League of Legends Patch 11.16 Preview: What to Expect

League of Legends Patch 11.16 preview has touched down with a major nerf to Dark Seal, a solid Sona revamp, a solid Diana jungle nerf, and many more tweaks and buffs.

League of Legends Patch 11.16 Preview: What to Expect

Goodbye Dark Seal, My Old Friend

AP Per Stack 5 >>> 4; Stacks lost on death 4 >>> 5

Dark Seal has been a bit of a staple in the mid lane for a nice bit now. Synergizing excellently with Refillable Potion, giving it more value during trading and skirmishing early on, and being the foundation for snowballing, which can be extremely potent in solo queue.

Now you cannot really take the game and run with it with Dark Seal, and it is equally more punishing when dying while trying to build your stacks.

Sona Getting Some Love

Way back in our "5 Things We Don't Want in League of Legends Patch 11.11," continued Sona neglect was one of those points. It seems Riot has been in the lab with the Maven of the Strings, and revamped her kit with a more modern edge.

Sona's old passive, Power Chord has been taken out in favor for Accelerando - Sona's basic abilities grant her permanent Accelerando stacks. She gains +.5 Non-Ultimate Ability Haste per, up to 60 Non-Ultimate Ability Haste. Once she reaches 60 Non-Ultimate Ability Haste, instead of granting additional Accelerando, she reduces her Ultimate Ability's current cooldown by 1.5s.

Essentially, the same playstyle of spamming Q, W, and E on Sona persists, and you will now be rewarded with lowering the cooldowns of your basic abilities and, eventually, your Ultimate.

Crescendo also now stuns Champions, Minions, and Monsters as opposed to just Champions, which could kind of matter for early bot lane fights where stunning minions prevented a small chunk of damage to you and your ADC.

Diana Jungle Nerf

Passive Monster Damage 300 >>> 250%

Diana, particularly in the jungle has been a menace in both solo queue and in professional play. Her clear once she got a little bit of gold becomes unstoppable, and her passive was a big part in this.

While not the biggest hit to her, this will slow her clear down and especially hurt her first round of clearing, which was already a little bit of a struggle point.

Patch 11.16 is shaping up to a meaningful patch, and the nerfs to some of the power picks, as well as the Dark Seal nerf, are going to be interesting to see when it hits live servers on Aug. 11.