In preparation of free weekend, Stunlock Studios released a minor patch to clean up a few buggy interactions and balance out a few of the more powerful Champions.

The brunt of the balance changes focused on leveling the playing field a bit. The three most common DPS Champions right now—Bakko, Jumong, and Ruh Kaan—were all targeted for nerfs. Bakko, Jade, Rook, Shifu, Taya, and Varesh received minor bug fixes.

Bakko

Bakko received several nerfs to his more powerful battlerites like Wall Slam and Rampage that allowed him to set up big combos on his own. To compensate, Mobile Defense and Howling Axes got buffed. He’ll still have strong arena control, but his window of opportunity to set up wombos is much narrower than before.

Jumong

No surprise that Jumong is getting nerfed. His super mobile poke style is iconic, but he was just too mobile and did too much damage. Bleed damage on Heartseeker and Razor Claws got nerfed a bit, and more importantly, only the EX Prowl (Q) grants immaterial. Power Shot received a small knockback buff, and the cast time for Steady Shot (M2) is slightly shorter now. All in all, he still retains the poke power and dodging ability that he used to have, but he might not be a 100% go-to Champion anymore.

Sirius

Unlike the rest of the Champions receiving changes, Sirius is fairly well balanced at the moment. His changes are aimed more toward making his builds and combos a bit less stale. Celestial Cycle + Lethal Slash is Sirius’s bread and butter, but it tends to create one clear build instead of multiple situational ones. A 50% nerf to Celestial Cycle and small range and damage buffs to Prismatic Strike will hopefully fix this issue.

Ruh Kaan

Surprisingly, Ruh Kaan got the smallest nerfs out of the bunch. By increasing Shadowbolt’s cooldown from 3s to 4s, SLS hopes to see Ruh Kaan played more aggressively with his melee attacks rather than relying on poke damage.

Taya

Taya’s changes were primarily bug fixes, but one big thing stands out: on X-Strike (M2), her boomerangs can no longer intersect for a stun + bonus damage on return. For a Champion who’s already fairly low on the totem pole, it’s just another blow to her viability. Hopefully some changes will be coming her way in the next set of patch notes.

Matchmaking was also tweaked to allow for fairer matchups. In addition, you can now mute individual players if they’re getting toxic. It was also announced that there would be more Champion balance changes and fixes coming on December 14th. Those of us that love Champions like Taya and Varesh will be waiting in suspense for some buffs.

You can find the full patch notes here. More specific information can also be found here.