Fmr Design Mgr League Champs - Lead Design LoR Path of Champions - Worked on Naafiri and Rell Midscope - Beginner Guitarist - Icon by
@SageOfLegend
. He/Him
They got me.
When the studio I worked for closed in 2017, I took a budget round-the-world trip and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I wonder what adventure I’ll have this time.
For others impacted, make sure to enjoy this newfound time no one’s paying you for.
Minutes ago, we shared an important update with Rioters about the future of Riot Games. Here’s what these changes mean for our games and what players can expect from us going forward:
🧲Happy Rell Midscope PBE day everyone! 🐎As promised, here's the full changelist with some annotations explaining the reasoning.
Don't worry too much about the specific numbers, we're still getting her fine tuned. Let us know what you think of the update!
How does Naafiri help you become a better assassin?
I've gotten a lot of questions about Naafiri's accessibility, skill curve, and fairness. So I wanted to share some of the design philosophy that went into developing and tuning her.
Enjoy!
(Had to delete and repost, sorry!)
I've been living the Year of the Dragon for some time now, working on the Shyvana VGU and a 1.5 month stint on Smolder to help out. Has been a blast so far!
Rell’s performing very well in both support and jungle post-micropatch!
If you’re looking to give the angsty ferromancer a try, there’s no better time than now.
Last week marked my 2-year anniversary at Riot, and my last week on LoR. This week I start as a design manager on the
@LeagueOfLegends
champs team. I’m excited to help bring the next batch of champs to life.
🧲Hello friends! Got a batch of Rell updates, including a highly-requested speedup to her Q cast time.
Overall these should power her down a tad in both Supp and Jungle, as well as put some limits on how silly her numbers can get with AP in the jungle.
🏇
Rell Update Time:
Jungle getting buffed, Support getting nerfed.
We still want Support to be her primary playstyle, but jungle has fallen off in viability a bit and we want it to be a great option for players who enjoy her in the jungle. Support should still be quite healthy
Happy Rell Day everyone!
If you got the chance to play her, you might notice she’s feeling a bit on the weak side. And you’d be right! She’s quite a bit under tuned at the moment.
We’re almost settled on how we want to address that. Will have more deets as soon as I can share!
Hello! I'm Stephen Auker, Lead Designer on The Path of Champions 2.0. I’ve worked on the mode since its inception in late 2020. Here’s why I'm excited about this iteration: (1/6)
Hope everyone's been having a good time with Naafiri!
We just released a micropatch nerf targeting mid lane. I wrote up some of my thoughts on how her Day 1 is going as well as the micropatch details.
Stoked to say Naafiri is the first new champ I’m working on since coming over from LoR.
@Damascus_Glenn
came up with the awesomely unique theme and early kit and character, I helped him finish the kit and am taking her to the finish line.
Hello! Here's a quick update on our thoughts on mid vs jungle Naafiri. We had some jungle experiments hit PBE today, but we are not currently planning to ship those.
We’re aware of an issue where Rell’s E icon is missing and are working to restore it.
Rell charged so fast she dropped her icon so we’re gonna find it and get it back to her.
Today marks my 3rd anniversary at Riot, my 1st anniversary on the League Champs team, and the release of the first champ I've worked on. It's been an amazing journey and has been awesome seeing the fan reactions to her and especially all the fan art!
Hi folks, Naafiri is a bit over at the moment, so she has some nerfs coming for Top/Mid in 13.16 focused on her ability to win sustained trades.
Specifics subject to change.
this is what 160 passionate and vocal fans of LoR look like. thank you all for signing and sharing the card around.
reading through each and every signature and reply has been emotional to say the very least. let's see what comes out of 2/2 and beyond.
Want to learn more about Midscopes?
@RiotYasuna
and
@RiotRaptorr
talk about the process, share an update on Rell, and talk about a friendly tree-shaped forest friend and his rock pal.🌲👨🦰🪨🌼
➡️
ALSO: About the rewards for playing the original Path of Champions - All I'll say for now is beat Viktor to get a bunch of rewards, and beat him with 3 champs to max your rewards. There's still time and you'll *really* want to do that! :)
A new expansion is coming, and there’s so much more to see along the Path of Champions. Play the updated PvE game mode when Worldwalker launches on May 25.
We now have midscope updates in flight for Jax and Rell! I'm helping get Jax out the door w/
@ExasperatedDan
and
@RiotRaptorr
is working on Rell! No release dates to share yet. Will keep you updated.
Also, we haven't forgotten about Neeko. She'll be ready early next year.
@Menelwen
I think it’ll be impactful. Completely new E, major PQW updates. She should still play and feel like old Rell, but with more options available to her.
🧲Hello friends! Got a batch of Rell updates, including a highly-requested speedup to her Q cast time.
Overall these should power her down a tad in both Supp and Jungle, as well as put some limits on how silly her numbers can get with AP in the jungle.
🏇
So thank you to everyone who's played and given feedback. You've played a huge role in shaping the experience - no exaggeration! This mode would be a LOT different if we had developed it behind the scenes without these tests. You’ve been our guiding light! (6/6)
I'm excited about 2.0 because it's built to be permanent, we've reworked the tech and progression into something we can grow (no more resets!). This doesn't mean it's finished - it's still in Labs for that reason - but it's something we can invest in. (4/6)
I’m very proud of the work we did on LoR, especially on Path of Champions. The team has been absolutely amazing to work with, especially these past few months. I’m really excited about where Path is and the features and content coming to it.
I was lucky enough to be able to spend a month and a half working on the upcoming smol creature hitting the rift. Was temporarily filling in for one of the primary designers. It's great to see his teasers coming out!
The Path of Champions has a unique development in that it was made alongside YOU, the players, in multiple stages, each testing new parts of the experience. This process has let us adapt the mode as we developed it, based on feedback. (2/6)
There's SO much more we want to do, and we think we've created a platform that will let us iterate on feedback and build this mode to its full potential. (5/6)
From Lab of Legends to Saltwater Scourge to OG TPOC, we've tested, gathered feedback, and come back with new ideas and a bigger mode to test. Each test was intended to be temporary as we learned what it would take to make something great for y'all. (3/6)
@KaguyaFalls
We don’t have as much data on that yet. We’re looking at support first and foremost, then jungle as her primary lanes, although for the top/mid Rell enjoyers, this is also likely a great time to be Relling.
It’s been an unexpected journey but I’m pleased to say that today I started at
@PhoenixLabs
working on a unannounced project.
The industry is wild right now and I feel very grateful to have landed at a place like this, doing the type of work I love. 🔥🦜🧪
Hello again! Today I want to talk a bit about how World Adventures help lower the skill floor and raise the skill ceiling in Path of Champions 2.0. (1/5)
It’s weird that each of us every night has insane hallucinations and loses all sense of reality, time, and space and then, like, gets up, gets a coffee, and talks about the weather
Today marks a year since I started at Riot working on
@PlayRuneterra
. Despite being entirely in lockdown, I gotta say it’s been one of the best years of my career thus far! I’m really excited for players to see what we’ve been cooking up.
@Spideraxe30
At the moment we're not specifically doing anything to support jungle. Still want to solidify her in the mid lane before we open up new lanes.
A bit over a year ago we started hammering away at a janky prototype that would eventually become Lab of Legends.
It’s been truly amazing to see it grow through three evolutions into the mode it is today.
And this isn’t even its final form.
The Path of Champions PVE mode has landed. First permanent mode to emerge from LoR Labs, which has always been the dream! Our once-tiny team has grown a bunch, so I want to take a breath and briefly call out some of the hard-working folks who’ve been shaping PVE in LoR:
Since PBE got delayed, I wanted to share some videos of Rell's midscope. Last minute recorded these by myself but wanted to share them to help tide the wait a wee bit.
Can't wait for y'all to try her out! 🏇🏇🏇
Hyped that we’re finally showing the next step for Lab of Legends! I’m really excited to hear what folks think of this expanded, more procedurally-generated, and more thematic version of the lab.
See what’s in store for the rest of 2021. Discover the final region joining Legends of Runeterra, explore a leveled-up Lab of Legends, and mark your calendars for a bonus PvE expansion in the fall.
For those wondering what the TPoC Legend Level Perks are - Find them here: - We're also hard at work getting an in-game Legend Level track for ya in a future patch!
This champ plays completely unlike any other champ out there and I’m super hype to see her in the wild. Gratz to
@RiotAugust
and
@Damascus_Glenn
and the Briar team!
Gratz to
@Squad5lol
on the new role!
Want to also give a big thanks to the venerable
@RiotAugust
for sharing his champ design wisdom and commitment to always leveling up the team.
I've learned a ton from working with both of these guys. Looking forward to learning more!
Excited to announce that
@Squad5lol
is taking over as Lead Champion Designer!
I'll be moving into the mysterious role of "A Lead Designer on League of Legends," where I'll be helping out projects across League, from champs, to balance, to modes, to R & D!
For challenge seekers, you can jump right into the harder adventures! Once a WA’s unlocked, it’s unlocked for all champs. There's nothing stopping you from taking your level 1 Bard to fight Viktor. Pull it off, and you’ll get tons of XP! (5/5)
On our way to Japan for 🌸sakura🌸season!
Will be in airplane mode and likely be unable to respond for a bit in case anything related to a champion I’m working on comes out. 👀
The Ruination of the Ruination - Was left on my porch OUTSIDE of its box and is very waterlogged 😥
(Deleted the original post and reposting with identifying text hidden)
@GlorEUW
Feeling pretty good overall about the pattern, this changelist addresses the biggest issues with it which where that she could get some pretty nutty numbers on epics or with AP.
Solid Naaf Guide from
@Quinntik
!
Great overview of the champ and a very insightful breakdown of her goals, he definitely picked up on a lot of what we were trying to do with her.
@Logan3717
Having options is good, but if the options are a bit too unclear/muddied, or if the actual best winrate option is counterintuitive, it can make a champion harder to pick up or lead to players unintentionally nerfing themselves.
@Spideraxe30
@Damascus_Glenn
It was! Thus far the two projects I've been working on (besides managing some awesome designers) are Rell Midscope and Naaf.
My first live LoL game was the NA regional finals at PAX 2013 (C9 vs TSM) and it was an amazing experience as a fan. Yesterday I got to see the World Finals and it blew my mind. League has an awesome community and I’m so excited for what’s next!
I’ll be chatting on stream about our favorite blade puppy with Floodz, the world first Mastery 7 Naafiri, tomorrow around 2 Pacific. Tune in if you’re interested!
Hey there everyone! I've got an upcoming interview with
@RiotRaptorr
one of the lead designers for Naafiri! It'll be coming up soon if you have any questions you want answered about Naafiri, champion design or what it's like to work at
@riotgames
ask below!
#LeagueOfLegends
It's a bit late, but never too late to share this awesome birthday gift my pal
@SageOfLegend
for me of my partner and our pets in the style of the excellent game Later Alligator.
Having artist friends is the best.
With World Adventures you can also A) Play a lower tier to level up (There's more of those!) B) Play the other World Adventures at the same tier C) Gain enough fragments elsewhere to Star Up or D) Skip it entirely with that champ! (4/5)
In the original TPOC, if you were struggling with a boss, your only options were to keep trying on that boss or go to a previously-beaten adventure and get XP. (3/5)
@BL_Odin
Not many details I can share yet, but generally looking to smooth out some of the common frustration points and lean in to the mounted/dismounted fantasy.