Lead game designer for Riot Games’ MOBA, Matt ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison, has shared their plan for League of Legends patch 12.17. A couple of changes to Hecarim and Maokai go along with the regular buffs and nerfs, most notably a nerf to the Nami electrocute build that, when paired with Lucian, is an absolute nightmare in the bot lane.
The Maokai changes that Phroxzon mentions are currently in place on the PBE; the tree fellow seeing their ult travel much faster when used, taking it from ‘completely useless’ to ‘eh’. The saplings no longer have empowered damage when thrown in a bush, with that max health damage being swapped to their Q ability.
The Hecarim changes look to take the champion away from a tank/assassin build and more towards a bruiser/fighter – their Q ability is getting buffed and their W now gives both armour and magic resistance when active. Less burst and more sustain coming from the horse with 12.17.
Miss Fortune is getting a buff that looks similar to the recent Caitlyn changes – Riot is looking to give players more of a reason to build full crit, with MF’s AD scaling going up in both her E and ultimate abilities. You’ll likely see the lethality builds fall off massively after this patch.
The full list of changes coming with League of Legends patch 12.17:
Champion Buffs
- Miss Fortune
- Twisted Fate
- Kassadin
- Rell
- Graves
- Nocturne
- Ezreal
- Camille
- Sett
Champion Nerfs
- Nami
- Taric
- Azir
- Ahri
- Sylas
- Trundle
- Wukong
- Sivir
- Renekton
Adjustments
- Maokai
- Hecarim
- Stopwatch/GA/Zhonya’s
Phroxzon stated, yet again, that they’re keeping the changes to a minimum due to the incoming Worlds tournament. The playoffs are done and dusted and any major adjustments here could possibly interfere with the tournament.
While we wait for these changes, it might be worth checking out what’s currently happening with the League of Legends 12.16 patch notes. With Worlds fast approaching, Riot unveiled the League of Legends Summoner’s Cup in preparation for Worlds, a strange but quite cool collaboration with Tiffany & Co.