Super MOBA Sundays: League of Legends Preseason Updates .

With World Championships over and season four coming to a close, Riot has begun releasing meta updates for the 2015 preseason. Preseason provides down time for ranked and professional gamers, and Riot uses this time to fix bugs, tweak maps, and fine-tune items and champions. A couple weeks ago, Riot released a massive overhaul for Sion. This week, Riot has released details regarding their preseason agenda, the new Summoner’s Rift, and the revised jungle.

“I believe strategic diversity is the key to any League of Legends victory.”

All of the articles this week have stressed the term “strategic diversity,” a new buzzword Riot keeps dropping in reference to the 2015 preseason patches. “If your eyebrows are raised right now,” Riot Ypherion says, “you’re not alone.” The term is ambiguous and appears to carry about as much weight as “synergy” or “wellness.” Riot insists, however, that the term is more than a catch phrase. “When we talk about strategic diversity, it’s a conversation about the ways you look to win,” Ypherion says. Individual skill and tactical decision-making skills are two important factors in successful League play. The developers acknowledge this and aim to build upon last season’s successes, adding more (better) team play opportunities and providing better builds for champions. In short, they want to add diversity to existing mechanics.

I don’t know about the rest of the map, but the new dragon looks pretty cool.

Four days ago, for example, Riot announced open beta for the new Summoner’s Rift map. The new map will replace the existing Summoner’s Rift, and although start dates for the open beta have not yet been announced, Riot has hinted at a couple of the changes. The first major change: the jungle.

First, designers aim to expand the role of the jungler. “As players mature in their understanding of the game landscape,” the blog says, “the strength of a jungler gets boiled down and optimized into a small handful of champs who do roughly the same thing: who can clear the fastest while having strong dueling/ganking abilities?” In the World Championships this year, Kha’zix, Lee Sin, and Rengar saw a lot of action. No one really selected anything else. These top-tier junglers have stagnated the game; everyone picks them, and everyone has learned how to play against them. The jungle game has become very limited.

The changes this year aim to fix that. The redesign contains factors that empower and fight back against typical jungler actions. These tweaks allow designers to react to the live, ever-changing game without having to redesign characters or items. “More scalpels, less sledgehammers,” the blog says. In the past, changes to the jungle came with a lot of collateral damage to other areas of the field (the blog cites the Feral Flare disaster last year). This year, the developers are trying to attack problems from as many angles as possible.

Lee Sin is fun to play, but he is terrible overpowered as is.

The biggest current problem in the jungle, by far, is repetition. With a shallow pool of effective champions, every match has begun to feel formulaic. Everything has become predictable. Fearless puts things very simply when he says, “After a few dozen repetitions of the Lee Sin vs. Kha’zix match up, we as junglers have a very good idea of how the match up will play out, and the game is very likely to feel very similar to the games before and after.” Of all the positions, junglers should feel the least restriction. They should be free to make key decisions and help manage the lanes. They should feel compelled to manage the action points on the map. But their need for more powerful mechanical skills have begun to overpower their need for precise tactical skills (I’m looking at you, Lee Sin). The new jungle update aims to fix this. It forces champions in the jungle to make crucial decisions and allows players to diversify their champion pools.

Speaking of fast-clearing junglers…

First, the jungle no longer favors fast-clearing junglers. The developers’ first goal was to balance the jungler pool. Basic camps have received a large base stat increase and greater gold and XP rewards. Their spawn delay has also changed. Due to this, tanky junglers (junglers that can clear camps with enough leftover HP to help gank enemies) have been given a major advantage. Glass cannons however-although they will still be extremely effective in the lanes-will have a hard time keeping up with competitors’ XP and gold production rates. The developers’ blog also mentions an initial hesitation regarding junglers that clear camps early and move on to lanes. But, with the increased power of counter-jungling, the new Scuttle Crab camp on the river, and the new vision tools available, Riot is now confident that junglers will still have a lot to do after they finish clearing their sides.

Each jungle camp grants an advantage the first time Smite is used on it.

Second, each jungle camp now grants a buff the first time Smite is used on them. The buff will be available each time the camp spawns. As a result, junglers will now have a tool that can be utilized to help turn the tide of the game. Fearless elaborates. “For example,” he says, “Gromp currently gives the jungler a poison armor that, you guessed it, poisons enemies that attack the jungler, dealing magic damage over time.” He says that the buff is a great starting point for early tanky junglers. It provides a safety net against invades and a little extra power in team skirmishes. He also says that providing such buffs will force junglers to want buffs throughout the game-which is a step in the right direction, considering how useless buffs were after about fifteen minutes in this year’s World Championships. Junglers must now make crucial decisions regarding which camps they should take and how the these camps will affect lane control . Riot has agreed to offer more details regarding specific buffs and camps at a later date.

Third, Riot has introduced a new camp along the river: the Scuttle Crab. The Scuttle Crab is unique. It doesn’t attack champions; it runs away from them. The goal, from a design standpoint, is to encourage junglers to venture out of their jungles and fight in the river. Currently, the crab provides a buff that awards vision and movement speed near the Baron and dragon pits. Although the Scuttle Crab is not dangerous (again, he doesn’t attack), he is extremely durable. The crab will provide opportunities for unique team skirmishes in the early game.

The Scuttle Crab looks kinda cute.

Developers are also toying with a few new items this preseason. Stalker’s Blade increases power while ganking. Poacher’s Knife provides additional power and a reward for invading the enemy jungle. Skirmisher’s Sabre gives a combat advantage during one-on-one combat. And Ranger’s Trailblazer provides movement speed and safety during jungle fights. All of the items can be purchased regardless of one’s role. They don’t provide stats that bind anyone to a specific play style or role.

To be honest, though, it is hard to tell how much any of these preseason tweaks will change the gameplay. Without nerfing top-tier junglers (which would be a terrible move, in my opinion) players will still find ways to abuse the meta. As a mid-laner, I really like the idea of the Scuttle Crab. I have always kept a wary eye on the river, and a vision buff along the river will be a great advantage for me. Past years’ updates have been hit or miss. I guess time will tell whether these changes and updates will make much of an impact. Until then, though, consider me a cynic.

For more info regarding League of Legends or the articles discussed and referenced in this article, click the link below:

na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news

 

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