Patch 7.7 ships tomorrow, and some of League of Legends’ weakest contenders are being brought back to life with some impressive buffs. It may even be enough to throw them back into the meta.
Amumu
Amumu’s buff leads the charge this patch, and it’s definitely the largest of them all. We already went into detail for what his crazy buff means for the sad mummy’s future, but let’s recap.
Amumu’s passive has been reworked. It is still called Cursed Touch, but instead of lowering the magic resist (MR) of enemy champions nearby, it will now do something ridiculously OP. When Amumu hits an enemy with a basic attack, it will apply the Cursed debuff. This debuff causes 15 percent of all magic damage that hits that enemy (including damage from allies) to be converted to true damage, ignoring all resistances.
The debuff timer resets from his Despair (W), which has also been buffed to tick more often, and the debuff can also be applied by using his ultimate ability.
With this buff, not only will Amumu deal significantly more damage, but he will be a staple on magic-heavy teams that can take advantage of his passive. Imagine a Lux ult that deals 15 percent true damage while an Amumu cries your health away. It’s terrifying. Speaking of Lux…
Lux
Imagine Lux, but with Katarina’s cooldown resets. Scared yet? You should be. Lux is getting some resets of her own. While they aren’t nearly as extreme as Katarina’s resets, they’ll still be a huge buff for Lux that rewards consistently talented play.
The cooldown of her ultimate ability will now be partially refunded if she kills an enemy champion with it. At the ultimate’s first rank, the reduction is only ten percent, which isn’t that significant. At it’s final rank though, when Lux hits level 16, the reduction is a whopping 50 percent. If you’re in Bronze, this won’t affect you much, because let’s be honest, your mid Lux isn’t going to be properly using her ultimate all that much. At higher elo, where players can use her ultimate with precise timing and accuracy to secure kills, however, this will be huge.
She will have the potential to use her high-damage ultimate ability multiple times in extended teamfights later in the game. All the while, she’ll be spamming that annoying high-pitched laugh to really make you feel worthless as her laser beam rips through you.
Jarvan IV
Jarvan has been teetering on the brink of the meta for awhile now. He’s always been decent no matter what meta we’re in, but other champions have always performed his job better. Vi is a better bruiser. Gragas is a better tank. Hecarim is a better assassin. Well, no longer. Say hello to the age of tank Jarvan.
Jarvan’s Golden Aegis (W), the ability that grants him a shield, is being changed for the better. For starters, it will protect him from more damage early on in the game. More importantly, however, when he hits enemy champions with it, it will boost the shield by a portion of his maximum health per enemy hit. For example, if Jarvan has 4,000 health, if his max-rank shield hits three enemies, it will grant him more shield equal to four percent of his max health (160) three times (480). That’s a big shield.
It will make building tanky items on Jarvan much more efficient and useful, and we may see a surge of J4 into the meta.
Alistar
The cow is back, baby! Alistar is getting hit across the board with some sizable buffs. The tank meta of support is coming back, and we’ve been seeing a lot of Tahm Kench, Leona, and Braum in professional play lately. Alistar has been curiously left out of the fun, but these buffs are big enough that he won’t be left out for much longer.
Alistar’s passive causes him to heal the nearest ally champion after he gains enough stacks from displacing enemies or minions die around him. After this patch, the passive will heal all allies around him. Not only will this help him in extended gank parties down in bot lane, but his teamfighting phase just got a lot scarier.
One of Alistar’s most notable weaknesses has always been his high cooldowns, so Riot is also reducing the cooldown of his Trample by four seconds at all ranks. Also, the empowered basic attack at the end of Trample will now deal more damage at all ranks.
It will definitely be a lot more difficult to milk those after these buffs.
These are the most significant buffs coming with Patch 7.7, but there are some small ones that we didn’t cover. If you’d like to see the information on buffs to Kassadin, Bard, and Nunu, be sure to check out the official patch notes.
