The illustrious perma-ban of Kassadin as well as many other champions get toned down while more jungle picks may see the light of day in Patch 4.4.

Though Kassadin's highly contested rate from 4.2 was erased from competitive play, those were simply changes to tide everyone over until the remake.  Kassadin has essentially transformed into a mana bruiser similar to Ryze.  On top of that, Sivir's pushing power takes a hit as we've seen her OGN dominance spread to other regions where her utility combined with wave shoving ability became increasingly frustrating. Powerful jungle champions like Vi and Elise are being toned down to open doors for new choices like Skarner and Nautlius, and "Lich Bane" champions are receiving tweaks as well.

LoL Client

Continuing the work we did in patch 4.3, we've got some general cleanup and bug fixes.

  • Game owners are now labeled as “Owner” in the lobby invites panel
  • Players can no longer accept invites while in a matchmaking queue
  • Fixed an issue where players who relogged with an on-hold invite (the lobby entered champion select) experienced various issues preventing them from entering games
  • Fixed an issue where the invite system counted spectators when determining whether a custom lobby was full
  • Fixed a reconnect issue where players who restarted the client while spectating a custom game were stuck on a blank landing page upon relogging

Back to top

Reworks

Kassadin

Old Kassadin's combination of high mobility, strong disables and high burst damage left his victims with very few to no options against him (other than banning him in every single ranked game), especially when he snowballed ahead. Our focus here is to introduce more counterplay to Kassadin's kit, something we couldn't do with number tweaks alone. For example, lowering Kass's damage doesn't make for an interesting gameplay interaction (it just means you can turn around and smash him in the face if you survive the burst), while increasing his cooldowns means he just needs to wait longer before blowing somebody up.

In the end, we opted for a full-on kit rework to reinforce his core theme as an anti-magic assassin with unrivaled mobility. These changes mean Kassadin must rely on his mobility to pick fights while finding opportunities to dive in and out of combat to take out targets. It's worth stressing: these changes are to make Kassadin less of a "blow someone up when you can" champion and more of a mobile attacker who wants to get in to fight while using Riftwalk to stay safe. Obviously, this is a significant change, so we'll be watching his performance very closely.

We've increased Kassadin's attack range and changed his passive so it no longer grants attack speed but avoids unit collision. We reduced Null Sphere's damage and pulled off the silence, although it will still interrupt channeled abilities. Instead, Null Sphere now grants Kassadin a shield on use. Nether Blade now passively deals bonus magic damage per autoattack and, when activated, deals higher bonus magic damage as well as restoring some of Kassadin's missing mana. No big changes to Force Pulse though we did reduce its damage a bit. Riftwalk, on the other hand, has a lot of changes. We've reduced its cooldown and it now scales with max mana instead of AP. Each stack now doubles the mana cost of the next Riftwalk but we reduced the mana cost and the number of max stacks to compensate. It also no longer refunds mana on hitting enemy champs.

General

VISUALSKassadin's particles have been updated! ATTACK RANGE125 ⇒ 150

Passive - Void Stone

NEWUTILITYKassadin now additionally ignores unit collision ATTACK SPEED BONUSBonus attack speed per magic damage reduced ⇒ No longer grants attack speed

Q - Null Sphere

NEWUTILITYNow additionally grants Kassadin a shield for 1.5 seconds that 40/70/100/130/160(+0.3 Ability Power) magic damage NEWUTILITYSilences the target ⇒ No longer silences, instead it interrupts channel spells DAMAGE80/110/140/170/200 (+0.7 ability power) ⇒ 80/105/130/155/180 (+0.7 ability power)

NEWW - Nether Blade

PASSIVEKassadin's basic attacks draw energy from the void, dealing 20 (+0.1 ability power) bonus magic damage. ACTIVEKassadin charges his Nether Blade, causing his next basic attack to deal 40/65/90/115/140 (+0.6 ability power) bonus magic damage and restore 4/5/6/7/8% of his missing mana (increases to 20/25/30/35/40% against champions). COOLDOWN6 seconds MANA COSTNo cost UTILITYResets Kassadin's basic attack timer on activation

E - Force Pulse

DAMAGE80/120/160/200/240 (+0.7 ability power) ⇒ 80/105/130/155/180 (+0.7 ability power)

R - Riftwalk

NEWDAMAGE80/100/120 (+0.8 ability power) ⇒ 80/100/120 (+2% maximum mana) NEWSTACKING DAMAGE50/55/60 (+0.1 ability power) per stack ⇒ 40/50/60 (+1% maximum mana) per stack NEWRIFTWALK STACKSCosts +100 mana per stack ⇒ Now doubles its mana cost per stack NEWUTILITYRefunds mana on hitting enemy champions ⇒ No longer refunds mana on hitting enemy champions COOLDOWN7/6/5 seconds ⇒ 7/5/3 seconds MANA COST100 ⇒ 75 MAXIMUM STACKS10 ⇒ 4 STACK DURATION8 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds

Back to top

Champions

Annie

We like Annie's versatility, but some of her base damage is too high for how she's currently being used. Our goal is to introduce more interesting choices in Annie's kit (particularly on that Disintegrate buff) as we looked for ways to buff her late game scaling when she builds more traditional AP items.

We've reduced Disintegrate's cooldown by half on any kill (champion or minion). We've also fiddled with Incinerate and Tibbers so they do less base damage but scale better with AP.

Q - Disintegrate

NEWUTILITYReduces cooldown by half on all kills (champion or minion) BASE DAMAGE85/125/165/205/245 ⇒ 80/115/150/185/220 ABILITY POWER RATIO0.7 ⇒ 0.8

W - Incinerate

BASE DAMAGE80/130/180/230/280 ⇒ 70/115/160/205/250 ABILITY POWER RATIO0.75 ⇒ 0.85

R - Summon: Tibbers

BASE DAMAGE200/325/450 ⇒ 175/300/425 ABILITY POWER RATIO0.7 ⇒ 0.8

Diana

The Lich Bane changes affect Diana pretty hard, so we're tweaking her numbers a little to make sure she still packs a punch.

More on Lich Bane below.

Passive - Moonsilver Blade

ABILITY POWER RATIO0.6 ⇒ 0.8

Elise

Reiterating what was mentioned in the foreword of the patch notes, we like champions that have different strengths and weaknesses at various points in the game, but jungle Elise was an extreme outlier with her super strong spider-of-all-trades early game. This is definitely a nerf, but we'll keep an eye on Elise as she adjusts.

We lowered Neurotoxin/Venomous Bite's damage versus monsters while making Cocoon's stun shorter at early levels and higher at later levels. We also shortened the cooldown of Rappel and lowered spiderling health at early levels but raised it at higher levels.

Q - Neurotoxin

BASE DAMAGE40/80/120/160/200 ⇒ 40/75/110/145/180 MAXIMUM % HEALTH DAMAGE VS. MONSTERS60/120/180/240/300 ⇒50/75/100/125/150

Q - Venomous Bite

BASE DAMAGE60/110/160/210/260 ⇒ 60/100/140/180/220 MAXIMUM % HEALTH DAMAGE VS. MONSTERS60/120/180/240/300 ⇒50/75/100/125/150

E - Cocoon

STUN DURATION1.5 seconds ⇒ 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds

E - Rappel

COOLDOWN26/24/22/20/18 seconds ⇒ 26/23/20/17/14 seconds

R - Spider Form

SPIDERLING HEALTH (ROUGH VALUES)90~260 ⇒ 85~390 SPIDERLING HEALTH (REAL VALUES)
90/100/110/120/130/140/150/160/170/180/190/200/210/ 220/230/240/250/260 ⇒85/95/105/115/125/135/145/160/175/190/210/230/250/ 275/300/325/355/390

Ezreal

We saw the Lich Bane changes as an easy opportunity to preserve the AP Ezreal off-build without jeopardizing the health / balance of his primary build.

More on Lich Bane below.

Q - Mystic Shot

ABILITY POWER RATIO0.20 ⇒ 0.40

Fizz

Lich Bane's a pretty key item for Fizz, so we're giving the little fish dude a buff to compensate for the item change.

More on Lich Bane below.

W - Seastone Trident

ACTIVE ABILITY POWER RATIO0.15 ⇒ 0.25

Heimerdinger

We've been paying close attention to Heimerdinger since his kit rework and felt he could use a little more late game help. Turret basic attacks deal a hell of a lot more damage than people realize, so we're tying their power in with the “flashier” big sister: The Beam. This way, Heimerdinger must position his turrets for maximum effectiveness on both attacks (basics and beams).

Heimer's got a visual update! We bumped up Heimer's move speed and made some changes to his turrets. Turret health now scales with AP and champion levels, and turret basic attacks now reduce the cooldown of turret beams instead of CDR. Also, turrets are now a little worse at last hitting minions unless Heimer orders them to attack specific ones.

General

Heimerdinger has received a visual update, including one hell of a haircut! Check out the full details here.

BASE MOVEMENT SPEED335 ⇒ 340

Q - H-28G Evolution Turret

NEWUTILITYHeimerdinger now spawns with maximum ammo count NEWUTILITYTurret Health now scales with Ability Power at a ratio based on level (flat 0.05 Ability Power ratio from levels 1-8, increases by 0.035 per level from levels 9-18 ending at 0.40 at level 18) NEWUTILITYTurret basic attacks now restore 1/2/3/4/5% Beam charge NEWUTILITYCooldown reduction modifies beam cooldown ⇒ Cooldown reduction no longer modifies Beam cooldown SMARTSTurret AI is less reliable at last-hitting minions unless Heimer himself has ordered the Turret by attacking that minion

Kog'Maw

Late game, Caustic Spittle's lower cast range often clashed with Kog's Bio-Arcane Barrage empowered attack range, so we're clarifying Kog'Maw's role as an artillery-lobbing, tank-shredding, spittle-spitting, purple people-eating, puppy-monster… thing.

Caustic Spittle is now a straight line skill shot with a longer range. It has a higher base damage and now shreds the target's armor and magic resistance.

Q - Caustic Spittle

NEWUTILITYTargeted ability ⇒ Now a straight line skill shot NEWARMOR AND MAGIC RESISTANCE SHREDFlat 5/10/15/20/25 ⇒20/22/24/26/28% RANGE625 ⇒ 1000 BASE DAMAGE60/110/160/210/260 ⇒ 80/130/180/230/280 ABILITY POWER RATIO0.7 ⇒ 0.5

W - Bio-Arcane Barrage

NEWMANA COST50 ⇒ Now has no mana cost

R - Living Artillery

BUGFIXFixed tooltip to reflect that only the base damage is amplified versus champions

Nautilus

We're giving Nautilus some love so he can be a little safer in the jungle while scaling better into the late game (particularly with his slow early game).

W - Titan's Wrath

COOLDOWN22/21/20/19/18 seconds ⇒ 18 seconds at all ranks BONUS HEALTH RATIO10% ⇒ 15%

Sivir

Continuing our Sivir watch since her rework. These nerfs mean Sivir can't create an unhealthy lane by auto-pushing her opponents to the tower without interacting with them. The higher mana costs combined with a buffed mana restore on Spell Shield means Sivir needs to take more risks to keep using her abilities.

Q - Boomerang Blade

DAMAGE LOSS PER ENEMY HIT10% ⇒ 15% (still a minimum of 40% damage)

W - Ricochet

MANA COST40 ⇒ 60

E - Spell Shield

MANA RESTORE60/75/90/105/120 ⇒ 80/95/110/125/140

Skarner

We said we'd monitor Skarner after his changes, and we're continuing to do so. The buffs in patch 4.3 were a good direction but it looks like Skarner could use a little more reliability.

E - Fracture

MISSILE WIDTH60 ⇒ 70 MISSILE SPEED1400 ⇒ 1500

Thresh

8 seconds is really all the time a soul needs before it realizes it can escape from Thresh. The shorter window to pick up souls means Thresh will have to take more risks as he tries to collect distant souls.

Passive - Damnation

SOUL DESPAWN RATE15 seconds ⇒ 8 seconds

Tristana

Using Rapid Fire is about timing and opportunity (not mana costs!), so we're clarifying its use.

Q - Rapid Fire

NEWMANA COST50 ⇒ Now has no mana cost

Twisted Fate

Twisted Fate was another Lich Bane fan who relied on its extra damage to stay strong. Now that we've knocked Lich Bane down a few notches, we're giving the Card Master a couple buffs to keep him happy.

More on Lich Bane below.

W - Pick A Card

ABILITY POWER RATIO0.4 ⇒ 0.5

E - Stacked Deck

ABILITY POWER RATIO0.4 ⇒ 0.5

Vi

Vi deals a lot of damage when building tanky and we want to incentivize her to go back to what she does best: punching things. The change to Assault and Battery gives a little more breathing room for her opponents between her oppressive early ganks while also giving foes more opportunities to capitalize on poorly planned ults.

Vault Breaker has a lower base damage now but scales better with AD. We also raised Assault and Battery's cooldown at early ranks and reduced the knockback duration and distance to secondary targets.

Q - Vault Breaker

MINIMUM DAMAGE50/80/110/140/170 (+.7 Bonus Attack Damage) ⇒50/75/100/125/150 (+.8 Bonus Attack Damage) MAXIMUM DAMAGE100/160/220/280/340 (+1.4 Bonus Attack Damage) ⇒100/150/200/250/300 (+1.6 Bonus Attack Damage)

R - Assault and Battery

COOLDOWN130/105/80 seconds ⇒ 150/115/80 seconds KNOCKBACK DURATION ON SECONDARY TARGETS0.5 seconds ⇒ 0.25 seconds KNOCKBACK DISTANCE ON SECONDARY TARGETS350 ⇒ 250

Back to top

Minor Changes & Bug Fixes

Font Updates

We're switching our loading screen and in-game announcer fonts to a better recognized, stable font.

We changed the loading screen and in-game announcer fonts!

Recall

Attacks and damaging spells that hit a shielded target will now cancel a recall cast in progress, even if the shield is not broken by the incoming damage

Jungle

We've gussied up the health restoration particle you get when you kill large jungle monsters. Now comes with 100% extra swirl

Fiora

R - Blade Waltz

BUGFIXFixed a bug where Fiora would occasionally be locked out of using Flash if Blade Waltz was interrupted

Karthus

We fixed a bug that caused Karthus to lose certain item buffs for varying amounts of time when he became a spirit. We'll keep an eye on Karthus after this patch as this fix is a significant buff to his damage while in his undead-er form.

Passive - Death Defied

BUGFIXFixed a bug that was causing Karthus to lose the multipliers on Deathcap, Last Whisper, and Void Staff for varying amounts of time after becoming a zombie

LeBlanc

E - Ethereal Chains

BUGFIXFixed a bug where Ethereal Chains could still root an enemy even if LeBlanc was out of range when the secondary effect procced

Lux

We're updating Final Spark's targeting indicator so players who use quick cast can see the range of the spell easier.

R - Final Spark

NEWUTILITYNow displays a targeting circle when highlighting the ability

Quinn

With this change you'll still have to figure out what Valor likes to do, but at least you'll know when he's taking a break and won't help you out on his own.

Passive - Harrier

UTILITYNow displays as 'on cooldown' when Valor is unable to mark a target on his own due to recently marking a target

Udyr

E - Bear Stance

BUGFIXFixed a tooltip bug to reflect that Udyr can stun the same target once every 5 seconds, not 6

Yorick

We fixed a bug that caused Yorick's Omen of Death'd target (well that's awkward to write) to lose certain item buffs for varying amounts of time when they became a zombie. We'll be watching Yorick after this patch as this fix is a significant buff to Omen of Death.

Q - Omen of War

BUGFIXFixed a bug where Yorick could permanently ignore unit collision after casting Omen of War.

R - Omen of Death

BUGFIXFixed a bug that was causing Omen of Death's target to lose the multipliers on Deathcap, Last Whisper, and Void Staff for varying amounts of time after becoming a zombie.

Back to top

Items

Lich Bane

Historically we've run into a lot of problems with champions who use Lich Bane because of its high-power AP burst, so we're taking a look at the item itself. Lich Bane is designed to be a damage supplement for AP champs that incorporate basic attacks into their spell rotations, unlike Deathfire Grasp which is for champions who want to optimize their burst damage. This adjustment lets us take a look at champions who traditionally depend on Lich Bane for their damage output. We've given a bit of power back to Diana, Ezreal, Fizz and Twisted Fate for now and we'll keep a close eye on the state of the game after this change to see if we need to help out anyone else.

We're lowering Lich Bane's damage.

EMPOWERED DAMAGEDeals 50 (+0.75 ability power) magic damage ⇒ Deals 75% Base AD (+0.5 Ability Power) magic damage

Trinkets (Warding Totem, Sweeping Lens, Scrying Orb)

A lot of players were relying on the early Warding Totem to protect standard invade paths, which ended up preventing meaningful aggression. We like that invading can be a team strategy, so we're hoping this helps out. Plus, lowering the swap cooldown for trinkets should allow for more flexibility.

START COOLDOWN (FOR ALL TRINKETS)90 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds SWAP COOLDOWN (FOR ALL TRINKETS)180 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds

Wriggle's Line

We're currently working on the Wriggle's line of items and, in patch 4.5, we'll be introducing an "evolution" to Wriggle's Lantern where it transforms into a more powerful item called Feral Flare when you accumulate a large number of monster kills. Once again, that item will hit in 4.5 but you can play with the minor Madred's and Wriggle's changes for now.

The specific goal here is to fill in the “missing link” of jungle items for basic attack reliant champions. We really want to give 'carry' junglers an item that focuses on a weaker early game for mid to late game payoffs.

Madred's Razors now gives attack speed rather than armor. Wriggle's Lantern now gives attack damage and a little more attack speed rather than armor and attack speed.

Madred's Razors

NEWRECIPECloth Armor + Hunter's Machete + 100 gold (total cost 700g) ⇒Dagger + Hunter's Machete + 50g (total cost 750g) NEWATTACK SPEED+15% Attack Speed ARMOR+20 Armor ⇒ Removed PASSIVE MAIMBasic attacks deal 60 bonus magic damage and restore 5 health on hit versus monsters ⇒ Basic attacks deal 60 bonus magic damage and restore 8 health on hit versus monsters

Wriggle's Lantern

NEWRECIPEMadred's Razors + Dagger + Dagger + 150 gold (total cost 1650 gold) ⇒ Madred's Razors + Long Sword + Dagger + 140 gold (total cost 1650 gold) NEWATTACK DAMAGE+12 attack damage ATTACK SPEED25% ⇒ 30% ARMOR+20 Armor ⇒ Removed PASSIVE GOLD BONUS40% increased gold from monsters ⇒ 30% increased gold from monsters PASSIVE MAIM(Unchanged) Basic attacks against monsters deal 100 bonus magic damage and restore 10 health. ACTIVE(Unchanged) Places a stealth ward that lasts 180 seconds (cooldown: 180 seconds)

Back to top

Summoner Spells

Teleport

We like the offensive pressure that comes from taking Teleport, but its defensive use (ie: lane recovery or base protection) could use some love.

NEWUTILITYTeleporting to an allied turret reduces the cooldown of Teleport by 100 seconds (total 200 second cooldown. 300 seconds if Teleport is used on an object.). CANCELLATION PENALTYCancelling a Teleport in progress reduces the cooldown of Teleport to 150 seconds ⇒ 200 seconds

Graphical Updates

We're continuing along our goal of making gameplay more readable, satisfying, and visceral. Also pretty.

  • Barrier particles and sound effects updated
  • Heal particles and sound effects updated
  • Teleport particles and sound effects updated
  • Ignite particles updated
  • Ghost sound effects updated
  • Screenshots in the spells tab of your profile have been updated according to recent changes.

Back to top

 

Twisted Treeline

Renekton

The crocodile can be pretty overwhelming in a 3s match, so we're taking a little power off.

R - Dominus

BONUS HEALTH300/450/600 ⇒ 200/350/500 DAMAGE PER SECOND40/70/100 ⇒ 30/60/90

Syndra

As a zone control mage, Syndra was designed and balanced to fend off 5 attackers, but she can be oppressive in 3v3 matches.

E - Scatter the Weak

COOLDOWN18/16.5/15/13.5/12 seconds ⇒ 20/18.5/17/15.5/14

R - Unleashed Power

COOLDOWN100/90/80 seconds ⇒ 120/105/90

Back to top

 

Crystal Scar

Talon

Talon's invisibility is really strong on wardless maps, so we're upping the cooldown a bit to compensate. We're also lowering his mid/late game burst because really, it's too damn high.

Q - Noxian Diplomacy

BASE DAMAGE30/60/90/120/150 ⇒ 30/55/80/105/130

R - Shadow Assault

COOLDOWN75/65/55 seconds ⇒ 85/75/65 seconds

Thresh

Thresh's soul pickup rate on Dominion is pretty low in comparison to SR, which leaves him lackluster in the stats department. So, we're giving him some help to hit parity with other tanks and supports.

Passive - Damnation

GAINS PER SOUL COLLECTED1 soul = 1 stack ⇒ 1 soul = 4 stacks

R - The Box

COOLDOWN150/140/130 seconds ⇒ 120/110/100


Source - Riot Games