As one of the most dominant jungle champions in League of Legends across all regions since his return, Hecarim has been continuously “screamed” by the community for Riot to nerf him immediately. After all, he is a champion that is not too difficult to play, with good crowd control and initiation capabilities, and quite effective with his wide area magic damage abilities. In fact, according to statistics, in the VCS region alone, Hecarim has been picked 43 times, only trailing behind Udyr – a champion who has shown to be exceptionally perfect recently and the “stable strong champion” Lillia.
Therefore, immediately after the Spring 2021 season ended, the update 11.9 has quickly nerfed Hecarim and his core item – Turbocharged Hexperiment. Specifically, this item has had its movement speed reduction cut from 60% to 40% after activation. As for Hecarim, there is no need to mention, a series of nerfs to his base armor, base damage… The Q ability – Rampage has had its additional damage reduced to just 2%, while the E ability – Devastating Charge has also had its minimum and maximum base damage that Hecarim can deal reduced.
However, to say that Hecarim is completely useless after patch 11.9 is not entirely true. Now with significantly reduced damage, Hecarim may no longer be suitable for a jungle position that requires top priority in clearing jungle camps quickly. But what if Hecarim is played in the top lane or as a tanky jungler, initiating fights as he used to be?
Firstly, it must be mentioned that items for strong tank champions have all been buffed in the upcoming patch 11.9. Now, Death’s Dance provides 55 damage and 45 armor. Meanwhile, Sunfire Aegis deals 150% damage from burn effects to jungle monsters. This means that if you want to build Hecarim as a top lane champion or a sturdier jungle, initiating fights is sufficient, then the Shadow of War is still extremely useful.
With a champion who is inherently built for brawling and loves to charge to the front lines like Hecarim, the reduction in base damage only means that the Shadow of War will be used less in the jungle. But remember, back before he became a “talking bush”, Hecarim was often built as a tanky top laner.
In fact, with his movement speed and the effect from his E ability not being touched by Riot, as well as his R ability – Onslaught of Shadows remaining intact, we can fully expect this “brain-dead” champion to be used as a real bulldozer again. However, players can also consider and innovate further, as after all, Hecarim has been heavily nerfed compared to before, so this is also a choice of necessity in cases where all the more useful names have been banned out.