League of Legends‘ invisible champs may find more success on the Howling Abyss next season.
League game designer on modes Lowbo discussed a massive change to the ARAM mode today, explaining that Oracle’s Extract is being replaced by an iteration of Umbral Glaive’s Blackout passive. The Riot dev cites low win rates for invisibility and trap champions in high MMR, especially when players know to buy the item.
Each cannon and super minion will have a modified charge of the Blackout passive, with a 900 unit detection range and four seconds of visible traps. These changes should be hitting the preseason PBE later today, according to Lowbo.
Certain champions, like Teemo, have “core defensive abilities” that become “irrelevant” when Oracle’s Extract is activated. It’s also frustrating when opponents have to sink 300 gold into the elixir to counter an annoying stealth champ.
This change should help balance out the mode, especially since players don’t have much agency in which champions they play as. But Lowbo admits that the power levels of invisible and trap champions might be unpredictable due to the preseason patch. So Riot will keep an eye on those specific champs in ARAM and balance them out in future patches.
Lowbo also mentioned a more minor ARAM change that will remove alternating cannon waves, claiming it was an “unsuccessful experiment that stayed far too long.”
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