Riot to deploy League preseason balance hotfix for Viktor nerf, Kassadin buff, and a slew of items

League of Legends‘ preseason has just begun, but there are already some overachievers and underperformers.

Gameplay design director Mark “Scruffy” Yetter broke down a hotfix hitting live servers tonight, which should balance a number of items, as well as Viktor and Kassadin.

The entire item overhaul has been friendly to Viktor, whose base numbers are just a tad too high. So Riot is lowering the AP ratio on Death Ray’s first proc (E) from 70 to 50 percent, as well as its Aftershock damage from 20 to 180 to 20 to 140.

Unlike Viktor, Kassadin took a hit from the massive item changes. So Riot’s compensating by increasing his health per level from 90 to 105 and lowering his ultimate’s base mana cost to 40, from 50.

Lethality item Eclipse is being taken down a peg, with its damage dropping from 8 to 6 percent max health and its movement speed buff reduced to 15 percent, from 30. Liandry’s, Lichbane, and Guinsoo’s Rageblade are also receiving nerfs. But the AP jungle item is getting its burn damage increasing to 20 percent AP.

This hotfix follows an earlier micro-patch that fixed numerous bugs, such as Ashe double dipping on her passive crit scaling with Rageblade and Zoe spawning extra teleport shards on the floor.