Riot Games explains why Aftershock nerfs were pushed back

In today’s Quick Gameplay Thoughts, lead gameplay designer Andrei “Meddler” van Roon previewed the upcoming changes in League of Legends Patch 9.7 and provided context as to why the recent Aftershock nerfs have been delayed.

Aftershock received a nerf on the League of Legends Public Beta Environment earlier in the week. The rune’s early-game defenses drastically lowered from 70 – 120 to 20 – 170, and its AP and AD ratios were removed altogether.

While the changes to the rune addressed the power of dive champions like Lissandra and Sylas, it inadvertently hit tankier characters as well, leaving the rune in a weakened state lacking a clear identity.

Riot staffer Richard “MapleNectar” Henkel revealed on Twitter yesterday the changes had been scrapped and would not appear in Patch 9.7. Today, Meddler gave fans a bit of insight as to why the League of Legends developer put the rune on the back-burner.

“Something that became clear pretty quickly when assessing different options was that we didn’t have a clearly enough defined and agreed on audience target (who uses it really well, who uses it moderately well, who shouldn’t consider it as an option),” Meddler wrote.

Meddler also touched on a few changes that fans can expect to see in the upcoming patch. Kayle, Morgana, Sylas, and Lissandra are all set to receive changes given their priority and strengths in their respective lanes. Vayne could also see a slight nerf in the near future, although it’s likely Riot will wait to make any changes to the marksman until after Patch 9.7.