What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy!
It’s been a while since we made a champion history video but I really enjoyed making
them in the past, so today we’re revisiting the idea of the history of a champion and
featuring someone that has been in the game since the very beginning - Jax!
Leave a like if you liked it or a dislike if you didn’t.
Our journey through Jax’s history starts off with his release, or rather the release
of League of Legends itself, as Jax was one of the original 17 champions available to
play in Alpha.That was over 7 years ago, back on the 21st February 2009.
His lore is outdated now and is no longer considered canon by Riot, but originally he
was a self-proclaimed ‘Grandmaster-At-Arms’ who fought 152 times in the arena and never
lost once.
The organiser of the League of Legends, the Institute of War, banned Jax from competing
- worried that the peace would be disturbed by a fighter who was unbeatable.
Jax’s scores of fans eventually managed to force the Institute to relent, but with
one condition - Jax wasn’t allowed to use a real weapon.
The Institute gave him a list of weapons they deemed suitable: A lamppost, a chicken’s
foot, a spatula and a fishing rod.
It's some of our favorite lore in the game so we really hope he keeps some of it if Riot
ever give it a fully fleshed out update.
Jax’s kit has remained pretty consistent in terms of his playstyle, he’s always been
a fighter wanting to get up close and personal, but his current kit is quite different from
the original release.
His kit during Beta was quite interesting, with a reliance on the now removed ‘dodge’
mechanic.
The passive was Weapon Mastery, giving him bonus damage based on his items, which really
compliments his theme as a champion based on scaling over the course of a game.
His Q and W were switched - Q being Empower and W being Leap Strike, but after release
these were switched around to the current setup, during Patch 61.
Empower wasn’t the single target ability we know it as now, instead it would cleave
enemies in front of Jax, and follow-up cleaves would deal more damage with increased range.
His E was still Counterstrike, but instead of him avoiding auto-attacks it used to increase
his dodge chance - kinda the same ability, but the old Counterstrike let Jax focus on
dodge chance to avoid massive amounts of damage.
Every time he dodged an attack he would briefly stun nearby enemies.
His Ultimate at the time was Relentless Assault, draining his mana on attack, similar to Muramana,
but increasing his damage on consecutive attacks along with boosting his attack speed.
So basically, imagine Jax if he stunned more often and could hit multiple opponents at
once instead of only one.
Pretty insane!
Jax received his first gameplay update in Patch 75.
His passive was reworked to increase his health based on how much AD or AP was given from
his items, probably in an attempt to tone down his damage.
He got a pretty sweet change to Leap Strike that let him target allies with it, letting
him jump to safety or join in on fights way more reliably.
Empower was causing some issues with his power level, so it was changed to give him bonus
damage to all nearby enemies, rather than the crazy scaling Empower he had before.
It was still pretty spammable though, with only a 1 second cooldown at all ranks, so
he could still deal tons of damage to multiple targets in a fight.
This was just the start of Jax’s tweaks though, Riot were having a pretty hard time
finding a fair place for Jax to be in terms of balance.
Jax’s ultimate had been converted into a passive by this point, allowing him to deal
bonus damage on attacks and giving Jax bonus attack speed that stacked up as he continued
to attack.
You might have tried playing Full AP Jax before, it’s a pretty fun way to play the champion.
Back in the day though, AP Jax was kinda insane, and it didn’t really agree with where Riot
wanted to Jax to be.
They eventually nerfed it pretty hard in Patch 82, bringing us one step closer to the Jax
we’re all familiar with - Hybrid/Bruiser Jax, although he still had an emphasis on
AoE damage up to this point.
This only marked the start of a lot of AP Ratio nerfs that Jax would be hit with in
the future, preventing him from becoming a bursty AP champion and keeping him as a fighter
that wanted to keep auto-attacking as much as possible.
Patch 103 brought with it Riot’s final decision on the direction they wanted to take Jax and
his second gameplay update.
Jax’s AoE capabilities were removed completely in favor of raw single target DPS.
This marks the start of Jax’s reign as one of the best duellists in the game, sporting
his new Empower - the single target auto-attack reset that he still has today.
His Ultimate was changed once more too, giving him stacking MR based on his dodge chance,
a stat that Jax still heavily relied on and abused pretty hard.
This turned his passive Ultimate into one with a bonus effect if he activated it, lasting
a short while - usually long enough to start and end a quick brawl.
Jax wasn’t safe from changes yet though.
Riot eventually decided that dodge was not a mechanic they wanted to keep in the game,
believing it was pretty anti-fun to play against, so it was phased out over a period of time.
Jax was caught in the crossfire, although because of his reliance on the dodge mechanic,
it was decided that he would retain some of it as an individual characteristic, and he
was allowed to keep the mechanic as part of his E, Counterstrike.
This was happening during Patch 132, and marked the biggest changes in Jax’s history - a
full rework that left Jax in a state pretty close to what we’re familiar with now.
To compensate for losing access to dodge chance,
he was given more base health along with more health and armor per level.
A lot of early game power was shifted from his W to his Q, giving his Leap Strike way
more base damage, although it didn’t hurt his Empower too much thanks to the reduced
cooldowns.
His E, Counterstrike, was remade into one of the only remaining ‘Dodge’ type abilities
in the game.
It allowed him to avoid auto-attacks for a couple of seconds before stunning and damaging
nearby enemies, increasing the damage dealt based on how many attacks he avoided.
His passive was updated to give him attack speed stacks for each consecutive auto-attack
he landed, and he was given a brand new Ultimate: Grandmaster’s Might.
The new Ultimate was similar to the current Jax Ult - giving him bonus damage on every
third strike passively, along with bonus attack damage and ability power when he activates
Grandmaster’s Might, based on how much AD or AP he already had from items.
Jax received a change in Patch 135 that changed those offensive stats from his Ultimate into
armor and magic resist, giving him back a more defensive approach to the game and really
rewarding him for building a mix of AD and AP items.
This helped slow down some of that insane snowball that Jax was known for - he just
got so much more value out of his items and his raw damage was really hard to deal with.
So, where did Riot go from here with Jax?
Actually pretty much nowhere.
The third gameplay update was one of the most successful reworks in the history of League
of Legends.
Jax went unchanged for almost two seasons - and not once was he too powerful or too
weak.
He became a staple top laner, one that every aspiring top main should learn to play, even
if he wasn’t necessarily strong enough to pull out in every matchup.
The changes that did eventually come were all pretty small ones too.
Riot were happy with both his power and the way Jax felt to play, so they didn’t want
to risk damaging that balance with random changes.
The first change was actually a global change as a result of nerfs to armor runes.
This saw him getting a little buff to his starting armor stat to compensate, alongside
a bunch of other champions that received this same thing.
No champion stays without small tweaks forever though, as the rest of the game is still evolving
and item buffs can make a champion more or less powerful by itself.
Jax was
hit was a few stat nerfs as a result of other changes in the game in Patch 4.11, including
his base health, health per level and armor.
He was just a little too strong early on for such an amazing scaling champion.
He kinda fell back into the numbers game from Season 3 onwards.
Riot had settled on his final kit, and now it was just a case of tuning him occasionally
to keep him in line.
Patch 4.21 saw an improvement to Counterstrike, lowing the cooldown at all ranks so that a
player with good timing could really make the most of it and help him survive tough
lanes with the lower resistances from his previous change.
His Ultimate was also tweaked at this point, taking away some of his base magic resist
increases on activation, along with reducing his base armor increase - although it did
raise the AD ratio slightly to reward focusing on AD items.
Once again Riot found a really solid place for Jax to be.
He saw no updates at all until half way through Season 5, when his age was starting to show.
Jax’s kit is relatively simple, and a lot of the new champion releases feature new mechanics
and strengths that Jax needed raw numbers to deal with.
He received a few buffs over the patches in Season 5 to help him survive and scale up,
the first being in Patch 5.12 with a buff to the magic resist and armor given by his
Ultimate at all ranks.
This increased both stats by 10/15/20 at each rank respectively, which is quite a big jump
and really solidified his Ultimate ranks as his core power spikes outside of item purchases.
His Counterstrike mana cost was reduced in the early game only in Patch 5.17, as picking
Jax into certain lanes was almost guaranteed to end badly.
Ranged poke champions were starting to gain popularity, and Jax really needed a way to
deal with those threats.
The reduced mana cost meant he could use his Counterstrike defensively or offensively without
needing to worry as much about being run out of resources, but it still wasn’t quite
far enough.
Jax then received a change that was pretty strange for a champion so reliant on scaling
- a kick to his base mana and a reduction to his mana growth per level in Patch 5.22.
Although this meant he was worse off after up to max level, it again gave him the opportunity
to use Leap Strike and Counterstrike more often in lane, and really rewarded Jax players
who knew when the ideal points to use these abilities were.
And finally, Season 6.
The modern age of League of Legends, and two interesting changes to Jax’s Ultimate, Relentless
Assault.
These changes were really based around the new Devourer/Guinsoo’s item, and as this
item was so good on Jax, he needed his attack speed to be lowered to compensate for this
new core.
Patch 6.3 decreased his attack speed per stack for each level of his Ultimate, but he was
given a new cap of 8 stacks rather than 6.
This meant in shorter fights Jax was at more of a disadvantage, but as a fight draws out
and he keeps attacking, he just becomes even stronger, with up to a max of 88% bonus attack
speed, which is kinda cool.
And here we are at the end of Jax’s timeline, with one final change - a quality of life
improvement that Jax players had been hoping to see for along time.
In Patch 6.11, his Relentless Assault was updated to cause stacks to drop off one at
a time, rather than all at once.
This made it way easier for Jax to stay at 8 stacks, especially when wanting to use that
crazy attack speed to splitpush and tear down towers.
And there you have it, from Alpha to Today, we really hope you enjoyed this glimpse into
Jax’s history and the changes he’s been through as he grew into the amazing splitpusher
and duellist we know him as today.
If want to see more videos like this, leave us a comment and tell us who you’d like
to hear about next.
And it looks like that’s gonna be it from me, if you enjoyed the video drop a like,
subscribe if you want, thanks for watching, and I’ll see you guys next time!