Stormsurge, AP top laners among first nerfs of the year in LoL Patch 14.1 B

As expected, a micropatch for League of Legends Patch 14.1 is indeed being released soon. And while it doesn’t address all of the concerns players have expressed within the first few days of the new season, some outliers are being tuned to improve the gameplay experience.

Riot Phroxzon, the lead gameplay designer for League, provided players with a list of all of the changes coming with Patch 14.1 B—set to be released either today or tomorrow—as well as some detailed explanations of what has landed right and what the team isn’t too happy with. Since this is a micropatch, it will not be released to the PBE first, though any complications with it will likely be addressed either immediately or in Patch 14.2, which is expected to be released on Jan. 24 with a short PBE testing period prior.

As many players anticipated, the crux of the nerfs on this list are aimed at AP top laners and the items that they build, including Stormsurge and Hextech Rocketbelt—items that also heavily impact Fizz’s priority in the mid lane. Champions included on this nerf list, such as Singed, Teemo, Gwen, and Kayle, have dominated the first week of the top lane meta due to the overhaul of the item system and the agency items like these provide, on top of top lane itemization oftentimes not focusing on building magic resist.

LeBlanc once more joins the nerf list in an attempt for Riot Games to quell her AD build yet again before it becomes streamlined, while Aphelios—the only champion that gets lethality passively as part of his kit—has benefitted too much from having this stat. Collector is being nerfed in tandem with Aphelios to further decrease the power of lethality-focused builds.

Phroxzon explained that champions in the support role “look to be in a good spot,” but recognized Trailblazer as the completed support item with the most balance issues. He also noted, however, that the dev team is keeping a close eye on the massive overhaul to the support role as a whole, pushing more changes in the future if need be.

Alongside this hefty list of nerfs, a handful of champions and items are also being buffed—including Zed, Ezreal, and multiple AD items. League Patch 14.1 B is expected to be released on the live servers later today.