Analyzing Patch Notes 3.10

Another patch has come out, and with it lots of new and interesting changes. I apologize for this post coming so far after the last patch notes, but my personal life has been quite busy as of late. So without further boring introductory blahbityblah, let us begin!

Ashe:
Focus:
Focus stacks per second increased to 4/5/6/7/8 from 3/4/5/6/7
Fixed a bug where Focus was granting stacks while on cooldown in certain situations

So this is really hard to analyze, as I have no idea how often this bug was occurring, and how much free focus Ashe was gaining as a result. I am going to go ahead and call this a neutral change though and assume that Riot's intention was merely to keep Ashe's power the same while making her work properly. Note though that because of Ashe's recent LCS dominance, she could possibly be a little OP at the moment, and may need nerfs in the future. She may be fine, and I really hope that she will stay viable from here on out regardless of nerfs or buffs that she gets.

Elise:
Spiderlings:
Health reduced to 90-260 from 125-550
Armor increased to 30/50/70/90 from 30 (based on Spider Form rank)
Magic Resist increased to 50/70/90/110 from 50 (based on Spider Form rank)
Multi-target damage reduction adjusted to 25% from 10/20/30/40%
Spiderlings no longer continue taking actions before vanishing once Elise shifts into Human Form
Spiderlings now group closer together while moving

Volatile Spiderling:
Movement Speed has been reduced

Rappel:
Elise can no longer descend outside of the indicated area
Fixed a bug where Elise could begin casting spells and attacking as soon as she began her descent while she was still untargetable

Spiderlings will now descend from Rappel slightly after Elise instead of descending at the same time

Nerfs on 3 pieces of Elise's kit here. Let's start with the Spiderlings. They now die much easier, likely throughout most stages of the game because of all of the penetration being built by then, and taking more AoE damage when Elise is level 11 or higher. Pretty good change in my opinion, as to me it usually seems like most minions that champions in League control are either too strong and difficult to kill, or too easy, or both depending on the situation (team first versus 1 on 1). Elise's spiderlings were fairly tanky with that much health and AoE damage reduction late game, and reducing that will make them much easier to deal with, and are a good way to nerf a part of Elise that isn't really one of the fun parts of the kit, so players won't feel as bad.

This leads me to her next ability change, which is reducing the MS on the Volatile Spirderling spell. This spiderling moves really fast, and can outrun a lot of champions, especailly early game. Reducing it's movement speed gives some additional counterplay since it can now be dodged, and also allows the spell to still feel rewarding when it lands since it does not lose damage. Good change in my opinion.

Lastly Rappel got hit with some nerfs. First of all it's range was nerfed to match it's cast range indicator. It seems weird to me that you could cast the spell on enemies outside this range in the first place, so really this seems fine. The bug fix with Elise being able to attack while invulnerable is a good one because it really gave Elise some unfair power with no real counterplay for a brief time. Now she will have to be a little more careful to ensure she get's a kill and not her enemies. Lastly the third change really nerfs Elise's turret diving potential which quite frankly was way too strong with rappel. Now at least she will need to have allied minions around to do what she did before. All around these are some nice changes to Elise that hit her kit in ways that reduced some frustrations of playing against her, which keeping in tact everything that is fun about playing Elise (besides maybe some of the diving power, but that needed to go, and this was a good way to do that).

Karthus
Lay Waste:
Now casts at max range when targeted beyond max range during Death Defied

Defile:
Ability Power ratio reduced to 0.2 from 0.25
Fixed a bug where Cooldown Reduction allowed Defile to be rapidly toggled, increasing its damage output

Lay waste got a pretty good QoL fix that makes casting it a bit more reliable when you are trying to hit near targets on the outside of your defile and may be hovering over them outside of your range out of habit. Nice change for the usability of the spell.

The bug on Defile is actually kinda cool and I didn't even realize you could do this before I read the patch notes. I'm sure this change needed to happen to get rid of Karthus abuse cases, but I imagine it being pretty funny to just mash your E key over and over again until your enemy dies. The AP ratio nerf was likely due to Karthus' power in the LCS, and was a good place to hit him, as Defile is really Karthus' least fun abiility. His Q is spammed and already has counterplay since you can dodge it with good timing and awareness, and of course his ult and passive are his defining features. Hitting his E is a great way to limit his team fight power, which still keeping his kit fun.

Master Yi:

I am currently working on giving Master Yi his own post because of the extensiveness of his rework. I will post a link to it here when it is finished.

Ryze:

Overload:

Cast range reduced to 600 from 650

Rune Prison:

Cast range reduced to 600 from 625

Mana cost reduced to 60/70/80/90/100 from 80/90/100/110/120

Spell Flux:

Cast range reduced to 600 from 675

Desperate Power:

Movement Speed increased to 60/70/80 from 35/45/55

Alright so all of Ryze's ranges were reduced to 600 from 625-675. In return Ryze received a decent mana cost buff to W, and some extra MS on his ultimate active. Even with the compensation, this is still clearly a large nerf to Ryze's power. I honestly did not see Ryze as being that strong, although Riot clearly disagrees, and have much more access to data than I do, and I also have not gotten to watch as much of the LCS as I would have liked to because of time constraints. So, let us assume that Ryze actually was too strong like Riot thinks. Ryze already had some pretty low spell ranges compared to other mages it seemed. Now they are even lower. Although, nerfing a champions weakness instead of it's strength is a good way to help keep the champion fun as long as you don't go too far. One downside to this kind of nerf though is that players will take some time to adjust to it, although players who play a lot of Ryze will likely adapt quickly. Overall, I suppose this was a good way to nerf Ryze for his safety, while keeping his damage potential the same, since that was apparently Riot's goal.

Thresh:

General:

Base Health reduced to 500 from 541

Base Armor reduced to 12 from 18

Damnation:

Souls now always grant 0.75 Armor and Ability Power instead of starting at 1.0 and granting diminishing returns per soul collected

Alright so Thresh got some nerfs here to his early game, which includes the passive change, which is also a late game buff if Thresh continues to gather souls. Really a good change, because Thresh just had too much power in his crowd control in the early game for how safe he could be as a ranged champion. Now at least it will be a little easier to turn things on him if he and his AD carry (and maybe jungler) aren't able to finish you off in his CC combo. He is also easier to punish now while his Q is on cooldown, which is good. Overall, another good way of nerfing a champion in a way that leaves his fun parts fun, while opening up more counterplay and getting rid of some frustrations.

Twisted Fate:

Loaded Dice (Remade):

Upon killing a unit, Twisted Fate rolls his dice, gaining anywhere from 1 to 6 bonus Gold. Naturally, Twisted Fate has a higher chance to receive a larger bonus

Pick a Card:

Now has 8 seconds to lock the card and 4 seconds to throw it instead of 10 seconds to do both

So recently Riot (Morello Specifically) has come out saying that they really dislike invisible power in the game, and global passives are great offenders of invisible power. Sure, you may see a +2 gold pop up every time you kill a minion, but does that really tell you much in the grand scheme of things about how much this is helping you? No, it really does not. That's why the power is invisible. 

Now, I don't necessarily think that invisible power in and of itself is a bad thing. After all, global buffs can be useful and potentially used well in strategies if used properly. For example if there was a team full of champions that exploded with power at level 6 for example, then it might make sense to have a Zilean on that team so that your team would reach 6 before your opponents thanks to his global experience passive, so that your team could take advantage of their level advantage and turn that into some early kills and snowball from there. Things like this allow for some interesting strategies if the passives can be used well.

However, Twisted Fate was and quite possibly still is Overpowered, and he needed to be hit somewhere. By hitting his passive, you have reduced how much he affects his team by quite a bit, even if you can't always tell it (invisible power still). Now Twisted Fate will have a passive that just benefits him, and makes great sense with his kit thematically, besides the whole randomly rolling dice mid combat, which is a little weird. Ignoring that though, it is a nice direction for a Twisted Fate nerf that keeps his passive fun.

I would also like to note that I love the change to pick a card. It really was just kind of crazy that Twisted Fate could just have that ability going for up to 20 seconds. 12 seconds is much more reasonable, and will force Twisted Fate players into using their spells more aggressively, instead of just as threats, which also opens up some better counterplay where you don't have to stay back in fear for 10 seconds because of a gold card above Twisted Fate's head.

Zac:

Elastic Slingshot:

Damage reduced to 80/120/160/200/240 from 80/130/180/230/280

This change does seem a little odd to me, as I never really felt like Zac was a very damagey champion. I suppose though that Riot felt that he did just a little bit too much damage, or perhaps he got too much benefit from leveling his E first, with all of the Utility it provides, along with significantly shorter cooldowns, and large damage increases.

Either way, I don't think this will change how much Zac is picked, because you played Zac to be a strong tank initiator crowd control machine, and he will still do all of this just as well. So, I suppose if Zac needed to be hit somewhere, his damage on an ability is a good place to nerf him.

New Item: Spectre's Cowl:

Recipe: Ruby Crystal + Negatron Cloak + 205 Gold = 1400 total Gold

+200 Health

+45 Magic Resist

UNIQUE Passive: Grants +15 Health Regen per 5 seconds for up to 10 seconds after taking damage from an enemy champion

Spirit Visage:

Recipe Changed: Spectre's Cowl + Kindlegem + 375 Gold = 2625 total Gold, up from 2200

Health increased to 400 from 200

Magic Resist increased to 55 from 45

Now additionally grants +20 Health Regen per 5 seconds

Banshee's Veil:

Recipe Changed: Spectre's Cowl + Ruby Crystal + 875 Gold = 2750 total Gold, up from 2520

Health increased to 450 from 400

Magic Resist increased to 55 from 45

Mana reduced to 0 from 300

Additional UNIQUE Passive: Grants +45 Health Regen per 5 seconds for up to 10 seconds after taking damage from an enemy champion or when the spell shield breaks

Guardian Angel:

Recipe Changed: Negatron Cloak + Chain Vest + 1310 Gold = 2750 total Gold, up from 2600

Magic Resist increased to 40 from 30

Alright so we have finally had some much needed MR item changes. MR itemizaton has been pretty boring since the start of Season 3, largely due to the introduction of Runic Bulwark, and the removal of Force of Nature. It just never felt like there were many good options for a lot of champions to get a lot of the items. Now we have some changes to hopefully give tanky champions some more better personal options for buying MR. Spectre's Cowl is a really interesting and cheap item, that I imagine being great early game against AP Champions in the mid or top lane, especially for tanks who are weak to their harass like Shen. It then builds into two really good options. 

First of all we have Spirit Visage which already was becoming and more and more popular item. Now it is even better, apart from the increase in cost. However, it gained some additional stats which easily make up for it in my opinion. Really this will be a great item on anyone who has built in sustain they want to increase.

Then we also have a remade Banshee's Veil, which now no longer has mana on it, has increase MR and Health, and a stronger version of Spectre's Cowl's unique passive. It also only costs a little more gold overall for all of these additional changes, making it a much better item on most tanky champions now, especially on those that do not use or need mana. I've actually started to wonder lately if having such diversity in resources in a game like League of Legends is good for the game if those kind of stats are affected by items, but that is a topic for another day.

Guardian Angel also got a little bit of a MR boost, though it costs more to even it out. Still a better tank item though, although now it will be even more effective as both a deterrent from attacking a certain enemy, and as protection for that enemy. This change was perhaps unneeded, but we will see.

Aegis of the Legion:

Combine cost reduced to 375 Gold from 625 (total cost reduced to 1900 Gold from 2150)

Health reduced to 200 from 250

No longer grants self-only Magic Resist

UNIQUE Aura - Legion:

     No longer grants Armor

     Magic Resist increased to 20 from 15

     No longer grants additional bonuses to minions

Runic Bulwark:

Removed from the game

Locket of the Iron Solari: 

New build path: Aegis of the Legion + 600 Gold = 2500 Gold

+300 Health

+20 Armor

+10% Cooldown Reduction

UNIQUE Active retained

Now grants UNIQUE Aura - Legion

A really drastic change, but one that I really like as a jungle main. As a jungler, I always felt inclined to get both Locket of the Iron Solari, and Runic Bulwark for my team, unless my support was doing well enough early to get one themself. Many other junglers did this too, and it really turned the jungle role into a secondary tanky support role most of the time, besides a few damage oriented junglers that can work such as Evelynn. This way, instead of being built for your team, you can build maybe one item for them, and then built for yourself. Either becoming more of a strong tank, or opening up some options for more damage, which is something that I feel the jungle role really needs. Overall, I cannot say how much I just love this change because junglers can now just get one item for their team, and focus on building for themself (and warding of course) after that, instead of most of their early and mid game gold going entirely into team auras.

Blade of the Ruined King:

Active Haste/Slow duration reduced to 3 seconds from 4

This item was pretty crazy strong, and nerfing this duration was a good way to hurt it by lowering utility, without hurting it's damage which is where it is really fun. Again another good fix that helps to keep the game fun.

Warden's Mail:

Passive Slow duration reduced to 1 second from 1.5

Cost reduced to 1000 from 1100

Randuin's Omen:

Passive Slow duration reduced to 1 second from 1.5

Cost reduced to 3000 from 3100 (combine cost unchanged)

Frozen Heart:

Cost reduced to 2900 from 3000 (combine cost unchanged)

So these three armor items all had their cost reduced, and Warden's Mail and Randuin's Omen lost a little power to compensate. Perhaps the slow duration was seen as being too strong, or maybe Riot just wanted to make Frozen Heart seem like a more powerful option in comparison to Randuin's Omen as a late game tank item. Either way I guess this accomplishes those goals, although I really doubt anyone will buy Frozen heart now that didn't already. Randuin's is still the obviously better choice (unless you're Ryze and maybe Taric) because it gives both health and armor, and a slowing power, instead of just armor and attack speed slow. Sure, Frozen Heart may also give CDR and Mana, but many tanks were already getting CDR from other items like Spirit Visage and Locket of the Iron Solari, and many don't even use mana, and many that do don't really need more. Health is just too powerful a stat in season 3 still from Frozen Heart to be viable in comparison in the current states of these items in my opinion.

Wraiths

Spawn time increased to 2:05 from 1:55

Wolves

Spawn time increased to 2:05 from 1:55

Giant Wolf

Base experience granted increased to 170 from 153

Golems

Spawn time increased to 2:05 from 1:55

Big Golem

Base experience granted increased to 160 from 137

Ancient Golem

Base experience granted reduced to 260 from 340

Base Health reduced to 1400 from 1500

Lizard Elder

Base experience granted reduced to 260 from 340

Base Health reduced to 1400 from 1500

Young Lizard

Base experience granted increased to 50 from 10

Base Health increased to 400 from 300

So this is actually kind of a funny change to me. For all of League of Legends until recently, small jungle camps have spawned before the large buff camps. Now all of a sudden they went to the same time, then to spawning afterwards! While I can see the reasoning behind this gameplay wise, it feels a little weird and not very elegant as a change to be thematically, as it doesn't make as much sense to me for the large camps to spawn first. 

Another note is the experience shifting to the young lizards, which is a nice change to make early game counter jungling not so devastating, while still keeping it powerful, because in all honesty, taking the buff alone hurts the enemy enough without you needed a level ahead of them as well.

Overall though, this change does satisfy it's goal of getting rid of unfair advantages being caused by laners taking small jungle camps, so that is a good thing for game health and interest.

Baron Nashor:

Voracious Corrosion:

No longer reduces the target's Attack Damage by 50%

Now reduces the physical and magic damage the target deals to Nashor by 50%

Small change to Baron Nashor, but I like it. It makes it a little more fair against everyone who attacks him since he will take less damage from everything that isn't true, and also now it will be slightly less punishing to attempt to take baron since you don't have to worry about not dealing the damage you need to to the enemy team if you are an AD bruiser tanking it or something of the like.

Turrets:

Outer turrets now gain 60 bonus Armor at the start of the game, which starts decaying after 4 minutes have passed and finishes decaying 4 minutes later

Outer turret base Armor increased to 60 from 54

Outer turrets no longer gain Armor over the first 8 minutes of the game

So this change is completely a reaction to the 2 vs 1 lanes that have been so dominant in high level play. I agree that it needed to happen because it forced some rather boring play, since just watching a solo lane get crapped on by a duo lane 90+% of the time until his turret finally fell, and the same thing happening on the other side of the map, really was not all that fun to watch, unless they were able to make some tricky stuff happen.

Not only that, but it also forced another lane into being lacking in CS, and therefore gold, and therefore items, which is much less fun than having more items. This strategy was also the most dominant, and probably the most powerful, which shut out other possible strategies that really could have been useful. Lastly, many champions were kept out of being viable in the LCS simply because they were exceptionally bad at 1v2 lanes as opposed to other champions, and this lone fact kept them from being used in competitive play. This strategy had to be hit somewhere.

I feel that Riot found a pretty good place to hit it. They didn't do anything crazy like nerfing champions early game in 1v2 lanes or buffing the solo laner or anything like that. They took a simple, yet power approach which basically makes it way harder to shove a lane down, while still keeping it possible if you focus it well. Will the 1v2 strategy still exist after this patch hits competitive play? Well, we will just have to wait and see. I think that it is still viable, but perhaps it will be used more as a counter move to your duo lane being countered, as opposed to being something we see in almost every game.

Twisted Treeline and Crystal Scar:

Needlessly Large Rod removed

Deathfire Grasp removed

Liandry's Torment enabled

Seeker's Armguard enabled

RETURNING ITEM: Moonflair Spellblade (Ranged Only):

Recipe: Seeker's Armguard + Negatron Cloak + 420 Gold = 2300 Total Gold

+50 Ability Power

+50 Armor

+50 Magic Resist

UNIQUE Passive - Tenacity: Reduces the duration of stuns, slows, taunts, fears, silences, blinds, and immobilizes by 35%

Blackfire Torch:

Reworked: Blasting Wand + Fiendish Codex + 720 Gold = 2400 Total Gold

+80 Ability Power

+10% Cooldown Reduction

UNIQUE Active: Deals 20% of target champion's maximum Health in magic damage over 6 seconds and increases all subsequent magic damage taken by the target by 20% (60 second cooldown)

Wooglet's Witchcap:

New Build Path: Seeker's Armguard + Blasting Wand + Amplifying Tome + 1045 Gold = 3500 Total Gold

Armor increased to 45 from 40

So this time around, Riot helped out these two maps by making AP itemization better. First of all, they removed Needlessly Large Rod and it's only upgrade DFG from the game. This was a change that I have been wanting for a really long time. It never felt good to me to have to wait for 1600g, especially in dominion, for an item just because the game is so fast paced and pvp focused that you could fall behind in the short run by a lot which could then cause you to fall behind in the long run. Also since DFG was the only item that still built out of Needlessly Large Rod, it just seemed a little silly to keep it around, especially when NLR is not that great of an item because of it's cost anyways on many champions.

Next we have the addition of Liandry's Torment, and Seeker's Armguard. Seeker's is an item that I felt should have been added to these game modes as soon as it hit the summoner's rift. But of course, Riot takes forever to anything happen for these game modes. Finally though these maps seem to at least be getting a small but steady stream of support, which I truly hope continues.

Liandry's is a toned down version of the former Blackfire Torch, and will probably be much easier to balance in the game without making it cost a crazy amount of gold, as Blackfire Torch was really hard to balance, and ended up just being balanced after several iterations by making it cost a ton of gold, which is not a great way to balance an item, as most players do not want to wait for a long time for that kind of needed power, especially when there are so many other choice available.

Moonflair Spellblade seems a little odd to me, and I don't really see this item being picked up too much, except maybe on tanks with some AP scaling that want to get ninja tabi and need another place to get tenacity. So I could see this on someone like Amumu, but Riot went and made this a ranged only item, so tanks cannot get it. So who can get it? Tanky AP Champions, some of which are melee like Rumble. The problem is that ranged AP mages really don't build much in the way of tankiness, and when they do it is often in the form of health from something like a Rylai's, so I am wondering if Riot is just trying to change that up or what with this item. I don't really see the playerbase changing for this item though, especially when these mages are probably going to be picking up Wooglet's Witchcap too, and they are already getting some armor from that, and you really don't wanna go too armor heavy or you won't have the damage you need. Maybe I will be surprised and something will happen to make resistances great on certain mages, or maybe on some mages like Kennen who need to get in melee range. I suppose time will tell but I am not expecting much from this item as it stands right now.

The new Blackfire Torch is pretty awesome, and something I look forward to getting on any AP assassin or burst mage, especially Evelynn, who is one of my favorites. The item now gives great stats, has a good cost for these modes, and a great active that scales well with Penetration, and makes your AP on spells scale better. Overall a much better toned down version of DFG for this game mode and in general in my opinion.

Lastly, we have Wooglet's finally being built from seeker's armguard, and gaining some additional armor to boot. It should not be even easier to build over time, at least if you build it early on, since the biggest amount you ever have to save up for at a time is 860 for a blasting wand other than the rather fair combine cost of 1045. Overall this item is still rather expensive, but you get a little bit more armor from it, and still a lot of stats, and a great active, making it still a great AP item choice.

That's all for the 3.10 patch notes. See you all again for more posts coming soon(TM)!

Until Next Time!

"Let's go, Let's go"

-Rikukun