What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy.
The patch 6.8 notes are finally out, and it’s shaping up to be a pretty nice patch with
a lot of really nice changes.
And amongst all of the direct buffs and nerfs to champions and other things that take place
on any given patch, there’s always some hidden, or indirect buffs that occur as a
result and can have some minor effects on the meta, but sometimes every once in a while,
have a massive impact and lead to some flavor of the month champions rising up.
So join me today in taking a look at the hidden buffs of patch 6.8.
As well, I’ve partnered up with ProGuides.com for the editing on this video.
They recently released a new service that allows you to ask questions to high ranked
players and get a reply within under a single minute.
And they have a free trial that gets you full access so you don’t have to take it from
me, you can decide for yourself if you like it or not.
Anyways let’s get started.
Our first hidden buff of patch 6.8 is to bruiser and damage focused top laners.
It’s no secret that a large majority of the direct nerfs on this patch are targeting
the top lane tank meta.
With this patch, we are likely to see the tank meta in top lane decline by quite a bit
actually.
Nerfs to Iceborn Gauntlet effect most of the characters who aren’t supposed to be tanks
but build as a tank anyway because they can, and is probably going to stop most champions
from randomly being able to be tanks and still do a bunch of damage even when it makes no
sense, I’m lookin at you fizz.
On top of that with the nerf to grasp of the undying, hopefully we will now see the death
of champions who really should never have been building tank in the first place, and
were on a ridiculous powerlevel as a result of it.
The tank items should be reserved for the tank champions, and that’s what this patch
is shaping up to make happen.
As well, we have the direct nerfs to Ekko and Graves on this patch, two really strong
top laners who dominated the top lane meta quite heavily.
And as a result of all of those things I just listed, we have bruiser and damage focused
top laners benefitting quite heavily as a result of those changed.
When playing a bruiser or damage focused top laner now you are more likely to get better
matchups in lane, since those raid boss tanks that still dealt tons of damage while being
tanky like ekko and graves and a few others were nightmares to face if you weren’t mega
tanky yourself.
And will the nerfs the popularity of those champions takes a hit, and even when you are
facing them, the matchups will be a little bit easier overall.
The next group of champions we have receiving an indirect buff is pretty similar to the
last one, and it’s the runic echoes focused junglers, and I guess the warrior junglers
as well, albeit definitely not as much.
For a similar reason to the top lane changes, the tank junglers are taking some hits as
a result of the nerfs to iceborn gauntlet, and the nerfs to graves, ekko and master yi.
Graves and master yi were extremely powerful junglers for soloqueue who dominated the meta,
and gave ap junglers a hard time, because they were strong and mobile enough with enough
damage to have kill potential on the ap junglers, but they were tanky enough to survive the
burst-oriented style of ap champions, and as a result were tough matchups for ap junglers,
and to some extent warrior junglers, but only in certain cases so it’s definitely going
to influence the ap junglers a lot more.
I’m not sure how often junglers were building iceborn gauntlet, but there were a few here
and there that are likely to take hits and boost up the other junglers as well similar
to the other nerfs.
And our next group of champions that we have that is taking an indirect buff is going to
be to aggressive laners.
This is an interesting one, as to go along with the nerfs to tanks, this entire playstyle
of passive laning overall is taking a significant hit.
Sustain that comes from areas in the game other than on a direct champions kit is getting
a big nerf.
Most tanks succeed in the passive playstyle without even having sustain in their kit,
because the amount of sustain that is obtainable without actually having it directly on your
champion was ridiculously high, and now that it’s taking a step down, the laners who
look to capitalize on aggression, so strong lane bully, burst damage champions, really
just anyone good in the early or mid game is getting a step up.
This is happening as a result to the nerf to the feast mastery, the nerf to the biscuit
mastery, the nerf to corrupting potion, and the nerf to grasp of the undying.
When you put all four of those things together that’s a lot less sustain that’s going
to be going around the game, and it effects sustain-less champions and weak early game
champions the most.
It also serves as a way to tone down tanks once again, so this aspect kind of adds in
to the changes to the top laners and junglers that I mentioned previously.
The next group of champions receiving an indirect buff is anyone who gets countered by cleanse
effects.
So think champions like zed, skarner, maybe even ones like twisted fate and ryze.
And the reason for this is that the most powerful cleanse item, mecurial scimitar is getting
a bit of a hit on this patch.
Mercurial Scimitar was a really powerful item, and as a result of that ad carries would often
just build it because they could, and there weren’t any meaningful tradeoffs to make
in damage in exchange for the utility that the cleanse provided.
However with the nerf to the item you’re going to start to see it being build a lot
less now, and you won’t have to face that core counter mechanic as often for sure.
The new mercurial scimitar is still decent, but the gold efficiency especially took a
solid hit, and if you play any of those champions that have a hard time doing anything versus
an opponent who have a cleanse effect.
And next up we have the indirect buff to attack damage mid laners.
Looks like Zed gets a bit of a double up on this one, as with the galio buff actually
the attack damage midlaners are getting a step up.
Galio is a pretty cool champion that revolves a lot around building magic resistance, which
is pretty dang useless against any mid laner revolving around attack damage.
Although It’s unclear how relevant of an option Galio will be now with this buff, myself
and many other content creators thought that galio was already a pretty underrated pick
even before this buff, so now the buff shines a little bit of a light on galio that could
spark a big boost in popularity.
And attack damage mid laners do well against galio since they force him into a sub optimal
build path.
As well on top of the galio nerf, these laners actually benefit a bit from all of the tank
and sustain nerfs actually.
Ad mid laners were suffering a bit versus tanks who were just too dang tanky for them
to be able to do anything about them in teamfights, when normally as an attack damage champion,
they should be able to pump out some dps to help kill tanks due to the sustained damage
they have from auto attacks, so now these ad mid laners can also make a bit more of
an impact in teamfights versus tanks as well.
Now that we’ve covered those, let’s take a look at some of the highs and lows of patch
6.8.
First off we have the release of the Taric rework coming on this patch.
It’s actually a really cool rework that when I played it on the PBE, felt pretty strong
since he has a ton of utility and some really cool and interesting mechanics.
So maybe take a look at him and try him out yourself, or at the very least get ready to
play against him by learning what his new abilities are.
As well, the buffs on this patch were all really nice boosts to those champions, but
the biggest winner of the patch is probably rumble.
Although increased damage to minions might not seem that much, that is just the kind
of utility that can actually have a huge effect on something, and we’ve seen it time and
time again with things like sunfire cape in the past how more damage to minions actually
goes a long way, so maybe try out rumble once again and dust him off out from the closet
for the new and improved top laner, and not to mention he also benefits quite a bit from
the indirect changes on this patch.
As well for the biggest loser of the patch, it definitely has to be tank ekko.
The nerfs to tank ekko on this patch were monstrous, but the came with the trade off
of a nice little buff to ap ekko actually, so he could be a cool option if you were maybe
playing tank ekko before, or if you want to play an ap assassin, so maybe try out ap ekko
in the mid lane or something if you are interested in playing a champion like him.
And on top of that there’s some quality of life changes to champion select, some bug
fixes, and a couple of tweaks with the settings, and as always I’ll link the full patch notes
in the description if you happen to be interested in seeing the full detailed notes.
Patch 6.8 is definitely shaping up to be an awesome patch, and I’m super excited for
it!
And that just about wraps it up!
If you guys enjoyed the video hit that like button and if you didn’t hit that dislike,
subscribe if you want thanks for watching, and I’ll see you guys next time!