Riot Games are planning some significant changes for League of Legends champions Tahm Kench and Swain in Patch 9.13.
Although Patch 9.12 has yet to be released to the live servers, Riot are currently in the planning stages for the following update, Patch 9.13, and have begun to reveal details of what players can expect.
In particular, it seems champions Tahm Kench and Swain will be coming under consideration for some significant adjustments, with the former on the receiving end of a nerf and the latter due for a buff.
For Tahm Kench, it seems his W ability, Devour, is the primary target, with a change that should reduce his power in the top lane but make him a bit smoother when Devouring ally champions, as is a large part of the role for Support Tahm Kench.
Tahm Kench
Devour (W)
- [BUGFIX] Fixed a bug where Tahm Kench could cast Tongue Lash and Decour together against non-champions for no Mana cost.
- Using Devour during Tongue Lash to devour a non-champion now correctly consumes Mana equal to Devour’s Mana Cost
- Champion spit lockout time after animation: 1 -> 0.25
- [NEW] Allies can no longer release themselves from Devour early while affected by enemy loss of control effects (stun, suppression, fear, etc)
- Allied champion spit range: 400 -> 250
- Devour Damage: 100/135/170/205/240 (+5/7/9/11/13% target max health) -> 60/105/150/195/240 (+9/10/11/12/13% target max health)
Meanwhile, Swain is potentially getting a change to his ultimate ability, Demonic Ascencion, regarding the way it interacts with Soul Fragments.
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Rather than having the ability use up all of the Soul Fragments each time, so that they must be build up again before the next use in order to make the ability most effective, it seems Riot are considering changing it to a “permanent collection game” that makes the ability stronger.
TLDR on what they're experimenting on swain is -> move the soul game from being a "gate" for each R cast into a permanent collection game that makes R stronger. Also they're trying a new rankup on R that lets him get 4 drain at 11 and 5 drain targets at 16. #lifeofapatch
— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) June 6, 2019
These are unlikely to be the only significant changes coming with Patch 9.13, and Riot haven’t yet announced how long it will be before the update actually arrives on the servers.
For the 9.13 update, however, Riot have set up a dedicated page to monitor such statements from developers, giving players more insight than ever into how a patch comes together and what is being worked on at any given time.
With the live game currently on 9.11, it’s likely to be a matter of weeks at least before such changes actually arrive, with plenty of time for further adjustments before then.