Patch 13.18 notes

Briar

I once heard someone say they're having "friends for dinner." And people say I'M hungry! Eat your fill with Briar on September 13, 2023 at 21:00 UTC.

• Briar Abilities Rundown here!
• Briar Champion Bio here!
• Feeding Frenzy | Briar Cinematic here!
• Briar Champion Insights here!
• Note: Briar Eternals will not be launching with patch 13.18 and will instead be released in patch 13.19.

Bard

Passive maximum Chime stacks increased, stack duration increased. W now stacks charges, cooldown increased, shrine charge time to full heal decreased.

In this patch we have some nice quality of life changes for everyone’s favorite Meep collector. Our goal with these changes is to make Bard’s W feel better to use (for both himself and allies) while the passive changes should strengthen his fantasy as a roaming champion, especially when traversing large distances.

Passive - Traveler’s Call

• Maximum Chime Stacks: 5 ⇒ 10
• Chime Stack Duration: 7 seconds ⇒ 20 seconds

W - Caretaker’s Shrine

• newStacking Shrines: Caretaker’s Shrine now accumulates charges over time up to a maximum of 2 charges.
• Cooldown/Stack Charge Time: 14 seconds ⇒ 18 seconds
• Shrine Charge Time to Full Heal: 10 seconds ⇒ 5 seconds
• Shrine Movement Speed Bonus: 30% decaying over 1.5 seconds ⇒ 20/22.5/25/27.5/30% (+0.05% AP) decaying over 1.5 seconds

Gwen

Health growth increased. Passive damage to monsters increased.

Gwen jungle (Gwungle) is in a pretty sad spot right now. Gwen top also has some room for extra power, but Gwen jungle needs a bunch. So this patch we're taking a heavy swing into bringing Gwen jungle back as a viable magic damage carry option. Thousand Cuts is not only applied per basic attack but also on each hit of her Q, so this damage cap increase represents a substantial increase in her damage to monsters. The passive buff walks back the jungle nerf from 12.13, which should hit the magnitude we want for jungle power. Our goals are to retain top Gwen as the... top Gwen, but to have jungle be a viable alternate role.

Base Stats

• Health Growth: 109 ⇒ 115

Passive - Thousand Cuts

• Magic Damage to Monsters: 6 (+10% AP) ⇒ 10 (+15% AP)

Irelia

R cooldown decreased.

Irelia isn’t currently finding much consistent success, even in higher levels of play where she usually excels. To give her some power back without directly buffing her damage, we'll be reducing the cooldown of her ultimate. It's currently quite high, and decreasing the cooldown should give her more windows of opportunity to all-in her opponents.

R - Vanguard’s Edge

• Cooldown: 140/120/100 seconds ⇒ 125/105/85 seconds

Jarvan IV

Passive damage decreased.

Jarvan IV is performing very well, as he got a sizable buff from the Shojin and Goredrinker changes last patch. His most common later slot purchases are Frozen Heart, Spirit Visage, and Guardian Angel which enable him to be quite durable and still deal plenty of damage. This is partially due to his passive, so we'll be nerfing it to tone down his damage in a way that still incentivizes him to build AD.

Passive - Martial Cadence

• Additional Physical Damage on Basic Attacks: 8% of target’s current health ⇒ 6% of target’s current health

Kassadin

R AP ratio increased.

We've seen players ask about Kassadin's state after his accidental buff back in 13.15 and wanted to take some time here to address this. While the change wasn't intended, we were aware of this change immediately after it went live and decided that we are comfortable with his new power level.

R - Riftwalk

• Magic Damage: 70/90/110 (+40% AP) (+2% maximum mana) ⇒ 70/90/110 (+60% AP) (+2% maximum mana)

Kayn

Passive Darkin healing adjusted. Darkin R damage decreased.

Last patch we attempted to nerf both Shadow Assassin and Darkin Kayn. While his numbers went down, we also buffed one of Darkin Kayn’s key items, which means we only achieved our goals on one of his two forms. This patch, we're making good on our goals to weaken his Darkin form. It's worth noting that a Kayn who's doing well transforms around level 8, and the old version of his Darkin passive scaled from level 1. This change makes the healing more clear and ultimately nerfs his late game.

Passive - The Darkin Scythe

• Darkin Bonus: Rhaast - Healing: 20-30% (based on level) of physical damage dealt to champions ⇒ 25% of physical damage dealt to champions

R - Umbral Trespass

• Darkin Version Damage Dealt: 15% (+13% per 100 bonus AD) of target’s maximum health ⇒ 15% (+10% per 100 bonus AD) of target’s maximum health (Note: still heals for 65% of the tooltip damage)

Kennen

E energy cost decreased. R cooldown now decreases with rank.

Kennen hasn’t been very shocking in solo queue, so we’re looking to get him into a better spot this patch. We'll be buffing his uptime instead of his damage, as he already deals a reasonable amount of it. Firstly, we'll be decreasing the energy cost of his E. Since he maxes it last, it's left at the initial cost of 100 energy for a large portion of the game. Decreasing the energy cost should allow Kennen to use it more frequently to shove waves, trade, engage, and escape. Secondly, we'll be reducing the late game cooldown of his ultimate, as Kennen heavily relies on it to be impactful during teamfights.

E - Lightning Rush

• Energy Cost: 100/95/90/85/80 ⇒ 80 at all ranks

R - Slicing Maelstrom

• Cooldown: 120 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 120/100/80 seconds

Rell

E bonus movement speed decreased.

Rell has been quite strong recently. In Pro play, she's been played equally as a support and a jungler, while in solo queue she's primarily been a support. However, even if she’s not as popular in the jungle at the moment, we do plan on continuing to support her viability there. That said, she's deserving of nerfs right now and there's no way to lower her support power level without hitting the jungle as well. It's important to us that Rell lives up to her fantasy as the fastest support champion, but right now the counterplay is basically, "Do you have Headbutt or Flay?" and we'd like to soften that somewhat.

E - Full Tilt

• Bonus Movement Speed (Away from Enemies): 15/17.5/20/22.5/25% ⇒ 12/14/16/18/20%
• Bonus Movement Speed (Towards Enemies): 30/35/40/45/50% ⇒ 24/28/32/36/40%

Senna

Passive critical strike ratio reduction removed. W now applies passive to all enemies caught in the AoE.

Way back when Senna was released, we incorporated a critical strike ratio reduction as she was expected to do too well with crit items. However, in the current state of the game Senna is actually considerably weaker when opting to itemize crit. Now that we don’t have reservations with Senna being too powerful when building crit, we’re comfortable removing this penalty from her kit. We’re also including a passive application buff to her W as a nice feels good change for when you’re able to land the snare on multiple enemies.

Passive - Absolution

• removedCritical Strike Ratio Reduction: No longer reduces critical strike damage by 8.5%

W - Last Embrace

• Area of Effect Effect: Enemies hit with Last Embrace’s AoE snare are now afflicted with a stack of Mist from Senna’s passive.

Thresh

W shield strength per soul increased.

Thresh is a bit weak right now and is a fan favorite, both to play and to watch. It's important that Thresh is able to participate both as an offensive and defensive support. He's got plenty of kill threat and lock down, so this change is to ensure he has strong defensive outputs, too.

W - Dark Passage

• Shield Strength: 50/70/90/110/130 (+1.5 per soul) ⇒ 50/70/90/110/130 (+2 per soul)

Tryndamere

Health growth decreased, base attack damage decreased.

After the changes in the last patch Tryndamere definitely found success with his new attack range. While we did overshoot on release, we believe this is a step in the right direction for him long term because it provides an interesting skill test for players in the form of managing spacing. Previously, this test looked more like “can I get on top of the enemy?” and after that it became a matter of stat checking them. Going forward we’re looking to balance Tryndamere at 175 attack range which should allow us to move power out of pure damage and into other components of his kit that reward smart plays.

Base Stats

• Health Growth: 115 ⇒ 108
• Base Attack Damage: 68 ⇒ 66

Xayah

Base health decreased, health growth increased. E cooldown increased.

Xayah has been dominating Pro play recently, and she’s also performing well in high levels of play in solo queue. Since Xayah has the most defensive ultimate out of any of our ADCs, we'll be targeting her early game to give her opponents more of a counterplay window while keeping what makes her unique. To accomplish this, we'll be nerfing her base health and buffing her health growth, which will make her more vulnerable early, but will be a buff to her when she's expected to have more survivability post level 6. We'll also be increasing the early cooldown of her E, as this is an ability that's especially utilized in high levels of play. Our goal here is to reduce its power in lane but ensure it's still just as strong once she purchases Navori.

Base Stats

• Base Health: 660 ⇒ 630
• Health Growth: 102 ⇒ 107

E - Bladecaller

• Cooldown: 11/10.5/10/9.5/9 seconds ⇒ 13/12/11/10/9 seconds

Crown of the Shattered Queen

Crown of the Shattered Queen has very few users, with only Azir landing above a 15% pick rate. The changes here are aimed at opening up its roster of users by making it a defensive item against all kinds of dives, not just ones from assassins. Additionally, the item is relatively Pro-skewed, with its strength being focused on preventing short-term burst as Pro teams are very coordinated and can deal their damage in a very short window. Finally, we’re removing some ability power from the item that helped wave clear when passively hitting minion waves but increasing its value in a team fight, which should make it a more reliable item.

• Ability Power: 70 ⇒ 85
• Safeguard: 75% damage reduction for 1.5 seconds ⇒ 40% damage reduction for 2.5 seconds
• removedPoise Break: Crown will no longer provide 10-40 AP while the shield holds

Spear of Shojin

Items in League of Legends will always have a best user. It’s inevitable. What's important is for items to be balanced for a large pool of champions and that outliers are handled as needed. In Spear of Shojin's case, we're overall quite happy with its new shape as a mid-sized fighter item that asks for a longer fight commitment to make use if its ability haste, but it's a little too powerful. This patch we're further lowering the attack damage to reinforce its space as a durable item that's functional as an early purchase.

• Attack Damage: 60 ⇒ 55

Statikk Shiv

Statikk Shiv has been on quite the balance roller coaster this year. Initially it was given a generous AP ratio to incentivize hybrid builds and was given extremely strong wave clear to help it stand out in its niche. Ultimately, both of these aspects were simply too game-warping. This patch, Statikk Shiv’s wave clear is being tuned to be more moderate but it’s receiving compensation as its overall power level is pretty reasonable.

• Attack Damage: 45 ⇒ 50
• Electroshock Minion Damage: 250-350 ⇒ 200

Stormrazor

Stormrazor initially launched overpowered in 13.10, then was tuned down, and then reshaped away from being a scaling burst item. As the dust has settled and players have moved toward the correct builds for their champions, it's become clear that Stormrazor is a bit weak right now. The overall impact of its unique effects is about right, so we're tuning up its stats to be comparable to its competitors.

• Attack Damage: 50 ⇒ 55