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League of Legends: Riot is buffing Smolder in Patch 14.11

Published: 12:02, 23 May 2024

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Key Points from the Article

Despite this, Smolder's win rate dropped to around 40% in solo queue, leading to concerns that he was "dead" in the game.
Riot responded with a small hotfix buff in patch 14.10, which helped him regain some popularity.
Riot Phroxzon, the Lead Gameplay Designer, announced more buffs for Smolder in patch 14.11, including increased base AD and crit chance scaling for his abilities.
The changes aim to enable Smolder to leverage new Sheen items and support Critical Strike-focused builds.

League of Legends: Riot is buffing Smolder in Patch 14.11

Smolder received several nerfs throughout the year but maintained a high win rate until patch 14.9. Riot worked on his core item, Essence Reaver, and changed his other essential item, Spear of Shojin, making him less harmful.

To start with, it's pretty surprising to think that Smolder was released early this year and that he was on almost every patch note. Being hit by every nerf that's come his way - with his passive completely taken down, Smolder managed to keep a win rate of close to 50% until patch 14.9. But 14.10 changed everything for Smolder.

In the middle of the season, Riot worked on the core League of Legends' item - Essence Reaver - for Smolder, which made him less harmful, probably because he had been performing too well. At the same time, his other essential item - Spear of Shojin - was changed again.

While other classes of ADC champions were optimized, Smolder's win rate went low to around 40%, which made a fair number of players believe that Smolder was "dead" in the solo queue. In 14.10, Riot responded with a small hotfix buff. Many players still started building Trinity Force, where he got comeback win ratio.

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But it doesn't stop there, and Riot's Lead Gameplay Designer, Riot Phroxzon, has announced several more buffs to Smolder for the upcoming patch 14.11.

New Smolder Buffs

Basic stats:

Base AD: 57 > 60

Q – Super Scorcher Breath:

Mana: 23-35 > 25 at all ranks
Physical damage crit chance scaling: up to x1.5 at 100% crit > up to x1.75 at 100% crit
Magic damage crit chance scaling: up to x1.3 at 100% crit > up to x1.75 at 100% crit

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According to Riot, these will be the main goals for the changes:

Enable Smolder to more effectively leverage new Sheen items.
Support Critical Strike-focused builds.

These changes, however, have some players scratching their heads since they feel that Crit builds still aren't functioning correctly on Smolder. These should be going live with League of Legends Patch 14.11, expectedly May 30, 2024.