Riot Games is moving to rewind Janna’s most recent balance changes in League of Legends Patch 13.22 to make her “more enjoyable to play again” after early Season 13 buffs and a Season 12 rework threw her off-course.
With Season 14 looming, Riot devs are now focusing on how to make League, and the next ranked season, more enjoyable for players. Matt ‘RiotPhroxzon’ Leung-Harrison, the lead gameplay designer at LoL, mentioned in his early Patch 13.22 preview on Oct. 30 that the devs would be making such changes to Janna to make her fun to play again.
Some of Janna’s kit, specifically the changes to her Zephyr ability (W), will be slightly reverted, mainly because her pick rate has trended down—a slump down to 2.3 percent you can see quite clearly on stat tracking site U.GG.
The devs have now realized how unsatisfying it is to play Janna and are assuming League players preferred her Zephyr-oriented playstyle, which focused on speed and a higher attack range. To remedy what they have now decided was a mistake, they’re shifting the Storm’s Fury back to that original gameplay loop.
This isn’t the first time they’ve tried. In Patch 13.8 they tried to shift back to this by increasing her W damage, but it wasn’t enough to bring her back to a more enjoyable state.
It’s also worth noting this is mainly to help her play rate, because her win rate has actually not been too bad. Since the 13.8 changes, Janna has been hovering at a 51.75 percent win rate, especially when she builds Glacial Augment.
Pairing that rune build path with her Whirlwind ability and an explosive ADC has been the path to victory for Janna for most of the season thus far. But, she’s simply not been as fun to play as she was before her rework.
As with all League patch previews, these changes are tentative until they land on live servers with the full update. These tweaks are expected to go live on Nov. 8.
Update Oct. 31, 7:35 pm CT: Riot has unveiled exactly how Janna will change in League Patch 13.22, and there’s a lot to unpack; these changes are basically a mini rework.
Janna’s attack range will increase, her attack times will be reduced, and she’s set to receive several base stat changes in the next League update, Riot Phroxzon revealed today. Her passive will no longer give allies movement speed. Instead, her bonus movement speed will now translate to on-hit damage and increased W damage.
Her Q mana cost and cooldowns have also increased, her damage will be decreased, her ability power percentage has increased, and the channel time has decreased. Zephyr’s (W) cooldown, mana cost, and damage have decreased. To balance that, she’ll now get bonus W damage from her Passive, and her slow cooldown is being reduced.
Janna’s shield’s cooldown has increased, but it will be reduced on crowd control with her other abilities. The shield won’t provide a 15 percent shield and heal on CC with her other abilities. Instead, her shield has been buffed; it will no longer decay, and it will cost less mana, but the duration of the shield is decreased.
With the increased range and damage, we can expect to see more poke in the bot lane, more of an emphasis for her Whirlwind to be an engage tool when paired with the Glacial Augment rune, and a proper shield to help reduce incoming damage.
As mentioned earlier, these Janna changes should go live on Nov. 8.
