League of Legends Patch 11.8 Highlights

Champions

Dr. Mundo

Passive – Adrenaline Rush

• MAX HEALTH REGENERATION 1.5% ⇒2.5%

Q – Infected Cleaver

• CAPPED DAMAGE AGAINST MINIONS & MONSTERS 300/350/400/450/500 ⇒ 100/200/300/400/500
• HEALTH COST RESTORE ON ENEMY HIT 50% ⇒ 100%

E – Masochism

• FLAT BONUS AD 40/55/70/85/100 ⇒ 30/45/60/75/90
• MAX BONUS AD 60/90/120/150/180 ⇒ 50/80/110/140/170

Dr. Mundo has been much more effective in the jungle than in the top lane this season. The changes to his Q are an attempt to encourage Mundo to stay in his lane instead of going where he pleases. The capped damage to minions and monsters now scales much sharper up to its normal value once maxed. Since the ability deals 20 percent current health damage, Mundo will be losing damage against any camp above 500 HP, thus making his early clear a good amount slower.

On the other hand, the extra health regeneration on Mundo’s passive coupled with a new full HP cost restoration on hitting a cleaver means that Mundo will have a lot more sustain in lane. Additionally, any health gain modifiers such as Spirit Visage passive will cause more HP to return than the ability takes to cast. Losing 10 bonus AD on his E is a nerf, but Mundo doesn’t actually have any AD ratios, so the change only affects his auto attacks. While Mundo won’t become a one-size fits all top laner, the spots where he should shine will certainly be more accessible.

Gnar

W – Hyper

• BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED 30/45/60/75%, decaying over 3s (based on R rank) ⇒ 20/40/60/80%, decaying over 3s (based on R rank)

Gnar has continued to be an absolute menace in professional play even after the damage nerfs to his Hyper passive. This time it is his mobility that’s being targeted. The bonus movement speed that Gnar received upon proccing Hyper has been cut by 10 percent pre-6 and 5 percent pre-11. This should make it harder for Gnar to slip out of ganks and chase down his targets, if only by a little bit.

Lee Sin

E – Tempest

• COOLDOWN 10 seconds ⇒ 8 seconds

The jungle meta has been dominated by Turbo Chemtank junglers for the entirety of season 11. Lee Sin is among the casualties of that meta. His presence and power in solo queue are at a low point. While he has been given a handful of chances to shine in the LPL and LCK, his win rates are nothing to write home about. A buff of 2 full seconds off his E is actually pretty significant.

Tempest is one of the highest base damage abilities in League of Legends. It deals 100 AOE magic damage and scales with 100% bonus AD. This means that Lee Sin’s clearing and skirmishing will both be bolstered after this buff. His Cripple cooldown will also be reduced by 2 seconds, giving Lee slightly more crowd control. If the jungle meta does get shaken up here shortly, Lee Sin could be seeing much more presence.

Orianna

E – Command: Protect

• BONUS RESISTANCES 10/15/20/25/30 armor and magic resist ⇒ 6/12/18/24/30 armor and magic resist

Orianna has recently re-risen to power as the queen of mid lane mages. She brings tons of reliable wave clear, burst damage, and utility, making her a great jack-of-all-trades pick. One of the more underrated aspects of her kit is the bonus resistances the Ball gives to its wearer. Those resistances have been lowed by 4 at rank one and scale back to their normal values once maxed. The only problem is that this ability will stay rank one until Orianna hits level 14. The nature of this change will make it not too visible on the surface, but Orianna and her teammates should now be easier to collapse on and kill in expected times.

Rammus

Q – Powerball

• BASE DAMAGE 100/135/170/205/240 ⇒ 100/130/160/190/220

W – Defensive Ball Curl

• Basic attacks now extend the duration of Defensive Ball Curl by 0.4 seconds, up to a maximum of 4 additional seconds

E – Frenzying Taunt

• TAUNT DURATION 1.25/1.5/1.75/2.0/2.25 seconds ⇒1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8/2.0 seconds

R – Soaring Slam

• NEW: Rammus leaps into the air and slams down, dealing 100/175/250 (+0.6 AP) magic damage and slowing enemies by 15/17.5/20% for 1.5 seconds. Rammus generates aftershocks at the target location for 4 seconds, dealing 20/30/40 (+0.1 AP) magic damage and stacking the initial slow up to four times. Damage near the center is increased up to 150% damage based on the distance traveled. If Soaring Slam is cast while Rammus is in Powerball, enemies near the center are also knocked up and dealt Powerball’s collision damage, ending Powerball’s effect.
• COOLDOWN 100/80/60 seconds ⇒ 130/110/90 seconds

Rammus has an interesting place in League of Legends as an anti-AD champion. In some games he is the best pick possible and in some he is worthless. The Armordillo finally has an actual ultimate ability to give him some more application. The mediocre tectonic waves have been added onto a Warwick-esque leap that has the potential to crowd control and chunk opponents in an AOE. In exchange of having a brand-new ability, Rammus lost between 0.05 and 0.25 seconds of taunt time and 20 damage on a maxed Powerball.

Thresh

E – Flay

• COOLDOWN 9 seconds ⇒ 11/10.5/10/9.5/9 seconds

The king of support continues to catch the nerf hammer, this time to his all-purpose Flay skill. The 9 second engage and peel tool will now take an extra 2 seconds to come off of cooldown. Considering Thresh maxes E last, this is pretty much a permanent 2 second cooldown nerf based on the rate that supports gain experience in the mid game. While this won’t remove him from the upper end of the food chain, champions who specialize in what a composition needs could find themselves in more favorable spots.

Yorick

Passive – Shepherd of Souls

• MIST WALKER DAMAGE 2/3/4/5/6/7/8/14/20/26/32/38/44/55/66/77/88/99 (+30% total AD) ⇒ 2/3/4/5/6/7/8/13/18/23/28/33/38/48/58/68/78/88 (+25% total AD)

E – Mourning Mist

• MIST WALKER INITIAL LEAP DAMAGE 200% on first attack ⇒ 100% (normal damage) on first attack
• Marked targets take 40% increased damage from the next 8 attacks by a Mist Walker

R – Eulogy of the Isles

• TURRET PRIORITY Attacks the Maiden over melee and ranged minions ⇒ Attack’s melee and ranged minions over the Maiden

Patch 11.7’s Yorick buffs were a bit too much. The Shepard of Souls became one of the strongest top laners in the game. Riot are pulling back on some of the buffs in an attempt to hit a balance sweet spot. Mist Walkers now have slightly worse scaling into the late game. The 200 percent damage on leap turned out to be broken, so now instead marked targets take increased damage only if they allow Mist Walkers to DPS them. Hopefully Yorick can rest easy knowing he won’t be perma-banned in solo queue.

Jungle Clear Buffs

Darius, Diana, Mordekaiser, Zed, and Morgana have all received various buffs to the damage they deal to jungle camps. While this will mostly be a solo queue solution to auto filled Zed players complaining, there are a couple of notable champions who might see some real jungle testing.

Diana

• PASSIVE – MOONSILVER BLADE DAMAGE TO NON-EPIC MONSTERS 150% ⇒ 300%
• PASSIVE – MOONSILVER BLADE BONUS ATTACK SPEED 10-40% (based on level) ⇒ 20-40% (based on level)

Diana has pretty much always been shifting between the mid lane and jungle. Whenever she wasn’t strong enough to survive lane, she could opt to PvE to get her items. Diana has a very surprising amount of power right now, so the ability to play her jungle could cause her presence to skyrocket.

Morgana

• W – TORMENTED SHADOW BONUS DAMAGE AGAINST NON-EPIC MONSTERS 150% ⇒ 200%

Believe it or not, Morgana already has a professional game under her belt thanks to CLG Broxah. It was already playable before, but this change could convince more players to give her a spin.

Items

Moonstone Renewer

• STARLIT GRACE HEAL 50-100 (based on target’s level) ⇒ 60 (at all levels)
• STARLIT GRACE HEAL AMPLIFICATION Each second spent in combat increases the base heal by 12.5%, stacking up to 4 times, up to 50% ⇒ Each second spent in combat increases your healing and shielding power by 4%, stacking up to 5 times, up to 20%
• MYTHIC PASSIVE Empowers each of your other Legendary items with 5 ability haste ⇒ Increases Starlit Grace’s heal by 10

The support item meta has been pretty stale ever since Moonstone took over. Moonstone was just a better option for any support whose job wasn’t to dive in head first. Now that Starlit Grace’s healing will not increase for being in combat, the days of Moonstone Morgana, Zilean, Rakan, and anyone else who could build the item without dedicated healing/shielding kits are over. Additionally, the Mythic passive amplifying the heal and no longer giving ability haste further plays into this.

Shurelya’s Battlesong

• No longer empowers the next 3 instances of damage to deal an additional 35-55 magic damage
• Empowering or protecting another allied champion (excluding yourself) grants both allies 25% movement speed over 1.5 seconds
• MYTHIC PASSIVE 3% movement speed ⇒ 5 ability haste

Shurelya’s has also gotten an update. It now holds Staff of Flowing Water’s old movement speed-based passive. For any enchanters able to apply multiple forms of empowerment such as Lulu and Nami, this will be the go-to item. By juggling a primary healing or shielding skill with one that can apply Aery, it is possible to keep the movement speed at a very high uptime.

Staff of Flowing Water

• RAPIDS Grants 15% bonus movement speed and 20-40 (based on target’s level) AP for 3 seconds ⇒ Grants 20 ability haste and 20-40 AP for 4 seconds

Staff of Flowing Water got the short end of the stick in this trade deal. The item still gives the extra AP and for an extra second too, but the valuable movement speed has been replaced with 20 ability haste. On paper, this change sounds alright, but the reality is that utilizing this to its fullest potential will be difficult. Whereas old Staff could give valuable stats to multiple teammates, the new one will be best used pocketing one player to give them consistently lower cooldowns.

…And those were the biggest changes of League of Legends Patch 11.8! Once again there were some noteworthy nerfs to strong champions. The support item reworks should be able to breathe some fresh air into the role. Also, Gwen’s release on April 15th could very well shake up the meta.