Riot's finally ready to start talking about the Midseason Tank Update. Champion Update Designer Solcrushed took to the Boards yesterday with a new Dev Corner discussion centered around our first major rework, Sejuani.
According to Solcrushed, Sejuani suffers in a few spots. She's got a cool theme that's underutilized, is too reliant on her ultimate to be strong, and lacks both an interesting combat pattern and a unique identity.
Solcrushed also outlined his big-picture goals for reworking Sejuani. According to him, the rework will play up Sejuani's "cavalier/warleader fantasy," ideally allowing her to inspire her allies and lead them into the fray. Her base kit will also receive some tweaks, giving her a more interesting combat pattern that doesn't involve just standing next to enemies. To compensate for the changes, Sejuani's ult is likely to be nerfed, as it eats up a large portion of her power budget.
However, Solcrushed and other designers weren't just around to talk about Sejuani - they also let plenty of hints slip as to the rest of the tank update. For starters, it's been confirmed by Statikk that Sion is off the table, and Reav3 mentioned that Rammus, Malphite, and Amumu "might be too dated" for a roster update.
Reav3 also mentioned that there will be three large-scale reworks - the lowest number so far for class updates - and that there will be fewer mini-updates as well.
On a more broad scale, the Riot devs discussed the general direction that tanks will be going in. Statikk stated that tank itemization will be addressed, though to what scale is unknown, and that each tank should "feel like they have their own way off shrugging off incoming damage."
Unreliable damage is also a major theme of the rework, according to Statikk. Instead of the majority of a tank's damage coming from ambient source like Sunfire Cape or other aura-esque abilities, tanks will have more impactful abilities that can be outplayed by opponents.
