Riot announced yesterday that Patch 8.24’s hit list of champion and rune nerfs was almost finalized, and today, on the official League of Legends forums, it shed some light on what’s coming after 8.24.
The list revealed yesterday was entirely filled with nerfs, and, unsurprisingly, so was the list today. For starters, there will be a mini patch following 8.24 called Patch 8.24b that will take a break from the nonstop new features of the pre-season to dish out some balance, and only balance. In that patch, Riot is planning nerfs for tons of champions, including Pyke and Karthus, as well as some runes. After all, we can all probably agree that Presence of Mind and Absolute Focus are getting a little too much player attention lately.
This patch structure is very similar to what Riot did in last year’s pre-season, too, as there was actually a Patch 7.24b entirely dedicated to balance as well. Of course, that was definitely necessary due to the release of the brand new rune structure and removal of old runes and masteries. This year, the pre-season is admittedly less extreme, but it’s never a bad idea to clean up any outliers caused by pre-season changes. Pyke and Karthus certainly qualify as outliers, as they’ve been dominating in their respective roles.
Although, those respective roles aren’t what you’d expect. Pyke isn’t being spammed as a support anymore. Instead, he’s performing way too well as a mid laner, and Karthus is being played mostly in the bot lane, although his mid lane effectiveness is still sturdy.
Dark Harvest has already been nerfed in a hotfix (twice) this pre-season, but it’s reportedly also being targeted by a nerf in 8.24, which should arrive next week. We expect 8.24b to come two weeks afterward, although the pre-season is always difficult to plan for.
