League of Legends Patch 7.8 went live today, and it brought a ton of changes, for better or worse, to the ARAM game mode.
There were actually more changes than we predicted when Riot first hinted at its plans two weeks ago, but they all have one goal in mind: Turn ARAMs into the adrenaline-fueled roller coaster it was always meant to be. All of the changes will work collectively to speed up the pace of the game. Losing fights will be more punishing, and winning games will feel more decisive and snappy. More gold, more minions, and more chaos have arrived.
Minions and Super Minions
Minions and their super counterparts are definitely the scariest changes to ARAMs this patch. There will be more minions in general, and they’ll be much stronger. Regular minion waves will now spawn five seconds faster, and the first minion wave will spawn at the 0:45 mark instead of at 1:00. On top of that, every other minion wave will now have a cannon minion, rather than every third wave. Typically minions grow in strength every 90 seconds so they scale with the champions, but now, they’ll be buffed every 60 seconds.
Even if the enemy team doesn’t have any AD champions to take down towers easily after they smash you in a team-fight, it won’t matter. There are so many more minions and cannon minions now, and they’re all so much stronger, that their minion horde will smash through your towers anyway. You think that’s bad? The super minions are even worse.
Super minions typically have an armor rating of 30, but not anymore. Now, they’ll have an armor rating of 100. That’s right, it’s been tripled, so they’ll be much harder to kill. Super minion attack damage has also been nearly doubled from 180 to 306, so they’ll hit everything they see much harder. What’s more, they also give any nearby allied champion a 20 percent movement speed boost, making team-fighting near super minions and pushing alongside them easier. With these changes, if a team can take down the inhibitor to spawn super minions, they would be very, very hard to defeat.
Gold and Items
Dying enemy minions will now grant three gold to nearby champions. To compensate, killing minions will grant a little less gold. This means that AD champions with better farming capabilities won’t be able to skyrocket ahead, and the entire team will benefit from pushing waves.
You also won’t be able to buy gold-boosting items anymore to prop you up if your team starts to fall behind, further widening the lead gap between teams. The item lines for Relic Shield, Ancient Coin, Spellthief’s Edge, and the Cull have all been removed from the Howling Abyss.
Related: Support items are about to get very interesting in League
Health Relics and Assists
Before today’s patch, health relics were a nice tool for sustaining yourself in the one lane of Howling Abyss, since you can’t go back to base to heal up. Now, however, one health relic could turn the tide of a team-fight. They can now heal you for up to 200 percent of the normal amount, depending on how low your health is. If the enemy Caitlyn is about to die, double check that she’s not near a relic, because one relic can turn your fight from a victory into one big bait. Oh, and they also spawn at the two minute mark rather than the usual three.
Assists on both champions and towers are now much easier to achieve, which will also help teams stick together in terms of gold and experience. Previously, if one Katarina gets really fed, you could just focus her and then turn your attention on the rest of the team. Now, however, her entire team will be a little fed right alongside her. You can now get an assist on a champion if you contributed to their death within 20 seconds of them dying, scaled up from the usual 10 seconds. You will also get an assist on a turret if you damaged it within 30 seconds of its death, up from the previous 10 seconds as well. Assists grant both gold and experience.
Poros
Surprisingly, poros are also seeing some considerable changes. For starters, they’ll no longer spawn in the lane bushes, so you won’t be able to track poro movement to tell if an enemy is in the bush. Oh, and their health has been nerfed from 100,000 to 1,000. They’re still unkillable, though, so don’t try to go on a poro murder spree while you’re in an ARAM.
If you only have about 10 to 15 minutes to play, you’ll be able to hop into an ARAM without the risk of it turning into a 40 minute slugfest. That still could happen, but it’s a lot less likely. Whether you’re looking for a short game or you miss the high-speed stupidity of URFs, ARAMs should have a little something for everyone.
