The League of Legends patch 8.15 was released on July 31. The patch comes with some much-needed changes to marksman itemization as well as nerfs to the most dominant meta picks. Let’s see what effect this has on the competitive meta!
Champions
Fiddlesticks Poke Nerf
Few supports are as annoying as Fiddlesticks. The point-and-click Dark Wind [E] simply brings too much value to the bot lane, so Fiddle feels very oppressive to lane against. Riot is addressing this by increasing the cost of the ability by a whopping 20 mana at rank 1. The damage has also been reduced by 5 at all ranks, so mindlessly spamming Dark Wind will no longer be an option.
Fizz Gets More Buffs
Alright, Fizz might be getting out of hand. The Tidal Trickster received a massive buff to Seastone Trident [W] that adds 50 points of base damage at max rank. If that wasn’t enough, the AP scaling was increased too, so Fizz will deal approximately 40-50% more damage with his W.
But that’s not all. Chum the Waters [R] also had its numbers tweaked, so the point-blank shark now has an overwhelming 0.9 AP ratio (up from 0.6). Meanwhile, the AP ratio on the mid-range ultimate was buffed to 1.1 (up from 0.9), and the AP ratio on the long-range ultimate was increased to 1.3 (up from 1.2). These changes are huge for all assassin players out there, and we definitely expect the new Fizz to show up in pro play.
Kindred Loses Scaling
It’s no secret that Kindred has been dominating the jungle lately. In fact, her presence has been so overwhelming that she became one the best carries in the game. To combat this, Riot tuned down Wolf’s Frenzy [W] bonus attack speed from 25% to 50%. Moreover, the cooldown on Lamb’s Respite [R] was bumped up by 20 seconds at all ranks to make Kindred players more selective with their ultimates. Still, we can’t help thinking that’s not enough, and for now, she will continue her jungle reign.
Lee Sin Q Buff
You’d be hard-pressed to find a champion as iconic as Lee Sin. The blind monk is great to play and exciting to watch, so we’re not surprised by Riot’s attempts to bring him back into the meta. Granted, we aren’t too keen on Sonic Wave/Resonating Strike [Q] losing 25 base damage at max rank, but the AD scaling was increased from 0.9 to 1.0 to make up for the change.
Moreover, the execute damage on Resonating Strike was replaced by an amplifier that boosts Q damage up to 100% depending on the target’s missing health. With that, Lee Sin’s damage will be slightly higher, provided his target is missing at least 15% health. And while this isn’t the biggest buff, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
Quinn Loses Early Game
With matches becoming shorter, Quinn emerged as one of the most powerful bot lane picks in the game. This wouldn’t be so bad, but she is a little too good at roaming and holding her own in the laning phase. Riot is addressing this by taking down her base armor from 28 to 22 and reducing the damage on her passive by 5 at all ranks. Of course, this won’t brind down her roaming prowess, but it will make it much easier to punish Quinn in the early game.
Support Item Changes
It’s no secret that supports have a lot of sustainability in the laning phase. Well, that’s about to change because Ancient Coin, Relic Shield, and Spellthief’s Edge became 50 gold more expensive! This means supports will have 2 potions instead of 3, so it will be much easier to chip away at their health pool in early trades. And since the cost of upgrading these items was reduced by 50 gold, this won’t affect anything other than the laning phase.
Marksman Item Buffs
There’s no denying that the marksman class is in its worst shape to date. Riot is trying to fix this by making a number of critical strike items to be more accessible. For starters, Infinity Edge now costs 3400 gold instead of 3600, and builds out of a BF Sword and a Pickaxe. That being said, it lost 10 AD and 5% true damage conversion to make the cheaper price tag more appropriate.
A similar thing happened to Stormrazor. The item is now much cheaper at 2800 gold (instead of 3200), but its numbers went down by 10 AD and 5% AS. Meanwhile, Essence Reaver received a straight-up buff of 5 extra AD. Finally, all Zeal items got 100 gold cheaper, and Mercurial Scimitar got 200 gold cheaper (although its AD went down from 65 to 50). In the end, these changes should make for more fluid power spikes in the mid game, but they don’t exactly solve any laning problems.
Jungle Item Tweaks
Last patch, Riot Games introduced a penalty for jungle items that made junglers earn less gold from lane minions if they already have the most gold on the team. Now, junglers are only going to suffer from the penalty if they have the highest CS number. With that, you will still have a hard time getting gold funnels off the ground, but junglers will no longer feel punished for last-hitting champions.
That’s it for top changes of the League of Legends patch 8.15! You can check the complete patch notes here, and we’ll see you on the Summoner’s Rift!