League of Legends Devs Plan to Cut Back on "Systemic Mobility"
Riot Games is planning on dialing down League of Legends’ “systemic mobility” whish is to [...]
Riot Games is planning on dialing down League of Legends' "systemic mobility" whish is to say that champions who shouldn't be able to move around as much as they do are going to have some power trimmed away. That doesn't necessarily mean that the super mobile champs will become less mobile but instead means that if a champion isn't intended to be as mobile as they are now, you can expect them and their items to be changed in the future.
The first couple of champions that come to mind when thinking of Riot's project it says it's now "ramping up" include Juggernauts like Darius and Urgot. Both of them have mobility to a degree either through Darius' speed-boosting effects from damage-dealing items or Urgot's dash, but through things like the Stridebreaker item, these champions can move forward much quicker than expected, thus negating parts of their innate weaknesses.
Wanted to share an update of projects in flight on the SR team (they own balance and systems). These are in rough priority/timeline order but things can always change.
Notable new project is aimed at reducing systemic mobility in places where it has crept or gone too far. pic.twitter.com/326mJQJgc8
— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) May 13, 2021
That item specifically was called out in Mark "Riot Scruffy" Yetter's post about what's planned for League, but the gameplay design director didn't limit his comments to that weapon alone. Instead, he said Riot will be looking at more minor examples of "movement speed creep" elsewhere, but he didn't specifically mention anymore.
"A new project we're ramping up," said Riot Scruffy about the plans for the mobility changes. "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. These aren't meant to be nerfs, just power shifts away from too much mobility. A champion focused pass may come after, but we want to see the systems changes play out first."
So, it looks like your favorite movement-enhanced champions will be safe for now, but their items and other parts of their builds they've grown fond of might not be. While no individual runes were mentioned, ones like Approach Velocity and Phase Rush come to mind. One's a minor rune while Phase Rush is a Keystone, but the both provide movements boosts relatively easy to access which are made even more oppressive by the new items.
Galeforce is another item that may get changes, though it was never mentioned specifically. It's become a go-to choice for movement-less ADCs and even the already mobile ones, too, so perhaps it'll get altered alongside Stridebreaker.
