Alongside the rise of the Syndra and friends composition, the Shadow with Jarvan IV as a tanky frontline has also been extremely powerful. With the Warmog’s Blood Armor providing a staggering 1400 health, this item synergizes exceptionally well with the Guardian’s shield creation effect based on health percentage. This makes Jarvan IV seem like an impenetrable wall, not to mention the continuous attack speed buff from his “flag planting” ability.
Due to this overwhelming strength, teams like Guardian – Sorcerer, Shadow, and even Hyper-roll Jarvan IV have emerged, making the meta quite one-sided. Therefore, Riot Games had to release a mid-patch update for 10.14b, and Jarvan IV has been significantly nerfed in terms of energy stats. The specific changes were announced by Riot GreenTeeJ, the head of Teamfight Tactics production:
Riot GreenTeeJ: “The hotfix should already be applied to the official servers. The changes will be
Jarvan IV
Starting energy and maximum energy changed from 40/80 to 60/100.
This will reduce the tankiness of this unit since using abilities less means fewer shields will be generated, and he will return to being a regular unit like the others.”
Not stopping there, the energy stat nerf for Jarvan IV is just a hotfix for patch 10.14b and only slightly affects the current meta. A significant change will be applied in the upcoming patch 10.15 when on the PBE server, Jarvan IV’s attack speed buff ability has been reduced from 75/85/95% to 60/70/80% attack speed. Perhaps by patch 10.15, Jarvan IV will return to being an ordinary unit instead of playing the role of an unbeatable wall and buffing too much attack speed like he does now.