It appears Riot is going for a change of pace with League of Legends’ mobility.
Gameplay design director Mark “Scruffy” Yetter updated fans today on all the Summoner’s Rift projects in the pipeline. And while most of them were already known, like the Tahm Kench update or increasing the viability of splitpushing, a new focus on limiting systemic mobility is definitely noteworthy.
“This is going to be both addressing major mobility outliers that go too far breaking intended weaknesses (like Stridebreaker) and trimming lots of small movement speed creep across items and runes,” Scruffy said. “These aren’t meant to be nerfs, just power shifts away from too much mobility.”
The “intended weaknesses” that Scruffy is likely alluding to is for bruiser champions that need to be relatively close to deal damage. Throwing Stridebreaker on an Olaf or Darius eliminates that weakness since it allows those champions to close the gap with a dash. These cases are outliers that negatively impact the integrity of the game, making it difficult for carries to escape their doom.
While those cases appear to be a more major focus of the systemic mobility reduction, Riot also plans to limit the movement speed that some items and runes provide. The Approach Velocity rune, for example, grants bonus speed when running at enemies whose movement is impaired. So if an AD carry gets hit by an Olaf axe, there’s little counterplay.
Riot didn’t offer a specific timeline for these changes, referring to it as a “new project” that the devs are “ramping up.” With little other information provided, it may still be in its early iterations. And if the mobility reduction isn’t enough, Riot will then target specific champions.
As for other projects players can expect down the line, Riot’s working on tank and enchanter legendary item options and a Sona mini-update.
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