What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy.
It’s finally here, the huge midseason update, complete with the mage update that is effecting
16 champions, the massive objective and jungle changes, and some crazy item changes and overall
changes to boot.
This is one of the biggest patches I’ve ever seen, and it’s going to be awesome,
and among all of the changes that take place on any given patch, there’s also a whole
lot of hidden or indirect changes that take place as a result, that still often have just
as big of an impact on the meta as a whole.
And as well I gotta give some big props to proguides.com for helping me with the editing
on this video.
They recently released a new service that allows you to ask questions to high rank players
and get a response almost instantly, and I think it’s pretty sick, but you don’t
have to take it from me because they have a free trial that gets you full access, so
you can check them out and decide for yourself if you like it or not.
And without further adue, let’s get started.
The first hidden, or indirect buff taking place is one that is a little bit obvious,
because it’s the champions who do well versus immobile mages.
With this huge mage update you can be certain of one thing, everyone is going to go out
and rush and play the new mage champions and experience their favorite updated mages for
themselves.
Regardless of how good they are, people are going to play these immobile mages that were
updated a lot, and I do mean a lot, especially in the first two weeks after this patch.
So during this time you have a really awesome window to just play champions that counter
the heck out of immobile mages.
This is typically the hyper mobile assassins, especially in the mid lane, like talon, zed,
and kassadin.
These champions are gonna be your ticket to freelo on this patch especially, and for a
long time to come, since they perform well against pretty much all of the champions that
were updated, with the exception of just malzahar who is kind of designed to do well versus
assassins.
And since the mage updates are so exciting, and they are so hyped up, the updated champions
are going to just skyrocket in popularity, so you should be getting really awesome matchups
in lane to help you snowball just about every single game.
Another indirect buff that is taking place on this patch is one that I feel might go
a bit underappreciated, as it’s the mage champions who did not receive updates, especially
the ones in the top lane.
The new ap items are a huge deal for any character wanting to build them, and although not every
item might be overpowered or even buffed, the amount of versatility and options you
now have in build paths as an ap champion is just mind blowing, and it’s a boost to
anyone wanting to build ap in their item path.
And the reason why I say top lane especially is because a lot of the magic resistance items
got nerfed as well, especially specter’s cowl.
So when playing a mage in the top lane, your matchup versus tanks will be a lot easier
to handle, and you won’t get as out scaled in the late game anymore either.
Although not every single ap item is an improvement over the older version, the fact remains that
the ap items as a whole, especially the build diversity and versatility has improved by
a lot, and that’s something that pretty much every ap champion can take benefit from,
not just the 16 champions who were directly updated on this patch.
As well, going off of that, another group of champions that benefit a lot from this
patch are the poke support type of champions.
Think champions like karma support, sona support, lulu, and even like brand and vel’koz.
This indirect buff is happening for a few reasons, first off these champions are given
what is essentially a whole new item that is shaping up to be pretty sweet, and I’m
talking about the new Athene’s unholy grail of course.
This item benefits their playstyle a ton and will be an awesome pickup on the more utility-focused
poke supports.
At the same time, we also have a lovely nerf to soraka that is taking place on this patch,
who is one of the biggest counter picks to a poke heavy support since she just out heals
the damage.
And there’s also a nerf to taric, who might not have been the best counterpick to a poke
support, but the fact that he was so freaking broken just made him a counterpick to everyone,
and the nerfs tone him down quite a bit, so now the meta is shaping up to favor the poke
supports a little bit more based on the matchups and items.
Another group of champions getting a step up in this patch are objective-focused junglers.
So this is stuff like Nunu especially, champions who are good at farming and controlling objectives,
especially in the early game - really just the junglers who want to actually jungle,
rather than the junglers who want to gank a lot and camp lanes and snowball.
And this is happening for a multitude of reasons, all of which have to do with the way the new
jungle is being shaped.
First off, counterjungling is becoming easier because of the jungle timers, and more rewarding,
especially in the first clear, so champions who can do that effectively now have much
better ways to get advantages rather than just non stop ganking.
As well, the new rift herald has become an insanely powerful tool that being able to
secure is a huge deal.
Games can be snowballed entirely off of the rift herald now, since the buff lasts for
20 minutes and persists through death, that contesting it early will be really important,
and it’s become a huge objective that you cannot ignore, and having a jungler that is
weak at contesting that is going to be a weakness for your team.
And as well, the dragons are now a bit more important and as a result there are just more
jungle objectives to take across the game, and I’m really interested in this direction
riot is taking with the jungle, because it looks like they really want to make it so
that you can come ahead as a jungler without having to resort to just constant ganking,
which is cool to see different styles of jungling becoming relevant, especially for soloqueue,
and I definitely think these jungle changes on this patch are pretty awesome.
Next up, we’re looking at another group of junglers, this time the ranged attack speed
junglers.
So this is champions like kindred especially, but essentially it’s any jungler who has
a ranged basic attack that wanted to build devourer before.
The new devourer replacement, bloodrazor is a pretty solid item, but it’s especially
solid on ranged champions who never really benefitted from being sated on devourer since
they only got the proc once every 4 hits.
As my man pants are dragon talked about in his video, this new bloodrazor is awesome
and is a big improvement for ranged champions, since they get the effect on every single
hit, and the mechanics work a lot better with them.
So with their main item improving by a lot, it’s only natural to see the ranged attack
speed focused junglers become more successful as a result.
And the next group of champions that we have that is receiving a hidden buff is late game
scaling champions.
This is an interesting one to consider that is happening for a lot of reasons.
First off, you have the changes to turrets, which is essentially a buff to the power,
especially the damage of turrets, and makes taking them down in the early game not only
more difficult but also less impactful and less snowball-y.
This buff to turrets makes it more difficult to snowball in the early game with a lead,
while also making it easier to stall out the game and extend the game length.
And solo queue already is heavily prone to games being longer than they should be, and
as a result this type of change is likely to have a big effect, and I wouldn’t be
surprised to see the average game length in solo queue increase by about 5 minutes or
so after this patch, and the longer the game goes, the better it is for those late game
scaling champions.
As well, the death timers between 20 to 35 minutes of every game are being reduced by
a bit, which once again contributes to games being a lot longer.
Now, after killing opponents in the mid game you will have a smaller window of time to
capitalize on the victory, take advantages, and ultimately end the game, so the shorter
death timers means longer games, and thus the late game scaling champions shine through.
Speaking of late game scaling champions, we also have ad carries getting a bit of a step
up on this patch.
This change as well is happening for a couple of reasons.
First off, we have the change to guardian angel.
Guardian angel has always been kind of a weird item, but it’s a great defensive item option
on ad carries versus burst damage champions who fully unload their combo on someone, and
then don’t do much for the rest of the fight.
It’s a great item for a squishy character since it is a great way to counter burst damage,
and since the price is going down a ton, that will make it much easier to itemize for when
you need it as an ad carry.
In addition, Sunfire cape, a seriously powerful armor item is taking a big hit on this patch,
as are quite a few other tank items, so during teamfights as an ad carry you will kill tanks
a bit faster on this patch.
But as well, some of the bruiser items are taking hits, like sterak’s gage, and the
new bloodrazor enchant deals a lot less damage to ad carries than devourer did, so once again
versus not only tanks but some bruiser champions, especially junglers, the ad carries will have
an easier time killing them, but also avoiding being killed by them, and add in to that the
late game stuff I mentioned previously, and it’s a great patch if you’re an ad carry
main.
And this next one is kind of just something I wanted to throw in for a bit of fun, and
it is kind of true as well, and I’m talking about of course, mordekaiser.
It’s a bit troll, but it’s also kind of true to some extent, although it is pretty
minor, the elder dragon is being introduced on this patch as a huge new objective spawning
at 35 minutes into the game, and the elder dragon is this huge massive dragon on steroids,
and when mordekaiser kills that dragon he now gets a massive dragon ghost from killing
the elder dragon, It has something like 30,000 hp, which is much more powerful than a regular
old dragon ghost, so that’s a pretty neat change for morde you might not have considered,
that might actually make an impact occasionally.
This patch is massive, so I tried to compile as many hidden buff that I could come up with,
but it’s not impossible that I missed a couple of the minor ones, just since there
is such an insane amount of stuff going on, but I do believe that I covered all of the
major ones for sure.
This videos getting pretty long so I think we will just cut it here, once again a big
thanks to proguides.com for helping me with the video, you can check them out with a link
in the description.
And if you enjoyed the video hit that like button, and if you didn’t hit that dislike,
thanks for watching, and I’ll see you guys next time.