Hey there, fellow gamers! Librarian Husky here, ready to take you on a journey through the latest updates and strategies in League of Legends. Whether you’re looking to climb the ranks or just have some fun, this guide has got you covered. We’ll break down the latest patch changes, discuss the best builds, and highlight which champions are dominating the meta. So, grab your favorite snack, get comfortable, and let’s dive into the world of League of Legends together!
Aurora’s Viability in Top and Mid Lane
Aurora has now been released and is showing Viability in both top and Mid Lane. Tristana is now a pretty dead pick after her nerfs, while Zed is back to being that pick-or-ban mid for solo Q. We’ve got all this and much more to cover as we bring you up to speed with a complete update on the solo Q Tier List as we reach the midway point of Patch 14.14.
Aurora’s Performance in the Top Lane
Let’s start things off by discussing Aurora up in the Top Lane. Even though she’s more popular for mid right now, she’s seeing a very similar amount of success as a Top Laner. Compared to many of the previous champion releases, Aurora has started off with a higher win rate from the jump, as it’s been around 45% for the first day of her release. Smolder, who was the most recent champion release prior to Aurora, had under a 40% win rate on the first day of his release and then eventually climbed up to around 50% as the patch rolled along. So things are looking promising for Aurora.
Rune Setup for Aurora in the Top Lane
If you’re playing Aurora up in the Top Lane right now, there is one Rune Setup that is completely dominating everything else. It consists of running Fleet Footwork for the keystone rune. The sustain and added kiting strength that Fleet provides make Aurora super difficult to kill in lane and allow her to bully those melee champs really well.
Optimal Build for Aurora
As for the build, what seems to be working best so far is a more AP Bruiser setup consisting of Rod of Ages, Liandry’s Anguish, and Cosmic Drive. Aurora needs to play relatively up close to be effective, so this more durable build works great for her.
Aurora’s Tier List Placement
As for Aurora’s Tier List placement, we’re going to be slotting her into the A tier as we believe she’s much better than her current overall win rate suggests. Everything up in the Top Lane more or less played out to expectations for this patch.
Top Lane Tier List Overview
Let’s just go right into the Tier List for the role. OP tier stays the same as Sett and Volibear are the two Top Laners that you really can’t go wrong with right now. Rumble and Jax were the two top laners nerfed for Patch 14.14, and both have fallen in strength as much as we had anticipated. Rumble is now in a pretty terrible spot.
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Changes in Top Lane Tier List
Jax is still viable but not a priority pick any longer. The Irelia adjustments have turned out pretty power neutral, so no movement on the Tier List for her. Jayce, Cho’Gath, and Sion were the three top laners buffed for this patch, and we were pretty spot on with predicting how each of their changes would land. Jayce was the biggest winner from the Top Lane this patch, as he’s seen his win rate climb around 2%.
Buff Effects on Jayce, Cho’Gath, and Sion
Jayce‘s buff was significant, while Cho’Gath‘s buff was so light that it has not even affected his win rate by more than a small fraction, so he remains down in the B tier. For Sion, it was a similar outcome to Jayce, as the buff was just not significant enough to propel him further up the Tier List.
Zed’s Jungle Performance
Moving on to the jungle now, even though Zed is way more popular as a midlaner, he’s actually seen a nice spike in power as a jungler this patch due to the buffs and should not be slept on. As a matter of fact, Zed’s win rate in the jungle has actually gone up more than in the Mid Lane, which is pretty interesting.
Impact of Zed’s Q Buff
The Q buff helps out a ton with Zed’s clear speed as 10 extra damage on a spell with a six-second cooldown definitely adds up throughout the course of a full clear. Players rushing Voltaic Cyclosword on Zed jungle are now actually winning above 50%, which is not something to overlook.
Zed Jungle Build and Performance
We’ve seen impressive results from Zed jungle this entire season. Here’s a look at the best-performing build right now: Voltaic Cyclosword, Profane Hydra, and Cela’s Grudge. First Strike has been winning the most out of any keystone on Zed jungle, with players taking Inspiration for primaries and Precision for secondaries. If you can play a good Zed jungle, he’s definitely worth your while in Patch 14.14. We’re giving him a bump out of C tier and up into B.
Shyvana’s Rise in the Jungle Tier List
Another adjustment we’re making to the jungle Tier List for mid-patch is giving Shyvana a further push-up. We’ve been quite high on Shyvana over the past few patches, and with so many junglers recently hit with nerfs, her priority just keeps going up.
Optimal Rune and Build for Shyvana
We covered the Fleet Footwork Rune Setup on Shyvana a few patches back, and as more and more players have caught on to this setup being the most optimal, her win rate just keeps climbing. Players running Fleet on Shyvana are winning over 54% of the time right now, which is just absurd. The optimal build consists of a Spear of Shojin rush, Liandry’s Anguish second, and Riftmaker third, going for more of an AP Bruiser setup. This allows Shyvana to be more engaged in fights instead of just sitting back from range with her squishy full AP build.
Shyvana’s Dominance in the Jungle
If you’re anywhere diamond or below right now, definitely look to take advantage of Shyvana while you can, as she’s being moved up into the jungle OP tier. Even though the jungle role was heavily impacted by the 14.14 changes, the Tier List doesn’t look a whole lot different from mid-patch because most of the adjustments have met our pre-patch expectations.
Impact of Patch 14.14 on Jungle Champions
Kindred, Zyra, Lillia, Bel’Veth, and Brand were the six junglers nerfed for this patch. The only one that did not pan out as we expected was Brand. Brand lost very minimal strength from the E nerf, so he’s still one of the more optimal AP junglers for solo Q.
Champions to Avoid and Neutral Adjustments
Nunu, on the other hand, was absolutely hammered by her nerfs and is a champ that you will want to stay away from unless you’re really mastered on the pick. Hecarim’s adjustments have been as power-neutral as you could ask for, with his win rate literally not budging from 14.13 to 14.14.
Key Movements in the Jungle
The big movement out of the jungle for this patch revolves around Zed becoming a viable pick again, while Nunu lost the most amount of power for any jungle who was nerfed and should be prioritized less for solo Q.
Mid Lane Adjustments
Moving on to the Mid Lane now, the big talking point of the patch revolves around the release of Aurora so far.
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Aurora’s Performance as a New Release
Aurora is not performing all that bad for a new release. As with any champ on release, we’re not expecting them to be overly impressive on the analytical side of things. Something that we did expect and that is being confirmed by the data so far is that Aurora does have a pretty tough time against more bursty mobile champs.
Aurora’s Weaknesses Against Mobile Champions
Aurora is a shorter-ranged mage and doesn’t have any sort of hard CC that she can use to lock down enemies pre-six. Even though her E does provide a slow, it only lasts for one second, and if the enemy has multiple mobility spells, that slow is really not going to matter. This makes it very easy for these more mobile champs like Ahri, Fizz, and Katarina to jump right onto her, and there’s not much Aurora can do.
Challenges in Specific Matchups
Aurora‘s W is a dash, but it’s on a 22-second cooldown at rank one, which gives the enemy a huge window to try and jump onto you while it’s down. This makes the Irelia matchup especially difficult because Irelia can just dash forward to bait out your W and then Q back to minions to get the reset. After that, you’ll be forced to play super safe for 20 seconds while Irelia gets to do whatever she wants.
Issues Against Long-Range Mages
If you do end up moving up, Irelia will just kill you. A longer-range mage like Lux can be quite difficult to play against as well because Aurora‘s shorter range and lack of reliable CC make it hard to deal with such opponents.
Dealing with Long-Range Mages
If Lux spaces correctly, it’s almost impossible to land any damage on her in lane. You can definitely outplay mages a lot easier than melee assassins, though. A lot of the time, you’ll want to use your W more aggressively to make up for this range difference. Just sitting back with Aurora against longer range matchups is not going to bode well for you as you’ll probably just end up getting poked out.
Using W Proactively
You have to be using W proactively. For example, if Lux throws out E, instead of running backward trying to dodge it, you can just look to W forward to dodge the damage. Then you should be in range to land your Q and E at this point to get a winning tradeoff.
Aurora’s Team Fighting Potential
It’s really in team fighting where Aurora can absolutely take over games. As long as you’re able to get past the early game without giving up much, it’s pretty easy to be impactful later on.
Aurora’s Tier List Placement
For a more in-depth look at Aurora, check out our Aurora starter guide. As for Aurora‘s Tier List placement, she’s going to be slotted into the A tier, as the champ does have a lot of potential if you can pilot her well. Now, let’s jump into the Mid Lane Tier List.
Mid Patch Adjustments
We have a few additional adjustments to discuss for mid patch. The OP tier will not be changing as there’s no reason for us to remove Vex or Neeko. Even though Riot had the Aurelion Sol changes listed as adjustments in the patch notes, he’s seen a nice win rate boost this patch from 50% up to around 52%, which is quite significant and warrants a push up into the Mid Lane S tier.
Aurelion Sol’s Performance Across Different ELOs
Our pre-patch theory is playing out because the amount of win rate that Aurelion Sol has gained this patch varies depending on the ELO. For platinum and below, we’re seeing around a 2% spike, but for diamond and above, it’s less than 1%. This is because of the Q change where Riot increased the mana cost on the initial use of Sol’s Q, making tapping Q for kiting and procing Rylai’s more punishing. High ELO players were the ones that really took advantage of this tap Q, whereas in the lower ranks it wasn’t as prevalent, which is why we’re seeing this difference in win rate.
Impact on the Tier List
We care more about how strong champs are for diamond and below when making our Tier List. So even though Aurelion Sol has not gained as much strength for diamond and above, we’re still moving him into the S tier.
Zed’s Adjustment
Another adjustment to the Tier List consists of Zed moving up one extra tier as we’re giving him a push from A into S.
Impactful Buffs and Adjustments
Buffs have turned out a little bit more impactful than we had expected, so adjusting him into the S tier is what we see fit. Zed is now back to being one of the higher priority solo Q picks, but good luck locking him in this patch as his ban rate has spiked to almost 30%.
Tristana’s Decline
One last adjustment we’re making for mid patch is moving Tristana even further down. When making the pre-patch Tier List, we were not aware that Riot was also nerfing Tristana‘s Q attack speed. Because of that change going live, she’s lost a lot more power than originally expected. Tristana’s win rate has plummeted around 5%, so she’s no longer a viable solo Q champ and will be placed in the C tier.
Tristana’s ADC Role
It’s not just Tristana midlane that has fallen off super hard due to the nerfs, as the changes have equally killed Tristana in the ADC role. Tristana is now the unanimous worst ADC for solo Q, which is saying something when we’ve got picks like Kalista, Corki, and Aphelios who are in pretty terrible spots as well. We wouldn’t be surprised if Riot circles back for patch 14.15 and reverts one of the nerfs, but for the time being, definitely stay far away from Tristana for solo Q as she’s dropping down into the C tier.
ADC Tier List Overview
If we look at the ADC Tier List, the premier champions in the role have not been dethroned for a while now. Jinx and Kai’Sa continue to dominate as two of the strongest solo Q carries. Jhin, Ashe, and Miss Fortune follow right behind them as very strong S tier picks. Ezreal is a really great S tier champ as well right now.
Aelio and Corki’s Performance
Aelio was one of the other ADCs buffed for this patch, but the changes have not moved the needle enough to drag him out of the C tier. Corki was nerfed as well, so he’s really not worth playing in bot lane anymore. Even though shortly after his mini rework he was quite popular in the bot lane, he now has less than a 0.5% play rate in the role.
Removing Corki from the Tier List
Our general rule of thumb is that when a champ drops below a 0.5% play rate, they get removed from the Tier List. So unless something changes for Corki in the coming patch, we’ll probably just be removing him entirely in our next update.
Milio’s Adjustments in Patch 14.14
The only support who was adjusted for Patch 14.14 was Milio, and the changes have actually played out in his favor slightly. Usually, when Riot issues these adjustments where they shift power around in a champion’s kit, the champ ends up losing or gaining a significant amount of power. However, the Milio adjustments have been extremely neutral power-wise.
Effects of Milio’s Q Range Increase
The Q range being increased is actually pretty insane as you have the ability to poke a little easier in lane and peel off dive champs better in fights. You’re definitely rewarded more for using his Q effectively.
Milio’s Adjustments and Current State
Now, being able to play a good Milio is more rewarding due to these adjustments, as more of his power budget has been shifted over to Q. Overall, Milio remains in a good spot for solo Q after these changes, as you can find him in the support A tier.
Impact of Warmog’s Nerf on the Meta
The big change that was supposed to have a significant impact on the meta was the nerf to Warmog’s. However, with the patch live for a few days, it looks like the nerf has been rather tame. Melee supports are still rushing Warmog’s to great success, showing how impactful the movement speed from the item really is.
Continued Strength of Warmog’s Armor
Even though you won’t have access to the movement speed as early in the game as before, eventually getting that 15% bonus movement speed is so valuable for solo Q. Being so tanky with Warmog’s makes it the perfect melee support item, so Riot will have to nerf it even more if they want it removed from the meta.
Leona’s Tier Adjustment
As a result of Warmog’s not losing very much strength, we are moving Leona back up into the OP tier for mid patch, as her win rate has not even budged due to the nerf. Even though it looked like there was potential for the support role to see a shakeup due to the Warmog’s nerf, that hasn’t been the case, and the meta remains the same as it was in patch 14.13.
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- Aurora’s Viability in Top and Mid Lane
- Rune Setup for Aurora in the Top Lane
- Changes in Top Lane Tier List
- Zed Jungle Build and Performance
- Shyvana’s Dominance in the Jungle
- Aurora’s Performance as a New Release
- Dealing with Long-Range Mages
- Mid Patch Adjustments
- Impactful Buffs and Adjustments
- ADC Tier List Overview
- Milio’s Adjustments and Current State
- Aurora’s Viability in Top and Mid Lane
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New Updated Tier List for Patch 14.14