Aurelion Sol: Balancing Woes and Riot's Apology

Aurelion Sol has consistently posed a challenge for Riot in terms of balance. Before his rework, he struggled with one of the lowest play rates in the game, hindered by a clunky kit and inconsistent power dynamics. Despite becoming more popular post-rework, the star dragon's increased mobility and scaling have made him a formidable balancing act for the developers.

Complicating matters is Aurelion Sol's significant role in the game's lore. If he's not in an optimal position, it raises questions about the state of Runeterra as a whole.

The most recent set of changes, particularly the significant boost to the stacks acquired through his Q ability, propelled Aurelion Sol to a point where an immediate hotfix was deemed necessary.

Acknowledging the oversight, Riot's Lead Game Designer, Phroxzon, expressed regret in a Twitter post: "Asol – our bad on this one. Clearly we overshot on balance and we own that (underestimated how much the W buff did specifically). Post-nerf, we still believe Asol is stronger than pre-buff though. The impetus for the changes was honoring the desire of Asol players to be rewarded for proactivity in lane, but we realized post-ship that rewarding this with fragging power from W (rather than stacks that play into his scaling fantasy) was too statchecky and resulted in poor gameplay."

Additionally, Phroxzon mentioned that the development team was also examining the impact of recent changes on bot lane Maokai, who saw significant benefits from new support items, as well as evaluating the performance of Illaoi and Wukong in the top lane.