League of Legends Tests Red Buff Nerf, No Longer Burns Towers

A nerf to League of Legends' Red Buff and all others who grab the Crest of Cinders is being tested that removes the buff's extra burn damage applied to towers.

The Crest of Cinders nerf was spotted on the PBE, a nerf that's not one of the more visible changes to pick up on but impacts the buff's holders a great deal. David "Riot Repertoir" Capurro confirmed on Twitter that the change to the jungle buff was intentional and explained that Riot Games is looking into completely pulling the turret damage from the buff.

Yeah. We're testing having red buff no longer apply to turrets, under the main premise that it contributes too heavily to successful early ganks resulting in turrets dropping 100-0.

— David Capurro (@RiotRepertoir) March 27, 2018

For those that stay out of the jungle as much as possible or don't find themselves needing the Red Brambleback's buff very often, it's easy to forget that the buff's extra true damage applies to towers as well. Along with the slowing effect and the extra health regen, the buff burns enemies for true damage over time. Players may recall that this effect was added way back in Patch 5.22 when a wave of jungle tuning changes made it so that the Crest of Cinders buff would also affect turrets.

According to Riot Repertoir's tweet, the goal here is to allow the outer turrets to withstand a greater beating without dropping so early in the game. Towers all have their own armor values to reduce damage as well, so while the extra damage applied by the buff may not seem like a lot, it's much more impactful thanks to its ability to bypass these defenses. It's still mitigated during the first few minutes of the game thanks to the turrets' Fortification passive that reduces incoming damage from all sources, but in the hands of a jungler that emphasizes attack speed and auto attack resets, its effect in the game's earliest phases can still be devastating.

The change seems to fall in line with Riot Games' recently discussed plans to make the laning phase a bit longer by reducing how quickly towers are taken. A wave of minion changes was previewed earlier in the month, another example of some of the laning phase extension plans.

The Red Buff's nerf is currently being tested on the PBE and may be adjusted before it's included in an upcoming patch.