Following the dominance of healing items in the first few patches of League of Legends season 11, some notable items are being changed to balance survivability a bit better.
Mark “Scruffy” Yetter, League’s gameplay design director, revealed the changes coming to items in an updated Patch 11.4 preview today. The buffs and nerfs are hitting a relatively smaller item pool this time around, with a large focus on decreasing the massive healing that many champions have enjoyed.
Moonstone Renewer is the only item being nerfed in this patch—and for good reason. Since the beginning of season 11, the low cost of the item tied in with its effectiveness in team healing has led to the development of strategies with this support item outside of the bot lane. Due to this, Riot is lowering the base heal from 70 to 100 to 50 to 100, now scaling with champion level. Notably, Staff of Flowing Water—the item Moonstone Renewer has often been paired with due to its healing synergy—isn’t being nerfed.
Buffs to Everfrost are looking to make it a viable contender among AP Mythic items for mages. Its cast time is being reduced by 0.1 seconds, but the spell delay prior to the stun remains unchanged. Kindlegem is being added to Everfrost’s build path, thus adding an extra 50 health that the item grants. Most notably, its active damage is being boosted from 100 with a 30 percent AP ratio to 125 with a 35 percent AP ratio. Next to Liandry’s Anguish and Luden’s Tempest, this item is looking a lot more intriguing but still appears very niche.
Cosmic Drive, a new AP, Ability Haste, and movement speed-granting Legendary item introduced in the preseason, has been fairly underused. Therefore, its effect is being completely changed, now granting the player an additional 20 Ability Haste and 10 to 30 movement speed. To compensate for these massive changes, the AP it grants is being lowered from 30 to 20.
ADCs who like attacking quickly and effectively will be able to return to their trusty pal Guinsoo’s Rageblade. Its attack speed is being increased from 40 to 45 percent.
Items that inflict Grievous Wounds are also being buffed to further compensate for the amount of healing in League, even after the nerfs to Moonstone Renewer. The changes aren’t major but they’ll make the items more appealing as a second or third option for champions looking to take back control of the game without feeling like they aren’t gaining enough stat bonuses.
Chipmunk Chainsword, the new AD Grievous Wounds support item, will have its health increased from 150 to 250. Mortal Reminder will be more appealing to champions that build AD with an increase from 20 to 25 AD given. Meanwhile, Morellonomicon has seen some fluctuation in and out of the meta since the start of season 11 but is looking to make a more prominent stay with an increase from 70 to 80 AP given.
This updated Patch 11.4 preview reflects changes that are in development and may not be final when they reach the live servers. League’s Patch 11.4 is scheduled to be released on Feb. 18.
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