League of Legends Changes Previewed for Patch 8.7

With the next League of Legends patch scheduled to come in the next week as the PBE cycle comes to a close, potential changes for the following League patch are being discussed.

In a recent Gameplay Thoughts post on the League of Legends boards, Riot Meddler discussed the nature of Patch 8.7 that’s still weeks away. The Rioter previewed the patch as one that’ll be a smaller one when compared to Patch 8.6 that’s coming soon and has been on the PBE for a while, a patch size that’s due in part to the rotating patch size cycle as well as the proximity to the midseason period.

“8.7’s a small patch, particularly since we’re approaching midseason so are putting some time into that,” Riot Meddler said. “It’ll be on the lighter side as a result, with a fair bit of it made up from things that didn’t make it in time for 8.6. Early on in the 8.7 development cycle we’ll also be more focused on systemic changes than champion stuff, a bit of extra champion balance work is likely to make it in later though.”

Riot Meddler continued to preview the changes Riot has in mind for the patch starting with the champion buffs and nerfs while going into more detail about LeBlanc’s partial reverts.

Champions

The first set of changes previewed for Patch 8.7 is the most extensive one, a series of buffs, nerfs, and other changes for several different champions.

Many of these changes that were mentioned in the boards post were ones that have been discussed before such as the Swain nerf, but the delay of some changes may be news to some players. Both Kayn’s and Ahri’s changes were previewed in recent weeks and were being tested, but each champion saw their adjustments moved back to a later patch to allow for more testing. The full list of changes previewed by Riot Meddler can be seen below:

Champions

• Swain nerf. Most likely candidates are Q CD (might have lowered it too far) and Q damage. Still figuring details out though, nothing solid yet.
• Rumble buff. Straight Q and R damage buffs from 8.6 were ok but don’t think they were targeted enough at Rumble’s problems. Trying to do a bit more as a result.
• Ahri changes (still working on clearer highs and lows, plus general strengths and weaknesses).
• LB changes. More likely to be in 8.8 at this point because there’s some visual effects work still needed that’s not on track for an 8.7 release. Possible it still makes it into 8.7 though.
• Kayn changes that should smooth out transformation point gain over game time. Likely to be a slight buff and should help lane Kayn a bit more than jungle Kayn too.

LeBlanc

Following the preview for LeBlanc that was included in the main post, one player wanted to know more about the champion’s changes that revert some of her abilities while adjusting LeBlanc’s gameplay.

In the past weeks, it was mentioned that LeBlanc would see changes such as the removal of her passive mark and the return of the old Sigil of Malice. Mimic will also be reverted as well with the clone activating when LeBlanc is near death. With these changes in mind, a player asked if there was any chance that LeBlanc’s “rework” would be rerouted to “counteract her complete loss of the ability to actually deceive people” to which Riot Meddler had the following response.

“Probably not. I think our desire to make LB more of an illusionist/deceiver was what created a lot of the problems with the previous update. Thematically that’s a strong match for LB’s character, in terms of what gameplay players liked about LB up to that point it was a secondary note though. There’s some of it on the mindgames around the W and the use of the clone passive, but LB’s historically been about a combination of windows of burst, mobility/slipperiness and dexterity I’d argue. If she was a brand new character would certainly want much stronger alignment between theme and gameplay. Cost of trying to get that here’s been too high though.”

Runes

The runes being changed in Patch 8.7 are also ones that have been discussed in the past, namely the adjustments for Manaflow Band and Presence of Mind.

The Sorcery and Precision runes respectively are on the table for nerfs and potential “reshapes” to adjust how the runes are used and who they’re used on.

• Manaflow Band nerf/reshape (reduces mana gating too much)
• Presence of Mind reshape (too strong on its best users, not strong enough on many others)
• Numbers tuning on some other runes that are just not balanced well enough (e.g. Approach Velocity is weak, Celerity is strong etc)

Riot Meddler also offered more details on how Presence of Mind might be reshaped. When asked what kinds of changes it might undergo, Riot Meddler said that it may adopt a new effect similar to the previous version of Morellonomicon.

“Something like the old Morello passive is likely, from memory paired with another effect (we were previously trying some XP on takedown as well, I think right now reduced ult CD is being tested instead),” Riot Meddler said.

Items

Last up is the items that’ll potentially be changed, and though there are only two items on the list, one of them is a popular choice that’s received tons of attention lately: Ninja Tabi.

The boots enchantment is one that ADC mains have both lamented due to its inexpensive stats and defensive potential, but some ADC champions have even been seen buying it themselves because it’s so good against AD champions. In Patch 8.7, Riot says that the prevalence of Ninja Tabi is being examined alongside the ongoing work on the Locket of the Iron Solari item.

• Still working to make Locket more contextual (good some games, bad others) and probably less effective against single target burst champs
• Looking at Ninja Tabi, given they’re really dominant choices for the boots slot and can have a very large impact on some lanes. Number of things we need to figure out here, including how much they’re just too good a general choice, how much they’re just too strong, how important they are as a safety valve to AA champs, how much of a safety valve (or excessive counter?) to Lethality, what the right mixture of Armor versus other defensive effects is etc. We’re trying to avoid solving a couple of problems only to replace them with other equally large ones.

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