Right after the release of the newest League of Legends version, the Patch 10.17, Riot’s Lead Gameplay Designer Mark Yetter brings us two of the most important things that the next Patch 10.18 will contain: some mechanic upgrades for Ahri and Kayle focused on creating better gameplay of these two Champions.
These upgrades would consist of some “very small buffs”, but it doesn’t look like the buffs will relay on the abilities, but in some features that will make the gameplay cleaner and more fluid.
We have some light mechanics upgrades coming to PBE for Ahri and Kayle. Aiming to get these into the 10.18 patch.
Both should amount to very small buffs, but focused on creating better gameplay primarily.
Details in thread (1/3)
— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) August 19, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Changes for Ahri:
According to Mark Yetter, Riot Games’ goals with Ahri are to have “more flexibility and control of her movement speed to open up new small combos and outplays”, as well as a higher “heal reward” after fighting the enemies.
It is true that Ahri has been a bit out of the game for some years now, that is why the Nine-Tailed Fox is going to receive this kind of “rework”.
The changes prepared for Ahri that will be now available on PBE are:
Passive: Vastayan Grace
The current Passive ability (Innate: whenever Ahri lands 2 ability hits against a champion within 1.5 seconds, she gains a 20% bonus movement speed for 3 seconds) is removed, and it will have a new name and new characteristics.
Instead of “Vastayan Grace”, it will be called “Essence Theft“, and its Innate effects will be that, whenever Ahri hits an enemy with one of her abilities, she gains a charge of Essence Theft, and can gain up to 3 charges per ability cast. Upon reaching 9 charges, her next ability that hits an enemy Champion heals her for 30/60/90/180 (based on level) (+27%AP).
This is 1 large heal instead of the per-hit heal that we have on live right now, and this accomplishes Riot Games’ intentions to have a “more incentive and heal reward for trading with champions”.
‘Q’ – Orb of Deception
This ability was going to have as its passive feature the ability that actually became the passive of the champion, but for now, Riot Games decided to remove it.
‘W’ – Fox-Fire
Ahri’s ‘W’ will have two new characteristics: it will now grant a burst of 40% Movement Speed decaying over 1.5 seconds, and also will deal 200% damage to minions below 20%.
Apart from that, Fox-Fire will have its cooldown increased from 9/8/7/6/5 to 10/9/8/7/6 seconds, and the mana cost will also be higher, changing from 40 to to 55 mana at all ranks.
Changes for Kayle:
Riot’s Lead Gameplay Designer claims that their goals with Kayle are to make her a more active laning Champion “where trading with the enemy laner is a more available option over pure passive play”.
It is very common to see passive Kayles that just play for farm and avoid every fight until they reach level 16, where they can actually be useful and able to trade with the enemies.
That is why Riot Games suggest some small new changes that are already available on PBE:
‘Q’ – Radiant Blast
With this ability, Kayle conjures a portal, summoning a celestial sword that pierces through enemies, slowing, damaging, and reducing the resistances of all hit, and, from now, it will no longer refund mana on champion hit.
‘W’ – Celestial Blessing
Celestial blessing heals and grants movement speed to Kayle and the nearest ally. The mana cost of this ability will be increased from 70-110 to 90-130.
‘E’ – Starfire Spellblade
The changes made to this ability explain why Kayle’s ‘Q’ and ‘W’ suffered such nerfs.
Starfire Spellblade cooldown reduction will be lower in the higher levels, changing from 8 to 8-6, its mana cost will now be zero, and the missile speed up increased from 2000 to 5000.
This is a huge change that justifies any nerf to other abilities. With it, Kayle will be able to play much more aggressively on the early game but will need to be more careful with the healing abilities, since they will cost more and can become a “sustain” problem.
Source: Read Full Article