It’s patch 13.23, bee-lieve it!
In this week’s patch we’re focusing on addressing a few outliers and refining changes made in a few of the last patches, like those to K’Sante. We’re focusing more and more on getting the 2024 changes polished and ready for 14.1, so be aware that this patch and 13.24 may be a bit smaller and less complex than usual as 14.1 will undoubtedly shake things up!
In other news, we have some un-bee-lievably adorable Bee skins coming out this patch, a round of Nexus Blitz and ARAM balance adjustments, and last but certainly not least, this is the patch the Riot ID changes go into effect. We’ve made a few changes so make sure you check those out down below.
TFT has a new set launching this patch that has you mix your own track by combining different bands (traits) on your board! Read all about The Remix Rumble in the TFT patch notes here!
On November 20, 2023, we phased out the usage of “Summoner Names” and moved all players exclusively to Riot IDs to create a more unified experience across all our games. Read more about this change here.
We’ve made updates to the transition from Summoner Names to Riot IDs. You’ll now be able to change your name for free every 90 days. This change went into place on November 20, and everyone has been granted a free name change, if they’d like to use it. You can also read more about it here.
W damage decreased, soldiers now apply on-hit effects on their primary target.
Azir's lack of interaction with on-hit items has been a source of confusion and disappointment for players newer to this champion. This was recently highlighted again when Arena released, as there were several Augments that could be really cool for Azir but actually didn't work and baited players into taking them. After exploring allowing his soldiers to proc on-hit items we believe this a nice win for the Emperor of the Sands that will enhance his fantasy on both Summoner’s Rift and Arena! As this will increase his item scaling potential, we did need to pair it with some proactive nerfs so that he doesn’t go too crazy with this newfound power.
Base health decreased. W Snack Attack damage decreased.
Despite the nerfs, Briar keeps performing better patch over patch as players continue to learn and master her. So we're back to tap her power down in a way that will leave her less oppressive than before. With these changes we're continuing our attempt to close the gap between lethality and fighter builds. Lower health means she'll have to be more reliant on bonus health from other sources, and lower burst damage decreases lethality's relative value in favor of longer fighter patterns.
R quality of life change.
Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaven.
Passive bonus movement speed adjusted. W cooldown decreased, targeting adjusted. R cooldown decreased.
Though there's some room for players to optimize Janna further (notably switching back to Aery now that Howling Gale spam is weaker), she has wound up in a weaker spot than before 13.22's kit update. We're giving her back some power to make sure she feels good to play at all points in the game. One notable factor is that she's performing much worse in the early game than she used to, so we're attempting to specifically help her early power with these changes.
The change to Zephyr's range should be a buff overall. It will now perfectly match her attack range, which is almost identical against small targets but meaningfully easier to wield against larger champions like Cho'Gath.
Q cooldown increased.
Jarvan IV has been very prominent in solo queue with solid pick, ban, and win rates. He currently accesses a large amount of haste through his build, which is leading to oppressive Q-E uptime. To reduce this particular strength, we’re increasing the cooldown on his Q which should still be accessible once you’ve built some Ability Haste, but will not be quite as oppressive as it is now.
Q mana cost increased, base damage decreased. W bugfix. E shield decreased. R passive bonus attack damage adjusted, bonus on cast decreased.
K'Sante's kit update back in 13.20 has moved him in the direction that we want with more room for opponents to counterplay. However, we've still been trying to land his tuning to ensure he has a proper spread of strong and weak matchups. The goals with this patch are to ensure that K'Sante has real difficulty in bad matchups. A weaker shield, costlier Q, and especially reduced damage at his level 6 power spike should ensure strong 1v1 laners can excel against him. He's still meant to be a strongly-scaling, sometimes-warden, sometimes-skirmisher and we'll continue to re-tune him as necessary to ensure he's a high-skill champion worth mastering, without easily dominating his opposition.
Passive packmate damage decreased. E base damage decreased.
Naafiri was created with the goal of being a relatively easy-to-play assassin that doesn’t have a lot of pressure to end games quickly as she was specifically geared toward average-skill games. She's definitely succeeding at being one of the more straightforward assassins with a good late game to boot. However, she's just winning too many games right now, so we're taking aim at a nerf. In an effort to retain as much agency over the game as possible, we're preserving her gold scaling and instead taking down her base damage to ensure that she must perform well to continue securing takedowns.
Q AD scaling increased. R AD scaling increased.
The anti-snowballing update of 13.20 hurt Riven a bit as she's often reliant on snowballing an early lead. While she's not strictly weak in the hands of her most practiced players, we'd like to give her a small boost in power to make that dedication pay off a little harder.
AD growth increased. Q mana cost decreased.
Trundle hasn’t been performing well as a top laner, which means he needs a bit of help. We’re looking to decrease his Q mana cost, as he relies on this ability to trade and clear waves which should help out Trundle top. We’re also buffing his AD growth as this should increase his scaling and Trinity Force synergy.
Passive damage increased.
Vel'Koz is currently fairly weak as both a support and mid laner and could use a little more power. In this patch we’ll be buffing his passive damage, as there's a reasonable amount of interesting gameplay in triggering it and to make this proc more rewarding for Vel'Koz players. While this will also increase his power during R, he only procs his passive once per cast, which creates more of a reward for the risk of immobilizing Vel’Koz.
Base AD increased. Q damage decreased. W cooldown increased early, mana cost increased.
Our armor nerf from last patch ended up not being as meaningful as we had hoped due to how far back Ziggs can play, so we need to nerf him again as he's performing quite well in solo queue. Our main goal is to reduce how oppressive his early game is by nerfing the base damage on his Q since it now has a more reliable hitbox. We’re also including a nerf to his W uptime, as this is a strong engage/disengage tool that can also be used for waveclear since it has a relatively low cost.
In this patch we’ll be adjusting turret gold rewards in an effort to make split pushing a more satisfying path to power. Inner turrets will have 125 gold shifted from global into local gold, which will raise the individual power level of anyone brave enough to push into enemy territory to take them down. We're also shifting and raising the value of Inhibitor turrets in order to make them a much more valuable objective overall. Currently it isn’t worth risking taking down an Inhibitor turret while splitting so we'd like to make this fairly dangerous objective more worthwhile.
Statistically, top laners earn the most turret gold of any role in the game in every skill bracket, so a relative increase in local turret value should disproportionately help top laners convert their strength into more power and thus increase their agency over the game as a whole.
Also, did you know turrets have items in their inventory that explain some of their various rules? They've received a small clarity and content pass to be a bit more informative and easier to read.
With their new jungle pet buddies, junglers have been outpacing their laning counterparts, making their ganks a little too potent in the early game. We're taking a pass at monster health to slow down their clears a bit, especially those with strong AoE clears.