League of Legends Patch 13.16: The Biggest Winners and Losers

LoL Winners and Losers this patch are almost all losers, as Riot Games was a bit tight with buffs this time around.

League of Legends Patch 13.16 has been out for some time now, but the data about the buffed and nerfed (mainly the buffed) champions was a bit weird: Riot Games buffed 11 heroes of LoL, but none of their winrates seemed to improve. Even though the pick rate of champs such as Sylas, Lulu and Milio went up, their winrates decreased in spite of the help they got from the balance team. The nerfs were on point, as Rek’Sai’s winrate finally went down, but some nerfs weren’t harsh enough, for example Naafiri is still very strong, and Tristana has been rising instead of falling.

League of Legends Patch 13.16: The Biggest Winners and Losers

The Winners

Tristana

We touched the subject of the Yordle Gunner, so let’s hit it off with Tristana. The crush of Rumble has been dominating the midlane in proplay as pushing and getting priority is incredibly important nowadays, and with some AP junglers, toplaners and even ADC’s being in the meta, and AD midlaner is very useful. Riot Games had enough of the reign of Tristana, so in Patch 13.16, they hit her with some base stat nerfs, decreasing her Armour, Armour Growth, MR and Health.

While stat nerfs are always a dangerous thing as they tend to either don’t change anything or ruin a champion, a third option emerged for Tristana: she rose in win rate. Tristana went from a 51% WR to an over 52% one according to Lolalytics, but at least her play rate went down.

Caitlyn

It’s indicative of this Patch’s irrelevance in terms of buffs that among the buffed champions, the Sheriff of Piltover’s win rate improved the most, but Caitlyn is still behind Tristana in terms of increased WR. Riot Games decreased the shots needed for Cait’s headshot in Patch 13.16, so now the Sheriff can hand out justice in the form of empowered auto Attacks quicker, which helped her a bit.

Caitlyn’s win rate increased by a whopping .66%, which just puts her above 50% overall. While she’s not the worst champion in the game, these buffs definitely didn’t push her into the OP territory – if Riot Games wants to bring her back for Worlds, they will have to do a bit more than that.

Lulu/Milio/Karma

I lumped these champions together as they mainly got the same treatment from the balance team in Patch 13.16: instead of buffing their shielding power or giving them other utility buffs, Riot Games increased their damage and AP ratios to open more possibilities in terms of build patchs. In theory, Lulu, Milio and Karma should be able to build some damage items without losing out on much enchanting prowess.

While their win rates are finally going up (except for Karma, who’s still down .08%), initially, people tried them but couldn’t win with them, as they required more thought instead of just shielding your allies non-stop. This was as interesting choice from Riot – and a very welcome one, as they are trying to bring these character back into the meta without making them shield-bots.

The Losers

Shyvana

The Half-Dragon got some hefty buffs back in 13.14, which made her AD build much better, while keeping her AP build strong as well. Riot Games hit her with some nerfs in Patch 13.15 alongside Aatrox, as they deemed them too powerful after their respective nerfs. While the Darkin Blade stayed down, Shyvana didn’t, still boasting an almost 54% win rate.

Riot clipped her wings again, this time nerfing her W damage, both the Burnout DoT and the on-hit damage on her autos when hitting someone affected by her W. This resulted in her WR going down yet again, with her toplane win rate being under 50%, while she has a 51% win rate in the jungle – but can still surprise opponents with her huge burst.

Rek’Sai

The Queen of the Xer’Sai continues to dominate the data, as she still had a 55%+ win rate before Patch 13.16. Even though her play rate is fairly low, the few players that play her have incredible success with her, so Riot Games decided to nerf her again. This time, the balance team hit her unburrowed Q,  Queen’s Wrath, which now deals damage depending on Rek’Sai’s Total AD instead of a flat amount + bonus AD scaling.

While these nerfs are welcome, they don’t really seem to be enough: Rek’Sai’s win rate went down a full 1%, but she still sits at an over 54% WR. Players can still be extremely successful with her, but as she doesn’t really affect proplay and doesn’t have a big presence in casual play, Riot might be a bit slower to nerf her properly.

Naafiri

The Hound of a Hundred Bites has been a very strong midlaner since her release, and the developers feel like it’s time to tame the puppy a bit. While they didn’t nerf her severely, Riot Games did decrease her base Armour, base Attack Damage and base Attack Speed in order to bring her early dominance down.

As I said, it’s always dangerous to touch base stats and their scalings, but Naafiri wasn’t weakened enough to even push er down to 50% – the nerfs only made it so that she’s barely below a 55% win rate, as she can still snowball extremely effectively, leaving little counterplay outside of her W, so expect Riot to nerf her again.

While Patch 13.16 had some interesting changes for League of Legends, the latest update for League of Legends didn’t change up that much in the game. The same can’t be said for the next Patch, as 13.17 looks to adjust several champs, namely Aatrox, Hecarim, Blitzcrank, Vi and Xin Zhao while nerfing and buffing champions and items as well, so expect the meta to be a bit different next week – and until then, check out our other articles!