Ever since her release in League of Legends, Naafiri has struggled to find her place within the game’s meta, and her new mid-scope update has fans even more worried about this pack leader’s identity.
Naafiri is one of the newest monster champions in League, but her play and pick rates have been slumping ever since she was added to the game’s roster. This pack leader and Darkin hound was introduced to the game as a starter assassin, or a character with little skill expression that newer players could try out and easily master.
To counteract her dwindling popularity, Riot August has unveiled an upcoming mid-scope update aimed at turning this basic assassin into a more complex jungler. August shared the update on his official X account (formerly Twitter), showcasing all the changes in a single document. The largest change involves Naafiri’s ultimate, which has been swapped out with her W.
This means that Naafiri can now press W to summon her packmates every 20 seconds while also receiving a short burst of invulnerability. For her ultimate, Naafiri will now latch onto an enemy from far away and dash towards them to deal damage, similar to Nocturne’s own ultimate ability. “So she’s Nocturne now,” one user stated after reading the changes, as there are very few mechanical differences between the two ultimates.
Naafiri’s other abilities also had their numbers fine-tuned. Her E got the biggest change, as this dash now has a shorter cooldown, a longer range, and will target the player’s cursor instead of just jumping the full distance. In terms of her Q and passive abilities, the damage modifiers have been decreased against players but buffed against monsters in the jungle.
After sifting through all the changes, longtime fans of Naafiri aren’t too pleased with her kit. “I know I’m in a tiny minority but I like her current kit,” one hardcore Naafiri main reflected. Shifting a champion’s playstyle is always a difficult change to make, as the developers will almost always alienate one group of fans. In this instance, mid-lane players will no longer be able to use her as a lane assassin since most of her damage now applies against jungle monsters.
Another player was upset about the visual flair and functionality of her kit: “We are losing basic – and reliable – mobility for the sake of MS boost and untargetability in a long cooldown.” Not only is this player upset about losing her previous W dash, but they also think shifting a standard ability into the ultimate slot makes it look weaker. Since Naafiri’s old W was not designed as an ultimate ability, she’ll just look like she’s using a regular ability instead of activating her most powerful attack.
But the greatest amount of discourse comes from players confused about the lack of skill expression in her new kit. After all, the entire point of this redesign was to make this Darkin have a higher skill ceiling. “Where is the added skill expression? I don’t see it,” one player stated after reading about all the changes. While abilities were shifted around, there aren’t any new mechanics that allow players to flex their gameplay mechanics.
While it looks like most users aren’t pleased with these proposed changes, we’ll get to see how they feel when they hit the PBE in an upcoming update. Until then, fans of Naafiri mid should get the most out of this dog before she is inevitability changed.
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