Patch 5.6 notes

Aatrox

Massacre fills Aatrox's Blood Well.

Often times Aatrox would find himself wanting to use Dark Flight for a massive knockup into the enemy team, only realizing he didn't have much to be doing once he was in. Whether you're diving the backlines or just brawling the old-fashioned way, Massacre makes sure you've got enough fire in your veins when you decide to dive-kick your way into combat.

R - Massacre

Amumu

Amumu,

This wasn't the most abusive thing around because it requires you to be out of mana, so you couldn't very well gank or defend yourself, but nonetheless unintended. Don't cry, Amumu (at least wait until you have enough mana).

W - Despair

Annie

Tibbers aura damage scales with rank.

For a long time we've been pushing Annie into being League's Premier "bear-mage" (that's a thing), be it by lowering Tibbers' cooldown, giving him better defenses, or sharing Molten Shield. With plays beginning to fully respect Tibbers as an entity (he has feelings too, you know), we're pulling back on some of the free damage you get just for being within hugging distance.

R - Summon: Tibbers

Bard

Q damage up. E cooldown down, plus some bugfixes/improvements.

Bard's been out for less than a patch, and while we're already seeing the growing pains of players and teammates alike coordinating around his unique abilities, it's clear he released on the wrong note. We're taking it slow for now, but some more power on Q and some improvements to his signature E means that you'll have a better time on your Magical Journeys this patch...assuming bard isn't too busy collecting chimes to open one for you.

General

Q - Cosmic Binding

E - Magical Journey

R - Tempered Fate

Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia gets less AP when combined with %AP amplifying effects

Last patch we modified how the first Dragon buff interacts with Rabadon's Deathcap (from multiplicative to additive, with an expected ~1-2% ability power change), but failed to document the larger hit to Cassiopeia, who was tripling (quadrupling?) down on it with her passive, Dragon buff, masteries, and Rabadon's Deathcap. We're documenting it now and realize this is late game Cassi nerf, but we're watching how this shakes out first.

Elise

Human form's slower, Spider form's faster. Rappel is easier to use. Cocoon's faster.

A champion that toes the line of viability, it's been a long time since we've seen Elise terrorizing the top tables. While the usability fix to Rappel shouldn't be understated (that move is really difficult to use), our changes are to increase power in ways that you can feel. A slight nerf to Elise's speed allows us to make her transformation even more deadly, and her cocoon follow-up a little easier to land.

General

E - Rappel

E - Cocoon

Evelynn

Evelynn stealths faster lategame. W now works off of spellcasts.

For one of League's most tactical champions, Eve's been struggling since her days on top. While we've seen improvements with recent jungle changes, we wanted to play up some of Evelynn's unique positioning play. Skirting in and out of Shadow Walk becomes much faster later, keeping opponents guessing after clearing wards or attempting an ambush - combined with Dark Frenzy's spell-based cooldown paradigm, we're aiming for a more 'hit-and-run' pattern, giving her more control in bursts but less strength when just training someone down.

Passive - Shadow Walk

W - Dark Frenzy

Galio

E's cooldown gets lower with rank.

As of this writing, none of Galio's basic abilities had scaling cooldowns...UNTIL NOW. Righteous Gust is one of the gargoyle's cooler moves, so we're letting him toss some more tornadoes around as the game goes on.

E - Righteous Gust

Irelia

E damage lowered.

Balance Trivia! Despite the 'Better Nerf Irelia' jokes, did you know her last nerf was 3 years ago (March 2012), and that she's only been nerfed 4 times ever? We thought that was neat.

As for these changes, they're pretty light - Equilibrium Strike gives access to a heap of CC, easily turning a losing fight into a winning one. For being such a game-changer, we're lowering the amount of raw damage it does so she doesn't always come out of trades ahead.

E - Equilibrium Strike

Katarina

Base Health and regen down. Health per level up.

For one of the heaviest snowball champions in league, Katarina's lane-bully potential is enabled by having the base-stats to win wars of attrition with enemy mids, whittling them down for the kill. We're pulling back on that to give her opponents a better window of vulnerability to exploit.

General

Karthus

Karthus' basic attack is less bad.

For when spamming Lay Waste just doesn't cut it.

General

LeBlanc

R's copied spells deal less damage.

Let's level here: We actually think LeBlanc is pretty okay. Though she's polarizing in the same way Nidalee can be when successful, she serves as a counterbalance to a lot of other strong picks and keeps things interesting. We're tuning her damage back slightly to relieve some of the pressure other midlaners have to deal with against her, but Leblanc as a champion is performing pretty close to our expectations overall.

R - Mimic

Lux

R does more damage when popping Lux's passive. (This was always intended, but not always functional)

When we gave Illumination an AP ratio way back in 4.13, it worked when your basic attacks triggered it but never for Final Spark. For all you light mages out there: this adds a 20% AP ratio when banishing the shadows.

R - Final Spark

Nidalee

Nothing to see here.

Let's talk Nidalee.

Nid's a polarizing champion where, when she succeeds, generates more hate posts on forums around the world than most other champions combined. That said, with tank junglers picking up steam, Nidalee's got some very real challenges coming her way. Hard engage has traditionally been one of Nidalee's big weaknesses - when she can't dictate the pace of a fight by wearing down her opponents - so if big, beefy champs are constantly running at her face (and this becomes a trend), we want to see what that world looks like before taking action.

Nocturne

R cooldown down.

For a champion that's not too far off the mark, the biggest pain point for Nocturne players is lacking enough opportunities to impact a game before it's too late, so we've cut the cooldown to give him just that. Don't worry Noc - we got your darkness right here.

R - Paranoia

Quinn

Bugfixes and general improvements to E.

Quinn's problems don't begin and end with Vault, but as one of the most flexible tools in her arsenal she'll often live or die by it. Smoothing out some interactions and fixing some bugs should see her and Valor's synergy in top form for the fighting, and now even resets her basic attack for some high-level Harrier optimization. Look Val, buffs!

E - Vault

Rammus

Q cost down.

Though Rammus has certainly benefited from Cinderhulk, his mana pool still manages to spin out in the late-game. This should help. OK? OK.

Q - Powerball

Ryze

Q damage up.

We've all seen this one before. A true terror in toplane, Ryze has become a shadow of his former self - so we're slapping some charge back into Overload to see if we can't inch him back to reasonable levels. Carefully.

Q - Overload

Sejuani

W damage down. R slows less when you fail to land the stun.

One of the scarier opponents in the jungle pre-Cinderhulk, the changes to the jungle in 5.5 benefited no one champion greater than Sejuani. While we're not strictly nerfing her ability to jungle, we're aiming to reduce her damage spike midgame which often comes before opponents can itemize properly, let alone contain her spree of sustained lockdown. Finally, we're putting a real penalty for missing your bolas, as in a lot of cases the Sejuani that managed to miss was rewarded with such a heavy slow that many teams would just get run over anyways.

W - Flail of the Northern Winds

R - Glacial Prison

Singed

E deals max health damage.

Whether he's shaking up the toplane or stirring up a skirmish, every player knows what happens when you mix it up with an unstoppable Singed. That said, when he finds himself unable to dive into the enemy team's deep end, even the Mad Chemist needs a pick-me-up. This should let him flexibly fling fighters out of the fray when the fight's not in his favor.

E - Fling

Sion

Q hurts monsters less. E's passthrough damage down.

Primarily thought of as top tier laner, Cinderhulk saw Sion shamble on into the jungle and dominate without breaking a sweat. The changes themselves are simple enough, but underscore an important point - Sion should be a powerful pick for the crowd control and durability he brings to a composition, not necessarily his damage output (especially when building tank).

Q - Decimating Smash

E - Roar of the Slayer

Twitch

Passive damage up.

A pungent late-game threat, Twitch combines damage, subterfuge and foul stenches to put teams on his back...given that you don't exterminate him before he scales up. Even with a weaker early-game than most other marksmen, we're adding some punch back to his poison to encourage and reward the smart trades so necessary to his success.

Passive - Deadly Venom

Veigar

Passive regen up. Q range up. E stops dashes.

After 5.2's updates, opponents are able to play around Event Horizon well enough that we decided to add something special to make it stand out as an ability. Coupled with some tuning to help his early laning, a master Veigar player can lock mobile enemies in his cage for him to torment without fear of them escaping his tiny clutches.

Passive - Equilibrium

Q - Baleful Strike

E - Event Horizon

Vel'Koz

In this specific interaction, a Vel'Koz ulting in a bad spot wouldn't be able to click Thresh's Lantern to save himself - instead, needing to cancel using R and then click and usually dying anyways because that takes too long. Clicking now lets you passage to Thresh safely, undoing what may have been a poor decision. (Imagine if taking lantern didn't stop your ult though??)

R - Life Form Disintegration Ray

Yorick

Feel improvements for Q.

Most of our basic attack resets (that don't come paired with dashes or some other mobility) have a little bit of extra reach to make them easier to connect. Omen of War didn't, so we're hooking him up with some range and a sweet animation to ensure whoever's on the other end will remember Yorick Mori.

Q - Omen of War

Ziggs

Q cost down.

Hoo boy. Ziggs buffs. Long since the poster-child for stalling games and siege stand-stills, this lovable lunatic hasn't been able to keep up his special brand of madness against the top players in midlane for a while. Thanks to the season's changes making mana regeneration weaker, we feel comfortable adding some fuel to the fire and letting him get back to bombarding as usual.

Q - Bouncing Bomb

Zilean

We're buffing everything.

While we've been digging the future Zilean's update set out for him, we realize that we missed the mark numbers-wise (especially for midlane). These changes are all about enabling him to take risks on making intricate plays and ensuring he's rewarded should he succeed.

General

Q - Time Bomb

W - Rewind

E - Time Warp

Chalice of Harmony

CHEAPER.

We'll give real context below, promise.

Athene's Unholy Grail

More mana regeneration, EVERYWHERE.

The challenge with Athene's Unholy Grail is that it's an item basically designed for passive play. Defensive stats, tons of mana regeneration (and, in previous iterations, mana regen that ramped up the more mana you used), cooldown reduction - you get the deal. Because of this, we're a little reticent to just outright bring this bad boy back onto the scene. That said, there's also (currently) a world where Morellonomicon is the default mana regeneration item, which skews certain stats (healing, health regeneration) in different ways as well. We're trying hard not to make this a patch note about Morellonomicon (too late), but can at least afford to bring some parity between mana regeneration items.

Righteous Glory

Whoops.

Luden's Echo

Sorry!

You don't have to think of this as a "farewell," but more of a "I'll see you soon!" ... "With a functional build path!"

Orb of Winter

Streamlining that build path.

Look, if Negatron Cloak is back, we might as well use it.