Dominant meta picks Aatrox, Vi, Blitzcrank, Hercarim, and Xin Zhao are all in line to get big adjustments in League of Legends Patch 13.17, prioritizing bringing down their pure killing power builds and instead pushing them toward durability.
League’s balance boss Matt “RiotPhroxzon” Leung-Harrison explained to fans in Riot Games’ regular patch preview, shared on Twitter on Aug. 21, that these five particular characters had very quickly turned into killing machines on Summoner’s Rift and need to be reined in slightly before they do too much more damage.
In particular, Riot is looking to curtail how well Aatrox, Blitzcrank, Hecarim, and Vi can snowball into damage if they have a decent early game.
In particular, Xin Zhao is being targeted because he lost his durability when one of his main items, Immortal Shieldbow, went from being one of the first items he purchased to the third. That particular item received significant changes in League Patch 13.10, the big midseason update, and has been bouncing back and forth ever since.
Related: League devs nerfed this item three patches in a row, and are doing it again in 13.17
What is particularly interesting about the “killing machines” being hit with adjustments is that, barring Blitzcrank (who wins 50.22 percent of games), the other four League champions are actually putting up relatively average or even poor win rates these days. Vi, Hecarmin, Aatrox, and Xin Zhao have 48.83 percent, 49.14 percent, 48.93 percent, and 49.69 percent win rates respectively, and are considered B-tier or below.
These changes have the capacity to turn them into true Terminators on the Rift; only time will tell if that is actually a positive change or not.
League Patch 13.17 is set to hit live servers on Aug. 30.
