Quick Gameplay Thoughts: Jan 15

Small Rammus Update.
Dev
Riot Scruffy

Disclaimer

These posts will often contain talk about future work we're doing, or planning to do, that isn't yet guaranteed to ship. The work or goals could change depending on what we discover, and projects mentioned may get delayed or even stopped. That said, I believe it’s important to share as much as we can even if plans may change.

Small Rammus Update Coming Soon

If you watched Wild Rift's section of Season 2021 Opening Day, you saw their plans for bringing Rammus to their game through a freshened up take on this classic champion from the early days of LoL. The Wild Rift and League PC teams share the same core design values so we approach projects like champion updates together so that we can craft the best champions for each game’s needs. With Rammus in particular we collaborated to upgrade the parts of his gameplay that had aged the most while keeping his iconic speedy core intact.

Generally we want LoL PC and Wild Rift to be as similar as possible, but in the end, we'd rather have differences between League PC and Wild Rift than force one game to use the other's design where it doesn't make sense. Looking at Rammus’s biggest areas for improvement on PC, we put together a small list of changes to keep his core play pattern intact but upgrade some of the spells (like R) that are most under delivering.

Goals:

  • Increase gameplay options for Rammus. Give a historically linear character more choices and interactions beyond just running at someone and taunting. Broadening gameplay should also help Rammus out in higher MMRs.
  • Giving Rammus players a distinctive high-point that properly reflects his high-speed fantasy.
  • Aim is to be power-neutral, with the understanding that these new tools probably buff him a bit at high MMR.
  • Improve clarity and satisfaction on both VFX and SFX

Changelist:

  • Puncturing Taunt (E)
    • Taunt duration is increased by 250% on monsters.
    • Cooldown :: 12/11.5/11/105/10 >>> 12 at all ranks
    • Taunt Duration :: 1.25-2.25 >>> 1-2 seconds
    • (Trimming some power here to account for his powerful new ultimate)
  • Soaring Slam (R)
    • Rammus leaps into the air and slams down at a target location, dealing magic damage and Slowing enemies for 1 second.
    • If Soaring Slam is cast while Rammus is in Powerball, enemies near the center are also Knocked Up and take Powerball's collision damage, ending Powerball's effect.
    • Rammus also generates 3 additional aftershocks at the target location, each one dealing a small amount of magic damage and refreshing the initial slow.
    • Soaring Slam deals 200% damage to turrets.
    • Soaring Slam's range increased based on Rammus' Move Speed.
    • Cooldown :: 100/80/60 >>> 120/100/80 seconds

We haven’t forgotten about the Tahm Kench small update that we teased a few months back. He’s still in our plans, just taking longer because there is more involved art and sound work to do to make him polished and ship worthy. Thanks for the patience on that one, we’ll update again when it's coming to live.

Thanks again for playing League with us. Stay safe out there.