Patch 8.24(b) breakdown – ADC buffs and Akali nerfs

It’s not technically a patch, but the recently released Patch 8.24(b) provides some last stat adjustments to a few outlying champions. How big of an impact will these changes make?

The last balance changes of this calendar year, and the final changes before Season 9. In the introduction of the notes for Patch 8.24(b), Riots gave us a preview of what changes we can expect in the future. This includes buffs to marksmen as well as sizable changes for tanks to equalize their strengths in soloQ and pro play, but we also saw a lot of these changes trickle through in Patch 8.24(b).

Champions

Akali

"W – Twilight Shroud [NEW] PRESTEALTH: Akali now briefly obscures (opponents can see her outline but not target her) before stealthing or re-stealthing even if enemies don’t have true sight in the area [NEW] FOLLOW THROUGH: Targeted abilities and uncancellable basic attacks (ex. Nasus’s Q – Siphoning Strike are no longer canceled when Akali stealths or re-stealths RE-STEALTH TIMING: 0.9/0.8/0.725/0.625 seconds at levels 1/6/9/12 ⇒ 1/0.9/0.825/0.725/0.625 seconds at 1/8/11/20/30 minutes REVERTED: 8.24’s nerf has been reverted in favor of the above changes. Duration restored to 4/4.5/5/5.5/6 seconds (max 2 second extension) ⇒ 5/5.5/6/6.5/7 seconds (max 3 second extension)."

The goal of these changes, according to Riot, is to give enemies more windows to play around her stealth. However, the fact that she is still untargetable in her stealth means Akali will still be frustrating to play against.

Riot did elect to revert the steal duration nerfs, and actually changed her re-stealth timing to scale based on game time. This is a very interesting development, as I believe Akali becomes the first champion with a skill that scales with the time in-game.

Alistar

"E – Trample BASE DAMAGE: 100/125/150/175/200 over 5 seconds ⇒ 80/110/140/170/200 over 5 seconds EMPOWERED ATTACK BONUS DAMAGE: 55-310 (levels 1-18) ⇒ 35-290 (levels 1-18)"

Reduced damage on his E early – and empowered attacks – is probably not going to stop Ali from being the premiere tank support. He’s not generally picked for his damage, though 20 damage early on his ability and empowered autos will probably drop his dominance some.

Cassiopeia

"Q – Noxious Blast COST: 50/55/60/65/70 mana ⇒ 50/60/70/80/90 mana BASE DAMAGE: 75/125/175/225/275 ⇒ 75/120/165/210/255"

Increasing mana costs on her main harass ability late just means that Cass may be forced to spec into a tear build more often (now she often rushes Ludens). The late nerf on her Q damage, especially since she spams it so often, will be significant.

Kassadin

"Base stats BASE HEALTH REGEN: 8 ⇒ 6"

Riot wants to tie Kassadin’s early survivability to his Q shield, and decreasing his regen is likely to help that. If he wants to trade, he’ll have to be more careful to do it around his Q cooldown.

Neeko

"Q – Blooming Burst INITIAL BASE DAMAGE 80/125/170/215/260 ⇒ 70/115/160/205/250 BASE BOUNCE DAMAGE 40/60/80/100/120 ⇒ 35/55/75/95/115"

Although Neeko didn’t have enough data to make our 8.24 tier list, Riot has seen fit to decrease her Q’s base damage. This hurts her across the game and will make the Chameleon a bit easier to manage.

Pyke

"Base Stats MAGIC RESIST GROWTH: 2 ⇒ 1.5 Q – Bone Skewer MINION & MONSTER DAMAGE: 50% to secondary targets ⇒ 30% to secondary targets (tooltip will be updated in 9.1) R – Death From Below Reminder: Enemies above the execute threshold take physical damage equal to the threshold instead. EXECUTE THRESHOLD, LV 6-9 250/290/330/370 (unchanged) EXECUTE THRESHOLD, LV 10-13 410/450/475/500 ⇒ 400/430/450/470 EXECUTE THRESHOLD, LV 14-18 525/550/575/590/605 ⇒ 490/510/530/540/550"

Pyke has been dominating the support position, so Riot has elected to nerf him in a couple of interesting ways. First, the nerf to his late-game execute threshold means Pyke won’t snowball as hard. Second, decreasing his MR growth will make him more squishy against mage supports, making his laning phase a bit less reliable.

There is also a nerf to lane Pyke in Patch 8.24(b), with the decreased damage to secondary minions and monsters. As we noted in our Patch 8.24 tier list, mid lane Pyke has become something of a decent pick. Riot is making sure his solo lane’s impact is lessened.

Singed

"Base Stats BASE HEALTH: 580 ⇒ 610 E – Fling DAMAGE: 4/5/6/7/8% target’s maximum health ⇒ 6/6.5/7/7.5/8% target’s maximum health"

The damage buffs on Singed’s E is actually a revert of the nerfs Singed got in 8.13, when he was a strong pick into tanks. The base health buff should also help his early game, enabling him to survive the meta duelists and get to the point where he is unkillable and can proxy like the annoying beast he is. He’ll likely come out stronger than he was before, when he was a viable pick in pro play.

Warwick

"Base Stats BASE ATTACK DAMAGE: 63 ⇒ 65"

2 AD is going to become a meme amongst Warwick mains.