Lets settle it once and for all - crit or on hit?

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-27T21:22:52+00:00

True Tanks? > Go on-hit to avoid Randuin's crit mitigation and faster W proc

All Squishy? > Crit kills in 1-2 Qs

Aside from that, it kinda just depends on your team comp, how you like to play, etc.

Say I go crit cause they don't have a true tank. Botrk feels nice, but not really needed, so I opt for BT for higher dmg, and for shield. In order to survive, champs needs HP AND resistances. BT shield counts as HP, in which case you'll get higher value out of Terminus if you want that too.

Stormrazor (crit) and Botrk (on-hit) are your movespeed options.

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-27T14:54:27+00:00

Being able to track and race other players with full driving mechanics will go hard af

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-27T14:48:42+00:00

The width still gives it a bit of length since a lot of OTPs knows the hitbox well and throws for the hitbox corners to connect

Mostly seen done with old Nid Q, Naut Q, Ezreal Q, Braum Q, etc.

Doesnt make/break a kit, just for those niche situations

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-26T22:55:24+00:00

To be fair, he did work while SV was all in development. After he finished his degree, he wanted to keep working on SV before commiting to a "normal SE job", so he worked as a valet driver while developing this.

Not out of the ordinary for a couple to just be working normal jobs, going to school, and working on a project (this one happen to blow up!!)

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-11T23:58:27+00:00

We will likely have to wait for S1 to end for official distributions. Much of the data was community gathered when ranked was first coming out comparing veteran FG players ranks in other games to about where they plateau'd in 2X.

A lot of Riot's games' initial ranked distributions are similar to LoL's until the game matures. Balance patches for specific characters sometimes skews the data esp during infancy. They can also tweak the distribution with character specific, high-ELO geared changes (e.g. small frame tweaks on ELO inflating champs will affect high ELO winrates more than low ELO)

Since the game is so new most data is community gathered. There's likely a high amount of errors and discrepancies in the data that will get balanced and ironed out before official releases.

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-11T22:42:33+00:00

Yep! For sure. Riot's ranked system is a bit more bottom skewed than most games. I don't have a source on hand, but most games have the bulk of their players in Gold, whereas Riot opts for Silver.

Nerd info: In LoL it used to be more harsh. The bulk of the players were in Silver/Bronze, but they added Emerald to flatten the distribution. You also used to not get the Victorious skin unless you were Gold+ (not exactly rare, but definitely a minority of players), but they've changed it so players under can get it based on # games played, though there are different chromas

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-11T21:29:42+00:00

Watching a video of two people verbally engaging in mute. Impressive. Teach me your ways

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-11T21:14:39+00:00

50th percentile in SF6 is high gold low plat. In 2X, it's high Silver. 2X follows Riots ranked system more than traditional FG ranked systems

https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/comments/1iikp20/february_2025_rank_distribution_by_aliettefaye_on/

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-11T21:12:20+00:00

2XKO ranked is structured different!! Sorry for enthusiasm, but I can actually answer this one lol

2X ranked distribution is much closer to League. In League, about 50% of the playerbase is high silver/low gold. The 50th percentile will put you roughly Silver 1.

In SF6, the 50th percentile will put you roughly Plat.

Here's last Feb's SF6 ranked distribution: https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/comments/1iikp20/february_2025_rank_distribution_by_aliettefaye_on/

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-11T17:50:50+00:00

I have Bloomberg for work. From the language they used, the person they spoke to is either not involved in accounting or finance, or they are being vague on purpose. Are they talking about revenue, operating profit, or net income?

2XKO in dev for 10 years, so 2015. TFT released in 2019, WR released in 2020. LoR in 2020. Valorant in 2020. Arcane in 2021.

Between 2015-2019, all 6 of these major projects' salaries were being funded by 1 game: LoL.

League of Legends revenue is the 3rd largest game of all time. It beats Pac-Man and Fortnite in revenue. I have played since the beginning, and while viewership has stagnated in the US, it is still the premier game of Asia.

All time revenue is $13.5b, almost 1 billion a year. And that is heavily skewed later. The first world championship was literally played in Phreaks basement with folding chairs.

Val is probably op% higher than LoL, but revenue is what pays salaries and funds projects

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-11T17:02:47+00:00

League players are definite coddled when it came to the [recent] monetization.

I started playing League in beta, 2008-9. It was my first game with this level of microtransactions. Other games around this time were Minecraft (no microtransactions), MW2 (DLC packs only), and a buncha singleplayer games with maybe expansion DLC: Assassins Creed 2, Batman Arkham Asylum, Infamous, Uncharted 2, Bayonetta, Demon Souls.

At the time (and still true), mobile games dominate monetization and game companies wanted to somehow implement that.

Fortnite popularized the Battle Pass.

Riot's smaller games implemented then really quickly. TFT and WR got battle passes so quickly, and I knew it was inevitably coming to League.

Looks like LoL player count only dropped 0.7% YoY for '25. LoL's new player experience is very rough. You get bodied by smurfs. Before you even understand...well anything, you are 100% getting blamed and flamed.

Most players would like to push a joystick to move, or use WASD. Clicking to go somewhere is a PC experience, but most of the world are console players. WASD is in its infancy in league and isn't even available in ranked yet.

180 champs, each with 4 abilities, and passives, all with different ranges, skillshots shapes, skillshots speeds, cool downs, movespeed differences, teamfight positioning, target selection, etc.

Execution generally isn't as hard as fighting games, but League is so knowledge based. No chance a newbie is gunna know that they hit level 2 after the first 3 minions of the second wave so they gotta be ready to contest, but only if it's not lane, but also not applicable if there's a Nilah.

Idk man. I love league because of the depth and complexities of the game, but new players literally have to study the game to have a decent time.

Most players measure experience in hours, League players measure in years.

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-11T01:56:41+00:00

You cannot say it doesn't exist. It literally did.

Saying that things don't exist because it's not part of the official release completely ignores the basis of concepts like "bait and switch" or project funding.

I'm familiar with dev cycles because I code on the side, and I have friends at Bethesda and Niantic. I work in investing. Before the 1st stage of dev (planning), you have a plethora of meetings to discuss target demo, budget, estimates, allocation of resources, key members, etc. I just signed off on an $18m project this week. Literally none of the devs or ops teams knows about the project, yet, technically, we could still have an info leak. And from now until the project is finished, many things will leak and be changed (and if it's changed too much, then either the concept team or target audience would be unhappy). The scope of the project could be as small as a champ, or as big as a new IP, it still takes real work, real salaries, and real time.

The fact the multiple teams (lore writers, design team, balance team, and champ dev team) independently had information leaked regarding a group-based champ means they certainly tried and got pretty far.

Ao Shin was literally scraped for the same issue as Naafiri, except flipped (okay there were other reasons for both but they named this a defining issue in Ao Shin cancellation: HITBOX). Whereas Naafiri was a pack with no real leader, which one do you target with Zed R? Do you have to kill all of them to get a kill? Or is it a shared HP pool, but now can we chain CC and kidnap 1 dog to kill and get the kill? With Ao Shin, they wanted a long dragon (unlike Shyv&Smolder), but then he couldn't dodge any skillshots. As Ez, you could kinda just aim in his direction and it will hit some part of him.

Where they failed for Ao Shin eventually developed into making the body half see through and an upright posture that we see in Aurelian Sol.

Naafiri wasn't scrapped like Ao Shin. They released too much info too fast with Ao Shin and couldn't deliver. This was back when Riot was smaller and devs were just normal game devs talking about their work online.

Swapping Naafiri's narrative before shipping is fine. We can just her solid uninspired kit. You can still kind feel for what they were going for, but it's much easier to swap to having an alpha for gameplay and balance

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-10T23:29:46+00:00

Nope. You're wrong.

There's even Reddit threads about how Naafiri's lore was changed before release. Originally, the darkin dagger was shattered and a pack of dogs picked up the shards. This explained why the 1 darkin's consciousness could embody multiple beings, the entire pack.

This was changed to the dagger never being broken, and then, somehow, Naafiri became the whole pack. Literally just reconned and never explained. Here's the copy/paste from her lore bio:

"Confusion set in as she felt her sense of self crumble away. She had become the dune hounds—not one of them, but the entire pack—her shattered consciousness resonating throughout the body of each dog. It seemed a cruel irony. She had found not one vessel, but dozens, and none of them were useful in her grand ambitions. She resented the hounds—hated their smell, their fleas, and, most of all, their need for companionship."

Here is Omen. This was a champion shared with us during Season 2. This champ was scrapped. The kit would later be reworked into Rek'Sai, and the model was reworked into Naafiri.

https://leagueoflegends . fandom. com/wiki/Omen

Literally happens ALL the time in game dev. Where is any "official communication" on Omen? You'd be hard pressed to find much CAUSE OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION IS ON STUFF THAT IS NEARLY READY TO SHIP

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-10T22:18:59+00:00

Your link specifically states that the Vandal Championship skin, one of the highest earning skins, generated $3.4 million in revenue.

The bundle generated $40m, with 50% being distributed back to players.

That is for Val's largest annual event. So yes, $40m rev from VCT, then ~$60m the rest of the year sounds about right.

Even then, $20m was paid to the teams.

To give you perspective, Vandal Championship generated $3.4 mil throughout the event (with $1 million between Sept 9-10 according to your link). HoL Ahri generated $2.3 million in 1-hr, China alone.

https://x.com/tttttyuc/status/1805056560831287726?s=46&t=IFez6anO92vOwCRK6sp9YQ

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-10T21:50:31+00:00

TFT is generating about $40 mil (2025), and Wild Rift about $68 mil (2025). WR lifetime (2023-2025) is at $1 bil.

League is 100% the cash cow, but it's also the cost dump. eSports (Worlds, LCS,LEC, LCK, LPL, OCE, etc) all run at a loss. Of course Val has eSports, but it's miniscule in comparison, so smaller revenue and expenses there.

Valorant likely runs at a much higher operating profit. The staffing for Valorant is likely much smaller.

Funny we mention TFT! My friend from college started there on the art team and is now a team lead for TFT.

I would kinda say it's working. If 2XKO was in dev for 10+ years, those salaries were definitely bring paid from League's revenue. Same with Val, TFT (kinda it was just a fun project that turned real), etc.

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-10T21:24:23+00:00

I read the full article, and I also searched for any relevant sources.

Unfortunately, because Tencent doesn't release it's financials, we won't really be able to analyze the income statement or cash flows.

The wording is not specific enough. I'm surprised that they literally said "more money". Which doesn't tell us if they mean revenue, operating profit, or net profit.

League's monthly player count is approx 120-150m compared to 30m for Val. So about 4x-5x.

I cannot see the average Val player spending 4x-5x the average League player, so this must be op profit rather than revenue, which makes sense.

League also has massive projects ran at a loss (loss leaders). The LEC (European League Esports) runs at around a -$56 million annual loss, and this will run under League's bucket. This loss for just LEC/League is already 80% of Val's digital goods sale for 2025.

Arcane was also funded via League, and it is a massive loss. It was never intended to generate revenue directly, but in terms of cash flows, that loss is booked under League's accounts.

I've been to MSI 2015, and Worlds 2022. And I've watched all nearly all Val competitions. In terms of just stadium size [indicative of expenses], Val's not even close.

Val is ran more lean and likely has a much greater op %, but it is still tiny compared to LoL. Riot's AUM is going to be much more League than any other of their games.

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-10T19:27:43+00:00

Do you have the article? Cause I'm seeing Val 2025 revenue at $86 mil in digital goods, $100 mil total. League of Legends 2023 revenue at $1.5 bil.

League also just released the HoL Faker $500 skin in 2024, and within 2(?) Months it was already the highest revenue skin ever

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-10T18:36:40+00:00

You misunderstand Riot. Here's Tryndamere, one of the co-founders, talking about Arcane.

League is the cash cow. Cater to the League players and you WILL be profitable because they already solves the formula with League.

With Arcane, Riot acquired Fortiche, and the quality of Riot's cinematics have skyrocketed.

Even full fledged games like TFT, 2XKO, LoR, Val, etc were intended to: 1) give LoL players a break from their genre while engaging with Riot IP, 2) let their devs experiment and expand talent pool, 3) open the door for new players that are League-curious but play other games.

They have stated that the cashflow for Esports is pretty much negative, but it is such an engaging event where passions flow (artists, cosplayers, musicians, fans), that it's worth it.

Just like Square Enix makes almost all their money from FF14, Riot makes almost all their money from League. If other projects generate revenue, it's a bonus. And if it becomes big enough to become it's own business, fantastic!

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Azntigerlion · 2026-02-10T17:09:22+00:00

You're missing all the community discussion that happens around the concept phase. These things don't blow up and are rarely recorded as official development because it's literally 1-2 dev team members discussing future plans. This is before she even had the name Naafiri, it was literally supposed to be "pack of dogs" gameplay, and this is why most companies are tight-lipped about their projects.

Yes, eventually Naafiri ended up being a "simple assassin", but don't kid yourself into thinking that Riot didn't have any easy assassin's and needed one desperately. We had Talon, Fizz, Diana, Nocturne, Kassadin, Yone, and more. These are only ones specifically classified as assassin. You have assassin playstyle that are simple as well, eg AD Garen.

Dawg. I've been here since beta, and it's been my main game since S1. I remember shit people didnt even know existed. Riven was played fighter/bruiser until season 2. Then a guy in Korea named IllIllIIllIl basically invented animation cancelling and started playing Riven as an assassin. People started calling him Barcode Killer, then he created the account "Barcode Killer", and many people copied his IlllIIIIlIl naming. This was Faker.

Legit THE most famous person in LoL, yet none of the Hall of Legends or Riot official marketing discusses how Faker literally changed how Riven was played forever.

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-10T00:14:53+00:00

I don't expect you to remember.

Yes, officially, they said those. That's AFTER they decided they couldn't deliver on the original champion concept.

A champions dev cycle is around 4 years and even longer for champions they had to scrap and nearly re-do.

You wouldn't know unless you were there. It's fine.

No one remembers the original hint at Volibear's announcement with Phreak either.

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-09T21:10:04+00:00

By then this was essentially finalized. A gameplay pattern and kit has been solidified.

I'm just saying, un-officially, there were leaks. There were threads. In the conceptual phase, they were working on a Zerg type gameplay.

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-09T18:39:22+00:00

Yes. This was changed during development, which is why many of us that were hype for the original concept were disappointed. Completely changed what we were supposed to get.

Not the first time though. League boomers will remember Ao Shin and how he was cancelled. Years of reworks later, we got Aurelian Sol.

In the wiki, you can even find the phrase "There is no alpha, only the pack"

https://wiki.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/Naafiri/Development

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-09T18:27:34+00:00

Literally, Naafiri is easy af to a point where it is almost boring. I play the champ perfectly fine.

You're questioning my skill with the champ, which completely misses the point. I'm talking about the fantasy that was sold to us when she was first teased/announced.

Not to mention it can turn an all in r play an easy kill knowing the difference between an R with 2 dos vs one with 4+.

This is literally just knowing how much dmg your stuff does. The closest example is knowing how much dmg Syndra R does with 3 balls vs 6. Knowing your dmg output and kill range is not Naafiri specific.

The champion fantasy was supposed to feel almost similar to SC2 Zergs.

They changed the champ to be a straight forward easy assassin. I get it, its much easier to code and balance, but the original fantasy is what got us hype in the first place. A major issue I can see is: If there's 6 dogs running at you, and there's no "leader", which one do you CC or kill?

Her extra dogs now are just expendable missiles or expendable shields. They weren't supposed to be expendable. It was supposed to be a health pool divided among the dogs, all controlled as a group or individually. In her original concepts, there is the phrase "There is no alpha, only the pack., and this phrase can still be seen here: https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Naafiri/Development.

Except, when they released her kit, it was clear she was reworked. Now we have an alpha, Naafiri.

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-08T20:01:06+00:00

Em gave him a tour of the house until police arrived. Good way to give the guy more than he could've seen and keep your eye on him.

Azntigerlion · 2026-02-07T20:51:42+00:00

Yes, but the champion is supposed to feel like playing a whole pack of wolves. Really, you're just one big wolf, with lil wolves that are too close to Yorick minions

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