Jump for joy—it’s patch 12.13!
On this week’s episode of Patch Notes, we have the premiere of our newest champion (and Star Guardian) Nilah, the Joy Unbound! We also have the Star Guardians, new and old, making their appearance again to protect us from the forces of evil. Sivir’s mid-scope update also debuts this patch, not to mention your regularly scheduled balance adjustments.
We interrupt your regularly scheduled patch notes to say a big goodbye to our patch note author ahrisoo, who is leaving on an adventure to become Dr. ahrisoo. Your patch notes (and patch jokes) will be missed!
Read on to see if the true treasure of patch notes was thefriendsLP we made along the way.
Speaking of stars, the TFT patch notes this week feature an update to Aurelion Sol, Double Up improvements, and more.
Learn all about them here!
Note that all of these changes went live with the launch of Patch 12.13, but we’re capturing all of the update here for visivility.
The health bar icon displaying a player's selected UltBook Ulternate Summoner now changes based on the status of the ultimate.
Attack-Smite users now receive an Attack-Smite Objective upon leaving the fountain to help inform players of the differences between normal Smite and Attack-Smite.
Health Threshold indicator now appears on valid Attack-Smite targets displaying how low a monster’s health has to be for Attack-Smite to trigger
Ultimate Spellbook now contains ALL the dragons you’d find on the Rift
Some Ulternate Summoners will now have a Stat Boost!
This will show up in the selection and within the tooltip of the spell. When you select a spell with a stat boost, the first time that spell comes off cooldown you will gain a bonus to your Adaptive Force, Magic Resistance, AND Armor. For all three stats, the amount gained is from 6 + 2 per level.
Ulternate Summoner Spells with this Stat Boost:
Mid-scope update, all abilities adjusted.
Sivir has been dethroned as the queen of late-game teamfights. Her short range meant she had to work twice as hard as other ADCs to do damage, which led to her opting for lethality builds instead of crit. While other marksmen have gained attack range over time, we are giving Sivir new tools that lean into her strengths as a close range, AoE DPS hyper carry that reward her for playing on the edge of danger.
With this mid-scope update, we’re setting Sivir up to have the strongest AoE DPS output of all the marksmen—so long as she can stay alive to use it. We’re hoping Sivir players find that her damage potential is now much higher and more consistent due to the adjustments we’ve made to her Ricochet and signature Boomerang Blade. Ultimately, these should help shift Sivir's identity from a chauffeur for her teammates to a high damage AoE marksman with the added ability to help clean up winning fights.
E AD scaling increased. R base damage decreased, AP scaling decreased.
The Daring Bombardier doesn’t look up-to-snuff when launching missiles from a screen away. His long-ranged poke has made him a menace in Pro Play given how consistent and powerful it is. We’re toning down his missiles and upgrading his Gatling Gun so Corki has a bigger reason to enter close quarters combat.
Base health, health growth, and base armor increased. Human Form Q damage increased.
Elise is still building her web, trying to find a spot on the Rift post-Durability Update. We’re adding some more damage to her Q to help her assassinate slightly more durable targets and buffing up her base stats to bring her in line with other junglers.
Passive heal increased. W magic resistance reduction increased. R now decreases the timer to reenter passive camouflage.
Evelynn hasn’t been seen much since the Durability Update, and not because she’s been using her camouflage. We’re (al)luring players into playing her again by giving her several quality of life buffs and increasing the reward for when she successfully charms her targets.
Q fear duration increased. R damage increased.
For the living embodiment of fear, Fiddlesticks hasn’t been very scary as of late. We’re turning up the spook-factor by giving it some additional utility and damage to be a tad more terrifying.
Q damage increased.
Galio’s tornadoes have been feeling more like a light breeze recently, but we don’t want to make him a full blown AP assassin. We’re putting some more wind beneath his wings to help him poke down opponents without fully committing in hopes he’ll take off soon.
Health regen growth increased. Q snip damage increased, center snip true damage decreased, now deals reduced damage against minions, but bonus damage against low health minions. W bonus armor and MR increased, duration decreased. E bonus on-hit magic damage increased, bonus attack range increased, cooldown increased, cooldown refunded on first basic attack increased. R damage per needle increased, recast conditions adjusted.
Gwen has been one of the premiere top laners since MSI, and the Durability Update only increased her strengths. Even after her nerfs in 12.11, she’s still a cut above the competition, especially when it comes to Pro Play. We’re snipping some power out of her Pro-skewed abilities like her E and W to patchwork it into some more accessible parts of her kit. These should net out in a nerf to Pro Gwen and a buff to her in Average and Skilled levels of play.
Base armor and health growth increased.
Karthus has been struggling to live up to his battlemage fantasy recently, so we’re giving him some additional durability to clear camps more safely. This should also let him play a bit closer to fights so he can get the most out of his kit. Just not too close or you’ll be getting the most out of your passive.
Q AD scaling increased. W cooldown decreased at all ranks.
Kled’s been fulfilling his role as a lane bully quite well, but he hasn’t been able to capitalize on his advantages to be a terror outside of top. We’re buffing the Cantankerous Cavalier to help make him a bit more of a dangerous presence in the later stages of the game.
Attack range increased. Q adjusted. W cooldown reduced, mana cost adjusted, damage reduction increased, lingering damage reduction adjusted.
Master Yi has always been a champ that is strong at lower levels of play, but not-so-great in higher skill brackets. We’ve been keeping our eyes on Yi after our last set of nerfs and now feel like we can give him some power back in a way that helps reduce this skew. Since Yi is pretty dependent on being durable in higher brackets of play, we’re giving him more ways to increase his survivability in fights.
Base health regen and health regen growth decreased. Passive max bonus attack speed increased early. Q mana cost increased.
Olaf’s mid-scope update helped him establish his place in the top lane, but he hasn’t been as powerful in the jungle. We’re giving him some additional buffs that should help strengthen his jungler roots.
R damage now scales with AD.
With recent updates, it's been harder than ever for Renekton to scale into the mid and late game. His ultimate’s AoE damage in particular doesn’t feel as impactful, so we’re giving it an AD ratio to help this crocodile with his scale-ing.
Q damage increased, mana cost decreased, bonus damage to monsters decreased; boulders now stun jungle monsters. R adjusted.
Taliyah hasn’t been as strong as we’d hoped after her previoustectonicpower shifts from patch 12.11. We’re increasing the damage output on her Q to help both her overall laning and jungling in lower brackets of play plus giving her some quality of life buffs.
Q cooldown decreased at all ranks, AP ratio increased.
Vex has been feeling extra gloomy now that she can’t burst opponents as easily. We’re adding some power back into her Mistral Bolt so she'll feel a little bit happier when she bursts her enemies (but she’d never tell anyone about it).
Q bonus movement speed decreased, base damage decreased. W base damage decreased, scaling with bonus health decreased. E damage based on target’s max health decreased, damage cap against non-champions decreased.
Volibear has been much too strong recently, especially in the jungle. We’re pulling power away from some of his stronger jungling tools, like his reliable ganks and extra damage against high-health objectives like Baron and Dragon. We’re also lowering his damage across the board so he doesn’t do quite as much when he opts to itemize tank.
Divine Sunderer is currently doing its job a bit too well. Not only is it helping fighters play into tanks, it’s also helping them play better into everyone in general. With this update, we’re looking to shift Sunderer’s power away from shredding tanks and into a comparatively lower damage/higher sustain option for fighters.
We’re making some updates to the way the passive of Demonic Embrace and Liandry’s Anguish stack when applied by multiple users.
Assassins are currently doing a balanced amount of damage with lethality items, but the class overall is just a tad weaker than we’d like. We’re taking a non-traditional approach to buffing assassins by adding bonus move speed to their Mythic iItems which should also help discourage bruiser or tank itemizations.
We’re updating objective bounties to help make them feel more fair to players, whether they’re behind or ahead.
When we created objective bounties the intention was for teams that are behind to be able to catch up in a difficult but not impossible way. However, when teams that are only a little behind claimed multiple bounties, they catapulted into the lead. We’re hoping these changes make claiming bounties as the lead starts closing more fair for both teams.
Currently, if you dash or blink into a jungle monster or ward’s visible range, there’s a very brief delay before you gain vision of them. This can lead to some frustrating moments, so we’re changing that to be instantaneous. (On the other hand, losing vision of monsters and wards will continue to have a slight delay.)
Ultimate Spellbook makes a return, but this time it’s Star Guardian themed. This iteration of Spellbook will include Star Guardian minions and Ahri as an announcer!
We’ve also made some other non-Star Guardian related updates to this game mode:
Team formation for the second weekend of Shadow Isles Clash starts on July 18, and the tournament days are on July 23 and 24.
Adding Regional Transfer Rank Preservation. If you transfer your account out of a region and back to that region within two weeks, your account’s ranked state upon returning to your original region will be restored to what it was when you left. This is intended to curb some region-transfer rank abuse we’ve been seeing and also means you won’t have to re-do your ranked climb if you take your League account with you on a quick vacation.
The following skins will be released in this patch:
The following chromas will be released this patch: