At this point, it is hard to tell what exactly the Riot balance team is aiming for. After the fiasco that was the League of Stopwatches, even Riot realized that they made the game far too passive and late game oriented. Pro play matches in particular suffered – and still are to some extent – as many games would go to 20 minutes without a single death. However, recent changes like the removal of Tracker’s Knife show that Riot wants things to be more exciting and action-packed. Unless, of course, Riot also implements a bunch of new ways to keep laners safe. But, they wouldn’t do that, would they?

This was a direct quote from the 8.4 patch notes taken two weeks ago. It was an unexpected change that hit champions like Lee Sin and Jax especially hard, but the theory behind it seemed sound enough. If vision is limited, it creates more opportunities for aggression, engages, and action. The previous changes to Stopwatch also seemed aimed at increasing the action of games so they were less defensive. The sell cost of the item was heavily nerfed while its activate was moved to triggering at 10 minutes.

However, in the same patch, Riot introduced that blast cones would have a heavily increased spawn timer. Instead of spawning at 125-140 seconds (about 2 minutes), they will be spawning at 300-330 seconds (about 5 minutes). While this might not seem like a big deal, for a jungler, a blast cone can be the difference between a gank and a death. It not only eliminates a huge portion of danger from lanes, but it alters pathing for a jungler.

Think of it like this – minions spawn from the Nexus at 1:15. With the previous blast cone mechanic, junglers could finish a few camps, achieving level 2 or 3, and then attempt a ‘cheese’ gank. While these were frustrating for some laners, it certainly made the game more action packed. Now, the five minute timer means junglers won’t have access to blast cones until they are on their second or even third clear (some junglers, like Udyr, can speed through their first clear by the 3 minute mark). Granted, this doesn’t eliminate cheese ganks, but it certainly makes early-game action harder to pull off.

While this is frustrating, it still feels like a balance decision that players might not be able to see. Perhaps it will increase action late game – Tracker’s Knife is still removed – while making early game less frustrating. That was what we thought until we saw the notes for the new Locket of the Iron Solari.

The new locket creates a protective field at the user’s location for 8 seconds. Any allied champion within the field will be dealt 35% less damage. While the previous Locket gave a shield that varied from 60-434 and lasted 2.5 seconds, the new one is markedly better. The damage mitigation is vastly higher from even one champion let alone an entire team. Coupled with the fact that the damage reduction lasts for 8 seconds, and it essentially makes all damage within that circle slow to a crawl.

We’re all for exciting changes to the game, but we at least want them to make sense. Riot is playing a bizarre game of buffing and nerfing lanes and roles, and it’s hard to tell what exactly they want. Some of their nerfs and removals seem targeted at making the game more exciting, but several more seem aimed at making it safer and less dangerous. At best, the buffs and nerfs might cancel each other, dropping the game to its original state. At worse, it becomes even less exciting and we get another Ardent Censer meta, which was as unpleasant to play as it was to watch. All we know for certain is that even veterans are getting sick of the constant changes, so whatever Riot decides, it needs to come sooner rather than later.