Midpatch Review: Patch 11.23
Now that the dust has settled from the recent patch changes, let’s highlight some of the champions that have benefited most from the preseason update.
Patch 11.23 - Midpatch Review
Now that the dust has settled from the recent patch changes, let’s highlight some of the champions that have benefited most from the preseason update.
Miss Fortune
After dominating throughout Worlds as an ADC, Miss Fortune now finds herself as an incredibly strong support thanks to the new keystone rune First Strike used alongside Spellthief’s Edge. She is able to easily proc both thanks to the long range of her E and Q as follow up on the slowed target, granting her a great amount of gold. This poke-style continues in the mid to late game by maxing E and building Liandry’s Anguish, Demonic Embrace and Morellonomicon, which allow to shred through targets from afar. You are able to pursue such an expensive build on such a low-income role as you gain more gold from First Strike the more damage you deal, meaning this build has great scaling potential.
Lethal Tempo
The updated Lethal Tempo has been incredibly strong for melee bruisers who can gain up to 90% bonus attack speed and 50 attack range. Champions such as Tryndamere and Yone were strong before the preseason patch, but have become even more potent as they both benefit attack speed and an extended attack range in order to proc their on-hit effects.
AD Assassins
With some small buffs to the Lethality Mythics (Eclipse, Duskblade of Drakthar and Prowler’s Claw), AD Assassins were looking strong heading into Preseason. However, these buffs were eclipsed by Axiom Arc, an incredible new Legendary specifically for AD Assassins. Its passive reduces the total cooldown of your ultimate by 25% if an enemy champion dies within 3 seconds of you damaging them. Considering it is the total ultimate cooldown that’s reduced and not the remaining cooldown, this item can let you cast your ultimate multiple times in a team fight or use your ultimate even if it’s on cooldown heading into the fight. Therefore, it is very successful on AD Assassins with great team-fighting ults who can blow up targets quickly, such as Talon, Nocturne, Qiyana and Zed, and can be bought as a jungler, mid laner and top laner. This item is very strong, a lot of fun, and will likely be nerfed soon, so take advantage of it while you can!
Crown of the Shattered Queen
Finally, the new Mythic introduced for Mages seems to be the most dominant choice. The Crown of the Shattered Queen reduces your damage taken by 75% for 1.5 seconds after taking champion damage, and is great to survive the plethora of Assassins currently abusing Axiom Arc. Despite the fact you are sacrificing some damage for a survivability tool, its raw stats still provide enough offensive power to make you a damage threat, meaning you aren’t missing out on too much damage. Therefore, even in situations where you aren’t facing a lot of burst champions, Crown of the Shattered Queen may still be the best choice as defence may outweigh the extra offence provided by other Mythics.