Turret plating will make laning phase last longer and give more gold

We’ve known about turret plating, Riot’s answer to how to extend laning phase, for a while now, but we just didn’t know what it would do. Announced earlier this year as a part of the preseason, Riot has finally given us a few details about what exactly turret plating is and how it will change laning phase, and it isn’t exactly what we expected.

According to Riot’s latest details on the change, which can be found on the in-game client or on the Public Beta Environment, turret plating will act as a way to keep towers up longer, without punishing champions who excel at pushing waves and destroying towers. At the beginning of each match, outer turrets will spawn with large stone shields on them, called plates. These plates will each act as a sort of segment for the turret’s overall health. There are five plates, each with 1000 health, meaning that turrets now have 5000 total health. Each time one plate dies, the player who kills it, and any allies in lane with them, will get a bit of gold, but the turret itself will become slightly harder to kill, gaining a bit of extra damage resistance.

This means that a champion who likes to push waves and take towers early in the current game might be able to destroy all of a tower’s plating, granting them a lot of extra gold, but making the tower a little harder to destroy for good. Meanwhile, the champion on the receiving end of the push will have a tower that they can safely farm behind for a little bit longer, but will still be at a gold disadvantage compared to their more aggressive lane opponent.

These changes should help extend laning a little bit longer, without going overboard. The goal for Riot appears to be keeping aggressive play in check, while still awarding the aggressive players with some gold for their risks. Meanwhile, champions that would prefer to get some gold under their belt before leaving lane should have the chance to farm.

While all of the numbers related to turret plating are likely to change sometime in the near future, since they are currently only live on the PBE, the change should go live along with the rest of the preseason patch sometime in the coming weeks.