While all eyes are on the League of Legends patch 14.10 Corki rework, the thing that’s piqued my curiosity is a little less exciting but, in my opinion, more impactful in the long term. Sure, our favorite Yordle pilot losing his package is a pretty big deal, but the new XP changes for junglers and botlane duos might just give both roles a new lease on life.
It’s no secret that ADC has been in a pretty rough spot since the start of League of Legends season 13. Easily burst down by roaming mid lane mages and tanked up by top lane’s chonky bois, locking in a marksman right now feels like a one-way ticket to a bunch of losses and a broken keyboard.
Change is coming, however, as the MOBA enters its second split of the season. Riot is looking to create “more power spikes” with changes to itemization, which will hopefully leave the role in a better state. Patch 14.10 adds to those adjustments, and is looking to bring the bot lane duo – and their jungle comrades – back up to speed with mid lane and top lane.
“Bot laners and junglers tend to be one to two levels behind solo laners in the mid-game before catching up late game due to champion kill experience,” writes community manager Caden ‘Saakar’ House. “We’re bringing up their mid-game levels by tweaking duo XP and early monster XP.
“Then to keep them from shooting ahead of solo laners, as junglers and bot laners participate in more late-game kills than other roles, we’re bringing down late-game assisted kill XP.”
As a result, Duo+ experience has been increased from 116% to 124% and CS bounties have been given a buff, but shared champion kill XP has been decreased a little in the late game, as has kill streak gold.
I’m a support main, and I’ve found that, across the board, CS in the bot lane hasn’t felt as impactful. A couple of kills on the enemy ADC or solo laners quickly propels them ahead, which leaves your ally bot laner farming and farming until they’re in a decent state – as you can imagine, by that time the game’s over. It’s a similar story with junglers – a couple of kills can break open the game.
While these changes feel small, I think they’ll have a huge impact. The experience buffs will help champions scale up to combat those messy mid-game power spikes, and hopefully increase survivability. The gold decreases should hopefully mean that itemization doesn’t snowball out of control.
But patch 14.10 doesn’t just bring XP changes – the huge Corki overhaul is finally here. Gone are the days of that pesky package and AP Corki; in are the days of high physical damage and added true damage.
“Overall, our goals are to give Corki the power he deserves without turning his pro games into stale, boring poke fests between objective timers,” Saakar says, noting that the team hopes “Corki will find a home in bot lane as well as mid lane. Currently, he’s only really played mid, where he finds middling success. Ideally he finds success in both roles.”
For a full rundown of all the changes (and there are a lot), the full patch notes are here.
League of Legends 14.10 skins
League of Legends patch 14.10 sees the return of the Faerie Court skins, as well as the new Victorious Kog’Maw skin to celebrate the end of Split 1. These skins will drop on Wednesday, May 15 at 11am PST / 2pm EST / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST.
Here’s a full list of the skins that are dropping with League of Legends patch 14.10:
- Faerie Court Lillia
- Faerie Court Lux
- Faeire Court Soraka
- Faerie Court Tristana
- Victorious Kog’Maw
If you’re an ADC main who’s been praying for this moment, check out our LoL tier list to ensure you’re locking in the best champions. Or, if you’re a cosmetic collector like me, the League of Legends Mythic shop is just about to update, so make sure you check out what’s coming next.
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