Shields and healing are going to change in Patch 8.6

Janna is at it again, sitting near the top of the support win rate charts — just like she has on and off for the last seven or so years — and that means it’s time to talk about shielding and healing.

The most recent discussion on the topic came from a post on the League of Legends forums from user, Bouncemaster Zac, who pointed out that Janna has once again climbed up to a 54 percent win rate in ranked. Before too long, Riot Repertoir was happy to step into the thread and help provide Bouncemaster Zac, and the rest of us, a few answers on what exactly Riot plans to do about the current state of heals and shields.

The most important part of his response is that Riot is looking into some potential changes to these mechanics as early as Patch 8.6, and that if something does change, it will most certainly affect Janna.

When pressed for a more specific answer about the changes being looked at, Repertoir had this to say:

We need a solution to the state of shielding in the game for sure. Whether that’s shield popper, less shielding, less powerful shielding, shield mitigation, extra damage to shield, or a mix of several, we do need a solution.

On top of these discussion of shields are the current meta’s problems with healing. Currently, in North America, Janna, Nami, Soraka, and Sona are four of the top five supports in Platinum solo queue and above. Meanwhile, in jungle, Warwick and Volibear occupy the top spots. If you’re trying to figure out what all those champions have in common, I’ll save you the trouble; they all have plenty of healing baked right into their kit.

These champions have existed like this for years and it hasn’t been much of a problem, thanks in large part to every mid laner building Morellonomicon — which mitigated healing through it’s Grievous Wounds passive — as their first item. But now, with the AP item rework, mid laners are never building Morello’s first and often aren’t building it at all. Add that on to the fact that AD Carry’s rarely want to build Executioner’s Calling — their variety of Grievous Wounds item — and suddenly healing has gotten a whole lot stronger.

That being said, it’s still unclear if anything will be done about the healing issues specifically, or if Riot is more focused on shields, but Repertoir does mention healing in his initial post.

We will have to wait until these potential changes hit the Public Beta Environment before we know exactly what might be included, but at least for now we know Riot’s planning to do something about the shields and healing running rampant across Summoner’s Rift.