League of Legends Patch 10.1 support tier list: item changes favor the best champs

Buffed Champions

Nami

As is evident from her improved ranking in Patch 10.1 (high-B to high-A+ tier), the buffs to Nami’s E – Tidecaller’s Blessing were impactful. Her win rate remained stable, but Nami saw a huge bump to her pick rate in this patch (3.7% to 7.8%) so her win rate might be getting weighed down by some less-experienced players taking her into ranked.

Nerfed Champions

Zyra

The change to Zyra, making her E – Grasping Roots slow per individual plant less, but allowing it to stack from multiple plants isn’t quite clearly a buff or a nerf in theory. In practice, though, it appears to be an overall nerf. Zyra’s ranking fell quite substantially, from mid-B tier to low-B tier. Her win rate also dropped from 51.2% down to 48.5%.

Support item changes

Riot’s goal with the support item changes wasn’t to buff or nerf one particular class of supports, but rather to make the items better at delivering what the users wanted (more mana for Enchanters, more health for tanks, etc.). With that in mind, we’ll be examining how much all of the support champions changed from the last patch, breaking them up based on their most-common support item and evaluate how much the changes helped or hurt users of those items.

Relic Shield items

• Alistar = +0.35
• Galio = -0.195
• Gragas = -0.080
• Leona = -0.101
• Malphite = +0.341
• Nautilus = -0.015
• Rakan = -0.150
• Tahm Kench = +0.360
• Taric = +0.219
• Average change = +0.096

Steel Shoulderguards items

• Blitzcrank = -0.008
• Braum = -0.042
• Pyke = +0.122
• Shen = -0.075
• Thresh = +0.143
• Volibear = +0.010
• Average change = +0.025

Spectral Sickle items

• Senna = -0.028

Spellthief’s Edge items

• Bard = -0.159
• Brand = -0.017
• Fiddlesticks = -0.121
• Janna = -0.030
• Karma = +0.014
• Lulu = -0.085
• Lux = +0.093
• Morgana = -0.174
• Nami = +0.504
• Neeko = -0.186
• Shaco = -0.383
• Sona = -0.031
• Soraka = -0.172
• Swain = -0.313
• Veigar = +0.085
• Vel’Koz = -0.005
• Xerath = -0.117
• Yuumi = +0.146
• Zilean = -0.087
• Zyra = -0.235
• Average change = -0.073

As you can see from these class improvements and declines, the tanky champions seemed to overall improve, while the AP/Enchanter champions tended to get hit. This could be a function of the meta more than the item changes themselves, as the tanky/engage champions have ruled the top of the tier list for a while now. Still, it wouldn’t be unexpected to see those champions get some love in coming patches.

Methodology: These rankings were determined by finding the average standardized score of a champion from nine different tier lists from sites around the internet. This is done by assigning a certain weight to each different score, rank, or grade given by these sites (for instance, both a “Diamond” rating and “A” grade would be worth a 90 score). The standardized score is then determined by looking at the average score given to all champions in every role by that site as well as the standard deviation of scores given (so that sites that give out more high grades will not have their As be worth the same as a site that gives out very few high grades).

The full, underlying data can be found here. This link also includes the full listing of how the scores are assigned. Champions must be rated by at least half of the sites audited in order to qualify for our tier list.