A ton of gnarly changes are coming to Caitlyn and Janna, according to the latest PBE update.
Janna’s changes are more of a small rework, due to the fact that they’ll alter the way she’s played entirely, and Caitlyn’s changes mostly affect her old nerfs from Patches 7.11 and 7.16. For both of the ladies, though, these changes are big enough to impact the meta as a whole.
Janna
Janna’s changes are the most significant, because they introduce new features and alter her kit in a way that will change how she’s played. They’ll actually turn her into a sort of auto-attack centered mage support—the first of its kind. When we say “auto-attack centered,” we’re not referring to her boosting her ADC’s auto attacks, we mean she’ll actually need to auto attack enemies to take full advantage of her newfound damage.
For starters, her passive, Tailwind, will now cause her basic attacks to deal 35 percent of her bonus movement speed. That alone is probably the most significant change, as it stacks with the movement speed provided by items like Ardent Censer, Talisman of Ascension, and Boots of Mobility—all items she builds often. With this damage, she’ll be able to trade damage in lane simply by hitting enemies with basic attacks.
Her Q, Howling Gale, is getting nerfed somewhat in terms of range and cooldown. Now, no matter how far the tornado travels from charging up, it will always reach its destination in 1.5 seconds. That means that you’ll see some super speed tornadoes when they’re fully charged.
The next big change is on her shield, Eye of the Storm. It’s not a mechanical change, it’s just a nerf—but it’s a big one. Rather than having a cooldown of 10 seconds at all ranks, it will now start at 18 seconds, nearly double that, and scale down to 10 as the game goes on. This will hurt her laning performance significantly, but could be outweighed by her new damage.
Either way, Janna’s playstyle is shifting. Instead of sitting in the back, launching tornadoes and shielding allies, she’s going to have to get close to trade damage, since her shield won’t be as reliable.
There’s also a large chunk of stat changes coming for her as well, including higher base health, lower base AD, faster basic attacks, and more.
Caitlyn
Caitlyn is also undergoing a ton of stat changes, like more health, higher attack speed, and a shorter basic attack animation delay. The one we want to zero in on, however, is the higher attack speed. Caitlyn’s attack speed was significantly nerfed in Patch 7.11, and this buff, which raises both her base attack speed and attack speed growth per level, is essentially a reversal of that nerf.
The next change lies within her Headshot passive, which is being nerfed for the most part. For starters, it will take eight basic attacks to proc a free Headshot rather than six, which is the nerf aspect of the change. Headshots will now be usable on structures, though, which is a big deal. Caitlyn has always fallen behind Tristana and Kog’Maw in terms of bursting down towers, but being able to Headshot towers will absolutely change the game.
Her Q, Piltover Peacemaker, is also being buffed. Rather than dealing 50 percent less damage to every target after the first one hit, that value is being lowered to 33 percent, which is a sizable buff. It will increase her waveclear and AoE ability, and it’s a direct reversal of a nerf she received in Patch 7.16.
Her W, Yordle Snap Trap, is undergoing the most change. The bonus damage given to the Headshot is being raised from 10/55/100/145/190 to 40/90/140/190/240, which is a very large damage buff. The AD scaling is being shifted from 60 percent total AD to 40/55/70/85/100 percent bonus AD. Rather than lasting for 90 seconds flat, each trap will now last for 30 to 70 seconds, depending on the ability’s rank. The recharge time for each trap is being lowered for each rank until max rank, and finally, the duration of the vision provided by a snapped trap is being lowered from eight to three seconds.
This onslaught of changes basically boils down to this: Each trap will deal much more damage when the Headshot procs and they’ll be usable more often thanks to a lower charge time, but they won’t last as long on the ground, meaning she’ll have to use them decisively rather than just setting up minefields.
These changes hit the PBE yesterday, which means they should likely arrive with Patch 7.19 in two weeks.
