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Everyone knows damage is a little too high in League right now, and when damage is high, bursting squishy targets becomes one of the most common occurrences in the game. While mages and assassins may love this, it comes at the cost of everyone’s fun, so when the damage gets too unmanageable it only makes sense that Riot would step in to correct the problem.
In the case of patch 8.16 that means nerfing runes, particularly those that helped their users burst opponents. Here are all the rune changes that came with patch 8.16:
Summon Aery
BASE DAMAGE 15-40 (at levels 1-18) ⇒ 10-40 (at levels 1-18)
BASE SHIELDING 30-80 (at levels 1-18) ⇒ 35-80 (at levels 1-18)
This makes Aery a slightly more appealing spell to use on champions that can take advantage of both it’s shielding and healing, while making it less appealing for champions that were only using it for damage.
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Scorch
BASE DAMAGE 20-60 ⇒ 10-30
COOLDOWN 20 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds
This change is actually pretty interesting. Rather than a standard nerf to the ability, it’s actually going to work out to be exactly the same, but only if you are using it as often as it comes off cooldown. This means that playing with Scorch should force players into a more active playstyle than they were used to before if they want to get the most out of the rune.
Electrocute
BASE DAMAGE 50-220 (at levels 1-18) ⇒ 30-180 (at levels 1-18)
DAMAGE RATIO (AD)0.5 bonus attack damage ⇒ 0.4 bonus attack damage
DAMAGE RATIO (AP)0.3 ability power ⇒ 0.25 ability power
COOLDOWN 50-25 seconds (at levels 1-18) ⇒ 25-20 seconds (at levels 1-18)
Celerity
ATTACK DAMAGE 9.6% bonus movement speed ⇒ 6% bonus movement speed
ABILITY POWER 16% bonus movement speed ⇒ 10% bonus movement speed
Cheap Shot
BASE DAMAGE 15-40 ⇒ 8-40
Sudden Impact
LETHALITY 10 ⇒ 7
MAGIC PENETRATION 8 ⇒ 6
These are all just straight nerfs. If a champion used this rune before, it’s pretty likely they will still use it, but it won’t do quite as much damage as it once did.