devtrackers.gg
Some thoughts coming from the perspective of a high elo player…
FIZZ
I’m not sure why Fizz was targeted with the nerf hammer. He felt strong when facing a skilled OTP, but Stasis Enchant does a pretty good job of rendering his all in useless while leaving him vulnerable in the process. I suppose I’ve just never thought of Fizz as particularly threatening compared to Zed who is my number one mid lane assassin ban at the moment. Anyway, this is a significant nerf and I’m sure Fizz mains will not be pleased. I wonder if this nerf has anything to do with counter balancing the Electrocute buff?
JAX
I’m not surprised to see Jax on the nerf list again. He’s still been a powerhouse both in the jungle and solo lane despite the last round of nerfs. Running around the map chasing a fed split pushing Jax was an exercise in futility and anti-fun. I believe this nerf is being done to directly target how fast he can solo towers and objectives as well as his overall late game scaling. I’m partly joking, but I didn’t mind Jax as an S tier champion because he’s relatively easy to play, so whether or not the player was skilled you could be fairly certain your teammate wasn’t going to feed haha.
LULU
I’m very surprised it’s taken them this long to nerf Lulu. When paired with a skilled carry, they become unstoppable. Especially when your opponent was novice enough to not target Lulu first. However, that was sort of the risk you take when playing Lulu. If your teammates can’t carry you’re screwed. I guess you could say that about most enchanters though. It looks like her Whimsy cooldown targets her ability to use it as both a cc and escape ability in one fight. Her scaling shield value nerf is specifically targeting her late game potential when buffing a carry that’s 4 items deep. I think these nerfs are fair without going overboard, there should be at least a handful of supports worth banning haha.
YUUMI
This is going to be a hot take due to the amount of players that think it’s cool to hate on Yuumi, but she was released in a comparatively weaker state than other on-release champs and deserves to be buffed. I’ve found her mechanics to be much more difficult to use on a mobile device in comparison to PC. She’s had awful win rates at all levels of play despite non-support-main content creators suggesting she’s strong. Her Q is very difficult to land especially when attached because you have no control over whether you’ve moved out of range and it doesn’t go through minions. It also felt as though it did as much much damage as an auto attack. This caused players to max her E first and play her like a heal bot which should not have been happening. I’m glad to see her mana regen was targeted because hopefully this will dissuade players from building noob trap mana regen items on her that aren’t as viable as other items due to the percent mana cost of her E and the mana regen mechanic built into her passive. Hopefully, the buff to her passive will encourage a more active that she’s meant for, rather than the passive parasite she’s meme’d to be. The buff to her Q will hopefully persuade players to max it sooner, although I seriously doubt this will happen because nothing has been done to target how difficult it is to land. Although it’s small I’m surprised to see a buff to her W because this may encourage maxing it sooner which I don’t feel is her intended play style considering the game suggests maxing it last. Buffing her R by a small amount will not do much because it’s also difficult to land while attached since you cannot control the direction of projection once cast. I also believe it’s mainly just used to catch out of range/position opponents so that your host can make a kill so I would have preferred a root duration buff (even more so than other supports, you really don’t want to accidentally kill steal as Yuumi).
GAMEPLAY CHANGES
I was so pleased to see some focus on runes because of how stale they’ve become! A lot of these changes will cause more experimentation and adaptation when facing different team compositions.
MAW OF MALMORTIUS
I very rarely come across someone building this item. Devs likely believe the item is already in a good state, but making it cheaper could encourage it’s use. It will be interesting to see whether players give it a try against heavy AP compositions as suggested. It will still remain a situational/niche item, however I wonder if this item could be a viable choice when facing APC’s in the dragon lane? It will likely still compete with Wit’s End.
ELECTROCUTE
I’m so glad to see this rune buffed! It’s absurd Conquerer has been the number one choice for so long (especially when it’s considered a viable choice for Mages and Assassins) and now it has some friendly competition.
TRIUMPH
Good, the increase to 5% bonus damage will feel stronger than a measly 3%. It will be interesting to watch this rune rise in popularity on champions like Akali and Vayne who do high damage and get multiple kills in team fights. I can see this becoming a very popular choice for players not wanting to wait for Gathering Storm to come online since Brutal was nerfed.
HUNTER-GENIUS
Glad to see this rune buffed. For champions without global Ultimates, it was difficult to stack and therefore took far too long to come online. Increasing the Ability Haste stack to 3 was a step in the right direction and this will become a viable rune for champions that either don’t have mana issues, don’t use mana, or will be building mana regen items early on.
PHASE RUSH
I’m not sure whether players will start using this item more after it’s buff. Maybe it will find a solid place among Fiora, Camille, or Olaf mains? It’s an item used to run down and catch opponents when you’ve already go some damage built into your kit. Regardless, I’m glad to see it also getting some attention in order to compete with Conquerer.
SWEET TOOTH
This is by far the best thing to come out of this balance patch! The fact that almost every champion in the game builds this rune besides junglers and supports demonstrates the need for it’s nerf. It was far too overpowered in comparison to the other Inspiration runes. Hopefully, players will experiment with other builds now and see their potential. I’m curious if this nerf is being done in anticipation of the possibility Elemental Rifts are introduced in patch 3.1? For those unaware, with an Oceanic Rift, the map sprouts both more bushes and honey fruit plants. So perhaps devs have found that when this occurs those who have built Sweet Tooth become overpowered? Additionally, on a recent podcast with Excoundrel and iTzSTU4RT, Riot dev Endstep mentioned he had talked to his team about ways in which Ixtali Seedjar could be buffed. One suggestion he mentioned was changing it from an item to a rune. This is just conjecture, but perhaps Sweet Tooth is being nerfed in anticipation of this move occurring? I could imagine the Sweet Tooth/Ixtali Seedjar rune combo would be overpowered whether it be on the same champion or between champs in the duo lane.
BONE PLATING
This is the right move considering assassins where buffed with the changes to Electrocute. However, this rune has always been very popular.
CONDITIONING
I saw some confusion about the changes made to this rune, so I made a table:
Old Conditioning 0 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 AR+MR 0 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 Minutes
New Conditioning 0 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 AR+MR 0 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 Minutes
As you can see, this rune comes online 2 minutes faster, however gives 1 less AR and 1 less MR at each interval. I think it’s a healthy adjustment. Endstep argued in one of his Twitch streams this rune is undervalued by players considering how strong it is. I’m not surprised they decided to shift some of it’s strength earlier and decrease some of it’s strength overall. Tanks who use this item had to wait far too long in order to engage. I like that it comes online at they same time as Gathering Storm. When playing as or against those who like scaling/late game builds with both of these runes, it will be easier to tract your/their power spikes.
HUNTER-TITAN
I’m not surprised this was nerfed, it was built all the time and far too strong against crowd control when used in combination with Mercury’s Treads. It weakened a lot of crowd control reliant champions and rendered others (ie Teemo’s Blind and Shrooms) virtually useless. This will be an indirect buff to champions like Morgana and Leona.
SECOND WIND
I’m not sure this buff will be easy to feel? I honestly don’t have a lot of experience with this rune because it felt so weak in comparison to other choices. I will have to give it a try on champions like Garen, Teemo, Mundo, and Nasus who wait out their opponents.
Overall, I’m very pleased with the balance changes within patch 3.0b and hope you are as well. Reminder that with this balance patch also comes the previously announced matchmaking changes. Hopefully with both of these changes we’ll feel some major quality of life improvements. GLHF!