Patch 9.3 notes
Riot··19 votes·200,772 views
Welcome to 9.3, the patch that's like milk because we're alleviating a lot of spice. On the champion front, we're wrapping up mechanics cleanup on Aatrox, Akali, and Irelia to ensure they've got meaningful weaknesses opponents can capitalize on. Item-wise, we're taking a deep pass on marksman items to solve the build satisfaction issues marksmen have been frustrated by since midseason. We're also changing farm bounties so players who farm their way back from a deficit aren't treated the same as champs who ran away with huge CS leads to begin with.
Grab a glass (of milk, remember?) and read on.
Paul "Aether" Perscheid
Patch Highlights
Mid-Patch Updates
2/12/2019 Balance Update
Recent days have ushered in the "Frostmancy" strategy, where solo laners take Kleptomancy and Spellthief's Edge to harass their opponent with Tribute procs and maintain their income with Kleptomancy while ignoring last hitting. This strategy throws several laning skills out the window, erases the gold tradeoffs for missing last hits, and gives opponents no means of interfering with your plan.
Similar to gold funneling last season, we're taking a heavy-handed approach to remove Frostmancy now while we work on a more refined long-term solution. Since this change hits some legitimate support decisions (ex. staying in lane while your carry recalls) we're increasing Tribute gold a bit to avoid big nerfs to Spellthief's' intended users. We're applying the same philosophy to Ancient Coin as well to avoid the risk that Frostmancy users simply rotate off Spellthief's onto Coin.
Spellthief's Edge Line
newBUDDY SYSTEM Tribute procs now require an allied champion within 2000 range to grant gold, otherwise they only deal extra damage
TRIBUTE GOLD
10/20/20 gold (Spellthief's Edge/Frostfang/Remnant of the Watchers)
⇒
11/22/22 gold (Spellthief's Edge/Frostfang/Remnant of the Watchers)
Ancient Coin Line
newBUDDY SYSTEM Favor procs now require an allied champion within 2000 range to drop gold coins, otherwise they only drop mana coins
FAVOR GOLD
25/45/45 gold (Ancient Coin/Nomad's Medallion/Remnant of the Ascended)
⇒
28/50/50 gold (Ancient Coin/Nomad's Medallion/Remnant of the Ascended)
Champions
Aatrox
Health regen increased. Aatrox no longer heals off damage to non-champions. E no longer stores charges but cools down faster than it previously charged.
Where last patch focused on dropping Aatrox's raw power, this patch focuses on exposing more weaknesses for the Darkin Blade. We're trading his ability to sustain off minions for higher baseline regen so he can't fall back as effectively on passive farming to recover from enemy aggression. Removing Umbral Dash's second charge makes Aatrox's skill check for landing all three Q hits steeper and means if enemies can bait his dash, he won't have a second one to use as an escape.
Base Stats
HEALTH REGEN
5
⇒
8
HEALTH REGEN GROWTH
0.25
⇒
0.75
E - Umbral Dash
removedHEALING VS NON-CHAMPIONS
Aatrox no longer heals for 3/3.34/3.75/4.13/4.5% of the damage he deals to non-champions
removedCHARGES
Aatrox no longer stores a charge of Umbral Dash every 26/22/18/14/10 seconds
COOLDOWN
3/2.5/2/1.5/1 seconds
⇒
9/8/7/6/5 seconds, now reduced by cooldown reduction (CDR previously affected charge rate rather than cooldown)
Akali
Health regen increased. Q no longer heals. Turrets reveal Akali through Shroud. W cooldown increased late.
First thing's first: We're removing Akali's ability to hide from turrets, which has been the most contentious part of her update. Many of you are asking why it took us half a year to get here, and the answer is that Akali depended on turret stealth to dive as effectively as other assassins. Ultimately, though, Akali has so many strengths (the ability to switch targets mid-fight without giving up kill pressure, and four forms of mobility, among others) that she doesn't need to also be a reliable turret diver. Given Akali finds better success in longer fights than other assassins, the short duration of turret dives make sense as a weakness, which they now are. The cooldown nerf is simpler: We're reducing Akali's late-game access to Shroud's defenses.
With that out of the way... Five Point Strike nerf. Akali's become blind-pickable in higher echelons of play and Q's heal is a huge part of that: PvE sustain lets Akali survive matchups where she should be getting shoved out of lane if not outright dying to aggression. We're giving her more health regen to soften the blow, but are well aware it's a power-down overall.
We'll be keeping a close eye on how Akali lands in both pro and regular play (did the W change reduce frustration? Did the Q change open up meaningful counters?) then decide on how to bring her back up. In the meantime, you can probably stop permabanning her.
Base Stats
HEALTH REGEN
3.5
⇒
6
Q - Five Point Strike
removedHEAL
Akali no longer heals for 5/10/15/20/25 (+0.2/0.25/0.3/0.35/0.4 total attack damage) (+0.2/0.25/0.3/0.35/0.4 ability power) if Five Point Strike hits at least one enemy when cast at 180 or more energy
W - Twilight Shroud
removedSTEALTH FROM TURRETS
Twilight Shroud no longer prevents turrets from revealing Akali
COOLDOWN
21/18.5/16/13.5/11 seconds
⇒
21/19/17/15/13 seconds
Camille
E no longer stuns minions or monsters.
Camille's S-tier jungle status has gotten to the point where we can't easily balance her there without causing her top lane to suffer. We're making the call to prioritize Camille top going forward, though this likely makes Camille jungle a niche pick at best.
E - Hookshot
removedNON-CHAMPION STUN
Hookshot no longer stuns minions and monsters
Cassiopeia
Q base damage decreased late; ratio increased. W damage reduced late, cost increased late.
Next verse, same as the first (well, we've actually been here twice in recent history). Cassiopeia is still too strong when fighting from extremely safe distances.
Q - Noxious Blast
BASE DAMAGE
75/120/165/210/255
⇒
75/110/145/180/215
RATIO
0.8 ability power
⇒
0.9 ability power
W - Miasma
COST
70 mana at all ranks
⇒
70/80/90/100/110 mana
DAMAGE PER SECOND
20/30/40/50/60
⇒
20/25/30/35/40
MAX DAMAGE
100/150/200/250/300
⇒
100/125/150/175/200
Irelia
Health growth and armor increased. Passive stack cap increased; stacks grant attack speed instead of damage; max stack bonus grants damage instead of attack speed. Q bonus minion damage increased. W reduces more physical damage but no longer reduces magic damage.
This is a companion patch to 9.2 which removed extraneous mechanics from Irelia's kit and reduced her late-game waveclear. Our goal was to give her more pronounced weaknesses and make her less broadly powerful, which we're carrying forward to 9.3. Between the two patches, enemies should feel like they have better ways to deal with Irelia, from champ select to lane to teamfights. So what are we doing this patch?
We're swapping Ionian Fervor's bonuses—now attack speed per stack, on-hit damage when fully stacked—to reduce the burstiness of her initiation combos and give enemies a wider window before her damage is fully online. (Bladesurge's minion damage is going up to offset the impact on her already-nerfed waveclear.) We're also changing Defiant Dance to a stronger anti-physical defense with no protection against magic damage to open a weakness to mages and AP assassins while strengthening her ability to counter AD threats.
Base Stats
HEALTH GROWTH
85
⇒
95
ARMOR
34
⇒
36
Passive - Ionian Fervor
PER-STACK
4-17 (levels 1-18) (+0.04 bonus attack damage) on-hit damage
⇒
8/10/12% (levels 1/7/13) attack speed
STACK CAP
4
⇒
5
MAX STACKS
16-68 (levels 1-18) (+0.16 bonus attack damage) on-hit damage
⇒
40%/50/60% (levels 1/7/13) attack speed
MAX STACK BONUS
30/40/50% (levels 1/7/13) attack speed
⇒
15-66 (levels 1-18) (+0.25 bonus attack damage) on-hit damage
Q - Bladesurge
BONUS DAMAGE TO MINIONS
45/60/75/90/105
⇒
55/75/95/115/135
W - Defiant Dance
DAMAGE REDUCTION
40% reduced physical and magic damage
⇒
50% reduced physical damage, 0% reduced magic damage
E - Flawless Duet
VISUALS
Hitbox visuals are easier to see
Champion First Encounter VO
CHECK THE NAMETAG
Champions with faction- or champion-specific taunt VO now play those lines the first time they encounter a corresponding champion
Marksman Items
A Quick Preamble
We've got per-item discussion in the sections below, but want to share some broader thoughts for those interested. Last midseason, we made a bunch of marksman item changes to broaden the range of champions and playstyles that could succeed in bot lane beyond late-game crit spam. While non-marksman carries do occasionally show up in bot lane now, crit marksmen were left frustrated by their builds due to things like crit overcapping, anti-synergy between Infinity Edge and Last Whisper, and higher damage tradeoffs than ever for defensive items due to a weaker two-item spike.
This patch, we're revisiting marksman items with the following goals:Once the initial learning curve shakes out, crit users shouldn't be left remarkably stronger or weaker than before, though they'll once again spike at two items (Infinity Edge + Zeal item, with Phantom Dancer updated to be an appealing defensive Zeal upgrade) instead of three so their games will feel better. From here, we'll be following up on significant power shifts on a champ-by-champ basis rather than continuing to adjust the item system (barring any items that end up way out of line).
- Crit users are excited about their core build again
- Crit builds are generally more satisfying in normal play (fix the problems mentioned above) without becoming problematic in pro play
- Crit users can fit defense into their core builds if they need it
new
Cloak of Agility
This is only first because it'd be weird to see it in Infinity Edge and Essence Reaver otherwise. Welcome back, crit cloak.
COST
800 gold
CRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE
20%
updated
Infinity Edge
Increases critical strike damage instead of partially converting crits to true damage. Grants critical strike chance instead of doubling crit chance from other sources.
We're restoring Infinity Edge's synergy with itself to make it a more immediately gratifying pickup. Removing its true damage conversion means it no longer anti-synergizes with Last Whisper, while setting its crit damage bonus to 25% rather than the historic 50% lets us maintain our original goal of mitigating the late-game squishy melting marksmen used to achieve.
TOTAL COST
3400 gold (unchanged)
BUILD PATH
B.F. Sword + Pickaxe + 1225 gold
⇒
B.F. Sword + Pickaxe + Cloak of Agility + 425 gold
ATTACK DAMAGE
70
⇒
80
newCRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE
25%
removedCRIT CHANCE DOUBLER
No longer doubles critical strike chance
newCRIT DAMAGE INCREASE
Now increases critical strike damage by 25%
removedTRUE DAMAGE CONVERSION
No longer converts 10% of critical strike damage to true damage
Molten Edge
(Ornn's Masterwork upgrade)
ATTACK DAMAGE
100
⇒
110
EVERYTHING ELSE
Molten Edge inherits the rest of Infinity Edge's changes above with no differences
updated
Essence Reaver
Now grants critical strike chance. No longer grants mana or Essence Flare.
While the Essence Flare version of Essence Reaver unlocked a few new marksman playstyles (mainly looking at you Lucian), it disenfranchised a bunch of others like Ashe and Xayah and ultimately ended up being a better fit for fighters like Renekton and Riven. Essence Reaver is going back to being a crit+CDR item.
TOTAL COST
3000 gold
⇒
3200 gold
BUILD PATH
B.F. Sword + Caulfield's Warhammer + Sapphire Crystal + 250 gold
⇒
Pickaxe + Caulfield's Warhammer + Cloak of Agility + 425 gold
ATTACK DAMAGE
75
⇒
60
COOLDOWN REDUCTION
20% (unchanged)
newCRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE
25%
removedMANA
No longer grants 300 mana
MANA REFUND
Basic attacks refund
1%
⇒
1.5% missing mana
removedESSENCE FLARE
Your next basic attack after casting your ultimate no longer grants Essence Flare for 6 seconds, granting 50% attack speed and 20% basic ability cooldown refund on basic attack
new
Spear of Shojin
Grants attack damage, health, cooldown reduction, and Awakened Dragon (renamed Essence Flare).
Per the Essence Reaver context, several champions make good use of Essence Flare. It's just that they're mostly not marksmen. We made a new item for them. (To those of you who saw the previous Spear of Shojin on Nexus Blitz, it ended up overlapping enough with Sterak's Gage that we decided not to move it forward.)
TOTAL COST
3400 gold
BUILD PATH
B.F. Sword + Kindlegem + Long Sword + 950 gold
ATTACK DAMAGE
60
HEALTH
250
COOLDOWN REDUCTION
20%
AWAKENED DRAGON
Your next basic attack after casting your ultimate grants Awakened Dragon for 6 seconds, granting 50% attack speed and 20% basic ability cooldown refund on basic attack
updated
Stormrazor
Now amplifies your Energized effects and causes them to slow the target. No longer grants a guaranteed critical strike after not basic attacking for a few seconds.
Stormrazor was created to support marksman playstyles that focus more on kiting around a fight than attacking at full uptime, but ended up becoming the predominant first item in crit builds due to its combination of early impact and crit scaling. We're keeping the idea of "occasionally super-powerful attacks" but moving it from the crit system into the Energized system so it's not just a bumper on the front of Infinity Edge builds.
TOTAL COST
2800 gold
⇒
3100 gold
BUILD PATH
B.F. Sword + Long Sword + Long Sword + Dagger + 550 gold
⇒
B.F. Sword + Long Sword + Kircheis Shard + 850 gold
ATTACK DAMAGE
60
⇒
55
ATTACK SPEED
35%
⇒
25%
newENERGIZED
Movement and basic attacks generate Energized stacks. At 100 stacks, your next basic attack deals 65 bonus magic damage on-hit and slow the target by 40% decaying over 1 second
newSTORM
Your other Energized effects are 30% more effective and also slow their targets by 40% decaying over 1 second
removedSTORM'S EDGE
No longer causes your next basic attack to critically strike for 140-200% (at 0-30% critical strike chance) and grant 20% bonus movement speed for 0.75 seconds after not basic attacking for a few seconds.
updated
Phantom Dancer
Now grants a shield at low health but no longer decreases damage from the last champion you hit. Spectral Waltz now triggers on attack rather than proximity to an enemy champion.
Existing defensive options for crit marksmen (Maw of Malmortius, Guardian Angel, Mercurial Scimitar) set users far enough behind on core damage builds that they can't contribute carry-level damage in fights even though they're living longer. We're making Phantom Dancer a defensive option that fits more smoothly into crit builds.
TOTAL COST
2700 gold
⇒
2600 gold
BUILD PATH
Dagger + Zeal + Dagger + 800 gold
⇒
Dagger + Brawler's Gloves + Zeal + 700 gold (Zeal's cost has decreased by 100 gold)
ATTACK SPEED
45%
⇒
30%
CRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE
30%
⇒
25%
newLIFELINE
If you would take damage that would reduce your health below 30%, gain a shield that absorbs up to 240-600 (scaling starts at level 9, ends at level 18) damage for 2 seconds (90 second cooldown)
removedLAMENT
No longer decreases damage taken from the last champion you basic attacked by 12%
SPECTRAL WALTZ
Grants unit passthrough and 7% movement speed
while within 550 range of a visible enemy champion
⇒
for 2 seconds after basic attacking a champion
Statikk Shiv
Shiv needed a little extra buff to bring it up to the level of the other Zeal upgrades.
TOTAL COST
2800 gold
⇒
2600 gold
ATTACK SPEED
35%
⇒
40%
CRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE
30%
⇒
25%
Last Whisper
Cost increased. Attack damage and armor penetration increased.
Making Last Whisper more effective as a component item while building into Lord Dominik's Regards or Mortal Reminder.
COST
1300 gold
⇒
1450 gold
ATTACK DAMAGE
10
⇒
20
ARMOR PENETRATION
10% total armor penetration
⇒
20% total armor penetration
Build Suggestions
We're changing a lot of marksman items this patch, which means marksman builds may look a bit different. We're sharing a few build archetypes you can expect to see this patch, though actual builds will look different from one champion to the next (unique builds aren't covered here—how's it going, Ezreal?). The best thing to do is, as always, think critically about which items fit your champion's playstyle and strengths. That said, here are a couple common builds you'll see this patch:
INFINITY EDGE
Infinity Edge⇒Berserker's Greaves⇒Zeal Upgrade⇒Zeal upgrade or Last Whisper upgrade
ESSENCE REAVER
Essence Reaver⇒Berserker's Greaves⇒Zeal upgrade⇒Infinity Edge
BLADE OF THE RUINED KING (CRIT)
Blade of the Ruined King⇒Berserker's Greaves⇒Runaan's Hurricane⇒Infinity Edge
BLADE OF THE RUINED KING (ON-HIT)
Blade of the Ruined King⇒Berserker's Greaves⇒Guinsoo's Rageblade⇒Rapid Firecannon
STORMRAZOR
Stormrazor's no longer the must-rush marksman item. You'll mostly see it as a third or fourth pickup in other builds.
RECOMMENDED ITEMS
Marksman recommended items have been updated based on this patch's changes to provide in-game advice on a champ-by-champ basis
Simple Buffs & Nerfs
This is a new section of the patch notes where we're gonna stick simple, straightforward changes—generally small handfuls of number tunings rather than mechanical adjustments or comprehensive balance passes. They still impact matchups and place in the meta, so this isn't a free pass to skip reading 'em!
Lissandra
Q cost increased late. E damage decreased late.
Much of Lissandra's status as a dominant midlaner comes from her ability to push into the enemy turret quickly and at relatively low cost, letting her consistently roam with plenty of mana to fight with. A higher cost on Ice Shard and lower damage on Glacial Path mean she'll have to invest more time and resources in mid before she can pressure other lanes.
Separate from the waveclear changes, Glacial Path's endpoint indicator is now always visible if you're close to it. This is mainly targeted at cases where Liss players could hide their endpoint inside terrain, but we're addressing the brush and line-of-sight cases as well.
Q - Ice Shard
COST
60/63/66/69/72 mana
⇒
60/65/70/75/80 mana
E - Glacial Path
DAMAGE
70/115/160/205/250
⇒
70/105/140/175/210
CLARITY
Glacial Path's endpoint now shows through terrain, fog of war, and brush to enemies within 600 range of it
Sion
Q damage decreased. W cooldown increased early.
Weakening Sion's early lane to make bad matchups more punshing for him.
Q - Decimating Smash
MINIMUM DAMAGE
30/50/70/90/110
⇒
20/40/60/80/100
FULL-CHARGE DAMAGE
90/150/210/270/330
⇒
60/120/180/240/300
W - Soul Furnace
COOLDOWN
11 seconds at all ranks
⇒
15/14/13/12/11 seconds
Zyra
Plant damage decreased.
We took a light touch with last patch's mana regen nerf which asked Zyra to be a little more careful with her cooldowns. This patch swings harder by targeting her harass from plants which lets her keep opponents at bay even when she misses her abilities.
General
PLANT DAMAGE
24-109 (levels 1-18)
⇒
20-100 (levels 1-18)
Minion and Monster Gold Bounties
Dying while behind in farm delays how quickly you accrue a minion and monster gold bounty after respawning.
One of the unintended side effects of preseason's minion and monster gold bounties is that farming back up from an early deficit puts a target on your back. We're making that not happen anymore.
FARMING SUBSIDIES
If you die with less minion and monster gold than the enemy team's average, you'll respawn with a buffer equal to the difference. You won't start accruing a minion and monster gold bounty until you've used up the buffer.
WHAT?
Say you die with 200 less minion and monster gold than the enemy team's average, then go back to lane and power farm 700 gold while the enemy team only averages 300 gold. Previously, you'd have a 100 gold bounty for having 400 more minion and monster gold than the enemy team's average. Now you won't have a bounty at all because your first 200 gold was erased by the buffer.
REMINDER
The enemy team's average is their total minion and monster gold divided by four, not five (top, mid, and bot lane, plus the jungle)
Loading Screen Update
The loading screen's getting a visual refresh this patch to bring its look and feel in line with current League aesthetics and to lay the groundwork for new features down the road. Here are a few functional changes coming with the update
- Ranked borders now dynamically update to reflect your current rank
- Load-in progress is now tracked via a single bar at the bottom of the screen
- Clicking a player's card in the loading screen now flips it to show additional info:
- Teammates: Champion mastery, honor, and ranked armor or level border depending on which they've chosen to display
- Opponents: Champion mastery and honor
Bugfixes
- LeBlanc's Q - Sigil of Malice and Mimic'd Q - Sigil of Malice mark is no longer consumed when E - Ethereal Chains, Mimic'd E - Ethereal Chains, or Mimic'd Q - Sigil of Malice would proc the mark but are blocked by a spell shield
- Relic Shield no longer reports twice the amount of gold generated from Spoils of War in the post-game screen
- Base Aatrox can once again toggle his banner wings
- Firecracker Vayne Prestige Edition's E - Condemn projectile color has been slightly changed to disambiguate it from her R - Final Hour basic attacks
- Nightbringer Yasuo's R - Last Breath voiceover has been restored
- Choosing a new background for your profile once again immediately updates it rather than requiring you to tab out and tab back into your profile
Upcoming Skins & Chromas
The following skins will be released this patch. Grab the League Displays app for full-res splash art!
The following chromas will be released this patch:
