In the preview for League of Legends Patch 14.18, Riot Games has announced some significant changes to lane swapping.
Each year, we see the game’s meta shift, affecting both ranked play and the professional scene, recently, the lane swap strategy has made a return. Lane swapping has existed since the game was first released but became particularly popular in Season 5. It became so widespread that Riot decided to nerf bottom turrets to limit this tactic in Season 6.
Now, in Season 14, lane matchups have become even more crucial. Additionally, mid-season buffs to ADCs have led to players picking ADC champions in unconventional roles, such as jungle and mid.
Typically, lane swapping happens when the bot lane duo is faced with a difficult matchup. To avoid this, they would switch lanes with their top laner, who would usually pick a safe champion. The bot duo would then farm in the top lane against the enemy top laner, who is usually a melee champion and playing alone. Meanwhile, the top laner would focus on surviving in the bot lane until the bot duo becomes strong enough to carry the game.
While this strategy is not always problematic, it becomes frustrating when pro games constantly feature 3v0 situations in a lane. To address this, Riot is introducing significant changes to turrets in Patch 14.18 to limit the effectiveness of lane swaps.
Lane Swap Changes in Patch 14.18:
Turret Bulwark
- Permanent resists per destroyed turret plate: 40 >>> 50
- Temporary resists per destroyed plate for 20 seconds: 45/champion >>> 20/champion
Turret Fortification
- Damage reduction for the first 5 minutes: 75% → 85%
The Turret Bulwark is a passive mechanic for all turrets that increases their resistances based on the amount of health they lose and the number of nearby enemy champions. Turret Fortification, on the other hand, is the early-game damage reduction that all towers have before a certain time limit.
The first key change Riot made was increasing both the permanent and temporary resistances after a turret plate is destroyed. As a result, it will take even longer for players to bring down turrets. This will be noticeable in regular matches, even when lane swapping isn’t happening.
Additionally, Riot has strengthened the main counter to lane swapping by improving Turret Fortification. Now, during the first 5 minutes of the game, turrets will take 85% less damage, which should significantly deter players from swapping lanes early on. However, it remains to be seen if these changes will fully address the issue.
Only time will tell whether this adjustment will effectively reduce lane swaps in both regular play and professional matches.