So after playing on PBE, I am quite concerned at the moment about the direction this game will be going.
On one side, the AP items are colossally strong especially the Stormsurge, the new Shadowflame and the Companion, BUT the tanks literally benefit off of so much shit it is unreal:
- Sunfire/Frostfire/Jaksho and HEARTSTEEL are all kept. They do kind of the same thing but with a bit of toned down numbers like Frostfire no longer reducing the dmg and Jaksho being slightly weaker.
- Demonic Embrace is Gone, Liandry is nerfed numberwise.
- Armor penetration cant be stacked (you cant go Serylda +BC) and Serylda is very nerfed compared to live, BC is also nerfed in terms of Armor Pen.
- Frozen Heart is JUST 2300 compensated by 20 Amor.
- And yea lets celebrate DS is gone and Trinity Force is a complete joke of an item because Spellblade Flat is countered by everyone and their mother having big base armor due to durability patch !
But hey maybe the mages will answer the tanks, Nope, enter:
Kaenic Rokern 400 Health and 80 MR 150%Regen AND a Magic shield of 20% of your Max Hp. Perfect to brute force yourself into the enemy.
And Force of Nature of 400 health 55 MR which grants you stack every time you get magic dmg up to 8, moment where you gain ANOTHER 70 MR and 10% MS.
Now yea Nothing wrong with tanks being tankier, IF TANKS IN LOL WERE JUST THAT :D
Usually tanks in LoL are not just tanky but most of the time they are also Nukers, being perfectly capable of killing squishy champions and usually when meta they outvalue Divers/Bruisers and non True dmg/Trundle Skirmishers. Even Juggernauts get outvalued if the tank just plays it passive a bit early on.
Now, it might just be me but to me all the changes point towards the most obvious power increase of tanks and the biggest power decrease of bruisers that either liked to stack pen like Aatrox/Pantheon/ Riven/Kled or champions that relied on Sunderer to play like Camille/Jax/Woukong/Vi. Even Fiora will be struggling vs tanks that rush bramble the moment she loses the DS sustain.
Just to make an Ideea. Now Trinityforce stats-wise is much more fat than DS, and still DS is the better choice in a lot of scenarios because of the sustain, the %dmg on spellblade and the passive Armor pen.
TL&DR: Tanks seem quite OP/ Bruisers seem to be again weak and due to the tank design philosophy of Riot, when tanks are good they outvalue any other melee class in the game. Hopefully things change.
PS: Tank meta wont necessarily nullify the Mage Meta because very often they co-exist, and their items seem strong as well.
I don’t think Liandrys is a straight nerf, the % burn was reduced but it got the haunting guise damage % boost added.
Not sure why you all caps HEARTSTEEL, this item was shit and probably still will be.