In patch 10.11, Riot Games empowered all Marksmen by increasing their health and movement speed. Several special champions like Lucian, Vayne, Kalista, and Tristana will receive individual buffs. In summary, all Marksmen are strengthened, albeit to varying degrees, and can carry their teams much better in the late game.
However, the ADC buff is just part of the plan to upgrade gameplay in League of Legends. Riot Games also aims to reduce the power of the mid lane position, especially its excellent gank potential. A few days ago, Riot Mark Yetter, the head of League of Legends gameplay design, announced a nerf to the Conqueror rune, followed by a significant change directly targeting the mid lane with adjustments to its minion mechanics. Specifically:
Riot Mark Yetter: “Testing some changes to mid lane in patch 10.13:
The mid lane cannon minions will now spawn every 4 waves instead of 3 in the first 15 minutes of the game, then revert to normal.
Mid lane minions will now move out to lane slightly slower (reducing wave clear speed and gank potential).
We are still in the process of evaluating these changes. The goal is to have the economic output of mid lane champions return to parity with Season 9, not lower.”
With these changes from Riot Games, your ability to consistently push lanes and gank will face certain difficulties as the number of cannon minions has decreased and the spawn time for these minions has increased. Not to mention that mid lane minions will move a little slower, leading to longer times for waves to meet, and you will be stuck in lane longer than before.
The most important aspect of how these changes impact roaming capabilities is that the time needed to reach level 6 will be slower since cannon minions provide a lot of experience. With their reduced numbers, naturally, you will level up more slowly. For particular champions like Pantheon, Twisted Fate, or Galio, reaching level 6 is crucial, and this update may diminish the impact of such champions.
Nevertheless, all these changes are still in the testing phase, and Riot Games must carefully consider before rolling out this update as it will have a significant impact on the mid lane position and change the meta. The recent lesson learned from slightly reducing jungle experience and duo lane income in this preseason is surely still fresh in Riot Games’ memory.