Every couple of weeks, Riot updates Wild Rift. Providing game balances, champion buffs and nerfs, alongside other features, each patch update serves invaluable to growing the game. To help players understand and analyze the upcoming patch, here is a Wild Rift Patch Analysis for 3.1B. The beginning portion shows Riot’s official words, with the analysis coming right after. This analysis will only really go over the gameplay/champion changes, rather than events and skins. For the full official patch notes, click here.
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Check the video version of the analysis out as well.
Patch Rundown 3.1B | Speedrun | RiftGuides | WildRift
BASE STATS
Riot Description: “Previously, we intended to reduce Blitzcrank’s armor since we were giving him more engage potential with his updated Overdrive. Despite being in the patch notes, these changes were unintentionally not included in 3.1. We’ve seen the performance of this speedy golem without the armor nerfs and we don’t think they are necessary, so we won’t be implementing them. We’ve shown below what his current base armor is.”
Analysis: Pretty much, Riot dun goofed on accident, but it turned out okay. Therefore, developers are choosing to keep their mistake in, while communicating with the player base what they are doing.
BASE STATS
Riot Description: “Darius has been an overly dominant force in the Baron Lane and has been having too easy of a time accessing his Noxian Might. We want him to stay in the fight a little longer before he hits his five bleed stacks and starts dunking, so we’re cutting back on the Attack Speed this Noxian fighter gets as he levels.”
Analysis: A decrease in attack speed growth hurts the rate at which Darius stacks his passive. And since he requires his passive to really pop off, this should hurt his late game carry potential. Early game Darius should still play as a bully, so the changes don’t drastically affect his base play style.
DUELIST’S DANCE
LUNGE
Riot’s Description: “Fiora’s ability to make safe trades with Lunge and shrug off damage with Riposte has been a source of frustration for her sparring partners. To combat some of those frustrations, we’re reducing the range on her Lunge while also increasing the power of her passive to compensate.”
Analysis: Fiora’s been very powerful for so long. The nerf on her lunge range stands as a much needed change, seeing as how the champion dashes around anywhere without a care in the world. To compensate for the nerf, they’re pretty much just making her passive scale harder. Good changers on paper, will have to see how she plays in game.
WHISPER
Riot’s Description: “Unfortunately for other Junglers, since the significant buff to Jhin’s fourth shot damage, he’s become too good at securing and stealing objectives. So, we’re putting a cap on this damage so that it doesn’t outdamage Smite”
Analysis: Honestly, Riot stated it rather perfectly here. The fourth hit dealt way too much damage as an execution ability, definitely not functioning as intended. Doesn’t impact the base Jhin playstyle, unless people really liked last hitting those jungle monsters.
SUPERCHARGE
Riot’s Description: “The new Stormrazor has created some interesting build paths for Kai’sa, but it hasn’t actually helped her win more games. We’re giving her damage some extra consistency to make sure she can really shine in those late-game teamfights.”
Analysis: Kai’sa has definitely been struggling in regards to keeping up with her ADC counterparts. A small cooldown reduction for Supercharge should help Kai’sa outmaneuver her enemies more effectively. This rings especially true in during the late game.
PIERCING LIGHT
Riot’s Description: “Lucian has been underperforming and his current build and playstyle centers around his auto-attacks rather than his abilities. So, we’re giving him a small buff targeted towards his more caster-y builds.”
Analysis: As stated, Lucian definitely felt pretty weak as of late. In the very top of the ladder, he still sees decent play because of his hyper carry potential. The cooldown reduction isn’t huge, but does definitely tie together with his cooldown reliant kit. A nice, well targeted buff.
ALPHA STRIKE
Riot’s Description: “Despite our recent nerfs, Master Yi is still dominating the jungle. To tone down his ability to blaze through jungle camps and quickly burst down his foes during duels, we’re slashing some of the Attack Damage his Alpha Strike grants.”
Analysis: Yeah, as predicted, those changes to Yi in the previous patch weren’t enough to stop him. This time, Riot properly targeted his first ability, reducing the damage drastically on it. This should prevent him from scaling into too big of a late game monster.
RECKLESS SWING
Riot’s Description: “Previously, we decreased the damage of Olaf’s Reckless Swing but did not adjust its cost properly. As the cost is intended to be 30% of the damage, we’re correcting that now.”
Analysis: Just a bug fix/correction from their previous mistake, similar to the balance update with Blitzcrank.
BASE STATS
Riot’s Description: “While Rakan shines in coordinated play, especially when paired with his other half Xayah, he’s underperforming for most players. We’re giving him a substantial boost to his mana so it’s less punishing to cast a few extra spells.”
Analysis: Rakan definitely wasn’t weak, but as Riot mentioned, the pick excels moreso in coordinated play. Extra mana helps him a bit, since his mana costs were relatively high. Shouldn’t be anything necessarily game breaking.
PIT GRIT
KNUCKLE DOWN
Riot’s Description: “Sett is currently one of the most dominant fighter champions, so we’re dialing back some of his early-to-mid game power to put him more in line with other Baron Laners.”
Analysis: The boss has been pretty strong since his release. Much appreciated changes, decreasing his damage output ever so slightly and sustainability in the early game as well.
BOP ‘N’ BLOCK
PROWLING PROJECTILE
Riot’s Description: “We’ve been keeping a close eye on this cuddly cat and she’s still struggling to succeed. We’re giving her some more opportunities to use her passive and pounce on her foes.”
Analysis: WHY. NO. PLEASE. NO. Yuumi was in no way weak, or as Riot states, “struggling to succeed.” The champion is incredibly toxic, and on top of that, is now broken. The decrease in prowling projectile allows Yuumi to become even more of a lane bully, especially synergizing with the buff in Yuumi’s shield scaling and mana restoration. Expect to see more and more Yuumi in ranked games from now on.
Stats
Riot’s Description: “Banshee’s Veil fits well as a magic damage counter Ability Power item, but it’s still on the weak side. We’re bringing up the stats in order to make it a more enticing pick-up, even if the enemy team doesn’t have a lot of magic damage threats.”
Analysis: Just an overall buff on the weak item. Stat increases just give it a bit more value.
Stats
Riot’s Description: “Hextech Megadrive’s active can create for some cool moments and plays for champions like Morgana and Alistar. Aside from the active, this item can grant champions a nice early-game power spike, but right now it’s not really hitting that mark. So, we’re reducing its cost so you can snag it earlier on.”
Analysis: Cheaper item means more cost efficiency. Still not that great of an item, but trimming 150 g is actually pretty substantial. And since it’s a niche item, players will feel less guilty purchasing the item since it is cheaper than a lot of its counterparts.
Combine Path
Riot’s Description: “Jaurim’s Fist currently builds into an array of items that are primarily geared towards aggressive play, so we’re updating its build path to benefit players who prefer a more aggressive start.”
Analysis: This is pretty nice actually. Ruby Crystal buy in the early game doesn’t really help much for a lot of champions. Allowing them to build Longsword essentially allows bruisers to scale a tad bit faster.
Stats
Riot’s Description: “Compared to its counterpart, Serylda’s Grudge, Mortal Reminder is underperforming due to the more niche nature of its grievous wounds debuff. To make it the more clear damage option between the two items, we’re buffing up the Attack Damage it grants.
Analysis: Agreed, Mortal Reminder definitely felt a little weak. The grievous wounds on the initial item component is nice, but combining really yielded no benefits. Players almost always upgrade Mortal Reminder last, due to its lack of utility outside of the bleed damage. An extra 5 damage helps the item a bit.
Stats
Riot’s Description: “Black Cleaver and Divine Sunderer have been rising in popularity as early-game purchases, so we’re giving Trinity Force some more stats to help it compete.”
Analysis: Trinity Force definitely felt weaker compared to its counterparts. And instead of nerfing the others, it’s nice that Riot chose to buff Tri Force instead. Nothing completely game breaking, but a small stat increase to allow more reward for purchasing Tri Force.
Stats
Riot’s Description: “Since the nerfs to Momentum, Youmuu’s Ghostblade hasn’t been performing as well as the other Serrated Dirk items. We’re adding some extra stats to lend this item a hand.”
Analysis: Hm… The armor penetration change is not bad, but the ability haste buff is kind of huge. Especially for AD champions, ability haste does become hard to come by. For champions that love to stack Ability Haste, like Varus, this may be a kind of huge.
Riot’s Description: “For most of Wild Rift’s lifetime the jungle meta has revolved around the Rift Scuttler and the immense payout securing one or both of these harmless creatures provides makes it a must clear camp for junglers early on. To reduce the overall value of securing these crabs, we’re reducing the experience they grant. This should allow junglers to focus on their own camps rather than just tunneling on this neutral objective.”
Description: As Riot states, Rift Scuttler provided way too much snowball benefit for junglers. This made them so imperative to taking control of the map alongside winning the game. It’s good that they chose to nerf the EXP gained substantially, but they really should have made this move a lot sooner. Thankful for the change, nonetheless.
Hopefully this Wild Rift Patch 3.1b analysis provided some insight to understanding the current meta. Some play testing seems necessary to properly gauge the changes. And since it’s a supplementary patch, not a big numbered patch, the changes target largely balancing the broken picks over creating drastic changes. For more Wild Rift content, be sure to Subscribe to Riftguides and stay connected at The Game Haus.
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