League of Legends: Patch 9.3 breakdown – a return of crit ADCs

The Patch 9.3 notes dropped this afternoon, with massive ADC itemization updates and nerfs to the most-contested picks in pro play. How will the meta shift after the changes in Patch 9.3?

After months of moaning about how AD Carries were nerfed in the Patch 8.11 item adjustments, Riot has finally gone back (kind of) on those changes. Patch 9.3 brings an overhaul to crit itemization, as well as nerfs to the biggest offenders in pro play like Aatrox, Akali, Sion, and Camille. How big are these Patch 9.3 changes?

Champions

Aatrox

"Base Stats HEALTH REGEN: 5 ⇒ 8 HEALTH REGEN GROWTH: 0.25 ⇒ 0.75 E – Umbral Dash [REMOVED} HEALING VS NON-CHAMPIONS: Aatrox no longer heals for 3/3.34/3.75/4.13/4.5% of the damage he deals to non-champions [REMOVED] CHARGES: Aatrox no longer stores a charge of Umbral Dash every 26/22/18/14/10 seconds COOLDOWN: 3/2.5/2/1.5/1 seconds ⇒ 9/8/7/6/5 seconds, now reduced by cooldown reduction (CDR previously affected charge rate rather than cooldown)"

Where were you when Aatrox was kill? The change in healing is likely a net nerf, given that he was getting 20% of a Death’s Dance healing on his E passive without even leveling it, and already had absurd base damage stats.

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The E change is actually huge because losing the double dash ability in exchange for having the dash up more frequently at early levels. Given that most of Aatrox’s power is through that dominant laning phase, this change could drop him significantly in the pro-play and soloQ tier lists.

Akali

"Base Stats HEALTH REGEN: 3.5 ⇒ 6 Q – Five Point Strike [REMOVED] HEAL: Akali no longer heals for 5/10/15/20/25 (+0.2/0.25/0.3/0.35/0.4 total attack damage) (+0.2/0.25/0.3/0.35/0.4 ability power) if Five Point Strike hits at least one enemy when cast at 180 or more energy W – Twilight Shroud [REMOVED] STEALTH FROM TURRETS: Twilight Shroud no longer prevents turrets from revealing Akali COOLDOWN: 21/18.5/16/13.5/11 seconds ⇒ 21/19/17/15/13 seconds"

A double whammy to pro play, as these changes also wreck Akali. The health regen to compensate for losing her heal off Q is going to be a net positive, since most of the time it wasn’t being used for the heal. However, losing her tower diving ability with W is significant. They’re also nerfing the cooldown at later levels, making it more appealing to max E first instead of W like most Akalis do now.

Camille

"E – Hookshot [REMOVED] NON-CHAMPION STUN: Hookshot no longer stuns minions and monsters"

Bye Camille. This nerf was designed to hurt her jungle clear and it will undoubtedly do so. In particular, being unable to CC scuttle crab to drop its resistances will greatly hurt her clear speed and time.

Cassiopeia

"Q – Noxious Blast BASE DAMAGE: 75/120/165/210/255 ⇒ 75/110/145/180/215 RATIO: 0.8 ability power ⇒ 0.9 ability power W – Miasma COST: 70 mana at all ranks ⇒ 70/80/90/100/110 mana DAMAGE PER SECOND: 20/30/40/50/60 ⇒ 20/25/30/35/40 MAX DAMAGE: 100/150/200/250/300 ⇒ 100/125/150/175/200"

Riot is still trying to target her Miasma and encourage people to put more points into her E early. Once again, the mana changes don’t affect her because once she starts putting points into it around level 9 (where the mana cost actually goes up), she should have some mana item like a Lost Chapter. In terms of the damage nerf, Miasma is more used for the utility, so taking off damage hurts but isn’t gutting her.

As for the Q damage, taking off base damage and giving her back power in an AP ratio will make her early levels a bit worse, as well as her mid game. If Riot wanted to make Cassio less able to safely harass from range, however, this is probably not the way to do it best.

Irelia

"Base Stats HEALTH GROWTH: 85 ⇒ 95 ARMOR: 34 ⇒ 36 Passive – Ionian Fervor PER-STACK: 4-17 (levels 1-18) (+0.04 bonus attack damage) on-hit damage ⇒ 8/10/12% (levels 1/7/13) attack speed STACK CAP: 4 ⇒ 5 MAX STACKS: 16-68 (levels 1-18) (+0.16 bonus attack damage) on-hit damage ⇒ 40%/50/60% (levels 1/7/13) attack speed MAX STACK BONUS: 30/40/50% (levels 1/7/13) attack speed ⇒ 15-66 (levels 1-18) (+0.25 bonus attack damage) on-hit damage Q – Bladesurge BONUS DAMAGE TO MINIONS: 45/60/75/90/105 ⇒ 55/75/95/115/135 W – Defiant Dance DAMAGE REDUCTION: 40% reduced physical and magic damage ⇒ 50% reduced physical damage, 0% reduced magic damage"

Better nerf Irelia, eh? Her influence has already fallen after the previous nerfs, and I expect her to continue to drop, especially in mid lane. In top, she’s outclassed by champions like Jax, Urgot, and even Riven or Yasuo. Patch 9.3 could be the one that finally puts Irelia in the ground in professional play and soloQ.

Lissandra

"Q – Ice Shard COST: 60/63/66/69/72 mana ⇒ 60/65/70/75/80 mana E – Glacial Path DAMAGE: 70/115/160/205/250 ⇒ 70/105/140/175/210 CLARITY: Glacial Path’s endpoint now shows through terrain, fog of war, and brush to enemies within 600 range of it"

The Q nerf hurts more than Cassio’s W mana nerf because Liss should have Q maxed before getting a Lost Chapter or Catalyst. However, it’s only an eight mana increase at max ranks so…probably not much.

Nerfing damage on her E does actually hurt a bit, as Lissandra wants to E and Q waves in the mid to late game to clear them in one rotation. A 40 damage nerf could mean she has to spam another Q or some autos. It hurts, but likely negligible.

Sion

"Q – Decimating Smash MINIMUM DAMAGE: 30/50/70/90/110 ⇒ 20/40/60/80/100 FULL-CHARGE DAMAGE: 90/150/210/270/330 ⇒ 60/120/180/240/300 W – Soul Furnace COOLDOWN: 11 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 15/14/13/12/11 seconds"

Wow, this is actually massive. Nerfing Sion’s base damage on Q makes it harder for him to dominate the laning phase (and to be honest, he shouldn’t be), but in combination with the cooldown increase on W this guts his early game. Sion players are now forced to choose whether to max Q to normalize the damage they lost, or W and be able to have their W up more often. This could very well drop the Undead Juggernaut out of the S tier for top lane.

Zyra

"PLANT DAMAGE: 24-109 (levels 1-18) ⇒ 20-100 (levels 1-18)"

No surprise, given that she’s remained A tier that Riot would take some power off her plants in Patch 9.3. That being said, this shouldn’t be a massive nerf to Zyra’s annoying laning phase.