User blog:Mr Lovely/Reign of the Purple Caster Minion, First Impressions

Was going to post this in the patch notes comments, but large wall of text and there's no reason the opinions of an inexperienced waif like me should be forced on anyone.

Played a quick bot stomp. This is what I have observed from this brief survey of the new minion/turret system:

Minions can kill turrets hella fast now if let to push. However, you can also rejoin your lane much faster after you die early on. This seems to make early game tower dives a more trivial risk, and perhaps even more in favour of the diver who sacrifices themselves. Tower hugging looks like it will be a little harder.

Cannon minions are pretty devastating now. They don't die quickly and your tower will take a lot more damage from the surrounding minion wave as it wastes time shooting them.

Playing as Alistar and just a sheen throughout, early game farming just as easy. It does seem like it took longer for me to clear minion waves towards the later part of the game. I doubt this will be much issue for champions who are geared towards damage output, but the rest may have to last hit a little more intelligently for efficient growth.

The damage rework on the turrets was hardly noticeable on Alistar (even without using his ultimate). I'm going to attempt a survivability comparison between a champion with stacked health versus one with stacked armor to better determine what impact this made.

My speculations:


 * Shorter games achieved.


 * Lane dominating champions may become more powerful than accounted for (let's see how Caitlyn does, for example). Hoping this doesn't become too much of the new meta game, however.


 * I think this is a relative nerf to junglers. Your top lane solo has a much higher chance of getting overpowered early and allowing your towers to take early damage seems much more troublesome.


 * I expect more strategy may be needed on the issue of when to initiate teamfights. I might try to force a drawn out teamfight even if your team is outmatched if you're currently pushing the lanes. It seems like it will be harder to reverse a mid game push that takes your towers even if you kill the opposing team. My reasoning for this is the combination of lower revive times and more durable minion waves. If you draw out the fight and don't all die at the same time, I think you should be able to have your defenses up before a counter attack can be made.

Yes, well just working out my own thoughts. I'll be anxious to see how a real game turn out when I have the time to play one. Feel free to call out my idiocy in the mean time.