League of Legends Patch 11.1, the start of Season 11

After revealing an early look at Patch 11.1 in mid-December, League of Legends Gameplay Design Director Mark Yetter revealed more updates coming through.

Updated Patch Preview for 11.1:
Added 6 more champs that we will hotfix in on day 1

Nerfs – Graves, Malphite, Ivern, Taliyah
Buffs – Sivir, Varus pic.twitter.com/G8Jc0YHz0l

— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) January 4, 2021

League of Legends Patch 11.1 Nerfs

The main differences from the previous patch preview given by Mark are the addition of new champions to the list. League of Legends Preseason 2021 came on a little too strong for some so four champions overperforming will see nerfs. Two more champs will get added to the buff list with the new item changes not working too well for them.

Malphite, Graves, Ivern, and Taliyah will receive nerfs in League of Legends Patch 11.1. Thanks to the overpowering nature of the new Mythic tank items, which needed their own patch of nerfs, Malphite blasted through enemies with ease. The ratios of his armor on his abilities worked too well and will thus be nerfed. His W and E damage armor ratios are lowered by 5% and 10% respectively.

Ivern surprised players when his win rate increased due to the power of the new support items. Thanks to all the ability haste easily available, he could throw out strong abilities too often. Riot is cutting that by increasing his Q cooldown time and lowering the AP ratios on his E shield from 90% to 80%.

Taliyah also began showing up again with her movement speed helping her move around too quickly late game. Patch 11.1 aims to lower that by reducing her passive movement speed from 20-45% to 12-25%. After finally hearing common complaints, Riot finally added Graves to a nerf list. At the start of League of Legends Season 11, he’ll see a slight nerf to his base AD, lowering it from 68 to 66.

Buffs and Rell in Season 11

The updated buff list for the new patch only puts on two ADCs, many of which struggle right now due to the new items. In particular, Sivir and Varus are the first ADC champions to make it onto League of Legends Patch 11.1.

Sivir receives major buffs to help her early game and damage. She will receive an extra 41 base mana, letting players cast spells more often. On top of that, big buffs to her Q damage help both her early laning and late game scaling. The changes to Varus come in the form of help to his Q. As his main damage ability, the mana cost is lowered by 5 at all ranks. Its cooldown also decreases early from 18 seconds at rank 1 to 16 seconds.

We're taking it slow to not overreact while people are still learning her. We're trying to avoid the cycle of releasing new champs OP or over buffing too fast.

— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) January 4, 2021

Mark also noted the lack of updates to Rell, the newest League of Legends champion in League of Legends Patch 11.1. Evidently, the dev team at Riot Games doesn’t want to follow the common patterns that new champions suffer from. By letting players still properly learn the new champ, Riot is keeping an eye on what will really become a problem. Fan can expect changes to Rell in Patch 11.2 when players find optimal builds.

The League of Legends Patch 11.1 release date will be January 6 and it looks to be one of the biggest updates in recent times. Even with the previous news from three weeks ago, Riot Games found more key variables to adjust. Adjusting grievous wounds and nerfing problem champions will fix many current problems. Fans will see how the game changes when Season 11 starts on January 8.

Written by Justin Amin

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