An early look at the incoming Season 3 changes

Hey guys, it's Fox here, and I'm going to talk about some of the things Riot has been talking about in their plans for Season 3, and a little bit about what I think it means for the game. 

All of the quotes are taken from Riot Employees talking about the incoming changes.

Champion Changes

Yep they're already talking about their planned buffs and nerfs to champions, and I think had been waiting on the Season 2 championships to see the champions in action at the highest level, and not because too many changes before such a major tournament, but now that it's over let's see what they're planning.

I also would just like to add real quick my 2 cents when looking at statistics. I think a perfectly balanced champion will maintain something around a 50% win rate. In a game of League of Legends, 5 people win and 5 people lose. Now sometimes a certain style of play, a certain meta shift, or a certain new item may make a champion start to do better, but when champions start getting drasticly away from 50%, like Syndra's 30% win rate in ranked, or Rengar is at 58%, that's when I think something needs to be changed. 

Evelynn

"In an effort to mitigate the number of traumatized players Eve’s been leaving in her wake, we’re going to be dialing back the Ability Power ratio on her ultimate quite a bit."

Evelynn is currently sitting on around a 55% win rate in solo queue, and in the Season Two Championships she had a 100% win rate ,being used exclusively by M5's Alex Ich if I'm not mistaken, and the enemy teams learned that they needed to ban Evelynn every game against him.

What does this mean? Well you can see the statistics show that she is very strong. I think something needs to change so Evelynn is less powerful, and nerfing her ultimate may be a step in the right direction. It doesn't effect her laning phase or her single target assassination ability is still there, but it greatly reduces her team fight potential. I don't know if the strength in Eve's killing power is focused on her ultimate, or more about Deathfire Grasp.

Jayce

Nerfs are coming to a few of Jayce abilities, hitting the mana costs of Acceleration Gate, and the damage of Thundering Blow

Jayce was picked or banned in 85% of the World Championship games, and his utility from Acceleration Gate was too high, while being too forgiving with it's low mana cost. Not to mention that Jayce has very high poke, alongside his all in damage from his Hammer Form. I'm glad that Riot decided to leave his strong poke where it is, and instead of making him being okay at a couple of different things, into a more specialized champion with strong poke, making him much healthier for the game. 

Blitzcrank and Sona

"To make sure they pay the price for mistakes they might make in lane, we’ll be dialing back the base stats on both of these popular support champions."

Both Blitzcrank and Sona are getting reductions to their health stat, making them a little more squishy and risky in lane, because as of now their massive strengths don't leave a lot of risk in picking these champions.

Blitzcrank with a single ability can completely change the outcome of a game, by grabbing a player who was out of position for one moment, it can cost an entire game, and Riot thinks that makes Blitzcrank fun and interesting to play, and they're not going to change it. Which I approve of. Making Blitzcrank unable to get into someone's face as much doesn't change his iconic playstyle of landing surprise grabs, and it's a smart nerf. 

Currently Sona is very popular, being able to heal, have very strong poke, and bring a strong AoE cc. She has had around a 54% win rate over the last month in solo queue, and a 75% win rate at the World Championships, and it's time she got toned down a small amount. I think this makes Sona much more vulnerable to being caught out by cc and burst, so Sona players will need to play much smarter. I like the change because it doesn't change her playstyle. If you want a support champion with strong poke and healing ability, Sona is still great at that.

Ezreal

"In the upcoming patch, we’re removing the Attack Speed debuff on Essence Flux to prevent the Prodigal Explorer from simply casting his W on an adversary and then finishing off his crippled opponent with repeated attacks. This should force Ezreal players to be quicker on their feet and win duels through superior positioning rather than a brutal debuff."

Ezreal is currently among the picked/banned champions in the game (second I believe only to Shen at the moment), from Broze elo rating, to the World Championships. In solo queue, Ezreal is picked or banned in 93% of games, and has a 55% win rate in solo queue, and at the World Championships Ezreal was picked or banned in 90% of games. More than 9/10 games of League of Legends games everywhere, Ezreal is impacting it. His mobility, poke, and ability to duel, are just too high right now. 

I actually don't like this nerf. I think it added a lot of flavor to Ezreal to have his W do something unique. Now he's down to just press your buttons, they do damage. I think he needed a nerf somewhere, and his W was a good place to start, but removing the W debuff entirely just feels like it takes the flavor out of landing a good W in a duel with Ezreal. 

Rengar and Syndra

Now to talk a little about the champions who didn't get released in time to be in the S2 Championships. I'd just like you to look at the statistics here. Rengar after some changes was at a 58% win rate as you can see, but his win rate has dropped over time but is still uncomfortably high. Where on the opposite, Syndra on her best day in the last month had a 41% win rate, and a champion who can barely win 40% of games they are in needs a buff. 

"even after one round of nerfs Rengar’s still wreaking havoc all over the Fields of Justice."

Rengar is getting a nerf to his Savagery ability, Health Regeneration, and Ultimate. I think Rengar just does too many different things too well. He has a heal, he gets defensive stats for free, high mobility, no mana dependency, and a stealth. Having all of these things doesn't inheriently make a champion too strong, but Rengar just does all of these things too well. A small tone down is just what he needs.

"Syndra is getting a ton of quality of life improvements in the upcoming patch that should make her a lot easier to use effectively."

The biggest complaint I hear about Syndra is that she is too much work for not enough payoff. I think making her abilities and combos easier to set up will make her much more popular and successful.

Reworks

 That's right guys, reworks. Remember a few months back Katarina got a rework? And remember earlier in this article, when we saw Katarina in the top 10 most banned (aka feared) champions? I think Katarina is a much more viable and fun champion now with her rework, and I'm hoping the same for the next ones coming up.

All that we know for certain is that right now Riot is working on a rework for both Heimerdinger and Karma, two of the least played champions. To put it in perspective for you, Ezreal is played about 100 times the amount that Karma is, and she's about due for something to get people to want to play her. 

 

Item Changes for Season 3

There are a bunch of changes happening to items as well 

"We are adding a lot of support-oriented items with this (support build diversity) in mind, though, and alternate ways to get gold (cool new mastery for supports inc...). I actually don't mind zero CS - I mind that support don't get gold that they can use to buy cool items. That is what we'll fix here."

This has been a desire for support players for a long time, more build diversity, and more alternate gold paths. I believe support will be making much more fun and dynamic item choices and I think it's about time! 

Deathfire Grasp

"Deathfire Grasp is a particularly challenging item to balance because adding an additional nuke to an already bursty mage (like Evelynn) can be a rather scary proposition. Because the stats it offers are already so desirable, there’s almost no downside to folding the active ability on DFG in with your standard spell combo and simply blowing people up."

On the latest release of the Public Beta Environment, it looks like a majority of the raw stats on DFG are being toned down or removed, leaving it to be designed to be mostly used to it's activte ability. I think it's stats certainly could use a nerf, because as of right now, buying a Deathfire Grasp as your first item has not enough downsides, as the AP and CDR on it currently as too strong. I like that it is being rebalanced to be a mid-late game item for burst casters, although I am just worried that these burst casters rely too much on it, and Champions like Evelynn  who are already getting nerfs, will be too weak to be competitive after these changes, not to mention Veigar and Leblanc who are already fairly underplayed. 

Trinity Force and Phage

To give injured opponents a better chance to escape from attackers both in top and bottom lane, we are reducing the slow effect applied by ranged attacks on both items, and reducing the slow duration on Phage.

Phage and Trinity Force are amazingly strong right now, and one Phage application on an opponent out of position can often secure a kill. Also Trinity Force has become a staple buy on some of the more popular AD carries, so I see why they'd target the slow effect from range attacks. Melee bruisers really need the slow to stick onto targets, so I think this is a very smart change that keep the slow on Phage/TF strong but not too strong. 

 

Large Scale Changes

Now I've gone over a few of the more specific changes, changes to Trinity Force, buffs and nerfs to specific champions, and all of these are really important. But now I'd like to talk about some of the even bigger changes that will be having even bigger effects.

Masteries

"In Season 3, we'll be doing a series of mastery changes (much like what we saw for Season 2)."

This is a change I'm really excited for. I'll start by saying that I don't think there is anything wrong with the current masteries.There are some really good masteries, there are some that almost no one bothers to get, but it's fairly balanced and provides good options in the game right now. But people have kind of played with them for a year, figured out what is good, figured out what is bad, and it's not an interesting part of the game right now. I know Riot is focusing on trying to diversify the players options (much like what they're planning with items) and I'm hoping the mastery pages are no exception.  

Twisted Treeline

I've never been much of a Twisted Treeline fan, I just never got into it. But I have to say I am amazed at the changes coming into this 3v3 map.

· Preventing Turtling. They are making the entrance to the bases have a wider opening, and making it so you cannot kite minions into the Fountain Turret to stall out the game all day.

· Jungle rework. The old Twisted Treeline jungle was all kinds of crazy. This jungle rework is going to be more like Summoner's Rift's jungle, I think it will allow people to get into it easier.

· Map Objectives. There is now a spider boss replacing the dragon, and new shrines that you fight for control of to gain a team-wide buff. 

· New Items! At the moment there are eight new items on the PBE, designed specifically around being used in Twisted Treeline, and balanced around giving champions who were weaker in Twisted Treeline a better item build to allow them to be more viable. 

· Complete Map Rework. The old Twisted Treeline was a little too twisted for my tastes. There were so many walls, and so many obstacles, that any champion without a built in flash (like Kassadin's ultimate) was at a big disadvantage, so they took out a few walls and streamlined it a little. On top of the layout, it also just looks amazing.. It has the same new polish and look that Summoners Rift got a few months back. 

Summoner's Rift - Jungle Rework

Riot has announced that they have been working on some changes to the jungle to take effect in Season 3. 

"One large problem is that efficient farming of the jungle has very little pay off compared to constantly applying lane pressure by camping / ganking. Overall junglers severely lack in gold unless they successfully gank and snowball the game from the get-go and/or opt for a GP10 strategy."

This is once again, Riot trying to give players more options. In the current jungle, nearly every player will get a GP10 item at some point, and it is dominated by tank junglers due to the low gold income of a jungler, and a tank's less reliance on items. I would love to see a higher diversity of item builds and champions in the jungle.

Riot has also mentioned that they intend to make the jungle rework less about using Area of Effect abilities to just clear out the camp quickly, and the single target junglers like Warwick and Fiddlesticks will be much stronger in the new jungler.

So, will Season 3 be better than Season 2 was?

To which I say, hell yes it willl! New masteries, new Twisted Treeline, champion balance, new items for both SR and TT, and all kinds of things that Riot is still keeping under wraps. League of Legends is getting better each patch, and I'm very excited for everything coming in Season 3.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!