Certain League of Legends Champions Will Be Balanced for Nexus Blitz

Several League of Legends champions who seem to be struggling in the new Nexus Blitz game mode will be rebalanced to better perform in the experimental environment.

Like other game modes such as ARAM that's played on the Howling Abyss, League's new Nexus Blitz mode changes the rules that players are used to on the Summoner's Rift map. Next Blitz's map is a wild new setting with many players who are testing it still trying to find out how champions fit into the new frontier, but Riot Games has already noticed that certain champs aren't performing as well as others. While stressing that there aren't plans to aggressively change different champs to shoehorn them into a Nexus Blitz meta, August "Riot Jinxylord" Browning said that certain champions need some help.

"We hope that most champions are able to find a place in Nexus Blitz's pool of viable picks," Riot Jinxylord said. "We'd love it if you could pick whoever you want and not have to worry about your teammates feeling like they got 'stuck with you.' We won't be aggressively patching everyone to 'perfect balance' but we will take a look at extreme balance outliers who feel overly weak or strong. To this end, we plan on making champion specific balance changes as the need arises."

The Rioter specifically mentioned Kalista, Ezreal, Lee Sin, Rek'Sai, Azir, and Cassiopeia as the champions that would be buffed first. He added that buffing champions for certain game modes, in this case Nexus Blitz, is something that Riot's hesitant to do so that the champions don't feel too different in alternate game modes. Even the small changes like more damage on an ability, he said, could have a huge impact on how the champions feel in normal game modes or elsewhere in League.

To that end, the first set of champion-specific changes was shared to preview what's to come for those mentioned above. Kalista wasn't included in the list that Riot Jinxylord shared, but the other five champions were with the following changes being implemented.

Ezreal

• AD:: 60 + 2.5/lvl >>> 63 + 3/lvl
• AS/lvl:: 1.5% >>> 2.5%
• Base MP/5:: 8.1 >>> 12

Lee Sin

• AD/lvl:: 3.2 >>> 4.5
• HP/lvl:: 85 >>> 95

Azir

• AS/lvl:: 1.5% >>> 3%
• Base Mana:: 438 >>> 500

Rek'sai

• AD/lvl:: 3.35 >>> 4.5
• HP/lvl:: 85 >>> 100

Cassiopeia

• Base HP:: 537 >>> 580
• Base Mana:: 418 >>> 500
• Base MP/5:: 8 >>> 11

Nexus Blitz is League's experimental game mode that puts players on a new map with the goal still being to destroy the enemy Nexus, though special events and other changes like having duo jungle offer a totally different experience. You can read up on the game mode here and can test it now if you have a PBE account.