It's the last patch of this split, welcome to 13.13!
As a quick reminder, this will be a 3-week long patch due to Riot's annual mid-year break. You can check out our full patch schedule for 2023 here.
In this patch, we're looking to address a few over-performing champions like Aphelios, Ivern, and Rell, while giving Lee Sin and Nidalee a little extra power. We're also adjusting a few items like Statikk Shiv (sorry LeBlanc) and Stormrazor alongside a few ARAM balance adjustments.
It's the last patch of Split 1 (in case you missed it two paragraphs ago)! If you're pushing to break into that next tier it's game time, because your rank will be locked for rewards on July 17, 2023 at 11:59pm your local time. Best of luck with your climbs and see you next split!
Been enjoying set 9? I know I have, and I'll be checking out the TFT patch notes here to learn why I shouldn't be forcing Shadow Isles every game.
The Victorious Skin modal now features the Season 2023–Split 1 Victorious skin reward: Victorious Anivia. This is the last patch you can play to earn the skin, so best of luck! We've updated the Victorious skin modal to display your exact amount of split points if you are Silver or below and have under 1600 points. You'll receive a warning that you will not be eligible for the ranked reward if you are below honor level 2.
It's our first mid-season ranked reset! Since this is a new process for all of us we want to make sure you all have accurate dates and times to work with. If you've been procrastinating your ranked climbs like me, then these will be your hard deadlines.
Region | Time Zone | Local Time |
---|---|---|
Oceania | Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
Japan | Japan Standard Time (JST) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
Republic of Korea | Korea Standard Time (KST) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
Russia | Moscow Standard Time (MSK) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
EU Nordic & East | Central European Time (CET) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
Turkey | Time zone in Istanbul, Turkey (GMT+3) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
EU West | British Summer Time (BST) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
Brazil | Time zone in São Paulo, Brazil (GMT-3) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
Latin America South | Time zone in Buenos Aires, Argentina (GMT-3) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
Latin America North | Central Standard Time (CST) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
North America | Pacific Standard Time (PST) | Jul/19/2023 12:00:00 |
Philippines | Philippine Standard Time | Jul/20/2023 12:00:00 |
Vietnam | Indochina Time (GMT+7) | Jul/20/2023 12:00:00 |
Singapore, Malaysia, & Indonesia | Singapore Standard Time (GMT+8) | Jul/20/2023 12:00:00 |
Thailand | Indochina Time (GMT+7) | Jul/20/2023 12:00:00 |
Taiwan | Taipei Standard Time (GMT+8) | Jul/20/2023 12:00:00 |
China | China Standard Time (GMT+8) | Jul/21/2023 17:00:00 |
In Split 2 this year we'll be making quite a few changes to the ranked climb experience. We'll be removing promotional series between divisions, reducing the amount of placement games from 10 to 5, and adding Emerald tier, a new rank between Platinum and Diamond. Looking to learn more about these changes, well check out the full post, What's Next for Ranked here!
Q magic damage decreased.
Annie is currently one of the most popular champions in Pro play and she’s skipping along just fine in solo queue. This is due to how consistent of a pick she is because of her solid early game and strong scaling. Our goal with nerfing her Q is to tone down some of her guaranteed damage and make getting to late game just a tad more difficult.
Severum life steal decreased. Gravitum slow duration decreased. Crescendum base attack speed decreased.
Aphelios is the #1 bot laner in pro play by a long shot and has been a top performer since March. As such, we want to act in order to create more variety in the bottom lane. We know it sucks for players at home to catch strays like this, but he’s still in a much stronger spot than he was at the start of the year. This time around, we’re targeting some of his biggest ability outliers that provide frustrating levels of power: His turret deals too much DPS for a basic ability, Infernum Q provides him best-in-class sustain by a large margin, and Gravitum’s gank setup is very high for a basic ability.
W on-hit magic damage decreased. R Daisy! movement speed decreased, Slam! base damage decreased.
Ivern has been taking root across all skill levels after his 13.11 updates which have resulted in one terrifying tree that makes Maokai look like a Meowkai. We feel that his ability to poke down targets at a safe distance and chase down enemies with Daisy are out of line, so we're pulling back on some of Daisy's damage and mobility while also toning down the on-hit damage he gains from Brushmaker.
Base health and armor decreased.
Kindred are elite-skewed junglers that are winning far too often in the top levels of ranked play. While Trinity Force is a strong item in their inventory, they've got other well-performing items such as Kraken Slayer, so we're targeting direct nerfs to Kindred themselves. We're specifically addressing their early invading and dueling potential. In the hands of less-comfortable Kindred players, the W passive healing is still strong and should soften the blow of these armor nerfs while clearing their own jungle.
Q damage increased.
Lee Sin has been in a fairly weak spot in solo queue and he hasn't been seen much play in Pro either (where he's often picked despite his solo queue win rate). We're specifically increasing the scaling on his Q in order to make landing it more rewarding in later stages of the game, where it's difficult to land and risky to take during large teamfights.
Q cooldown increased. W damage adjusted. R adjusted.
In Pro play Neeko is excellent at getting early advantages and snowballing them. We like her ability to win lanes, but she's winning them a bit too hard at the moment. With these changes we're looking to bring down Neeko's laning power and create some more counterplay opportunities for her ultimate. In exchange, we do want to give a little bit of power back to her on-hit builds to compensate for its early nerfs.
We're still monitoring how Neeko's disguise interactions should function longterm and deciding if there are any cases we're not okay with. New kinds of interactions like this will create some frustration for players, but we want to make sure it's reasonable and happening at the right times.
Base movement speed increased.
Nidalee is an exciting champion when she's played at high skill levels, however she's all but disappeared from the jungle at the highest levels of play. In order to bring her out, we're looking to give her a small movement speed buff which is especially helpful to Nidalee both in her human and cougar form.
Base AD decreased, base health decreased.
We're happy to see that updates to Rek'Sai's passive healing and Queen's Wrath ability in 13.11 have shifted her into a fighter pattern, but we feel that her ability to clear camps and shrug off damage during skirmishes is too strong. To address this, we're reducing some of Rek’Sai’s stats to slow her down in the Jungle and reduce the safety of her engages. You pop off queen, just a little bit less please.
Health regeneration growth decreased, base MR decreased, MR growth decreased. Q damage to monsters increased. W shield decreased, dismounted attack speed adjusted. E monster damage increased.
Rell Support has been dominating recently. We’re targeting her durability here as we think her overall gameplay pattern is in a good place.
Meanwhile, the updates to Rell’s jungle monster modifiers hit a bit too hard, and Rell Jungle (Rungle? Rungle.) is struggling, so we’re upping her mods on Q and E. This should make Q the clear best first max for Rungle (which was already true but many Rells weren’t running it). We’re also flattening out the attack speed buff from her dismounted form, so it’s not something junglers are wondering if they should max. We’re glad you’re enjoying Rell though and we’ll be continuing to keep an eye on her as her midscope settles into place.
W on-hit magic damage increased, damage per Blight stack decreased.
AP Varus has been causing quite the ruckus recently, especially in top lane. It's certainly an interesting build, and quite strong, but his unique niche is "I deal 1000 + 60% of your maximum health at 1200 range." We're glad that he cares about Blight stacks, but it's just too much maximum health damage. We're hoping to keep all Varus builds viable while giving high-health champions more of a fighting chance against his high damage AP combos.
Passive shield decreased. R cooldown increased.
Vi has had the highest Pro presence out of any Champion this season. This is in part due to her having very reliable CC with her ultimate which is especially beneficial in coordinated Pro play. We're nerfing her R cooldown to reduce its uptime while maintaining its power when casted correctly. We're also reducing the shield scaling on her passive to nerf her durability. This will reduce her synergy with Radiant Virtue, which Pros purchase virtually every game on Vi, whereas in solo queue it has a much lower purchase rate.
E damage to monsters modifier removed.
Wukong is relatively weak for most players, but still maintains a high presence in Pro, so we're going to be nerfing him in a way that will impact his performance at the highest skill level. We're aiming to reduce Wukong's jungle clear speed as this will be both jungle- and Pro-skewed while having minimal impact on his performance in Top Lane, which is already on the weaker side. To achieve this, we are removing the monster modifier on Nimbus Strike.
It's intended that channels like Miss Fortune's R - Bullet Time and Samira's R - Inferno Trigger break Duskblade's untargetability. Rather than triggering the effect only to immediately remove it, which would put the item on cooldown, we've decided to prevent it triggering altogether while channeling.
Champion power comes from both their inherent kit and the systems (runes, items, Summoner Spells, etc.) that players choose to opt into for that game. Ideally, the ratio of power that comes from those sources remains relatively consistent throughout the game. Early on, champions have a keystone and only low-level skills. As time goes on, items get completed, ultimates come online, and abilities get ranked up. But while attack damage and ability power ratios rarely change much with rank, items may each have ratios of their own. If these item ratios are too high, some champions start to become button-pressers for their item (looking at you Ezreal and Rengar) instead of standing out as their own champions.
With that in mind, the goal of the changes to Essence Reaver and Stormrazor this patch are to limit the new attack damage ratios that champions gain over time while making sure they're a powerful source of damage early in the game. This change should make Essence Reaver stronger for most users across the majority of playtime but will be slightly weaker later.
Statikk Shiv has gained a few surprising users (hello, LeBlanc) and while we're excited to see players figure out cool new ways of using the item system, it's important that items don't produce poor gameplay when optimized. Shiv has an AP ratio in order to create an item that suits hybrid builds (Kai'Sa, Kayle, Varus, and Teemo as example users), but its best users ended up being mages with long-distance dashes who used it like a souped-up Lich Bane. Shiv is meant to be a strong source of wave clear that relies on champion input to finish killing minions. We're removing the AP ratio on minions to preserve that gameplay intent and the PVP AP ratio is being dropped a bit in order to make it not clearly better than items that already serve a PVP burst purpose. It's possible that LeBlanc and Zoe still enjoy Statikk Shiv with these changes, but the gameplay around those builds should be much fairer for their opponents.
Read Essence Reaver's context paragraph if you want to know why we're shifting power from AD ratios into base item power. Also, for those CTRL+F users who search for champion names: this is a Rengar nerf.
Stormrazor has a ton of new users in midseason and some of that is because it was initially overpowered. It's actually just a touch weak right now but is also contributing to substantial late game burst. In this patch we'll be reshaping its power to be stronger early and weaker late, which should make buying Stormrazor feel like a strong power spike while still making marksmen rely on sustained damage for late-game success. Its Ability Power ratio is being removed because it's not a good mage item anyway and we're not willing to give them three Lich Banes so we don't want them getting any weird ideas.
For this patch we'll mainly be reducing the buffs or nerfs on champions who no longer need them. Some of the modifier reductions are on champions who are below a 50% win rate, such as Zed or Qiyana, as they are generally harder to play (especially on ARAM) and we want to ensure that their buffs aren't too oppressive in the right hands.
We'd like champion expectation to more closely reflect Summoner's Rift, so we'll be continuing to reduce modifiers on champions when it's reasonable to do so—even if they are sometimes below a 50% win rate because win rate doesn't really tell the full story.
The following skins will be released in this patch:
The following chromas will be released this patch: