It’s patch day once again, bringing us Jarvan, the latest tanky “DPS” toon (yes, the quotes imply that he doesn’t deal much damage) to join the League. We’ve also got a list of changes, though none of them are terrible game changing. Let’s do the rundown, shall we?
Anivia got her nerf from last patch partially reverted. Mana cost on Glacial Storm is somewhere in between her original and nerfed numbers, which seems fine. I haven’t seen her in a couple weeks.
Caitlyn’s ult got a range, cast time, and projectile speed buff, all of which were necessary. I still don’t think she’ll be particularly effective in highly competitive matches, but at least her ult will feel less like a liability in the games that I do play her.
Ezreal got a buff to his ultimate – it now scales off his bonus attack damage. Before you freak out, remember that a lot of Ezreal players start with a Sheen/Trinity these days. That’s not a lot of attack damage. Also the fact that it’s bonus damage, not flat attack damage, means you’ll see 10-20 percent damage boost on the high end but that’s really it. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
Garen caught a small buff, Karma got some buffs across the board, Leblanc caught a tweak, Kaiser got a small buff, Singed got a twe…..oh, forget it. The changes made this patch are miniscule, so I’m going to let you read them for yourself. The really interesting stuff is the changes made to game pacing. Let’s look at those.
-Melee minion magic resist now increases 1.25 per 3 minutes (up from 0.5)
-Ranged minion armor now increases 1.25 per 3 minutes (up from 0.5)
-Cannon minion armor and magic resist now increase 3 per 3 minutes (up from 2)
-After 20 minutes, cannon minions now spawn every 2 waves (up from every 3 waves)
-Cannon minions and super minions now reduce turret damage by 65% (up from 50%)
-Fixed a tooltip bug “This unit receive…” with cannon minions and super minions
-Minions now deal about 50% more damage to turrets
While these changes look good on paper, I’m curious to see if they’ll actually affect the game. So far, my games have still been pretty long. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that creeps don’t get blown up by attrition during teamfights quite as much. In fact, fights at towers when minions are present have been utter carnage in my experience so far. Another basic issue is that it now takes longer to push to a turret if you don’t have minions with you. In a way, these changes could actually slow the game. Teamfights these days tend to be sprawling, often stretching down a lane, outside the reach of minion fire. If a team has to then backtrack down lane in order to push, I’d hope they can push those minions quickly. That’s won’t be the case with the new minions, which actually surprised me with their durability.
There’s also the new death timers, which now range from 12 seconds to 50 versus the 25-50 of days gone by. Dead players are back to lane very quickly, which might not be a great thing. Yes, it sucks to sit around doing nothing while you’re dead, but that’s part of the penalty. It encourages players to not die. That penalty is now much less harsh, giving early victims the chance to get back to lane quickly to hopefully farm up and recover.
While Riot continues to work toward balance, I think there are still some major issues that need to be addressed. Jungling is still too necessary in my mind, which creates problematic matchups in the top lane. Some champions, like Renekton or Xin Zhao, seem to be designed to take that second solo and completely abuse their opponents. Will those things be addressed in the near future? I certainly hope so. The patch notes have been spartan affairs, lately.
