Patch 14.23 Notes

Ambessa

Q cast window increased. Bugfixes.

We're keeping Ambessa's tuning state the same for this patch but there are some small bugs to fix and minor QoL to provide. We're matching Q2's hold duration to her passive and fixing some bugs.

Q - Cunning Sweep / Sundering Slam

• Sundering Slam Cast Window: 3.5 ⇒ 4 seconds

Bugfixes

• Passive - Drakehound's Step: Dashes no longer go over player-created terrain.
• R - Public Execution: Movement commands issued before a successful cast will be discarded after slamming the enemy to avoid pathing the player towards a place they are no longer near.

Aurora

All abilities adjusted.

We're changing Aurora to make her a bit easier to pilot for less experienced players and less frustrating for her opponents. The high-uptime movement speed from her passive and the ability to trap opponents with her ultimate have been removed and in their place we have compensation buffs via on-demand move speed through W, a bit more range and damage on her conventional damage spells, and more space to hop around during her ultimate.

Passive - Spirit Abjuration

• [REMOVED]: Spirits no longer grant bonus Movement Speed

Q - Twofold Hex

• Cooldown: 8/7.5/7/6.5/6 ⇒ 9/8.5/8/7.5/7 seconds
• Range: 850 ⇒ 900
• Cast / Recast Damage: 40/65/90/115/140 (+40% AP) ⇒ 45/70/95/120/145 (+40% AP)
• [NEW]: Now automatically recasts if the duration runs out without Aurora recasting the spell (she can still recast to end early)

W - Across the Veil

• [NEW]: Now grants 20/25/30/35/40% bonus movement speed on cast

E - The Weirding

• Range: 800 ⇒ 825

R - Between Worlds

• Duration: 1.5/2/2.5 ⇒ 2.5/3.25/4 seconds
• [REMOVED]: Between Worlds no longer traps enemies inside; it will slow them by 75% for 1.5/1.75/2 seconds upon exiting
• [NEW]: Now grants the same amount of movement speed granted by W instead of amplifying Aurora's current movement speed

Azir

W AP ratio increased

We've recently walked back several Azir nerfs that didn't have the effects we wanted and since he's still got some room for additional power we're delivering some more straightforward buffs. There's nothing too fancy here, just an increase of damage that mostly skews toward the late game in order to give him the carry potential that he wants.

W - Arise!

• Damage: 50/65/80/95/110 (+35/40/45/50/55% AP) (+0-45 based on level) ⇒ 50/65/80/95/110 (+40/45/50/55/60% AP) (+0-45 based on level)

Caitlyn

R damage decreased.

Caitlyn is performing too well overall, especially when it comes to bursting down her enemies. With Collector only receiving a very small nerf and Yun Tal getting significant buffs this patch, Caitlyn is in need of a small power reduction. We're taking down her scaling spell damage to make her late game more about basic attacks and less about chunking her opponents from out of range.

R - Ace in the Hole

• Damage: 300/500/700 (+150% bonus AD) ⇒ 300/500/700 (+100% bonus AD)

Jinx

AD growth increased. W damage decreased.

Lethality caster Jinx is currently going around causing chaos right now, the only thing is that this level of chaos isn't quite enough to warrant any nerfs. So instead we'll be giving Jinx a bit of a boost to incentivize her to opt into builds that lean into her identity as a premiere auto-attacker.

Base Stats

• Attack Damage Growth: 2.9 ⇒ 3.15

W - Zap!

• Damage: 10/60/110/160/210 (+160% total AD) ⇒ 10/60/110/160/210 (+140% total AD)

Kha'Zix

Armor decreased. Evolved W slow to isolated targets decreased.

Next in line for Arcane ADC changes we have Kha'Zix. He's been a top-tier jungler for a while and is even happier and hoppier with the new, faster Youmuu's Ghostblade. Since volatile, high-risk high-reward combat is what assassins like Kha'Zix are all about, we're increasing the risk side of the equation as a way to squash his power levels a tad.

Base Stats

• Base Armor: 36 ⇒ 32

W - Void Spike

• Evolved W Slow to Isolated Targets: 75% ⇒ 60%

Kog'Maw

Q resistances shred adjusted. E damage decreased.

Bot lane players have recently discovered the joys of E-max, AP Kog'Maw. While mid laners are used to high wave-clear mages (and have to think about assassins who can punish this behavior), bot lane isn't as capable dealing with this type of playstyle. This extreme safety leads to much less interactive gameplay than on-hit Kog'Maw, even if they win about the same number of games, so we're delivering a simple nerf to limit that build's strength.

Q - Caustic Spittle

• Armor and Magic Resist Shred: 23/25/27/29/31% ⇒ 16/20/24/28/32%

E - Void Ooze

• Damage: 75/120/165/210/255 (+70% AP) ⇒ 70/110/150/190/230 (+65% AP)

Master Yi

R bonus attack speed increased.

Master Yi is just a touch weak after Blade of the Ruined King's nerfs, so we're giving him a bit more of that late-game carry power that he's known for. We want to make sure Highlander feels like the high point of his power, so we're amping up the amount of attack speed it gives Yi.

R - Highlander

• Attack Speed: 25/35/45% ⇒ 25/45/65%

Miss Fortune

Q mana cost decreased.

Miss Fortune is a bit weak at the moment and two of her more common items are being nerfed this patch, so we're preemptively buffing her to compensate for this loss of power. More specifically, we're incentivizing her to look for interesting Double Up angles as it makes her interactive laning patterns more accessible.

Q - Double Up

• Mana Cost: 43/46/49/52/55 ⇒ 40 at all ranks

Rammus

Q cooldown decreased.

Rammus has wound up a little weak, especially for such an AD-heavy jungle meta where he should be on a roll. We're buffing his early Powerball cooldown to give him more tools for his jungle clear which should also give him more chances at disrupting opponents in early game skirmishes.

Q - Powerball

• Cooldown: 16/13.5/11/8.5/6 ⇒ 12/10.5/9/7.5/6 seconds

Rell

Base stats, Passive, Q, W and E adjusted.

We're delivering a kit update to Rell this patch with a few goals to get us towards a similarly-balanced version of Rell that's more fun and engaging for her players and more interactive for her opponents.

First, we'd like to significantly increase Rell's opponents' access to counter-play. Much of her kit perfectly combos into itself, meaning Q-Flash typically guarantees the entire rest of her kit landing, regardless of whom she's fighting. We're lowering her overall crowd control and ensuring that spells such as Crash Down properly interact with Tenacity, so that players itemizing against crowd control can succeed better against Rell.

Second, we'd like to make her kit feel better to play. Her crowd control strength warped the rest of her kit around it, making her have low and unsatisfying damage values, a fairly miserable-feeling dismounted form, and an overall lack of differences between being mounted and unmounted. We're changing a whole bunch of numbers and re-introducing her passive's on-hit damage to reinforce dismounted Rell as a reasonably slow yet tanky duelist of a tank while ensuring her mounted flavor is fast but meaningfully squishier. We're also making her attacks smoother and bringing up power in several small areas such as cooldowns to make Rell a more fun experience all around.

Third, we're delivering some simplifications to better match how players expect Rell to act. Her bonus move speed in mounted form is now based upon points in W and is listed in W's tooltip instead of E. Her active move speed on E is now straightforward instead of ramping up by very small amounts over the duration. W, which most players assumed was her most important skill, is now actually her best first-max instead of her worst one.

Base Stats

• Armor / Armor Growth: 36 + 4.2 ⇒ 30 + 4.3
• MR / MR Growth: 30 + 2.05 ⇒ 28 + 1.8
• Mana / Mana Growth: 350 + 45 ⇒ 320 + 40
• Mana Regeneration and Growth: 6 + 0.35 ⇒ 7 + 0.7
• Movement Speed: 330 ⇒ 315
• Attack Speed Growth: 1.5% ⇒ 2%
• Attack Windup: 0.336-0.312 (based on level) ⇒ 0.3
• Attack Speed Animation Scaling: 40% ⇒ 100% (note: Attack Speed will animate Rell's attacks faster.)

Passive - Break The Mold

• [NEW]: Now deals 5% total Armor/MR magic damage on-hit
• Minimum Resists Stolen: 0.8-2 ⇒ 1-2

Q - Shattering Strike

• Stun Duration: 0.75 ⇒ 0.65 seconds

W - Ferromancy: Crash Down

• [NEW]: Now stuns enemies for 0.8 seconds
• [REMOVED]: Dismounted 10% slow has been removed
• Cooldown: 11 ⇒ 10 seconds
• Knock-Up Duration: 1 ⇒ 0.4 seconds
• Dismounted Armor / MR: 12% ⇒ 15%
• Dismounted Attack Speed: 30% ⇒ 20%

W - Ferromancy: Mount Up

• Cooldown: 11 ⇒ 10 seconds
• Knock-Up Duration: 0.4 seconds (note: unchanged)
• Stun Duration: 1 ⇒ 0.6 seconds
• Mounted Movement Speed: 335-380 out of combat, 332.5-355 in combat (levels 1-13) ⇒ 330/335/340/345/350/355 (based on ability rank)

E - Full Tilt

• [REMOVED]: Movement Speed no longer ramps up from 75% effectiveness over 2 seconds
• Cooldown: 15 ⇒ 14/13/12/11/10 seconds (based on ability rank)
• Damage: 25/35/45/55/65 (+50% AP) (+3% of target's maximum health) ⇒ 5/5.5/6/6.5/7% of the target's maximum health (+3% per 100 AP)
• Damage Cap: 150 ⇒ 150-300 (based on levels 1-18)
• Initial Movement Speed Towards Enemies: 18/19.5/21/22.5/24% ⇒ 25%
• Initial Movement Speed Running Away: 9/9.75/10.5/11.25/12% ⇒ 10%
• Maximum Movement Speed Toward Enemies: 24/26/28/30/32% ⇒ 25%
• Maximum Movement Speed Running Away: 12/13/14/15/16% ⇒ 10%

Rengar

R armor shred and bonus damage increased.

Rengar typically sits at lower win rates due to how difficult he is to learn, but even when accounting for his learning curve, he's a bit weak currently. To help him, we're giving him some extra armor shred and damage on his ultimate, as that's his skill with the most counter-play for his opponents since skilled tanks and fighters can absorb the blow for their squishier teammates.

R - Thrill of the Hunt

• Armor Shred: 12/18/24 ⇒ 15/20/25
• Bonus Damage: 50% ⇒ 100% total AD

Shyvana

MR growth decreased. E damage decreased.

Shyvana regained almost all the win rate she lost since her last nerf so we're revisiting her sooner than we anticipated. She still substantially overperforms in lower skill brackets, so we're skewing these nerfs to that skill bracket in particular. Shyvana's quite resilient when combining her base stat growth and bonus resists from her passive, so we're lowering these late-game base stats to make it so that she can still end up squishy when she fails to stack her dragons.

Base Stats

• Magic Resist Growth: 2.05 ⇒ 1.5

E - Flame Breath

• Damage: 85/125/165/205/245 (+50% bonus AD) (+80% AP) ⇒ 85/125/165/205/245 (+50% bonus AD) (+70% AP)

Skarner

Q damage decreased.

Skarner is still the strongest jungler in the game, dealing a boatload of damage for how tanky he is. We'd like to retain that he's a high gold-scaling tank but tying his damage scaling a bit more toward building AD so that he isn't as deadly when built for tanking.

Q - Shattered Earth

• Damage: 10/20/30/40/50 (+80% bonus AD) (+4% of Skarner's bonus health) ⇒ 10/20/30/40/50 (+80% bonus AD) (+3% of Skarner's bonus health)

Smolder

All abilities adjusted.

In his current state Smolder's a bit too good at stalling out games which gives him plenty of time to accrue stacks and get to his powerful, late game, executing all who stand in his way. We're not looking to make his stacking mechanic pointless, but we do want to shift how much of his power comes stacks into both stacks and gold. He'll still be the premiere scaling ADC, but in a way that isn't solely dependent on stacking which also helps remove his pro-skill skew.

Q - Super Scorcher Breath

• Damage: 15/25/35/45/55 (+100% total AD) (+0.4 per Dragon Practice) ⇒ 65/80/95/110/125 (+130% bonus AD) (+0.3 per Dragon Practice)
• Minion/Monster Damage Modifier: 110% ⇒ 100%
• [NEW]: Q now restores 15 mana to Smolder if it kills a unit (once per cast)
• Tier 2 - 125 Stacks Additional Projectiles Damage: 75% ⇒ 50%
• Tier 2 - 125 Stacks Number of Projectiles: 1 (+1 per 67 stacks) ⇒ 2 (+1 per 125 stacks)
• Tier 3 - 225 Stacks Burn Damage: 0.8% per 100 stacks (+1% per 100 AP) (+2% per 100 bonus AD) ⇒ 0.4% per 100 stacks (+2.5% per 100 bonus AD)

W - ACHOOO!

• Mana Cost: 60 ⇒ 50/55/60/65/70
• Glob Damage: 45/75/105/135/165 (+25% bonus AD) (+20% AP) ⇒ 30/50/70/90/110 (+60% bonus AD)
• Explosion Damage: 25/40/55/70/85 (+25% bonus AD) (+80% AP) ⇒ 30/50/70/90/110 (+60% bonus AD) (+80% AP)
• Combined Damage vs Champions: 70/115/160/205/250 (+50% bonus AD) (+100% AP) ⇒ 60/100/140/180/220 (+120% bonus AD) (+80% AP)
• Minion/Monster Damage Modifier: 140% ⇒ 100%

E - Flap, Flap, Flap

• Damage per Hit: 15/20/25/30/35 (+10% total AD) (+.2 per Dragon Practice) ⇒ 5/10/15/20/25 (+25% total AD) (+.1 per Dragon Practice)
• Number of Attacks: 5 (+1 per 150 stacks) ⇒ 5 (+1 per 100 stacks)
• [NEW]: Damage indicator tracks combined damage.

R - MMOOOMMMM!

• Cooldown: 140/130/120 ⇒ 120 seconds at all ranks
• [NEW]: 50% minion damage modifier added

Tahm Kench

Passive and R AP scaling decreased.

Kench's top lane hybrid HP+AP build is starting to catch on and it's really REALLY strong. While he's meant to be tempted to build greedy AP items, it should only be good when he's quite ahead and not looking to support his teammates, so we are nerfing it down to a more reasonable power level.

Passive - An Acquired Taste

• Base Health: 6-48 (based on level) (+2% AP per 100 bonus health) (+4% of his bonus health) ⇒ 6-48 (based on level) (+1.5% AP per 100 bonus health) (+4% of his bonus health)

R - Devour

• Shield Strength: 650/800/950 (+150% AP) ⇒ 650/800/950 (+100% AP)

Teemo

E damage to monsters decreased.

Teemo is a menace in the jungle right now thanks to his specific jungle damage mods. We'll be tuning them to bring his jungle power level from “OP” to “viable” so this pick is the appropriate amount of toxic.

E - Toxic Shot

• Damage to Monsters: 150% ⇒ 125%

Zac

Q damage decreased.

Zac is overbearing in the top lane right now and due for a nerf. We're lowering some of his burstier damage, as he doesn't need that given how disruptive he already is. Our goal is for this change to have little impact on his jungle performance where he can reliably grab every blob to consistently refresh his W, compared to top lane where he takes less frequent trades and the burst becomes much more oppressive.

Q - Stretching Strikes

• Damage: 40/55/70/85/100 (+30% AP) (+4% of Zac's maximum health) ⇒ 40/55/70/85/100 (+30% AP) (+3% of Zac's maximum health)

The Collector

The Collector is currently the most-built item in the game and is overbearing compared to the other AD-crit items. This is mostly being driven by Yun Tal being too weak, so we're giving Collector a very small nerf and delivering a much larger buff to Yun Tal with the goal of making Collector, Essence Reaver, and Yun Tal have appropriate userbases.

• Price: 2950 ⇒ 3000

Youmuu's Ghostblade

Youmuu's Ghostblade is at risk of becoming the preferred item for several ranged hybrid attacker-casters and we'd like to make sure they're more about repeated damage than burst. We're also wary of ranged champions simply running around too quickly, since catching them in the first place is critical to their counter-play. As such, we're nerfing some of the move speed for ranged users only, as its base speed went up last patch.

• Haunt Out of Combat Bonus Movement Speed: 20 ⇒ 20 (melee) / 10 (ranged)
• Wraith Step Active Bonus Movement Speed Duration: 6 seconds ⇒ 6 (melee) / 4 (ranged)

Yun Tal Wildarrows

Yun Tal Wildarrows has gathered a small audience of crit auto-attackers, but it's a bit too weak to actually be worth buying at the moment. We're delivering a few small buffs that should make it a worthy first item for crit attackers.

• Price: 3000 ⇒ 2900
• Flurry Cooldown: 40 ⇒ 30 seconds
• Flurry Attack Speed Duration: 4 ⇒ 6 seconds