You’ll never see it coming, it's patch 12.7!
In this round of patch notes you may notice that some of our changes explicitly mention pro play. This is because MSI is right around the corner and is set to be played on patch 12.8! We’re aiming to shake up the meta a bit to allow for some more diverse picks in 12.7 and 12.8, but we’re introducing some spicier changes in 12.7 so that we can make additional adjustments in 12.8 if needed.
In this edition of patch notes, we’re buffing some underpowered champs like Pantheon and Wukong, dropping some nerfs on stronger items like Galeforce and Winter’s Approach, and releasing some out-of-this-world Arcana skins!
MSI isn’t the only pro play happening soon. You can catch the TFT patch notes here, where we’ll be going over the patch that Worlds will be played on!
Passive burn base damage increased late. W mana cost decreased.
Gangplank is arrrguably struggling at all levels of play. He's already got enough gunpowder in his Q and barrels, so we're putting some power into less explosive and more… orange… parts of his kit.
E cooldown refund increased. R cooldown decreased early.
Gwen's been hanging by a thread after her most recent nerfs, so we're stitching her up with some cooldown buffs that should help her across all skill levels. Needle-ss to say, we don't think these changes will fully address her issues, but we're being extra careful considering her pattern of dominating Pro.
Base health decreased, health growth increased, and armor adjusted.
Jayce has also been a popular pick in Pro. We're lowering his laning power by making him squishier early on, but increasing his growth to make sure he still scales to late game.
Base mana, move speed, and attack speed growth increased.
Kalista hasn’t been seen often in Pro this season, and is generally weak in all levels of play. We're buffing some of her baseline stats which should especially help her out in Average play. Super speedy spooky spears incoming.
Q damage against monsters increased.
While the Deathsinger remains powerful in bot lane, his voice has been faltering in the jungle. We're amping up his clear strength to bring jungle Karthus back from the dead.
Base AD decreased. Q base damage decreased.
We're looking (no pun intended) to bring down Lee Sin's jungle clear speed and early game threat in order to reduce his impact on Pro play. We're targeting his base damage instead of his cooldowns to ensure his passive's rhythm remains the same.
Passive healing against champions increased. W base damage increased.
We're giving Lillia some more scaling sustain with her AP builds while also boosting her early jungle clear. These buffs should give her W damage a bit more oomph—or rather, eep!
W passive base damage and move speed increased.
Neeko's been hidden from Pro play despite being a strong tomato in solo queue. Her on-hit build was quite popular in past metas, so we're bringing it back to lure the Curious Chameleon out of hiding!
Base health regen decreased. Tap Q range increased and width decreased. E self-slow no longer applies when moving backwards. R crash now lands faster.
Pantheon hasn't been living up to his Spartan spirit, so we're sharpening his spear to make him feel more like the paragon of Rakkor warriors. Skilled Pantheon players should now be able to showcase their strength with more timely ults, more maneuverable shields, and better trading tools.
Q bonus damage against structures reduced. W bonus damage against monsters increased.
Rengar's become a serious destroyer offurniturestructures after his most recent changes. This is a new and flexible strength in his kit that we want to preserve, but he's taking down those (scratching) towers a bit too fast, so we're tapping down the damage on that part of his Q. We're also bumping up his damage against monsters to compensate for some of the clear speed he lost because of the changes to Q against plants last patch.
Q damage AP ratio increased; bonus mana ratio decreased.
Ryze's tank builds make him a safe yet potent split pusher by allowing him to stack health while dealing carry levels of damage, making him particularly lethal in Pro play. The mid-patch 12.5 nerfs didn't quite do the job at refining his hypercarry identity, so we're shifting his mana scaling to incentivize him to build a few more AP items before stacking health items like Winter’s Approach (which will also be receiving nerfs this patch) .
Q cooldown decreased. W cooldown decreased late; dash can now go through terrain. E AP ratio and damage against monsters increased.
Wukong hasn't been seen in Pro much despite having a theoretically good matchup into meta staples like Jayce and Graves. We're helping him claim his place in top lane while also reinvigorating jungle Wu so he can be a viable counter or flex pick.
Base health increased. R cooldown decreased early.
Despite my match history, Yasuo and Yone have been relatively weak (and the sustain nerfs in 12.6 didn’t do them any favors either). Rather than increasing their damage, we're giving the wind brothers more opportunity to flex their skills. For Yasuo, we're increasing his early combat durability and ability to synergize with teammates during laning phase.
R cooldown decreased late.
Yone is also getting more access to his ult, but with a focus on late game which is when it's usually harder for him to close gaps (unless he's already extremely far ahead).
Base AD, AD growth, and armor decreased; health growth increased. Q base damage decreased, AD ratio increased; now applies on-hit effects only once per cast; now grants at most one R stack and E cooldown reduction once per cast, but crits can grant one more of each. W base damage decreased, AD and AP ratio increased. E cooldown increased early and decreases with rank again. R cooldown increased early and decreased late.
Zeri, Zeri, you’ve been a little too unfair-y. Despite the nerfs in previous patches, Zeri has been shockingly resilient and continues to dominate Pro play. With this round of nerfs, we’re aiming to bring her bruiser build more in line with her crit build, as well as make her stacks and on-hits more predictable. This should give enemies more time to catch Zeri before she starts zipping circles around them.
Abyssal Mask has taken a back seat to Force of Nature in terms of magic resist options this season. We’re buffing Abyssal Mask’s passive, Unmake, to help it stand out as an aggressive tank option which will help unmake your enemies’ MR.
Galeforce has been the go-to marksman mythic for a while now and has made hypercarries like Jinx and Aphelios a bit too safe in Pro play. We’re increasing Galeforce’s active cooldown to give opponents larger windows to punish scaling marksmen before they reach their endgame.
Moonstone has been eclipsing the other enchanter support options. It offers a little too much sustain with relatively little risk, so we’re tuning down the bonus shields and heals to bring it in line with other enchanter mythic items.
Umbral Glaive hasn’t been living up to its fantasy of blacking out opponents’ maps. We’re implementing some buffs to make it a better option for supports building lethality and roaming assassins looking to be a tad sneakier.
Winter may be over for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, but Winter’s Approach is still the premier choice for mana tanks and a few mages, despite being a scaling item. We’re increasing its cost to make it less appealing as a first purchase.
Time Warp Tonic provides its users too much safety versus divers. Combined with the generic sustain power of Corrupting Potion, this often means ranged champions that want to play safe… always stay safe. We’re diluting the tonic a bit by taking out some of its special safety syrup, making it easier to punish.
We have some smaller VFX updates for Leona’s base and older skins to help modernize the Radiant Dawn.
We also have a complete VFX overhaul to improve Orianna's gameplay clarity and modernize her base and older skins.
Lastly, we've also got a complete VFX overhaul of Shaco! (Does this count as Shaco lore?)
Hot on the heels of last patch's Phase 1 launch, we're heading into Phase 2 of the Mythic Content Overhaul! This patch, we're introducing an infinitely repeatable rewards track for Masterwork Chests. Any Masterwork Chest you open grants progress on the rewards track, regardless of whether you bought it, earned it as a reward, or received it as a gift. In addition, since we've adjusted random Mythic Essence drops from Masterwork chests from 10 ME to 5 ME, we won't revert last patch’s buff to ME—it'll remain at a 4.2% drop rate.
We're also introducing two adjustments to the Masterwork system relative to our original plan. Our original model would've led to Masterwork Chests granting more Mythic Essence than the new system has been tuned to support, and we felt it'd be better to do these changes now rather than later.
We'll be following up soon with the other half of Phase 2, our first Showcase Milestone release!
Team formation for the Clash Piltover Cup begins on April 11, and the tournament begins on April 16 and 17! Team formation for week 2 of the cup will start on April 25 with the tournament days being April 30 and May 1.
The following skins will be released in this patch:
The following chromas will be released this patch: