A Brief Look at the New Heimerdinger
With the release of the 3.13 League of Legends PBE update came the much anticipated reworks of Heimerdinger and Xerath, whose new iterations will be released in the Live environment most likely in the near future.
This post will mainly focus on the Heimerdinger rework, it's similarities and differences in comparison to the old iteration of Heimerdinger.
Passive: The passives have remained the same, providing Heimerdinger, turrets, and nearby allies with bonus health regen per 10 seconds. Not incredibly remarkable, but no complaints here as the rest of his kit makes up for the lack of change.
Q: His turrets have undergone a MASSIVE change in how they interact with both Heimerdinger and other objects on the Rift. For one thing, his turrets have been changed to prioritize anything that Heimerdinger happens to be attacking with AAs or abilities, thus giving him the ability to "aim" his turrets at enemy champions for harass. This is something that was not present in the old model, where turrets would continue prioritizing minions unless there were none present or Heimerdinger himself was attacked.
Along with this new ability to target, Heimerdinger can now have up to 3 turrets on the field from the beginning just by placing 1 skill point in Q. His new limitation on how fast he can place down turrets comes in the form of "kits". As long as Heimerdinger has a kit in stock, he can instantly place a new turret at the targeted location; however, the amount of kits he can hold and the number of seconds it takes to generate a kit (ex. At level 1, his Q will allow him to hold up to 1 kit and generate a new kit every x amt. of seconds).
That's not all, Heimerdinger's turrets now come with their own ability - a laser beam that gets charged up over the course of a couple seconds before automatically firing at the currently prioritized target - that packs quite a punch. By manipulating your turret placement and carefully timing when to switch priority of your turrets to the enemy champion, the beams will provide even more free ranged harass while Heimer himself stays relatively unharmed.
The final change to Heimerdinger's Q is something I feel adds more richness to his play. Heimerdinger's turrets can no longer stand alone without having Heimerdinger within the area; should he leave the area of influence of his turrets for too long, they will begin to go on a timer that indicates how long it will take before they "shut down" or become silenced until Heimerdinger returns to their area of influence. Heimerdinger's turrets do not charge beams during this shutdown, nor do they attack enemy champions or minions; they are, however, still targettable structures and can be destroyed in this vulnerable state. This puts greater emphasis on Heimerdinger being a champion who exerts a large area of influence via his turrets in a way that both makes sense and adds a skillcap to the player.
W: Heimerdinger's rockets have also gone through a change for the better. Heimer's previous version of W made it so that the player had little to no influence over which targets his rockets would actually affect, thus making it a frustrating skill to use in regards to harassment. His new W fires 5 rockets that converge upon the player's mouse pointer, giving them greater control over where Heimer's rockets are going and makes it more of a skill shot than a luck shot.
E: Heimer's E has remained relatively the same; other than changed damage values, CDs, and mana costs, it still launches a grenade that will stun all enemies within the central blast radius. The noticeable change here is that instead of blinding enemies in the outer radius of the blast, it slows them instead. This is definitely an improvement over the previous version as it gives Heimerdinger more chase potential as well as a nice CC skill that can allow for engages/disengages
R: Heimer's ultimate at this point looks something similar to Karma's. When in effect, the next ability he uses is free and is buffed to a certain extent. Using R with his Q will produce a temporary super-buffed turret that has increased damage and beam-generation/attack speed. R with his W will launch 4 waves of 5 rockets at high speed instead of 1. R with his E will create a bouncing grenade with a larger AoE for both his stun and his slow. Being able to assess which skill to buff he needs in the correct moment will add a sense of skillplay to players who play Heimerdinger's new iteration.
Verdict: Heimerdinger's new kit feels, plays, and looks better than before. I'm excited to see how he'll be when he debuts on the rift with his snazzy new gear.
