League of Legends patch 8.20 was released on Tuesday, October 9. This time, the balance changes were few and far between, which, combined with the fact that 8.20 won’t be applied to Worlds, means the patch will only affect Solo Queue. That said, Riot Games still made enough tweaks to shake up the meta game, so let’s dive deep into the top changes of patch 8.20!
Ezreal Rework
Rework might be too grandiose of a term for what happened to Ezreal, but there’s no denying that the Prodigal Explorer will have a very different feel to him. For starters, the champion received a visual update, so his model will look much slicker on Summoner’s Rift. What’s more important, though, is the complete redesign of Essence Flux [W].
Now, casting Ezreal’s W will launch an orb that marks the first champion or objective in its way. The orb itself doesn’t deal any damage, however, you can detonate it by using other abilities to inflict 75/120/165/210/255 magic damage (scales with 0.6 AD and 0.7 AP) onto the marked target. On top of that, proccing Essence Flux will restore a decent chunk of mana, greatly improving Ezreal’s sustainability in the laning phase.
Other minor changes include a slightly decreased AP ratio on Mystic Shot [Q] and a new interaction that makes Arcane Shift [E] prioritize the targets marked by Essence Flux. Overall, Ezreal’s W has always been treated as a throwaway ability. With that, any change that makes it feel more like an integral part of the Prodigal Explorer’s kit is a good change in our book.
Ahri Ult Cooldown Increase
That’s right, the cooldown on Ahri’s Spirit Rush [R] was increased from 110/95/80 to 130/105/80. Obviously, this only affects her ult in the early/mid stages game, and the late game Ahri remains untouched. That being said, it’s not clear why Ahri needed a nerf in the first place. Her kit is easy to execute, sure, but there are so many counters to her that the Nine-Tailed Fox struggled to get any breathing room in the mid lane. And a longer cooldown on her ultimate is only going to make things harder for all of the Ahri mains out there.
Jhin Hail of Blades Nerf
Patch 8.20 removed the interaction that made the attack speed bonus from Hail of Blades to synergize with Jhin’s passive while the Virtuoso was out of combat. With that, you will no longer see Jhin get a massive movement speed boost after landing a keystone-empowered auto attack. As for Jhin mains, they will likely switch back to the Fleet Footwork.
Nami Loses Sustain
Nami’s Ebb and Flow [W] healing was reduced from 65/95/125/155/185 to 60/85/110/135/160. At first glance, this might not seem like such a huge change for the Tidecaller. However, Nami’s laning usually comes down to going in for short trades and proccing as many Ebb and Flow bounces as possible, so having less healing is definitely going to make this pattern less reliable.
Sion Loses Regen
Another interesting change of League of Legends patch 8.20 is Sion getting his health regen bumped down from 9 per 5 seconds to 7.5 per 5 seconds. Again, this might not sound like much, but any time you tweak a champion’s base stats, it’s bound to affect him at every stage of the game. And considering how prevalent Sion is in the top lane, any nerf to him is a welcome one.
Dark Harvest Nerf
After the changes to Electrocute, many junglers took up Dark Harvest as their go-to keystone. Well, looks like they’re going to have to switch to Predator because Dark Harvest has been hit with the nerf bat. The base damage from Dark Harvest was reduced from 40-80 to 20-60, and that might be too big of a loss for the rune to stay in the meta.
That’s it for the top changes of the League of Legends patch 8.20! You can check the complete patch notes here, and we’ll see you on the Summoner’s Rift or discover more about esports games!