Aurelion Sol has an interesting status in League of Legends. He doesn’t really become very popular with players, but nonetheless he was quite successful with the few players. Riot buffed him in patch 14.3, but immediately took those buffs back.
Aurelion Sol is an unusual champion in LoL. When it came out in 2016, its core mechanic was stars orbiting around it and dealing damage. Keeping an eye on these and using them efficiently was difficult and a bit tricky for many people. He was never a popular champion, but his win rate was often solid, making balancing difficult.
In order to attract more players, it was reworked in 2023. His stars were gone and almost every one of his abilities changed. But here too the large number of players were not interested. If you look at his pick rate on U.GG, he is not the least popular midlaner at 2.0%, but the majority still doesn’t seem to be interested in him.
It was then buffed in patch 14.3. But a short time later he was nerfed again because he was apparently way too strong. 2 Riot developers commented on this.
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We made him way too good
In the latest patch 14.3, a lot of improvements were made to Aurelion Sol. His Q ability gained 3 stacks instead of 1 and the mana cost also decreased. The cost and cooldown of his W ability decreased. Although collecting stacks with his W became weaker, the Q buff compensates for this quite well.
Apparently the buffs were too strong, because on the same day of the patch a mid-patch update was released that took care of Aurelion Sol. The Q now only collects 2 stacks per Champion Burst, the W has a significantly longer cooldown again and the Q’s bonus damage from the W has also been significantly reduced.
RiotPhroxzon commented on this on x.com and said:
Our mistake in this case. We clearly overshot the mark, and that’s our fault (we underestimated the impact of the W buff).
Riot Phroxzon on x.com
Despite the nerf, RiotPhroxzon believes that Aurelion Sol should be better than it was before patch 14.3.
RiotPhreak also commented on this in a YouTube video, saying that they obviously screwed up the Aurelion Sol buff and made it too strong an early game laner. He takes the blame as he is responsible for the contents of the patch.
In his X-Post, RiotPhroxzon explains that they are monitoring whether Aurelion Sol players play more actively or passively. The original patch was intended to reward proactive Aurelion players in lane. But they overshot the target.
On the current patch, Aurelion Sol has a 53.97% win rate in the midlane and a better pick rate of 6.3%. Ivern is also a champion that not many players pay attention to. But one player was successful with a strong build: LoL: Twitch streamer discovers a strong build for an unpopular champion, reaching the highest rank in a short time