Smolder came roaring out the gates, quite literally. In response, Riot Games has been working to reign him in, with the League of Legends developers today shooting what may be a killing blow—and League fans are super happy.
Every League player knows there are only two things to expect from every new champion: Dead on arrival or scarily overpowered. Smolder, the latest champion to fly onto the Rift, landed with a bang and was part of the ‘OP’ category, fuelled mainly because he doesn’t even need to auto-attack to be successful because his abilities do that damage. That power status left players hoping his problematic strengths would be nerfed once Patch, 14.6 rolled around, but now that the planned changes have been unveiled, fans are celebrating.
So, what are these nerfs the League community is so eager to see go live? Well, his Q’s base execute threshold was reduced, as was its execute threshold, and the tier three (execute and true damage) stack threshold was dramatically increased by 50. His speed from E was knocked down by 25 percent. As far as we can tell, these nerfs will change his playstyle and how aggressive players can be in the bot lane. As League creator Express pointed out, these balance changes look like they’re going to be the “killing blow” for the new dragon.
The big question most League fans have been left asking is, will these nerfs really affect Smolder’s win and pick rates? The answer is: Most likely. That’s a good thing though, considering his current win rate is 52.23 percent, according to the League stat tracking page U.GG, and the nerfs may squeeze him closer to a 50 percent win rate—which really, means “balanced” in League.
According to League development boss Matt Leung-Harrison, these changes should see Smolder struggle harder in the early game while “hitting some of [his] more frustrating aspects,” namely his ability to escape and mismatching hitboxes.
If these changes do push him further down, Riot may look at buffing him back up, but it’ll take time to return his fire. Either way, it’s looking like Patch 14.6 just really isn’t the update for Smolder mains, but everyone else is happy; one reply even “sincerely” thanked Riot for murdering the debutant AD carry.
These expected changes will be included in Patch 14.6 on March 20.
