Intro
Hey everyone, and welcome back to another patch analysis post (I'll be doing these regularly from now on). In this week's patch, Riot did more loving than nerfing, and brought some strength back into some of the underplayed champions in the pool.Meanwhile, crowd favorite Mr. Lucian received some substantial changes to his playkit that seems like it will increase his skill cap. While Riot obviously intends for it to be a slight nerf, only time will tell what it really is.
Summary
Buffs: Ahri, Alistar, Ezreal, Garen, Kha'zixNerfs: Kassadin
Tweaks: Lucian
Full Patch Notes available here: http://www.nerfplz.com/2014/07/official-412-patch-notes-released.html
Buffs
Ahri [Moving up in Tier 1]: Ahri's Q is now lower in mana cost and higher in ratios. I think she's been balanced already, and will likely be moved up a bit this patch. (Did I really have her lower than Karma? Sigh...Karma Mid is moving down to Tier 2)
Alistar [Support moved up slightly, Jungle is being removed]: Ouch. They clearly don't want Alistar jungle back as they stated and by removing the double creep damage it's highly unlikely that jungle Alistar will ever make a comeback. As mentioned, the flat 70% at all levels is pretty solid for that level 6 tower dive, and I think will help him greatly as his ability to survive early is pretty decent with his sustain.
Ezreal [Unchanged]: Honestly probably won't impact anything besides maybe a 1v1 against another ADC. Trying to utilize this buff is probably going to get more Ezreals killed than anything...
Ezreal [Unchanged]: Honestly probably won't impact anything besides maybe a 1v1 against another ADC. Trying to utilize this buff is probably going to get more Ezreals killed than anything...
Garen [Top Unchanged, not adding Garen Jungle higher than Tier 3]: The fact that he can use a mid game item doesn't exactly assist his jungle too much...not sure what they meant to do with that. I don't think this will change him much, his attack speed isn't high enough to make good use of hydra and his sustain is already decent via his passive.
Kha'Zix [Might move up a little]: Not sure if this will be enough damage to give him the ability to snowball again, but we'll see.
Nerf/Tweak
Kassadin [Not changing much]: Despite the change being a sizable nerf to his ability to proc iceborn gauntlet during a sustained team fight, I think that he'll be roughly about the same as he is now.
Lucian [Not changing much]: I really think this will end up being more of a tweak, and give Lucian a more spellcaster type feel to him. However, that being said he's definitely going to be even more of a glass cannon than before, and a failure to position properly will lead him to certain doom. Despite this, the increase in his waveclear ability will definitely help him CS even when he falls behind.
Personally I think he's going to go the way of the Vayne; most people will see him as being very strong, professionals will do even better with him, but his win rate will continue dropping in the face of Kog'maws and Tristanas. If this is true, get ready to see some rage when I drop him to Tier 3 along with Twitch. (Who is definitely getting dropped back down to Tier 3 himself.)
What do you guys think? Agree/disagree? Comment below!