Does that mean these champs need to be worked on to be in an ideal situation for a high mastery champion?

[@OhDuNhiOi]

He talks himself into doing a stupid change that ruins the meta and then it takes 10+ patches to fix it. We been dealing with at least 4 adc almost every pro game for a while now.

[@TheGerrok]

We really need to use the word agency less to describe things. When someone says that a champion or role has agency it's so unclear what they actually mean. Another definition of agency that wasn't even covered in the video is the type of agency where someone gets to make a decision to leave one resource, such as minion gold/xp, to try to affect another matchup. So while supports rarely have the agency that Phreak covered in this video, that's what people often mean when they say that "support has agency" or "top has no agency."

[@Aemulator.]

I know you get a lot of hate but I love to hear every thought the developers have, I know some of the public sentiment must discourage you but I appreciate you being one of the most open designers league has ever had (you and August top 2)