“Continue buffing weak top laners”: Riot reveals League of Legends champion balance strategy for the rest of S13

With League of Legends Split 2 finally kicking-off, Riot Games has revealed its plans for champion balances for the remainder of Season 13. The MOBA gets a bi-weekly patch like every other title from the developer, and a slew of new balance changes are introduced to the game with each update. RiotPhroxzon, who is part of the League of Legends balance team, recently provided some insights on some of the goals that Riot has when it comes to the balance tweaks for the remainder of the season.

He had this to say in a recent tweet:

“After TP, item, ghost, and champ changes, we believe Top is close on power, but the map feeling decided without you can't be resolved without seasonal level changes.”

The top lane has been struggling quite a bit in League of Legends Season 13. Hence, it won’t be all that surprising if Riot looks to make extensive changes to the lane via the upcoming patches.

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Massive top lane changes expected in League of Legends Season 13

The League of Legends top lane has seen a significant shift over the last couple of patches, along with Teleport and Ghost changes. While Season 13 brought a fair bit of balance to the lane after the item updates, many of the champions are struggling in the current meta that heavily favors picks like K’Sante, Gnar, Rumble, and Ornn.

Talking about some of the outliers in the top lane, RiotPhroxzon continued in his post by stating that:

“Our strategy for the rest of the year: - Continue buffing weak top laners up (rather than nerf the strong down) - For other roles, nerfing the top down (rather than buff up) - Continue nerfing JG - Take a look at early snowballing Incremental changes here have been effective.”

Unlike the top lane, the LoL jungle has seen a lot of buffs with the new buddy system making things significantly easier for low-tier junglers during the early to mid-game.

Hence, while providing struggling top lane champions with some much-needed buffs, Riot will also be looking to nerf the jungle.

It will be quite interesting to see the type of changes that the developer is looking to implement in the coming weeks, and how the meta will shift in both the solo and the professional queue.