26.11 Full Patch Preview!
The major changes this patch are to the Systems mentioned yesterday to adjust the relative balance of Ranged vs Melee supports in bot lane.
There are also some changes to Statikk Shiv to make it slightly more attractive on AD users and a nerf to Hexplate for Ranged which are primarily being picked up on Varus and Vayne Top Lane.
We're not looking to remove it from them, but are looking to get it into a spot where its top end balance doesn't need to be maintained around those 2 champions.
We're also restoring some of the power we removed from Heartsteel a while ago as it lost some of its fantasy and power in a way that we think we can restore now. It will also incidentally help some of the Tank Supports in niche cases when they start snowballing
Deathfire Touch
- We're adjusting Deathfire Touch this patch to deal Magic Damage
- Part of the impetus for this is how strong the synergy is with Black Cleaver and in addition, it feels like more of a magic coded effect
- So we think this strikes a reasonable balance of fantasy fulfilment and practical balance considerations
- Otherwise, we think Deathfire Touch is in a pretty reasonable spot
Brand, Smolder
- Brand Botlane and Smolder have both benefitted from Deathfire Touch
- While we are making changes to the Deathfire Touch interaction that will affect Smolder, we still think he will be too strong after these changes
- The changes to Smolder are targeted at also making his squishy Crit builds more optimal so he is more assailable later in the game
Heimerdinger
- After the minion changes in the previous patch, Heimer's turrets are a bit worse for wear
- We're giving him a feelsgood QOL change so that his turrets aren't killed by ranged minions without being able to attack back
- Despite being 550 range on paper, 550 range champions (which are most of them) will still be able to outrange turrets at max range due to the way this range is calculated
- In addition, there is a small increase to the E vision duration so that the Beam actually manages to fire before losing vision in some cases
Teemo
- For Teemo, he is one of the more powerful Top laners, while also being on the higher end of frustration
- He is also receiving a small buff to Statikk Shiv this patch and so we're compensation nerfing him with an intent for this to be lightly power down
Quinn
- Quinn has landed in a pretty weak spot for Jungle and in this state, it's pretty close to griefing team when picked
- So we're giving it a pretty sizeable buff to give it a legitimate shot at being powerful and viable
- Players so far have expressed interest in playing it!
Patch 26.20 Full Preview!
Rocketbelt
- We're adjusting rocketbelt to be much more about the go in aspect of it and less power budget in the haste
- The haste is adding a lot to the repeatability for mages in particular, but also as a burst oriented item, it means that the item broadly isn't creating the right tradeoffs with other items like Cosmic Drive, etc. that should be purchased for the higher haste values
Lillia
- Lillia's changes last patch were a good start, but we feel we can go a bit further on the Sleep changes
- Overall, we want to do a better job of balancing Lillia between skill levels and Lillia typically struggles at the higher skill brackets, especially after we made her early clears a lot weaker
- Average play Lillias often don't get the most out of her Sleep duration, whereas higher skill players are much better at coordinating around it
Diana JG
- Diana mid is in a mostly fine spot, but Diana Jungle, which plays more like a bruiser and builds a lot more health needs a little more help
- Overall, we're not looking to add a ton of power to Diana as she does get a bit statchecky when strong
Neeko
- Neeko support (and Mid) have been a bit worse for wear
- Neeko support has become a lot weaker, especially at the higher levels of play after we made adjustments to her Clone and its interaction with vision
- We think Neeko could use a little more power as a result
Smolder
- Smolder has also been on the weaker side after we made a bunch of adjustments to Black Cleaver and Deathfire Touch several months ago
- We're continuing to add more power to him, but into his Crit builds as his Bruiser builds have worse counterplay given his scaling profile
Vayne
- With the nerfs to experimental Hexplate this patch (for her Top lane), we feel like we can give Vayne a little power in bot lane
- She still has builds in Top that don't build Hexplate, but we're more OK with those as she isn't as durable while dishing out a lot of damage
Yunara Ashe
- We've added an Ashe nerf into the patch as she is one of the dominant pairings on the patch, even with the Hurricane nerf (as a lot of her builds don't build it)
- We're also adding a moderate nerf in for Yunara as her level 1 laning is a bit too strong given how well she scales
- We expect after this and the Lucian buffs for the bot meta to be in a much better spot
Pulled Changes (Varus, Sylas)
- We pulled Varus and Sylas from the patch
- Varus because we feel like we need larger work on him to make his builds more satisfying and make sense
- Sylas, because we don't feel comfortable changing him overall without messing up his role balance, especially given the Protobelt changes in the patch
Patch 26.20 Preview (World's Patch)
This is the final World's patch and we've been pretty happy with the meta from playoffs and don't feel like there's much more we can improve it (aside from this patch) without causing excess damage to SoloQ, which is also a high priority for us
Systems
1. Rocketbelt continues to be one of the premier items on Pro Play mages that gives them a bit too much durability. We think Rocketbelt is better positioned as a "go in button" and so we're making it better at that use case and worse at the flexible use cases for mages (though it is skill expressive).
It mostly results in Mage champions having minimal weaknesses in the highest levels of play while also making them need to be nerfed for regular players (see Orianna's winrate)
That said, there are some "go in" Ranged champions that we expect this to be power neutral on (eg. Annie, Neeko) that their player bases still love this item on, it should just take a larger tradeoff on damage repeatability
2. We're further nerfing Experimental Hexplate to allow us to buff up some champions that have been balanced around it (Vayne top). This will also allow us to give Vayne bot a buff
3. Hurricane was a little overbuffed and so we're pulling back the buff ever so slightly (not by a huge amount here). We're also featuring a Yunara nerf in the patch, but we're being careful not to overdo it there in combination
Stale Pro Champs
- Some champs like Ambessa, Cassio, K'Sante have been stale for a while and our Cassio nerfs recently undershot a bit for Pro Play
- However, they've been pretty effective at moving her power budget around in regular play to higher AP builds
- As mentioned above, some of the safer scaling hyper carries are a bit too strong, even with the slight Hurricane tapdown we're planning and given Lucian's large nerf in organized play
Lucian
- Lucian's best pairings (eg. Enchanters like Milio) have received a large nerf as a result of the 26.19 changes and so we're returning some power back to Lucian in generic power
- In combination with the Support laning changes from last patch, Lucian's early kill threat has gone down significantly and so we think we can buff him up a bit
Vayne
- Vayne also received a nerf recently due to her strength in Top lane in both Pro Play and high level SoloQ
- We're being very careful about adding more Ranged tops back into the meta as that has been something players have been complaining about, but think that a generic buff + a nerf to Hexplate will make her neutral there (or at least have to go for squishier builds) while buffing Vayne bot back up
Sylas
- We're making an adjustment to Sylas, to give him a slight buff in Mid, while keeping his Jungle steady overall
- Overall, this will be a bit of a reshape to Sylas to make him more powerful in the matchups he's good in, while not having much change in matchups he's already bad in
More on other champs tomorrow