The developers of League of Legends are currently planning a major overhaul aimed at equalizing the strength of the Mid and Bot Lane. Major buffs for the AD carries are planned, while nerfs are expected in the middle.
What is Riot planning? Mark “Scruffy” Jetter, the Lead Designer of LoL, mentioned in a blog post that the developers aim for all lanes to be approximately equally strong.
“In the current situation, we see that the Top Lane has improved significantly compared to previous seasons, while the Jungle has remained strong,” Scruffy revealed (via LoL website). The Mid Lane, however, is currently considered too strong, while the Bot Lane could use a buff.
Exactly that is set to happen in the upcoming updates.
All ADCs will be buffed, just like their items
What changes are coming to the Bot Lane? In a follow-up tweet, Scruffy even revealed some specific changes for the Bot Lane:
- The item Zeal should receive +3% additional attack speed.
- The items Rapid Firecannon, Phantom Dancer, Static Shiv, and Runaan’s Hurricane should all receive +5% attack speed.
- All AD carries should gain +30 health and an additional +5 health per level.
However, champions that can be played both in the Bot Lane and the Mid Lane will be exempt from the last update. These include champions like Corki, Graves, Kindred, and Quinn.
Which champions benefit from this? The currently most played AD carries in the Bot Lane hardly benefit from the changes. Senna, Ezreal, Varus, and Miss Fortune benefit more from direct damage than from attack speed.
Aphelios, one of the newer champions, is the exception to the rule. He usually builds Runaan’s Hurricane. Caps also utilized this during the finals of the LEC Spring Playoffs 2020 against Fnatic, which set a viewer record, but was relatively one-sided.
The changes could, however, bring back some currently rarely played ADCs like Caitlyn, Tristana, or Jinx, who would benefit more from the attack speed buff.
No concrete changes in the middle yet
What is happening in the Mid Lane? Scruffy has not yet announced any specific changes for the Mid Lane. However, it is clear to him that the middle should remain slightly stronger than the Bot Lane in the end.
Possible candidates for nerfs at the moment could be Talon, Diana, Katarina, and Ekko. They all have a high pick and win rate and are considered S or S+ in the Mid Lane according to the website Lolalytics.
When will the changes be released? Currently, nothing has been seen from the changes on the test server for patch 10.10. Scruffy also mentioned that the changes to the Bot Lane are planned for the following update 10.11.
The update is expected to be released on May 28, provided the current patch schedule is maintained.
Just recently, patch 10.9 was released, which fixed a nasty exploit with Ornn. This, however, resulted in the banning of 3,300 cheaters.
