Season 13 of League of Legends has been eventful– and not in an overly optimistic way. Riot’s source code was hacked and the company was blackmailed, and Aurelion Sol received a rework and was temporarily disabled from League due to his many bugs.
Now the latest patch—League Patch 13.4—is out, players have had a chance to experience the new changes, buffs, and nerfs.
Some believe this patch has many great features, while others think there are some less-than-stellar ones, especially regarding the continued jungle changes.
League players beg for jungle changes to get scrapped
In this patch, which hit lives servers on Thursday, Feb. 23, you can get more base healing from killing monsters, the Rift Herald now hard resets when its patience has run out, and jungle companion damage received a three percent AP decrease. There was a direct nerf to Kill Experience to avoid early game snowballing.
On top of that, many jungle champions were nerfed, including Elise, who has finally become viable and has now seen extensive pro-play action in the LCS.
In the eyes of many players, counter-jungling has virtually become impossible, and junglers are forced to farm rather than avoid it. Even big-name League star Tyler1 agrees; recently went through the patch notes on-stream and expressed his frustrations. He believes these changes will make top lane much harder.
On top of that, many believe the jungle meta “sucks,” which seems to be a theme for season 13, and those same players hope these changes will be reverted.
Patch 13.4 not all bad news though
One of the more interesting additions to League this patch revolves around chatting, as there’s a new chat channel that lets you talk solely to your pre-made squad. This has had positive and negative reactions because chatting only with your pre-made can be great, but switching between the channels while on the Rift can be challenging.
There are also two new chat commands: ‘muteself,’ which prevents you from using text chat and will notify others you’ve muted yourself, and ‘deafen,’ which prevents you from using text chat and stops you from seeing chat from others.
It will also notify everyone you’ve muted your chat access.
Surprisingly, the player response to this addition has been positive, with many players suggesting it might help with toxicity. Others, however, plan to use it to avoid being flamed for missing their skillshots. But some believe this feature will be even more tilting because the team won’t be able to communicate plays if a player is deafened.
Like every League patch, there is all manner of responses. But for some, the negatives, especially for the jungle role this season, outweigh all the positives right now.
