Riot finally planning huge Viego nerfs for next League of Legends update

Isaac McIntyre
Viego the Ruined King standing next to League of Legends patch 11.17 nerfs.

Riot are finally ready for a little regicide, with Viego all set to cop a series of League of Legends nerfs in the next August update in a bid to “drain power” from his controversial ability resets, and bring his healing down to a more reasonable level late-on in Season 11.

Viego has been one of the more controversial League of Legends releases in recent times, and not just because his big blockbuster Ruination event was a flop.

Since his debut back in 11.2, the Ruined King has divided LoL players right down the middle. He’s an incredibly popular character (Viego still boasts a 13.63% play rate months after his release), but the king’s power across ranked and pro play ⁠— where he has a monster 77.5% presence ⁠— has annoyed many too.

Now, fifteen patches later, Riot is finally nerfing him.

These long-awaited changes are set to ship in League of Legends patch 11.17, and will include major nerfs for his healing passive, Q, E, ultimate, and more.

Viego in League of Legends
Viego has been a meta League of Legends pick since his release back in patch 11.2.

The nerfs have three goals, Browning explained.

Firstly, Riot wants to “drain power from his resets;” especially, they added, when the Ruined King is playing from behind, or building tank-focused item sets.

This has perhaps been Viego’s greatest point of power since his release; if the Ruination commander finds a reset or two in a teamfight, he can take over the game. This often happens whether he boasts a hefty hoard of gold or not.

Riot’s planned 11.17 changes will also “reduce the versatility of Viego’s auto-attack pattern,” and ⁠— “hopefully,” Browning says ⁠— shift him towards crit builds.

Dexerto can reveal the Ruined King will have his auto-attacks, passive, Q, E, and ultimate tweaked in the August 25 update. The biggest change should come via his healing, which has been reduced. The slow duration from his Heartbreaker ultimate has also been halved in the planned nerfs.

Here’s the full list of Viego changes.

Viego League of Legends patch 11.17 nerfs

Base stats

  • Auto-attack range 225 ⇒ 200.

Passive ⁠— Sovereign’s Domination

  • Healing on taking a body 8% (+0.25 base attack damage) (+0.015 ability power) (+2.5 attack speed) ⇒ 3% (+0.03 base attack damage) (+0.02 ability power) (+5 attack speed).

Q ⁠— Blade of the Ruined King

  • Critical hit multiplier 0.75 ⇒ 1.

E ⁠— Harrowed Path

  • Camo reveal radius 400 ⇒ 450.

R ⁠— Heartbreaker

  • Slow duration 0.5 ⇒ 0.25.

About The Author

Isaac was formerly the Australian Managing Editor at Dexerto. Isaac began his writing career as a sports journalist at Fairfax Media, before falling in love with all things esports and gaming. Since then he's covered Oceanic and global League of Legends for Upcomer, Hotspawn, and Snowball Esports.