Big changes for jungle Meta with upcoming Patch 8.5 in League of Legends
The big jungle buffs already on the PBE for testing. Both Olaf and Nocturne are first up on the balance team’s agenda, items changes, old items returns, and more changes with Patch 8.5.
Nocturne
Nocturne’s buffs are all about boosting his jungle clear speed and health, because, honestly, that’s one of his largest concerns right now. Unfortunately, his poor scaling makes it difficult to keep up with other assassins and divers the longer games run, too—but this boost to his camp clear might be so helpful that it doesn’t even matter.
His W, Shroud of Darkness, will now fear monsters on top of its normal function. His terrible jungle survivability matters less when the monsters can be reliably feared out of hitting him twice. On top of this, when he triggers the new fear, it will double the attack speed given by the ability’s passive for three seconds. So not only will his clears be safer; they’ll also be much faster. His ultimate’s sight-reduction effect is also being extended by two seconds.
Olaf
Olaf’s buff is much more combat-oriented, because, let’s be honest, he doesn’t need any help in the jungle clear department. For starters, the duration of his Vicious Strikes ability is being extended by one second, which is inconsequential, but his ultimate’s buff is much larger. The bonus armor and MR provided by the ability are each being raised, as well as the AD boost from activating it and the duration of the effect.
After this buff, when Olaf uses his ultimate, you know you’re in for a world of hurt if he can catch up to you. Olaf’s major shortcoming this season so far has been his ineffectiveness when actually catching opponents when mid-game rolls around. With a beefier ultimate, he won’t have to worry about that nearly as much.
Shurelya’s Reverie return
It’s been four years since Shurelya’s Reverie was stricken from League of Legends and replaced by the Talisman of Ascension, but it’ll be back in Patch 8.5—with the same old icon, too.
The Reverie seems to only be returning because of the removal of the speed boost from the Talisman in Patch 8.2. The speed boost provided by the Talisman was a good ability to have for supports. Support items were fused with the Sightstone in that patch, though, and having both wards and a speed boost on one cheap item would have been overkill, so the speed boost was removed.
The Reverie, however, was the original speed boost support item, and since support builds feel a big lacking without that option, this is the perfect time for the item to make its comeback. The Twin Shadows item was re-added to the game in Patch 8.4 for the same reason.
Duskblade
Duskblade’s nerf is almost just as meaningful due to the item’s popularity combined with the fact that the nerf itself is sizable. The on-hit damage provided by the item is being dropped from 65 to 320 all the way down to 50 to 220. Ranged attackers will now deal the same damage as melee attackers, but the new damage amount is still lower than what they dealt before this nerf (45 to 300), so ranged champions will still feel this nerf.
But when champions discover wards with this item, they can now destroy them with a single hit as long as they’re melee champions. This seems like it will have little impact, but it’ll make clearing wards at least a little safer.
Starting support items
Starting support items in League of Legends were always intended to give little boosts in revenue to the game’s least gold-generating role—supports. It’s a good idea. Lately, though, other roles have been abusing these gold generators to either make sure they’re well-funded even if they fall massively behind their opponent or to snowball their gold lead into oblivion.
When Patch 8.5 hits, killing any minion or monster will halt all gold generation on these items for 12 whole seconds. Relic Shield is the exception to this, which halts gold generation if you kill a minion or monster without an ally being nearby to take the charge for you. And we do mean all gold generation—including the passive abilities of each item and the gold per second.
With the passive abilities paused as well, junglers won’t even be able to get the small boost to on-hit damage when they gank with Spellthief’s Edge. They will still need to wait 12 seconds in between farming and ganking.
These changes should arrive with the Patch 8.5 on March 7 if this update follows the standard schedule.
