League of Legends patch 12.18 is the last patch before the MOBA’s biggest event of the year: Worlds. 12.18 is the build of League that the competitors will be playing on. With that, Matt Leung-Harrison, lead designer for Riot, notes that this patch focuses on ‘small nudges’ rather than huge changes.
The small nudges that Matt explains in this post appear to begin with a course correction on the last patch, with both Miss Fortune and Hecarim receiving nerfs immediately after they were both buffed in 12.17. It’s unclear exactly what these are right now, but Miss Fortune has already had a mid-patch update following her changes, setting her W attack speed and mana cost to what they were previously.
With only four champions in the buff column this time around, it’s clear that Riot doesn’t want to rock the boat this close to Worlds; overpowering even a single champion at this point could drastically change the meta. The previous few patches have included re-works and large lists of champions, something we likely won’t see again until December.
Champion Buffs
- Ashe (Marksmen)
- Thresh
- Lee Sin
- Nasus
Champion Nerfs
- Miss Fortune
- Kalista
- Hecarim
- Rhaast (Kayn)
- Lulu
- Nocturne
Champion Adjustments
- Maokai (Role adjustments)
- Udyr (Build adjustments)
It will be interesting to see what the champion adjustments pan out to be. If I was to guess on Maokai, it would be Riot planting the wooden fellow more firmly in the Jungle, as the re-work was aiming vaguely in that direction anyway. Whereas with Udyr, simply adjusting his AP/AD scaling wouldn’t necessarily be a buff or a nerf, but would change his item trajectory within a match.
There’ll be more on 12.18 in the near future. For the current changes, check out League of Legends patch 12.17 – it has the details of the Maokai re-work and all the MF changes that might be getting undone in a few weeks. Halloween will be upon us before we know it, and Riot is prepping a bunch of Fright Night skins to suit the occasion. It might be worth checking how much you’ve spent in League of Legends before you get any ideas, though.