It’s patch day again, boys and girls, and we can finally say it happened. That’s right, today we were given a major feature release. Well, sort of. The major feature from today’s patch, Co-op versus AI, won’t actually launch until later in the week. It is built into the client, though, so that’s a step in the right direction. And, of course, today also marks the Maokai release. He’s got some of the coolest champion art in the game and what looks to be a decent skillset. I’ll be covering him in a different post later this week. For now, let’s take a look at the rest of the champion changes.
Amumu got a buff, though it looks to be mostly to his jungling, which is odd. I’ve never had problems jungling with Amumu. I know he isn’t being played much these days, but that’s what happens when a champion is FotM for like five months straight. I’m sure people will be sick of playing Rammus soon too.
Anivia got the expected nerf. It seems pretty serious to me, but I don’t really think that’s a bad thing. I used to play Anivia quite a bit in the pre season one days. She is crazy strong, and when she’s got golem, which is virtually all the time if your teammates are smart, she’s an unstoppable force. I’m also glad they added a more discernible buff system for her ult. I’ve probably asked 10 times over the past two weeks “how do you know if her ult’s up again?”
Pantheon got another change to Heartseeker that I really like. It now takes the skill .5 seconds longer to deal full damage. That’s something I hadn’t considered in my post about Heartseeker balance. With the duration nerf to his stun and now this he might be a bit less frustrating to play against.
Rammus got a speed nerf to Powerball. As I mentioned before, I don’t think it’s enough. He’s still too good at chasing and too strong out of the jungle. I’d love to see them make Powerball more of a quick boost – make it reach full speed quickly and nerf the duration in a big way.
Ryze’s rework did make it live, but I’ll be covering that in another post.
The Vlad nerf is kind of underwhelming on paper, but I think it could play out well in game. His passive now grants 1 ability power per 40 health instead of 25. Sanguine Pool also no longer grants a speed boost and interacts properly with turrets. I still think it’s ridiculous to give a gold multiplier to a guy who farms extremely well, but we’ll see how things turn out.
That’s it for champion changes. EDIT: Just realized this didn’t post yesterday for some reason. I’ve got a slew of posts lined up for tomorrow afternoon. Check back for more on Ryze, Maokai, and the item changes for today’s patch.
