Riot is gutting the Jhin and Rageblade strategy in League Patch 8.9

The Jhinsoo’s Rageblade build, the strat that combines Jhin with the newly-refurbished Guinsoo’s Rageblade from Patch 8.6, is coming to a tragic end next week, according to a Riot staffer’s comment on the official League of Legends forums.

Of course, it’s only tragic for those that actually used the strategy. If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a Rageblade-stacked fourth-shot from Jhin, you’d understand perfectly why it has to go. It deals way too much damage.

Guinsoo’s rework essentially turned it into a Rabadon’s Deathcap, but for Jhin. It changed all of the item’s damage into a boost that scales with bonus AD and AP, and it even gives its user more bonus AD and AP with each basic attack.

Jhin, if you don’t know, has some of the highest AD in the game to begin with thanks to both attack speed and critical chance being converted into bonus AD. Each boost from the new Rageblade just cranks it up higher with each attack. This results in Jhin reaching heights such as 1,400 AD in a standard 30-minute game and even higher if the game lasts long enough.

That power spike is thanks to something called “recursive stat increases,” according to the Riot staffer on the forums. Although there are other instances of that mechanic throughout the game, it’s definitely the most broken in this specific scenario. In Patch 8.9 next week, it’ll be over, because a change has been locked into the patch to address the issue. The Riot staffer didn’t specify what that change actually was, though.

Jhin’s winrate didn’t spike terribly high thanks to this new strategy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not broken. Jhin himself is actually all-around balanced in the current solo queue meta, but if he can get to the point of buying the Rageblade as a third or fourth item, it turns him into an absolute monster that’s very difficult to beat. No other ADC has an item power spike quite on that scale, and it’s extremely oppressive.

The only reason his winrate didn’t skyrocket is because it’s not that easy to actually reach that point of the game, with each match ending at or around 25 to 30 minutes most of the time, according to League stats site LeagueOfGraphs.

This change won’t knock Jhin out of the meta by any means, and he should remain a viable, if not strong, choice as an early-game lane dominator. Patch 8.9 and the Jhinsoo’s nerf should arrive next week.