League of Legends’ newest champion, Bel’Veth, is slated for nerfs in the upcoming patch, but some streamers and pros like Christian ‘IWDominate’ Rivera question if the changes are necessary.
Bel’Veth, the Empress of the Void and the newest League of Legends champion, is slated for nerfs in Patch 12.12 next week.
Buffing or nerfing a new champion right after release is hardly uncommon for Riot Games. Even though they spend weeks on the PBE environment for testing, champions are often shipped to the live servers with incredible strength or weakness.
However, some higher-ranked League of Legends players believe Riot is making a mistake nerfing Bel’Veth after her first patch on the live servers.
IWillDominate questions Bel’Veth nerfs in LoL
In anticipation of Patch 12.12, League of Legends Associate Game Designer TheTruexy tweeted out the list of upcoming buffs, nerfs, and system changes that Riot was targeting for the patch.
Among the champions listed was the newest addition to League of Legends, Bel’Veth. Specifics of the nerfs were not given in the tweet – though they will likely be revealed shortly – and there was no explanation as to why Bel’Veth is getting nerfed.
12.12 Patch Preview! A bit of a smaller patch as we continue to collect data on bigger things like overall Lethality/Game time/Role power. pic.twitter.com/Mdj38D85eQ
— Tim (@TheTruexy) June 13, 2022
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However, streamer, LCS commentator, and host of The Jungle, IWillDominate has a theory as to why Bel’Veth is getting nerfed.
IWillDominate posted three screenshots, the first just being a picture from TheTruexy showing the Bel’Veth tweaks. The other two images show Bel’Veth’s jungle win rate in Master and above (43.42%) versus her win rate in Iron (55.54%).
https://twitter.com/IWDominate/status/1536711047255572483
The implication, which IWillDominate makes explicitly clear, is that these nerfs are the result of Bel’Veth dominating the lower ranks even though she is still struggling immensely at higher levels of play.
It is worth noting that Bel’Veth does currently have a 51.99% win rate across all skill-levels. Typically, new champions have a very low win rate after they are released as players try to master the champion’s abilities, find the proper itemization, and pick up their playstyle.
However, IWillDominate’s point does still stand given the fact that Bel’Veth doesn’t have a positive win rate in any tier above Platinum, and only barely has a positive win rate in Gold. Given her disparity in strength at varying levels of play, Riot should be careful with the nerfs and aim to give Bel’Veth more skill expression so she can succeed at the high elos where she is currently struggling.
