Thread:Willbachbakal/@comment-26815373-20160908163145/@comment-1330314-20160911074612

LivesByProxy wrote: Do you really think her passive is undoable? I know it's messy right now, but I want to believe it has merit.

If by "undoable" you mean "can be reverted to a better version" then I'd say no, because despite its flaws it's the best version of the passive, due to the lock effect, but if you mean "can be streamlined down to something much simpler" then yes, though I'd advise against it. Removing the crit chance interaction, for one, and instead making Imoen lock her target after X hits would simplify the effect. In the end, though, I still recommend altogether removing pretty much everything but the lock effect.

LivesByProxy wrote: What did you mean? She can't crit unless she has 100% crit chance, which she can build up to using her passive (hiding and striking from out of sight), plus whatever crit chance she gets from items and her Treasures. Gameplay-wise, isn't it just an X-hit passive?

Yep, which is how you can simplify the passive, but I'm saying that making her use crit just because crit kinda thematically ties into luck isn't solid, because luck-based crit is not a particularly healthy aspect of the game, and is likely to get changed if the stat gets reworked, which would then affect your kit. It would be the same as basing a champion effect off the dodge stat several years back, which happened and led to several reworks and kit changes.

LivesByProxy wrote: How do you feel about ?

I have different feelings regarding different components, and the short of it is that I think it achieves a very distinct, overall actually fairly intuitive feel, but does it through horrible, horrible forced stats and math-y interactions that don't make immediate sense. What is says is that Jhin has really slow, but powerful attacks, and his fourth attack is extra deadly, and that much is fantastic. However, I think there's a lot of unnecessary stuff that could either be stripped away or simplified, though there are several current reasons why it can't right now (Jhin needs to scale with attack speed somehow because it's practically impossible for a marksman to not build attack speed, for example).

LivesByProxy wrote: if a passive is representive of the core / essence of a champion, what's more fitting that how they use their primary weapon?

No objections here. Regarding its relation to Imoen, though, I'm not sure it's quite fitting, because by and large she doesn't want to fight at all. She's this sneaky thief whose power comes from this ultimate skeleton key, which isn't really a combat-oriented tool, even if she'd use it as a weapon. She's also a caster, and none of her spells are really conducive to improving her combat proficiency, let alone her autoattacking strength (in fact, her W and Treasure! / Cache! aren't even really meant to be used in combat, so a ton of her power already doesn't lend itself to fighting). Even in the case of the innate you've given her, it mostly limits her autoattacking power in a way that isn't all that intuitive.

LivesByProxy wrote: You talk about Supports having better basic attacks, but these wouldn't *feel* powerful unless you were dealing tons of damage (like in the early game), right?

That's kinda my point. What I was saying is that you should move the entirety of a support's damage budget towards their autoattacks, which would give them the feel of dealing tons of damage, even if their damage would be quite bad. A support who deals 80 damage per hit at level 1, or 200 damage per hit at level 18, would really get to appreciate the feel of their meaty autoattacks, and if they have no other sources of damage, that could be acceptable.

Basically, every champion has a budget for different kinds of power, and more specifically, every support has a fairly short budget for damage. The current implementation so far for supports has been to spread that damage around, so sprinkle a bit across their spells, and the end result is damage output that is obviously fairly weak, but that also feels weak, to the reduced enjoyment of people playing those supports. What I'm proposing is to dedicate that budget purely to autoattack-based damage, so if you hold all else equal, those supports could have a source of damage that feels strong, even if it's still just as terrible, or even worse.

Generally, what you want to aim for is maximum perceived power per unit of actual power, so begin with trying to make an effect feel as strong as it can be while granting it as little real power as possible, then scaling up. An effect that feels really strong, but is weak in actuality, is usually really good to have around, because you can buff that effect and it'll feel even more awesome, but an effect that feels weak while actually being really strong (e.g. ) is terrible, because its strength is difficult to appreciate for both the user (this is usually why some champions don't see a lot of play unless they're OP) and the opponent. In the absolute worst cases, this can turn into the "hidden power" Riot sometimes mentions, such as, which is power that's really strong, sometimes even legitimately broken, but so difficult to appreciate it may as well not exist for all but the most experienced of players.

LivesByProxy wrote: now I'm tired and a bit disappointed that I've got more work to do!

I don't think this is really an opportunity for disappointment, and in fact I think it might be the opposite. Don't expect your kit to be perfect, or hold it up to that standard, because it'll never be perfect, no matter how much you polish it. What I can tell you, though, is that your kit is excellent, probably one of the best I have ever seen, and the changes you're going to make are likely going to improve it. Personally, when I revisit and update my kits (which I need to do for quite a few right now), it makes me tremendously happy to analyze them and figure out solutions to their flaws, or go into new design directions, and even when I realize that one of my concepts is fundamentally unworkable (which has happened at least once), I still take pride in the fact that my design philosophy has advanced to the point where I can make that judgment.

On a side note, I think this is what Reav3 was saying when he mentioned that Riot would likely never stop having Champion Update teams: design is a process of continuous refinement, so while you should always aim towards designing something to be the best it can be, "the best it can be" usually ends up being refined or even turned completely different over time. While a kit may better hold up in time than others, there will inevitably be a moment where you'll see an opportunity to improve something, and past a certain point it probably also comes down to person-to-person appreciation.