Get ready for an out-of-this-world patch, because the stars have aligned and the Aurelion Sol CGU is here!
But wait, there’s more! We have Ahri’s ASU for confirmed 100% fluffier tails (this is not a legally binding claim), buffs for a few struggling melee supports, nerfs to some popular items like Umbral Glaive and Radiant Virtue, sweeping Tenacity tweaks, and now you can surrender at 15 minutes if 4 of 5 players agree. As always, thanks for reading and see you on the Rift!
Check out the TFT patch notes here!
We’re working to bounce back from the Social Engineering attack, but unfortunately Patch 13.3 will be delayed. We’ll post details back here once we have a good understanding of when we’ll be able to roll out the patch. We apologize for the inconvenience and want to thank you once again for your patience as we work through these unprecedented circumstances. Thank you!
Patch 13.3 will go live a day later than usual. That will be the morning of Thursday the 9th for all Riot regions, and the morning of Friday the 10th for SEA.
CGU, abilities adjusted.
Aurelion Sol’s CGU is here. We hope you enjoy his stellar scaling, new and improved abilities, and absolutely breathtaking ultimate!
Aurelion Sol’s damaging Abilities break down enemies into Stardust, which improves his Abilities.
Q mana cost increased. E base damage decreased.
We adjusted Amumu at the end of last season so the Sad Mummy could find some friends with the new jungle companions. However, he seems to have found a few too many friends in both jungle and support, so we’re nerfing him in both roles.
Passive is now fully charged on spawn. E shield strength increased, cooldown decreased, retaliation damage and conditions adjusted. R Tibbers health, armor, magic resist, and movement speed increased.
Annie’s been struggling to pick up wins, even when she’s matched against opponents that she should have the advantage against. We’re giving one of League’s oldest champs some much-needed quality of life buffs to her Molten Shield and Pyromania passive, and bumping up Tibbers’ durability for late game fights. The intent is to buff Annie in ways that aren’t just her upfront burst damage, but we’ll be keeping an eye out to make sure these changes bring her power to bear.
Base armor increased, W cooldown decreased, shield strength now scales with AD, shield duration decreased.
Golden Aegis hasn’t been the shiniest ability in League’s history (although the name may be misleading). Jarvan’s W has been intentionally kept a bit underwhelming as it has been a great defensive spell for low-economy junglers in pro play. However, since the Durability update Jarvan’s needed to fill the role of a relevant backline threat, so we’re beefing up his shield to reward his more AD oriented builds.
Base health increased. Q knockup and stun duration decreased. W minimum stun duration decreased. R bonus resistances lost increased.
K’Sante has too much CC right now, which allows him to lock down opponents too effectively, so we’re tapping down his numbers to make him a little less oppressive (these changes should also help make Tenacity more effective against the Pride of Nazumah). Lastly, we’re also dropping his durability when he goes All Out in fights to emphasize the need for him to isolate his enemies.
E base damage decreased, cooldown reduction from nearby casts decreased. R base damage decreased, bonus damage per stack decreased.
Even after his nerfs last patch Kassadin continues to Kassawin. These nerfs are targeting two of his core strengths: his ability to trade effectively in the early game and his ability to spam his E in the late game. So we’re bringing down the power on both of these to help bring him back into line.
Passive bonus move speed increased. E on-hit AP scaling increased, missing health damage increased.
Kayle’s been feeling a little less-than-angelic lately, so we’re looking to grant some skill-expression to make her stronger, especially in the hands of her mains.
Passive Shadow Assassin damage increased. Q AD scaling increased.
Shadow Kayn hasn’t been the terror in the shadows he once was, suffering particularly hard in lower skill brackets. We’re giving him a bit more AD scaling to support the arguably edgier version to Kayn without giving Rhaast too much power.
Mana Regeneration and Mana Regeneration growth increased. Q mana cost now flat at all ranks. R cooldown decreased early.
LeBlanc has been struggling across all skill brackets, and now that she hasn’t been a constant Pro threat we’re comforting giving her access to a bit more mana throughout the game. This should help LeBlanc players find some wins in tougher lanes, snowball a few more games, and give her access to some more waveclear and poke.
Q AD ratio increased. E base damage decreased, slow increased.
Lee Sin rarely gets to be strong in the hands of us mere mortals since his skill cap is so high. We don't want to lower his skill expression, so by granting him more damage in the mid game and a bit more utility late game, we're hoping he can find success even without 300 APM kick combos.
W cooldown decreased at all ranks. Discovered his passion for dancing.
Trundle hasn't really felt like the Troll King after various system nerfs indirectly affected him on top of other nerfs that actually directly affected him. So we’re reverting the uptime of his Frozen Domain so that he feels a bit more like his old self (but not his classic self), which should give him a reason to dance (which also got buffed).
W AP scaling decreased. E AP scaling decreased.
Zac has elastic slingshotted into a top tier jungler (and a few other lanes along the way). The recent Demonic Embrace nerfs brought down his power slightly, but he's still overperforming compared to the rest of the roster. We're reducing some of Zac's scaling damage as the game continues, so that he'll either have to rely on his teammates more for damage like other tanks, or be pushed into more greedier AP builds if he wants to start threatening squishier targets.
Radiant Virtue is currently overpowered (even if pickrate isn't reflecting it) yet its strength isn’t really appreciable due to how unclear the item's best points are (because when you buy a strong item, you should feel strong). We're making Radiant Virtue’s upsides more apparent and impactful while removing some of the extraneous power that is pushing this item a bit too far. We feel enchanters already have plenty of defensive support options, while Radiant Virtue is meant for selfless tanks, who have fewer. So we’re tying Radiant's value more directly tied to tanks with the budget to acquire even more health.
Umbral Glaive is currently much too effective at choking out enemy vision for assassins, supports, assassin supports, and especially marksman supports (stop killing my defenseless wards, Ashe). We do think this item deserves a spot on the roster though, so we’re reducing its uptime and general ability to devastate enemy traps and vision.
Overheal changes were intended to ship with 13.2, but because we only micropatched with 13.1b this change was held back until now. Overheal is stronger for everyone and especially stronger for marksmen because the rune is weak and because players can hopefully opt into running it in games where they need that extra durability.
Right now the Solo Queue meta is 2:1 ranged supports, which is just fine. But the Pro meta is more than 20:1. League is at its best when there’s a wide variety of champions to play and watch, so we’re buffing some melee supports to create some more variety in bot lane. We’re committed to keeping an eye on gameplay health for everyone in the game long term, so if we go too hard or too soft here, we’ll follow up as needed.
Over the years Tenacity sources have increased dramatically. We want to streamline how these effects interact with each other as a cleanup to an old system and provide some clarity on which systems stack well and which don't. With these changes almost all Tenacity effects will stack multiplicatively (net weaker together) as opposed to the previous system where various systems sometimes stacked extremely well to nullify crowd control.
Tenacity sources within the same group will stack multiplicatively with each other.
Tenacity sources from separate groups will stack additively with each other.
Now that we’ve had a chance to let the preseason jungle changes settle into place we’ve gotten a more accurate picture of where the role currently stands and what still needs to be changed (as is typical with these large changes). Our main goals this time around is to bring down early ganking/diving power, shift some power from gold income to experience earned for junglers, and ultimately reducing early game volatility.
This won’t be the last followup change we’re making to the jungle because we have a few bigger issues we’d like to address like early game agency (specifically for level 1-4), balanced champion sustain, monster durability, making sure we strike the right balance between kill rewards and farming rewards, and more. That said, we’ll only ship these if we’re confident they’re the best direction for the game.
Treat income currently rewards champions that gank more than champions that prefer to farm. Ideally both playstyles are viable, so we’re tipping the scales to be a bit more balanced.
Early vision has been proven to deter early ganks in the past, especially in high skill levels. While we don’t want to go back to giving teams permanent map visibility, we do think some extra vision early will help curb the amount of early ganks currently happening on live. Given that you’ll have 2 players in the bot lane, this should be a safe way to introduce more vision leveraging the duo lane’s unique strengths.
With the same intent of deterring the large amount of early ganks we’re upping early tower damage so that the benefits of early dives also come with an appropriate level of risk. As a reminder, turret shots ramp up in damage by 40% per shot against the same target.
Compared to previous seasons jungle companions are bringing a lot more burst damage into the game, particularly against epic monsters. This has caused situations where some champions appear from the Fog of War and their companions also appear and secure an accidental steal. We believe that securing epic monster secures and steals should be as intentional as possible, so we’re adding 1 more rule to the jungle to give some additional clarity.
Due to the recent social engineering attack the first Clash tournament of the year has unfortunately been delayed. This means that the first Clash tournament will not be in mid-February as it has been the past few years and the rest of the Clash tournament dates are being impacted as well. We’re working to get Clash back up and running as soon as possible, and promise to give you a schedule within the next few weeks as soon as we can provide accurate dates. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience in these unusual circumstances.
Our data shows that comeback rates when a team fails a 4 of 5 early surrender (before 20 min) are low. Teams have a generally good sense of what games they will and won't win when 4 of 5 players are on the same page. We’ll be testing a change to surrender thresholds that let these matches resolve more quickly. At the same time, it's important that a winning team has time to feel powerful with a lead and games aren't abandoned too soon. We’ll be closely monitoring player feedback and the impacts of this change to make sure this change well.
Removed the warning in Practice Tool for staying in the fountain too long (regular AFK detection still active)
We’re shipping a few changes this patch that were intended to go live with Jax’s midscope update.
These bugs were significantly more difficult to tackle than the usual ones so it took us a bit longer and required some dedicated focus time for our engineers to fix them. Here are a few highlights from the Bug Bash, while other tickets worked during this period can be found below in Bugfixes.
The following skins will be released in this patch: