League of Legends Preseason has always been one of the wildest periods in the game every year. With so many changes, people are taking the initiative to try to see which combinations of champions, items, and runes work best in the current state of the game. While we already talked about the preseason changes last time around, there is still some ground to cover now that the actual changes are here.
Senna is a Bit Too Strong
Senna was released on Patch 9.22, and while we already know her from the lore as Lucian’s wife who was imprisoned by Thresh into his lantern, she has busted out of it and she is now a unique combination of a marksman and a support. Senna has a mist-collecting mechanic, similar to Thresh’s passive of collecting souls. Collecting more mist gives her additional attack damage, attack range, critical strike chance, and eventually, life steal. The designers of the champion have gone on record to say that if she ever appears to be overtuned, her numbers will be adjusted so that she can be better played as a support rather than a marksman. The way things look right now though, she appears to be a bit more favorable as a marksman than as a support, so we may see some of her offensive capabilities toned down slightly.
When playing Senna, just be careful when going against enemy bot lanes that all-in! Usually Senna is great in burst trades, be sure to take that in mind.
You May Like
Prototype: Omnistone, and Conqueror
Sad news for Ezreal players and mage abusers in the top lane: Kleptomancy is gone, and you can no longer treats your opponents as piñatas containing gold and goodies. What took its place is Prototype: Omnistone, which grants the user a random keystone rune from time to time. Omnistone comes with a few special details though: Predator is only available to those who have already bought boots, the Dark Harvest Soul bonus affects all Keystones, and Aftershock is only available to champions who have learned a basic spell that could trigger it. Omnistone does feel a bit too random, and might be what intentional feeders could use in their games, but there are a few champions that could be able to use it reliably. Some of them are Udyr, Volibear, Quinn, and Poppy.
Moving on to another Keystone Rune, we now have a tweaked Conqueror: Conqueror is still a Keystone based on stacks, where ranged basic attacks grant one stack while melee basic attacks grant two, and damaging abilities on an enemy champion will always grant two stacks. Each Conqueror stack now grants 1.2 to 3 bonus attack damage, or 2 to 5 bonus ability power for 8 seconds, stacking up to ten times. The maximum attack damage granted, then, is from 12-30, and the maximum ability power that a champion can receive is around 20-50. Upon reaching full stacks of Conqueror, your champion is healed for 15% of the post-mitigation damage(after factoring in resistances) dealt. The buffs refresh upon dealing damage to enemies through basic attacks or abilities. This is quite a lot of text to go through, I understand, but remember that Conqueror used to deal true damage, and that the healing used to be culled from the pre-mitigation damage. In addition, melee champions can stack Conqueror faster than before, while ranged champions can stack it more reliably (for ranged champions, the uptime on a Conqueror stack used to be 2 seconds only).
Consequences for Runes
Well, Conqueror is now one of the better options for a lot of champions. Ezreal, who was the only consistent user of Kleptomancy, could now be an efficient Conqueror user. Ryze and even Skarner could be played in the top lane with Conqueror with a lot of success. I would imagine some other mages would probably be able to utilize the Keystone reliably.
While Prototype: Omnistone is a Keystone Rune that should be approached with caution, I definitely recommend Conqueror to be tried out with a lot of champions in the game.
Sanguine Blade is Not for Teamfights!
Sanguine Blade is a new lethality item designed for split pushers. It grants 10 Lethality, 50 attack Damage, and 15% life steal. It builds out of a Serrated Dirk and a Vampiric Scepter, with a 1100 gold combine cost. Sanguine Blade has a unique passive called Blood Pursuit, which grants 8 lethality and 20% – 80% attack speed, based on level, while near one or fewer visible enemy champions. The attack speed decays over 3 seconds if other enemy champions get close. Sanguine Blade empowers split pushers such as Fiora, or even champions like Talon or maybe Qiyana – AD burst champions who benefit from quick assassinations. The item is incredibly gold-efficient if you get the isolation bonus, so if you and your team could coordinate enough to orchestrate a split push-oriented strategy, you should definitely give Sanguine Blade a go.
Final Thoughts
The preseason is an incredibly chaotic yet fun time: since everyone is re-learning some aspects of the game, everyone is trying some things out that you would normally not see over the course of the season. Remember that great discoveries always require experimentation, but be sure that what you bring into Summoner’s Rift has some thought behind it!
PS: The new filters that Summoner’s Rift seems to get will take some time to get used to, make sure that you do not get too shocked.
