League’s durability update shapes up as biggest change in game’s 12-year history

League of Legends is undergoing its biggest update ever in LoL patch 12.10. The durability update is no small feat as every champion is lined up for changes, with the patch coming after six months of investigation into the game’s high-damage meta.

It’s not preseason, but League of Legends is undergoing its biggest change since its 2009 launch in Season 12.

In LoL patch 12.10’s durability update, all of the game’s 159 champions are undergoing some sort of change to decrease the amount of damage and increase individual tankiness. A number of items, runes, and other systems are also being targeted.

“While tons of damage can be fun and exciting, we believe that increasing champions’ defensive stats will be beneficial for letting players showcase their skill by giving them more opportunities for counterplay and to live out their high moments,” the developers said in a May 6 blog post.

Riot has been talking about nerfing high-damage meta for a number of months, starting work shortly after the preseason changes shipped at the end of 2021. This major overhaul has been the product of six months work, fit in around regular balance and champion releases.

LoL patch 12.10 was the “earliest patch we’d have been able to ship them,” according to developers, and the changes are drastic for a reason.

With the update now currently on PBE, it’s been confirmed as the biggest in League history. Every champion is getting some sort of base stat change increasing their tankiness at all points of the game with an overall goal of cutting 10-20% total damage.

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More than 80 champions are getting extended nerfs to healing and shielding, something Riot is releasing to keep sustain power-neutral.

“If we don’t act on healing and shielding, their relative power levels go up quite significantly and champions with them end up much more powerful relative to champions without them, so we’ve applied an… approximate nerf on all of them,” developer Bryan ‘Axes’ Salvatore said.

The developers are wary of the impact LoL patch 12.10 will have on the meta. In preparing the massive update, they’ve chosen to not balance any champion ahead of time. However, they’re keeping their eyes out for any outliers with the promise of a micropatch in the days following.

“We don’t want to pre-emptively nerf a champion since we’re honestly likely going to be inaccurate,” developer ‘TheTruexy’ admitted.

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“What if we nerf a champion that’s ‘fine’ or don’t go hard enough and have to nerf them multiple times? If champions are strong, we’ll look at why they’re strong like we always do, and identify what we think is problematic.

“It’s going to be noticeably different for your first few games and you are likely to lose a few kills with your damage expectations being off. But it should still be the League of Legends that you know and love.”

LoL patch 12.10, with its durability update, is set to go live on May 25, 2022.