Source: League of Legends — Taliyah

In a week involving a marksman itemisation overhaul, the release of the very first ‘assassin support’ champion, and a Banner of Command buff that had the community up in arms, it is unsurprising that a small rework of everyone’s favourite Stoneweaver has gone under the radar. On Wednesday, the release of Patch 8.11 saw Riot attempt to balance Taliyah’s impact on games in response to her 63% presence (2nd highest of any mid-laner, behind Karma) in Picks & Bans at the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational in Berlin and Paris.

With her strengths revolving around powerful wave clear and effective roaming in a meta that focuses on cross-map plays, particularly around the bottom lane, it is obvious why the balance team sought to shift Taliyah’s power to other areas of her kit. It is made clear in the patch notes that the aim of these changes is not to nerf Taliyah altogether, but rather reduce her influence in professional play while maintaining her power in solo queue. ‘Taliyah has a lot of strengths that are great in pro play, and just okay elsewhere’ (Riot Games Patch 8.11 Notes). This statement implies that Riot do not intend to gut the champion but instead are focused on lessening her effectiveness in a competitive environment, which is supplemented by the welcome buffs in the recent hotfix.

Source: Riot Games — Patch 8.11 Notes

Small buffs to her base Movement Speed and Health alongside improved Passive — Rock Surfing stats and a lower W — Seismic Shove cooldown (at later ranks) make way for extensive changes to Taliyah’s primary wave clear tool Q — Threaded Volley. Prior to the nerfs on Patch 8.11, a combination of her W and E — Unraveled Earth, along with 2 Qs, would be enough for Taliyah to clear a full wave of caster and melee minions. However, with the removal of area of effect (AOE) damage on Threaded Volley, clearing waves is now a much more difficult task. This is undoubtedly a positive change in the direction of weakening one of competitive plays’ highest priority mid laners. But it could be argued that the patch was too harsh on the Shuriman mage with nerfs to her E damage and R — Weaver’s Wall duration compounding the effects of the new, weaker Threaded Volley.

Source: Riot Games — Patch 8.11 Notes

Just short of two days after the introduction of the latest patch, the playerbase had the opportunity to experiment with the latest iteration of the Stoneweaver taking her from a win rate of 46.5% on Patch 8.10 to 44.2% on Friday. Normally a small dip in the win rate of a champion so soon after the launch of a new patch can be explained by players adjusting to the changes. Despite this, the 2.3% drop was enough to prompt the release of a hotfix on Saturday containing a few small buffs for Taliyah. These buffs focused on improving her damage output against champions, including greater Threaded Volley damage beyond the first rock and extra damage to champions dashing over Unraveled Earth at all ranks.

Surprisingly these small changes, that were intended to nudge a 44% win rate more towards the half way mark, have instead propelled a struggling mid lane mage to a worrying 56% win rate (as of Monday). This dramatic rise makes her the highest win rate mid laner on Patch 8.11. Not only this, but Taliyah has also reached a 55% win rate in the Support role, with players utilising her high damage output in order to poke and gain an advantage in the bottom lane.

As if that wasn’t enough there are also murmurs of a transition from mid lane to jungle after this patch removed the reduced damage to minions (and monsters) after her first rock of Threaded Volley. This boost in damage to jungle camps is accompanied by improved movement speed on Taliyah’s passive, allowing the Shuriman rock surfer to quickly navigate the map and look for ganking opportunities to aid her laners.

The unexpected jump in win rate from Friday can be explained by the combination of players becoming experienced with this small rework and enemy players not respecting the new high burst damage. With revised numbers for both Q and E, Taliyah can now one shot enemy carries with ease, using a single W-E-Q combo. The case could be that Riot over-stepped with the champion, buffing her too far with Friday’s hotfix and causing her solo queue win rate to sky-rocket. Although, time will tell as players continue to experiment with the mage over the next week, maybe forcing some small tweaks in Patch 8.12.

From a competitive standpoint, this patch could make teams reconsider their reliance on Taliyah for mid lane priority as she may face getting out-pushed by alternative mages, such as Karma or Malzahar. Another factor resulting in Taliyah’s high pick rate in the LCS and MSI was her ability to lock out the enemy team from certain objectives using her ultimate, Weaver’s Wall. This ability has now been nerfed in 8.11, dropping its duration from 8 seconds, at max rank, to 5. Overall teams are more likely to be picking Taliyah for her high DPM (damage to champions per minute) in upcoming regular season matches than for her ability to roam effectively. Especially since this is something the mage already excelled at, with the highest DPM of any champion (with more than 2 games played) at MSI.

Ultimately Taliyah’s recent changes are a step in the right direction, abandoning the idea that mindlessly shoving waves into the enemy tower and constantly roaming is beneficial for the game. Now she is in a much healthier state where players are rewarded for intelligent usage of abilities in lane and proficient wave manipulation to facilitate potential roams to either side lane.