u/BaneOfAlduin

Timestamps and Summaries

Disclaimer that Summaries are my own words and to not take them at face value of exact words Endstep said. They are my interpretation of what he said and I tried my best.

[0:04](https://youtu.be/--Dd-36M-t4?si=gL1eB-Zb6bArgTeg&t=4 Energized Tank Item

Energized can be thought of like a cooldown with extra steps, those steps being moving and attacking.
- Can be applied to "Why isn't this item JUST a cooldown?
- Allows them to combine energized effects and let them play off each other. Such as old Cyclosword giving increased energized stacks for dashes.
- Also allows the cooldown to scale with attack speed.
Says that Energized exists as a system that fills a similar purpose to charges from Path of Exile (I can't help here, don't play POE)
Says they have tried historically to build an Energized vertical build, and it has failed every time (Energized vs OnHit vs Crit as build paths)
- Every time they try and build this, it leads to toxic gameplay along with not really being that different from Crit.
  - When you have 3-4 items that all add an amount of damage that is viable on it's own, you end up with some crazy damages on a single auto attack.
Endstep is a bit skeptical of meaningfully expanding the Energized ecosystem
- Says that Phlox was a big part of why the original Cyclosword was made because he saw that Assassins wanted a similar gameplay pattern
Wrapping around to energized tank item
- Thinks it was interesting
- Says most tanks don't actually move or attack a lot IN fights
- Says that he thinks tank items should work all the time, even when CCed, which is why Unending Despair/Jak'Sho work that way.
- Says it would need to be explicitly supporting a tank that REALLY wants to be moving around like Maokai or K'Sante.
Says they COULD make an Energized tank item, but to not expect one because they have other avenues to explore that are more broadly appealing to tanks.
- If they DID find a world where it fits in, they wouldn't hesitate to add it. But they aren't going out of their way to find those places.

16:12 Tank interaction with Platings and Turrets (Could tnaks have better access to killing plates or turrets?)

Explains that the main comment was saying it's baseline hard for tanks to interact with turrets, could they have more access?
- Answer is Yes, with an asterisk.
  - Says that it is correct for tanks to not be great at taking towers as a tradeoff for not building damage.
  - Says it is reasonable for tanks to have the hardest time taking towers
  - Says it may not be the right tuning currently that the degree of tanks interacting with towers is correct
  - Says there could be ways for enabling tanks to interact with towers better.
    - Brings up an explored "ego" starting item that rewarded you for damaging towers
Says baseline he isn't saying they should add an HP ratio to damaging towers.
Says they MAY need to back off a little on AP ratio on tower damage (currently 50%, was 40% in the past)
Says an item like Hullbreaker could be nice for tanks. An item that is attractive to tanks with a rider passive that is nice for hitting towers
- Gives an example of putting a 5x tower damage to Deadman's Plate passive.
Says the bigger thing is that they want to spread the access to this out.
- Notes that NOTHING K'Sante does works on towers, while Sion can even build damage.
- Says Shen Q was given the ability to interact with towers at a reduced value.
Says he dislikes that Shield Bash and Demolish are on the same row in runes because of champions like Shen.
Says the overall level of power that tanks have baseline against towers is probably correct, says that SOME tanks could opt into SOME systems to deal more damage to turrets could also make it's way into the game and be positive.

25:04 Why don't we see more placeable Items or Totems? Is there room in the item or trinket space for an item like this?

Starts by explaining that items have a visual budget
- Gives an example of items with Redemption levels of effects, and if 3 or more made it into a fight, the fight would become unintelligible.
- Says it happens in Aram Mayhem, but it is much more acceptable there because it is supposed to be chaotic.
Says any item they add that persists in the world is extremely noisy.
- Brings up an item he had explored in the past that made an untargetable ward that gave vision to just the caster but everyone could see.
  - Says another designer told him he needed to be REALLY sure about the gameplay if they were going to add it
Says that everything in the game that persists has a visual cost to it, and they tend to be conservative with them.
Says that items are treated as a force multiplier for champions and brings up Endless Hunger being that. It doesn't do anything new, just multiplies what you already have.
Says placeable items have a disconnect from the power it's giving.
Says he wouldn't be surprised if they eventually add something placeable because zone control is a compelling space.
- Gives an example of a control mage getting an item that creates a zone they are stronger in.
Says in the item space, it might have room. In the Trinket space, probably not, as it already probably exceeds the visual clutter it should have.

35:00 Why are a few champs not allowed to self-cast ally-targeted abilities, such as Rakan E, Galio R, Shen R.

Combination of some of these being off fantasy (Galio/Shen R)
- Says it makes sense that these global/semi global abilities that are off theme, make sense to NOT be self castable.
- Says they tend to make these champions stronger early and then ask them to use their ultimates to impact the map and spread that power.
Says Rakan E is a lot more interesting
- They wanted him to feel good about playing around his allies, and that playing around his allies was necessary.
- They gave him a very fast free target dash that they don't give other supports.
- Says it wouldn't exactly be fair to let Rakan self cast his shield on top of his passive shield.
Says there are probably a lot of reasons these spells can't be self cast
Says it's probably a good thing for there to be restrictions on spells sometimes.
- It makes you need to figure out what to do with what tools you have.
- Gives an example of Yasuo E
- Gives an example of the original Akali rework W as what it looks like when they give tools without restrictions.

42:34 Why even have anti-healing and anti-shielding in the game at all? It doesn't feel good on either end.

Says he doesn't think these are the same case.
Anti-Healing:
- Thinks it is important for the health of their systems.
- Says there is no direct counterplay to healing in the game because it JUST adds health
- Says they do want to offer ways for champions to combat attrition
- Says that because there are a ton of champions with powerful heals, and items with powerful healing, makes it so that counterplay to healing becomes necessary
  - Explains that healing becomes more powerful the more healing you have because you can't heal when you are dead.
  - Asks you to imagine an item that says "heal for x per second in combat." When you add another item that heals you, it makes that first item more linearly effective.
- Says they want healing to be a thing champions can apply to others, along with there being items you can buy to heal yourself.
  - Says that effects like Fiora Ultimate being strong and powerful and being able to stack with other healing means there should be a release valve to tone it down.
- Says that Yes, there are extreme cases where you can go infinite healing, but those should be the exception, not the normal experience.
- Says it is necessary for combat to be able to resolve.
Anti-Shielding:
- Says the reason Serpents Fang exists, is because when they were making Mythic items, they needed more lehtality items.
- Says it isn't until Mythics that they actually wanted to flesh out item ecosystems.
- Says they were looking for more ways to add assassin items that isn't just "Add damage to kill them faster"
  - Says Bastionbreaker/Umbral glaive are examples of this with Umbral being a great example of an item that does it's job really well and successfully. Admits that Bastionbreaker isn't doing it that well, but it might just be weak.
- Says Serpents Fang has had unintended splash damage to how they balance shields.
  - Gives an example of Sterak's Gage of a shield they added that is supposed to give a functional invulnerability when it pops.
  - Says the way Serpents Fang interacts with these shields isn't that great.
  - Says that stacking/cycling shields is fine because they all have durations and some even decay.
    - Admits there are probably some shields that have too high of an uptime such as Ivern E.
- Says he doesn't think Anti-Shielding is a necessary mechanic in the same way Anti-Healing is
- Says a lot of his concerns about Serpents Fang go away at lower anti-shield ratios.
- Says he is also very skeptical of shield-breaking in kits outside of stuff like Blitz-R

59:19 Do you think a reshape of Rocketbelt would be appropriate?

Disclaimer before answering: Endstep does not work on live pod. Also brings up that Rocketbelt has picked up in pro especially on mages.
Says they think they probably should reshape Rocketbelt because they kept buffing it because nobody bought it.
- Goal of Rocketbelt was that it was a good item for riskier assassins to have extra reach in exchange for killing power.
  - Gives the example of Evelynn losing damage in comparison to Lich Bane, but has more engage range on her W.
Says that because Rocketbelt has so much health and haste for so cheap, it is currently in a state where it is STILL bad on these assassins, but because the stats are so juiced, some mages can opt into it second item for the dash on a relatively low cooldown.
Says they kinda just buffed the stats because it used to work, so if they just buffed the stats, assassins might buy it again.
Says AP doesn't have an attack speed or crit equivalent so it makes it hard to differentiate items between the classes. On AD items, they can just add attack speed or crit to push an item towards marksman.
Says that for them to actually try and get AP assassins to try and buy it first item, they would need to make the active really good when finished but not scale well, making it worse for dodging later in the game.
- Says most of the mages are using it just as a defensive tool that they aren't paying the appropriate cost for because of the juiced stats.
Says it doesn't offend him when a 20/0 Varus one shots a tank with AP, but when they do it at 0/0 it becomes a problem.
Says he doesn't think mages are giving up enough for Rocketbelt being used defensively right now.

1:05:10 Can we standardize DOT effects? (Tick rate, champions applying spell effects, etc)

Short answer is that they WON'T because it would not be good for the game.
- Says it is good that champions like Brand or Lilia have high synergy to items that say "Apply a spell effect"
- Conversely, you have champions like Twitch where they DON'T want it applying spell effects, even in the case of AP Twitch.
  - They don't want him to just auto you once for full value of Liandries/Rylias.
Says he does think they could do a better job of explaining how things apply effects.
- Says they could even just add a little icon on spells that says "I apply spell effects"
In regards to tickrate, he thinks it's good that certain high impact DOT's such as Ignite or Darius passive tick slower in comparison to core gameplay loop DOT's like Brand/Malz.
Says sometimes they want to manipulate it for small reasons
- Gives the example of DFT ticking 2x per second instead of 4 because the numbers need to be really low early game.
- Says it would take a long time for the effect to show more than 1 damage per tick, which feels bad for players.
Says they COULD do this, but they won't.

Timestamps: Summaries are by me and should not be taken at face value of the exact words Endstep said

0:02 Can we get an anti-shield option for AP Assassins (not mages)? (Advantaged against shields, not a shield reduction)

TLDR: Shields SHOULD be good against assassins.
It's hard to make an item in the AP ecosystem that is specifically for AP assassin's because of how non-differentiated the AP ecosystem is besides mana items for mages.
Says they probably shouldn't have a heavy anti-shield counter item with Serpent's Fang probably being out of line at 50%.
Says that light anti-shield passives such as old Shadowflame don't feel compelling to the player, although the approach might just be to add multiple of them instead.
Overall skeptical they would want to make an item in that space, but it isn't impossible.

13:03 Systemically delaying when boots can be purchased (tier 1 or tier 2 boots) (Very specific concern around ranged toplaners)

Says that maybe the tools for melee tops into ranged top laners aren't strong enough, says they could increase the health regen on top's OR buff doran's shield/second wind.
IF they decided they wanted to address top lane ranged champions in a world they deemed it too strong (which they might be), the immediate solution would be to increase regen which gives more access to gold which would give access to the longsword or boots, etc. The small difference adds up over the game.
Questions if Tier 2 boots are the same level of power across different champions/roles.
- Says that because boots have flat MS, the ranged champions with lower MS gain a larger benefit from them, and suggests that ranged champions gain more benefit from buying boots in contrast to fast champions like Master Yi.
- Questions, that if they gave tiered MS based on how fast you are, what would the outcomes be if they neutralized the differences of base MS.
- Thinks it probably makes bot lane care about boots less.
- Says the global system of MS could probably be more equitable, but that is a massive scope project that might not be worth it. Says they COULD come to the conclusion that ranged champions benefit from boots too much and that something could be done to equalize for melees.
Rolling back around. No, it's ridiculous to lock out boots behind a legendary item because a ranged toplaner MIGHT buy boots 2 early.

24:40 Is there any space in the toplane champion pool for a melee ability based AP diver?

Short answer; yes. In general, the answer is usually going to be yes when asked this type of question. The question isn't "is X possible?" it's "is X compelling?".

27:06 Thoughts on Quinn's state? Maxing W (the vision spell), full burst ranged Talon build tendency. Quality of life changes when?

Calls out the questioner for complaining about Quinn being weak early AND weak late, and that it is just patently not true.
Says her late game isn't actually that bad to have a bad ADC that can always be present in fights.
Says they had called out in development for the season that Quinn would be a champion that wouldn't care about the extra level cap, and they did buff her level scaling to compensate.
Says systemic changes have combined to change how Quinn views the game.
Says Quinn didn't NEED Symbiotic Soles statistically, but they made her feel special.
Admits that some of their systems changes have made Quinn feel less good.
There is a lot of debate internally about what should be the correct skill order for Quinn.
- Q max results in a more direct ranged Talon, because it becomes a binary "did I hit Q. You died" type of situation.
- Says there a lot of undesirable consequences that manifests as Quinn having good waveclear and only looking to one shot people, versus W max letting Quinn approach fights/skirmishes from a perspective of getting autos off.
- Says he admits that maxing effectively a passive spell is awkward for her.
- Says they have thought about what happens if they move the passive to Q, and that you would max E in this world most likely.
- He doesn't know where they would pull power from for this though.
Admits Quinn is in an unfortunate position where Mid is more powerful than top, which players don't like, and then systemic changes made that even more the case.
Says Quinn could probably be a champion that would benefit with changes. He throws out that her roam timers could be a question they ask.

37:53 Your thoughts as a system designer as it relates to WASD in ranked? (What is the influence on day to day work)

Simple answer is it doesn't effect his work that much if at all.
Thought it was an interesting topic because a lot of people internally thought WASD would have a big impact on certain classes, but over time, they came to the conclusion that with the right mechanics and version, it didn't effect the outputs any, only the inputs.
- Brings up controller in FPS games where the developers gave aim assist to controller players because it is much harder to aim.
- Says the reality in the difference between outputs between WASD and click-to-move was much lower than most control schemes offered in games.
- Says they designed it so the skill check for kiting was made to be the same as point-to-click, requiring you to let go at the right times.
Says that none of his things as a systems designer are effected by WASD. Thinks map design/terrain might be the only thing impacted by WASD, and says that 8 directions of movement is close enough to approximate click to move.
Says from champion design, there is things you can make that are more friendly to click-to-move or WASD.

43:07 Could Smolder get midlane focused buffs with Fearless becoming a more prevalent proplay format?

Says he loves fearless but doesn't think it solves any of the problems about Smolder mid.
Says when Smolder was more stack scaling instead of item scaling, had this problem where the only way to take power from his late game was to take power form his early.
- This made his bot lane 2v2 non functional because he couldn't out trade other adcs.
- But just being ranged with a caster spell in solo lanes made him just better there.
Brings up Kayle mid where they think they've found some effective levers to nerf Kayle mid relative to Kayle top.
The version of Smolder they had that was stack scaling was significantly gated by his solo lanes which meant they couldn't buff his bot lane that needed help.
Says that during the marksman mid meta, that ADC's mid was just the way to play the game because against melees, they just bullied the assassins. And against mages, they had the sustain to eventually out-sustain the lane and outscale them.
All this said, he says it isn't wrong to want to play Smolder mid, he played it some and thought it was fun.
- Says they need to figure out how to make him not have the same gameplay problems that doesn't have splash damage bot.
- Brings up Kog'Maw that just outright goes AP mid which still scales pretty well. But he has a pretty weak early game.
- Says if Smolder had a different build mid, that might be okay. Mentions AP/Lethality being how he played mid.
- Says he still scales okay off stacks, and he does get accelerated stacks in mid.
- Says he needs a reasonable gameplan of how to play the game without just out-sustaining and out-scaling everyone.
  - Says it could look like a mana scaling that isn't used bot.
Would love to take a stab at how to make Smolder mid not a problem, but playable.

51:40 Could slowing champion DOT tickrates be an effective way to balance some spell effects on them? (Less than 1s to make Rylai's not 100% uptime)

Short answer is that he doesn't think it would be quite effective.
Thinks it would lose a lot of what makes a DOT a DOT.
- Says most of their DOTs are 3-4 seconds
- Gives an example of a 3s DOT that has it's tickrate lowered to 1.5s
  - Says this would now be a DOT that does damage twice over 3s and doesn't feel attached to the spell. Just feels like slightly chunkier delayed damage (like a worse Zed ultimate)
  - Says if they made the DOT 1-1.5s tickrate, it would STILL have high uptime Rylais with 60-80% uptime which would still provide the benefits of a movement advantage near permanently.
  - Asks what happens if the Brand just spaces spells out and it just doesn't have any difference from live.
Says the lower they make DOT tickrates, the less they feel like DOTs.
- Brings up how fast paced League is where in other games with 1-2s DOT tickrates, these are on effects that are 1-2 minutes.
Says there are other solutions they could approach if they think the synergy between Rylai's and DOTs was too high, with two solutions jumping to mind.
- The first bad solution would be a per target cooldown. Would probably need to be really finicky around preventing you from wasting your Rylai's slow on a already stunned target.
  - Thinks its an interesting thought experiment, but not a good solution.
- The actual serious solution: Go back to the older version of Rylai's that slowed for different amounts for different spell types.
Says there are a lot of reasons they don't do this anymore.
- Rylai's is SUPPOSED to be good on champions with damage over time.
Says the actual read on different slow amounts for different spells would make people think the item is bad on them even if it isn't.
- Says they have done an ultimate disservice if they did these changes and Brand doesn't feel good about the item anymore.

1:02:05 Rod of Ages changes? (Could it gain ability haste?)

Says he doesn't normally put these types of questions in but thought this one WAS interesting because he did debate putting haste on ROA.
Says his conclusion when he was working on the AP system was that there was too much health you couldn't avoid, and there was too much haste in the system. That haste needed to be a more intentional choice.
Says these changes made the ecosystem work better for everyone.
Says he DID consider having haste on ROA. One of the other people on the design team had brought up that if you were buying AP/Mana/HP, you probably want haste because you are casting a lot of spells.
- Says his conclusion at the time was that it was "No" because Lost Chapter has haste on it.
Says the old solution during the Mythic system was to slap haste on everything which caused there to be a lot of haste in the system which made cooldowns be a bit lower than they should have been.
Says there might be a better system where Lost Chapter doesn't have haste on it, but Ludens and ROA does.
Says he had tested Luden's with 10 haste but didn't ship it, but the live pod actually went and re-added it and made him happy.
Says it's possible a world where Lost Chapter combines with haste items to give you Archangels and BFT that SHOULD have haste on them, while Luden's is the no haste item.
- Says it lines up with his line of thinking of not forcing haste on champions that don't want haste.
Ultimately, Haste could make sense on ROA, but he doesn't want to homogenize all ap starting items to all have haste on them.

Riot Endstep Discord Q&amp;A 22 - Energized Items, Rocketbelt, Anti-Heal

Riot Endstep Discord Q&A 22 - Energized Items, Rocketbelt, Anti-Heal