Tag: MSI

Patch 26.13 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

The League of Legends Patch 26.13 Preview is here, as the MSI patch lands on the Rift. Full details from Riot Phroxzon on X.

Champions

Senna is the big winner of the Season 2 changes, synergizing well with Doran’s Helm (gets a lot of effective health from her Q heal synergizing with the resists) as well as getting a lot of stats from Jack of All Trades
She also synergizes well with Stattik Shiv on-hit, and we’ve made the decision to not support this interaction (Q CD reduction on-hit), even though it is pretty cool
Given all this, we think she does a bit too much damage given how durable she is
Brand changes are primarily targeted at his Bot carry tuning, while also trying to affect his support and mid less
That said, Brand support is also often a frustrating experience for bot laners and so we think he should also sit a little lower sustainably
Given that Brand Support synergizes better with mana regen, we’re compensating through this avenue but adding some amount of mana pressure for the roles that need to use E more often
For Cassio, we want to retain her identity of having strong all-in pressure early as that adds texture to the roster and she’s one of the unique mages that can do this
We’re targeting her durability in the mid-game where she is more vulnerable, espeically in skirmishes or when she’s playing on the sidelane
This can help to keep her edges, but present more areas of vulnerability for opponents
Bard is the top of the meta for both Pro and in many skill brackets in Solo Q
We’re adjusting how much damage his builds do, especially given his tank roaming builds tend to do a lot more damage than expected
Helping Leblanc scale a little better into the Mid and Late game with this set of changes
Given that these buffs help scaling, should also disproportionately help Solo Q
We’re not looking to buff Olaf jungle a huge amount, given that he’s already flex viable in top lane, but given that Jungle was his initial primary role, we want to make it more viable than it currently is
A pretty simple targeted buff at his Q that should help how fast he clears, especially into the later portions of the game

Locke

  • Locke will also hit the Rift sometime during Patch 26.13
  • We’re super excited for his release (I know I will be playing him a bunch :D) and have seen a lot of community hype for him as well
  • Currently, we’re trying to lock down a few tunings and timings on some of his abilities, as well as where we want his power budget and maxes to be (a process called fine-tuning)
  • A lot is changing day by day, in particular, the amount of power budget in his W has been something we’re trying to fine-tune, as well as how Normal vs Elite skewed he is

Doran’s Helm

Doran’s Helm has started to be picked up on a few ADC’s, especially ones that have particularly strong synergies with the resists (Senna through healing and the effective health it provides synerging well with the resists) and Jhin (as he has a lot of his early damage in base damage)
We’re looking to keep these incentives intact directionally, but try to make the item a little more balanced for these users, while trying to grow the user pool a bit as a result

Imperial Mandate

  • For systems changes, we have an Imperial Mandate buff. So far, it has added a few users to the pool; however, a bunch of these are midlaners like Galio, fringe TF, Liss, etc.
  • This set of changes is meant to position it to be more fantasy-forward for Support champions while also giving it a bit of a power-up. It’s not really the “best item” on any support at current tuning, and for an item with as strong kit synergies as this, it probably should be if it’s appropriately powerful

Patch 26.12 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on by Geekmandem

The League of Legends Patch 26.12 Preview is here, and it’s a big one as the game prepares for Act 2 and MSI. 26.12 will see 15 changes to champions, which will be the near sole focus of the patch. Full details from Riot Phroxzon on X.

Champion

Last patch, we had a change to Moonstone that fixed it being doubly impacted by either Grievous Wounds or Heal and Shield Power
Yuumi is one of the few champions who has Heal Shield power baked into her kit and so she was disproportionately impacted
As a result, we’re compensation buffing her
On 26.10, we made some adjustments to Lee Sin that gave power back to some of the fun elements in his kit that lost a lot of power over the years (namely the amounts of dashes he has access to, etc.)
This made Lee Sin a pretty strong champion in higher levels of play again and in a way that we think is fantasy aligned for him
However, the magnitude is a bit too much, so we’re pulling it back slightly
We’re happy with the shape of the changes and how it’s affected his power curve though
Some of the slow stacking changes to Hwei were a lot more power impacting (negatively) than the buffs that he received in the positive direction
As a result we’re adding a bit more power back into his utility aspects that allow him to be a jack of all trades, rather than just being a master of none
Tristana, has a bit of room in bot lane and especially in the midlane where changes to the role quests (that favor a bit more utility/roaming > farming) have been a bit unfavorable there
One of the changes that impacted her negatively was adding a mana cost to Q and so we’re adding a bit of that back to give her a bit more pushing power
This is especially impactful because of Tristana’s low base and scaling mana pool
Ryze is a bit too durable, especially in the early game and he often wins lanes/gets push by simply autoing champions and hitting them with guaranteed damage through W’s, E’s and autos
Ryze will still be on the durable side, especially with his early catalyst purchases, but these nerfs are intended to make him work a bit harder for it

System

Teleport

Especially in Pro play recently, we’ve been seeing some usages of Teleport at very short ranges to prepare quite large shields for tactical usages in combats (such as objective fights)
While this is a cool usage of the spell, it’s a pretty unintuitive behavior and we want to skew its usage to be better to use for its cross-map and “joining fights” capabilities
As a result, we’re reducing the duration of the shield and increasing the shield amount by a bit to compensate

Mid Meta

  • For average play, AP Xin Zhao has been tearing up the rift with a lot of his power budget in healing, especially in the early lane, creating some pretty uninteractive lane states.
  • We’re tapping this down, as well as some of the top-end healing in the later game.
  • Otherwise, a few adjustments to the champions who have a bit of room in Solo Queue, like Hwei, Sylas, Syndra and nerfs to some of the top end, like Cassio (who really benefited from Deathfire Touch being added), Ryze and Ori, who have been strong for pretty much the whole season.

Top Lane Meta

  • Aatrox has been generally a little on the weaker side, especially for higher levels of play, and so these changes are targeted at rewarding him for matchups where he’s already favored and able to get sweet spot hits off more reliably.
  • Gwen is also being buffed a bit with her early laning strength (which we walked back pretty significantly in an earlier patch). With K’Sante rising in priority (from DHelm buff and other meta shifts), we’re also positioning Gwen as a good pick into these tanky Sion and K’Sante style picks.
  • Similarly, Jax is getting more throughput in early trades both in regular matchups and in some of the matchups that favor short trades (eg. ranged matchups).
  • Overall, we expect the Top meta to have a few more fringe and counterpick options available.