13.24 Full Preview!
Azir: Partial revert of the W damage, as the changes were directionally positive, just off in magnitude.
Braum: A while ago, we nerfed Braum’s knockup duration that reduced his pickrate in Pro and made him more playable in normal by a significant amount. It also was a satisfaction hit, so we’re returning some of it.
Galio: Galio’s cooldowns have been pretty long for a while and he’s turned into more of a one rotation and then do nothing for a while champion. This change hopefully gives him more flexibility and a more fun gameplay pattern.
Gragas: Gragas has been weak for a while and less fun to play after the passive change. Bringing some of that back, without making it as strong early game as it used to be.
K’Sante: K’Sante is weak, we’re looking for a bit more power in W, but not looking to go overboard. Long term, we like having more power in W as it is something that has more polarized interactions by matchup and is a very telegraphed portion of his kit. W is also a bit too expensive, now that the paradigm and hittability has changed
Leona: Leona was considered the poster child for supports one shotting you pre-durability and received a lot of nerfs leading up to that. Post durability, she lost a lot of that soloing power and has dropped off a lot ever since. Adding a bit of that damage back in the early game, being careful not to go overboard.
Lucian: Looking at a more fun change for Lucian that allows him to trade a bit more in the early game. He’s dropped off a bit in terms of being an early focused champion and this should help all the way up until putting multiple points in E.
Mordekaiser: I know we’re buffing Q… At the same time, this is his worst ratio and one that we think needs to be corrected for him to build AP more regularly. R is a QoL change that Morde mains have been requesting for a while.
Qiyana: As mentioned earlier, Qiyana’s mana costs are excessively punishing and she often opts into mana itemization at least some of the time. This change should result in her feeling less punishing to play and learn. Talon: QoL change to have rangedQ reset autos like meleeQ
Zeri: Now that Tri-Force Zeri is gone and Pro is done for the year, we feel more comfortable giving Zeri some of the AD growth back. We’ll see how she performs with the new items and then monitor.
Briar: As mentioned yesterday, trying to narrow the gap between her overperforming Lethality builds and the worse performing Bruiser builds by converting some spells to magic damage. Even though she’s received a lot of nerfs in a row, it’s mainly to keep up with her extremely steep learning curve.
Ivern: Some simple nerfs to Ivern focused mainly on the early game.
Vel’Koz: Some bugfixes in here! We found a nasty bug with the E timing changes at the last second, but will continue to have those later after the bugs are resolved.
Changelist: https://twitter.com/RiotPhroxzon/status/1729693722026320258/photo/1
Its high past time to realize there are no damage numbers to move on Pantheon that will not further skew him towards the already polarized extremes of where he wins and loses, and how he wins and loses. He doesn’t have any particular area where he performs well because that’s who he is and that’s who he’s always been. This is not a new occurrence. This is not a mystery. When Pantheon’s winrate is high it speaks to extrinsic factors outside of his kit that he is able to take advantage of. When his winrate is low it speaks to intrinsic shortcomings of his kit that can no longer be concealed. With or without item passives he will always eventually revert to the same mediocre champion over time. It doesn’t matter how many silver and gold players march out of the backwoods to parrot and preach the most popular recent iteration of copium, Pantheon’s issues stem from the same source and that source HAS NOT CHANGED.
100% damage mitigation on E at rank 1 and high base armor will keep this champion locked out of any meaningful changes or adjustments. He. Is. Not. A. Support. He should not be forced to carry the attributes of a Support, which, surprise surprise, passively syphon off his quality as a Top laner in the quiet background through the threat of poaching or flex issues, even regardless of whether those attributes are in relevant use or not. Until there are adjustments made to Pantheon’s E damage mitigation and high base armor, any other changes to this champion are a proverbial exercise in futility, and if someone tries to come up here and say that his E doesn’t hold him back while disproportionally leaving the door creaked open for Support as if waiting for an old lover to come home who’s already long gone and moved on, then I have nothing to say to you because at this point, I’m not trying to take the time to convince you that you are wrong. Close the door already. This long drawn out game of “weeeeell maybeeee” is a dead end.