After reading about the changes to runes, Blue Essence, and leveling, you’d be forgiven for assuming that Riot passed on champion tweaks this time round.
Nevertheless, this week’s patch is still chock-full of buffs, nerfs, and other big changes to towers and minions.
There are some champions that are obviously too strong right now. And while Riot continues to monitor the impact of both Ezreal and Sona, two of the highest performing champions in the game, Shyvana and Rammus will at least be knocked down a peg or two.
Shyvana’s base attack damage is being lowered from 69 to 66, which won’t have a huge impact on anything but camp clear—but that small amount of AD adds up a lot when she uses her Twin Bite with Press the Attack. That being said, her ganks should be at least slightly less powerful now.
Rammus’ armor is being dropped from 40 to 36, which will hurt his already poor camp clear at early levels but won’t affect him much into later levels as he builds up more armor from items.
The buffs this patch are being dished out to some of the game’s weaker champions that had been performing reasonably well until the big rune changes two weeks ago, so they’re being bumped a little bit to help them find their footing.
Jinx is getting the most significant change. Her Flame Chompers! will now stop champions mid-dash, just like Veigar’s wall, helping her survive ganks, hard engages from enemy supports, tower dives, and a ton of other risky situations. This small change will go a long way on such an immobile ADC.
Other noteworthy buffs are going to Taliyah, whose health and armor per level are going up, Illaoi who’s W can no longer be cancelled, and Gragas’ attack speed which is going up by a lot to help him survive clearing the jungle.
The most surprising balance change of the patch, however, is going to turrets and minions. Turrets will now be considerably tankier, going up 300 health. Minions will now deal 10 percent more damage to them, meaning the minions should make up for the 300 health over time, but champions will have a hard time bursting them down. This change is likely to compensate for the overall damage buffs to champions following the introduction of Runes Reforged.
Minions will also move faster starting at 20 minutes, meaning they’ll reach towers faster to peck them down. This change will be coming a few days after the rest of the patch, which will be tomorrow morning on the North America server.
