Split push in League of Legends has been almost absent in pro play since the game underwent a major Elemental Dragon revamp just before the start of Season 7 in 2017.
Elemental Dragons, Dragon Soul, Elder Dragon, and of course Baron, provide game-changing buffs that simply cannot be ignored especially in the late game.
All that is about to change in 2024 — Riot Games is well aware that we’ve experienced overwhelming Marvel movie levels of team fighting for the last seven years.
In this exclusive ONE Esports interview, we speak with Riot Games Lead Gameplay Designer Matt “Riot Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison about Void changes and how they’re bringing split push back.
Riot Phroxzon explains how split push in League of Legends is making a comeback in 2024
Before we get into the details, it’s worth pointing out from a player perspective, split push is itself not the most fun strategy to play against in solo queue.
It takes a higher level of coordination that involves cross-map plays, versus grouping up around a pit and pressing your ultimates together.
“We do want to try and find a way to make a balance between team fighting and split pushing. It’s something that can be a little difficult at times because split pushing is also simultaneously a pretty frustrating strategy to play against,” said Riot Phroxzon.
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Keeping that in mind and the fact that the game is long overdue for a meta shift, the dev team went over their bucket list of things that “players will perceive as exciting changes” that they otherwise would not be able to implement during the regular season.
They tried 10 to 15 different major changes, Riot Phroxzon shared, and eventually decided that a Void theme would be an appropriate thematic wrapper.
“We’re reworking the Void objectives and all of those monsters are focused around increasing the power of your split pushing,” Riot Phroxzon continued. “And so there are a bunch of changes that we’re doing that are trying to disrupt a little bit of the team fight focused meta and reduce the power of individual dragon buffs.”
All Void objectives increase the strength of split pushing and tower destruction, which in turn empowers the side lanes.
The first Rift Herald for example, is replaced by Voidgrubs, which provide a Hunger of the Void buff that gives the user damage over time bonus damage to structures, while the new and improved Rift Herald lets you ride in her and control her for a limited time period.
If you charge her into a turret manually, you’ll do even more damage than if the Rift Herald charged into it without being controlled.
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“If you play for the Void objectives, we want that to be focused mainly around towers and tower pushing, and we want focusing on the dragons to be more about team fighting and actual fight strength,” said Riot Phroxzon.
“So then we can balance the team fighting aspects by making dragons stronger, and we can balance the tower pushing and split pushing aspects by making the Void monster stronger.”
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