Patch 14.22 Preview | League of Legends

[@ciaacho1]

congrats on embracing the dome!

[@DealthTheGreat]

I was thinking he looked extra bald this video

[@Kuroleon31]

Ah yes he's finally joined August and accepted his fate.

[@FiveDollaPhillip]

Genuinely looks really good!

[@Nikolow]

nice pfp

[@oIChewbaccaIo]

immediately looking 10 years younger again

[@MatheusAlmeida-hw6li]

I never seen a dev give such in-depth explanation about a SINGLE PATCH, and he does every 2 weeks, really grateful to have such transparency ty phreak😊

[@drradzig81]

Riot does this for TFT with Mortdog as well. Its a riot thing.

[@sam.0021]

@@drradzig81 Mortdog doesn't go nearly as in depth, but it is still nice to get some insight.

[@ItstheWK]

Agreed, looking forward to seeing the changes concerning melee vs ranged matchup's!

[@trueandfact]

I wish his actual analysis was as in-depth as his explanation. Most often than not his changes are huge misses.

[@ВладиславВеретеник-у7ь]

@@trueandfact the guy has no fu king idea what he is talking about, let's just be honest

[@TsuyeoLoL]

Opportunity is bugged, the passive says you need to be out of combat with CHAMPIONS for 8 Seconds for it to refresh but attacking minions, monsters etc will reset the timer to 8 seconds

[@graves55]

if they make this change you can prepare for some nerfs right afterwards because that just makes item stronger

[@sebastianlee7473]

That’s how most all out of combat items ar. Symbiotic souls act the same same with dead mans and trailblazer and warmogs so I think that it’s not a bug and meant to act that way.

[@TsuyeoLoL]

@@sebastianlee7473 no read the description of opportunity, it specifically says combat with CHAMPIONS, if its supposed to work like the items you mentioned then riot should adjust the ITEM DESCRIPTION:) because as of RIGHT NOW the item does not do what ITS OWN description says IT SHOULD DO :)

[@yeah-yeah2249]

​@@graves55the nerfs couldn't be worse than a passive that doesn't work lmao

[@meowth9854]

Yeah its kinda weird. I've noticed hitting minions/camps when at ~4 sec cd it doesn't go on cooldown, ive spent alot of time in practice range...

[@RegularGamerGuy]

Hello Phreak! Swain buffs look great, but is there any chance we can return his pull stacking conqueror? It currently stacks every keystone except conqueror and I doubt this change would significantly alter his winrate beyond being slight QoL. Either way great rundown and thank you!

[@Tioks_12]

Flyquest played seraphine mid not bot and reverting her last buff without some compensation buff is crazy, she is gonna end up useless again.

[@yunogasai3350]

No, see, that's the thing, her scaling was made to be useless during the midscope she got, she's skirting on the power of e, ult and w right now, cause her scaling is basically useless nowadays, so they're just kicking it further down the dump, which means players in apc will just further double down on the current, awful feeling, playstyle

[@qwertyuiop5886]

imagine sona players

[@Lkabss]

I didn't watch the whole video, but isn't Worlds 4 patches old?

[@thatpopplio9]

​@@qwertyuiop5886 Sona was already a support, you stupid bitch

[@BloodyVisualKeiJoker]

@@qwertyuiop5886 sona is in a decent spot rn. Also it shows you never played seraphine before. Her Kit plays like a mix of orianna, lux and neeko

[@luccamaino4118]

Flyquest played Seraphine mid not APC which is absolute not overpowered.

[@RWxAshley]

Yeah, pheeak revealing he knows nothing about the game. It was a weird ass flex pick that only worked cause it's a 5v5 environment and they played it all of once cause the right circumstance presented itself. Not only that but Seraphine can only shine in that sort of perfect storm. Where you have coordination, and team comms. Something we never have in solo q, but they still feel the need to nerf the champion and force the "sona 2.0" memes on everyone and make her a WW bot.

[@juliengillet4047]

​@@RWxAshleyYou said everything, like obviously Fly could beat GG with Sera because of the team's cohesion and team play, not because she's op, especially in mid where she's really underpowered since her little rework... I'm mad...

[@12171010011010]

I know he meant it as a joke, but it also really undersells how well Flyquest played this time. It does make sense that a bot lane mage translates well as a mid lane mage, especially with how many ADCs were going mid. But for such a broken champion, she had almost no presence in worlds the joke doesn't even really work.

[@gustavovillalobos6893]

The nerf as he said was because she is the strongest BOT laner. The nerf is to her Q AP ratio: 0.6 > 0.5. Looks like it’s a nerf to her wave clear so that traditional ADC’s have more agency in the lane. Obviously the Fly comment was a Joke.

[@BloodyVisualKeiJoker]

@@RWxAshley bro Phreak nerfed sera APC and has been focused on getting her to support simply because hes a bad player and kept losing to it. Phreak Season all over again.

[@marshalljrwilliams5820]

Phreak probably already knows this, but most Swain mains would like to undo the extra demonflares and bring back ult AP ratio healing.

[@12171010011010]

24:00 As a Swain main, there are two reasons why his winrate is so low. 1 is that because he stat checks champions, people are experimenting with his optimal builds, so its fine that his winrate is a bit low. The other reason however is not fine! He is far more squishy than what he used to be. The strongest part of Swain mid and bot before the mini rework was they he could roam a bit and force fights once he hit 6. From that small advantage you would snowball and try to end the game asap. The issue now is that his ult is too costly, and doesn't provide enough sustain/damage. You kept on saying you wanted to encourage Swains to build items like ROA, but the issue has always been that no swain player wants to sacrifice early power that way. If you are playing Swain to scale, you are suffering the opportunity cost of straight up better champion options. But this rework forces him to do exactly that. Why would anyone want to play Swain right now over champions like Sylas or Galio?

[@Shiftheads]

Yes I miss the days of building swain however the game saw fit and needed him. Now you do nothing but die so fast in teamfights.

[@guimontezuma1508]

They ruined Swain R, thats the problem. His R is his identity. Every Swain mains play the game to enter teamfight and feels like a Raid Boss, a fucking demon.

[@Shiftheads]

@@guimontezuma1508 and when you're finished in the fight you all chat "You can't kill a Demon!" But you can't do that anymore lol

[@michealdake777]

All i can say. Revert swain to his old status. With bird beatrice. Or buff him alot. He is so squishy and does do no dmg early and mid. Its a general that stays in front line of an army. Now its just a weak support. Where is the time that swain is main TOP

[@jacobrobbins1519]

He got weak mid with easier counterplay then started dominating bot for a couple seasons for them to only do something now, which just makes it worse overall, exactly like they're doing with brand, while still not addressing mages bot as a whole problem. Now he can support without getting smacked by swain or brand for rn

[@ARelaxingThought]

i beg of you, revert seraphine

[@vodvisionary]

Hi Phreak, one change to Swain that I think would receive widespread support from Swain players is removing the bonus HP scaling on R healing and replacing it with direct passive stack scaling. This would reward the most skill expressive aspect of Swain's kit and also encourage AP builds, while making Swain's passive stacking feel more meaningful.

[@AllanRamires1988]

A small buff to his passive would be awesome but, in his current state, I dont think you need to remove the hp scaling on R. A small touch in his passive and he would be sitting around 50% wr still…

[@CharosManekidis]

Petition to make corki an adc spellcaster marksman in the bot lane again

[@pinkpaesh3474]

PLEASE STOP GUTTING SERAPHINE, WHY DON'T YOU F LISTEN TO YOUR COMMUNITY, MAKE HER ABILITIES SCALE WITH LVL, REVERT 13.21 PLEASE STOP

[@SolviKaaber]

Hey Phreak, what do you think about the state of Azir? By most metrics he’s one of the lowest WR champs in basically all elos, he feels very weak to play even by high mastery mains (like me), he wasn’t picked or banned a single time at worlds while historically he’s a very pro skewed champion. The buff he received to his HP regen is nice but it was just a revert to a nerf from a couple of patches ago, at the same time he got a 4 AD buff which just feels thematically wrong. It is now better to auto minions without your W at lvl 1/2 and that just feels wrong. The durability patch 2 / every item nerf patch also made Azir even worse mid/late game where he’s supposed to shine after a very rough laning phase. There’s been an almost radio silence on Azir and Azir mains are very dedicated players which are now incredibly frustrated at the state of him and pitiful fake buffs. If you take a look at the Azir main subreddit, people are literally losing their minds, claiming that you are Xerath in disguise plotting to kill Azir with nerfs. Anyways I hope something is done soon because Azir is my favorite champ in the whole game by a long mile and I don’t currently enjoy playing him in this state. I even agree with your decision in removing his 3 soldier AS burst passive, making the tower more useful and letting him use on-hit for Nashor’s, however I hate how Fleet and Grasp work with him and I don’t think that’s a healthy interaction and I think it’s better to go other keystone runes like Conq, PTA and Lethal Tempo, which all thematically fit him much better.

[@dogeaaron9939]

The additional information allows me to understand the reasoning behind these changes and i appreciate it keep it up Phreak

[@arei319]

shut up

[@psykout22]

Hi Phreak, More items should be made of two components (like AP items) rather than 3 (many crit items have the crit cloak totally separate). When building 3rd item you have boot, dorans and and 2 items and you run out of item slots. And this is without even finding room for Pink ward slot. You run out of slot which makes combine cost of 3rd item absolutely massive. Triforce and IE used to be the only items with 3 separate components

[@trueandfact]

Hate to say it but swainers were completely correct that the rework was going to fail initially. and it did, tremendously. Good thing you are recalling back the un-needed nerfs. To make your job easier I will give you the final change required. R ulti health ratio should be 2% not 1.5% and bring back E haste on ulti. There, now the rework is at least on the same power as pre-rework. lets be sure to never touch swain again, and maybe give us 2 ban slots so we can perma ban ambessa.

[@12171010011010]

If they could just revert swain but keep the E and Q changes, I would be happy. A lot of people hate how long the E cooldown is, but for how good E feels that's fine. His ult however is so bad though. No one wanted multiple demonflares, who honestly thought nerfing everything else just so he can have an extra recast every 10 seconds was a reasonable compromise? What does it even accomplish gameplay wise? None of Swain's issues have been fixed, this feels like it was a quality of life update that got way out of hand.

[@minutenreis]

@@12171010011010 If you listen at a prior video the new ult is supposed to be worse than the old one (though with some nice exceptions if a fight should drag on for whatever reason)

[@AllanRamires1988]

Yes, raising the %hp heal should be the highest priority. Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait 14.23 patch to get my champ to a decent state.

[@nicksmith516]

Their reworks lately have all been dogshit. It's like they don't even get real feedback from players who actually play these champions.

[@littlecurrybread]

grateful to have you still doing these

[@tonyschrock627]

@Phreak, I really miss the Dugduo but I love that you’re in charge of all this. Your tax analogy is exactly why you’re great for this role. Love it.

[@averymiller2255]

Phreak... as a Swain main can you for the love of god engage me or any other Swain Main to actually fix Swain? This is ridiculous, you DESTROYED our champ, give insignificants buffs a week later which will do literally nothing, then we as Swain mains are expected to wait like 2-3 months before he "lands"? I could fix swain with the current parameters in an hour, so could many other mains. Engage us and fix this mess you guys created and not just leave us to dry with an even MORE useless champ than before

[@paint5646]

Just give us back the Swain R and keep the E changes :( This champ is unplayable.

[@NFSHeld]

About the bounty rounding: I understand the idea of hiding small bounties, but given that previously a bounty was more often displayed and had higher sums in total, it was more natural to think of a bounty as low as "140g" as "too low to be interesting" because chances are there are other people at 300g or 450g. But now as the average amount of bounties on the table has been reduced, so should the bounty threshold, I feel. And I don't think that showing "136g" is worse than "150g" and leads to clutter. Most people have instinctive understanding of numbers, and grasping the concept of a "136" vs "150" doesn't take different amounts of time or attention, from my experience. However, going for a 150g bounty and then reading "you got 136g" would lead me to believe there is a bug in the system, which would only be prevented if the scoreboard said "~150g", which IS more visually cluttered though. So in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with showing the exact amount for all people at all times, but it's probably worth showing small numbers in regular font weight and gray, whereas larger quantities could golden and bold, and the highest bounty per team could maybe even be highlighted more with an icon.

[@undarkenedrose]

I would like to adress Kled. yes winrate is okay, but it falls off late game like no other, and he suffered a lot since the HP change, and the fact that his passive is always the same. You have pushed players into a assasin build, instead of bruiser, and it's ALWAYS useless to build anything else... it would be nice to give the champ options to different builds that are viable! please take this into consideration

[@htlchtlc]

Isn't Kled supposed to fall off? Just like shen?

[@12171010011010]

NGL they have abandoned Kled. For such a simple champion Riot seems to have a hard time making him work with bruiser/tank itemisation, and I think they just gave up all together.

[@undarkenedrose]

@@12171010011010 I mean he is not that simple, but he is unique... and riot forcing him into one build is so unfair:(

[@yungebola5524]

Hey Phreak, thanks for taking a look at Swain. He's one of my favourite lane champs to play and I'm glad he's getting some love. In one of your previous videos where you discussed his changes, I remember you mentioning how ranking up E second felt bad because it gave no cdr and one of the goals of this rework was to make E a more viable second rank option. I feel like you were very disingenuous with how you guys went about it because now E has a WAY higher base cd, and you have to get it to max rank just to bring it down to 10seconds which was the previous base cd of E anyway. This is just one example of a whole bunch of nickel-and-dime/bait and switches you did with his entire rework (eg R and Passive). i LOVE how much better E feels to use with the increased speed, but all of these other changes have missed the mark and diminished what makes Swain fun to play. And again I have to harken back to Rek'sai. Her E tunnel feels so much better to use, but every other aspect of her kit has been ruined, and overall now she feels like a worse champion to play for the majority of players, and her pickrate reflects that, being even lower than pre-rework when only the most dedicated of rek'sai mains tolerated her state. All this to say, please don't give Swain the Rek'sai treatment, and please fix Rek'sai. Thanks once again.

[@12171010011010]

Its kind of funny how Swain players were so scared that his W would be nerfed, reducing his overall skill expression. Yet now his E is more consistent, which mitigates the skill previously required to land it at all. Same with his ult. You always wanted to hold your demonflare until it got the most value. Now you feel like you need to spam it so it can come back a second time during the fight. Im not even complaining about how much better his Q and E feels now, but everything else is so much worse overall.

[@KilianYeah]

Really happy to see E cd buffs making it into swains buffs as well. Still think that especially the ult change feels really bad but making it more comfortable to max W second is great and I will definitely see how that changes things

[@oren1499]

Q - Delete penetration - Cooldown 8/7/6/5/4s - Basic damage nuff 60/85/110/135/160 (+45%AP) - Plus damage buff 20/28.75/37.5/46.25/55 (+12.5%AP) - Max damage buff 140/200/260/320/380 (+95%AP) E - Cooldown 14/13/12/11/10s W - Cooldown 18/16.5/15/13.5/12s R - dote deal 15/25/35(+5%AP) - dote drains 15/30/45(+10%AP) - Demonflare 105/210/315 (+30% Soul fragments HP) This change nuff Adc swain And buff Sol lane swain

[@محمدمحمودحيدر-ذ2ض]

IMO, I think no matter how much you nerf or buff Mordekaiser he will still be a Rusty overstated low mmr skewed champ He needs to be smoother like Darius so his stats could actually be balanced and playable in every mmr

[@auronhale1404]

It's just poor logic to assume every champion needs to be balanced in every mmr. That is impossible, and it's ok if a champion is low mmr skewed. There's close to 170 champions in the game..

[@12171010011010]

It's ironic since his current iteration is literally just Riot throwing their hands in the air and making him AP Darius. With how favored rylais and liandries are this split, it makes sense that he is a bit strong. But without a rework I don't think he will ever be more than a stat checker that forces 1v1s. I don't think he even has that many mains. He should either remain a low elo lane bully or get removed from the game.

[@Victorvonbass]

I liked when he was a viable jungle pick. That felt more interesting.

[@محمدمحمودحيدر-ذ2ض]

@@auronhale1404 Its fine to have low mmr skewed champs, but mord is just a result of laziness in balancing His abilities cast time is slow and they aren't castable together, so they compensate this by making him the most overstated champ in the game Last season, i recall them buffing him 3 times in 5 patches, twice were in a row And the champ state will never change till they remove the rust off him

[@محمدمحمودحيدر-ذ2ض]

@@12171010011010 He even failed at being AP Darius, his abilities are rustier than those of darius So they compensate by making him the most overstated champ in the game

[@Miggus7362]

Phreak if you want ad varus to not build lethality you should give W on hit ad scaling so that he is forced to auto. This will move power into him actually atacking and it doesnt break ap varus because ap varus doesnt have enough hybrid items to abuse this.

[@ThotianaGrande]

Revert seraphine PLEASE she has the exact same stats as when you guys started changing her and we’re back to SQUARE 1 where all of her roles feel BAD and unsatisfying to play. She is back to pre rework stats winrate wise where support is bad, APC is broken, and now mid is completely dead. Her APC is very strong winrate wise sure but she feels so bad to pilot and doesn’t hyperscale like how she used to. I WANT to feel bad early I want to actually work for a god late game like how I used to have. This was the BEST and most balanced iteration of Seraphine prior to the enchanter bullshit you guys have been trying to enforce upon her. PLEASE revert her and take the waveclearing nerfs from 14.5 and build off of that PLEASE 🙏🙏

[@nfzeta128]

I say leave the waveclear nerfs, if anything rebuff her q damages with the ratio and put back her level scaling on shield and rebuff passive.

[@BloodyVisualKeiJoker]

its almost like you cant shoehorn a midlane mage into an enchanter support based on her least used and worst ability.

[@mikayle1618]

our fav baldie explaining stuff changing in LOL tysm phreak c:

[@Phirrez]

Some changes/buff ideas to Naafiri that i think would really fit her thematically, and give her some strength to her telgraphed dash without buffing damage: W, 99% slow for 0.25s -> FEAR for 0.25s. She's also close to being a fun and viable low elo jungler, could just use a bit of help for her clear speed. Maybe monster damage boost on the dogs or her W. Also could make it so dogs only attack for 1 second after an attack on a monster, that way you can more easily drag the camp towards the next. I think adding the fear keyword in the kit would fit thematically since she's a darkin and getting chased by a pack of bloodthristy hounds would cause anyone to flee. Mainly i think if the design team ever feel like she could use some uility/cc in her kit, consider it to be a Fear since it'd make her feel more menacing to play.

[@alwaysjarron6260]

feels like a random change. getting chased by an demon like kayn also would make me flee in fear. still think being able to or cancel W with e or being able to redarect W with flash are just better buffs if you want to buff naafiri

[@alwaysjarron6260]

also did he talk about naafiri? would like to hear if he did.

[@EnnuiSports]

Please make Swain's pull stack conqueror. It stacks almost everything else, and would help the rune without boosting winrate.

[@UnorginalHalvblind]

Looking hella good - also thank you for doing these!

[@MGuglielmino2]

The bounty rounding should always round down. So when you get the kill you’re always pleasantly surprised, and never got less money than you thought.

[@rauLOONA]

nerfing seraphine again, i think ur jealous of her beautiful hair…

[@jarromflightfeather]

Swain's E pull procs Electrocute, Phase Rush, even First Strike if you time it right. But it doesn't proc Conqueror. That would be a nice subtle buff to Swain.

[@holycrapitsachicken]

New Yun Tal Wildarrows looks like it has a lot of synergy with lifesteal. Hope it makes Bloodthirster more useful.

[@messwithhelpy]

I'm definitely going to start playing Jhin mid lane and rushing Yun Tail into Youmuu's.

[@coryc123]

Just showing the actual bounty amount instead of an approximation to the nearest 25 or 50 makes more sense to me. No point in obfuscating the data if the real number is accessible.

[@snowflowers8003]

Hey Phreak, can we please get Seraphine reverted to a scaling mage? She used to work fine as a support too, and her win rate was similar to what it is now, but the difference is, she didn’t feel so clunky. Right now, she’s stuck in this awkward place between bot and support, and it’s just not fun trying to keep up with the constant adjustments. When she's strong as a support, bot Sera becomes OP, but when she gets nerfed as an APC, she ends up feeling weird to play in all roles. The issue isn’t even her win rate, it’s that she just feels bad and unfun to play now, which is a sentiment shared by a lot of the player base. We really miss the old Seraphine. :(

[@H0rnlime]

Please Phreak revert the changes of Warwick. No Warwick player/main likes these changes, they gut his impact high elo while rewarding the low elo right clicking statcheck gameplay.

[@josephdifiore8471]

good stuff. ty for the video

[@CrystalArrow-r2z]

Very happy about the upcoming Yun Tal changes as someone who likes full crit Ashe.

[@omega7057]

Idk if you'll ever read this freak, but I'm actually really confused by the removal of "surpasing the AS cap" in lethal tempo, why is it? I feel like the rune feels good, but I can't really use it to mega kite with anyone but Jinx. I miss actually having to time my autos, now you get stuck at 2.5 with most of the champs and it doesn't really feel fun. I don't talk for everyone, but I feel like kiting is a really important mechanic for adc, and I feel most marksman will love to be able to autoattack more, even if they do less damage with every auto (except Jhin or Quinn) Could you explain why was it decided to be removed?

[@kerph]

as an enchanter main i also feel the AS cap negatively, i like building ardent first but it feels like it falls off once my adc gets 3 items. would appreciate some way to raise cap, or have less AS in adc items... OR ardent losing AS in favour of stronger onhit damage like they did with staff

[@hmhm2281]

thing about the attack speed cap is that if its raise the game would be more pro skewed because better players can kite with 5.0 attack speed while others would cancel like 5 autos. this makes certain champs much more volatile like jinx bring a pro staple wheb lethal had the attackspeed breaker. Yes it's fun to attack at 5.0 attackspeed but it cause many issues removing the attackspeed cap

[@Fabiocean2000]

@@hmhm2281 Jinx would be the least affected by this, since she already breaks the AS cap with her passive. And she's still not really pro skewed and only works in the right meta. Sure high AS needs better mechanics to get the most out of, but it shouldn't be that big of a deal when it only really happens at 3+ items.

[@hmhm2281]

@Fabiocean2000 many games goes to 3 items on adc especially for higher elo and proplay. Lower mmr games would have to suffer having their champs tuned towards perfect adc kiting when they have difficulty kiting at 2.5 making the class feeling underpowered.(mb forgotten jinx was actually broken on lethal cause it gave her as much range as a mage which really proskewed)

[@omega7057]

@@hmhm2281 That's not pro-skewed, that's just mechanics, if you're better at mechanics you should be higger rank, that's how league works (ignoring macro)

[@2920kage]

Hi Phreak quick question. As a gwen one trick in the emerald+ bracket i was curious what are your thoughts on the gwen nerf last patch. I myself have noticed a significant difference. Do you expect this to normalize? I love the riftmaker gwen style where she is more of a duelist/skirmisher like AP fiora. However, with the current system it feels like she is a burst mage similar to how sylas is more burst now. If she doesnt get her combo off fast enough she is just dead. With more and more mobility champions in league I fear her ability to duel will be reduce as landing those important Qs become less viable. Just thoughts. Thank you for the videos

[@bohomazdesign725]

I appreciate it that you devs finally understood the melee vs ranged problem in TopLane all tho the problem got much smaller now than it was a couple months ago. Queueing up for a game to just sit in lane for 10 - 15 minutes and do nothing and hoping your team does not lose the game for you while you are jailed by a ranged champ is an absolutely miserable experience especially since you as a TopLaner know that a huge part of your roles powerbudget is the possibility to snowball, but you cant really do that out of your own initiative when you are playing against a ranged champ. You are quite literally left to their mercy of making a positional mistake.

[@Rivelon]

Display negative bounty as well. I'd want to know when my opponent is worth less than 300 gold. This whole system doesn't need to be even more confusing.

[@cylainius713]

Hey Phreak, appreciate the new video. I have a suggestion for the balance team to look into regarding tanks- specifically the price point of items like fimbulwinter and thornmail. As a top laner, sometimes against tanks I feel as though these items are too strong because of how quickly the tank can afford these items, and the components of fighter items vs armor tank components feels very tank skewed (for example, chain vest/bramble vs phage/hearthbound axe, pickaxe vs chain) This may be intended, but I thought I’d point it out anyways to hear what the you and the team may think about it. Thanks!

[@Eldrazification]

Very excited to hear you're spending more time on the bounty system and very stoked about the partial revert to sidelane minion speed!

[@glover683]

I really think you guys need to take another look at Swain skill order. Make W more of a one point wonder and give more benefit for maxing out E. I think the current situation of your entire champs ability to play relies on E but its not really that good to max out for cd is weird.

[@jonathannyack1603]

Hello phreak I was wondering if you could take a look at smolder he hasn’t been feeling good after the nerfs if there’s anyway to give smolder, a little mini rework, or some buffs to his kit or maybe even rework the passive because he currently just feels horrible to play

[@hugocoolerkanalsmal3172]

Phreak please listen to me, and the rest of the Swainmains. This rework didnt adress any of the core problems with Swain. He is as reliant on Rylais as ever, his E and W are still bad spells that dont work for him/have too much counterplay. He also tries to do way too many things, which means that he ends up not being good in any of them. His W needs to be reworked ASAP, and you said that the ideal version of Swain has W changed entirely. Also, multiple R2 is useless in higher elos, because you only get 1 R2 anyway. Its very rare to get more than 1 R2, because Swain cant stick to someone for 10 seconds against competent players

[@islamardjoune1042]

He destroyed swain and asol swain was good in mid and adc i dont know why he wants him to be good in support too if only they fire him

[@marcuionut6319]

​@@islamardjoune1042 coz majority of player played him supp, despite being swain weakest role. What should phreak do? Put a banner "Dont play supp unless you want to lose"?

[@islamardjoune1042]

@marcuionut6319 bro first of all swain was never support so stop this bullshit he was mid they forced him support so why would you touch it all the time 36789 rework

[@marcuionut6319]

​@@islamardjoune1042 how did they force him support? do you mean that, even if statistically he is stronger mid, he is played more than 2 times more in support than in mid because `they forced him support`? thats legit question. Isn't it player's fault for playing swain in wrong role by majority of people? When you do mid swain buffs / nerfs, should the just completely ignore that half players play him support?

[@raysoma123]

​@@marcuionut6319 yeah fuck them supp players, Swain's supposed to be a drain tank battle mage

[@ukwanderer2979]

Base hp buff for Rumble, lmao. Did you forget the Q and E nerfs back in 14.14 and 14.18? In addition with the passive nerf in 14.17? HOW TF WOULD THIS BASE HP BUFF would help balance the dmg nerfs?

[@AgentArcadia]

Great work regarding subsidy and tax explanation! I think those are insanely good and nuanced live-gameplay topics. As a player I think "true perfect balance" sucks, and those taxes/subsidy help niche players work better and meta-hoppers function a bit less effectively

[@dingding12321]

Youmuu's slight buff, Opportunity slight nerf and a slight nerf to Barrier isn't what I was expecting out of an Assassin itemization patch haha. Hopefully this is just the start of things - they really could use a good 1st item that isn't Youmuu's in particular. Profane would be this if it weren't for the fact that it's essentially even worse than Ravenous now in most scenarios.

[@keiphine]

a high winrate with a lowpick rate what about makes seraphine so overpowered her damage early game is mediocre and even late game her damage is still not enough only otp seraphine players are playing her right now that’s it…. y’all are honestly so weird

[@BloodyVisualKeiJoker]

she got gutted and we even had to move to enchanter items and apc still came out on top. Unless they give her a full rework concerning her passive and Echo system she will never outshine apc as a support. Simply because thats not her design. Riot gotta wake up and realize you cant balance a champ around low elo because people are either casuals or cant read. We keep spinning in the same circle its insane.

[@NFSHeld]

I am intrigued to see how the new Statikk proc will mess with last hitting under tower.

[@TuấnDươngMinh-l4f]

drop the ego and just revert the durability patch

[@OneSlavBoi]

thanks phreak it's a really, really, really cool thing you do with these patch explanations.

[@poffydaisy5134]

trying to make the mage that has a skill passive that increases damage depending on missing health, into an enchanter support... Smartest decision ever

[@stephenjamborino7493]

Haven't gotten to the Swain discussion yet, but i feel the kit itself is great. Personally,I love the champ and lore, but don't play him much because he doesn't feel strong at any point in the game. Swain's whole fantasy is being battlemage/drain tank and the current way he plays doesn't really fulfill the fantasy as much as it should. Perhaps the fix could be keeping power pulled out of the ult itself but while it's active empower his basic abilities Allow duration of ult to extend as Swain hits empowered spells.

[@delvegameguides]

The new Yun'tal makes me a little nervous, I think that the new AS + Pdancer AS + zerks is slightly too much attack speed overall. with that being said, if it supplants pdancer on some ADC, that's probably good. It certainly won't be viable on kaisa IMO but she's kind of weird anyway. Also I know this is an insane ask, but can you fix Riven in some way? She feels extremely antiquated compared to practically every other toplaner, and comparing her to Ambessa in particular is hilarious. I've been building sunfire and titanic on her with grasp and that's actually pretty functional. I wouldn't be surprised if you guys weren't already on rework/vgu with her.

[@azraiel6000]

If you want adcs to stop running barrier then you need to nerf it's cooldown.

[@mayguardian1]

that or buff heal’s cd

[@punch1t]

so when can we get the nerf on Blitz W removed? the self slow when releasing hyper mobile champs hurts a LOT for him

[@hayin2041]

Hi phreak. Here is a suggestion on balancing assassin and farm mage in mid lane. By setting up an indicator about relative movement speed between each assassin and a farm mage and also set up a baseline indicator for acceptable value of relative movement speed. U may use aurelion sol or viegar as fixed mages for comparison

[@jakeberube5779]

The Jax changes will hurt him way more then you think because he dosent have good sustained dps. His midscope made him all about bursting people and only fighting when e is up and he gave up all his good dps for thT

[@AHbusinesslaw]

Love your tone in this video!

[@MotivationalSpirit77]

Respect all the hardwork that goes in to making these Patch previews ty phreak :)

[@omenlynx]

Dear Mr Phreak, Thank for Buffing Sivir. Also I'm happy to see Statikk Shiv and Yun Tal or getting some work done. The state those were in; was making wish stormrazer was back in the game.

[@chiara161]

28:00 As an Irelia main this is music in my ears

[@-LG_]

The q and w on Fizz are NOT guaranteed together. Fizz Q always never hits if the character is out of range so we are really only hitting them with a W. Plenty of times I've had the q bug out on me when trading

[@shaahinflc4732]

what's your opinion on yorick changes from last patch, to me it seems that the changes only affected high elo players which was the opposite of what was intended

[@The_Lightless]

Just delete this champion he’s so terrible it’s hilarious. Riot’s worse rework of all time and it’s not close.

[@AhmedBaza-bc4qn]

What about Ekko ? Currently he has no identity in the game he is not on shooting people as you said assassin's should be, he is struggling in mid lane and in jungle late game a Caitlyn head shot from a screen away does more than your full combo and you're dead in 3 right clicks or forced to R back. If an adc can right click me 4 times and I die I should be able to one shot them too

[@The_Lightless]

I just played this champion yesterday in jungle and he is so weak it’s hilarious. You just hope you don’t get invaded, enemy doesn’t contest crab, and hope your team is just better. You also need to build full damage to get any value from the kit and you’re oneshot by anything breathing on you so you just ult and now you’re useless. Please buff like armor growth, Mr growth, or some HP. I think the AP ratios are fine everywhere else, maybe can buff jungle damage on passive.

[@TheTarald]

Why would people ever pick Rumble in SoloQ now? You have to mostly afk farm early game because it's hard to die to him, and it's not like he outscales most champs so there's no benefit to picking him. 30 hp won't change that. He's negative win rate in pro on 14.18.

[@Atheraxx]

Love the format, but: Its a crime that Quinn hasnt gotten any buffs to compensate for all her indirect nerfs since at least 2 patches. The Champ is dead last in pickrate and has negative winrate for the last 4 weeks i think, but does not qualify for any adjustments apparently.

[@yonedisliker]

@Phreak what are your thoughts on making azirs soldiers targetable as an opportunity to add counterplay. This would allow teams to determine whether he can have the presence of a dps, or a control mage(via time burnt killing soldiers)

[@IMTSin]

I was building ER on Tristana before the Q mana buff from 50 to 30 mana and it fixed 80% of her issues imo. She still felt really strong but everyone told me I was trolling 😂, nice to hear someone else realizes it’s good.

[@k.vrooman8569]

Would have loved to see an Illaoi nerf with: - damage reduction in passive base tentacle damage [ 77 + 14/lvl -> 65 + 15/lvl ] - mana increase for E AD and mana growth hurt her scaling a lot as Illaoi is already biased to mid-game and loses long games. Item AD reduction already lowered her below wave clear breakpoints and E transfer ceiling is lower. Illaoi also has issues with getting bullied off the wave at lvl 1 in a lot of matchups. -3 base AD makes this worse. If E is the most oppressive skill in people's minds, make it expensive to cast.

[@seamillo]

The quality of my life wasn't improved much by swain changes sadly. In fact I find the new hook to be even harder to work with since you can't adjust your position post-firing to line it up on the return path. I think it needs a tad more range since you can't even attempt a hook without taking a losing trade.

[@Nomadasol]

Ty very much for buffs! I really apreciated

[@Eratormortimer]

Wow, did not know Johnny Sins now also works as a Design Lead. Looking good there, Phreak!

[@Victorvonbass]

I called the Poppy base AD nerf. Surprised ratios weren't hit. I'm still certain Bloodsong and HoB are the primary reasons why her winrate/banrate is high in support. Do you have data on what her standard Aftershock-Sleigh support builds are doing by comparison? That to me seems the direction you would want her to go in as a movespeed focused tank. I knew she was strong in support back when I started in season 8. It's funny how long it takes the playerbase to realize this. Also I feel confident other tanks like Shen, Nautilus or Taric could possibly abuse the HoB Bloodsong tech as well. Definitely worth looking at Bloodsong/HoB again next patch.

[@michaelyang838]

This segment on patch tax vs subsidies is actually one of your greatest explanation and takes. I think it’s kind of tough for ads, mages seems really hard to play against and mostly untouched from durability. Consider looking into it please

[@_Baleful]

Love the irelia change and your rationale behind it. (I’m not an irelia player)

[@Redynn]

Sylas acts as an assassin champion, because the items favor his burst, in addition to his healing being extremely useless

[@Kudoxh]

Another Patch where Pantheons Mana issue is overlooked :c the nerf on pressence of mind killed that champions whole early game and pantheon is ALL about early game.

[@bohomazdesign725]

Barrier changes - wouldn't it be just better to change the cooldown of Barrier (and also Ignite) to match the cooldown of Heal? Honestly with both summoners having such a low cooldown it does feel like its "always" ready to use while when you are running Heal, Ghost etc you do actually feel that those summoners have a cooldown. Im a much bigger fan of Summoner Spells being strong, but less frequent, so they feel more impactful in instances were it matters. What Im trying to say is that it should hurt you if you blow your Summoner Spell cooldown meanwhile for example Ignite is used right now (I also use it often in this way) as a tool to get someone below an HP threshold were they need to decide "do I stay and risk dying within the next 2 waves or do I recall" and if I recall correctly thats not how Ignite was intended to be used, because if I recall correctly its supposed to be a kill secure tool.

[@greensabr200]

Any thoughts of doing some kind of mini rework or buffing Smolder? He feel pretty shitty in most games, and I don't think that's just my d3 dogshit opinion but I could be wrong lol

[@TyosTrap]

Can you pls show the damage blocked from plated steelcaps upon hovering the item :)

[@dragomaster2422]

What’s going on with Smolder? He was presented as an easy to learn marksman that is simple to pick up, yet his win rate will fluctuate from 44% to 51% back to 44%. He rarely has a win rate you would expect for a champion that is easy to pick up like Garen, malphite, or sona. Even amongst the other ADCs, he is consistently the lowest, despite being one of the most popular. He’s already had a critically low win rate for a few patches. It feels like Riot continues to either neglect or refuse to acknowledge this champion since he appeared in pro. Does it have to do with the mastery-adjusted win rate?? Is his win rate just severely taxed? Vocal player perception online seems to just want to remove him rather than see him balanced, does that mean champions will be removed given this new perspective?

[@existentiallamp]

my impression is that smolder had his knees broken because his sins in pro play

[@12171010011010]

Because Smolder is a laughably stupid champion gameplay wise. His abilities are all damage/trade oriented, and regardless of how behind he is or the game state, he becomes effortlessly oppressive once he has stacked his passive. Riot doesn't want a champion like that to be meta for normal players, and so he is kept weak. Him being strong in the pro-meta only justifies that choice. This is basically the same thing that has happened with Kalista and Zeri.

[@Victorvonbass]

Everyone hates his Elder passive. If you remove that I think he can attain some semblance of balance. Losing to the 1-9 Smolder mid after 30 mins because of free Elder buff sucks so hard. It's like fighting scaled Kayle or Kassadin but worse. Also no one likes the alternative of having your Smolder get his ass beat for 25 mins and your Nexus exploding. Or the other alternative which is Smolder gets a lead so might as well FF since he outscales it's pointless to continue. Gameplay around champs like this feels awful for 9 players.

[@LeeSong325]

@@Victorvonbass I literally lost a game yesterday to a 1/9 smolder carrying after 25 mins

[@dragomaster2422]

@@existentiallampi agree, i think proplay definitely made sure to make him balanced for that, but it’s already been a couple of cycles and Smolder has been really weak by almost all of Riot’s standards with no updates or touches, so I was wondering why? What is their stance and why is one of their most popular releases always struggled to be balanced or even get any kind of adjustments whereas other popular champs are given compensation adjustments ahead of time (yasuo/yone).

[@koin799]

Really enlightening the roadmap with the new haircut

[@Mwushs]

Swains problem i think is e and ult cd, as well as his ult healing, cause he used to exceed in 1v2 2v2 etc fights due to his healing. That being cut a lot from his healing messed up his playstyle kinda, hope these changes help :)\

[@goldensea03idk51]

Doubt this will get read by him but how come there are always is few changes to support, times, runes, and characters?

[@r3dnael]

Hello Phreak, do you have any info on what happend to the Warwick changes that were on pbe? Especially the ult change would make him feel so much better without really making him that much stronger. Also the W changes looked very interesting although a bit op.

[@DarkinWithin]

+5 ad on opportunity is actually kinda massive, considering it's only 2700 gold

[@ouloupz4410]

i have to said first time that patch are incredible. You make this game more dynamic with theses changes. I leave game 14.11 didn't play it cuz it was so boring like AFK farming 3 or 4 item then fight and all game was the same That change make me install this game again and play it ! Ty so much

[@69jinx]

The new bounty system is very well done thank u so much most impactful change in a long time

[@mattvaughn8525]

Going full bald was the move. Looking good my man.

[@JMQA1]

Why can't Yun Tal Wildarrows have the old passive and the new passive? I think every crit item in the game has 1 passive but fighter items and mage items all have 2 passives. I'm going to miss the DoT option for Crit hoping you can find a way to merge both on this or onto another item somehow down the line

[@twdcofficial7691]

When you nerfed yorick last patch that was aimed at low elo, all it did was lower his winrate in emerald+ by 5% while his winrate in low elo like iron bronze and silver remained unchanged. The reason yorick is op in low elo isn't because of the raw damage of his ghouls. It is because of how punishing his kit is. All you did is completely ruin his viability in slightly higher mmr (emerald and diamond)

[@Saowli]

Is the Warwick rebalancing pushed for next patch? It looked really interesting but maybe a tad too strong.

[@12171010011010]

It looked extremely out of place and unwarranted. Yes his W is buggy and deserves some tweaks, but they were suggesting some radical and pointless changes that would have been a net nerf. Last I heard they backtracked on it a bit, so it probably is being pushed to a later patch.