It’s patch day once again folks, and though the changes have been less and less radical over the past few patches, there is still a decent bit to talk about today. The big point of contention will doubtlessly be Evelynn. She’s had a remake rumored for months, but today she’s getting a heavy swat from the nerf bat. Hopefully that means something about her development in the near future.
Caitlyn’s getting a buff, though I still think her skillset is to confused to be taken too seriously. Piltover Peacemaker is getting a little nerf at low levels and a buff at higher levels, both to base damage and damage scaling. That should make one of her skills worth casting one she has Infinity Edge, but still in limited situations. Her ultimate has also received a base damage increase at ranks two and three, is now treated like a spell (still physical damage, I’m guessing, but blocked by Banshee’s Veil, unable to be dodged, and no longer mitigated by Pantheon’s Aegis Protection). It also loses the ability to apply on-hit effects.
Evelynn. Poor, poor Evelynn. I’ve never been much of an Eve supporter – the stealth mechanic in this game just sucks, and giving a stealther a long, targeted stun that’s usable from stealth and that ridiculous heal on her ult is admittedly too much. Still, this nerf should pretty much ruin Eve back to her pre-jungle days. Her base mana, base armor, and base damage all took a serious hit that, when coupled with the 33 percent damage nerf to the first two ranks of Hate Spike will effectively ruin her jungling. Shadow Walk also got a 10 second duration nerf at all ranks, which I think is a good thing. It’s definitely too easy to stand around setting up ganks, and the old duration allowed her to take one rank and forget the skill, ranking her damage instead. Overall, though, this is one of the biggest across-the-board nerfs I’ve seen. The only thing I can think is that the remake is nearly done, but we’ve been waiting an awfully long time – might be more waiting ahead.
Heimerdinger’s getting a little love this patch. His turrets now work on an ammo system similar to Teemo mushrooms, which I think will be good. Heimer’s problem has always been the time to set up a lane, it just wasn’t as big a deal when he had lots of turrets that did lots of damage. Since the turret nerfs, it’s been even harder to justify playing him. The turret AI has also caught some improvements so that it will be more effective against champions attacking Heimer. Upgrade now increases the number of missiles he fires to five and increases the travel speed of his grenade. I’m not sure if the latter is a good thing or not. People have suggested that as a base buff for him, but to only have it some of the time could actually make it tough to land. Still, this stuff should help him out overall.
Kennen’s Mark of the Storm is getting a long overdue duration nerf, down from 12 seconds to 8. I don’t really know why this took so long. Kennen has always had strong lane harass, due in large part to the length a mark will stay on a target. His primary form of using the mark, Electrical Surge, also got a minimal range nerf. He’s still going to be one of the best lane partners in the game, but it’s something.
Pantheon’s Aegis of Zeonia (his stun) got a serious duration nerf, down to 0.7/0.9/1.1/1.3/1.5 from 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2. While I like the fact that this makes Heartseeker damage at least partially avoidable, it’s not the fix Pantheon needs. The problem is Heartseeker itself. Granted, the stun is what made Heartseeker good, but like most melee, Pantheon needs a way to stick to his target. If the target has merc Treads, he’s only getting a .9 second stun. That’s not gonna cut it. Heartseeker needs to be remade. It’s a cool idea, but it doesn’t work in a practical setting. It’s either too much damage or too little. There is no reasonable median.
Rammus got a taunt nerf. Ok.
Twitch got a range buff and a similar stealth duration nerf to Evelynn. It seems like Riot is taking steps to prepare people for a change to the stealth system, which I’m ready for. As it stands, the nerf will help, but a couple ranks in and players won’t notice a difference. Will we see the maximum duration for stealthing characters reduced to 10 seconds with successive ranks adding different functionality to the spells?
Zilean’s ult got a duration nerf, down from 13 seconds to 10. Personally, I don’t think this is a big nerf. The best Zileans I see use their ult carefully, landing it just before a target dies so that it doesn’t get wasted. Hopefully this will train up and coming Zilean players to do the same.
That’s it for the major changes. I do want to mention a small Nasus buff – Siphon Strike bonus damage went up from 2 damage per kill to to 3. It’s interesting that this is the only buff he gets when his brother releases, but it is a pretty sweet buff. That’s a LOT of damage if he can get farmed. He still suffers from his other problems, but this will give him a little more burst.
As for general changes, there aren’t many. Critical strikes and dodge chances have been normalized to prevent lucky/unlucky streaks. My guess is that it’s coded to calculate those chances in small groups of, say, seven attacks, so that you see a more consistent benefit from those stats. This should be a good thing.
Check back later today for my Renekton impressions – I’m sure I’m going to love him. Mobile melee champions are always a good time.
