League of Legends’ newest champion, Naafiri, is already picking up steam in solo queue after her release last week. She has been one of the more popular champions in champ select, and Riot Games has even considered making her stronger in other roles.
Champion manager Stephen “Raptorr” Auker has revealed that although there are still plans for jungle changes to the Hound of a Hundred Bites, she won’t be seeing any adjustments until she is balanced in the role that she was intended to fill on release.
“For the time being, we want to focus our efforts and balance priority around mid lane,” Raptorr said on social media. “We think Naafiri brings something really unique to the mid lane as one of the only monsters in the role, and it’s been a while since mid lane has gotten an assassin, so we want to make sure that she shines and is well-balanced for that role before exploring other lanes.”
Related: LoL devs deploy Naafiri day one nerfs after super-strong entry to the Rift
For example, Naafiri will be getting hit with some nerfs in League‘s upcoming Patch 13.15 after the developers concluded that she was a bit too strong for their liking on release. This will be added on top of nerfs that were applied in a micropatch on her release day, which helped to stabilize her from becoming too strong.
Over the last five days, Naafiri has racked up a 51.6 percent win rate across all ranks, along with a whopping 40.9 percent ban rate that leads all champions in the game, according to League stats aggregate U.GG. She should slowly find her place within the current meta as players learn how to play alongside her and against her, and once she settles in, Riot can finally start to branch her out into other spaces.
Although her effectiveness drops as rank increases, her current strength at lower Elos has prompted the devs to make some changes to the champion, which should be detailed over the next few days. As for the jungle changes, some exploration was tested out on the League PBE but will be removed moving forward while they continue to work on her main role.
League Patch 13.15 is scheduled to release on Wednesday, Aug. 2.
