The patch 9.9 arrives today in League of Legends with tons of changes to the trio Aatrox, Tahm Kench, and Blitzcrank. Let’s have a comprehensively look in each one of them at how they will impact the meta.
Aatrox
The Passive of Aatrox from now on will not reduce the shields and healing capabilities of the opponents. Now the champions will get health regen from the damage dealt from his physical attacks. Riot has also changed the numbers of damage and slow of Q and W, with reworked cooldown durations. The Q ability has gotten a big buff since now it will have less cooldown and will deal more damage.
Meanwhile, for W, the 25% reduction of movement speed will remain constant on all levels. We see it as a big buff in the early game, at the same time it is huge nerf at later levels. Since in patch 9.8, the opponent was slowed by 35% at the highest level. Lastly, the E of the champions has gotten a nerf since it will no longer increase the attack damage of the champion.
Hotfix for Aatrox should now be Live (and I believe updated in the patch notes):
Armor :: 33 >>> 38
Health Growth :: 80 >>> 90
Passive Damage/Healing :: 5-10% >>> 5-12%
Q tAD Ratio :: 55/60/65/70/75% >>> 60/65/70/75/80%— David Capurro (@RiotRepertoir) May 2, 2019
The last big change to the champion is the nerf to his ultimate, R. Since Aatrox will no longer live for over 3.25 seconds after taken down during his ultimate form. Now the champion will only revive if you deal lethal damage. While killing him in his ultimate form will increase the duration of the World Ender by 5 seconds. The temporary buffs will not be removed after revival while you cannot cast fear on nearby minions. To compensate for all the nerfs, Riot is increasing the heals of the World Ender.
Tahm Kench
Let’s have a comprehensive look into Tahm Kench since Riot spent a decent time making changes to champion for the 9.9 patch. His passive will now provide the same bonus damage at all levels. The Q gets a decent buff to wince its cast range and slow duration has been increased.
Tahm Kench tongue just got longer ?
— Bizzleberry (@BizzleberryLoL) May 1, 2019
The W will now slow down the champion with the same rate for both the champions and the minions. His E gets an incredible buff since now it won’t require any mana to cast, while the heal and shield have been increased. To compensate for the buff in E, his R is now nerfed slightly, since the cooldown has been increased, and the caste range is reduced.
Blitzcrank
Blitz not only gets changes to his mana Barrier and ultimate but also gets a visual update. The Mana barriers are not based on the maximum mana pool, instead of the current mana pool. The ultimate of the champion now displays the targets that will be inflicted by the passive skill of the ability. Now only marked targets will get hit by lightning, instead of random targets.
Blitzcrank can now mark his targets by simply attacking them when his ultimate is not on cooldown.
