Riot Games to Revamp Wukong’s Kit in Upcoming Update
Nathan “Lutzburg” Lutz, Riot Games’ senior champion designer, recently shared some major changes that will be coming to Wukong’s kit in an upcoming rework. In a post on the League of Legends developer forums, Lutz detailed the goals behind these adjustments.
Lutz explained that Wukong currently has a very high win rate, especially as the game progresses. The aim of these changes is to make Wukong more balanced throughout the game, allowing him to be competitive in the early stages without dominating teamfights with his tankiness and burst damage.
Shifting Power to Early Game
Riot wants to give Wukong more tools to make proactive plays during the laning phase and shift his power towards the early game. Lutz stated that they also plan to make some quality-of-life changes for the champion.
New Abilities
One of the biggest changes is to Wukong’s passive. In the rework, when Wukong is invisible to the enemy team for at least one second, he will gain a temporary physical damage shield based on his maximum health. If he is detected, the shield will disappear after a short duration. This change aims to reward extended trading patterns and encourage players to strategically engage and disengage in brush areas.
Additionally, Wukong’s W ability is now an instant dash towards the player’s cursor, rather than a short-range blink. The ability has a range of 350 units with a speed of 1,200, but it cannot go over walls. The clone that Wukong leaves behind will now act like a stationary champion, attacking nearby enemies and prioritizing the last enemy Wukong damaged. The clone’s attacks will also apply on-hit effects and deal damage based on the player’s AD.
Furthermore, Wukong’s ultimate has received some adjustments. The tick rate has been increased to every quarter of a second, but the damage has been halved to compensate for this buff. The damage ratio per second has been slightly increased, and Wukong also gains a flat 30 percent bonus movement speed during the ultimate.
Release Date
These changes are expected to be available on the PBE (Public Beta Environment) around December, although an exact release date has not been confirmed. Wukong mains are hoping that the reworked champion will be ready by the start of season 10 next year.
Riot Games, Wukong, League of Legends, champion rework, early game, passive ability, dash, clone, ultimate, PBE, season 10