Patch 13.14 notes

RANKED REWARDS

RANKED END AND START DATES

• July 18, 2023 at ~3:00 AM Local Time: Ranked queues will turn back on BUT ranked games will not count towards Split 1 OR Split 2 rewards. You will still have your Split 1 rank for these games. So feel free to use this time to take a breather or start warming up for Split 2.
• July 19-21, 2023 Time Varies: Your rank will be reset and Split 2 will kick off! See the below table for your region's specific Split 2 start time:

RANKED CHANGES IN SPLIT 2

• We've removed the promotional series between divisions
• The amount of placement games needed has been reduced from 10 to 5
• We've also added the Emerald tier, a new rank between Platinum and Diamond.

Looking to learn more about these changes? Well check out the full post, What's Next for Ranked here!

MASTER+ DUO QUEUE RESTRICTIONS

Naafiri

Let the world hear our howls and know that death awaits. Join the hunt with Naafiri on July 20th, 2023.

• Naafiri Abilities Rundown
• Naafiri Champion Bio
• Naafiri Champion Trailer
• Naafiri Champion Insights

Aatrox

Q damage increased, minion damage modifier increased.

Aatrox hasn't been on his Aa-game since the end of last year. Not only is his win rate for most players quite low, there is also a criminal lack of A Darkin Carry (ADC) in Pro play. In all seriousness, Aatrox has been lacking since we took down his self-healing. We'd like to give Aatrox players power in ways they'll appreciate without it being simply more sustain, so we’re bumping his AD ratios and wave clear power up which should keep him on AD builds and increase his ability to carry come late game.

Q - The Darkin Blade

• First Cast Damage: 10/30/50/70/90 (+60/65/70/75/80% AD) ⇒ 10/25/40/55/70 (+60/70/80/90/100% AD) (Note: This will be a buff at 0/100/100/100/100 AD. The 2nd cast of Q will still deal 25% more than base damage and the 3rd cast will still deal 50% more.)
• Minion Damage Modifier: 55% ⇒ 55/60/65/70% (levels 1/6/11/16)

Diana

W shield strength increased, damage per orb increased. E magic damage increased.

Diana has been weak since our adjustments to her and her tank build. This has become a little more apparent over the last few patches to the point where she's deserving of a buff. In this patch we’re buffing Diana's carry potential so that she's more able to convert leads into wins. More specifically we’re looking to shore up her higher damage builds as well as a bit of early jungle health/laning power.

W - Pale Cascade

• Shield Strength: 40/55/70/85/100 (+25% AP) (+9% bonus health) ⇒ 45/60/75/90/105 (+30% AP) (+9% bonus health)
• Magic Damage per Orb: 18/30/42/54/66 (+15% AP) ⇒ 18/30/42/54/66 (+18% AP)

E - Lunar Rush

• Magic Damage: 50/70/90/110/130 (+50%) ⇒ 50/70/90/110/130 (+60%)

Hecarim

W bonus armor and MR decreased.

Hecarim has been doing great in solo queue, a little too great. He's currently able to build a high amount of damage while relying on the built-in durability of his kit. Combine that with the fact that Duskblade is his most commonly purchased mythic item, and you have a spooky tank assassin ghost horse. Since Hecarim is generally strong and one of his core items (Spear of Shojin) is getting buffed this patch, we'll be toning down his W resistances to reduce how durable he can be without investing into more direct durability stats.

W - Spirit of Dread

• Bonus Armor and Magic Resist: 15/20/25/30/35 ⇒ 5/10/15/20/25

Jax

E cooldown increased. R mana cost increased.

Jax has been a strong top laner in both Pro and solo queue for quite some time now. With the upcoming Shojin buff we'll be increasing the cooldown on his E as it currently has great synergies with Spear of Shojin and we'd like to reduce the frequency at which Jax has access to this impactful ability. We'll also be reverting an unintentional mana buff that shipped with the Jax update earlier this year.

E - Counter Strike

• Cooldown: 14/12.5/11/9.5/8 seconds ⇒ 15/13.5/12/10.5/9 seconds

R - Grandmaster-At-Arms

• Mana Cost: 50 ⇒ 100

Karthus

Q base damage decreased, damage to monsters increased. E mana restoration decreased.

Karthus bot lane has been a very potent force, quickly overtaking games that he's given free reign in, not to mention the fact that he’s been picking up in popularity. With these changes, we are aiming to preserve his jungle power where possible while nerfing the components of his kit that manifest in lane, like early non-monster damage and mana refunds, since jungle Karthus has access to Blue Buff and his jungle item for mana restoration.

Q - Lay Waste

• Magic Damage: 45/62.5/80/97.5/115 (+35% AP) ⇒ 43/61/79/97/115 (+35% AP)
• Monster Damage Modifier: 95% ⇒ 100%

E - Defile

• Mana Restoration on Enemy Takedown: 15/25/35/45/55 ⇒ 10/20/30/40/50

Kindred

Base health increased, base armor increased. Q base damage decreased, cooldown increased.

Kindred have been a top tier jungler in high-skill brackets for a few patches now. Our nerfs from last patch, while overall reducing Kindred's strength, did not have enough of a skew in high MMR to hit our goals. In this patch we'll be nerfing both the base damage and cooldown of their Q which we expect to mostly impact Elite-level Kindred players due to their statistically higher Q cast frequency.

Kindred’s most common and successful builds are pretty tanky right now with items like Trinity Force, Black Cleaver, Wit’s End, and even Sterak’s Gage. Trinity Force is a pretty logical inclusion in their build but we’ll be discussing whether or not they should need squishier builds to succeed in the future.

Base Stats

• Base Health: 580 ⇒ 610
• Base Armor: 26 ⇒ 29

Q - Dance of Arrows

• Physical Damage: 50/75/100/125/150 (+75% bonus AD) ⇒ 40/65/90/115/140 (+75% bonus AD)
• Cooldown: 8 seconds ⇒ 9 seconds

Lissandra

Passive QoL changes added. Q will now slow all enemies hit. R heal increased, damage and slow application increased.

Our goal with this set of changes is to smooth out rough edges for Lissandra. Her Q is a spell that most players don't realize doesn't slow beyond the first target, so we want to align the spell with player and spell expectations. This may end up being a bit powerful since her slow amount has been balanced around the first hit unit being slowed only, but we’ll be keeping an eye on this change to see if it needs retuning in a future patch.

Another goal we have is making Lissandra's Frozen Thralls more responsive to enemy actions and not feel as if they’re giving up damage and kills. Their interactions around Fog of War and stopping prior to exploding ended up feeling like her kit was working against her. We’re also buffing her R healing to ensure that this spell doesn't feel bad to cast on yourself come late game so that Lissandra really does feel like a frost lich. Last but not least, we want to ensure that her R's effects happen responsively to enemies foolish enough to enter into the area of her tomb.

Passive - Iceborn Subjugation

• Thrall Movement: Thralls will stop at final frames before exploding ⇒ Thralls will continue to chase down their targets until they explode
• newYou Can't Hide: Thralls will now follow enemies into Brush if they were already being chased down by the Thrall
• newI C(E) You Coming: Thralls are revealed to enemies through Fog of War

Q - Ice Shard

• Slow Application: Q will slow the first enemy hit ⇒ Q will now slow all enemies hit
• Ice Shard Missile: Q will cast from position post-cast rather than pre-cast

R - Frozen Tomb

• Heal Amount: 90/140/190 (+25% AP) (increased by 0-100% based on missing health) ⇒ 100/150/200 (+55% AP) (increased by 0-100% based on missing health) (Note: Maximum heal value will be at 30% or less health now instead of 0% health.)
• Damage and Slow Application Cadence: 4 times per second ⇒ 16 times per second
• Dash Interactions: Updated logic slightly around stopping dashes

Milio

Passive burn damage decreased. E bonus movement speed decreased.

Milio is overall pretty balanced for most players, albeit with a bit of room to move down. That said, he does have a high risk of overtaking Pro play in the near future. In this patch we're targeting Pro-skill-skewed parts of his kit that scale strongly with both coordination and the skill level of your ally. We’d rather preserve his signature outputs such as his AoE cleanse and bonus attack range and reduce his less unique tools.

Passive - Fired Up!

• Burn Damage: 25-80 (based on level) (+20% AP) ⇒ 15-50 (based on level) (+20% AP)

E - Warm Hugs

• Bonus Movement Speed: 15/17.5/20/22.5/25% ⇒ 12/14/16/18/20%

Rek'Sai

W - Unburrow base damage decreased. E damage decreased.

Rek'Sai gained a lot of power with her update a few patches ago, and while she was nerfed last patch, we didn't go quite far enough. We're targeting her overwhelming early gank power since she already has such great target access, which means she doesn't need to also guarantee the kill quite so easily.

W - Un-burrow

• Physical Damage: 55/70/85/100/115 (+80% bonus AD) ⇒ 50/65/80/95/110 (+80% bonus AD)

E - Furious Bite

• Physical Damage: 55/60/65/70/75 (+85% bonus AD) ⇒ 5/10/15/20/25 (+70% total AD)

Rell

Base armor decreased. Passive Armor and Magic Resist steal decreased.

Our goal last patch was to increase the power of Rell jungle and decrease her strength as a support. While we achieved both of those goals, we didn't quite nerf Rell support enough. As many Pro leagues around the world are using 13.14 as their playoff patch, we want to dial in how powerful she is in Pro play before we’re able to collect data heading into Worlds. Our goal this patch is for Rell to still be a strong pick but to be less overbearing.

We’re reducing Rell’s baseline armor so that she will have below-average tank stats for a support since both her passive and W give her more of them. Meanwhile, it's incredibly important that Rell feels like a fast horse rider and that each of her button presses carries enough damage to feel good. Each of her individual damage numbers are already quite low, so we're targeting another balance lever that is much less noticeable: her passive.

Base Stats

• Base Armor: 39 ⇒ 36

Passive - Break the Mold

• Armor and Magic Resist Steal: 3% ⇒ 2%
• Minimum Armor and Magic Resist Steal: 1.25-3 (based on champion level) ⇒ 0.8-2 (based on champion level)
• Maximum Armor and Magic Resist Steal: 15% ⇒ 10%

Rengar

Base health regeneration decreased. Q critical strike damage conversion decreased.

Rengar just loves to cuddle with squishy champions and then collect their teeth for his necklace. We're glad he's building damage items, has a unique love for critical strike chance, and plays as an assassin. However, he's succeeding too well in elite game lobbies. The speed at which he one-shots his foes leaves little room for counterplay, hence the Q nerf. Also, he’s been more successful in top lane than jungle recently, which is where the base health regen nerf comes in.

Base Stats

• Health Regeneration per 5 seconds: 7 ⇒ 6

Q - Savagery

• Critical Strike Damage Conversion: 95% ⇒ 75%

Shaco

Q AD scaling increased, backstab damage increased. Bugfixes.

Full AD assassin Shaco builds have been struggling to finish off kills after the adjustments we made to Duskblade and Infinity Edge a few patches back. We’re looking to give back a little of his lost power with these changes, ensuring that his primary AD assassin build remains well supported.

Q - Deceive

• Bonus Physical Damage: 25/35/45/55/65 (+50% bonus AD) ⇒ 25/35/45/55/65 (+60% bonus AD)
• Backstab Bonus Critical Strike Damage: 40% ⇒ 55%

R - Hallucinate

• Prowler's Claw Bugfix: Prowler's Claw's passive will now properly be applied to Shaco's clone

Bugfixes

• Not So Fast Dragon: Shaco boxes will no longer instantly die to Hextech Dragon’s lightning AoE
• Zip Zap No More: Zeri’s Q bullets will now deal the correct amount of damage to Shaco’s boxes

Shyvana

Q AD scaling increased, attack speed increase added, cooldown increased. E now additionally scales with bonus AD.

Shyvana’s builds have been skewing heavily towards AP lately, and her AD builds haven’t been getting much love. She was depending on items and a few other in-game systems to keep her strong in the past, but with these getting adjusted, a lot of her power went along with it. Our goal with these changes is to give Shyvana more solid reasons to build and scale with AD-centric builds. And we’re also adding built-in attack speed so she doesn't have to rely on items to provide it for her.

Q - Twin Bite

• Bonus Physical Damage: 20/35/50/65/80% AD (+25% AP) ⇒ 20/40/60/80/100% AD (+25% AP)
• newAttack Speed Increase: Shyvana's next 2 attacks have 40/45/50/55/60% increased attack speed
• Cooldown: 7/6.5/6/5.5/5 seconds ⇒ 8/7.5/7/6.5/6 seconds

E - Flame Breath

• Bonus Magic Damage On-Hit vs Marked Targets: 3% of target's maximum health ⇒ 3% of target's maximum health (+1% per 100 bonus AD)

Volibear

Passive AP scaling increased. Q QoL change. W heal increased.

Volibear buffs! Wizard bear is a relatively popular, yet underpowered Volibear build, and the champion is underperforming in top lane overall. So we’re giving him some simple buffs aimed at making both builds scale better in order to help Voli become a beary scary carry.

Passive - The Relentless Storm

• Lightning Claws Magic Damage: 11-60 (based on level) (+40% AP) ⇒ 11-60 (based on level) (+50% AP)

Q - Thundering Smash

• QoL Update: Removed a hitch in Volibear's auto attacks after stunning at high attack speeds.

W - Frenzied Maul

• Heal: 20/35/50/65/80 (+8/10/12/14/16% of missing health) ⇒ 20/35/50/65/80 (+8/11/14/17/20% of missing health)

Xerath

Base mana decreased. Passive cooldown increased, now reduced cooldown upon killing a unit, now procs with turrets. R number of casts increased, damage decreased, now deals additional damage with successive bolts upon hitting a champion.

Despite Xerath’s success as a support, he has been an unpopular and mediocre mid laner. While we don’t mind Xerath support being viable, we’d like to make picking Xerath mid a more consistent and realistic option for those who want to play him there. With these changes we’re giving him more access to mana, particularly in the mid lane, to help him trade and clear waves. We also want to reward Xerath players for landing consecutive missiles while using their ultimate, so we’ll be adding bonus damage and adjusting the numbers accordingly. While the base mana nerf will be a hit to Xerath support (there’s room as he’s currently quite strong there), the passive proc on structures will be helpful for him no matter which role he’s picked into.

Base Stats

• Base Mana: 459 ⇒ 400

Passive - Mana Surge

• Cooldown: 12 seconds ⇒ 16 seconds
• newTwo for One: Mana Surge's cooldown is now reduced by 2 seconds upon killing a unit
• newTower is Power: Hitting Turrets will now proc Mana Surge

R - Rite of the Arcane

• Number of Casts: 3/4/5 ⇒ 4/5/6
• Magic Damage: 200/250/300 (+45% AP) ⇒ 180/230/280 (+40% AP)
• newSuccessive Snipes: If a champion is hit with a bolt, successive bolts will deal an additional 20/25/30 (+5% AP) damage (Note: This applies to any number of champions hit with a bolt, so whether you hit one or five you will only receive up to one stack per cast.)

Zyra

Several QoL updates to Zyra's abilities.

Zyra remains a popular and very deep champion with her roots sunken into her devoted fanbase, so while she may not be the perfect queen of plants, we believe she’s clearly a character players love as she is. With these changes we’re looking to help polish her up and ensure that playing her is enjoyable and that her gameplay doesn’t feel like it’s fighting against you. These changes should make her feel more responsive and function more in line with what her players would expect.

We’re also making her jungle mod make sense as an additional change. We don't expect that to be her primary or even secondary role, but we want to make sure it's at least a little viable for the players who are excited to play her there. Meanwhile, we also want to retain some parity for ranged AoE users who are intentionally damaging down these units with auto attacks.

Passive - Garden of Thorns

• Plant Damage from AoE Spells: 4 ⇒ 3
• Plant Damage from Ranged Auto Attacks: 4 ⇒ 5
• Plant Damage to Monsters: 150% damage to non-Epic monsters ⇒ 40-100 bonus magic damage to all monsters (scales with champion level)

W - Rampant Growth

• Seeds on First Rank-Up: 1 ⇒ 2

E - Grasping Roots

• Flash Interaction: E no longer locks Zyra out of using Flash during the cast time

R - Stranglethorns

• Damage Application Cadence: 4 times per second ⇒ 16 times per second
• Casting Logic: Zyra will walk to the position at which her R was cast ⇒ Zyra will immediately cast her R at its maximum range

Axiom Arc

A few lethality items have been underperforming. In this patch we’re looking to ensure that core AD assassins have strongly tailored legendaries that have unique outputs.

We’re modifying Axiom Arc into an exciting lethality capstone that can help assassins push games to a close with almost solo carry levels of potential. We believe the idea of getting off two ultimates in a fight should be an exciting game-closing dream for assassins to solo carry. We realize this sounds terrifying for ADC players, so we’re testing this out to see if it's acceptable for the class come late game when speccing into heavy lethality (and thus glass cannon) builds. The start of the split is a good time to test it, but we’ll be keeping a very close eye on these changes.

• Ultimate Cooldown Refunded: 20% of total cooldown ⇒ 5% (+40% of total Lethality) (Note: This will be a buff at Mythic item + Axiom Arc, scaling up to ~40% at full build.)

Galeforce

Galeforce launched far too strong in midseason and has become balanced in the hands of the majority of players. But considering it's an active item, it's even stronger at the highest levels of play where AD carries are a little overpowered. We think lowering the impact of the active will bridge that gap a little. Infinity Edge is also receiving a small buff this patch, so champions like Caitlyn and Jinx can simply sidegrade over to another Mythic option, while those who are more hardbound like Nilah already perform very well and can safely lose a bit of power.

• Cooldown: 90 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds

Infinity Edge

Infinity Edge has been a reasonable marksman capstone since midseason, but isn't quite hitting the excitement bar that we want it to. IE should be the clear late-game auto-attack DPS winner, and while it's close, many players aren't getting the enjoyment they want out of this historic item. In truth, the changes here are pretty small. It's roughly power-neutral as a second item and then trends toward 3-4% more auto attack DPS in full builds. The important thing is having auto attack crits stand out, which should safely happen here.

• Attack Damage: 70 ⇒ 65
• Critical Strike Damage: 35% ⇒ 45%

Prowler's Claw

After its rework, Prowler’s Claw is still a bit weak compared to the premium damage carry item we’d like for it to be for lethality assassins. To give it some help we’re bringing its baseline lethality up to match the alternative lethality options.

• Lethality: 15 ⇒ 18

Randuin's Omen

Randuin’s Omen has been an unpopular item, as most players are opting for Thornmail or Sunfire for their HP and armor. Since Randuin’s already offers a reasonable amount of stats, we’ll be sharpening what it uniquely offers to justify its price compared to alternative options.

• Critical Strike Damage Reduction: 20% ⇒ 25%

Spear of Shojin

Spear of Shojin should be an exciting capstone-level item for fighters but currently has very few purchasers. This item does fulfill a very specific niche but there are other champions that could potentially do well with it that are intimidated by its high price. We’ll be reducing its gold cost and increasing its HP offering to make this item more of a realistic option for users that aren’t as well established, like Jax or Hecarim.

• Total Cost: 3400 gold ⇒ 3300 gold
• Health: 300 ⇒ 350

Spirit Visage

Spirit Visage, like Randuin’s, has been a mediocre magic resistance option compared to other items. While it has a unique passive that is well utilized by certain champions, we’d like to increase the amount of base stats it offers to help increase its general viability.

• Magic Resistance: 50 ⇒ 60

Statikk Shiv

Statikk Shiv's minion damage has been tuned to nearly kill caster minions but not quite do it unless you're at the cutting edge of experience gain. Unfortunately, this very specific goal has meant it's easy to eclipse that mark with Minion Dematerializer. Additionally, the item can stall games with its late-game minion damage requiring Baron buff to push through. Outside of those worries, the item is pretty well balanced, so with a nerf to its wave clear comes a compensation buff to its base stats.

• Attack Speed: 25% ⇒ 30%
• Electroshock Minion Damage: 250-450 (based on level) ⇒ 250-350 (250 + 25 per level starting at level 7, then +12.5 per level at level 11 ⇒ 250 + 10 per level starting at level 9)

Sterak's Gage

With the goal to increase fighter agency during later stages of the game, we’ll be giving Sterak's a nice HP buff while bringing down the price. Sterak’s should be a strong option for any fighter who needs to wade into a 5-on-5 teamfight and requires the burst resistance to ensure they have the time to do their job.

• Total Cost: 3100 gold ⇒ 3000 gold
• Health: 400 ⇒ 450

Trinity Force

Trinity Force got massive buffs in midseason and finally has a home in several fighters' inventories. Several marksmen have found Trinity Force's bundle of stats to make a lot of sense as well. After all, anyone with short cooldowns and easy ways to auto attack is going to use Spellblade well, while the ramping %AD passive from Threefold Strikes also rewards long-duration auto attack patterns. We’re pretty happy with its suite of users and think they all make sense. With that said, we want to make sure that balancing the item for marksmen still allows fighters to deal tons of damage.

The changes to Trinity Force this patch are pretty light, all things considered, but shift its strengths toward fighters who can't maintain target access for as long. The Threefold Strikes change is a net buff across the first 11 attacks of a fight, only falling off for champions who get to attack even more (read: marksmen). Also, the number 3 is far more prevalent now, which is very important.

• Attack Speed: 35% ⇒ 33%
• Attack Damage per Stack: 4% ⇒ 3% + 3% (Note: This is just 6%)
• Maximum Threefold Strike Stacks: 5 ⇒ 3 (Note: Maximum AD decreased from 20% to 18%.)

Ghost

Ghost is catching on as an incredibly strong Summoner Spell and is rapidly becoming the go-to pick for bot laners. We're happy that players have identified another strong tool to use, but Ghost is just a bit over-tuned right now. It appears to be slightly stronger in the bottom lane than in top, jungle, and mid but tends to out-compete alternatives in all of those roles. We're nerfing Ghost's best case scenarios because it contributes to the winning team snowballing even harder, which we'd like to walk back a bit. The duration extension disproportionately benefits ranged champions, who tend to live longer in fights to make use of the extension, while the compensation buff to the base duration should keep it at a similar power level for melee ones.

• Duration: 10 seconds ⇒ 15 seconds
• removedDuration on Takedowns: Ghost no longer extends its duration by 4-7 seconds upon getting a takedown