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.