Sion
How? Well, it all comes down to the changes with the support items that are hitting in patch 7.12. Locket of the Iron Solari is getting changed to be more tank-friendly in order to try to bring champions like Braum and Leona back into the fold. Instead, the changes are just making a monster in the top lane, as the item synergizes far, far better with Sion than it ever will the tanky supports. Locket’s shield now scales off the bonus hp of it’s wielder, and no champion can beat Sion when it comes to stacking insane amounts of health. If a team-wide shield for 36% of a top lane Sion’s bonus HP isn’t broken, then I don’t know what is.
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Karma
Karma is eating a gigantic nerf on patch 7.12, one that seems somewhat unjustified. In theory, the nerf is intended to preemptively power down Karma since the new Athene’s Unholy Grail is theoretically broken on her. After having actually seen the new Athene’s however, it’s pretty unclear whether or not that is actually the case. While there definitely is some strong synergy between Karma’s kit and the new Athene’s, it doesn’t make up for the brutal nerfs that Karma received to Inspire. Not only were the base numbers gutted, but it’s Mantrad version, Defiance, was nerfed as well. Targets beyond the first will now only receive 30% of the initial shield value from Defiance, and while that might not be much of a problem for AP Karma, who’s quite popular over in the LCK, it’s a huge problem for support Karma, which is the way she’s usually played in solo queue.
Karma will still be playable come 7.12, but there will be a much more obviously difference between a good Karma and a mediocre one now, since the non-shield portions of her kit will have to carry her much harder.
Jhin
It seems that Riot is finally letting Jhin out of the dog house, as patch 7.12 features some of the first Jhin buffs since the champion’s release. Repeated nerfs to both Jhin and his core itemization have left him on the outside looking in over the past few months, since he’s pretty much the only ADC in the game who can’t join in on the Blade of the Ruined King craze that has had ADCs in a fervor. Now Jhin has some added firepower of his own, though, which should definitely help him compete.
Dancing Grenade is losing a pittance of it’s base damage (5), but is gaining a .1 higher attack damage ratio at all ranks. When you math out the changes, the result is more damage from the skill at every rank, including rank 1, as Jhin’s base AD is high enough to compensate for the nerf out of the gate. Additionally, Riot realized that getting shot by a Jhin ultimate early on in the game is like getting hit by a pea shooter, not like getting hit by a massive sniper rifle. In order to keep things realistic, Jhin’s ultimate got a bit of it’s base damage added back to it, enough that no one will be scoffing at it’s rank 1 damage anymore.
Rumble
Rumble is getting the most comprehensive set of changes in the patch, and not in a good way. He’s getting multiple nerfs, most notably to his Flamespitter, thoough it’s unclear exactly how much the changes will affect him. The most important change is, as previously mentioned, to his Flamespitter, which now has a scaling cooldown that starts at 10 second at rank 1 before returning to the current 6 second cooldown at rank 5. While the base damage was buffed at early levels in order to compensate, it’s a change that will still leave Rumble’s early game reeling, as it will quite difficult to use Flamespitter as both a pushing tool and a harass tool. Seeing as Rumble’s laning phase relies upon the dual modality of Flamespitter, that’s going to be a big problem.
However, Rumble is still essentially still the same champions past level 9, so it might all end up being irrelevant for the average player. He’ll still bully champions like Shen regardless of these changes, but he’ll no longer be able to zone the Rivens of the world from the creep wave from level 1 onwards. Trying to do so will have grave consequences come tomorrow’s patch.
Corki
Corki’s changes are likely to make big waves in the competitive scene, but it’s up for debate whether or not the average player will notice the difference. While Corki did get a bit of a number buff — both his base attack damage and his base attack speed got increased slightly — his biggest change wasn’t numberical at all. Instead, his greatest change actually came in the form of a rebalancing of Hextech Munitions, his passive. As it stands, Hextech Munitions converts half of Corki’s auto attack damage into magic damage, which is a big reason why he found himself a niche as a mid laner the last couple times he was viable. Riot is doubling down on that ide acome patch 7.12 and changing Hextech Munitions so that it converts eighty percent of Corki’s auto attack damage to magic damage instead.
Now, let’s be clear, in most cases this is an early game nerf. Every champion in the game starts out with at least 30 Magic Resistance. Very few champions can say the same in the case of Armor, even after runes and masteries are taken into account. Against most champions, Corki will now do less damage suring the laning phase, especially since stacking MR is now an extremely effective method of countering Corki.
That being said, the change opens up strategic space that simply wasn’t there before. While Kog’Maw deals a good amount of magic damage on hit, he’s far from being a true magic damage carry. The majority of his damage still comes from physical sources. After this change, Corki will be the frist ADC that will truly do more magic damage than he does physical, which opens up more flexibility when it comes to team compositions. As it stands, if you want to run a Talon or a Jayce in the mid lane, you’re all but forced to also put Rumble in the top lane or Elise in the jungle, and even then you’ll suffer from scaling issues. Now you can just put Corki in the bottom lane and force the enemy tanks into eventually stacking MR.
Expect to see more Corki in the near future. If not in your ranked games, than at least on the LCS stage.
