After about a week of its release, Wukong has truly caused a stir in League of Legends, rapidly climbing from a champion no one wanted to play to the strongest top laner. It’s no coincidence that Riot Games nerfed this monkey within just 48 hours of its launch; however, that was not enough to cool down Wukong’s hype. According to statistics from U.gg, Wukong is currently in the S+ tier (meaning super strong) for both top lane and jungle positions.
Wukong is even extremely dominant in the mid lane in certain matchups; most recently, Fnatic’s mid laner Nemesis has been spamming this monkey continuously on stream. It’s possible that in the upcoming LEC matches for Fnatic, Wukong will appear in both mid lane and top lane, as long as the tournament uses patch 10.6.
Of course, when too many people “abuse” Wukong, it also frustrates many gamers, including professional players, as a champion that can just dive in and wreak havoc, taking down your team without any counters. Everyone agrees that Wukong currently deals too much damage while still having great durability from his incredibly powerful new passive.
Riot August: “shhh, come on, keep it a secret!”
Caster Kobe: “Give me some special tips!”
Riot August: “Just use Q, okay lol.”
Streamer Hashinshin: “After a slew of memes, 200 years, and tons of criticism, finally Wukong will be nerfed because he is too broken and extremely powerful in this rework.”
The biggest issue with Wukong right now is that this champion is too hard to take down, not that he has broken damage. Of course, Riot Games will not rework him into a champion with three dashes and one invisibility (Akali, no one forgets her), but with his new passive giving too much armor and healing along with an ultimate that can knock up twice, Wukong is nearly impossible to be taken down quickly.
Moreover, the duo of Blade of the Ruined King and Death’s Dance has also been buffed, which Wukong utilizes very well. The “Great Sage” is now a well-rounded champion with almost no weaknesses. In a positive way, this rework of Wukong has been extremely successful for Riot; however, they also need to tone down this champion’s power to maintain game balance in future patches.