Patch 10.1 Highlights

It’s finally here, League of Legends Season 10 begins this week as Riot Games has released Patch 10.1 with potentially a few huge changes as the game prepares for the return of pro play.

There are plenty of buffs and nerfs to champions as well as changes to every support item and perhaps most exciting of all, the release of Sett, the third new champion to be introduced this preseason. The bruiser top-laner is simple in design but looks incredibly satisfying to play and could be very strong in the right hands.

While there’s a lot to take in from the new patch, these are the mains points you need to worry about.

Aphelios nerfs

Aphelios has been far too strong since his release and difficult to play against, especially as his ultimate with Infernum was one-shotting enemies in the blink of an eye. To combat that, Riot has nerfed the AoE damage of that version of his R to deal 75% to secondary targets while also decreasing Aphelios’ base health and movement speed to make him slightly more vulnerable.

Azir buffs

With Conqueror nerfs hurting Azir a bit too much, the Emperor of Shurima has received some nice buffs to his Ultimate, Emperor’s Divide, which will now deal slightly more damage and last five seconds instead of three. The latter could turn out to be a significant buff as it will give Azir and his team more control around the Dragon Pit.

Nami buffs

Nami has been in a balanced state for years, the support has hardly been hit with buffs or nerfs since her release. However, Riot wants to show a lot of champions some love with quality of life changes but may have accidentally given Nami too much.

Nami’s E Tidecaller Blessing would usually add a slow and bonus damage to the target’s next three autoattacks but will now affect spells too in a potentially massive buff. Now Nami will synergise better with AP bot-laners and has access to some devastating combos such as adding a slow to Varus’ Piercing Arrow.

Add that to the fact that mana regeneration has returned to the Spellthief’s support item line and the importance of winning bot-lane for dragon control and Nami could be one of the strongest supports this patch.

Sylas nerfs

Since his release, Riot has admitted it’s been difficult to balance Sylas, especially in the pro scene. After a long list of changes, Riot has decided to make a ton of changes in one go in hopes of finally helping the champion settle into the mid-lane and nowhere else.

Out of the mass changes, the most impactful will almost certainly be the removal of his E and Q combo as Sylas can no cast his Q, Chain Lash, during his E, Abduct. His Q also no longer slows and has a higher cooldown but the damage has been increased significantly, dealing twice the amount of damage as before when fully maxed.

On top of that, his passive, Petricite Burst, has had its range cut down to 300 but now stacks up to three times, executes secondary target minions below 25% health and grants 60% attack speed.

Riot want to maintain Sylas’ identity as auto-weaving bruiser but have removed the basic-attack reset from both his E and his R, Hijack, to slow down the speed of which he can burst enemies.

Vi buffs

A small change but one that should be very satisfying for Vi players, the jungler will now remain unstoppable for the full duration of her ultimate in a nice quality of life change. Thanks to this change, Vi will be even more effective at engaging team fights as she will always stick to her target.

You can read the full patch notes here.

Image via Riot Games