Rise and shine, it’s patch 13.9!
This week’s patch will be a bit on the lighter side as we prepare for 13.10 which will be our biggest patch since the season started. The star of this patch will be the newminionjungle plantwardNeeko midscope, but we also have a few quality of life buffs and adjustments for a few champions that just aren’t quite hitting the spot we’d like them to.
Don’t forget that MSI kicks off in London TODAY. If you need a quick rundown of all the changes including the new format, make sure to check out our MSI 2023 Primer here!
Looking to defy the odds by pulling a 5 cost at level 7? In that case, you can check out the TFT patch notes here!
Neeko Midscope update, all abilities adjusted.
The intent of Neeko’s midscope is to help her achieve her undelivered fantasy as one of the premier tricksters in League. Neeko's passive as-is has been pretty weak and isn’t used by many players. Her W was a bit more tricky, but still not even that tricky, and that’s the whole point of it!
We're opening up Neeko's passive to be able to turn into anything so that Neeko can truly be a unique trickster. She will be able to turn into anything with a health bar, from a minion, to a monster, to an Illaoi tentacle. She will have quite a few unusual interactions with other champions based on what she's disguised as.
Her W should now be a true trickster's tool as she’ll have complete control over it. You can fire and forget the clone like it was in the past, but also finely control its position (or emotes) to scout or deceive your opponents. We expect there to be a lot more mastery in both her passive and W now that she has more options in how to use them.
The last major change, R, is a substantial change to the reliability of the spell. Traditionally, Neeko’s R was very, very hard to hit against an enemy actively playing around you. Spells in League of Legends should feel like they work for the character casting them, and Neeko's ultimate in many ways felt like it was working more for her enemies than her. This new, increased reliability did make us have to shift a bit of power out of the ult (out of cooldown and damage), but she’ll hit the spell way more often so we needed to curb it a bit.
We also have some adjustments for the jungle to open up Neeko to a role she feels fairly natural in. There is no intent to make the jungle Neeko's primary role, but for a character whose theme and gameplay feel so suited it seemed a shame to not let her try to play there and see how players feel about it.
Like with all midscopes, we’ll be keeping a close eye on Neeko to make sure the changes all land well on live servers and adjust where needed. And one more quick note, given the unique nature of Neeko’s new passive, we expect that there may be a few bugs that pop up when she ships and we’ll iron them out over future patches.
Passive damage increased. R movement speed increased.
Aatrox has been struggling to make an impact in top lane. To bring him back in line with the power level of his peers, we’re increasing the scaling damage he gains from his Deathbringer passive and increasing the bonus movement speed he gains from his ultimate, allowing him to better stick to targets.
W damage increased early.
Amumu is a great introductory jungler who makes clearing camps easy on a mechanical and conceptual level and that's great for him. This ease of execution leads to him naturally having a high win rate in lower-skilled play, where he's recently fallen off a bit. He's also a completely reasonable support pick at all levels of play so we're not trying to give him too much more power in that role.
Attack damage growth decreased. Q damage to monsters increased.
With these changes we’re trying to give Bel'Veth a much better early clear in the jungle where she has typically been struggling. As a dedicated jungler, Bel'Veth has a surprisingly risky early clear that's abnormal for must junglers. We're giving her a bit more clearing power, but as she's already a relatively balanced character, we’re trimming some scaling damage from her base stats. Since she'll be getting more out her jungle clears, we expect this to be about power neutral but leave Bel'Veth players a bit happier when they're doing normal jungle things.
Attack damage growth decreased.
Jinx is one of the stronger ADCs in League and as a result needs a light nerf to put her more on par with other marksmen.
E AP ratio decreased, passive wave damage adjusted. R cast time decreased, AoE radius increased, Invulnerability duration adjusted, damage delay increased, magic damage decreased.
We're adjusting Kayle's ultimate to allow her to attack for longer while invulnerable and increasing the AoE radius so she doesn't have to compromise her positioning as a ranged carry to hit the spell. While the intent is to overall buff Kayle, attacking while invulnerable is quite powerful so we're lowering her sustained damage a bit to compensate.
Passive health decay increased.
Since the durability update and the addition of Heartsteel as a health-stacking item, Sion's passive has begun lasting far longer than it was able to in the past. This was an aspect of Sion's kit that we felt needed to be brought back in line with its intended design.
Q damage increased.
Swain's early laning and damage has been lacking recently, so we’re buffing his Q to accentuate the damage he can reliably dish out, particularly on targets he can get in proximity of.
R cast lockout conditions adjusted.
In Taliyah's midscope, we limited her ability to have a guaranteed escape by building some walls around when she could cast her ultimate. Some of this found success, but other cases left Taliyah feeling punished when she couldn't chase after someone she had recently damaged. We're happy in the cases where Taliyah rock surfs into enemies, so we're loosening those restrictions.
Base attack speed increased, base mana increased.
Trundle is underperforming in both top lane and jungle, so we’re looking to revert the base attack speed nerf from 12.23, as this took a lot of power away and resulted in a “feels” hit for the troll king. We’re also giving Trundle a base mana buff to let him trade more in top lane.
W damage and heal increased.
Volibear is sitting at a below average power level when compared to other top laners. So we’re reverting some of the previous health ratio nerfs in order to help him out in all levels of play while avoiding making his laning more frustrating for opponents.
Lich Bane has lost satisfaction over time. The item is still popular with its core userbase but we want those who purchase it to feel better about the purchase and just overall increase its viability as an AP item choice.
It's finally happened… Emotes have been updated! They will now feature a new 9 slot wheel for all your favorites. Now you have space for EVEN. MORE. BEES. Reactions like first blood and ace have moved to a new page you can access through the navigation above the wheel. Search has also come to the emote collection, so finding new and old favorites by name is a breeze!
Veigar’s Warmog builds make him much too tanky, meaning he needs to be taking a bit more damage to reduce the frustration he brings to the bridge.
MSI 2023 is here, and so are the MSI-themed Clash tournaments! These will be 8-team bracket tournaments. The first weekend will be May 6th and 7th. Team formation for the first weekend will be open starting on May 3rd. The second weekend will be May 13th and 14th. Team formation for the second weekend will be open starting on May 8th.
As part of MSI Clash, players who purchase a Premium Ticket during Clash would be eligible to the following rewards: (NOTE: JP region is excluded from this reward due to legal restrictions.)
We're adding the ability to report players in the game in order to provide you with more opportunities to help us identify and take action on folks displaying toxic or disruptive behavior. These reports will also give us more information about exactly when during the course of the game the disruption occurred, which will help improve our systems going forward. We hope you never need to use this but it's there if you do.
The following skins will be released in this patch:
The following chromas will be released this patch:
The following emotes will be released this patch: