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.

Patch Day: Rengar/Mid August

It's patch day once again, and that means analysis. Unfortunately there's not whole lot to analyze this time around.

Rengar will be coming out later after Riot finishes balancing him on the PBE. He's got the chops to be a great jungler or top lane, but we'll see how he does in his final incarnation.

Garen received huge changes in an attempt to make him a competitive top lane. These changes are something of a wash for the comical Doran's Blade Garen build, but considerably increase Garen's strength later in the game if you aren't being silly. Because his passive is broken by jungle creeps he still isn't a viable jungler.

The Katarina remake is highly controversial as it appears to shift her playstyle from that of a burst assassin to more of an AP bruiser style. Due to all the changes Katarina can jungle, but she's very Shyvana-esque in that her first clear has sustain issues and she doesn't bring any crowd control to the table. Except to see her shift from mid to top lane, and only appear in the jungle occasionally.

Several champions have had AP ratios tweaked to make AP more desirable on them. The minor tweak to Kayle's W isn't going to dramatically alter her top lane play, but AP Teemo was definitively buffed. AP Varus will likely remain a joke, but the modifications to his ultimate will help make him a competitive AD carry.

Honestly the most important change this patch is that Katarina no longer has a semi-sentient octopus nesting on her head. If not for that and the changes to everyone's favorite Shakespearean couple, this would have been a boring patch.

Patch Day: Early August/Diana

Today's patch comes with Diana to follow later. If the Zyra patch was any indication Diana will be released sometime this weekend or early next week. In the meantime, there are patch changes to analyze.

Amumu's changes dramatically reduce his damage when he builds AP. It was fairly common for Amumu to pick up at least one AP item when jungling, such as Abyssal, so this does have a significant effect. The mana cost reduction on Tantrum honestly isn't a big deal, hardly sufficient compensation for dropping 0.5 in AP ratios. However, it might be enough for Amumu to forgo Philosopher's stone and rush other items instead.

The change to Brand's ult should greatly reduce its randomness. Sometimes Brand would dominate due to lucky bounces, and sometimes he'd feel like he had no ult at all. I'd posit we'll see more Brands, but then the substantial Malzahar buffs didn't exactly bring him back to the forefront.

Cho'gath's changes are, like Brand and Malzahar before him, quality of life changes first and foremost. Cho'gath should be somewhat easier to use now that his delays and cast times are streamlined. Again, I'd guess we'd see more Cho'gaths, but quality of life changes are no guarantee of a lasting increase in popularity.

Continuing the theme of quality of life changes we have Eve. The shorter stealth fade time is fairly important, as it was a ridiculously long time before. Similarly her ult's cooldown was extremely long before, they literally shaved 30 seconds off it at rank 1. With these changes her play should feel smoother, particularly relating to stealth.

Finally we have Hecarim to round up the quality of life changes. E was previously fairly unresponsive, with its pushback going at odd angles and freezing Hecarim thereafter. If this is fixed it will make his ganks substantially easier, along with his greater initial velocity. Similarly faster fleeing targets will make his ultimate feel much stronger when placed well. Overall he should be far easier to use for the many players who have felt he was clunky and difficult.

Most of what remains are minor bug fixes and nerfs, but it's worth noting that Janna, Xin, and Yorick were nerfed due to overly strong laning phases. While small, their nerfs should make them easier to deal with. Also, the reversal of Urgot's nerf should make him competitive again (he had, as I suggested he would, fallen completely off the competitive ladder).

Overall this patch largely has quality of life changes, a few nerfs, and a few minor buffs. After the plethora of buffs and remakes last patch this is a welcome reprieve. I'll talk more about Diana later this week.