Since the debut of ranked games, Heimerdinger has topped nearly every player’s ban list. His pushing power, anti-pushing, and ability to shackle another team to its base while slowly ripping down turrets with his grenade, made him a menace against just about any team comp.

Yesterday changed that. Heimer caught a string of minimal nerfs over the last several months that amounted to very little, but this latest patch was a huge nerf. Heimer now casts one less turret. The rank that perviously gave him three turrets now adds 100 hp to the turrets. Honestly, 100 hp is a joke. I laned against a Ryze today and he just laughed at my extra 100 hp. Heimer’s grenades no longer deal damage to turrets as well.

It’s a short list of nerfs, but the difference is huge. Having just one turret left when one gets killed can actually make it hard to control a lane. Heimer is also a pretty squishy toon without a lot of escape options. Three turrets allowed you to roam around the map a little bit with the security of a couple turrets you could use to slow enemies if you extended too far.

I do agree that Heimer’s damage needed a nerf, but removing a damage source wasn’t the way to do it. It would have been more appropriate to nerf the damage of each turret or reduce their AP scaling, rather than eliminating one of his options.

I think we’ll be seeing very little from Heimer over the next few weeks.