Aurora, one of League of Legends’ newest champions, has drawn attention from the developers due to her limited presence at Worlds 2024, and the team is planning some adjustments for her in the near future.
Starting from the play-in stage, Aurora was banned an impressive 77 times, which was far more than Yone, who came in second with 63 bans. Consequently, she was only picked in 19 matches throughout the tournament, with pro players like Xiaohu, Creme, and Kiin each managing to play her three times.
During the Worlds Finals 2024, lead Gameplay Director Matthew Leung-Harrison got his perspective on Aurora’s current standing in competitive play and what changes may be expected for her across all player levels.
“We probably could have nerfed her a little harder going into the tournament. We did a very significant nerf to her by nerfing her wall jump range and the ultimate duration and how far she jumps in just the Naked R cast. But it didn’t ultimately end up being enough,”
He clarified that although Aurora isn’t overwhelmingly powerful on the latest patch, the pro scene has found ways to make her particularly effective.
When asked about her future balance adjustments, Leung-Harrison confirmed that more tuning is on the way, focusing on making her gameplay experience fairer for all players, not just professionals.
“We have some plans for some changes that we’ve been cooking up for a little bit, in an effort to reduce some of her pro-skewed tendencies and make her a little more reasonable to play against, with how easy it is to catch people and how easy it is to use the ultimate,”
The developer added:
“It’s something we did want because, in development, we were kind of scared that she was going to be too hard to play. She launched, and she’s a little elite and pro-skewed currently compared to where we want her to be, so we’re making those changes to make her a little more approachable and a little less frustrating to play.”
Although it’s uncertain exactly when these changes will go live, it’s likely they’ll be implemented before the start of the next season in January 2025. With the recent introduction of the new champion Ambessa and the Fearless Draft system on the international stage, the development team has a busy few months ahead.