League of Legends Patch 11.8 Brings Gwen and Other Changes

League of Legends players have been very active on Summoner's Rift since Season 11 began three months ago. While every year brings many changes, the Mythic item rework continues to define the current competitive meta and adjustments from biweekly updates. With this in mind, Patch 11.8 which releases on April 14th will introduce the next champion and also address balance issues from previous patches.

After being teased for several weeks, Gwen, the Hallowed Seamstress, is finally arriving to top lane with her AP bruiser kit on April 15th. Before then, however, twelve champions with skewed win rates are getting buffs or nerfs to bring them back in line with the competition. Finally, Riot is implementing unique changes for several picks including Rammus, the Armordillo.

Following their disappearance from the ranked ladders for months, seven champions are getting a buff to help them throughout a match. These recipients include the gun-wielding ADC Aphelios who should now be able to do similar things before his biggest nerfs back in June 2020. On the other hand, five champions crowding out their lane opponents have been significantly toned down including Yorick. After the top-laner's generous changes in Patch 11.7, Yorick's Mist Walker pets have decreased damage scaling while their leap-to-the-enemy damage upon landing Mourning Mist (E) has been cut in half and replaced with increased percent damage for eight pet attacks.

Speaking of Yorick, the Shepard of Souls has received another change to his ultimate, Eulogy of the Isles (R). The Maiden of the Mist pet summoned by Yorick's R is an integral part of his damage but would always be targeted first by League of Legends turrets if there weren't any cannon minions or Mist Walkers in range. Now turrets will prioritize all nearby minions first and only attack the Maiden as a last resort. Yorick players no longer have to leash the Maiden out of turret range and can potentially destroy it in one push due to Mist Walkers being automatically raised from corpses near the Maiden.

At the same time, Rammus is getting an entirely new ultimate called Soaring Slam. Rammus jumps and crashes down at a location, dealing damage and slowing enemies while causing AOE aftershocks that stacking the slow and more damage afterwards. Since Rammus can combo his new R with the effects of his Powerball (Q), it should make for some interesting new gank paths considering he can go over walls like other junglers.

All these changes combined with Riot buffing unconventional junglers means that Patch 11.8 will have tremendous effects on the meta compared to others in the past few months. Keep in mind the Space Groove 2021 event is still ongoing so players have the perfect opportunity to try out Gwen and newly buffed champions while earning rewards in the process.

This isn't the first article to be written about the difficulty of play for League of Legends champions and it most certainly won't be the last. Besides there being a lot of passionate researchers within the community, the deep pool of champions in the game means there will be less consensus compared to other MOBAs with smaller selections. And it doesn't help that virtually every list is deeply divided from other lists and usually generates a good amount of hostility in the comments sections.