Riot posted the Shyvana patch preview, which includes a preview of the upcoming buffs and nerfs to League of Legends’ champions. The buffs seem to be targeted at bringing some of the melee fighters up to speed with other Tanky DPS and thankfully nerfing Graves.
I’m most excited for the changes to Shaco. I’ve been enjoying my games with Shaco recently and the upcoming buffs can only help that. Jack in the Box is getting a range increase and a decrease to the time before the trap is ‘armed.’ The range increase should allow Shaco players to utilize the crit bonus on Deceive while still making use of JitB for positioning opponents.
Olaf’s ultimate is getting a buff that makes him much more interesting. Now Olaf can use Ragnarok to break out of crowd control skills. This actually makes Olaf a lot more appealing to me. I had somewhat enjoyed him in the past, but his ultimate felt weak unless he was way ahead. Using it early was like putting up a beacon reminding people not to try to CC you, which is actually exactly what you want. You want the enemy to burn a couple CC spells on Olaf. With the buff he can take the spell and immediately break free, forcing the enemy to waste a stun or snare and allowing him to continue dealing damage. I might be giving Olaf a serious look after this patch.
Wukong is getting some usability buffs that are designed to bring him in line with other Tanky DPS. I’m not thrilled about this – good Wukong players are pretty hard to deal with as it is. More importantly, who needs another strong melee DPS? I don’t.
Lastly, we’re going to see some Graves nerfs. I think everyone saw this one coming. I’m a little worried it won’t quite be enough, but at least we’ll someone other than Caitlyn in our games. His passive is getting a slight resistance nerf and the damage on Buckshot’s multiple shell proc is getting reduced as well. I still think an 80% attack speed buff that can have 100% uptime is a little silly, and the fact that Buckshot can hit multiple times seems like overkill, but I’ll wait to pass judgement until the patch.
Are you looking forward to any of the champion changes? Thinking about picking up a new champ or two thanks to this patch? Let me know in the comments.
For the second patch in a row, balance changes have been activated prior to the release of the champion for the given patch. Riot’s giving the same reason for the delay – the company wants to be sure the servers are stable before activating the champion on live. With the numbers report issued by Tryndamere this morning, I understand a bit more clearly why this is such an issue, even if I’m not in love with the practice.
There have been a couple other issues with the patch so far as well. Apparently Kayle’s passive isn’t shredding total armor and magic resist values, but rather just base values. If the target has a Banshee’s Veil, he/she still gets the full MR benefit of the item. If the community was unhappy about the remake in the first place, they certainly aren’t pleased now. Riot has confirmed the bug and is looking for a fix.
That said, I’ve already seen a lot more Kayle and Galio presence in games. We’ll see if the buffs/reworks will be enough to keep people interested over the next week or so. How has your patch day been so far?
Riot posted the Champion Spotlight for Wukong this evening, giving everyone an early look at the League’s latest Tanky DPS champion. I’m not going to bother sugar-coating this in any way; I’m not happy to see another champion join the League whose optimal build is Trinity Force and probably a Wriggles. Yuck.
But that’s me, and who knows, you might be really pumped about him. He definitely looks like he’ll be fun to play, but I’m skeptical about the spotlight for a couple reasons. For starters, his kit looks really strong, like, too strong. His harass combo is just too good when coupled with a stealth ability. He’ll likely be a nightmare to lane against because of it, but I’m willing to bet he’ll also jungle well. Secondly, Phreak was 30-6 in the main spotlight game, so it’s tough to say what the real numbers on his kit are. I think the skills are definitely strong mechanically, but they might have weak numbers.
In either case, Wukong is out tomorrow, so we’ll all have some time to get to know him. I know I promised the Champ of the Week tonight, but it’s going to have to wait. I’ve got some neat ideas that I want to use to unveil him (spoiler!).
What do you think about the Monkey King spotlight?
In preparation for the Monkey King’s release, Riot put together a preview video of his abilities and mechanics. Wukong is a melee DPS that looks as though he’ll be most effective building tanky. He also has enough mobility that I could see him working well as a straight damage dealer. Before I get into too much discussion about his skills let’s take a look at his kit.
Stone Skin: Wukong gains armor and magic resistance the more enemies are nearby .
Crushing Blow: On next hit, Wukong deals extra damage and decreases the armor of his target.
Decoy: Wukong goes invisible and leaves a decoy in his place. After a short delay, the decoy spins, dealing damage to nearby targets.
Nimbus Strike: Wukong dashes to an enemy champion and deals damage. If there are multiple targets in the area, Wukong will make up to two decoys that will also dash to nearby targets.
Cyclone: Wukong spins to win, dealing damage in an AoE and knocking up enemy units caught in the cyclone.
I’m not sure what it is, but I’m having a serious case of champion fatigue with Wukong. He doesn’t seem to bring anything that the League really needs and I think he has the potential to be brutally overpowered. Leona was exciting because she looked like a return to sanity with regard to tanks. Wukong looks like just about every other melee DPS out there. Dash? Check. Armor Debuff? Check. Knockup or stun? Check, and some invisibility for good measure. Read the rest of this entry »
Remember that preview we saw for a character called the Monkey King back in April? It looks like he’s finally ready to join the League. Riot put together a preview comic as his sneak peek, but we know very little about the role he’ll actually play.
I’m guessing from his size that he won’t be a Tanky DPS, but that’s really just hopeful thinking. Also, the lore for the Monkey King makes him out to be much more trickster than he is straight warrior, but this isn’t necessarily a direct adaption of the Eastern myth.
Scoot on over to the official forums to see the whole thing, and in case you missed it, here’s a link to the art preview Riot posted a few months back.
