League of Legends – Patch 9.1 breakdown
By Josh Tyler
Patch 9.1 is the first patch of the new year, with large changes to three champions – Kalista, Ornn, and Sejuani – as well as other minor buffs and nerfs. We examine what possible consequences these buffs and nerfs might bring.
It’s not quite Season 9, but the first patch of 2019 is sure to shake up the meta. Patch 9.1 brings some (more) ADC buffs, a bunch of rune changes, and some minor systems adjustments to tower assists and gold funnelling. How much do these changes matter and will our tier lists be thrown out of whack?
Champions
Kalista
"Base Stats BASE ATTACK DAMAGE: 62 ⇒ 67 ATTACK DAMAGE GROWTH: 3.6 ⇒ 4 ATTACK SPEED GROWTH: 3.5% ⇒ 4% Q – Pierce BASE DAMAGE: 10/70/130/190/250 ⇒ 20/85/150/215/280 W – Sentinel [REMOVED] OATHSWORN EMPOWERMENT: Kalista no longer gains 5/10/15/20/25 attack damage while her Oathsworn is nearby E – Rend [NEW] WEAK GRIP: Rend now deals 50% damage to epic monsters"
The biggest change to Kali in Patch 9.1 is taking reliance off of being near her oathsworn. That’s a big deal that makes sense as a way to give her more power, even though it’s disappointing that Riot is moving her identity away from being a duelist. She should still bring a lot of team fight power and synergy with her support, though, so it’s not too big a hit.
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To compensate for the stats she lost while being near the oathsworn, she’s getting a bunch of buffs to her base stats and Q that will make her scarier in lane phase. That’s not typically a sentence that you want to hear about a hyper-scaling carry. The decision to remove her ability to be a second smite is…interesting but since it doesn’t affect her ability to output damage in team fights it’s probably not too significant.