Patch Day: 3.02

I'm much later than I wanted to be with this "patch day" analysis, but better late than never. Some people think Quinn will be coming out before 3.03, but I'm not so certain. For now, let's focus on what the patch notes themselves say.

There are a lot of quality of life changes and bug fixes this patch. While many champions have been affected, most of those changes aren't notable enough to be analyzed here.

Akali's passives no longer require a set amount of Attack Damage or Ability Power to activate. This is extremely useful for players who don't have many runes or rune pages, as it allows them to avoid dedicating an entire page to Akali. However, the best page for jungling hasn't changed; Spell Vamp Quintessences remain vital for sustain, Ability Power Glyphs remain vital for clear speed, and Attack Damage Marks remain vital for both.

Nasus' entirely balanced and not in any way abusive crit glitch has been fixed. Though I mourn the loss of my overpowered and unfair crits, it's entirely understandable. In return, Nasus gets some extremely valuable buffs. The mana cost reduction on Q is extremely useful for both laning and jungling, allowing him to farm his Q without worrying about mana. The cast and attack range changes on his ultimate may not seem like much, but being able to spam Wither from 900 range makes Nasus a nightmare for any carry not rocking Cleanse or Quicksilver Sash. He may not be able to one shot bots in Coop vs AI games anymore, but he's still significantly better off than he was a few patches ago.

According to LoLWiki Riven's new passive is actually 20-50% of total Attack Damage, not 15- 45%. The original numbers were probably too much of a punishment at early levels, and slightly too little later on. This should have the desired effect, as even at level 9 (when the passive reaches 35% of total Attack Damage) the new passive should be slightly stronger than before due to base Attack Damage.

There are significant changes to items as well this patch.

Cooldown Reduction got shuffled around a bit. Athene's Unholy Grail, Spirit Visage, and Zeke's Herald all saw increases, while Deathfire Grasp, Glacial Shroud, and Iceborn Gauntlet all saw decreases. This was one knob Riot very consciously turned to help balance overused and underused items.

Armor and Magic Resistance became cheaper. Stacking Health was the best option not only because it was cheap and easy, but because defensive stats were costly and difficult. In some cases items had their stats increased, and in other cases they had their costs reduced. Riot obviously wanted to make non-Health defensive items more competitive.

Liandry's Torment was modified slightly. Previously damage over time abilities or repeated casts munched some of the passive damage from this item. It's an old problem that used to plague Teemo and Nautilus, but no longer. The change, and the damage increase, should help make this item strong against Health-stacking opponents. Blade of the Ruined King received buffs as well with the same goal, but Riot is already playing around with a different iteration due to the insufficiency of the changes.

Ohmwrecker has been modified to try to appeal more to supports than tanks. Despite that, the gold cost is extremely steep. A lot of the cost comes from the Ability Power, which is arguably less than useful for supports. Riot seems to have forgotten that they nerfed the Ability Power ratios on supports long ago, making Ability Power a largely undesirable attribute for a role centered around ability actives and team utility.

All in all, not the most exciting patch, but a good one nonetheless. You'd think I'd be more thrilled about the Akali changes, but as I primarily jungle Akali rather than lane it didn't change all that much for me. It's the lane Akali players who can now run Magic Penetration who should be excited.