Aatrox, Singed, Camille receive nerfs on PBE

Three top lane champions are getting nerfed, if an update to League’s Public Beta Environment today makes it through testing.

Singed and Camille have both been on top of the meta, so their nerfs will take them down a notch. Aatrox, on the other hand, was recently reworked and has been on the PBE for testing. He’s receiving nerfs before his live release with Patch 8.13 next week.

Aatrox’s jungling potential is taking a deep dive in the PBE update. His Q, The Darkin Sword, saw its bonus damage against monsters drop to 10 percent from 15 percent. This will make his clear significantly slower, though he probably isn’t cut out for the jungle position anyway. Since he relies so much on his Q for damage, its long initial cooldown makes it difficult to efficiently clear camps.

Unlike Aatrox, Camille has found significant success in the jungle recently. Her quick clear combined with potent gank potential has solidified her as one of the best in the role, and her E, Hookshot, is a large part of her success. Its base damage is being nerfed by 15 to 55 damage depending on level, a huge decrease. This will slow down her jungle clear, especially early, and make her ganks significantly weaker, and may be enough to push her out of the upper echelon of junglers.

Singed is another champion who has risen to prominence in this meta. Seen as a troll pick in the past, Singed’s damage and tankiness combine to make him an extremely effective top laner. The removal of Banner of Command further solidified him as a strong splitpusher who can also wreak havoc in teamfights with his Q, Poison Trail. In order to bring him back down to earth, the maximum percent health damage on his E, Fling, is being being lowered to between three to seven percent from six to eight percent. The ability now scales harder over the course of the game but will tone down Singed’s early game power significantly while only slightly touching his late game. The mana cost on his Q is also being reverted to the live value of 13 from 17.

Riot is doubling down on its insistence that champions stick to one role with nerfs to Camille and Aatrox, while the Singed nerfs were necessary to prevent him from dealing too much damage as a tank. Expect these changes to go live next week barring further tweaks.