Patch 13.9 notes

Neeko

Neeko Midscope update, all abilities adjusted.

The intent of Neeko’s midscope is to help her achieve her undelivered fantasy as one of the premier tricksters in League. Neeko's passive as-is has been pretty weak and isn’t used by many players. Her W was a bit more tricky, but still not even that tricky, and that’s the whole point of it!

We're opening up Neeko's passive to be able to turn into anything so that Neeko can truly be a unique trickster. She will be able to turn into anything with a health bar, from a minion, to a monster, to an Illaoi tentacle. She will have quite a few unusual interactions with other champions based on what she's disguised as.

Her W should now be a true trickster's tool as she’ll have complete control over it. You can fire and forget the clone like it was in the past, but also finely control its position (or emotes) to scout or deceive your opponents. We expect there to be a lot more mastery in both her passive and W now that she has more options in how to use them.

The last major change, R, is a substantial change to the reliability of the spell. Traditionally, Neeko’s R was very, very hard to hit against an enemy actively playing around you. Spells in League of Legends should feel like they work for the character casting them, and Neeko's ultimate in many ways felt like it was working more for her enemies than her. This new, increased reliability did make us have to shift a bit of power out of the ult (out of cooldown and damage), but she’ll hit the spell way more often so we needed to curb it a bit.

We also have some adjustments for the jungle to open up Neeko to a role she feels fairly natural in. There is no intent to make the jungle Neeko's primary role, but for a character whose theme and gameplay feel so suited it seemed a shame to not let her try to play there and see how players feel about it.

Like with all midscopes, we’ll be keeping a close eye on Neeko to make sure the changes all land well on live servers and adjust where needed. And one more quick note, given the unique nature of Neeko’s new passive, we expect that there may be a few bugs that pop up when she ships and we’ll iron them out over future patches.

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Passive - Inherent Glamour

• Neeko Get Sho'Ma!: When Neeko is near a non-epic monster, minion, trap, ward, or plant for two seconds she stores their Sho'Ma. Neeko can click on her bar to become that unit. Click on Neeko's face to return to Neeko. Click on the little “X” to clear out Neeko's current Sho'Ma. Only one unit can be stored at a time.
• Neeko Disguise is Durable!: Disguise no longer breaks on taking damage, only when the disguised self would have died or when you are crowd controlled.
• removedNeeko for Speedo: Neeko no longer inherits base attack speed/move speed from disguised target if that stat is higher than hers.
• Cooldown: 25-10 seconds (based on level) ⇒ 2 seconds

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Q - Blooming Burst

• Secondary/Tertiary Pop Damage: 40/65/90/115/140 (+20% AP) ⇒ 35/60/85/110/135 (+25% AP)
• Area of Effect Size: 225 ⇒ 250 (Note: Max range E snares should always be hittable with Q now)
• newJungle Tomato: Q now deals 30/40/50/60/70 bonus damage to monsters
• newBetter Blooms: Casting Q beyond its maximum range will now cast the ability at maximum range instead of having Neeko walk into position to throw it.

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W - Shapesplitter

• newNeeko Move Neeko: After casting Neeko can reactivate to send the clone to a new location
• newNeeko Funny!: Clone now plays animations and sounds of Q/E/Dance/Joke/Taunt/Recall/Laugh and survives for their duration
• Neeko Jungle!: Empowered Attacks deal 50 bonus damage to monsters
• Neeko is Become One: Neeko's clone spawns 100 units in front of her ⇒ Neeko's clone spawns directly on top of her

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E - Tangle-Barbs

• Magic Damage: 80/115/150/185/220 (+60% AP) ⇒ 70/105/140/175/210 (+65% AP)

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R - Pop Blossom

• Adjusted Ultimate: After channeling for 1.25 seconds, Neeko jumps into the air, knocking up all nearby enemies for 0.6 seconds. Neeko then crashes to the ground with all knocked up enemies, dealing magic damage to them and stunning them for 0.75 seconds.
• Cooldown: 90 seconds ⇒ 120/105/90 seconds
• Magic Damage: 200/425/650 (+130% AP) ⇒ 150/350/550 (+100% AP)
• removedNeeko Need No Shield!: Neeko no longer gains a shield when channeling her R

Aatrox

Passive damage increased. R movement speed increased.

Aatrox has been struggling to make an impact in top lane. To bring him back in line with the power level of his peers, we’re increasing the scaling damage he gains from his Deathbringer passive and increasing the bonus movement speed he gains from his ultimate, allowing him to better stick to targets.

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Passive - Deathbringer Stance

• Bonus Physical Damage: 4-10% (based on level) of target's maximum health ⇒ 4-12% (based on level) of target's maximum health

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R - World Ender

• Bonus Movement Speed: 50/65/80% ⇒ 60/80/100%

Amumu

W damage increased early.

Amumu is a great introductory jungler who makes clearing camps easy on a mechanical and conceptual level and that's great for him. This ease of execution leads to him naturally having a high win rate in lower-skilled play, where he's recently fallen off a bit. He's also a completely reasonable support pick at all levels of play so we're not trying to give him too much more power in that role.

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W - Despair

• Flat Magic Damage per Seconds: 12/16/20/24/28 ⇒ 20 at all ranks
• Percent Health Magic Damage per Second: 1/1.15/1.3/1.45/1.6% ⇒ 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2%

Bel'Veth

Attack damage growth decreased. Q damage to monsters increased.

With these changes we’re trying to give Bel'Veth a much better early clear in the jungle where she has typically been struggling. As a dedicated jungler, Bel'Veth has a surprisingly risky early clear that's abnormal for must junglers. We're giving her a bit more clearing power, but as she's already a relatively balanced character, we’re trimming some scaling damage from her base stats. Since she'll be getting more out her jungle clears, we expect this to be about power neutral but leave Bel'Veth players a bit happier when they're doing normal jungle things.

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Base Stats

• Attack Damage Growth: 1.7 ⇒ 1.5

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Q - Void Surge

• Monster Damage Modification: 120% ⇒ 140%

Jinx

Attack damage growth decreased.

Jinx is one of the stronger ADCs in League and as a result needs a light nerf to put her more on par with other marksmen.

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Base Stats

• Attack Damage Growth: 3.4 ⇒ 3.15

Kayle

E AP ratio decreased, passive wave damage adjusted. R cast time decreased, AoE radius increased, Invulnerability duration adjusted, damage delay increased, magic damage decreased.

We're adjusting Kayle's ultimate to allow her to attack for longer while invulnerable and increasing the AoE radius so she doesn't have to compromise her positioning as a ranged carry to hit the spell. While the intent is to overall buff Kayle, attacking while invulnerable is quite powerful so we're lowering her sustained damage a bit to compensate.

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E - Starfire Spellblade

• On-Hit AP Ratio: 25% AP ⇒ 20% AP
• Passive (Divine Ascent) Wave Damage: 15/20/25/30/35 (based on E rank) ⇒ 20-41 (based on champion level, levels 11-18)

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R - Divine Judgment

• Cast Time: 1.5 seconds ⇒ 0.5 seconds
• Area of Effect Radius: 525 ⇒ 675/675/775
• removedAscending: Kayle no longer lowers her range when casting ult on herself
• Invulnerability Duration: 2/2.5/3 ⇒ 2.5
• Time Delay until Sword Falls: 1.5 ⇒ 2.5
• Magic Damage: 200/350/500 (+100% bonus AD)(+80% AP) ⇒ 200/300/400 (+100% bonus AD)(+70% AP)

Sion

Passive health decay increased.

Since the durability update and the addition of Heartsteel as a health-stacking item, Sion's passive has begun lasting far longer than it was able to in the past. This was an aspect of Sion's kit that we felt needed to be brought back in line with its intended design.

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Passive - Glory in Death

• Health Decay: 2-19 (1 health per level) ⇒ 2.3-24.4 (1.3 per level)

Swain

Q damage increased.

Swain's early laning and damage has been lacking recently, so we’re buffing his Q to accentuate the damage he can reliably dish out, particularly on targets he can get in proximity of.

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Q - Death's Hand

• Magic Damage: 60/80/100/120/140 (+38% AP) ⇒ 65/85/105/125/145 (+40% AP)
• Bonus Damage per Bolt: 12/22/32/42/52 (+8% AP) ⇒ 15/25/35/45/55 (+10 % AP)
• Maximum Magic Damage: 108/168/228/288/348 (+70% AP) ⇒ 125/185/245/305/365 (+80% AP)

Taliyah

R cast lockout conditions adjusted.

In Taliyah's midscope, we limited her ability to have a guaranteed escape by building some walls around when she could cast her ultimate. Some of this found success, but other cases left Taliyah feeling punished when she couldn't chase after someone she had recently damaged. We're happy in the cases where Taliyah rock surfs into enemies, so we're loosening those restrictions.

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R - Weaver's Wall

• Cast Lockout: whenever Taliyah takes or deals damage ⇒ whenever Taliyah takes damage

Trundle

Base attack speed increased, base mana increased.

Trundle is underperforming in both top lane and jungle, so we’re looking to revert the base attack speed nerf from 12.23, as this took a lot of power away and resulted in a “feels” hit for the troll king. We’re also giving Trundle a base mana buff to let him trade more in top lane.

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Base Stats

• Base Attack Speed: 0.6 ⇒ 0.67
• Base Mana: 281 ⇒ 340

Volibear

W damage and heal increased.

Volibear is sitting at a below average power level when compared to other top laners. So we’re reverting some of the previous health ratio nerfs in order to help him out in all levels of play while avoiding making his laning more frustrating for opponents.

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W - Frenzied Maul

• Physical Damage: 5/30/55/80/105 (+100% AD) (+ 5% bonus health) ⇒ 5/30/55/80/105 (+100% AD) (+ 6% bonus health)
• Heal Ratio Based on Missing Health: 7/8.5/10/11.5/13% ⇒ 8/10/12/14/16%

Lich Bane

Lich Bane has lost satisfaction over time. The item is still popular with its core userbase but we want those who purchase it to feel better about the purchase and just overall increase its viability as an AP item choice.

• Ability Power: 75 ⇒ 85