Stealth, Twitch, Evelynn reworks

[Carmine]

Hm. Okay, well, I suppose it's been a while since I've given an update so I'll chime in on this a little:

Following up from last time, the general problem(s) with long term stealth was:

1. There was no way for the opponents to get an inkling of how clever the stealth player was being, and thus there was no good way to get a sense of how that player operates.
2. Stealth is claustrophobic in the way that it makes you play.
3. Stealth gives very powerful scouting information while simultaneously hiding that information from your opponent.

We tried some iterations past the first few tests, with Paranoia, alternate resource bars, footprints, phasing and mark systems but in the end, we settled on the current system because it was the simplest solution for long-term stealth. In short: "Everyone has reduced Oracles, but Evelynn and Twitch are perma-stealthed."

Some Partial Stealth Details

Disclaimer: I fully understand this destroys a *lot* of the current stealth gameplay changes. Unfortunately, through lots of iteration, I was unable to capture the feeling of pure invisibility while in stealth while having fun gameplay. In the end, I decided to opt for a very simple system that was highly understandable over some more fiddling mechanics.

1. Evelynn and Twitch are permanently stealthed when they rank their level one stealth abilities. However, Evelynn and Twitch can be seen when they are within X units of an enemy champion (Slightly under vision range), or when they are within a true sight radius.

If they attack, they are revealed briefly for 2 seconds before going back into stealth.

This 'X' is being adjusted for feel between the two champions. 'X' is smaller than champion vision radius, so you can "stalk" an opposing champion, but it will be farther away.

2. Evelynn and Twitch have a "sight gem" above opponent's, telling them when the enemy can see them or not and whether they are "safe" (green sight gem), "warning - you are close to being seen, but still unseen" (yellow sight gem) or "being seen" (red sight gem.)

Results

Long Term Stealth, in this case, has been removed as a primary initiation mechanic but allows Eve and Twitch to cross minion vision and regular sight bubbles with impunity and sneak into brush patches by circle/stalk their opponents. Their opponents can likewise spot-check areas with their own reveal radius and create zones were stealth characters "probably aren't, otherwise they'd be seen."

The sight gem allows the Eve/Twitch player to take much of the guesswork out of figuring out when they were being seen or revealed and allows them to put more of their thoughts on clever positioning and sneaking around their opponents, especially for lane ganks.

This also lets us make them more combat oriented characters that don't immediately blow up on start. In general, this stealth has proven to be very difficult to use but allows characters to have some bluff gameplay and interesting circle/stalk gameplay in testing. Your characters can still scout, but at a highly diminished effectiveness (due to the increased range.)

In team fights, stealth proved to be less effective than before, so the character's combat viabilities are being looked at through reworks/remakes.

What is blocking us on releasing this:

1. There's a pretty big problem with the concept known as Oracle-Sweeping. We'd want to replace Oracle's elixir with someone that doesn't cause such weird gameplay but as to what would be a *good* replacement is a little up in the air.

2. General particle/kit rebalancing work - We need to heavily redo Evelynn and Twitch's kits and that comes different visuals and graphical effects.

What I am testing right now - Additionally

Sight wards as being partial motion sensors - Sight wards signalling when a hostile is moving nearby?
"Robot Chicken" scout drone
"Wriggles" for supports?

I probably shouldn't do this but as compensation, some sneaks..

Evelynn can have her stun back, because now you have advanced warning of her when she steps in. She might need a short-step-stun in order to successfully initiate. Testing required. Twitch has proven to be a slightly harder problem in internal testing.

As an aside: Hate spike is now awesome (for me, at least). Evelynn now has Champion prioritizing Lurker Spines. This makes her lane less bad.

As usual, feel free to ask questions for a little bit as I stick around. I don't know all the details of the full remake (as Live better understands that new environment). Sorry for the delay, but with Orianna/Champion pipeline and such, this has been somewhat of a lower priority for me.

I can give a breakdown of the changes.

Please note that this is the current prototype and is not final, please dont use this against me and make me regret giving info.

Character Passive: Damage is retaining true and is being lowered a bit. Duration is being increased.

Q: Now a passive/active. Passive is the Xypherous outlined stealth rework. Active grants bonus attack speed for x seconds and instantly reloads x Vile Bolts into Twitch's crossbow.

W: Debilitating Poison: Now requires poison on the target to cast. Cast range increased by double. Can no longer be cast if there are no valid targets in range.

E: New Spell. Fires a narrow line missile instantly that deals total attack damage and includes on hit effects. High range, .75 second cooldown but requires Vile Bolts. Vile Bolts are Twitch's ammo resource that replenishes over time or by reloading via Q.

R: Expunge: Can no longer be cast if there is no target in range. Requires poison, cast range doubled. Damage heavily increased.

Usual Disclaimer: Please note that this is the current prototype and is not final, please dont use this against me and make me regret giving info.


This is the current prototype Evelynn kit. I wanted to remove a lot of her problems while retaining what I can from what people like about Eve. All names are placeholder. The changes should allow her to have a lot more reliable utility/assassination in cases where she is not stealthed, but remove the feeling of helplessly having no options besides "buy oracle, buy pink wards". Should help with her binary nature.

Passive: Soul Striker: Autoattacks shred flat MR. Spells shred flat Armor. Stacks.

Q: Prana Bolt: Changed to be a pass through missile that seeks its first target in the same way hate spike does.

W: Shadow Stitching. Passive - Bend the Shadows: Xypherous outlined stealth rework. Active - Disperse the Shadows: Evelynn reveals the target area at range for x (scaling) seconds. (scaling range).

E: Ravage Chakra: Evelynn deals damage and instantly stuns the target, dashing towards them immediately after it casts. (Different from leap stuns like pantheon, as it stuns you after they leap to you). No longer shreds armor/mr.

R: Ethreal Ascension: Evelynn ascends to her true form, gains attack speed and movement speed. Upon first transforming she is shrouded in energy and blocks up to X damage for 1.5 seconds. No longer heals on target kill, refreshes on kill still.

For anyone who hasn't seen these yet. Evelynn and Twitch sounds soooo much more fun.

 

[Shiznoe]

Omg thank god I <3 Evelynn too

 

[Lava]

Y u no post in other thread

 

[Carmine]

Y u no post in other thread

Completely missed it, whoops.

 

[Tumblin]

I <3 Twitch!

 

[longshot]

happy they buff twitch he wasn't up to par with other char lately

 

[joshcash]

Might play twitch now.

 

[Kami]

tldr someone queue me in

 

[Novon]

Well I'm tempted to play stealth now. Sounds much more viable/fun now.

 

[Jashadow]

Interesting. I might play stealthers more often. Although, this makes oracles kind of useless, right? And roaming a LOT easier..

 

[Enforce]

 

[Shiznoe]

Pointless?

Anyways I just played evelynn and I did pretty good with her.

 

[Carmine]

Interesting. I might play stealthers more often. Although, this makes oracles kind of useless, right? And roaming a LOT easier..

1. There's a pretty big problem with the concept known as Oracle-Sweeping. We'd want to replace Oracle's elixir with someone that doesn't cause such weird gameplay but as to what would be a *good* replacement is a little up in the air.

They want to get rid of oracle's elixir.

ponies

Please keep the ponies relevant.

 

[Jashadow]

1. There's a pretty big problem with the concept known as Oracle-Sweeping. We'd want to replace Oracle's elixir with someone that doesn't cause such weird gameplay but as to what would be a *good* replacement is a little up in the air.

They want to get rid of oracle's elixir.

What about wards? Does that mean I can just stumble upon them and break them whenever?

Also, ponies are stupid.

 

[Kami]

What's with people and ponies.. not funny at all .

 

[Carmine]

What about wards? Does that mean I can just stumble upon them and break them whenever?

Also, ponies are stupid.

You would have to use pink wards to clear enemy wards. This will make Baron more heavily contested as ward clearing will have to be done more methodically.

 

[Jashadow]

You would have to use pink wards to clear enemy wards. This will make Baron more heavily contested as ward clearing will have to be done more methodically.

Still, I buy oracles to find most of my enemy wards. That just means I'll have to spend more money to find more enemy wards. No, not EVERY ward, but I'd hate that early game if I seemed to be doing well, I was stopped because of wards I could pretty much not counter.. if that made sense. Oracles are just nice to have, for wards and stealthers. That makes Akali pretty much untargetable unless you're carrying a ward, which won't happen late game.
I just think they should keep oracles. Maybe if you have one, you can have a bit more notice to stealthers? And you can find wards. That'd be better.

Also, Ponies are still stupid.

 

[Carmine]

Still, I buy oracles to find most of my enemy wards. That just means I'll have to spend more money to find more enemy wards. No, not EVERY ward, but I'd hate that early game if I seemed to be doing well, I was stopped because of wards I could pretty much not counter.. if that made sense. Oracles are just nice to have, for wards and stealthers. That makes Akali pretty much untargetable unless you're carrying a ward, which won't happen late game.
I just think they should keep oracles. Maybe if you have one, you can have a bit more notice to stealthers? And you can find wards. That'd be better.

Also, Ponies are still stupid.

Oracles is seen as a problem because ward sweeping is way too powerful and prevents teams that are down from recovering from a bad start. Once an enemy team gets control of the river and they are ahead of you that is usually game, you can place a ward at baron but they will immediately come and destroy it, then you have no idea if they are doing baron or ambushing you until your team's CV comes off cooldown. As a result of this more pink wards will have to be bought to counter dragon and baron wards which can in turn be countered by smart ward placement. I assume the items they are thinking about adding will include a non ward device to detect invisible characters like Shaco and Akali. Ward sweeping is toxic to the game and prevents comebacks.