League of Legends Brings Big Marksmen, Crit Item Changes to PBE

Some sizeable changes for the marksmen class and the critical items that the champions use are coming to the League of Legends PBE soon that should allow different champs to hone in on their playstyles.

In a detailed post on the League of Legends boards, Riot Axes outlined everything that's coming to the PBE over the next few days. The Rioter prefaced all the changes by assessing the current state of marksmen as well as how they've fit into the game for a while now.

"Marksmen as a class have been too strong for a while, and express that strength in ways that produce only a few game states. Early setbacks in lane don't put hyperscaling carries behind enough to really matter, so most lane bully marksmen have vanished or moved to other positions. The bullies who remain tend to be champions who can also be late game carries if they win lane, namely crit-scaling bullies like Caitlyn and Rageblade champions like Varus."

To accomplish various goals that include making it more impactful when crit carry champions don't perform in lane while also allowing other non-crit champions to do their thing, Riot will be reworking two crit items. Infinity Edge and Essence Reaver the first rebalancing its power to be less impactful early by devastating in the late game while the second will "function as a standalone item" without crit dependency. The Infinity Edge's passive effect will also deal a portion of its damage into true damage instead of strictly crit damage.

For champions that don't use these crit items, Riot also previewed some "simple efficiency buffs" to both Blade of the Ruined King and The Bloodthirster. A new item for marksmen was also previewed, an item called Stormrazer that would upgrade out of the B.F. Sword. The item has currently been described as one that makes champions' first few attacks "more impactful," but whether that means more damage or some other special effect remains to be seen.

Along the same lines of the Stormrazer item is the first mentioning of a new Keystone Rune called Hail of Blades. The exact effect of the rune wasn't explained, but Riot Axes said that it would be in the Domination rune path and would have "similar goals as Stormrazer."

The marksmen and crit item changes haven't hit the PBE yet, but look for all the new items and effects on the test servers in the next few days.