LoL wants to take action against almost immortal heroes – nerfs should ensure less frustration

Healing is currently one of the biggest construction sites in League of Legends. For many players it is simply too strong, takes the fun out of the game and rather causes frustration. It also makes for nearly invincible champions. The lead designer now talks about how to prevent this.

What heroes is it about?

• Champions like Aatrox, Irelia, and Kayn have been causing frustration among LoL players for the past few weeks.
• At least since the nerf of the “Gushing Wounds” in patch 12.10, they are almost immortal and you can hardly do anything against them if they are even slightly ahead.
• Even the lead designer Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison confirms this in one go Post on LoL’s Dev Blog and promises it will get better.

What makes the heroes so strong? Phroxzon writes that “satisfying healing mechanics are typically frustrating for opponents”, addressing LoL’s current problem.

There is too much healing in LoL right now which makes fights unattractive. Champs can survive because they gain immense health from themselves or others. In a clip, Twitch streamer Tyler1 shows how a Kayn simply survives everything in a team fight (via reddit).

Such scenes annoy players, even being taken as an example of “what’s wrong with LoL right now”. Unlike individual heroes, such as Nilah, who was already nerfed after 24 hours, two whole groups of champions are affected here.

You can see Nilah here in the trailer:

Healing will be adjusted to be more in line with player expectations

Phroxzon explains that there are characters whose entire identity is built around healing, such as Aatrox, Soraka, or Dr. mundo At the same time, there are also heroes who can only heal themselves secondarily, such as Irelia.

At the moment, however, the healing is not balanced in some cases. It’s okay if Aatrox can keep himself alive when his spells hit. But if he can do it himself with a disadvantage, then something is wrong.

In the case of Irelia, the healing is simply too strong for the fact that the mechanics are not actually identity-forming for her. This is not “healthy gameplay” and goes “too far”. In future patches, they want to ensure that healing is no longer too strong.

There was already a first taste of the upcoming adjustments with patch 12.14, in which healing potions were nerfed.

Mechanics like Gushing Wounds should feel rewarding, ideally when enemies have more than 2 strong healers that are performing at least “reasonably well”. This is to prevent healing from becoming a strategy that cannot be countered.

There are a few other construction sites when it comes to the balance in LoL. Because a well-known hero urgently needs tutoring, at least according to the numbers:

The worst champ in LoL just keeps getting worse, but people still play them like crazy