League of Legends Patch 10.8 Breakdown: The Marksman Patch
Here’s a full breakdown of the changes on Patch 10.8 and how they’ll affect your League of Legends games over the next two weeks.
There are no fewer than seven AD Carry changes heading to League of Legends on Patch 10.8 as the balance team looks to shift the bot lane meta ahead of Split 2.
Here’s the full list of changes heading to Summoner’s Rift on Patch 10.8 and an analysis of their potential impact on games:
Aphelios
"Passive – The Hitman and the Seer [Removed] Bonus Armor Penetration: 3/6/9/12/15/18% bonus armor penetration [New] Lethality: 2/4/6/8/10/12 lethality Q – Weapons of the Faithful Base Damage and Cooldown Level Scaling: Aphelios’ weapons active’s base damage and cooldowns scale over levels 1-9 -> levels 1-13 Moonshot Damage Ratio: 0.6 bonus attack damage -> 0.42-0.6 bonus attack damage Onslaught Damage Ratio: 0.3 bonus attack damage -> 0.21-0.3 bonus attack damage Binding Eclipse Damage Ratio: 0.35 bonus attack damage -> 0.26-0.35 bonus attack damage Duskwave Damage Ratio: 0.8 bonus attack damage -> 0.56-0.8 bonus attack damage Sentry Damage Ratio: 0.5 bonus attack damage -> 0.35-0.5 bonus attack damage"
While Aphelios’ high skill floor gates his solo queue impact, the Weapon of the Faithful continues to dominate pro play thanks to the utility in his kit and high DPS during all stages of the game.
One of the most powerful aspects of Aphelios’ kit is his innate armor penetration from The Hitman and the Seer allowing him to reach 18% armor pen without purchasing a Last Whisper.
This will be removed on Patch 10.8 and replaced with lethality, reducing Aphelios’ excellent tank-killing damage and shifting it towards squishy targets, potentially changing the meta skill order for Aphelios mains.
On top of that, every Weapon of the Faithful is receiving an AD ratio nerf which will result in their pre-Patch 10.8 power being moved from level 1 to level 13, reducing Aphelios’ early game power significantly.
In terms of solo queue, these nerfs will simply exacerbate the marksman’s problems and worsen his already poor 48.20% win rate. As for pro play, Split 2 may finally see Aphelios fall from his 90%+ presence in drafts and become a more balanced ADC from Patch 10.8 onwards.
Ashe
"Q – Ranger’s Focus Bonus Attack Speed: 20/25/30/35/40% -> 20/30/40/50/60%"
With a 2% presence in pro play and 50.99% win rate in solo queue, it’s clear that Ashe is on the cusp of the bot lane S tier and these Patch 10.8 buffs might be the push she needs.
For context, Ranger’s Focus is the second ability Ashe players rank up, so this buff won’t be felt until level 8. However, at level 13 Ashe’s Q will now grant her 20% more bonus attack speed which isn’t huge but will be a noticeable increase in DPS during mid to late game team fights.
With many high tier ADCs seeing nerfs on Patch 10.8, the Frost Archer might find herself climbing into the S tier of marksmen over the next few weeks!
Evelynn
"Q – Hate Spike Base Spike Damage: 25/30/35/40/45 (75/90/105/120/135 maximum damage) -> 30/35/40/45/50 (90/105/120/135/150 maximum damage)"
Evelynn is absent in pro play and is also struggling in solo queue with a 49.02% win rate on Patch 10.7. Is this all about to change with these Patch 10.8 buffs?
Increasing Hate Spike’s damage by 5 per spike is going to have zero impact on Evelynn once she has a full item in her inventory, but during the early levels this buff could have an impact on both her jungle clear and dueling power.
This buff could speed up her camp clearing speed to open up more invades or ganks early on, as well as improving her trading damage which allows her to seek out the enemy jungler and create advantages during the laning phase.
By no means is this buff enough to propel Evelynn into the upper echelons of the jungle tier list, but it will certainly aid Evelynn players when trying to out-jungle the likes of Elise, Olaf, and Wukong on future patches.
Kalista
"Base Stats Armor: 23 -> 21 E – Rend Slow: 25/30/35/40/45% -> 10/18/26/34/42%"
Getting hit by a 2-second 25% slow at level 1 is bad enough, the fact that the ability can be reset is a little over the top and it’s about time Kalista’s Rend is adjusted.
From Patch 10.8 onwards, Rend won’t be anywhere near as effective at slowing enemies until level 5 which – combined with base armor nerfs – makes Kalista’s early game much weaker, both offensively and defensively.
As a result of these nerfs, we can expect to see the Spear of Vengeance’s 84% pro play presence and 50.60% solo queue win rate fall slightly as the marksman meta adjusts to the seven champion changes on this patch.