Riot has recently experimented with underused champions in League of Legends, and those who are absent from professional play. Champions such as Draven have seen changes to their tools to make them fun, but for every positive there's a negative, as has been the case with Jayce.
He's not exactly the most popular in solo queue, but he does appear often in the pro game thanks to his toolkit -- which has allowed him to deal great damage.
This is something that possibly prompted Riot to nerf his base damage, which was already somewhat low. The preliminary 11.18 patch notes listed this reduction from 54 to 52 base attack.
Along with the changes to Renekton, the idea is for Camille to have more priority in professional competitions.
Although part of the community would rather see more reworks than new champions in League of Legends, Riot has explained why this would be an unfeasible solution.
As these changes were more about high ranks and esports, some players expressed their dissatisfaction with the nerf to Jayce. As a result, the balance team considered the approach they had in mind -- now, the base attack will return to 'normal', and the nerf will instead come to his passive, which will last 0.5 seconds instead of the previous 1.25.
The Hextech Capacitor passive gives Jayce a movement speed bonus, as well as the ability to move through units. The goal is to reduce his extreme power in ganking early, something that maintains the pro focus without affecting solo queue play too much.
Jayce is one those champions that, when selected in pro play, can either dominate in a showy way or be rather unhelpful, depending on the player. Pro players such as Khan and TheShy have proved that he can be a raid boss in the right hands, despite the passage of time.
One of the rumoured options to replace China as host of the League of Legends World Championship, Iceland appears to have got the nod from Riot Games.
