Patch 4.6 Notes [spoil]LoL Patcher In this patch we've fixed a bug responsible for creating errors during the patching process. We've also added crash logging to the patcher as another tool to help us discover, track and fix issues going forward. Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented new patches from properly updating game files Players can now submit logs if the patcher crashes Back to top Champions Aatrox W - Blood Thirst Bugfix Fixed a bug where the stance effect would sometimes trigger every 2 attacks instead of 3 Gragas Now that Gragas is a full-on drunken brawler, he needs a little help in the mid-fight mobility department. W - Drunken Rage removedSelf slow Gragas' movement speed is slowed while channeling E - Body Slam Cooldown 16/15/14/13/12 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds at all ranks Kassadin We're happy with Kassadin's direction as a high-mobility mana-fueled void mage, but he's a little under-equipped for the job. Old Kassadin could survive by blowing up targets (dead targets don't deal damage), but since the rework put more emphasis on his mobility and close combat, he's had some problems sticking around the fight. These changes are to give Kass more opportunities and rewards when he Riftwalks into the fray. General Movement Speed 340 ⇒ 350 Mana per level 45 ⇒ 70 Q - Null Sphere Magic Shield 40/70/100/130/160 (+0.3 ability power) ⇒ 40/80/120/160/200 (+0.8 ability power) Bugfix Now correctly interrupts Anivia's Glacial Storm, Twisted Fate's Gate and Urgot's Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser W - Nether Blade Active damage 40/65/90/115/140 (+0.6 ability power) ⇒ 40/75/110/145/180 (+0.7 ability power) Maokai This is a fix for a longstanding bug where Maokai's slow didn't accurately match his tooltip. We're giving him the benefit of the error. Q - Arcane Smash Bugfix Slow value now matches tooltip ( 20/25/30/35/40 ⇒ 20/27/34/41/48%) Rengar Following up on our Rengar rework, we're giving him power back in two areas where we've heard your feedback: Savagery and Thrill of the Hunt. Rengar's rework is currently doing a lot of things successfully, but we agree that kitty needs a little more claw. Q - Savagery Attack animation speed Increased by 40% Bonus damage 20/40/60/80/100 ⇒ 30/60/90/120/150 Q - Empowered Savagery Attack animation speed Increased by 40% Bonus damage 20-235 by champion level ⇒ 30-240 by champion level R - Thrill of the Hunt newStealth alert Now only appears if enemies would be able to see Rengar out of stealth Rumble We're adding more danger to the Danger Zone in order to separate the good Rumbles from the great Rumbles. W - Scrap Shield Danger Zone shield bonus 25% ⇒ 50% Danger Zone movement speed bonus 25% ⇒ 50% E - Electro Harpoon Danger Zone damage bonus 25% ⇒ 50% Danger Zone slow bonus 25% ⇒ 50% Bugfix Harpoon slows now stack correctly Twitch Twitch has received a visual update. And legs. Check out the full details here! We've also bundled a few quality of life improvements and ability name changes for skills that've mutated past their original designs over the years. General Icons As part of his visual update, Twitch has received all-new ability icons Q - Ambush newUtility Added new particles and sounds for the moment Twitch enters stealth E - Contaminate Name Expunge ⇒ Contaminate newUtility Added a range indicator Visuals Particles now shoot from Twitch to his victims R - Rat-ta-tat-tat Name Spray and Pray ⇒ Rat-ta-tat-tat Visuals Particles now better indicate when secondary targets are hit by splash damage Back to top Items Wriggle's Lantern We wanted to err on the stronger side with Feral Flare's release so that players could see exactly what it offered as a carry jungle item. That certainly hasn't been a problem, as it's performed extremely well thus far. Too well. Total cost 1650 gold ⇒ 1800 gold Feral Flare transform 25 large monster kills ⇒ 30 large monster kills Back to top Summoner Spells Heal The Heal debuff was something we should have left in when we updated the summoner spell. Without the debuff, there's no real drawback to bringing multiple Heals to a fight instead of an assortment of spells. newMulti-heal debuff Heal is 50% less effective on allies previously Healed within the past 35 seconds. This debuff only applies when an ally has been healed by the Summoner Spell Heal. Back to top Twisted Treeline, Crystal Scar & Howling Abyss Hextech Sweeper The recent update to Twin Shadows made for a lot of design overlap with Hextech Sweeper, so we're pushing Hextech Sweeper into more of a tanky mine-sweeping direction. newRecipe Fiendish Codex + Kindlegem + 330 gold ⇒ Glacial Shroud + Kindlegem + 330 gold Total cost 2000 gold ⇒ 2130 gold Health +250 health ⇒ +225 health newArmor +25 armor newMana +250 mana removedAbility Power +40 ability power Cooldown reduction +20% (unchanged) Active Stealth detecting mist (unchanged) Back to top Twisted Treeline & Crystal Scar Blackfire Torch This change was also spurred by the recent changes to Twin Shadows. Generally speaking, we knew Blackfire Torch needed to be toned down, so when we started seeing piles of additional movement speed on casters, we felt we could step in now. removedMovement speed +5% movement speed Back to top Twisted Treeline Now that we've hit the middle of the 2014 season, we were able to safely assess how to update Twisted Treeline to the new game flow mechanics. Inhibitor respawn rate 5 minutes ⇒ 4 minutes Inhibitor mechanics Destroying an enemy inhibitor only buffs the minions in that lane Jungle rewards Experience and gold scaling increased We also took this opportunity to create more viable jungle routes and to alleviate some early jungling concerns. Health relic spawn 1:55 ⇒ 3:00 Back to top Bots We flipped the switch on a suite of bot improvements at the tail end of the 4.5 patch cycle - you can find the changelist in the Patch 4.5 Notes and head over to the dev blog for the scoop on our goals to make bots more human. This patch is a continuation of those efforts. Bots will now purchase and use Warding trinkets, Sightstone and Sight Wards Wards are placed as bots roam, granting vision of the jungle Wards are used to try to gain vision of enemies in brush when bots are chasing; LESS FACE CHECKING! Bots now have a 50% chance of playing Blue-side in Co-op vs. AI, with players on Purple-side Fixed a bug where bots would stop to cast instant-cast items and spells (e.g. toggling Ashe's Frost Shot, using a potion) Removed some abuse cases that could be exploited while bots were recalling [/spoil]
Patch 4.7 notes [spoil]Champions Braum Braum, the Heart of the Freljord, will be released a bit later during Patch 4.7. Gragas Graggy and his barrels have hit the gym. Barrel Roll grants vision (don't ask how that relates to going to the gym), and Gragas can throw his Explosive Cask further. Pre-update, Gragas liked his R and Q more for their target erasing potential than their utility and displacement. Now that Graggy isn't one-shotting entire teams with barrels, we can buff up his other strengths to emphasize his barrel-throwing play-making power. Q - Barrel Roll newUTILITY Grants vision after it reaches its destination CLARITY Reduced size of cast indicator to better represent the actual radius W - Drunken Rage BUGFIX Buff no longer consumed on hitting a ward R - Explosive Cask RANGE 1050 ⇒ 1150 CLARITY Reduced size of cast indicator to better represent the actual radius Jarvan IV Martial Cadence now deals more damage, but the cooldown starts out higher and scales down over time. Golden Aegis costs less mana and is a flat cost across all ranks. In the foreword of patch 4.6 we spoke about the challenges of creating a healthy top lane, and one option we're pursuing is to make teamplay-oriented champions more competitive in the current landscape. Specifically for Jarvan IV: even if he's behind he can still provide a lot of value via Cataclysm, and this gives him more incentive to help out in fights rather than farming minions in isolation. These changes are to give him that extra bump he needs in the early game to keep up. Passive - Martial Cadence DAMAGE 6/8/10% (at levels 1/7/13) ⇒ 10% at all levels SAME-TARGET COOLDOWN 6 seconds at all levels ⇒ 10/8/6 seconds (at levels 1/7/13) W - Golden Aegis COST 45/50/55/60/65 mana ⇒ 30 mana at all ranks Kassadin Up front: We overshot the Kassadin buffs last patch. Specifically, making Kassadin's magic shield stronger ended up making him a little too stifling against a majority of mid lane champions which, in turn, amps up his already strong snowballing power. On that note, while the concept of a magic shield has a strong connection to Kassadin's thematic and strategic niche, we're still examining a way to balance between thematic cohesion and raw champion strength. Q - Null Sphere MAGIC SHIELD 40/80/120/160/200 (+0.8 ability power) ⇒ 40/70/100/130/160 (+0.3 ability power) Kha'Zix Targets now need to be further away from each other to be considered 'isolated' for Kha'Zix's damage amplification. Turrets now count as friendlies when it comes to preventing isolation. Kha'Zix now needs to wait a bit longer before re-entering stealth via his R. As an assassin, Kha'Zix should be looking for windows of opportunity (or should be relying on his teammates to create those windows) to engage. Instead, Kha'Zix has so much raw power that he's simply forcing engagements and kills on his own. When assassins can start and end a fight without support, that typically points to an overall lack of tactical weaknesses (which champions need to have in order to maintain meaningful counterplay). These changes are to offer more windows of opportunity against Kha'Zix and should make him think twice before going all-in, but this will be an ongoing project as we examine Kha'Zix's core role and strengths. Q - Taste Their Fear / Evolved Enlarged Claws ISOLATION RADIUS 350 units from nearest ally ⇒ 500 units from nearest ally newGAMEPLAY Turrets now count as allies when determining whether a target is isolated R - Void Assault / Evolved Active Camouflage STEALTH RECAST 1 second between stealth casts ⇒ 2 seconds between stealth casts Lissandra For Lissandra's birthday, we're giving her a more reliable Frozen Tomb! R - Frozen Tomb newUTILITY Now stops enemy champion's movement immediately on application of stun (dashes, jumps, etc will be halted) BUGFIX Now goes on cooldown when it finishes casting, instead of when it begins casting Malphite Granite Shield now recharges faster at later levels, and Brutal Strikes costs a low amount of mana at all levels. We like how Malphite's Granite Shield works for the early laning phase, but it has trouble scaling into the rest of the game. Brutal Strikes was designed to help Malphite trade damage when he's in someone's face, but its higher mana costs weren't allowing it. Similar to Jarvan, Malphite offers a lot of unique team-focused wombo combo power even when he's behind, so we're also giving him some help to compete. Passive - Granite Shield RECHARGE RATE 10 seconds at all levels ⇒ 10/8/6 seconds (at levels 1/7/13) W - Brutal Strikes COST 50/55/60/65/70 mana ⇒ 25 mana Miss Fortune More like Mage Fortune amirite? We saw a unique opportunity to support Miss Fortune's off-builds without impacting her game health and play patterns. This is a fancy way of saying we added AP ratios to Double Up. Q - Double Up newAP RATIO ON 1ST TARGET HIT 0.35 newAP RATIO ON 2ND TARGET HIT 0.50 Back to top Minor Changes & Bug Fixes General BUGFIX Fixed a number of graphical issues affecting older video cards BUGFIX Fixed a bug where ward-jumping abilities (ex. Lee Sin's Safeguard) would sometimes go on cooldown when attempting (and failing) to jump over walls to wards outside the ability's max range Fizz E - Playful / Trickster BUGFIX Fixed some cases where Fizz could be stunned or rooted while on his troll pole Kog'Maw R - Living Artillery newUTILITY Mana cost is now displayed on the cast icon (similar to Kassadin's Rift Walk) BUGFIX Tooltip corrected to display the actual range (1400/1700/2000 ⇒ 1200/1500/1800) Nautilus Passive - Staggering Blow BUGFIX Tooltip corrected to display the actual time between roots on the same target (12 seconds ⇒ 9 seconds) Rengar Passive - Unseen Predator BUGFIX Using an empowered ability immediately after leveling the base ability for the first time no longer triggers the base ability's cooldown Q - Savagery / Empowered Savagery BUGFIX The bonus damage now applies lifesteal Bonetooth Necklace BUGFIX Fixed a bug where stack bonuses were being lost upon switching trinkets Shen R - Stand United BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Stand United would occasionally cancel itself Twitch We're ironing out some minor issues in the wake of Twitch's VU. We're also reviewing Rat-a-tat-tat's interaction with structures as we work on its inability to target Inhibitors or the Nexus. General RECOMMENDED ITEMS Now includes a trinket AUDIO Fixed a few bugs preventing several VO interactions from working Q - Ambush BUGFIX Fixed a display bug where Ambush's cooldown would appear to start when Twitch entered stealth but reset to its actual cooldown once the stealth effect ended. R - Rat-Ta-Tat-Tat BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Rat-Ta-Tat-Tat could sometimes critically strike towers Vladimir W - Sanguine Pool BUGFIX Fixed some cases where Vladimir could be stunned or rooted while in his troll pool BUGFIX Tooltip corrected to indicate the actual heal amount (12.5% ⇒ 15%) Back to top Summoner Spells Heal When we added more utility to Heal, our focus was to create a spell that added depth to the summoner spell pool while also giving heal-focused supports an ability that let them remain effective against Ignite. On live, however, this wasn't the case as it was primarily being picked up by solo laners to circumvent burst-heavy aggressive play (particularly for champions whose abilities were affected by Grievous Wounds). removedGRIEVOUS WOUND CLEANSE Removes Grievous Wounds Graphical Updates We're continuing along our goal of making gameplay more readable, satisfying, and visceral. Also awesome. And pretty. Flash particles updated Clarity particles and sound effect updated Cleanse particles and sound effect updated Exhaust particles and sound effect updated Revive particles and sound effect updated Screenshots in the spells tab of your profile have been updated according to recent changes Back to top Items Feral Flare line When we designed Feral Flare, we looked at 'carry' junglers who picked up Wriggle's Lantern and looked for ways to support that playstyle. Then we released Feral Flare and realized we may have gone too far. While Feral Flare does deliver on its core goal of supporting carry junglers, it's also doing it at the expense of potentially several other players on the map. Because Feral Flare's power is essentially tied to how long junglers can ignore their team, the optimal strategy has been to hide away for as long as possible before making a first appearance as the strongest champion on the map - even in comparison to solo laners who have to scrap out their gold against equally matched opponents (we mentioned this in the foreword, but it's worth repeating here). Long-term, we still like the concept of 'carry' style junglers, but we're currently exploring ways to support them in a way that's healthy for the game. Madred's Razors MAIM PASSIVE +60 damage against monsters ⇒ +50 damage against monsters Wriggle's Lantern newUTILITY Kills and Assists now count toward transforming into Feral Flare MAIM PASSIVE +100 damage against monsters ⇒ +75 damage against monsters Feral Flare MAIM PASSIVE +100 damage against monsters ⇒ +75 damage against monsters removedHEAL SCALING Basic attack heal increases with stacks removedTRANSFORM STAT BONUS Gains Attack Damage + Attack Speed when transformed from Wriggle's Lantern ATTACK DAMAGE +15 ⇒ +12 ATTACK SPEED +35% ⇒ +30% Sunfire Cape Sunfire Cape is an AoE damage aura item, but its current effect looks most like a a debuff on the wearer, even to the point of being confused with Red Buff's or Ignite's effects. This rework more clearly lines up Sunfire's visual with its gameplay. VISUALS Particles updated Back to top Aggro Display To improve aggro awareness and reduce visual noise, we've removed all aggro outlines and added an animated icon above the health bars of minions and neutral monsters. Targeting an enemy or neutral should now be much clearer as an outline around a unit now only means you're targeting it. This approach more closely lines with the intent of the aggro indicator feature, which is to convey game mechanics, not player behavior. Time to work on that combat awareness! MINION & MONSTER AGGRO DISPLAY Orange outline ⇒ Animated HP bar icon removedCHAMPION AGGRO DISPLAY Orange outline Back to top Summoner's Rift The below changes are aimed specifically at competitive play, and we can talk about them in that light. With the trinket change, we initially went with a longer starting cooldown so trinkets wouldn't have an impact on early game invades, but quickly saw the optimal strategy was to just all-in invade before swinging up (or down) to take out a few towers. Reducing the Trinket cooldown means they'll be incorporated into early game strategies and we're hoping they still allow for aggressive strategies to exist in the pre-laning phase. For the Dragon and Turret changes, we saw very few strategic tradeoffs when it came to fast-pushing lanes with multiple champions, so we're aiming to introduce some in the form of slightly higher rewards for Dragon and slightly higher penalties for teams trying to fast-push lanes. This also let us bring parity back to objectives across Summoner's Rift, as all outer towers now have the same Fortification buff. We'll be keeping a close eye on the fallout of these changes (particularly in competitive play). Trinkets STARTING COOLDOWN 120 seconds ⇒ 30 seconds Dragon GLOBAL GOLD REWARD 125 gold ⇒ 145 gold Turrets newFORTIFICATION All outer turrets now have Fortification (added to Bottom lane) FORTIFICATION DAMAGE REDUCTION -20 ⇒ -30 FORTIFICATION DURATION 480 seconds ⇒ 420 seconds Back to top Summoner's Rift & Twisted Treeline Jungle BUGFIX Fixed a bug where abilities that dealt damage based on maximum monster health were being calculated on base health instead of actual max health (this is a mid-lategame buff in all affected cases) Back to top Crystal Scar Thresh We gave Thresh some love on this map and it's helped him see more play (and a lot more success), but now he's just crazy. Like 400 armor Thresh with no armor items crazy. Passive - Damnation SOUL STACKS 4 souls per unit ⇒ 2 souls per unit Kassadin This change is aimed at bringing the new Kassadin rework a little more in line with other maps. R - Riftwalk COOLDOWN 9/8/7 seconds ⇒ 9/7/5 seconds newSoul Anchor (Trinket) It's finally here! With Revive being such a dominant Summoner Spell on Dominion, we realized we could take advantage of the unused Trinket slot to create more diversity while also balancing its use case. CHARGE RATE +1 at levels 1/9/14 CHARGE CAP 2 (level 14 charge will disappear if unstorable) UTILITY Grants a short burst of Movement speed on revive CATS Soul Anchor version of Rengar's Bonetooth Necklace added Back to top Bots We're continuing to update our AI features! Specifically, players have been asking for more Bot options in Custom Games, as well as bots that can Flash, so we addressed that. Intermediate bots can now be added to custom games All bots are available on Beginner difficulty in custom games To maintain game-to-game consistency for newer players, the Co-op vs. AI Beginner roster is unchanged Intermediate bots will now use Flash both offensively and defensively Back to top LoL Client Ignore feature We've added a few safeguards to prevent players from accidentally ignoring their friends (so if your friend says this, it's now an excuse). The end-of-game screen "Ignore User" button has been removed. Players can still ignore offensive individuals by right-clicking their summoner name and selecting "Ignore User" from the menu. Added a confirmation prompt when ignoring players from the air client Back to top Team Builder Solo players can now see which role/position combinations are in high demand when deciding their spec Estimated wait times for solo players are now more accurate Team Builder matchmaking has been improved "Play Again" has been added to the post-game screen, allowing Captains to automatically invite their friends from the same match to a new Team Builder lobby. Team Builder invites are now labeled as "Team Builder" instead of "Classic" [/spoil]
Patch 4.8 notes [spoil] General We investigated a few cases where turret aggro was behaving inconsistently. These changes should address most issues. Champions can no longer drop turret aggro by entering stealth or using the summoner spell Flash Turret aggro can now only be lost if a champion leaves its targeting range, dies, or enters a state of untargetability (eg: Zhonya's, Elise Rappel, Vlad pool). Back to top Champions Blitzcrank Rocket Grab and Static Field cost less mana. With popular utility champions providing additional utility beyond vision control and a body on the field, Blitzcrank needed some small upgrades to keep up. Given Blitz already has strong utility (gated by his long cooldowns), some mana cost reductions means he should be able to bring Amumu to your team more often. Q - Rocket Grab COST 120 mana ⇒ 100 mana R - Static Field COST 150 mana ⇒ 100 mana Cho'Gath Cho can eat things a little faster and from a little further away. This is a change we've wanted to do for some time, given how sad Cho gets when his meals flash away. Basically this means Cho's Feast range will correctly match his attack range when he's at 6 Feast Stacks. Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom! R - Feast RANGE 150 ⇒ 175 CAST TIME 0.5 seconds ⇒ 0.25 seconds Kha'Zix Evolved Wings' cooldown is now the same as Leap. Kha'Zix is currently strong at all levels of play, but when we discovered this bug (heh), we felt the right thing would be to fix it to work as intended, even if it meant giving him a slight buff. Long term, we're still considering changes to Kha'Zix that allow him to retain his assassin playstyle without having the raw strength to brute force his way out of most situations. E - Evolved Wings KHA'ZIX FIX Fixed a bug where Evolved Wings had a longer cooldown than Leap - 24/22/20/18/16 ⇒ 22/20/18/16/14 Malzahar Nether Grasp is cheaper. We probably don't need to summarize these. We realize that high mobility mages are currently valued in the competitive landscape, but buffing Malz against his identity ends up flattening the role of a mage and inhibits other forms of role experimentation. Still, streamlining Nether Grasp's mana cost to be in line with other high cooldown ultimates was a change Malz could use, so we heeded the call (... of the void). R - Nether Grasp COST 150 mana ⇒ 100 mana Pantheon Last patch, we made a functional change to Pantheon without documenting the change (sorry!). Before the change, Pantheon's Grand Skyfall was dealing damage a full 0.5 seconds after he visually hit the ground, which was inconsistent (not to mention weird). Visually it's confusing that Pantheon can stun opponents before he's even finished landing from Grand Skyfall, so we made the change for Clarity purposes while also affecting his power. That said, we've heard a lot of your feedback that this hampers Pantheon's ability to use Grand Skyfall effectively (or at all), and we're going to keep a close eye on him in this patch. R - Grand Skyfall CLARITY Pantheon can no longer cast spells until he's finished landing BUGFIX Grand Skyfall's animation and damage now better match each other. The timing is unchanged from when the enemy indicator appears to when damage occurs, but Pantheon now visually lands 0.5 seconds later. Soraka Starcall does less damage and Infuse costs mana when used on an enemy. Soraka's solo lane patterns are pretty obnoxious, as she can simply shove out opponents with Starcall while inhibiting their ability to fight back with her free Infuses. Soraka should be brought to a solo lane as someone who can consistently support her team, rather than dealing high ramping magic damage via Starcall. Q - Starcall DAMAGE 60/95/130/165/200 ⇒ 40/65/90/115/140 UTILITY If Starcall hits an enemy, Astral Blessing's cooldown is reduced by 5/6.25/7.5/8.75/10% ⇒ 5/8/11/14/17% E - Infuse newCOST Costs 50 mana at all levels when cast on an enemy Udyr E - Bear Stance CLARITY Udyr now sees an indicator when he stuns a target that shows how long to wait before he can stun that target again Back to top Minor Changes & Bugfixes Nami Q - Aqua Prison BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Aqua Prison could interrupt certain abilities that were intended to be immune to disabling effects (e.g. Jarvan IV's Cataclysm, Malphite's Unstoppable Force) Sejuani Q - Arctic Assault BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Arctic Assault would stop on collision with, but fail to knock up, really large enemy champions (Cho'Gath with 6 Feast stacks, Zac with a lot of bonus HP, large champions that were Wild Growth'd by Lulu, champions who weren't watching their diet, etc) Back to top Twisted Treeline and Crystal Scar Twin Shadows newPASSIVE Now detects traps Back to top Twisted Treeline Turrets Turrets deal more damage and ramping damage, as well as having more defenses. Currently on TT, turrets simply aren't threatening enough to super-bruisers that stack armor and dive for their squishier teammates. While this change alone may not fix this, it's the start of us enforcing turrets as a meaningful safety zone for players on the losing team. We're also beefing up turret resists in the case of a siege - you can still 'chip' turrets over the course of a game before breaking them down in a big push, but we felt they could stay up a little longer. newDAMAGE BONUS Turret basic attack damage increased by 10% (now matches Summoner's Rift turrets) DAMAGE 'Heating Up' passive now increases turret damage by 20% ⇒ 25% per shot ADDENDUM "Heating Up" passive scales up to a total 60% ⇒ 75% DEFENSE Turrets lose 150 armor / magic resistance ⇒ 75 armor / magic resistance when enemy minions are nearby Jungle Monsters Large Monsters have way more HP, small monsters have slightly less. The low base health on the original jungle camps in TT cuts their threat scaling significantly, making jungling a little too easy for anyone with a small amount of Attack Damage (or in 120% of all cases, Ravenous Hydra). We'll be watching this closely as we don't want junglers to feel hyper-vulnerable, but with the recent buffs to scaling jungle experience, we felt increasing the risk/commitment of the jungle was appropriate. Big Golem health 850 ⇒ 1250 Small Golem health 550 ⇒ 500 Big Wolf health 650 ⇒ 1150 Small Wolf health 430 ⇒ 400 Big Wraith health 550 ⇒ 1000 Small Wraith health 380 ⇒ 350 Back to top Team Builder Team Builder wins and losses are now added to total Normal wins and losses Captains in Team Builder can now grant invite powers to invited friends Back to top Upcoming Skins The following skins will be released at various times throughout Patch 4.8: Blade Queen Lissandra River Spirit Nami [/spoil]
Patch 4.9 notes [spoil] Visual Updates Karthus Karthus has received a Visual Update and is ready to reap the living in style. Check out the full details here! General CLARITY Added team-color indicators to basic abilities Q - Lay Waste CLARITY Added a new indicator that shows the full area of effect SWAG Added crit-style combat text and a unique sound effect for double-damage Qs W - Wall of Pain CLARITY Added a visual debuff effect that marks affected enemy champions Back to top Champions Braum We padded Braum's punches, Q does less damage at all ranks, and W gives less defensive stats (also scales less). It's tough to pinpoint the strength of a new champion while also accounting for how quickly players adapt, and Braum was picked up very quickly as a strong lane bully with his combined high damage and defensive power. When we want to reduce power in a champion, we first look to trim 'hidden' strengths that aren't really appreciated in their core playstyle, like Braum's W, which was giving a pile of free defensive stats to both himself and his protected target. That said, Braum's offensive strengths are also very high for a protective champion, so we also decided to trim back that 'stache. General BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 56 ⇒ 53 Passive - Concussive Blows BUGFIX No longer stuns individuals when they have spell shields up Q - Winter's Bite BASE DAMAGE 80/125/170/215/260 ⇒ 60/105/150/195/240 W - Stand Behind Me BONUS ARMOR / MAGIC RESISTANCE 20/22.5/25/27.5/30 (+14/15.5/12/18.5/20% bonus armor / mr) ⇒ 15/17.5/20/22.5/25 (+10/11.5/13/14.5/16% bonus armor / mr) E - Unbreakable BUGFIX We've cleaned up a few cases where certain effects could bypass Unbreakable's active barrier Kassadin We reverted the W damage buff and base movement speed buffs to Kassadin from patch 4.6. Following up on our champion update, we've been keeping track of Kassadin as he continues to become a more and more dominant force. We think we released Kassadin in a good state but then gave him a little too much strength as we saw folks struggling with the new kit. After our buffs, however, we saw a lot of players learning to play the updated Kass (and well), so we're peeling back the layers we added to get him back to a correct power level. General BASE MOVEMENT SPEED 350 ⇒ 340 W - Nether Blade DAMAGE 40/75/110/145/180 (+0.7 ability power) ⇒ 40/65/90/115/140 (+0.6 ability power) Kha'Zix Q does less damage and less isolation damage. Evolved Q no longer deals bonus damage on missing health, but deals more overall damage to isolated targets. W deals bonus damage to monsters. Evolved W now slows enemies by 50% and grants sight of their location to Kha'Zix. Evolved R no longer grants damage reduction (but keeps his increased stealth duration and additional stealth charge). Up to now, most of our changes failed to give Kha'Zix meaningful weaknesses for an assassin because evolved R's damage reduction was letting Kha'Zix force fight initiations whenever it was up while his high base Q damage was letting him take out squishy targets even when they were actively trying to prevent isolation. As an assassin, Kha'Zix should be an opportunistic killer who needs to find isolated targets to munch on while the rest of his team jumps into the mosh pit of the team fight. What Kha'Zix shouldn't be able to do, however, is directly engage a full team fight with the expectation to live while also taking out high priority targets without isolation. With that said, our philosophy behind these changes is aimed at reducing some of Kha'Zix's many strengths while refining his core identity as an assassin. First, we pushed more power to his evolutions so that he'll have to think more about the choices he makes in life (or the game). Kha'Zix's base Q is lower compared to live, but his evolved Q is guaranteed to deal more damage to isolated targets in the mid to late game. The added power to W and its evolution was to give Kha'Zix more fallback strengths when evolving W. It's also worth pointing out that while evolved R took a significant power hit with the loss of its damage reduction, it's still offering a lot of extra mobility for Kha'Zix in a fight (doubling his stealth duration while also adding an extra charge). We'll be watching how these changes pan out, but we're hoping to see more opportunistic Kha'Zixes (Kha'Zixi? Kha'Zii?) who seek out isolated meals in team fights but can't just jump in to scrap with the frontline while also having the mobility and explosive damage to take out the backline. Q - Taste Their Fear BASE DAMAGE 70/100/130/160/190 (+1.5 bonus attack damage) ⇒ 55/80/105/130/155 (+1.2 bonus attack damage) ISOLATION BONUS DAMAGE 45% ⇒ 30% Q - Evolved Enlarged Claws newISOLATION If target is isolated, deal an additional 10/20/30/40/50/60/70/80/90/100/ 110/120/130/140/150/160/170/180 (+1.04 bonus attack damage) physical damage (in other words, 10 x Champion Level (+1.04 bonus attack damage)) removedEXECUTE No longer deals bonus damage based on target's missing health W - Void Spike newMONSTER DAMAGE Now deals +20% bonus damage to monsters W - Evolved Spike Racks newMONSTER DAMAGE Now deals +20% bonus damage to monsters newUTILITY If target hit is a champion, grant sight of their location to Kha'Zix for 2 seconds SLOW 30% for 2 seconds ⇒ 50% for 2 seconds R - Evolved Active Camouflage removedDAMAGE REDUCTION No longer grants +60% damage reduction on Stealth Pantheon When we made the Pantheon changes back in patch 4.7, we also introduced a bug where Pantheon could be hit by area-effect spells before he physically landed on the screen. Ultimately we made a fix that leaned more in Panth's favor, where he can 'pop' all projectiles as he jumps off screen (so that pesky Sion stun won't follow him through the sky) and remains untargetable until he physically lands. In terms of other tweaks to Grand Skyfall, we've been keeping a close eye on how Pantheon's performance has been affected by the 4.7 changes, but he's remained pretty strong in both top lane and the jungle. We're going to keep watching for now! R - Grand Skyfall newMANLY JUMPING Pantheon now 'pops' projectiles that are in flight toward him as he leaps off the screen BUGFIX Pantheon is now untargetable from the moment he leaves the ground to the moment he lands Rengar We're very aware of Rengar's champion-eating capabilities (unlike the poor squishy targets he's surprising), but we're going to be watching how these changes / bug fixes affect the kitty before we take any larger action. Passive - Unseen Predator CLARITY Next attack after leap now correctly starts when Rengar lands, rather than when he's midair Q - Savagery DAMAGE The bonus damage from Savagery and Empowered Savagery can no longer critically strike. The Attack Damage portion still can. BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Empowered Savagery's bonus damage could be triggered multiple times using Unseen Predator Rumble Rumble had a few strange bugs that were causing his Flamespitter to deal less damage. Q - Flamespitter BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Flamespitter was dealing less damage when Rumble was trying to set people on fire for extended periods of time BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Flamespitter dealt less damage when on purple team Soraka In our zeal to reduce solo lane Soraka's obnoxiousness, we kicked her a little too hard in the shins. These changes may not get her up to par, but we're committed to supporting her beyond these buffs. Q - Starcall UTILITY If Starcall hits an enemy champion, Astral Blessing's cooldown is reduced by 5/7.5/10/12.5/15% ⇒ 10/11.25/12.5/13.75/15% Back to top Minor Changes & Bugfixes Recall Animations BUGFIX Fixed a bug where the following champions would occasionally cancel their recall animations: Diana Elise Kha'Zix Nami Elise E - Rappel BUGFIX Fixed a bug where the initial cast of Rappel could not be used on wards (Elise no longer needs to cast Rappel twice to descend on a ward) Volibear Volibuff. Buffibear? Bam, context. Q - Rolling Thunder BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Volibear's target would not be thrown the proper distance if the throw's end position was inside of a wall or a crowd of other units Back to top Summoner's Rift Jungle As we continue to keep a close eye on the jungle, we noticed that jungle monster experience rewards were going up with the average level of the map while lane minion experience didn't. On deeper analysis, we saw this inconsistency was amplifying snowballing in the game: if a jungler's team continues to pull ahead (either through ganks or just #winning), the jungler could continuously clear their monsters for additional bonus experience. Ultimately that meant the jungler of a successful team would come out disproportionately stronger than even the rest of his or her team for contributing the same amount of work. While we want to give specific junglers the gold income and capability to 'carry' their team in the mid to end game, a jungler's overall rewards are currently being amplified beyond the four other players who have had their own set of challenges to overcome. All roles should contribute to the outcome of a game, and we're committed to ensuring a jungler has the same potential (not more) as any other. BONUS EXPERIENCE Jungle monsters no longer give additional experience based on their level (to remain consistent with lane minion experience) Back to top Twisted Treeline & Crystal Scar Kha'Zix We initially changed Kha'Zix's isolation damage for Dominion / TT based on his old kit, but now that additional modifications have been made, we're going to revert to his new kit to get a better feel for the overall changes. Q - Taste Their Fear / Evolved Enlarged Claws ISOLATION BONUS DAMAGE 35% ⇒ 30% Back to top Friend List The Friend List should make it easy to see which of your friends are available to play with, but its feature set needed a little work. This patch's updates are aimed at facilitating how players use the Friend List, both to find individuals (search bar!) and to quickly check on their Friend Groups (which now contain offline members). The Settings menu to the right of the "Friend List" bar has been expanded to include the following functionality: Status message editing Sort Friends options (New) Show Offline Friends The status message bar has been repurposed into a Friend List search tool Your status message is now displayed alongside your Summoner Name at the top of your Friend List Friend Groups can now be moved up and down through the right-click menu Friend Groups now list offline members when "Show Offline Friends" is enabled The "Offline" Friend Group has been removed Players who haven't yet accepted your friend request will now appear as grayed out and offline under the General group when "Show Offline Friends" is enabled "Sort Friends" and "Show Offline Friends" settings are now saved locally on your computer and will persist through logout Back to top Team Rewards We've added Team Rewards as a new class of rewards to further differentiate ranked team play from ranked solo play. Since ranked teams place a special focus on jolly cooperation, require more effort to coordinate, and embody the teamwork that defines League, we wanted players to have a way to commemorate and celebrate their success as part of a team. New ranked team progression system: players earn points with every ranked team win toward unlocking and upgrading a Season 2014 ward skin, awarded at the end of the season New Ranked Leagues profile page where players can compare their leagues, get more information about season rewards, and track their progress towards team rewards Notifications will now appear in your profile tab and ranked team page if you do not have enough wins on your ranked team to be eligible for the rewards for that tier Season rewards now include unique summoner icons based on tier achieved in 3s and 5s Back to top Wards Warding Totems will now use your selected Ward Skin! You can now proudly display your ward skin in game, even if you primarily rely on yellow trinkets to contribute to team vision (but you should totally be buying green and pink wards to help your poor support). Ward skin selection is now applied to Warding Totem trinket wards To maintain visual distinction from trinket wards, Stealth wards (including wards from Wriggle's Lantern and Feral Flare) have a new green circle indicator. Yellow trinket wards will continue to display the existing yellow circle indicator. [/spoil]
Patch 4.10 notes [spoil] Champions Nidalee With her oppressively high spear damage and catlike (maybe just cat-ish) elusiveness, Nidalee's been a contentious low-risk, low-interaction champion for quite some time. Specifically, old Nidalee's gameplay often revolved around the question of "when should I stop throwing spears?" to which the answer was typically "never." To that end, our goals with this Nidalee gameplay update are to tone down some of her many frustration points while also giving her more options other than chucking projectiles. We also saw this as a great opportunity to cement Nidalee as a real shapeshifting huntress, which meant stronger ties from her human form to her cougar form. Additionally, by connecting Nidalee's offense with cougar form, she now has to balance her high escape potential against her ability to hunt down squishy targets ("Leap away or leap at their face?"). There's certainly more counterplay (and teamplay for those playing around Nidalee engages) when a cougar goes flying into the backline versus a single nuclear-tipped spear. Visuals PRETTY New icons have been added for all abilities CLARITY Added a new particle to distinguish "Hunted" opponents CLARITY Javelin Toss visuals adjusted for better readability CLARITY Bushwack ground visual indicator improved to be more noticeable General KITTY All of Nidalee's cougar form abilities scale with ranks in R - Aspect of the Cougar Passive - Prowl MOVEMENT Moving through brush increases Nidalee's movement speed by 10% for 2 seconds, increased to 30% toward visible enemy champions within a range of 5500. HUNTED Damaging champions with Javelin Toss or Bushwhack marks them as 'Hunted' for 4 seconds, granting Nidalee vision of them, 30% increased movement speed toward them (within a range of 5500) and enhancing her next Takedown, Pounce, and Swipe against them. Q - Javelin Toss Nidalee tosses her javelin, dealing magic damage. If it exceeds her basic attack range it gains damage based on distance flown, up to a cap at 80% of its additional range. HUNTED Applies the 'Hunted' debuff to champions for 4 seconds RANGE 1500 units (damage caps out at 1300) MINIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE 50/75/100/125/150 (+0.4 ability power) MAXIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE 150/225/300/375/450 (+1.2 ability power) COST 50/60/70/80/90 mana COOLDOWN 6 seconds WIDTH Missile width 60 ⇒ 30 W - Bushwhack Nidalee lays a Bushwhack trap. When an enemy springs the trap, they are revealed in addition to taking damage over 4 seconds. HUNTED Applies the 'Hunted' debuff to champions for 4 seconds MAGIC DAMAGE 20/40/60/80/100 + 12/14/16/18/20% current health (+1% per 50 ability power) over the duration of 4 seconds DURATION 2 minutes COST 40/45/50/55/60 mana COOLDOWN 17/15/13/11/9 seconds CLARITY Only affects one target per trap E - Primal Surge Nidalee heals a target ally champion and grants them bonus attack speed for 6 seconds. HEAL 45/85/125/165/205 (+0.5 ability power) ATTACK SPEED BONUS 20/30/40/50/60% attack speed COST 60/80/100/120/140 mana COOLDOWN 12 seconds R - Aspect Of The Cougar Nidalee transforms into a vicious cougar with the abilities Takedown, Pounce, and Swipe. Rawr. RANKS Aspect of the Cougar has 4 ranks and Nidalee starts the game with 1 rank in it COST No cost COOLDOWN 3 seconds Q - Takedown Nidalee's next attack deals magic damage. Takedown deals additional damage to targets at lower health, up to 250% total damage. HUNTED BONUS The first Takedown targeting a 'Hunted' champion deals +33% increased damage UTILITY Nidalee gains +75 attack range for the Takedown attack MINIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE 4/20/50/90 (+0.24 ability power) (+1.0 attack damage) MAXIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE 10/50/125/225 (+0.6 ability power) (+2.5 attack damage) COST No cost COOLDOWN 5 seconds W - Pounce Nidalee lunges forward a short distance, dealing magic damage to enemies in the landing area. HUNTED BONUS The first Pounce directly towards a 'Hunted' champions will have up to 700 range UTILITY Killing a unit in cougar form reduces the cooldown of Pounce to 1 second UTILITY Nidalee now pounces in the direction of the player's cursor MAGIC DAMAGE 50/100/150/200 (+0.3 ability power) COST No cost COOLDOWN 5 seconds E - Swipe Nidalee claws at enemies, dealing magic damage in an area in front of her. HUNTED BONUS The first Swipe that damages a 'Hunted' champion reduces the cooldown of Pounce to 1 second UTILITY Nidalee now swipes in the direction of the player's cursor MAGIC DAMAGE 70/130/190/250 (+0.45 ability power) COST No cost COOLDOWN 5 seconds R - Aspect Of The Cougar Nidalee transforms back into a human. Meow. RANKS Aspect of the Cougar has 4 ranks and Nidalee starts the game with 1 rank in it COST No cost COOLDOWN 3 seconds Skarner Crystal Slash now gives Skarner Movement Speed per stack of Crystal Energy. Skarner's passive has been replaced with one that allows him to stun targets when he builds up spell hits on them. And we're back with our second Skarner update! We've spoken at length about getting Skarner to a more exciting place since our initial changes in 4.2, but we needed to make sure we were giving him a stronger identity without bringing back his old gameplay issues (particularly his 'feast or famine' problem where he'd either succeed really hard or he'd get squished without contributing much to a fight). In approaching these changes, we heard a lot of your feedback about getting Skarner closer to his old role as a sticky crowd-control focused tank-bug (arachnid, whatever) and less of a damage-dealing scorpion duelist. Ultimately these changes should give Skarner a stronger identity as a disruptive tank while also giving him more opportunities to peel in a team fight, even if he's behind. We've obviously had to tune back some of Skarner's offensive powers to give him that extra annoyance, but this time around he should feel closer to his old lonesome self. Visuals SHINY SKARNER Updated textures for base and all skins. Skarner also now has specular maps, making him all shiny-like MORE SHINY Added new particles for Skarner's W and his new passive EVEN MORE SHINY New icons have been added for all abilities newPassive - Crystallizing Sting CRYSTAL VENOM Skarner's damaging spells apply a 'Crystal Venom' debuff to enemy Champions and large monsters for 5 seconds UTILITY If Skarner lands a basic attack on a target with 3 stacks of 'Crystal Venom', he will deal an additional 20-105 magic damage and stun the target for 0.5/0.75/1 second CRYSTAL VENOM After being stunned, targets cannot be debuffed by Crystal Venom for 6 seconds Q - Crystal Slash newUTILITY Basic attacks reduce Crystal Slash's cooldown by 0.5 seconds (doubled against Champions) newCRYSTAL ENERGY Crystal Energy now additionally grants +3/4/5/6/7% movement speed per stack (up to 3 stacks) BASE PHYSICAL DAMAGE 25/40/55/70/85 (+0.8 attack damage) ⇒ 20/32/44/56/68 (+0.4 attack damage) BONUS MAGIC DAMAGE 24/36/48/60/72 (+0.4 ability power) ⇒ 20/32/44/56/68 (+0.2 ability power) W - Crystalline Exoskeleton COOLDOWN 16 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 13/12.5/12/11.5/11 seconds E - Fracture MAGIC DAMAGE 80/120/160/200/240 (+0.7 ability power) ⇒ 40/60/80/100/120 (+0.4 ability power) COOLDOWN 14 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 12 seconds at all ranks R - Impale newIMPALEMENT Impale consumes all stacks of Crystal Venom and deals 50/75/100 magic damage per stack consumed COOLDOWN 130/120/110 seconds ⇒ 110/100/90 seconds Galio Magic resistance per level for Galio has been commonly requested by gargoyle fans around the world and, given our nerf to Athene's Unholy Grail (an item typically considered 'core' on Galio), we figured we could give him a thicker skin. General MAGIC RESISTANCE PER LEVEL 0 ⇒ 1.25 Gragas Graggy's gotten better at drinking under fire. This change means Gragas will only have to worry about losing the damage buff if he's interrupted mid-drink, but he'll feel better about using W to tank out a brawl. W - Drunken Rage newFERMENTED Gragas no longer loses the damage reduction if he is interrupted during his drink CLARITY Updated tooltip to specify that the percentage damage against monsters is capped at 250 Karthus We're following up Karthus' visual update with a couple bug fixes and late additions. We're also continuing to keep an eye the on the readability of Karthus' spells. BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Lay Waste appeared to give more vision than it actually did BUGFIX Wall of Pain's VO will no longer be interrupted by movement commands SWAG Added the screech of a certain bird of prey to Statue of Karthus' dance CLARITY Requiem's visual effects are now more noticeable, so you can properly resign yourself to death LeBlanc No more silence. Only tears. LeBlanc's a champion who has a lot of power associated with her character - omnidirectional movement, high burst damage, precise target selection, a cool hat - so it's been difficult to give her meaningful counterplay without directly hurting that identity. We're taking a more deliberate approach here because we want LeBlanc to remain an exciting champion to play and watch, but removing the silence on Q means at least her opponents can fight back when she's QRWEing (or WQREing or WRQEing for those long range fancy plays) around the fight. That said, LeBlanc will definitely stay on our radar as we track how she's performing post-change. Q - Sigil of Malice NAME Sigil of Silence ⇒ Sigil of Malice removedSILENCE No longer silences target Lucian At higher levels of play, Lucian tends to be a master-of-all-trades marksman with his strong damage in lane, high mobility, decent scaling, and general safety in teamfights. With the new AD itemization changes, however, we don't want to implement bigger modifications with so much in the air. At this point in time we do think Lucian will need some broader changes to give him meaningful weaknesses, but a reduction on W (which was designed for utility as opposed to any form of burst damage) is something we're confident is in line with our potential changes in the future. W - Ardent Blaze BONUS ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO 0.6 ⇒ 0.3 Pantheon As a side note, this might also affect Pantheon's ability to ignite opponents while he's falling through the air. R - Grand Skyfall BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Pantheon could use Summoner Spells before landing. Most notably, Flash could be used before landing to reposition Pantheon's landing damage area. Sivir While our previous mana cost nerfs accomplished their goal of reducing Sivir's uninteractive laning, they also made her mana pool too limiting in late game team fights, which we're compensating now. General BASE MANA 246 ⇒ 250 MANA PER LEVEL 43 ⇒ 50 MANA REGEN PER LEVEL 0.5 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 0.9 mana per 5 seconds Thresh Apparently when Thresh's basic attack was charging up from Flay, it used the wrong buff icon. This change adds... CLARITY! E - Flay CLARITY! Now displays the correct buff icon Tristana Rocket Jump is cheaper and is more forgiving to use when jumping around / over walls. Buster Shot's range scales with character level. We're giving Trist some modernization buffs to help emphasize her high moments (STOMP THEM ALL TRIST!). For additional context, the Rocket Jump change doesn't mean you'll make every wall-jump, but it should be more forgiving when used around terrain. If you're still failing wall-jumps, get closer before jumping! W - Rocket Jump COST 80 mana at all ranks ⇒ 60 mana at all ranks UTILITY Now more accurately checks for nearby landing spots when jumping close to, or over, walls R - Buster Shot UTILITY Range now scales with level (like Draw a Bead/Explosive Shot) Tryndamere ICONS New icons have been added for all abilities Twitch Twitch's passive does less damage per second. Twitch can now be delayed from entering stealth (through damage) for much longer than before. We think Twitch has awesome lategame power, but he's also got a offensively strong early game on top of having a lot of safety throughout. To focus on that safety aspect, Ambush's stealth often let Twitch make an escape even when already caught out by enemies. We do think the new AD itemization changes will benefit the smelly rat, but the focus here is (mostly) to provide some additional counterplay for preventing stealth (hit him in the face!). General BASE DAMAGE 52 ⇒ 49 Passive - Deadly Venom TRUE DAMAGE 2/4/6/8 (at levels 1/6/11/16) ⇒ 1/2/3/4/5/6 (at levels 1/4/7/10/13/16) Q - Ambush STEALTH TIMING Time to stealth without taking damage now 1.25 seconds ⇒ 1.5 seconds STEALTH TIMING WHILE BEING HIT IN THE FACE Maximum time to stealth while taking damage now 3 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds Zed R - Death Mark BUGFIX Zed no longer teleports to a random location if he Death Marks someone who is in the middle of a dash (eg: Xin Zhao's Audacious Charge, etc). Offensive Physical Itemization We've got some major itemization changes this patch with a specific focus on the marksman role as a whole. As we mentioned in the foreword, our goal is to open up the landscape of attack damage and attack speed item choices. In terms of specific challenges, we saw that in the 2014 season, lifesteal was quickly becoming a 'must have' stat for marksmen with Bloodthirster leading the pack. What ends up happening with BT being a dominant buy is that it both heavily favors burst-AD champions and also snowballs lanes toward who can get their BT first. Bloodthirster being the best first purchase also has a secondary effect of reducing a lot of mid to late game marksman power as they're not going for the multiplicative damage stats (crit and attack speed) to punch through the tanky dudes. We also took the opportunity to make other adjustments to items like Warden's Mail / Randuin's Omen so that they're not so straight up mean to auto-attack reliant champions. What these changes should do is give all marksmen equal build paths forward without one being much, much better than the other. This also allows us to do two neat things: 1.) With the Doran's Blade change, marksmen can tailor their lifesteal needs by picking up multiple DBlades to sustain through the laning phase without having to always commit to an early BT or Blade of the Ruined King. 2.) We can set all end-game marksmen items to build out of a B.F. Sword with 80 attack damage as the baseline. This means when you pick up a B.F. Sword, you know it'll build into a strong end-game item - it's just a matter of deciding which sort of defensive or offensive utility you want to get out of it. Lifesteal Items newEssence Reaver UNIQUE PASSIVE You gain 2-8% of the damage dealt by basic attacks as mana. This effect increases based on how much mana you are missing. ATTACK DAMAGE +50 LIFESTEAL 10% COOLDOWN REDUCTION +10% RECIPE Vampiric Scepter + Pickaxe + 975 gold TOTAL COST 2650 gold Doran's Blade removedLIFE ON HIT Basic attacks no longer restore health on hit newLIFESTEAL 3% HEALTH 80 ⇒ 70 ATTACK DAMAGE 8 ⇒ 7 Vampiric Scepter LIFESTEAL 10% ⇒ 8% Bilgewater Cutlass LIFESTEAL 12% ⇒ 8% Blade of the Ruined King ACTIVE ABILITY Maximum health damage now 15% ⇒ 10% ACTIVE ABILITY Active ability now steals 30% movement speed ⇒ 25% movement speed PASSIVE DAMAGE Current health damage per hit now 5% ⇒ 8% LIFESTEAL 15% ⇒ 10% The Bloodthirster removedBLOODTHIRSTY PASSIVE No longer grants bonus attack damage or lifesteal per unit kill newBLOODTHIRSTIER PASSIVE Lifesteal can now overheal, granting a bloody shield that absorbs 50-450 damage (based on champion level). This shield decays when out of combat for 15 seconds. ATTACK DAMAGE 70 ⇒ 80 LIFESTEAL 12% ⇒ 15% TOTAL COST 3200 gold ⇒ 3500 gold Attack Damage Items B. F. Sword ATTACK DAMAGE 45 ⇒ 50 Infinity Edge ATTACK DAMAGE 70 ⇒ 80 Mercurial Scimitar newMERCURIAL PARITY Active ability now gives the movement speed bonus to ranged characters as well ATTACK DAMAGE 60 ⇒ 80 TOTAL COST 3700 gold ⇒ 3800 gold Attack Speed Items Dagger ATTACK SPEED 12% ⇒ 15% COST 400 gold ⇒ 450 gold Berserker's Greaves ATTACK SPEED 20% ⇒ 25% TOTAL COST 900 gold ⇒ 1000 gold Zeal ATTACK SPEED 18% ⇒ 20% TOTAL COST 1175 gold ⇒ 1100 gold Wit's End ATTACK SPEED 42% ⇒ 50% TOTAL COST 2400 gold ⇒ 2500 gold Youmuu's Ghostblade newYOUMUU'S PARITY Active now lasts for 6 seconds on ranged champions as well (previously lasted only 4 seconds on ranged champions and 6 seconds on melee champions) Recipe Cleanup The following items have had their recipe costs adjusted due to the Dagger and Zeal price changes, but their total price remains unchanged: Stinger Phantom Dancer Sword of the Divine Madred's Razor Wriggle's Lantern Runaan's Hurricane Trinity Force Statikk Shiv Blade of the Ruined King Warden's Mail & Randuin's Omen Warden's Mail PASSIVE Passive Cold Steel's attack speed reduction now 15% ⇒ 10% Randuin's Omen removedPASSIVE Passive Cold Steel no longer reduces attacker's movement speed PASSIVE Passive Cold Steel's attack speed reduction now 15% ⇒ 10% Support & Ability Power Itemization Support Items In high level play, Mikael's Crucible was often being rushed as a primary 'core' item on most supports (beyond Sight Stone and a finished gold per 5 item), which meant long-cooldown, heavy engage teams had a lot of problems properly kicking off a teamfight if the enemy simply Mikael'd the caught target to safety. This ends up putting a lot more emphasis on teams who can 'catch' out targets multiple times (Elise, Morgana, etc) so that Mikael's is only useful for one of those cases. A Mikael's in every game also made things doubly sad for utility-focused marksmen like Ashe or Varus who bring big control abilities to the table. Our changes to Mikael's is to push it more toward a mid to late game luxury buy against heavy engage / pick team compositions but isn't so attractive as a purchase that it's found in every game. This also lets us introduce a new mid-tier support item in the form of Ardent Censer! We're particularly excited about Censer because of all the possibilities it can bring to the support role, particularly the more defensively focused shield / heal champions like Alistar, Janna, Sona, or Soraka. newArdent Censer UNIQUE PASSIVE Your heals and shields on another unit grant them +25% Attack Speed for 6 seconds UNIQUE PASSIVE +8% movement speed ABILITY POWER +30 MANA REGENERATION 10 mana per 5 seconds COOLDOWN REDUCTION +10% TOTAL COST 2200 gold RECIPE Forbidden Idol + Aether Wisp + 550 gold Forbidden Idol TOTAL COST 750 gold ⇒ 700 gold Mikael's Crucible TOTAL COST 1600 gold ⇒ 2450 gold RECIPE Chalice of Harmony + 720 gold ⇒ Chalice of Harmony + Forbidden Idol + 870 gold MANA REGENERATION 12 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 20 mana per 5 seconds COOLDOWN REDUCTION 0% ⇒ 10% Locket of the Iron Solari UTILITY Active's shield amount is now calculated using the recipient champion's level if the recipient is a higher level than the item owner Ability Power Items With Mikael's going up in cost and offering more mana regeneration / cooldown reduction, we felt we should also take a look at Athene's Unholy Grail, a very cost-efficient item that gives pretty much everything a wave-clearing AP mid laner needs to push all day (looking at you Ziggs). The reason we chose to tune down Athene's defensive stats rather than its offensive power is to make it a little less of a 'perfect' safe pushing item so opponents can potentially find windows of engagement. The buff to Morellonomicon is just to make it feel better as a late-game item. Athene's Unholy Grail MAGIC RESIST 40 ⇒ 25 MANA REGENERATION 15 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 10 mana per 5 seconds PASSIVE MANA RESTORATION ON KILL / ASSIST 12% ⇒ 15% Morellonomicon ABILITY POWER 75 ⇒ 80 MANA REGENERATION 12 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 10 mana per 5 seconds Summoner Spells Teleport We're generally happy with what the new Teleport changes are achieving, but it's a little too strong as a lane recovery ability. Particularly in competitive play we were seeing a lot of top laners constantly using Teleport as a way of stagnating the early lane rather than trying to set up for global map pressure. COOLDOWN Cooldown when teleporting to towers now 200 seconds ⇒ 240 seconds Heal With the removal of Randuin's Omen's passive movement speed debuff, we saw that Heal was giving too much additional safety when a marksmen takes on a fighter, so we're tuning Heal down just a bit. MOVEMENT SPEED BOOST Speed boost duration now 2 seconds ⇒ 1 second Exhaust BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Exhaust did not grant assists when used against slow immune targets (who are still affected by the damage reduction effect) Masteries Reinforced Armor CLARITY Tooltip clarified to state that it reduces the total damage from critical strikes Summoner's Rift Dragon By slightly raising the base gold reward of dragon, we're hoping to continue to emphasize its value as an early level objective. This also means teams who consistently kick off lane swaps will need to make greater strategic tradeoffs for a safer lane. BASE GOLD 145 ⇒ 180 GOLD PER LEVEL 15 ⇒ 10 Team Builder Captains in Team Builder will now be able to see a list of "Suggested Players" that they are able to invite into their games. We'll be experimenting with this feature to include players that we believe you might have fun experiences with. Bugfixes Players who use their keyboards to purchase from the shop should no longer see the shop close when a purchase fails Fixed a bug where players would occasionally need to unlock the camera twice for the setting to apply Upcoming Skins The following skins will be released at various times during Patch 4.10: Sweeper Alistar Superfan Gragas Striker Lucian Goalkeeper Maokai Red Card Twisted Fate [/spoil]
Patch 4.11 notes [spoil]General Kill dudes, buy boots. Turrets hit harder and ramp up faster. Lane minion experience range has been increased. When we talk about 'snowballing' in League of Legends, we're mainly talking about teams rolling into victories through a single skirmish or unlucky fight without having to earn their win through multiple displays of skill. Like we've mentioned in our design values dev blog about mastery, we want to ensure there are systems in place that reward the consistently skilled team who can continually make intelligent choices - even when they're behind - to win the game. Along that line of thought, back at the start of the 2014 season we made some 'anti-snowball' changes to First Blood mechanics so that it would still give rewards but not so much as to derail a game through one unsuccessful jungle invade. We still want to make sure League has exciting potential - even after first blood - but we felt we could spice up the incentives for successful early aggression. As for the Turret and experience range changes, we wanted to make sure that Turrets remain a safe(ish) place to be in early levels and that players in 'lost' lanes (like 2v1 lanes or completely blown out matchups), can still function later in the game. While these upgrades are aimed specifically at competitive, they also affect other levels of play as players who fall behind in lane have virtually no safe place to hide. Finally, if the enemy team has a dive-heavy jungler (ie: Pantheon, Elise, Lee Sin, etc), weak turrets can skew champion diversity such that players can only choose champions who don't rely on turrets for protection (this is particularly true for solo lanes like top and mid). Bounty Rewards EARLY KILL LIMITS Early kills now reward 60% ⇒ 75% of normal value (scaling up to 100% at 4 minutes) FIRST BLOOD BONUS First Blood bonuses are unaffected by early kill reward limitations, so First Blood in the first 2 minutes of the game will now give +280 gold ⇒ +325 gold KILL STREAK BOUNTY Personal bounty increases by 20% ⇒ 16.5% per kill. KILL STREAK BOUNTY CAP Players will cap in value at 500 gold after 4 kills ⇒ 5 kills Turrets PENETRATING BULLETS Turrets now gain +25% ⇒ 37.5% damage per hit WARMING UP Turrets now finish 'warming up' after 3 hits ⇒ 2 hits (maximum +75% bonus damage remains unchanged) TURRET APM Turrets select targets slightly faster Experience EXPERIENCE RANGE Lane minions now grant experience at 1250 ⇒ 1400 range Champions Braum Braum's passive does less damage and the timing window that players have to activate his stun is now shorter. While we're happy with how Braum does in equal matchups, he can still completely shut down a lane when he picks up a small advantage. These changes are to give a little more breathing room against this muscular shield man. As a clarification, the reduction in the debuff time to activate Concussive Blows means Braum (or his teammates) now have less time to proc the stun. It does not mean the stun lasts longer or that Braum can stun people more often (wouldn't that be terrifying). Passive - Concussive Blows DAMAGE 70 + 10 per level ⇒ 50 + 12 per level DEBUFF TIME TO PROC STUN 5 seconds ⇒ 4 seconds W - Stand Behind Me C'MON BRAUM Fixed a bug where when Braum tried to jump over a wall to a teammate with an enemy nearby, he would try to protect his teammate by facing the enemy, but would then smack his butt into the wall and not actually jump over to safety. Braum now jumps more intelligently. Heimerdinger General newCLARITY Added a new 'Turret Focus Target' particle for Heimerdinger when he marks an opponent for Turret death newCLARITY Added new 'Turret Aggro' and 'Turret Focus Aggro' particles for the player being shot by Heimerdinger's turrets Jax Even though Jax is intended to be a champ that scales well into the late game, he's currently so well-rounded that 'scaling well' ultimately turns him into an offensive brick wall with very few defensive weaknesses. General BASE HEALTH 561 ⇒ 535 HEALTH PER LEVEL +98 ⇒ +85 ARMOR PER LEVEL +3.5 ⇒ +3.0 Karthus R - Requiem BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Requiem's team ult HUD indicator (green dot on the left!) would display as available even when it wasn't Kayle Kayle gets less attack speed per level and her E scales less with ability power. Intervention's cooldown has been increased. Kayle has a ton of strengths - good damage, safe laning, high utility, great wave clear, fancy wings - and not too many weaknesses. Initially we wanted to only hit Kayle's high offensive power so we could continue to emphasize her utility, but saw it just wasn't enough to reduce her fervor in a meaningful way. All of these changes, combined, should help in clipping some of Kayle's high power across the board. General ATTACK SPEED PER LEVEL +2.5 ⇒ +2.2 E - Righteous Fury BONUS ABILITY POWER RATIO +0.4 ability power ⇒ +0.2 ability power R - Intervention COOLDOWN 90/75/60 seconds ⇒ 110/95/80 seconds Lucian We have no change for Lucian this patch but wanted to highlight that he's currently high on our list. Specifically in competitive play, Lucian is crowding out almost all other marksman choices (aside from maybe Kog'Maw) due to his high general strengths and lack of meaningful weaknesses (does this sound familiar?). We're currently very aware of Lucian's dominating performance but want to make sure we get the right changes in to give him said weaknesses! General Very Strong Yes ⇒ Still yes Maokai Maokai is now a sentient purple people protector. Mana costs and damage on Maokai's abilities have gone down, but he's gained increased disruption with W on a lower cooldown and his Saplings slowing whoever they explode on. W's range has gone down so Maokai doesn't just become a nonstop ganking tree. Vengeful Maelstrom now centers on Maokai and travels with him. These changes are to give Maokai more of a 'core' identity as a defensive peeling support tank who can disrupt the baddies that jump on his squishy friends. Some of you might be asking: why so much change for the tree? Old Maokai might not be the strongest jungler on the scene but he's still very capable of shutting down entire lanes in the early to mid game while not contributing much to later teamfights. These updates let us balance around new Maokai kit without bringing back the Maokai pain train of Season 2 (such nonstop reliable tower dives, wow). Q - Arcane Smash SLOW DURATION 2 seconds ⇒ 1.5 seconds COST 55 mana ⇒ 45 mana W - Twisted Advance removedCAST TIME Maokai no longer has to 'wind up' before advancing to an enemy (travel time remains the same) DAMAGE 80/115/150/185/220 (+0.8 ability power) ⇒ 9/10.5/12/13.5/15% + (0.04 ability power)% of target's maximum health COST 75/80/85/90/95 mana ⇒ 75 mana at all ranks COOLDOWN 13 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 13/12/11/10/9 seconds RANGE 650 ⇒ 525 E - Sapling Toss newSPEEDY SAPLINGS Sapling movement speed now scales with Maokai's bonus movement speed newANNOYING SAPLINGS Enemies damaged by a sapling explosion are now slowed by 50% for 1 second SAPLING BASE MOVEMENT SPEED 475 ⇒ 450 LANDING MAGIC DAMAGE 40/75/110/145/180 (+0.4 ability power) ⇒ 40/60/80/100/120 (+0.4 ability power) EXPLOSION MAGIC DAMAGE 80/130/180/230/280 (+0.6 ability power) ⇒ 80/120/160/200/240 (+0.6 ability power) COST 70/80/90/100/110 mana ⇒ 60/70/80/90/100 mana R - Vengeful Maelstrom newUTILITY Vengeful Maelstrom is now self-cast and circles Maokai instead of sitting in a targeted area newGOOD JOB MAOKAI Vengeful Maelstrom now shows (through combat text) how much damage Maokai is mitigating for his teammates (this is only visible to Maokai) INITIAL COST 75 mana ⇒ 40 mana RADIUS 550 ⇒ 475 Nautilus More anchors to the face. When we were making the Ancient Golem and Quill Coat changes for tanky support junglers, we knew there were a few who needed some extra help to succeed in the modern game (like Nautilus). Here we saw some easy wins for Nautilus to scale into the late game while also adding... CLARITY! Passive - Staggering Blow newCLARITY! There is now an indicator showing how long until you can use Staggering Blow on same target UTILITY Nautilus can now trigger this effect on the same target every 9 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 9/8/7/6 seconds (at levels 1/6/11/16) Nidalee It's a little tough to explain these changes so you'll have to read them. Sorry! Following Nidalee's Gameplay Update, we undershot on her overall power levels so we're giving her some small buffs and game flow improvements as we continue to watch players pick up on her new playstyle. These might look like a lot of changes, but they're really focused on helping Nidalee succeed at her cat games. One big goal here is to help Nidalee trigger her Hunting mechanic more reliably while not always getting her killed when she jumps into the fight. General Base Health 370 ⇒ 390 Base Armor 15 ⇒ 17 Passive - Prowl newSPEEDY CAT Nidalee now receives +10% Movement Speed in all directions while Hunting, which increases to +30% movement speed toward Hunted targets KITTY SPEED LIMITS At any one time, Nidalee can never receive more than a total of +30% Movement Speed from The Hunt and Brush movement speed bonuses Q - Javelin Toss JAVELIN WIDTH 30 ⇒ 40 W - Bushwhack CLARITY Targets that trigger a trap are now only marked as Hunted if Nidalee is within 3000 units of them COOLDOWN 17/15/13/11/9 seconds ⇒ 13/12/11/10/9 seconds DAMAGE 12/14/16/18/20% of target's current health ⇒ 10/12/14/16/18% of target's current health BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Bushwhack could reveal enemy wards when an enemy unit affected by Bushwhack walked over them W - Pounce HUNTED POUNCE RANGE 700 ⇒ 750 HUNTED POUNCE JUMP LOCATION Pouncing on a Hunted target now puts Nidalee 150 units to the opposite side of the target ⇒ 75 units in the direction the target is facing E - Primal Surge COST 60/80/100/120/140 mana ⇒ 60/75/90/105/120 mana R - Aspect Of The Cougar newQUICKDRAW KITTY Triggering The Hunt resets Aspect of the Cougar's cooldown if Nidalee is in Human form Rengar E - Empowered Bola Strike BUGFIX Empowered Bola Strike now correctly slows on top of the root Skarner When we made changes to Skarner back in patch 4.10, we had to tune down some of his offensive power in favor of his sticky Skarner-ness. Now that the loneliest scorpion has made his way to the live game, we're seeing he's still doing a lot of damage on top of his disruptive play so we're dialing him back just a bit. Q - Crystal Slash PHYSICAL DAMAGE 20/32/44/56/68 ⇒ 18/28/38/48/58 BONUS MAGIC DAMAGE 20/32/44/56/68 ⇒ 18/28/38/48/58 BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED +3/4/5/6/7% per stack of Crystal Energy ⇒ +2/3/4/5/6% per stack of Crystal Energy R - Impale SKARNERFIX Fixed a bug where Skarner could occasionally throw out basic attacks while impaling a target Vladimir We think the world is ready for a Vlad who can use Flash after he's entered his Sanguine Pool. Or Ghost. Or Heal. OR ZHONYA'S HOURGLASS?! W - Sanguine Pool newUTILITY Vladimir can now cast summoner spells and use items while in his troll pool Yasuo As a nimble fighter, Yasuo should be balancing his offense and defense throughout the laning phase. Right now, however, Yasuo's ability to stack up excessive amounts of extra damage on Sweeping Blade (particularly at early levels) means he can quickly bully out opponents before they have the chance to retaliate. E - Sweeping Blade BONUS DAMAGE CAP 100% at 4 stacks ⇒ 50% at 2 stacks Zac Like Nautilus, when we were making the Ancient Golem and Quill Coat changes for tanky support junglers, we knew there were a few who needed some extra help to succeed in the modern game. For Zac, it was a simple matter of bouncing up his early clear speeds while also giving his sustained damage an elastic stretch in the right direction. W - Unstable Matter newUNSTABLER MATTER Picking up a chunklet reduces the cooldown of Unstable Matter by 1 second newUNSTABLEST MATTER Whenever Zac hits a jungle monster with Unstable Matter, he can walk through the monster (to pick up chunklets) COOLDOWN 4 seconds ⇒ 5 seconds Ziggs Ziggs moves slower and his bombs got skinnier. Right now we see Ziggs as having a unique strategic fit in the game (stalling out to let his teammates ramp up in strength), but he's a little too safe in lane and still has a lot of explosive power to carry his team to a win when he gets ahead. Adding on these strengths, Ziggs is also a well-rounded, consistent champion who can do a lot of things at once, so we're looking for ways to add more risk or unreliability to his kit. General MOVEMENT SPEED 330 ⇒ 325 Q - Bouncing Bomb EXPLOSION TRIGGER DETECTION RADIUS 180 ⇒ 150 Embiggened Champions This might be a nerf (or buff if you enjoy eating skill shots) to the following champions, but we want to ensure for the sake of clarity that their hitboxes always match their visual representation. HITBOX The following champions had smaller than average hitboxes so we've increased them to the average hitbox size. In other words, we've added 27.3% Teemos to each champion's overall hitbox (from 50 units all around to 65 units all around) but there should be no visual change: Shyvana Thresh Vi Updated Splashes Given their high visibility, we're taking a broad look at base champion splashes throughout our roster and showing some love to older ones that are showing their age. Caitlyn and Urgot are first out of the gate; keep an eye out for more over the next few patches! SPLASH Several champions have received updated splashes: Caitlyn Urgot Items Sustain-focused tanky junglers now have an item build path that supports their playstyle from Hunter's Machete to Quill Coat to Spirit of the Ancient Golem. These new (and newly changed) items give high regeneration stats while ensuring jungle monsters can be taken down in a decent timeframe from the mid to late game. The problem with the old Hunter's Machete and Spirit Stone items (at least for tanky sustained junglers) was that they were too damage-focused to really help the slow and steady Maokaii and Nautilii (Maokais? Nautiluses?) of the world. As a result, these tanky dudes fell out of favor against damage-heavy junglers like Kha'Zix and Pantheon or early pressure/utility junglers like Lee Sin and Elise. While these changes may not directly shift the landscape back to equal footing, we want to at least offer a meaningful choice for those who want to play the utility tank jungler. To focus on the changes themselves, our goal here is to 'normalize' jungle clear speeds so that even a utility jungler can clear reasonably well throughout the game - even without buying a damage item. The solution to add Sapping Barbs (and make it based off a percent of maximum health) means that once a jungler gets a Quill Coat / Spirit of the Ancient Golem, they'll be guaranteed to clear a jungle camp within a set period of time. Adding a ward to Quill Coat and Ancient Golem also gives tanky junglers a way to fight back against high-pressure junglers through superior vision control, rather than giving more stats to out-duel the duelists. Final point: Spirit of the Ancient Golem scales with bonus health, so you'll need to be building health to see bigger gains. Jungle Items Hunter's Machete PRICE 300 gold ⇒ 325 gold newDAMAGE REDUCTION +5 Damage Reduction vs. Monsters newBONUS DAMAGE +10 Attack Damage vs. Monsters removedMAIMLESS No longer has the UNIQUE Passive: Maim removedBUTCHERLESS No longer has the UNIQUE Passive: Butcher new Quill Coat RECIPE Hunter's Machete + Cloth Armor + 75 gold TOTAL COST 700 gold ARMOR +20 PASSIVE Sapping Barbs: Attacking monsters lose 5% of their maximum health over 3 seconds (up to 150). Wearer gains +40 health regeneration per 5 seconds and +30 mana regeneration per 5 seconds when in combat with monsters. ACTIVE Hunter's Ward: Places a Stealth Ward that reveals the surrounding area for 180 seconds (180 second cooldown) Spirit of the Ancient Golem newRECIPE Quill Coat + Kindle Gem + 450 gold TOTAL COST 2000 gold (unchanged) HEALTH +350 ⇒ +200 COOLDOWN REDUCTION +10% (unchanged) newARMOR +0 ⇒ +20 newBONUS HEALTH +25% Bonus Health newPASSIVE Sapping Barbs: Attacking monsters lose 5% of their maximum Health over 3 seconds (up to 195). Wearer gains +60 health regeneration per 5 seconds and +45 mana regeneration per 5 seconds when in combat with monsters. newACTIVE Hunter's Ward: Places a Stealth Ward that reveals the surrounding area for 180 seconds (180 second cooldown) removedTENACITYLESS No longer has the UNIQUE Passive: Tenacity removedBUTCHERLESS No longer has the UNIQUE Passive: Butcher Spirit Stone COMBINE COST 40 gold ⇒ 15 gold (total cost remains the same) Madred's Razors TOTAL COST 750 gold ⇒ 775 gold Wriggle's Lantern COMBINE COST 240 gold ⇒ 215 gold (total cost remains the same) Attack Damage Items While we realize that Essence Reaver probably needs more tweaks before it'll be in an optimal state, we want to keep it in the spotlight to show that we're committed to supporting this build path for marksman (ie: Ezreal, Corki and Sivir) that should like it. Essence Reaver ATTACK DAMAGE 50 ⇒ 60 Ranked Duo Queue We're introducing a new restriction for ranked duo queues so players can only duo queue with teammates ranked within one full tier above or below them. We found that the vast majority of duos are already between players within these thresholds and this change will allow us to curb some of the potential abuse cases we see under the current matchmaking system. In the case of unseeded players, the new system allows for duo queuing with Gold, Silver and Bronze players while their skill level is still being assessed. After they've been placed, the usual restrictions will apply. Players may only queue for ranked duo games with players ranked within one full tier above or below them. For example, a Silver III player may duo with players ranked anywhere from Bronze V to Gold I. Unseeded players who were ranked in solo queue during the previous season will use that rank to determine duo eligibility. Unseeded players who have never been ranked in solo queue are able to duo queue with Gold, Silver or Bronze players. Bots With our bot updates in Patch 4.6, we were able to take bots off their purple leash and introduce a little variety to which side players end up on. This has been a great addition for our Co-op vs AI enthusiasts, but it's a little jarring for new players trying to get a handle on how the game is played. In order to meet each group's needs, bots in Beginner Co-op matches will go back to always being the Purple team while Intermediate matches will continue to sometimes give Blue side to the bots. Bots in Beginner-level Co-op vs AI matches will always play from Purple side Public Chat Rooms Public chat rooms aren't really serving their purpose at the moment as they're often filled with scams, spam and phishing attempts. This can create a pretty negative experience, especially for new players, so we're disabling them while we investigate long-term solutions. Public Chat Rooms have been disabled Bugfixes Muting players in-game no longer unfriends them or puts them on your Blocked list As a result, accidental mutes no longer reset Mystery Gifting's 2-week restriction on sending Mystery Gifts to new friends 'Ignore' tools have been relabeled as 'Block' to clarify their functionality [/spoil]
Patch 4.12 notes [spoil]Jungle Timers We want League to be all about the smart decisions you make in the moment and how you make plays around those moments, rather than how well you can track certain timers. There's definitely skill in memorizing information, but our philosophy on gameplay clarity is making sure that skillful decisions can be made with the right information and that players are fighting each other, not the system. The information you get through clearing an objective is important stuff you've already earned, so we wanted to clarify that through jungle timers. It's also worth mentioning that jungle timers aren't adding new information that hasn't been there before, as they follow the same rules as minimap icons. Jungle timers have been added to the game! Jungle timers currently track the next spawn time of: enemy / team Elder Lizard, enemy / team Ancient Golem, Dragon, and Baron Timers will only start tracking a camp if you or a teammate directly witness a monster camp being fully cleared (similar to minimap icons) If you manage to snipe Baron or Dragon without vision, the timer will set itself off You can access jungle timers by pressing TAB (default key) through the scoreboard. They'll be at the top of the screen. We've also updated monster minimap icons! Check them out! Champions Ahri Q does a little more damage and costs less mana. Ahri's a cool fox gal that we'd like to see more of, but she's currently sitting just below the top-tier mid picks. That said, we don't think she needs too many buffs to keep up, so we focused on her ability to push the wave more efficiently so she can find more opportunities to roam. Q - Orb of Deception COST 70/75/80/85/90 mana ⇒ 55/60/65/70/75 mana ABILITY POWER RATIO 0.325 (total: 0.65) ⇒ 0.35 (total: 0.7) Alistar Ali's mana costs are lower, and his ult now reduces tons of damage, even at lower levels. In exchange, Ali's jungling is weaker. We really want to bring Alistar back up as a support, but our challenge has been to make sure he doesn't also take up his crown of jungling cow king from the days of old. Access to a 'mini' Malphite Unstoppable Force at level 2 (via his Headbutt + Pulverize combo), combined with guaranteed tower dives and the ability to punt people away from safety makes for a pretty oppressive gank-train from the jungle. We want to give Ali the things he needs to succeed but, like we did with Maokai, we also want to make sure he's in a healthy position to do so. There's a little concern that having 70% damage reduction at level 1 Unbreakable Will might make Alistar a little too good at tower diving (even as a support), but we'll see how these changes affect him first. Passive - Trample removedJUNGLE COW No longer deals double damage to monsters Q - Pulverize STUNNING LANDING Pulverize now correctly matches its visuals by applying a 1.5 second knockup ⇒ 1 second knockup followed by a 0.5 second stun (functionally should remain the same) COST 70/80/90/100/110 mana ⇒ 65/70/75/80/85 mana W - Headbutt COST 70/80/90/100/110 mana ⇒ 65/70/75/80/85 mana R - Unbreakable Will newYOU CAN'T MILK THOSE Damage reduction now applies instantly, rather than after the spell animation DAMAGE REDUCTION 50/60/70% ⇒ 70/70/70% Caitlyn And the Yasuos around the world rejoiced. General PSYCHIC BULLETS Fixed a bug where Caitlyn's basic attacks were registering as attacks before they visually hit the target Ezreal Ezreal can now hit himself with Essence Flux if he can find a way to get ahead of it. Use with caution please. Just E into it. W - Essence Flux newJUST E INTO IT Essence Flux can now hit Ezreal in addition to his allies Garen This one's for all you Garen junglers out there. E - Judgment AOE ON AOE Garen can now (again) use Tiamat / Ravenous Hydra while spinning Kassadin W's cooldown has gone up, Force Pulse slows for a lot but for a shorter period of time. This guy. Again. Currently, our focus is on Kass's super snowballing potential where, when he's ahead, he can help both himself and his team succeed by constantly slowing and punching people in the face. We still don't want to go after Kass's iconic Riftwalk (as that's clearly his core strength), but these changes mean Kass will have less offensive windows to go in. W - Nether Blade COOLDOWN 6 seconds ⇒ 9 seconds E - Force Pulse SLOW DURATION 3 seconds ⇒ 1 second SLOW AMOUNT 30/35/40/45/50% ⇒ 50/60/70/80/90% Kha'Zix We're doing a little follow-up for Kha'Zix, especially with our previous tanky jungler and marksman buffs. Q - Taste Their Fear PHYSICAL DAMAGE 55/80/105/130/155 ⇒ 70/95/120/145/170 Lucian Lucian's attack ranges have gone down, but E's cooldown will now get reduced with every hit from Lucian's passive. E also has no mana cost, so Lucian will be dashing quite a bit in the mid to late game. Our design philosophy when approaching a strong champion is to highlight their strengths while also emphasizing their weaknesses (I told you we'd be repeating this a lot). This mostly relates to the concept of meaningful choices, where we want that champ to maintain their strategic value while also having some tradeoff that enemies can play against. Specifically for Lucian, his high generic power (a strong early and late game, high burst, high mobility, etc) meant he could just be blindly picked without much consideration for the enemy team. For a while, this is what made Lucian such a strong competitive pick - he could adapt to any team and could still perform well. Ultimately our changes are focused on highlighting some of Lucian's strengths as a spell-slinging, mobile marksman, while also emphasizing new weaknesses - like having a lower range. At higher levels with some items (cooldown reduction!!!), Lucian can fluidly chain Es together as long as he has a target to hit with his passive. This also means Lucian will be one of the most mobile mid-range ADCs in teamfights (there are some concerns that he'll be... too mobile thanks to E removing all slows, but we'll keep a close eye here). Having a lower range, however, also means Lucian will need to take more risks in order to get E's cooldown back up, and he might have some tougher matchups during the laning phase (where before he could win almost any lane). This gives us a lot more space to emphasize Lucian's unique traits, and we'll be watching how he performs after these changes. General ATTACK RANGE 550 ⇒ 500 BASE MOVEMENT SPEED 330 ⇒ 335 BASE HEALTH 470 ⇒ 500 BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 49 ⇒ 52 Passive - Lightslinger THE DOUBLE TAP RULE Fixed a bug where sometimes Lightslinger would fail to kill a champion because it incorrectly predicted that the first shot would be enough and would use the second shot to last hit a minion. Lightslinger will now always follow the double tap rule by shooting a near-dead champion twice to secure the kill. Q - Piercing Light newFARMCIAN Piercing Light now deals 75% ⇒ 100% damage to minions CAST RANGE 550 ⇒ 500 COST 60/65/70/75/80 mana ⇒ 50/55/60/65/70 mana E - Relentless Pursuit newNOW WITH MORE RELENTLESSNESS Cooldown is now reduced by 1 second per Lightslinger (passive) hit, doubles against enemy champions (2 second reduction per hit, 4 seconds total for a full passive proc) newNOW WITH MORE PURSUIT 60/45/30/15/0 mana ⇒ 0 mana at all ranks newSMOOTH SHOOTER Lucian now resets his basic attack timer upon dashing COOLDOWN 18/16/14/12/10 seconds ⇒ 14/13/12/11/10 seconds removedCULLED Relentless Pursuit no longer resets on kill during The Culling Nautilus Passive - Staggering Blow SECRET STAGGERING Fixed a bug where Nautilus' enemies could see his countdown indicator Quinn Some bugfixes for Quinn to give her a little more consistency in play. E - Vault LOOK VAL, SNACKS Now always causes Valor to immediately mark the target, even if Valor is in the process of marking another nearby enemy PROPER FORM Fixed a bug where Quinn would sometimes propel herself in the wrong direction Rengar This bugfix might be a significant hit to Rengar's jungling effectiveness (he was proccing Madred's Razors twice), but we'll track his performance over time. General A FINE COLLECTION Rengar will now correctly say a line whenever he upgrades his Bonetooth Necklace Q - Savagery BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Savagery was triggering on-hit effects twice Vel'Koz Q - Plasma Fission KNOWLEDGE THROUGH DISINTEGRATION Plasma Fission will now split after Vel'Koz has died Yasuo E - Sweeping Blade BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Sweeping Blade sometimes didn't count as a spellcast for various items and champion abilities Ziggs Passive - Short Fuse SHORTER FUSE Fixed a bug where Satchel Charge wasn't properly reducing Short Fuse's cooldown Items The Bloodthirster Bloodthirster now gives even more life steal and the shield decays slower. The max shield, however, has been reduced, and Bloodthirster's life steal is now unique (to itself). We made Bloodthirster a bit generic when we reworked the passive to a shield, because its other stats (life steal and AD) could be nabbed via other items just as easily. These changes are to push Bloodthirster as the sustain / defense item for anyone who wants to pick up AD along the way. As an aside, the UNIQUE life steal on Bloodthirster means you can't stack BTs for +40%/+60% extra life steal, but it'll still stack with any other life steal items like Vamp Scepter, Blade of the Ruined King, Ravenous Hydra, etc. LIFE STEAL 15% ⇒ 20% newUNIQUENESS Life Steal is now UNIQUE BLOODY SHIELD 50 - 440 ⇒ 50 - 350 TIME BEFORE SHIELD DECAYS 15 seconds ⇒ 25 seconds Essence Reaver Now builds out of B.F. Sword and gives 80 attack damage. We just re-stated the changes in a sentence. We were a little safe with Essence Reaver because there are a few champions who can get crazy strong with a mana-focused item. After seeing it in the wild, however, Essence Reaver just wasn't giving enough of a power spike for anyone building it, so we're rectifying that to make it more attractive as a pickup. RECIPE Pickaxe + Vampiric Scepter + 975 gold ⇒ B.F. Sword + Vampiric Scepter + 1050 gold TOTAL COST 2650 gold ⇒ 3400 gold ATTACK DAMAGE 60 ⇒ 80 Ardent Censer +10 AP. Literally. We were also pretty conservative with Ardent Censer, given its high potential as an item (attack speed for everyone!). So... we gave it more AP. ABILITY POWER 30 ⇒ 40 Manamune Now builds out of Pickaxe instead of Longsword, costs a little more and has slightly more AD. Making this change lets us smooth out the build path for Manamune rather than front-loading it with cheap items and then waiting a full 1000g+ to upgrade. RECIPE Tear of the Goddess + Longsword + 1040 gold ⇒ Tear of the Goddess + Pickaxe + 625 gold TOTAL COST 2100 gold ⇒ 2200 gold ATTACK DAMAGE 20 ⇒ 25 Sunfire Cape Now with sunnier fire. Or fierier sun. BOTH?! CLARITY Damage aura visuals are now more fiery and aggressive Summoner Spells Exhaust Earlier in the season, we updated the visual and sound effects of our summoner spells. We're happy with the changes, but in Exhaust's case, we think combining the fidelity of our Exhaust update with the visual impact of old Exhaust gets us the best of both worlds. CLARITY Visuals have been updated to improve readability Howling Abyss removedJungle Items The following jungle items have been removed from the Howling Abyss: Hunter's Machete Spirit Stone Quill Coat Spirit of the Ancient Golem Spirit of the Elder Lizard Spirit of the Spectral Wraith Twisted Treeline Fixing some bugs we found with Twisted Treeline, along with a small balance tweak for the Ichors, which are statistically very strong so we wanted to trim just a bit of their power. Jungle Monsters UNHEALTHY MONSTERS Fixed a bug where all monsters (not just the big ones) were giving a regeneration sigil Ichor of Rage DURATION 4 minutes ⇒ 3 minutes Ichor of Illumination DURATION 4 minutes ⇒ 3 minutes Spirit of the Ancient Golem removedWARDING ACTIVE Ward active ability has been removed for Twisted Treeline newUNIQUE PASSIVE Now has UNIQUE passive Trap Detection: Nearby stealthed enemy traps are revealed newUNIQUE ACTIVE Now has UNIQUE active Trap Detection: Covers a target area in a stealth-detecting mist that grants vision for 5 seconds and reveals enemies that enter it for 3 seconds (60 second cooldown) Twisted Treeline and Crystal Scar Kayle R - Intervention COOLDOWN 100 / 90 / 80 seconds ⇒ 110 / 95 / 80 seconds Lord Van Damm's Pillager DAMAGE 70 ⇒ 80 Twisted Treeline, Crystal Scar & Howling Abyss We're buffing Grez's Lantern to help it keep up with the other jungle items on these maps. The newly revamped Lightbringer is to give marksmen a more enticing vision-focused item on the map. new Grez's Spectral Lantern This item has been remade - we will be listing only the new stats! removedMAPS Grez's Lantern is no longer available on Howling Abyss and Crystal Scar RECIPE Madred's Razors + Long Sword + Dagger + 180 gold (total cost: 1765 gold) ATTACK DAMAGE +15 ATTACK SPEED +30% UNIQUE PASSIVE Now has UNIQUE passive Maim: Basic attacks against monsters deal 50 bonus magic damage and restore 8 health UNIQUE PASSIVE Owner now gains +30% increased gold from monsters UNIQUE PASSIVE Now has UNIQUE passive Trap Detection: Nearby stealthed enemy traps are revealed UNIQUE ACTIVE Now has UNIQUE active Trap Detection: Covers a target area in a stealth-detecting mist that grants vision for 5 seconds and reveals enemies that enter it for 3 seconds (60 second cooldown) new The Lightbringer This item has been remade - we will be listing only the new stats! RECIPE Wicked Hatchet + Cloak of Agility + 350 gold (total cost: 2280 gold) ATTACK DAMAGE +30 CRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE +30% CRITICAL VISION Critical strikes now cause the target to bleed for an additional 90% of your bonus attack damage as physical damage over 3 seconds and are revealed for the duration of the bleed. Intro Bots Intro Bots is a new difficulty of Co-Op vs. AI designed for players brand new to League of Legends. In addition to changes to bot AI, there are a variety of tutorial-style features designed to help new players pick up some of League's basic lessons over the course of a few games. Check out our dev blog to get the full scoop on how we're approaching the onboarding experience. Intro is now the default level of Co-op vs. AI for new players Players above Summoner Level 10 will receive reduced IP/XP rewards and can't earn their First Win of the Day bonus from the Intro Bots queue New Audio Engine Back in 4.7, we started a multi-patch process to ship files for our new audio engine. We're happy to announce that process is now complete and the engine will be going live with 4.12! Our new audio engine brings a few immediate improvements, but more importantly will help us focus on providing a more immersive and engaging League of Legends experience moving forward. Check out our earlier post for more details! Made improvements to stereo imaging and panning Added proper support for Surround Sound Made subtle improvements to audio clarity Bugfixes Smoothed out a few small delays when the item shop, options menu and death recap are opened for the first time in a match Fixed a graphical bug with start-of-game tips Fixed a bug that occasionally applied duo queue restrictions to queues other than ranked solo/duo Players who have negative LP from dodging ranked queues can no longer automatically reset their LP to 0 with a single ranked win Fixed a bug that occasionally caused players with low LP to be demoted when losing a ranked match that would drop them to 0 LP Fixed an issue with ranked teams sometimes not being promoted after winning a promo series Fixed an issue with players sometimes being unable to join a new ranked team after leaving another [/spoil]
Patch 4.13 notes [spoil]Elise Elise's cocoon got skinnier and her rappel range got shortened Thanks to her strong dueling power, great objective control (both in damage and spiderling tanking), and high utility ganks, Elise's got all the right things to make her a priority pick in competitive play. You'll hear the same for Lee Sin, but when a champion has so many strengths, it's tough to choose the right direction to take them. For now, our focus is less on introducing new meaningful weaknesses for Elise, and more about reducing her consistency and reliability in getting to targets. E - Cocoon WIDTH 70 ⇒ 55 SPIDER-VISION Fixed a bug where Cocoon was providing vision longer than the stun duration (now correctly matches it) E - Rappel SOME PREAMBLE Rappel now calculates its range from the center of Elise to the center of the target ⇒ edge of Elise to the edge of the target (this means Rappel gains about +75 range) RANGE 925 ⇒ 750 (~825 range if using the old targeting calculations) Evelynn Evelynn's Q deals less damage unless she builds more AD / AP (it scales better at higher levels). Q also costs less mana. Right now Evelynn's high base damage means she can go tanky while still blowing people up, so we're hoping she'll think more about her priorities with these changes. Basically if Evelynn wants to kill things quickly, she'll need to build offensively for it - if she wants to tank it out in the middle of fight, she'll have to itemize for that. Also, we know Evelynn's arguably not a fighter, but we put her here for the sake of better organization (nyah). Q - Hate Spike MAGIC DAMAGE 40/60/80/100/120 ⇒ 30/45/60/75/90 ABILITY POWER RATIO 0.45 ⇒ 0.35/0.4/0.45/0.5/0.55 BONUS ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO 0.5 ⇒ 0.5/0.55/0.6/0.65/0.7 COST 16/22/28/34/40 mana ⇒ 12/18/24/30/36 mana Gragas NO MORE OPEN BAR. Gragas pays mana for his drunkenness and Q deals less damage to minions. Way back when we gave Gragas a gameplay update, we wanted to solve the thematic problem where a big fat drunken brawler was being played as a backline mage who throws barrels for days. These changes mean Gragas works best when he's scrapping in the middle of a fight, and not hiding like a sissy. Q - Barrel Roll newGRAGGY LIGHT Now does 70% damage to minions W - Drunken Rage newCOST Now costs 30 mana at all ranks COOLDOWN 8/7.5/6/6.5/6 seconds ⇒ 8/7/6/5/4 seconds DAMAGE REDUCTION 3 seconds ⇒ 2.5 seconds SNEAKY DRINKING Fixed a bug where Drunken Rage could be used twice in a row if Gragas was interrupted as soon as he started drinking BRAWLING ETIQUETTE Fixed a bug where Drunken Rage would sometimes not play the proper keg smash animation on attack E - Body Slam BUGFIXED BELLY Fixed a bug where Body Slam would occasionally fail to work when Gragas leveled it first or second Hecarim Hecarim pays less mana for his Q and his passive scales better with being a horse Way back in the day, Hecarim used to have near infinite sustain in the jungle and we made targeted balance changes to address that. On re-examining, we overshot some of those nerfs. Passive - Warpath WARPATHIER Hecarim gains bonus attack damage equal to 10/12.5/15/17.5/20/22.5/25% ⇒ 15/17.5/20/22.5/25/27.5/30% of his bonus movement speed Q - Rampage COST 24/28/32/36/40 mana ⇒ 24/26/28/30/32 mana Jax WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP What this change means is that Jax will finish his attack animations a little faster but it's not a direct buff to his attack speed. It's a weird concept but basically his last-hitting is more responsive. General LAMPPOST SWINGING SPEED Jax finishes his attack animation a little faster (19% to be exact) Lee Sin Lee's shield duration got cut in half, and Cripple no longer reduces attack speed (only movement speed) Like Elise, Lee Sin has a ton of strengths and few weaknesses, so it's equally tough to find the right direction to take him. In this case, after considering a lot of player feedback about Lee Sin's identity as a high-pressure early jungler who falls off late, we're maintaining that direction in our changes (specifically through the late-game falloff on his survivability and utility). General BASE HEALTH REGEN 6.95 health per 5 seconds ⇒ 8.95 health per 5 seconds W - Safeguard SHIELD DURATION 4 seconds ⇒ 2 seconds E - Cripple removedNEVER SKIP LEG DAY Cripple no longer reduces enemy attack speed (only reduces movement speed) Olaf Olaf can use R more often at lower levels, and W's healing amp works better with missing health Olaf hasn't had the best time adapting to the evolving game (especially losing out on a lot of cooldown reduction + health items), so he's getting a few buffs to keep up. Q - Undertow COOLDOWN 8 seconds ⇒ 7 seconds W - Vicious Strikes HEALING AMPLIFICATION +1% healing per 2.5% missing health ⇒ +1% healing per 2% missing health R - Ragnarok COOLDOWN 120/100/80 seconds ⇒ 100/90/80 seconds Shen This was one of the toughest and longest-standing bugs to track down. Yeesh. R - Stand United newSEE YOU IN THE LCS Fixed a bug where Shen would occasionally fail to teleport to his protected target for no reason Shyvana Shyvana can't double her W duration through dragon form, and her flame trail now applies damage less often (on par with W's damage tick rate) While we didn't want to make significant changes to Shyvana, we did make two bugfixes which should tame some of her more obscure strength. W - Burnout removedDRAGON TAMING Burnout can no longer be extended past its intended maximum duration through the use of Dragon's Descent CONTROLLED FIRE Dragon's Descent's Flame Trail now applies damage every 0.75 seconds ⇒ 1.0 seconds (to match Burnout's damage rate) Mages & Assassins Echoing back to our overarching philosophy of champion diversity, we saw a lot of opportunities for low-scope buffs to give those 'almost-there' champions. Kayle Kayle's E scales slightly better with ability power, and her R is on a lower cooldown at early levels We're just backing up a bit from our previous Kayle changes from 4.11. E - Righteous Fury ABILITY POWER RATIO 0.2 ⇒ 0.25 R - Intervention COOLDOWN 110/95/80 seconds ⇒ 100/90/80 seconds LeBlanc I'm not re-summarizing a single line of change. You're going to have to read it. Go on. Without a silence, LeBlanc's even more reliant on Distortion as it lets her sneak around the map for clever ambushes. W - Distortion COST 80/90/100/110/120 mana ⇒ 80/85/90/95/100 mana Lissandra Lissandra can use Q more often at later levels, W's ability power ratio has gone down, but R now slows for a lot more I'm going to directly quote someone here: "We want to emphasize Lissandra's strengths that aren't 'stun some fool for 1.5 seconds and then burst them down.'" In other words, we're giving this ice mage more sustained damage in the late game while also improving her battlefield control. This does mean we need to tune down some of Lissandra's burstiness (especially with Q getting a full second reduction), but overall it lets us highlight more of her unique talents. Q - Ice Shard COOLDOWN 6/5.5/5/4.5/4 seconds ⇒ 6/5.25/4.5/3.75/3 seconds W - Ring of Frost ABILITY POWER RATIO 0.60 ⇒ 0.40 R - Frozen Tomb SLOW 20/30/40% ⇒ 30/45/75% Lulu Lulu's Glitterlance slow no longer scales with ability power, and Whimsy's movement speed buff duration now scales with rank. Whimsy also costs less at later levels. We initially thought solo lane Lulu was a unique addition to the game, so we wanted to let her stay a viable pick in both solo and duo lanes. That said, top lane Lulu is currently shutting down a lot of diversity in competitive play and, because Lulu's solo lane and support power are tied so closely together, we had to go for changes that reduce her oppressive strengths first. As an aside, we know this isn't a great situation where we keep indirectly reducing support Lulu's power to maintain her viability as a mage, so this is something we'll have to really consider for the future. Q - Glitterlance removedMIGHT AS WELL BE A SNARE Glitterlance's slow decay no longer scales with ability power W - Whimsy MOVEMENT SPEED BUFF DURATION 5 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 3/3.5/4/4.5/5 seconds COST 65/70/75/80/85 mana ⇒ 65 mana at all ranks Lux Everyone get excited for the Lux buff! At early levels this might be a slight reduction to her damage, but as soon as Lux picks up some AP, it'll start scaling much better. We thought Lux needed some extra help scaling into the late game, so... Passive - Illumination DAMAGE 10 + (10 x level) ⇒ 10 + (8 x level) (+ 0.2 ability power) Vel'Koz These changes better match Vel'Koz's ability visuals. We're going to blame lack of depth perception here, which really isn't his fault. W - Void Rift MISSILE WIDTH 65 ⇒ 88 R - Life Form Disintegration Ray RANGE 1500 ⇒ 1550 Yasuo Yasuo's passive shield is slightly shorter, Q scales less with attack speed, and W no longer gives bonus flow to E We've been watching Yasuo over the past few months and while we don't think he's really out of line, we did some fine-tuning to round him out. Passive - Way of the Wanderer SHIELD DURATION 1.5 seconds ⇒ 1 second Q - Steel Tempest LESS-QUICK-DRAW Steel Tempest now scales less effectively with attack speed and has a minimum cast time of 0.13 seconds ⇒ 0.18 seconds. The attack speed needed to reach this minimum is unchanged (at 114%, or 60% from items at level 18). BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Steel Tempest's whirlwind was dealing instant damage in the area of a normal Steel Tempest cast as it was traveling out (this is a very minor change) W - Wind Wall removedLOW ON FLOW Wind Wall no longer passively grants bonus Flow from dashing Ziggs Less bombs in the late game By increasing the late game cooldown of Mega Inferno Bomb, Ziggs will have to think harder about whether he uses his R for wave clear or if he should save it for an important team fight. R - Mega Inferno Bomb COOLDOWN 120/105/90 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds at all ranks Zilean Ultimately this was a change we had to make for clarity - sorry Zilean! Q - Time Bomb TECHNICALLY A SIVIR BUFF Fixed a bug where Time Bomb's explosion ignored spell shields Marksmen Our big philosophy here is to introduce more strategic diversity in markspeople picks. Right now a lot of competitive teams are opting for strong hypercarry marksmen like Kog'Maw, Tristana, or Twitch, and while we like the strategic power these guys (and girl) bring, their dominant status over alternatives is a big indication that they're not making early tradeoffs for late game scaling. Graves Graves is putting more damage back into collateral damage. We may have used this joke before, but that doesn't matter. Also Buckshot does more damage for each extra bullet hit. We're buffing Graves' ability to shoot people with a shotgun. Q - Buckshot THIS IS GONNA TICKLE Hitting a target in the face with Buckshot deals 35% ⇒ 40% damage for each additional bullet R - Collateral Damage BASE PHYSICAL DAMAGE 250/350/450 ⇒ 250/400/550 Jinx We are all very excited about this change. Extremely. Passive - Get Excited! newUNINHIBITED EXCITEMENT JINX NOW GETS EXCITED WHEN SHE CONTRIBUTES TO KILLING AN INHIBITOR! Kog'Maw Kog's got less base health and his Q shreds less armor / MR at lower ranks When we made our AD itemization changes back in 4.10, Kog'Maw got significantly stronger on top of his already strong base kit. We still want Koggles to hit his late game power, but in order to get there he needs to have a real weakness in the early to mid game. As a quick rundown on why these changes specifically: Kog's current favored item build (Trinity Force + Blade of the Ruined King) lets him build more utility / tank than traditional Infinity Edge marksmen, but he can still deal tons of damage with Q's high base shred + W's damage amp. Now he'll just take a little longer to hit that level of effectiveness. General BASE HEALTH 524 ⇒ 487 HEALTH PER LEVEL 84 ⇒ 87 Q - Caustic Spittle ARMOR & MAGIC RESISTANCE SHRED 20/22/24/26/28% ⇒ 12/16/20/24/28% Lucian Lucian can no longer remove slows with E, and E's cooldown is up across the board When we made our big Lucian changes in 4.12, we had three concerns in the back of our heads: the first was that Lucian would struggle too much in the early game to hit his mid to late game power (false!), the second was that players would have difficulty adapting to the new Lucian changes (false!), and the third was that he would be a little too strong in the mid to late game so maybe our concerns didn't matter (true!). Specifically on these changes: giving Relentless Pursuit a reset interaction with Lightslinger (and making it cost 0 mana) makes Lucian almost completely immune to slows, which leads to a lot of 'hard counter' situations where he's untouchable for a number of enemy champions. Ultimately we still want Lucian to have tons of mobility after he's picked up some cooldown reduction, but to make it a healthy mechanic he can't also shrug off any attempt to fight back. E - Relentless Pursuit removedOCCASIONALLY RELENTING Relentless Pursuit no longer removes slows COOLDOWN 14/13/12/11/10 seconds ⇒ 18/17/16/15/14 seconds Sivir Sivir's R gives a longer movement speed burst at later ranks Sivir's an interesting champion who offers a lot of strategic power from the markswoman role, so we're amping up her unique strengths. R - On The Hunt INITIAL MOVEMENT SPEED 2/3/4 seconds ⇒ 2/4/6 seconds Tristana Tristana's W slows less at early ranks but more at max rank. E does less damage (especially at early levels). Tristana follows the same story as Kog'Maw: a hypercarry markswoman who received a few buffs through the season (when it was dominated by mid-game dudes) before exploding onto the scene when we made our AD itemization changes in 4.10. Also like Kog: we want to make sure that Trist makes a meaningful strategic tradeoff with a weaker early to mid game before transforming into a late game powerhouse. W - Rocket Jump SLOW DURATION 2.5 seconds at all levels ⇒ 1/1.5/2/2.5/3 seconds E - Explosive Shot ACTIVE MAGIC DAMAGE 110/150/190/230/270 ⇒ 80/125/170/215/260 Varus Varus' R is on a lower cooldown, especially at later levels Varus' core identity in the late game revolves mostly around his initiation and counter-engagement, so we're nudging that up. Q - Piercing Arrow newCLARITY! Now shows a line indicator in addition to circle indicator while charging R - Chain of Corruption COOLDOWN 120/105/90 seconds ⇒ 110/90/70 seconds Vayne Vayne gets more attack speed per level. The changes to Final Hour are roughly neutral, as one was a bugfix and the other was to compensate for it. Vayne's always been one of the best examples of a hyperscaling markswoman, as she has to pay the cost of a weak early game before being rewarded with an extremely strong late game. So we buffed that. General ATTACK SPEED PER LEVEL 3.1 ⇒ 4.0 R - Final Hour WHOOPS Fixed a bug where Tumble had an extra +0.1 attack damage ratio while Final Hour was active (now correctly matches Tumble's AD ratios) COMPENSATION FOR THE ABOVE Final Hour grants a bonus 25/40/55 ⇒ 30/50/70 attack damage throughout its duration Supports On to the supports! Much like our theme for junglers, there are a few 'must-pick' competitive supports in the form of Braum and Thresh (or Nami in lieu of either) that we're looking to tap down just a bit. In general, however, we feel that once we reduce the consistency of these champions, there are a lot of viable picks just waiting to spring into action. Sona Only you can read Sona's full gameplay update page, Summoner! Sona's strumming into this session with a harmonious Gameplay Update and an orchestra of new visuals! Keep time with the full symphony of changes hear here! Not only does this Sona update give us more room to balance her in the future (old Sona's aura abilities were a nightmare, given how statistically strong they were without having much gameplay involved), but it'll also let Sona players show off their skills outside of that one clutch Flash Crescendo play. Now with these new Sona 'snuggle zones,' she'll be amplifying her friends with more impactful (and recognizable) effects. Or, as Sona so eloquently puts it, "......" General GAMEPLAY Sona has received a Gameplay Update! HAIR AND STUFF Models, textures and animations of Sona and her skins have been updated VISUALS Particle effects and ability icons have been updated SNUGGLE ZONES Sona's new particles now indicate the area of effect of her auras CLARITY Crescendo's particles have been resized to match its hitbox (area of effect unchanged) SHOW ME YOUR MOVES Enemies now dance 50% faster while stunned by Crescendo Braum Braum's passive deals a bit less damage, W costs a little more mana to use at early ranks, and R's disruption has gone down at early levels. Also people will be un-slowed from exiting Glacial Fissure much faster. Braum's continuing to dominate games in both high level and competitive, so we're looking to tone down his oppressive laning and stupendous disruption in early fights. Braum will still scale to the same levels (roughly) at the late game, but he won't have so much power in the early to mid to consistently snowball into it. Passive - Concussive Blows BASE MAGIC DAMAGE 38 + (12 x level) ⇒ 32 + (8 x level) W - Stand Behind Me COST 30/40/50/60/70 mana ⇒ 50/55/60/65/70 mana R - Glacial Fissure FIRST TARGET KNOCKUP DURATION 1.5 seconds ⇒ 1.0/1.25/1.5 seconds SLOW 60% ⇒ 40/50/60% SLOW LINGER DURATION When an enemy leaves Glacial Fissure's field of ice, they'll continue to be slowed for 1.5 seconds ⇒ 0.25 seconds Janna Janna's passive range has been increased, and Q now starts counting down the cooldown as it charges Some small buffs for Janna, given she's still very strong as a disengage support champion. Passive - Tailwind RANGE 800 ⇒ 1000 Q - Howling Gale newHURRAY FOR HURRICANES Cooldown now begins when the Howling Gale begins casting, rather than when it releases KNOCKUP DURATION 0.5 - 1 second ⇒ 0.5 - 1.25 seconds Nami Nami moves slightly slower and her W cooldown is going up by 1 second at all ranks We're shaving off some of Nami's less obvious power as, with Braum and Thresh both receiving nerfs, she's on the rise to being the dominant support pick in competitive play. General MOVEMENT SPEED 340 ⇒ 335 W - Ebb and Flow COOLDOWN 9 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 10 seconds at all ranks Thresh Thresh's lantern only shields the first ally it hits (and himself). The Box no longer deals additional damage to opponents for every wall they run through past the first (but still applies slows). As Thresh continues to be a reliable top tier support, we decided to tone down some of his less appreciated (but very strong) area-of-effect teamfight presence. W - Dark Passage newNO GROUP FARES Now only shields the first ally to be near the Lantern. Thresh himself can still always receive the shield. E - Flay BUGFIX Fixed a tooltip bug that listed Flay's slow duration as 1.5 seconds. It's actually 1 second (no actual change). R - The Box removedYOU'RE STUCK IN HERE WITH ME The Box no longer deals additional damage to opponents when they break extra walls beyond the first. Extra walls still apply half slow duration. Items Item Reorganization Rearranged the order that item upgrades appear in the store We're making it a little more intuitive to purchase item upgrades in the store. If you look at the title of this patch note along with our summary, context, and the patch note itself, I think we've found four ways of saying the exact same thing. REARRANGED THINGS We rearranged the order that items appear in the upgrade section of the store to make it more intuitive New Search Terms Search for Spooky Ghosts in the item shop. Do it. Someone made a special request for these, so we did 'em. Searching for "Yellow" will bring up all Totems Searching for "Red" will bring up all Lenses Searching for "Blue" will bring up all Orbs Searching for "Green" will bring up Sight Wards Searching for "Pink" will bring up Vision Wards Greater Stealth Totem C'mon, why do you need a summary here Right now there seems to be no viable reason to upgrade to a Greater Stealth Totem, so we're giving players a reason to do so. Lower cooldown! COOLDOWN 120 seconds ⇒ 90 seconds Frostfang 2 less gold per 10 seconds As an item that's supposed to be focused on aggressive skirmishing for gold generation, Frostfang and Frost Queen's Claim both create a lot of passive gold on their own, so we're trimming that back a bit. PASSIVE GOLD 4 gold per 10 seconds ⇒ 2 gold per 10 seconds Frost Queen's Claim See above. Or below. I'm not repeating myself! PASSIVE GOLD 4 gold per 10 seconds ⇒ 2 gold per 10 seconds Nomad's Medallion Now has flat Movement Speed! It's lost a bit of mana regeneration to compensate. This change makes the Ancient Coin / Nomad's Medallion / Talisman of Ascension line a little more attractive to pick up as a 'roaming support' and initiation support purchase while also making the coin a bit more unique as a gp10 item line. newMOVEMENT SPEED +10 movement speed MANA REGENERATION 7 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 5 mana per 5 seconds Talisman of Ascension Now has flat Movement Speed and more health regen! It's lost some cooldown reduction to compensate. Roughly the same as the above, so go read that. newMOVEMENT SPEED +20 movement speed HEALTH REGENERATION 10 health per 5 seconds ⇒ 15 health per 5 seconds COOLDOWN REDUCTION 20% ⇒ 10% Deathfire Grasp Deathfire Grasp's cooldown has gone up Pre-warning: this context is going to get nerdy. Deathfire Grasp amps up a lot of existing low-interaction gameplay (ie: huge burst with no opportunity to react) without adding more skill to the mix. While this is a larger problem we'll have to tackle in the future, we felt that it was important to at least increase DFG's cooldown so that it's more appropriately balanced against a lot of 'anti-burst' spells / items (ie: exhaust, heal, Zhonya's Hourglass, etc). If we don't have to worry about DFG turning a champion into a one-shot wizard (hello Lissandra), it also means we can potentially give healthy assassins better tools to work with. COOLDOWN 60 seconds ⇒ 90 seconds Rylai's Crystal Scepter AP UP, HEALTH DOWN! A small increase on Rylai's overall slot efficiency as an offensively oriented control item. ABILITY POWER 80 ⇒ 100 HEALTH 500 ⇒ 400 Banshee's Veil Banshee's Veil takes longer to recharge The low cooldown on Banshee's Veil's spell shield allows it to be 'up' for the arrival of every new minion wave, which makes it a little too strong in evenly matched scenarios where one team is trying to siege out the other under a tower. SPELL SHIELD RECHARGE TIME 25 seconds ⇒ 40 seconds Chalice of Harmony Chalice of Harmony's magic resistance has gone down. It takes you more time to read this summary than it does to read the patch note. How does that make you feel. We're going just a little harder on Chalice of Harmony so that picking it up is more about getting the manafont passive. MAGIC RESISTANCE 25 ⇒ 20 Sword of the Occult We're rounding up. We learned how to math when we realized Sword of the Occult wasn't so hot at it. SWORDS ARE NO GOOD AT ROUNDING UP Sword of the Occult loses 6 stacks ⇒ 7 stacks when dying at 20 stacks Madred's Razors A small quality of life buff where Madred's Razors now track your stacks toward a Feral Flare We're adding a buff tracker so you know what you're missing out on and not sitting on a Madred's Razors for... 77 minutes (just kidding!). newFERAL TRACKING Added a buff on your buff bar showing how many stacks you have toward a Feral Flare while you have Madred's Razor in your inventory. Only displays on Summoner's Rift. Twisted Treeline & Crystal Scar Blackfire Torch Increasing Blackfire Torch's cooldown to match the changes to Deathfire Grasp The following is going to sound very familiar if you've read our context on Deathfire Grasp: Blackfire Torch amps up a lot of existing low-interaction gameplay (ie: huge burst with no opportunity to react) without adding more skill to the mix. While this is a larger problem we'll have to tackle in the future, we felt that it was important to at least increase BFT's cooldown so that it's more appropriately balanced against a lot of 'anti-burst' spells / items (ie: exhaust, heal, Zhonya's Hourglass, etc). If we don't have to worry about BFT turning a champion into a one-shot wizard (hello Lissandra), it also means we can potentially give healthy assassins better tools to work with. COOLDOWN 60 seconds ⇒ 90 seconds Crystal Scar Fizz Higher cooldown on Q and E Fizz's mobility and damage are a little too high for the "skirmishy" nature of Dominion. With some CDR, Fizz could jump in and out of fights with ease. Increasing his cooldowns will force Fizz to be more careful when using his mobility. Q - Urchin Strike COOLDOWN 10/9/8/7/6 seconds ⇒ 11/10/9/8/7 seconds E - Playful / Trickster COOLDOWN 16/14/12/10/8 seconds ⇒ 16/14.5/13/11.5/10 seconds Summoner Spells Exhaust Reduces less damage than before, now slightly lowers target's armor and magic resistance This change should reduce some of Exhaust's anti-assassin power while also giving it more diversity as a multi-use summoner spell (flat armor / MR shred means it'll be super effective against low-defense assassins or marksmen!). DAMAGE REDUCTION 50% ⇒ 40% newARMOR & MAGIC RESISTANCE SHRED Now shreds 10 of the target's armor and magic resistance Heal Less heals for all. As a summoner spell that affects two champions and gives a movement speed bonus, we've now realized that Heal is pretty strong. Too strong. HEAL AMOUNT 95 - 475 ⇒ 90 - 345 Team Builder We've made a number of improvements to Team Builder in the months since its initial release. This patch, we're adding improved matchmaking to the list of updates! Team Builder is receiving a few updates in the days following the initial 4.13 deploy: Team Builder matchmaking now takes into account your experience with the specific champion, position and role you've selected. Players can now unlock new role-themed summoner icons by playing 5 games in Team Builder as a specific role Match History Beta Based on your feedback, we've been adding new tools and visualizations to the Match History over the past few patches. Here are some of our recent changes! Color blind mode has been added Vilemaw is now tracked as an objective for Twisted Treeline matches A Match Breakdown section has been added, providing: Graphs for Champion Kills, Gold, Damage, and Wards Champion portrait indicators for First Blood, First Tower Destroyed, Largest Multi Kill and Largest Killing Spree Selecting a champion in the minimap's Champion Kills view now also indicates their death locations While we were at it, we squashed a few bugs and inconsistencies with Match History's data tracking and reporting. Purple team objectives are now tracked correctly for Co-op vs. AI matches Item tooltips for matches played on previous patches now display item details specific to that patch Fixed a few rendering bugs for matches longer than 60 minutes Fixed a bug where item undo wasn't reversing gold spent, causing players to appear to have spent more than they earned Clicking a match in another player's in-client match history now correctly highlights them on the web Lastly, while our focus is on making the Match History web experience as awesome as possible, we've added a bit more information to the client's "at a glance" match history view for players who want the bare essentials. Item build, gold earned and summoner spells have been added to the in-client "at a glance" match history Skin Splash Updates We've temporarily swapped out some skin splashes with their international counterparts to bring them more in line with our quality bar. We're committed to raising the quality of our splash art across the board, but our focus for now is on improving base champion splashes. SPLASHES 33 old skin splashes have been updated PERFECT SOLUTION No TEMPORARY SOLUTION Yes New Player Features As part of our continued onboarding efforts, we're experimenting with ways to help new players learn intermediate concepts outside of game. In this case, we're targeting last hitting with a gentle end-of-game tip that'll occasionally show up for lower level players, becoming less frequent as they get the hang of CSing. New players will now sometimes see a tip at the end of game screen to introduce the concept of last hitting. Match Loading Speeds Toasters rejoice! Improved match loading speeds by 10-30%, particularly for older machines Bugfixes Tooltips for Sheen, Trinity Force, Lich Bane and Iceborn Gauntlet now correctly list the Spellblade passive as having a 1.5 second cooldown (actual value unchanged) Fixed a bug causing players to get stuck in Spectator mode at the end of a match Fixed a few tooltip bugs with Spirit of the Ancient Golem Fixed a bug where the game clock would occasionally become desynchronized, causing buffs to appear to spawn too early Fixed an Undo feature bug with activatable items Since launching our new audio engine last patch, we've been working to fix a lot of small differences that crept in. Howling Abyss death music is now properly controlled via the Music slider in Sound Options Fixed a few issues where players were hearing sounds from distant areas of the map Removed various VO lines that snuck in with the new engine Rebalanced a number of sound effects to more closely match their old levels Fixed a few instances where some effects were playing for too long, getting cut off, or improperly playing on top of each other [/spoil]
Patch 4.14 notes [spoil]Champions Gnar Gnar, the Missing Link, will be released a bit later during Patch 4.14! Corki Soon!? General SOON Soon. Gragas Gragas has new recommended items (HELLO LICH BANE) and his E always carries him the maximum distance. When you got a belly that big, momentum's working against you, man. General THIS HELPS MORE THAN YOU'D THINK Updated recommended items E - Body Slam ALL IN THE HIPS Gragas now always travels the full distance in the direction of the cast (still stops on first target he hits) Kassadin Riftwalk now has a longer period of time before it resets its damage / mana cost stacks. Although we want Kassadin's iconic strength be his super mobility, we also want him to be thinking hard about when and how often he jumps around. R - Riftwalk WAS MORE LIKE A RIFTSPRINT 12 seconds ⇒ 20 seconds Kayle General KNOWN BUG Due to a bug, Kayle is temporarily receiving 2.2 attack speed per level ⇒ 2.5 attack speed per level. This will be reverted as soon as possible! Kog'Maw Koggy moves slower and R chunks champions for less. Despite our changes in 4.13, Kog'Maw still has few weaknesses for his ultra-powerful late game identity. Since our goal is to to preserve a champion's strategic strengths even as we reduce power, we started with Kog's core weaknesses (low mobility) before tackling his early game strengths. General BASE MOVEMENT SPEED 330 ⇒ 325 E - Void Ooze WHEN DID YOU EAT THAT, KOG'MAW Has new particles, looks more gross R - Living Artillery BONUS BASE MAGIC DAMAGE TO CHAMPIONS 125% ⇒ 100% Lulu W - Whimsy NOT A NERF WE SWEAR Tooltip fixed to correctly state the polymorph duration as 1.5 to 2.5 seconds ⇒ 1.25 to 2.25 seconds (actual value unchanged) Maokai W's damage has been reduced and R has a max duration of 10 seconds per cast. Maokai's a pretty cool dude and we're always happy to see a magical tree beating up dragons and yordles, but having a 100% uptime on Vengeful Maelstrom doesn't offer many windows of opportunity (otherwise known as counterplay!), and we may have overshot slightly on his base power. W - Twisted Advance BASE MAGIC DAMAGE 9/10.5/12/13.5/15% max health ⇒ 9/10/11/12/13% max health ABILITY POWER RATIO +4% max health damage per 100 AP ⇒ +3% max health damage per 100 AP R - Vengeful Maelstrom newMAXIMUM DURATION 10 seconds Morgana Black Shield has a lower base and R doesn't nuke as hard. Regardless of how she's played (as a mage or a support), Morgana brings a lot of utility and damage to the table, so we're looking to reduce some of her overall effectiveness. While we don't usually talk about specific changes in the context, reducing the base value on Black Shield means support Morgana will have to choose between the defense it provides and the offensive power she gets from leveling Dark Binding, while mage Morgana will be less affected with her AP ratios compensating at rank 1. E - Black Shield BASE SHIELD 95/160/225/290/355 ⇒ 70/140/210/280/350 R - Soul Shackles BASE MAGIC DAMAGE 175/250/325 ⇒ 150/225/300 TOTAL POSSIBLE MAGIC DAMAGE PER TARGET 350 / 500 / 650 ⇒ 300 / 450 / 600 Orianna Although we really like Orianna's complexity and high skill potential, she's often seen as a very reliable - and safe - choice for any team who needs a well-rounded mage. These changes are to give Ori's lane opponents a little more breathing room (especially melee) against her as she winds up for the mid to late game. General BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 47 ⇒ 41 Rengar R's cooldown is longer and the warning indicator's range is increased. Also Rengar's prey will always have a warning indicator if he's within range, even if he's hiding behind a wall. Obtaining the giga-rare 'Head of Kha'Zix' gives Rengar more vision while stalking in brush. While Rengar's Thrill of the Hunt is usually quite fun for him, we've seen he can be a little frustrating to play against - particularly in the early game when he's roaming everywhere, and in the late game when his prey is usually dead as they see the warning indicator. The short-form of this context would be that we want Rengar's ganking power to... Slow Down! General BUG-FREE KITTY Fixed a rare bug where Rengar would not leap from a brush if he recently flashed into it Head of Kha'Zix newDON'T ASK HOW THIS WORKS Rengar now has increased vision range while in a brush with the Head of Kha'Zix R - Thrill of the Hunt newX-RAY CAT FINDER Warning indicator now appears even if Rengar is in the fog of war while stealthed. In other words, if Rengar is within 1250 range of any opponent while stealthed via Thrill of the Hunt, they will be notified. LONG RANGE CAT FINDER Warning indicator range increased from 1000 ⇒ 1250 COOLDOWN 120/95/70 seconds ⇒ 150/110/70 seconds Syndra R no longer deals damage to untargetable champions, causing fewer opponents to rage. Now you should be able to fully dodge a Syndra ult if you time your abilities right. R - Unleashed Power SLIGHTLY LEASHED POWER Fixed a bug where Unleashed Power's Dark Spheres were still dealing damage to targets who had become untargetable (via Rappel, Zhonya's Hourglass, Playful/Trickster, etc) Thresh Thanks to one particularly intrepid player, we've fixed a longstanding bug with Thresh's Flay. E - Flay THANKS DUDE Fixed a bug where Flay would sometimes not move opponents Xerath R's delay between shots doesn't scale with cooldown reduction. We always intended for Xerath's ultimate to be very dodgeable in a one-on-one situation, as he should be relying on his teammates for help. While we could technically position this as a bugfix, this is a definite power reduction for Xerath, so we're calling it a nerf fix (as opposed to a buff fix). R - Rite of the Arcane NERF FIX The delay between Arcane Barrages scales with cooldown reduction ⇒ is fixed at 0.6 seconds between individual shots Zed Death Mark now places Zed behind his prey and allows him to ignore unit collision while active, finally making him a real-er ninja. Zed lost a lot in 4.10 with our marksman itemization changes, but he's still performing consistently at the highest levels of play. That said, we saw we could give him some small usability buffs to help him stick to his Death Marked targets better. R - Death Mark newTHE UNSEEN ZED IS THE DEADLIEST When Zed uses Death Mark on a target, he dashes in front of them ⇒ behind them newTHE UNBLOCKABLE ZED IS THE DEADLIEST Zed now ignores unit collision while the Death Mark is active on a target Twisted Treeline, Crystal Scar & Howling Abyss Sanguine Blade We're making Sanguine Blade a little more player friendly by extending that passive duration. The small shift from lifesteal to AD is just to make Sanguine Blade more promising as a high-AD item, but we didn't want that lifesteal to get out of hand. PASSIVE DURATION 4 seconds ⇒ 8 seconds ATTACK DAMAGE 40 ⇒ 45 LIFESTEAL 15 ⇒ 10 Post Game Lobby We forgot to mention in 4.13 that we've updated the buttons in the post game lobby. The new buttons have a modernized look and feel and should help reduce misclicks. We also did a bit of cleanup this patch based on initial feedback. HAPPY CLICKING! Post game lobby buttons have been updated Player Behavior Suggested Players We're introducing Suggested Players to help fill out premade lobbies. The initial list includes players from your recent victories as well as any premades you queued together with in your last match, but over time will be expanded to include groups like honorable players, potential friends and friends of friends. Hosts and Captains of all matchmaking queues will now see a list of "Suggested Players" they can invite to fill out premade groups. The list includes: Premades you queued together with in your last match Team members from matches you've recently won Chat Restrictions Although 75% of players improve their behavior after just 1 set of chat restrictions, in some cases the system was handing out fewer initial restrictions than it should have, resulting in back-to-back waves of restrictions. We've tuned the system to be more accurate with the first wave - for example, one set of 30 instead of three sets of 10. The Chat Restriction system is now more accurate with its first set of restrictions, reducing instances of back-to-back restriction waves Custom Lobby Spectating We've upped the number of spectators that can join a custom lobby. This should be especially useful for local tournament scenes! CONVENIENCE Increased the maximum number of custom lobby spectator slots from 2 to 4 Patcher Speeds Patching and installing have been sped up a bit. These changes are separate from the upcoming Patcher & Landing Page Refresh, which will inherit these improvements when released a bit further down the road. FRESH INSTALLS League of Legends installs roughly 15% faster PATCHES League of Legends updates roughly 7% faster Audio Engine Now that the new engine is up and running, we're removing old files that aren't needed any more. This'll clear out over half of the audio files currently stored on your computer (the new engine is slimmer than the old one!) and reduce the number of files we need to update in future patches. YOU SHOULD DEFRAG Removed about 700 MB of obsolete audio files Bugfixes Fixed a bug where the game clock would occasionally become desynchronized, causing buffs to appear to spawn too early Pink wards are pink again! Relic Shield and its upgrades no longer execute Heimerdinger's turrets (in line with the 4.12 change which removed the execute from Yorick's ghouls and Zyra's plants) Quinn's E - Vault no longer causes weird text to appear Targeting an ally with Zilean's Q - Time Bomb no longer pops their spellshield effects [/spoil]
Patch 4.15 notes [spoil]Patcher & Landing Page Refresh We're launching our visual refresh of the patcher and landing page along with the first bits of our new technology in the patcher, which we'll be applying to the rest of the client over time. A few highlights are listed below, but make sure to head to our previous article if you'd like a deeper dive into these changes. As a reminder, the patcher and landing page updates are just the first phase of an iterative development process. They represent a foundation we're confident we can safely build on, and we're looking forward to improving other parts of the client over time with what we've learned from developing these releases! NEW LOOK The patcher and landing page have been updated with a new layout NEW PAINT The client frame, friend list, notifications panel and chat windows have all received fresh coats of paint as well STREAMLINING Patching progress has been condensed into a single bar STAY INFORMED Ticker notifications are now readable in the patcher Champions Alistar When we buffed Alistar back in 4.12, our big concern for competitive play was that he would be too strong in the jungle, where his terrifying level 2 ganks would obliterate all semblance of lane safety on the map. Didn't happen! He just went to terrorize top lane instead. Jokes aside, it's not a bad thing when a champion finds a new position to play on the map, but often times we'll see their strength being used in inhibitive ways (hello Soraka, hello Lulu). We're not taking large steps against Alistar for now, but we did identify one very obnoxious aspect of his strength where he could get a free high-damage trade by Headbutting his opponent while also sneaking in a basic attack. When combined with next-attack items like Sheen, it's easy to see how uninteractive Alistar can get, especially when he puts the opponent in a position where they can't retaliate in a meaningful way. We still think Alistar's in a very strong place after his buffs, but will continue to monitor him for the future. W - Headbutt SUCKER PUNCH Alistar can no longer land an additional basic attack on his Headbutted target as they fly away Caitlyn Part one of three. General BUGFIX Fixed a bug where abilities that give true sight of enemy champions would reveal stealth wards under certain circumstances Fiddlesticks We're fixing a bug with Fiddlesticks that got introduced in 4.14 where his drain would occasionally break by one tick. It's important to note that the Drain bug introduced in 4.14 was cutting off only one or two drain ticks if the opponent ran away to break the tether. It's not to say that this was a light issue (it was definitely a power reduction and an awkward 'feel' change for Fiddlesticks masters), but we just wanted to clarify the impact this had. To fix this, we actually re-coded certain aspects of Drain, but it should feel the same as 4.14. W - Drain A VERY ODD BUG Fixed a bug where Fiddlesticks' Drain tether would occasionally snap prematurely if an opponent moved out of a specific range within a certain window of time. The below two changes should maintain the old Fiddlesticks Drain feeling of pre-4.13, but since we've re-scripted parts of the ability (to fix the bug), we figured we should document it. DRAIN TETHER RANGE Drain's tether now has a range of 750 ⇒ 800 DRAIN REFRESH RATE Drain now updates every 0.5 seconds ⇒ 0.25 seconds (overall damage remains unchanged) Graves We're documenting the collateral in Collateral Damage (this is now the third time we have used this joke). R - Collateral Damage UNDOCUMENTED BUFF Back in patch 4.13, we increased the damage of Collateral Damage but forgot to mention that this would also buff Collateral Damage's Explosion Damage to 200/280/360 ⇒ 200/320/440. There is no functional change from 4.13, but we're just documenting it. Gnar Gnar gets his bonus health immediately on transforming (rather than slightly delayed). Boomerang works more logically and its width, speed, and return indicators have all been improved. Boulders now get picked up and thrown faster, and they fly faster. GNAR! has an AP ratio (but please, for your sake, don't try AP Gnar). We've been keeping a close eye on Gnar during the past two weeks, and while we try not to make major changes during big learning periods, we did see the opportunity to improve some of his play patterns. In other words, while these are definitely buffs, they're more 'spiritual improvements' that we'd like to do regardless of power. So even if Gnar ends up being too strong (or too weak), these are changes we're making to get him to feel better, and future tuning points would be unrelated. General SO MANY POSSIBILITIES Recommended items have been updated BASE HEALTH REGEN 3 health regen per 5 seconds ⇒ 5 health regen per 5 seconds Passive - Rage Gene GROWTH SPURT Fixed a bug where Gnar wouldn't get his bonus health immediately on transforming Q - Boomerang Toss newTHAT'S A SMART BOOMERANG Boomerang's return logic has been improved to better track Gnar OUTGOING WIDTH 45 ⇒ 60 RETURN WIDTH 70 ⇒ 75 MINIMUM SPEED 1000 ⇒ 1400 BOOMERANG CLARITY Boomerang's return particles have been improved! Q - Boulder Throw BODY BLOCK Boulder now checks to see if any enemy champions are standing really close to Gnar's center point when he casts (and it now hits them) SHRAPNEL Boulder now does its area-effect damage in a small radius on landing if it hits no enemies BOULDER SPEED 2000 ⇒ 2100 BOULDER WIDTH 80 ⇒ 90 GOOD FORM, GNAR Gnar can now pick up his thrown boulders off the ground after 0.5 seconds ⇒ 0.3 seconds W - Wallop WHOOPS Fixed a bug where enemies could sometimes cast spells when Wallop's stun was overlapped with GNAR!'s stun R - GNAR! newMAGICAL GNAR Now scales with 0.0 AP ⇒ 0.5 AP RELIABLE GNAR! Fixed a bug where GNAR!'s knockback ministun (not the wall stun) would sometimes be removed too early GNAR SO STRONG Gnar now moves and perform actions after casting GNAR! in 0.5 ⇒ 0.4 seconds Lee Sin Part two of three. Around here is where most would make a joke about Lee Sin being blind. We will not. General BUGFIX Fixed a bug where abilities that give true sight of enemy champions would reveal stealth wards under certain circumstances Rumble Many Rumble bug fixes. Heat management is what separates the good Rumbles from the great Rumbles, so when we heard of bugs that punish Rumble for playing at his best (and a few that reward him when he shouldn't be), we felt we needed to act. That said, some of these changes might be a significant buff to Rumble's power, and that'll be something we'll need to keep a close eye on. General RESPONSIVE RUMBLE Fixed a bug where Rumble's Flamespitter and Scrap Shield should be more responsive in being affected (or not affected) by Danger Zone bonuses even if they're cast immediately after going above or below 50 heat PROPER VENTILATION Fixed a bug where Rumble's basic attack would cancel if he was in the middle of attacking while Overheat expired PUNCHING UNDER FIRE Fixed a bug where Rumble would occasionally not receive bonus magic damage on his first basic attack during Overheat TOO HOT TO HIDE Fixed a bug where Rumble wouldn't fade out when he entered brush during Overheat SUPER GALAXY MISSILES Fixed a bug where Super Galaxy Rumble would occasionally fire a "Danger Zone'd" Electro Harpoon missile on his second cast, even if his first cast wasn't in the Danger Zone Shyvana While we realize this is a small power reduction, we had the choice of either buffing Shyvana's late ranks in damage or just reducing her level 1 damage by 20. E - Flame Breath SORRY SHYVANA Fixed a bug where Flame Breath was dealing an extra 20 damage at Rank 1. Shyvana's damage now accurately reflects the tooltip (at 60 damage). VISUALS Adjusted Flame Breath's dragon form particles to better match the damage cone. Actual area of effect remains unchanged. Sivir We're just re-aligning the visuals on Sivir's Q to better match the actual hitbox of the spell (but it's still a small buff!). Q - Boomerang Blade CLARITY! Sivir's Crossblade now accurately deals damage when the center of the projectile ⇒ edge of the projectile hits an opponent RANGE 1175 ⇒ 1250 (to match the visuals) ALL IN THE WRIST Fixed a bug where Sivir's basic attacks would cancel whenever Boomerang Blade would begin its return Twisted Fate Part three of three. General BUGFIX Fixed a bug where abilities that give true sight of enemy champions would reveal stealth wards under certain circumstances Urgot Urgot's basic attack now travels faster and Acid Hunter refunds half its mana cost if it kills an enemy. Hyper Kinetic Position Reverser also has a shorter cooldown and lower mana cost at later ranks, and lets Urgot ignore unit collision immediately after using it. We're just doing a bunch of small changes aimed at helping Urgot get back onto his... feet. While we try not to discuss our changes in the context, the big thing here is the mana refund on Acid Hunter, which will give Urgot a better fallback mechanic when it comes to last hitting. General THIS REALLY HELPS Recommended items have been updated THIS PROBABLY HELPS MORE Basic attack missile speed is now 1300 ⇒ 1600 Q - Acid Hunter newGET BETTER AT LAST HITTING, URGOT Now refunds half mana cost if Acid Hunter kills an enemy newFANCY PARTICLES Now with extra spinning and a trail RESPONSIVE MISSILES Fixed a bug where Acid Hunter would fail to home if it was fired too quickly after Noxian Corrosive Charge was applied R - Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser COOLDOWN 120 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 120/110/100 seconds COST 120 mana ⇒ 100 mana newHYPER KINETIC WALKING THROUGH THINGS Urgot now ignores unit collision for 1 second after successfully using Hyper Kinetic Position Reverser A VERY SMALL BUFF Now grants bonus armor and magic resistance after a 0.25 second delay ⇒ immediately LESS DISORIENTATION The in-game camera no longer shifts for Urgot when he completes his Hyper Kinetic Position Reverse (so Urgot can follow-up with appropriate skillshots without having to re-orient his camera) Xerath The hidden power of support Xerath. W - Eye of Destruction SORRY SUPPORT XERATH The Spellthief's line of items no longer procs twice when Xerath hits targets in the center of his spell. Updated Splashes As we've mentioned previously, the splash art team is engaged in a long-term effort to update our oldest base splashes. We've got a few more fresh updates for this patch. SPLASH The following champions have received updated base splashes (click the portraits for the full image!): Shyvana Vayne Items Banner of Command SOMEONE MAKE A TIBBERS BUILD Fixed a bug where Annie's Tibbers wasn't gaining increased damage from Banner of Command Iceborn Gauntlet Don't let us prevent you from being inefficient with your unique passives. THE SUPERIOR SPELLBLADE Fixed a bug where if you had both an Iceborn Gauntlet and a Trinity Force in your inventory, you'd deal 150% of your base AD to your primary target instead of the expected 200% (you'll still deal 125% of your base AD to surrounding enemies) Essence Reaver Cheaper Essence Reaver. Bam. Summary and context in one. COMBINE COST 1050 gold ⇒ 850 gold TOTAL COST 3400 gold ⇒ 3200 gold BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Essence Reaver was restoring more mana than it should at higher mana levels Twin Shadows EVEN GHOSTS DON'T FACE CHECK Fixed a bug where the spooky ghosts from Twin Shadows would sometimes not path correctly into bushes to tag enemies Item Purchasing We think players should be able to shop in the comfort of their own death, without the stress of tipping their hand to their opponents. PERSONAL BOUNDARIES Item purchases, sales and undos while dead are no longer visible to opponents who have vision on your corpse Twisted Treeline Twisted Treeline Aura These days, double AP comps have been very dominant in the meta, so we're trying to reduce those that focus on non-stop push / waveclear. MAP-WIDE MANA REGENERATION AURA 1.5% of missing mana ⇒ 0.7% of missing mana Ichor of Illumination Too much cooldown reduction! We don't want it to be so easy for mages to hit - and stay at - the cooldown reduction cap. COOLDOWN REDUCTION 15% ⇒ 10% Cassiopeia Miasma can be a bit overbearing on Twisted Treeline. This change, combined with the nerf to TT's mana regen aura, should make her more reasonable. W - Miasma BASE MAGIC DAMAGE PER SECOND 25/35/45/55/65 ⇒ 20/30/40/50/60 MAXIMUM POTENTIAL MAGIC DAMAGE 225/315/405/495/585 ⇒ 180/270/360/450/540 Dominion Pantheon Passive - Aegis Protection BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Aegis Protection was not blocking shots from Dominion towers. Twisted Treeline & Dominion Leona Solar Flare is a game changer, and with easy access to a number of tanky cooldown reduction items on these maps, her ult is up a little too frequently. R - Solar Flare COOLDOWN 90/75/60 seconds ⇒ 100/90/80 seconds Jarvan IV Jarvan has great base stats and gets to build a ton of damage items while still remaining fairly tanky. We don't want to take away his utility, so we're focusing on his damage potential instead. Passive - Martial Cadence COOLDOWN 10/8/6 seconds ⇒ 10/9/8 seconds Q - Dragon Strike ARMOR SHRED 10/14/18/22/26% ⇒ 10/12/14/16/18% Ranked Play We're adding a new tier to ranked play and announcing end-of-season rewards. Check out the announcement for more info. Master tier will be activated following initial testing on a few servers. More details in the official article! Framerate Improvements We've made some incremental performance improvements this patch, resulting in a small framerate boost across all configurations. PERFORMANCE Framerates have been improved by 5-10% Bugfixes Fixed a bug where the landing circle indicator for Pantheon's R - Grand Skyfall sometimes showed as green (blue in colorblind mode) for his enemies instead of red Rengar's stealth indicator no longer persists through death if Rengar dies after casting R - Thrill of the Hunt but before gaining the stealth effect The tooltip for Zed's W - Living Shadow now displays the amount of bonus AD granted even if the skill hasn't been leveled up yet The particles for Nocturne's Q - Dusk Trail no longer obscure other particle effects Status text for crowd control effects no longer overlaps when multiple CC effects apply at the same time Kayle's recommended starting items on Twisted Treeline have been updated to no longer exceed the default amount of starting gold Katarina's E - Shunpo no longer benefits from spell vamp on wards, despite doing no damage [/spoil]
Patch 4.16 notes [spoil] General ANNOUNCEMENT VISUAL UPDATE In-game announcements (killing sprees, map objectives, etc.) have received a visual update! SHIELD CLARITY Minion and turret health bars now display shield strength Champions Azir Azir, the Emperor of the Sands, will be released a bit later during Patch 4.16. Cassiopeia Cassi's received a gameplay update! Focusing on her new passive Aspect of the Serpent, she's now more about stacking up poisons for massive end-game scaling than being a dominant laning force. Mana costs, cooldowns, base damage and ratios have all been mixed up to compensate - read below for the numbers! Cassiopeia's high DPS has always sat alongside her poison as defining characteristics of the serpent lady. Historically however, these traits have led to oppressive gameplay that's as challenging for the opponent to deal with as it is to understand (THANKS DAMAGE OVER TIME). To preserve both sides of what makes Cassi unique, we realized we had to modify the relationship between the two. In this update, the key to Cassiopeia's heavy-hitting damage potential lies within her new passive, Aspect of the Serpent. Cassi builds power throughout the game as she poisons enemy champions, unlocking stat bonuses to fuel her (now more powerful) Twin Fang. This new aspect (heh) of growing her end-game scaling allows us to solidly push her into the 'completely-absurd-damage-potential' space she's currently hanging around. This comes at the cost of some early game power, but make no mistake - you can expect to see a late-game Cassiopeia as one of the most potent damage threats in the League. General TEXTURE UPDATE Cassiopeia's base and skin textures have been updated SPLASH Cassiopeia's base splash art has been updated VO Cassiopeia has received all-new VO BIO Cassiopeia's in-client bio has been updated newPassive - Aspect of the Serpent Cassiopeia permanently gains a stack of Aspect of the Serpent for each second that she has poisoned an enemy champion, for each poisoned unit that she kills, and every time she hits an enemy champion with Twin Fang. Caps at 400 stacks. 75 STACKS +5% ability power and Twin Fang restores 6/8/10/12/16 (+0.1 ability power) health 200 STACKS Ability power bonus increased to +10% and Cassiopeia gains 25% cooldown reduction 400 STACKS Ability power bonus increased to +30% Q - Noxious Blast BASE MAGIC DAMAGE 75/115/155/195/235 (unchanged) AP RATIO +0.8 ability power ⇒ +0.35 ability power MOVEMENT SPEED BONUS 10/15/20/25/30% COOLDOWN 4 seconds COST 40/45/50/55/60 mana W - Miasma MAGIC DAMAGE PER SECOND 25/35/45/55/65 (+0.15 ability power) ⇒ 10/15/20/25/30 (+0.1 ability power) COOLDOWN 14/13/12/11/10 seconds COST 40/50/60/70/80 mana SLOW 25/30/35/40/45% E - Twin Fang newPROBABLY BUILD MANA Now refunds Twin Fang's mana cost plus an additional 3% of Cassiopeia's total mana if Twin Fang kills a unit KIND OF A BIG DEAL Twin Fang's cooldown now resets on cast, rather than on hit BASE MAGIC DAMAGE 55/80/105/130/155 AP RATIO 0.55 ⇒ 0.4/0.45/0.5/0.55/0.6 COST 30/45/60/75/90 mana R - Petrifying Gaze SNAKE EYES Now accurately hits units directly in front and on top of Cassiopeia. MAGIC DAMAGE 150/250/350 (+0.5 ability power) COOLDOWN 120/110/100 seconds Renekton General TEXTURE UPDATE Textures for Renekton's base, Galactic, Outback and Bloodfury skins have been updated SPLASH Renekton's base splash art has been updated BIO Renekton's in-client bio has been updated Brand R - Pyroclasm CLARITY Now has a secondary targeting indicator that shows bounce radius. Corki W - Valkyrie BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Valkyrie being interrupted would halt Corki's movement but still extend Valkyrie's damage field. Gnar Gnar's ultimate and similar skills work with player-made terrain (this time, Jarvan's actually helping). Part one of three. Continuing to clean up GNAR! with some consistency work across all wall-slams. As with the changes to Poppy and Vayne you'll see below, we'll be watching to see the effects of these changes play out and ready to adjust accordingly. R - GNAR! newCOME ON AND SLAM Now detects collision with player created terrain (Anivia's Crystallize, Azir's Emperor's Divide, Jarvan's Cataclysm and Trundle's Pillar of Ice) WAP! Fixed a bug where using GNAR! on a dashing unit would cancel their movement, but not stun them, if they hit a wall. Irelia Q - Bladesurge SORRY WICKD Fixed a bug where stopping Bladesurge mid-dash would still deal damage to her target. Poppy Tried to make a joke, but Poppy doesn't know any. Part two of three. E - Heroic Charge newAND WELCOME TO THE SLAM Now detects collision with player created terrain (Anivia's Crystallize, Azir's Emperor's Divide, Jarvan's Cataclysm and Trundle's Pillar of Ice) Shen Full disclosure - we're not 100% on what the impact of changing this will be as it's hard to know how much random Energy this was giving Shen in teamfights. If Shen needs love as a result we're happy to give it, but he shouldn't have to rely on a bug for power. E - Shadow Dash removedNO DISRESPECT Fixed a bug where taunting dead champions would give Shen bonus energy. Varus In 4.13 we introduced a line indicator (similar to Xerath) over his previous circular one, hoping it would increase accuracy and satisfaction for Varus players - as it turns out, neither of those things happened (OOPS) so we're taking it back to the original. Thanks for the feedback, y'all! Q - Piercing Arrow WHOOPS Line indicator removed (Now uses range circle again as per previous functionality) Vayne As if Vayne players needed any more highlight reel material. Part three of three. E - Condemn IT'S TIME TO SLAM JAM Now detects collision with player created terrain (Anivia's Crystallize, Azir's Emperor's Divide, Jarvan's Cataclysm and Trundle's Pillar of Ice) Vladimir Tides of Blood is now doing what everyone thought it was doing already. The decision to fix this wasn't for power reasons, but rather to fulfill player expectations on how Tides of Blood should work. We'll be monitoring to make sure he doesn't go crazy, but for now Vlad players are a little less thirsty. E - Tides of Blood TECHNICALLY A BUFF TO GUNBLADE Now correctly increases healing from Vladimir's Spell Vamp (and Lifesteal) Zilean With the Chronokeeper back in the spotlight, we figured it's as good a time as any to help players realize when he's got their back. R - Chronoshift YOU ASKED FOR IT Now subtly tints the target's screen Updated Bios BIO The following champions have received updated in-client bios. Amumu Cassiopeia Ezreal Nasus Rammus Renekton Sivir Skarner Xerath Updated Splashes As we've mentioned previously, the splash art team is engaged in a long-term effort to update our oldest base splashes. We've got a few more fresh updates for this patch. Yes, this is the same context we used in 4.15. SPLASH The following champions have received updated base splashes (click the portraits for the full image!): Akali Renekton Cassiopeia Orianna Summoner Spells Flash NO MORE AWKWARD STOPPING Movement commands now persist after Flashing in the same direction you're moving Featured Game Modes Ascension Ascension, our next Featured Game Mode, is coming shortly after the release of patch 4.16! More information soon - keep an eye out for all the details! Match History The graphs below the scoreboard have been collectively labelled as the Match Overview tab. We've added a tab for Player Builds. This tab will retroactively populate for all matches played since the release of patch 4.14, displaying: Item Purchase Order (including item selling) Ability Order (including Kha'Zix evolutions) Runes Masteries The Match Data section has been moved into its own tab, labeled Statistics. The advantage graph in the Match Overview tab now shows point advantage instead of gold advantage for Dominion (as well as the upcoming Ascension featured game mode). This change will apply to matches played from 4.16 onward. Bugfixes Fixed various bugs with the patcher and landing page update We've made a number of adjustments and fixes to the reskinned chat system based on your feedback: Private chat windows once again display online presence Group chat rosters now indicate online presence as well Increased the size of group chat windows Both private and group chat windows can be minimized by clicking the chat window header bar The friend list scroll bar is now easier to click and drag The Reconnect button should now always display for players who crash out of a game Fixed a bug where dragon was dealing more damage than intended Fixed an issue that caused enemy item purchases to sporadically never update on the scoreboard Fixed a bug where, for a given trap ability, the in-game model of some (not all) placed traps permanently disappeared for players who reconnected to a match [/spoil]
Patch 4.17 notes [spoil] Champions Viktor Viktor has received a Gameplay and Texture Update, as well as a spiffy new splash! Check out the update article for all the details. Soraka Soraka has received a Gameplay Update! Check out the update article for all the details. Cassiopeia Some small buffs to Cass's mana, Q's damage scales better with AP, and E's resetting its cooldowns correctly. We know Cass isn't doing great on the live environment, but we also want to make sure we don't react too quickly as players are learning a champion and then that champion goes on to demolish everyone (*cough* Kassadin *cough*). Still, we can give Cass a little bump as we watch her being picked up. This might be a conversation we'll revisit next patch! General BASE MANA 300 ⇒ 330 MANA PER LEVEL +50 ⇒ +60 Q - Noxious Blast ABILITY POWER RATIO 0.35 ⇒ 0.45 E - Twin Fang 28.6% MORE FIXED Twin Fang now correctly resets its cooldown to 0.7 seconds ⇒ 0.5 seconds, as indicated by the tooltip Ezreal We fixed some longstanding clunkiness with Pulsefire Ezreal's animations in 4.16. Our bad on forgetting to list this in the last set of patch notes! Pulsefire Ezreal CANNONS PRIMED Smoothed out Pulsefire Ezreal's autoattack and Mystic Shot animations Garen Garen's going to be a lean, mean, health recovering machine. Right now, Garen's identity is centered on his ability to run at people in a threatening way and, since we have a few people who already do that, we decided to give him a more unique strength. These buffs are to really cement Garen as a tanky sword-dude who can shrug off most forms of poke damage - that is, if he can find windows of safety to recover (more reason to hide in that brush!). You might say this gives him more perseverance. You would be correct. Passive - Perseverance newYOUR PUNY WEAPONS ARE USELESS Perseverance is no longer removed by non-epic monsters at level 11 and above HEALTH REGENERATION 0.4% maximum health per second at all levels ⇒ 0.4% / 0.8% / 2.0% maximum health per second at levels 1/11/16 COOLDOWN 9 seconds at all levels ⇒ 9/6/4 seconds at levels 1/11/16 Heimerdinger A player raised the concern that Heimerdinger (and Karma) had to cast two spells when empowering abilities, thus ever-so-slightly delaying his ability to fight back in high-pressure situations. With this change, Heimer will be able to preemptively use Upgrade while crowd-controlled so he can immediately mash faces when he recovers. This is a repeat of the below context. R - UPGRADE!!! newEVERY SECOND COUNTS Upgrade can now be cast while Heimerdinger is disabled Karma A player raised the concern that Karma (and Heimerdinger) had to cast two spells when empowering abilities, thus ever-so-slightly delaying her ability to fight back in high-pressure situations. With this change, Karma will be able to preemptively use Mantra while crowd-controlled so she can immediately mash faces when she recovers. This is a repeat of the above context. Q - Soulflare EXPLOSIVE DEPARTURE Fixed a bug where Soulflare's ground effect would disappear if Karma died R - Mantra newEVERY SECOND COUNTS Mantra can now be cast while Karma is disabled LeBlanc LeBlanc's mirror clone is more deceptive, as it spawns stealthed for a full second alongside LeBlanc, so LB can create more distance from her clone before re-appearing. W has a longer grace period to return. Brushy brushy. Since we removed LeBlanc's silence in patch 4.10, she hasn't been in the best shape. Rather than buffing her damage (wouldn't that be fun), we're looking for healthier ways to give her some strength, like reinforcing her deceptive gameplay. Passive - Mirror Image newNOW YOU SEE ME LeBlanc now creates a mirror image after her invisibility ends ⇒ immediately newNOW YOU DON'T LeBlanc and her mirror image remain invisible as long as the other is invisible (breaking the invisibility of one will break the invisibility of the other) INVISIBILITY DURATION 0.5 seconds ⇒ 1 second W - Distortion JUKE CITY LeBlanc now has 3 seconds ⇒ 4 seconds to snap back to her return pad Maokai Maokai's currently running rampant in top lane, partially due to his ability to trade damage with most of the scrappy dudes he finds up there. Given Maokai's R is already a strong defensive ability in a team fight, we realized it probably shouldn't also have so much damage tied to it. R - Vengeful Maelstrom MAXIMUM STORED DAMAGE 200/250/300 ⇒ 100/150/200 (base damage remains 100/150/200) Miss Fortune Strut is no longer broken by non-damaging crowd control effects, like Nasus' Wither, Lulu's Whimsy, or... the aura from Frozen Heart (sorry!). Miss Fortune's Strut was always meant to be broken by damage (and the tooltip says this) but, for some time now, Strut also considered non-damaging forms of crowd control to be valid ways to break (like Nasus' Wither, Lulu's Whimsy or... Frozen Heart's aura (sorry!)). We've fixed that. Passive - Strut STEP TO Strut is no longer broken by non-damaging effects Nautilus Nautilus can drag himself to player-created terrain. We already did this with Vayne, Poppy, and Gnar, and realized Nautilus should probably be able to do the same (some players also let us know! Thanks!) Q - Dredge Line newNAUTICAL EQUALITY Nautilus can now drag himself to player-created terrain (e.g. Trundle's Pillar, Jarvan's Cataclysm, Anivia's Crystallize) Nidalee Nidalee's basic attacks do less and she has less attack speed. Takedown scales less with AD and more with AP. Pounce now resets to a reduced cooldown if Nidalee pounces to a Hunted target (rather than swiping a Hunted target). As a super strong lane bully, Nidalee's able to poke down her opponents fairly quickly before mauling their face as a giant cat. While we think it's cool that Nidalee has access to two completely different builds (AD and AP), it's clear her AD build is a lot stronger, especially since she can put out tons of damage without needing to land a spear / trap. Our goal here is to bring a little parity between the two builds while also, honestly speaking, reducing some of Nidalee's oppressive lane power when building AD. General BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 52.5 ⇒ 47.5 BASE ATTACK SPEED 0.67 ⇒ 0.638 Q - Takedown MINIMUM ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO 1.0 ⇒ 0.75 MAXIMUM ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO 2.5 ⇒ 1.875 MINIMUM ABILITY POWER RATIO 0.24 ⇒ 0.36 MAXIMUM ABILITY POWER RATIO 0.60 ⇒ 0.90 W - Pounce newFLYING CAT PROJECTILES Pounce's cooldown now resets to 1.5 seconds if Nidalee pounces to a Hunted target KITTY RESETS Killing a unit now resets Pounce's cooldown to 1.0 seconds ⇒ 1.5 seconds newCOOLDOWN COUGAR Abilities that reduce Pounce's cooldown now work in combination with Nidalee's cooldown reduction stat (so at 40% CDR, a hunted Pounce gets reset to 0.9 seconds rather than 1.5 seconds) E - Swipe removedSWIPELESS Swipe no longer affects the cooldown of Pounce when used on a Hunted target Rammus Just a small quality-of-life buff where if Rammus uses Powerball to cancel Defensive Ball Curl (or vice versa), he gets 1 second of buffs overlapping instead of immediately cancelling one for the other. Q - Powerball OKAY While in Powerball, Rammus now cancels the ability immediately ⇒ 1 second after Defensive Ball Curl is activated W - Defensive Ball Curl OKAY While in Defensive Ball Curl, Rammus now cancels the ability immediately ⇒ 1 second after Powerball is activated Sona While we were cleaning up some code with Sona, we accidentally reduced the cast range on her Hymn of Valor. We fixed it. Sorry! Q - Hymn of Valor SHARP NOTES Fixed a bug where Hymn of Valor's cast range was shorter than intended Talon Talon's E no longer silences, it just applies a high-intensity mini-slow. Now that other high-burst low-counterplay assassins have been modified in some way (hello LeBlanc), Talon's one of the next dudes to step forward. Our focus with this change is not to entirely nerf Talon (although we realize this is a hit to his laning phase against certain champion matchups), rather, it's to reduce frustration when playing against him. Specifically, Talon's ability to obliterate a target of his choosing in the mid to late game without them having any say in the matter (literally) is a tough ability to balance around - especially as we've targeted other low-counterplay abilities like LeBlanc's Sigil of Silence. As an aside, this does mean that the ability name Cutthroat makes no sense from a thematic perspective, but naming it cut-ankles was less inspiring. We'll look into it. Q - Noxian Diplomacy A METAPHOR FOR POLITICS Noxian Diplomacy's animation now plays slightly faster (so it can feel more impactful). Actual gameplay remains unchanged. E - Cutthroat removedTHAT'S SOME BAD AIM, TALON Cutthroat no longer silences its target newCUT-ANKLES Cutthroat now slows targets for 99% for 0.25 seconds (this is enough to sneak in one Mercy-buffed basic attack) R - Shadow Assault newA SHINY ESCAPE Shadow Assault now has a particle to indicate that Talon is hasted Tristana As a hyper-scaling markswoman on par with champs like Koggles or Vayne, Tristana needs equivalent weaknesses for her high potential. Up front: this change won't completely address that problem, but we did want to create more opportunities against Tristana in the early to mid game as we examine her power for the future. R - Buster Shot COOLDOWN 60 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 100/85/70 seconds Yasuo While this is a fairly innocuous bugfix for Yasuo, we wanted to take this opportunity to talk about everyone's favorite wind swordsman (to ban). While we think Yasuo's in a good spot in terms of his overarching gameplay and strategic fit, there's a good chance he's just a little strong for what he brings to the table. We're currently examining ways to add more meaningful counterplay against Yasuo but just wanted to let you know we're aware of his power. Q - Steel Tempest INNOCUOUS BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Steel Tempest's cooldown was slightly too low when using the E-Q combo at high attack speeds Zilean This change is for... CLARITY! R - Chronoshift WE NEED MORE TIME Visual effect size (the rotating hourglasses) has been increased by 50% Mass Texture Rebalance (Part 1) Over the next couple patches we're taking a broad pass at the game's older character textures with the goal of improving parity with newer releases and making sure everybody looks at home on the Rift as its style and color palette continue to evolve. TEXTURES The following textures have been updated: Ahri Base, Dynasty, Midnight Akali Base, All-star, Blood Moon, Crimson, Nurse, Silverfang, Stinger Ashe Base, Amethyst, Freljord, Sherwood Forest, Queen, Woad Corki Base, Hot Rod, Ice Toboggan, Red Baron, UFO, Urfrider Fiora Base, Royal Guard, Nightraven Galio Base, Commando, Enchanted, Gatekeeper, Hextech Graves Base, Jailbreak (for now) LeBlanc Base, Prestigious, Mistletoe, Wicked Leona Base, Defender, Iron Solari, Valkyrie Nautilus Base, Abyssal, Subterranean Orianna Base, Bladecraft, Gothic, Sewn Chaos Xerath Base, Battlecast, Runeborn Items Elixir of Brilliance, Elixir of Fortitude, Ichor of Illumination, and Ichor of Rage Elixirs and Ichors now intelligently scale up in stats as a character levels up with them on. Before this patch, Elixirs and Ichors only did one "check" on your level before determining the stats they gave you. If you leveled up with an Elixir or Ichor used, however, they wouldn't intelligently scale up to your new level. We fixed that. SMART CONSUMABLES Stat buffs from Elixirs and Ichors now level up along with the buffed Champion Dominion Respawn Mechanics Dominion currently has a balancing mechanic where the losing team has a shorter respawn timer than the winning team. Unfortunately, this mechanic would come into play immediately after one team took a lead. We've increased that band by a wider margin so that close games don't get so swingy but losing teams still have the potential to make a comeback. Respawn Timers DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK The respawn timer handicap now applies only if there is a point difference greater than 50 Ranked Updates Master Tier When we implemented Master Tier, we removed clamping from Diamond 1. One side effect of this has been that players who ride win streaks into Master incur pretty harsh LP penalties if they fall back into Diamond. This new LP loss cap is meant to soften the experience while players strive to enter - and remain in - Master Tier. newLP LOSS CAP Players who quickly drop back into Diamond 1 after being promoted to Master Tier now retain a minimum of 50 LP Ranked Inactivity Decay Ranked inactivity decay is meant to ensure that only the best active players can hold on to their position through a season. While this makes sense for the most competitive tiers, it just ends up as source of stress for the rest of the ladder. To that end, we've removed inactivity decay for silver and gold (bronze was already immune - we fixed a bug where this wasn't the case for promo series). newQUALITY OF LIFE Silver and Gold players are now immune to inactivity decay BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Bronze players who went inactive during a promo series were decaying out of their series Ranked Duo Queue Following a brief hiatus last patch due to a bug, we're reactivating the limiter that prevents ranked players from duo queuing with partners more than one tier above or below them. Ranked Restrictions We recently posted about a few new measures coming to ranked play as part of our ongoing effort to encourage positive behavior. Head to the discussion for the details! Bugfixes Nomad's Medallion now properly shows up under the "Other Movement Items" category In line with previous fixes, Relic Shield and its upgrades no longer execute Shaco boxes Fixed a bug where Ichor of Illumination was removing cooldown reduction when it wore off Fixed a number of patcher crash issues Fixed an issue with multitouch scrolling in the Mac patcher Players no longer lose access to the patcher's Repair tool after closing the menu via the 'x' button [/spoil]
Patch 4.18 notes [spoil] Champions Sion Sion, the Undead Juggernaut, will be released with the launch of 4.18. Check out his reveal for gameplay info, his insights article for a look at his development, or his teaser for a glimpse into his story. Akali No more bonus resistances when Akali is in her shroud, but now whenever she stealths she gets a significant movement speed boost. Akali's one of those champions who, when she gets ahead, completely circumvents her meaningful weaknesses by having extra resistances from Twilight Shroud. A fed Akali ultimately turns into a bruiser-assassin Akali who hops into a fight, tanks out damage in Twilight Shroud, and then continues to obliterate the squishies. Rather than removing her defensive mechanics completely, we wanted to focus Akali's skills on more ninja-y things, hence the heavier focus on sneaking and agility. This also allows us to reinforce the proper counterplay to Akali (reveal her in stealth and beat her up), give her better themed mechanics, all while reiterating her focus on opportunistic assassinations. Up front: this is meant to be an overall nerf, but we hope Akali players will be more focused on the cool plays they can make with this new mechanic. W - Twilight Shroud newNOW WITH MORE NINJA Twilight Shroud now gives +20/40/60/80/100% movement speed each time Akali stealths, rapidly decaying over the course of 1 second removedRESISTANCE IS FUTILE Akali no longer gains bonus armor and magic resistance while in Twilight Shroud Anivia Bird is the word. We're hoping to give some extra love for new players picking up Anivia, as they'll have a clearer understanding of how to use this cool chick. Q - Flash Frost newSTUNNING INDICATORS Flash Frost now has a cast indicator to show stun range newSTUNNING CLARITY Flash Frost now has an icy cloud around its particle to show stun range (only the Anivia player can see this) Azir So many bug fixes. Also some small buffs to Azir's base attack damage and attack speed. Gauging a new champion's release strength has traditionally been a difficult task, given we have to account for player learning curves, the landscape of the game and, in Azir's case, how that champion's ability coding holds up in millions of unique games (and game interactions). All of the above also plays into the next steps we need to take in helping (or toning down) that champion. With Azir, we saw some small changes we could take to help out his laning phase, but we're going to take it easier on anything larger until these fixes go through. General BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 43 ⇒ 47 BASE ATTACK SPEED 0.556 ⇒ 0.600 Passive - Shurima's Legacy TWO AZIRS!? Fixed a bug where two Azirs were able to summon a Sun Disc from the same interactive clicker NO SUN FOR YOU Fixed a bug where other players were able to target the Sun Disc interactive clicker with abilities (e.g. Lee Sin's Safeguard) or were told they could click on it and then couldn't and then became sad. TACTICAL CLICKING Reduced the clickable size of the Sun Disc interactive clickers by 20% Q - Conquering Sands SLACKING ON THE JOB Fixed a bug where moving inactive soldiers into active combat range with Conquering Sands would fail to activate their attacks properly, leading to 0 damage attacks CONQUER FURTHER Fixed a bug where Azir's sand soldiers would fail to cross a wall if they were just a little short of it W - Arise! PRETTY SIGNIFICANT BUFF FIX Fixed a bug where multiple soldiers attacking multiple targets would often lead to soldiers incorrectly applying reduced damage. Reiterating here: this is a pretty big 'buff' fix. THEY'RE BREAKDANCE FIGHTING Fixed a bug where dancing would break Azir's soldier's basic attacks E - Shifting Sands newTAKE ME WITH YOU If Azir uses Shifting Sands on a soldier currently moving via Conquering Sands, he'll now join the soldier on a combined magical journey I CAN'T TELL THEM APART Fixed a bug where Azir wouldn't shift to the correct soldier in certain situations READY TO GO Fixed a bug where pressing E immediately after pressing W would occasionally not work. Feel free to W+E away now (or try W+Q+E for an even cooler combo)! R - Emperor's Divide IT'S COMPLICATED Fixed many bugs with Emperor's Divide. This ability should no longer: Deal damage multiple times Multi-bounce targets Pin targets to walls Fail to bounce targets to the far side of the wall Not break channels Break spell shields and still knock enemies back And more! Bug Awareness SOON We're aware of a bug where Azir's Sun Disc currently does not ramp up in damage. We'll be fixing this in patch 4.19. Ezreal Small Ezreal buffs. See above. We're trying to give him some extra love so he can keep up in a modern game of League of Legends. Passive - Rising Spell Force BUFF DURATION 5 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds Q - Mystic Shot NOTE: This change has already taken effect, but the tooltip hasn't been updated. We'll get to that as soon as possible. Thanks! TOTAL ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO 1.0 ⇒ 1.1 Gangplank Cannon Barrage now deals full damage in waves to everyone within the zone, rather than randomly dropping cannonballs on heads. Real talk: this change doesn't do everything for Gangplank in the long-term, but a consistency pass on Cannon Barrage was one we saw we could do in a self-contained change without fundamentally altering GP's playstyle. R - Cannon Barrage IT'S HARD TO AIM A CANNON Cannonballs now fall in waves that damage the whole zone once per second. Individual cannonballs no longer have individual damage zones. COOLDOWN 120/115/110 seconds ⇒ 125/110/95 seconds Kha'Zix W's damage has gone down, particularly at higher ranks. Also, sometimes we just want to talk about Kha'Zix. While it's true that Kha'Zix has been a tough bug to balance, we wanted to talk about our approach with him. If you're not interested in a long Kha'Zix context for a single change, feel free to move on. WARNING: this discussion's going to get a little complicated! So. Kha'Zix has once again found a way to prosper as a high-priority assassin, but the popularity of a champion doesn't automatically translate to them needing a nerf. To us, when someone becomes popular in high level / competitive play, we see them as exhibiting symptoms of certain attributes that competitive players value: strength, overall effectiveness, and reliability. As such, we do keep an eye out for popular competitive champions, but our first goal is to understand if they're just powerful strategic picks in the current meta or if they're actually objectively better (or more reliable) than their peers. In the case of Kha'Zix, Q was designed to be his main tool when assassinating targets, and it's important to maintain that relationship for game health / champion identity reasons. Right now, however, Kha's actually prioritizing W as a first evolution (and max rank), but he's still expecting to do all of his assassin-y things (note: without evolving or focusing on what should be his primary killing tool). We're fine with players opting for a W-first Kha'Zix, but this means he's gotta make some meaningful tradeoffs, like losing some offensive threat while gaining utility / poke. Unfortunately, this hasn't really been the case as we're still seeing Kha'Zix being very effective as an assassin while also getting all of the extra utility of evolved W. What all of this tells us is one of two things: a.) The utility and strength of evolved W is too reliable in combination with Kha'Zix's base kit, so he can get the best of all worlds by maximizing his utility while also being a high-threat assassin. Or b.) Kha'Zix's evolved Q is too weak to properly use as a primary play pattern, so he's forced to max / evolve W to stay relevant in the game but doesn't really want to. We strongly suspect the first case is more true (and this is reflected in our change). It's tough to justify a champion being 'too weak' if they continue to be a high-priority pick in games where strength and reliability are the most important traits. Final reassurance though: we do think Kha'Zix's play patterns are fairly healthy overall, so we're not planning to make any major changes in either direction, we just wanted to explain some of our thought processes as we work. W - Void Spike DAMAGE 75/115/155/195/235 ⇒ 80/110/140/170/200 Lucian Occasionally relenting pursuit. This will have been the third time we've made a joke regarding Relentless Pursuit and no apologies will be made at this point in time. When we originally re-balanced Lucian back in patch 4.12, we were actually concerned with him being too weak in the laning phase (hah), and so gave him compensatory buffs to keep up. Since then, however, Lucian's gone on to be a premiere lane bully with access to a pretty solid late game as well. These changes should make Lucian think a little more about that aggressiveness in lane. E - Relentless Pursuit COST 0 mana ⇒ 40/30/20/10/0 mana Nunu ABSOLUTE CLARITY! ABSOLUTE CLARITY! R - Absolute Zero ABSOLUTE CLARITY Absolute Zero's tooltip now shows the minimum damage it will deal Talon Still not renaming it. Maybe in a future patch. Foot stab? E - Cutthroat WHOOPS Cutthroat now properly grants assists Tristana Rapid Fire gives a smaller but more powerful buff in the late game. Tristana gets less attack speed per level. Apologies if we're repeating the same thing from 4.17 but we're looking for ways to give Tristana more moments of weakness. As another repeat: while these changes may not completely address that goal, we're hoping that by making Trist more dependent on Rapid Fire to deal damage, there will be clearer windows to engage or disengage against her. General ATTACK SPEED PER LEVEL +4% per level ⇒ +2.5% per level Q - Rapid Fire DURATION 7 seconds ⇒ 5 seconds BONUS ATTACK SPEED Now gives 30/45/60/75/90% attack speed ⇒ 30/50/70/90/110% attack speed Viktor GLORIOUS BUGFIXES! Q - Siphon Power SORRY AD VIKTOR The bonus Discharge magic damage can no longer critically strike BUGFIX Viktor's shield will now properly break when Viktor takes small amounts of damage Wukong E - Nimbus Strike WUJU STYLE? Nimbus Strike will no longer pick a secondary target if they're targetable but invisible due to Fog of War Yasuo Yasuo's base health and movement have been reduced. Remember that time we talked about taking more time to read the summary than the actual changelist? As hypercarry swordsman, Yasuo should make early game tradeoffs for opponents to capitalize on before he grows to his late potential. Right now, that isn't quite the case as Yasuo's quite strong in the early game, even in unfavorable matchups, in addition to scaling extremely well. These changes are to more specifically highlight Yasuo's early weaknesses, including being squishier if his passive isn't up and, more importantly, being more vulnerable to ganks if he's pushed up and doesn't have minions to dash through for his retreat. We'll be keeping a close eye on Yasuo with these changes, however, as having an early game weakness will almost certainly have an impact on his late game reliability. General BASE HEALTH 512 ⇒ 462 BASE MOVEMENT SPEED 350 ⇒ 340 Mass Texture Rebalance (Part 2) We're continuing our comprehensive pass at the game's older character textures. Our goal is to improve parity with newer releases and make sure everybody looks at home on the Rift as its style and color palette continue to evolve. TEXTURES The following textures have been updated: Blitzcrank Base, Boom Boom, Definitely Not Blitzcrank, Goalkeeper, Piltover, Rusty Brand Base, Apocalyptic, Cryocore, Vandal Evelynn Base, Masquerade, Shadow, Tango Graves Hired Gun Nocturne Base, Frozen, Haunting, Ravager, Void Olaf Base, Brolaf, Forsaken, Glacial Splash Updates As we've mentioned previously, the splash art team is engaged in a long-term effort to update our oldest base splashes. A few more are ready to go this patch! SPLASH The following champions have received updated base splashes (click the portraits for the full image!): Cho'Gath Kog'Maw Lee Sin Items Randuin's Omen WARNING: Due to a bug, this change is currently not in effect (the tooltip is simply wrong, it's still 10%). We'll be looking to hotfix this when we can and will update the patch notes accordingly. Sorry! With hypercarry marksmen running rampant in the mid to late game, we're returning a little more power to Randuin's Omen to give tanky dudes better itemization choices when fighting back. ATTACK SPEED REDUCTION 10% ⇒ 15% Featured Game Modes Our next featured game mode, Hexakill: Twisted Treeline, will be released later this patch! In-Game Announcement Banners In-game announcements received a visual update back in 4.16. We've read through your feedback and are making a number of tweaks and improvements aimed at making announcements cleaner and less intrusive. For clarity. CLARITY Announcements have been scaled down a bit and moved higher up on the screen MORE CLARITY Increased the transparency of announcement background effects EVEN MORE CLARITY Summoner names have been removed from some announcements for brevity. Killing spree callouts retain them for bragging purposes. In-Game Options Menu Volume Sliders With our new audio engine up and running, we gained the ability to tie a lot of existing audio effects to new volume sliders. We're implementing a slider for ambient sounds, as well as the often-requested ping slider. These new options are meant to give players more control over their audio experience in League of Legends." Added a new volume slider for pings Added a new volume slider for ambience (ex. red buff's campfire and the wind on Howling Abyss) Removing Pando Media Booster As we discussed a few weeks back, we’re removing Pando Media Booster from the installer and patcher this patch. Don’t know what we’re talking about? Pando is a defunct 3rd party peer-to-peer service we previously used to help players download new files faster. If Pando Media Booster is on your computer, you’ll see a popup once you launch League of Legends that’ll prompt you to remove Pando from your computer with a single click. We no longer use Pando’s services in our releases, so we recommend removing it. Pando Media Booster has been removed from the installer and patcher Players with Pando Media Booster on their computers will be prompted to remove it with a single click Suggested Players PREMADE FACILITATION The Suggested Players invite list in premade lobbies now recommends friends of friends who are currently online and available for a game Bugfixes (Fixed during 4.17) Resolved a significant source of crashes introduced last patch which predominantly affected Mac players. This won't solve every crash, but we remain committed to fixing as many issues as possible in every patch. A lot of Azir fixes. Head back up to his section for the full list! Garen's R - Demacian Justice will no longer cancel itself if the target enters the fog of war while Garen is mid-cast Undoing a Ruby Sightstone purchase no longer interferes with Sightstone's ability to place wards Abilities blocked by spell shields no longer proc life steal or spell vamp Improved Soraka Bot's AI to better accommodate for her gameplay update Soraka once again has recommended items on ARAM [/spoil]
Patch 4.19 notes [spoil] Summoner's Rift Update: Open Beta The last major set of SRU files is going out with 4.19 (so expect another large download!) and we'll be starting the Summoner's Rift open beta soon. Check out the beta release plan for additional details! Champions Singed STICK 'EM IN THE GOO! ... Also Insanity Potion gives more bonuses at rank 3. And Singed has been updated! Our initial context was to say, "Sometimes you just want to buff Singed, man," but then someone read it and said it wasn't very informative. So. Right now we like Singed and how he fits into the game, but thought we could give him some small, exciting buffs to stay interesting. For the "LONG PATCH NOTE" section, we'll reiterate: it's a neutral change, just that we've shifted the mini-stun on landing into the actual throw itself (this came from re-scripting Fling to fix the bug where Singed was occasionally tossing people in the completely wrong direction). Also, Singed has been updated! Check out the article if you want the full story, or below if you just want the specifics. General VISUALS Updated model and textures for base and all skins ICONS New ability icons SPLASH New base splash E - Fling newSTAY WITH ME If Singed Flings a target into Mega Adhesive Zone, they will be snared for 1 second FLIP FLOP Fixed a bug where Singed would occasionally Fling his targets in completely wrong directions (we believe this is fixed for most cases, let us know if if keeps happening!) A LONG PATCH NOTE Singed's arm is stronger, thereby letting him Fling targets higher into the sky for slightly longer durations. In exchange, targets will be able to move immediately after being flung. This is a net neutral change, as we basically took the mini-stun from Fling's landing and put it into duration of the Fling itself. R - Insanity Potion STAT ENHANCEMENT 35/50/65 ⇒ 35/50/80 ability power, armor, magic resist, movement speed, health per 5 seconds and mana per 5 seconds Sion Lots of bug fixes along with a small mana cost shift from Sion's Q + W to E. We've got a little room to give Sion some post-update love, so we decided to focus on his best stat: health. Additionally, we've made a lot of quality-of-life changes & bug fixes to help Sion be the best he can be. Final note for that passive change, we changed it because it was punishing Sion for building HP, which was dumb. Now health-stacking Sion should stay up a little longer in his zombie form in comparison to a damage-focused, low-health Sion. Logic! General HEALTH PER LEVEL +70 ⇒ +73 Passive - Glory in Death COMPLICATED ZOMBIE MATH Sion's health decay in passive form now scales with his max health (0.5% max health first tick, increasing by 0.4% max health per tick) ⇒ champion level (2 x level first tick, increasing by 1.4 x level per tick) FIERY DEATH Fixed a bug where Sunfire Cape wasn't working while Sion was in his passive zombie state YORICK IS HELPING Glory in Death no longer fails to activate in cases where Sion is targeted by Yorick's Omen of Death, doesn't trigger the revive effect and then dies later on in the match Q - Decimating Smash COST 50/55/60/65/70 mana ⇒ 45/50/55/60/65 mana SMASHING PARITY All crowd-control types now correctly refund Decimating Smash's cooldown to 2 seconds when they interrupt Sion while he's charging up YELLING AND SMASHING Sion can now properly cast Decimating Smash immediately after Roar of the Slayer W - Soul Furnace COST 70/75/80/85/90 mana ⇒ 65/70/75/80/85 mana PASSIVE HEALTH GAIN 8 ⇒ 10 on large monster kill and champ kill/assist (minion and small monster bonus unchanged) E - Roar of the Slayer IT'S A JUNGLE SION BUFF Knocked back minions are no longer invulnerable to damage while in flight but can't be killed before landing unless Sion casts Smite on them COST 25 mana at all ranks ⇒ 35 mana at all ranks Anivia Q - Flash Frost WHOOPS Fixed a bug where Anivia wouldn't cast Flash Frost in the direction of the cursor if she wasn't in range to cast it (in other words, Anivia will now immediately cast Flash Frost rather than moving into range to cast it). Azir Passive - Shurima's Legacy BUGFIX Fixed a bug where the damage from Azir's Sun Disc would not ramp up properly like a tower. R - Emperor's Divide BUGFIX Fixed a number of bugs around detecting enemies that are behind Azir at cast time BUGFIX Fixed a number of double bounce bugs BUGFIX Fixed a number of bugs that allowed enemies to dash through the wall if they timed their dash correctly Fiddlesticks CAW CAW CAW! R - Crowstorm CAW CAW CAW Fixed a bug where rapidly spamming a basic ability at the very end of Crowstorm's channel sometimes caused that ability to go on cooldown without casting or appearing to be on cooldown in the HUD Janna W's cooldown stays the same at all ranks (aka higher at later ranks). While this isn't a very large change, we want to create harder choices for Janna for when she should use her W, giving her enemies more windows of vulnerability to engage on their target (or her!). Q - Howling Gale WHOOPS Fixed a bug where Janna wouldn't cast Howling Gale in the direction of the cursor if she wasn't in range to cast it (in other words, Janna will now immediately cast Howling Gale rather than moving into range to cast it) W - Zephyr COOLDOWN 12/11/10/9/8 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds at all ranks LeBlanc Helping you make those... flashy plays. Passive - Mirror Image FLASHY PLAYS Flashing no longer de-stealths LeBlanc and her clone when Mirror Image is triggered Lucian W no longer has an attack damage ratio, but gives more movement speed bonuses at later ranks. R's cooldown has been significantly raised (particularly at later levels). You know, for a 'short-range' champion, Lucian's got access to a lot of long-range damage once he gets past the early game. Our big focus here is to push Lucian into closer combat range more often by reducing the power on some of his safer spells. At this point you might ask why Q has a 1100 range (well, 500 cast but 1100 total), and that would be a good question. Also, when you consider it, The Culling's 50 second cooldown at rank 3 is pretty crazy. W - Ardent Blaze removedATTACK DAMAGE RATIO 0.3 ⇒ 0.0 MOVEMENT SPEED BONUS 40/40/40/40/40 ⇒ 40/45/50/55/60 R - The Culling COOLDOWN 100/75/50 seconds ⇒ 110/100/90 seconds Pantheon R - Grand Skyfall BUGFIX Fixed a bug where rapidly spamming a basic ability at the very end of Grand Skyfall's channel sometimes caused that ability to go on cooldown without casting or appearing to be on cooldown in the HUD Ryze Q's base damage has been reduced across all ranks. As a strong late game scaling champion, Ryze's ability to bully out other top laners early is pretty bonkers, so we're reducing his base damage in lane while still leaving his ability to scale past laning phase intact. We'll be keeping an eye on Ryze over the next few patches, however, as these nerfs might be on the light side for how dominant a champ he is. Q - Overload BASE MAGIC DAMAGE 60/85/110/135/160 ⇒ 40/60/80/100/120 Vi E - Excessive Force EXCESSIVE FALLOFF Fixed a bug where Excessive Force wasn't properly dealing splash damage in its cone of damage Warwick R - Infinite Duress BUGFIX Fixed a bug where rapidly spamming a basic ability at the very end of Infinite Duress's channel sometimes caused that ability to go on cooldown without casting or appearing to be on cooldown in the HUD Zilean This is it, we got the last global passive in the game. While our stance on global passives is fairly well known (hidden power, impacting lanes outside of an opponent's control, etc), we typically don't like nerfing champions when they're down (as in unpopular or seen as underpowered). With Zilean's rise as a high-priority competitive and - by extension - normal pick, we can now at least reduce that global passive to a more manageable range. Passive - Heightened Learning LOCAL EDUCATION Heightened Learning affects allies globally ⇒ within 1500 range Splash Updates As we've mentioned previously, the splash art team is engaged in a long-term effort to update our oldest base splashes. We've got 18 more ready to go this time! SPLASH The following champions have received updated base splashes (click the portraits for the full image!): Blitzcrank Ezreal Gragas Graves Janna Jarvan IV Kayle Rengar Rumble Singed Shaco Shen Talon Tristana Udyr Veigar Wukong Zilean Jungle Crest of the Ancient Golem & Blessing of the Elder Lizard RENAMED Renamed from Crest of the Ancient Golem & Blessing of the Elder Lizard ⇒ Crest of Insight & Crest of Cinders, respectively End of Season Rewards The 2014 ranked season began in January, and now the battle for League Points draws to a close. The 2014 season ends on November 11, 2014 at 12:01 AM PST. Visit the End of Season page to learn more about the end of the season rewards and the new Master tier. In addition to other rewards, players in Gold tier or higher in any ranked queue at the end of the season will receive the Victorious Morgana skin! Victorious Morgana Suggested Players We've been working to improve Suggested Players since launch in 4.14 so players have an easier time filling out their premade lobbies. This patch, we're addressing two common points of feedback. Suggested Players will now prioritize players you've honored over other potential suggestions, and the friends-of-friends component will now take your skill level into account to ensure better matches. We're continuing to closely monitor the system for further upgrade opportunities, so please keep giving us feedback! Players you’ve honored will now be suggested more frequently and with higher priority The system now looks for players close to your skill level when suggesting friends of friends Patcher Improvements We've made a couple usability and polish improvements to the patching screen! NOBODY PUTS PATCHER IN A CORNER The patcher now plays a sound effect when patching finishes to better let you know when you can get back in game YOU CLICKED IT! The "Launch" button now has an on-click sound effect IT WASN’T YOUR IMAGINATION Fixed a small misalignment in the patcher's layout Store Improvements Load times for the Featured tab have been improved, reducing the delay when first entering the store Various store images have been updated: Summoner Name Change Single Rune Page Unlock a Champion for a friend Unlock a Skin for a friend Mystery Champion Mystery Skin Upcoming Skins This skin will be released during Patch 4.19: Reaper Soraka 33 1 day ago Patch Tagged with: Patch Notes Discuss (Login to comment) 686 comments sorted by BEST 101 RIP again helmet bro (Talon's splash) Raven Redeemed - a day ago 129 “I... *breath* will... *breath* return.” Montag - a day ago 70 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand hes back kitcat300 - a day ago heresies95 - deleted 16 Weird that all the names agreeing with this site have numbers at the end of their names. Like they were generated or something. Weird. Trust Septimus - about 24 hours ago 9 Ah, the smurfs confirming it works strat. I like it. Can you keep your virus in pink? It clashes with my clean computer. Soldrart - about 24 hours ago 8 more comments 3 more comments 32 I hope Rito will make Helmet Bro on april's fool day boom19 - a day ago 5 And keep him. But give no warning to actually keep him. Just announce him on April Fool's, then never give any more info until they just flat out release him and watch the confusion unfold. Because why not? NinjaToad99 - about 22 hours ago 3 more comments 3 more comments 6 more comments 4 Also in Ohforfsake - a day ago 2 more comments 9 more comments 114 SO CLOSE TO PATCH 4.20 BLAZE IT Jeisyu - a day ago 16 Oh please no! Addrock1 - a day ago 3 At least you don't feel the axe before they blaze you. Deadpool252 - about 15 hours ago 3 Lumberjack has no idea what you are talking about. Meoth - about 8 hours ago 5 But where is the Lumberjack ? Darknezz Child - about 7 hours ago 1 more comments 10 more comments 34 every new splash look good gj rito Thenameless685 - a day ago 57 janna was better TOP10 ELO - a day ago 7 's new face looks like a guy who uses A LOT of face cream. miniZergling - about 14 hours ago 7 more comments 12 i guess u didnt see teh wukong one before the color change TheCarrotGuy - a day ago 4 more comments 7 more comments 50 So throws rotten bananas with that new skin? HernaniStyle - a day ago 1 more comments 40 all the splashes are boss other than I prefer the old one lefthandtaco - a day ago 13 Wow, I feel the exact same way. That's the same splash art update I just mentioned. Glad it's not just me. Bees - a day ago 1 more comments 2 more comments 33 Please Riot, we need a log out button, this would really help so I wouldn't have to close and open up my launcher again, I could just log out and hop on to another one of my accounts. DrWhimsy - a day ago 2 more comments 30 "I saw my splash art update coming." General Keith - a day ago 6 more comments 29 There's no bug fix section. Are the Q bugs fixed? Did a more permanent fix for the cone bugs get implemented? Did Rickless find and fix 's Orb sometimes not dealing damage on the way back? 's E splash not dealing damage. Edit: The patches notes have been updated since i made this post. Devi Freak Mint - a day ago 4 And what about the Vi E bug? hmmmmm? Syndikos - a day ago -9 Screw the bugs. WE NEED URF ultimate gangsta - a day ago 13 Screw the bugs. WE NEED URF Manatee with a Spatula, you mean Wikd billy - a day ago 1 more comments 5 more comments 22 Keep the old splash art, its so much better then the new one Vindetso - a day ago 3 more comments 20 Can we get a shen buff tho? ItzNexT - a day ago 2 more comments 20 THE HIDDEN YASUO BUFF. YASUO SINGED SYNERGY FTW. zjl - a day ago 3 more comments -16 Why do you rename Jungle items that are going to be deleted in some weeks when the season ends ? Fede - a day ago 25 Those aren't items. Those are the formal names of the blue and red buffs. KBingo - a day ago 1 more comments 2 more comments 20 WHERE IS THE ANIVIA Q BUG FIX?! Penguin Hearted - a day ago 8 Pwyff stated on Twitter that although he neglected to include it in the patch notes, the Anivia Q bugfix will be coming along with patch 4.19. Eggbait - a day ago 4 https://twitter.com/Pwyff/status/529764496802185216 Beast Penguin - a day ago 2 more comments 15 Oooh, nice! I love the new splash art! Except the Janna one. It's nice, but seems like a big step backward in quality compared to the previous one in my opinion. Really like the other ones though! Bees - a day ago 1 more comments 6 Singe Rune Page Come on rito. Ageto - a day ago 13 Wait, hold on. I think I know what Rito really meant to say... Rune Page 3104558 - a day ago 13 Close, but I think they actually meant rune page. Abyssal Plunge - a day ago 11 IS TRYING TO KILL HELMET BRO!!!! holiday911 - a day ago 1 more comments 11 Keep going, splash-art team. Pheels - a day ago 3 To be honest I feel like that Victorious Morgana splash art doesn't live up to the actually textures in game Zombie Snowman - a day ago 9 I actually thought it was the other way around. Though it's mostly her terrible model that is to blame, not the textures. GaleWinUnleashed - a day ago 1 more comments 8 no word to describe my happiness ;_; UNDEADPHOENIX9 - a day ago 2 more comments 8 Love the new splashes, but uh... can the East Coast get some love? Pheels - a day ago 2 more comments 8 A bunch of your splashes are showing the old image btw Vissari8 - a day ago 2 more comments 7 in my opinion On the splash art. the bodies look a lot better, though i'm dissapointed with how they've done the heads on a lot of them. too narrow, i enjoyed the more softer looks. Anyways, great backgrounds :) gorawto47 - a day ago 1 more comments 6 Rito can you buff he needs some love ;-; Goul66 - a day ago 6 Hello guys, do you remember you introduced a glitch to Anivia's Q where you walk into enemies, making her borderline unplayable? You know, in 4.18? When you added the extra indicators that could be just reverted back in a hotfix? And it's Fiddle and Panth that get super-conditional bugfixes and were perfectly playable before? Hello? Anyone here? CfKQM0JB5g - a day ago 1 more comments 6 Where's Quinn's range buff? CSDragon - a day ago 1 more comments Show more comments Patch 4.19 notes Summoner's Rift Update: Open Beta Champions Jungle End of Season Rewards Suggested Players Patcher Improvements Store Improvements Upcoming Skins About League Of Legends Merchandise Prepaid Cards Refer a Friend Help Us Improve Service Status Tribunal Support Esports Pro Site Riot Games YouTube.com Twitter.com Facebook.com Play Now © 2014 Riot Games, Inc. All rights reserved. Riot Games, League of Legends and PvP.net are trademarks, services marks, or registered trademarks of Riot Games, Inc. Eula Privacy Policy Terms Of Use Tribunal Policy PVP.net Signup Support Ketnooi[/spoil]
Patch 4.20 notes [spoil]By Riot Pwyff Hey Summoners, Welcome to patch 4.20, the first patch of the 2015 preseason and one of our biggest updates for League of Legends to date. Whew. The big theme of the 2015 preseason (and boy will you hear this a lot) is Strategic Diversity. That sounds like a vague concept (does anyone remember "End-game Fantasy" from the 2014 preseason?), but our high-level philosophy is we want to offer you more paths to victory so that your in-game decisions matter just as much as the champions you pick. In previous years, we've lacked the proper systems and levers to balance different strategies against each other, so when teams would discover unique ways to win, we'd either have to watch Ziggs bomb the stuffing out of people in stall / poke compositions, or we'd just have to tackle the manic yordle on a personal level. This year, rather than trying to 'fix' tactical problems from the previous season, we're instead introducing a metric tonne of changes to map-wide objectives, a complete rehaul of the jungle and jungle itemization, and a number of strategic item additions / modifications. With these new paths in place, how you strive for victory will vary with each individual game and our hope is that all of this adds up to more far more strategic diversity and experimentation in League. To be blunt, we were dubious about the idea of introducing so much change to the game, but then we realized that preseason is high-time for refining, polishing, and evolving, so we went for some ambitious goals this year. It's also worth noting that this is just the beginning. There are... a lot of changes here and, with so many variables at play, we're expecting the game to be disrupted, imperfect, and requiring even more work over time. That said, we're confident with the direction this preseason is headed, and we're more than happy to course correct as things play out. There's no comparison for our months of internal tests against millions of your own, so we're excited (and a little scared) to see what you have up your sleeves. Anyway, there's a whole lot of information to be found on the preseason, including the 2015 Preseason Spotlight and the very pretty 2015 Preseason Microsite. Be sure to check those out if you want some high-level introductions to our changes, as we're going to be going very deep on the philosophy in these notes. Expect to hear from us throughout! P.S. We visually updated everyone's favorite tree! Play tree every day. Chris "Pwyff" Tom Champions General Context While we're aiming to improve the quality of life for many junglers in the preseason, the truth is some junglers are going to get more mileage out of these changes than others. While it might be weird to get "pre-emptive" nerfs based on systems that haven't been publically tested, these guys and gals (and mummies and rammii) just keep coming up in our internal playtests, and we don't want to be responsible for Amumu (just an example) becoming more of a solo-queue star than he currently is. Second note - you're going to see a stat called "growth stat" in these champion patch notes rather than "per-level" stats. The reason is due to some complicated math we're rolling out regarding base stats and stats per level, all of which you can read about here.. Recommended Items HELPS MORE THAN YOU THINK Recommended items for all champions have been updated WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY Recommended items now detect if you have Smite or not and change accordingly Stats Gained Per Level Stat advantages through levels have been smoothed out. Honestly speaking, Leona + Graves will still beat the stuffing out of you at level 2, but level advantages should be more focused on ability ranks than raw stat gains. Mana regeneration has been normalized across mages and supports to account for the new mana regeneration item changes. Basically we're trying to smooth out level advantages through stat gains. Given how strong basic attacks and ability levels are during the early game, flat stat per-level advantages only magnify early game snowballing - especially that level 2 power spike that laners use to punch their opponents in the face. For the attack damage change, we saw an opportunity to lightly address the minor imbalance between ranged and melee in the solo lane, so ranged champions (and Jayce / Kayle) won't have their base AD modified by the base stat buff (which rounds out to +2 AD for melee champions). There's something to be said about loss aversion, but let's not go into that. HOW DID WE ARRIVE AT 168% All champions have had their base stats raised by 168% of their old per-level statistic (except attack speed) NO SUCH THING AS LOSS AVERSION All ranged champions (and Kayle / Jayce) have opted out of having their attack damage increased by 2 via the above +168% base stat buff STATISTICAL RENAMING "Per level" statistics have been renamed "growth" statistics to better reflect what's going on - see below for more information STATS GAINED PER LEVEL No longer linear. Instead, stats follow the following formula: Level 1: Immediately gain 0% of your growth statistic. All of your 'base stats' will be calculated off of this Level 2: Gain +72% of your growth statistic Level 3: Gain +75.5% of your growth statistic Level 4: Gain +79% of your growth statistic ... Gain +((Level*3.5 - 7) + 72)% of your growth statistic Level 18: Gain +128% of your growth statistic TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ At level 18, you've gained +1700% of your growth statistic (this is slightly more than the old formula) Champion Mana Regeneration Changes These mana regen changes are less related to stat gains and more to do with our modifications to mana regeneration items (specifically how they're now based off base stats rather than being flat values). There's a lot of math behind the curtain, but this also sets the foundation for any future work we do on differentiating champions through on mana regeneration. In other words: before this patch, mana regeneration was a little arbitrary, with each champion roughly balanced off their closest counterparts. Now if we do change champion base mana regen, it'll be for a very deliberate reason and you'll see clear groups of champs affected differently by mana regeneration items. The following mages / tank supports are being changed to have 6 base mana regeneration (mp5) and +0.8 mana regeneration (mp5) growth stat: Ahri, Alistar, Anivia, Annie, Azir, Blitzcrank, Braum, Cassiopeia, Diana, Elise, Fiddlesticks, Fizz, Galio, Gragas, Heimerdinger, Jayce, Karma, Karthus, Kassadin, Kayle, LeBlanc, Leona, Lulu, Lux, Malzahar, Morgana, Nidalee, Orianna, Ryze, Swain, Syndra, Taric, Thresh, Twisted Fate, Veigar, Vel'koz, Viktor, Xerath, Ziggs, Zilean, Zyra The following traditional supports are being changed to have 9 base mana regeneration (mp5) and +0.4 mana regeneration (mp5) growth stat: Janna, Nami, Sona, Soraka Kalista Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance, will be released with Patch 4.20! Maokai Maokai has been updated! Check out the article if you want the full story, or below if you just want the specifics. General VISUALS Updated model and textures for base, Charred, Totemic and Festive skins. Haunted Maokai has received a texture update and Goalkeeper Maokai is unchanged. VISUALS Updated VFX for base and all skins ICONS New ability icons SPLASH New base splash Azir Big early game buffs to Q and E, small late game nerf to W's AP ratio. We think Azir's pretty close from a power-level perspective, so we're re-balancing his numbers to smooth out his curve. Early buffs to Q and E should help him take flight, while a nerf to his late-game soldiers should clip his wings before he flies too high. Q - Conquering Sands BASE MAGICAL DAMAGE 60/90/120/150/180 ⇒ 75/105/135/165/195 W - Arise! RATIO 0.7 ability power ⇒ 0.6 ability power (for both the stab and turret damage) E - Shifting Sands BASE SHIELD AMOUNT 60/100/140/180/220 ⇒ 80/120/160/200/240 Amumu Less base armor, reduced W damage at early ranks. With beefed-up health pools across the jungle and this little mummy dealing area-effect % health damage, Amumu's going to be a big beneficiary of the 2015 preseason jungle changes. We're taking preemptive measures to pull his clear speeds back in line, but we still expect him to be one of the stronger champions heading into this preseason. General ARMOR 27 ⇒ 23 W - Despair ADDITIONAL DAMAGE PER SECOND 1.5/1.8/2.1/2.4/2.7% of enemies' maximum health ⇒ 1/1.5/2/2.5/3% of enemies' maximum health Evelynn Buffing Evelynn's base armor to survive in the new jungle. Though Eve spends less time power-jungling and more time making your opponents rage-quit, we found she was having too much trouble with the jungle's new difficulty. A tune-up to her base stats should make sure Evelynn doesn't stay perma-stealthed in champ select. General BASE ARMOR 22.72 ⇒ 26.5 ARMOR GROWTH STAT 4 ⇒ 3.8 Fiora Changing the way Blade Waltz does damage. It'll do the same to a single target, but less AoE with Tiamat / Ravenous Hydra. While it's a little weird to have to nerf a champion due to their overwhelming synergy with a core item (Tiamat / Ravenous Hydra in this case), Fiora's a more unique case as Tiamat lets her turn an already low-counterplay ability (Blade Waltz) into a high-damage area-effect low-counterplay ability. Additionally, some of our predictive models show that Fiora will probably benefit from the 2015 preseason changes, so we wanted to make some low-scope preliminary changes. This is a long context to say that we're re-emphasizing Fiora's duelist capabilities so she needs to be more opportunistic when looking for a dance. R - Blade Waltz BASE PHYSICAL DAMAGE 160/330/500 ⇒ 125/255/385 TECHNICALLY A BUGFIX Sort of fixed a bug where Blade Waltz' AD ratio was displaying as 1.2 when it's actually 1.15. This is technically a bugfix because... RATIO 1.2 bonus attack damage ⇒ 0.9 bonus attack damage SAME TARGET DAMAGE 25% ⇒ 40% Gnar Lots of complicated math means that Mega Gnar gets less stats early on but more later. Boomerang and Boulder Toss are getting their damage shifted into the AD ratio. Hyper's damage is going down in the early game and Wallop's cooldown is going up. Gnar's become quite the handful when it comes to his bullying potential. Sweeping changes to his early-game bases should give him a bit of a time out (heh, get it?) during the laning phase, while buffs to Mega Gnar's late-game scaling means you probably still wouldn't like him when he's angry. General BASE HEALTH REGENERATION 5 ⇒ 2.125 Passive - Rage Gene MINI GNAR MOVEMENT SPEED +10-25 (9 + (+1 per level from 1-14 / +0.5 per level at 15-18)) ⇒ +10-30 (9 + (+1 per level from 1-15 / +2 per level at 16-18)) MINI GNAR ATTACK SPEED Due to the 2015 preseason changes to base stats, Mini Gnar's attack speed bonus has been folded into his base attack speed and converted to a growth stat. Mini Gnar now has an attack speed growth stat of 6. This should have no functional impact on Gnar. THIS GETS COMPLICATED With the 2015 preseason changes to base stats, Mega Gnar had some of his bonuses shifted around so he wouldn't break the system. In addition to reverting Mega Gnar's bonuses into base growth stats, we've done two things to affect Mega Gnar - his early attack damage and health are lower in the early game, but higher at later levels. The math behind this change (especially as it converts from per-level stats to growth stats) gets very complicated, but the raw difference is that, at level 1, Mega Gnar will lose about 30 health and 4 attack damage compared to he would have had. Mega Gnar's new growth stats are listed below: ATTACK DAMAGE GROWTH STAT 5.5 HEALTH GROWTH STAT 108 HEALTH REGENERATION GROWTH STAT +3 health per 5 seconds ARMOR GROWTH STAT 4.5 MAGIC RESISTANCE GROWTH STAT 2 Q - Boomerang Throw BOOMERANG DAMAGE 10/45/80/115/150 (+1.0 total attack damage) ⇒ 5/35/65/95/125 (+1.15 total attack damage) BOOMERANG WIDTH 60 ⇒ 55 Q - Boulder Toss BOULDER DAMAGE 10/50/90/130/170 (+1.15 total attack damage) ⇒ 5/45/85/125/165 (+1.2 total attack damage) W - Hyper BASE DAMAGE 25/30/35/40/45 ⇒ 10/20/30/40/50 MAX MAGIC DAMAGE VERSUS MONSTERS 75/125/175/225/275 ⇒ 100/150/200/250/300 W - Wallop COOLDOWN 12/11/10/9/8 seconds ⇒ 15/13/11/9/7 seconds Heimerdinger We're giving Heimerdinger some health regen so he won't get messed up by the 2015 preseason base stat migration. Previously, the Dinger got all of his health regen stat from his passive in lieu of having a base health regen stat. Now that health regeneration scales from your base, we thought it was important that he be able to regenerate health. General BASE HEALTH REGENERATION +0 health per 5 seconds ⇒ +11 health per 5 seconds HEALTH REGENERATION GROWTH STAT +0.6 health per 5 seconds ⇒ +1.75 health per 5 seconds Passive - Techmaturgical Repair Bots removedFOR MATH REASONS Heimerdinger is no longer affected by his own passive so he can actually scale with health regeneration items Katarina Death Lotus has a higher cooldown and lower damage at ranks 1 and 2, but normalizes back its old values at rank 3. Katarina's been on a tear recently, rising to near-permanent-ban status across various regions. With shifts in the game landscape alongside various preseason changes (chief among them the lowered regeneration across the board), Katarina may very well be one of the strongest beneficiaries post 4.20. We're keeping an eye on her but, in the meantime, taking some of the Death out of Death Lotus to make sure Kat doesn't Shunpo her way to a top spot. R - Death Lotus COOLDOWN 60/52.5/45 seconds ⇒ 90/60/45 seconds MAGIC DAMAGE 400/575/750 ⇒ 350/550/750 Kha'Zix Void Spike's cooldown is higher. By 2 seconds. Excellent summary. Though Kha'Zix has been at the forefront of bottle-necking competitive diversity for a while now, we're content with giving him a slap on the wrist due to the massive shifts the upcoming season will bring. The increased cooldown to Void Spikes should see this jumping and slashing jungle-bug rely a little less on poking from afar and more on what he's really about: jumping and slashing (and jungle-bugging). W - Void Spike / Evolved Spike Racks COOLDOWN 8 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds Lee Sin Base armor and base health regeneration are going down slightly. We've made enough jokes throughout the patch notes at the expense of Lee Sin's constant dominant power, but we're making some small pre-emptive modifications just in case. Aside from Kha'Zix (for which we have changes), Lee is still a jungler who has the potential to be very oppressive in the early game, so we're tuning up his weaknesses by a small amount. General BASE ARMOR 26 ⇒ 24 BASE HEALTH REGENERATION +9.4 health per 5 seconds ⇒ +7.4 health per 5 seconds Rammus Q's cooldown is much higher at early levels, and E's armor shred has been reduced. Rammus's uptime between ganks have made him quite the monster, and we're not even talking about what happens when he finishes his Homeguards. Scaling the cooldown on Rammus' Powerball should give opponents better windows to react to his ganking cadence, while lowering E's shred makes him less of a duelist (how is Rammus dueling!?). That said, we're not quite sure how Rammus will be affected in the preseason. If the Armordillo's eating a healthy portion of struggle salad in 2015, we'll double back to make sure he's staying healthy. Q - Powerball COOLDOWN 10/10/10/10/10 seconds ⇒ 16/14.5/13/11.5/10 seconds E - Puncturing Taunt ARMOR SHRED 10/15/20/25/30 ⇒ 5/10/15/20/25 Sion Glory in Death's health drain has been lowered for higher levels and Sion's health regeneration growth stat has been lowered a bit. Sion's been climbing the ranks towards Mundo-hood when it comes to overall longevity and, couple that with the 2015 changes to regeneration, we have a real monster on our hands. In light of that, we're mainly re-mathing out Sion's passive to favor the juggernaut's beefier builds. General HEALTH REGENERATION GROWTH STAT +1 health per 5 seconds ⇒ +0.8 health per 5 seconds Passive - Glory in Death HEALTH DECAY 2 x level ⇒ 1 + (1 x level) HEALTH DECAY GROWTH 1.4 x level ⇒ 0.7 + (0.7 x level) Sona Sona's overall sustain should be lower, especially in cases where significant lane trades have been made. Sona's been on the rise due to her ability to turn almost any extended fight in her favor. While we like the Maven getting some recognition, we're looking to reduce her raw trading power so that the great Sonas will need to tightly manage their shields and auras rather than spamming W (that's a tactic for the 'good' Sonas). Q - Hymn of Valor ON-HIT MAGIC DAMAGE AURA RATIO 0.25 ability power ⇒ 0.2 ability power W - Aria of Perseverance MISSING HEALTH RATIO +1% healing increase per 1% health missing ⇒ +0.5% healing increase per 1% health missing BASE HEAL 25/45/65/85/105 ⇒ 30/50/70/90/110 MANA COST 70/75/80/85/90 ⇒ 80/85/90/95/100 Soraka Base AD went down, E cooldown increased, W cast range increased. When deciding to retune League's Premier Healer, we were very conscious of how much interaction she should have with her enemies - as it stands, we may have gone a little too far. Soraka's losing some attack damage and uptime on her E to curb her offensive capabilities, but gaining range on Astral Blessing to keep her true to her roots: Healing. Premier Healing. Incidentally, before this change, Soraka was tied with Tryndamere, Irelia, and Hecarim for having the 9th highest base AD in the game. That's like throwing banana-swords. Banana-halberds. General BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 56 ⇒ 50 W - Astral Infusion CAST RANGE 450 ⇒ 550 E - Equinox COOLDOWN 18/17/16/15/14 seconds ⇒ 24/22/20/18/16 seconds Warwick R has a higher cooldown at early ranks. In 2015, our focus for bringing Strategic Diversity (still a better phrase than end-game fantasy) to the jungle comes down to ironing out a set of strengths and weaknesses for each champion. Previously, Warwick's strength (sustain / safety) was undervalued due to the piles of sustain all junglers had access to; post-preseason however, Warwick's going to be the cool kid on the block. Where his jungling friends might now find themselves chugging pots to stay healthy in the jungle, Warwick now surpasses almost all of them due to his speed, safety, and consistency. While we don't want to take away Warwick's new-found status as a power-pick, lowering the frequency of his Infinite Duress ganks (which, when executed well, mean kills for his laning friends) will help cement a weakness (low-utility ganks without R) into what is an already well-rounded werewolf. R - Infinite Duress COOLDOWN 90/80/70 seconds ⇒ 110/90/70 seconds Mass Texture Rebalance (Part 3) After a brief intermission last patch, we're continuing our comprehensive pass at the game's older character textures. Our goal is to improve parity with newer releases and make sure everybody looks at home on the newly-updated Rift. TEXTURES The following textures have been updated: Amumu Base, Almost Prom King, Emumu, Little Knight, Pharaoh, Re-Gifted, Vancouver Caitlyn Base, Arctic Warfare, Officer, Resistance, Safari, Sheriff Ezreal Base, Explorer, Frosted, Nottingham, Striker Fizz Base, Atlantean, Fisherman, Tundra, Void Gragas Base, Gragas Esq., Hillbilly, Santa, Scuba Jax Base, Angler, Jaximus, PAX, The Mighty Jax Kog'Maw Base, Caterpillar, Deep Sea, Jurassic, Monarch, Reindeer, Sonoran Mordekaiser Base, Dragon Knight (for now) Riven Base, Battle Bunny, Crimson Elite, Redeemed Talon Base, Crimson Elite, Dragonblade, Renegade Udyr Base, Black Belt, Primal Urgot Base, Battlecast, Butcher, Giant Enemy Crabgot Vladimir Base, Blood Lord, Count, Marquis, Nosferatu, Vandal Zilean Base, Groovy, Old Saint, Shurima Desert, Time Machine Global Changes to Summoner's Rift Gameplay Early Game Kill & Assist Bonuses Don't feel so bad about getting those early kills. Unless you're getting assists. But then maybe you should have just stolen the kill. With the above growth stat changes to address early snowball advantages, we decided to revert the unpopular early game gold reductions we made in the 2014 preseason. Just try not to feed two kills to Lee Sin before the laning phase even begins... KILL GOLD 75% of base reward for 2 minutes, scaling up to 100% at 4 minutes ⇒100% value at all times ASSIST BONUS 50% of kill reward ⇒25% of kill reward until 90 seconds, then increasing by roughly 0.2% per second for 210 seconds to 50% of kill reward at 5 minutes Fountain Regeneration It's scientifically proven that a more responsive fountain heal leads to higher overall champion happiness. It's just science, man. FOUNTAIN HEALING RATE 8.5% of maximum health and mana per 1 second ⇒2.1% of maximum health and mana per 0.25 seconds Death Timers This change isn't extremely noticeable in real-time application, but we wanted to create more opportunities for teams who are behind to fight back. The math here gets complicated. COMPLICATED MATH BEHIND THIS Death timers now start scaling with time at 25 minutes ⇒35 minutes TIME SCALES FOR EVERYONE Death timers now scale up at 2% every minute to a cap of 150% at 50 minutes ⇒2% every 30 seconds to a cap of 150% at 47:30 Objectives, Minions & Global Buffs General Context With strategic diversity being our big goal for the 2015 preseason, there are a number of ways we're tackling the challenge. In the case of objectives, we wanted to create incomparable rewards to better differentiate between map objectives. So... what's that mean? Basically with each map objective on Summoner's Rift becoming more unique (both in terms of the rewards they give and how you take them), we can make it so that every path to victory in League can be uniquely different as well. So rather than most strategies boiling down to who can get the most gold (which is important, don't get us wrong), we wanted to amp up the number of interesting and meaningful choices a team can make throughout a game. Should we be prioritizing dragon buffs? What if we just fast push to the nexus? Can we do that with proper map rotations? IS THAT A LASER!? All very pertinent questions for the 2015 preseason. Inhibitor & Nexus Turrets Maybe think twice before diving that dude under the turret. All base turrets now fire lasers that ramp up in damage while also slowing movement speed and reducing the damage you deal. Seriously though, they hurt. I'm sure we've all had the unfortunate task of trying to single-handedly stop a split-pushing Jax (or Tryndamere, or Zed, or... you get the point), only to get murdered under an inhibitor tower we thought was safe. These changes are focused on creating "generalized defenses" against split-pushing - they're not direct counters (because really, if that Jax is fed enough and he wants to kill you, he's gonna do it) but are more like basic deterrents to help out in close games. This way, teams that didn't pick a strong duelist to counteract an enemy split-pusher aren't completely out of luck when that champ gets even slightly ahead. COMPLICATED TURRET MATH Inhibitor and Nexus turrets are much stronger in comparison to their previous versions. Sorry we can't be more specific in terms of direct comparisons (lots of complicated math) - we can say the new turrets are roughly 1.5x or 2x stronger. HEALTH REGENERATION 15 health per 5 seconds ⇒5 health per 5 seconds ATTACK SPEED 0.83 ⇒4.0 WHAT ARMOR? Ignores 82.5% of the target's armor DAMAGE REDUCTION Reduces target's damage dealt by 15% MOVEMENT SLOW Slows target's movement speed by 10% HEATING UP With every hit, the beam gains 6 heat until 120 heat is reached. When the beam switches targets, heat is reset. I'M FIRING MY LASERS! Gains +0.0105% damage per point of heat, up to a maximum of +125% extra damage Inner Turrets Taking an inner turret usually requires: a) precise movement (rotations!), b) strategically risky turret dives, or c) a poke-heavy team that whittles down their opponents before clamping down from all angles like a Yordle Snap Trap. In the case of situations a and b, there are clear strategic counters available to all teams, but situation c is pretty much decided at champ select. Either you have a team that can counter a poke team, or you don't. While we're also looking to create offensive answers like Righteous Glory, these regenerating turret shields once again fall into the "generalized defenses" category, where the shield makes it a little easier to withstand (and combat) poke compositions without completely invalidating their strengths. SHIELDS FOR ALL Inner turrets now have regenerating shields that affect both themselves and nearby allied champions. Additionally, all allied champions within 1100 range gain a growing shield over time, scaling to a maximum of a 200 health shield. PROTECT THAT TURRET The turret's shield stops regenerating shields if it has taken damage within 30 seconds Inhibitor Respawn Time At the beginning of the 2014 season we shortened the respawn time of inhibitors. Now, with our LASER-BUFFED BASE TURRETS (shouting is mandatory here), we can put inhibitor respawns back to their original timing so that attacking teams have a better window to capitalize on their achievements. INHIBITOR RESPAWN TIME 4 minutes ⇒ 5 minutes Turret & Minion Defense Adjustments Not the most exciting patch note, but we're making some standardized changes to streamline and clarify how minions / turrets scale in the game. If you like clarity, these will be exciting. We like clarity. TURRETS Turret defenses have been adjusted: Turrets no longer gain armor or magic resistance over time Turret armor / magic resistance has been standardized to +100 armor / magic resistance (50% damage reduction) Turret backdoor defense bonuses have been increased to +200 armor / magic resistance (75% damage reduction) STANDARDIZED HEALTH Turret health has been adjusted: Outer Turrets: 2000 Inner Turrets: 2000 Inhibitor Turrets: 2500 Nexus Turrets: 2500 MINIONS Minion defensive stats have been adjusted: Minions no longer gain armor or magic resistance over time Cannon minions no longer have base armor All minion health gain over time has been increased to be roughly as durable as when they had resistances Cannon Minions MORE CANNON MINIONS! EARLIER! When we looked at how games were progressing, we realized cannon minion spawns weren't keeping up with the cadence of a normal game, so we cranked up the cannon-minion-making-machines. MORE CANNON MINIONS Cannon minions now start spawning every two waves at 35 minutes ⇒ 20 minutes YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY Cannon minions now start spawning every wave at 35 minutes Baron Spawn Timer Baron wanted a later call-time. With Baron appearing at the same time cannon minions ramp up their spawn times (or vice-versa), we can create more consistency around what 'mid-game' looks like for game pacing. SPAWN TIME 15 minutes ⇒ 20 minutes Baron Rewards Baron buff no longer gives regeneration to the buffed team, but provides a minion promote aura that amps up sieging power. By a lot. Baron buff was always intended to be the siege-breaker; the ultimate answer to a team turtling and refusing to die. That's not to say that the present day Baron buff doesn't accomplish this goal, but it currently does so in a low-impact swirl of purple stats (and not much else). As such, our objective with the 2015 Baron buff is to trim power that doesn't feel impactful while adding it back in a way that says, "GO FORTH AND BUST DOWN THEIR WALLS." Hopefully that is now all you hear when you take down Baron. NO FACTIONS HERE Killing Baron Nashor grants a buff called Exalted with Baron Nashor ⇒ Hand of Baron COMBAT BUFFS Grants up to 40 attack power and ability power (scaling with game time) new MINION PROMOTE AURA Hand of Baron grants an aura that empowers nearby minions: All Minions: Now match 90% of average movement speed of nearby champions, up to a limit of 500 movement speed Are resistant to slow effects Non-super minions have 75% damage reduction versus area of effect, damage over time, and persistent effects Melee Minions: Gain +50% movement speed when within 800 units of enemy minions or turrets Size is increased +75 attack range 75% damage reduction versus champions and minions 30% damage reduction versus turrets (similar to cannon minions) Ranged Minions: +20 attack damage +50% missile speed +100 attack range Cannon Minions: +600 Attack Range +50 Attack Damage, but Attack Speed is halved Attacks are now Area of Effect (200 range) and deal 2x damage to Turrets. Super Minions: +25% Attack Speed. Gain +50% Movement Speed when within 800 units of enemy minion or Turret. new EMPOWERED RECALL Hand of Baron augments your Recall with new effects: Baron buff reduces recall channel by 4 seconds. A successful recall heals 50% a champion's maximum health / mana A successful recall grants +50% movement speed for 8 seconds Dragon Rewards Dragon's global gold and experience have been transformed into a series of stacking "Dragon Slayer" buffs. Each time your team takes down Dragon, they get a permanent stacking buff. At 5 stacks, your team gets super-bonuses for 180 seconds. In the 2014 season, it was tough to tell the difference between taking down Dragon or a turret - at least if you were only looking at rewards. Granted, downing a turret does open up the map for your team, but unless you're constantly taking advantage of that opening, the gains from taking multiple Dragons or turrets just means one team has more gold / experience in a fight. So. In line with our philosophy of incomparable objective rewards, Dragon poses a much larger late-game threat for teams that take the time to invest in his stacking buffs. This means players will grow to understand the tradeoffs they're making as they ponder whether it's worth giving the enemy team a fourth Dragon in exchange for the top inner turret. And unless the plan is to never lose a Dragon again, there are very real risks associated with making that decision. Look at these meaningful choices! new DRAGON SLAYER Killing Dragon now gives your team a permanent stacking buff called "Dragon Slayer": Dragon's Might (1 stack): +8% total attack damage and ability power Dragon's Dominance (2 stacks): +15% damage to minions and monsters Dragon's Flight (3 stacks): +5% movement speed Dragon's Wrath (4 stacks): +15% damage to turrets and buildings Aspect of the Dragon (5 stacks, repeatable): Doubles all other bonuses and your attacks burn enemies for 150 true damage over 5 seconds. Lasts 180 seconds. removed NO MORE DRAGON BOUNTIES Dragon no longer gives global gold but still awards experience and a small amount of gold to the slayer EXPERIENCE The experience Dragon grants to the killing team has been reduced by 50% Crest of Cinders While blue buff is pretty broad in the power it gives (sustain, wave clear, siege power, etc), red buff has always been focused on its in-combat strengths. We wanted to shift a bit of that to extended sieges so we can give more rewards for controlling the map before a siege. new HEALTHY BUFFS Crest of Cinders now heals its buffed target by +1% of their maximum health per 5 seconds DURATION 150 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds BURN PASSIVE 10-44 damage over 3 seconds ⇒ 5-56 damage over 3 seconds SLOW 8%-15% ⇒ 5%-10% Crest of Insight When a blue buff is picked up early on - especially when two people on the same team have it - things can lead to some pretty obnoxious siege scenarios. Rather than reducing the power of blue buff, we felt we could just reduce its duration to shorten the oppressiveness of extended sieges. DURATION 150 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds 2015 Jungle Adjustments General Context In older iterations of the jungle, we've always reacted to the problems of the previous season, which ends up leaving us on the back foot for the year of Lee Sins to come (it's like the joke writes itself). This preseason, rather than trying to kick the best champions back in line, we instead focused on taking bigger steps to bring strategic diversity back to the jungle. If we can build a jungle that empowers and reacts to the many different actions junglers can take, then we can create an ecosystem where it's almost impossible to distill an "optimal" jungler at any point. That's a bit of a muddy concept, so we'll explain: in the 2014 season, the jungle was a fairly 'solved' position, where optimal routes were established, sustain was easy to come by, and monsters were just piles of gold waiting to be picked up. Because of this, the 'best' junglers were quickly discovered to be those who could heavily influence lanes while still keeping up in their farm; in other words, gank / damage focused champs (oh, hello Lee) who don't make many tradeoffs for their superior dueling strengths. This season we're introducing a lot more decision points to the jungle - more than can be made in any single game! By introducing so many variables, jungling becomes a combination of adaptation and preference rather than just making small optimizations as one Kha'Zix among many. This also gives us far more 'tuning levers' (aka things to balance) within the jungle, rather than just going after that single dominant jungler. If slow, safe junglers start getting crushed by the Evelynns, Kha'Zii, Elises, and Lee Sins of the world, then we have more to investigate rather than constantly whittling down their strength. Ultimately, you can think of this new jungle as more of a chess match between you and the enemy jungler. How do you react to your enemies' actions? When will you need the right jungle buff? Should you invest in a more aggressive Smite or do you think a farm-centric approach would be better in this game? Whatever your answer, be sure to Smite Teemo whenever you can. Rift Scuttler (NEW) A new crabby objective that offers a unique reward in the form of vision and a speed shrine for movement through the river. Last year we introduced a new jungle camp (the Gromp now!) because we wanted to balance out neutral camps on both sides of the map. This year, our goal with the Rift Scuttler is to create a new objective that not only behaves differently but also rewards players in new and unique ways. So rather than being another Gromp for the river, this scuttling crustacean offers a lot of strategic choice for junglers and their teammates. Take out the crab before your opponents show up for Dragon, and you'll have guaranteed vision to poke them out. Alternatively, if your mid lane wants to push and roam in the early to mid game, it might be worth securing the crab to further augment their ganks. There are a lot of different ways to leverage - and waste! - the Rift Scuttler's reward, so we'll be watching closely to see how he plays into the 2015 preseason. RESPAWN TIME 3 minutes REWARD Grants vision and a speed boost in front of either Dragon Pit or Baron Pit for 75 seconds upon death SCUTTLE CRAB Always runs away when attacked Smite Rewards Smite a camp, get a reward. Simple! Smite is a pretty unique resource for a jungler, but the choices they make with this spell are pretty basic ("is it off cooldown?"). By giving camps unique rewards, we can offer more ways for a jungler to react to a situation while giving great junglers the chance to differentiate themselves from the good junglers. Sorry, I'll rephrase that: "we can separate the good junglers from the great junglers." KRUGS Smiting the Krug grants Gift of Heavy Hands - stuns minions and monsters every 1st and 5th hit. Your first attack against a turret deals 50 (+15 per level) true damage but consumes this buff. Lasts 90 seconds. RAPTORS Smiting the Raptor grants Razor Sharp - gives you a warning and magical sight for 10 seconds when an enemy ward spots you. Lasts 90 seconds, with 1 charge. MURKWOLVES Smiting the Murkwolf creates a Rift Spirit - summons a Rift Spirit that watches over a portion of the jungle. Lasts 90 seconds, but that timer goes down when the spirit chases enemies. GROMP Smiting the Gromp grants Gift of the Toadstool - attackers are poisoned for 6 (+ 6 per level) magic damage over 3 seconds. Lasts 90 seconds. RED BRAMBLEBACK Restores 20% of maximum health BLUE SENTINEL Restores 25% of maimum mana Monster Stat & Reward Changes The jungle is harder, but rewards have been increased as well. Just don't die to the Brambleback. The 2014 jungle was just too soft. 5 minutes into a game, sustain no longer became an issue as junglers mauled their way through camps while recovering via Spirit Stone's recovery mechanic. This meant that junglers who specialized in sustain got overshadowed by junglers who could clear faster because, really, there's no way you can sustain past full health. This bears repeating: as a result of sustain being so easy to access, 'optimal' junglers become ones who can hit that low sustain cap while doubling up on their gank power (Lee Sin, Kha'Zix, Elise, Evelynn, or Rengar come to mind). Part of our big answer for this preseason is to increase the difficulty of the jungle. By doing so, we can better differentiate between the junglers who clear fast versus those who can stay healthy. This puts a higher premium on that mitigation-focused jungler who can still gank after clearing a camp, while a high-damage jungler might be more effective at ganking but will have a tougher time keeping up. Combine these changes with our below jungle itemization changes (and Smite reward changes above!), and you've got a pretty diverse jungle that caters to a number of different styles. SMALL CAMPS Small camps have hit the jungle gym (this line was blatantly stolen from someone else) Small jungle camps now respawn every 50 seconds ⇒ 100 seconds Base health, attack damage, gold, and experience of small jungle camps have been increased by 20% Greatly increased the attack damage scaling of small jungle camps throughout the game Increased the health scaling of small jungle camps up to level 12 RAPTORS Raptors have been further re-tuned to be equal to other camps: Large Raptor EXPERIENCE 120 ⇒ 140 DAMAGE 40 ⇒ 55 MOVEMENT SPEED 320 ⇒ 350 Small Raptor EXPERIENCE 10 ⇒ 20 DAMAGE 14 ⇒ 20 MOVEMENT SPEED 320 ⇒ 350 BLUE SENTINEL Blue Sentinel is scarier BASE HEALTH 1500 ⇒ 2000 DAMAGE 60 ⇒ 73 RED BRAMBLEBACK Red Brambleback is also scarier BASE HEALTH 1500 ⇒ 1800 DAMAGE 60 ⇒ 80 Blue Sentinel / Red Brambleback Camp Rewards We're trying to make it a little less painful to "donate" buffs to allies. Remember to thank your jungler for the help when he or she donates their buff to you. Some of you might argue that blue / red buff is a "team" thing and therefore you don't need to thank anyone, but that's not a very collaborative mindset. Lessons on manners aside, this change means junglers have more control over how much experience / gold they give up when they donate their buffs to a friendly ally. Blue Sentinel & Red Brambleback EXPERIENCE 260 ⇒ 100 GOLD 60 ⇒ 42 Small Monsters EXPERIENCE 20 ⇒ 50 GOLD 7 ⇒ 22 Jungle Experience Pacing This is just a small tuning change we're adding, as junglers who just sit and powerfarm in the jungle all day can potentially run rampant over the map. Sometimes you need to get out of the jungle. Go see your friends. Catch up over coffee and a gank. GO GET SOME SUNSHINE Champions gain 10% less experience for each level they are above the camp they are killing. This penalty caps at 50%. Embarrassing Deaths in the Jungle Less embarrassing. Dying to a jungle camp is pretty embarrassing, but it's even more embarrassing when you realize how hard it is to come back without your red or blue buff. Then you fall further behind and you don't want to admit that it's because you accidentally died to the red buff and things just go downhill from there. Hopefully this change mitigates that by a bit. EVEN THE PROS DO IT Red and Blue buffs no longer fall off when a champion is executed by a jungle camp Jungle Items General Context Customize your Smite... High-level philosophy: previous iterations of jungle items just reinforced the jungle hierarchy. When items were focused on specific jungle roles or archetypes, the best junglers ended up directly tied to the best performing items on the market. We saw this really flare up with our mid-season changes to Wriggle's Lantern (which we subsequently nerfed) and the brief, meteoric rise of the farm-carry jungler. Creating new jungle items lets us re-focus their benefits on diversity of jungler action (I bet you thought I was going to say strategy) rather than jungler stats. By doing so, junglers can react more fluidly to the state of the game (rather than racing to whoever can finish their item first) and we have the balancing points to support a wide array of jungler strategies (there it is). Hunter's Machete COST 325 gold ⇒ 400 gold removedSTATS +10 attack damage vs. monsters / +5 damage reduction vs. monsters newPASSIVE - JUNGLER Deal 30 magic damage on hit to monsters over 2 seconds and gain 7 health and 3 mana per second while in combat with monsters newOH THANK GOODNESS Hunter's Machete can now only be purchased if you have Smite as a summoner spell Poacher's Knife (NEW) RECIPE Hunter's Machete + 350 gold PASSIVE - SCAVENGING SMITE When you Smite and kill a large monster in the enemy jungle, the cooldown of Smite is halved, you gain +20 bonus gold, and you gain 175% increased Movement Speed decaying over 2 seconds PASSIVE - JUNGLER Deal 45 magic damage on hit to monsters over 2 seconds and gain 10 health and 5 mana per second while in combat with monsters Ranger's Trailblazer (NEW) RECIPE Hunter's Machete + 350 gold PASSIVE - BLASTING SMITE The cooldown of Smite is reduced by 15 seconds. Smite also deals half damage to all monsters and enemy minions near the target and stuns them for 1.5 seconds. Casting Smite on a monster restores 15% of missing health and mana. PASSIVE - JUNGLER Deal 45 magic damage on hit to monsters over 2 seconds and gain 10 health and 5 mana per second while in combat with monsters Skirmisher's Sabre (NEW) RECIPE Hunter's Machete + 350 gold PASSIVE - CHALLENGING SMITE Smite can be cast on enemy champions, marking them for 6 seconds. While marked, you deal 18-69 bonus true damage to them on hit, have vision of them, and reduce their damage to you by 20%. PASSIVE - JUNGLER Deal 45 magic damage on hit to monsters over 2 seconds and gain 10 health and 5 mana per second while in combat with monsters Stalker's Blade (NEW) RECIPE Hunter's Machete + 350 gold PASSIVE - CHILLING SMITE Smite can be cast on enemy champions, dealing 28-164 true damage and reducing their movement speed by 50% for 2 seconds PASSIVE - JUNGLER Deal 45 magic damage on hit to monsters over 2 seconds and gain 10 health and 5 mana per second while in combat with monsters Jungle Item Enchantments General Context ... then customize your Machete. Fulfill your end-game machete fantasy. Enchantments provide a consistent set of bonus stats, regardless of which jungle item you choose. This way, junglers can focus on the play patterns they opted into (through their upgraded Hunter's Machete) rather than being forced into the item that best fits their end-game build. Enchantment - Devourer (NEW) RECIPE Dagger + Dagger + any upgraded Hunter's Machete + 600 gold TOTAL COST 2250 gold ATTACK SPEED +50% MAGIC DAMAGE ON HIT +40 PASSIVE - DEVOURING Killing large monsters increases the magic damage of this item by +1. Champion kills or assists increase the magic damage of this item by +2. Enchantment - Juggernaut (NEW) RECIPE Kindlegem + Ruby Crystal + any upgraded Hunter's Machete + 250 gold TOTAL COST 2250 gold HEALTH 500 COOLDOWN REDUCTION 10% TENACITY 35% Enchantment - Magus (NEW) RECIPE Fiendish Codex + any upgraded Hunter's Machete + 680 gold TOTAL COST 2250 gold ABILITY POWER 80 COOLDOWN REDUCTION 20% Enchantment - Warrior (NEW) RECIPE Brutalizer + any upgraded Hunter's Machete + 163 gold TOTAL COST 2250 gold ATTACK DAMAGE 45 COOLDOWN REDUCTION 10% ARMOR PENETRATION 10 Elixirs General Context Elixirs + Strategic Value = 2015 Preseason! Old elixirs have been replaced with 4 new (more expensive) elixirs that are focused on enabling plays rather than giving tons of stats (although they still give a ton of stats...). You're restricted to one elixir at a time (but they can overwrite each other), so don't try to stack them up! Our current elixirs are good for a late game power boost, but they don't actually enable you to make "serious plays" when you need to (as opposed to the less serious play of "buy an elixir, beat people up"). These new 2015 preseason elixirs were designed with a heavier focus on the strategic powers you need to win - especially in the late game. DON'T MIX YOUR ELIXIRS You can only have one Elixir active at any point in time LEGAL DRINKING LEVEL Elixirs cannot be purchased before level 9 Elixir of Iron (NEW) COST 400 gold DRINK ME FOR +25% increased size, +25% slow resistance, +25% tenacity, and the Path of Iron buff for 3 minutes PATH OF IRON Moving leaves a path behind that boosts allied champion's movement speed by 15% Elixir of Ruin (NEW) COST 400 gold DRINK ME FOR +250 health, +15% bonus damage to turrets, and the Siege Commander buff for 3 minutes SIEGE COMMANDER Nearby minions gain +15% bonus damage to turrets and gain movement speed based on your movement speed. Elixir of Sorcery (NEW) COST 400 gold DRINK ME FOR +40 ability power, +15 mana regeneration per 5 seconds, and the Sorcery buff for 3 minutes SORCERY Damaging a champion or turret deals 25 bonus true damage. This effect has a 5 second cooldown versus champions but no cooldown versus turrets. Elixir of Wrath (NEW) COST 400 gold DRINK ME FOR BLOODLUST!!!! +25 attack damage and the Bloodlust buff for 3 minutes BLOODLUST Dealing physical damage to champions heals for +10% of the damage dealt. Scoring a kill or assist extends the duration of this Elixir by 30 seconds. Regeneration Items General Context Regeneration items are now based off of your base health regeneration stat. Flat regeneration has always been a difficult stat to balance, as it tends to fall into one of two categories: balanced in the early game, or balanced in the late game. There is no way to have both. Either an item is useful and impactful in the early game but then becomes unnoticeable in the late game (when health pools are 3x-4x what they were), or an item is impactful in the late game but super obnoxious as a first item in the early to mid game. The goal of our changes are to create scaling, meaningful benefits for regeneration at all stages of the game while also being able to tune regeneration more effectively on a champion-by-champion basis. A Mundo who picks up tons of health regeneration will benefit very differently than, say... Riven (she gets a low-cooldown shield, c'mon). Rejuvenation Bead HEALTH REGENERATION +5 health per 5 seconds ⇒ +50% base health regeneration Faerie Charm MANA REGENERATION +3 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ +25% base mana regeneration Crystalline Bracer (NEW) RECIPE Ruby Crystal + Rejuvenation Bead + 20 gold TOTAL COST 600 gold HEALTH 200 HEALTH REGENERATION +50% base health regeneration Forbidden Idol TOTAL COST 700 gold ⇒ 600 gold (combine cost reduced by 100 gold) MANA REGENERATION +8 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ +60% base mana regeneration COOLDOWN REDUCTION 10% (unchanged) Tear of the Goddess TOTAL COST 700 gold ⇒ 720 gold (combine cost increased by 20 gold) MANA REGENERATION +6 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ +25% base mana regeneration UNIQUE PASSIVE Mana Charge - Grants +4 maximum mana on spell cast or mana expenditure (up to 2 times per 8 seconds). Grants +1 maximum mana per 8 seconds. Caps at+750 mana. (Unchanged) NO INFLATION HERE All items building out of Tear of the Goddess have had their combine cost reduced by 20 gold to preserve their total cost Chalice of Harmony & Friends General Context WARNING: This is going to get complicated. Unlike Tear of the Goddess, Chalice 'turns on' (ie: accesses a majority of its power) very early as a purchase, giving both defensive stats and piles of mana regeneration to safely push / farm. As a result, most mid-laners who don't want to deal with mana problems (or interacting with their opponent) can just rush a Chalice before figuring out the rest of their items. While these changes are definitely a nerf to Chalice (particularly when it's rushed), our goal is to reduce its value as a "one-stop shop" for mana regeneration while also increasing the amount of time it takes for a player to fully tap its strength. Chalice of Harmony TOTAL COST 880 gold ⇒ 1000 gold (combine cost increased by 20 gold, inherits Null Magic Mantle's 100 gold cost increase - see below) MANA REGENERATION +7 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ +50% base mana regeneration MAGIC RESISTANCE 20 ⇒ 25 UNIQUE PASSIVE Mana Font Increases mana regeneration by 1% per 1% of missing mana ⇒ Restores 1.5% of missing mana every 5 seconds Athene's Unholy Grail TOTAL COST 2600 gold ⇒ 2700 gold (combine cost decreased by 20 gold, inherits Chalice of Harmony's 120 gold cost increase) MANA REGENERATION +10 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ +50% base mana regeneration UNIQUE PASSIVE Mana Font Increases mana regeneration by 1% per 1% of missing mana ⇒ Restores 1.5% of missing mana every 5 seconds Mikael's Crucible TOTAL COST Unchanged (combine cost decreased by 20 gold, inherits Chalice of Harmony's 120 gold cost increase and Forbidden Idol's 100 gold cost decrease) MANA REGENERATION +20 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ +100% base mana regeneration UNIQUE PASSIVE Mana Font Increases mana regeneration by 1% per 1% of missing mana ⇒ Restores 1.5% of missing mana every 5 seconds Strategic Items General Context Our objective with items is the same as our overarching 2015 preseason goal: strategic diversity. Is it possible - through items - for your team to be able to opt into different strategies? Could we do it in a way that makes these strategies accessible for all teams, and not just the ones with the right champions? These were the questions that lead us to focus on macro-level items (like pre-fight, out of combat, or strategic purchases) over creating new micro-level items (tactical combat stats, etc). It's not to say we don't like items that give passive stats, just that we didn't we have a large suite of strategic level items so that was a logical place to start. In short, our aim is to provide the right tools for strategic innovation to prosper in League of Legends. ... we use the term "strategic" or some variation of it 6 times in the previous paragraph. That's how you know we're serious. Greater Lens Feedback loop. This is technically a strategic item, but we have nowhere else to put it anyway. LEGITIMATE BUG The visual indicator for the area-of-effect of Greater Lens no longer reverts to the smaller indicator for Sweeping Lens after dying and respawning (actual range was unaffected) Righteous Glory (NEW) Chase down those pesky disengage comps! Righteous Glory is a new item that gives a lot of health, mana, regeneration, and an active that gives movement speed to its user and allies when moving toward the enemy or enemy turrets. After a few seconds, it sends out a large slowing shockwave. We don't have many items that enable teams to capitalize on strategic initiations, which means if a team doesn't have initiation baked into their composition, they're usually in for a frustrating time. Given that one of our big goals this season was to offer strategic opportunities for teams beyond champ select, it seemed natural to create a strong initiation item. This allows teams to react more fluidly against disengage comps while also enabling hard engagement strategies without being forced to bring Malphite along for the ride (not that we have anything against Malphite). RECIPE Catalyst the Protector + Crystalline Bracer + 700 gold TOTAL COST 2500 gold HEALTH 500 MANA 300 HEALTH REGENERATION +100% base health regeneration UNIQUE PASSIVE Valor's Reward - Upon leveling up, restores 150 health and 200 mana over 8 seconds UNIQUE ACTIVE Grants +60% Movement Speed to nearby allies when moving towards enemies or enemy turrets for 3 seconds. After 3 seconds, a shockwave is emitted, slowing nearby enemy champion Movement Speed by 80% for 1 second. This effect may be reactivated early to instantly release the shockwave. Warmog's Armor Warmog’s has had its max health reduced, but it restores a lot more health if you haven’t been in combat after 8 seconds. Rather than just giving a ton of health and regeneration, we really wanted to push Warmog’s Armor as an anti-siege item, allowing tanky dudes to stay healthy under high-pressure scenarios. Unless they can’t dodge the poke. RECIPE Giant's Belt + Ruby Crystal + Rejuvenation Bead + Rejuvenation Bead + 1070 gold ⇒ Giant's Belt + Crystalline Bracer + Crystalline Bracer + 300 gold TOTAL COST 2830 gold ⇒ 2500 gold HEALTH 1000 ⇒ 800 UNIQUE PASSIVE Restores 1% of maximum health every 5 seconds ⇒ Restores 1% of maximum health every 5 seconds. Health restore increases to 3% of maximum health if damage hasn't been taken within 8 seconds. Banner of Command Banner of Command now builds out of Aegis and a Fiendish Codex, providing team-wide siege stats along with a super magic-immune minion active buff. We’ve always wanted Banner of Command to be a siege / push item in terms of its strategic niche, but couldn't find the right mix of stats to make it situationally viable without being super-strong (or just unused). This will be our third attempt, and there's not much else to say beyond that. Did we mention that Banner's promote active makes a minion immune to magic damage!? RECIPE Fiendish Codex + Blasting Wand + 720 gold ⇒ Aegis of the Legion + Fiendish Codex + 280 gold TOTAL COST 2400 gold ⇒ 3000 gold newMAGIC RESISTANCE 20 newHEALTH 200 ABILITY POWER 80 ⇒ 60 COOLDOWN REDUCTION 20% ⇒ 10% removedVALORLESS No longer has the Valor aura newUNIQUE AURA Legion - Grants nearby allies +20 magic resist and +75% base health regeneration newUNIQUE ACTIVE Promote - Greatly increases the power of a lane minion and grants it immunity to magic damage (120 second cooldown) Cannon Minions: Damage: +100; Health + 600; Armor: +100; Magic resist:+100; Size: INCREASED Melee Minions: Damage: +50; Bonus attack speed +90%; Health: +600; Armor: +40; Magic resist: +40; Size: INCREASED Range Minions: Damage: +75; Bonus attack speed +30%; Health: +400; Armor: +40; Magic resist: +40; Size: INCREASED Raptor Cloak (NEW) Build up speed near your turret. Or their turret. Or a dead turret. Or when moving between turrets. The possibilities are endless (or only slightly more than what's listed in this summary). Raptor's Cloak is a stepping stone toward Ohmwrecker, but on its own it provides some neat movement-oriented bonuses for players looking to do some turret diving (or to come barreling down the lane!). RECIPE Cloth Armor + Rejuvenation Bead + 520 gold TOTAL COST 1000 gold ARMOR 30 HEALTH REGENERATION +100% base health regeneration UNIQUE PASSIVE Point Runner - Builds up to +30% Movement Speed over 2 seconds while near turrets Ohmwrecker Ohmwrecker's undergone its seasonal rework. This time it gives health, base health regeneration, cooldown reduction, the previously highlighted Point Runner passive (build up +30% movement speed when near any turret, alive or dead), and the Ohmwrecker turret disabling active. Fourth time's the charm. Similar to Banner of Command, Ohmwrecker's always kind of had a known identity, but we could never find the right statistical combination to make it work (or when we did we got really scared, as it ran the risk of Ohmwrecker becoming ohm-erpowered). With such an influx of strategically-oriented items, however, we think it's time for Ohmwrecker to shine (at least occasionally). Combine that Point Runner passive with Ohmwrecker's turret timeout active, and you've got a hard-initiate turret-diving item that'll be perfect for the aspirational tank in all of us. RECIPE Ruby Crystal + Blasting Wand + 740 gold ⇒ Raptor's Cloak + Kindlegem + 750 gold TOTAL COST 2000 gold ⇒ 2600 gold removedABILITY POWER 50 ⇒ 0 HEALTH 350 ⇒ 300 newARMOR 0 ⇒ 50 newHEALTH REGENERATION +100% base health regeneration newCOOLDOWN REDUCTION 10% newUNIQUE PASSIVE Point Runner - Builds up to +30% Movement Speed over 2 seconds while near turrets TURRET TIMEOUT Prevents nearby enemy turrets from attacking for 2.5 seconds ⇒ 3 seconds I THINK WE WANTED A ROUND NUMBER Multiple Ohmwreckers cannot be used on the same turret for 7.5 seconds ⇒ 8 seconds Armor Build Paths General Context Chain Vest builds out of Cloth Armor. We want basic defensive items to be about reacting to the situation, which means streamlining those purchases down to their basic components (as opposed to getting accidentally 'trapped' when buying the wrong item). Now if you need defensive armor or magic resistance, buying a basic item is never a "wrong" choice. Chain Vest RECIPE None ⇒ Cloth Armor + 450 gold TOTAL COST 720 gold ⇒ 750 gold (The total cost of items that build out of Chain Vest remains the same, except where noted) Thornmail TOTAL COST 2200 gold ⇒ 2100 gold (combine cost decreased by 130 gold, inherits Chain Vest's 30 gold cost increase) Sunfire Cape TOTAL COST 2650 gold ⇒ 2600 gold (combine cost decreased by 80 gold, inherits Chain Vest's 30 gold cost increase) Warden's Mail RECIPE Chain Vest + 280 gold ⇒ Cloth Armor + Cloth Armor + 450 gold TOTAL COST 1000 gold ⇒ 1050 gold ARMOR 50 ⇒ 45 Randuin's Omen TOTAL COST 3000 gold ⇒ 2850 gold (combine cost decreased by 200 gold, inherits Warden's Mail's 50 gold cost decrease) Magic Resistance Build Paths General Context Negatron Cloak has been removed. All items that used Negatron Cloak now use Null-Magic Mantle. Copying from above: We want basic defensive items to be about reacting to the situation, which means streamlining those purchases down to their basic components (as opposed to getting accidentally 'trapped' when buying the wrong item). Now if you need defensive armor or magic resistance, buying a basic item is never a "wrong" choice. Null-Magic Mantle COST 400 gold ⇒ 500 gold MAGIC RESISTANCE 20 ⇒ 25 Negatron Cloak (REMOVED) IT'S LIKE THE ITEM DIDN'T EXIST All items that built from a Negatron Cloak now have a Null-Magic Mantle component instead ALL HAIL THE MANTLE The total cost of items that used to build out of Negatron Cloak remains the same, except where noted Abyssal Scepter RECIPE Blasting Wand + Negatron Cloak + 980 gold ⇒ Blasting Wand + Null-Magic Mantle + Null-Magic Mantle + 580 gold TOTAL COST 2560 gold ⇒ 2440 gold MAGIC RESISTANCE 45 ⇒ 50 Spectre's Cowl RECIPE Negatron Cloak + Ruby Crystal + 275 gold ⇒ Null-Magic Mantle + Ruby Crystal + 300 gold TOTAL COST 1400 gold ⇒ 1200 gold MAGIC RESISTANCE 45 ⇒ 35 Quicksilver Sash RECIPE Negatron Cloak + 830 gold ⇒ Null-Magic Mantle + 750 gold TOTAL COST 1550 gold ⇒ 1250 gold MAGIC RESISTANCE 45 ⇒ 30 Mercurial Scimitar TOTAL COST 3800 gold ⇒ 3700 (combine cost increased by 200 gold, inherits Quicksilver Sash's 300 gold cost decrease) MAGIC RESISTANCE 45 ⇒ 35 Stacking Items General Context For the gambler in all of us. The two snowballing items now start with 5 stacks, but lose half their stacks when killed. We see Mejai's Soulstealer and Sword of the Occult as high-stakes gambling items. By upgrading into them, you're throwing away a substantial amount of gold (and thus advantage) with the hopes of 'doubling down' on your control of the game. Go big or go home. Mejai's Soulstealer TOTAL COST 1235 gold ⇒ 1400 gold (combine cost increased by 165 gold) newPRE-STACKED Mejai's Soulstealer now starts with 5 stacks! newGO BIG OR GO HOME Mejai's Soulstealer now loses 1/3 of its stacks when killed ⇒ 1/2 of its stacks when killed Sword of the Occult TOTAL COST 1200 gold ⇒ 1400 gold (combine cost increased by 200 gold) newPRE-STACKED Sword of the Occult now starts with 5 stacks! newGO BIG OR GO HOME Sword of the Occult now loses 1/3 of its stacks when killed ⇒ 1/2 of its stacks when killed newMORE THINGS YOU WON'T GET At 20 stacks, grants +20% bonus attack speed removedSLOOOOW DOWN! No longer grants +15% movement speed at 20 stacks Removed Items We've set some items free. We realized in the case of each of these items that 'supporting' them or allowing them to continue to exist would simply cause more harm for game health than actual benefits. Either being abusable in edge cases (hello Sword of the Divine Rengar), or being 'trap' items that are rarely (if ever) the correct strategic purchase. Some may return at a later date! removedREMOVED Sword of the Divine removedREMOVED Executioner's Calling removedREMOVED Atma's Impaler Shop Search Shortcuts Defence. Anaesthesia. Authorise. Doughnut. Pyjamas. SEARCH CLARITY! Jungle items are searchable in the in-game store as "jungle" CENTRE COLOUR CONNEXION You can now search for armour in the shop. Reconnoitre. Neighbour. We can go all day. Manoeuvre. STREAMLINED SHOPPING "Starter Items" has been added as an item category with subcategories for "Lane" and "Jungle" Summoner Spell Level Requirements Along with Smite getting super complex, we figured we could re-assess the Summoner Spell level requirements. OLD Summoner Spells were previously unlocked at levels: LEVEL 1 :: Clarity, Ghost, Heal, and Revive LEVEL 2 :: Cleanse LEVEL 3 :: Smite LEVEL 4 :: Garrison LEVEL 6 :: Barrier and Teleport LEVEL 8 :: Exhaust and Ignite LEVEL 10 :: Clairvoyance LEVEL 12 :: Flash NEW Summoner Spells are now unlocked at levels: LEVEL 1 :: Clarity, Garrison, Ghost, Heal and Revive LEVEL 4 :: Barrier and Exhaust LEVEL 6 :: Cleanse and Teleport LEVEL 8 :: Clairvoyance and Flash LEVEL 10 :: Smite and Ignite () Scoreboard Changes COUNT THOSE DRAGON BUFFS Iconographic Dragon Slayer counters have been added to the scoreboard COLORBLIND ACCOMODATIONS Colorblind mode has been removed from the scoreboard - it just uses red and blue Active Item & Buff UI Updates We've given active items a more impactful UI treatment by adding their ability icons to the space above the center HUD. No more excuses if you forget to pop Zhonya's! We've also split buffs into two categories with different UI spaces to prioritize information that feeds into your moment-to-moment decisionmaking. Together, these updates should cement the center ability bar as your tactical command center. These changes are...for clarity! Active item hotkeys and cooldowns are now displayed in the space above your Summoner spells. In this new display, cooldowns are tracked by both the blue "sweep" and their numeric values Active item tracking in the inventory is unchanged (no numeric cooldowns) Buffs have been split into two categories: ability trackers and ambient buffs Ability trackers (stacks toward an ability proc, remaining charges of an ability, remaining duration of an ability effect, etc.) retain their spot above the center HUD Ambient buffs (persistent buffs, stance indicators, auras, etc.) have been moved to a second buff bar above your champion portrait. Debuffs have been moved to this space as well. LeaverBuster BUSTED We'll soon be launching a brand new system that greatly reduces leavers and AFKs, with more severe penalties for Ranked offenders. Patcher Improvements A volume slider and mute button have been added to the patcher to control the recently-added "Launch" and "Patching Complete" sounds Clicking ticker notifications in the patcher will now take you to the Service Status page for more information End of Game Gifting & Store Improvements End of Game Gifting End of Game Gifting is a new way for players to gift fellow Summoners via the post-game lobby. We'll be launching in waves starting in the weeks following the launch of Patch 4.20 and extending into the next patch. Launching the feature in stages keeps us light on our feet during the rollout period, leading to the best experience possible for everyone once we're fully activated! Soon, whether you want to thank a friendly player or reward someone's first Pentakill, you'll be able to show your appreciation after the match! Here are the details: You do NOT have to be friends to send a gift You can send gifts to players on both teams At launch, you'll be able to choose from Mystery Skins, Mystery Champions, the champion the recipient played (if unowned), and available skins for that champion The prices will be the same as in the store Gifts will count towards the daily gifting limit. In other words, you can only send/receive up to five gifts each day (For example, sending three mystery skins from the store and two end of game gifts hits your limit) Available in all queues except for custom games Check out the full FAQ here! Store Improvements Ward Skins have been added to the options in the store's Gifting Center! Standard gifting rules apply. Expanding on the icon changes made last patch, we've updated the icons for IP and XP boosts Bugfixes Fixed a Mac compatibility issue that caused the cursor to drop to the bottom of the screen (sometimes becoming completely stuck) when attempting to Smart Ping Various buff icons that went missing in 4.19 should have reappeared via the new Active Item & Buff UI changes Fixed a bug where Tryndamere's E - Spinning Slash was dealing double damage in rare cases [/spoil]
Patch 4.21 notes [spoil]Champions Rek'Sai Rek'Sai, the Void Burrower, will be released a bit later during Patch 4.21! Azir More bugfixes and we're making Azir a little smoother to play. Having tweaked Azir just last patch, we're looking to see how he performs from here before really changing his power level. So... bugfixes. Always bugfixes. W - Arise! I THOUGHT WE REMOVED DODGE Fixed a bug where it was possible for targets to walk out of range of a soldier's attack, causing the attack animation to play but do no damage. E - Shifting Sands I SHIFT IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION Fixed a bug where casting Shifting Sands outside of its cast range would always cause Azir to walk into range. Shifting Sands now checks for the nearest soldier to your mouse and immediately goes there if the soldier is in range, no matter how far from Azir the mouse was. SPEEDY SHIFTING Fixed an issue where Shifting Sands would fail to be queued up during a cast of W - Arise!. Now pressing W + E together should always create a soldier and then instantly move Azir to that soldier. Note: there's a similar problem with pressing W + Q together that we have not fixed yet but are looking into. R - Emperor's Divide I'M ACTUALLY HELPING The allied speed boost of Emperor’s Divide now grants assists Cassiopeia Aspect of the Serpent now gains stacks over time and every second an enemy champion is poisoned (rather than on poisoned unit kill or when using Twin Fangs on an enemy champ). Twin Fang now adds a debuff that amplifies poison damage on the target. Cassi's recent update definitely gave her the late-game we intended, but at two great costs: her early-game strength, and her identity as a 'Poison Mage.' We're trying to smooth out a bit of Cassiopeia's power here with some early buffs alongside some guaranteed scaling on her passive so that she can hit her early-mid-lategame fantasy (that is now a word) at the appropriate times. In short, we're looking to reach a middle ground between the update and her original feel of killing you slowly with venoms. Just quicker. (And with more venoms). Passive - Aspect of the Serpent STACK CITY Cassiopeia builds a stack of Aspect of the Serpent on every poisoned unit kill or on Twin Fang cast on enemy champion ⇒ once every 6 seconds (10 times per minute) and for every second that an enemy champion is poisoned. IT'S A BUFF WE PROMISE Cassiopeia gains special bonuses at 75/200/400 stacks ⇒ 100/250/500 stacks. The new breakpoints will be hit sooner than the old ones based on the new stacking mechanics (above). Q - Noxious Blast EVERYTHING IS NORMAL Fixed a bug where Noxious Blast's delay wasn't actually normalized (it was hitting anywhere between 0.25 seconds and 0.5 seconds). Now has a flat 0.4 second delay. MOVEMENT SPEED BONUS 10/15/20/25/30% bonus movement speed ⇒ 20% bonus movement speed at all ranks E - Twin Fang newLOOK AT THIS SYNERGY Twin Fang now adds a debuff on the target that amplifies further poison damage by +20% for 5 seconds. This debuff stacks up to 2 times (capping at +40% poison damage). COST 30/45/60/75/90 mana ⇒ 35/45/55/65/75 mana RATIO 0.4/0.45/0.5/0.55/0.6 ability power ⇒ 0.55 ability power at all ranks Cho'Gath Life's hard for a Cho'gath. You want to eat your enemies, they don't want be eaten, and all it takes is one little death to set this poor little monster back. These changes should help Cho get back into the fight, but we also wanted to create bigger decisions between saving Feast for a kill or nommin' down on some creeps. R - Feast newHUNGRY HUNGRY CHO'GATH Feast now has 50% of its cooldown and mana cost refunded if it kills a minion or monster. COOLDOWN 60 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 80 seconds at all ranks Corki Phosphorus Bomb travels slower. Oh Corki. We've known about your strengths for some time, but we're always careful about balancing you because you're rarely a 'standout' in any particular category (unlike, say, Tristana or Kog'Maw who you know are strong when they're strong). But with power reductions coming for Lucian, we know you're up next on the "very strong, safe marksmen" list in competitive play, so we're taking some cautious steps to keep you in line as well. Q - Phosphorus Bomb MISSILE SPEED 1125 ⇒ 1000 Diana Lunar Rush still gets the reset if Diana casts it on a Moonlight'd target but is interrupted mid-dash. When getting the reset, two things can go wrong for Diana: missing her Q, or having R interrupted. Cancelling R not only removes all of Diana's damage options, but often just leaves her dead in the water, so we're throwing her a lifejacket (check that metaphor). As long as you target a unit affected by Moonlight, Lunar Rush's cooldown will be refunded even if the dash was cancelled. This change makes it a little easier for those hoping to become the living embodiment of the vengeful moon. That line's in the tooltip. We wrote that. R - Lunar Rush C'MON MAN I EARNED THIS Casting Lunar Rush on targets that have the Moonlight debuff will reset Lunar Rush's cooldown, even if Diana is interrupted out of her dash Fiddlesticks Dread now applies on things Fiddle interacts with, as opposed to a broad area of effect. Dark Wind no longer silences the same target multiple times but will try to prioritize new targets as it bounces along. Terror's always kind of been Fiddle's thing, and he's certainly a pretty big one (terror, that is) given the current jungle environment. With that in mind, we're looking to drain some of his less-clear power and add more consistency (for him and opponents). Passive - Dread newFOCUS FEAR Dealing magic damage or casting Terrify applies Dread to enemies for 2.5 seconds, reducing their magic resistance by 10 removedNOT SO GREAT AT PARTIES Fiddlesticks no longer applies Dread to all enemy units within 800 range E - Dark Wind newBOUNCE ALL DAY Now prioritizes targets not yet hit by Dark Wind removedCRAZY LONG SILENCES Dark Wind can still hit targets multiple times, but it will now only silence them once SILENCE DURATION 1.2 seconds ⇒ 1.25 seconds Galio Don't let me get in my zone. Galio's ultimate has two major risks involved - either he's crowd-controlled during its channel or his opponents buy Mercury Treads. We like the teamplay that comes from coordinated interrupts but find it a little sad that tenacity messes with his flow so much. Is now fixed. R - Idol of Durand newYOU'RE STUCK IN HERE WITH ME Idol of Durand's taunt is no longer reducible by tenacity. Jarvan IV IF HE'S MAKING A CRATER SOMEONE'S GONNA GET HURT. R - Cataclysm newARE YOU CALLING ME FAT Fixed a bug where Jarvan would sometimes fail to do damage if he was killed quickly after landing from Cataclysm. Note: Jarvan still won't deal damage if he's killed mid-air, but if he's able to land and create the wall, he should always deal damage. Jax Jax's E and R scale better into the late game. Surprise - he's back. While it hasn't been too long since Jax's reign over top lane, now that his laning power is a little more manageable we think we can give him some more late game love as a reward for getting through the early to mid phases. E - Counter Strike COOLDOWN 18/16/14/12/10 seconds ⇒ 16/14/12/10/8 seconds R - Grandmaster's Might BONUS ARMOR 25/35/45 (+0.3 attack damage) ⇒ 20/35/50 (+0.5 attack damage) BONUS MAGIC RESISTANCE 25/35/45 (+0.2 ability power) ⇒ 20/35/50 (+0.2 ability power) Jayce Before this change, you could activate Hyper Charge, wait a bit, then Double Hyper Charge someone, doing 'The Most Damage In League of Legends' (maybe?). It was unintended and kind of goofy. W - Hyper Charge LESS HYPER, MORE CHARGE Hyper Charge now goes on cooldown after the third shot rather than right on cast COOLDOWN 14/12/10/8/6 seconds ⇒ 13/11/9/7/5 seconds Jinx Rules are made to be broken. Like buildings. BUT NOT CLARITY. NEVER CLARITY. Recent updates to the way buff icons are shown have made telling what weapon Jinx is using a little chaotic (and not the kind she prefers). We've changed it so Switcheroo's icon is always the gun you're currently using, and added a flashy-toggle swirl to show you're spending mana while using Fishbones. Q - Switcheroo! SPELL ICON Switcheroo!'s spell icon displays the gun Jinx will switch to ⇒ the gun Jinx is currently using TOGGLE SWIRLS!!! When using Rockets, the ability icon will flash (like Ashe's Q) to show that Jinx is now in "mana spending mode" Kennen General quality-of-life buffs for this weird lookin' Yordle. Like many champions before him (Veigar, Karthus, and Cho'gath come to mind) Kennen has been held back by inconsistencies in the timing of his abilities. After a much-needed round of re-coding, we've fixed an issue with Electrical Surge while also tuning Slicing Maelstrom. It's worth noting for Kennen's R that this is a slight late game nerf to his single target ult burst, but a buff to his area-effect speed. W - Electrical Surge THAT RESPONSIVENESS Electric Surge now checks for viable targets on the beginning of the cast rather than at the end (it still hits enemies after a cast time, but is generally more reliable) R - Slicing Maelstrom TIME BETWEEN STRIKES 0.5/~0.4/~0.33 seconds ⇒ 0.25 seconds at all ranks TIME BETWEEN STRIKES ON THE SAME PERSON 0.5/~0.4/~0.33 seconds ⇒ 0.5 seconds at all ranks TOOLTIP CLARITY! Slicing Maelstrom's tooltip now reflects the duration of the storm rather than maximum number of strikes. Its duration has always been 3/4/5 seconds. Lucian Lucian's got a shorter window to double tap people with Lightslinger, and deals less damage with it at lower levels. Lucian is a character that's carefully defined by his low combat range (500) and being opportunistic to succeed within it. These changes are more along the lines of pushing that while creating more windows of opportunity against Lucian. We do say windows of opportunity a lot. Passive - Lightslinger PASSIVE BUFF DURATION 6 seconds ⇒ 3 seconds RATIO 0.5 attack damage at all levels ⇒ 0.3/0.4/0.5 attack damage at levels 1/7/13 Nocturne We're going to copy paste the patch note into the summary: Nocturne now gains massively increased movement speed when moving toward feared targets. This works with other fears! Waaaaaay back in 4.3 (That's February! Hi Vel'Koz!), we changed fear mechanics across the board to make the affected unit move away from you instead of in random directions. Unlike other champions, however, Nocturne has lacked a way to really capitalize on the consistency of his newer fear. So we're fixing that. Also, this means any of Nocturne's spooky friends (Shaco, Fiddlesticks, Hecarim, Lollipoppy) can set him up for some sweet ganks. Because he's a nightmare. A living nightmare. E - Unspeakable Horror newPASSIVE - ALSO WORKS WITH OTHER FEARS! Nocturne now gains massively increased movement speed when moving toward feared targets Pantheon As some who benefited a lot from the Preseason changes, Pantheon fits well within our expectations for a jungler: his ganks are amazing and he really benefits from the itemization paths available (see: Warrior enchant, Stalker's Blade, etc). From a durability standpoint however, Aegis Protection's been giving Panth a free pass in terms of health-pool, making him head-and-shoulders above other Assassins/Fighters when it comes to ganking-uptime. We're lowering his attack speed to make his passive proc less often unless he focuses more of his mana into casting spells, which translates to a riskier jungle for him overall. To slightly compensate (and make his combo abilities better), we're speeding up Pantheon's attack frame animations, which gets a little complicated but basically means he completes attacks faster but doesn't attack faster overall. General BASE ATTACK SPEED 0.679 ⇒ 0.625 READ THE CONTEXT THIS GETS COMPLICATED Pantheon's attack frame animation speed has been increased by +26% Rengar Haha oh dear. Bonetooth Necklace WHOOPS Bonetooth Necklace actives no longer benefit from cooldown reduction Sejuani Sej has more base mana, Q no longer scales with max health but just does straight magic damage. W and E are more focused on consistent damage over time. Winter is coming, and she's riding a boar. Sejuani hasn't been in the spotlight for some time, but in light of the updated jungle we figured we'd look back at some outliers. While Sej's far from the bottom of the ice-bucket, she's always suffered from not having incentives to stay in the fight compared to other tanks. Instead she just throws out her spells and then sits around waiting for them to recharge. Seizing the opportunity to improve this, a lot of Sejuani's damage has been shifted out of her up-front burst (Q) and instead shoved into the damage-over-time of her Flail and Permafrost, making her a more active threat in prolonged fights. Sometimes icy hearts just need warm smiles. Or buffs for the holidays. We're giving you both. General BASE MANA 287 ⇒ 400 Q - Arctic Assault removedENEMY HEALTH SCALING Arctic Assault no longer scales with 4/6/8/10/12% of target's max health DAMAGE 40/70/100/130/160 magic damage ⇒ 80/125/170/215/260 magic damage W - Flail of the Northern Winds COST 40 mana at all ranks ⇒ 40/35/30/25/20 mana INITIAL HIT DAMAGE 40/60/80/100/120 (0.3 ability power) magic damage ⇒ 4/6/8/10/12% of target's max health (+3% per 100 ability power) in magic damage AREA OF EFFECT DAMAGE 80/120/160/200/240 (+10% bonus health) ⇒ 40/70/100/130/160 (+4/6/8/10/12% total health) E - Permafrost COOLDOWN 11 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 10/9/8/7/6 seconds DAMAGE 60/110/160/210/260 magic damage ⇒ 60/90/120/150/180 magic damage SLOW DURATION 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 seconds ⇒ 1.5 seconds at all ranks Shen Check out this awesome summary: Shadow Dash costs less energy. 20 less. Though Shen is no stranger to the shadows, we all remember how crazy this ninja gets when he's gets out of control. That said, we think loosening some of Shen's larger energy constraints is a nice place to push his power without instantly putting him on top. We're still assessing where he's at, but hopefully this allows us all to see a little more Shen in our lives. Or not? (He's not a very good ninja). E - Shadow Dash ENERGY COST 120 ⇒ 100 Shyvana Twin Bite has a slightly lower cooldown and Burnout now deals bonus damage to monsters. In light of her recent exit from popularity, Shyvana's a character that's been left without a clear identity. Is she a human? Is she a dragon? Is she viable? Leaning on her original jungling roots, we've decided to boost Shyv's clearing speeds so that she can be one of the faster farmers out there, opening her up to make cooler decisions than just shoving in top-laners and living forever. Q - Twin Bite COOLDOWN 10/9/8/7/6 seconds ⇒ 9/8/7/6/5 seconds W - Burnout newMONSTER MASHING Burnout now now deals +20% bonus damage to monsters IT'S COMPLICATED Fixed a bug where Burnout was scaling incorrectly with attack damage when Shyvana was in her dragon form Soraka Soraka's base health regen and health regen growth stat have been reduced, but Astral Blessing's passive now scales better with ability power. One of the problems the Soraka update tried to fix were the times when she would just sit in the back and heal things without ever being vulnerable. In practice, however, Soraka's synergies with health and mana regeneration allowed League's Premier Healer to overcome these obstacles and amp her annoying meter all the way to 11. Thanks to the way regen works in the 2015 preseason, we're able to mitigate the effectiveness of this strategy by lowering her base stats, but we're adding more power into Astral Blessing's passive to reward the most accurate of star-snipers. Premiere healer. General BASE HEALTH REGENERATION 4.675 ⇒ 2.5 HEALTH REGENERATION GROWTH STAT 0.7 ⇒ 0.5 W - Astral Blessing PASSIVE RATIO Ability power ratio range is now 0.2 ability power to 0.4 ability power ⇒ 0.4 ability power to 0.8 ability power (there's a range because this scales in effectiveness with Soraka's missing health) Varus Despite being an effective lane-bully, Varus's effectiveness is so heavily tied to his Q harrass that he often finds himself running out of gas when it comes time to leverage that early-mid advantage into a more substantial one. We think Varus is a pretty cool dude (if perhaps a little grumpy; all he does is grumble), so we're seeing if this small change helps him stay relevant into the late game. General MANA REGENERATION PER 5 SECONDS GROWTH STAT 0.5 ⇒ 0.8 Warwick We bet nobody saw this coming. Warwick's popularity (and subsequent insanity in the win rate department, even though we don't like using win rate as a statistic because it's loaded with so many other variables but let's not get into that) is a perfect storm of changes to preseason systems, the jungle, and the latent powers within his kit. We all know Warwick should be lowered a peg (or two. or five.), so we've decided to focus on Hunter's Call and Infinite Duress. We're going to be monitoring Warwick heavily to see if we need to go harder, but we're confident this reduces his power enough that you might actually be able to compete with him in games. 60%. Never forget. Now let's not talk about win rates again (seriously though, win rates are a correlation of game health, not a cause). W - Hunter's Call DURATION 10 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds R - Infinite Duress TOTAL BASE DAMAGE 250/335/420 magic damage ⇒ 150/250/350 magic damage Yasuo Yasuo moves slightly faster and Steel Tempest has a lower cooldown at early ranks. We might have overdone it a tad with 4.18, so we're stepping back just a bit. These changes should maintain Yasuo's vulnerability to ganks in lane but give him a little more leeway to make plays with Steel Tempest. A wanderer isn't always lost, but that doesn't mean he's over-nerfed. What does that mean. We don't know. General MOVEMENT SPEED 340 ⇒ 345 Q - Steel Tempest COOLDOWN 5/4.75/4.5/4.25/4 seconds ⇒ 4 seconds at all ranks Zac Elastic Slingshot makes more chunks if Zac hits multiple champions, and Let's Bounce has a higher knockback range. The last on our 'Naughty or Nice' junglers list, we wanted to give Zac a little more oomph for those who make it through his somewhat punishing early-levels. In-line with Zac's identity as initiator, buffing the knock-back effect on Let's Bounce! means finding fights at max-range lets Zac play more with his opponent's positioning to single someone out. E - Elastic Slingshot newSO CHUNKY Zac now creates extra chunks for each additional champion he hits DAMAGE 80/120/160/200/240 magic damage ⇒ 80/130/180/230/280 magic damage R - Let's Bounce! KNOCKBACK RANGE 250 ⇒ 400 (enemies will be knocked up higher and longer to match the new range, but total crowd control durations remain the same) Mass Texture Rebalance (Part 4) We're continuing our comprehensive pass at the game's older character textures. As with parts 1, 2 and 3, our goal is to improve parity with newer releases and make sure everybody looks at home on the newly-updated Rift. Is anyone even reading this paragraph anymore? TEXTURES The following textures have been updated: Malphite Base, Coral Reef, Marble, Obsidian, Shamrock Malzahar Base, Djinn, Overlord, Shadow Prince, Vizier Shen Base, Blood Moon, Frozen, Surgeon, Warlord, Yellow Jacket Wukong Base, General, Jade Dragon, Volcanic Xin Zhao Base, Commando, Imperial, Viscero, Winged Hussar System Changes Turret Gold Turrets are worth more gold! One issue with Dragon getting stingy with his gold bounties is that the amount of accessible gold in each game has gone down. What that means is that players are having more difficulty hitting their mid-game fantasy item builds (that is now a term) at a reasonable time. Rather than just throwing gold onto everything, we're going to up the rewards on objectives that are already gold-focused so as to reiterate their strategic value. And diversity. OUTER TURRET GLOBAL GOLD REWARD 100 ⇒ 125 INNER TURRET GLOBAL GOLD REWARD 125 ⇒ 150 Turret Shielding We don't hate Mordekaiser or Malzahar, we swear. Our philosophy with the inner turret shield has always been about offering a broad strategic defense against poke / siege teams, and not a weird way to nullify damage-over-time abilities. That said, our safeguard against the latter wasn't very fine-tuned as the turret basically checked every second if a champion within range had been damaged and, if they hadn't, it gave them a shield. This lead to some weird timing issues where a DoT-ed champion could potentially cycle between being on fire while also getting shielded if they hit the right window. Hopefully this change removes that but, if it doesn't, we'll be sure to revisit this! INNER TURRET SHIELDING WINDOW 1 second ⇒ 1.5 seconds Death Timers The death timer is being unilaterally raised by 2.5 seconds. We've noticed that because objectives are so much more important (or everyone just wants to protect the Rift Scuttler crab...), team fights are also starting earlier and more frequently. While the extra action is great, lower death timers mean the victorious team doesn't have enough time to do anything after, which leads to a lot of combat without much progression in objective control. We're hoping for a better balance here, even if the change itself is small. MINIMUM DEATH TIMER 7.5 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds MAXIMUM DEATH TIMER 50 seconds ⇒ 52.5 seconds Experience Rewards for Champion Kills Slightly less experience rewards for killing everyone. Echoing the above point, there are a lot more team fights in the early game so we're doing some light retuning to make sure things don't get out of control too quickly. Champion Base Kill Experience 55% ⇒ 50% Minion Gold More minion gold on the map! With every other objective on the map gaining more importance, we want to make sure that lane control strategies feel equally rewarding. You could call this a form of importance-creep (although you'd be weird to call it that) where things need to keep up in importance in relation to each other but, similar to our thoughts with Dragon not giving a global gold bounty, this was another place we could introduce some accessible gold. MELEE MINION GOLD REWARD 19 ⇒ 20 RANGED MINION GOLD REWARD 14 ⇒ 15 Minion Health Minion health scales slightly less over game time. Apparently minions scale on their own very, very complicated math system that involves game time and some exponential factors, which is less than ideal for all involved. On a whim, we picked a random time (22:30) in the game and did comparisons, so we'll share some very odd math with you. It's worth noting this will have an impact on games but it'll be hard to tell from this changelist. MELEE MINION TOTAL HEALTH AT 22:30 About 4% lower in comparison to 4.20 minions. This difference grows slightly larger over time (maybe at about 8% - 9% lower in comparison to 4.20 minions at 50:00). RANGED MINION TOTAL HEALTH AT 22:30 About 3% lower in comparison to 4.20 minions. This difference grows slightly larger over time (maybe at about 7% - 8% lower in comparison to 4.20 minions at 50:00). Summoner's Rift General Changes We are constantly iterating on the updated Summoner's Rift! Summoner's Rift has received new music that changes throughout the game! Added an option in the audio menu to switch back to the classic Summoner's Rift music We're continuing to optimize performance by making slight graphical adjustments throughout the map Improved consistency of river, top and bot lane brush behavior when champions are near brush edges Baron no longer loses his out of combat regen if attacked from outside his attack range Baron is feeling festive! Item Shop Buying Range You can now only buy items if you're on the physical platform. The space you could buy items on Summoner's Rift was always a bit odd (slightly oblong in favor of top lane), so we decided to have a CLARITY! intervention and re-did the boundaries. We do realize this is a small nerf to specific top lane starts that wait in base for extra gold before walking out with the minion wave, but it's something we've always wanted to do. So we did it. THERE IS NO FREE SHIPPING The shop purchasing area is now restricted to the physical platform. Geography Changes SMALL RELOCATIONS Slightly adjusted positioning of Blue/Red buff camps so that area-effect abilities should now consistently hit the same number of monsters in all four camps KRUG EQUALITY Red side Krugs now mirror Blue side (the Ancient Krug is always further away from the base) Dragon Fixed some exploits where players could not take damage from Dragon in a variety of ways. Real talk: those videos of low level Fioras soloing dragon are pretty cool, but there are obviously more abuse than "neat" cases, so action had to be taken. This does lower some of the nuance of the Dragon fight (ie: aggro dancing or running... a lot of attack speed on jungle Pantheon. Woo mastery.) and doesn't solve all low level solo Dragon cases, but it'll at least give us a better idea of what champs should have that threat versus those who shouldn't. Final note: Dragon's fireball will now pop Banshee's Veil, but we're aware of that interaction and are planning to keep it (for now). I'M CASTING MY FIREBALL Fireball is now treated as a spell and not an auto attack (also, you can spell shield it) SKILLSHOTS ARE HARD Fireballs track the target like a normal attack or targeted spell NO DANCING HERE Dragon will always finish his attack before switching targets BUGFIX Dragon no longer gets stuck outside his pit when hit with terrain abilities (ex. Anivia's W - Crystallize) ALL DRAGONS GO TO Dragon once again drops a soul for Thresh Hand of Baron SHORTER BARON BUFF. Now that Hand of Baron has CLARITY OF DESIGN, players have been pretty good about using it to its maximum potential. Unfortunately, this makes outlasting or enduring a Baron buffed team pretty tough, so we're lowering its duration to maintain its clear identity without teams getting steamrolled as soon as it lands. DURATION 240 seconds ⇒ 180 seconds Dragon Slayer buffs The power of the first Dragon Slayer buff has been reduced and the 4th stack / 2nd stack bonuses have been swapped. Right now we're seeing games snowball a little too quickly, and one of the culprits seems to be the Dragon Slayer buff. Of specific note is that second stack buff that lets a team double down on their map pressure, as they can objectively push lanes and take jungle monsters a whole 15% faster. We're not sure if that's a mathematically correct statement, but let's assume it is. FIRST STACK 8% Attack Damage and Ability Power ⇒ 6% Attack Damage and Ability Power SECOND STACK Now gives +15% damage to Turrets. FOURTH STACK Now gives +15% damage to minions and monsters. Gift of Heavy Hands +1 to the number of attacks needed to stun a monster with the Heavy Hands buff. It turns out that a stun based on basic attacks + high attack speed champions = very strong junglers who can safely farm to infinity. In general, we're okay with Heavy Hands adding more safety to a jungle clear but, for some champions, it got a little obnoxious. REQUIRED HITS TO STUN 5 ⇒ 6 Gift of the Toadstool More poisonous toadstool armor. The Gromp buff was designed to establish a baseline clear speed for tank junglers, as we expect most would rely on the toadstool armor over their basic abilities to clear camps. This is just an example of the ways we can tweak jungle parameters to benefit groups of junglers in healthy ways! DAMAGE SCALING Gift of the Toadstool'd champions deal 6 + (6 x level) magic damage over 3 seconds ⇒ 4 + (8 x level) magic damage over 3 seconds Jungle Gold You should probably ask politely to take a jungler's camp if you don't have a Machete. All that lost gold adds up man. We're seeing a lot of junglers having difficulty keeping up in gold generation, but if we just throw more gold onto the camps we'd probably see laners stealing monsters instead. This is a light first pass at correcting gold flow for junglers versus laners, but we now have the ability to go harder (or softer) if this is still a problem in the future. Design levers! GO BACK TO YOUR LANE All jungle camps now give 10 less gold THIS IS MY JUNGLE Hunter's Machete now grants +10 gold per large jungle monster UPGRADE EARLY FRIENDS All tier 2 and 3 jungle items now grant +20 gold per large jungle monster Items new Negatron Cloak IT'S BAAAAACK. We're currently happy with the magic resistance changes, except for Guardian Angel on squishy damage dealers. Right now, GA's got a preeeeettty big combine cost without providing much protection against Mages through its build path, so we're re-introducing Negatron Cloak as a stepping stone. RECIPE Null Magic Mantle + 350 Gold = 850 Total Gold MAGIC RESISTANCE 45 Guardian Angel See above. See above, which will direct you to above that. So see above the above. RECIPE Null Magic Mangle + Chain Vest + 1500 gold ⇒ Negatron Cloak + Chain Vest + 1250 gold TOTAL COST 2750 gold ⇒ 2850 gold MAGIC RESISTANCE 45 ⇒ 50 Abyssal Scepter While Negatron Cloak is here, we might as well use it in recipes that make sense. We don't see this as being a permanent fix for Abyssal Scepter, but felt we could make this change just to clean up the recipe. While there's less Magic Resistance in the build path, it also consumes less inventory space! RECIPE Blasting Wand + Null-Magic Mantle + Null-Magic Mantle + 580 gold ⇒ Negatron Cloak + Blasting Wand + 730 gold TOTAL COST Unchanged (2440 gold) Targon's Brace Targon's Brace Spoils of War passive now executes at higher thresholds. We've heard this request quite a bit from supports who don't know how to last hit (just kidding), so... here you go. Spoils of War Execute Base 200 ⇒ 240 Face of the Mountain See above, but replace Targon's Embrace with Face of the Mountain. See above, then see above that. At this point we're going to repeat the joke about supports not being able to last hit. Spoils of War Execute Base 200 ⇒ 400 Ranger's Trailblazer Ranger's Trailblazer no longer reduces Smite's cooldown. The goal of Ranger's Trailblazer was to either help a jungler double-down on their farming or help them get out of the dumpster when their teammate accidentally steals the first camp (or buff!). Unfortunately, reducing Smite's cooldown creates the wrong incentive as it gives all of the above advantages to junglers who are ahead while also letting them counterjungle and gank more by stealing enemy jungle buffs. removedSMITEY REDUCTIONS No longer reduces Smite cooldown by 15 seconds Poacher's Knife Not a placebo. Poacher's Knife is actually very impactful in counterjungling, but because we made it only track 'bonus' gold, the tooltip undervalued the actual use of the item. Changing the tooltip isn't a placebo, we're trying to reflect the contribution it brings! IT'S NOT A PLACEBO WE SWEAR Poacher's Knife's tooltip now reflects the total gold from stolen large monsters, rather than just the +20 gold from the item itself Skirmisher's Sabre Attacking a Smited opponent now burns them for true damage over 3 seconds, rather than just dealing true damage on hit. Also truest damage. While we're running into a few abuse cases with Skirmisher's Sabre, the big reason we're changing it is because it's weighted so heavily in favor of dudes who can hit you in the face as fast as possible. Given our goal with the new jungle items was to open up different playstyles, we're balancing it out in favor of more champions. As for the bugfix, there are whispers of an ancient form of damage in League of Legends - truer than True damage itself. What that actually means is we have a tier of damage above "True" damage called "Pure" damage or, as it's more commonly known: the Fountain Laser ("Did that just kill me in Zhonyas?"). You can probably see where this is going: an error in coding means we changed Challenging Smite's debuff from True damage to Pure damage, which let it kill things it really shouldn't have. STOP IT WARWICK Basic attacks against a Challenged target deal 17-51 (based on level) true damage on hit ⇒ 60-162 (based on level) true damage over 3 seconds AS OPPOSED TO "REAL" DAMAGE Fixed a bug where Challenging Smite's True damage would kill units through near-death / revive effects like (but not limited to!) Guardian Angel, Tryndamere's Undying Rage, and Zilean's Chronoshift Enchantment - Devourer Sliiiiiightly overtuned. Kind of reminds us of launch Feral Flare. And nobody wants that. Magic Damage On Hit 40 ⇒ 25 Chalice of Harmony More mana regeneration! More mana regeneration! PASSIVE MANA RESTORE 1.5% of missing mana every 5 seconds ⇒ 2% of missing mana every 5 seconds Athene's Unholy Grail This is going to get repetitive. More mana regeneration! More mana regeneration! PASSIVE MANA RESTORE 1.5% of missing mana every 5 seconds ⇒ 2% of missing mana every 5 seconds Mikael's Crucible Last one we swear. More mana regeneration! More mana regeneration! PASSIVE MANA RESTORE 1.5% of missing mana every 5 seconds ⇒ 2% of missing mana every 5 seconds Forbidden Idol Less mana regeneration. When we realized Forbidden Idol was the only item in the game that didn't have mana regeneration that was a multiple of 25%, we figured it would be wiser to bring it in line than to let it sit at an odd 60%. BASE MANA REGENERATION 60% ⇒ 50% Twisted Treeline Jungle Twisted Treeline's jungle has been updated to account for the 2015 season! With the new 2015 preseason hitting Summoner's Rift, we felt we could port over most of the jungle changes to Twisted Treeline before taking a deeper dive on any map-specific modifications we need to make. Base Stats JUNGLE PARITY All jungle monsters have been updated to match the same stats / respawn times of the Summoner's Rift jungle monsters. Golems GIFT OF HEAVY HANDS Basic attacks stun on the first and sixth attack against a target (same as the Krug buff on Summoner's Rift) Wolves CURSE OF THE WOLF Deals 6 + (8 x level) magic damage over 3 seconds to enemy attackers (same as the Gromp buff on Summoner's Rift) Wraith HEALTH RESTORE Smiting the Wraith restores +20% maximum health instantly (same as Red Brambleback on Summoner's Rift) Vilemaw BASE HEALTH 5011 ⇒ 5311 Items Madred's Razors COMBINE COST 0 gold ⇒ 300 gold Overlord's Bloodmail HEAL ON KILL OR ASSIST 200 health over 5 seconds ⇒ 300 health over 5 seconds removedItems The following items have been removed: Atma's Impaler Sword of the Divine Executioner's Calling Dominion Items new Overlord's Bloodmail HEALTH 850 PASSIVE On kill or assist, heal for 300 health over 5 seconds Summoner Spells Teleport newDOCUMENTATION! You can now Teleport to wards by clicking on the minimap. Ability Bar Update The UI has been updated per your feedback! Thanks to your feedback, we've moved some more important buffs back to the center of the HUD. The following buffs have been moved back to the center of the HUD based on your feedback! Spoils of War (Relic Shield / Targon's Embrace / Face of the Mountain) Tribute (Spellthief's Edge / Frostfang / Frost Queen's Claim) Statikk Shiv Health Potions Crystalline Flask SPIFFY Muramana now has a spiffy toggle effect when active! INVENTORY ITEM BORDERS? Inventory item borders now match the new active item style Team Colors COLORBLIND FRIENDLY Spectator view, loading screens, in-game chat, and kill callouts are now colorblind friendly Featured Game Modes Legend of the Poro King Legend of the Poro King, our next Featured Game Mode, will be released later on during patch 4.21! More information soon - keep an eye out for all the details! Social Features Team Builder These changes will kick off a bit later in 4.21, but we wanted to give you an early heads-up! QUALITY OF LIFE Your last played spec (Champion, Position and Role) now auto-populates when you start a new Team Builder match. This information is also saved across play sessions. DON'T RUSH ME Team members can now continue to adjust their specs while the captain adds solo slots, up until the captain hits "Find Solo Players" Suggested Players VISUAL UPDATE New icons have been added for each suggestion type to make it easier to tell why a player has been suggested Patcher Updates It's been six patches since we launched the visual refresh of the patcher! We've removed the first-time announcement pop-up. The Settings menu has been split into Help and Options: Help: Repair, Save Logs, About Options: Peer-to-peer preference, Volume controls Adjusted pop-up and menu art to better match the rest of the patcher Added patcher version number to the About section Fixed a Windows bug where the patcher was sometimes 'zoomed in', preventing access to the controls in the upper righthand corner Links in the Patch Notes no longer occasionally open double tabs for Mac users Higher Frame Limiting Options WE CAN DO BETTER Added 120hz and 144hz display frame rate options to the options menu Store Updates Successfully redeeming an RP code now indicates the amount of RP granted. Clarity: Not just for gameplay! Various End-of-Game Gifting images, tooltips and error messages have been adjusted Bugfixes Fixed a rare issue in the new LeaverBuster system where chronic leavers/AFKers with older hardware were going through two lower priority queue penalties before entering matchmaking queues The new LeaverBuster's first-time leaver prompt is now easier to properly fill out Fixed a number of cases where transforming champions had slightly different base stats depending on which form they were in Righteous Glory, Phage and Entropy are now properly listed under the "Other Movement Items" section of the shop Fixed a few cases of modified/empowered autoattacks (ex. Thresh's E- Flay) which weren't proccing the damage portion of Kalista's W - Oathsworn Sentinel Sona's Q - Hymn of Valor no longer causes lag on first cast Fixed a bug (heh) where Skarner's R - Impale wasn't properly working against targets with revive effects (Guardian Angel, Zac, Aatrox, etc) Made changes to more comprehensively address recent exploits [/spoil]
Patch 5.1 notes [spoil]2015 Ranked Season The 2015 ranked season will begin soon! Head to the announcement for more information! Overlapping Crowd Control Effects A few things: first, we're not turning this change on immediately. In order to properly test for its impact on specific champions, the plan is to wait a while (about a week) before enabling it. Additionally, this lets us isolate the fix so we can turn it off if we run into another unseen code bug like last time with cone spells. Second, what is the change? Basically think of overlapping crowd control abilities each starting an individual timer when they hit an opponent. With the old way League was coded, whenever one timer finished up, the victim would be allowed a split-second to cast spells or attack before being locked up again by the second or third crowd control ability. In other words, even if you perfectly chain your disables, the enemy could occasionally flash away while still stunned. This change should solve most of those problems with overlapping crowd control effects, although we're still aware of a few edge cases where CCed targets would be able to issue single auto attacks while transitioning between disables. So far, however, this case has been very difficult to replicate. We're going to fix those as soon as possible (think 5.2 or 5.3), but there should no longer be any times where an enemy is completely disabled through overlapping crowd control abilities and they can still use Flash in between. We'll be watching this closely after we turn it on! BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY Fixed a long-standing bug where champions with overlapping crowd control effects could occasionally use abilities (Flash, Zhonya's Hourglass, etc) when transitioning between disables. This will be turned on at a later date in the patch. Champions Alistar Alistar has been updated! Check out the article if you want the full story, or below if you just want the specifics. General VISUALS Updated model, textures and VFX for base and all skins ICONS New ability icons SPLASH New base splash! Ahri General SPLASH Ahri has received a new base splash! Azir Another patch, another Azir bug-fix. Jokes aside, this specific problem would Arise (heh) when Azir would issue an attack at maximum range, walk out of that range, re-enter range and issue the attack again. In effect, Azir would trick himself into thinking the soldier could attack when it couldn't, creating the illusion that it should have dealt damage. Shoutouts to NA summoner 'A Mana Potion' for helping us track this one down. W - Arise! NO MORE FAKE-OUTS! Fixed a bug where a sand soldier would appear to attack but fail to do damage. Corki VALKYRIE COSTS MORE MANA. For a champion with such high burst potential, trade-offs needed to be made to keep Corki's high-power, high-damage lane in line. Increasing Valkyrie's mana cost allows for us to maintain an important lever that presents options to Corki's opponents: either he uses so many spells that he can't escape, or he gets forced to use Valkyrie to escape and gives you some breathing room before beginning his barrage all over again. W - Valkyrie COST 50 mana ⇒ 100 mana Elise Q DOES MORE BONUS DAMAGE AGAINST MONSTERS. With 5.1, we've decided to continue passing along love to some junglers that haven't had the greatest time thus far. With this in mind, we begin with our resident ex-top-tier-spider, Elise. This one's pretty cut-and-dry; previously we had kept Elise's bonus damage low to curb some of her clearing power, but now that the jungle's got a much larger health pool, well, we felt we could accommodate her accordingly. While obviously not a "this changes everything!" patch note, we'll continue to keep an eye on Elise in the new season to see if she needs a little more love. Q - Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite MAXIMUM BONUS DAMAGE VS. MONSTERS 50/75/100/125/150 magic damage ⇒ 75/100/125/150/175 magic damage Evelynn EVELYNN HAS MORE MANA REGENERATION WHILE STEALTHED AND RAVAGE PROCS ON-HIT EFFECTS. We'll stop shouting now. Continuing with Evelynn, we're adopting the same 'slow-but-steady' approach as with Elise. Mana's always been a huge issue for Eve, and that's never been more clear than in a season without Spirit Stone's sustain. Doubling Evelynn's passive mana regeneration while stealthed should see her more active in fighting jungle monsters and champions alike, while adding on-hit effects to Ravage opens up unique item synergies (such as Blade of the Ruined King, Devourer Enchant, the Sheen family) to take advantage of those mid-game spikes. Passive - Shadow Walk MANA REGENERATION WHILE STEALTHED +1% maximum mana per second ⇒ +2% missing mana per second E - Ravage newLICH BANE! BLADE OF THE RUINED KING! Strikes now apply on-hit effects removedSORRY RYLAI Strikes no longer apply spell effects Fizz Previously, Urchin Strike wasn't applying sheen effects when it was used too close to his targets. Now you can Q in without fear of your spells...fizzling. Excellent. Q - Urchin Strike NOW WE STRIKE Fixed a bug where Fizz wouldn't proc Sheen if Urchin Strike was used too close to the target Gnar Boomerang Throw's cooldown refund is lower, but ranks back up to normal through ranks via Gnar! Unlike Gnar's origins, this yordle's strong laning phase is no big secret. Pulling back on the uptime of his harass should make things more manageable in the early game, while ranking his ultimate lets him keep up with the pace of frantic late-game teamfights. Q - Boomerang Throw COOLDOWN REFUND ON CATCH 60% ⇒ 45% R - GNAR! newTHEMATICALLY THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE Increases Boomerang Throw's cooldown refund on catch to 50/55/60% Hecarim Q costs less mana at early to mid ranks, and W's cap on monster / minion healing has been increased at all ranks. Next stop on our 2015 Jungle Love Train is none other than the Horselord himself, Hecarim. Jungle difficulty's been rough on our little pony, and with no spirit items to keep his sustain up, he's found more time in the stable than we'd like. Q - Rampage COST 24/26/28/30/32 mana ⇒ 20/23/26/29/32 mana W - Spirit of Dread MONSTER/MINION HEALING CAP 60/90/120/150/180 ⇒ 90/120/150/180/210 Janna Q got slightly skinnier. Janna's the type of champion whose kit keeps her consistently powerful. Even when she fails to see widespread play competitively, she's never far from showing up and surprising the world with just how useful she can be. These days she's back to her old tricks - namely, protecting carries and disengaging teamfights for days on end - but while digging deeper we found that her Tornado's width was actually hitting much wider than the particle indicated. Refactoring it to match the visuals certainly decreases her power, but in a way that promotes the type of dodgeability she needs to not dominate the support role. Q - Howling Gale MISSILE WIDTH 150 ⇒ 120 Jayce Hyper Charge has been slightly reduced in its total attack damage scaling at later ranks. For a guy so strong when it comes to long-range combat, it doesn't make the most sense that he should blow you up in close-quarters without the use of his hammer. Lowering Hyper Charge's late-game shenanigans should keep even the most fed Jayce's out there from getting too unfair. It's also unfair for him to be that good looking, but that's not something we can nerf. W - Hyper Charge DAMAGE PER ATTACK 70/85/100/115/130% total attack damage ⇒ 70/80/90/100/110% total attack damage Kalista Though Kalista hasn't had her time to shine just yet, few out there fail to acknowledge her potential. Unlike many marksmen, Kalista's power can be harder to access due to the responsibilities of her Oathsworn to follow-up or create opportunities for her to make plays. Instead of reducing Kalista's reliance on her soulbound partner (that would be making her less unique!), we're increasing the potential rewards for successful coordination. Passive - Martial Poise STAY FLEXIBLE While Kalista still can't cancel her basic attack, she can select a different target during the first moments of her basic attack wind up W - Sentinel SOUL-MARKED COOLDOWN PER TARGET 8 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds SOUL-MARKED DURATION 1.5 seconds ⇒ 2 seconds (tooltip will be updated next patch) Nautilus When handing out post-holiday season buffs, there was no way we could leave out League's very own Anchor-man. Similar to our Sejuani changes in 4.21, we think Nautilus has acceptable weaknesses in the beginning phases, and we're not looking to change that here; rather, new scalings on his shield (remember, maximum health vs. bonus health is a significant change) makes Titan's Wrath hold pretty even - until Nautilus hits his 2nd health item, where he starts to see significant gains. W - Titan's Wrath BASE SHIELD STRENGTH 100/150/200/250/300 ⇒ 65/70/75/80/85 SHIELD SCALING 15% bonus health ⇒ 7/9.5/12/14.5/17% maximum health Rek'Sai Rek'Sai's a unique champion with a lot of mastery required to make full use of her piles of strategic mobility options - all of which is currently undermined (heh) by her raw strength as a duelist. While we want the queen to hold her own in a fight, holding her own in a fight against 4 people and getting out alive isn't quite what we had intended (sorry marksmen). Q - Queen's Wrath BASE DAMAGE 15/35/55/75/95 physical damage ⇒ 15/30/45/60/75 physical damage PER ATTACK RATIO 0.4 bonus attack damage at all ranks ⇒ 0.3 bonus attack damage at all ranks Q - Prey Seeker RATIO 1.0 ability power at all ranks ⇒ 0.7 ability power at all ranks W - Unburrow RATIO 0.5 bonus attack damage at all ranks ⇒ 0.4 bonus attack damage at all ranks Renekton Reign of Anger decays twice as fast, but Q, W, and E both generate more fury when hitting champions. Cull the Meek heals based on the number of champions hit rather than raw converting damage dealt to health. All hail the fallen king of fighters - Renekton was once the Titan of Top Lane, now pushed to the wayside by armor-stacking tanks able to weather his onslaught. To solve some of his issues without giving him the throne back, our top investiGators put fury under the microscope as well as tuning up Cull the Meek's healing. Fury as a mechanic is designed to give Renekton a way to scale meaningfully through combat, but currently falls a little flat, often just auto-winning trades due to its generation via minions. As of 5.1, Renekton gains more Fury while fighting champions (along with new bonuses to Fury on Ruthless Predator/Dice!) but gains far less for mindlessly shoving minion waves. This keeps Renekton's strengths when fighting 1v1 (god forbid the 1v2 or 1v3) but gives more rest between his fury-charged trades while on the losing end of the lane. Lastly, we've changed Cull the Meek to heal based on the number of champions hit rather than calculating the heal after mitigation occurs. This keeps Cull the Meek as a competitive option in the later stages of the game after the enemy team starts stacking armor which, in turn, provides a massive boost to Renekton's survivability in teamfights. There a lot of gross numbers below, but the short of it is: +Fury hitting champs, -Fury hitting minions, +Healing on champs. King Croc is back - long may he reign. In anger (that's his passive.) Passive - Reign of Anger FURY DECAY RATE 2 fury per second ⇒ 4 fury per second Q - Cull the Meek HEALING VS MINIONS 5% of damage dealt ⇒ 3/4.5/6/7.5/9 (+0.04 bonus attack damage) HEALING VS MINIONS (EMPOWERED) 10% damage ⇒ 9/13.5/18/22.5/27 (+0.08 bonus attack damage) HEALING VS CHAMPIONS 20% damage ⇒ 9/13.5/18/22.5/27 (+0.12 bonus attack damage) HEALING VS CHAMPIONS (EMPOWERED) 40% damage ⇒ 27/40.5/54/67.5/81 (+0.24 bonus attack damage) FURY GENERATION ON NON-CHAMPION HIT 5 per target ⇒ 2.5 per target FURY GENERATION ON CHAMPION HIT 5 per target ⇒ 10 per target W - Ruthless Predator newFURY GENERATION BONUS VS CHAMPIONS 10 fury E - Dice newFURY GENERATION ON NON-CHAMPION HIT 2.5 fury per target newFURY GENERATION ON CHAMPION HIT 10 fury per target Rumble Haaa... Oh dear. This wasn't a massive difference, but there was one all the same that we didn't see until now. E - Electro Harpoon WHOOPS Fixed a bug where the cooldown between Harpoon casts was shorter on Super Galaxy Rumble Sion Zombies already have Grievous Wounds, man. Passive - Glory in Death FOR THEMATIC REASONS? Fixed a bug where if Sion was killed while affected by a healing debuff (ex. Grievous Wounds), he would revive in his zombie form with reduced health Skarner 2015 Jungle Love Train ends its 5.1 run visiting all the Skarner mains out there missing their kind. For similar reasons we've stated for Evelynn and Hecarim, Q cost reductions are here to compensate for the lack of Elder Lizard sustain, while a lower cooldown on Fracture ensures Skarner can continue to be annoying in those late game teamfights. Q - Crystal Slash COST 16/18/20/22/24 mana ⇒ 16/17/18/19/20 mana E - Fracture COOLDOWN 12 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 seconds Sona For a champion that has her fair share of counters (ex. Leona, Blitzcrank, vocal chords), Sona's pattern lacks significant counterplay when these champs aren't present, leaving her laning phase pretty oppressive. To give her opponents more windows to counterattack, we're reducing some of her skirmishing power so she's not so obnoxious with that harp. Etwahl, sorry. General BASE MOVEMENT SPEED 330 ⇒ 325 Q - Hymn of Valor POWER CHORD DAMAGE AMPLIFICATION 50% ⇒ 40% Syndra Syndra's strength as a single-target burst-mage makes her a valuable pick considering the field of assassins she's currently facing. While we're a fan of her strength in focused pick compositions, her ability to dictate the early laning phases of would-be counterpicks makes her more of an all-rounded laner than we'd like. Weakening Dark Sphere in the first few levels and making her Scatter the Weak stun line up better visually should decrease the frustrations of her lane without curbing too much of that untapped power (hehe). Q - Dark Sphere BASE DAMAGE 70/110/150/190/230 magic damage ⇒ 50/95/140/185/230 magic damage E - Scatter the Weak IF YOU CAN DODGE A SPHERE... Dark Spheres knocked back by Scatter the Weak are now more 'strict' in their hitbox radius Xerath Tooltips often contain numbers. Sometimes, we accidentally write those numbers smaller than they are. This is one of those times. E - Shocking Orb KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, EXCEPT WHEN IT'S A TOOLTIP Tooltip updated to match actual max stun duration (2.25 seconds). Actual value unaffected. Zed Ah, Zed. With your amazing plays topping many a competitive player's highlight reel, how could we not love you? All in all, Zed is one of the best examples of what we call a "healthy assassin" in League of Legends. That doesn't mean there aren't problems - while Zed's ability to delete squishies with a button press and some smooth moves is going to remain intact, he has so many other additional strengths that seem to push him over the edge. Given his amazing AD stats and his waveclear, should Zed be a top-tier tower-taker? Should he have amazing clean-up when his resources are depleted? While Zed's not receiving changes in this patch, we're committed to keeping LoL's favorite playmaking ninja fun to play as, and to play against. BALANCE IS WEAKNESS NOT FOR LONG Mass Texture Rebalance (Part 5) We're continuing our comprehensive pass at the game's older character textures. As with previous installments, our goal is to improve parity with newer releases and make sure everybody looks at home on the newly-updated Rift. At least two people said they're still reading this paragraph so we're gonna keep it! TEXTURES The following textures have been updated: Morgana Base, Blackthorn, Blade Mistress, Exiled, Sinful Succulence Volibear Base, Northern Storm, Thunder Lord Champion Portrait Updates We're making readability improvements to a bunch of the champion portrait icons which were added or updated over the past few months. PORTRAITS The following champion portrait icons have been updated: Azir, Cho'Gath, Ezreal, Gragas, Graves, Janna, Jarvan IV, Kayle, Kog'Maw, Lee Sin, Malphite, Maokai, Orianna, Renekton, Rengar, Rumble, Shyvana, Sion, Talon, Tristana, Udyr, Vayne, Veigar, Viktor, Zilean Summoner's Rift Map Textures As we discussed in our performance optimization dev blog back before launch, our artists and engineers spent a lot of time exploring aesthetic solutions that balance visual fidelity and performance. Though we've all been playing on the new Rift for a few months, the team is continuing to look for ways to improve players' experience on our flagship map. This patch, we're redoing the textures on our lowest visual settings to address feedback regarding blurriness. We'll be smoothing out some of the smallest (read: noisiest) terrain details in exchange for increased sharpness and contrast across the map. This should improve readability while providing a higher quality experience. TOASTERS AND TOASTER OVENS Very Low and Low texture settings have been updated to be sharper and less noisy Turret Aggro We half promise we won't remove this patch note in the middle of the night like last time, leaving you wondering if you're seeing things. Mainly because we're pretty sure we fixed it this time. Like 95%. What we're saying is this note is still here, so you're not crazy. Yet. DEJA VU Flash and other movement abilities that relocate a champion's hitbox no longer drop turret aggro if used at a certain time during the turret attack cycle Base Gates THERE ARE GATES. IN YOUR BASE. ... BASE GATES. We were experimenting with ways to give defending teams unique advantages outside of extra stats or raw strength (because that's no fun), and arrived at something a little different. The new base gates are passable by you and your allies (think of them like open terrain) but completely impassable by enemies (they function as regular walls for them). newBASE GATES Now exist! Smite Smite now stores charges up to a maximum of 2, but has an internal cooldown of 15 seconds so you can't do silly things like double Smite things. Right now, Smite's a pretty important ability for a lot of reasons (securing buffs, smiting other folks, farming the jungle), so we're seeing most junglers start to 'hoard' their smites as the game progresses. When you think about it, that's a pretty significant chunk of cool things a jungler misses out on (as long as Dragon or Baron are up), so we looked for potential solutions. Like Smite charges. newCHARGES Has 'em. Smite now gains charges at a rate of 1 per 60 seconds with a maximum of 1 charge at any time ⇒ 1 per 75 seconds, with a maximum of two Smite charges at any time. newA COMPLICATED START Smite starts with 1 charge and only begins to gain additional charges at 1:40 newNO DOUBLE TAPPING Smite now has a cooldown of 15 seconds Jungle AI Read below, there's no good summary here. First, when we say "leash," we're talking about the moment when a monster camp either loses aggro on its target or switches to a different target (ie: when two champions 'juggle' aggro between them). So if one of those Krugs wiggles between two targets rapidly, you can expect it to hard reset pretty fast. This will have the largest impact on duo-lane partners who like to balance monster damage between them but will also affect long-range junglers who use the camp aggro range reset to take even less damage. GO BACK TO YOUR HOME! Jungle monsters will 'hard' reset after 10 soft leashes ⇒ 5 soft leashes. Refer to the above context when we say "leashes" because it gets a little complicated. Dragon People were hiding wards under the Dragon, making it real tough to clear vision without poking this grumpy baddy in the eye. newGET OFF MY LAWN Dragon now knocks away wards when he's at (or moves to) his starting location TOOLTIPS ARE HARD Tooltip bonuses for second and fourth Dragon buffs have been swapped to accurately reflect the change we made in patch 4.21. Baron Nashor Baron Nashor does more reliable / automatic damage but does less with his dodgeable area-of-effect abilities. He also spawns with less health. Right now we've noticed that Baron Nashor is just too tough of an objective in the early to mid game, especially if the enemy team can contest even lightly. While a lot of this might just be about basic tuning, we also saw that teams trying to take Baron while under pressure from enemies ended up having a lot more difficulty dodging his high-damage spells (obviously), so we're shifting some of that power around. Still, end goal? We'd like a weaker Baron so he'll be more enticing to take throughout the game. Attack Damage Stat Changes BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 500 ⇒ 240 ATTACK DAMAGE GAIN PER MINUTE 0 ⇒ 8 (capped at +310 AD after 40 minutes). Note: This counts from the start of game, not from the time Baron Nashor spawns. So when Baron first appears at 20:00, he has accumulated 20 minutes of bonus attack damage. TOTAL ATTACK DAMAGE AT SPAWN 500 ⇒ 400 Health Stat Changes BASE HEALTH 8800 ⇒ 6400 HEALTH GAIN PER MINUTE 140 ⇒ 180 Note: This counts from the start of the game, not from the time Baron Nashor spawns. So when Baron first appears at 20:00, he has accumulated 20 minutes of bonus health. TOTAL HEALTH AT SPAWN 11600 ⇒ 10000 Attack Changes MELEE ATTACK AREA-OF-EFFECT RADIUS 350 ⇒ 175 MELEE BASIC ATTACK RATIO 1.3 total attack damage ⇒ 1.0 total attack damage SINGLE TARGET REAR ATTACK RATIO 1.15 total attack damage ⇒ 1.0 total attack damage AREA-OF-EFFECT REAR ATTACK RATIO 1.15 total attack damage ⇒ 0.5 total attack damage Spell Changes newVOID CORRUPTION AURA RATIO Baron Nashor's Void Corruption aura now scales with 0.0 of his total attack damage ⇒ 0.05 total attack damage newSPELL CASTING Baron Nashor now casts 1 spell after every 4 or 5 basic attacks ⇒ 1 spell after 6 basic attacks (single target spit, melee area-of-effect, or single target rear spike) ACID SHOT RATIO 0.5 total attack damage ⇒ 0.2 total attack damage ACID SHOT BURN RATIO 1.0 total attack damage ⇒ 0.2 total attack damage ACID POOL RATIO 0.4 total attack damage ⇒ 0.1 total attack damage TENTACLE KNOCKUP RATIO 0.75 total attack damage ⇒ 0.25 total attack damage Jungle Scaling Upping the rewards for an efficient jungle run! CAN'T HOLD US DOWN Champions receive less experience if the cleared monster camp is two levels ⇒ three levels lower than their own Items Item Exchanges You can now quickly exchange certain items in the shop. Rules and restrictions apply. SPEEDY SHOPPING Trinkets, unenchanted jungle items and boot enchants can now be exchanged! CONVENIENCE YOU CAN SEE Trinkets can be exchanged with other trinkets of equal level. Cost is calculated as 100% cost of the new trinket minus 70% cost of the old trinket (its sellback value). The 120 second new trinket cooldown still applies. NO REFUNDS Exchanging Oracle's Lens (sellback: 333 gold) for another trinket (cost: 250 gold) will not refund gold CONVENIENCE YOU CAN SMITE Unenchanted jungle items can be exchanged with another unenchanted jungle item for free! Jungle item enchants can't be exchanged. CONVENIENCE YOU CAN...STEP ON Boot enchants can now be exchanged. Cost is calculated as 100% cost of the new enchant minus 50% cost of the old enchant. Boot cost is not factored into the exchange - this is a buff. TROPHIES ARE CUSTOM ORDER Exchange tech hasn't been built out for Rengar's Bonetooth Necklaces. Sorry, kitty. new Zz'Rot Portal You can now build Portals which spawn little Voidspawns who explode on enemy structures. Think of this new item as a follow-up to our original preseason promise of adding more strategic diversity to League of Legends. Specifically, the Zz'Rot Portal is designed to provide tanky dudes with a new way to opt into pushing strategies while also having enough utility to be used in other creative ways. RECIPE Raptor Cloak + Negatron Cloak + 950 gold TOTAL COST 2800 gold ARMOR +50 MAGIC RESISTANCE +50 BASE HEALTH REGENERATION +100% UNIQUE PASSIVE Point Runner: Builds up to 30% Movement Speed over 2 seconds while near turrets or Void Gates. COOLDOWN 150 seconds UNIQUE ACTIVE Spawns a Void Gate at target location for 150 seconds. Every 4 seconds the gate makes a Voidspawn that travels down the nearest lane. Voidspawn explode when attacking structures. Voidspawn ignore champions and void targets (150 second cooldown.) After the third Voidspawn made by Void Gate, additional Voidspawn gain 50% of your Armor and Magic Resistance as damage. Hunter's Machete Back in patch 4.21 we added extra gold to Hunter's Machete and all tier 2 / tier 3 jungle items, but noted that we might have gone a little light. Well, now that we've seen the impact of the changes, we can go just a little harder. So here we are. Design levers! BONUS GOLD ON MONSTER KILL 10 bonus gold ⇒ 15 bonus gold Tier 2 & Tier 3 Jungle Items See above! BONUS GOLD ON MONSTER KILL 20 bonus gold ⇒ 30 bonus gold Stalker's Blade Chilling Smite steals movement speed rather than just slowing for a heavy amount. Chilling Smite's a little too effective at what it does, so we're looking for ways to reduce its power without making the ganker feel bad about the decisions they've made. Switching Smite's slow from a straight 50% kneecap to a movement speed steal means the smited champ can still dodge skillshots or get under the tower, rather than hobbling along eating all the Ezreal Mystic Shots in the world. CHILLING SMITE 50% movement speed slow ⇒ 20% movement speed steal Guardian Angel Just a small cost correction after we removed and revived Negatron Cloak. There's a Guardian Angel joke in here somewhere but we're not looking for it. COMBINE COST 1250 gold ⇒ 1200 gold TOTAL COST 2850 gold ⇒ 2800 gold Infinity Edge We've been keeping an eye on marksmen power for some time and specifically wanted to tackle Infinity Edge, the new ubiquitous AD item that's replaced Bloodthirster since patch 4.10 (wow has it really been that long?). Rather than straight chopping away damage, however, reducing IE's crit chance means we can accentuate its reliance on other crit multiplier items in order to scale well into the mid-late game. CRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE 25% ⇒ 20% Phantom Dancer Your required reading for Phantom Dancer context is to read the Infinity Edge context (above) before starting here. We can wait. There isn't much else to add beyond the Infinity Edge context (shifting crit multipliers to mid-game items), except that we're hoping to solidify PD as a single-target focused item versus Shiv's area-of-effect power strengths. CRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE 30% ⇒ 35% Morellonomicon Right now Morellonomicon is a super cost-efficient item for what it offers, so we're pushing it to be more on-par with its mana regeneration alternative - Chalice. COMBINE COST 680 gold ⇒ 880 gold TOTAL COST 2100 gold ⇒ 2300 gold Trinket Changes Yellow and blue trinket upgrades are cheaper, yellow trinket upgrades are on a shorter cooldown, red trinket upgrade is cheaper. Just some small rebalancing on trinkets so that teams who are behind have stronger vision options to stay on the map, while aggressive upgrades (basically Red trinket) are a little less overbearing. Greater Stealth Totem COST 475 gold ⇒ 250 gold COOLDOWN 90 seconds ⇒ 60 seconds Greater Vision Totem COST 475 gold ⇒ 250 gold COOLDOWN 180 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds Farsight Orb COST 475 gold ⇒ 250 gold Oracle's Lens COOLDOWN 60 seconds ⇒ 75 seconds Howling Abyss Howling Abyss Aura Self healing is back to full strength on ARAM, but all healing effects on allies are reduced by 50%. Mana regeneration auras on HA are also reduced by half. Healers on ARAM make games no fun. Nyah. That's basically the rundown of this change, but to explain a little deeper - we wanted to help out champs who rely heavily on self-healing for their strength (Zac, Maokai) while reducing the power of pokey-heal champs who are pretty much the best in these kind of matchups (looking at you Sona). HEALING EFFECTS AURA All healing effects are reduced by 20% ⇒ All healing effects on allies are reduced by 50% MANA REGENERATION AURA 30% of maximum mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 15% of maximum mana per 5 seconds Guardian's Horn Hail Ragnarok! HEALTH 180 ⇒ 200 HEALTH REGEN +100% base health regen ⇒ +125% base health regen COMBINE COST 445 gold ⇒ 435 gold TOTAL COST 1025 gold ⇒ 1015 gold New Player Rune Changes Most Tier 1 and 2 runes are leaving the store, while the rest are much cheaper. Also, no more rune combiner. We believe Tier 1 and 2 runes should be an introduction to the rune experience which new players quickly move on from as they reach level 30. Duplicating the entire 88-rune Tier 3 roster is overkill for this purpose so we're reducing the number of purchasable Tier 1 and 2 runes to 23. As for the Rune Combiner.... it hasn't really done its original job of facilitating progression between rune tiers. Instead, it's become a bit of a trap for low-level players as well as a tool for mischief in the case of shared or compromised accounts. So, we're retiring it. PRICE REDUCTIONS Tier 1 and 2 rune prices have been standardized and significantly reduced: Tier 1 Marks, Seals and Glyphs: 5 IP (from 15-65) Tier 1 Quintessences: 15 IP (from 80-165) Tier 2 Marks, Seals and Glyphs: 35 IP (from 80-330) Tier 2 Quintessences: 100 IP (from 410-820) KEEP IT SIMPLE The following Tier 1 and 2 runes have received the price reductions listed above. All other Tier 1 and 2 runes are no longer purchasable, but remain usable and will not be removed from players who already own them. Marks Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Armor Penetration, Magic Penetration Seals Armor, Magic Resist, Health, Health Regeneration Glyphs Ability Power, Cooldown Reduction, Mana Regeneration, Magic Resist Quintessences Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Armor Penetration, Magic Penetration, Armor, Magic Resist, Health, Ability Power, Cooldown Reduction, Life Steal, Movement Speed REMOVED The Rune Combiner has been removed. If you reach the 700-rune limit, please contact player support. Ability Bar Updates Thanks to your continued feedback, we've moved some more important buffs back to the center of the HUD. Total Biscuit of Regeneration Mana Potion Blitzcrank's Passive - Mana Barrier duration Cassiopeia's Q - Noxious Blast movement speed buff Graves's Passive - True Grit stacks Hecarim's Q - Rampage stacks Riven's Passive - Runic Blade stacks Classic Summoner Icon Updates Much like skins in-game, we believe Summoner Icons are a way for players to express their identity out-of-game. As philosophy around Summoner Icons has evolved, so has our quality standard. Though our classic summoner icons (the ones granted to every account at level 1) have a bit of.... dated... charm to them, we want new players to feel like they have compelling options to choose from. We're starting the new year with four refreshed icons and will proceed based on your feedback. VISUAL UPDATE The Tibbers Claw, Tibbers Teddy, Sprout and Rose icons have been updated! Bugfixes Fixed various issues where improperly loaded textures or particle effects would display as blue squares or random icons (FLASH?!) On-hover range indicators for many items have been restored Crystalline Flask is no longer missing from the Laning category in the item shop Righteous Glory is now more responsive when activated Upcoming Skins The following skins will be released at various times during Patch 5.1: Challenger Ahri El Tigre Braum [/spoil]
Patch 5.2 notes Removal of Deathfire Grasp Deathfire Grasp Is gone :( Our initial goal with Deathfire Grasp was to make a "tank-busting" item that could do exactly that: bust down tanks when they're knocking on the front door. After the introduction of Liandry's Torment, however, tank-busting was replaced with tank-burning and, instead, Deathfire Grasp became the item for assassins to stack another nuke spell on top of their already burst-heavy kits. While we like to keep itemization options available for those who want it, the sheer existence of Deathfire Grasp has given us a few headaches in the past and present: 1.) Adding Deathfire Grasp to a bursty kit really amps up that "woah what happened to me" moment when someone nukes you from orbit. In the past, when we see mages pick up a DFG to double-down on their burst, we've had to balance around that champion which, in turn, makes them even more reliant on DFG to blow people up (or they get changed so much they find an alternative playstyle). Vicious cycle. 2.) Deathfire Grasp also adds a lot more reliability to a mage's assassination attempts, which means they need to commit less for them. If, for example, Ahri only needs to use one charge of Spirit Rush to nuke her target (with DFG + Q + W), she frees herself to use her other two charges to get back to safety. If we accept this will always happen with DFG, Ahri ends up without a lot of extra 'power budget' to do other cool mage-y things like sustained damage or kiting. As we mentioned in the foreword, we're looking into champions who will be heavily impacted, but some of our larger projects (Veigar, Katarina, Mordekaiser) have to wait until 5.3. There were also a few mages we haven't given sorry-we-removed-DFG-changes to, specifically because we examined them and realized they either needed the power reduction that comes with losing DFG or they have access to alternative item paths and won't be as affected. Final note, we're also going to be looking into itemization opportunities for late-game mages, so stay tuned for that in 5.3! removed2009-2015 Deathfire Grasp has been removed from the game General Overlapping Crowd Control Effects (v2.0) Remember when we said we wouldn't tell you when we were going to turn this on? Turns out we found a few extra bugs (hello Riven) before we could, so we hit the brakes before the deploy. But this time we've got it, so it's back to business as usual. Some time in the next week we'll be turning this feature on so we can effectively track its impact on the game. We just wanted to let you know what the change was. Sorry for the delay! BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY Fixed a long-standing bug where champions affected by overlapping crowd control effects could occasionally use abilities (Flash, Zhonya’s Hourglass, etc) when transitioning between disables. This will be turned on at a later date in the patch. Attack-Move Commands in Stealth If you're used to using attack-move to move to places while in stealth, you should probably stop. IT SHOULD DO WHAT IT SAYS Issuing an attack-move command while in stealth will cause you to move to the area ⇒ attack the nearest target, even if you're stealthed Champions Tristana Tristana has been updated! Check out the article if you want the full story, or just below if you want the specifics. General ATTACK SPEED GROWTH STAT 2.5 ⇒ 1.5 BASE ARMOR 24.04 ⇒ 22 BASE HEALTH 552.76 ⇒ 542.76 VISUALS Updated model, textures and VFX for base and all skins ICONS New ability icons Passive - Draw a Bead RANGE PER LEVEL 9 ⇒ 7 Q - Rapid Fire UNCHANGED Unchanged. Just wanted to let you know. W - Rocket Jump newTALK ABOUT EXPLOSIVE LANDING Rocket Jump gains +20% increased damage for each stack of Explosive Charge on the target (this goes up to +100% for the base charge + 4 stacks) BASE DAMAGE 70/115/160/205/250 magic damage ⇒ 80/105/130/155/180 magic damage RATIO 0.8 ability power ⇒ 0.5 ability power new E - Explosive Charge PASSIVE Unchanged. Still has it. ACTIVE ABILITY Tristana throws a grenade charge on a target enemy. After 4 seconds, the charge explodes and deals area-of-effect physical damage. STACKING CHARGES Every basic attack against a target with Explosive Charge adds an additional stack that increases Explosive Charge's final explosion damage by +25%, stacking up to 4 times (+100% damage). If the target already has 4 stacks and is attacked, the Explosive Charge will detonate immediately. TALK ABOUT EXPLOSIVE DEJA VU Using Rocket Jump onto a target with maximum Explosive Charge stacks will detonate the charges immediately DEMOLITIONIST TRISTANA Explosive Charge is castable on towers and has a larger explosion radius than on a unit ACTIVE BASE DAMAGE 60/70/80/90/100 physical damage ACTIVE RATIO 0.5/0.65/0.8/0.95/1.10 bonus attack damage + 0.5 ability power at all ranks R - Buster Shot RATIO 1.4 ability power ⇒ 1.0 ability power Ahri Ahri gets a huge movement speed bonus when she throws out her Q. Fox-Fire's been tuned up a bit and deals more damage. Charm no longer amps damage on the target but deals slightly more damage and scales better with ability power. Fantastic Ms. Ahri's success as a support-killing, pick-making assassin has always been tied very closely with Deathfire Grasp. With the item gone, however, it became obvious that Ahri's unique role in the game was losing focus, so we set out with the goal of moving her back to her original vision as an ultra-mobile kite mage. Technical improvements and updates to Fox-Fire and Spirit Rush should make her feel smoother to play, while Orb of Deception's new mobility effect allows her to both outwit opponents in close duels or remain elusive as she repositions in a fight. General THIS HELPS MORE THAN YOU THINK Ahri's recommended items have been updated Q - Orb of Deception newAERODYNAMIC TAILS Ahri now gains a massive movement speed boost while her orb is traveling that rapidly decays over time W - Fox-Fire newFANTASTIC FOX-FIRE Fox-Fire's targeting system has been improved and will now attempt to acquire a new target if the original target is going to die from other Fox-Fires YOU'RE WELCOME LICH BANE AHRI Casting Fox-Fire no longer interferes with Ahri's basic attack animation BASE DAMAGE PER FOX-FIRE 40/65/90/115/140 magic damage ⇒ 50/80/110/140/170 magic damage JUST SLIGHTLY Slightly reduced the time between spell cast and the missile firing DIDN'T HAPPEN ALL THE TIME Fixed a rare bug where Ahri's third Fox-Fire wouldn't deal damage while her passive was active E - Charm removedDON'T HURT THE ONES YOU LOVE Charmed targets no longer take +20% damage DAMAGE 60/90/120/150/180 magic damage ⇒ 60/95/130/165/200 magic damage RATIO 0.35 ability power >> 0.5 ability power R - Spirit Rush QUIT HEADBUTTING THE WALL AHRI Spirit Rush is now more forgiving when dashing through or over terrain Akali Crescent Slash no longer procs Q, and R's range has been reduced. We're going to be blunt: Akali is a prime example of an assassin with low counterplay, largely due to her reliability and target selection. While Akali's ability to blow up highly mobile targets is valuable, it also means that once she gets even slightly ahead, she's got all the tools to smash her way to a victory. With these changes, Akali will have to be a little more clever with her use of Twilight Shroud to proc Mark of the Assassin, opening up more difficult matchups against melee champions that she previously dominated. Or, as Akali would say, "As balance dictates." Sorry, had to. E - Crescent Slash removedSORRY AKALI Crescent Slash no longer detonates Mark of the Assassin R - Shadow Dance RANGE 800 ⇒ 700 CLARITY! Fixed a bug where Shadow Dance stacks were not visible to other champions Annie TIBBERS GETS MOLTEN SHIELD WHEN ANNIE DOES AND RUNS SUPER FAST. Though Annie is definitely less powerful in a world without Deathfire Grasp, she's still one of the strongest burst-initiators in the game and can still one-shot squishies even with different items. Still, we wanted to give some love to the cutest pyromaniac in League (sorry Brand) and Molten Shield felt like the right place (as it's also her least-interesting ability). Ultimately these changes help push Annie closer to her unique identity as a teddy bear-centric mage (that's a thing). E - Molten Shield ARMOR / MAGIC RESISTANCE BONUS 20/30/40/50/60 ⇒ 10/20/30/40/50 R - Summon: Tibbers newDON'T RUN FROM BEARS When Annie casts Molten Shield, Tibbers gains +300 bonus movement speed, decaying over 0.75 seconds newMOLTEN TIBBERS Tibbers now also receives the benefits of Molten Shield when Annie casts it while he's up DIET TIBBERS Tibbers' collision radius has been reduced to let him move past minions easier Azir Just a small fix for consistency, but we wanted to really highlight that Q range. Initially it wasn't actually displaying the full range, so we changed it to do so. This way, when we reduce some power y'all really know what we've had to balance with. This bears repeating: that's a hiiiiiiigh range on Q. Q - Conquering Sands DO YOU SEE THIS RANGE Conquering Sands' targeting indicator has been adjusted to properly display the spell's actual range of 800 ⇒ 875. No functional changes have been made. SAND FORMATION When there are 3 soldiers already out, Conquering Sands will always move the nearest soldier to where the player clicks Cassiopeia Q and E have higher mana costs. As a lane bully, one wrong move against Cassiopeia can lose you a ton of HP and send you ducking for cover beneath your tower (or just packing your bags and going home). While it's not impossible to fight back, Aspect of the Serpent's healing just reinforces this non-stop lane bully tactic without much in terms of tradeoffs (thanks to Twin Fang's mana recovery). Increasing Cass's mana costs on Q and E should make it more of a calculated decision to harass or sustain, giving savvy opponents more time to formulate a counter-attack (or at least walk back to lane). Q - Noxious Blast COST 40/45/50/55/60 mana ⇒ 40/50/60/70/80 mana E - Twin Fang COST 35/45/55/65/75 mana ⇒ 50/60/70/80/90 mana CLARITY! Twin Fang's tooltip now always displays the amount of mana it will restore Fizz Fizz's damage against an opponent tagged with R is increased by +20%. Q's damage has been significantly reduced in base damage and scaling, W no longer applies Grievious Wounds, deals missing health damage on active, and deals less passive damage over time. When talking about flashy assassins, it's never long before Fizz comes up. Always a crowd-pleaser, this playful trickster can devastate teams lacking lockdown with a few troll-poles and a well-placed shark. These days however, Urchin Strike + Seastone Trident's active end up doing most of the work, often leaving Chum the Waters either irrelevant or overkill. Pulling power from Fizz's basic spells and loading them into his ultimate makes sure skilled Fizz players can still slip in and take out priority targets, but now gives some room to breathe when he doesn't line up his shark-bait just right. Second thing: back in 5.1 we made a change to Fizz's Urchin Strike where if you flashed before he physically hit with his Q, you could dodge the damage completely. A: our bad for not documenting the change. B: this is definitely a power nerf to Fizz, but it's one we're intentionally committing to, if just to give a slight amount more 'reaction potential' for his fishy victims. Not a whole lot, but it's something. We may examine other champions with abilities like this in the future - for the sake of consistency - but it'll definitely be something we weigh on a case by case basis in relation to their entire kit. Q - Urchin Strike DAMAGE 10/40/70/100/130 (+0.6 ability power) magic damage ⇒ 10/25/40/55/70 (+0.3 ability power) magic damage BUT CAN YOU DODGE A FISH? Fizz no longer deals damage to the target if they move out of range of Urchin Strike before it completes W - Seastone Trident removedSO THEMATICALLY CONFUSED No longer applies Grievous Wounds ACTIVE ON-HIT DAMAGE 10/15/20/25/30 (+0.25 ability power) magic damage ⇒ 10/20/30/40/50 (+0.0 ability power) + 4/5/6/7/8% missing health as magic damage PASSIVE DAMAGE OVER 3 SECONDS 30/40/50/60/70 (+0.35 ability power) (+4/5/6/7/8% of target's missing health) over 3 seconds ⇒ 20/30/40/50/60 (+0.45 ability power) over 3 seconds R - Chum the Waters newSHARKS MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER Fizz's damage against the tagged champion is increased by +20% for 6 seconds. Chum the Waters is not affected by this bonus. Kha'Zix Not much to see here - discovered a bug with the bug (heh) where the cooldown for Kha'Zix's leap was 2 seconds shorter than intended. That said, this thing's been live for over a year and Kha'Zix is in a decent place, so we're erring on his side. Actual value unaffected. E - Leap/Evolved Wings KHA'ZIX FIX Fixed a tooltip bug to accurately reflect Leap/Evolved Wings' cooldown of 22/20/18/16/14 ⇒ 20/18/16/14/12 (actual value unchanged) Nidalee Nidalee can Hunt (proper noun) neutral monsters. She could always hunt them, but now she can apply her debuff to them. Sorry, we're trying to be clever. Allowing Nidalee to Hunt neutral monsters not only opens up a viable fallback pattern and alternate gold stream for cats finding themselves behind in a game, but also supports the interesting options she can bring to teams as a jungler. There's a new knife-cat in town. Spear-cat? Spearcat. Stabby spearcat. General IT'S COMPLICATED Attack frame sped up slightly. This doesn't mean Nidalee attacks faster, just that she completes her attacks faster. Passive - Prowl newLITERAL DEFINITION Nidalee can now also Hunt neutral monsters Rek'Sai Q's unburrowed damage is slightly lower, W's burrowed (technically unburrowing, given its use) damage has been reduced. The league's latest addition is still Rek'ing more than she should in the early-game. Lowering her bases should help keep her from tunneling too hard onto your carries, while increasing the number of knock-ups she gets in a fight allows her to aggressively re-engage against fleeing opponents or defensively peel when on the back foot (Claw? Tendril? Whatever the Xer'Sai have as appendages). Q - Queen's Wrath BASE DAMAGE 15/30/45/60/75 physical damage ⇒ 15/25/35/45/55 physical damage W - Unburrow BASE DAMAGE 60/110/160/210/260 physical damage ⇒ 40/80/120/160/200 physical damage ENEMY KNOCKUP IMMUNITY 10 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 10/9.5/9/8.5/8 seconds Sejuani We don't think anyone picked Sejuani for her top-tier structure destruction capabilities, so we're fixing a bug she had there. W - Flail of the Northern Winds WHOOPS Fixed a bug where Flail of the Northern Winds was dealing (a lot of) bonus damage to structures. We won't tell you how much. It was a lot. Syndra Simple changes here - as a lot of you Syndra mains have noticed, Scattering the Weak felt a little off in 5.1. Attempting to make Syndra's stun match her visuals worked a little too well, leaving the skill underperforming in a lot of cases. We've toned it back to what feels like a 'happy-medium.' E - Scatter the Weak FATTENED Scatter the Weak's stun collision has been widened slightly to feel less clunky Zed Less attack speed all around. In the 5.1 notes, we mentioned Zed as a good example of what we refer to as a "Healthy Assassin" - but that doesn't come without its own set of balancing woes. To help bring Zed in line with other champions while preserving his power as a competitive option, we've looked toward his strengths outside of pure assassination - in this case, attacking his ability to split-push by lowering his attack speed. Zed's pattern of poking from a distance and waiting for the moment to strike is layered with counterplay and complexity. That is, up until his AD items remove the need for his spells, allowing just a few auto-attacks to seal your fate. With a base and scaling attack speed rivaling that of Xin Zhao and Tryndamere, Zed's auto-attacks were as much a menace to champions as they were to towers. He'll still be effective in a side-lane due to his strengths in 1-v-1 duels, but taking power here allows us to keep his damage output focused in landing spells and using combos effectively. General BASE ATTACK SPEED 0.658 ⇒ 0.644 ATTACK SPEED GROWTH STAT 3.1 ⇒ 2.1 Mass Texture Rebalance (Part 6) We're continuing our comprehensive pass at the game's older character textures. As with previous installments, our goal is to improve parity with newer releases and make sure everybody looks at home on the newly-updated Rift. TEXTURES The following textures have been updated: Dr. Mundo Base, Corporate, Executioner, Mr. Mundoverse, Mundo Mundo, Toxic Irelia Base, Aviator, Frostblade, Infiltrator, Nightblade Jarvan IV Base, Commando, Darkforge, Dragonslayer Nunu Base, Demolisher, Grungy, Nunu Bot, Sasquatch, Workshop Swain Base, Bilgewater, Northern Front, Tyrant Vayne Base, Aristocrat, Dragonslayer, Heartseeker, Vindicator Yorick Base, Pentakill, Undertaker Items Jungle Items All tier 2 jungle items have been increased by 100 gold, all tier 3 jungle item enchantments have been reduced by 100 gold. Thus far, jungle items have gotten a little snowbally - particularly for those who can snag a few kills on an early invade to get their upgraded Smite before camps have even spawned. ALL TIER 2 JUNGLE ITEMS 350 gold ⇒ 450 gold ALL TIER 3 JUNGLE ENCHANTMENTS Costs for all tier 3 jungle enchantments have been reduced by 100 gold Aether Wisp 100 GOLD CHEAPER. Item builds have been expensified by 100 gold to accomodate. Expensified is now a word. As a mid-game component pickup, Aether Wisp is doing pretty well but it doesn't feel very good to buy early in lane. A price drop should help out when you gotta move fast. COST 950 gold ⇒ 850 gold NO STOREWIDE DISCOUNTS The combine costs of Ardent Censer, Lich Bane, and Twin Shadows have been increased by 100 gold to maintain the same overall cost Blackfire Torch Has followed her big brother to the item graveyard. See our context on Deathfire Grasp for the full rundown! removed2012-2015 Blackfire Torch has been removed from the game Elixir of Iron Better nerf... SORRY IRELIA Tenacity granted by Elixir of Iron stacks additively ⇒ multiplicatively. In other words, it gives far less Tenacity the more you have of the stat. Giant's Belt Now builds out of Ruby Crystal! Total cost remains the same. As many of you pointed out with the patch 4.20 defensive changes, buying a Ruby Crystal versus a Giant's Belt still technically 'locks' you into pursuing either Magic Resistance or Armor, respectively. As we still want to support reactionary purchases with defense, this change goes right along with that! newGROW BIG LITTLE CRYSTAL Giant's Belt now builds from Ruby Crystal COMBINE COST 1000 gold ⇒ 600 gold (total cost remains the same) Hextech Gunblade More ability power, slightly less attack damage and lifesteal. After losing out on Deathfire Grasp, some champions might be looking for healthier alternatives (speaking from a holistic game perspective), and Gunblade makes sense for a few of them so... here we are. Yep. ATTACK DAMAGE 45 ⇒ 40 ABILITY POWER 65 ⇒ 80 LIFESTEAL 12% ⇒ 10% Rod of Ages IT'S HAPPENING! That second change is pretty good for all you tragic misclickers out there. newIT FINALLY HAPPENED Rod of Ages will now show the number of stacks it has on the item icon FAT FINGERS Rod of Ages will no longer lose stacks when you sell the item and then undo the sale Stealth Ward FIXED IT Fixed a bug where Stealth Wards were staying visible for too long after being placed Zz'rot Portal It looks like a lot of changes, but the short of it is that Zz'Rot Portals are now treated as, for all intents and purposes, structures (ie: Towers / Inhibitors). Also Voidspawn now have less magic resistances and deal less damage to structures, but deal more damage to minions in the early game. Also the first and every fourth Voidspawn now get the bonus damage from defensive stats. As the designer puts it, "Complex items means complex bugs." We've gone in and shuffled around Zz'Rot's coding to cement it as a structure in terms of its interactions with the game (and how it's interacted with). We also made some extra changes to help this thing settle in both its current use and potential counters. Bugfixes SAND IMMUNITY Azir soldiers can no longer attack Void Gates STURDY PORTALS Void Gates can now be collided against for the purpose of spells (like Poppy's Heroic Charge) I'M A PORTAL, NOT A GATE, MAN Targeted movement spells (like Katarina's Shunpo) no longer work with Zz'Rot Portal STRUCTURAL IMMUNITY Attack modifiers that don't affect structures, like Corki's Hextech Shrapnel Shells passive, no longer affect Void Gates Portal Mechanics LIKE A VOIDSPAWN SPITTING TURRET When attacking Void Gates, you gain the ability power to structure bonus damage. That is, if 40% of your AP equals to higher than your basic attack damage, you instead deal damage equal to 40% of your ability power. Voidspawn ARMOR 60 ⇒ 115 MAGIC RESISTANCE 40 ⇒ 20 BASE HEALTH 50 ⇒ 40 HEALTH PER LEVEL 20 ⇒ 15 BASE DAMAGE TO MINIONS 20 ⇒ 30 DAMAGE PER LEVEL TO MINIONS 3 ⇒ 2 DAMAGE PER LEVEL TO STRUCTURES 20 ⇒ 10 VOIDSPAWN BONUS Voidspawn gain bonus damage from 50% ⇒ 100% of the summoning champion's armor and magic resistances VOIDSPAWN PARTY! The above Voidspawn bonus is applied to every Voidspawn after the fourth ⇒ the first and every fourth Voidspawn Dragon Dragon's attack range and attack speed has been increased (overall damage should remain the same). We're just making some small adjustments to Dragon to reduce exploits and improve his feel. ATTACK RANGE 350 ⇒ 500 ATTACK SPEED Increased (base damage has been reduced so that overall damage-per-second remains the same) Ranked Team Decay We're increasing the window of time that Challenger and Master Tier teams can wait to play before they begin decaying: they now share the same 28-day activity requirement as Platinum and Diamond teams (Gold, Silver and Bronze teams never decay). While a stricter requirement makes sense for solo players who set their own schedules, ranked teams are far more susceptible to conflicts. To be clear, we still want teams to stay active in order to maintain their positions; we just don't want the requirement to be so strict that it discourages them from trying to reach the top of competitive team play. CHALLENGER/MASTER TEAM DECAY Teams decay after 10 days ⇒ 28 days of inactivity CHALLENGER/MASTER SOLO DECAY Players decay after 10 days of inactivity (unchanged) Featured Game Modes Nemesis Draft Assets for our next Featured Game Mode, Nemesis Draft, are included in 5.2 but we won't be launching it this patch! Hold tight! In-Game Audio Settings Prior to this patch a few of our audio sliders were maxed out by default, so the only way to "raise" them was to lower everything else and then increase your computer's volume. With 5.2 we're adding functionality to increase these settings properly - the old 100 is now 75 (so default settings won't sound any different) and the new 100 is louder. For the sake of consistency we've pared a bit off the max of our remaining settings which were set to 50 by default, similarly giving them a numerical default of 75 with no difference to actual volume. Master Volume is the only setting which remains completely unchanged at its historic default of 100. As part of this change we'll be wiping all custom audio settings with patch 5.2. Make sure to fiddle with them when you log back in! THESE SLID UP Default audio volumes for Music, Announcer and Voice are unchanged, but reassigned to 50 ⇒ 75. This means max volume at 100 has decreased. THESE SLID DOWN Default audio volumes for Sound FX, Ambience and Pings are unchanged, but reassigned to 100 ⇒ 75. This means max volume at 100 has increased. YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO RE-SLIDE All audio settings will be reset to default when patch 5.2 is released. Remember to readjust your settings! STOP SAYING SLIDE To summarize, default audio settings in patch 5.2 will sound the same as the default settings in earlier patches, but should be more intuitive to adjust. Max levels have changed. Bugfixes (Coming a bit after the initial patch) Fixed a bug where your last-used skin for a champion would appear to be selected, but not actually applied in-game Fixed a bug where you couldn't see other players' trinkets if you targeted them by left-clicking Fixed a bug where Phantom Dancer's minion pass-through buff was working inconsistently Tenacity has been restored as a searchable category in the item shop Fixed particle visibility issues for various abilities on Very Low settings Fixed a clipping issue with Annie's base splash art Restored Infernal Alistar's custom fire effects on Q - Pulverize
Patch 5.3 notes Bug with Sona's Base Stats Sometimes when the skins team takes on large projects, they take a 'snapshot' of the champion's files to work on, including certain hard-coded values like base stats and movement speeds. Unfortunately, when the team finally finishes and implements the skin, those old values can be reintroduced to the game, overwriting any recent balance changes made. There have been a few cases of this happening in the past (Kayle's attack speed per level when we released Riot Kayle, Galio's Q when we released Gatekeeper Galio, etc), but rarely with so many 'reverts' to the champion. Unfortunately, Sona went through a small update during the time we were working on her skin, so she's gone back to all of her old base stats pre-champion update. While we considered shipping 5.3 with Sona disabled, we don't think the full extent of these changes merits taking her away from so many, so we're just fully communicating what's happened while we work on a bugfix as soon as possible. Sona BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 50.04 ⇒ 52.04 BASE MOVEMENT SPEED 325 ⇒ 330 BASE HEALTH 482.36 ⇒ 497.6 HEALTH GROWTH STAT 77 ⇒ 70 BASE MANA REGENERATION 9 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 8.1 mana per 5 seconds MANA REGENERATION GROWTH STAT 0.4 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 0.65 mana per 5 seconds Champions Ahri Orb's mana cost is higher, W's base damage is lower (especially at higher ranks), and W / R have lower "target acquisition range" which means they automatically move toward their targets at a lower range. It's safe to say that Ahri's return back to her kitier, mage-ier (that is a word) roots has been a success, but her new-found mobility has left her feeling a tad overbearing. For someone that skirts the edge of fights so well, Ahri wasn't taking enough risk for the reward (less dashing in, more dashing out). Forcing this fox-girl to walk the line for her guaranteed damage makes expert use of her Orb-speed and Charm, which is where we'd like to leave her feeling - skillful and satisfying to play, but vulnerable when making mistakes. Q - Orb of Deception COST 55/60/65/70/75 mana ⇒ 65/70/75/80/85 mana W - Fox-Fire newDO A BARREL ROLL Fox-Fire's rotation speed has been increased by ~30%. This means if Ahri's hitting a champion with Fox-Fire at maximum range, she won't have to wait as long for her other Fox-Fires to rotate closer. DAMAGE 50/80/110/140/170 magic damage ⇒ 40/65/90/115/140 magic damage ACQUISITION RANGE 650 ⇒ 550 R - Spirit Rush ACQUISITION RANGE 700 ⇒ 600 Azir Q's base damage is down (particularly at later levels), W's range is lower, and W's crazy tower bomb damage is much lower. Less crazy. Hyper-carries are often defined by a weaker early to mid-game (think Tristana, Jax) as they 'ramp up' into their core items and ability scaling. Lane bullies are the reverse - powerful up-front until their less-than-impressive late-games (like Renekton or Quinn). Enter Azir. Who is both. As it stands, the emperor's strengths are at odds with themselves. On one hand, he's a hyper-carry with monstrous late-game damage to both champions and structures; on the other, he's a powerful lane-bully with the ability to shove even the most aggressive opposition back to base. When a champion can cover their weaknesses so well, something's gotta give. Enhancing Azir's end-game effectiveness goes well with our intended goals for the sand mage, so we're softening his spikes to achieve a more manageable lane along with a little bump to his AD to help him last-hit when his soldiers are slacking off. Which they do. Often. General BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 49.704 ⇒ 52 Q - Conquering Sands BASE DAMAGE 75/105/135/165/195 magic damage ⇒ 65/85/105/125/145 magic damage W - Arise! SOLDIER STAB RANGE ~400 ⇒ ~325 (we're marking them as approximate values because they get very complicated) TOWER BOMB DAMAGE The tooltip values were incorrectly saying +0.6 ability power (it's actually 0.7). 90 + (15 x level) (0.7 ability power) ⇒ 50 + (10 x level) (0.4 ability power) Diana Moonsilver Blade now displays the number of stacks and remaining duration, W's spheres now orbit much faster. It's been a while since Diana's fall from orbit, so we're sending a care package to tide her over. Her passive shows you how long it lasts until you need to use it, and quicker orbs on Pale Cascade give her more consistency when embodying the vengeful moon. Passive - Moonsilver Blade CLARITY! Now displays number of stacks and remaining duration. W - Pale Cascade ORB ORBIT Pale Cascade's spheres now rotate at roughly double the speed Fiddlesticks Drain's Tether range is lower. Drain's mechanics are simple - break the tether and you're good. Stay around, and risk losing a duel to a stick figure. Fiddlesticks can still lock you down with Terrify to ensure his success, but lowering Tether's range makes sure enemies can actually escape when he fails to scare them good and proper. W - Drain TETHER RANGE 700 ⇒ 650 Gnar Gnar's gotta better manage his Gnar-Bar if he wants to GNAR!! in Mega Gnar. Gnarly. From concept to release, Gnar has always been built around his unique transformation trigger and its inherent inconsistency. Will the enemy engage because Mega Gnar's losing steam? Should we begin a fight and have Gnar transform as it begins? These are the types of questions we want his teammates to ask, and the type of situations the Gnar player to manage. When a champion based on unreliability becomes a staple competitive pick (where reliability reigns supreme), we felt like something was up. Due to a bug since his release (oops), Mega Gnar was lasting a good bit longer than intended - discovering this, we thought it would be a good time to tighten the windows Gnar has to go crazy so we can really accentuate his highs and lows. We're not trying to make Gnar disappear, but teams should have to work a little harder than just picking Jarvan IV. Shots fired. Passive - Rage Gene 'TIRED' DEBUFF DURATION 13 seconds ⇒ 15 seconds MEGA GNAR DURATION 19 seconds ⇒ 15 seconds (as a note, the tooltip originally said 15 seconds, but it was actually 19 seconds) Gragas BARREL SLOWS FOR MORE. Gragas's last round of nerfs weighed heavy on his effectiveness against minion waves, so we wanted to give him better incentives to roll out the barrel against champions. This buff's on the house. Q - Barrel Roll BASE SLOW 30/35/40/45/50% ⇒ 40/45/50/55/60% MAXIMUM SLOW 45/52.5/60/67.5/75% ⇒ 60/67.5/75/82.5/90% Kassadin -10 damage on Q. Let's talk about Kassadin. Near unparalleled mobility coupled with high damage and precise target selection has historically made Kass among the League's most resilient champions. Right now, our best method of 'gating' this guy (that is, trying to keep him from facerolling over the game) is by intentionally keeping his lane weak in the hopes of staving off what can feel like an inevitable riftwalking nightmare. While we want to preserve Kassadin's mobility-driven identity, he doesn't really have windows of vulnerability necessary for opponents to smack him in the face, meaning most fights are his to lose rather than any outplays his opponents can make. With all of that said, this is not the change to do that. Sorry. We'll be kicking of some deeper investigations in the future (who'd have thought an ultra-mobile assassin would have game health difficulties), but for now we're just looking to tune him down. Very precisely. Q - Null Sphere DAMAGE 80/105/130/155/180 magic damage ⇒ 70/95/120/145/170 magic damage Katarina Katarina finishes her attacks faster. As we called out in the foreword, DFG's removal didn't really impact some its frequent buyers quite in the ways we expected. While we were experimenting with some compensation, one thing from our data became very clear - Katarina is still a very strong champion. We went back to brainstorming small ways to add power to Kat, but quickly found that buffing an already strong champ might not be the right course of action. This isn't to say she's exempt from further tweaks in the future, but forcing the issue on anything other than quality-of-life changes could very likely cause more problems than it would fix. General IT'S COMPLICATED Attack frame sped up slightly. This doesn't mean Katarina attacks faster, just that she completes her attacks faster. Kennen W now hits everyone in Slicing Maelstrom, rather than only those who'd been marked. Slicing Maelstrom also now only hits the same target every 0.5 seconds. For someone that runs into your entire team (talk about a big risk), it's pretty lame when the difference between a game-winning 5-man stun or an over-confident failure comes down to random chance. Slicing Maelstrom's unique feel as a multi-hit storm is cool, so we're just looking for ways to amp up that electric boogaloo. Haaayaaa! W - Electrical Surge newELECTRIC BOOGALOO Electrical Surge now hits all enemies caught in Slicing Maelstrom, in addition to targets afflicted by Mark of the Storm (does not double stack, that'd be crazy) R - Slicing Maelstrom SLOW DOWN KENNEN Fixed a bug where Slicing Maelstrom could hit the same target every 0.25 seconds, when it's supposed to only be once every 0.5 seconds Nidalee No power change, just some proper documentation going on right here. Not much to see here. Last patch when Nidalee became a monster-hunter we added functionality that rooted them (because it's a huge bummer to trigger the hunt from fog of war, only to pounce and miss everything you just hunted), but we forgot to add it to the notes. This patch we remembered. Hooray! UPDATED 2/10/2015: We actually misrepresented this so we're going to reformat it to accurately reflect the change properly. Specifically Nidalee was able to reliably reset some of her ability cooldowns through specific mechanics, and this led to a pretty decent power spike for players who knew how to properly use it. We've since fixed the issue in 5.3. General WHOOPS Fixed a bug where Nidalee's cooldowns were not properly set when switching from Human to Cougar form Passive - Prowl UNDOCUMENTED CHANGE Prowl's tooltip now properly indicates that Hunted monsters are rooted for 2 seconds Twisted Fate Stacked Deck builds on towers (still doesn't affect them), and Destiny sends an "On My Way!" ping when casting Gate. We're always looking for ways to help out champions in need, so we've slipped TF a few extra cards under the table. Stacked Deck now builds up on towers so you can pressure enemies even while pushing, and Gate uses an 'On My Way!' ping a la Rek'Sai to make coordinating cross-map ganks less of a gamble. Still a gamble. Just less. E - Stacked Deck newIT'S THE LITTLE THINGS Stacked Deck now builds on towers, but will not apply bonus damage R - Destiny BUT WILL THEY LISTEN? Casting Gate now sends an "on the way" ping (similar to Rek'Sai's Void Rush) Varus R got fatter. Varus's unique team-disengage has always been near the top of marksmen when it comes to strategic niches, and it's something we're excited to see more of. In an attempt to brighten his mood, we're amping up a bit of that reliability. R - Chain of Corruption MISSILE WIDTH 100 ⇒ 120 Zyra Zyra's plants now have range indicators for her. In our never-ending Crusade for Clarity (tm), Zyra's getting hooked up with sweet range indicators for each of her plants to help her really appreciate the things they do for her. Appreciate your plants, Zyra. Please. Q - Deadly Bloom SPITTING DISTANCE Thorn Spitters now display their range when grown E - Grasping Roots LASHING OUT Vine Lashers now display their range when grown Spell Shields We're aware this is a small nerf to Sivir and Nocturne, but this was definitely not an intended behavior. WHOOPS Fixed an issue where Sivir's Spell Shield, Nocturne's Shroud Of Darkness, and Banshee's Veil reduced damage from all sources when blocking a spell. Now periodic damage and auto-attack damage are unaffected by spell shield. Mass Texture Rebalance (Part 7) We're continuing our comprehensive pass at the game's older character textures. As with previous installments, our goal is to improve parity with newer releases and make sure everybody looks at home on the newly-updated Rift. Fiddlesticks Base, Bandito, Fiddle Me Timbers, Pumpkinhead, Spectral, Surprise Party, Union Jack Kennen Base, Arctic Ops, Deadly, Karate, Kennen M.D., Swamp Master Mordekaiser Infernal, Lord Veigar Base, Baron Von Veigar, Curling, Greybeard, Leprechaun, Superb Villain, White Mage Items Farsight Orb Read the note please! The Farsight Ward has some unique properties. Map vision is actually an underestimated tool that teams can use to press an advantage or come back from a deficit, but not many players think about it like that, so we're suggesting you should. Relating specifically to Farsight Orb, if your first idea was that now you can place long-distance teleport points for the most amazing ganks ever, TOO BAD. This little guy's untargetable to ally teammates to prevent just that (and free ward hops). newTHE LITTLE WARD WHO COULD Farsight Orb now drops a 60 second visible Farsight ward with 1 hit point at the target location. This ward is untargetable by allies. Farsight Orb still provides clear vision in the area and 'tags' champions, in case you were worried it was being turned into a wimpy ward teleporter (it's just getting that as a bonus). Greater Stealth Totem Yellow trinket's upgrade now stores up to 2 charges. Map vision is actually an underestimated tool that teams can use to press an advantage or come back from a deficit, but not many players think about it like that, so we're suggesting you should. Yes, we're repeating ourselves. As for Greater Stealth Totem, the change itself is straightforward - we're hoping to give some extra tools back for teams trying to recover from a deficit, and this lets them (somewhat) combat aggressive sweeping teams. newI'M CHARGING MY... WARDS Greater Stealth Totem now stores up to 2 charges. Stores 1 charge per 60 seconds. Spectre's Cowl Health regenified. Just giving fighters and tanks a little help when dealing with mages in lane. HEALTH REGENERATION 100% base health regen ⇒ 150% base health regen Summoner's Rift Baron Nashor He's like a piece of terrain. A big, fat, purple piece of terrain you can't move through. WALL OF NASHOR Baron Nashor now cannot be walked through even with effects like Ghost or Fizz's Nimble Fighter, which grant this ability Inhibitors Oh dear. SORRY MAGES Fixed a bug where inhibitors weren't taking ability power to structure bonus damage (if 40% of your ability power equals to higher than your bonus attack damage, you instead deal damage equal to base attack damage plus 40% of your ability power) Summoner Spells Ignite Fire's pretty distracting, man. CAN'T GO HOME IF YOU'RE ON FIRE Ignite now interrupts champions who attempt to recall while Ignited In-Game Options Camera Changes newGET YOUR APM UP Players can now separately adjust keyboard and mouse camera scroll speeds newMOVE THAT TERRAIN Added a "mouse button drag scroll" option, which changes middle mouse button scrolling to behave like you're physically dragging the map around (click, hold, drag the map in a direction) instead of scrolling (click, move in the direction you want to scroll). newLOCKED CAMERA ARAM BUFFS Adjusted camera lock offset on Summoner's Rift and Howling Abyss based on which team you are on. This can be toggled on/off in the options menu. Featured Game Modes Nemesis Draft Nemesis Draft, our next Featured Game Mode, will be released later on during patch 5.3! More information soon - keep an eye out for all the details! Player Tooltips We haven't talked too much in the past about player tooltips - the hovercards that appear in your friend list when you mouse over another player's name. We want player tooltips to be a convenient, accessible point of reference for basic player information, but there are a few areas we noticed we could improve upon. This update will be activated in the days following the initial patch! Our traditional layout relied on text, simply shrinking if any attribute was missing (e.g. not all players have a ranked division). As a result, tooltips were inconsistent between players and often became bloated as more and more information was recorded. By contrast, the new design will give each data point its own space: if something is missing, that space will simply be left blank. This should make the tooltips less cumbersome to use. Which is good, because we'll be adding them to your game lobbies. WHO ARE YOU... When the update is activated, player tooltips will appear in game lobbies, in addition to your friends list and chat rooms new...AND WHAT DO YOU WANT? Player tooltips will include "Recent Playstyle" information which indicates what champion, position and role a player has recently been playing in matchmade queues TRUST US, THEY'RE 30 Once level 30 players complete their ranked placements, their summoner level will be replaced by their current division, indicated via tier emblem and division number Loading Screen Tips DID YOU KNOW We've added a bunch of random League facts to the loading screen (thanks to the community for some of these suggestions!) Bugfixes Tibbers now inherits skin-specific E - Molten Shield VFX when certain Annie skins are used
Patch 5.4 notes Champions Azir Did you know we were manually correcting LCS stats in the post-game roundup every time? We take fantasy stats seriously, man. Passive - Shurima's Legacy DON'T WORRY ABOUT FANTASY STATS Fixed a bug where killing Azir's Sun Disc would result in a registered turret death in Spectator mode. Fantasy LCS stats were being manually corrected until now, so this fix is primarily for in-game spectating. In other words, you can't blame this bug for your fantasy LCS team losing. SORRY. Janna Janna's passive now only affects champions who run toward her, but the movement speed bonus and range have been increased. Janna's personal movement speed bonus has been entirely moved to W so she loses more speed when she casts it. As one of the premier supports at defending the back lines, few champions can shut down initiators and divers quite like Janna. That said, it's never made a lot of sense for someone who's so good at denying aggression to also be real good at enabling it (ever been chased by a Janna team?). Bonus movement speed's strong like that. Changing Janna's passive from being 'always good' to 'situationally good' solidifies her as the Queen of Disengage (also the Storm's Fury, apparently). As an aside, we realize that if Janna leads the charge she can still enable some high-speed chases, but a Janna on the frontline is maybe not the best. Passive - Tailwind removedIT'S A W NERF, SORRY Tailwind no longer gives Janna bonus movement speed newGET TO THE JANNA Tailwind now gives all allies in range a movement speed bonus only while they are moving toward Janna MOVEMENT SPEED 5% ⇒ 8% RANGE 1000 ⇒ 1250 W - Zephyr BASE PASSIVE MOVEMENT SPEED 4/6/8/10/12% ⇒ 9/11/13/15/17% Jarvan IV Jarvan's flag no longer gives him passive armor. His base armor has been slightly increased to compensate, but this is definitely a nerf to Jarvan's mid-late game survivability. With the dust settled around the preseason changes, Jarvan's proven himself to be true royalty, standing head and shoulders above the competition on his jungle throne (to be fair, Fiddlesticks doesn't like to sit down owing to bad knees). Unlike his other Warrior-enchant-toting brethren, J4's incredible gank pressure, clear speed and safety make him a threat throughout the game with no real weaknesses for opponents to exploit. Instead of hitting J4's damage, chipping away at his resiliency should punish him for failed ganks without taking too much dunk out of his princely ways. General BASE ARMOR 24 ⇒ 27 Q - Dragon Strike ALL IN THE WRIST Fixed a bug where enemies would occasionally get knocked up when they walked into Jarvan IV after his dash completed E - Demacian Standard removedWHY WOULD A FLAG GIVE ARMOR Demacian Standard no longer grants passive armor to Jarvan IV Kalista Though she hops relentlessly in pursuit of betrayers and backstabbers alike, it's easy to forget an important rule in Kalista's passive - she's unable to cancel her basic attacks once committed. Increasing her basic attack wind-up might not sound like much, but it does emphasize her vulnerability at every stage of the game, making her take more time to launch her spears (and, by extension, hurricane-hop you to death). Passive - Martial Poise NEEDS MORE FOLLOW-THROUGH Kalista's basic attack wind-up (the time between starting an attack and it firing) now speeds up at 100% of her attack speed ⇒ 66% of her attack speed Kassadin We're not calling it Riftstep. Rifthop. It's important to note that the mana costs on Riftwalk scale exponentially so while that initial lowered mana cost looks small, it gets real big real fast. Riftskip. Kassadin is a champion whose fantasy and identity are both defined by a single ability - Riftwalk. While this does makes him super effective as an assassin (as you might expect, ignoring walls and terrain makes it hard to hide your carries from him), it's tough to both respect what makes him unique while also respecting the need for opponents to... fight back. With this change, we're still trying to preserve the dream (one might say a very difficult dream) of letting Kassadin keep his trademark mobility but, unless he finds a specific flank or angle, he also needs to pay respect to the enemy's tank line before rendering his squishy targets Null and Void. R - Riftwalk RANGE 700 ⇒ 450 BASE COST 75 mana ⇒ 60 mana Katarina Katarina now needs to deal damage to an opposing champion within 3 seconds of them dying in order to Get The Reset. The deadliest Pentakill on two legs (and not even in the band!), Katarina's a volatile and competitive option for those looking to shut out their solo queue competition. Voracity's long duration means that nobody's ever allowed to reenter the fight with low health, as they're always at risk of setting off an avalanche of daggers and shunpos - even if Kat's across the battlefield. This change is to focus Katarina's rewards on the fights she's intimately involved in, similar to Jinx. Passive - Voracity VORACIOUS REDUCTION Scoring a kill or assist will reduce the cooldown of Katarina's abilities ⇒ Whenever an enemy champion dies within 3 seconds of Katarina dealing damage to them, her cooldowns will be reduced by 15 seconds Lissandra Elevation changes to the new Summoner's Rift made a few situations where Glacial Path's indicator was hidden, turning obvious ganks into extreme ambushes, so we're fixing it. Even Lissandra knows that's not... cool. E - Glacial Path GLACIAL CLARITY Fixed a bug where Glacial Path's end marker could be hidden under terrain, even if it was supposed to be visible Mordekaiser Mordekaiser's health costs are down for Q and W. Q gives Morde a range bonus for the empowered hit. W got the Blood Boil treatment, where it buffs both Mordekaiser and his buddy he casts it on. Also, Morde and his buffed buddy get bonus movement speed when moving toward each other. Mordekaiser's ghost gives him bonus health and ability power, rather than attack damage and ability power. Ghosts also get a flat attack damage bonus, as opposed to a portion of Mordekaiser's bonus stats. It's no secret we've long considered Mordekaiser a thematically confused champion out the gate. Visually speaking, this guy's a walking, talking suit of armor with a giant mace. If that doesn't say scrappy fighter, we're not entirely sure what does. That said, Morde's found far more success in the present game as a bursty AP mage, picking up an early Deathfire Grasp to blow up and, subsequently, convert enemy marksmen into their team's worst nightmare. So what's all this mean? Well, as customer numero uno for DFG (he actually might have been second with Veigar leading the way, but we're not ones to get in the way of a good reference) we didn't want to just take away Mordekaiser's core build without any form of compensation (although as we mentioned in the patch 5.2 foreword, the results have been a little off of expectation). We also wanted to take this opportunity to try tying Mordekaiser and his thematic identity a little closer together (scrappy tank man!), but when we finally arrived at that world, we realized it wasn't a very exciting one. And here we are now. These changes aren't going to solve Morde's identity crisis in the present, but we did find a few ways to clean up his ghostly interactions so he can get the most out of his exploitative ways. Additionally, we really liked the new Creeping Death 'magnet' mechanic we were testing out with fighter Mordekaiser, so we figured we could give some extra utility love when he's hunting high priority targets with a dive buddy. So, once again: not a holistic solution but one we felt was better at preserving Mordekaiser's unique identity. General BASE HEALTH REGENERATION 8.37 ⇒ 3.37 Q - Mace of Spades newYOU'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER MACE Mace of Spades now grants Mordekaiser +75 range for the attack COST 25/32/39/46/53 health ⇒ 20/25/30/35/40 health W - Creeping Death newCREEPING BUDDIES Mordekaiser now also gains the effects of Creeping Death if he casts it on an ally newMAGNETIC BUDDIES Mordekaiser and any ally with Creeping Death gain +60 bonus movement speed when running toward each other WE'RE NOT CRAZY Enemies will not take double damage from Creeping Death if they're beside both Mordekaiser and his Creeping Death'd buddy. Just in case you thought that and got scared. COST 26/32/38/44/50 health ⇒ 20/25/30/35/40 health DAMAGE 24/38/52/66/80 (0.2 ability power) magic damage per second ⇒ 20/32/44/56/68 (0.15 ability power) magic damage per second R - Children of the Grave AD MORDEKAISER ISN'T A THING Enslaved champions grant Mordekaiser +20% of their attack damage and ability power ⇒ +25% of their bonus health and +30% of their ability power removedTHIS HAD SOME WEIRD IMPLICATIONS Enslaved champions no longer gain 75% of Mordekaiser's ability power WHAT DID WE JUST SAY ABOUT AD MORDEKAISER Enslaved champions gain 75% of Mordekaiser's total attack damage ⇒ 25/50/100 attack damage as a bonus Rengar Simply put, this was a novel idea for Rengar that was unlocked by the addition of Trinkets in the 2014 Season, but it ended up being super complicated and often caused a ton of bugs. By moving it to a buff, we're keeping the exact same functionality but finally allowing Rengar to have a Poro Snax. You heard us. Bonetooth Necklace SORRY TRINKET COLLECTORS All trophy collection mechanics and bonuses have been moved from Rengar's trinket slot to a permanent stacking buff due to some bug issues with trinket upgrade paths Syndra Dark Spheres got slightly fatter when interacting with E. Similar to 5.2, we're increasing the consistency of Syndra's Scatter the Weak stun ever so slightly. This has proven a difficult skill to balance (feel-wise) without going overboard, so we've been taking a measured approach to get it right. E - Scatter the Weak THERE'S SOME COMPLICATED MATH BELOW Collision width of Dark Spheres has been increased. The reason we say complicated math is because this spell operates on multiple targeting / collision radius checks, and explaining each one gets... well, complicated. Hopefully we can just say it's wider and your experience will be more reliable. Veigar Q is now a skillshot that passes through the first target hit to get the second (so farming's a lot easier). W's cheaper on mana and has a lower cooldown. Event Horizon now has a 0.75 delay, but costs less mana, has a higher range, and has a lower cooldown. R's mana cost is down significantly at higher ranks and has a slightly lower cooldown, but has a slightly lower ability power ratio. Of all the champions that were primary customers of the late Deathfire Grasp, none were more iconic than the Tiny Master of Evil himself. While we recognized and intended to preserve Veigar's role as a 100-to-0 burst mage, flatly increasing the power of a champion with such a powerful combination of crowd control and single-target damage didn't feel like the humane option (for everyone except Veigar). Freeing up Baleful Strike to cover more range and doubly enable his AP-stacking minigame was a natural change to Veigar's kit and made his laning better. We quickly learned, however, that a strictly better Veigar left opponents with less and less options, especially with the immense power that is Event Horizon. While old Veigar needed to rely on Event Horizon's immediate stun to zone out potential threats, keeping its current iteration meant we either needed to reduce Veigar's damage (but you can't reduce a 100-0 burst mage to 100-20) or tackle his outright reliability. Ultimately we went with the latter. The bottom line is this - characters with inflexible kits are often balanced on a knife's edge, and the slightest change to a range or damage value can be the difference between unplayable or overbearing (Hi Ryze!). While Veigar's reliability when it comes to "blowing fools up" has decreased, the added laning flexibility and higher late-game scaling should help make Veigar more than a one-trick pony. He has to work harder for his one-shots, but has the tools to earn them in a way that feels fair...ish for his opponents. Q - Baleful Strike newSKILLFUL STRIKE? Baleful Strike is now a skillshot that passes through the first target hit and stops on the second target hit RANGE 650 ⇒ 850 COOLDOWN 8/7/6/5/4 seconds ⇒ 7/6.5/6/5.5/5 seconds W - Dark Matter COST 70/80/90/100/110 mana ⇒ 70/75/80/85/90 mana COOLDOWN 10 seconds ⇒ 10/9.5/9/8.5/8 seconds E - Event Horizon newEVENT PLANNING Appears instantly ⇒ Now has a 0.75 second delay before appearing COST 80/90/100/110/120 mana ⇒ 80/85/90/95/100 mana COOLDOWN 20/19/18/17/16 seconds ⇒ 18/17/16/15/14 seconds RANGE 650 ⇒ 700 R - Primordial Burst RATIO 1.2 ability power ⇒ 1.0 ability power COST 125/175/225 mana ⇒ 125 mana at all ranks COOLDOWN 130/110/90 seconds ⇒ 120/100/80 seconds Xerath E'S MAX STUN DURATION IS DOWN. Shocking Orb was originally designed as a 'melee-friendly' crowd control - better at keeping opponents at bay from afar, but worse at stopping people that had already closed on him. In practice, it amplified his already-potent long range burst when used offensively, giving him really high pick potential for such a siege-focused champion. We're toning back the max duration to be less punishing for those brave souls looking to close the gap and stomp his face in. (Mask? Arcane headplate with eyesockets? You get it.) E - Shocking Orb MAXIMUM STUN DURATION 2.25 seconds ⇒ 1.75 seconds Zilean Q is now a lobbed skillshot that can land on an opponent or sit on the ground. If you land two, you get a 1.5 second stun (!). W no longer interacts with R so you don't have to play this weird "spam W" mini-game to get your ultimate back. At max ranks, E slows at 99% movement speed. Ninety nine percent. IT IS TIME. It wasn't too long since the Chronokeeper was last in the spotlight, but to bring him back in a healthy way meant taking the time to sort through his problems one by one. Zilean's always had a ton of neat tricks (especially his signature move, Chronoshift), but has been held back, balance-wise, thanks to his oppressive "I'm-going-to-click-on-you" laning strength. Massive changes to Time Bomb seek to not only remedy this with a healthy dose of counterplay (skillshot sticky-bomb!) but let us play up the spell's exciting double-hit case by making it the largest non-ultimate AoE stun in the game (say that 10 times fast). We looked for a proper Zilean quote to end this, but all in good time. General BASE ARMOR 17 ⇒ 19 ATTACK RANGE 600 ⇒ 550 IT'S COMPLICATED Attack frame sped up slightly. This doesn't mean Zilean attacks faster, just that he completes his attacks faster ATTACK SWAG Zilean's basic attacks have new particles! ICONS Zilean has received new ability icons! Q - Time Bomb newZILEAN'S GOT A POWER GLOVE Time Bombs are now a lobbed skillshot with fixed travel time. The Time Bomb sticks to enemies and allies near it. If nothing comes nearby, the bomb detonates normally. newTHAT WAS A BOMBERMAN REFERENCE When Zilean gets two bombs on the same unit, the first bomb detonates immediately, stunning all enemies in the area for 1.5 seconds TIME BOMB DELAY 4 seconds ⇒ 3 seconds DAMAGE 90/145/200/260/320 (0.9 ability power) magic damage ⇒ 75/115/165/230/300 (0.8 ability power) magic damage RANGE 700 ⇒ 900 COOLDOWN 10 seconds ⇒ 12/11/10/9/8 seconds COST 70/85/100/115/130 mana ⇒ 60/70/80/90/100 mana W - Rewind removedIT WAS A WEIRD INTERACTION Rewind no longer reduces the cooldown of Chronoshift E - Time Warp DURATION 2.5/3.25/4/4.75/5.5 seconds ⇒ 2.5 seconds SLOW AMOUNT 55% ⇒ 40%/55%/70%/85%/99% (yes, that is correct) COOLDOWN 20 seconds ⇒ 15 seconds COST 80 mana ⇒ 50/55/60/65/70 mana RANGE 700 (center of Zilean's hitbox to center of opponent's hitbox) ⇒ 550 (edge of Zilean's hitbox to edge of opponent's hitbox) - this should be around a ~75 range reduction, which varies depending on how fat his target is R - Chronoshift DURATION 7 seconds ⇒ 5 seconds COOLDOWN 180 seconds ⇒ 120/90/60 seconds Spell Shields So very complicated. WHO KNEW HOW COMPLICATED THESE ARE Spells that have 'on-hit' characteristics associated with them (Gangplank's Parrrley, Ezreal's Mystic Shot, Miss Fortune's Double Up, Fizz's Urchin Strike, Irelia's Bladesurge) now have their damage properly blocked by spell shields Updated Splashes It's been a little bit since we last addressed splash art changes but as with last season, we're continuing our long-term project to update some of the oldest splashes in our game. This patch also includes an updated splash to go with Tristana's recent champion update. While we had wanted to bundle a new splash with the rest of her changes, we heard a lot of feedback from the PBE that our first update didn't feel like the new Tristana. So, we made the call to hold onto Tristana's new splash to address those concerns while moving forward with the rest of her changes. Fast forward two patches and we're much more confident in the updated update to Tristana's splash! SPLASH The following champions have received updated base splashes (click the portraits for the full image!): Katarina Tristana Items Jungle Items Sidegrading jungle items now costs gold. We probably overthought on this one. Our initial goal was to let you change strategic course in the early game without incurring a setback, but most were just using it to switch to the "best" lategame smite before picking up their enchant. Well then. Cost to change between tier 2 jungle items 0 gold ⇒ 255 gold Sweeping Lens We were intending to make this change to match the Oracle's Lens cooldown change from Patch 5.1 but only the tooltip went out (the cooldown is still 60 seconds). We'll fix this next patch! Cooldown at level 9+ automatic upgrade 60 seconds ⇒ 60 seconds (but the tooltip says 75. We're not crazy, people.) Doran's Shield Sorry guys! SORRY DORAN Fixed a bug where Doran's Shield wasn't blocking 8 single target spell damage Enchantment - Warrior -5 damage. Done. The Warrior enchant seems to be outperforming of its other enchantment counterparts, but we're still in the kitchen cooking up our long-term solutions. That said, we can afford to whip up a light stat adjustment snack in the meantime. Never write patch notes while hungry. ATTACK DAMAGE 45 ⇒ 40 Zz'rot Portal Just doing some additional cleanup work for Zz'Rot Portal to help it adjust to life on the Rift. SMARTSPAWNS Zz'Rot Portal's Voidspawns are now more intelligent about finding the "nearest lane" GPS GATES Void Gates will automatically 're-scan' for a spawn direction shortly after a turret in its assigned lane has been destroyed Summoner Spells Smite Smite's range is shorter when used against champions, but isn't THAT much shorter against jungle monsters (and in a few cases, unchanged), due to the way hitboxes are designed. Time to be honest: the power of Chilling Smite is just too high. We love that it adds a new tool to the game, but it's shoring up champion weaknesses so well (that is, every champion who uses Chilling Smite extends their engagement range to ~675) that we know we'll need to do this range reduction sooner or later. Otherwise, Chilling Smite just becomes a necessary purchase in order for everyone to compete. RANGE 750 (center of champion's hitbox to center of opponent's hitbox) ⇒ 500 (edge of champion's hitbox to edge of opponent's hitbox) BUT WAIT, THERE'S CONTEXT The above change should roughly be a ~175 range loss against champions, with many monsters being unaffected (due to them being fat), although some might require you to be a little closer Revive A Summoner (spell) has left the game. removedKIND OF IRONIC Revive has been removed from the game Summoner's Rift Relative Team Colors We've been working over the past several months to standardize blue and red as team colors for League's UI and environmental designs. The last step in the process is to fix the discrepancy between UI and environment for red side (well, North side now), which plays with red minions and structures but blue healthbars and minimap icons. When active, Relative Team Colors ensures your team's minions and structures will always be blue while the enemy's will always be red, mirroring the information provided by your UI. I'M BLUE Relative Team Colors shows all allied minions and structures as blue and all enemy units as red, regardless of your starting side. This option is enabled by default (Options --> Game). Minions Turns out we had this in our files for some time but they weren't hooked up properly. Are now! DANCE MINIONS, DANCE Melee and Caster minions now have four different animations based on how they die In-Game Camera Options Semi-Locked Camera The patch note is the context, so the context can be the patch note: You now have semi-locked cameras! THIS IS A LONG PATCH NOTE In the options menu you can change to a new camera lock mode called "semi-locked camera." In this mode, the camera still follows your champion around like locked camera. You can, however, scroll the camera via all the usual methods (keyboard, edge scroll, middle click). When you scroll it, it changes where on the screen your champion will stay once you stop scrolling. The camera will not scroll too far from your champion, so they will always be reasonably close to the center of the screen. Drag Scroll Lock Not sure why you guys were trying to save stuff in the middle of a game but now it won't mess with your camera! (...whoops.) WHAT IS THIS Drag Scroll Lock is a camera feature originally built for Spectator mode which, when enabled, causes the camera to follow your mouse cursor. It's been present but undocumented in all game modes for a long time. newMAKE GOOD CHOICES Drag Scroll Lock has been added to the Hotkeys menu for all game modes and is unbound by default (Options --> Hotkeys --> Camera Control) removedHIDDEN HOTKEYS SUCK Pressing Shift + Ctrl + S no longer stealth-activates Drag Scroll Lock Player Tooltips Our first test of the updated player tooltips ran into some issues last patch. We're fixing the problem and adding in a few more features in the process! IT'S HAPPENING In addition to champion and match duration, player tooltips now indicate map and queue type for players in-game - ex. "Summoner's Rift (Ranked)" IN CASE YOU FORGOT You can now see your own player tooltip by hovering over your name and icon at the top of the friends list. Bugfixes Fixed a bug that made unskinned wards... large Fixed a bug where Panda Teemo's R - Noxious Trap explosion wasn't properly playing particle or sound effects Fixed a bug where Xin Zhao's Q - Three Talon Strike's third strike would occasionally not knock opponents up Restored Thresh's max distance indicator for W - Dark Passage Super Teemo has remembered how to fly while using W - Move Quick Pulsefire Ezreal's (well, PEARL's) custom VO when first leveling his basic skills now plays 100% of the time
