Phreak, the designer responsible for the balance adjustment of League of Legends, has announced the latest patch announcement this week, and version 14.16 will be released on the official server next week. There are a lot of balance changes in this version, and many of the heroes that get changes are related to the professional arena, such as the current version of the very strong ADC characters, as well as the traditional mage and warrior heroes that were nerfed in the previous version.
Version 14.16 has begun to pave the way for the 2024 World Championship, and the G2 club has even released a meme, saying that this time only the LCK team will benefit, which will weaken the LEC, LPL and LCS teams, after all, the LCK is good at traditional mages, and Azir, Orianna and Sindra are all the signature heroes of the LCK midlaner. Phreak shares his thoughts on the change, so let's take a look at the designers' thoughts.
- This patch has been tweaked for both Ranked and Pro matches, with a number of changes aimed at making Ranked Play fairer, such as penalizing top laners who are killed solo, reducing the strength of overall ADC heroes, and strengthening certain heroes that are in dire need of enhancement.
- Many power-ups (such as Azir, Oriana, Sindra, Silas, Vi, Skana, and Son Goku) are mainly aimed at heroes who are weaker in ranked matches. It would be nice if these heroes could show up in the professional arena and bring more variety to the game, but they don't intend to strengthen heroes who aren't too weak after considering hero proficiency.
-Kiana's tweaks are meant to give her more control early on and slightly improve her performance in the jungler. The designers felt that her position as a late-stage Assassin was unique and worth keeping, but also wanted to make her early lane more lenient and smooth.
-Senna's adjustment is to make it difficult for her to be the "main output" in an economy that doesn't get the ADC level. As a support hero, she should be more supportive, meaning she will be stronger when paired with the ADC and slightly weaker when paired with a tank. It's basically a matter of balancing the intensity of qualifying and pro play.
- Also, if Senna occasionally thinks about AP gear, that's acceptable. The designers did not want AP equipment to completely replace AD equipment in Xena, but only hoped that they would have a certain optionality.
-The Black Cutter's rules have been changed to make it an optional piece of equipment for Senna again (especially when paired with ADCs), as well as an enhancement to many Warrior heroes who rely on basic attack hits.
- The changes to Lucian and Kuchi are mainly aimed at their high pick rate in Pro and High Ranked Matches. The designers made targeted adjustments, mainly focusing on the mid lane position.
-Katerina's changes are to close the gap in Q/E skill bonuses and make pure AP builds more powerful by increasing the skill ratio.
- There are two actual changes to the Monkey King, the Passive Skill has +1 armor per level, which stacks up to 6 armor, and the attack speed of all levels of the E skill is +5%, and the designers hope that these changes will improve the Monkey King's performance in the ranked match.
-Skarna's changes were made to provide options for players who wish to opt for the "Heavy Warrior" build, as well as to enhance his early performance, as the nerfing of Q3 made him weaker early in the game.
-The designers decided to further reduce the endurance of the Dolan Blade, so that those heroes who choose to start with this equipment are more likely to be suppressed.
- For AP jungler heroes, the designers prefer to adjust these heroes themselves directly. As a result, they removed the nerfs to AP gear and the enhancements to Dolan's Shield.