Burst damage in League is about to be nerfed in a big way

The League of Legends community seems to blame one thing or another for all the game’s shortcomings. During the spring, there was the “you can’t solo carry games anymore” epidemic on the game’s Reddit community and forums. Riot responded with buffs to assassin champions, burst damage, the Ignite spell, and more.

The criticisms seemed to fizzle out over the next couple of months, and eventually no one mentioned it anymore. Now, there’s a new scapegoat in town, and once again, it’s plastered all over the forums and Reddit. If you’ve visited either, you’ve undoubtedly seen the pitchforks, torches, and angry mobs of players.

Related: Riot buffs Graves, Zed, Talon, the Ignite spell, and more

This time, they’re complaining that the game has too much damage. And, ironically enough, Riot is responding by nerfing assassins, according to the company’s post on the forums today. More specifically, their tools for burst damage are being nerfed in quite a significant way.

Nerfs are coming for popular damage-oriented runes, such as Electrocute, Scorch, and Sudden Impact. Not only that, but the damage proc on the Duskblade of Draktharr is being brought down a notch, too. After these changes go live, the on-hit damage boosts from Duskblade and the Stormrazor will also be considered the same unique passive, so you’ll only be able to use one (RIP Quinn).

The changes to both Duskblade and the Stormrazor haven’t been revealed in detail quite yet, but the rune changes have, according to a comment in another post on the game’s forums. Electrocute’s base damage and damage scaling are both dropping considerably, but in exchange, its cooldown will be significantly lower. The other changes are much more straightforward, as they’re just flat-out nerfs. Sudden Impact’s lethality and magic penetration boosts will be lower, and Scorch will deal about half as much damage as it does now.

So, there you have it. Contrary to the assassin buffs in March, Riot now wants assassins to deal much less damage. That’s not a terrible thing, aside from being a little confusing. If you weren’t a fan of the tank meta from the beginning of the season, though, you may want to beware, because there’s at least a chance it’ll come back after all this is finished.