Jason-Griffin

I think it’s funny how only mid lane has different play styles that warrant additional champs. Jungle has assassin, bruiser, supportive, and tank play styles and it deserves one champ. Support has tank, enchanter, or damage and it deserves one champ.

The point wasnt that only mid lane has different playstyles, it was that the 2 playstyles in midlane have a similar amount of players as entire other positions. It's true top has tank and fighters, but the vast majority of top laners play fighters. Fighter players tend to play skirmishers, juggernauts, divers, and they aren't very picky between those classes, so making something in one of those classes is usually appealing to a majority of our top lane players. The amount of top lane tank players is pretty small in comparison to top fighter players or mid assassin/skirmisher players. The amount of people that play top tanks really doesn't justify making a tank every year. The same can be said for tank jungler players. We will still make tanks for these positions just not as often, and not every year. Support is interesting in that, though there are a lot of playstyles, most support players play all the different styles, this is probably due to the mentality of support mains, who tend ...

Spideraxe30

Can you share if any of the projects this year is the one Zeronis is doing

They are not

Soxviper

Wasn't the masked champion supposed to be a melee carry, not an assassin? What happened?

Its kind of a Assassin/Skirmisher hybrid, but leans a little closer to Assassin

Gutrot10

/u/Reav3 could you explain why we haven't had a new jungler for 3 years?

This was mainly because our old strategy (which we shifted this year as outlined in thic blog) included VGUs in our role diversity for the year. There are a lot of junglers in need of VGUs which led to us doing a lot of VGUs for junglers and this basically caused us to make less new junglers as a result.

Boy666lol

Does the Tank Heavy Support and the sensational mage still come out this year ?

That is the current plan yes, though that can always shift

DinoTrowski

"DRESSED TO KILL"

BAD BITCH ENERGY COMING. I FEEL IT.

Hell yeah

Elementaris

Yeah. /u/Reav3 can you explain? I'm pretty sure I remember them being advertised more as a melee carry skirmisher than an assassin.

It's more of a Assassin/skirmisher hybrid, but as we got further on in development we realized it leaned a bit more towards Assassin. I think if you like melee carry skirmishers you will still love this champ

ImNephii

Who is working on the upcoming two champions?

Maxwell is working on the Jungler and EndlessPillows is working on the Assassin

S1keLoL

u/Reav3 Who is designing the jungler? Cant wait for next month, jungle main since season 2 so im super hyped.

Maxwell

xXx_edgykid_xXx

What about pyke then?

What about Pyke, my data shows his still primarily played as a support with like a 85% support playrate compared to other roles.

Hudre

Udyr will be the last champion to get an update.

Riot has stated in the past he is by far the most expensive champ to develop, since his form changes mean every skin requires the work of 4 skins.

That means a VGU, if you count the base skin rework and leave spirit guard the same, is the equivalent of 16 skins.

An Udyr rework then needs to sell 4 times as many skins to be deemed a success against any other rework financially. There are very little reasons for Riot to do this in a business sense, since they could never guarantee that kind of success.

It is unfortunate but true.

While it's true Udyr would be expensive, that doesn't mean we wont ever VGU him. We still discuss him a lot when we discuss VGU candidates. I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up on the next VGU poll

Zombie_Darius

What about Skarner ? His pick rate is literally the lowest for like 20 patches now.

He is up there as well, he very likely could end up on the next voting poll

SomeMockodile

Do you guys have a shortlist of tier 1 candidates you guys are talking about for the poll? I know you guys internally talk about shyvana and nocturne being back on the poll, but who else are potential candidates? Is Shaco still a tier 1 candidate after his gameplay rework?

Champs I have been thinking about for the poll have been Skarner, Shyv, Nocturne, Rammus, Udyr, Quinn, Shaco, Trynd, Cho'Gath. Not sure who will make the cut yet

MrZombiemod

In light of what August said in this thread as well, will other champions who are in need of Visual updates, or Light reworks like Morgana and Ezreal be considered in the future, not for the poll. Like Malphite, Jax, Janna, and Lulu?

It's something we talk about a lot. We are still interested in doing them, though we aren't currently working on them.

Zoli_Ben

Will it be 5 choice again?

Most likely

Erablier

I don't think Shyvana should be on the list, not because she doesn't need it but because it's already known people want her (3rd overall and 1st in China on the previous poll), so if it's only one champion from the vote to be chosen, then it could very well be a one-sided choice. At that point you might as well skip the vote and just work on her.

idk I think other champs could still beat her

Dragonequis

There was a Volibear update post where Riot considered a passive that converted all cc inflicted on him into into slows, which was called "surprisingly fair." Would you ever consider putting that on Skarner?

It's a interesting mechanic for sure, I think it could work for a Champ at some point in the future for sure, not sure if that would be Skarner or not

Salturbone

Please consider picking all of them for rework schedule :(

Well Champs on the list will still be candidates for VGUs, I mean we are doing Mundo who was on the list last time. The Poll is more for players to vote on who gets one first

Spideraxe30

In general what factors do you consider when prioritizing which champs you want to make as potential candidates for VGUs

Art quality, thematic quality, game play quality, player request (Which we get from regular surveys we send out asking players what champs they think most need VGUs) Potential of theme (How resonate a Champion could be with a VGU)

Sandalman3000

Do you consider the lore vs in game connection?

Such as lorewise/thematically Nocturne is a nightmare incarnate but in game only his ultimate really gives us that feeling. Well Rammus' lore did come much later, his lore I feel connects with his gameplay. Its a low bar but he does hit it.

Yeah that would fall under thematic quality