#patch 3.14

I'm going to start doing these for each subsequent patch, giving my opinions/observations on the state of the game. I'll be streaming some Season 4 soloqueue here http://bit.ly/I89m8I if you're interested.

Champions

Riven: Riven is absurdly broken right now. The fact that she can 1 shot anyone with 1 item or less is ridiculous. Not only that, but she's super hard to kill with such massive mobility, huge lifesteal, and a spammable shield that scales off of AD.

Tryndamere: Tryn is always going to be a problem in solo queue. He split pushes, cheeses with crits, has great sustain, and great dueling potential. He's sort of like an AD nidalee (+crits of course) that can team fight and actually do something other than hit towers.

Kassadin: I think Kass is in a decent place right now. He's still slightly overpowered, but he's counterable when it comes to teamfights just from having a lot of peel or a fed ADC.

Nasus: The nerf to his sustain was pretty substantial. Now you can actually deny him in lane without him just ignoring your damage by lifestealing it up. This means that it's actually possible to stop Nasus from getting to be a lategame powerhouse and 1v5ing your team.

Sivir: Even with the nerf, Sivir's team fighting is just way too strong. She can kite for days, has a spell shield, and does a good amount of AoE damage. Not only that, but she basically has a built in Shurelyas that lasts for ages.

Nidalee: The nerf only hurt a little bit. It means that Nidalee's close range dueling is a bit weaker since her spear only scales when it goes further than autoattack range. Since it now deals damage from where it was thrown from, it also eliminates the "Spear-Cougar-Pounce Away" combo for dealing extra damage, but I'll still be doing it for a while until I get  used to it being pointless.

Jax: Jax is super strong, as usual. He does just about everything. He's tanky, has a flexible build, is a good farmer, can trade well in lane, does a mix of phys and magic damage, can split push, and is a monster in team fights. He has almost no weaknesses as long as he doesn't get wrecked in lane.

Shyvana: Shyvana is very similar to Jax. She has a mixture of physical and magic damage, has good base values, and gets insanely tanky. Her ability to split push with her W and a hydra is absurd and she's nearly impossible to catch.

Ziggs: I've been playing so much Ziggs lately. His laning phase is absolutely crazy. With spammable poke and strong autoattacks with a lichbane-esque passive, he can zone and deny almost any midlaner. Even then, his teamfighting is great with how much damage he deals and his waveclear/towerpushing is unmatched by any other AP carry (his siege is about even with Nidalee). He does have weaknesses though aside from being difficult to play, as he's incredibly squishy and only has one escape on a massive cooldown. Champions like Vi and Malphite are great against him.

Trinkets

Warding Totem: This is basically the go-to trinket if you don't need stealth detection. Getting a free ward all the time saves a great amount of gold and you can help your team out without having to use up a slot in your inventory.

Sweeping Lens: This one's decent. It can be good at saving some money to clear wards around objectives as well as its ability to see stealthed champions like Rengar, Shaco, and Vayne. Only one or two of these is needed on a team, everyone else should just grab a Warding Totem.

Farsight Orb: This item isn't particularly bad, as its concept is pretty good going into mid and late game. The problem is that its early game sucks and the other trinkets are pretty much better in every aspect.

Supports

Conventional Supports: Due to AP ratio nerfs, a lot of conventional supports like Sona, Janna, and Lulu are much weaker in comparison to others. They don't really make that much use of all the extra gold, and they may fall behind the more carry-oriented supports as the game goes on. This being said, Thresh and Blitz can still do their job regardless of any of the changes.

Unconventional Supports: Utility carries like Lux, Orianna, Lissandra, and Annie are actually really great now. Not only do they provide good CC, but they have enough gold to actually buy real AP items and scale hard into the lategame. Still, for the love of God, stop playing support Nidalee.

Relic Shield: This item and its upgrades are sooooooooooooooo broken. It gives both the support and adc so much gold and there is absolutely no reason to buy it, especially thanks to its lane shoving. Sometimes ADCs and Junglers are even buying it to share more gold with their team since its so cheap to begin with. A jungler with one could just go tax a lane or push a tower and still share all the gold with the laner while healing them. Hell, with this item in its current state, I honestly think putting an AP-support top with a bruiser might be better than having a full-time jungler.

Ancient Coin: This concept's pretty cool. While its great in ARAM thanks to the fact you never have to last hit against your teammates, but it's not worth buying on SR. There's just no incentive to take Ancient Coin over a Relic Shield with Relic Shield being so broken.

Jungling:

Overall, I just really love this. Junglers can kept so much more gold now and you don't have to worry about falling so far behind in the lategame without kills.

Spirit of the Elder Lizard: It's pretty good, but really only useful if youre playing a heavy-gank jungler. Champions like Shaco and Vi are really the only one's it's viable on as they both scale with AD and rely heavily on their ganking. That being said, buying it can be risky if the enemy avoids any ganks.

Spirit of the Spectral Wraith: It does essentially the same thing as Spirit of the Elder Lizard. The only problem is that it fits into almost no champion's build, as it's not even that great on Fiddlesticks. 

Spirit of the Ancient Golem: This is by far the safest and most effective buy as a jungle item. It stacks up gold while you aren't farming minions, meaning that failed ganks aren't all that bad. You can really do just about anything and still be getting gold thanks to its stacking passive, meaning that mistakes and inefficiency are far more forgivable.

Wriggles: Wriggles got completely ruined. It's so terrible now it hurts to even look at. It gives no good jungler stats (no good AD, no good defenses, no lifesteal), is cost ineffective, and its gold passive is terrible. The only way to make use of the passive is to never stop farming as any time not killing monsters is time wasted. Never buy Wriggle's until they buff it.

New Camp: The White camp is pretty cool, but it doesn't change THAT much. The only thing is that it balances out the jungle and can be a good source of gold between ganks.

Summary

Overall I like wear Season 4 is headed.

Riven and Shyvana are broken, Sivir and Jax are pretty OP, and the rest are pretty well balanced.

Warding Totem is the way to go if at least one person on your team has a Sweeping Lens.

It seems as though AP supports are the way to go right now with the nerfs to AP ratios on conventional supports, but heavy CC supports are still good.

Relic Shield is absurdly broken and needs to be nerfed as soon as possible. All you have to do as support is consume charges on cannon and melee minions and you end up bathing in gold.

The new jungle camp is alright, it's not anything monumental.

Spirit of the Elder Lizard is decent in certain circumstances, Spirit of the Ancient Golem is an incredible item, and Wriggle's is absolute garbage.

Corki - Reduced Mana cost on Q and E, increased Q range from 600 to 825, increased AD Ratio on R from 20% to 20% / 30% / 40%, and gave Q a travel time. Overall I'd consider these buffs. The only nerf has been a long time coming. Overall I think this is going to make Corki stronger.

Gragas - Nerf to Q's Range, Buff to E's damage, Base CD Nerf to E, Reduced CD on E if you hit something with it. Gragas has always been a bruiser mage in design that could play like a sniper, so I understand where Riot is coming from with these changes. Jungle Gragas will clear a lot faster now, and the range on Q is still long enough to where his play style isn't changed too drastically.

Leona - Buff to W (Eclipse) to help Leona get more tanky late game.

Nasus - Lifesteal on passive reduced at early levels to nerf lane sustain. Nasus has been pick or ban lately because it was nearly impossible to realistically shut him down so I agree with these changes.

Nautilus - Increased passive Root duration at later levels to buff his late game.

Nidalee - Slight Q changes, but Maximum damage stayed the same. The debuff duration from Bushwack has FINALLY been reduced. It was stupid long and should have been nerfed a long time ago. Overall I don't see any reason to stop playing Nidalee though.

Nunu - Consume has been nerfed early game to be in line with new Smite. No more level 3 soloing Dragon. Seems fair.

Shen - The hitbox on taunt was increased a little bit (it was over nerfed earlier).

Sivir - Early game Nerf / late game Buff to Q.

Vayne - While Condemn didn't get a numbers Nerf, it is now less annoying due to mechanical changes. She can't get the free AA off anymore and opponents aren't "briefly unable to act" when they don't hit a wall.

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Tons of Support changes in preparation for Season 4.

Doran's Blade now costs the same as Doran's Shield so you can get a Health Pot in addition to it. It grants reduced healing for ranged champions which seems fair.

Long Sword is cheaper (now 360), but combine costs increased so that all items that build out of it are the same price. You can now start Long Sword + 3 Pots.

Support itemization overhaul and Jungle itemization overhaul. More gold income for Junglers and Supports. Yay.

This new patch brings in a whole different level to the game. Hold on to your butts.