‘League of Legends’ Nerfs Being Considered for Jhin’s Hail of Blades Build

Riot Games is looking into nerfing Jhin’s Hail of Blades build in an upcoming League of Legends patch.

The build is one of the more popular ways to play Jhin that capitalizes on the champion’s passive ability by converting the Keystone Rune’s bonus attack speed into extra damage and more movement speed when he lands a critical strike. While the rune doesn’t seem at first glance like it’d be a suitable fit for Jhin, it’s been the rune of choice since players discovered how much late-game damage it grants along with the added movement speed to an otherwise low-mobility marksman.

In an upcoming patch though, Riot Games said that it’s exploring options that’ll weaken the rune build while leaving other parts of Jhin intact. League of Legends design director Andrei “Riot Meddler” van Roon gave some insight into what Riot Games is currently looking to do to Jhin and his Hail of Blades build.

“We’ll also be looking to do some work on Jhin and/or HoB, given just how much mobility it offers him,” he said after touching on some prospective Pyke changes. “Potentially involves reducing the amount of move speed he gets from the attack speed conversion and then buffing some other part of his kit so that non HoB builds aren’t penalized. Also possible we do some work on HoB in preseason instead, potentially with a temporary change to Jhin until then.”

Pyke’s changes in the previous comment were said to be planned for Patch 8.20, so the following comment about Jhin that came right after it implies that the marksman’s changes will be considered for the same patch. The only two candidates that have been discussed for Patch 8.20 changes so far with the most recent patch out now, Riot Games’ Pyke changes would specifically target one of his builds as well.

“We’ll be looking at Pyke in 8.20, specifically reducing his effectiveness with tank builds. They’re outperforming AD builds by a pretty decent margin, and Pyke keeps his strengths generally while muting his weaknesses a lot when building tank. Not sure yet what exact direction we’ll be going, shifting damage from base to ratios is one option, though does also increase how snowbally he is.”

The changes haven’t gone to the PBE yet but should be tested there before they go live should Riot Games decide to follow through with the ideas.