It appears League of Legends‘ Blade Dancer will be dancing to a different tune in the next patch.
Game designer Phlox posted some tentative Irelia changes today that should hit the live servers with Patch 11.14. The adjustments aren’t final and are still liable to change, but players can test them out on the PBE later today.
Irelia’s base health and magic resist are taking a hit, being lowered to 520 and 28, respectively. But her HP per level is increasing from 95 to 110, which should help her get beefier in the later stages of the game.
The champion’s passive, Ionian Fervor, will be limited to four stacks instead of five. The attack speed per stack will be higher at later levels, letting Irelia gain the same attack speed with four stacks that she would have with five. But her early game will take a hit, likely making her a worse laner.
Bladesurge (Q) will have its movement speed “significantly reduced” and deal less damage to minions at early levels, while Defiant Dance’s (W) maximum damage will be much higher. And Flawless Duet’s (E) travel time is a constant 0.25 seconds instead of based on distance—and it can’t be cast or recast during Q or while under the effect of crowd control. To compensate for what appears to be significant nerfs to her movement, Irelia’s Vanguard’s Edge (R) will decrease Q’s cooldown by 0.5/1.5/2.5 seconds.
One of the Blade Dancer’s guiding principles is her mobility, which lets her deliver stellar outplays and oppress enemy laners. By reducing her Q’s dash speed and not letting her recast E when dashing or CC’d, she’s far easier to counter and requires fewer mechanics from her opponents. An enemy can hold onto a stun, for example, only to use it after Irelia casts her first E and mess up her cadence. To compensate for these changes, it appears that Riot is adding more damage to her kit in the later stages of a match, especially with Defiant Dance.
Riot should release a blog post tomorrow further explaining the process behind the upcoming Irelia changes. League Patch 11.14 is expected to go live on Thursday, July 8, according to the official patch schedule.
Update June 24 6:00pm CT: After hearing community feedback, Riot decided to revert the lockout on casting Irelia’s E in the middle of a Q dash, according to Phlox. This change should be reflected in the next PBE deploy. Phlox explained that devs “liked the counterplay… gained by restricting E from being cast mid-Q,” but they understand it was “pretty costly to the feels of the Irelia player.”
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