Patch 6.24 notes

Camille

Camille, the Steel Shadow, will be released later on during patch 6.24! In the meantime, learn more about League’s newest champion here:

• Severed Ties
• Champion Reveal
• Champion Bio
• Champion Insights
• Inside Camille Dev

Akali

Passive procs on turrets.

When we shifted Twin Disciplines from an always-on effect to one compressed into two procs, we held off on allowing it to work on structures. This was a hit to Akali’s pushing strength, given her basic attacks against structures lost some AP scaling without reaping the benefits of the updated Twin Disciplines. We did this to maintain Twin Discipline’s combat focus for the first release of her update, ensuring we’d have a clearer read on follow-up balance needs (see: last patch’s ratio buffs). Now that things have settled a bit and we’ve had a chance to observe how all the changes are playing out, we’re comfortable giving back Twin Disciplines’ pushing potential.

Passive – Twin Disciplines

Azir

W cooldown reduced. Sun Discs deal more damage and give enemies less gold.

We haven’t talked much about Azir since he fell out of the spotlight about half a year ago. To quickly summarize, Azir’s got too many strengths and not enough weaknesses. This makes balance an extremely finnicky task: with no clear vulnerabilities to exploit, it’s hard to bring Azir back down once he starts picking up a lead.

This patch, we’re raising Azir’s baseline effectiveness without substantially raising his poke potential. He’ll be able to reach and maintain three soldiers more quickly when going all-in on a fight, and faster soldier charges also means better access to Shifting Sands (whether for slick getaways or the Shurima Shuffle). We’re also giving some love to the Sun Disc – “temporary replacement turret” is a cool strategic strength only Azir brings to the table, but it felt a bit bad to use since it could end up as quick gold for the enemy team.

Passive – Shurima’s Legacy

W – Arise!

Fiddlesticks

W damage increased early. E cooldown reduced.

The new jungle hasn’t been kind to Fiddlesticks, who’s lost a lot of clearing speed against buff camps and Krugs. We’re giving him back some jungling efficiency in the early game, though it’s still safe to say the new jungle’s shifted some of Fid’s clearing strength from Dark Wind to Drain.

W – Drain

E – Dark Wind

Fizz

Clarity improvements around how whiffed R fishes attach to enemies that step on them.

One of the side effects of Chum the Waters growing with distance is that when Fizz misses, the fish pick-up radius tends to be much bigger than before. That increased size exposed some shortcomings in terms of how that pick-up mechanic is displayed, so we’re making a few visual improvements.

R – Chum the Waters

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where W – Seastone Trident’s cooldown wasn’t refunded if it killed an enemy champion with a post-death form (ex. Karthus, Sion)

Garen

Spinning shreds enemy armor after four hits.

Garen’s been struggling for a few different reasons, but the underlying theme is consistency. He’s vulnerable to peel by design, but even compared to other juggernauts, he loses way too much impact when the enemy team’s able to keep him at bay. This is nigh-inevitable as the game progresses: Garen doesn’t (and shouldn’t) have the tools to ignore the peel efforts of a coordinated team. But, once he’s stuck butting heads with the enemy frontliners, his threat vanishes since he has no means of piercing their durability. Given his lack of utility elsewhere (Nasus has Wither, Darius has Apprehend, etc), this often leaves Garen feeling like dead weight.

This change isn’t a silver bullet for Garen’s problems, but lets him better carry his weight against tankier foes when he can’t reach the Villain and gives allies a way to capitalize on Garen’s efforts.

E – Judgment

Ivern

E costs more mana and slows for less.

Right now, Ivern is one of the most challenging champions to master. As players have climbed that curve, it’s become apparent that the wolf-cuddling jungler is pretty dang strong. His mid and late game seem about right, but the consistency of his early ganks is too damn high. Triggerseed is the main offender, with the slow providing too much consistency early on, and combined with his unique clear speed, he’s posing too much of an early threat to laners.

E – Triggerseed

Katarina

Dagger damage increased in the early/mid game.

Given Katarina’s focus on damage dealing, it’s a bit surprising that only one of her basic abilities (Bouncing Blade) gains substantial base damage with rank-up. Instead, a huge chunk of damage comes from champion level scaling via Kat’s new dagger mechanic. So, the Sinister Blade hits a mid-game slump: though daggers keep gaining damage with level and she gets better dagger access via lower Preparation and Shunpo cooldowns, Kat’s unable to prioritize damage itself in her skill-ups once she’s maxed Bouncing Blade.

In most reasonable matches, Kat hits this wall before her ability power scaling takes off, making it hard to keep pace with enemies. We’re giving her a little help while she fills out her inventory.

Passive – Voracity

Bugfixes

• Katarina’s R – Death Lotus icon no longer lights up while dead when enemies walk near her corpse
• If Katarina catches a W – Preparation dagger at the end of E – Shunpo’s cast time, the Preparation dagger’s damage no longer follows her to Shunpo’s location
• If Katarina E – Shunpo’s to an ally or a dagger, Shunpo’s damage now properly transfers to the nearest minion or jungle monster if no enemy champions are in range

Kog’Maw

W deals more on-hit damage. E damage and ability power ratio reduced.

Kog’s been on the road to recovery since his un-update a few patches back. His marksman build’s been steadily climbing thanks in part to a bunch of indirect buffs (ex. Blade of the Ruined King/Guinsoo’s Rageblade last patch), and his mage build bounced back a bit too well after our first wave of follow-up in 6.21. A few light touches should get both flavors of the void puppy to a stable spot. For marksman Kog, that’s adding a small bit of oomph to his people-melting button; for mage Kog, that’s pulling some excess waveclear out of his lane phase to keep him on his toes.

W – Bio-Arcane Barrage

E – Void Ooze

LeBlanc

Health regen down. Q damage up, but damage against minions down. E damage down.

Given that LeBlanc’s pre-season changes spread her (previously instant) damage out over a brief window, it’s not surprising that players have been exploring her other strengths. Two patches out, it’s safe to say LeBlanc’s shifted farther away from her assassin roots than we intended. We’re siphoning some power back into her traditional bursty playstyle while tapping down a few unexpected strengths.

Base Stats

Q – Shatter Orb

E – Ethereal Chains

Master Yi

Alpha Strike better follows enemies that Flash away after being tagged.

This is a lot of text that says if Master Yi’s primary target Flashes away the moment before he reappears, Yi will follow them rather than awkwardly popping out at the spot the target just Flashed away from.

Also, a bugfix we will decline to comment on.

Passive – Double Strike

Q – Alpha Strike

Nidalee

+5.12 AD

Whereas last season’s Nidalee was a machine of efficiency in the jungle, she’s now struggling to complete her clears with enough strength remaining to make an impact on the game. We haven’t forgotten the balance challenges Nidalee presented in 2016, but it’s plain to see she’s now having the opposite balance problem, regardless of lingering gameplay issues. With many of her problematic mechanics removed (namely, most of her attack resets), a straightforward attack damage buff should put her head back above water as pre-season monitoring continues, without choking out the rest of the jungle roster.

Base Stats

Rengar

Overall Bonetooth Necklace bonuses reduced. Attack damage per level increased.

While his rework toned down his upfront damage, new Rengar was getting enough attack damage from Bonetooth Necklace to retain the frustration old Rengar wrought. We’re dialing back his scaling to make sure squishy champions get a response to respond to knifecat before he claws their faces off. While we were investigating his Bonetooth damage, we found a bug: it was scaling off of total, not bonus attack damage. We’re fixing that, and compensating via base attack damage scaling to avoid a double-nerf.

Base Stats

Bonetooth Necklace

Shaco

Buff-fixes for Backstab.

Cleaning up a few quirks where Backstab wasn’t doing what you’d expect it to.

Passive – Backstab

Shyvana

Passive can now be stacked on Howling Abyss and Twisted Treeline

Following up on last patch’s ability update, we’re giving Shyvana ways to earn Fury of the Dragonborn stacks on maps that don’t have elemental drakes.

Passive – Fury of the Dragonborn

Twitch

Passive damage decreased. W mana cost increased.

Like other hypercarries, Twitch’s natural enemy is the lane bully marksman (Lucian, Draven, MF). With pre-season’s shift from flat armor penetration to lethality, those lane bullies have lost a lot of early strength. Combined with the strength Twitch himself gained from the stealth update, the Plague Rat’s quickly risen to the top of bot-lane’s food chain. We’re trimming some of his early power so enemies once again have a chance to stall out his late-game scaling.

Passive – Deadly Venom

W – Venom Cask

Varus

Passive now scales with bonus attack speed and its duration is the same regardless of proc type.

When Varus has been successful in the past, it’s been by building raw attack damage and armor penetration items, rather than marksman crit builds. We want to support Varus as both a caster and a traditional marksman, so we’re making the basic-attack scaling on his passive more appropriate in the late game.

Passive – Living Vengeance

Vayne

Q damage down at later ranks.

When we last visited Vayne, we buffed Tumble’s scaling to compensate for the strength of lane bullies. The net result of that change: Vayne (a late-game hypercarry) now has a powerful mid-game spike once Tumble is maxed and she completes her Infinity Edge + Statikk Shiv combo. With mid-game dueling mastery, Vayne no longer has to wait to scale before she becomes a dominant threat. We’re reverting Tumble’s previous buff to get her back to her late-game-focused ways.

Q – Tumble

Rylai’s Crystal Scepter

Single target and area-effect spells no longer cause a stronger slow. Cost and stats decreased.

Rylai’s has become a go-to item for AP bruisers utility mages AP assassins every mage. There’s nothing wrong with popular items, but when that item gives survivability and utility, it artificially decreases class variance, making characters more similar in their capabilities. We want Rylai’s to be purchased for its repeatable slow, not because it’s an optimal stat-stick. While that means toning its health and AP down to make it less generically appealing to mages, we also want the slow to be less attractive to mages who can’t reapply it consistently. We know this shift affects some champions more heavily than others, but we’d rather help those champs become less reliant on Rylai’s with future changes than tiptoe around the problems with Rylai’s itself.

Haunting Guise

It’s cheaper.

Liandry’s Torment is a natural pairing for Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, and many of its purchasers care primarily about that two-item power spike. Combined with the changes to Rylai’s, we are less concerned with RyLiandry’s being abused by non-core users, and thus can afford to let those core users hit their spike earlier.

Liandry’s Torment

Courage of the Colossus

Cooldown up at early levels. Shield bonus per nearby enemy down.

Courage of the Colossus is doing its job: helping champions who get in the thick of things and lay down crowd control to survive better once they’re in there. Unfortunately, it’s doing that too well. On top of that, while it should have some value in lane, it’s a bit too hard to pick a smart trade against such a fat shield every wave.

Fervor of Battle

Stacks last longer. Fewer stacks required.

We like Fervor’s playstyle: the longer you keep attacking, the stronger you get. Some of our pre-season changes have put that promise a bit too far out of reach: stacking takes longer and it’s harder to keep stacks up. We’re going back on a few changes to restore some of Fervor’s lost reliability.