Just hours ago, patch 12.7 of League of Legends was officially updated on Riot’s servers. This means that patch 12.8 is also being tested on the PBE server, and many new contents and updates have been discovered. The most notable is Olaf’s rework, which includes many new features and upgrades, promising to make this champion significantly more powerful.
The first notable point is that Olaf’s new passive will now integrate lifesteal instead of just increasing attack speed as before. This change will allow Olaf to farm the jungle very effectively at level 1 without worrying about losing health or relying on his W ability to sustain in the jungle. With this change, Olaf may now prioritize leveling his Q and E first for additional damage in duels instead of investing a point in the W skill as before.
The next major change is in the Q skill – Axe Throw, which will now have the added ability to reduce enemy champion armor when it hits. Additionally, the energy cost for using Q has been reduced at lower levels, somewhat alleviating Olaf’s energy issues. This continues to be an aggressive change and significantly boosts Olaf’s dueling power early in the game.
For the W skill – Blood Axe, this ability no longer increases lifesteal (which has shifted to the passive) but instead grants Olaf a shield based on lost health when activated. Furthermore, the additional attack speed bonus and its duration have been slightly nerfed, but the cooldown of W has been reduced. This can be seen as a game-changing ability in skirmishes since it allows Olaf to survive extremely well when low on health.
The final significant update lies in the ultimate ability, where the base duration of the crowd control immunity effect has been reduced to 3 seconds. However, when attacking and hitting an enemy champion with the E skill – Chop, the immunity effect will extend by an additional 2.5 seconds. This means that this ultimate is only powerful when used to attack. Thus, in theory, Olaf can maintain this crowd control immunity for a very long time, as long as there are sufficiently