The Edge of Night LoL changes in the preseason update brought feelings of devastation to assassin players when it was released, and the patch notes rolled out.
Patch version 9.23 brought a serious overhaul to a variety of gameplay mechanics ranging from small balance changes to the map, and even a modest update aimed at Doran’s Shield. While the majority of balancing was beneficial to players, the Edge of Night saw a drastic cut in its statistics and an uproot to its mechanics.
The Edge of Night LoL: A Quick Introduction
After entering the scene in 2016, The Edge of Night rapidly grew in popularity among attack damage assassins and junglers.
Because of its usefulness for specific champions, it inevitably became a pain in the side for everyone else. Put simply – its stats were incredible as a lethality item. The Edge of Night featured a 60% increase of lethality along with flat armor penetration and the unique active spell shield “Nights Veil,” which blocked enemy abilities for an entire seven seconds.
However, while being pretty darn awesome for assassins, those seven seconds were just a bit too much for other players to handle. Throughout its life, there have consistently been small changes made to the favorite item, but patch 9.23’s was by far the biggest, and ultimately, the most crippling of them all.
The Update That Killed The Edge Of Night
The LoL Edge of Night patch notes was something to behold on release. The last time the item had been modified, it was already hit with a steep nerf, and in 9.23, it saw an even worse fate. Here are the changes that were made in an effort to “re-balance” it:
Total Cost: 3000 → 2900 Gold
Attack Damage: 55 → 50
Lethality: 18 → 10
Health: 250 → 325
As you might notice above, the level of lethality has been significantly reduced. Notably, there was also a slight reduction in attack damage. The increase in health could potentially still be beneficial for some players.
And while this was all relatively bearable, it was the uproot to the active skill the item offered that solidified the fact that there was almost no point in using it as an assassin. Let’s take a closer look at the active item skills’ change:
Spell Shield: Grants a spell shield that blocks the next enemy ability. This shield refreshes after no damage is taken from enemy champions for 40 seconds.
The spell shield in question is nearly identical to Night’s Veil. However, it’s been changed from an active skill to a passive, taking away the power of control, which benefited assassins so strongly.
Riots patch notes suggested that the change encouraged usability among a broader range of champions. Still, the condition of not taking damage for an entire 40 seconds arguably makes it more difficult. Assassins are typically glass cannons, and a small boost in health isn’t going to make a difference over a choose-when-to-use type of spell shield.
Conclusion
The changes made, while seemingly small to newer players, have effectively led to a series of meta changes and upheavals to popular playstyles. Effectively, at this time, it’s still hard to say whether or not Edge of Night will make a comeback into assassin builds for champions like Akali, who are no stranger to nerfs. We can only hope that Riot Games reverses some of the damage they’ve done in a later patch.
Balancing gameplay seems to be a full-time effort at Riot Games, and they can’t seem to please everyone in a single patch. How do you think the Edge of Night LoL should have been handled? Feel free to tell us about your ideas and approach in the comments below!
