Hi everyone,
I wanted to give you all an update on the status of the Wukong changes we’ve been working on for the last few weeks. When we last spoke about it, the team and I were beginning to dive into the existing work we had started earlier in the year. We regrouped and defined a few key goals for what we wanted to accomplish with these changes, based on the feedback we got from Wukong players. Those goals are:
- Give Wukong more tools and agency to make proactive plays during the laning phase
- Provide Wukong with quality-of-life improvements where possible
- Shift Wukong’s power curve towards early game instead of late game
Wukong has a very sharp win rate percentage based on game time, getting as low as 42% before Baron spawns to as high as 58% once the game has gone on for 35+ minutes. These changes should help smooth out that curve, so that Wukong feels competitive in the early game without dominating team fights with his innate tankiness and high burst damage.
For the quality-of-life improvements, I did my best to listen to the fans and focus on the areas you cited as most frustrating- high mana costs and low Passive/R satisfaction. In addition to these upgrades, Wukong is gaining extremely powerful new tools in the form of a free-target dash, more convincing clone deception, and a physical damage shield.
Here is the change list we’re currently working on. Note that these changes are relative to THE LIVE GAME; not the last version you saw on the PBE or on our forums.
P- Stone Skin:
- REMOVED- Wukong no longer gains resistances for nearby enemy Champions
- NEW- Whenever Wukong is invisible to the enemy team for at least 1 second, he gains a temporary physical damage shield based on his maximum health. After being spotted, the shield disperses after a few seconds
We’ve been experimenting with a new Passive that grants Wukong a temporary physical damage shield. The idea here is to increase Wukong’s lane power and outplay potential while reducing his innate tankiness in team fights. We’ve been trying a handful of different versions, but here’s the most recent. Note that it might change!
We see this as a tool to reward extended trading patterns, incentivizing Wukong to dip in and out of brushes and use W as a re-engage tool rather than just an escape tool. We’re hoping this manifests in some cool top lane brush out-plays!
Q- Wuju Strike:
- Mana cost lowered to a flat 30 from 40
- CD reduced by 1 sec at all ranks
- NEW- Spell’s cost is refunded if it kills a unit
W- Warrior Trickster:
- Now instantly dashes towards the player’s cursor instead of a short range blink
- Dash is 350 range and 1200 speed. Can NOT go over walls
- Clone is now treated as a stationary Champion and will attack nearby enemies, prioritizing the last enemy Wukong damaged
- Clone’s attacks deal a scaling 50-100% of Wukong’s AD based on spell rank and apply on-hit effects
- Clone looks identical to Wukong’s animation state on spawn, and animates as if he pressed the “S” key
E- Nimbus Strike:
- Tertiary target range check increased significantly
- Now deals magic damage instead of physical
R- Cyclone:
- Tick rate increased to every .25 sec from .5 (damage halved to compensate)
- Damage ratio increased to 1.25 AD/sec from 1.1
- Bonus movement speed is now a flat 30% instead of ramping up 5-40% over the duration
- E’s attack speed buff now pauses while R is active
- Wukong can now cancel R early by casting another ability or recasting R
Hoping these buffs make it more attractive to channel Cyclone for the full duration, rather than always canceling it after the knock-up.
We’re aiming to push these changes to the PBE sometime in December. Based on your feedback, outstanding bugs and a general balance pass, we aren’t able to provide an exact release date just yet. We’re still exploring some experimental mechanics outside of the update’s original scope, which takes extra time we didn’t initially account for. I understand this news will frustrate some of you, but I hope this list proves that we’re committed to meaningfully improving Wukong’s play experience.
Thank you for your patience,
Credit: Riot Games
-Lutzburg