f13.net

Graves patch preview: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/patch-preview-graves

tl;dw: Skarner gets lower mana costs, faster AS, longer ult, Corki's gatling gun now does more even damage,  Gunblade gets nerfed (and vamp on it is now uniqued), Passive XP on Dominion lowered (less likely to get to 'late game'), Dominion personal scored tweaked to reward defense/pushing.

(edit: changed title, notes not out yet)

That link is for the preview vid (which does not have notes on it).

Well Riot wants to make dominion another rager map. Kills should DEFIANTLY not affect the shrine health AT ALL. I rather they look at ways to force the 4th node capture than adding something that will invoke nothing but rage. Its been 2 weeks and I haven't heard the term feeder, I'd like to keep it that way.

I can see lowering the xp a little bit but I have to say its pretty fun when playing somebody like lux or karthus to know you are getting your ult about a minute into the game with the initial brawl over the top node. Still one of the problems going against people like jax is there is no real way to stifle him early game currently in dominion so you always get the end game uber monster version of jax running around.

Yeah, because the game is based around the SR version of the mechanics, its really balanced around the idea of characters not all being = power at all times, and requring that you actually capitalize on the part of the game where you are suited best.  Dominion just doesn't work the same way.  I actually think its a pretty good game mode as an alternative to SR or TT, but on the same note, they do need a bit of tweaking to get the balance right.   I guess the other alternative is that you just let not every character be viable.  I guess not all characters are equally viable in SR either (obviously), but I think it tends to be a bit more team composition based in SR, where as pure ganking ability seems to have a lot higher value in Dominion.  If I'm wrong about this someone please step in, I'm still pretty new.

I fully expect some back and forth balancing on dominion due to it being a new play style. That said since dominion came out I think I have done two or three SR runs. It is really nice being able to go in and play for 20 minutes and actually have an outcome other than surrender from one side or the other.

Also on dominion a lot of characters who on SR would be suboptimal can actually show their power. Take kayle for instance on SR she is somewhat second rate but in the fights you see in dominion she is REALLY nasty also take heimerdinger. You would get laughed at for using him in SR often but in dominion he gets a lot of respect.

That said there are a couple characters usually the really silly carries like jax who with the current level speed are just hard to do much about in dominion. At the current level speed there is no real way of shutting them down or sitting on them early game before they get the chance to snowball. The normal way of dealing with jax in SR is to sit on him and prevent him from free farming. In dominion there is no way to prevent it so  you get crazy god jax all the freaking time. Slowing down the leveling a bit should help and the fix/nerf to the gunblade is also a good thing.

Sion and Nasus leave half their kit at the door in Dominion (an exaggeration, but not much).  Not going to hold my breath for an adjustment to either of them to make them a decent pick in Dominion.

What's my point?  My point is that it's nice to get to level 18 and have your full kit by the end of an average-length game.  10% reduction in power will make this not happen.  I generally like all the changes that Riot makes, but I'm not a fan of this change.

Jax, as all champs are susceptible to stun and burst damage.   Jax is also made much less scary via the sword of the divine.  Don't break the whole fucking map for one champ.  If he's that much of an issue, either modify his kit or perma-ban him from Dominion in non-draft play.

Sion's a bit odd. His ult actually makes him very hard to deal with if you don't know how to tackle an AD sion, which might make up for the lack of enrage stacks.

Annnd the notes are up.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/graves-patch-notes


Not sure I care for the XP reduction in Dominion to go with the gold reduction from before. Lowering of the kill credit to 100 from 125 is really not that huge of a deal to me. Additional score points for interrupts and martyr are actually nice.

That Hextech Gunblade nerf still leaves that item being really really worth it to a hybrid build.

They nerfed GP. Ima sad sad puppy :(

GP needed it.

Akali's up!

I am sure they consider the gunblade nerf to be enough.

Nerfing Gangplank was a necessity. I still think he'll be awesome just not quite as carry an entire game awesome.

Seems like a pretty slight nerf for GP.  But I am a noob, so I know not.

What the does the unique part of the gunblade nerf mean? That you can't stack spell vamp with multiple gunblades?

No stacking spell vamp. Apparently no stacking spell vamp ever because all three spell vamp items are unique now.

The unique spellvamp doesn't seem very relavent, I've never seen someone with multiple gunblades.  The stats changes are huge though, -20 AD, -5 AP, -5% life steal, -5% spell vamp.  Seems too much almost.

Difference in elo my friend. I'd say the -20 AD nerf was the biggest and only wtf. The rest are marginal (balance dominion) changes.

For hybrids and champs that utilised both the spellvamp and lifesteal it gave a rediculous amount of stats. Compare the stats and cost to items such as the bloodthirster and will of the ancients and it's clear the gunblade was awesome, with a neat active to top. And that statement is independent of Elo.

I played a match of dominion with the new XP curve earlier.

I actually think it makes the game feel like it is going faster after the first mad dash stage because it makes the "late" game actually not drag on as long after you hit 18. I think it will make the early and mid game champs more viable than they were before. The point changes were interesting....it does seem to even out the point spread quite a bit which is nice. My team was within about 150 points from first to fifth with first and fourth only separated by less than 90.

I was responding to his comment about "not seeing people stack gunblade" not "gunblade is bad".

My problem with Dominion (and I know I am not alone here) is that you get so much gold and XP just by doing nothing that the gold and XP you get by doing something good feels like it barely matters. You get a lot of good items and levels even if you are doing really poorly.

In Summoner's Rift if you do really badly you end up way behind on items and levels. On Dominion it feels like a great player and a bad player still progress at the same basic rate. So I'm all for these changes.

HOWEVER....I still prefer Summoner's Rift, so I'm not the right audience for these changes. I suspect lowering the XP and gold gain might please people like me but we're still not going to play much Dominion.

And I think its good thing. We already have SR  and TT for all those . Dominion is different type. Sometimes I just like brawling with champs, not killing creeps and pushing towers. I dont like the changes they made. They try to make Dominion more like SR, which is imho bad.

p.s. My perception is GP was nerfed   hard- it feel like his E is useless now  early to mid game:(

I'm scared to try jungle GP, he barely made the starting route as it is and now they nerfed the starting skill.  :ye_gods:

Dear god did they butcher dominion.

I don't disagree. Making Dominion more like SR is going to make competitive SR players happier but they'll still play SR while it makes Dominion players less happy.

The key question here is less "how do we make Dominion better" and more "how do we make Dominion better for the people who prefer Dominion to SR?"

I did try SR last night with GP jungle . Does ohhhhkay on my  standard route ( wolves-wraiths-golems). But it does make split pull golems more important

GP is still strong enough to be playable. While I can usually see some of the FOTM coming I'm always surprised when changes to a champ seem like they didn't actually reduce the power level of the champ. I thought the gunblade change would end Akali but she is still very strong (revolver is still way too fucking good for 1200g I suspect) ditto GP after these nerfs. He's just starting to play more and more like a Sivir that isn't completely balls, outfarm everyone and carry the endgame. Except he can build and utilize both atmog and triforce which are the best uses of too much gold in LoL atm and Sivir can't really.

PS. I've played one game as Graves and he's OP. There are certain champs that I can just feel the how rediculous my power level is when they come out. This is one of them. He's fucking stupid.

His passive is rediculous. His ability burst is insane. He gets a very fast moving dash that can go through small walls. Smoke grenade has sooooo much utility. His range isn't that short, it would have to be Sivir short to make up for all the other shit they gave them.

Funny, I absolutely owned a Graves last night on Dominion, and of the two other times I've seen him in SR, one time he gave me trouble, the other he didn't. He may not be that OP when steered by a muppet.  :awesome_for_real:

New champs always have a lot of people who buy them but don't have much of a clue how to play them.

To be fair, I don't think Graves is supposed to be the hardest hero to play.

His Q is fucking ridiculous.