What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy!
Since we did a video for the champions that will definitely be getting buffs in the future,
it makes sense that we should also make a video for the champions that are going to
be nerfed, and why they are problematic at the moment.
Fortunately Riot have been just as open about the overpowered champions in the game right
now as the underpowered ones, and although they haven’t been nerfed yet because Riot
wants to see how 6.24 affects them, all the champions we are talking about are definitely
going to be tuned in one of the next patches, so hopefully the knowledge will get you all
ahead of the curve so that you can prepare for the likely changes!
And if you enjoy the video definitely hit that like button
First up on the list of nerf candidates is Rek’Sai, and Riot have been pretty careful
with how they approach changes to Rek’Sai.
The issues with her run deeper than just being a case of her kit being too strong, or her
having too good stats or numbers in general - the issues Riot want to solve with her have
a lot more to do with her identity and balanceability, so it’s going to be a pretty long process.
This is an issue Riot keep running into with some of the more modern champions - they are
designed in such a way that their raw mechanics make them overpowered, so they can’t easily
adjust them just by tinkering with their numbers to shave power off in specific situations.
For Rek’Sai, she’s got a lot going for her that Riot can’t nerf without making
her useless - amazing clear, sustain, mobility, ganks - and even poke and true damage.
One of the biggest mistakes Riot has been making with newer champions is that they are
stacking kits so much that there just aren’t enough defined weaknesses to make an old champion
worth playing over the newer ones that compete for the same role, and this is definitely
the case with Rek’Sai.
So if they can’t just tweak her numbers or stats, it’s pretty likely that Rek’Sai
will be due for a mini-rework that will make her a bit less effective in general - or at
least a mini-rework that will make her easier to balance in the future.
Riot Axes mentioned the scope of this would be around what they did with Alistar, but
it’s probably going to take longer than Patch 7.1 to finish up, so it will probably
come a few patches down the road.
Next up is Shyvana herself, a champion that recently received one of these new mini-reworks
from Riot and has been in a pretty dominant position because of it.
Shyvana’s mini-rework changed a lot of her fundamentals to put her in a better spot and
give her a more solid identity as a half-dragon, and it’s done wonders for her power overall.
Right now though, it’s definitely looking like Patch 6.23 gave her a bit too much of
a boost.
That being said, the mini-rework was a success - it has made balancing Shyvana a more realistic
prospect because she has more defined strengths and weaknesses - take her early clear power
for example.
It’s intended to be a strength of Shyvana, so that will still be the case after she receives
her nerfs, but Riot can safely reduce the power of it a bit without stopping her being
good at clearing the jungle in the early game.
It looks like Riot are aiming to get Shyvana addressed in Patch 7.1 since there is still
a good amount of time till that patch releases, so they can have a close look at how she’s
performing and decide where she needs to lose some power.
The third champion that will be getting nerfed is Poppy, although it’s hard to say exactly
what those changes are.
Riot Meddler offered a few notes about what Riot were currently thinking when it comes
to the state of Poppy, and it seems like the main issue they have with her is all about
resilience.
Right now it’s just way too difficult to counter or even kill a Poppy, her sticking
power is insane, making her one of the hardest champions to peel off your carries or focus
down.
The current plan is to try and shorten her passive shield, which gives her up to 20%
of her maximum health for 5 seconds at the moment.
Riot like the fact that she’s rewarded for picking up her shield, so the strength of
it probably won’t change, but it’s likely that the duration will be reduced to around
3 seconds so that players have a bit of time to play around it without giving Poppy too
much time to do whatever she wants.
Patch 6.24 will probably have a bit of an effect on her though, thanks to the nerfs
to the Courage of the Colossus mastery - Riot believes that she’s strong enough that she’ll
still need changes to her kit regardless, but they aren’t rushing changes in case
the mastery nerfs have more of an impact than they initially expected.
A champion that was due for some nerfs that were actually pulled is Syndra - she had planned
changes for Patch 6.24 that were actually removed at the last minute because her win
rate, ban rate and pick rate had all dropped massively.
Riot can’t really use those particular stats to figure out how to balance champions, but
they do work as a good indication of how urgent a problem is - for example, a 55%+ win rate
champion probably needs a fast response, but one constantly performing at 51-52% probably
needs a little bit of observation to figure out the ideal nerf to rebalance them.
The planned nerfs were to her base damage, so she’d be more dependant on scaling up
over the course of the game and be less lethal at level 6.
Riot originally decided to add the nerfs to 7.1 instead, but since she’s dropped in
popularity so much in such a short time, Riot have a lot more time to figure out better
changes that will actually address her underlying issues, rather than just slapping a big nerf
on her to stop her being oppressive while they come up with an ideal solution.
That probably means we’ll still see some kind of Syndra nerf in 7.1 or 7.2, but it’s
more likely to be a bit more complex.
Meddler offered a bit more context with some ideas for her changes - such as increasing
his Ultimate cooldown a bit to increase the window where you can play against her, or
potentially removing her new W passive since it allows her to get 7 spheres too consistently,
which was originally a nice skill reward for experienced players.
Of course if they remove it, they need to make sure it’s replaced with something that
is satisfying to use and still impactful, so Riot are toying with the idea of a bit
of true damage, since it won’t do much to make her more painful for squishies, but it
will help her out against tanks.
Ryze is up next, and the planned nerfs are actually already on PBE.
Interestingly, these changes are actually targeted at nerfing competitive Ryze, or how
he works in pro play rather than general ranked play.
The nerfs up on PBE currently are lowering his damage at all stages of the game on his
Q, and reducing the bonus movement speed over the course of the game also.
Whether they are targeted at competitive play or not, they will still have an affect on
the ranked meta and players that do enjoy playing Ryze, it will probably just a bit
less of an impact on normal ranked play than it will be on the pro scene.
The average Ryze isn’t that great, definitely not strong enough to merit nerfs, but the
problem is when he is played to his max potential on a coordinated team, he’s just too good.
The part of Ryze’s kit that is best used by experienced players is his movement speed,
so that’s why Riot have targeted that specifically - because it would affect him at the top end
without making him shitty for the average player, since they don’t use that movement
speed buff as effectively.
These are only test nerfs though, so these exact changes aren’t all that likely, but
Riot definitely want to dial back his power somewhat because he’s a bit too dominant
in the hands of professional players, so some form of nerf is extremely likely.
Last up is Hecarim - and in all honesty, nerfs aren’t guaranteed here.
Hecarim is definitely in a good position, although he’s not broken or ridiculously
overpowered.
He’s become a more common pick for junglers thanks to being relatively safe while still
offering a lot of carry potential, but a lot of his power came down to the fact that he
was a strong use of Courage of the Colossus, a mastery that has already been hit with a
nerf.
Now that those nerfs have gone through, Riot once again need to start playing the observation
game and just keep an eye on Hecarim’s performance overall - either the Colossus nerfs will put
him into a more balanced state, or they’ll need to address his kit directly to make him
a little more fair to play against.
He’s actually banned a lot at the moment, so it might end up taking a bit more than
a single patch worth of observation for Riot to figure out what to do with him - but we’d
expect to see some kind of small nerfs at least for the Pony on either 7.1 or 7.2.
Anyway that just about wraps up the list of champions that are lined up for nerfs in the
coming patches, it’s always good to know what to expect since it gives you a bit more
time to prepare, and maybe even think about what champions might rise in popularity and
replace the ones that receive really heavy nerfs!
Make sure you leave us a comment and let us know what changes you are expecting for these
champions, or feel free to suggest a champion that you think should definitely get some
nerfs!
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!