New League of Legends healing changes cripple enchanter support meta

League of Legends has been going through a balance philosophy change since the durability update, and healing has been in Riot’s sights. Since the changes made enchanter supports all the more meta, the developers are implementing sweeping healing changes to gut the class.

In League of Legends patch 12.10, the entire roster of champions received durability overhauls in the game’s biggest update ever. Every champion received base defensive stats, while all forms of healing and Grievous Wounds in kind received nerfs.

While the Grievous Wounds nerfs have been hitting hard, the healing ones didn’t go far enough. Enchanter supports have been creeping into power in the meta. Names like Sona, Janna, Seraphine , Yuumi, and Renata Glasc sit atop the win rate list in role.

But developers saw this as a issue, and are therefore cutting back their bonus item shields and healing in League of Legends patch 12.14.

The nerfs primarily target Forbidden Idol, the base component in practically every enchanter support item. Riot decreased the bonus shielding and healing from the item from 10% to 8%, which bleeds into every complete item Forbidden Idol builds into.

In essence, Ardent Censer, Mikael’s Blessing, Redemption, Staff of Flowing Water were all gutted for their additional healing and shielding by as much as 4%. To add fuel to the fire, they even decreased Moonstone Renewer’s healing stacks from 5 to 4.

These changes don’t necessarily seem like a lot at first — losing out on a bit of additional healing won’t break the game. But these nerfs stack, since so many enchanter supports rely on Forbidden Idol items to scale effectively into team fights.

As for the champions themselves, three are getting directly nerfed: Yuumi, Janna, and Renata Glasc. Yuumi is getting her heal directly nerfed, while Janna’s numbers are being switched around a little bit. Renata Glasc’s changes are focused more on her other non-shielding utility.

The healing changes don’t stop with enchanter supports though. Aatrox, Kayn, and Wukong are also getting healing nerfs as Riot tries to tone back the sustain power creep.

The changes are set to go live as part of July 31’s LoL patch 12.14.