In the preview of League of Legends patch 14.18, Riot has revealed some massive Lane Swap changes coming to the game.
Every year, we see different and unique meta coming to League of Legends. These meta often times plague both ranked and pro scene. Like recently we saw how enchanters support was played in the top lane, double junglers, support ADC, Yi Taric Funnel meta, etc. And now we saw the return of the lane swap meta.
While lane swap has been around since the same time as the release of the game, it gained prevalence back in season 5. It was so frequent that Riot nerfed bottom turrets to reduce this meta in season 6. Fast forward to season 14, lane matchups are more important than ever. Not only that, around the mid-season ADCs got some massive buffs. Due to this players were even picking ADC in other roles like jungle and mid.
Now how lane swap usually works is that if the bot duo gets a bad matchup then they would swap their lane with their top to avoid that. During that, their top would usually pick a safe champion. The bot duo would go top and farm safely against enemy top who would usually be melee and a single person. The top character would just play safe till his lane-swapped bot duo becomes strong enough to dominate the game themselves.
While this happening in a few games is not that bad, however seeing an entire 3v0 situation in a lane all the time in pro play becomes infuriating. Therefore, in the League of Legends Worlds Patch 14.18, Riot is making some massive changes to the turrets to reduce this kind of playstyle.
Read more: League of Legends Patch 14.18 Notes.
League of Legends Patch 14.18: Lane Swap Changes
- 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%
Turret Bulwark is passive for all turrets which increases the resists of that turret per health lost and per enemies surrounding the turret. Turret fortification on the other hand is the damage reduction each tower has before a certain moment.
So the first change Riot made was that they increased both permanent and temporary resists after destroying the turret plate. Now it will take even longer to take down a turret. This effect will be felt in normal matches even though a lane swap is not taking place.
Additionally, the main counter for lane swapping is turret fortification. Now the turrets will take 85% less damage in the first 5 minutes. This should reduce lane swaps as much as possible. However, only time will tell if this will be enough.
