Champion updates are one of the biggest obsessions of the League of Legends community. A rework is the perfect opportunity to bring less popular characters back to the fore, or those whose performance has deteriorated over time. Riot Games has taken note of this practice and honed it to the point that reworks are just as important as new characters. However, the developer’s first steps in revisiting champions were much more hesitant..
The first revamps in League of Legends history
To talk about Riot Games’ biggest redesigns from a historical perspective, we need to consider two champions. Kayle and Tryndamere received what might be called the “first real redesigns”. Both received a revamped in-game version in patch 1.0.0.122 which hit the title in July 2011. So the practice debuted in the first season of League of Legends. However, it should be noted that major gameplay updates for some characters had been made long before that did not reach overhaul status.
However, we are seriously mistaken if we consider these original reworks as an update similar to those taking place now. Although they are in the same category (visual and gameplay update), the truth is that Riot Games was much more fearful when it came to making changes. In fact, both champions kept four of their abilities intact by only changing the passive. What there have been, of course, are major adjustments to the balance of the rest of the spells.
In addition to receiving an updated game model and new animations, the changes were as follows :
- Tryndamere : Changed the champion’s passive to add the Fury system he always uses. Changes to Q to fit the new passive. Critical hits and healing now scale with Fury. Added the current damage increase system based on missing HP, which was part of the original passive.
- Kaylee : Changed his 30% AD to AP and 15% AP to AD conversion passive to reduce enemy resistances by 2% per hit up to a maximum of five times. The rest of the skills only had balance adjustments.
Even adding the two “reworks” together, we only have three new abilities and one of them was much needed as Tryndamere had to adapt to his new passive. To give you an idea, even less notable revamps like Dr. Mundo’s get the same or more changes. It cannot therefore be said that these were revolutionary changes. They did, however, mark a new path for Riot Games, which has not abandoned this practice to revamp former League of Legends champions.
Since the first two revisions, there have been a total of 36 full champion updates. This number will soon be increased with the arrival of the new version of Udyr and the revamp of Skarner. These two will bear little to no relation to how these processes were when Riot Games launched them in 2011, but there’s no denying that without the first step with Kayle and Tryndamere, we would never have gotten this far. .
The most awaited change by the League of Legends community already has a final release date. Patch 12.10, which arrives on May 25, will introduce a general reduction in MOBA damage, which will also be accompanied by a major overhaul that will also affect healing.