Mere days after the Ancient Fear has received a stunning rework, Riot Games has shipped an emergency Fiddlesticks rework hotfix to rebalance and buff the decade-old champion due to players struggling to adapt to his new kit and playstyle.
Fiddlesticks fans have been eagerly awaiting the recently unveiled rework that went live with the release of Patch 10.7 on April 1, 2020.
His already timeless kit received a modern update, and total do-over at the hands of the gameplay devs and his new model and animations underwent a total facelift to become absolutely terrifying.
Why Does Fiddlesticks Need A Hotfix?
Unfortunately, immediately after release, he saw far less use in both casual and competitive play than what was anticipated. This was due to the fact that his win-rate in all feasible roles simply fell flat and dropped off steeply after the rework was released.
According to op.GG, he currently sits at an embarrassing 42.82% win rate, dropping down to 35.71% in games under 25 minutes in length. Yikes!
And to add salt to the already gaping wound – he is the lowest win rate champion both as a Jungler and Support. This came in stark contrast to many players’ expectations of him absolutely dominating the bot lane as a Support and providing insane map pressure as a Jungler.
With that said, the hotfix is more of a “life ring” to bail him out of the rough seas…
What Is Getting Buffed In The Fiddlesticks Rework Hotfix?
On April 3, 2020, players are expecting Riot to release the planned updates to Fiddle’s newly revamped and updated kit. At the moment, the majority of these changes are focused around his W – Bountiful Harvest.
In simple terms, Riot is adding an added 20 magic damage to each level of his W, with the final level granting an additional 2% of missing Health as healing.
To summarize, this is what his W will look like after the hotfix:
- Damage (+20): 100-340 >> 120-360
- Healing (+2%): 12-16% >> 12-18% of missing Health
More Changes Possibly On The Way
Let’s face it, completely overhauling and modernizing a decade old champion is a tough task. And Riot Games is certainly aware that the Fiddlesticks rework hotfix along with his initial sub-par release are a learning curve, as noted by Rioter Mark Yetter in today’s blog post.
He went on to further elaborate that most champions, whether newly introduced or reworked, have a period of time where players learn to play them as intended before they see a spike in their natural win-rate. However, he also shared his concerns over the fact that Fiddlesticks might be an edge-case that could face with the opposite effect.
Closing Thoughts
With Patch 10.8 on the way and scheduled for release on April 15, it’s likely that Fiddlesticks will see more fine-tuning if today’s hotfix doesn’t solve his win-rate woes.
