Grievous Wounds received a massive rework in League of Legends Season 11, and it’s left some of the game’s biggest healers in the lurch. However, on LoL patch 11.18, Soraka and Dr Mundo are being revived with some big buffs ahead of Worlds.
Healing has been a contentious topic in League of Legends, especially since the Season 11 item rework. With Grievous Wounds being more available than ever before, champions who relied on healing themselves — or their allies — hit a snag with the sheer amount of healing cut.
Soraka and Dr Mundo were the hardest hit.
The former’s kit revolves around healing allies, with two of her abilities (and her passive) taking a big hit when Grievous Wounds is around. Mundo is all about keeping his health pool high too, and healing cut took away that power.
Riot are adding some counter measures though to keep Soraka and Dr Mundo in the meta, especially with Worlds around the corner.
“I would not say we think Grievous Wounds [GW] is in an optimal state — we do want to revisit the system. In the meantime, we’re going to change Dr. Mundo and Soraka to smooth them out a bit given the counter items available,” lead developer Jeevun ‘Jag’ Sidhu admitted.
“The goal is to increase performance when GW is applied to them, and slightly reduce it otherwise.”
Soraka is getting a cleanse on her ultimate, Wish, that removes Grievous Wounds before applying the heal. This means her allies will always get the full heal, and not have it cut by 40% or 60%.
More context on 11.18's Dr. Mundo and Soraka buffs.
I would not say we think Grievous Wounds is in a optimal state – we do want to revisit the system. In the meantime, we're going to change Dr. Mundo and Soraka to smooth them out a bit given the counter items available. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/PHYKYxopn2
— Jeevun Sidhu (@JeevunSidhu) August 30, 2021
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Her Astral Infusion heal is being nerfed slightly to counteract the new cleanse, but if you time it correctly as a Soraka player, you can dish out some massive healing.
Dr Mundo is having his ultimate changed too. Instead of healing him up on cast, it will now give him bonus HP based on his missing HP. While the ultimate heal is slightly less, the instant burst of healing — and extra HP to boot — will be a nice incentive.
While Riot are far from happy with the current Grievous Wounds situation in League of Legends, other healing-centric champions won’t be touched ahead of Worlds. Jag said: “A fair amount of champions invest heavily in healing; these two, more than others, are entirely built around healing as the output they actually offer.
“This is contrast to say, Aatrox, Vladimir, or Swain, who definitely care about healing but have a lot of healing-independent offensive outputs to give their team.”
You can find the full list of changes to Soraka and Dr Mundo below, which will be shipping as part of LoL patch 11.18.
Healing buffs in LoL patch 11.18
Dr Mundo
R: Maximum Dosage
- Heals 20% of missing HP on cast >>> Gains 15/20/25% of missing HP as bonus HP
- Heals 20/45/70% of maximum HP over 10 seconds >>> Heals 20/40/60% of maximum HP over 10 seconds
Soraka
W: Astral Infusion
- Heal: 100/135/170/205/240 >>> 100/130/160/190/220
R: Wish
- [NEW]: Clears Grievous Wounds on allies before applying the heal