Riot to take poke power from Janna’s Zephyr, will make Howling Gale a better offensive spell in League Patch 12.1

In League of Legends’ upcoming Patch 12.1, the winds of change are coming once again. This time, Janna is getting some sweeping changes to her kit that will alter her playstyle in the early stages of a game.

Riot Games’ principal champion designer August Browning has confirmed multiple adjustments to her abilities, which will “[drain] lane poke power out of her W + AA’s,” while also making her Howling Gale ability a lot more powerful as an offensive skill.

First, Janna’s Q is getting its mana costs lowered in the late game, while both its minimum and maximum range are being increased. The travel time of the ability is being reduced by 0.25 seconds and the damage is being buffed by 20 at later levels, especially when charged fully. As a result, Janna should be able to use her Q a lot more to get some meaningful damage down, if she can hit the spell enough.

“To clarify, the thing that makes the Q stronger offensively is the mininum range and travel speed,” August said in a follow-up post. “Max charge Q’s are much harder to dodge, and snapcast knockups are easier to hit, especially when combo’d with W.”

Although her W ability’s poking power is being limited, August said its effectiveness will be more useful for utility purposes. The cooldown for Zephyr might be getting increased to 12 seconds at all levels, but the ability’s range, slow duration, damage, and passive movement speed are all getting increased to offset the longer timer. It should be perfect when setting up a gank for a jungler or chasing down an enemy kiting away from a skirmish.

For anyone who enjoys fighting with constant shields in a teamfight, however, there’s some bad news in this new update. Although Janna’s E shield is getting a shorter cooldown and more time before it decays, Riot is removing its passive where slowing or knocking up an enemy reduces E’s cooldown by 20 percent. At maximum rank, nine seconds is a long time to wait for another shield, especially in big teamfights. Because of this, Janna players will need to be a lot more deliberate about which champs they protect.

A release date for League Patch 12.1 has not been announced yet.

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