Patch 8.4 notes

Lost Chapter

Lost Chapter, with its mana restore, is a nice item for mages who want to sustain in lane, which makes it a good starting point for most mid laners. As such, one of the first choices we want mages to be able to make is what item to build out of Lost Chapter. Lost Chapter builds into three items now: Luden's Echo, Hextech GLP-800, and Archangel's Staff. More on each of those below.

(Catalyst of Aeons and its upgrades remain good items for the laner who wants to sustain in lane, trading cooldown reduction for health).

Luden's Echo

This one's for poking.

Hextech GLP-800

This one's for catching.

Archangel's Staff

Mo' mana, mo' spellcasts.

Liandry's Torment

Liandry's Torment was a bit of a contradiction: The percent health damage made it decent against tanks, while the flat magic penetration made it decent against squishy targets. As a result, it either didn't do either job exceptionally, or it ended up overtuned, and doing both jobs too well. We're shifting Liandry's Torment into being the tank bleeding item, and rewarding champions who want to stay in combat for a while, casting spell after spell on the beefy boys.

Haunting Guise

It's haunting, guys!

Morellonomicon

Mana refund passive removed. Flat magic penetration added. Grievous Wounds now applies to targets at all health. Ability power decreased. Mana removed.

Morellonomicon was supposed to be the anti-healing item, but when it was also the best mana and AP item and present in every game, it forced us to make the item more about the stats and less about the unique output it provided.

new

Oblivion Orb

Because flat magic penetration is cool, just not for the Liandry's Torment line.

new

Spellbinder

The more fighting, the better.

new?

Twin Shadows

When you're feeling clingy.

Darius

W cooldown decreased at early ranks. W damage increased at later ranks. E armor penetration increased.

Darius, as a juggernaut, has damage as his main output. Currently, he could use some more.

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W - Crippling Strike

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E - Apprehend

Gangplank

Q mana cost increased at early ranks. E barrel duration decreased. Barrels no longer reveal nearby units.

Both Kleptomancy and Grasp of the Undying have given Gangplank powerful sustain options that let him brute-force his way through lane, reaching his late-game scaling without much challenge.

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Q - Parrrley

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E - Powder Keg

Gnar

Q cooldown refund decreased (more at higher ranks). E base damage increased.

Gnars who stay back and play safe should be less impactful, while those who get up close with the enemy should have more power, especially early on.

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Q - Boomerang Throw

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E - Hop

Ornn

W shield duration increased, cooldown decreased at early ranks, damage increased early and decreased late. Brittle duration decreased. E now deals more damage on average but cannot double-hit.

Ornn has best-in-class dueling, so much so that he's not just one of the top tanks, but that he intrudes on what should be the strength of top lane fighters. Tanks aren't typically bad at dueling, but their cooldown gating and burstier damage outputs tend to give fighters clear chances to fight them and win. Ornn's windows of weakness are too short, whether that's the cooldown on W or the duration of the Brittle debuff. Even when he is fought outside of those windows, the damage from Searing Charge is too much for many champions to handle.

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W - Bellows Breath

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E - Searing Charge

Poppy

Passive damage increased at early levels. E damage increased.

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Passive - Iron Ambassador

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E - Heroic Charge

Renekton

Q damage increased at later ranks. Empowered Q damage increased.

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Q - Cull the Meek

Jax

Counter Strike no longer sometimes delays briefly before blocking attacks.

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E - Counter Strike

Frozen Mallet

Ranged basic attacks slow for less.

Only a few ranged champions can afford to sacrifice damage to pick up Frozen Mallet, but those champions who can end up being both hard to reach (because of the slow) and hard to kill (because of the health). To make this less of a (can't) Catch-22, we're reducing the ranged slow.

Evelynn

E damage increased.

Last patch's nerfs on Evelynn went too hard.

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E - Whiplash

Fiddlesticks

E cooldown decreased at early ranks. E bonus damage to monsters increased; bonus damage to minions removed. R cooldown decreased.

League's original mage jungler isn't doing so well, and could use some love.

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E - Dark Wind

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R - Crowstorm

Kalista

Base attack damage and range decreased. Base attack speed and attack speed per level increased. W now grants attack damage instead of attack speed when Kalista is near her Oathsworn.

Kalista has been bullying other marksmen too hard in lane, so we're bringing her mana sustain and attack range down somewhat.

We're also changing the way Sentinel's Oathsworn bonuses work, and this one's a little bit of a deep dive. Gaining or losing attack speed (such as when her Oathsworn enters or leaves range) can make a champion feel choppy, leading to flubbed last-hitting and stutter-stepping. On Kalista, whose attack speed also controls movement, losing or gaining attack speed is even more disruptive. As such, we're changing the bonus she gets from being near her Oathsworn away from attack speed and into attack damage, and changing her base stat profile accordingly.

TL;DR her power will still get a boost when her Oathsworn is nearby, but the feel of her basic attacks will feel more consistent throughout the course of a game.

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Base Stats

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W - Sentinel

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E - Rend

Kog'Maw

W maximum health damage increased at later ranks.

We went too hard on W last patch, so we're giving some of its strength back.

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W - Bio-Arcane Barrage

Rengar

Q reverted to pre-rework paradigm. Base attack damage scaling increased. R detection range decreased.

We like much of the Rengar update, but the old Q paradigm is one Rengar players enjoyed more (and opponents don't really notice that much). We want to keep—and amplify—the gains of the new ultimate while we're at it, and we're taking a pass at Rengar's stat profile to help Trinity Force be a more reasonable purchase.

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Base Stats

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Passive - Unseen Predator

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updatedQ - Savagery

This is pretty much a revert to Rengar's old Q functionality. Q is now an attack reset plus an attack speed buff for the next two attacks.

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W - Battle Roar

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R - Thrill of the Hunt

Shyvana

Attack damage per level decreased. Q base damage decreased.

Shyvana is one of the strongest users of Press the Attack. With the power increase PtA is getting (see below), and the half-dragon needs to lose some base power as a result.

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Base Stats

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Q - Twin Bite

Swain

W cost decreased at early ranks. R base heal increased. Health threshold to reactivate R decreased.

With one patch under the belts of Swain players, we're mostly pleased with how players are learning. That being said, we have room for some feel-good changes which should help new players with the flow of his kit.

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W - Vision of Empire

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R - Demonic Ascension

Talon

Base armor decreased. Base magic resistance increased.

As a melee champion who takes a lot spell damage in the laning phase, Talon suffered disproportionately from the loss of magic resist runes in the preseason.

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Base Stats

Tristana

R cooldown increased.

Tristana's ability to peel for herself is too consistently available.

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R - Buster Shot

Twitch

E base damage decreased.

Twitch is one of the strongest users of Press the Attack, despite it not actually being the rune most players take on him. With the power increase PtA is getting (see below), League's dirtiest rat needs to lose some base power.

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E - Contaminate

Volibear

Q movement speed increased. W now halves its cooldown when used on minions. E now knocks back enemies struck, and deals extra damage to dashing or airborne targets.

Volibear has a binary kit that will eventually need some form of rework. In the meantime, we wanted to try our hand at giving him more complex decisions to make in game.

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Q - Rolling Thunder

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W - Frenzy

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E - Majestic Roar

Xin Zhao

Passive damage decreased. W base cast time decreased.

Xin Zhao is one of the strongest users of Press the Attack. With the power increase PtA is getting (see below), and everybody's favorite Seneschal needs to lose some base power as a result. Also cleaning up some weirdness on short-ranged casts of E - Audacious Charge and making W - Wind Becomes Lightning more fluid.

Also, he got a shiny new splash!

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Passive - Determination

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W - Wind Becomes Lightning

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E - Audacious Charge

Zed

R cooldown decreased at later ranks.

Over time, supports and marksman have picked up much better tools to prevent burst deaths (Redemption, Knight's Vow, et al). This makes Zed players feel worse about trying to make plays, knowing that if they fail, they'll be without a key cooldown for so long.

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R - Death Mark

Zoe

A lot of changes. Most notably: Q damage down, minions no longer drop Teleport, E no longer refunds cooldown if it sleeps a champion, cleansing Drowsy now prevents Sleep.

Ok, this one's a pretty big changelist. If you just want a TL;DR, we're nerfing the most frustrating parts of Zoe.

First, Zoe's wave clear is good enough to frequently shove her lane in and roam—punishing the enemy mid laner with heavy poke damage if they try to follow. We're making wave clear one of Zoe's most notable weaknesses, meaning she'll have fewer opportunities to make use of her anti-champion strengths.

Zoe's also getting to Sleep far too many targets, especially in teamfights where she's almost guaranteed to get her E cooldown reduction. Taking that refund away—and giving opponents better ways to remove Sleep—makes Sleep feel less unavoidable and brings her overall damage output down.

Finally... Q - Paddle Star. Landing sleep into a long-ranged Q is Zoe's signature combo (and her largest source of damage), but even unsleeped targets are losing most of their health to one hit once Zoe has a few items. We're moving some damage into More Sparkles! and cutting a bunch more—the net result is about 20% less damage to the primary target at most points in the game.

That's a lot of nerfs, and while Zoe is frustrating to play against, her win rate numbers aren't reassuring. We're bumping up her base health and passive scaling so she still has power, just less of the the "one-shot you with naked Q" levels she was sometimes reaching. This isn't an even swap: we expect Zoe to land on the weak side when 8.4 hits. But we'd rather hit as many frustration points as we can in one go and address power later, rather than continuing to draw the process out.

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Base Stats

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Passive - More Sparkles!

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Q - Paddle Star

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W - Spell Thief

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E - Sleepy Trouble Bubble

removed

Tracker's Knife

Tracker's Knife is almost mandatory in professional play, giving professional teams enough vision to avoid most early-game danger. Bringing it in line would kill it in most games, so for now we're simply removing it.

Wit's End

Cost decreased. On-hit damage increased. Max magic resist drain increased, but magic resist per stack halved on ranged champions.

Wit's End is consistently stronger on ranged champions than melee, and that strength prevents us from making it a viable item on the basic-attacking bruisers who may otherwise pick it up. Splitting those two up should help with balancing this item.