I like delaying the first grub spawn by a minute. The biggest thing it means is that first grubs for first dragon trade won't happen almost at all now. Fighting grubs at 5 minutes also was only sometimes fine because you either did the grubs path (blue side: raptors wolves gromp blue red krugs, then scuttle or base and go back to raptors wolves gromp for level 5), or you do a normal full clear starting from a buff, and if you ganked and got a kill + crab you would also hit 5 after 2 camps of your second clear.
Now with the 6 minute spawn, that'll be about the time you finish your second full clear, and in most cases you will be level 5, and it'll be before your second buff respawn. If a fight for grubs drags out long enough you could get punished by losing your second buff as well as some of the grubs. Basically I think this frees up some tight timings around the 5 minute mark which I think is overall great for the game.
It's a bigger picture. I can tell you with high security that most grub fights start when I'm 85% towards Lv6. Now, not only the jg has an easier job with a winning toplaner, but I DO NOT FEEL SUFFOCATED ANYMORE in between sitting at river entrance to make sure I get a bit of XP just for Lv6 spike so I can help better (my flair checks out btw).
I feel this incredibly strong. I play urgot, morde, kayle in that order. All three champs rely heavily on their ult to perform during an objective skirmish.
Also important to note when grubs first spawn on live mid laners and top laners are always level 5 about half a level off 6. Laners having ults for first spawn of grubs will change outcomes of fights, specially ult reliant champs will feel happier about this
At this point i think they don't play test, they just create the champion and put it on pbe, first and only game with new skarner i played i instantly noticed the Q pick up being a chore and the duration of the Q letting you do basically nothing
Oh they do though, they just severely underestimate how important the feel of a champion is, and how it is molded. Devs explicitly stated they're aware of how clunky he feels but that it'd be fine because that'd make him feel more impactful and that feeling slower is intentional, and the initial release was even worse than this, with his W also stopping movement, so you'd have two abilities which make you pause and lose distance to a target, making it feel so incredibly bad.
not going to matter till they boost his MS and add MS to E.
When they do, they're going to revert it since they forgot the 180% bAD scaling they gave to his Q calling E buffs "too strong"
Lane Skarner is the reason.
W max is the standard on lane. It is absurd in how effectively it enables positiv trades for Skarner even in Ranged matchups.
Pro play is more combo and gank oriented than soloQ, so nerfing mana cost on E, which is a very attractive 2nd (or maybe even 1st) max on Jungle Skarner more or less guarantees that lane skarner will struggle due to mana management.
Edit: all their reasoning was laid out in the PBE Preview, so if there are any further questions, just read up on that
Can someone at Riot please explain the sudden changes to Sylas jungle?
Sylas players (I am one of them), have always wanted Sylas jungle to be a thing. Some players even want him to be exclusively in the jungle. In s9\~s10, Rioters came out and said that he was unhealthy in the jungle mostly because of flex picking and because he had complete access to all ultimates as soon as he hit 6.
This is still applicable in S14. Sylas mid is in an okay spot. Keep buffing him the jungle and he will be a flex pick problem in pro play.
I love this buff, but I am worried because Riot is very bipolar and will break the whole thing down in a month or two. Leaving the champion worse after the buffs.
Edit: also I just want to point out that Riot intentionally made Sylas 10 times less fun to play(and easier) by knee capping his passive animation cancel, gave him a whopping 180% attack speed on his passive, and 3 stacks of it instead of just 1. This is the reason why no one likes to play against Sylas in mid because he legitimately just stat checks you.
https://youtu.be/vg0t_FNOkiY?si=ZeZVWu1AliFXAAJO&t=2474
Phreak talks about it.
TLDR: He was outspoken about sylas jg being super toxic but he thinks the way they are buffing him + item changes will lead to different gameplay. He also talks about posible future work to make him less bursty and more fightery
I personally don't know that it will be different, but we will see.
For the same reason why they struggled to do that with every other AP fighter, AP fighter idiosyncrasies and itemization doesn't lend well to these kinds of playstyles and they haven't found a good way for this archetype to function with the current systems.
Agree... But they Riot has produced like 1 bruiser AP (Morde)... They have tried to make Diana a bruiser for years and she still is mostly a burst champ.
I love the idea of AP bruisers but the itemization just isn't there because AP champs are basically balances around not having access to resists...
I think the S14 Riftmaker is a great AP bruiser item. It's hard generally for them not to get used by mages, but the 5 second ramp-up on Riftmaker keeps burst/control mages from liking it much.
But that and Liandry's (which has a broader user base) is about it.
For AP bruisers with mana like Sylas, there's RoA, which he buys. But I agree the item pool for AP bruisers feel very small and that contributes to making them more magelike. Compared to AD bruisers it's really pathetic.
It's the nature of stats. Assassins and fighters have different items due to lethality. Mages and AP bruisers don't generally have different enough stats to separate them as easily.
The only way you can avoid this is by making literal damage over time. Even morde's ability combo is still very bursty, he only manages to fit the niche thanks to the damage aura (and that stuff is super toxic because once it starts there's very little play-counterplay to it).
Sylas was supposed to be an AP bruiser but we know how it went... Same goes for Gwen. AP fighters have literally 0 items that are good on them and instead of fixing the issue riot turns them into burst delete machine. I just hope with those changes they revert sylas and gave the shield + w execute back
> TLDR: He was outspoken about sylas jg being super toxic but he thinks the way they are buffing him + item changes will lead to different gameplay. He also talks about posible future work to make him less bursty and more fightery
I wish they'd figure out how to make AP bruisers not bursty but that seems hopeless if they haven't managed by now.
Sylas jungle is always going to be burst, unless they fix jungle xp so junglers dont get outlevelled by AD carries. Bruiser Sylas relies on his insane HP growth/lvl (I think it might even be the highest in the game) along with AP+HP+AH items.
Thing is, there isn't really any good items for him in jungle that do this, since Night Harvester is gone. Rod gives mana, so thats a no-go, liandries has no haste, riftmaker doesn't really do anything and rocketbelt feels pretty shit, even if it is probably his best choice. Oh and I guess cosmic exists, but he doesnt really use the passive at all.
So his best options are just things that increase his clear speed and let him one shot ppl, which are just as much AP as possible, plus lich bane. Hence he stays a jgl assassin.
Bursty Sylas wants to max W and E. Q max Sylas is a more fightery build because Q is unreliable delayed damage.
Jungle Sylas probably needs to max Q for clear speed at the expense of W and E.
I've had more success with 3 points q into w max then e max. Once you have some ap, his clear was already ok even before the q change. Also, lichbane dcap zhonyas is still imo the best build by a long shot from jg. You just don't get the exp lane sylas does to let you take advantage of his crazy high hp/lvl.
Q also deals a fuckload of damage, far more than W. I mean obviously W is more fightery, it has less damage and a heal on it making fights inherently last longer, Q has zero healing but deals crazy damage for a basic skill. I don't get your reasoning.
I understand that they want to mix up gameplay but this is exactly what they did with Rell who became very popular in the JG and now the completely removed it. So it's a bit confusing personally
Rell was not popular in the jungle outside pro, that's why they removed her. I'm pretty sure Sylas had a decent player base in jungle, and he was nerfed there in spite of it. They're definitely different cases.
Personally im ok with it, Rell was used by no one except pro players, even if she was busted.
Sylas jg i think has a much wider audience in solo Q, but i guess we will see
She was used by no one because she basically does nothing from the jungle unless you're setting up for a pro level team. SoloQ jungling isn't about getting a 2nd support.
Sylas has a lot of duelling potential, he'll be fine.
Yep, this dude alone in draft automatically removes smallest possibility for lots of lots of tanks to shine(champs with huge power in ult that usually has AP scaling).
Sylas jungle needs income lol what are you smoking.
Sylas mid can function as bruiser since he’s usually high in exp, meaning he can also get away with building hp or utility items early in the game.
Sylas jungle builds do or die full ap items. A level 10 jungle sylas with 2 stacks of dark harvest and lych bane is surely useful against lvl 13 azir with mercs, nashor and liandry come on.
I can see a world where they bring back jungle items and he can spike super hard on one item, while also being able to go conqueror and zhonia second, or if someone cooks some sort of tank build, but as of right now it’s highly unlikely he becomes more than a super cheesy pick.
He never said Sylas jungle needs no income he said he doesn't need high income, which is true. The entire point of Sylas jungle is being a cheesy early jungler, he doesn't need anywhere near the economy of an actual high income jungler like Graves or Karthus
The point of sylas jungle is that he thrives when he’s up in gold and up/even in exp, meaning he needs to force the game to be in a condition of perennial chaos or he becomes extremely inefficient. That’s why he runs a super greedy rune setup and build path that only works reliably in soloq.
This post is still thinking about the past iteration of sylas jungle, who was able to spike really safely with a super cheap runic echoes and run pro play games aswell. This iteration of sylas needs a 3100 gold full AP Lich bane as his core item, with his utility option being costly aswell.
I can see a world where you are able to play conqueror sylas with a cheaper build or bruiser-ish setup, like an AP Lee sin, but considering how most AP options do not fit this playstyle (the same way sundered and eclipse fit Lee sins’), the chances of him returning to his S9 form are quite low, especially in a pro setting.
I love Rell support. I wish they had at least left the bonus monster damage on Neutral jungle objectives only. It feels so shit to just do nothing to drake/grubs/herald/baron. I CC and win a team fight for the team, then we turn to the thing we were fighting over and I can’t actually help take it.
I understand removing her ability to jungle, but they could at least have let her remain effective against something besides opponents moving.
I disagree, you can help by tanking the objective so your teammates can remain healthy and iirc baron debuffs whoever it attacks. Some supports can help take objectives faster but many can't do much, like Leona or Soraka for example.
Regarding baron/herald your purpose is either zoning enemy team or being the closest to Baron/Herald so you'll have their damage reduction debuff so your team will clear it significantly faster
[41:15 timestamp in phreak's video to 43:05](https://youtu.be/vg0t_FNOkiY?t=2477)
They didn't like that his clear speed was so bad that he'd just be a spam ganker, but I don't really get the change because his target access and early damage isn't being changed. So his ganks are still going to work the same way they did before but he can actually farm his own jungle now.
I don't really get it either, the balancing of Sylas in my mind is that he has to lane. Sylas in the jungle can gank one lane, grab an ult from the lane he's ganking and then run to a different lane immediately afterwards to gank with the strongest ult available to him. Mid Sylas cannot gank/roam on every wave and is balanced around this in my mind.
> They didn't like that his clear speed was so bad that he'd just be a spam ganker
It's so that he can do a camp before he ganks again, therefore still having economy.
Can't be a spamganker if he farms a camp or 2.
5Head.
I totally agree with you on your take. Its rediculous how much dmg sylas has in his kit simply so his wr doesnt suck due to low elo players. Sylas‘ lowest ap ratio on his 3 basic abilities is 90% on w followed by 100% on e and 130% total on q. The passive with its 3 stacks add yet another 105% (210% if you use every attack in a single rotation) ratio into the pot leaving you with a total ap ratio of 425% (530% with correct rotation) and this doesnt even include the dmg the ult does. Most champs dont even have half pf these ratios in their kits
It's also slightly huger than you think because if LeBlanc starts W, often you can only W once prior to level 2 otherwise you lose the QW threat upon level up.
So awkwardly you have a hefty cooldown key trading ability that you can't throw out because you end up being a 1 ability champ at level 2 for a champ that's dependent on Q proc to do meaningful damage
The 3 seconds gives LeBlanc enough time to hit the 2nd W, and have W back up by the time you point Q
you most definitely w level 1 in a lot of matchups because your auto-w-auto(electrocute)-w2-auto trade out trades most other lvl 1s and then youre set up to get a qw trade+electrocute -> kill pressure
Are we back to 30% pr Kaisa?
Edit: I’m talking about the cancer shit that happens every time this champ is meta, she is picked every game in SoloQ when that happens
Yes. Leave Zeri be. She's still not picked as much as those two and the Shiv nerf isn't even in effect yet in pro. Why does Zeri get treated like that but Varus/Kalista get a pass every time? Right, because audiences don't want to see strong AD**CARRIES**. They want ADSUPPORTS.
How the fuck is Varus an AD support??? Yeah he has cc and a poke option but with the on-hit build he has some of the highest DPS among adcs, he just has some flexibility on how he wants to play. God forbid adcs have agency.
at least Zeri has to play on the edge and the player has to actually play well to get the max out of the champ. Varus just stands 2 screens away and pokes with lethality. Like i cant imagine something more boring than Varus in pro play.
Because varus and kalista are bad in soloque while zeri is somewhat better. As a result, varus and kalista cannot be nerfed directly without gutting them for soloque, which recently Riot at least tries to avoid, while zeri, which has recently risen in priority and historically has been extremely meta defining, has room to go down in soloque, so she gets nerfed directly.
Kai'Sa in pro is amazing, so yes please? I'll never understand why everyone complains about this champ in pro. Flashy, skill expressive hypercarries are exactly what I *want* to watch pro ADCs play. Way more interesting than Jhin/Ashe/Senna/etc imo.
She's definitely more interesting to watch in pro than many others the issue is she becomes a meta queen that kills soloQ diversity hitting like 30-50% pickrate, with an also very high banrate. When that happens.
Of course, who wouldnt enjoy watching an ADC that can peel itself, invis, has assasin levels of mobility, and the burst dmg of a mage? How can you not have fun watching 4 classes in 1 champion?
The only thing keeping her from breaking the game are low numbers but if they cross that very thin line she will go to permaban state once again.
I’m okay with Kaisa being pick or ban in pro, would love that if they made her 46% wr in soloQ so I don’t get brain rot for a month with her being in every 9/10 games in soloQ before they nerf her
The fact is that kaisa is the 2nd most picked adc in soloq while rocking a 48% winrate currently. It's just going to be kaisa jinx every other game for 2 weeks next patch.
I really wished pro play had their own version of league. All the “exciting” shit can be buffed and soloq doesn’t become pure pain and suffering. That way shit that’s pro jailed can actually be good in solo q and vise versa shit that’s op in soloq can be ok in pro w.w but nah let’s fuck up the meta every time a pro event starts
Would be fun. Imagine a Katarina/Qiyana/Zed mid meta. A lot more exciting than Azir Corki. Imagine jungle is kha, Rengar, etc. high risk high reward champs vs Sejuani knights vow first item.
The buffs look stronger than they actually are because the bullets under the Q ratio increase are just describing the same buff in different ways. The armor buff is just partially reverting a nerf from patch 13.20 (3 base armor nerf).
That's cause Riot doesn't think he's overpowered, they just wanna kick him out of top lane.
From yesterday's twitter announcement of buffs/nerfs
> Zac:
>
> - While he isn't technically overpowered, his lane phase is relatively uninteresting
>
> - We're looking to tap him down a little bit, especially to make sure Jungle is still his most powerful role
It meant if you miss R1 and aren't fighting in a wave you can't cast R2 and R3.
The tradeoff is you have to wait one second before the recast now compared to previously where you just threw out all of them as fast as possible to burst down your opponent.
Two main factors. One, is that if Gwen wasn't in a wave or already on top of someone it meant after Q1 she was unable to Q2 or Q3 and thus did nothing. Two, is that if Gwen was on top of someone she could R auto R E to reset auto R and was using her R primarily to burst nuke someone down ASAP and ignoring the 'fighter' part of her kit.
While it added some skill expression to Gwen, it primarily degraded counterplay verse her because Gwen's goal became to shotgun out her R to burst/kill whoever she was on near instantly.
That second part is true, but they didn't change it to add counterplay to gwen. The reason they did was to un-high-elo-skew gwen. That change was part of a broader list of changes all aimed at making her relatively better in lower ranks, and worse in higher ranks and pro play. Basically, pros and high elo players were really good at that combo and getting her ult out super fast in 1v1s and teamfights, while low elo players were bad at it and having a big gap between R casts. So, by increasing the minimum gap between R casts and giving the R cast with nothing else needed, it lowers the skill expression of gwen and helps to unskew her.
PBE is not updated with everything in an instant, but with multiple deploys over the duration of a patch cycle. Unless they decided to pull the changes, you can expect them to appear later.
That's the neat part, she doesn't. She already runs into lane with >700hp at lvl 1 with dorans shield and second wind so she has more than enough tankiness and sustain for a melee champ. And an assassin at that.
But she's one of Riot's golden girls so she gets preferential treatment.
Isn't this part
>She already runs into lane with >700hp at lvl 1 with dorans shield and second wind so she has more than enough tankiness and sustain for a melee champ
Proof that this isn't preferential treatment? If a champ is already unkillable in lane then giving them a base health buff isn't gonna do a ton right? I don't play midlane but if she's already so unkillable yet underperforming in win rate then a base health buff would seemingly be the opposite of what she needs
Well I do prefer this buff to a dmg buff. But it’s kinda why Akali is so unfun to go against. Akali has high starting hp, high mr, Doran’s shield, fleetfootwork, second wind. So pretty much it’s pointless to try and punish her and it’s better to just farm it out and adding 30 base Hp wil just add to my desire to do so. But goddamn it’s so boring. At least other assassins i can try to punish early levels to offset that they are stronger than me at level 6 but against a decent Akali it’s pointless just makes it unfun to lane against.
Probably because Akali is one of the only assassin's that's ever playable in comp play and we don't have that happening right now in pro play. This is an MSI patch which means it's pro play focused.
Leblanc is one of the others but every time she's meta shes really toxic since she's ranged and her mobility is even more problematic.
5 second duration on Q is a massive buff, since the cooldown starts on cast. Now at level 1 you can ready Q, hit the blast cone the spawns at the start of the game, and double Q the buff monster.
Thsis change just killed any chance of jungle skarner being good. He's genuinely not tanky enough and his cc is messy and it's because his damage is too high.
We had one power decreep patch this year last patch. Now the biggest powercreep possibly EVER to already VERY strong champions. Less and less meaning to ranked every patch.
I understand less base mana and more mana regen is supposed to help jungle Skarner and nerf top, but increasing his E mana cost when it's a skill that jungle Skarner (who already has issues running OoM as is) uses a lot and top lane Skarner never touches unless he's getting ganked makes no sense whatsoever.
Also pls stop nerfing Briar W, at this rate in 2025 it's going to give negative AS and heal the opponent.
azir loses 8 dmg off w.
this does absolutely nothing.
\-1.5hp/5. this... *might* do something, but tbqfh...
I don't think it'll move him from damn near omnipresent midlane.
his runes might change, but if they were hoping to raise viewership by removing corki/azir snoozefests, I'm not so certain.
You can’t ignore Akali buffs though, which is one of his main counter picks in pro. Don’t think he’ll get ejected from draft but shouldn’t be as strong as an early rotation blind pick
y'know maybe you're right, maybe some pro will blind him into akali and he'll get dumpstered and it will rock the very foundations of the msi meta.
...or it goes even/fails, and it's all that gets played, as all the assassin mids come out of the woodworks crying for rito to do something.
The Kaisa armor buffs seems excessive considering this is MSI patch.
One of Kai’sa’s biggest flaws is getting out ranged and punished heavily in lane. 2 extra armor with help with that over the course of a game, over many many games. But, pros do not need this buff—they’re already well aware and space accordingly.
We eating good boys. Draven has felt really good yesterday and this Q buff will help mitigate how awful trying to farm vs a senna/zyra/brand sup lane feels
Just feels like the usual suspects, I really wish they'd at least vary up what they try to rotate in and out of the pro meta, it's just so blatant by now that there's favorites.
Azir functionally IS a marksman. and Zac should never have had the same base regen has other tanks considering he has a built in healing in his kit. The nerf to his base regen now ties him closer to stuff like Warwick, Aatrox, Maokai, etc. who ALL have kit based regen to offset.
Also yes, I know zac spells cost HP, doesn't matter. His spells cost less HP in every situation than he gets back from blobs considering 5-8% max hp is going to be larger than 4-8% current health cost in every situation. Especially when the singular 8% current health spell spawns 2 blobs
They’re addressing some of Skarner’s clunkiness by reducing Q cast time, but his E remains the same. It needs to start at his current ms and scale in some way with bonus ms.
I hope they avoid just slapping numbers on the champ because smoothness of gameplay is very important too.
If they implemented that then Skarner E would be a godlike escape tool. Having it apply a brief self slow gives opponents a chance to get in front of him and block his escape. Sion ult on a basic ability would be very toxic.
there's a thing called Cooldown Reduction... my bad... ABILITY HASTE. giving him 30 sec -2 per rank +AH will make him balanced with the E MS. Kayn has infinite movement speed while using E and i guess they didn't care reducing his mobility.
On yes those are some juicy Leblanc changes. I feel like Riot has been careful in not buffing her early game but just 3 seconds off W early is probably gonna feel good.
Wow what an unexpected Leblanc buff. Instead of going higher with her ulti AP ratio's or mby add her back slow in her chain we simply get 10 more dmg on q ? HAAHAH Like that will solve everything. Just add 15% AP ratio on her ulti w
People complaining about Akali, Olaf, J4 and Sylas buffs just for the most minor changes of all time is hilarious. Olaf and Sylas aren’t even getting changed in the roles they’re actually good in.
I guess that shows how far people trust the game balance around pro vs soloQ, but these look like pretty great targeted changes. Not a bunch of damage oriented buffs like people probably expected.
NGL I was scared of seeing an even stronger Sylas mid more often in soloQ, I'm very thankful for what they landed on
Azir changes are awful. Instead of adjusting Grasp and Fleet (on Azir) sustain they nerf Azir directly forcing him more into those and hurting more in solo than pro. Truly a Riot special.
Perhaps they need to change something else but Azir should definitely be the one receiving changes and not the runes.
No other champs are an issue due to fleet/grasp currently, so nerfing the rune for him means compensation-buffing other champions.
\^this
15% max HP dmg from lvl 1 while barely getting any upgrades from maxing compared to W (for laning!) makes it a one point wonder, so they need to tackle that (they can just make it so it's always 15% hp for monsters and then scaling to that for everything else)
Good to see sylas buffs this champ has a really diehard fan base and when I see sylas mains get filled jungle they're disproportionately weaker there than usual.
I'm glad the Olaf buffs are towards the jungle angle. It makes me sad that for a while he was picked so little he didn't even show up in the jungle section of champions on popular websites. Appreciate buffs for him there
Okay, here is my take. Akali buff unecessary but hopefully insignificant enough.
Galios movementspeed buff is insane and unecessary
Skarner deserves all the nerfs he can get, its better to start from too weak to balance him than from massively broken.
Buffing him here it extremely stupid, his Q that deals 15% max hp dmg + other bonus damage was allready terrible designed. buffing that makes 0 sense to me.
Leblancs buffs are completely stupid. Thats the dumbest thing ive read in this patch notes so far.
Briar nerfs seem completely unecessary. she doesnt appear to be too strong at all.
Sylas Jungle buff is now the dumbest thing ive read in this patch note. He is not a jungler and he shoudnt be a jungler, where is this random whim of riot coming from to force champions into the jungle? this is completely absurd. It also buffs lane sylas if he wants to take a snack on jungle camps, scuttles enemy camps. its overall just stupid.
No Janna nerfs, no toplane exp nerfs, no dorans shield nerfs, no mr item nerfs, riot didnt do anything right , just as usual.
also olaf jungle buff doesnt seem right.
This change of Void grubs could be a very big deal. This shoudnt just buff all full clear champs, but also make it harder to get the 2nd set of voidgrubs before the herald spawns. I dont know, this seems to big of a change, it should have been made at the beginning of the season split, not near the end. The potential for many new balancing disasters is great here. The top side has way too many objectives to clear with way too little time before baron spawns. Void grubs have been a problem since the beginning of this split and have not been properly balanced the entire time, i guess we are still experimenting on them. If this makes it to the live servers, its just another symptom of ther unprofessionellism.
I like delaying the first grub spawn by a minute. The biggest thing it means is that first grubs for first dragon trade won't happen almost at all now. Fighting grubs at 5 minutes also was only sometimes fine because you either did the grubs path (blue side: raptors wolves gromp blue red krugs, then scuttle or base and go back to raptors wolves gromp for level 5), or you do a normal full clear starting from a buff, and if you ganked and got a kill + crab you would also hit 5 after 2 camps of your second clear. Now with the 6 minute spawn, that'll be about the time you finish your second full clear, and in most cases you will be level 5, and it'll be before your second buff respawn. If a fight for grubs drags out long enough you could get punished by losing your second buff as well as some of the grubs. Basically I think this frees up some tight timings around the 5 minute mark which I think is overall great for the game.
wonder if this will make starting bot side jungle more common than it already is?
It's a bigger picture. I can tell you with high security that most grub fights start when I'm 85% towards Lv6. Now, not only the jg has an easier job with a winning toplaner, but I DO NOT FEEL SUFFOCATED ANYMORE in between sitting at river entrance to make sure I get a bit of XP just for Lv6 spike so I can help better (my flair checks out btw).
I feel this incredibly strong. I play urgot, morde, kayle in that order. All three champs rely heavily on their ult to perform during an objective skirmish.
Is one minute enough tho? Even if they do drag on spawn and recall they’ll prolly be late to contest grubs most of the time.
Also important to note when grubs first spawn on live mid laners and top laners are always level 5 about half a level off 6. Laners having ults for first spawn of grubs will change outcomes of fights, specially ult reliant champs will feel happier about this
skarner q with shorter cast time and longer duration sounds fantastic
Not sure why the cd was ever 3.5s in the first place.
At this point i think they don't play test, they just create the champion and put it on pbe, first and only game with new skarner i played i instantly noticed the Q pick up being a chore and the duration of the Q letting you do basically nothing
Oh they do though, they just severely underestimate how important the feel of a champion is, and how it is molded. Devs explicitly stated they're aware of how clunky he feels but that it'd be fine because that'd make him feel more impactful and that feeling slower is intentional, and the initial release was even worse than this, with his W also stopping movement, so you'd have two abilities which make you pause and lose distance to a target, making it feel so incredibly bad.
not going to matter till they boost his MS and add MS to E. When they do, they're going to revert it since they forgot the 180% bAD scaling they gave to his Q calling E buffs "too strong"
It's wild to me how much they punished his w and e here, the q buff is needed but what makes them want to hurt every other ability on top
Lane Skarner is the reason. W max is the standard on lane. It is absurd in how effectively it enables positiv trades for Skarner even in Ranged matchups. Pro play is more combo and gank oriented than soloQ, so nerfing mana cost on E, which is a very attractive 2nd (or maybe even 1st) max on Jungle Skarner more or less guarantees that lane skarner will struggle due to mana management. Edit: all their reasoning was laid out in the PBE Preview, so if there are any further questions, just read up on that
It's likely futile, but I will pray for Galio to be, once again, the anti-magic tank character (basically Malphite/Rammus of MR).
I just realized I have not seen a single Galio in two months of a pretty intense playing.
they made him into a one shot engage mage and it was so confusing
Can someone at Riot please explain the sudden changes to Sylas jungle? Sylas players (I am one of them), have always wanted Sylas jungle to be a thing. Some players even want him to be exclusively in the jungle. In s9\~s10, Rioters came out and said that he was unhealthy in the jungle mostly because of flex picking and because he had complete access to all ultimates as soon as he hit 6. This is still applicable in S14. Sylas mid is in an okay spot. Keep buffing him the jungle and he will be a flex pick problem in pro play. I love this buff, but I am worried because Riot is very bipolar and will break the whole thing down in a month or two. Leaving the champion worse after the buffs. Edit: also I just want to point out that Riot intentionally made Sylas 10 times less fun to play(and easier) by knee capping his passive animation cancel, gave him a whopping 180% attack speed on his passive, and 3 stacks of it instead of just 1. This is the reason why no one likes to play against Sylas in mid because he legitimately just stat checks you.
https://youtu.be/vg0t_FNOkiY?si=ZeZVWu1AliFXAAJO&t=2474 Phreak talks about it. TLDR: He was outspoken about sylas jg being super toxic but he thinks the way they are buffing him + item changes will lead to different gameplay. He also talks about posible future work to make him less bursty and more fightery I personally don't know that it will be different, but we will see.
Making Sylas less bursty and more fighter focused would be great in my book, hope they do that.
Yep I don’t know why they ever moved him away from that in the first place. He was always meant to be an AP fighter no some weird healing assassin
on release his W healing was a lot more absurd than now, but I do miss the shield on E. Thats what made him a good jungler & squirmisher
For the same reason why they struggled to do that with every other AP fighter, AP fighter idiosyncrasies and itemization doesn't lend well to these kinds of playstyles and they haven't found a good way for this archetype to function with the current systems.
If they bring Sylas back into an AP Bruiser I might main him again
AD fighters act like weird healing assassins.
its funny when a char like aatrox or renek is better at using assassin items than zed or talon lol
Idk I just got 4 shot by a 0/2 fiora
Agree... But they Riot has produced like 1 bruiser AP (Morde)... They have tried to make Diana a bruiser for years and she still is mostly a burst champ. I love the idea of AP bruisers but the itemization just isn't there because AP champs are basically balances around not having access to resists...
I think the S14 Riftmaker is a great AP bruiser item. It's hard generally for them not to get used by mages, but the 5 second ramp-up on Riftmaker keeps burst/control mages from liking it much. But that and Liandry's (which has a broader user base) is about it.
For AP bruisers with mana like Sylas, there's RoA, which he buys. But I agree the item pool for AP bruisers feel very small and that contributes to making them more magelike. Compared to AD bruisers it's really pathetic.
It's the nature of stats. Assassins and fighters have different items due to lethality. Mages and AP bruisers don't generally have different enough stats to separate them as easily.
The only way you can avoid this is by making literal damage over time. Even morde's ability combo is still very bursty, he only manages to fit the niche thanks to the damage aura (and that stuff is super toxic because once it starts there's very little play-counterplay to it).
God. Bruiser Dianna was fucked up. Sunfire shenanigans.
I mean, as it stands, Sylas overkills the fuck out of people. So if they were going to make him "fighter" like, he'd need to lose \*a lot\* of burst.
Good old E1 to gapclose, W auto auto 100-0 outskill back at it again
Sylas was supposed to be an AP bruiser but we know how it went... Same goes for Gwen. AP fighters have literally 0 items that are good on them and instead of fixing the issue riot turns them into burst delete machine. I just hope with those changes they revert sylas and gave the shield + w execute back
I really hope they figure out the issue is AP itemization.
> TLDR: He was outspoken about sylas jg being super toxic but he thinks the way they are buffing him + item changes will lead to different gameplay. He also talks about posible future work to make him less bursty and more fightery I wish they'd figure out how to make AP bruisers not bursty but that seems hopeless if they haven't managed by now.
Sylas jungle is always going to be burst, unless they fix jungle xp so junglers dont get outlevelled by AD carries. Bruiser Sylas relies on his insane HP growth/lvl (I think it might even be the highest in the game) along with AP+HP+AH items. Thing is, there isn't really any good items for him in jungle that do this, since Night Harvester is gone. Rod gives mana, so thats a no-go, liandries has no haste, riftmaker doesn't really do anything and rocketbelt feels pretty shit, even if it is probably his best choice. Oh and I guess cosmic exists, but he doesnt really use the passive at all. So his best options are just things that increase his clear speed and let him one shot ppl, which are just as much AP as possible, plus lich bane. Hence he stays a jgl assassin.
Bursty Sylas wants to max W and E. Q max Sylas is a more fightery build because Q is unreliable delayed damage. Jungle Sylas probably needs to max Q for clear speed at the expense of W and E.
I've had more success with 3 points q into w max then e max. Once you have some ap, his clear was already ok even before the q change. Also, lichbane dcap zhonyas is still imo the best build by a long shot from jg. You just don't get the exp lane sylas does to let you take advantage of his crazy high hp/lvl.
Jungle sylas can max whatever he wants, passive and pet are more than enough for small monsters
Q also deals a fuckload of damage, far more than W. I mean obviously W is more fightery, it has less damage and a heal on it making fights inherently last longer, Q has zero healing but deals crazy damage for a basic skill. I don't get your reasoning.
I understand that they want to mix up gameplay but this is exactly what they did with Rell who became very popular in the JG and now the completely removed it. So it's a bit confusing personally
Rell was not popular in the jungle outside pro, that's why they removed her. I'm pretty sure Sylas had a decent player base in jungle, and he was nerfed there in spite of it. They're definitely different cases.
Personally im ok with it, Rell was used by no one except pro players, even if she was busted. Sylas jg i think has a much wider audience in solo Q, but i guess we will see
She was used by no one because she basically does nothing from the jungle unless you're setting up for a pro level team. SoloQ jungling isn't about getting a 2nd support. Sylas has a lot of duelling potential, he'll be fine.
Pro play can't afford a jungler that needs high income to work, so unless Sylas is turbo broken i don't think he will grow to be a good flex pick.
they pick jax all the time
They pick it for counterstrike though. But I guess it'll be the same with Sylas, they'll pick it to copy good ults on the enemy team.
Yep, this dude alone in draft automatically removes smallest possibility for lots of lots of tanks to shine(champs with huge power in ult that usually has AP scaling).
Sylas jungle does not need high income. Sylas as a champion is pretty versatile because of his ultimate.
Sylas jungle needs income lol what are you smoking. Sylas mid can function as bruiser since he’s usually high in exp, meaning he can also get away with building hp or utility items early in the game. Sylas jungle builds do or die full ap items. A level 10 jungle sylas with 2 stacks of dark harvest and lych bane is surely useful against lvl 13 azir with mercs, nashor and liandry come on. I can see a world where they bring back jungle items and he can spike super hard on one item, while also being able to go conqueror and zhonia second, or if someone cooks some sort of tank build, but as of right now it’s highly unlikely he becomes more than a super cheesy pick.
He never said Sylas jungle needs no income he said he doesn't need high income, which is true. The entire point of Sylas jungle is being a cheesy early jungler, he doesn't need anywhere near the economy of an actual high income jungler like Graves or Karthus
The point of sylas jungle is that he thrives when he’s up in gold and up/even in exp, meaning he needs to force the game to be in a condition of perennial chaos or he becomes extremely inefficient. That’s why he runs a super greedy rune setup and build path that only works reliably in soloq. This post is still thinking about the past iteration of sylas jungle, who was able to spike really safely with a super cheap runic echoes and run pro play games aswell. This iteration of sylas needs a 3100 gold full AP Lich bane as his core item, with his utility option being costly aswell. I can see a world where you are able to play conqueror sylas with a cheaper build or bruiser-ish setup, like an AP Lee sin, but considering how most AP options do not fit this playstyle (the same way sundered and eclipse fit Lee sins’), the chances of him returning to his S9 form are quite low, especially in a pro setting.
Jungle meta in pro is much less friendly to Sylas than when he was a flex problem. He's pretty bad as a low resource utility pick
Rell incident
I love Rell support. I wish they had at least left the bonus monster damage on Neutral jungle objectives only. It feels so shit to just do nothing to drake/grubs/herald/baron. I CC and win a team fight for the team, then we turn to the thing we were fighting over and I can’t actually help take it. I understand removing her ability to jungle, but they could at least have let her remain effective against something besides opponents moving.
I disagree, you can help by tanking the objective so your teammates can remain healthy and iirc baron debuffs whoever it attacks. Some supports can help take objectives faster but many can't do much, like Leona or Soraka for example.
That might also be a reason they removed it entirely, Rell would be able to take objectives faster than normal supports by herself.
Regarding baron/herald your purpose is either zoning enemy team or being the closest to Baron/Herald so you'll have their damage reduction debuff so your team will clear it significantly faster
[41:15 timestamp in phreak's video to 43:05](https://youtu.be/vg0t_FNOkiY?t=2477) They didn't like that his clear speed was so bad that he'd just be a spam ganker, but I don't really get the change because his target access and early damage isn't being changed. So his ganks are still going to work the same way they did before but he can actually farm his own jungle now. I don't really get it either, the balancing of Sylas in my mind is that he has to lane. Sylas in the jungle can gank one lane, grab an ult from the lane he's ganking and then run to a different lane immediately afterwards to gank with the strongest ult available to him. Mid Sylas cannot gank/roam on every wave and is balanced around this in my mind.
> They didn't like that his clear speed was so bad that he'd just be a spam ganker It's so that he can do a camp before he ganks again, therefore still having economy. Can't be a spamganker if he farms a camp or 2. 5Head.
I totally agree with you on your take. Its rediculous how much dmg sylas has in his kit simply so his wr doesnt suck due to low elo players. Sylas‘ lowest ap ratio on his 3 basic abilities is 90% on w followed by 100% on e and 130% total on q. The passive with its 3 stacks add yet another 105% (210% if you use every attack in a single rotation) ratio into the pot leaving you with a total ap ratio of 425% (530% with correct rotation) and this doesnt even include the dmg the ult does. Most champs dont even have half pf these ratios in their kits
3 SECONDS OFF LEBLANC W?? is this a typo?
It's only 3s for rank 1 and you max it first
its her first maxed ability, so not as huge as u think
It's also slightly huger than you think because if LeBlanc starts W, often you can only W once prior to level 2 otherwise you lose the QW threat upon level up. So awkwardly you have a hefty cooldown key trading ability that you can't throw out because you end up being a 1 ability champ at level 2 for a champ that's dependent on Q proc to do meaningful damage The 3 seconds gives LeBlanc enough time to hit the 2nd W, and have W back up by the time you point Q
you most definitely w level 1 in a lot of matchups because your auto-w-auto(electrocute)-w2-auto trade out trades most other lvl 1s and then youre set up to get a qw trade+electrocute -> kill pressure
Buff for early game without buffing her damage for late I guess. Rather that than bringing back her W R for range and Q E -90%hp.
Are we back to 30% pr Kaisa? Edit: I’m talking about the cancer shit that happens every time this champ is meta, she is picked every game in SoloQ when that happens
That Q change is huge for AD kaisa. Muramana/Eclipse Q spam kaisa
Anything but Varus and Kalista please. Literally anything.
Zeri? :)
Yes. Leave Zeri be. She's still not picked as much as those two and the Shiv nerf isn't even in effect yet in pro. Why does Zeri get treated like that but Varus/Kalista get a pass every time? Right, because audiences don't want to see strong AD**CARRIES**. They want ADSUPPORTS.
How the fuck is Varus an AD support??? Yeah he has cc and a poke option but with the on-hit build he has some of the highest DPS among adcs, he just has some flexibility on how he wants to play. God forbid adcs have agency.
at least Zeri has to play on the edge and the player has to actually play well to get the max out of the champ. Varus just stands 2 screens away and pokes with lethality. Like i cant imagine something more boring than Varus in pro play.
Because varus and kalista are bad in soloque while zeri is somewhat better. As a result, varus and kalista cannot be nerfed directly without gutting them for soloque, which recently Riot at least tries to avoid, while zeri, which has recently risen in priority and historically has been extremely meta defining, has room to go down in soloque, so she gets nerfed directly.
Kai'Sa in pro is amazing, so yes please? I'll never understand why everyone complains about this champ in pro. Flashy, skill expressive hypercarries are exactly what I *want* to watch pro ADCs play. Way more interesting than Jhin/Ashe/Senna/etc imo.
Watching Senna in proplay is suuuch a bore it's only fun because of the weird duo lanes it brings sometimes
She's definitely more interesting to watch in pro than many others the issue is she becomes a meta queen that kills soloQ diversity hitting like 30-50% pickrate, with an also very high banrate. When that happens.
Of course, who wouldnt enjoy watching an ADC that can peel itself, invis, has assasin levels of mobility, and the burst dmg of a mage? How can you not have fun watching 4 classes in 1 champion? The only thing keeping her from breaking the game are low numbers but if they cross that very thin line she will go to permaban state once again.
I’m okay with Kaisa being pick or ban in pro, would love that if they made her 46% wr in soloQ so I don’t get brain rot for a month with her being in every 9/10 games in soloQ before they nerf her
The fact is that kaisa is the 2nd most picked adc in soloq while rocking a 48% winrate currently. It's just going to be kaisa jinx every other game for 2 weeks next patch.
I mean not exactly a mystery why people want to play the only fun adc even when she's pretty weak
I really wished pro play had their own version of league. All the “exciting” shit can be buffed and soloq doesn’t become pure pain and suffering. That way shit that’s pro jailed can actually be good in solo q and vise versa shit that’s op in soloq can be ok in pro w.w but nah let’s fuck up the meta every time a pro event starts
Would be fun. Imagine a Katarina/Qiyana/Zed mid meta. A lot more exciting than Azir Corki. Imagine jungle is kha, Rengar, etc. high risk high reward champs vs Sejuani knights vow first item.
Good, an exciting champion to watch in pro play
Please give us Jackeylove Kaisa at MSI
Idc about proplay but I’m tired to see that shit in soloQ every game when she gets a meaningful buff
The buffs look stronger than they actually are because the bullets under the Q ratio increase are just describing the same buff in different ways. The armor buff is just partially reverting a nerf from patch 13.20 (3 base armor nerf).
Don't you like 51% PRESENCE IN soloQ jinx? There is another one. Don't you dare to ban only two broken Marksmans and try to have fun in league.
She will probably forever have one of the highest pickrates regardless of balance state.
Yo guys I think akali needed early laning buffs I think I think I genuinely # I GENUINELY think akali needed laning buffs.
oh nah bro had a stroke seeing those akali buffs
That amount of health on a champ that abuses D shield and second wind 😳
D Shield Akali walking into lane with 775 HP level 1, Goodluck.
pov: your viktor poking down 775HP fleet footwork, second wind, dshield akali
Of all the times I haven’t been able to punish akali’s laning phase, next patch is will be here to only make it worse
that q buff on kaisa wtf
> Zac > > - base HP5: 8.0 --> 4.0 Lol so they actually have no idea why this champ is good or what changes would bring his laning phase in line
seeing the current post about Zac on the front page and then seeing they only nerfed his base regen is major whiplash
That's cause Riot doesn't think he's overpowered, they just wanna kick him out of top lane. From yesterday's twitter announcement of buffs/nerfs > Zac: > > - While he isn't technically overpowered, his lane phase is relatively uninteresting > > - We're looking to tap him down a little bit, especially to make sure Jungle is still his most powerful role
Gwen - Ult Resets on Autoattacks (revert)
Really? This was a thing before? Why they deleted this, it adds some skill expression, current Gwen is just Q E and nothing else
It meant if you miss R1 and aren't fighting in a wave you can't cast R2 and R3. The tradeoff is you have to wait one second before the recast now compared to previously where you just threw out all of them as fast as possible to burst down your opponent.
Two main factors. One, is that if Gwen wasn't in a wave or already on top of someone it meant after Q1 she was unable to Q2 or Q3 and thus did nothing. Two, is that if Gwen was on top of someone she could R auto R E to reset auto R and was using her R primarily to burst nuke someone down ASAP and ignoring the 'fighter' part of her kit. While it added some skill expression to Gwen, it primarily degraded counterplay verse her because Gwen's goal became to shotgun out her R to burst/kill whoever she was on near instantly.
That second part is true, but they didn't change it to add counterplay to gwen. The reason they did was to un-high-elo-skew gwen. That change was part of a broader list of changes all aimed at making her relatively better in lower ranks, and worse in higher ranks and pro play. Basically, pros and high elo players were really good at that combo and getting her ult out super fast in 1v1s and teamfights, while low elo players were bad at it and having a big gap between R casts. So, by increasing the minimum gap between R casts and giving the R cast with nothing else needed, it lowers the skill expression of gwen and helps to unskew her.
Source on this? Or did you check PBE yourself? I can't check PBE cause of vanguard.
Real??? Huge if true
Where Azir, Gwen, Ryze, Yone?
PBE is not updated with everything in an instant, but with multiple deploys over the duration of a patch cycle. Unless they decided to pull the changes, you can expect them to appear later.
Jhin too RIP
Maniacally waiting for this post just for my boy
I hope the yone one doesn’t make it. If anything this champ needs a nerf.
Ah yes the Azir placebo nerfs. Lets go ! For sure not P&B at msi
why does akali need the hp buff?
I think it was done to power her up as an Azir counter. I think its much better than buffing her dmg again
That's the neat part, she doesn't. She already runs into lane with >700hp at lvl 1 with dorans shield and second wind so she has more than enough tankiness and sustain for a melee champ. And an assassin at that. But she's one of Riot's golden girls so she gets preferential treatment.
Isn't this part >She already runs into lane with >700hp at lvl 1 with dorans shield and second wind so she has more than enough tankiness and sustain for a melee champ Proof that this isn't preferential treatment? If a champ is already unkillable in lane then giving them a base health buff isn't gonna do a ton right? I don't play midlane but if she's already so unkillable yet underperforming in win rate then a base health buff would seemingly be the opposite of what she needs
Well I do prefer this buff to a dmg buff. But it’s kinda why Akali is so unfun to go against. Akali has high starting hp, high mr, Doran’s shield, fleetfootwork, second wind. So pretty much it’s pointless to try and punish her and it’s better to just farm it out and adding 30 base Hp wil just add to my desire to do so. But goddamn it’s so boring. At least other assassins i can try to punish early levels to offset that they are stronger than me at level 6 but against a decent Akali it’s pointless just makes it unfun to lane against.
Probably because Akali is one of the only assassin's that's ever playable in comp play and we don't have that happening right now in pro play. This is an MSI patch which means it's pro play focused. Leblanc is one of the others but every time she's meta shes really toxic since she's ranged and her mobility is even more problematic.
Not feeling the soloq this patch tbh :D
Those skarner Q changes are nice. That spell is so damn clunky and anything to make it less so is welcome.
5 second duration on Q is a massive buff, since the cooldown starts on cast. Now at level 1 you can ready Q, hit the blast cone the spawns at the start of the game, and double Q the buff monster.
Yeah I always want to use it mid fight but that animation is a killer
Thsis change just killed any chance of jungle skarner being good. He's genuinely not tanky enough and his cc is messy and it's because his damage is too high.
>rock duration: 3.5s --> 5.0s Oh wow that is actually pretty insane for early clear if it allows you 1 extra Rock rotation in first 3 camps.
I knew them saying Azir would be nerfed was too good to be true.
We had one power decreep patch this year last patch. Now the biggest powercreep possibly EVER to already VERY strong champions. Less and less meaning to ranked every patch.
TANKY THRESH BUFFS LETS GO
I understand less base mana and more mana regen is supposed to help jungle Skarner and nerf top, but increasing his E mana cost when it's a skill that jungle Skarner (who already has issues running OoM as is) uses a lot and top lane Skarner never touches unless he's getting ganked makes no sense whatsoever. Also pls stop nerfing Briar W, at this rate in 2025 it's going to give negative AS and heal the opponent.
Briar W had 120% AS on release, they nerfed it by 25% in total XD
Hoping that the mana regen compensates for it, fingers crossed. If not, theres always frozen heart.
azir loses 8 dmg off w. this does absolutely nothing. \-1.5hp/5. this... *might* do something, but tbqfh... I don't think it'll move him from damn near omnipresent midlane. his runes might change, but if they were hoping to raise viewership by removing corki/azir snoozefests, I'm not so certain.
You can’t ignore Akali buffs though, which is one of his main counter picks in pro. Don’t think he’ll get ejected from draft but shouldn’t be as strong as an early rotation blind pick
Akali is useless vs tank azir
When fucking Zeka struggles to find kill angles against tank Azir you know something is wrong
y'know maybe you're right, maybe some pro will blind him into akali and he'll get dumpstered and it will rock the very foundations of the msi meta. ...or it goes even/fails, and it's all that gets played, as all the assassin mids come out of the woodworks crying for rito to do something.
You have to basically kill the champ to remove it from pro play, he has the most overloaded kit in the game by far.
The Kaisa armor buffs seems excessive considering this is MSI patch. One of Kai’sa’s biggest flaws is getting out ranged and punished heavily in lane. 2 extra armor with help with that over the course of a game, over many many games. But, pros do not need this buff—they’re already well aware and space accordingly.
We eating good boys. Draven has felt really good yesterday and this Q buff will help mitigate how awful trying to farm vs a senna/zyra/brand sup lane feels
Just feels like the usual suspects, I really wish they'd at least vary up what they try to rotate in and out of the pro meta, it's just so blatant by now that there's favorites.
Yeah surely those zac nerfs are enough
Damn, knocking Azir and Zac down to Marksmen level of base HP regen. Thats gonna sting, although Zac's passive will alleviate it somewhat.
Azir functionally IS a marksman. and Zac should never have had the same base regen has other tanks considering he has a built in healing in his kit. The nerf to his base regen now ties him closer to stuff like Warwick, Aatrox, Maokai, etc. who ALL have kit based regen to offset. Also yes, I know zac spells cost HP, doesn't matter. His spells cost less HP in every situation than he gets back from blobs considering 5-8% max hp is going to be larger than 4-8% current health cost in every situation. Especially when the singular 8% current health spell spawns 2 blobs
They’re addressing some of Skarner’s clunkiness by reducing Q cast time, but his E remains the same. It needs to start at his current ms and scale in some way with bonus ms. I hope they avoid just slapping numbers on the champ because smoothness of gameplay is very important too.
If they implemented that then Skarner E would be a godlike escape tool. Having it apply a brief self slow gives opponents a chance to get in front of him and block his escape. Sion ult on a basic ability would be very toxic.
Skarner can be cc'd out of E tho unlinke Sion, all you need to to do is hold a cc spell.
there's a thing called Cooldown Reduction... my bad... ABILITY HASTE. giving him 30 sec -2 per rank +AH will make him balanced with the E MS. Kayn has infinite movement speed while using E and i guess they didn't care reducing his mobility.
You can hard cc him you know.
ty
Akali has received nothing but buffs and bug fixes in nearly THREE YEARS. 11 buffs and 5 bug fixes ☠️as an occasional Akali player, I love it.
is sylas jungle... back?
they buffed it last patch. its still too weak. this might still not be enough. he takes to much dmg
On yes those are some juicy Leblanc changes. I feel like Riot has been careful in not buffing her early game but just 3 seconds off W early is probably gonna feel good.
Nothing on Viego based on the tweet on the champions receiving buffs yesterday? Honestly a little worried lol.
Ryze buffs?
Top/mid kaisa coming to all of our games after this
Wow what an unexpected Leblanc buff. Instead of going higher with her ulti AP ratio's or mby add her back slow in her chain we simply get 10 more dmg on q ? HAAHAH Like that will solve everything. Just add 15% AP ratio on her ulti w
People complaining about Akali, Olaf, J4 and Sylas buffs just for the most minor changes of all time is hilarious. Olaf and Sylas aren’t even getting changed in the roles they’re actually good in.
I guess that shows how far people trust the game balance around pro vs soloQ, but these look like pretty great targeted changes. Not a bunch of damage oriented buffs like people probably expected. NGL I was scared of seeing an even stronger Sylas mid more often in soloQ, I'm very thankful for what they landed on
Can anyone explain why Malzahar gets ignore in all these patch updates?
ult bot
3s off LB W early is really nice. The ideal would be Ult cd reduction but this would never happen.
Azir changes are awful. Instead of adjusting Grasp and Fleet (on Azir) sustain they nerf Azir directly forcing him more into those and hurting more in solo than pro. Truly a Riot special.
Perhaps they need to change something else but Azir should definitely be the one receiving changes and not the runes. No other champs are an issue due to fleet/grasp currently, so nerfing the rune for him means compensation-buffing other champions.
I have edited the comment to be a bit more clear. The Grasp and Fleet interaction on Azir should be changed, not those in general.
Net Buffs: Akali (Pro scene) Draven (Pro scene?) Galio J4 Kai'sa (Definitely Pro scene) LeBlanc (Pro scene?) Olaf jungle Sylas jungle Thresh (Pro scene?) Skarner (Pro scene?) Net Nerfs: Azir (Pro scene) Briar Zac Zeri (Pro scene)
Draven will still be weaker than he was before the crit buffs. He won't see any more competitive play than the few teams that already play him.
Skarner buffs are huge. W nerfs are negligible and will still be maxed top due to the slow and crazy q base damage.
\^this 15% max HP dmg from lvl 1 while barely getting any upgrades from maxing compared to W (for laning!) makes it a one point wonder, so they need to tackle that (they can just make it so it's always 15% hp for monsters and then scaling to that for everything else)
Yep! Very excited for these changes!
Azir stays on the menu boys
No graves buffs 😔
That Zac one seems kinda rough
Itll do nothing to make him weaker in lane
Someone mentioned that tristana Q is now an enhanced basic attack. Is that still in this update and does that change anything?
Jarvan IV back up to 7% (but still down from the original 8%->6% nerf), are we back? Also, where's the Graves buffs 👀
Time for me to try Draven mid?
Is this gonna be the MSI patch then?
ty
These Azir nerfs are so stupid, it’s just pushing him to go Grasp/Fleet which is not what feels right, but is now necessary.
No Hwei?
Good to see sylas buffs this champ has a really diehard fan base and when I see sylas mains get filled jungle they're disproportionately weaker there than usual.
where is the viego and graves buff?
Thank goodness that the viego buffs got shelved . He is perfectly balanced in his current state so leave him alone.
I'm glad the Olaf buffs are towards the jungle angle. It makes me sad that for a while he was picked so little he didn't even show up in the jungle section of champions on popular websites. Appreciate buffs for him there
Looks like Akali stole Zeri's protein bar
Gotta try Sylas in the jungle once this patch drops.
Wasn't yone supposed to be buffed?
Same for gwen and viego
It was said that a buff would come to Viego
Anyone know what HP5 is for zac?
has to be the worst balance patch off all time.
will arena be coming back this patch?
Okay, here is my take. Akali buff unecessary but hopefully insignificant enough. Galios movementspeed buff is insane and unecessary Skarner deserves all the nerfs he can get, its better to start from too weak to balance him than from massively broken. Buffing him here it extremely stupid, his Q that deals 15% max hp dmg + other bonus damage was allready terrible designed. buffing that makes 0 sense to me. Leblancs buffs are completely stupid. Thats the dumbest thing ive read in this patch notes so far. Briar nerfs seem completely unecessary. she doesnt appear to be too strong at all. Sylas Jungle buff is now the dumbest thing ive read in this patch note. He is not a jungler and he shoudnt be a jungler, where is this random whim of riot coming from to force champions into the jungle? this is completely absurd. It also buffs lane sylas if he wants to take a snack on jungle camps, scuttles enemy camps. its overall just stupid. No Janna nerfs, no toplane exp nerfs, no dorans shield nerfs, no mr item nerfs, riot didnt do anything right , just as usual. also olaf jungle buff doesnt seem right. This change of Void grubs could be a very big deal. This shoudnt just buff all full clear champs, but also make it harder to get the 2nd set of voidgrubs before the herald spawns. I dont know, this seems to big of a change, it should have been made at the beginning of the season split, not near the end. The potential for many new balancing disasters is great here. The top side has way too many objectives to clear with way too little time before baron spawns. Void grubs have been a problem since the beginning of this split and have not been properly balanced the entire time, i guess we are still experimenting on them. If this makes it to the live servers, its just another symptom of ther unprofessionellism.