Sivir’s League of Legends mid-scope update will bring back popular crit build
Riot GamesSivir is the next League of Legends champion in line for one of Riot’s specialty reworks — a mid-scope update — in Season 12. The developer’s main goal is to bring back her popular crit-focused build, giving her more consistent damage tools with less utility.
Sivir was once one of League of Legends’ premier AD carries. The Shuriman fortune hunter has always been the best-in-class for waveclear and long-range poke, but that play style has fallen away to more exciting hyper carry champions.
Currently she boasts a near 50% win rate — respectable by most standards — but only a 2.88% pick rate, far behind most other options in the League of Legends Season 12 meta.
Her kit hasn’t changed much since her debut in 2009, and that staleness is part of the problem Riot is tackling in Sivir’s upcoming rework. The Battle Mistress is next on the developer’s “mid-scope update” list after successful overhauls for Taliyah, Olaf, Swain, and more.
“[The] high level goals are to legitimize her crit build and play style by giving her more consistent tools to do high DPS at the cost of some of her ability to shuttle teammates around,” developer Ray ‘Ray Yonggi’ Williams told players on June 13.
Riot GamesNo stone is being left unturned as Riot looks to transfer her power into being a tank-busting threat and become “the best marksman for damaging heavy-melee teams”.
“While having strategic diversity is important, heavy utility bot laners are exceptionally underplayed even when objectively powerful. Allowing Sivir to maintain some utility but not be her primary output is hopefully the key to providing a more resonant experience,” Williams added.
All of Sivir’s abilities are being changed — but not reworked into anything drastically different. For example her W, Ricochet, will bounce seven times per cast no matter what, but can repeat on the same target. The AD ratio has been reduced, but the effective DPS remains the same.
Her Q, Boomerang Blade, will now have a reduced cast time based on attack speed, leaning into the crit-centric build. The damage is also increased by crit change.
Another key part of Sivir’s kit being changed is her Spell Shield. It will still block one ability, but instead of giving back mana it’ll heal Sivir. This makes it less necessary as part of her trading pattern to spam it — and her mana costs are being changed across the board to compensate for this.
“We’re looking to improve but not replace each of her spells to keep her familiar but more functional,” Williams said.
Riot GamesThe overall goal will ensure Sivir’s crit build shines above the rest, but it won’t completely kill her flexibility after the AD carry saw more play in Season 11 thanks to a new lethality build: “This doesn’t mean ‘killing’ lethality as an alternate build, but it won’t be the intended playstyle.”
Riot has not penciled in a release date for Sivir’s mid-scope update in League of Legends Season 12 — although the change are going onto the PBE as part of the LoL patch 12.13 testing cycle.
We will keep you updated as more details are released.