Gaming and Technology Thoughts and Info
Posts tagged News
Team 4Not.Fire Experiences More Roster Changes
01 year ago
Team 4Not.Fire was previously in the limelight after they had accepted former Epik Gamer leader, Dan Dinh but recent news has it that Dan Dinh has chosen to step down from his role as a jungler and take on the responsibility of coaching the team instead. It sucks to see the other Dinh brother out from the competitive scene but we all know that Dan has been attempting to make a name for himself in the shoutcasting scene and has been doing quite well thus far.
With Dan Dinh out, the team needed to find a replacement but as with many stressful situations, more roster changes arose. Both Kramer121 and DrTrevor (the former mid and top lane players) decided to focus on real life (mainly education) that left the team down to a roster of two. The team fortunately didn’t hesitate to find replacements and quickly picked up former V8 eSorts players TakashiX and OneBadBrad, as well as Zekent (also known as SpamHappy – the popular Poppy player) to fill its AP mid, jungling, and top lane roles respectively.
The 4Not Management team had the following to say about the roster changes:
Although our team is saddened to lose 3 members, I fully support their decision to pursue other ventures. Dan Dinh has proven himself to be an excellent shout caster, and we will undoubtedly see him at many future events. Kramer pursuing his education should always be a main priority for anybody, and Trevor’s decision to play the game on a more casual level to pursue real-life ventures is fully understandable.
With that being said, I am excited to welcome 3 new members, OneBadBrad, TakashiX and Zekent, aka Spam happy, are great additions. TakashiX has proven himself as a stellar mid player, competing in several LAN events with V8. Zekent has made a name for himself as the best Poppy player in the game and has a well-established fan base. OneBadBrad has been playing in the high Elo scene for quite some time, and has finally been recognized as a jungling powerhouse that we need. With these strong additions, I expect to see great things coming from 4Not in the future.”
We’re happy to have re-developed a strong lineup and this should quell any rumors going around that we folded after facing some key losses. Although important team members were lost, we’ve always been about developing eSports by supporting strong teams here, and we look forward to what the potential this lineup can bring to the table.
Each of the new players on the team also commented on the roster change by saying the following:
TakashiX
I am very excited to be joining 4Not.Fire to serve as their AP Mid player. Working with players like ParoL and BloodWater who have such great teamwork is amazing. The games I have played with Brad and Zekent have proven that we have great synergy. 4Not is a great organization committed to excellence. As a result, I see a promising future with 4Not.
OneBadBrad
I’ve had good game experiences with all of them and have known Zekent for a while, so I look forward to playing on 4Not.Fire for the first time; it’s an opportunity I’ve been waiting for.
Zekent
I’m happy to be joining an established team such as 4Not.fire and I look forward to playing more with my new teammates. Very excited about the team’s future.
Although the team has yet to make a name for themselves in the competitive scene, the lineup seems pretty solid. We’ll have to see the team in action to come to a better conclusion though.
Source: Team 4Not.Fire (Facebook)
Diablo III Open Beta Weekend Announced
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Players with a valid Battle.net account can dive into Diablo III this weekend during an open beta period. Blizzard Entertainment is running a three-day stress test to prepare for the action role-playing game’s May 15 release.
Those without an account can get one by signing up at Battle.net. From Friday, April 20 at 3:01 p.m. ET/12:01 p.m. PDT (noon) until Monday, April 23 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT players can try out each of the five classes – Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor, and Wizard - in the fight to prevent a demonic invasion. Players will be able to play the five classes up to level 13 to get a feel for the game.
What You Will Need To Do:
- Log in or create a Battle.net account at http://www.battle.net
- Create your BattleTag™, which is required to play Diablo III (What is BattleTag?)
- Download the game client, install, and play between 21:01 CEST April 20 and 19:00 CEST April 23
If you have any questions, you can refer to Blizzard’s F.A.Q regarding the Open Beta weekend.
Source: Blizzard
League of Legends Mac Client Version 1.1.0 Set to Release Today (iLoL 1.1.0)
01 year ago
The League of Legends Mac Team leader, Boompje, recently announced the release of iLoL Open Beta 1.1.0. This brings good news to all of you Mac owners who were previously unable to play LoL on the Mac OS X and for those of you who experienced several issues, such as lag and FPS drops. The version is said to offer a “huge amount of stability and fix several problems the patcher had.” Bugsplats and FPS issues seem to be addressed with this updated version and those were the issues that plagued most iLoL users previously – time to rejoice!
To help push the new update out, the LoL Mac Team will be blocking out all of the 1.0.6 version and pushing version 1.1.0 for all iLoL users. In his announcement Boompje recommended to not copy over any files, since doing so helps cause problems with your client. It should be noted that downloading version 1.1.0 means re-downloading League of Legends as a whole and there is no way around that, but it is something definitely worth doing to reap the benefits of the new version.
Staff member, Velkorious, also answered a few useful questions in the announcement thread (which I’ve included below):
Velkorious:Will this fix all the bugsplats and crashes on the champion load screen? I think that has been my only major issue so far.
We believe so.
Quote from: KingofKimchi on April 15, 2012, 06:59:22 PM
In Patch 1.1.0, will the cmd + tab feature be implemented, because being stuck on the game and unable to check mobafire for recommended builds is extremely frustrating!
Sorry if i sound like a douche, please accept my apology. ):
No. Our priority for 1.1.0 was to fix serious bugs. Afterwards, we can work on conveniences.
Quote from: Bunny on April 16, 2012, 02:01:37 PM
Oh no does that mean re-patching the entire….ENTIRE LOL?
Curses.
Patching should be faster now.
For those of you who have any questions, I recommend checking the LoL Mac Team’s F.A.Q, asking them on their forums, or asking them on Twitter (@LoLMacTeam)Happy LoL’ng Mac users!
Hecarim, the Shadow of War and Varus, the Arrow of Retribution Revealed!
01 year ago
It’s been quite the busy week recently with IPL4 and PAX East and now that both are over, it looks like summoners are in for a surprise with two new champions announced. We’ve had a nice break in between to try and catch up on some IP for those of us who are behind. Hopefully you were able to save up enough for these upcoming champions as they seem like they will be quite strong. Let’s jump right into it!
Hecarim, the Shadow of War
The next champion that is going to be released is Hecarim, the Shadow of War. He is a centaur classified as a fighter who has high mobility, excellent ganking potential, and great initiation abilities. According to Riot:
In addition to filling out his role as an initiator, Hecarim’s kit also gives him great versatility. His ability to create havoc in an enemy team by laying down area of effect damage makes him a powerful presence in a team fight. Additionally, the speed boost he receives from Devastating Charge can either serve to initiate a gank from the jungle or to escape from an enemy’s gank attempt in a solo lane. Wherever you choose to field this imposing new champion, we think you’ll be happy to have him in your stable!
His abilities were also announced (and can be found below):
Abilities
Warpath (Passive) – Hecarim ignores unit collision and gains attack damage equal to a percentage of his bonus movement speed.
Rampage – Hecarim cleaves nearby enemies dealing physical damage.
Spirit of Dread - Hecarim deals magic damage to nearby enemies for a short duration. Hecarim gains health equal to a percentage of any damage those enemies suffer.
Devastating Charge - Hecarim gains increasing movement speed for a short duration. His next attack knocks the target back and deals additional physical damage based on the distance he has traveled since activating the ability.
Onslaught of Shadows (Ultimate) - Hecarim summons spectral riders and charges forward, dealing magic damage in a line. Hecarim creates a shockwave when he finishes his charge, dealing additional magic damage to nearby enemies causing them to flee in terror.
Initial Thoughts
Every time I see or think of Hecarim I can’t help but think of Sejuani, which leads me to hope that Hecarim will hopefully turn out to be different. Sejuani, although great in team situations just felt sub parr as a pick to me due to being a slow jungler and being one that is very prone to being counter ganked and furthermore, she had very low damage output with her kit being primarily focused on heavy CC. Hecarim seems to have a mixture of some CC and self buffs along with a damage ability which leads me to think that hopefully he’ll bring some DPS to the table along with his valuable CC. According to Renekton Bot, Hecarim’s kit is going to be pretty strong unless Riot dumbs something down before his release.
Varus, the Arrow of Retribution
The other champion recently revealed is Varus, the Arrow of Retribution who will be fulfilling the role of an AD carry. His kit is one of the more unique AD carry kits, focusing on a series of abilities that combo well with one another to fully unleash the potential of the champion. He basically seems like he will be a more in-depth champion that will have a much higher skill cap when compared to other AD carries that can be played.
His abilities were revealed by the folks over at GameZone (and can be found below):
Abilities
Passive: Living Vengeance: On champion kill or assist, Varus gains 40% Attack Speed for 6 seconds. On minion kill, Varus gains 20% Attack Speed for 3 seconds.
Piercing Arrow: First Cast: Varus starts drawing back his next shot, gradually increasing its range and damage. (Second Cast): Varus fires, dealing 77 to 115 physical damage, reduced by 15% per enemy hit (minimum 33%). While preparing to shoot Varus’ Movement speed is slowed by 20%. After 4 seconds, Piercing Arrow fails but refunds half its mana cost. **This was with 3 points in it.
Blighted Quiver (Passive): Varus’ basic attacks deal 10 bonus magic damage and apply blight for 6 seconds (stacks 3 times). Varus’ other abilities detonate Blight, dealing magic damage equal to 2% of the targets maximum Health per stack (Max 360 total damage vs Monsters). **This was with 1 point in it.
Hail of Arrows: Varus fires a hail of arrows that deals 60 phsycal damage and desecrates the ground for 4 seconds. Desecrated Ground slows enemy Movement Speed by 20% and reduces healing effects by 50% **This was with 1 point in it.
Chain of Corruption: Varus flings out a tendril of corruption that deals 150 magic damage and immobilizes the first enemy champion for 2 seconds. The corruption then spreads towards nearby uninfected champions, applying the same damage and immobilize if it reaches them. **This was with 1 point in it.
Initial Thoughts
Upon analyzing Varus’ kit, my first thought is that this champion will be very combo reliant as he seems that his abilities have to flow together to really dish the maximum amount of DPS that can be dealt. This leads me to feel like he is a variant of Ezreal who differs from other AD carries with his additional utility. Players will have to really get a good feel for the champion and learn his ins-and-outs to know which ability to use when and why. A quick glance leads me to theorycraft that players will have to get stacks of Blight on enemies after last hitting a minion (you would get the faster attack speed from his passive which would allow you to stack Blight quicker) and then detonate the stacks for additional damage along with slowing and reducing the enemy’s health with his Hail of Arrows (an ability that seems like a stronger version of Miss Fortune’s “Make it Rain”). This should ideally force the enemy to retreat with low health at which point once you obtain Chain of Corruption, you can use it to finish the enemy off as an execution move. If players use Varus’ Piercing Arrow to poke and get the enemy target at lower health then pull this combo off, it should lead to a quick kill and begin snowballing from there. This is all based on speculation though so we will have to wait and see how things really turn out.
Dan Dinh Fills Jungler Position for Team 4NOT
01 year ago
Dan Dinh seems to be in the limelight recently as he joined Team4NOT as the team’s full-time jungler after his departure from Epik Gamer. He was seen playing in scrims with 4NOT against his former team, Epik Gamer, shortly after he was asked to step down from the roster. Apparently both Dan and the team members were happy with the way things turned out, which allowed for the transition to be an easy choice for both parties. Dan Dinh had the following to say regarding the matter:
I think the new guys from 4not are a great group of guys with a lot of potential. I like that they are eager to prove that they can compete among the top teams and I can definitely see us doing so in the near future.
Based on the NA ranked team 5×5 ladder, 4NOT sits at ninth place compared to Epik Gamer’s 37th place, which seems to be a better move on Dan’s end as well.
Furthermore, the members of 4NOT seem to be praising Dan’s experience and leadership qualities. They seem to feel that his traits are exactly what they were looking for in a jungler. MissWhiskers from 4NOT said had the following to say regarding the matter:
I think he is a great addition to our team…we have always had great individual skill, but not a take-charge individual who can call the shots for our team to follow. In competitive play, you need not only skill, but someone with good leadership intuition, and Dan possesses this ability for us. With Dan joining 4Not, I think we will finally reach the level of competitive play we have been reaching for. Welcome Dan!
The move has caused much of the community to reconsider what actually happened previously between Dan Dinh and team Epik Gamer. It is being assumed that he was kicked but if the rumor is true, it seems like Dan got the better end of the deal. Epik Gamer still has a solid lineup and a bit more popularity due to having high profile players (Dyrus and Dan – both of which are no longer part of the roster). Still, the rest of the lineup is very well liked among the community (Nhat Nguyen, Salce, and Westrice) and at the end of the day it seems that both teams got what they wanted.
Dan Dinh Steps Down from Epik Gamer
01 year ago
With Dyrus gone team Epik Gamer (a team with great potential but a more casual approach) was left with four players: Dan Dinh, Westrice, Nhat Nguyen, and Salce. Dan (Reginald’s brother) the team captain of Epik Gamer seems to have stepped down from his post to focus on an alternate approach to League of Legends – to work on shoutcasting, playing the game casually, and managing Solomid.
I don’t think this was something that the average fan saw coming but it does make sense as we have seen Dan trying to foray into shoutcasting quite a bit recently and I personally know he had a hand with helping Team Solo Mid from the start (I’ve been an LoL player since beta when all these guys first became popular to begin with). All-in-all this does leave team Epik Gamer in a bad situation where two of their players are no longer with the team, one of which was the team captain.
One of the remaining team members, Westrice, posted on the North American League of Legends forums to clairfy the situation and to provide readers information about which direction the team was going to head next. Apparently, the team seems to be trying to build synergy with ClakeyD and Lapakaa, both of which are good high rated players. According to Westrice, team Epik Gamer is far from over and it seems like they have a lot coming for the team in the future.
One of the coolest things about team Epik Gamer is their calm and cool attitude along with their friendliness. Hopefully this keeps up going into the future and the team can also find sponsors and possibly represent North America in future competitive tournaments as the team seems to be getting a bit more serious as well.
Source: League of Legends (forums)
Epik Gamer’s Dyrus Joins Team Solo Mid as TheRainMan Steps Down
01 year ago
Everyone was wondering how the fan-favorite Team Solo Mid was going to change to perform better in the future after their poor performance at IEM Hanover. Many fans were speculating that their training schedules would be more rigorous and that the players would spend their training time more wisely to learn and improve. Earlier in the week, Team Solo Mid’s support player, Xpecial, posted that some big news was on the horizon and indeed it was. The pressure of high competitive play seems to have caused TSM’s solo top player, TheRainMan, to step down from the team.
TheRainMan, who had previously been blamed for not playing up to parr with other high caliber players, plans to remain in Team Solo Mid’s gaming house and stay good friends with the team’s members. During his stay, he plans to enjoy playing League of Legends and streaming just for fun. For you TRM fans out there, you can still tune in to his stream to watch some drunken and relaxed TRM gameplay.
For his replacement, TSM seems to have picked up what seems to have been an obvious choice for the position, Dyrus! Being someone they have been living with for quite some time now and also being someone who is a high caliber, popular player, who also streams constantly, not to forget that he’s also an asian (lol) help make the decision (and transition) to hopefully be an easy one for both Dyrus himself and TSM.
Time will tell if the move was a good one – in the mean time, we can all continue to enjoy the hilarity of Team Solo Mid’s drama and jokes! BAYLIFE!
The juicy links to read all about the change:
The vlogs:
Source: League of Legends (forums), Reddit, Team Solo Mid
League of Legends Mac Client (iLoL) Updated with Improved FPS
01 year ago
Being a MacBook Pro owner myself, it’s been quite frustrating to know that my favorite game (League of Legends) can only be played on the Windows operating system. Furthermore, it was even more frustrating to hear that Riot Games previously dropped Mac Client support and are no longer developing the client for the Mac OS X. Despite feeling that it was a bad move on Riot’s behalf and also being frustrated knowing that I was stuck using Bootcamp to play League of Legends, a community member who went above and beyond (Boompje) brought Mac owners a shred of hope.
Boompje and his team members had continually worked on a Mac OS X client for League of Legends on their own time and managed to release iLoL, a working League of Legends client for the Mac OS X. Although it had its fair share of bugs and issues, the team continues to troubleshoot them and provide users with updates so they too can play on a Mac.
One of the more apparent issues was an FPS issue where after 15-20 minutes, the League of Legends client on the Mac OS X would experience a large FPS drop and pretty much require a restart. According to Boompje, his team member ranma42 helped create a fix for the issue which now allows a higher FPS rate with more steadiness as well. As the team continues to work on the client, it seems to be making its progress towards being more refined and similar to its Windows counterpart.
For those of you who are interested in downloading iLoL, you can do so by going to the LoL Mac Team’s site by clicking here. Along with downloading the Mac OS X League of Legends client (iLoL), you can also download iLoL Custom Recommended Items and iLoL Custom Launcher Skins as well. Be sure to check their forums to make sure you are up-to-date with the current status of the Mac client.
Source: LoL Mac Team (forums)
Red Post Outlines Riot’s Plans to Eliminate “Elo Hell”
01 year ago
SSJSuntastic over at NerfPlz managed to find a very interesting red post by none other than the Riot Design Director, Zileas. The post discusses Riot’s theories and plans to fix the Solo Queue matchmaking and what some refer to as “Elo Hell.” The question at hand as stated by Zileas is the following:
How can we reduce the amount of random variance that makes it harder for people to reach their rating?
He continued to say that this can be rephrased as:
How can we crush whatever level of elo hell does exist?
Some of the problems that many LoL fans pointed out to Riot include some of the following (summarized by Zileas):
- People with inexperience around champions causes random variance in game results (the “Free champion” problem, but more generally, the problem that players are pro with some champions and not others)
- Mis-calibrated blue/purple team elo offset which weakly favors or disfavors one color all of the time (we tuned it a while back, but it might have drifted slightly)
- Inevitable poor team comps
- Leavers, AFKers and trolls
- Premades of a new ranked player and an experienced one
After trying to raise my rating in solo queue over the past few days, I do have to say these bullet points summarize the bulk of what has been causing frustration in many of the games I have played. To address the points specifically, I’ve noticed that some people tend to try out champions, item builds, masteries, all for the first time in Ranked play, which doesn’t make any sense as more than often than not, they end up doing very poorly due to lack of experience playing a certain set up. I also noticed that when I play on the blue team, if I play Shyvana top and my teammates are half-way competent, I can not only win my lane but also counter-jungle the enemy jungler effectively thanks to the strategy popularized by Moscow 5. Furthermore, the bottom lane on the blue team also gets to do the Golems in the jungle giving them a slight lane advantage if they execute the strategy correctly.
The last three bullet points stated are more apparent at lower ratings than higher ratings mainly due to lack of game knowledge and experience found in many of the lower rated players. Many top tier competitive players constantly say this game is all about two things:
- Selecting the right champions – Picking the right champions that compliment one another’s kits is very important. What’s more important is counter-picking the enemy champions to give your team an advantage from the get-go.
- Farming – maintaining a high creep score. High elo players tend to make less mistakes, therefore CS plays a big role in being able to obtain the items you need to help you successfully fulfill your role in the team.
At lower elo, players tend not to have the right knowledge to do these two main things and if they do, then they lack other effect tools needed throughout all elos, such as map awareness! The recipe seems to be quiet complex and Riot seems to have implemented what they felt would help the situation (ie. the Tribunal to help with leavers, AFKs, and trolls). While these implementations have helped a bit the situation is far from being over. Zileas revealed that the company has the following strategies lined up in order to help alleviate the problems caused from these issues:
- Putting requirements around ranked choices (ie. no free to play champions in Ranked Solo Queue)
- Fixing the Blue/Purple team offset by adjusting numbers (a relatively easy fix).
- Isolating the groups of people who premade together (ie. a new ranked player or an inexperienced one along with an experienced player) into their own island or adding some conditions of who you can or cannot premade with.
Some issues that are harder to deal with include poor team compositions – which somewhat comes back to poor player behavior as well (ie. people who will only play their specific champion and don’t budge to adapt). Regardless, Zileas feels that summoners should be more content over time as Riot continues to work on changes (some which will be visible if they come into play, such as duo queue restrictions and others that might be more “under the hood”).
[Updated] The Nautilus Era’s Shen and 2/21 PBE Patch Notes
01 year ago
For any of you who have been playing League of Legends recently, you probably already know about the buffs given to Shen in the Nautilus release patch and man, boy is it stupid. Coming from someone who mainly plays solo queue, Shen almost always requires a ban. I recently made the mistake of not banning him in one of my ranked matches and boy did I pay. In the hands of an average player who actually doesn’t tunnel in his lane, Shen can really be forgiving to the mistakes his teammates make. Furthermore, he can be played as any role at the moment and do fairly well (Shen top lane, Shen mid, Shen jungle, Shen support) – which is pretty stupid in itself if you think about it (what other champion can really do this?). For those of you who are laughing at the Shen in mid lane comment, do some research on Chauster and check out his thoughts on the whole ordeal. The comic strip above from stopplayingleague should give everyone a good idea of how the Shen buff is a little too strong.
That being said – it looks like Riot is already well on its way to fixing the issue and resolving some others as well. Udyr released the patch notes for the Public Beta Environment today, which you can read below:
Here are today’s patch notes. The build will be live on the PBE within the next few hours.
Alistar
- Unbreakable Will mana cost reduced to 100 from 150
- Trample damage increased to 10-27 per second from 10-23
Fizz
- Base damage increased to 56 from 54
- Armor per level increased to 3.4 from 3.1
- Churn the Waters mana cost reduced to 100 from 150
Galio
- Idol of Durand damage range increased to 600 from 575
Irelia
- Fixed a particle issue with Transcendent Blades
Jax
- Fixed a bug where Grandmaster’s Might passive attack canceled if the buff ran out during the attack animation
Lee Sin
- Sonic Wave base damage increased to 50/80/110/140/170 from 45/75/105/135/165
Lux
- Lucent Singularity
- Now additionally grants vision while in flight to its destination
- Now starts its cooldown when cast rather than when detonated
- Cooldown increased to 10 seconds from 9
- Now displays a buff showing how long Lucent Singularity will last until it automatically detonates
- Finales Funkeln
- Now grants vision of the affected area during the spell and vision of enemy champions hit for a short duration afterwards
- Lux can no longer use Flash while casting Finales Funkeln
Malphite
- Granite Shield now shows a cooldown timer
- Unstoppable Force
- Area of effect radius on impact increased to 325 from 300
- Malphite can no longer flash while using Unstoppable Force
Miss Fortune
- Strut now shows a cooldown timer
Nocturne
- Now has a passive cooldown timer like Ziggs and Shen
Olaf
- Axe Throw
- Damage increased to 80-260 from 50-210
- Scaling changed to +1.0 bonus AD from +0.5 total AD
- Base cooldown reduced to 8 seconds from 10
- Cooldown reduction for picking up the axe reduced to 4.5 seconds from 6
- Ragnarok now provides 30/45/60 Armor and Magic Resist instead of 20/30/40 flat damage reduction
Poppy
- Paragon of Demacia now shows you over its icon how many stacks you have
Shen
- General
- Base armor reduced to 19 from 23
- Vorpal Blade health scaling lowered to 1.5% from 2%
- Feint
- Energy cost increased to 50 from 40 at all levels
- Base shield value reduced to 70/115/160/205/250 from 70/120/170/220/270
- Fixed a few bugs with ability sounds
Teemo
- Health per level increased to 82 from 77
- Move Quick’s passive component now shows a cooldown timer
- Noxious Trap arm time reduced to 1 seconds from 2
Tristana
- Detonating Shot target damage adjusted to 100/145/190/235/280 from 110/140/170/200/230
- Explosive Shot cast range increased to 625 from 600
Ziggs
- Fixed a bug where Ziggs’ Mad Scientist skin was leaving particles on the map
Items
- Madred’s Bloodrazor attack damage increased to 40 from 30
General
- Champion Kill messages are now more specific
- You can now activate a timestamp for game chat in the options menu
- When colorblind mode is activated, movement cursor is included with new color scheme (was not before)
- Announcer callouts no longer reference blue team/purple team, and instead should reference friendly/enemy team (ie. A friendly inhibitor is respawning soon/the enemy inhibitor has respawned)
- Champions will now attempt to run home immediately when disconnecting, rather than attempting to Recall
- Small monster camp sigils now restore up to 30 Mana in addition to Health
- Small golem camp
- Movement Speed increased to 300 from 180
- Medium Golem base damage increased to 59 from 54
Co-Op Versus AI
- Added Blitzcrank bot to the roster of bots in Co-Op versus AI.
- Improved bots’ ability to last hit and reduced how much they push their lanes.
- Reduced the amount of gold given to bots on Summoner’s Rift Intermediate.
- Added the ability for bots to call for help from nearby bots.
- Improved the precision of skill shots and ground targeted AoE abilities.
- Minor bug fixes with Leona, Lux, and Shyvana bots.
Many of the changes are minor fixes and features (like timers) along with some that are questionable (a buff to Lee Sin’s Sonic Wave, really?) but the most notable are the Shen nerfs and the Olaf buffs. With the current state of Shen, it isn’t a surprise to see that Riot is now going the other way and compensating for being too generous last patch. The Olaf buffs are a bit interesting as many people haven’t been playing Olaf that much (at least in the games I have experienced) and this will definitely be changing things. With the damage of his Axe Throw being increased, along with its AD scaling, and cooldown being reduced, this will definitely help Olaf keep up with enemies and do more damage while doing so as well. The change to his ultimate seems pretty powerful too as it will probably make him a bit more tanky towards mid-to-late game.
Updated
The PBE patch notes have been updated to reflect a Ziggs nerf as well:
Ziggs
- Hexplosive Mines
- Mana cost reduced to 70/80/90/100/110 from 80/90/100/110/120
- Slow duration reduced to 1.5 seconds from 2
- Damage from 2nd and subsequent mines reduced to 40% from 50%
The slow duration and the damage reduction aren’t the nerfs I expected to see for Ziggs but this does hurt him as a pick in matches overall.
Source: League of Legends (forums), stopplayingleague