Hi there Vainglorians! Today I’m breaking down the 1.3.0 patch to better understand what the changes mean (attack speed reductions? huh?) as well as how the meta looks due to these changes! Let’s kick it off with…

Heroes:

Vox

He’s new, but he’s looking great. His dash doesn’t let him pass over every wall, but can amplify his damage. Don’t stay clumped together for long, as this hero can punish entire teams for being too close to one another.

Koshka

Good news! You don’t have to wait to see which of your teammates is going to pick Koshka to counter the enemy Koshka! While the nerf was a BIG step in the right direction it didn’t break our (least) favorite kitty-cat pouncy princess. On the surface she’ll look and feel a lot like the old Koshka. However, numbers were shifted well enough that she will be much more manageable in the early game.

Koshka’s perk used to grant 64 armor and shield, even at level one. The defensive boost has been removed and Koshka has been granted 24 flat armor and shield to compensate.

Twirly Death also had a touch of damage removed from the base stat (20 at level one, 60 at max rank), but was graciously compensated for with a boosted Crystal Power ratio (up to 80% from 35%). While it’s still much more effective to purchase an Oakheart at level one, the scaling Crystal Power ratio gives her the ability to scale better as an assassin into the late game, rather than an uber speed-demon tanky assassin. What an improvement!

Krul

Save the best for last, right?? Does anyone even trust my opinion on this guy? Krul got a couple of number adjustments and Quality-of-Life fixes this patch.

Krul’s heroic perk is now activated sooner. It always felt so strange to walk up to gank a lane, have my laner see me coming, and then have to stop and wait in the bush for three seconds. “Hold on, friends! I’ll be ready soon!” While the shadows have always empowered Krul, they do it more efficiently now.

Dead Man’s Rush really lets Krul stand with the big boys in the late game. However, rather than buff this skill out of proportion, they instead changed it to make the use of basic-attack effects more convenient. Now you can use DMR to close the gap on someone and instantly apply an active Shiversteel. The fine print on this ability also says that it includes your total Weapon as damage. It makes for a great finisher if you have a few stacks on Breaking Point (adding 15 Weapon Power for each stack) and an Aftershock.

To help round the ability out they also increased the Crystal Power ratio of the barrier you gain from using the ability, and lowered the cooldown to compensate for the lack of utility (not a great escape tool*).

The last buff for Krul was a slight increase to his survivability in the form of raw stats. As you can see from the comparison chart below, it’s a step in the right direction.

Hero Level 1 HP HP per Level Level 12 HP Level 1 Armor Level 1 Shield Per Level Level 12 Armor Level 12 Shield EHP Old Krul 643 71 1424 20 20 4 64 64 2335 New Krul 643 78 1501 20 20 5 75 75 2627 Adagio 719 85 1654 20 20 6 86 86 3076

*You can jump a lot of walls with DMR if you can see a minion or targetable enemy on the other side. Get close to the wall, target them, activate the ability, and watch Krul slide awesomely through the wall. Every time I do that (even with Vainglorious players) someone on my team will say they didn’t know it was possible, so I figured I’d write it down.

Adagio

Speak of the devil. Adagio was very under-rated. Considered one of the champions hurt most by the Breaking Point changes, Adagio was still dominating the Fold with his superior range, uncontrollable sustain, and immense AOE damage.

His ultimate still does 910 damage at level 12, but his Gift of Fire heal now only ever lasts for three seconds and doesn’t heal as much at later levels. To compensate, the Crystal Power ratios have been slightly improved to provide incentive for players to move away from the dominant Weapon Power builds. In another attempt to dissuade everyone from playing Weapon Power Adagio his base Weapon and attack speed at level 12 were lowered to 118 and 100% respectively.

Petal

I think the only player above The Hotness playing Crystal Power Petal is ellendegeneres! To encourage more to join the funny lesbian club SEMC reduced Petal’s attack speed at level 12 to 111% from 136%. Petal still has the longest range in the game, which makes her Weapon builds so tempting. Hopefully now we see more Ellen’s out there!

Celeste

Celeste is bursting with potential and I really hope some of these buffs make her better than ever. Heliogenesis has a better Crystal Power ratio, effectively letting Celeste scale with Weapon carries.

Solar Storm got a name change and is now known as “Solar Stohrm” (the “h” is silent). While it no longer collides with (and I quote) “non-objective jungle monsters”, it really makes me think that a game was decided on the SEMC campus when Celeste’s ultimate would have stolen Kraken, but was instead blocked by a jungle monster. Come on guys, just tell us the story and get this band-aid off quickly. Also in this patch, SEMC shows their support for the metric system by saying the projectile speed was reduced from 22 meters per second to 16. They may as well have said metres.

Skaarf

I felt like they hinted that Skaarf was going to see a nerf. What a sigh of relief! This little caterpillar had really started getting out of control! His ultimate was being combined with an Ardan ultimate to really turn up the heat and melt teams like cheap wax.

In regular style, SEMC delivered a timely change to Skaarf. They saw into the future that he was going to be worse in the current meta and instead buffed him by letting him activate any of his items while channeling his ultimate.

Taka

While many people don’t think this was much of a buff, Taka’s perk is no longer buggy. However, Taka’s numbers are insane, and this change is a huge boost to our panda assassin. Am I saying that he’s a panda, or a murderer of pandas? That’s up to you to decide.

Gameplay Changes

Meta is rapidly developing and having the ability to declare positions in hero select just adds to the small levels of communication available. This is a welcomed change, and makes certain picks much more viable. I never knew if Catherine wanted to lane or roam, but now I know that she just wants to play in the jungle!

Don’t sell your boots!

Now you don’t have to! No more mental math of sold boots = 500 gold, infusion = 500 gold, new boots = 1000 gold, so I need roughly one billion gold for everything I need. Now you can purchase consumables from the shop when you are full of items and use them automatically and instantly! I love this!

Snowballs are only good in winter

and it’s summer on the Fold. By changing how experience is gained for teams ahead and teams behind, SEMC has prevented games from getting completely out of control.

Come again?

Attack speed reductions such as Atlas Pauldron will never reduce the attack animation below base attack speed. Attack cooldowns are still able to go below base speed.

I’m glad I got that “attack speed reductions” thing cleared up and out of the way. It didn’t make any sense to me, but sadly I’m not able to go into much detail. What I can say is that Gadianton has been cracking this super evil code to make the most sense of it. He said something about “exponential decay” and “directrices of an ellipses” and then I lost all sight of his math mobile. I’m sure he’ll be able to clear up the confusion on “attack cooldowns” if we just give him time.

Thanks for taking the time to read about the latest patch! While patch 1.4.0 probably won’t have Corpus, it will be great to get more information about the skins system.