LoL Patch 3.8 Impressions

 

Patch day is here and 3.8 is live on the NA LoL servers, bringing a multitude of changes to the way we play the game. Jungle changes and the removal of Malady headline the most major changes. Other small tweaks include the files for Aatrox, the newest champion coming to LoL, having made it to the live servers and I'll be taking a look at the most significant changes. Note that I wont cover every single change, so for those interested can take a look at the patch notes on the LoL official website for more information. Without further ado, lets get started

Major Changes

 

Jungle camps spawn at 1.55

To anyone who has played LoL in the past few months, helping out your jungler has been the early game ritual at all levels of play. Some have taken it one step further by taking the experience of the smaller camps for themselves and gaining an experience advantage to win their lanes. This has been abused for a long time now and the pro teams have voiced their complaints over the unfair advantages that this entails. Riot has responded by making all camps spawn at the same time, completely negating the advantages and buffing the experience from the Ancient Golem and Elder Lizard so that junglers will be unaffected. This will send waves of changes to how early game positioning plays out so all eyes will be on the pro teams on how to find the most efficient ways of clearing the early jungles
 

Removal of Malady

Malady has always occupied a niche spot in the on-hit builds of certain champions who want attack speed, magic resistance shred and a little bit of AP.In a nutshell, Teemo. The cost inefficiency and similarity to Nashor's Tooth made Malady a hard sell for champions like Diana who synergize with the MR shred and attack speed because most likely at the end of the game they will have to sell Malady to buy an item that gives more AP burst. No more, Nashor's Tooth now takes Malady's AP > AA passive while Wits End gets the MR shred, buffing both items significantly. While I personally am sad to see Malady go (I loved using it on AP Varus and Warwick for laughs), the decision to remove it is pretty solid and it buffs on-hit champions like Kayle and Shyvanna immensely. 

Khazix

Khazix used to have to wait for level 6 and evolve his Void Spikes before he had a ranged slow. With the new buff to his Void Spikes, Khazix players now had the option  to evolve Leap first, allowing for better ganks, or Q first for more damage (especially with the extra damage tacked on to the buff). However, one of the main features of Khazix's burst, the ability to cast Void Spikes while Leaping, has been removed, slowing down his burst by a lot. Overall, its a refreshing change to Khazix who has been strong in competitive play for quite some time. With more options to play with in terms of skill set, his jungling also looks to have a huge jump and we might be seeing more Khazix junglers in the future. 

 

Minor Changes

 

Sejuani nerfs

Sejuani since her rework has been a force to reckon with coming from the jungle. Her combination of tankiness and crowd control was bolstered by the fact that she brought a lot of damage along with her kit. Riot decided to bring it back a notch so she doesnt outscale other damage junglers while being a control junglers. 

 

Lissandra changes

Lissandra has always been designed as a control mage, contributing roots and stuns along with her mobility to constantly lock teams. Similar to the Sejuani changes, removing some of her damage and increasing her survivability through her ult and slow from her ult would make her more in line with other control mages like Zyra and Oriana. 


What are you thoughts on Patch 3.8 and what changes are you most looking forward to? Do let us know by leaving a comment in the comments section below!

Source: League of Legends