Patch 14.22 Notes

As your General, all of your mistakes reflect on my leadership. You would be wise to remember that.

Ambessa, The Matriarch of War, dashes and dashes and dashes onto the Rift November 6th, 2024 at 19:00:00 UTC!

• Ambessa Abilities Rundown here!
• Ambessa Champion Bio here!

A lot of you enjoyed getting to play Teemo with his theme as spawn-in music on the launch patch so we want to try that out with Ambessa! So for 14.22—to celebrate Ambessa's launch—you'll get to play her with the adapted version of "Blood Sweat & Tears" as your spawn-in music. We hope you enjoy this fun new little addition to celebrate new or updated champions!

Aatrox

R damage decreased.

Aatrox has been one of the best low-MMR top laners, and players have discovered new tech with Spear of Shojin, which will raise him up even farther, so it's time to bring him down to size. We're siphoning off a bit of his late game raid bossing in order to narrowly target lower MMR play where he's overperforming.

R - World Ender

• Total Attack Damage: 20/32.5/45% ⇒ 20/30/40%

Anivia

Armor Growth decreased. E damage decreased.

Anivia scales quite reliably due to her range and the safety her passive provides in lane. We think that's reasonable since she doesn't have a lot of agency, but that some of her later damage and durability should go down to account for how consistently she scales.

Base Stats

• Armor Growth: 4.9 ⇒ 4.5

E - Frostbite

• Damage: 50/75/100/125/150 (+60% AP) ⇒ 50/75/100/125/150 (+55% AP)

Blitzcrank

E damage increased.

Blitzcrank is in a sad spot so we're helping him out. We're bringing up his damage to give him more kill threat to account for overall damage in the game going down in 14.19.

E - Power Fist

• Damage: 180% Total AD (+25% AP) ⇒ 200% Total AD (+25% AP)

Briar

Base Health increased.

Briar was one of the most-affected champions from Blade of the Ruined King's recent nerf. We like the item's new state, so it's time for us to re-tune champions bound to it. Briar deserves a bit of help here so we're increasing her durability to help her survive being berserk and disproportionately affect her early game, and thus higher MMRs, where she performs much worse.

Base Stats

• Base Health: 590 ⇒ 625

Corki

AD Growth and Mana Growth decreased.

Corki flew all the way past viable and landed in "overpowered." We're super happy that he's regained an audience and that those players are largely in bot lane. We'd love if he kept those players but he needs to keep his head out of the clouds. We're hitting growth stats and his mana pool in order to try to widen the gap between mid lane, where he frequently buys Manamune, and bot lane, where spamming abilities for push isn't nearly as important.

Base Stats

• Attack Damage Growth: 2.5 ⇒ 2
• Mana Growth: 54 ⇒ 40

Fizz

Q and W damage increased.

Fizz has continuously lost kill threat due to ratio nerfs from earlier this year along with his items being nerfed in .19 and .21. We're looking to return some kill threat by rewarding aggressive Q's along with a slight boost to his active W.

Q - Urchin Strike

• Damage: 10/25/40/55/70 (+45% AP) ⇒ 10/25/40/55/70 (+55% AP)

W - Seastone Trident

• Active Damage: 50/70/90/110/130 (+40% AP) ⇒ 50/70/90/110/130 (+45% AP)

Illaoi

Base AD and Mana growth decreased.

Illaoi has been crushing it lately, especially in lower MMRs. We're nerfing her early game damage and late game ease of piloting in order to give her enemies a greater chance to succeed against her.

Base Stats

• Attack Damage: 68 ⇒ 65
• Mana Growth: 60 ⇒ 50

Irelia

Passive duration refreshes on structures and deals half damage to structures.

We're giving Irelia a small buff that is large in quality of life by letting her retain passive stacks while hitting structures plus dealing partial damage to them. We expect the power of this change to be small relative to its feelability and expect that Irelia will still be worse than most other champions in her class at demolition but expect it to feel way better to split push and capitalize on advantages she earns in lane.

Passive - Ionian Fervor

• NEW: Stacks now refresh upon attacking structures
• NEW: Damage now applies to structures at 50% effectiveness

Jax

R cooldown increased and damage decreased.

Jax is performing a little better than he ought to right now and while we're happy with his recent increases to durability and sustained damage, we're bringing down his burst damage to place more importance on that longer combat pattern.

R - Grandmaster-At-Arms

• Cooldown: 100/90/80 ⇒ 110/100/90
• Damage: 150/250/350 (+100% AP) ⇒ 100/175/250 (+100% AP)

Katarina

E and R cooldowns decreased at lower ranks.

Katarina lost a fair bit from the Sorcerer's Shoes flat penetration nerf and is a little weak right now, so we'd like to give her some power back. We're going to give her more opportunities to chunk out her opponents without increasing her short-term burst, which already seems high enough.

E - Shunpo

• Cooldown: 14/12.5/11/9.5/8 ⇒ 12/11/10/9/8

R - Death Lotus

• Cooldown: 90/60/45 ⇒ 75/60/45

Kayle

Passive Attack Speed increased.

Kayle is performing worse than she ought to, considering she's pretty straightforward and has very little control over her own power level, due to losing almost every single lane matchup. As a result we'd like to increase her maximum power level to ensure she's got her own unique strengths and a payoff for selecting such a weak laning phase.

Passive - Divine Ascent

• Attack Speed per stack: 6% (+.5% per 100 AP) ⇒ 6% (+1% per 100 AP)
• Max Attack Speed: 30% (+2.5% per 100 AP) ⇒ 30% (+5% per 100 AP)

K'Sante

Q damage decreased. E dash speed increased.

K'Sante's early-game is too strong, so we're nerfing it. Separately, he's too easy to kite in All Out. We're cautious of erasing the counterplay gains from the recent rework, so we're making a smaller improvement to his dash speed for now.

Q - Ntofo Strikes

• Damage: 80/110/140/170/200 (+40% bonus resistances) ⇒ 70/100/130/160/190 (+40% bonus resistances)

E - Footwork

• All Out Dash Speed: 950 + Movement Speed ⇒ 1250 + Movement Speed

Lillia

Armor Growth decreased. Passive heal over time decreased.

Lillia is still prancing around as the queen of the jungle so we're taking another crack and setting her power level to a more appropriate level. We're lowering some of her guaranteed late game durability in an effort to make her appropriately killable.

Base Stats

• Armor Growth: 5.2 ⇒ 4.5

Passive - Dream-Laden Bough

• Monster heal over time: 39-54 (based on level) (+15% AP) ⇒ 39 (+15% AP)

Maokai

Base Move Speed and Health increased. E Sapling Move Speed reworked.

Maokai is a little bit weak right now so we'd like to make him a better jungler and support without giving too much more to top lane, where he's fine. To do that, we're bringing his move speed back up and increasing his early game durability. We also want to smooth out an unusual optimization with his saplings that made him need to rush boots in order to speed them up.

Base Stats

• Move Speed: 330 ⇒ 335
• Base Health: 635 ⇒ 665

E - Sapling Toss

• Sapling Move Speed: 400/425/445/460 (based on boots) ⇒ 400-460 (linear scaling 1-13)

Mordekaiser

E damage decreased.

Mordekaiser is dominating lower MMR brackets, so we're taking a swing at his damage there. As better players are more likely to dodge his E, taking down its damage is a targeted way to nerf him in places where he's performing the best.

E - Death's Grasp

• Damage: 70/85/100/115/130 (+60% AP) ⇒ 60/75/90/105/120 (+40% AP)

Poppy

Base AD decreased. Base Attack Speed increased.

While we hit Poppy with the nerf hammer due to her support power level a couple patches ago, she has cropped back up as the number one pick here, so we're taking another swing at it. We hope to nail this support skew by attacking her base AD, which feeds into Hail of Blades, Bloodsong, and Dead Man's Plate (all tools she uses commonly in support), while compensating a bit of attack speed to keep her sustained damage in top and jungle similar.

Base Stats

• Attack Damage: 64 ⇒ 60
• Level 1 Attack Speed: .625 ⇒ .658

Rumble

Base Health increased.

Rumble's early damage has been nerfed several times and he's performing worse in lane than we think is ideal. Instead of just walking back previous damage nerfs, we'd like to improve his baseline survivability now that his laning is less oppressive.

Base Stats

• Base Health: 625 ⇒ 655

Seraphine

Q damage decreased.

Seraphine has crept up a little too high in bot lane, so we're trying to deliver a nerf that we hope to be APC skewed while leaving support Seraphine less affected.

Q - High Note

• Damage: 60/85/110/135/160 (+60% AP) ⇒ 60/85/110/135/160 (+50% AP)

Shen

Passive cooldown and refund increased. R shield decreased.

Shen has really enjoyed the recent itemization shifts and devaluation of gold and is now stronger than we're comfortable with. We'd like to preserve his crowd control, 1v1 dueling, and late-game tankiness, so we're lowering power in places we think Shen players are willing to lose.

Passive - Ki Barrier

• Cooldown: 10 ⇒ 11
• Cooldown Refund: 4-7.5 (based on level) ⇒ 4-8 (based on level)

R - Stand United

• Shield: 130/290/450 (+16 bonus HP) ⇒ 120/220/320 (+15% bonus HP
• Max Shield: 208/464/720 (+25.6% bonus HP) ⇒ 192/352/512 (+24% bonus HP)

Swain

Magic Resist increased. Q damage increased. E cooldown reduced at lower ranks. R Healing increased.

Swain's update has come out and though he's a bit weak, we're really happy with how his new toolset is performing. Since we've now got a decent bit of room to give him more power, we'd like to increase his ability to take up space as a beefy mid-laner and give his bread and butter spellcasting more potency.

Base Stats

• Magic Resist: 30 ⇒ 31
• Magic Resist Growth: 1.3 ⇒ 1.55

Q - Death's Hand

• Damage: 60/85/110/135/160 (+45% AP) ⇒ 60/90/120/150/180 (+45% AP)
• Max Damage: 120/170/220/270/320 (+90% AP) ⇒ 120/180/240/300/360 (+90% AP)

E - Nevermove

• Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 ⇒ 12/11.5/11/10.5/10

R - Demonic Ascension

• Heal per Second: 15/30/45 (+5% AP) (+1.25% Bonus HP) ⇒ 15/30/45 (+5% AP) (+1.5% Bonus HP)

Sylas

Health Growth decreased.

Sylas is now building more health, which we're happy about but he's a bit too strong right now. We're reducing his health growth to make him more vulnerable and to further incentivize health builds.

Base Stats

• Health Growth: 129 ⇒ 122

Syndra

W damage decreased.

Syndra is too good of a mid laner right now and deals a lot of hard-to-avoid damage once she begins scaling. We're reducing her non-ultimate burst since she often doesn't need to R to deal significant amounts of damage, which lets her play back without much counterplay.

W - Force of Will

• Damage: 70/110/150/190/230 (+70% AP) ⇒ 70/105/140/175/210 (+65% AP)

Udyr

R damage decreased.

Udyr's Q-max builds are doing fine but the R-max builds are performing too well of late. Though he lost some power from Fated Ashes, he's very happy about Dead Man's Plate and the recent shifts to more methodical combat. This patch we're nerfing his R damage in his tankier builds as he's too threatening in R-max when built mostly tank.

R - Wingborne Storm

• Damage: 80/170/260/350/440 (+140% AP) ⇒ 80/150/220/290/360 (+140% AP)
• Empowered Damage: 8-16% (level scaling) max HP ⇒ 8-14% (level scaling) max HP
• Monster cap: 60 (+400% AP) (+800% bonus AD) ⇒ 80-400 (level scaling)

Varus

W damage increased.

Varus was another loser from BoRK's nerfs last patch and we'd like to give him a little love. We'd still prefer he play in the on-hit space more often than lethality, so we're playing up his sustained damage profile.

W - Blighted Quiver

• On-hit Damage: 5/10/15/20/25 ⇒ 8/13/18/23/28

Vayne

R damage increased.

Vayne was in a reasonable spot and got hit too hard from the 14.21 Blade nerf. We're aiming to give some power back in a way that doesn't affect her early laning by increasing her R kill threat throughout the game.

R - Final Hour

• Bonus Attack Damage: 25/40/55 ⇒ 35/50/65

Vel'Koz

E and R cooldowns decreased at lower ranks.

Vel'Koz is in a bit of a weak spot and we're giving him some power. He currently deals plenty of damage as a support and mid laner but is weaker in some other areas, so we're instead choosing to increase his ability uptime since E's cooldown is a little harsh as his last max and R is important for securing early kills.

E - Tectonic Disruption

• Cooldown: 16/15/14/13/12 ⇒ 14/13.5/13/12.5/12

R - Life Form Disintegration Ray

• Cooldown: 120/100/80 ⇒ 100/90/80

Vi

Passive Shield increased.

Vi is looking a bit worse for wear and doesn't perform her duties in the front line as well as she should. We're bumping her durability specifically by nudging up Blast Shield to reward her for sustained combat since she can refresh it more than once.

Passive - Blast Shield

• Shield: 12% max HP ⇒ 14% max HP

Warwick

Lots.

Warwick is getting some small updates this patch! In addition to getting slightly bigger and scarier, he's getting some quality of life changes that'll help him have a smoother combat feel with his attacks. Additionally, we're changing the cooldown paradigm on W to make it easier to cast as a scouting tool.

Base Stats

• Model Size: Increased by 15%

W - Blood Hunt

• Mana Cost: 70 ⇒ 55
• Cooldown: 100/85/70/55/40 ⇒ 80/70/60/50/40
• Passive: Spells now also trigger the attack speed when used to damage enemies under 50% Health. The attack speed granted by attacks and spells now linger between attacks.

Bonuses from passive: 250% increase on enemies under 20% ⇒ 200% increase on enemies under 25%

• Cooldown Reduction: Ticks twice as fast while no one is hunted ⇒ Refunds 30% if no one is found by the active
• Active Lockout Removed: No longer locks out casting while in champion combat

E - Primal Howl

R - Infinite Duress

• Hit Radius: 100 ⇒ 150
• NEW Claws in Front: Now only latches onto champions in front of Warwick

Wukong

Base Mana increased. W cooldown decreased at lower ranks.

Wukong isn't performing so well in top or jungle so we're buffing him. He most commonly maxes W last so its cooldown remains very high throughout most of the game, which we think is unnecessary. We're looking to improve his top trading and jungle navigation by lowering its early CD, along with a base mana buff to particularly help him cast more spells top.

Base Stats

• Mana: 300 ⇒ 330

W - Warrior Trickster

• Cooldown: 22/20/18/16/14 ⇒ 18/17/16/15/14

Youmuu's Ghostblade

We're shifting both Opportunity and Youmuu's Ghostblade in ways that, on their surface, appear power neutral. However, players can choose which items they want to buy, so a more focused Opportunity will be better for burstier assassins and a more focused Youmuu's will be better for those who want to roam. We expect both of these items to find a home among various assassins and as always are happy to re-tune any items that aren't viable on anyone.

• Recipe: Serrated Dirk + Rectrix + Pickaxe + 150 gold ⇒ Serrated Dirk + Rectrix + Long Sword + 675 gold
• Attack Damage: 60 ⇒ 55
• Movement Speed: 0 ⇒ 4%

Opportunity

See Youmuu's Ghostblade.

• Recipe: Serrated Dirk + Rectrix + 925 gold ⇒ Serrated Dirk + Pickaxe + Long Sword + 475 gold
• Attack Damage: 50 ⇒ 55
• Movement Speed: 4% ⇒ 0
• Preparation Lethality: 10/6 ⇒ 11/7

Statikk Shiv

We're reworking Statikk Shiv in order to resolve some design issues: it required very specific optimizations to maximize, it was a wave clear item that also slowly chipped down opposing champions, and it sneakily supplied a lot of teamfight burst that was hard to appreciate. We're giving this item a more straightforward set of uses while still being a cheap early game wave clear item.

• Total Gold Cost: 2900 gold ⇒ 2700 gold
• Attack Damage: 50 ⇒ 45
• Attack Speed: 40% ⇒ 30%
• Electrospark: Remade - Your first 3 attacks within 8 seconds fire chain lightning on-hit, hitting up to 5 targets (including the attack target) for 60 magic damage, increased to 85 for minions/monsters (25-10s CD levels 7-12)
• Electroshock: Remade - Scoring a takedown resets the cooldown on Electrospark

Yun Tal Wildarrows

We're remaking Yun Tal Wildarrows into the early game auto-attack crit item we promised earlier this year when we removed its pseudo-crit damage. Yun Tal is meant to be purchased in the first slot, but as a piece of a late-game crit ADC build, it starts out weaker than its contemporaries (Essence Reaver, Collector) before scaling and surpassing them in teamfight DPS. As with any significantly updated system, we'll be measuring both its user base and its performance on those users to ensure it has a home in the crit ADC space.

• Total Gold Cost: 2950 gold ⇒ 3000 gold
• Recipe: Pickaxe + Noonquiver + 775 gold ⇒ B.F. Sword + Scout's Slingshot + Long Sword + 750 gold
• Attack Damage: 60 ⇒ 50
• Critical Strike: 25% ⇒ Removed
• NEW Attack Speed: 25%
• Serrated Edge: Removed
• NEW Passive - Practice Makes Lethal: On attack, permanently gain 0.2% Critical Chance, up to 25%
• NEW Passive - Flurry: On attacking an enemy champion, gain 30% Attack Speed for 4 seconds (40 second CD, reduced by 1s on hit; 2s for a critical strike)

Barrier

We updated summoner spells a few months ago to give Barrier a real spot in bot lane. However, we slightly overshot and Barrier is almost always the go-to over everything else. We're slightly nerfing Barrier in order to promote more choice down in bot lane while also making those champions a bit easier to kill for bursty champions.

• Shield: 120-480 (based on level) ⇒ 100-460 (based on level)

Smite

We added targeting forgiveness to Smite last year to let players Smite Dragons even when an enemy champion was overlapping with it. Since then, Void Grubs have been added, and it means that Smiting over a Grub's corpse will often target the closest living one. Wasting your Smite like that feels bad, so we're reducing the targeting forgiveness to mean Smite won't seek out an epic monster unless it's much closer to your cursor.

• Epic Monster targeting forgiveness: 300 ⇒ 125