Several 'League of Legends' Marksmen Are Getting Buffed Soon

Several of League of Legends' marksman champions are being looked at for buffs in an upcoming patch, specifically those who often lean towards itemizing critical hit stats.

Corki, Xayah, Ashe, Vayne, Tristana, and Jinx are the six champions mentioned so far as ones who are potentially getting buffed, League of Legends design director Andrei "Riot Meddler" van Roon said on the game's boards. The design director said the champions listed above are currently candidates for buffs, so they aren't guaranteed to receive them, but if they do, they'll be added in Patch 8.24b.

One of the ways they'll potentially be buffed is not by adjusting their damage numbers but by increasing their chances of survival through magic resistance buffs. Riot Meddler said elsewhere in the post that burst mages along with other champion classes like divers and assassins have become more popular in the preseason, so increasing the magic resist stat for the marksmen should help give them a fighting chance against those who deal magic damage.

"One tactic we're going to look at for a number of them is giving more starting MR, reducing their vulnerability to harass in lane and magic damage based burst early/mid game," Riot Meddler said. "Not sure yet what sort of mixture of just more MR overall versus pulling per level MR forwards into starting MR that will be."

Thoughts on the current state of marksmen.

Philosophy and plans on gold/xp funneling should it prove effective again.//t.co/HTTDg5tiEC

— Andrei van Roon (@RiotMeddler) November 30, 2018

Looking at Xayah specifically, the Rioter said the balance team is planning on evaluating whether the champion and her partner, Rakan, are too dependent on one another. They're made to be used together in the bottom lane with the two champions getting bonuses to their abilities if both are in the same game and nearby each other, but Xayah and Rakan also need to be able to survive independently of each other if one gets banned or picked by the enemy team.

Those champion changes are currently being targeted for a Patch 8.24b release, the mini-patch Riot Games said is coming this month, but more ADC-related changes are coming beyond that in the Patch 9.1 update that'll kick off the new season. Riot Meddler said Riot Games will look at critical items once again with more information on those planned changes coming soon and will also be looking at the defensive options marksmen have along with the power curves of some champions.