Riot Games is targeting support champions in its League of Legends Patch 10.2, buffing Sona, Lulu, and Karma.
The support role has taken a back seat in the 2020 season, with top and mid lane champions leading the way. A few outliers have made their way up the rankings, but the impact of the role has been underwhelming.
To counter the irrelevance of support champions in the metagame and thrust the role back into a stronger position, Riot is buffing some of the most iconic ones.
Sona—with the highest win rate of the three—is receiving changes to her Song of Celerity (E) ability, increasing her haste percentage for allies from 10 to 14 (+3 percent/100AP) to 10 to 16 (+4 percent/100AP), and her personal haste from 10 to 14 (+3 percent/100AP) to 25 percent (+4 percent/100AP). The changes will make her a speed demon, allowing her to reposition in a teamfight to get off the perfect ultimate or to roam for a mid lane gank. It’ll also mean she’ll be safer from ganking in the bot lane, giving her the potential to run away with ease.
Lulu, who has a measly 49-percent win rate in Platinum and above right now, is set to get minor improvements to her base stats, increasing her armor from 28.22 to 29 and her AD from 46.368 to 47. Most importantly, though, her Help, Pix! (E) ability is having its cooldown reduced from 10 to eight seconds. This will give her the means to trade in lane, allowing her to tank more damage and chunk down her enemies in the early stages of the game. It’ll also make her more of a relevant support champion in the late game, increasing the rate at which she can buff her AD carry.
Karma took a huge hit in September 2019 when her AP ratio on Inner Flame (Q) was reduced from 60 to 40 percent. This was aimed at taking her away from the mid lane and positioning her more as a support champion. It didn’t work, though, and she quickly fell off the radar. She now has a 48-percent win rate and she’s rarely seen in solo queue.
To help boost her standings once again, Riot is increasing the damage on Karma’s Q ability from the range of 80 to 260 to the range of 90 to 270 and her damage on Focused Resolve (W) from the range of 30 to 130 to the range of 40 to 140. This will by no means make her the mid laner she used to be, but it should help to improve her chances in the bottom side of the map, allowing for lane dominance.
All of the changes for Patch 10.2 are expected to be released on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
