Riot is looking for ways to balance ARAMs in LoL. What fixes have hit the PBE servers?
Riot starts working on ARAM mode. What additional nerfs and buffs will heroes receive?
ARAM mode is played on the Howling Abyss map, where two teams are forced to fight each other on a single line. It’s not hard to see that the gameplay is significantly different from that on Summoner’s Rift. The developers, while focusing on the balance of characters in standard games, do not leave it to chance in ARAM mode.
Characters are receiving additional, more general changes. Riot is looking for even more ways to maintain gameplay balance and is introducing more ways to strengthen and weaken champions. What exactly are the fixes coming to the PBE servers?
ARAM mode balancing changes
A Rioter has reported on the introduction of new ways to balance heroes in ARAM mode in League of Legends. Riot Maxw3ll writes that the team does not want to rely solely on damage boosts and weaknesses.
We’re pushing some new balance levers to PBE today to help out struggling classes and reduce our reliance on Damage buffs/nerfs. We intend to do more in the future with even more levers, but the first list is intentionally light so we can gather data on their effect.
What are the changes?
- Plus 20% bonus Energy Regen:
- Akali, Kennen, Lee Sin, Zed
- Plus 20% Tenacity:
- Akali, Ekko, Elise, Evelynn, Fizz, Kassadin, Katarina, Kayn, Kha’Zix, LeBlanc, Pyke, Qiyana, Rek’Sai, Rengar, Talon, Zed
Riot is also likely to introduce more buffing and nerfing options for champions. Among the plans are damage dealt to minions, movement speed, or slowdown resistance modifiers.
This isn’t the full list of levers we introduced. I expect we’ll be adding more as we learn more about our abilities to balance ARAM.
The employee also referred to the situation of ADCs, who may suffer from Assassin buffs.
ADCs are probably the most powerful class in ARAM currently” and “The tenacity buffs are intended to result in a removal of some of the damage buffs on assassins.
The team also referred to one character individually – Ashe. She will lose 20 Ability Haste.
Ashe’s damage is already nerfed by 15% and it doesn’t affect the mandate build. Targeting Ability Haste hits the spammability of the W without needing to take damage from her AA build. If this targets the Mandate build enough, we can give her back damage, which helps the AA build.
The changes will most likely hit the live servers in the next update 12.22, scheduled for release on November 16.
