Patch 5.16 notes
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Greetings, summoners.
Welcome to patch 5.16, the one where juggernauts exist, defensive items get a pass and Zed actually gets buffed. Before we dive in, let’s clear some things up for all the esports fans out there - 5.14 (the one with crazy Elise, #bigsorry) will be the one that the rest of playoffs including the gauntlet will be played on. Worlds will be played on 5.18, which means while we totally hear you about these changes being pretty huge before worlds, we’ve set aside the next two to react and tune as necessary (read: lighter touches) before these changes hit the big stage.
With that out of the way, on to the main event: Juggernauts.
If you haven’t heard that phrase, brace yourselves: searching at the time of this post says we mention the word 13 times; So what are they? When we think juggernaut, we think of champions like Nasus - hulking, durable melee threats that rip teams to shreds if left unattended, but short-ranged and slow enough to be kited for days. They’re workhorses, but they need a bit of work to get going. So if you start seeing crystals in the jungle and ghost-dragons in your midlane, consider yourself warned - the juggernauts are here to stay.
As for the rest of 5.16, we’ve got our usual host of item and champion changes (albeit a little bigger) to keep things balanced and diverse as we turn our focus towards the World Championship. We’re not looking to shake the game too much after this, but we’re touching up some old pro-play faithfuls (Kassadin, Leblanc, Zed) and tuning down some top-tier titans (Rumble, Viktor, Alistar) as players enter the final leg of the race for the Summoner’s Cup (or for the other 99.9% of us, those sweet end-of-season rewards).
So strap in, queue up, and enjoy the ride. There’s a lot to explore and discover in a post-5.16 landscape, and there’s tons of LP up for grabs.
We even buffed Lee Sin. What a time to be alive.
Patrick "Scarizard" Scarborough
Patch Updates
8/26/2015
Hey folks! Juggernauts shipped, and as enormous game updates sometimes go, not everything was 100% on the balance front. Check out the changes below to see how we're reacting to them. Since we're aiming to get these changes out with as little friction as possible (ie. we don't want to make you download another patch!), some of the in-game tooltips will be out of date until we hit 5.17 and can more comprehensively update everything.
Darius
Decimate's damage and healing increased.
Darius released far weaker than his juggernaut brothers, mostly due to the extra gameplay added to Decimate. We're still keeping the gameplay (we like that part), so we're making it more rewarding when you swing your axe correctly.
Q - Decimate
Skarner
Movement speed and attack speed lowered. W's shield lowered. E's cooldown is increased, and deals less damage.
Oh dear. Skarner released at the strongest state we've seen a character...pretty much ever. While the below changes might look like a lot, these were all added on towards the end of his development cycle as a result of feedback on the PBE. We shouldn't have listened quite so well. No hard feelings, PBE.
General
W - Crystalline Exoskeleton
E - Fracture
Juggernauts
Garen, Darius, Skarner and Mordekaiser have received gameplay updates. We’re calling them juggernauts.
Any time we make an update, we’re aiming for two targets: that every game of League feels meaningfully different based on the champions in it, and that each champion in League feels distinct. That might sound like an enormous goal (probably because it is), but our plan is to break them down into groups that share roughly the same strategic or tactical niche and start solving from there. By hitting a handful of champs at a time we can address a few groups struggling in one go; the first of which are the lumbering giants of melee-ranged obliteration heretofore (affectionately) referred to as juggernauts.
Tanky melee carries walk the line between power and peelability, but in order to find distinct playstyles for each of these four champions, we looked to add a little more uniqueness where we could. When two champs play the same way, you just end up picking the one that’s better. We’re working to change that - shifting each champion’s power so that their highs and lows are both deeper and more differentiated from others in the same role.
Let’s meet the team.
Darius
Kicking off our dive into the juggernaut update is the dunkmaster himself, Dario Chopman. Notorious for his blood-fueled multi-kill potential, Darius’ fantasy was just that - a fantasy. In reality, he’d build damage and die before posing a huge threat (often trading his life for a low-priority target), or stack defenses and become the Wet Noodle of Noxus. Tack on the juggernaut’s plight of ‘why pick me over other fighters?’ and Darius is in a pretty rough spot.
Enter Bloodrage.
While not the cure for everything that ails him (It won’t magically give him dashes or a cool haircut), Bloodrage is all about letting Darius realize his ‘pentakill-in-a-china-shop’ fantasy, letting loose on enemies after maxing out his passive. In other words, he’s going to try his hardest to mosh with his opponents (alongside new tools like Decimate’s heal and Apprehend’s slow for staying power), and it’s on them to keep his rampage to a dull roar. We’ve taken down some of his damage before he hits Bloodrage, but once he gets going things start to get pretty crazy.
That’s the gist of Darius’ update. Check below for the nitty-gritty details, and we’ll see you at after you’re done. Technically you could just skip to the next section, but we’d be disappointed. Not mad, just disappointed.
General
Attack Range up. AD, Health and Armor per level up. Base AS% and AS per level down.
Passive - Hemorrhage
In addition to its current function, Reaching 5 stacks or killing an enemy champion with R - Noxian Guillotine puts Darius into a Bloodrage. During Bloodrage, Darius gains 40-200 bonus Attack Damage and applies max Hemorrhage stacks to enemies with basic attacks or Decimate's Blade.
Q - Decimate
Now has a brief delay on cast. Hitting with Decimate's Blade now heals Darius.
W - Crippling Strike
Slow heavily increased. No longer slows Attack Speed.
E - Apprehend
Apprehend no longer pulls champions that escape the area, but briefly slows enemies hit.
R - Noxian Guillotine
Re-casting R is free.
Garen
Perhaps the least changed of the juggernauts overall, Garen’s always been the iconic ‘white knight’ for League of Legends and not much else. An effective damage dealer and off-tank in his own right, the G-man’s struggled to find a home as anything more than a makeshift assassin, diving backlines in hope of delivering swift justice to anyone holding an Infinity Edge. We really dug that ‘justice’ part, which led us to discovering Garen’s identity - he leads the charge against the most vile scoundrels and makes them pay (and boy, does he never stop talking about it).
Garen’s purpose in-game now matches his job description; protecting the weak both in game and out. His effectiveness as an ‘anti-carry’ extends the whole game long, adapting to your opponent's individual wrongdoings and throwing the rule-book at anyone branded a Villain. Though solo queue may be dark and full of terrors, Garen’s ability to flip the script on hypercarries-gone-godlike means that victory is only ever one ‘DEMACIA!!’ away, no matter how dire the situation.
General
Lower health per level, but higher Attack Damage and Armor. Attack range increased.
Q - Decisive Strike
Normalized Silence duration. Movement speed duration lowered.
W - Courage
Everything old is new again.
E - Judgment
Judgment's damage and tick-rate increases over game-time.
R - Demacian Justice
Enemies with the most recent kills is branded a Villain. Garen hates those.
Skarner
Skarner Impaling enemies and dragging them away from their comfort zone is a unique and powerful moment that definitely sets him apart from the cast; the issue is figuring out what he does when kidnapping carries isn’t an option. Seeing how Skarner’s always missing his kind, we went for the 2-for-1 of curing his homesickness and giving him a unique identity by dragging some big ol’ spires from the Crystal Scar and droppin’ em on Summoner’s Rift.
They’re not just for show, however - true to his nature as a diamond-encrusted energy scorpion (what a sentence), Skarner becomes infused with a boatload of combat stats when he’s near them, making him the scorpion to go when it comes to map control. Capturing and controlling these spires becomes a game within itself, denying Skarner’s rampage or letting him gleefully wreck through the jungle like a kid in a crystal store. No matter what position he’s played, Skarner’s dominance over these choke points make him an experience that’s clearly differentiated from other fighters, especially if your team’s goal is snatching all of the neutral objectives you can carry.
General
Lowering Movement Speed and Health per level in favor of Attack Damage scaling.
newPassive - Crystal Spires
Skarner's presence causes crystals to spawn in set locations around the map. Crystals can be captured by either team by standing on top of them. Capturing a crystal prevents them from being captured by the opposing team for 15 seconds.
Q - Crystal Slash
Both charged and uncharged Q have traded base damage for a scaling ratio. Costs less Mana and can be cast more.
W - Crystalline Exoskeleton
Now scales with maximum health instead of having a base amount of shield value.
E - Fracture
Fracture now marks enemy champions and causes Skarner's next attack to damage and stun them.
R - Impale
R costs less. Magic damage significantly lowered, but now deals bonus physical damage.
Mordekaiser
Afraid of divers and assassins? Is your team stacked to the brim with physical damage? Have a penchant for going all-in with your support? Look no further - Mordekaiser’s one of our oldest champions, yet in that time he’s never firmly latched onto a particular role or position that fits him best. He’s just sort of always there, whacking dudes with his mace and stealing their souls. We think that part’s pretty cool, so we’re cranking his damage potential to the skies while optimizing him as the farming half in a duo-lane. We’ll give you a sec to re-read that last bit.
While still serviceable in a solo lane, Mordekaiser’s potential is truly unlocked when he has a buddy to smack folks around with. This doesn’t mean you’ll be building like a traditional marksman would (though feel free to follow your dreams, we’re not here to judge) - thanks to his experience bonus killing minions and Mace of Spades’ earth-shattering damage output, Mord has to worry far less about itemizing traditionally; opting to think less of the item system as ‘which of these give me the most damage’ and instead ‘If i’m guaranteed to wreck anyone i get close to, what items help me get the speed and stickiness to reach them?’
Mordekaiser’s update may not be for everyone, but his ability to shake up a game is undeniable. Toss in the fact that he can now steal the Dragon’s soul as a sieging tool, and bottom-lane Mord sounds more like A Real Thing and less like a Siv HD video. We’ll let y’all feel out how he plays in a duo lane, but don’t be afraid if you never want to go back to traditional lanes again.
P.S. Try double Relic Shield with your support grabbing one too. It’s pretty spicy.
General
Losing a lot of base stats in favor of scaling. Attack Range increased.
Passive - Iron Man
Iron Man's shield can no longer decay below a certain point, and it now scales with maximum Health.
Q - Mace of Spades
Reworked. Mordekaiser’s next three hits are empowered. Each deals 2-3x the last by spell rank, up to a billion damage.
newW - Harvesters of Sorrow
Mordekaiser and Target allied champion gain 75 Movement Speed while moving toward one another. When close to one another, both deal magic damage to nearby enemies over 4 seconds. Mordekaiser no longer splits experience for any lane minions he kills.
E - Siphon of Destruction
Deals much less damage and scales with total Attack Damage in addition to Ability Power. Now grants a bunch of shield on champion hits.
R - Children of the Grave
Mordekaiser can steal the Dragon's soul. That's not a typo.
Base Statistic Compensation
All of the following champions have had their armor or health per level increased.
As part of patch 5.16's item changes, the efficiency of some popular defensive items have been decreased. However, many 'low-income' tanks and team-disruptors relied pretty heavily on the strength of these items to maintain the right level of bulk for their gold stream - you can read more on the why further down, but each of the below champions are picking up some stat adjustments so they'll hit similar breakpoints when it comes to being unbreakable.
Blitzcrank
Braum
Leona
Nautilus
Taric
Rammus
Amumu
Tahm Kench
Alistar
Bard
Thresh
Champions
Ahri
Passive heals less at all levels.
Since her return to the kitier, mage-ier (still a word) side of things, Ahri's benefitted from a pretty safe laning phase… which then translates to a 'pretty safe' mid and late-game, putting her dangerously close to 'good-in-all-situations.' We don't want to remove Ahri’s flighty spell-casting and all the skill that goes along with her bait-and-assassinate back-and-forth (teasing is kind of her thing), but limiting the amount of free sustain she's able to get - just for shoving minions waves - feels appropriate when maintaining her balance of risk vs. reward.
Passive - Essence Theft
Alistar
Headbutt has a slower travel time.
Alistar’s been a must-pick in the professional scene for good while thanks to his ability to shine as a primary initiator with his signature Headbutt - > Pulverize combo, which is as time-sensitive to execute as it is to evade. To help even out the playing field for Alistar’s opponents, we’re giving more time to react with any flashes, dashes or other methods of disrupting his Ali-Oop slam-dunk into your entire team.
W - Headbutt
Azir
IT'S REFACTORIN' TIME! Begone, spaghetti code.
For a while now, we've been working behind the scenes on a lot of our code-base to find cleaner ways to implement our champion code and improve behaviour for some of our more… complicated (read: buggy) champions. Our first pass at this was our script review for Syndra's E->Q combo back in 5.13. This patch contains the first batches of fixes to Azir, improving the AI for his soldiers. As we move forward, you can expect more updates like these - script refactoring that result in fewer bugs, but not a ton of power shift one way or the other.
Back to Azir. Being one of our more complex champions, the emperor demands a lot of attention - however, balancing him can be costly due to the scripting issues we just talked about. Our intention with the fixes below is to make Azir flow more naturally, thereby removing some unintentional barriers to learning the Emperor.
General
Q - Conquering Sands
W - Arise!
E - Shifting Sands
R - Emperor's Divide
Elise
Q's current health damage lowered.
Well, we did it. Elise is back, and she’s making her presence known through the muffled screams of monsters and junglers alike caught in her web (for about 1.6 seconds, usually). We’re happy with what she’s bringing to teams as a dominant early champion focused on catching out mispositioned prey, only now she’s killing them too quickly; especially the ones that are actually building defensively to try and stop her. We’re specifically targeting Elise’s more target-agnostic damage meaning she’ll need to rely more on her early strengths to transition into closing out games effectively.
Q - Neurotoxin
Kassadin
Riftwalk now has an AP ratio. This ratio scales as you stack Riftwalk.
Kassadin hasn’t been terrorizing games much since he took up Rift-stepping, so we figured it was time to show him some love in the form of supporting his new hobby. While still potent as blinking damage-dealer, Kassadin often falls short due to the somewhat lacking rewards for closing into melee range. We’re liking how a shorter-Ritfwalk’s plays out while skirmishing, so we’re boosting his effectiveness for getting up close and personal.
R - Riftwalk
Kayle
5 AD
While Kayle's changes in 5.13 were to help her laning and ability to jungle, the introduction of Sated Devourer in the same patch had the effect of cranking Kayle's already-great clear speed all the way up to 11, thanks to the extra chunk of damage she gets between casts of Righteous Fury. We don't want to disproportionately hit solo lane Kayle, so we're taking off… 5 AD.
General
Lee Sin
Flurry's energy return is front-loaded. Kicking champions into other champions will deal more damage based on their bonus health.
Lee Sin buffs. This is not a drill.
For professionals, Lee Sin is a perfect champion; a strong contributor at each stage of the game, flexible in item builds and adaptable to almost any scenario. For the average player however, he’s that champion you wish you didn’t see on your team due to the sheer number of games required to reach a certain level of competency.
Because of this, these changes are aimed at raising Lee’s floor (that is to say his ‘basic effectiveness’) rather than his maximum potential and give an edge to those players taking their first steps on the road of Blind-Monasticism. While those same top players will find these useful in certain scenarios, Average Joe Lee Sin should enjoy more fluidity as they climb the ranks.
Passive - Flurry
R - Dragon's Rage
LeBlanc
Distortion's missile speed increased.
We still believe that a slower Distortion makes for better counterplay (and a better League overall), but it’s clear we took it too far. So now we’re taking it back. By half. Context.
W - Distortion
R - Mimic: Distortion
Lissandra
Self-casting R now heals Lissandra.
Self-casting Lissandra's ultimate is a great option for surviving until another round of cooldowns, but can feel underwhelming in a desperate situation. While some players prefer to delete their enemies inside Frozen Tomb's stun duration, we're adding more nuance to the decision so Liss can feel better about pulling off her 'cooler' ice-block baits.
R - Frozen Tomb
Lucian
Passive scales better lategame and does full damage to minions. W costs less, gives more movement speed, but has a shorter duration. Lucian's teammates can give him movement speed via W's mark.
Sleek and stylish, Lucian’s another ex-pro pick fallen on hard times. Lightslinger’s ‘spell-weaving’ paradigm gives him a unique flair among marksmen, but hinges upon each spell being innately worth casting. Ever since lopping off Ardent Blaze’s AD ratio, the ability’s felt lackluster, so we’re pumping up its utility alongside some tuning to Lucian’s passive to make his ‘attack-cast-attack’ loop feel even more satisfying.
Passive - Lightslinger
W - Ardent Blaze
Nasus
Q range up.
Despite his infinitely-scaling lategame, the laning phase has never been Nasus' best friend. While we don't want to remove his vulnerability to lane counters, tossing him a bone should help his stacking in certain situations, especially when navigating particularly dense minion waves.
Q - Siphoning Strike
Nami
Passive gives more speed and has a higher AP ratio. Allies within Nami's Tidal Wave receive double the passive bonus.
Between slinging bubbles, chain-heals and squirt-guns, Nami's identity has always been tide to empowering allies with cool water-magic. Surging Tides stood out as her least-appreciable form of enchanting, so we're boosting its super-effectiveness (particularly with AP) when surfing into a teamfight.
Passive - Surging Tides
R - Tidal Wave
Rammus
W damage up.
Primarily a gank-focused jungler, Rammus powerballs into big trouble if he can't convert an advantage off of his first gank or so. We speak a lot about 'fall-back patterns' - a champion's back-up plan if their primary form of expression isn't panning out - and that's what we're buffing here. Translation: while Strong Rammus will most certainly make good use of this buff, it's really Sad Rammus that needs every bit of clear speed to waddle back into a game if things don't work out OK. And that's just OK.
W - Defensive Ball Curl
Rumble
R's cooldown increased. Equalizer's origin point starts closer to your cursor.
When it comes to game-changers, there are few out there as impactful as The Equalizer - assuming you’re not just using it on a minion wave, knowing it’ll be off cooldown for a big fight anyways. We’re really focusing on separating the good from the great (hey morello) Equalizers with this change, making every ‘zoning’ ult a call-to-action for the enemy team. Good placement will still win fights singlehandedly, but elongating Rumble’s reload-time should keep players asking ‘Is this ult worth it?’ before really committing to the cast.
Important note about the cursor change - while this is a very slight nerf to the ultra-max-range use-case, the adjustment makes it almost impossible to over-shoot someone your cursor was on, as the Equalizer used to always start further ahead of where you intended it to go. This should help players that historically have trouble landing Rumble’s ult (read: everyone) lining it up correctly for the big play.
R - The Equalizer
Tahm Kench
Devour stuns very briefly and prioritizes champions. R warns enemies 1 second later.
Ol' Tahmmy Two-Coats is still hungry for attention as players continue to adapt to his charms (and appetite), so we're tossing him a few quality-of-life scraps from the kitchen table. These changes are focused on making some of his abilities more forgiving to use - especially when trying to swallow the correct living thing whole.
W - Devour
R - Abyssal Voyage
Teemo
R slow no longer decays, but enemies poisoned by traps are revealed.
We're still evaluating exactly how 5.15's update to our lord and savior is panning out, but we were already able to identify some places for improvement. It's been cool to see players utilize Noxious Trap's range flexibly for both teamfighting and minefields, but it's clear that Teemo’s traps have lost a lot of peeling power. Given that traps are now half their original duration, we think that there is room to return this safety so that even though Teemo's nest of ‘shrooms is smaller, each one is still an effective tool to be used for planning escape routes.
Passive - Camouflage
R - Noxious Trap
Twitch
Q mana cost down. R damage up at later ranks.
We're not aiming to raise the rat's power level massively this patch (as we tend to believe he's not incredibly far-off), but with marksmen as a class feeling unloved as of late, we're continuing to look at playing up the unique aspects of each. Loosening the restriction on Twitch's ability to ambush should force respect from opponents while letting him embrace his stealthy side more often.
We're also cleaning up the numbers on his ultimate, because 36 attack damage is weird to look at. #cleannumbers
Q - Ambush
R - Rat-Ta-Tat-Tat
Viktor
Hex Core gives less AP when purchased, but more at level 18. All mana has been shifted from flat to per-level.
Viktor’s rise to prominence this season has ushered in a new era as the voice of evolution, terrorizing late-games and assisting many a wombo-combo. However, Viktor’s games have turned into an arms-race with few opposing mid-laners able to compete with the raw efficiency and wave-clear that his signature Hex Core brings to the Rift. Without downgrading Viktor too much, we’re refactoring his Hex-assisted power curve to better fit his ideals of evolution and provide opportunities for enemies to halt his rise to glory.
Prototype Hex Core
The Hex Core mk-1
The Hex Core mk-2
Perfect Hex Core
Vel'Koz
Q's split has a shorter delay and longer range.
Despite his incredible intellect and penchant for disintegration, Vel'Koz is a champion that's never really quite caught on. We're not overhauling anything major in this update; instead, we’re amping up a more of VK’s ‘mathematical’ specialties, no matter what lane he takes.
Q - Plasma Fission
Volibear
Volibear explodes in lightning upon casting R.
Invoking the legendary Ursine 'Thunder-Claws' technique should be a powerful moment for Volibear, but leaves much to be desired as enemies can just bearly escape when channeling. Rather than ditching the cast-time and removing the tradeoff for Voli entirely, we're making it better for him to use in combat (as well as feeling pretty epic) in all situations.
R - Thunder Claws
Zac
HEADS UP!
It’s not an exaggeration when we say that Zac has the longest non-ultimate initiation range in the game - something we’re stretching to the limit this patch. Boosting Zac’s unique aspects opens up new gank-paths to ambush from while also playing to his nature as the ever-present ‘teamfight-in-a-blob’ he was made to be.
E - Elastic Slingshot
Zed
Balance is a fool's master.
Rounding out our trio of assassin changes, we have Zed. Similar to Leblanc and Kassadin, we’re happy with the direction, but not the destination. We’re still leaving the swap-timer back in (because counterplay is neato), but tipping the scales back in Zed’s favor.
R - Death Mark
Juggernaut Itemization
new
Dead Man's Plate
'New' item from Black Market Brawlers - grants armor, health, and ramping movement speed while moving. Basic attack drains your bonus movement speed to deal damage and slow.
By the time you’re reading this, Dead Man’s Plate has already been available in-game for a bit (not to mention its tenure as a Black Market pickup), so we’ll make this short. Originally concepted as a juggernaut item before being shipped off to Bilgewater, DMP is a sort of ‘get-out-of-immobility-jail-free’ card for the more sluggish champions out there. It’ll only work once (as you lose all of your momentum upon attacking the target), but for those that care about getting into the fray and don’t worry about getting out, this item is for you.
Singed. That’s basically what we’re saying. Buy this on Singed.
new
Sterak's Gage
Increases health and base attack damage. Upon taking a certain amount of damage you hulk out, gaining size, base attack damage and a shield.
Tired of being told that you’re a ‘melee damage-dealer’ while being blown up at the beginning of a teamfight? Look no further - Sterak’s is here for all your berserking needs. In testing the juggernaut update and identifying problems with the class, we found that there’s a lot of ambient damage in big brawls, and no one catches more of it that they do. While a 5-man Command: Shockwave into committed AoE stacking will still probably wreck your body (and your entire team), buying Sterak’s poses an interesting dilemma for opponents; focus you down or contain you just long enough to deal with your team. You’ll still need to gage how much damage you can take (the thing’s not gonna make you invincible), but Sterak’s is a strong anti-aoe purchase to turn you into the raid boss you always knew you could be.
Before we’re done, important distinction - Sterak’s gives base attack damage, so the attack damage before items. This means it’ll work wonders for total attack damage ratios and things like Sheen and Trinity Force, but won’t snowball your bonus AD ratios (looking at you, Jarvan).
new
Titanic Hydra
It's like Ravenous Hydra. Except instead of lifesteal, it's got health.
While the Black Cleaver fits its own archetype of spell-casting melee champions rather well, fighters seeking to just bludgeon the hell out of their opponents the old-fashioned way sometimes had issues getting the job done. Replacing lifesteal for health, Titanic Hydra provides a synergistic area-of-effect option for more basic-attack centric brawlers like Trundle and Shyvana to get to clobberin’ when the situation calls for a more defensive build.
Warmog's Armor
Costs slightly more. No longer gives health regen equal to your max HP. Now grants insane health regen out of combat once your champion has more than 3000 health.
At present, Warmog’s is a serviceable option for anti-sieging in the mid-late game, but if there’s a theme with our item changes this patch, it’s sharpening their identities even further. While it’s losing its current passive in exchange, we’ve tripled-down on it’s application as an anti-siege tool by effectively replacing the need to recall and heal for those who invest heavily enough to trigger the health requirement. Warmog’s won’t make you immune to focus fire (Vayne exists), but it does allow you to tank javelins, artillery fire, and all manner of poke thrown your way without a scratch on it provided you take a break between beatings. Just don’t forget to flex.
Defensive Itemization
Null-Magic Mantle
Costs less.
Discounts on fighting mages, one step at a time.
Spirit Visage
that’s the spirit
Banshee's Veil
brace yourselves
Crystalline Bracer’s a neat but underused component, so we’re stickin’ it into more items.
Aegis of the Legion
Costs less. Now has health regen for the buyer, but loses its health regen aura and part of its magic resist.
As it is now, Aegis of the Legion (and Locket, which we’ll get to in a moment) are mandatory against teams with even the slightest penchant for magic damage, due to the ambiguous but powerful nature of it’s health regen aura. Changin’ up the build path and stat-lines to be more attractive to low-income supports, but less generically powerful.
Locket of the Iron Solari
Costs less. Now has health regen for the buyer, but loses its health regen aura and part of its magic resist. Additionally, shields for more but has a significantly lowered duration.
Like we said directly above, we’re sharpening the auras so you’ll still want them when they seem good (vs magic damage teams) but not so powerful as to be ‘good-all-the-time.’ In Locket’s case, we’re taking that sharpening a step further by amping the Solari Shield significantly, but making it much more timing-intensive; perfect at taking the edge off of a Flash + Tibbers, but much less useful against devourers gnawing your face off. Locket’s still an amazing pickup vs double AP and the like, but requires a bit more thought in the moment.
Banner of Command
someone’s gotta keep those baron minions in business
Raptor Cloak
Costs more, but now with more health regen. Movement speed lowered but now drops off gradually instead of instantly.
An underrated item, we’re cleaning up the passive to make the play around turrets smoother.
Zz'rot Portal
More health regen and point runner decays over time. Voidspawn are tankier and go further, but deal less damage.
While an incredibly stat-efficient item already, Zz’rot is often seen more as a ‘gimmick’ and less of the neat strategic pushing tool it should be. A boatload of extra range (is distance measured in boats?) and increased survivability will grant teams seeking alternate forms of pressure a ticking-void-bomb’s worth of siege potential (given that you can protect that gate in the first place).
Failing that, you can always leave it in a lane while fighting your opponents in the jungle - often netting you two objectives at once. Now you’re thinking with portals.
Ohmwrecker
More health regen and point runner decays over time.
See: Raptor's Cloak.
Glacial Shroud
Also costs less.
Shaving off some of the cost to make it an easier lane pick-up. Lookin' great, shroud.
Warden's Mail
Costs more. Changin' it up.
By contrast, Warden's has been bulking up. We'll still buy you, even if you cost more.
Frozen Heart
Frozen Heart’s been a statistical outlier for a pretty long time, so we’re lowering its raw cost / power efficiency. You might call us heartless, but we’re pretty sure the item’s still great.
Thornmail
Costs more. Reflects less damage back to attackers, but scales with armor.
Another major outlier in terms of effectiveness, Thornmail is at its strongest when you can comfortably stack health. While we aren’t rocking that particular boat today (armor + health is kind of always good), we’re tossing in a hook to make the item also scale with armor-stacking, but in a different way. This also creates neat synergies for champions with on-demand armor buffs (like Leona or Rammus) which is pretty OK by us.
Important to note - if for any reason you experience a decrease in armor % (say, a stray black cleaver to the face), Thornmail will ignore that when calculating its damage. Way to be, Thornmail.
Randuin's Omen
Costs less, but has less health and armor. Slow duration normalized, now reduces all critical strike damage.
Rounding out the ‘ubiquitous armor item’ trio, Randuin’s (much like Frozen Heart and Thornmail) lacks any sort of real focus when deciding why you’d want it over other items. While the stat adjustments should represent a moderate nerf to the item overall, we’re expanding its anti-basic attack theme from just slowing attack speed to ‘Oh God I’m Dying From Crits Please Help.’
Enchantment - Cinderhulk
Higher up-front health, but lower multiplier.
While no longer the dominant pickup it once was, Cinderhulk is a late-game focused item for a class of champions that already flourish at the end of the game. While this nerfs the 6-item health pools of Cinderhulk users, the boost upon completion represents a stronger mid-game to keep from being totally eclipsed by their Devourer and Runeglaive brethren on the way to full-build.
Righteous Glory
Costs less, but loses the catalyst passive on upgrade.
Further differentiating between Catalyst’s different build paths while introducing a trade-off for upgrading Righteous Glory as a first item. The lowered cost should make it easier to upgrade when you want it (and supports don’t mind it getting cheaper), but as a first item Righteous Glory be a tough choice between wanting the initiation power or continued laning safety.
HUD Updates
Still improving based on feedback! Here's what we've got this time around:
Readability improvements
- Remaining cooldown is now prioritized over all other ability states (ex. CC’d, out of mana) so you can plan your next move while Zhonya’s-ing
- Grayed out icons (ex. locked-in Pick A Card, Health Potions while at full health) are less gray
- Further darkened level-up icons for abilities which can't currently be leveled up
- Brightened the minimap
- The scoreboard now displays a large "?" next to enemy champions you don't have vision of (in addition to the previous dimmed out portraits)
Positional optimization
- Reduced empty space between the minimap and its frame
- The scoreboard no longer overlaps with the chat window
- The surrender box no longer overlaps with ally/enemy team frames
Instant Feedback System
We've released another update to the Instant Feedback System. Our focus this time is on improving how the system assesses the toxicity of short chat logs and messages sent by players who are already chat restricted.
Bugfixes
- Updated Fiora’s tooltips based on last patch’s update
- Shaco and Lulu can no longer create a wolf pack with Enchantment - Devourer
- Restored Riot Blitzcrank's custom sound and visual effects for E - Power Fist
- Restored Bad Santa Veigar's custom visual effects for R - Primordial Burst
Upcoming Skins
The following skins will be released at various times during patch 5.16:
713 Comments
**WHERE IS THE "WARDED" PING RITO, WHERE IS IT!?"
**
Darius W has no reason to be leveled, nothing scales. So he hits max ability scaling at 16; 13 for basics.
All Juggernaut Rework Stories
's Story
Alright Nautilus stay calm just don't face check a bush.
Hey Naut.
Dah! Ekko you fool why are with me in the jungle.
Need blue buff why what's going on.
Dude there is blood all over the forest what do you think is going on.
A Darius slaughter fest.
Rawr!
Aw! Not the face.
Sorry guys I thought you were Vlaaaa- (drops dead)
Missed Me.
Oh yeah Darius is on our team.
's Story
Give up Star Guardian Lux your ap level is no where near mine.
Never for good always trumps over nerds.
First off I'm evil and second what is that on top of-
DEMOCIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Ahhh come on man you just stole my kill and killed your sister.
Sorry Veig but she was the villain I had too.
That hurts, that hurts deep.
Skarner's Story
That's mine Crystal.
No it's mine I liked it.
's Story
Now with this dragon I will never be challenged and obtain the all powerful
.
I was an overlord once too but then I took an arrow to the knee.
I'm pretty sure we're referencing different thing but prepare fool for your death. Dragon ATTACK!
Dragon: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWR!
(Charging) BROOOOOOOOOOOO-MAAAAAAA-CCCCCCCCCIAAAA!
The End.
So what do you think of my fanfic's
Hmmn needs work.
I don't know... If it doesn't become viable, Titanic Hydra might sink into obscurity.
༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ LUCIAN TAKE MY ENERGY ༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ
"Before we dive in, let’s clear some things up for all the esports fans out there - 5.14 (the one with crazy Elise, #bigsorry) will be the one that the rest of playoffs including the gauntlet will be played on. Worlds will be played on 5.18"
...So basically, you let the season wrap up on a series of stable patches, then completely screw with the meta game by dropping the biggest changes since cinderhulk.
I'm speechless right now. Is this a joke?
Ahri can have a cellphone which encourages our youth to spend more time in virtual reality but
can't have his cigar?
Finally sees LCS play again
Rito: To balance out gameplay and bring our favorite jungler back in we shall nerf these champions and buff
. It's not LCS if Lee Sin isn't in every single game.
GG
Time for another Honest Translation of Riot's Words and Summary!
What they said: "and that each champion in League feels distinct." What they meant: "We don't understand how to make champions unique, so we carbon-copy them and make minor tweaks and buffs later until they outclass th original. For example: We made Nami identical to Sona and then pushed her ahead in patch 3.14. When this wasn't enough, we decided to just remove Sona from the game entirely in 4.13. Later on we made Bard as a copy of Nami and into yet another copy of Sona and after buffs in 4 consecutive patches pushed him ahead of Nami."
Darius - Bottom Line: Nerfed What they said: " In reality, he’d build damage and die before posing a huge threat (often trading his life for a low-priority target), or stack defenses and become the Wet Noodle of Noxus." What they meant: "We prefer Darius wielding a wet noodle, so we've buffed his tankiness and moved all his damage into a locked passive that is both difficult to use and will be hindered by his teammates' actions." P: Bleeding nerfed, mobility removed Q: Dmg nerfed, cast time nerfed, bleed nerfed W: Slow nerfed, Dmg nerfed, CDR nerfed E: Removed bug = nerfed R: I hesitate to say this was buffed, as is true of most "buffs" Riot does, they make a trade-off that may be potentially heavier than what they give. Some Riot employee seems to be too fanatical about FMA's 'Equal Exchange', when truth is the balance team doesn't know what "equal" looks like.
Garen - Bottom Line: Nerfed Stats: HP down/Armor up; in other words magic dmg will hurt more now. Q: CC Duration nerfed, MS duration nerfed W: Bonus Armor/MR nerfed, Tenacity removed E: Dmg nerfed R: Got buffed, but considering his entire kit got gutted, was it rilly rilly worth it?
Skarner - Bottom Line: Um, what? P: Riot's attempt at getting players more interested in Dominion, now having a Skarner on your team forces you to play it on Rift. Q: Damage nerfed W: Early game nerfed, late game buffed. This may make jungling difficult, I smell support Skarner A La Nautilus E: This may actually be a buff as it now applies a stun, but that's probably just a holdover from his old passive R: Mana cost got buffed, no other notable change
Mordekaiser - Bottom Line: Nerfs from Hell itself What they said: "while optimizing him as the farming half in a duo-lane." What they meant: "Our writer for this section of the patch notes wrote it while under a rotten seafood-induced nightmare." Stats: Overall a nerf P: Shield strength nerfed, Generation % nerfed Q: Dmg nerfed, maybe the scaling buff makes up for it? but probably not... W: Omg, wtf is this? This change either traps him in the support role permanently or else becomes that one skill you never take until laning ends. E: Not very noteworthy, it tries to compensate for the nerf to his passive, which it does not. R: Dmg nerfed, but now you can enslave the dragon, which is cool and all considering he may very well be a support from now on.
Ahri: Riot does what Riot is best known for: nerfing weak champions. She's already had her dmg nerfed thrice this season and spell ranges nerfed twice, she's become a 2nd-tier champion and I believe the casters of LCS said it right, "She's not good anymore, just sorta decent. Only old pros that played her in past seasons will even bother picking her anymore."
Lee Sin: Buffs. Never a good idea for the blind monk. Mark my words, "This will not end well."
Lucian: Some much-needed buffs. In the last week of July the 2nd-least banned champ was Sona. Who was 1st-least? Lucian. He's in a bad place and he's gonna need more than just this to get back in the game.
Nami: Buffed as an attempt to catch up to Bard in playability. Meanwhile Sona remains the unplayable inspiration for both said champions.
Teemo: Riot swallowed their pride for once and admitted they nerfed him last patch. The buffs this patch do not make up for those.
Aegis/Locket/Banner: In Riot's continued quest to be the only game in existence that discriminates against auras, it should be to noone's surprise that these 3 items recieve heavy unjustified nerfs.
I am not happy about the nerfs to 
Rip 
yay a twitch buff
i can finally use q in laning phase without losing a quarter of my mana
A) That Warmog's passive is really stupid. Why does it require health stacking to be any use of all?
B) There's a reason that you added Catalyst's passive into Rod of Ages in the first place, you know. It feels really bad to lose things when you upgrade an item.
C) Do you want poke to get even stronger in ARAM? Because nerfing Aegis is how you do that.
ahri might as well not even have a passive now lol looks like that won't heal for shit gj rito
[deleted]
So Randuin's Omen will automatically shave off 10% of Ashe's damage since everything after her first attack on a target is considered a critical strike? If that is correct, RIP
.
Why rank up Darius' W - Crippling Strike while everything is same at all rank?
This change to
penalizes the good Darius players, and rewards the casual players who just want to have fun getting their dunk on. Darius was always known as an early game lane bully, who didn't do much late game. Now he is like every other sustain tank early game, with monster late-game possibilities.
TL;DR: you've completely reversed his identity.
ahri really didn't need to be nerfed
lissandra though needed that heal very badly
in all honesty as a level 4
player personally I am rather annoyed by some these changes. The way it was put was that you either built damage on him and got blown up or you built tank on him and did no damage. I find this very inaccurate because yes, if you go full damage or full tank than one of these might happen, but myself along with many other Darius players I've seen usually build some of both. Early game (unless I am losing lane badly) I usually go for a Hydra, followed by a Sunfire. After that I look at their comp and decide whether my remaining 4 items should be more focused on being tanky or more focused on being damage. With the new Darius, I just feel like they changed some things that either didn't need to be changed or they just nerfed stuff despite the fact that Darius isn't op, although I'm sure low elo will cry otherwise (just like low elo seems to cry that any champion that doesn't take hours of mastery to do well with is clearly op. oh btw I am low elo, but I just get fed up with seeing this shit spewed by other people for no reason). Sure, the Bloodlust passive is useful and I agree that it's a nice buff, but they nerfed the base damage of his q, his primary poking tool, pretty hard. 105 damage to 20 damage, and 50% of that damage for hitting them with the handle? Legit now his q is basically just "press it to heal yourself but do practically no damage" instead of "press it to do good poke damage". That, and the removal of a bleed stack on hit with handle is another semi-bad nerf. Now, when you e someone in and q, you won't get ANY BLEED STACKS because the e will pull them next to you (unless you aa them, in which case you'll get one stack). The only way now to get a q stack if you pull someone in with e is you have to wait and watch until they are exactly in range of the blade and then q, hoping that they don't just use a gap closer to get out quickly. Yes, he got a heal on q, but I don't think that compensates for all the other crap they pushed to the ground on him. Anyways, now I'll be moving on to his w, in all honesty the main thing I have to say about this one is there's pretty much no point in even maxing it now. At every single rank it does the same thing with no changes. Old w the amount of damage done increased per rank, so there was a reason to rank it up. But now, legit there's pretty much no difference between his w at rank one and at rank five. At the very least they did give him an increased slow on it, which I do appreciate. (By the way, I want to say for his w I'm not necessarily mad at but just confused by, like I'm mainly just saying "the change on w just makes it so that now maxing w is sort of pointless") Alright, looking now at his e, I got to say, this change probably made me the happiest. After seeing the nerfs on q and the confusing change on w I let out a sigh of relief/happiness at seeing the e change. The new slow is rather helpful, as now you can slow them with e so you can slow them with w, which is a nice new little combo. And the reduced cast time is nice, so that now the e is more likely to pull in someone on the edge of the range of it before they can walk, dash, etc. out of it. And lastly but not my least favorite change (q wins by a landslide on that one) is the ult change. I originally said here that it was a problem because you ran out of mana dunking in a teamfight before level 16, but apparently I was mistaken, as subsequent ults don't cost mana. Shoutout to Hyourinkaze for pointing that out.
Alright, a long-af post like this needs a tl;dr.
tl;dr Some of these Darius changes are nice, but some of them are bad or just make no sense.
Oh, one final thing: this is a Bronze 4 opinion. I'm not saying this thinking Riot is going to suddenly bow to my every whim and change him back. Chances are that these Darius changes are here to stay and I just wasted >25 min writing this. But I wanted to speak out what I think. If you agree, awesome. If you don't, then feel free to tell me why. Most likely there are perspectives or arguments I haven't thought of, so I'd be glad to hear them (as long as they aren't hate-filled or insulting). Thanks, and GLHF on the Rift.
DONT BE FOOLED BY PATCH NOTES FELLAS
we still have Project skins to see...
stop stalling Rito
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Huge props for "just bearly escape" on the Volibear notes. Subtle and perfect. :)
Why scale Dariu's W? since its a 90% slow at all level with the same mana cost and same damage? This change makes 0 sense.
Riot: "Raptor Cloak is under-rated" -nerfs move speed bonus by 33% -increases price by 10%
THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE DIVERSITY, RIOT
WAIT, in Garen's notes. His W has the max armor/mr scaling with rank, when on the pbe it has a 30 max at the first rank. Just curious on why it's been reverted to the old scaling.
Why did you nerf Morde... W no longer castable on self or allied minions, Q no longer aoes, E Damage is in the crapper... Suggested starting item is tank support item... Why did you take the master of metal and turn him into the tinfoil slave?
The new Skarner rework is so stupid... doesnt even make for fun gameplay just stupid




