Why Riot Brought Back A "Forgotten" Champion Mechanic to League of Legends 

Note - This video didn't mention Cho'Gath because I had him in the voice over and the script, but then that one section of the audio file corrupted :( I didn't notice until like 1 hour before the video needed to be up so I had to edit it out. F in the chat for Cho Also someone said I didn't mention Garen W and you're right, oops. That one is kinda boring though :p

I talked about infinite scaling in one of my videos and how I feel like it's better designed in the form of thresholds like Bard and Kindred. Glad I'm not the only one who shares this sentiment!

Sona doesn't have infinite scaling. After reaching max stacks each time you get a stack it reduces the current cooldown of your ultamite by 1.5 seconds. It doesn't permanently reduce the cooldown of her ultimate. The text you show is worded that way but in game it's worded differently to show what it actually does.

I like how Shyvana's stacking passive is just an afterthought that has something to do with her theme

14:06 "assasin were top tier: leblanc, kassadin, zed, talon, katarina, akali..." sound like s11 and the las 3 seasons to me with some sprinkles of champs that did not exist back then.

35:14 and thats what we call "heroes of the storm" (i really dont like hots, but you just EXACTLY described that game, so you might wanna give it a try)

Been playing Sona since season 1. With a few million mastery points, I can say I know everything about Sona. Her issues have always been weak abilities early game, horrible mana costs, never safe when warding, and super squshie. The fact that her abilities require her to be in the thick of team fights to make use of the aura effects exacerbates the squishie problem. This is why I almost always bought RoA and Staff on her previously. RoA helped solve the mana, and survivability issues in conjunction with tear -> staff. I know a lot of Sona players didn't take RoA, but basically everyone thought the champ was trash because without RoA her issues made her extremely un-fun to play. Even now, I have played her far less this season than other seasons because of the removal of RoA without really giving her anything. The new scaling mechanic for giving her more ability haste really has not solved the core issue she has. Sona has always been a mage enchanter. Still is. She has better AP scaling still than other enchanters. Before many of her damage nerfs, she had the potential to outscale in damage any champ except nasus or veigar. 1K AP allowed for 5K damage burst outputs very easily. RoA + Staff + Deathcap = 1K+ AP with the right runes. Literally could 1 shot any squishie late game while still being fairly tanky to deal with assassins. Add in a Zhonyas for assassins after that and there wasn't a champ that could fight Sona 1v1 late game. The latest rework for her didn't solve her issues. She still has mana problems, crappy rank 1/2 baseline ability usage, and is squishier than jello. At least her W mana costs is only slightly bad instead of utterly bad to use. Until the mini rework, the 105 base mana cost for a 25 point heal was laughable. Still, her heal is mostly useless until later when items can help deal with the mana cost and she has enough ranks in the ability to make it actually useful as a heal/shield. Like most Sona players. I had jumped ship to play Seraphine. For awhile she really was Sona but way better. Then they nerfed her to hell and I had to basically give up on Seraphine. So back to mage supports only like most support players these days. Sona is not over tuned at all. She still has bad early game, and her late game DAMAGE and healing scaling is far lower than what it used to be. The only really somewhat nice thing they added is that her Q now can hit unseen targets so warding is slightly safer.

The suggestion of removing items and runes to focus more on champion kits is something HOTS actually does really well (it has a lot of problems outside of that, don't get me wrong) but it is something I'd like to see!

I like how in the conclusion, Exil is basically talking about what Heroes of the Storm did with Quests. HotS doesn't have all the same mechanics as LoL (ie there is no item shop), instead, every ~3 lvls you get to choose an upgrade to your base kit, those upgrades can be quests which is basically a little stacking mini game that function like LoL's stacking. But since it's directly tied to your champion and you can't get items, the game can allow itself to permanently (or not) enhance the kit of the champion. For example, Kel Thuzad has an innate quest where he has to land his E (basic skill shot that can be recast after it touches someone to stun them and get them together, basically Zac Q but only skillshots) 15 times to get a new ability that can spawn a spike which is a valid E target, basically making his combos (that are a core part of his kit) easier and more consistent. He also gets 75% more magic damage after hitting E 30 times total. Basically HotS can do cool stuff with its champions because it doesn't have an equivalent of the LoL items system

I think it's really cool that they're bringing these kinds of mechanics back. I was a really old Cassiopeia Top main back when she had her stacking mechanic and it felt infinitely better to build that up and feel a sense of achievement that had a real impact than pretty much anything else in the game has now. Season 11 did a lot of good and a lot of bad, but the neutering of Seraph's Embrace's utility was one of the biggest mistakes. On a more serious note, I'm hoping this is them dipping their toes in the water of extending game times a little bit and adding more comeback mechanics, since that's a lot of the time what Stacking can allow. Whether or not I'm right is to be seen but I hope we see more mini-reworks or new champions with things like this since it makes playing a champion a lot of fun because it gives a sense of achievement and lets the player have some security for the late game if they fell behind early.

I do remember that Zed also had an AD scaling on his ult if I am not mistaken everytime he uses it and it kills somebody he gains like 5 AD I guess

thats what dota made with one item called aghanim scepter and shard that either upgraded all skills or gave new one.

really love the vids man, dont play league that much anymore because life happens you know but as soon as i get a notification that you've put out a new vid i watch it immediately!

as a sona main in gm i can tell you that the rework is barely noticeable. u are slightly better lvl 9-10

You know it's gonna be a good documentary when you hear a Runescape soundtrack.

19:43 Ahhhhh, the good ol' days of Rengar pentakills while attempting to reconnect...

I'm currently stuck in the weird Cassiopeia documentary

I personally love infinite scaling (I main Bard and Senna) but scaling like Kindred's is...prolly not one I'd wanna see more of. The thing about most scaling champs, Bard, Senna, Nasus, Veigar, etc is that no one really has the power to deny them their stacking outside of killing them to keep them from doing so for a bit, or being in a position to zone them. Kindred's skill floor is so high because they're the only champion (if I recall correctly) who has stacks that your opponent and teammates can take away from you. I think small, incremental scaling that you can get more reliably is significantly healthier than unreliable. Kindred's marks being in the enemy jungle at all times and dependent on a takedown of an enemy you've marked at least 8 seconds in advance means your means of scaling are almost entirely in the enemy's hands. The jungler obviously has significantly easier access to your mark than you do, and getting kills on enemies is in many cases more dependent on them playing poorly than you playing well, or, dependent on team coordination. Ultimately a matter of personal taste, I guess, but I think when champion's means of scaling is tilted in favor of the enemy gating access to it, it makes for a poor experience. Even coming back to playing kindred now that I'm much more well versed in the game, it's almost even more frustrating because I better understand just how little power I have over my own scaling, and most of the best success I've found with kindred is essentially just ignoring that my marks exist during laning phase. Rather counterintuitive imo

Oh my god the guy @ 26:19. Is bringing back so many memories. I just wish I could remember his name. He's an og league tuber

Really hurts my soul to see Twisted Treeline again in that clip. I miss it so much

This video made me remember old sona and gangplank and now I'm sad because I don't have them anymore. I miss my old champs.

Having a stacking item like mejai's for AD champ's seem's like a good idea...

"akshan's q be ein similar to sivir q" -Gnar : "my boomerang is a joke to you?"

Since sivir is a mercenary, why not add a head bounty to hunt a champion that gives sivir evolution skills? That would be fun and exciting to play! I played league because of ka zhix because he looked like anu'barak from Dota 1 and anivia who looked like phoenix from Dota 1

The kind of ways that you talked about champions evolving, is what basically Heroes of the Storm had. A lot of heroes, if not all, had talents that involved in hitting multiple times people with certain skills or killing an amount of units, getting health globes, etc... It made stack fun, skilled. Then again, Heroes of the Storm did not have items, so everything was balanced on the talents that you chose. It was more focused on mechanics of the maps rather than other things.

i'm maining a lot of stack champion especially infinite stack like cho, veigar, bard etc. the reason is because the game will feel different even on a 60 minute game, there's always something different even if you full build and/or max level

Been saying for a while that odyssey was the best gamemode ever made, not only was it placed on something that's not summoners rift, but it had frigging ability upgrades.

Hey Exil, Will You ever talk about Kindred?

~ @35:00 thats basically how Heroes of the Storm is. Its one of the best parts of the game frankly.

Are you gonna do a stream again? i really enjoyed being there when you did one for your b-day stream

6:55 since the kleptomancy shitshow, its actually coded as putting a point in a spell at certain level (1,6,11,16) , so in theory you could play a whole game without any points, reach level 16, put your first point in w and then get ranged and waves instantly but yep functionally its whenever you put a point in your r

Yeah the final part of the video is basically Exil talking about heroes of the storm

Me who uses kindred can say that my average kindred stack is about 8-15 I use a risky strat where I save up smite for mark camps and use the hunt mark 10 -20 secs before gank.most of the kindred games I play is jg sometimes bot reliable for lamb stacks but it would be better to just farm .

If League only had basic abilities, no items or runes or other stuff like that, it would be much closer to Heroes of The Storm - and that game has indeed a really cool stacking mechanic called 'quests', that mostry works really well ans does feel rewarding for mastering the champions kit.

Aight here we go. I think there should be another champ specific item that they have at the start of the game for free (similar to old Viktor hex core). I think the way you upgrade it is by buying it items to store/devour (whatever lore nonsense you want), but the items can only be base items (longsword, dagger, amp tome, negatron cloak, etc. No boots of course) or possibly consumables (more on that later). I think the the item should get stronger based on how much gold worth of items you give it, similar to upgrading the hex core by paying 1000 gold, except the stats you get are determined by the items you buy, to free up build paths. I think the item should change color based on what stats you have (orange for ad, green for health, etc. As league already does) so players can quickly see what kind of stats the item has, roughly, without taking the time to analyze it. Then, the item should have tiers that unlock champ effects, like Viktor/Kaisa abilities, or bonus effects like Kindred (I would keep the raw stat buffs out because the champ is getting the raw stats from the items they buy). That's how I would do it. Alternatively, you could design the unique item to only work with consumables, but you can have a bunch of different types (5 max). You follow the normal rules of limits (5 health pots, 2 control wards, etc.), but any consumables you buy automatically go into your unique item. The item has unique passives that effect consumables used (increased healing from consecutive pots used, control wards have 5 stacks of health, elixirs last longer, etc.). The unique item has an active that uses one of the consumables it currently has, which can be selected via an in-game interface (like Kindred/Neeko). This might have a different tier system that results from champion kills/assists, objectives taken, vision score, and lane sustain (increasing by staying out of base for an extended period of time). And of course, same deal: tier system upgrades your abilities, stacks, bonuses, etc. But you generally have to funnel gold into it to get those bonuses (it's only for a unique champ that shouldn't have vision/lane sustain built in already). Alternatively times two, you could have the "item pouch" be its own purchasable item for all champs and give it similar unique passives (if a health pot is purchased, it can be refilled, control wards are cheaper or healthier or whatever, elixirs offer half their stats permanently as long as the item remains in their inventory while the other half is granted on use, etc.), but this would work way too well with champs that are already out. Disclaimer, I just spammed all this out, I'm well aware it's incredibly flawed (especially that last part). I'm just stirring the creativity, hopefully, so take it with a grain of salt.

great video, my favourite part is where I get to learn that veigar's w cooldown goes down with his amount of stacks

I think removing itens and other means of power would make the game less dynamic, today you can take a champion and completely change how you play it with the itens you buy, making it a very dynamic game, if you could only follow the default stacking you would be locked into playing a specific way

The fact you acknowledged Yuumi as a champion instead of the plague/scourge that it is -50 pts to your house

Saw the notification in class and was so close to just walking out

The Cass vid, man, back when League was the wild west, and everyone played all roles.

ah yes, Sword of the occult, the good ol' AD Mejais. I feel old

When I came back to the game, I thought Viktor's abilities upgrading as you farm was weird, but on the other hand, that's literally how the Hex Core worked anyway. Also, the extra damage on the E augment being able to miss is sad.

Thank you. Been waiting for another video.

SO You want the Hots system . I agree

You're describing Heroes of the Storm at the end there with all the ability-exclusive "quests", but honestly the lack of items is what ultimately kills that game. Dota 2 also demonstrates that you can have non-gold methods of evolving your characters (talents) and still have that on top of a complex and powerful item system

Fun fact, I once stole baron with ignite, and two dragons >.> Also remember jungling was impossible before hitting summoner lvl 20. Good times

During that conclusion I was starting to think "that's why I don't like HotS" but then corrected myself, I loved that, just didn't enjoy the forced team focus rather than solo focus power gai, like you can eat a full lane for the whole game, have the highest killscore and still be behind on xp, I also enjoyed some map gimmicks but really hated playing some too.

Great video as usual. But Sona does not have infinite scaling. After 120 stacks, she refunds 1.5 sec of her cooldown ultimate, she does not reduce her R cooldown infinitely

35:13 "Drop the idea that Riven could have Goredrinker and Conqueror"

Great video, but your conclusion was "Why are we playing League and not Heroes of the Storm where items don't even exist but you can upgrade and scale every single skill and passive of your hero to make them unique?"

Old Cassiopeia was one of the most satisfying champs to master

Sat inside waiting out a severe thunderstorm when this pops up in my feed, you have uncanny tome as always

14:09 Assassins are literally the meta right now

Wait a minute at the end you’re just talking about HotS quests

What you are discribing at the end with the evolving abilities sounds like Heroes of the Storm to me.

you know what we really need in game for years is when you buy an item the champ can have a cosmetic to have the item be visible on champion so you get crit lulu wielding a bunch of bows and sword

Around 35:20 basically Heroes of the Storm is described

having more stacking mechanics will result to player base resorting back to the champions that are actually strong without them like renekton. Its not about the stacking mechanics being bad but its more of your power is gated behind the stacks in which lets be honest the game is actually turning to the early game the at this point because you do shit early you hardly can come back mid or late game. Its like what some pro's says throwing away 10k lead is hard if you are actually not trying to throw it away. Besides players nowadays can't be bothered to play their lanes properly what more if the champions they like are gated because of stacking.

Great content as always mr exil 👊

I always see a problem in the champion kit making any sence in his desing. Like, why is akshan able to go invisible? Or have shields? Is everyone a magician now?

For real though, I would love LoL again if it was more champion centered... things like ludo-narrative harmony (like with old rengar) and champion-unique objectives (like senna and bard) just make the game more fun, kindred can fail if not helped and that's okay, it gives more power to teamwork and strategy rather the fed yone/yasuo/riven/irelia with a lot of lifesteal that just attacks you endlessly with gross hitboxes, a lot of dashes, damage and to top it all if you manage to get them down to 1 they can still survive because of the strong items the game has and keep going like nothing happened (come on man, I stabbed you, shot you three times in the head, crushed you with a mountain and burned your soul and you now walk singing while farming?) why could they even do that? I don't think vladimir can survive like that and he's all about lifesteal. LoL should have more side objectives like Kindred, Rengar, Viktor, Veigar, Nasus, Kai'sa... it makes them feel like they earned their power (like, man, veigar oneshots me now really easy, but that's because he stacked that much) it also gives you a chance to comeback even though you are behind in gold against the enemy team and every farming spot is covered by them

I think the majority of the frustration people get form league is born from the playerbase in general. Sure there's an argument for what exactly has caused the playerbase to become so unbelievably toxic and that the reason could be the game design, but I think it's more along the lines of toxic behavior just going unpunished or even regulated for so many years, it's now common place to shit on your teammates for playing poorly. The snowbally nature of most games can definitely add to the toxicity, knowing that a teammate doing poorly is effectively making the game impossible for you, but this has always existed throughout the years at different levels and severities, yet this degree of toxicity has only been common place for the last few seasons. I played a lot more in seasons 4-8 then I have in the more recent ones because of this, and back then if you got a toxic player on your team (keep in mind I said *IF* as well) the general consensus was "just mute them," and that did actually work more often then not. Sure if they inted it still made winning impossible, but if you were unlucky you'd get a player like that every few games, but I had DAYS where I'd play for hours with a friend in ranked where we wouldn't have to worry about it at all, hell, you used to actually be able to calm some these people down by just being supportive and kind! Nowadays, it's not a question of *IF* you get a toxic player, it's "who on my team is gonna rage this time?" Without fail, every single game of league has at least one toxic player, it is literally just a fact. Even trying to be nice to them doesn't do anything anymore, they often actually get more upset! You also can't just mute people cause that alone pisses off enough toxic players that they'll play even worse, many times your teammates don't mute them and start tilting alongside them! If someone on the enemy team is shit talking while stomping your teammate you are more likely to join them in taunting your own fucking teammate! The mentality of this community is so beyond reprehensibly toxic that it simply CANNOT be due to how the game works, that likely plays a part in it, but toxicity doesn't persist in a community that punishes or denies it. So yeah, THAT'S why people are frustrated, other toxic players and more often then not those frustrated are also being toxic due to their frustrations, since it's just accepted behavior in league.

Do buff work on South America? Also great video, very interesting

I would 100% stop playing if they pulled something like "Now all champs are played in almost the exact way, since you don't even get to pick the build or runes". As far as I concern they already pretty much fucked up the system with the new items, forcing a meta of "These items are so strong the ones who can, will build them. Those who can't will build to counter them. The epic item system as well reduces diversity, because you're much more limited in choice". The reworked shop doesn't only guide you, it almost forces the choice for you: if you don't wanna build the recommended (recommendation system still trolls btw) you gotta do at least 3 additional actions in comparison to the previous one.

ngl I thought when the title said "forgotten mechanic" I though Riot games were bring back dodge chance lmao

To be fair, I personally do not like Senna and Kindred's stacking. Kindred always feels really hit or miss depending on how many stacks she has: Usually when she doesn't have many she is also behind and therefore can not do anything with her low range, on the flip side if she has many stacks she'll also often have a lead and she will be doing a lot of damage from decently high range whilst still having her ultimate as an additional safety net. Senna on the other hand just feels broken late game given how obscene the range is at which she can just point and click 3 shot you. I really want them to cap Senna's maximum range as it makes other scaling champions like Kayle and Veigar just look silly (no way to interact with her as she outranges you and point and click kills you from that range). On the other hand I do love things such as Veigar's damage scaling (noting that Veigar does have some obvious defensive weaknesses, doesn't scale up to insane values that quickly, and needs to at least land skillshots to land his damage), champions evolving like Kayn, Kayle and Kha zix and Thresh's soul collecting (though level 16 kayle is also a bit overtuned at the moment to compensate for her weak early). Another thing to note: I prefer the type of stacking where you can at least expect some level of consistency within the champion and less "Either this chamion solo carries, or it'll be useless weight holding the team down". This is in part as I do not like playing a champion where I know I am even more screwed lategame if I fail early game (which is already the thing I dislike the most about LoL), but it is also just because I dislike having these types of champions in my team. It doesn't even needed to be any stacking mechanism like Kindred's, as champions like master Yi also have this trait, but I generally do not like champions that will either be solo carrying or that are dead weight to their team mates.

5:16 you forgot to press on detail on the kindred passive on the wiki, where it states that if the team would be the better one, kindred can get to atlast 4 stacks at a 99.99% rate of success.The other 0.01% are unknown cases of kindred players getting more than 4 stacks.

Yo, i didnt realise how much i missed twisted treeline till i saw this vid.

I think everyone would prefer to wait like 5x as long but get actual humans on their team, at least in ranked Super fast queue times at the expanse of quality of games would be fine for normals, but it's inexcusable in ranked

The problem with the balance team putting in more scaling in the game is that the wont and cannot balance it. They cant balance champions as they are. If they put more things in they might as well call it pay to win, and only 15 champions will be playable at a time. Not that its not like that now for ultra high ranks.

Exil describing how he wishes lol would be is exactly heroes of the storm

This is what they want for easier balance. It's easier to balance ~20 items than hundreds of champs. Nowadays, champions in league of legends are mere vessels for items and runes

I would like more champs like kindred and skarner just because there are only 2 champs that need laners in the jung the community thinks the player is trolling when the champ is not meta or the rage at the jung gap caused buy team play more champs like this would be great for the game and having some innate scaling so you can come back into the game if you fall behind instead of ff at 15 not even 20

right now i really don't like that because kaisa can only viably go ad now. A big part of her kit is locked away from her. I mean i haven't upgraded my w(which needs 100 ap) in months and i miss it. For anyone wandering upgraded w gives instead of two passive stacks and 70% cd refund if you land it on an enemy champ

8:32 que grande Knekro cuando tenia pelo loquete ♥

31:03 proof that seraphine is riot's deal with the devil

Most of our frustration comes from how others, and sometimes, we play. Be that by feeding, intentionaly or not, or poor decision making, so i dont even know how to fix it, because if someone ints, its gg, theres nothing you can do for that person to stop it. It may happen because of balancing system or because your not in a good mood or because your grilfriend dumped you. We can only rely on riot to try to make something about the behavior of that player, KDA cant tell you if the person was good or not in the match, just because it can be other ways to win the game. In God we trust, i want to be better at the game, but im hard stuck Gold 3/4 "Elo HELL".

I had 1800 nasus stacks and nearly lost the game after 51 mins. It's not like you can't get killed

hell yeah, Knekro' clips appear on the video

Still miss Sword of the Ocult and Death Fire Grasp. RiP

Viktors hexcores made him unique

Does anyone else notice the RuneScape music?

Hmm, I wonder if Empath from H.O.N or Wisp from Dota get the same amount of hate that Yuumi gets, considering they are all three the same champ

Cassiopeia with boots sounds beyond cursed

I think all 3 are bad (for the most part) Items are too strong, Runes are too strong, and if we focus too much attention into stacking passives, I believe that could enviably turn into a detriment as well. Although I think it’s a fun idea to contemplate :) And I’m 100% down for gutting everything (items and runes) and making the game more barebones. Team fights would last more then 4-6 seconds again 🥲 I’d be so happy.

Poor Sion and Cho'gath, not even categorized as an infinite scaling champions

Damn when I saw pawnce playing viktor I got nostaliga

i dont know what the actual Rengar W does. i still thinking that heals me. i remain at the really old Rengar

Also Kindred's Marks count as stacks maybe? not sure

Anshan’s e is new and interesting, he didn’t include it

Yey but Cassiopeia can't get her passive back XD After all she has no feets amiright? It's laughable that they removed her passive for "Cassio cant buy boots", because the thresholds stacking was "too complex". I miss my old lady snake, rushing magic pen boots, being able to actually scale.

You're doing great, shoulda said stack 2 more times so it gets up to 69... Though jokes aside I think champions that can rely on themselves with their kit is better because of how bad so many league players are. Though there should be a bonus or certain champions that are even better than the solo ones when the team works together towards that champion's goals.

Yoooo I know this music at the start of the video. ITS FROM RUNESCAPE lol 😆.

honestly as somebody who really didn’t like Sona, I’m loving her mini rework because I feel like I’m being rewarded for my actual talent & mechanics rather than coin flip luck.

I hate Kindred passive, where they should choose who u need to hunt now, while Nasus can just do BONK to get his 1000 stacks.

Riot when making teams: hmm, a mid main, gonna place him adc, and the adc main will play jg, what could go wrong?

Those game clips are hella high quality.

lmao nice clip in the beginning

Ah yes, the old champion spotlights where Phreak tried to take. Every. Single. Champion. Into the jungle. Simpler times.

Man I have seen powerpoint presentations with better framerate than that cass spotlight