The Ardent Censer was targeted with a big nerf in Patch 7.17 last month, but that wasn’t enough to slow down its domination on the support meta in League of Legends.
More changes were introduced to it on the PBE in preparation for Patch 7.19 yesterday, and we’re not sure these new changes are much better. In fact, they may make the item even more powerful.
The change will completely remove the item’s ability to give your allies on-hit health draining. Granted, it only provided a 25 health drain per hit, which isn’t fantastic, but that’s still a significant nerf. That leaves the attack speed and on-hit damage buffs still on the item, and the on-hit heals gone completely.
We know what you’re thinking. “If a feature is entirely removed from the item, how could it possibly be stronger?” Well, don’t worry, that wasn’t the only change.
When healing or shielding your allies, now not only will you buff them, you’ll buff yourself. That’s right, you’ll also get the attack speed and on-hit damage buffs when you shield or heal your allies, making the likes of Lulu and Janna somehow even more scary than they already are.
As if that wasn’t enough, the nerfs in Patch 7.17 are also being reverted. The nerfs lowered the attack speed buff from between 20 to 35 percent, depending on your level, down to a flat 25 percent. It did the same to the on-hit damage, taking it from a scaling 20 to 35 damage down to a flat 25. Those nerfs have been reverted, and both buffs will again scale from 20 to 35.
The removal of the on-hit health drain doesn’t seem nearly enough to compensate for the otherwise massive buff the item is receiving, but we won’t know for sure until these changes go live with Patch 7.19 in a couple of weeks.
Published: Sep 19, 2017 03:38 pm