League of Legends patch 4.5 preview: An update on the Lee Sin changes

The changes Lee Sin was supposed to see in League of Legends patch 4.5 have been slightly changed. After some internal discussions and reading player feedback, Riot Games has decided to hold off on the majority of changes planned.

"First, we’re no longer doing the changes that were directed towards shifting some of Lee’s early game power and moving that power towards late game in the upcoming patch," Riot Games' Statikk said.

"To be clear, our analysis of the situation remains the same: champions who have overly dominant early game power seem to be actively reducing champion diversity, especially at the competitive level. We’d like to continue to collect more data and feedback though to re-check 1) if this is true and 2) if there are other potential alternatives to help solve champion diversity."

With that said, Safeguard and Iron Will are still getting the following adjustments:

Safeguard

• Increased base cooldown
• Cooldown is now reduced by 50% if cast on an allied champion (including himself) – this is lower than the current Cooldown on Live
• No longer grants a shield if he dashes to a non-champion unit
• Shield duration slightly reduced

Iron Will

• Duration slightly reduced

"Essentially, we’re buffing Safeguard when used on allied champions but nerfing it when used otherwise (the duration changes are necessary to keep the total uptime of these spells in-line). This means that Lee Sin should feel extremely mobile and rewarded for his teamwork with allied champions, but still have the ability to initiate or escape on his own when he really needs to," Statikk justified.

Riot admits they still may go forward with the rest of Lee Sin's changes in a future patch, or they may not. As always, we'll be sure to keep you updated.

[League of Legends]