A look at patch 8.1

So its the start of Season 8. People are complaining about how games have never been faster, more one sided than they are now. And what is the first thing we see in the 8.1 patch notes?? More damage.

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

- passive going from 2% max health -> 4% max health. Sure brand lost some damage with DFT being gone, but his enemies now dont run MR runes, and he has scorch. The game doesnt need more damage.

- Small QoL Buff

- Q & E buffs, to help him early with clearing and ganking. While not the best, I'd rather not see Graves back as FotM as his clear is fast & safe, and as a ranged AD threat he scales into late game. Other junglers have been sitting in worse positions for longer

- Turret beam nerf. Riot placed all of Heims power into the turret + W combo, and is now having to nerf his damage because if heim gets picked into a melee champ, the melee champ can do NOTHING in lane.

Base AD growth nerf and AS nerf. Mid-late game E CD buff. Something about not having uptime on E?? I don't play or see Kayle that much, but CDR is everywhere, she is pretty much guaranteed to get 20% from 1 of 3 items she could build, and CDR is everywhere in the rune section. IDK

- Base mana and E buffs. I didnt even know Riot even knew Skarner was a real champ. He hasnt been touched in forever. The buffs won't do anything unfortunately; Skarner is OP inside of his spires, but isnt even a champ outside of them. Also the spires pale in comparison to other champs "jungle power spots" as they give away Skarners positioning and give the other team gold for denying them. And like I said, Skarner isnt even a real champ outside of his spires. Meanwhile Kindred gets bonus's for her jungle marks but doesn't get fucked by them if she looses them. Sorry, still pretty salty over the Skarner changes. And its been like 2 and a half years...

- Bug fixes to her ult. meh. There is only one bug in LoL that needs to be fixed...

- A teeny tiny change to her E, in that it now takes 0.2 seconds longer to turn into a gigantic bubble if she misses. MISSES. Don't even get me started on this champ, there is no reason why Riot doesn't have at least ideas of how to nerf her. Sitting at a high ban rate from release. Pick/ban in the only pro-play she has seen. Disgust from the community. Like I said, don't even get me started. I could go for hours...

Predator got some QoL buffs. Pretty much just a tiny buff directed at Hecarim. W/e

Resolve stats getting changed from only benefiting tanks.

Everyone is going to get Grey Warwick and medieval Twitch at some point because Riot is updating honor rewards.

So what does any of this mean?? Well, for one, the current style of play isn't going to change. Damage is still going to run rampant and be king. Games will still primarily be decided by bot lane and early spiking AD marksmen and their absurdly inexpensive builds. Games will still "shorter" because everyone from Tanks to mages, assassins and ADCs tear through towers like wet paper. Zoe will remain sitting at a high ban rate. None of the problem champs who have done well in the preseason have been touched, and none of the champs who have done poorly have been touched. It will take at least another patch for Riot to even start addressing the systematic balance issues that the player base has cried out against during the preseason.