Riot developers are making several changes to champions in the early League of Legends Season 12 patches. There's the arrival of a new, lightning-fast marksman called Zeri, with at least three more champion releases planned for 2022. Of course, League designers are also eyeing visual and gameplay updates (VGU), including a rework for Udyr. Now, the dev team has confirmed that huge changes are coming for Tahm Kench this season, with the buffs geared to help make him “more viable” in the support role specifically.

Tahm Kench rework sends champion to top lane

In mid-2021, League of Legends developers unleashed the reworked version of Tahm Kench. While the gobbling River King was originally designed as a support champion, players quickly learned that the rework actually made the Kench more viable as a top lane pick. The new kit sent his pick rate soaring, with a win rate of slightly over 52 percent at the end of Seaosn 11. Tahm Kench also boasts one of the highest ban rates in the game at over 15 percent.

Unbenching the Kench was a sweeping success! Or was it? As it turned out, for all the good the rework did with boosting the champion's playrate, about 89 percent of those games put Tahm Kench up top, while under 8 percent were support picks. The imbalanced spread in favor of top lane appears even worse in the current live patch, with support picks accounting for just a bit over 5 percent of the games. Whatever the intention of the developers, the changes manifested on the wrong side of the map.

Now they hope to return the tongue-lashing monster to the opposite end of the river, or at least try to find a better semblance of balance between the two roles. As such, the dev team is shipping out buffs that are meant to “make [Tahm Kench] better in support,” according to design lead Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison. The changes have since gone live on the PBE for testing as Riot closely monitors how the updates could affect Tahm Kench gameplay before officially introducing the buffs in Patch 12.2.

Returning Tahm Kench to the bot lane

To encourage more support picks for Tahm Kench, League of Legends developers have provided more advantageous effects for the champion's ally-related moves. For his ultimate Devour, the Kench will now move much faster, whereas before he'd be slowed down if he was carrying a teammate in his belly. The shield that allies receive has also gotten stronger, with higher base values and better scaling with Ability Power (AP). This would ideally make Tahm Kench a more useful character as a support, particularly to help protect the carries on his team and bail them out of harm's way.

But there's no telling whether the changes could also help him in top lane. And if that turns out to be the case, then the Riot devs just boosted an already strong, tanky top lane pick. After all, Tahm Kench players are already used to playing a more utility-based role on teams, and the buffed abilities—especially with the increased Q slow and gray health—may just mean that the River King becomes even more valuable as a top pick while supports opt for enchanters to synergize with protect-the-carry comps.

We'll have to see what happens on the PBE, and whether the League of Legends dev team opts to make more tweaks to Tahm Kench before officially releasing the buffs on January 20.

Tahm Kench support role buffs

Q – Tongue Lash

  • Slow debuff on enemies: 40% -> 50%

E – Thick Skin

  • [Active] Damage sustained converted to Gray Health (shield): 45-65% -> 15-55%, but increases to 45-65% if two or more visible enemy champions are nearby
  • [Passive] Conversion of Gray Health to Health (healing): 30-100% scaling -> 45-100% scaling [from level 1-18]

R – Devour

  • Ally Champions are devoured for up to three seconds and are granted a shield for up to 2.5 seconds after being spit out. Tahm Kench is grounded during this effect, but can cast Abyssal Dive (W) and gains 40% Move Speed for 3 seconds.
  • Ally shield: 400/500/600 (+100% AP) -> 500/700/900 (+150% AP).
  • Kench slowed 30/20/10% for the duration of the devour -> Grants Kench 40% Move Speed for 3 seconds.