MOBANewsStrategy

Wild Rift Patch 2.1b update: New Champions, changes to Lane swapping and more

A huge patch indeed!

Targonian champions Leona, Diana, and Pantheon are on their way to the Rift in this latest 2.1b patch in League of Legends: Wild Rift! A very exciting Path of Ascension event will also take place, exploring the story of the mights of Targon. Moreover, Riot Games have also decided to finally put a solution to a problem that has even reached competitive play: Lane swapping.

Additionally, the developers had to put up a few changes to the Locket Enchantment item, Conqueror rune, and backdooring. Additionally, they have decided to nerf powerful midlane champions. Not to forget several skins to finish the update! The developers have also made it a point to state how they’re keeping an eye on Katarina’s low win-rate on her release, but still waiting for players to properly grasp her gameplay and mechanics before making any changes. Let’s go over the details of this Patch 2.1b Update in League of Legends: Wild Rift!


New Champions: Leona, Diana and Pantheon

The Targonian Champions– Leona, the Radiant Dawn, Diana, Scorn of the Moon and Pantheon, the Unbreakable Spear will be released in the following days!

Leona, the Radiant Dawn- Support

Wild Rift Patch 2.1b
Leona, the Radiant Dawn is coming in Wild Rift Patch 2.1b

Imbued with the fire of the sun, Leona is a holy warrior of the Solari who defends Mount Targon with her Zenith Blade and the Shield of Daybreak. Her skin shimmers with starfire while her eyes burn with the power of the celestial Aspect within her. Armored in gold and bearing a terrible burden of ancient knowledge, Leona brings enlightenment to some, death to others.

Diana, Scorn of the Moon – Assassin

Wild Rift Patch 2.1b
Diana, Scorn of the Moon is coming in Wild Rift Patch 2.1b

Bearing her crescent moonblade and clad in shimmering armor the color of winter snow at night, Diana is a living embodiment of the silver moon’s power. Imbued with the essence of an Aspect from beyond Targon’s towering summit, Diana is no longer wholly human, and struggles to understand her power and purpose in this world.

Pantheon, the Unbreakable Spear- Fighter

Wild Rift Patch 2.1b
Pantheon, the Unbreakable Spear is coming in Wild Rift Patch 2.1b

Once an unwilling host to the Aspect of War, Atreus survived when the celestial power within him was slain, refusing to succumb to a blow that tore stars from the heavens. In time, he learned to embrace the power of his own mortality, and the stubborn resilience that goes along with it. Atreus now opposes the divine as Pantheon reborn, his unbreakable will fueling the fallen Aspect’s weapons on the field of battle.


Wild Rift Patch 2.1b: New Skins

Several skins are on their way including skins for the incoming new Targonian champions and a familiar skin line from League of Legends PC: Project!

  • Barbecue Leona
  • Dark Valkyrie Diana
  • Full Metal Pantheon
  • Dragonslayer Pantheon
  • Infernal Diana
  • PROJECT: Ashe
  • PROJECT: Leona
  • PROJECT: Vi
  • PROJECT: Yasuo
  • PROJECT: Zed

Events

Path of Ascension

What awaits you on Targon’s peak? Find your path. Make the climb. This event features rewards and an opportunity to find the stories of the Targonian champions! More information of the event will be available soon!


Champion Adjustments in Patch 2.1b

Aurelion Sol (Nerfed- Major)

Aurelion Sol is still way too strong even after the Liandry’s nerf. Despite the developers nerfing his most powerful rune (Conqueror), they still feel he needs an additional tune-down to his mid-game strength to be more in line with other champions.

  • (P) Center of the Universe: Star base damage: 18/26/34/42/50/58/66/74/82/90/98/106/114/122/130 → 15/21/27/33/40/47/54/61/70/79/88/97/108/119/130
  • (1) Celestial Expansion: Base damage: 25/35/45/55/65/75/85/95/105/115/125/135/145/165 → 25/32/39/46/54/62/70/78/89/100/111/122/138/154/170
  • (Ult) Voice of Light: Cooldown: 65/55/45s → 80/65/50s

Huge change on his numbers will affect him greatly, also to mention the Conqueror nerf. His waveclear is much weaker now, considering his Passive: Center of the Universe and Celestial Expansion is what he generally uses, this will also make his roams less frequent despite not having nerfs on his 3rd ability. To finish it, they made sure to balance him out by nerfing his Ult cooldown. Huge nerf overall.

Soraka (Buffed- Minor)

The developers think that Soraka is a bit weaker compared to her counterparts, and decided to give her some more star power to help her shine as a healer and silencer.

  • (2) Astral Infusion: Base heal: 80/110/140/170 HP → 80/120/160/200 HP
  • (3) Equinox: Cooldown: 22/20/18/16s → 20/18/16/14s

Even with the buffs, Soraka’s design is just horrible and we can’t see her getting played in more competitive games. She might be viable on very specific games, where she can stay safe but that’s about it.

Tristana (Buffed- Minor)

The developers have decided to give Tristana a small buff to her mana and (2) Rocket Jump slow to make sure she is rewarded more consistently for jumping in.

  • Base Stats:
    • Base mana per level: 33 → 41
    • Mana @ level 15: 762 → 874
  • (2) Rocket Jump: Slow duration: 1/1.5/2/2.5s → 1.5/2/2.5/3s

A decent buff especially on her Rocket Jump.

Yasuo (Nerfed- Major)

According to the developers, Yasuo overly benefited from the Blade of the Ruined King changes the last patch. At the same time, his defensive stats are too high given his passive shield and mobility. They took a good chunk out of his base Armor and health to help his opponents capitalize on his mistakes more. Also, they adjusted his dash speed to better match his pace from League PC.

  • Base Stats
    • Armor (Base): 40 → 35
    • Health (Base): 650 → 570
  • (3) Sweeping Blade: Dash Speed: 1200 + Movement Speed → 900 + Movement Speed

This may seem like small numbers but this will affect his gameplay so much that it would require days or even weeks to get used to his gameplay again. Nerfs on his defensive stats will be a problem especially on early game.

Ziggs (Balanced)

The developers think that Ziggs’ Mega Inferno Bomb is pretty hard to hit sometimes, especially when it’s flying across the map, so they gave it a slight area-of-effect buff. On the other hand, he takes down turrets too quickly, so they pulled back a bit on his Satchel Charge execution.

  • (2) Satchel Charge: Tower destroy threshold: 25/30/35/40% tower HP → 20/25/30/35% tower HP
  • (Ult) Mega Inferno Bomb
    • Outer AoE size radius: 4 → 5
    • Inner AoE size radius: 2 → 2.5

Despite being really strong evidently based on the results on some of the games on the Wild Rift SEA Icon Series Preseason, the developers still decided to buff his Mega Inferno Bomb which can be seen one-shotting carries. Though, the nerf on his Satchel Charge will make him slightly weaker on his pushing potential which is nice.


Item Adjustments

Locket Enchantment (Nerfed- Major)

  • Price: 500g → 800g
  • Shield Amount: 140 to 420 (120 + Level × 20) → 70 to 420 (45 + Level × 25)

This is huge nerf to the item, though it is well-deserved, considering how hard it is abused in high-elo and even in pro games. We can now see Redemption Enchant being considered as a more viable option.


Runes

Conqueror Rune (Nerfed- Major to Ranged and AP Champions)

Conqueror rune
  • AP per stack: 4 to 12 (based on champ level) → 3 to 9 (based on champ level)
  • Maximum stack Adaptive Damage bonus: 10% on ranged champions → 7% on ranged champions

It’s a pretty straight-forward nerf for the Ranged and AP champions, who are too strong on using it, so it has to be tuned down. Moreover, this would affect AP ranged champions even more, though it will not affect melee champions whatsoever unless they will be building AP such as Katarina and Akali.


System Adjustments

Backdoor Bonus

  • “Backdoor bonus” tower damage reduction: 66%, then 33% at 18 minutes → 66% through the whole game

Due to the results of some of the games on the ongoing Wild Rift Icon Series, the developers had realized how the Backdoor mechanic is very easy in the late game. They have decided to fix the tower damage reduction, in order to make Backdooring viable on some situations only.

Lane Swaps

Wild Rift Patch 2.1b
DV executing a lane swap vs RSG on the Wild Rift Icon Series Vietnam Finals

Before Patch 2.1b

  • During the first 3 minutes, all outer turrets gain 50 bonus Armor/Magic Resist.
  • During the first 3 minutes, turrets gain additional defensive bonuses when multiple enemies are nearby:
    • 3 champions in total: 40 Armor/Magic Resist.
    • 4 champions in total: 80 Armor/Magic Resist.
    • 5 champions in total: 120 Armor/Magic Resist.

Patch 2.1b changes

  • During the first 3 minutes:
    • Solo (Baron) lane outer turret gains 90 bonus Armor/Magic Resist.
    • Mid lane outer turret gains 90 bonus Armor/Magic Resist.
    • Duo (Dragon) lane outer turret gains 40 bonus Armor/Magic Resist.
  • During the first 3 minutes, turrets gain additional defensive bonuses when multiple enemies are nearby:
    • 2 champions in total: 10 Armor/Magic Resist
    • 3 champions in total: 100 Armor/Magic Resist
    • 4 champions in total: 200 Armor/Magic Resist
    • 5 champions in total: 300 Armor/Magic Resist

Just like the Backdoor adjustments, competitive play has also brought the attention of the developers on the mechanic that has been getting abused called “Lane Swapping”. They don’t think that this is the most intuitive or healthy playstyle, so they want to address it sooner rather than later. They decided to give turrets more bulk the more champions try to destroy them in the early game.

Chat Detection

The developers are rolling out improved chat evaluation that is ramping up to catch a majority of detected languages, which means you might run into more players who’ve received text or voice restrictions. Over the upcoming months the developers have decided to continue to improve both their detection, and the languages they support.

Also, they reminded to “Keep reporting players who are behaving in a disruptive way” in order to helps the developers continue to improve our machine learning models and get better and better at dealing with disruptive behavior.


Free-to-Play Champion Rotation

Mar 18 – Mar 24

Mar 25 – Mar 31


Meta Discussion

Conqueror Adjustments

The most notable change on the patch notes is the Conqueror nerf. Since, Orianna and Aurelion Sol were seen abusing the rune in competitive play, it has resulted the nerf and it has indirectly affected other champions as well such as Akali, and Katarina. However, this nerf is not too bad since there are still a lot of viable rune option for the said champions such as Aery and Electrocute.

Additionally, the Conqueror nerf will also the damage output of Marksman as well. We can see them getting significantly weaker especially on the later stages of the game where Conqueror is generally stronger. Just like on mages, there are still more viable rune options for Marksmen like Fleet Footwork, though Conqueror will still be stronger in many situations.

Nerf on Midlaners

If you watch competitive play regularly, you will notice how Midlaners carry the games most of the time. However, there are still many Midlaners that was not affected by the nerfs at all such as Seraphine and Assassins like Zed.

Changes on Lane Swapping and Backdoor systems

Again, the competitive play has influenced these changes a lot. Lane swapping is a really unhealthy thing for the game, we all saw it coming and it had to be put to a stop. Due to the changes, it is not viable anymore and doing it will be putting the team in a disadvantage instead of the opposite. Also, early games will be much more longer now. So, for those who have decided to stop watching competitive play because of Lane swaps, you may watch again!

Backdoor changes was fine considering how Ziggs along with a couple champions destroy the nexus in 2 seconds. LOL! This change will make Backdoors more exciting and more strategic. Moreover, other objectives like the Elder Dragon and the Baron will be the more viable option in ending the games instead of sneaking into the nexus.

Locket Enchant nerf

If you’re one of the players who rush Lock enchantment when playing literally any champion, they your time has come. It has become more expensive so building it early will not be possible.

To be honest, the shield amount has also turned from great to good which is a bad thing. Still a decent enchant, though consider buying the Redemption or Gargoyle enchant more since they’re cheaper and much more worth it. Also, avoid stacking Redemption and Locket enchant in your team since they become less effective.


That’s all about the League of Legends: Wild Rift Patch 2.1b update! Best of luck with your games, and have fun! Let us know your opinions in the comments section below!

For more Mobile Gaming news and updates, join our WhatsApp groupTelegram Group, or Discord server. Also, follow us on Google NewsInstagram, and Twitter for quick updates.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Back to top button