With the upcoming Patch 14.23, Riot Games has revealed details about the changes for Aurora and explained the reasons behind them.
In recent years, Riot has introduced many new champions in League of Legends. For example, four champions were released in 2021, followed by five in 2022, and four again in 2023. However, this year, Riot stated that they would release fewer champions, focusing more on VGU instead. As a result, only two champions, Smolder and Aurora, were released before the 2024 Worlds tournament, along with the recent addition of Ambessa.
Aurora was quite powerful when she was introduced, although not overly so compared to some other launch champions. She performed very well in the game’s meta, leading to some necessary nerfs. Over time, she received additional adjustments, which is typical for a newly released champion. However, her high skill requirement discouraged some players from picking her, even though she remains one of the top mid-lane choices.
To address these issues, Riot has implemented significant adjustments for Aurora in Patch 14.23, which also includes insight from lead designer Blake.
Riot discussed about Aurora changes in LoL Patch 14.23
The full Aurora change in the upcoming League of Legends Patch 14.23 can be viewed here.
He explained that Aurora has been in one of her weakest states overall, yet still performs exceptionally well in higher rankings. Riot aimed for her to be a medium-difficulty champion, but she ended up being harder to play than expected. They also want to ensure that Aurora is suitable for a wider range of players, not just professionals. Thus, they designed these changes to address both of these problems.
One key adjustment is moving her passive movement speed to her W ability because her passive speed was often inconsistent and low. Her Q has also been modified to automatically recast after its duration expires. Although this was part of the initial design, Riot noticed that lower-skill players often forgot to recast it, so they restored the automatic recast.
Another major change is that her W no longer resets on cooldown, which was originally done to reduce complexity. However, Riot is reconsidering this due to player feedback. They have also increased the range of her E to balance the removal of passive speed.
Finally, for her ultimate, instead of trapping enemies, it now slows them, while the ability duration has been extended. This adjustment aims to make her ultimate feel more satisfying and allow players to use it more skillfully.
These changes for Aurora are scheduled for release with Patch 14.23 on November 20, 2024.