For League of Legends’ upcoming Patch 12.10, Riot Games has revealed a new “durability update” that will be bolstering the survivability of every champion. Across the board, the developers are trying to reduce the overall amount of damage in the game by increasing base health, health per level, armor per level, and magic resist per level.
“Lower survivability leads to game states where squishy carries and supports in particular struggle to have an impact in the game due to being one-shot with low counterplay in too many situations,” Riot said. “When you’re dying so fast that it’s difficult to tell what killed you, game clarity takes a hit which leads to frustrating experiences.”
The devs explained that in combat, some champions might only need to use a part of their kit to grab a kill, which leads to a less satisfying player experience. Lower survivability creates confusing teamfights that are shorter and harder to follow, while also preventing players from being able to use their own skills to outplay an opponent.
With the increase in durability, players should feel like they are dealing and taking less damage than before. People playing burst champions must either commit more resources—and use their entire kit by passing their core skill test—to instantly kill someone. They can also be way more ahead in gold or levels to pop a player because they’ve “passed their core skill test many times.” There will be bigger windows for outplays and teamfights should last longer as well.
Multiple systems will be affected as a result of the changes, too. Sustain, for example, is getting hit with nerfs, while Baron and turrets will be doing more damage to offset the increased champion resistances. Riot will be monitoring the other possible side effects of the changes and continue to adjust as needed.
“We don’t want to move to a meta where tanks become unkillable, burst champions are rendered obsolete, or where Pro Play becomes a snoozefest, so we’ll be monitoring role and champion balance extra carefully over the next few weeks,” Riot said. “Our goal is to hit a sweet spot where all classes are viable, tactical combat has good pacing allowing for moments of skill expression, and the balance of snowballing and scaling are in healthy states.”
Patch 12.10 and the durability update are both set to release on Wednesday, May 25.
