Massive anti-lane swap mechanics are set to arrive in the upcoming patch.
Lane Swap refers to a strategy where two laners, usually Top and Bot lanes, swap lanes with one another in the early game. This allows a team to pick hyper-scaling ADCs and avoid tough matchups at the same time. It is sometimes also utilized to bail out counter matchups in the Top lane.
This strategy has become quite prominent since last year and has become one of the most frustrating parts of League of Legends. As a strategy, it not only breaks the lane matchup dynamics, but it also breaks the game.
In response, Riot has been actively working to eliminate this strategy. Soon after, lane swapping started in professional play, Riot introduced the fortification buff to turrets. The fortification buff gave damage reduction to Top and Mid-lane turrets, so it became harder to take platings in those lanes. Despite taking losses in turret-plating gold, many teams still prioritized lane-swapping.
Not only that in many regions, lane swapping became even more prominent. As it turns out, getting a hyper-scaling ADC through the laning phase, is much more important than the loss of plate and tower gold.
As a result, Riot is now implementing drastic anti-lane swap mechanics in the upcoming patch to put an end to the strategy once and for all.
Upcoming Anti-Lane Swap Changes
Here are all the anti-lane swap changes arriving in the upcoming patch,
- The fortification buff has been removed for all turrets.
- If two non-Jungle enemy champions appear in the Top or Mid lane, the Outer Turrets now gain 95% damage reduction.
- Outer Turrets deals 1000% damage to minions.
- Outer Turrets also deal 1000% damage against enemy champions.
- Enemy champion gold and XP reduced to 50%.
- Top Lane turret now grants the defending champ a 50% Damage Reduction.
- Defending Minion and Turret kills will redirect all gold to the nearest allied champion.
- Detection starts at 1:30 and ends at 3:30 for the Top lane and 2:25 for the Mid lane.
- Detection linger duration is 20 seconds for the Top lane and 8 seconds for the Mid lane.
Here’s a visual indicator for the detection range. The detection range covers quite a lot of Top lane and Mid lane. If the aggressor is detected, they will be given the debuff that will last about 20 seconds for the Top lane and 8 seconds for the Mid lane.
As an anti-lane-swap mechanic, these are pretty drastic but they should finally put an end to the strategy. However, there are some concerns regarding these changes.
First of all, these changes will fully eliminate early-game support roaming from the game. Champions like Bard, Rakan, and Nautilus who prefer to roam in the early game will no longer be able to do so. If they do, they could be unintentionally harming their Mid or Top-laners exp and gold generation. Second, these changes could potentially help toxic players “grief” their teammates.
Release Date
The Anti-Lane Swap changes are set to arrive on Patch 25.05, which is scheduled for March 5, 2025.
