League of Legends Patch Notes: Patch 10.7 Breakdown

Champions

Nasus

"W – Wither Range: 600 -> 700 E – Spirit Fire Armor Reduction: 15/20/25/30/35% of target’s armor -> 25/30/35/40/45% of target’s armor"

In a meta that involves an endless top lane champion pool, Nasus is surprisingly absent with an underwhelming 48.51% win rate. Buffs to both Wither and Spirit Fire on Patch 10.7 might change that.

The problem with Nasus is how one-dimensional of a champion he is. Sure, if he’s allowed to free farm and reach the late game he’s unstoppable, but that’s all he offers and is therefore easy to shut down.

Nevertheless, if you improve the numbers in his kit by enough it becomes very difficult to punish him. With increased Wither range, squishy champions need to keep their distance in team fights to avoid being run down and caned down by Nasus.

Adjusting Spirit Fire’s armor reduction is the more useful of the two changes for Nasus players as it allows the champion to obliterate the health bars of his opponents whether they’re a tank or squishy.

Nocturne

"Base Stats Health Regen: 8.5 -> 7 Magic Resist Growth: 1.25 -> 0.75"

Nocturne mid has grown a bit too powerful over recent patches (53.41% win rate on Patch 10.6) and needs tuning back slightly.

Reducing the Eternal Nightmare’s health regen makes laning a bit more troublesome as any poke he receives lasts longer and keeps his health bar low. As for the magic resist growth nerf, Nocturne will now be slightly more vulnerable to mages in the mid lane, particularly towards the mid to late game.

Obviously, these are quite small nerfs and won’t drop Nocturne down the mid lane tier list significantly, but will limit his impact on the map early on and make life a bit more difficult for Nocturne players in the future.

Riven

"Base Stats Health: 555.48 -> 560 Health Regen: 7 -> 8.5"

Like Nasus, Riven is struggling to break into the top lane meta despite the wide variety of champions residing on the top side of the map so far in Season 10.

Increasing her health regen allows her to self-sustain more efficiently through the early game, reducing the number of times she has to recall to refill her health bar or pick up pots. This isn’t what’s gating Riven right now, but will no doubt help players when bringing her out in the top lane against more meta champions.

Talon

"W – Rake Physical Damage: 50/65/80/95/110 (+40% bonus AD) -> 45/60/75/90/105 (+40% bonus AD) Return Physical Damage: 70/85/100/115/130 (+60% bonus AD) -> 45/65/85/105/125 (+70% bonus AD)"

Talon is slightly too strong right now, dictating the early game through roams and instantly one-shotting enemy ADCs without much counter-play.

From Patch 10.7 onwards, the Blade’s Shadow will have to work harder for damage through the laning phase and be rewarded for it with higher AD ratios on Rake later on. This opens Talon up for ganks during the first fifteen minutes while he’s still working his way up to items, but if he gets ahead it could feel even worse than before.

Wukong

"Passive – Stone Skin Armor: 5-11 -> 5-9 (based on level) E – Nimbus Strike Damage: 80/120/160/200/240 -> 80/105/140/175/200"

The mini Wukong rework went a bit too far and he currently has 53%+ win rates across three roles in solo queue (top lane, jungle, and mid lane). In an effort to reduce his oppressiveness on Summoner’s Rift, two aspects of the Monkey King’s kit are being hit on Patch 10.7.

First of all, the armor granted by Wukong’s Passive – Stone Skin has been decreased by (about) 1 armor at Level 9 and 2 armor at Level 18. This allows physical damage dealers to duel with Wukong without being instantly shut down as the game goes on, shifting his power more towards the early game.

Secondly, Nimbus Strike is seeing a scaling -30 damage nerf at Level 9. While this certainly isn’t the end of the world for Wukong, it does do some harm to his current damage output, of which Nimbus Strike is quite a huge chunk of.

Nevertheless, it’s inconceivable that these two relatively small changes will bring a 54.36% win rate champion back to a more balanced state. Instead, we’ll probably see Wukong fall to a 51-52% win rate on Patch 10.7 onwards as the player base adjusts to his mini-rework.

Xin Zhao

"Passive – Determination Heal: 10-68 -> 10-112 (based on level)"

Although he has a 50.14% win rate on Patch 10.6, Xin Zhao is an unpopular jungle choice in the current meta and is overshadowed by the likes of Jarvan IV, Lee Sin, and Olaf who all offer more utility than Xin.

Xin Zhao has no difficulty clearing the jungle quickly and efficiently without losing too much health, so this Determination buff has very little impact on his jungle clear. However, it is a nice buff when it comes to trading and dueling with enemy junglers during the laning phase.

The buff is most effective later in the game though, so Spirit Visage became a whole lot more useful to build for the jungler. As a result of this buff, Xin Zhao’s scaling has been improved and offers some more damage/utility in the later stages in comparison to his jungle counterparts.

Runes

Conditioning

"Activation Time: 10 minutes -> 12 minutes"

Conditioning is too reliable and an easy choice for those grabbing Resolve in their primary or secondary rune tree.

To balance out the third tier of Resolve runes, the activation time for Conditioning’s defenses has been extended to 12 minutes, encouraging players to go for Second Wind or Bone Plating if they value early game stats higher.

Phase Rush

"Melee Movement Speed: 30-50% -> 40-60%"

Ranged champions, such as Aurelion Sol, Cassiopeia, and Ryze, love Phase Rush, melee champions less so. Darius is the only melee champion that frequently utilizes the rune as it simply doesn’t offer enough for melee champions.

The balance team will be hoping that a 10% increase in movement speed granted to melee users when they land 3 autos/spells on an enemy will be enough to entice players to select the keystone in the future.

However, with the abundance of high utility/damage keystones currently available for melee champions (Conqueror/Electrocute/Aftershock), it’s unlikely that this small buff will have much of an impact on their rune selection.

Patch 10.7 will hit live League of Legends servers on Wednesday, 1 April! Check out the Riot Games Server Status page to find out when your server will be down for maintenance to apply the patch!