Patch 7.18 notes

Azir

R base damage increased

As a fragile damage dealer, Azir subjects himself to a ton of risk in the late game when attempting flashy ult plays against the enemy backline. His reward for landing those late-game shuffles should be worthy of that risk.

On a forward-facing note, expect to hear a lot more about Azir in the near future. We’ll keep you posted!

R - Emperor's Divide

Cassiopeia

E bonus against poisoned targets shifted from base damage into ratio.

Twin Fang’s high base damage is allowing Cassiopeia to dip into defensive itemization while still pumping out glass-cannon-level damage in the early-to-mid game. If Cass wants to melt face, she should have to (literally) pay for it.

E - Twin Fang

Elise

W base damage decreased but scaling increased. E cooldown increased at later ranks.

Elise is the premiere magic damage jungler at the moment, especially in pro play. She’s perfect for snowballing the early game, but teams that fail to do so aren’t paying a cost later on. Reducing Elise’s access to Rappel in the late game reduces the baseline contributions she makes to her team (baiting enemy cooldowns) and leaves her vulnerable for longer stretches of time. As a result, she’ll have to capitalize more heavily on her early advantages to impact (and survive) teamfights. On the same note, taking some of the bite away from Volatile Spiderling’s base damage forces Elise to reach higher AP thresholds to deal the same damage late game, which is only feasible in matches where she’s built up a gold advantage.

W - Volatile Spiderling

E - Rappel

Fiora

Passive’s movement speed increased. Ultimate now grants passive’s movement speed within its area.

Back in patch 7.14 we made some changes to curb some of Fiora’s mobility, but those nerfs coincided with shifts in the meta to leave the Grand Duelist in a rough spot. In a world where Bramble Vest didn’t exist, forcing Fiora to work reach her enemies—and stick to them—made sense. In a world with Bramble Vest, however, Fiora’s dealing less damage (opponents have more armor) and sustaining less off Vital procs (Bramble Vest’s Grievous Wounds), so that handicap no longer makes sense. We’re reverting 7.14’s mobility nerfs and will keep an eye on Fiora.

Passive - Duelist's Dance

R - Grand Challenge

Gnar

Mini Gnar’s base health decreased.

Gnar's back at the top of top lane again. While we're glad he’s pushing tanks when they can’t get to him, we want to give opponents a better chance to go for the kill when they do capitalize on his positioning mistakes.

Base stats

Gragas

Base armor decreased. E collision detection decreased.

Gragas is a very consistent, safe jungler who just does everything well. We want to remove some consistency, so we’re making his clear a bit less healthy and making Body Slam more fair for opponents to dodge.

Base stats

E - Body Slam

Ivern

E explosion base damage and ratio increased.

Triggerseed has seen several nerfs this season, but the last set of changes came alongside a weakening of the support items which also contributed to Ivern’s dominance. The double nerf left Ivern a bit undertuned, so we’re giving back the damage we took from Triggerseed in the last go-around (though part of it’s in the ratio now).

E - Triggerseed

Jarvan IV

W base shield and shield per enemy champion decreased.

At present, the Prince of Demacia is dunking enemy backlines and tanking everything the enemy team throws at him in the process. We're toning down his durability so diving the squishies is more of a daunting task.

W - Golden Aegis

Kalista

R cooldown increased.

Kalista’s kit lends itself well to coordinated teams, so it’s not surprising to see her at the top of the competitive scene’s pick/ban charts without similarly dominating regular matches. We’re tapping down the frequency of her Fate’s Call plays to reduce her presence in the pro scene, leaving her less team-dependent strengths intact for everyone else.

R - Fate's Call

Lee Sin

W shield increased at early ranks, decreased at rank 5.

With no hard crowd control in the early game, we want to make sure Lee Sin brings best-in-class 2v2 dueling power. We’re buffing up Safeguard’s early shield to make The Blind Monk’s perfectly-played ganks even more impactful.

W - Safeguard

Lucian

E cooldown increased at early ranks.

Lucian’s risen to prominence as the go-to midlane bully. We’re increasing the windows of vulnerability he incurs by burning Relentless Pursuit offensively: if Lucian wants to dash into danger, he’ll have to shoot his way back out of it.

E - Relentless Pursuit

Nautilus

Q mana cost no longer increases with rank-up. Q now refunds half of its mana cost when it hits terrain.

Dredge Line eats a lot of mana, meaning Nautilus either drains the tank pretty quickly when trying to make plays or gives up pressure to conserve his resources. We’re letting Naut cram more Q casts into his mana bar to encourage anchor tossing, potentially even opening the door to earlier Dredge Line maxes for Nautilii who want to prioritize engaging for their team.

Q - Dredge Line

Nidalee

E heal ratio increased.

Nidalee’s been out of the spotlight for a while, and even when teams would benefit from a magic damage jungler they’re often overlooking her entirely. Her clears are still some of the quickest in the game and she deals plenty of damage, but she lacks some of the utility other junglers bring. We’re strengthening her healing as she scales into the late game to even the playing field.

E - Primal Surge

Ornn

New Forge Item: Zhonya’s Paradox. First Ram’s maximum speed increased.

Ornn’s been suffering pretty harshly since his release, moreso than other new champions. Among other changes, several of our mid-patch updates focused on getting his abilities to flow more easily. We’re continuing that work with 7.18. First, we’re preventing Ornn’s teammates from hamstringing themselves by rushing his Masterwork upgrades. Ornn’s Forge items are meant to be something special for the late game, not early-game power spikes. Second, we’re making Call of the Forge God easier to use by giving opponents less time to react to it.

Passive - Living Forge

newZhonya's Paradox

R - Call of the Forge God

Mid-Patch 7.17 Balance Updates

Rakan

W dash speed decreased late game. R radius decreased, and cooldown decreased late game.

Rakan has too much reliability in his engage pattern, especially once he gets boots and pops The Quickness or other movement speed buffs. We’re toning down how quickly Grand Entrance gets him into the thick of things to give opponents more time to react. Also, we’re dialing back how easily Rakan can hit multiple targets with The Quickness, to make him earn those fat engages.

W - Grand Entrance

R - The Quickness

Rengar

Base armor increased.

When Rengar was at his peak, he was able to consistently one-shot squishies. Now that there are more viable tank-support items that allow supports to mitigate burst (Knight’s Vow, for example) there’s less risk of Rengar running away with a game without being fed. As a result, it’s safer to let him get to the mid-game more consistently, so we’re making his early clear less rough.

Base stats

Ryze

W ratio increased.

Ryze has been in a pretty weak place for a while. We don’t want to make it any easier for him to reach his strong late game, but we think he could use a bit more damage in his combo once he’s started to really build ability power.

W - Rune Prison

Tristana

E bomb ratio reduced.

Tristana’s power is coming online a tad too early. Specifically, her high potential for successful trades during laning phase has allowed her to dominate from early on, push towers faster, and get the ball rolling more often that she ought to.

E - Explosive Charge

Rumble

A bit of subtle reinforcement for when Rumble’s about to enter the Danger Zone.

Passive - Junkyard Titan

Enchantment: Cinderhulk

Health reduced.

Similar to the cost change in 7.16, this is a small nudge to continue bringing Cinderhulk’s power spike in line with options available to non-tank junglers.

Spellthief's Edge Line

Frostfang now has cooldown reduction, Frost Queen’s Claim build path adjusted to compensate. Tribute lockout for last-hitting a minion increased.

We haven’t seen much of the Spellthief’s line since we made Ancient Coin an actually-appealing item earlier in the season. This is less about Coin and more about Spellthief’s: the line just isn’t doing its job of enabling early aggression. We’re moving the cooldown reduction of Frostfang’s upgrades onto Frostfang itself, making it a more potent laning threat. This has the side effect of unlocking more build flexibility: sitting on Frostfang in the midgame will be less punishing for supports who’d rather start building into their late-game oriented items.

That said, the Spellthief’s line has historically been vulnerable to midlane poaching when strong. We’re upping the Tribute penalty for last-hitting to nip that problem in the bud.

Tribute passive

Frostfang

Frost Queen's Claim

Gargoyle Stoneplate

Health granted by Stoneplate's active's is now partially base health, rather than entirely bonus health.

Making good on last patch’s promise, we’ve got a set of changes to mitigate Stoneplate’s oversynergies with a few specific effects. Most importantly, Stoneplate now knows the difference between base health and bonus health. The total health granted is the same as before (with two exceptions—see below), but Stoneplate will contribute far less to effects that scale with bonus health as a result of this change—Cho’Gath’s ult and Locket’s shield being the two most notorious offenders here.

Also, last patch’s Cinderhulk bugfix is back now that Kled isn’t freaking out about it.

Knight's Vow

Cost decreased. Health decreased.

Support items are at a lower price point than other tank items, so we can make them very gold efficient without making them appealing to other classes. In Knight’s Vow’s case, the overall stats on the item were high enough to still entice more farmed tanks, so we’re toning that efficiency down. By bringing the price point and the stats down, we can make Knight’s Vow more clearly a low-budget item that’s focused on it’s unique effects.