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Hail of Blades – New Domination Keystone | League of Legends

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One of the maxims of League of Legends development has always been evolution. This has kept Riot innovating and changing the MOBA with the most players in the world, with the goal of never becoming monotonous. With that in mind, as well as making it easier for new players to access the game, reforged runes were implemented.

The idea that each of the five branches would have four or more key runes had been in the developers’ heads for weeks, and it is slowly becoming a reality. The first branch to receive an extra key rune was Precision, in which Conqueror was included. In patch 8.10 “Hail of Blades” will be added to the Domination branch, being already implemented in the PBE.

“Hail of Blades” grants 50-100% attack speed on the first three attacks made against an enemy champion. If more than 1.5 seconds pass between attacks, the effect will be disabled. In addition, the extra attack speed may temporarily exceed the usual limit of 2.5 attacks per second.

Jungle changes

On the jungling side, Riot wants to reduce the impact of jungling on the line to low levels, forcing jungler clashes. To do so, it will reduce the number of Rift Sneaks on the map to one at a time, increasing their reward. Similarly, it will increase the mana regeneration of items, so that there will be more variety among the champions that can be played in the jungle. Mana-dependent mages will now have an easier time plotting their routes.

In recent years, ADCs have been in an odd position in League of Legends. Riot Games has tried to define and support them in recent months, but the truth is that it’s a tricky role to balance. It’s also a position with a lot of demands, as an ADC’s job doesn’t end with taking kills in a team fight, and it requires good positioning so as not to undermine strategies.

As it is, Riot already has some changes in mind for ADCs, and the main one is to remove the label of critical machines. According to a post by Riot Axes, the developer will make changes to some major items and introduce a new one, the Stormrazor, which will increase the importance of each bullet.

Currently, arming Infinity Edge in the company of a Fervour item guarantees good damage for shooters. In addition to this, the lane phase is often slow for the bottom lane, something Riot frowns upon. This is why the company will be looking to update the Infinity Edge to reduce its impact in the early stages, making it heavily reliant on scaling throughout the game, but keeping it as a good late-game item. Fervour items, character health regeneration and Boots of Swiftness will also be nerfed.

The next item on the list is to make way for new weaponry for characters. While the critical lists are good and have a lot of synergy, Riot wants to get champions like Lucian and Draven back on the dance floor. To that end, the Essence Marauder will be upgraded to reward spell-attack style combat, but without relying on criticals. Meanwhile, the Last Sigh will return to full armour penetration, in order to support armour-penetrating armaments. Because of this, Lord Dominik’s Giant Executioner of Memories passive will be removed.

Riot also previewed the arrival of a new rune, Hail of Blades, which will have a similar goal to Stormrazor: to make the first attack of each fight more important. It is also intended to reduce 4 base attack points to improve AD scaling, but this is a double-edged sword. Riot is aware that less basic attack hurts last hits, so they will add a last hit wizard that will remove patches later.

The changes aim to give ADCs a new style, making them less oppressive online and punishing those who fall behind. This gives way for other roles to shine in Summoner’s Rift, though it will all depend on the feedback provided by fans.

All changes will go through a testing period on the PBE before making it to the official server. This means that there may be last minute adjustments or new ideas to improve the experience.

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