The last year has been very rough for players of Nocturne and Olaf. They stood on the sidelines through various jungle metas, without once getting their shot in the limelight. That may change soon, as Riot is looking to buff them both, according to the company’s post on the official League of Legends forums today.
Whether it be in pro play or solo queue, the most playtime this duo has seen recently has been as niche picks to simply surprise the enemy team, and not because they’re actually strong.
Olaf has the most potential, simply because he’s the closest to other similar junglers that are already doing well. He’s a tank that charges carries and basic attacks them to death, forcing the enemy team to reel back and peel or sacrifice their damage. Champions such as Skarner, Trundle, and Nasus function similarly, in that they need to slow a target and run up to them to deal damage with basic attacks. That being said, Olaf’s buffs seem like they could be very simple and straightforward—either boost his tools for chasing targets or boost the damage he deals when he gets there.
Either way, his damage will probably hike up, and he’ll be a more reliable pick. His downfall at the moment is simply that he can’t actually do much to carries when he reaches them, and he scales pathetically when compared to Trundle, Nasus, and Skarner, who are all lategame titans despite sharing the same archetype with Olaf.
Nocturne, on the other hand, is a little more tricky. He also needs to walk up to champions to kill them, but he’s more of an assassin than other champs that need to do this, like Master Yi or Jax. Since he’s prone to bursting and not dealing consistent damage, pumping more damage into his kit could cause problems. An alternative would be to lower the cooldown on his ultimate or shorten the delay on his fear. Either way, he needs some work, and he can’t really get much worse than he already is.
Both Olaf and Nocturne’s changes should arrive with Patch 8.5 in about three weeks.
