Patch 11.18 notes

Aphelios

Base attack damage decreased.

Aphelios' early game is very consistent right now, which explains his elevated presence in Pro play recently. We're nerfing his laning phase to make it harder for him to get to his first item and scale. Uh, something something moonstones.

Base stats

Ashe

W cooldown increased early.

Ashe's lane control early game goes a bit too far and wide. We're giving her opponents more space to play back without getting pierced by cones and cones of crystalline arrows.

W - Volley

Camille

Passive cooldown increased early.

Camille's steel-like resilience is a bit too high for her scaling power, so we're nerfing her shield early to make her more vulnerable in lane.

Passive - Adaptive Defenses

Draven

R now executes based on Adoration stacks.

We're giving the Glorious Executioner something he's wanted for a long time—an execute—but putting it on the ability in his kit with the most counterplay. Rather than just staying away from him the entire game, opponents will now be more incentivized to kill Draven than ever before. Let the games begin.

Passive - League of Draven

R - Whirling Death

Dr. Mundo

Q maximum damage to monsters increased. R grants extra base HP on-cast instead of healing for missing health; healing over time decreased late.

While it's true that Grievous Wounds is the standard against healing champs, it's left Dr. Mundo rather sickly at higher levels of play. Anti-healing items tend to undermine champions like him and Soraka whose entire identities are designed around big beefy heals. The immediate base health gained from his ult will now ignore Grievous Wounds, but the healing over time will still be affected by it. This should make the anti-heal effect less sharp of a counter but still enough of a jab to hurt Mundo good. We're also juicing up his jungle potential to make him more appealing as a Pro flex pick.

Q - Infected Bonesaw

R - Maximum Dosage

Fizz

Passive damage reduction increased against basic attacks. W base damage increased. R damage reduced.

A lot of Fizz's power is in his ult, which is inconsistent in skilled play since more players at that level know to either dodge or Zhonya's it. His R will still pack a punch, but we're borrowing some of its bite and putting it into his early game threat with W as well as giving him a thicker skin against basic attacks to help his survivability in lane.

Passive - Nimble Fighter

W - Seastone Trident

R - Chum the Waters

Gangplank

Base health and health growth increased.

Last patch, we changed Gangplank's Q so that it would count as a ranged instead of melee attack. He's lost a lot of durability now that he doesn't benefit as much from Grasp of the Undying (and thus the rest of the Resolve tree) anymore. Giving this pirate some of his burliness back to help him survive the choppy waters of early top lane.

Base stats

Jayce

Passive duration decreased.

Jayce is an all-around power slam in highly skilled hands. Rather than reduce his wattage damage output, we're turning down his ability to outrun ganks and quickly traverse the map, both of which are particularly useful for the Pro scene.

Passive - Hextech Capacitor

Jinx

Q mana cost reduced early for Fishbones.

We're boosting Jinx's lane push power to make her a more viable pick and increase her early game overall. Katchoo!

Q - Switcheroo!

Kai'Sa

E cooldown reduced late.

Kai'Sa represents a hypercarry style that we haven't seen much of in this meta's bully-focused bot lane. Since she's known for her scaling capability, we're buffing exactly that while keeping both her lane vulnerability and Q burst damage intact.

E - Supercharge

Kalista

R knockup duration decreased early.

Kalista's ult with a melee support is almost guaranteed to kill with chain CC, especially in Pro-level high coordination gank setups. We’re giving her opponents a slightly bigger window to escape her wrath.

R - Fate's Call

Karma

Base armor increased. E base shield increased.

Karma's changes in 11.16 were effective at reducing her dominance in Pro play while avoiding major nerfs to her everywhere else. Since she's been on the weaker side overall, we're upping her winrate across the board with some generic buffs. She really does always catch up, huh?

Base stats

E - Inspire

Kog'Maw

E AP scaling increased.

AD Kog is in a healthy spot now, but AP Kog has all but shriveled up. While our very hungry caterpillar should be weaker than other champions early in the game, he simply hasn't been a viable pick mid. We're buffing his waveclear to more reasonable levels to help him become the beautiful butterfly he really is.

E - Void Ooze

Lee Sin

Base attack damage decreased.

Despite all his previous nerfs, Lee Sin has still been a super duper high priority Pro pick in jungle. (The blind monk was so popular, he got either picked or banned in 100% of LCK games during patch 11.16!) Tapping him down yet again with an early game nerf to clear the jungle champ pool for Worlds.

Base stats

Lillia

Base health regen decreased. Passive healing on large monsters increased. Q stack duration increased. E cooldown decreased.

Lillia's been very strong in top lane, limiting our ability to buff her jungling capabilities. Her early sustain will now be fairly conditional on hitting jungle monsters, making her a riskier pick in aggressive lanes and freeing up room for us to help her prance, dance, and—oops!—trip in the jungle.

Base stats

Passive - Dream-Laden Bough

Q - Blooming Blows

E - Swirlseed

Miss Fortune

Number of R waves increased.

Miss Fortune has unfortunately been missing out on wins at all levels of play. Giving her ult some more bang to spice up the wombo combos. We've got a good feeling about this. ;)

R - Bullet Time

Morgana

E cooldown decreased.

Morgana has fallen as a support in both Average and Pro play. Giving her more access to her unique CC blocking shield should help, especially in matchups where she's historically excelled. (Looking at you, hard stun and knockup supports.)

E - Black Shield

Qiyana

Base attack speed increased. Health regen decreased. Q damage against monsters increased. E+Q combo targeting changed. E base damage decreased.

We removed Qiyana's ability to jungle back when she was a dominant mid/jungle flex pick in Pro. Her standings in mid have gone down since then, so we're cautiously optimistic about reintroducing her to the jungle. Our empress also has a staggeringly high-tier-biased winrate (sort of like Amumu, but the inverse). A likely reason for this skew is that her E+Q auto-aim combo can't be dodged at all, invalidating many would-be outplays which feels really bad. We're revising its targeting mechanisms to empower opponents who are quick enough to dare challenge her.

Base stats

Q - Edge of Ixtal / Elemental Wrath

E - Audacity

Renekton

Empowered W stun duration decreased; empowered W lockout now matches normal W behavior.

Renekton continues to live up to his name in Pro play, butchering his foes left and right. We're nerfing his crowd control specifically by changing the way his W works when empowered by Passive - Reign of Anger. This'll make it notably harder for him to lock down targets throughout the game, both in lane ganks and teamfights.

To explain that weird self-lockout note below: Previously, Renekton was able to bypass his empowered W's additional lockout by attacking or moving at just the right time. We're making this decreased lockout time the baseline so the croc isn't CCing himself for almost as long as his target.

W - Ruthless Predator

Rumble

Passive bonus attack speed decreased early; now scales with level. W cooldown decreased and no longer scales.

In 11.13, we simmered down Rumble's early game to temper his extreme jungle power in Pro play. This ended up being a huge damper to Rumble players all around, so we're rekindling his flame by buffing that back and nerfing his early jungle clear using a different approach. Now we're cookin'!

Passive - Junkyard Titan

W - Scrap Shield

Singed

Damage dealt with Q during R now applies Grievous Wounds.

As a damage-over-time champion in the top lane, Singed can struggle to make his damage stick against enemy healing. We're juicing up the mad chemist's signature concoction so he can counteract this when going for that kill with his ultimate... Slowly, but surely.

R - Insanity Potion

Soraka

R now clears Grievous Wounds before healing.

Like Dr. Mundo, Soraka's been particularly pained by Grievous Wounds over the past few seasons. While anti-healing items should be a valid counter to Soraka's sustain, it's starting to severely impede on her core gameplay. We're making every Soraka player's wish come true by giving her a limited tool to respond and make those clutch heals, but only on her ult (which has a pretty long cooldown).

R - Wish

Taliyah

Casting Q on Worked Ground now refunds its cooldown. Worked Ground radius and duration decreased.

Taliyah's found solid footing in the jungle but she's still on shaky ground in mid. Her kit has a number of rules that feel more punishing than empowering, so we're loosening up by reframing Worked Ground as an optional way to cast successive Qs rather than a severe movement tax on her higher-damage full Qs.

Q - Threaded Volley

Talon

Q base damage decreased late. W now deals bonus damage vs monsters.

We're attempting to introduce some new assassin-y options into the jungle meta. Talon's got a clear advantage here with his high-mobility E—hardcore parkour!—so increasing his clear speed should make him a reasonable option in the role. Talon mid is also getting a little too powerful, so we're dulling his blades in late game a smidge.

Q - Noxian Diplomacy

W - Rake

Thresh

Base Move Speed decreased. E passive damage decreased early; bonus damage per Soul increased.

Thresh has arguably been the best support champ in Pro meta for much of the year despite multiple nerfs. We're taking a larger swing here at his ability to nullify popular melee support engages (think Leona, Nautilus, Rell) as well as his offensive threat to those same laners. Since this is a pretty big nerf, we're compensating some of the lost early damage with better Soul scaling, which is usually lower priority in Pro.

Base stats

E - Flay

Trundle

E slow decreased.

Trundle's become a potent jungle/support flex pick in professional play. We're tamping down the troll king's power in his secondary role a bit by nerfing his E, which supports typically max first and junglers usually max third.

E - Pillar of Ice

Twitch

R bonus AD increased.

Many of Twitch's skirmishes in higher level play involve sneaking around and blasting his enemies with his ult. We're ripening the damage only on his R to make his best-case surprise engagements more powerful without overbuffing his jungle or non-ultimate DPS.

R - Spray and Pray

Urgot

Q cooldown and mana cost reduced.

Urgot is pretty solid, but he struggles against ranged champions that often dominate the Pro top lane meta. This is a light buff that'll help him handle those situations more reliably.

Q - Corrosive Charge

Varus

Base AD decreased. Passive bonus AS decreased early but increases with levels.

Varus has been bullying his lanes pretty hard, especially in Pro play. These changes should weaken his early game a bit on all fronts.

Base stats

Passive - Living Vengeance

Yone

W shielding per champion hit after the first increased.

Despite his reasonable power level in Average play, Yone falls behind at higher skill bands. Rather than directly buffing his 1v1 or assassination potential, we're enhancing one of Yone's more skill-based outputs on W to improve his skirmishing and teamfighting when piloted well.

W - Spirit Cleave

Yuumi

Passive cooldown decreased.

Yuumi can make for a catty bot lane when chosen as a niche pick. We're encouraging her to play more aggressively early so that she can be more influential in lane. This'll also give enemies more opportunities to pet play with engage the kitty early on. These dynamic changes should be less frustrating for both Yuumi players and opponents alike, but if her claws get a bit too sharp, we'll look to trim the less interactive parts of her kit like her late-game scaling and sustain while keeping her early game power feisty.

Passive - Bop 'n' Block

Zed

Passive deals bonus damage against monsters.

Zed's another assassin we're attempting to introduce into the jungle meta. Our buffs to Zed jungle earlier in the season didn't really land, so we're taking another stab at making him viable in the role by buffing his passive's damage vs monsters again.

Passive - Contempt for the Weak

Zoe

E cooldown decreased.

Zoe was putting way too many champions to sleep, so we increased her E cooldown back in 9.6. Now that she's no longer as much of a nightmare, we're reverting the nerf so she can contribute more throughout a fight. Prepare for trouble. And make it bubble.

E - Sleepy Trouble Bubble

Ravenous Hydra

If an enemy champion stands next to the tower you're attacking, Ravenous Hydra's AoE passive triggers turret aggro, which is rather counterintuitive to split-pushing top laners who want to take down towers.

Titanic Hydra

Repeat the above except say "Titanic" instead of "Ravenous". We put a titanic amount of effort into writing this paragraph.

Umbral Glaive

Umbral Glaive's stats and cost were bumped up last preseason to match it more closely with other lethality-focused Legendary items. However, this left it at a pretty weak state while also pricing it out of budget for supports like Senna and Pyke. We're shrinking the cost yet again and (hopefully!) bringing lethality supports back into Pro play.

Predator

Increasing Predator's ganking power to push it up to Pro viability for junglers who gotta go fast—like former users Skarner, Hecarim, and Lillia.