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I love ARAM. Since I started playing a bit over 10 years ago, I've almost exclusively played the mode, accruing over 5000 matches split between custom games on Summoner's Rift before the mode had its own dedicated map, custom games on Dominion where both teams only go bot, games on the Proving Ground, and games on Howling Abyss.
And it sucks to feel like my favorite game mode is being abandoned. I wouldn't be playing League without it.
In Patch 12.15, released two days ago on August 10th, Ultimate Spellbook received quite a few changes! One overperforming champion was nerfed, one underperforming champion was buffed, two chosen ults were specifically nerfed, a few ults were fixed, and several ults got some new visual effects to fit the current Star Guardian event.
These are all great. It's nice that Riot is giving some attention to a rotating game mode to help retain some players that would have otherwise left it, but it feels like an immensely strange and odd decision to make such changes for a less-popular mode (especially one that's going away so soon) while ignoring League's other non-Summoner's Rift game mode.
The wait would be understandable if the changes that ARAM tends to receive when it shows up in the patch notes were more detailed and specific, such as buffing or nerfing a champion's individual abilities or changing their ranges, but they're not. They're very simple. For those of you who don't play ARAM often enough to scroll down far enough in the patch notes to see the balance changes that the game mode gets, this is what they're like. They're simple changes. Some of them, like increasing the shields that Ryze generates by 20%, don't even make sense, because he hadn't had shields in his kit for 2 years when that change made it to live. To make it more clear: the change didn't affect shields that he receives, like the ones from Sona, but only the ones that he creates himself.
The game mode just doesn't get the depth of changes that warrants such a large drought between patches. If a champion is overperforming, Riot flips a switch and gives them, on average, a 5% change in their damage dealt or damage taken. There's no micro-focus here; everything is very heavy-handed and blunt because of these "blanket" balance changes that affect everything about a champion. Messily, they work, bringing some of the game mode's more egregious champions down a few pegs (such as Sona whose current balance changes are -5% damage done, +10% damage taken, and -40% shielding/healing done), but they aren't frequent enough to deal with the current overperforming champions. It sucks to load into a game and see that the enemy team has a champion with a 60% winrate, and this was a large reason why the game mode even started to get balance changes in the first place. While the game mode is meant to be played for fun (and not to be taken so seriously), I can't help but think that the game mode would be more fun if there were more frequent balance changes to it that targeted some of the more overpowered champions. And the balance changes don't have to be complicated; they can be simple, as they have been, but they should be more frequent.
I've made a few calendars to easily show the cadence of changes that the mode has received during Seasons 10, 11, and 12:
Some interesting conclusions from this:
ARAM received much more frequent changes during the onset of the pandemic in the US and the workplace-related chaos that it brought
It’s common for ARAM to go months without changes, only to get several patches worth of them in quick succession
At this point in the season, ARAM received 7 sets of balance changes in 2020, 5 sets of balance changes in 2021, and 3 sets of balance changes in 2022.
There was a period of time during 2021 where ARAM received no changes for 167 days.
I’m going to talk about the above point for a bit. Keep in mind that the average ARAM changes in a patch that actually has them looks like this and not this. In those 167 days...
League of Legends received 10 major patches
Ultimate Spellbook, which had just come out, received several hotfix nerfs and buffs in Patch 11.14
Ultimate Spellbook received several changes to both champions and ultimates in Patch 11.15
One for All came back and received balance changes to 19 champions in Patch 11.16
URF returned in Patch 11.19 and received a wealth of changes, such as changing minion gold values, a blanket nerf to shields, and buffs/nerfs to 46 champions via two separate hotfixes that they promised would take place a few days after the patch released.
Ultimate Spellbook came back again in Patch 11.23, and this time with many changes: they added bans; they changed how smite worked in the game mode; they specifically changed the cooldown on the Ashe chosen-ultimate ability; they added several new ultimates to choose from and removed one from the pool; they hotfixed in several changes to both champions and chosen ultimate abilities later.
It’s not even like ARAM is that unpopular of a game mode to not only have the months of drought between changes make sense, but to also take the backseat to game modes like One for All, which was only playable for one month before going away for the next seven.
ARAM has a strong, consistent playerbase that doesn’t decline the longer the game mode has been out, unlike every other League of Legends game mode (Chart taken from an “Ask Riot” two years ago). It’s not even that unpopular of a game mode, with half to a third of a region’s ranked playerbase also playing at least a few games of ARAM (Chart taken from an old forum post that went away when the boards did). It doesn’t make sense for a game mode that millions of people enjoy to go this long without any attention, when the attention that is given to it is literally the least that could be done.
Here is the current state of balance for ARAM, taken from poro.gg. This data is from Platinum+ players on the Korean server.
And here’s a list of their winrates that corresponds to their ARAM-specific map buffs:
| Rank | Champion | Winrate | Damage done | Damage taken | Other Changes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ashe | 58.0% | -15% | +10 % | |
| 2 | Singed | 57.5% | |||
| 3 | Janna | 57.3% | -5% | +5% | -10% healing done |
| 4 | Taliyah | 56.7% | +5% | ||
| 5 | Seraphine | 56.1% | -15% | +15% | -40% shielding/healing done |
| 6 | Renata Glasc | 55.9% | |||
| 7 | Swain | 55.6% | -5% | +10% | |
| 8 | Taric | 55.6% | |||
| 9 | Maokai | 55.4% | -20% | +5% | |
| 10 | Senna | 55.2% | -3% | ||
| 11 | Rammus | 54.8% | +5% | -10% | |
| 12 | Caitlyn | 54.6% | -5% | ||
| 13 | Nami | 54.6% | +5% | -5% healing done | |
| 14 | Kayn | 54.5% | +5% | ||
| 15 | Aatrox | 54.% | +5% | -10% |
The usual mainstays of Aram strength, like Ashe and Maokai and Seraphine, have some pretty severe nerfs to their playstyles. But a newer one, like Renata Glasc, who has been in the game for 6 months now, has received no ARAM map-specific nerfs (or changes) at all. She has been around this winrate the entire time.
Some of these champions are even buffed.
But this data is for Platinum+ players. Since ARAM is a more casual mode, here’s some data that will more readily be applicable to the bulk of players’ experiences. This is taken from players of all ranks on the North American server, which is one of the servers where ARAM is most popular.
Again, a list of the champions’ winrates that corresponds to their ARAM map-specific buffs:
| Rank | Champion | Winrate | Damage Done | Damage Taken | Other Changes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Singed | 63.9% | |||
| 2 | Maokai | 58.8% | -20% | +5% | |
| 3 | Senna | 57.9% | -3% | ||
| 4 | Morgana | 57.6% | -6% | +5% | |
| 5 | Renata Glasc | 57.3% | |||
| 6 | Brand | 56.6% | -5% | +10% | |
| 7 | Yasuo | 56.4% | +5% | -5% | |
| 8 | Heimerdinger | 55.5% | -6% | +6% | |
| 9 | Caitlyn | 55.5% | -5% | ||
| 10 | Nasus | 55.3% | +5% | Q stacks doubled | |
| 11 | Leona | 55.3% | +5% | ||
| 12 | Riven | 55.2% | +5% | -8% | +20% shielding done |
| 13 | Veigar | 55.0% | -5% | +5% | |
| 14 | Ashe | 54.6% | -15% | +10% | |
| 15 | Yorick | 54.5% | -5% | +5% | Passive changed to be better earlier and slightly worse later |
It’s not enough. Some of the champions here, like Senna, have huge winrates but only a very tiny nerf. Others, like Renata that I mentioned before, have nothing. Others still, such as bruisers like Riven, are abusing items like Death’s Dance and their ARAM map-specific buffs to become nigh unkilliable. Why can’t these champions and items get more impactful nerfs that we don’t have to wait a quarter of a year for?
tl;dr
It’s actually ridiculous that rotating game modes, whose popularity is cratering, is given priority for balance changes over ARAM when those rotating games modes will literally rotate out in just a couple weeks, only to be seen again half a year later.
There should be more frequent ARAM changes. I don’t want to wait 3 months when the balance changes that are made are extremely small and non-detailed.
There should be more impactful changes to topple some of the more overpowered champions. A 63% winrate champion isn’t fun to see in the loading screen.
It feels like, after Riot stopped giving resources to the rotating game modes, ARAM was included in that and has declined a bit since.
ARAM is a fun and casual game mode, but that doesn't mean that those players don't deserve balance changes too. It's harder to have fun when you notice that a particular champion on the enemy team always does well and, when mousing over them in game, you see that they have received zero ARAM map-specific balance changes.