As interesting as the changes are, it’s a little disappointing to see the next patch for League of Legends being called the ‘Mid-July’ patch rather than the Zyra patch, as it probably means that the mostly-naked plant lady with an interesting suite of skills is less likely to grace the client next week, when the patch hits. Regardless, there are some pretty major changes coming to some champions, which should make the game much more entertaining. Especially if you like stealth.
I detailed the changes coming to Twitch and Evelyn on Wednesday, but in addition to those major changes we’re also getting minor overhauls for Sona, Xin Zhao and Malzahar, all underplayed champions when it comes to the pro game, and not all that brilliant in pub matches either.
Sona is having her global cooldowns on auras reduced, the the damage on her ultimate front-loaded so that it can’t be avoided with cleanse and other debuff-removing items. The aura cooldown should make playing her a much more active task, rather than just going into a fight knowing you have to stick to that one aura otherwise everyone is going to die.
Xin Zhao’s rework is much more extensive, with his passive getting replaced with ‘Challenge’, letting him focus one target for an armour debuff. It also ties into his Ultimate, which lets him cleave ahead of him, knocking back everything and everyone apart from the target he’s got the challenge debuff on. It should make him much more tactical to play, and tactics are the best.
Finally, Malzahar is getting a smarter Voidling, which apparently translates into a damage buff. He’s also able to place his Null Field while moving, and there’s no cast time, which should benefit his chain attacks into his ultimate.
Now that you’ve read all about it, you can watch the video that explains it all in microscopic detail, along with a lot of the reasons behind the changes.