Patch 10.5 focuses heavily on adjusting and balancing champion power by nerfing some overpowered champions while bringing back some long-missing champions with necessary buffs. Below are the 5 most noteworthy power changes in this new patch update:
Nerf to Ornn
Before the release of patch 10.4, Ornn had already established a solid position in the meta and was almost always viable in every patch. With buffs to tank item lines, specifically the Ember Knife and the Fire Cloak (upgraded to the Lava Cloak), Ornn became unstoppable, dominating the top lane with the highest pick rate (16.84%) while maintaining a win rate of 52.31%.
Before Ornn could become an uncontainable monster, Riot quickly implemented the necessary nerfs. Firstly, Ornn must now reach level 13 to upgrade items for himself and level 14 to forge items for teammates. Reducing the utility that Ornn provides for himself and his team is a precise move to limit player priority for this champion, especially in professional play.
Additionally, damage dealt by basic attacks to enemies affected by the Brittle effect will now only deal 10 – 18% of the enemy’s maximum health. Limiting Ornn’s damage output is a reasonable nerf, as having a champion that is both tanky and has a lot of crowd control while dealing excessive damage is unfair to opponents.
These nerfs are certainly not enough to completely remove Ornn from the meta. However, this round of power reduction is sufficient to prevent him from one-shotting you even while building a ton of tank items and outpacing you by 3000 Gold without doing anything else.
Nerf to Sett
As the king of the top lane, capable of jungling extremely well and even handling the mid lane – it’s time for Sett to be “brought to the chopping block” and receive some deserved nerfs. Unlike Ornn, Riot is not targeting Sett’s damage but primarily focusing on his defensive capabilities.
Reduced Base Health, Bonus Health Regeneration, and Base Armor will make Sett more vulnerable in the early game and unable to trade abilities as comfortably as before due to his lower lane sustain. Above all, the loss of 0.5 seconds of slow on his ultimate R – Showstopper will give his opponents more opportunities to dodge the ability of W – Haymaker.
These changes are certainly not enough to remove Sett from the meta, but they will decrease his presence rate from 100% to about 75% while still keeping him in the S-tier. If you’ve grown tired of him, you might have to wait for another significant round of nerfs to see him “kicked out” of the top lane.
Buffs to Kai’Sa
Kai’Sa is the weakest ADC in patch 10.4 with the worst win rate among this group of champions, sitting at only 46.34% while maintaining a relatively high pick rate (14.77%). A power adjustment for the Void Queen is entirely necessary, but it must be approached with caution as even a slight buff could make her overpowered and dominate the bot lane – something she did throughout the last season.
In patch 10.5, Kai’Sa only received adjustments to make both AD and AP builds more distinct. Firstly, the Q – Icathian Rain AP ratio has been reduced to 25%, but the number of projectiles fired when leveling up the skill has increased from 10 to 12. This makes the AD build clearly stronger with improved wave clear and burst damage.
Conversely, the W – Void Seeker has had its total AD ratio reduced, but its base damage has been increased. Meanwhile, the AP ratio and cooldown refund time when hitting an enemy have been increased, making the AP style of Kai’Sa much more annoying to deal with than before.
Buffs to Neeko
It has been over 12 months since Neeko first appeared on Summoner’s Rift, but she still lacks a distinct identity as players continuously struggle between full AP and attack speed builds. Therefore, what Neeko likely needs right now is a round of adjustments to define her main role in the game.
The changes she received in patch 10.5 don’t quite address this, but at least they show that Riot hasn’t completely abandoned her. Besides increasing base stats like attack speed and bonus attack speed per level, Neeko has received up to a 20% increase in AP ratio with her E – Tangle-Barbs. Her ultimate R – Pop Blossom not only has increased base damage but also improved AP ratio, making her ability to eliminate opponents much scarier than before.
Buffs for Some New Jungle Champions
As we know, in patch 10.4, Riot aimed to diversify the jungle champion pool by adding several new fighter and assassin champions, giving players more viable choices. However, it seems that most League of Legends players are still unwilling to try these “new” champions in the jungle role, prompting Riot to take further steps to encourage players.
Specifically, Darius’s passive Bleed damage to jungle monsters will be increased from 120% to 175%, while the maximum damage to jungle monsters from Mordekaiser’s passive Dark Harvest will increase from 25 – 120 to 28 – 164. Hopefully, with these buffs, players will soon use these two champions in the jungle role more, allowing Riot to assess their jungle capabilities.
Additionally, Poppy is the only champion among those newly “moved to the jungle” that has enough games to establish a 50.50% win rate in patch 10.4. However, this number has not met the expectations of Riot’s balancing team, so the damage of Q – Hammer Shock to non-champion targets will be increased to 50 – 160 in the new patch.