One of the big changes this patch was a minor Fiddlesticks rework. I say minor because he doesn’t play entirely differently, he just feels a lot better. I’ve played a few games with him so far and been impressed with the changes, mostly the difference in Dark Wind.
Prior to the changes, I had a really hard time prioritizing Fiddle’s skill levels. He needed the utility of a bouncing silence, the power of Drain, and the fear in order to really lock down a target. When Dark Wind only bounced twice, it was difficult to get all that out of a gank, especially early on. Now Dark Wind is strong enough early on that multiple ranks aren’t totally necessary.
As good as Dark Wind is for early game jungling and ganking, you can feel it start to slow down by the late game. As weak as Fiddle used to be in the early game, his late game has the same potential to fail if you don’t get an early start. Fiddle is now heavily reliant on high AP builds, so it’s important to keep your cash generation up.
On the whole, I think Fiddle just feels a whole lot better. I would like to see Dark Wind get a little AP boost so it’s a touch stronger in the late game, but for the most part he feels much better. I pulled a quad with him today – something I haven’t done in a long, long time.
The patch preview for next week is live, giving us a look at what’s in store for several of the game’s most neglected champions. Alistar, Fiddlesticks, and Gangplank are all due for reworks this week, all of which should be significant improvements on their respective playstyles.
If you follow Guinsoo on Twitter, you know the Alistar remake has been in the works for several months. A few times it even looked like it was patch ready and then got pulled. Basically the changes will give Alistar a lot more farming potential as well as a few more ways to use his skills that aren’t so Flash dependent. I’m really excited about this remake – Alistar was such a cornerstone of LoL at launch that it has been tough to see him slip into obscurity.
Fiddlesticks is basically having his damage normalized, which is exactly what he needs. His early healing has been nerfed a touch, but with an armor buff to keep his jungling strength. His Dark Wind bounces 5 times at all levels and now has scaling damage, which should improve his presence in both lane and coming from jungle, and Crowstorm has been rebalanced to account for the damage shift. Again, I’m really excited about the changes. I was a huge Fiddlesticks fan for a very long time. A little consistency will go a long way for him.
Lastly, there’s Gangplank. Plank has long been a problematic champion for Riot. He’s randomly bursty, has the only deny in the game (which is absolutely broken in some situations), and has a hugely unreliable ultimate. Pretty much all of that is being addressed with the patch, which I can only imagine will mean good things for the champion. He’ll be able to make better use of Raise Morale, his ult is much less of a guessing game, and his Parrrley shouldn’t be quite such a gamble. Again, excited to see this play out.
