The most important changes coming to League with patch 10.3

TL;DR

  • Over 15 champions receive balance adjustments including significant nerfs to Senna, Akali, and Aphelios
  • Jungle experience gets major buffs to reduce early ganking and encourage farming
  • Yuumi and other underperforming champions get targeted buffs to improve viability
  • Patch focuses on balancing champion performance across all skill levels from Iron to pro play
  • Changes scheduled to go live February 5 with detailed patch notes available

Season 10’s third major update arrives with transformative adjustments to champion power levels and jungle dynamics. These modifications aim to create a more balanced competitive environment while addressing specific pain points identified by Riot’s analytics team.

Riot Games maintains their commitment to balanced gameplay across the entire skill spectrum. The development team has analyzed millions of matches to identify champions that overperform or underperform at specific ranking tiers. This data-driven approach ensures that Iron players and professional competitors alike experience fair matchups without feeling disadvantaged by champion-specific imbalances.

Professional play data heavily influenced several key nerfs, particularly for champions with high skill expression ceilings that created significant advantages in coordinated team environments.

Nerfs for Senna, Akali, Aphelios, and More

The nerf list encompasses eleven champions demonstrating excessive power in current meta configurations: Sett, Ekko, Diana, Akali, Miss Fortune, Senna, Sona, Leona, Rumble, Aphelios, and Lucian. Each adjustment targets specific aspects of their kits that created imbalance in various game phases.

Senna’s dominance as a marksman compared to her support role necessitated targeted soul drop adjustments. The rebalancing focuses on her passive ability – Absolution – which provided disproportionate advantages in the ADC position.

Critical changes include reducing cannon minion soul drop chance from 100% to merely 2% for ADC Senna, while simultaneously increasing soul acquisition from minions she doesn’t kill. This creates clearer role differentiation between support and carry positions.

Soul collection provides Senna with stacking bonuses including attack damage, range extension, movement speed, and critical strike chance. The previous system allowed ADC Senna to rapidly accumulate these bonuses, creating an overpowered marksman with minimal counterplay options in lane phase.

Akali’s adjustments represent a compromise between originally planned extensive changes and her current performance metrics. The retained modifications include increased cooldown on Five Point Strike (Q), decaying movement speed within Twilight Shroud (W), and target requirement implementation for Perfect Execution’s (R) initial dash.

These targeted nerfs address Akali’s pro-level dominance while preserving her viability for average skill players. The changes specifically target aspects of her kit that professional teams exploited for excessive map pressure and assassination reliability.

Aphelios receives a crucial range limitation on his Calibrum sniper rifle. The weapon’s previously unlimited range allowed cross-map sniping that eliminated counterplay opportunities. While the range remains substantial post-nerf, it now operates within reasonable tactical boundaries.

Patch 10.3 to Buff Yuumi, Corki, Ezreal, and More

Six champions receive performance enhancements: Galio, Sejuani, Yuumi, Azir, Corki, and Ezreal. These buffs target champions that fell below desired performance thresholds following previous balance changes.

Yuumi’s preseason nerfs significantly impacted her effectiveness, particularly her ability to enhance tank champions’ durability. While maintaining the design goal of more active gameplay for the Magical Cat, Riot acknowledges the overcorrection and implements compensatory improvements.

Specific Yuumi enhancements include health-based damage scaling on Prowling Projectile (Q), standardized mana costs, cooldown protection when silenced during You and Me! (W), and increased ability power scaling on Zoomies (E) healing capabilities.

The fixed mana cost structure eliminates unpredictable resource management challenges, while the health-based damage ensures relevance against tankier compositions.

Other buff recipients address specific weaknesses: Corki receives package timing adjustments, Ezreal gets mana cost optimizations, and Galio benefits from cooldown reductions on his crowd control abilities.

Jungle Camps to Get Buffs for a Lower Number of Early Ganks

Riot intensifies penalties for excessive lane minion farming by junglers, particularly during critical early game phases. Simultaneously, large monster experience values receive significant increases to reinforce farming priorities.

Krugs camp receives substantial experience and gold value improvements, while all jungle monsters provide enhanced experience sharing between levels four and six.

These systemic changes represent Riot’s continued effort to reduce early game gank frequency and encourage more strategic jungle pathing and resource management.

The adjustments directly address previous failed attempts to shift jungler behavior toward farming rather than constant lane pressure. Increased jungle camp rewards combined with stricter penalties for lane farming create clear incentives for traditional jungle play patterns.

Strategic implication: Junglers must now carefully balance gank opportunities against guaranteed experience from cleared camps. The changes particularly impact early-game focused champions who relied on successful ganks to maintain experience parity.

Patch 10.3 launches globally on February 5. Comprehensive change documentation and detailed ability adjustments available through official channels.

Action Checklist

  • Review all champion nerfs and adjust your main champion pool accordingly
  • Practice updated jungle clearing routes to maximize new experience values
  • Test buffed champions in practice tool to understand new damage thresholds and ability interactions
  • Adjust warding strategies to account for reduced early gank frequency
  • Analyze professional player adaptations to these changes for advanced strategies

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