Riot Games released a dev insights post that is focusing on mobility, offering examples of when it's great and when it's bad while also hinting how they are going to tackle the problematic bunch.
Mobility items in League of Legends will be getting some nerfs in the future, hinted by Riot's latest Dev Insights post. Mark Yetter spoke about great and poor uses of mobility in the game, breaking it down to seven mobility groups in total, four of the examples of positive influence while others are negative.
Two of the positive positive examples of mobility are focused on champions that have glaring weaknesses and make up for them by having high mobility. Riot didn't specifically note any champions in this group but Jhin is likely one of them - he can dish out a ton of damage while outsprinting Usain Bolt but he is a squishy marksman that has a hard time dealing with tanks.
Another positive example of mobility is when it's used on powerful champions but paired with constraints. For example, Tristana can make risky jumps and provided she gets a takedown, she can get out safely or continue jumping into the enemy team.
The final example of positive mobility would be Flash, which has an extremely long cooldown tied to it. The ability provided some of the most fascinating plays we've witnessed in League's history but we don't get to use it often.
Now, the negative effects of mobility include removing the weakness of certain champions, mobility on new champions that makes older ones obsolete and high mobility with no constraints.
The first group is mostly about Juggernauts. These champions are meant to be powerful but unable to zip around the battlefield and the fact that Riot Scruffy specifically mentioned this group hints that some mobility items will get slapped in the future. Dead Man's Plate is probably one of the biggest targets for the nerf bat, followed by Stridebreaker and possibly Turbo Chemtank.
The second negative group is about new mobile champions that outshine the older ones. It remains to be seen how Riot will deal with this group but it's good to know that either the new ones will become less mobile or the older ones will get buffs. Either way, we are looking at less power creep in the future.
League of Legends - showcase of several champion splash arts
- Image: 1 / 10
Marksmen will probably enjoy that Riot acknowledged the third group - high mobility with no constraints. They singled out Kassadin as the problematic factor here but noted he has to survive the early game to get to this point. That said, let's hope they are going to offer at least some counterplay in late game and avoid teleporting us to League of Kassadin.
