Naafiri, introduced as an easy to learn champion, is currently seeing her first instances of play on the PBE server. As a result of player feedback, she has now received further updates in order to improve her gameplay experience ahead of her release on patch 13.14.
Naafiri has kept the League of Legends community talking for a while. The concept of an easy to learn mid lane assassin had players intrigued, and her design as a ravenous, bloodthirsty wolf makes the dreams of every Darkin fan come true.
Just like every other new champion, Naafiri has to spend a patch cycle on the Public Beta Environment (PBE) server before she and her pack get unleashed on the live servers. This time period is used to get a bigger sample size of games to test the champion while still being able to react to significant balancing issues and gamebreaking bugs before making them accessible for everyone around the world.
Naafiri has now received a set of changes that aims towards making her gameplay feel more satisfying and intuitive, according to LoL Champion Design Manager Stephen 'Raptorr' Auker.
Naafiri Is Getting More Updates Before Release
Raptorr has talked about the design team's plans on Twitter regarding the newest changes to Naafiri, explaining the goals they had in mind when introducing those. He mainly mentions quality of life changes based on player feedback, but also explains that her waveclear was a little too strong for their liking – she was almost able to oneshot a caster minion at level 5 using a single ability!
Subsequently, Naafiri's Q – Darkin Daggers gets the damage to minions lowered to 70% of its previous value. To give her more room for her spells, she has received a compensation buff to her base mana pool.
Additionally, her attack windup – the timeframe in which you can still cancel your basic attack – has been extended slightly to make her feel more in line with the other champions. Also, her wolf companions are spawning more frequently. Even a Darkin needs friends, you know.
Suffering From Success...ful Attempts To Hop Around
Naafiri also has two dashes – one of them single-target and point 'n click, the other being a skillshot that deals Area of Effect damage in her target area. Both dashes will make her packmates target enemies hit, but their different functionality caused issues when using both in a single combo.
If she cast her E – Eviscerate right after casting her W – Hounds' Pursuit, her packmates would be teleported to the target enemy and miss their initial charge through her Hounds' Pursuit! Now, packmates will no longer teleport while still leaping.
Another change to her Eviscerate is that she will no longer stack Tear of the Goddess when she does not hit an enemy. Does anyone else have flashbacks to that one weird interaction between Ezreal and Yuumi, where the cat stacked his tear by jumping onto him?
Some more Naafiri updates heading toward the PBE tomorrow (or, in some cases, already on the PBE) pic.twitter.com/uqRBPNNdBI
— Stephen Auker (@RiotRaptorr) July 11, 2023
Naafiri is set to release with patch 13.14, which will drop on July 19. While she might not be unlocked right away – her exact release date will be announced in the official patch notes – we hope you are as hyped as we are to get your hands on her!