Riot has officially confirmed the new Tahm Kench mini-rework, which will be his second mini-rework in League of Legends.

Tahm Kench, The River King, released in 2015, has been one of the more problematic champions in League of Legends. He has been a nightmare to balance and already received a mini-rework a year ago.

The first iteration of the River King was originally supposed to be a top laner, but when the players realized how broken his old W – Devour ability was, he started being played as a support.

Tahm Kench’s support was one of the most frustrating champions to play against. He essentially had a free get-out-of-jail-free card with a 30-second cooldown on his W, so paired up with a hyper carry in the bot lane, the game would sometimes be unplayable for the opponent. Unsurprisingly, he also had really high base damage, making him very oppressive in the Top lane.

So, on patch 11.13, Riot decided to give him a mini-rework. The rework aimed to make him a balanced champion by swapping his ultimate ability with his W ability. They reworked his bot lane shenanigans, but top lane Tahm Kench took a massive hit.

Thus, we come to the second Tahm Kench rework. The second rework aims to keep him viable in the Top lane and support.

Spideraxe recently revealed the Tahm Kench changes on his Twitter page.

Tahm Kench changes:
* P damage now scales with 2% AP per 100 bHP
* Q AP ratio increased from 90% to 100%
* W AP ratio increased from 125% to 150%
* R shield now decays by 200 per second instead of lasting 2.5 seconds
* R damage AP ratio increased from 5% per 100 AP to 7% per 100 pic.twitter.com/xgnlZtEsEx

— Spideraxe (@Spideraxe30) November 15, 2022

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Tahm Kench Mini-Rework

Here’s a list of the new Tahm Kench changes,

  • Passive – An Acquired Taste
    • Damage now scales with 2% AP per 100 bonus health.
  • Q – Tongue Lash
    • AP ratio increased from 90% to 100%.
  • W – Abyssal Dive
    • AP ratio increased from 125% to 150%.
  • R – Devour
    • Shield now decays by 200 per second instead of lasting 2.5 seconds.
    • Damage AP ratio increased from 5% per 100 AP to 7% per 100.

What do these changes imply?

For Tahm Kench buffs, these feel very out of place. Tahm Kench is classified as a Tank champion; thus, he usually builds tank items in bot lane and support, but with these massive AP ratio buffs, it feels like Riot is trying to make him an AP bruiser champion.

There aren’t many AP bruisers in the game, so a new addition to the AP bruiser class is always welcome. And with these buffs, Tahm Kench should be able to build Demonic Embrace and dish out some good amount of overtime damage.

Although these are some decent buffs for top lane, support Kench is getting a nerf. The R shield changes are massive and will affect his ability to protect his allies.

Overall, the changes seem decent on paper, but it’s highly unlikely that they will bring him back into the meta.

Release Date

The Tahm Kench mini-rework is currently on PBE (Public Beta Environment) servers for testing. The changes will come out on League of Legends live servers on Patch 12.23, which will release on Wednesday, Dec 7, 2022.

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