The hunt is back on. Although League of Legends’ newest champion, Naafiri, was originally set to be nerfed in the game’s next patch, the changes have been shelved for now, according to a recent update from Riot Games design manager Stephen Auker.
On Monday, July 24, the Patch 13.15 preview was unveiled by Riot Games, which included nerfs for Naafiri. The following day, however, Naafiri’s name was scraped from the extended version of the patch preview, leading players to believe that she would remain untouched. And today, Riot confirmed that the champion will not receive any nerfs in the upcoming patch.
“Earlier this week we said to expect nerfs, but that was anticipating that her win rate would continue to grow,” Auker said. “After a couple days of monitoring, it’s actually stabilized in a healthy place so we won’t be making adjustments.”
Naafiri was already nerfed once—shortly after her release to balance out some of her intense burst damage. Nerfs to Darkin Daggers (Q), Eviscerate (E), and Call of the Pack (R) promptly brought her win rate down from the mid-50s to the high-40s at all ranks. Currently, the champion sits with a win rate of 51.59 percent at her main role, mid lane, according to League stats site U.gg.
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While Naafiri has received some playing time outside of the mid lane, most prominently in the jungle, Riot is dedicated to making balance decisions for the champion with the mid lane in mind. “We will primarily be focused on making sure she’s shining in mid at the moment, and will not be looking to make any jungle specific adjustments for the time being,” Auker said.
In stark contrast to the way that Naafiri has asserted herself in the mid lane meta, Naafiri jungle is the worst possible champion-position combination in the game right now. According to U.gg, Naafiri holds a 43.69 win rate as a jungler at all ranks, which ranks 229th out of 229 for all champ-role combos in League. With Riot confirming that no changes are coming to the champion’s jungling capabilities in the near future, it’s well past the time to drop her at that position if you’ve been trying to make her work.
League Patch 13.15 will be released (without any Naafiri changes) on Wednesday, Aug. 2.
