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Patch 8.11 Early Look

Riot·5/7/2018, 6:20:37 PM·21 votes·149,350 views

RiotAether and DyQuill here on behalf of the gameplay devs! Everyone's heads-down getting these changes ready, so we'll be your guides through this early look at patch 8.11.

Two patches from now, we're releasing a bunch of changes to marksman items, runes, and stats. While we aren't shipping any champion ability overhauls, these changes add up to a significant shift in item and rune builds. Once everything's live, you'll see more marksman playstyles that aren't "late-game crits or bust".

We're sharing an early preview of those changes today so you have plenty of time to theorycraft. For more traditional dev blog-style context on everything here and on marksmen in general, head to the dev corner.

A quick note on Midseason

The past six months have been a lot to keep up with for you (and a lot to follow up on for us). Last preseason brought us Runes Reforged, the largest update to League gameplay we've ever released in one go. Since then, we've also packed big changes into even-numbered patches—think the AP item overhaul in 8.4 and the Conqueror keystone rune in 8.6—changes that would've normally had to wait for midseason.

Launching a big, flashy feature like Rift Herald or Elemental Drakes on top of all that felt like overkill, so 2018 won't have an uppercase-M Midseason patch. The lowercase-m midseason timeframe will still have big changes like the marksman work we're talking about here, but 8.11 is as big as patches will be until preseason toward the end of the year.

Runes

NEW

Hail of Blades (Domination keystone)

"For quick fights."

  • Your first three basic attacks against champions in combat gain bonus attack speed. These attacks can exceed the attack speed limit.

Fleet Footwork

"Less safety early."

  • Less movement speed at early levels
  • Same healing at levels 1 and 18 but less in-between

Items

updated

Infinity Edge

"Crit-focused marksmen will have to wait longer to scale up."

(B.F. Sword + B.F. Sword)
+Attack Damage
UNIQUE Passive - Razor Sharp: Doubles your Critical Strike Chance.
UNIQUE Passive: A portion of Critical Strike damage is converted to True Damage.
removedNo longer grants Critical Strike Chance.
removedNo longer increases the damage of critical strikes.

Zeal & All Upgrades

"These cost more. Crit chance won't show up as early in lane."

removedCloak of Agility

"Both its upgrades are being reworked, so it no longer has a home. Goodbye, Cloak of Agility!"

NEW

Stormrazor

"Hit hard, then hit fast."

(B.F. Sword + Pickaxe + Dagger)
+Attack Damage
+Attack Speed
UNIQUE Passive: If you haven't attacked recently, your next basic attack will critically strike.
UNIQUE Passive: When you critically strike, gain a short burst of attack speed and movement speed.
updated

Essence Reaver

"Ultimate spell-slinging synergy."

(B.F. Sword + Caulfield's Warhammer)
+Attack Damage
+Cooldown Reduction
+Mana
UNIQUE Passive: Basic attacks refund a portion of your missing mana.
UNIQUE Passive: After casting your ultimate, your next basic attack grants bonus attack speed for a moderate duration. During that time, basic attacks refund a portion of your non-ultimate cooldowns.
removedNo longer grants critical strike chance.
removedBasic attacks no longer refund a portion of maximum mana.
removedNo longer grants cooldown reduction based on critical strike chance.
updated

Lord Dominik's Regards

"Now it punches through base armor, too."

(Last Whisper + Pickaxe)
+Attack Damage
UNIQUE Passive - Last Whisper: Gain a large amount of total armor penetration.
removedNo longer grants increased damage against enemies with more maximum health than you.

Last Whisper

"This also grants total penetration now."

removedGiant Slayer

"Lord Dominik's doesn't need this anymore, so like Cloak of Agility, it's retiring."

Executioner's Calling & Mortal Reminder

"TBD. Stay tuned!"

Blade of the Ruined King

"It's cheaper."

The Bloodthirster

"It's cheaper."

Guardian Angel

"You'll be sturdier while you build this."

  • Builds out of Chain Vest instead of Cloth Armor
  • More attack damage
  • More armor

Maw of Malmortius

"Better stats and a shield scaling nerf marksmen won't care about."

  • More attack damage
  • More magic resist
  • Magic damage shield no longer scales with magic resist

Stats

These numbers vary from champ to champ, but broadly speaking, bot lane marksmen are trading away some lane strength for more power later on. (Quinn, Kindred, and Graves play in other positions, so tuning them around bot lane felt like it'd do more harm than good.)

"Lane fights hurt more, but you won't get blown up as fast later on."

  • -5 armor
  • -2 base health regen
  • Between +6 and +15 base health (champs without poke damage get the bigger numbers)
  • +6 health growth

"Less AD early, more late."

  • -4 base attack damage
  • +0.7 attack damage growth
  • When 8.11 ships, if you miss last-hitting a minion by 4 or less, we'll give it to you anyway. The training wheels will come off gradually in the patches after.
The 8.11 puzzle has a lot of pieces, but if you've been itching to try new marksman playstyles, this'll be your moment. Let us know what you think the best setups will be!

724 Comments

Smawqq5/7/2018, 6:45:59 PM67 votes

The game will never be balanced with how often they make large changes like this.

UD Blue Hen5/7/2018, 7:03:33 PM54 votes

Would Hail of Blades work on Darius to achieve really fast hemorrhage stacks?

warpenguin5555/7/2018, 6:40:08 PM49 votes

Stormrazor is going to get abused so hard. Good thing I already permaban zed

Redomic5/7/2018, 6:29:01 PM41 votes

You might as well delete Yasuo

IAmTheSorrow5/7/2018, 9:22:18 PM37 votes

Hail of blades top kench. TahmKench Fast food at its finest!

Jynsin5/7/2018, 6:45:55 PM35 votes

Putting an end to the critical strike RNG era of League is a great step in the right direction. Fighting someone with 10-70% crit chance is just a gambling play and has no place in such a fine tuned and mechanical game like League. I'm really glad Riot is addressing this.

Shinjusuke5/7/2018, 7:11:52 PM26 votes

You need to drop the crit chance on all finished crit items by 5% and shift that power elsewhere in each of those items.

The current options do not allow for 100% crit chance builds without going over and wasting gold, and so there will be no net change in the frequency of RNG-sucess crit builds.

IE + Crit Item + Crit Item = 100% crit chance needs to be an option. It isn't now with all the 30% crit items.

Currently your only options are

IE + Crit Item + Crit Item = 120% crit chance, or

IE + Crit Item + Stormrazor or Essence Reaver = 60% crit chance, which does absolutely nothing to change the status quo or the problem of overly frontloaded ADC damage.

Give us a 20% crit chance item, or make the 30% crit chance items only provide 25% crit chance, so 100% crit chance slots neatly into builds.

Otherwise, nobody is going to waste gold on that extra unused 20% crit chance by building IE + 2 crit chance items, which means RNG Crits still decide way too much.

Xurreal5/7/2018, 8:10:18 PM24 votes

Fairwell, item 1018.

Say hello to Atma's Impailer and Heart of Gold when you get there for me.

Also, I think you may wanna take a look at the Master Yi video PantsAreDragon posted on youtube this morning. It's about Essence Reaver. yeah.

Joshtheliberator5/7/2018, 7:00:25 PM24 votes

This is a Master Yi main's favorite dream, items that are just like his ult [slayer-pantheon-thumbs] Let the fun begin

Tri1Star5/7/2018, 7:32:32 PM15 votes

basically making true damage extremely accessible now

Link McNoot5/7/2018, 11:38:24 PM15 votes

How is the new Infinity Edge going to sync with Ashe ? Specifically I'm looking at her passive, will every hit deal true damage or just the "crits". Will the same portion of a "crit" be converted to true damage, or maybe is she just gonna get left behind and not deal any true damage? As a long time Ashe player I must know these things.

Keshaun5/7/2018, 7:58:59 PM15 votes

Really wish they stopped adding more true damage. Building little armor doesn’t really help against conquerer/infinity edge anymore since that is like 40% true damage or something if they stack. Since critical strikes do not deal more damage, the % converted to true isn’t that big of a deal anymore, but when facing those infinity edge & conquerer users, tabis isn’t even useful at that point for a carry like champ. I do like that they’re nerfing the price on zeal items though so it takes a bit longer to spike.

xcurssedgunsx5/7/2018, 6:27:24 PM14 votes

tbh after looking at the patch notes some things like getting rid of any crit on ie is bad ideas like that's one of the oldest items with best stats and the reasoning to use it for for the crit advantage now we have to build something alot less awesome just to get by seems legit.....

Mailros5/7/2018, 6:40:19 PM13 votes

As long as this makes win conditions other than "Get your adc fed" more viable than the changes are good. Adcs have been way more powerful than any other role for ages. It's really time for some parity.

Lelantosk5/7/2018, 6:34:47 PM7 votes

When are you going to tune WW's Base AD stat back, he wasn't overly strong in base ad in the beginning, and now he just feels underwhelming in all phases of the game and Im rather upset about that

WraecIast5/8/2018, 5:34:19 AM6 votes

you'll see more marksman playstyles that aren't "late-game crits or bust".

Makes Crit chance double on Infinite edge. Makes another item that grants attack speed and movement speed when whenever you crit. Plus, gives you a 100% chance to crit when you haven't AA'd a while.

W h a t ?

iiSey5/7/2018, 9:57:35 PM5 votes

GOD, THINK ABOUT YASUO! How can every single champion in the game have Yasuo's passive? WITHOUT EVEN GETTING THE 10% CRIT DMG REDUCE! like gawd. No for real though, i really hope these IE changes don't get through, if they do, damn Riot, "Every champion passive is unique" my ass.

DarknesTheDragon5/7/2018, 6:49:15 PM3 votes

WHY WOULD YOU KILL LORDS REGARDS! THATS THE CORE ITEM ON ALL MY AD CARRIES ITS THE ONLY THING THAT LETS ME FIGHT TANKS THE CHANGES YOU MADE COULDVE EASILY BEEN IN MORTAL REMINDER WHY NOT JUST TWEAK THAT?!