We cordially invite you to an exquisite, green tie Debonair affair to celebrate the end of the year!
We're keeping it classy this week with sophisticated champion, item, rune, and dragon updates to keep preseason running splendidly. Ultimate Spellbook is also getting a spiffy update, and ARAM players worry not—we have some swanky news for you, too. So get your flashiest outfits ready to greet the new year in glitz and glam! It'll be just grand.
Debonair dress code too strict for ya? Head over to the TFT patch notes where the Little Legends won't Debo-care what you wear!
Bisous,
We're taking care of a few urgent mid-patch balances before we put things on pause for the holidays.
Dr. Mundo is wreaking too much medical havoc in top lane.
Gwen is weak, especially with Lethal Tempo. (Hint: Pick Conqueror instead!) We're helping her reach her late game damage by buffing her early durability.
Kai'Sa is normally kept on the weaker side for most players due to Pro priority, but has recently fallen even further due to shifting meta and pre-season.
Kassadin is too strong in lane, especially against melee champions.
Lux is a little too strong in mid lane and continues to be popular as a support, so we're reducing her CC’s uptime and burst combo just a bit.
We're reverting a previous Olaf nerf so that he feels empowered to fight it out at low health.
Pyke is a bit weak right now, so we're buffing up his lane versatility through his regen and hooks.
Talon jungle has been a nightmare in high elo, so we're pulling back on his power there.
We're buffing Varus with a focus on his non-lethality builds and also taking the opportunity to bump his AP off-build.
Vayne is too strong, even if we consider her items being overtuned right now.
The last buff to Glacial wasn't as big as we hoped for enchanters.
Headshot resets partially restored.
Several attack "resets" on Caitlyn's Headshots were removed during her ASU. These resets were notoriously difficult to maneuver and were not part of Caitlyn's original design. (Technically, her Headshots executed as abilities rather than empowered basic attacks, which is what allowed the bugged reset functionality.) It wasn't sustainable—or healthy, even—to keep her passive as-is, so we're instead refactoring her Headshot resets in a way that looks smoother and is easier to pull off.
W damage decreased. E cooldown increased late.
Camille is a bit too mobile for the damage she dishes out, so we're limiting access to herODM geardashes. We're also nerfing her trading tool so that she doesn't get such a free advantage in lane.
Krug experience and gold rewards increased.
Ivern loves all of his forest friends equally, but when push comes to shove, freeing the Krugs isn't really worth the effort. Krugs give significantly less gold and experience than the other small jungle camps, even though it takes Ivern the same amount of time, mana, and health to free them. (This oughta teach 'em how to say thanks!)
Passive wave distance now scales with bonus attack range.
After reaching level 11, if Kayle has enough stacks, her basic attacks launch waves of fire that travel an extra distance and damage enemies they pass through. The distance these waves travel used to be a flat number. Now, it will scale with her bonus attack range, which can be extended by other effects such as her passive at level 16 or Lethal Tempo.
Kled & Skaarl's health calculations changed. E cooldown reduced; AD ratio increased.
Tank Kled has been optimal for a while because of the massive bonus HP he gets from Skaarl. We're adjusting how his health is calculated to make his playstyle healthier and more interesting. However, this will nerf some of his bruiser builds, so we're buffing his damage and cooldowns to compensate. We'll keep an eye on the cantankerous duo after this change to monitor AD Kled's viability.
R bolt distance now scales with bonus attack range.
When Twitch uses his ult, his basic attacks become bolts that travel slightly farther than his attack range and deal damage to enemies in a straight path (similar to Kayle's passive). This distance also used to be a flat number and will now scale with his bonus attack range.
R no longer costs mana.
Few things feel worse than running out of mana for Samira's ult after getting all her passive stacks ready. This mana cost was originally designed to control her early waveclear, but since that hasn't really been a problem, it became the perfect opportunity to bring her back—in style.
Passive and W attacks now scale with bonus attack range.
Just in case you wanted to run Lethal Tempo on Urgot. It's probably still not a good idea, but... whatever floats yourboatspidery-leg-cyborg... vehicle... thingy.
Archangel's Staff isn't performing all that well, so we're lowering its cost to help.
Axiom Arc is supposed to provide ability-based assassins an exciting teamfight output. However, it's been doing that a little too consistently.
Cosmic Drive is significantly overperforming on most champions.
Crown of the Shattered Queen is another new mage item that has been doing too well on most champions, especially considering it's supposed to be a more defensive Mythic option.
Evenshroud has all but eclipsed its sunnier counterpart (a.k.a. Locket), so we're bringing it in line with the other support Mythics. (These changes also apply to its Ornn Masterwork item, Equinox.)
Frostfire Gauntlet is a punch above the other tank Mythics, offering a little bit of everything at a relatively low cost. We're bringing down its damage, which was a bit too high compared to Sunfire, including the health scaling. (These changes also apply to its Ornn Masterwork item, Rimeforged Grasp.)
The nerf to Conqueror's duration in 11.21 was a little too restrictive. We're partially reverting the nerf and boosting its damage to make it comparable to other keystones like Grasp of the Undying, Fleet Footwork, and Lethal Tempo.
Glacial Augment is the best keystone for many tanks by a large margin right now. We're nerfing it in a way that shouldn't affect its other users.
Lethal Tempo is a little too strong for some melee champions. It's also failing to fulfill its attack speed fantasy for ranged users, so we're shifting some of the power from its bonus attack range for them.
Now that the dust from its 11.18 buff has settled, it's become clear that this powerful version of Predator is undercutting counterplay. We're reverting that change to address this, especially since Ingenious Hunter's 11.21 buffs helped Predator's viability considerably.
The temporarily doubled selection rates of Chemtech Rift and Hextech Rift terrains during patch 11.23 have been removed. All dragon terrains have returned to their normal selection rates.
The standard Chemtech Drake Buff is notably weak while, conversely, the Chemtech Dragon Soul is too strong. We're also adding a visual helper so you can identify chemtech zombies better.
On the contrary, while Hextech Dragon Soul seems to be in a reasonable place, the standard Hextech Drake Buff could use a boost.
Melee champions—especially assassins—have been struggling in ARAM for a while now. We're adding two buffs independent of the champion-specific adjustments to balance accordingly. The first should allow melee champions to push waves more easily.
Assassins are a bit harder to balance as fiddling with their numbers in this mode risks diminishing counterplay. Increasing their damage dealt would let them delete enemies before any chance to react, whereas decreasing their damage taken removes opportunities for counter-burst. So instead, we're trying something a little different: AP assassins will now do bonus damage to structures from the start, much sooner than other champions. This later gets replaced by ARAM's a generic time-based buff which, after 18 minutes, grants all champions 0-25% (based on minutes) bonus damage to structures.
Champions are adaptively determined as "AP-scaling" if they have more bonus AP than bonus AD throughout the game. The breakeven point at which the generic ARAM buff's bonus damage to structures exceeds 20% is approximately 27:36.
The following skins will be released in this patch:
The following chromas will be released this patch: