Wriggle's Latern getting Nerfed

One of the more interesting tactics that has gained popularity in the passing months is abusing Wriggle's Lantern. It is extremely cost effective, grants a reusable ward, and massive amounts of healing from the passive/life steal. Many strong laning phase champions are picking this up now days, as opposed to the classic role of being "the" strong jungling item. Riot is knocking it a bit off its high horse this next patch and Morello is here to give us a small preview of what we have in store.

"Hey guys,

Wriggle's has been a hot topic on the forums since I announced we're nerfing it. Here's the current plan:

* Combine cost increased from 75g to 150g. Pretty basic. This thing has an insanely cheap premium. 150 is still peanuts.

* Proc is magic damage. This means the +500 damage proc will not give % lifesteal. We felt this was too powerful a stat to be on a random proc, and once you have this, you're basically never vulnerable in jungle and can easily fill up between skirmishes. It's too much and we don't want to decimate base Razor to fix this. EDIT: This will not proc spell vamp!

* Lifesteal % increased from 14% to 18%. This is to give it a little over-time healing back to Wriggle's, which we're fine with. This won't quite even out, but it's still a phenomenal jungling item.

FAQ:

* Why nerf Wriggle's? It's fine!

The core disagreement here is that it's not fine It does too much for far too little. This is as someone who plays mostly junglers right now and buys this every game. Its power swings heavily as a random proc, and putting more power on that is really problematic. As an aside, it's extremely abusive in lane as well as being too strong in jungle.

* Tell me why you hate junglers and America.

Nerfing something doesn't mean a dislike for it, it means that it has power balance problems. I've explained the rationale for the nerfs and cited the problems, those need to be addressed. The idea is to kill the problematic point, but make it an attractive jungle item anyhow.

* You just killed Wriggle's! It's everything old Urgot was x2.

I don't think so. I'll still buy this every game. Free ward + super Razor + jungle sustain is beast. The extra 4% takes some of the sting off, too.

* In another post, you said removing the proc -would- kill it. Why did you change your mind?

I was wrong We tested this out a bunch and it was still very valuable. The Live team proved their case, and changing your mind based on new data is how to make more appropriate decisions."

- Morello,  Lead Champion Designer, via the official forums.