Though today is just barely slower than yesterday in terms of work and moving responsibilities, I can’t hold back on my patch impressions any longer. Yesterday’s patch had some sweeping impact on the state of the game. Urgot brings another new skill type to the game with his swap, but maybe more importantly, both Heimerdinger and Shaco caught significant nerfs – nerfs that could drop them off most players’ ban lists.
I’ll put together a complete Urgot review a bit later today, but for now I’ll say that he seems to have been designed as an Ezreal counter. The stun/swap combo means Arcane Shift only takes Ezreal back to the front of the battle, instead of outside harm’s way. He’s also extremely mana efficient as he harasses, so it’s easy to see him taking mid against a lot of the squishier carries.
The Heimerdinger and Shaco nerfs will be getting a dedicated post as well because they are so big. Riot has always said that it would trickle nerf, but in my mind they should have considered both toons for significant remake if they were planning to nerf this hard.
On to the less significant changes. Kog’Maw caught a rework to his Caustic Spittle, which now provides passive attack speed bonus in addition to the armor penetration active. Kennen also got most of the proposed changes. He now gains armor and magic resistance while in Lightning Rush, Maelstrom can hit more people, and Surge got an AP buff. In my mind it makes him highly desirable. Vladimir was only half nerfed – his Transfusion has a slightly smaller range but his Tides of Blood is larger.
Malphite also got some nice changes. He should be more mana efficient, and his Brutal Strikes now also grants bonus armor, synergizing with Ground Slam and providing some nice staying power, especially in the jungle. Lastly, Soraka got a small tweak in that her Infuse provides half mana to the target and half to her (Soraka gets the full amount on self-casts). Mana cost on her heal has also been marginally increased.
The last change that is actually very cool is that elixirs can be purchased when you have six full slots and will auto-activate. No more selling and repurchasing items.
That’s about it for the patch. The other posts I mentioned here will be up in short order (especially now that the servers are set to ‘busy’).
Posted in: Champions, league of legends, News, Patches
Tags: Kennen, kennen buff, kog'maw, kog'maw buff, malphite, malphite buff, patch day, patch notes, soraka, soraka nerf, urgot, urgot patch, urgot release, urgot skills, vladimir, vladimir buff, vladimir nerf
I purchased my first ever elixer last night on Malphite. Because my items are usually full by the time I start thinking about them
. Definitely a good change there. Wonder if it works for oracles too?
The Malphite changes definitely seemed to help. He still doesn’t feel “tanky”, more like a weak to middle melee with good defense and an awesome initiator. Every time I used my ult (except for once…when it just did nothing?) last night, I destroyed someone(s). Half the time I died… but usually half the other team died with me. Malph ult into Nunu doing his ult followed by W+Q+E was fun.
It does work for Oracle’s – verified that today
I love the Malphite changes. That said I’m not entirely sold on him as a champ but he was definately playable (6/2/5 until I ran into the 20 kill totally fed Kog’Maw – I really hate when I say udyr top and zilean goes and pushes anyway… ).
Speaking of Udyr I played a practice game ‘random everyone mid’. I don’t know if you’ve tried these but they are certainly interesting. The rules are just as they sound. Everyone goes mid, you can’t go in bush, you can’t b or shop unless you die. That said Udyr + Soraka was weak early but around level 8 became unstoppable (against Xin + TF). I may have to buy Udyr just to run a locket build because he is amazingly resilient while putting out good dmg and chasing well.
Udyr is a surprisingly strong champ for how rarely you see him. He is ridiculously durable, especially with a healer involved. I think his problem stems from the fact that he’s as weak when he falls behind as he is strong when he’s up. Casting 5-6 stances and then running around without mana is not a fun way to spend a game.
Sorry looks like I didn’t sign in when I wrote that, but the part that really amazed me was with a level 2 turtle + Soraka (not a fair trial) I was able to tower dive with impunity despite being down 2 kills to start. I think I’m going to finish getting crit chance runes for my garen page and try both Malphite and Udyr more.