I like most of these mage changes in theory.
Vel'koz changes make him terrifying if he actually gets the deconstruct and then ults. This is the first time I said "holy shit" just watching the ability preview video. That plus not showing enemies the split point for the Q is actually pretty sweet. On the other hand the rest of his kit (besides Q) all got somewhat weaker, so there's a lot more emphasis on getting your three hit passive off. Since the changes are all on ratio and he got sustain on his Q his lane phase is probably a little bit stronger and I think they definitely succeeded at making him a tankbuster mage. Need to look at the new mage items and think about him.
Cassie is interesting, fixed W range is pretty painful. She does not get much coverage for her immobility! But her teamfight looks a lot better. She'll be even more painful in ARAM than before. Like the Twin Fang changes to lessen the falloff for nonperfect play a lot.
Malzahar is actually pretty interesting to me. Passive makes it impossible to gank him unless he got poked right beforehand. I like the voidspawn design quite a bit but it seems pretty painful in lane because you can literally just walk up, bounce E to the enemy champ, spit out a voidspawn and waste a ton of their time. I could be overestimating their durability. Rolling the void zone into Nether Grasp is pretty smart, although it sounds like Malz's burst-out capability is gone. But if you can drop voidspawn on them before you ult them it might do a decent amount.
Not sure about Brand, sounds crazy powerful to me but no numbers.
Zyra design is exactly what I predicted, except I didn't catch the escape valve by still letting her plant seeds, which is pretty smart. Notice the similarities between Zyra and Illaoi since they are both setup zone control characters in their respective roles -- kind of shows what kind of improvements Illaoi needs.
Vel'koz changes make him terrifying if he actually gets the deconstruct and then ults. This is the first time I said "holy shit" just watching the ability preview video. That plus not showing enemies the split point for the Q is actually pretty sweet. On the other hand the rest of his kit (besides Q) all got somewhat weaker, so there's a lot more emphasis on getting your three hit passive off. Since the changes are all on ratio and he got sustain on his Q his lane phase is probably a little bit stronger and I think they definitely succeeded at making him a tankbuster mage. Need to look at the new mage items and think about him.
Cassie is interesting, fixed W range is pretty painful. She does not get much coverage for her immobility! But her teamfight looks a lot better. She'll be even more painful in ARAM than before. Like the Twin Fang changes to lessen the falloff for nonperfect play a lot.
Malzahar is actually pretty interesting to me. Passive makes it impossible to gank him unless he got poked right beforehand. I like the voidspawn design quite a bit but it seems pretty painful in lane because you can literally just walk up, bounce E to the enemy champ, spit out a voidspawn and waste a ton of their time. I could be overestimating their durability. Rolling the void zone into Nether Grasp is pretty smart, although it sounds like Malz's burst-out capability is gone. But if you can drop voidspawn on them before you ult them it might do a decent amount.
Not sure about Brand, sounds crazy powerful to me but no numbers.
Zyra design is exactly what I predicted, except I didn't catch the escape valve by still letting her plant seeds, which is pretty smart. Notice the similarities between Zyra and Illaoi since they are both setup zone control characters in their respective roles -- kind of shows what kind of improvements Illaoi needs.
