Everyone’s favorite phantom half-man, half-horse has galloped to the top of the League of Legends leaderboards in Patch 10.16 and earned the No. 1 spot in the jungle position with a 54.05-percent win rate. since then.
Hecarim has seen a full 2.72-percent increase, according to stats site LoLalytics, following buffs to his Devastating Charge (E) ability last week. Riot increased his bonus movement speed from 25 to 75 percent to 25 to 100 percent.
Aside from a nice boost in speed, improving Hecarim’s potential for ganks and engage, the extra movement speed procs his passive ability for an explosive increase in damage. But that wasn’t the full extent of his buffs.
In League’s Patch 10.12 and again in 10.14, Riot buffed Predator and Ghost—Hecarim’s bread and butter keystone and summoner spell.
Predator and Ghost both saw substantial changes over the last few months. Riot buffed Predator’s damage and cooldown, as well as Ghost’s bonus movement speed from levels one to 18. Together with the recent buffs to Devastating Charge, Hecarim has veered wildly out of control.
This came after he disappeared from the meta for a long period of time with Riot announcing multiple buffs for underperforming champions.
In an attempt to “diversify the playoffs meta,” Riot Games’ lead gameplay designer Mark “Scruffy” Yetter released a preview earlier of the champions being buffed in League of Legends Patch 10.16.
Multiple champions got getting buffed and nerfed in the upcoming patch before the developers can fine-tune the meta for Worlds this year.
Some of the biggest names on the list have also been some of the most controversial champions in both solo queue and competitive play. Akali, for example, used to terrorize both ranked ladders and on-stage players alike, but recent nerfs destroyed her win rate and play rate. She has the second-lowest win rate right now among all mid laners, according to Champion.gg.
Jax and Fiora are also big champions that once populated the solo queue ladder and pro play with their great dueling potential and splitpushing power. They both sit below a 50 percent win rate since Patch 10.15.
It seems like this forced meta shift could have come a bit earlier in the year. But with playoffs and Worlds on the way, teams will need a lot more time to create new drafts and strategies based on which champions have become stronger in the next patches. It’s interesting to see how a small buff can make a champion pick or ban priority in both solo queue and competitive environments.
