Matt Leung-Harrison@RiotPhroxzon
Patch 26.12 Full Preview!
Cassiopeia
- We pulled Cassiopeia nerfs from the 26.12 patch, but intend to nerf her in 26.13
- We still want to work on a changelist that preserves some of her strengths and the things that her players love about her,
Top Lane Meta
- Aatrox has been generally a little on the weaker side, especially for higher levels of play and so these changes are targeted at rewarding him for matchups where he's already favored and able to get sweet spot hits off more reliably
- Gwen is also being buffed a bit with her early laning strength (which we walked back pretty significantly in an earlier patch). With K'Sante rising in priority (from DHelm buff and other meta shifts), we're also positioning Gwen as a good pick into these tanky Sion and K'Sante style picks
- Similarly, Jax is getting more throughput in early trades both in regular matchups and in some of the matchups that favor short trades (eg. ranged matchups)
- Overall, we expect the Top meta to have a few more fringe and counterpick options available
Hwei
- Some of the slow stacking changes to Hwei were a lot more power impacting (negatively) than the buffs that he received in the positive direction
- As a result we're adding a bit more power back into his utility aspects that allow him to be a jack of all trades, rather than just being a master of none
Tristana
- Tristana, has a bit of room in bot lane and especially in the midlane where changes to the role quests (that favor a bit more utility/roaming > farming) have been a bit unfavorable there
- One of the changes that impacted her negatively was adding a mana cost to Q and so we're adding a bit of that back to give her a bit more pushing power
- This is especially impactful because of Tristana's low base and scaling mana pool
Ryze
- Ryze is a bit too durable, especially in the early game and he often wins lanes/gets push by simply autoing champions and hitting them with guaranteed damage through W's, E's and autos
- Ryze will still be on the durable side, especially with his early catalyst purchases, but these nerfs are intended to make him work a bit harder for it
Lee Sin
- Changes to Lee are targeted at bringing down some of his damage through both guaranteed means (as he is more likely to get on top of people with more access to W hops) and unreliable means (Q hits)
- He received a pretty strong net buff in the highest levels of play, more than the winrate movement would indicate
Lethality Varus
- Lethality Varus continues to be one of the strongest bot lane champions and also acts as a meta suppressant
- We're attempting to open up the meta a bit by moving more of his power budget into attacking builds and also nerfing the throughput of his Q poke in the AD heavy builds
