After about two weeks of release on international servers, Viego has shown that he is more suited for the mid lane than the jungle position. Numbers don’t lie, and Viego’s better win rate in the mid lane compared to the jungle position proves this. In fact, according to the site U.gg, Viego is even ranked S+ (extremely strong champion) in the mid lane position.
Naturally, Riot Games is not pleased with this as they want to direct Viego to be a jungle champion. If Viego in the mid lane continues to show strength as it currently does, soon players will stop using this champion in the jungle role. Therefore, Riot Games had to implement an emergency nerf on Viego’s laning capabilities.
League of Legends lead champion designer – Riot August: “We have just implemented a nerf targeting Viego in the solo lane.
Q – Blade of the Ruined King: The healing ability from minions is reduced from 150% to 100% of damage.
We still want this champion to be able to lane well, however, Viego in the mid lane is proving to be too strong. Viego in the jungle already has a decent win rate of 49%, and we will monitor how this champion develops in patch 11.3.“.
One of the strongest points of Viego in the mid lane is the enormous healing potential from his Q – Blade of the Ruined King. This ability can deal damage and mark many minions, allowing Viego to heal significantly just by auto-attacking those units. Thus, it becomes very difficult for opponents in lane to poke Viego effectively.
This allows Viego in the mid lane to reach power spikes much earlier than in the jungle position. Viego will always have a stable farm in the mid lane due to his lane sustaining abilities. Meanwhile, in the jungle position, players must successfully gank or steal camps to gear up quickly, which is not guaranteed. This leads players to gradually realize that Viego in the mid lane is much stronger than in the jungle role.
Therefore, Riot Games had to nerf the healing ability from Viego’s Q so that this champion would no longer dominate the lane too strongly. This will make Viego’s laning phase more challenging and prevent him from reaching power spikes too quickly. Hopefully, this change will ensure that Viego in the mid lane will not remain in an overpowered state in the near future.