[Patch 4.1] Season 4 Start General Discussion - Page 27

In this patch we have added a 20 flat damage reduction buff to the top and mid lane outer turrets on Summoner’s Rift - a super-Doran’s Shield of sorts. This change is directly targeted at "Fast Push" strategies, where teams swap a 2v2 lane to a 2v1 lane to avoid equal lane matchups while quickly pushing down an enemy outer turret and securing an early gold+vision advantage (and in some cases ALSO hiding a weak lane). Fast Push has been a very common early game strategy in high competitive play across all of our regions.

One problem we've always had with Fast Push is that it's arguably one of the more optimal strategies to employ in competitive play and when it picks up in popularity it can really inhibit other strategies. The laning phase of the game is important to us in terms of League being a spectator sport and enjoyable experience. That said, we're not absolutely enforce a laning phase for every competitive game, but we do like maintaining the value of a laning phase and want to introduce more strategic tradeoffs when a team opts to skip it. This is our third major change to turrets in the past year aimed at moderating Fast Push, and I’ll go through the two prior changes and briefly discuss their impact:

The latter half of 2012 and beginning of 2013 was dominated lane swaps to 3-4 man dives on the defending solo laner. After letting this play out for some time, we increased the damage dealt by turrets in April (Patch 3.5) to allow the solo laner and his jungler to make turnaround plays under tower. This opened space for melee solo laners to function more effectively in the early 1v2 and expanded the focus of junglers from just their early levels to their entire game presence.

The middle of 2013 was still dominated by lane swapping - now with building a large minion wave and pushing the tower down through raw damage - while also relying on the threat of minion damage to prevent the solo laner from retaliating. In September (Patch 3.10), we added temporary bonus armor to all outer turrets. This re-opened the door for a host of supports, most prominently melee champions like Leona and Alistar, by delaying the power of Fast Push strategies beyond the point where basic attack range was the primary value that a duo laner can bring.

Currently, Fast Push is still exerting a strong limitation on the viability of champions, mostly due to the strategy not having any meaningful downside. Fast Push occurs too early in the game for Dragon to be a meaningful deterrent and for champions to have the tools necessary to combat them (475 gold and one ability). Since the team initiating the swap does not take meaningful risks, the opposing champion needs to function well in a 1v2 or 2v1 lane as a baseline judgement, and that limits the pool significantly.

This current change is aimed to introduce a real strategic tradeoff for the team initiating the lane swap, and it opens the door to a wider variety of champions. After the change, teams shouldn't feel hopeless if they pick a weak 1v2 lane champion, as the other team will take a penalty (slow push) if they wish to shut the champion down. We think that with these increased variables, teams will actually need to consider their strategy in initiating lane swaps.

We specifically chose this solution because there are limited ways to introduce these kind of strategic tradeoffs. Since the team initiating the lane swap leaves behind a 1v2 at bot, any symmetrical changes would not actually open up the space we want it to. The current solution was picked as the one that would have the least impact on other elements of the game and non-pro level games. We're currently planning on making this change only last for a shorter set duration of time so that it won't have an affect on most games outside of highly competitive play (as it takes an incredible amount of coordination for this change to have an effect).

Ultimately we have a core belief that League should be won on player capabilities and strategic execution rather than who picks a faster pushing team (and then picks a better counterpusher in a 1v2 lane). With this change we're hoping to see more equal lane matchups as a viable primary strategy in the 2014 season, with an increased emphasis on kills and dragons as a means of accruing a global gold lead. Still, we're not absolutely dictating it. We expect to see some 1v2 laning, but with actual strategic risks. Now, teams might 1v2 to shelter a weak early duo lane or to shut down a threatening solo laner. That said, in turn they'll pay a cost in the form of a potential early turret deficit, unless they can hold the opposing bottom lane push at bay.

P.S. Both Morello and Pwyff mentioned the 20 damage reduction lasts only for the first 8 minutes of the game, but they goofed for patch 4.1. We -want- it to be a set duration of time (and it will be in patch 4.2), but it's currently permanent. One thing I'd mention is that minions actually count for a lot of turret damage, and this change doesn't affect that. Also when you get to 10 minutes and beyond, 20 base damage reduction gets hard outscaled as champion damage goes up.