Oh boy, this is a big one. 10.16 patch have been implemented this week for League of Legends, and this patch is absolutely huge. Not only in size, but in the amount of buffs that Riot gave to the champions. The reason stated for such a big patch is because Riot’s taking a week off to disconnect and recharge to give themselves a breather, especially when the COVID-19 situation skews the borderline between work and home.

Another reason why this patch is huge is to prepare for the Summer playoffs, so many of the champions that are highly contested in competitive play have been hit with nerfs. Actually, I won’t even call them nerfs; they’ve just been fine tuned. With the exception of Nocturne, all the champions that have been nerfed in 10.16 are very popular in competitive play. What I do like about these nerfs is that the balance changes do not completely knee cap the champions, but just opens up to more options in draft.

In my opinion, the biggest nerf was to Syndra, where she lost 20 flat damage on her Q, Dark Sphere at max rank. Because of how frequently she spams this ability, it’ll mean that she’ll be missing out on hundreds of damage in the mid-late game. However, I feel that this nerf is quite justified, as she’s a champion with over tuned numbers in her kit, and it’ll mean that Syndra will be slightly less prioritized in competitive play.

On the buffs side, my choice on the champions to look out for is Ziggs and Lucian. For Lucian, he received small buffs over the course of several patches, and as a pick that can be flexed into three roles, he’s definitely going to be more dominant in both solo queue and competitive play. Same basically applies for Ziggs, as he can also be flexed into multiple roles, and as a champion that scales very hard into the mid-late game, his towering potential has gotten even more ‘explosive’. 

Lastly, while Nimbus cloak was met with nerfs, it’ll still be a very broken rune. Please Riot, delete Nimbus cloak from the game.

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