Frokat
Ever since the Season 12 hit live servers, League of Legends has been on a constant balancing rollercoaster. With the addition – and quick removal – of Chemtech Drake, new items, and now the so-called durability patch, we’ve been no strangers to super volatiles metas and massive changes. It seems like patch 12.14 will continue this trend with flying colors, as it’s highly ambitious for a minor patch.
Healing outlier nerfs, pro bloodiness changes, GP nerf to top end barrels and our regular balance changes (with focus on Pro meta) are coming to 12.14.
It'll be the last set of major changes sans World's balance and we'll be otherwise stabilizing + moving everyone to Preseason pic.twitter.com/daWFAhETzh
— Matt Leung-Harrison (@RiotPhroxzon) July 16, 2022
The patch places heavy emphasis on in-lane sustain options offered by Runes and Potions, as well as making massive changes to how Map Objectives operate. Speaking about Potions: the last time we had meaningful changes to these was in patch 5.22 – and that’s over seven years ago! The newest patch seeks to reduce their effectiveness, which aligns with Riot Games’ philosophy of reducing overall healing levels.
While Gangplank has eluded nerfs for quite a while, patch 12.14 finally has a response to his dominance.
The patch finally tones down the big winners of the previous Durability Patch – namely defensive Runes such as Second Wind and Conditioning. The latter has been pretty much a free resists hack, as it grew in power significantly after all champions in the game received hefty bonuses to their survivability. At the same time, some offensive runes are enjoying minor buffs – not enough to skew the game back into the Assassin meta completely, but nevertheless a nice change.
Teleport receives another round of beatings as its cooldown is once again increased. The patch also includes a slight nerf to Exhaust – it’s now slightly less effective in the early game.
The change also massively increased the Elemental Drake value. The Dragon Slayer buffs have increased in value by almost two-fold. Worth noting that the Cloud Drake‘s bonus did, in fact, get a 2X increase – maybe now players won’t stop considering it just a meme. In addition to making the stat bonuses more powerful, the Drakes themselves have received some numerical changes – they now have more HP but less damage. Including the Elder Drake, too! There’s also a change to Rift Herald’s gold value, as well as an increase to the summoned Herald’s HP.
Last but not least, the patch seeks to tone down champions that have been dominating the meta: namely the likes of Aatrox, Kayn (Rhaast form), and Gangplank, who is quite unstoppable in the skilled hands.