Patch Day: Late August

Today's patch notably comes without any new champion whatsoever, not even a note about requiring further testing on the PBE. Of course, this doesn't mean there's nothing to talk about.

Alistar is getting some much needed nerfs, and in the right places. He's been banned consistently for quite some time, largely because he's been the ideal jungler for the current meta. His ganks are amongst the strongest in the game, while his farm requirements are amongst the lowest. Nerfing his movement speed and his headbutt range cuts into his ganking power significantly, but he'll still be a very strong jungler regardless.

Corki gets a thorough smacking with the nerf bat. The modification to his passive is the most notable of his changes, as it reduces his auto-attack damage significantly. Due to the mathematics of the true passive it's roughly a 10% auto-attack damage nerf late game. That's a very strong nerf, and will hurt Corki significantly.

Diana's nerfs are reasonable, and she'll likely still be incredibly strong afterward. Her base damage and innate tankiness remain very high. The key change is the cooldown nerf to her ultimate, which forces Diana to be much more thoughtful about its use. She is now, as she should have been in the first place, very reliant on her Q for sticking power.

The Eve changes will significantly help both her laning and her jungling, but she remains an odd champion. She's much more at home in a gank composition meta, which no one is currently running. Should that become common she'll see a resurgence of popularity, but until then she's not likely to see the limelight.

Ezreal is the least-nerfed of the three popular ADs. What made Ezreal's W strong wasn't its damage as much as its attack speed slow. Landing a W in a skirmish bottom meant winning the skirmish, as your opponent's damage potential plummeted. This hasn't changed, and buffing Q only makes Ezreal stronger. Expect him to utterly dominate whenever played by someone who can aim.

Gragas' ultimate has long been known for its ridiculously short cooldown. With cooldown reduction he's been able to throw potential game winning barrels every 36 seconds for some time. The nerf is warranted, but saddening for long time Gragas players. The mobility nerf is notable but less important, as ultimately the mana cost won't matter.

Graves' changes can be hard to wrap one's mind around due to the arcane and mysterious nature of Attack Speed. However, the end result of the changes is that with a typical build Graves will be auto-attacking 10% slower than before. This is roughly equivalent to the Corki nerf, though via a different vector.

Nerfing Karthas' wall hurts his laning phase more than anything else. It will still be great for cutting off fleeing enemies, or countering an initiation.

Katarina's damage scaling has been nerfed significantly, likely as a counter-weight to her passive's change. Previously getting a reset on her ultimate required near-maximum CDR and three dead enemies, meaning it was pretty common for her to get her ultimate back with only one foe left to attack. With this change 2-3 deaths will ensure a reset, warranting a slight nerf on her other damage sources.

It surprised me how little Twitch is played. These buffs are very slight, and likely are aimed at putting him on the radar rather more than anything else. I expect that eventually people will learn the power of a Twitch kill lane, and we'll see him become extremely popular.

This was a nerf-heavy patch, but they were all warranted. We'll see if Syndra's patch doesn't bring with it a greater proportion of buffs for needy champions.