Healing is currently one of the biggest issues in League of Legends. For many players, it is simply too strong, taking the fun out of the game and causing frustration. It also results in nearly unbeatable champions. The lead designer is now talking about how they want to prevent this.
Which champions are we talking about?
- Champions like Aatrox, Irelia, and Kayn have been causing frustration among LoL players for several weeks.
- Especially since the nerf of “Grievous Wounds” in patch 12.10, they are nearly immortal and there is hardly anything one can do against them if they have even a slight advantage.
- This is even confirmed by lead designer Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison in a post on the LoL dev blog, promising that it will get better.
What makes these champions so strong? Phroxzon writes that “satisfying healing mechanics are typically frustrating for opponents” and addresses the current problem of LoL directly.
Right now, there is too much healing in LoL, making battles unattractive. Champs can survive because they receive immense amounts of health points from themselves or others. In a clip, Twitch streamer Tyler1 shows how a Kayn simply survives everything in a team fight (via reddit).
Such scenes annoy players and are even taken as examples of “what is currently wrong with LoL”. Unlike individual champions, as seen with Nilah, who was nerfed after 24 hours, here two whole groups of champions are affected.
Nilah can be seen here in the trailer:
Healing will be adjusted to better meet player expectations
Phroxzon explains that there are characters whose entire identity revolves around healing, such as Aatrox, Soraka, or Dr. Mundo. However, there are also champions who can only heal secondarily, like Irelia.
At the moment, healing is unbalanced in some cases. It is fine if Aatrox can keep himself alive when his spells hit. But if he does so with a disadvantage, then something is not right.
In the case of Irelia, the healing is simply too strong for a mechanic that is not actually identity-defining for her. That is not “healthy gameplay” and goes “too far”. Therefore, they want to ensure in upcoming patches that healing is not too strong anymore.
A first taste of the upcoming adjustments was already given with patch 12.14, in which healing potions were nerfed.
Mechanics like Grievous Wounds should feel rewarding, ideally when opponents have more than two strong healers performing at least “somewhat well”. This way, they aim to prevent healing from becoming an uncounterable strategy.
There are still several other issues regarding balance in LoL. Because a renowned champion urgently needs improvement, at least numerically:
The worst champ in LoL is getting worse, but people still play him like crazy
