League of Legends Patch 10.3 Breakdown: Aphelios and Sett Nerfed

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League of Legends. Photo courtesy of Riot Games. /

Champions

Azir

"Base Stats Mana: 438 -> 480 R – Emperor’s Divide Width: 5/6/7 -> 6/7/8 soldiers"

It’s been quite some time since the Emperor of the Sands was permanently found in the S tier of mid lane and that will probably remain the case even after these buffs.

Increasing Azir’s base mana by 42 improves his laning phase, making farming and poking less of a costly investment. For context, 42 mana is enough for 0.6 casts of Conquering Sands, 1.05 casts of Arise!, and 0.7 casts of Shifting Sands.

As for the changes to Emperor’s Divide, this simply allows established Azir players more team fight presence as they can look to split a team fight more effectively with a more terrain-like wall. That being said, it’s a very situational buff.

Ultimately, these two changes are nice but are by no means enough to propel Azir into the upper echelons of the mid lane tier list. You can simply expect a small increase to his 4% pro play presence and 48.63% solo queue win rate on Patch 10.3 onwards.

Corki

"W – Special Delivery Damage per Second Ratio: 0.375 bonus attack damage, 0.05 ability power -> 0.5 bonus attack damage, 0.06 ability power Burn Duration: 1 second -> 1.5 seconds [New] Now slows champions that are directly hit and knocked aside for 1.5 seconds"

When Corki’s Passive was originally updated back on Patch 5.22, the balance team probably expected players to be terrified of the global siren that warned opponents that The Package had been picked up. However, it merely acts as a notification that Corki is probably traveling back to lane.

To prevent Special Delivery’s use as a roaming/escape tool and push it towards a team fight/initiation ability, the balance team have increased its damage over time and added a slow to those hit with Corki’s Valkyrie 2.0.

Does this mean Corki has an improved Rumble ultimate? No. Does it mean Corki’s going to climb up the mid lane tier list? Absolutely not. Does this change mean Corki might be slightly more considered by mid lane mains? Maybe.

These changes aren’t significant enough to have much of an impact on the Daring Bombardier and can be mostly ignored for now!

Diana

"Base Stats Mana: 420 -> 375 W – Pale Cascade Damage per Orb: 22/34/46/58/70 -> 18/30/42/54/66"

Switching Diana’s E and R on Patch 9.24 has proven to be one of the most successful gameplay updates in recent memory as she’s risen from relative obscurity to a massive 53.52% win rate on Patch 10.2.

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The balance team are clearly suffering from their success, though, as they’ve been forced to nerf the champion just three patches later in an attempt to lessen her dominance over the mid lane in the current meta.

If Azir’s laning phase was improved by increased base mana, then obviously Diana’s laning phase is worsened by reduced base mana. She’ll now have to be more conscious of her spell casting decisions in the early game, which extends her wave clear time, and trims the amount of time she has to roam and look for side lane plays.

As for the Pale Cascade changes, Diana is currently over-killing opponents with her immense burst damage, and her W plays a very small part in this. Even if she hits 3 of her orbs during a trade, this only reduces her damage by 12. Not significant.

Expect Diana to retain her place at the top of the mid lane tier list on Patch 10.3. Hopefully, she’ll receive more noteworthy nerfs on Patch 10.4.

Ekko

"Passive – Z-Drive Resonance Resonance Stack Damage: 200% against monsters -> 150% against monsters"

As both an effective jungler (52.84% win rate) and mid laner (51.90% win rate) in the current meta, it’s clear that one of the two Ekko iterations had to budge on Patch 10.3.

Spoilers: It was the jungle.

If you reduce damage to monsters from 200% to 150%, this is effectively a 25% damage decrease from that source. While Z-Drive Resonance doesn’t account for Ekko’s entire jungle clear DPS, it makes up a large proportion of it and thus his camp clear speed has been worsened as a result of these changes.

Expect to see Ekko drop down the tier lists mostly in the jungle, but also in mid lane as he no longer acts as a flex pick in higher elos. Jungle Ekko is not dead, but usually, when a jungler suffers from an increased clear speed they’re crippled quite severely from that point onwards.

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