When the preseason began and the new rune system was introduced, two types of champions seemed to benefit the most—tanks and damage dealers. One class of champion has been struggling a bit though.
Fighters, AD champions that teeter in between being a tank and dealing damage, haven’t felt quite at home—and that’s why Riot is buffing them in the next patch, according to the company’s post in the official game forums today.
Runes have felt extremely potent on damage dealers. Between Arcane Comet, Electrocute, Press the Attack, Predator, and the other keystone runes, it always seems like there are multiple strategies to try out. For tanks, builds are less diverse, as they’re almost always either Aftershock or Grasp of the Undying, but they’re very powerful runes. For some fighters, namely Olaf, Kled, Fiora, Aatrox, and Renekton, it doesn’t seem like there are any good options.
Sure, they can find use in keystone runes out there now, but they feel lackluster, and that’s mostly because these champions needed a combination of attack speed and AD runes in the old rune system that they can no longer use, and now, they’re suffering for it more than most. To help, Riot will test some buffs for them on the PBE, to be launched with the next micropatch, Patch 7.24B.
Item changes are coming for items like the Tiamat, Ravenous Hydra, and Black Cleaver to help those champions out, too, and nerfs will be doled out to Teemo and Jayce (they’re most oppressive competition in the top lane).
Overall, these changes should be more than enough to bring back fighters to the top lane, rather than dedicated damage dealers or beefy tanks. The changes are expected to ship in about two weeks.
Published: Dec 6, 2017 02:09 pm