League of Legends Tank Buffs Could Bring Tahm Kench Back to Top Lane

Riot Games is planning on buffing several League of Legends tanks, one of which is Tahm Kench who might soon return to his lesser-seen top-lane role.

The catfish/frog hybrid doesn't have an impressive winrate in the bottom lane as a support, the role that he's most often seen in, but he's still a pain to go up against due to his Devour that lets him scoop up a teammate that's in danger. It's that ability combined with his ultimate that makes Tahm Kench such a staple support in professional play. The changes that Riot's proposed will be a huge blow to his supportive powers by doubling the Devour cooldown, but they'll be a significant buff to his secondary lane thanks to a new effect on the ability.

Sharing the in-testing changes on the League of Legends boards, Riot Maple Nectar previewed what's to come for Tahm Kench along with an explanation for what Riot's goals are.

"Reduce the overall availability of his defensive devour and better reward use in aggressive scenarios," Riot Maple Nectar said regarding the goal of Tahm Kench's changes below. "Also tuning Q to give him a few more buttons to press in light of longer cd ally W, and reducing the slow to compensate."

Tahm Kench

• Tongue Lash (Q)
  • Slow Duration :: 2 >>> 1.5
  • Cooldown :: 6 >>> 5
• Devour / Regurgitate (W)
  • Damage :: 20/23/26/29/32% (+2% per 100AP) >>> 27/29/31/33/35% (+1% per 100AP)
  • Devour Duration :: 4/4.5/5/5.5/6 >>> 4
  • Enemy champion duration still halved
  • Cooldown :: 14/13/12/11/10 >>> 28/25/22/19/16
  • Cost :: 90 >>> 60
  • NEW :: Triggers half its normal cooldown on enemy cast

If you're a Tahm Kench player who knows how the champion likes to play the top lane, you'll know that there's essentially only one negative in this whole list of changes, and it's a small one. His slow on his Tongue Lash ability will be half a second shorter, but it'll have a lower cooldown to compensate.

The real changes to point out here – the ones that'll possibly bring him back to the top lane, at least in solo queue – are the ones for Devour. Its damage has been buffed to the point that it'll do as much damage at rank one as it previously did only after the ability's third rank. Changing the duration that you can keep an enemy devoured in the late game don't affect Tahm as much since his Tongue Lash and teammates will help keep enemies in place even after they're regurgitated. Tahm Kench players don't usually build much ability power either, if any, so the lower Regurgitate ratio won't hurt him much at all.

Devour also costs less now, so you can have more mana for another Tongue Lash after your full rotation. But while these changes could help Tahm Kench players overall, they're offset by the severe Devour nerf that doubles the cooldown early on. However, the new effect on the ability means that the cooldown is halved when it's used on an enemy. That means that Tahm Kench players in the top lane are free to reap the rewards of the buffs, should they go through, while you'll likely see him even less in the support position.

The changes are currently on the PBE for testing and aren't guaranteed to go through to live servers.