Naafiri is pretty evenly split between mid and jungle now, but is too powerful in mid lane at the moment. We'd like her to still hit as hard when she lands her bread and butter Q and uses her mobility to effectively trade, though right now she can spam a bit too effectively, threatening all-ins and pushing at the same time.

Naafiri's doing pretty well in the mid lane at the moment but her jungling hasn't kept up so we're giving our favorite pack of dogs more of a fighting chance with her current slow clear.

The dog's nose is feeling a bit dry, and Naafiri could use a bit more bite to go with her bark. We're looking to increase her abilities as an assassin as well as help her bring her pack back together if they fall due to some AoE or poke.

We're looking to bring down Naafiri Jungle just a bit more this patch as she's still somewhat overpowered and the most banned champion in the game, while leaving Mid mostly unscathed.

The dawg’s mastery curve continues to climb as players learn the limits of her new kit. We’re targeting generic nerfs to her in both roles, but looking to maintain her as viable in both jungle and mid. Turns out a lot of you know what the dog doin.

Naafiri is the top (jungle) dog after her recent update. Her early game is looking especially dominant, so we're taking down some base stats and clear speed to give her opponents an easier time early on. Jungle is currently looking a bit stronger than mid, so we're buffing her Q waveclear vs. minions to make sure mid Naafiri isn't hit as hard.

Naafiri released as a simple to play midlane assassin, but since then has struggled to find an audience. In retrospect, that target was not the ideal version of Naafiri, so we're going back to add some depth and outplay potential to her kit while also opening her up to be played in the jungle as well. To do this, we're swapping her W (Hound's Pursuit) and R (Call of the Pack) Abilities. They've been adjusted to account for their new places in Naafiri's kit . In addition, casting Call of the Pack now makes Naafiri untargetable, making it useful as a situational damage ability or a tool to hold for outplay. Last note, given her pack based theme, it felt like a good opportunity to bump up the presence of her dagger dogs. She'll passively get more of them running around with her as the game progresses and Call of the Pack now provides a non-ultimate way to refresh her pack on demand.

When Naafiri was released, we intended for her to be an easy-to-learn mid lane assassin. From the very start, players have also been trying to play her in the jungle, but she's been critically weak there. We're still committed to mid lane as Naafiri's primary role, so we're giving her buffs there, but the primary goal this patch is enabling Naafiri jungle, similar to the Olaf and Sylas changes earlier this year. Early packmate damage, Q cooldown, and some rules updates should make her much more forgiving and faster in the jungle.

Naafiri was created with the goal of being a relatively easy-to-play assassin that doesn’t have a lot of pressure to end games quickly as she was specifically geared toward average-skill games. She's definitely succeeding at being one of the more straightforward assassins with a good late game to boot. However, she's just winning too many games right now, so we're taking aim at a nerf. In an effort to retain as much agency over the game as possible, we're preserving her gold scaling and instead taking down her base damage to ensure that she must perform well to continue securing takedowns.

Even with the nerfs last patch, Naafiri is still holding strong. In this patch we’re looking to reduce the uptime of her packmates. This should make killing them in lane a more viable strategy that opens up more breathing room, and force Naafiri to preserve them a bit more. We’ve also made it easier for melee champions to clear the pack, which helps offset the fact that it’s much easier to land both Qs on a melee target. Similarly, we're reducing the poke and sustain of Q2, while keeping its execute power intact. It's still worth hitting both Qs, but the value on high-health targets won't be quite as prominent.

Naafiri has settled a bit stronger than we think is healthy for her long term, especially in top lane, which is roughly on par with mid lane at the moment. The fact that she's consistently able to go toe-to-toe with bruisers in brawls is a signal that her base fighting stats are a tad on the high side. So we're taking aim at both top and mid with these changes, but in a way that’s hitting top a bit harder.

Let the world hear our howls and know that death awaits. Join the hunt with Naafiri on July 20th, 2023.