League of Legends: Huge Rumble Nerfs on the Horizon

Are you tired of getting roasted by a pyromaniac yordle every time you dare to step foot in top lane? Are you sick of having to always play high-mobility carries so that you don't burn to death on top of a certain napalm-laden missile barrage? Well, your woes might soon be at an end, because some very interesting Rumble changes hit the PBE today, changes that look to make a huge dent in how powerful the champion is.

Rumble has already had a rough go of it this split, as the Doran's Shield changes hit him harder than any of the other top laners that see extensive play. The regeneration buff from the shield is reapplied from every tick on Flamespitter, which provides incredible sustain for Rumble's enemies, and makes it that much harder for him to roast them. As such, Rumble has fallen off dramatically in terms of popularity in casual play, though he remains a competitive staple.

That's unlikely to stay true come patch 7.12, however, as the current suite of nerfs are downright brutal. Firstly, Rumble's passive is getting some huge changes to the way his heat bar dissipates that will affect his early laning severely. On the live patch, Rumble's heat dissipates slowly at first but builds up as he remains idle. Come next patch, his heat will always dissipate at the same speed, and that speed is much faster than the current rate on the live patch. Why is this relevant? Well, it will now be impossible for Rumble to keep himself in the Danger Zone with only a single spell which will make it very, very difficult for Rumble players to traverse the map with the perfect amount of heat built up. More importantly, it means that Rumble can no longer enter lane while already in the Danger Zone at level 1, which is quite easy for him to do now and is the main reason Rumble is such an oppressive laner from the word go.

That's not the only huge nerf that Rumble is getting, though. Flamespitter is also getting some massive changes, both of which are sure to do a number of Rumble's early laning. The first change is to its cooldown, which will now scale down to its current 6 seconds from 10 seconds at rank 1, which will only exacerbate Rumble's early troubles with heat dissipation. It also completely kills jungle Rumble, for those that still love that particular off-meta pick. Secondly, the bonus damage that fFamespitter deals to minions has been slashed from 100% down to 75%, which will make it that much harder for Rumble to permanently push his lane like no tomorrow.

Will these changes gut Rumble? It's unlikely, as the Equalizer is still such a potent tool that it can keep Rumble afloat all on it's lonesome. Will Rumble still be the most oppressive top laner in the game during the laning phase after these changes? That's a more open question and one that Riot seems much more interested in addressing. Rumble mains will survive, but anyone who's only playing the champion for the free LP would do well to get off the hype train, because it's about to get derailed in a big way.