League of Legends Patch 10.3 releases Feb. 5. The new game update includes changes to a total of 16 champions. Besides the buffs and nerfs, it also brings three new skins to the game starting on Feb. 6. Plus, it includes the previously rumored changes to Akali.
The Akali Nerfs
The team has some Akali changes coming to the PBE for 10.3 – rather than straight damage nerfs, we want to reduce the amount and reliability of her escapes.
These will have a bit longer than normal on PBE so we can get feels feedback and extra testing. pic.twitter.com/x4xnjZNMjh
— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) January 16, 2020
For a very long time, Akali has stood at the top of the meta. She is among the best champions in both Soloqueue and the Pro-scene of League of Legends. Because of this, Akali is one of the champions that sees changes most frequently. The developers keep having to find a balance between the casual players and the highly skilled professionals that play Akali. The changes made in this update, however, are far different from those we’ve seen before.
- Akali’s Q – Five Point Strike now requires 20 more energy to cast at every rank of the ability.
- W – Twilight Shroud now grants a decaying movement speed buff from the moment the ability is cast. The decaying buff is in place of the movement speed in Shroud that Twilight Shroud previously granted.
- R – Perfect Execution is reworked drastically. Unlike before, Akali’s R now requires an enemy target to cast the ability. The main impact of this change is that Akali will be much less safe in the lane phase, as she can no longer dash away when the enemy jungler comes close.
Token nerfs across the board
Various champions have received changes in patch 10.3 that will not impact their place in the meta even slightly. Included in this list is one of the best Support champions, Leona. Leona lost ten damage on her E – Zenith Blade. Besides this, the damage on W- Eclipse has been reduced by 5-20 damage at levels 2-5 of the skill.
Another champion receiving a token change is Aphelios. Aphelios is currently the most complex and arguably broken champion in the game. However, instead of reducing his strength, the developers decided that Aphelios’ Q – Calibrum, the Sniper Rifle (one of 5 available gun-forms) needed a maximum range on hitting a marked enemy. Aphelios can now only hit marked enemies 1800 units of distance away. 1800 range is best comparable to about one in-game screen away.
The massive jungle XP changes in Patch 10.3
In the preseason, the developers changed a lot surrounding EXP. However, since the early game, the overwhelming community response has been that the reduction in EXP was too much. Because of this, the team has now decided to give Junglers back around 20 EXP – half of the EXP reduced with the preseason changes.
Because of these changes, one early game Jungle champion, in particular, is paying the price. Ekko’s passive – Z-Drive Resonance (every third hit against an enemy deals bonus damage) now deals 150% instead of 200% damage against monsters.
Sett is dead in patch 10.3
A lot of discussions have taken place recently surrounding Sett’s real strength. Regardless of the disappointing showing in the League of Legends European Championship (LEC) this week, Sett is still looking at several major nerfs.
While Sett is a good champion in the lane phase of League of Legends, particularly in your solo queue matches, he was already weak in the mid to late stages of the game. Well, these changes effectively remove the one strength Sett had to make up for that. Sett’s W – Haymaker has seen its cooldown increased from 2 to 4 seconds. The change will likely make Sett unplayable in both the competitive scene and the regular meta.
For more League of Legends, be sure to read all about the new Valentine’s merch coming soon!
