League of Legends Patch 9.22 breakdown: Farewell Season 9!

Kayle

"Q – Radiant Blast Base Damage: 70/115/160/205/250 -> 60/100/140/180/220 W – Celestial Blessing Cost: 60/70/80/90/100 mana -> 70/80/90/110/120 mana"

Kayle should be vulnerable early to counteract her unstoppable late game. Kayle is not currently vulnerable early and Patch 9.22 thankfully changes that… slightly.

Instead of picking up solo kills in the laning phase, these changes may mean that Kayle simply has to avoid getting solo killed as her mana costs are increased and damage decreased. You may not like it Kayle mains, but for a champion to have such a powerful late game, there needs to be a trade-off somewhere!

Malphite

"R – Unstoppable Force Ratio: 1.0 ability power -> 0.8 ability power"

Are you sick of being one-shot by AP Malphite? Because I am. Plus, he’s strangely tanky considering his full AP build. I think we’re all glad the balance team has targeted him on this patch.

Unstoppable Force, Malphite’s main damage tool and game-winning ultimate when building AP, will now hurt 20% less. Considering the champion isn’t usually over-killing you (unless he’s really far ahead), this should be significant and could see AP Malph slowly creep out of solo queue, at long last.

Pantheon

"Q – Comet Spear Minion Damage Reduction: 20% -> 30% Execute Threshold: 25% of target’s maximum health -> 20% of target’s maximum health W – Shield Vault Pantheon’s dash speed is no longer increased from boots"

A 50.91% win rate and 4.3% pick rate is usually the sign of a fairly balanced champion requiring no changes at all, but a massive 25.3% ban rate probably changes the outlook completely.

Panth has become a threat in four roles since his rework, but his solo lane presence is the real trouble-maker in the current meta. Excellent trading, obnoxious poke, crowd control, damage reduction, and the perfecting roaming ultimate, Pantheon has it all. Not anymore.

Wave clear on Comet Spear. Gone. Execute damage on Comet Spear. Gone. Impossible to react to dash speed on Shield Vault. Gone. Pantheon will find it much harder to jump on and execute enemy carries on Patch 9.22, so expect his ban rate to fall quite a bit and we can finally find out what his true power level is.

Sejuani

"Base Stats Attack Damage: 64 -> 66 Health Regen Growth: 0.85 -> 1 Attack Speed Growth: 3% -> 3.5% Q – Arctic Assault Damage: 80/120/160/200/240 (+0.4 ability power) -> 80/130/180/230/280 (+0.6 ability power)"

We can rejoice. Sejuani is still dead. For now. These tiny buffs won’t bring her back into the fold any time soon unless you plan to headbutt enemy carries with Arctic Assault while playing AP Sej (which we would not recommend).

Sylas

"Base Stats Health Regen: 7 -> 9 Health Regen Growth: 1 -> 0.9 Magic Resist: 36.1 -> 39 W – Kingslayer Cost: 50/55/60/65/70 mana -> 40/45/50/55/60 mana"

Similar to the Sejuani buffs, there’s no need to read into these Sylas changes as they make very little difference to the champion. Sylas lacks trading power, ability to burst down a single target, and wave clear to be a strong solo laner, and a small mana cost buff for W – Kingslayer doesn’t change that at all.

Xayah

"W – Deadly Plumage Bonus Attack Speed: 40/47.5/55/62.5/70% -> 35/40/45/50/55%"

Queen 2 of the bottom lane gets her spell of nerfs! Kai’Sa and Xayah have had full control of the marksman meta for too long, time for others to take their place. 5% lower attack speed at rank 1 and 15% lower attack speed at rank 5, these Deadly Plumage nerfs are deserved and significant. This will reduce her damage output in all stages of the game and could take some getting used to for Xayah mains.

Expect Xayah to fall back to the middle of the pack of ADCs in the current meta as this shake-up means it’s anyone’s chance to claim the top spot when it comes to marksmen. It’ll be interesting to see who the S tier ADCs are on Patch 9.22!

What are your thoughts on Patch 9.22? Did the balance team miss any champions that you think deserve a nerf? Let us know in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter!