Patch 13.20 Notes

Akshan

Q bonus movement speed decreased. E base damage decreased.

Akshan has been doing a bit too well in skilled and Elite brackets of solo queue and could use some toning down. In this patch we're targeting his early game as it tends to be more Elite skewed. He's currently too dominant in lane, and since we just buffed his late game functionality in 13.17, we'll be reducing his early Q movement speed and E base damage which are most utilized by high skill Akshan players. These nerfs are intended to make it more possible for opponents to trade with him while still retaining his passive and early game strength.

Q - Avengerang

• Bonus Movement Speed: 40% ⇒ 20/25/30/35/40%

E - Heroic Swing

• Damage per Shot: 30/45/60/75/90 (+17.5% bonus AD) (1 + 0.3 per 100% bonus attack speed) ⇒ 25/40/55/70/85 (+17.5% bonus AD) (1 + 0.3 per 100% bonus attack speed)

Bel'Veth

Passive bonus attack speed after spell cast decreased. E can now critically strike, damage reduction decreased, minimum damage adjusted, on hit damage increased. R Remora health adjusted.

Our Void queen has been dominating the early game jungle in higher skill brackets of play, which doesn't seem quite right given that she's supposed to be a late game scaling champion. Our goal with this change list is to shift power away from her early game and bruiser builds and into her builds that prioritize late game scaling and critical strikes.

Passive - Death In Lavender

• Bonus Attack Speed After Spell Cast: 25-50% (scales linearly based on level) ⇒ 20-40% (scales using stat progression multiplier)

E - Royal Maelstrom

• newCritical Stabby Stabs: Damage from Bel'Veth's E can now critically strike.
• Damage Reduction: 70% ⇒ 42/49/56/63/70%
• Minimum Physical Damage: 8/10/12/14/16 (+6% AD) ⇒ 6/7/8/9/10 (+8% AD)
• Minimum On Hit Damage: 6% ⇒ 8%

R - Endless Banquet

• Remora Health: 40/50/60% of minion's maximum health ⇒ 20/45/70% of minion's maximum health
• True Form Out-of-Combat Movement Speed: 25/50/75 ⇒ 10/45/80

Galio

W cooldown decreased, shield restoration time decreased.

Our Galio buff from last patch wasn't as impactful as we had hoped for, and as we're looking to give him more power back, we wanted to take the changes a little bit further this time. He could use some help after the laning phase, so we're targeting his later game durability. Both the passive and active on his W retain high cooldowns throughout the game, so we decided to increase their uptime. With these changes we intend to make his unique anti-mage outputs stand out more and give him the much needed survivability a melee champion who has to get into close range in teamfights needs.

W - Shield of Durand

• Cooldown: 18/17.5/17/16.5/16 seconds ⇒ 18/17/16/15/14 seconds
• Shield Out-of-Combat Timer: 12 seconds ⇒ 12/11/8 seconds (levels 1/6/11)

Jinx

Health growth increased. Passive bonus total attack speed now stacks. R cooldown decreased, base damage increased, AD scaling increased.

Jinx had a blast at MSI this year, but after the nerfs post-MSI and ADC itemization changes that came afterwards, she's been having a tough time. This set of changes is aimed at increasing her power in average skill brackets without putting her over the line in Pro play come the beginning of next year. Get excited, because we have a Get Excited! Buff that players should really appreciate alongside a little extra explosive power in her Super Mega Death Rocket.

Base Stats

• Health Growth: 100 ⇒ 105

Passive - Get Excited!

• newStacks on Stacks: The 25% bonus total attack speed gained from Get Excited! on takedowns now stacks.

R - Super Mega Death Rocket!

• Cooldown: 75/65/55 seconds ⇒ 70/60/50 seconds
• Minimum Damage: 30/45/60 (+15% bonus AD) (+25/30/35% of target's missing health) ⇒ 32.5/47.5/62.5 (+16.5% bonus AD) (+25/30/35% of target's missing health)
• Maximum Damage: 300/450/600 (+150% bonus AD) (+25/30/35% of target's missing health) ⇒ 325/475/625 (+165% bonus AD) (+25/30/35% of target's missing health)

K'Sante

All abilities adjusted.

K'Sante has been suffering in average play due to needing to balance him around Pro since his launch. Once mastered, he leaves little room for reaction and his opponents will often find themselves dead while being stunned the whole time. After all, it doesn't matter how good Showmaker is if K'Sante can hit-confirm his whole combo via an instant cast spell. Meanwhile, most players won't even know what that means.

The changes here broadly serve two goals: the first is to slow down the beginning of K'Sante's combos: Path Maker now has a minimum channel time and he cannot Flash during Q3. Both of these changes will allow skilled players to outplay his incoming combos which was difficult to do before. However, if these more difficult skill shots land, K'Sante can combo his abilities together just as before.

The second set of goals aims to give K'Sante stronger overall abilities now that his counterplay has been improved. This means much stronger stuns and damage from W plus more reliable upsides from All Out.

Base Stats

• Base Health: 610 ⇒ 570
• Health Growth: 108 ⇒ 115
• Armor Growth: 4.7 ⇒ 5.2

Passive - Dauntless Instinct

• All Out Bonus Damage: 35% (+20% per 100 bonus armor) (+20% per 100 bonus magic resistance) ⇒ 35%

Q - Ntofo Strikes

• newNot so Flash: Recasting K'Sante's third Q will now disable Flash during its windup
• newStat Check: Shift-Tooltip now shows your progress on the Armor/MR and HP for cooldown and cast time
• Physical Damage: 50/75/100/125/150 (+40% AD) (+30% bonus armor) (+30% bonus magic resistance) ⇒ 30/60/90/120/150 (+40% AD) (+30% bonus armor) (+30% bonus magic resistance)

W - Path Maker

• Mana Cost: 75/80/85/90/95 ⇒ 60/65/70/75/80
• newMinimum Channel Time: 0.65 seconds (Note: Maximum channel time is unchanged at 1 second)
• newMaximum Damage: Path Maker's damage, crowd control, dash distance, and all other outputs will no longer be tied to the ability's charge time
• Damage Reduction: 25% (+10% per 100 bonus armor) (+10% per 100 bonus magic resistance) (+1% per 100 bonus health) ⇒ 40-65% (based on champion level)
• Stun Duration:0.3/0.35/0.4/0.45/0.5 - 0.85/0.95/1.05/1.15/1.25 seconds ⇒ 1.25 seconds
• Damage: 2/2.25/2.5/2.75/3 - 7/7.25/7.5/7.75/8% of target's maximum health ⇒ 20/40/60/80/100 (+50% total AD) (+30% bonus armor) (+30% bonus magic resistance) (+6/7/8/9/10% of target's maximum health)

W - Path Maker (All Out Version)

• newMinimum Channel Time: 0.5 seconds (Note: Maximum channel time is unchanged at 1 second)
• newMaximum Damage: Path Maker's damage, crowd control, dash distance, and all other outputs will now always deal the maximum corresponding values and will no longer be tied to the ability's charge time
• Damage Reduction: 30% (+12% per 100 bonus armor) (+12% per 100 bonus magic resistance) (+1.2% per 100 bonus health) ⇒ 50-75% (based on champion level)
• removedAll Out of Extra Damage: While All Out, Path Maker will no longer deal extra damage (aside from the bonus AD provided upon entering All Out)
• Cooldown: 24/22/20/18/16 seconds ⇒ 18/16.5/15/13.5/12 seconds

R - All Out

• Maximum Health Threshold: 55% ⇒ 65%
• Knockback Distance: 350 ⇒ 300
• Damage on Initial Cast: 35/70/105 (+ 20% AD) physical damage ⇒ 70/110/150 (+65% AP) magic damage
• Damage on Successful Wall Slam: 150/250/350 physical damage ⇒ 70/110/150 (+65% AP) magic damage
• Attack Resets: Attack reset timing has been slowed down to match K'Sante's base form
• newAll Out (of stacks): Casting All Out will now reset Q - Ntofo Strikes' current stacks
• Bonus Attack Damage Gained: 5 (+32.5% bonus armor) (+32.5% bonus magic resistance) ⇒ 15/30/45 (+25% bonus armor) (+25% bonus magic resistance)
• Healing: 10% (+0.75% per 100 bonus health) omnivamp ⇒ 10/15/20% healing on all damage versus champions
• newWeights are Off: K'Sante now gains 25/35/45% bonus attack speed when All Out

Kai'Sa

Base armor decreased.

Kai'Sa is an extremely common marksman in high skill brackets. The fact that she's so frequently blind pickable in high-skilled play has led us to believe she doesn't have enough weaknesses. As a very mobile and strong scaler with incredible build variety (totally reasonable strengths!) she needs to have weaknesses that skilled players can punish. Thus, we're targeting her early laning phase without trying to take away too much of her overall power.

Base Stats

• Armor: 28 ⇒ 25

Milio

Burn damage dealt by allies now procs Milio's items. E cooldown decreased, base shield strength increased. R healing AP ratio increased.

Milio's been feeling pretty down after his heavy passive and protection nerfs due to his extremely strong showing in Pro earlier this year. With these changes we're looking to bring back some power that was taken away and add exciting systemic interactions with a meaningful change to his passive.

Passive - Fired Up!

• On Fire: Burn damage now counts as Milio's damage even when applied through allies, allowing it to interact with a select number of items like Chemtech Putrifier. Burn damage will still grant the ally who applied the debuff the kill, preventing Milio from accidentally kill stealing confirming kills.

E - Warm Hugs

• Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14 seconds ⇒ 17/16/15/14/13 seconds
• Shield Strength: 60/85/110/135/160 (+30% AP) ⇒ 60/90/120/150/180 (+30% AP)

R - Breath Of Life

• Healing: 150/250/350 (+30% AP) ⇒ 150/250/350 (+50% AP)

Morgana

W AP ratio increased, damage to monsters increased. E cooldown increased early. R movement speed increased, stun duration increased, magic damage increased.

Morgana has felt weak for a while, but it's been difficult to buff her due to her high ban rate. This patch, we're buffing her ult to ensure it continues to be worth casting as the game progresses, but slightly increasing the E cooldown to give CC supports more windows to interact with her. We're also helping out her midlane and jungle with buffs to W scaling.

W - Tormented Shadow

• Magic Damage per Second: 12/22/32/42/52 (+14% AP) ⇒ 12/22/32/42/52 (+17% AP)
• Monster Damage Modifier: 155% ⇒ 165%

E - Black Shield

• Cooldown: 24/22/20/18/16 seconds ⇒ 26/23.5/21/18.5/16 seconds

R - Soul Shackles

• Bonus Movement Speed: 5/30/55% while facing towards tethered enemies ⇒ 10/35/60% in all directions
• Stun Duration: 1.5 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 1.5/1.75/2 seconds
• Magic Damage: 150/225/300 (+70% AP) ⇒ 175/250/325 (+80% AP) (Note: this will still hit twice, once upon initial cast and a second time when the tether stuns)

Quinn

Base health decreased, base movement speed decreased, attack damage growth increased.

We made changes to Quinn in 13.17 after we identified she was getting incredibly squishy due to build changes after the midseason item update. While we tried to compensate for some increased midgame durability buffs with some base damage nerfs, she ended up stronger overall, which wasn't our goal. This patch, we're taking a more holistic look at the champion with two goals: nerfing her on average and granting her better gameplay for her and her opponents.

Why base health? This places her much closer to other ranged top laners with strong anti-melee tools like Mini Gnar and Teemo. We still believe in the goals and results of increasing her health scaling, but she doesn't really need strong durability in the laning phase. The move speed nerf is part of a long-term effort to rein in the overall movement speed in the game. In Quinn's case, she already has substantial movement speed buffs through W and R, so she isn't really going to be missing it too much.

Base Stats

• Base Health: 603 ⇒ 565
• Movement Speed: 335 ⇒ 330
• Attack Damage Growth: 2.4 ⇒ 2.7

Zed

W cooldown increased.

While the vast majority of Zed players max Q first and E second, W max second is currently better and is growing in popularity among high-skill brackets of play. This is giving Zed expectation-breaking ability uptime, as he's also acquiring plenty of haste through his item builds. Since we're addressing the items with the 2024 gameplay changes, we're looking to nerf his incentive for maxing W directly. This is mostly intended to nerf the W max second optimization while not affecting the majority of Zed players, as they put their second point in W at level 14 when they already have a lot of haste.

W - Living Shadow

• Cooldown: 20/18.5/17/15.5/14 seconds ⇒ 20/19.25/18.5/17.75/17 seconds

Ziggs

Q hitbox increased.

Ziggs hasn't been his bubbly booming self recently, so we're giving him a buff that we hope his mains will appreciate. His Q, while intended to be a bit unreliable, could miss in situations where players expect it to land, so we're looking to revert the nerf all the way back from 4.11 (that's right, Riot Games remembers). We believe in his current state there's room for us to increase the radius of his Q while still retaining its unreliable theme.

Q - Bouncing Bomb

• Explosion Hitbox: 150 ⇒ 180

Blighting Jewel

Blighting Jewel was nerfed in the durability update of 12.10 when all champions gained extra Magic Resist and as a result is an underpowered epic item. We don't think it needs to be weak, but still shouldn't be an item players are comfortable sitting on without upgrading all the way to Void Staff as we'd like to reserve important power spikes for full item completions.

• Total Price: 1250 gold ⇒ 1100 gold

Duskblade of Draktharr

Duskblade has proven resilient to recent nerfs and is still too powerful, getting poached by other classes more than we're comfortable with. We made some fighter adjustments a few patches ago that helped those champions find support with new builds, but now we're turning our attention to Duskblade itself. Assassins fear not: we're also buffing Youmuu's this patch so that your favorite champion should have appropriately strong lethality options in case Duskblade isn't pulling its weight any more.

Ability haste and generic damage amplification are our targets now because these are the most class-agnostic stats on the item. Low health champions frequently die to assassins already and their burst combos rarely care about ability haste against an individual target. Duskblade will still have the most haste late game due to its Mythic Passive, but this will slightly reduce cases of champions poaching the item.

• Ability Haste: 20 ⇒ 15
• Damage Amplification: 0-18% (at 0-70% missing health) ⇒ 0-16% (at 0-70% missing health)

Lord Dominik's Regards

The current damage amplification from LDR's passive, Giant Slayer, was calculated as pre-application, meaning it triggered after things like shields and lifesteal. In this patch, we'll be moving it to pre-mitigation, which should be more intuitive to how players think about and use the item. Since this will result in a power increase for the item, we're proactively giving it a small nerf to avoid overpowering it.

• Giant Slayer Passive: 0-25% increased Physical and Magic damage against targets with more maximum health than the user (maximum at 2500 more) ⇒ 0-22% increased Physical and Magic damage against targets with more maximum health than the user (maximum at 2500 more)
• newUpdated Math: Passive - Giant Slayer now applies before Shields and Lifesteal are calculated

Youmuu's Ghostblade

Youmuu's Ghostblade isn't pulling its weight for assassins who want to get into fights and burst their primary target quickly. Instead, it's got a few decent marksman users. Youmuu's has a strong mechanic for start-of-fight lethality, so a buff to Haunt should disproportionately buff assassins without giving as much power to marksmen.

• Spectral Shard Lethality: 3-12 (level 7-18) ⇒ 7-18 (level 7-18)

Smite

We're updating Smite to make it more user-friendly. If your cursor is on top of a Large or Epic monster, minion, or champion, it will Smite that target, just as it always has. However, if your cursor isn't hovering over an allowed target, it will automatically target the closest Epic monster within a small radius. This means junglers can still Smite Dragons or Baron even with a massive Cho'Gath in the way simply by moving their cursor off to the side. We still think it's valuable for timing to matter, but requiring precise aiming for Smite is not something we want to subject junglers to. Otherwise, we're lowering Smite's overall damage output when aimed at enemy champions and pets. It's now primarily meant to be a slow with some minor damage attached, as opposed to an actual true damage nuke.

• Damage to Champions/Pets: 20-160 (levels 1-18) ⇒ 40 at all levels
• Close Only Counts in Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Epic Smites: Smite now has 350 units of targeting forgiveness against Epic Monsters. This means if your cursor is near their model but not on top of another valid target it will act as though you are targeting them.
• Damage Type: Spell ⇒ Proc (Note: this means that Smite will no longer trigger on-spell effects like Demonic Embrace, similar to Ignite)
• Primal Smite AoE Damage when Smiting Monsters: 50% of Smite's damage ⇒ 100% of Smite's damage

ANTI-POACHING ADJUSTMENTS

• Jungle Item Bonus Damage to non-Epic Monsters: 20% ⇒ 42%
• Large Monster Armor & Magic Resistance: 20 ⇒ 42
• Small Monster Armor & Magic Resistance: 0 ⇒ 20

LANE MINION EXPERIENCE ADJUSTMENTS FOR JUNGLERS

• Minion Experience Penalty Disable: 1.1 levels behind the game average ⇒ 1.5 levels behind the game average
• Minion Experience Received: 40-75% at minutes 0-14, then 100% ⇒ 30-100% at minutes 0-20
• Bugfix: Minion Experience penalty is no longer locked in whenever jungle item is finished

STARTER ITEM BUFFS

• One at a Time: All champions may now only buy one Doran's item

Doran's Blade

• Attack Damage: 8 ⇒ 10
• Health: 80 ⇒ 100

Doran's Ring

• Ability Power: 15 ⇒ 18
• Health:70 ⇒ 90

Doran's Shield

• Health: 80 ⇒ 110
• Regeneration when Damage: 0-40 health over 8 seconds ⇒ 0-45 over 8 seconds (Note: maximum is unchanged at 25% remaining health)

Dark Seal

• Stack Friendly: Dark Seal is not unique with other Doran's items, so feel free to pick both up
• Health: 40 ⇒ 50

Relic Shield

• Ability Power: 5 ⇒ 7
• Health: 30 ⇒ 50

Steel Shoulderguards

• Attack Damage: 3 ⇒ 4
• Health: 30 ⇒ 50

Spectral Sickle

• Attack Damage: 5 ⇒ 6
• Health: 10 ⇒ 25

Spellthief's Edge

• Ability Power: 8 ⇒ 10
• Health: 10 ⇒ 25

Waterwalking

• Adaptive Force: 5-30 (based on level) ⇒ 13-30 (based on level)
• Movement Speed: 25 ⇒ 10

Snowballing in League currently happens very quickly which leads to a large amount of games feeling like they're being decided 15 minutes in. This doesn't allow players to experience a lot of the other fun aspects of League outside of the laning phase, like late game teamfighting, objective contesting and planning, satisfying item breakpoints, and macro play. This problem is more prevalent in high levels of play, but it still happens more than we're comfortable with in all skill brackets. To address this, we're making adjustments to many of the systems in League that contribute to the issue of how quickly games are decided. Whether it's through gold not affecting rune outputs quite so much, shorter death timers allowing behind players to get back to lane sooner, or dragons not offering as many stats for the winning team, these are all intended to create more time to play before a game feels decided.

Our primary goal is to decelerate how quickly teams can snowball early leads so that everyone can access other fun parts of the mid to late game which we believe should have a bigger role in deciding games. These changes will reduce the amount of games that are/feel doomed at 15 minutes, and ultimately increase the quality of solo queue games as a result.

DRAGON SLAYER

• Cloud Drake: 7% slow resistance and out-of-combat movement speed ⇒ 5% slow resistance and out-of-combat movement speed
• Hextech Drake: 7.5 ability haste and 7.5% bonus attack speed ⇒ 5 ability haste and 5% bonus attack speed
• Infernal Drake: 5% attack damage and ability power ⇒ 3% attack damage and ability power
• Mountain Drake: 8% bonus armor and magic resistance ⇒ 5% bonus armor and magic resistance
• Ocean Drake: restore 2.5% missing health every 5 seconds ⇒ restore 2% missing health every 5 seconds

DRAGON SOUL

• Cloud Drake: 15% bonus movement speed ⇒ 20% bonus movement speed
• Hextech Drake: 40% base slow (30% for ranged champions) ⇒ 45% base slow (35% for ranged champions)
• Infernal Drake: 80 base adaptive damage for explosion ⇒ 100 base adaptive damage for explosion
• Mountain Drake: 180 base shield after not taking damage for 5 seconds ⇒ 220 base shield after not taking damage for 5 seconds
• Ocean Drake: 130 base heal, 80 base mana regeneration ⇒ 150 base heal, 100 base mana regeneration

RIFT HERALD

• Local Gold Given: 200 ⇒ 100

BARON NASHOR

• Base Health: 12600 ⇒ 15000 (Note: health scaling of +180 health per minute is unchanged)

DEATH TIMER ADJUSTMENTS

• Level 1 Death Timer: 6 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds (unchanged)
• Level 2 Death Timer: 8 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds
• Level 3 Death Timer: 10 seconds ⇒ 8 seconds
• Level 4 Death Timer: 12 seconds ⇒ 8 seconds
• Level 5 Death Timer: 14 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds
• Level 6 Death Timer: 16 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds
• Level 7 Death Timer: 21 seconds ⇒ 16 seconds
• Level 8 Death Timer: 27.5 seconds ⇒ 21 seconds
• Level 9 Death Timer: 30 seconds ⇒ 26 seconds

TURRET PLATING

• Gold per Plate: 175 ⇒ 125

While most of the changes we've talked about thus far target gold access, these adjustments target how effective gold is in the rune system. The goal is to reduce snowballing by decreasing gold scaling through the rune system, as players already get plenty of power from item and experience leads, not to mention the ratios on these runes are more of a hidden power. Even though our main intention is to reduce snowballing, a secondary goal of these adjustments is to reduce the amount of damage in League. Our approach to these changes was to increase the base values of these Runes so that they are still reasonably impactful early game, but have them start to fall off once more items and other means of damage are purchased.

Conqeror

• Attack Damage per Stack: 1.2-2.7 (based on level) bonus AD ⇒ 1.08-2.4 (based on level) bonus AD
• Ability Power per Stack: 2-4.5 (based on level) AP ⇒ 1.8-2.4 (based on level) AP
• Attack Damage at Maximum Stacks: 14.4-32.4 (based on level) bonus AD ⇒ 12.96-28.8 (based on level) bonus AD
• Ability Power at Maximum Stacks: 24-54 (based on level) bonus AP ⇒ 21.6-48 (based on level) bonus AP

Lethal Tempo

• Attack Speed per Stack (Melee): 10-15% ⇒ 9-13.5%
• Attack Speed per Stack (Ranged): 4-9% ⇒ 3.6-8%

Electrocute

• Damage: 30-180 (based on level) (+40% bonus AD) (+25% AP) ⇒ 30-220 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)

Dark Harvest

• Adaptive Damage: 20-60 (based on level) (+ 5 per Soul) (+25% bonus AD) (+15% AP) ⇒ 20-80 (based on level) (+ 5 per Soul) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)

Arcane Comet

• Adaptive Damage: 30-100 (based on level) (+35% bonus AD) (+20% AP) ⇒ 30-130 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)

Summon Aery

• Adaptive Damage: 10-40 (based on level) (+15% bonus AD) (+10% AP) ⇒ 10-50 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)
• Shield: 30-75 (based on level) (+35% bonus AD) (+22.5% AP) ⇒ 30-100 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)

Fleet Footwork

• Heal: 10-100 (based on level) (+30% bonus AD) (+20% AP) ⇒ 10-130 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)

First Strike

• Bonus True Damage: 9% ⇒ 8%

Taste of Blood

• Healing: 16-30 (based on level) (+15% bonus AD) (+8% AP) ⇒ 16-40 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)

Press the Attack

• Exposed Damage: 8-12% ⇒ 8%