Shen is finally set to be hit with a balance change in League of Legends, in order to target problems during the laning phase, according to a recent dev post on the official League forums. Bard and Lissandra are also in the queue for new balance changes, with Riot primarily looking at small tweaks to help them sustain better.
Riot has “been looking at making some adjustments to Shen’s kit,” Andrei “Meddler” van Roon, Riot’s core gameplay lead designer, says in the post. These changes won’t be part of the next patch, as Meddler and the team are targeting a sustainable change that benefits the champion in the long run.
Meddler has voiced his concerns on changing too much of Shen’s kit. Balancing one end of his kit could lead to other parts being unbalanced. This could lead to a slew of nerfs and buffs over multiple patches that may destroy Shen as a champion overall.
Bard’s passive was recently changed—his chimes now stack a power boost—and Riot isn’t all that happy with how much power he now gets in lane. Riot will most likely revert the passive back to its previous state, where chimes grant damage when he attacks, instead of the new changes that can slow enemies by 80 percent of their overall movement speed when Bard has over 90 chimes saved up.
Lissandra’s current passive allows her next ability to periodically cost no mana after a static cooldown of 18 seconds, with crowd control abilities reducing the cooldown of the passive. Now, however, Lissandra is set to be given an entirely new passive that stacks with mana and enhances her auto attacks once a spell has been cast.
Riot plans to put this new passive into action, but already has a backup in place if the new changes fail to live up to expectations. Riot has not explained exactly what these backup changes are, only saying that it needs “more time to test that passive properly.”
