A few days ago, Riot Games’ lead gameplay designer Mark “Scruffy” Yetter mentioned that the developer team was exploring ways to give top laners higher game impact in upcoming patches. Because of this, ranged champions will now be doing 20 percent less damage to tower plates in League of Legends Patch 10.5.
Additionally, turrets will be getting a buff to their Bulwark passive. Instead of granting a stack of 35 additional armor and magic resist to the tower based on nearby enemy champions, they’ll now get 45 additional armor and MR per stack.
This means that an AD carry’s pushing power will be reduced significantly in the early game, unless they have a melee-based support. The Demolish rune will also become an essential tool for any melee supports to help their ADC take down towers.
Ranged top laners like Urgot, Quinn, and Teemo will also have a tough time pushing side lanes since their damage has been affected as well. As a result, we’ll probably see a drop in playtime for most ranged champions in the role.
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Each turret plate will also give players 160 gold instead of 120, which means that grouping to take down turrets early will be important to building an advantage from that new increase in value. Forty extra gold in the early stages of the game can help teams reach their item spikes a bit sooner.
As intended, top laners and melee champions should have a bigger role across the map since they do more damage to towers than their ranged counterparts. When combined with the buffs to the Hydra melee items and melee Blade of the Ruined King users, top laners might have more impact in League after all.
