I’ve always been on the other side of the fence when it comes to Mel; seemingly hated by everyone who isn’t currently playing her, I found her kit to be unique in a sea of three-hit passives and revive mechanics. Having a shield that reflects projectiles added a new angle to what could be done in team fights, and it was something I hadn’t seen before. Well, with LoL patch 26.22, it’s all gone.
I appreciate that getting blasted with your own Nami ult, or taking a reflected Ezreal R to the face, might be frustrating. As a Mel enjoyer, I appreciated making that Blitzcrank have second thoughts about throwing a hook, and having a defense against Yasuo’s whirlwind made those midlane fights more interesting. Instead, she’s been – I hesitate to say nerfed – changed; rather, her W has been changed. It now destroys projectiles, rather than bouncing them back to where they came from.
The unfairness, if you can call it that, when playing against a Mel always seemed to sprout from the non-telegraphed nature of her Q and the fact that the damage from her ult can creep up with little feedback. It requires players to keep track of stacks, which isn’t the most intuitive thing in the world, I’ll admit. This isn’t getting blown to smithereens by a Lux R; this is someone planting C4 on your back 5 minutes ago without you noticing.
This midscope change dulls Mel. It takes away some of her identity and what made her such a unique pick in the first place. Her win rate for quite a while has been fairly bad, so it isn’t the domination aspect of the character; it’s more about frustration. It will be interesting to see where she goes from here, and how popular a pick she’ll be – I imagine support will now be the primary destination for The Soul’s Reflection (they’re going to have to change that descriptor).
Anyway, there are other things in patch 26.22, apparently. TFT is getting its own client, which is nice for those who enjoy a bit of the old Auto Chess. It will be getting a suite of cosmetics and TFT-only Little Legends in December, and for those who aren’t interested in any of that, you can opt out of the TFT download and save yourself a bit of hard drive space.
ARAM Mayhem is also getting some love, and the team is aiming to stop some of that heavy snowballing you’ve likely heard about (and been involved in). Dampening the effectiveness of tanks feels like the right play, as they have been having their cake and eating it for quite a while – often, with the right augments, tanks are both unkillable and possess obscene damage at the same time, which doesn’t feel very nice. Unless I’m said tank.
The full 26.22 patch notes can be found here and are well worth perusing if you want to get an idea of how the next month or so of your League games are going to go.