Patch 8.23: Dark Harvest has been hotfixed

Dark Harvest was one of several runes that got large scale changes in this year’s preseason patch, and the changes for it seem good.

But, as sometimes happens, when the rune released, it was a little too strong. In fact, if you jumped into a pro player’s stream you might have noticed that it was being taken by seven or eight players every single game. That means things are a little off-balance, so Riot took a quick pass at re-balancing the rune via a hotfix on Tuesday evening.

The hotfix changed the base damage of the rune from 50 to 40 at level one, but kept the max damage the same at 80. It also took the extra damage that players get per soul and changed it from eight to five. This is a pretty big change, but should keep the rune in-play without making it mandatory on every single champion in each game.

As a quick reminder of what the reworked version of the rune does, let’s go over Dark Harvest’s change from this patch. Now, the rune gives players extra on-hit damage anytime they attack another champion. The damage effect has a 45 second cooldown and the amount of damage is changed by a few specific things. First it does a flat amount of damage — now somewhere between 40-80 depending on your level — as well as scaling up with attack damage and ability power. But, the rune also does damage based on the number of souls collected. Players gain a soul anytime they attack a target below 50 percent health and they, now, get five extra damage for every soul they have.

While this is the first official hotfix of the preseason, it probably won’t be the last. And that’s a good thing, the preseason is meant for big changes to come to the game, and sometimes those changes won’t be balanced perfectly on release. The good news is Riot’s keeping an eye on things and fixing them fast.