Patch 5.5: A breath of fresh air

Patch 5.5. A breath of fresh air. Awesome patch overall. Seeing the return of champs like Amumu, Sej, Rammus, and Naut. Even saw a Zac being pretty effective one game. Have to say I haven't seen a single Vi or J4 in the 15ish games I've played so far on it. So there is much less threat of seeing the early 'jump on a squishy and blow them up' junglers.

Cinderhulk is amazing. Once you get it you can actually clear camps in between ganks with moderate efficiency so you don't fall off. The best part is the +25% bonus HP. It makes it feel like you can actually be a tank again without instantly being melted in team fights. This is a trade off for roles like ADC because you don't have to worry about being jumped on and blown up as much early game, but you do have to spend more time gunning down a tank in the late game. Overall its awesome because I felt like tanks didn't really survive more than a few seconds in team fights before. It feels more balanced in team fights. If I die I feel its more something I did wrong or being outplayed as opposed to "FUCKING BULLSHIT™"

It makes me want to try a bunch more of the newly buffed junglers. I've played mostly Sej with a few Amumu games so far on the patch. Maybe I'll try Naut, Voli, or Trundle next. Speaking of which, it feels awesome just being able to say that. Not having to pick one of the 3 or 4 meta junglers to feel relevant in the jungle is amazing.

Luden's Echo seems actually fairly balanced and can be used on a wide variety of champions. It can be used to add a bit more burst to a kit or to make continuous poke a little stronger. Haven't really seen enough of it to comment too much on it though. Righteous glory got buffed and you see it more frequently now, especially on champs like Rammus and Volibear. I'm glad that these champs who don't really have a gap closer other than run at the enemy have a bit easier time in the meta where every other popular champ can kite them somewhat easily

Bard. Well tbh I don't like him. He has almost 0 early game damage and no lane presence. His CC is unreliable at best. His kit punishes him strongly for staying in lane and not roaming around to pick up his chimes. This is problematic because it leaves his ADC in a 2v1 lane frequently. It also means he gets caught out a lot while roaming around, frequently through the enemy jungle. His ult has screwed me quite a few times already and has gotten me killed or saved an enemy on more than one occasion. I don't like him so far, but that being said he's only been out for a few days so I'm giving people time to figure out what to do with him.

There are many, many more positive changes on the PBE as well. Leblanc has some minor nerfs. Irelia getting a nerf to the damage on her E (to be fair honestly I think Irelia is fairly balanced already). Singed getting a buff on the damage to his Fling. Some Evelynn buffs incoming as well. They're still tweeking Veigar after he got hit hard in patch 5.4. They're even giving buffs to champs that have been forgotten about like Aatrox and Galio. A lot of poke heavy champs seem to be getting mana cost reductions to counter Riot nerfing mana regen this season. I've even heard that Lux is getting some mana cost reduction. They're changing Sion's ult so that if he runs into someone and the damage kills them, he keeps running though them onto the next target.

Overall an awesome patch with more good changes on the way. Can't wait to see the next patch. Keep these kind of patches coming RIOT :)