Patch 14.17 Notes

Champions

Aurora

R Damage decreased.

 Aurora has begun settling in after the first few weeks of balance updates and players learning her. She’s in a pretty balanced state but is a little over the line. We’d like to make sure she feels good as an elusive, repeatable mage and make her less reliant on just jamming R for reliable burst, so we’re taking down about 10% of her ult’s damage. 

R - Between Worlds

• Damage: 200/325/450 (+60% AP) ⇒ 175/275/375 (+60% AP)

Ashe

Base Health decreased.

 Ashe has ended up more elite- and Pro-skewed than we’d like, considering she’s quite straightforward to play. This patch we’re addressing some of her early bully power, opening up more windows for counter-play against her. 

Base Stats

• Base Health: 640 ⇒ 610

Brand

Passive burn damage per second and explosion damage capped against monsters.

 With the addition of Fated Ashes we’ve seen some of our Mage junglers disproportionately benefit from some burn damage on top of their burn damage. We think that mage junglers should have their strengths and good reasons to be picked, and that their jungle clears should be a part of that. That being said, even with them being good at this there was room for some caps to be put in place. 

Passive - Blaze

• Burn damage now has a cap at 30 damage per second to monsters.
• Explosion now has a cap against monsters of 250/350/400/475 at levels 1/6/11/16

Caitlyn

Attack Speed Ratio increased. W cooldown decreased.

 While Caitlyn isn’t winning as many games as is fair for her, she’s still very good at knocking down turrets and pushing waves, so we’re avoiding giving her more early game damage as we feel her lane state is good, but want to bring her up and are aware that Fleet Footwork’s nerfs this patch will affect her. So we’re giving her more traps and better synergy with attack speed items so that she can do more than just dominate the lane and hope to one-shot her opponents. 

Base Stats

• Attack Speed Ratio: .594 ⇒ .610

W - Yordle Snap Trap

• Cooldown: 30/24/19/15/12 ⇒ 26/22/18/14/10

Ezreal

Base AD decreased.

 Ezreal has quickly become the most prominent bot lane pick in Pro, and as we’re gearing up for Worlds, we’d like to inject some more interest in that lane. We’re pulling back on the intentionally Pro-skewed buffs we gave him a while ago by pulling back his early attack damage, since he doesn’t need to be an early lane dominator. 

Base Stats

• Base Attack Damage: 62 ⇒ 60

Graves

Q Cooldown decreased at higher ranks, and damage increased.

 Graves is doing poorly at his current tuning and we’d like to fix that. We’re playing up the repeatability of his Q and giving it a bit more juice, even if he isn’t snowballing, so that he can be a more reliable DPS source. 

Q - End of the Line

• Cooldown: 13/11.5/10/8.5/7 ⇒ 13/11.25/9.5/7.75/6
• Initial Damage: 45/60/75/90/105 (+80% Bonus AD) ⇒ 45/65/85/105/125 (+80% Bonus AD)
• Maximum Damage: 130/180/230/280/330 (+120/150/180/210/240% Bonus AD) ⇒ 130/185/240/295/350 (+120/150/180/210/240% Bonus AD)

Katarina

Q damage decreased.

 The last patch changes to Katarina helped out her AP builds a ton while not having on-hit go out of control. As players have switched over to her more performant Lich Bane builds, Katarina’s performing a little better than she’s meant to, so we’re walking back half of the Q buff we delivered last patch. 

Q - Bouncing Blade

• Damage: 80/120/160/200/240 (+45% AP) ⇒ 80/115/150/185/220 (+40% AP)

Kennen

Q damage decreased.

 Kennen’s 14.9 buff, which allows him to move while casting his ultimate, gave him a meaningful amount of power. Liandry’s as a first item has also increased in popularity, which has made him a bit too strong. To take away some power and tone down his damage, we’re targeting his mid-game power spike through a ratio nerf to his Q. 

Q - Thundering Shuriken

• Magic Damage: 75/125/175/225/275 (+85% AP) ⇒ 75/125/175/225/275 (+75% AP)

Kindred

Q Attack Speed increased. E damage increased, and cooldown decreased.

 Kindred got hit quite hard when we nerfed Kraken Slayer a couple patches ago so now they’re in need of some love and attention. First, we’re reverting the recent Q attack speed nerf since their sustained damage is lower. Second, we’re increasing their ability to secure kills via Mounting Dread, especially since a decent portion of players think it might be worth maxing it second, though it currently isn’t. Even for those who still max W, this should still have a noticeable impact through the AD ratio and late game bases. 

Q - Dance of Arrows

• Attack Speed: 30% ⇒ 35%

E - Mounting Dread

• Damage: 80/100/120/140/160 (+80% Bonus AD) ⇒ 80/110/140/170/200 (+100% Bonus AD)
• Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 ⇒ 14/12.5/11/9.5/8

LeBlanc

Q Damage decreased. W damage decreased.

 LeBlanc has been performing too well so we’re taking away some power. She's quite strong in the early game and we’d like to retain that, but are reducing some of her later burst damage to account for how consistently she’s able to get ahead. 

Q - Sigil of Malice

• Magic Damage: 70/95/120/145/170 (+45% AP) ⇒ 70/95/120/145/170 (+40% AP)

W - Distortion

• Magic Damage: 75/115/155/195/235 (+75% AP) ⇒ 75/115/155/195/235 (+70% AP)

Lillia

Damage cap to monsters decreased at higher levels.

 Similarly to Brand, Lillia has benefited from Fated Ashe’s much more than your average user and as such, we’re tapping down a her mid and later game clear speeds. This might look like a lot, but you don’t hit this cap until you have Liandry’s and then you have Liandry’s damage to compensate. Our jungle fawnmower will continue to prance her way through jungle clears, we’re just balancing based on the new Fated Ashe’s jungle landscape. 

Passive - Dream-Laden Bough

• Damage to monsters cap: 70-150 over 3 seconds ⇒ 70-100 over 3 seconds

Lissandra

Q damage increased. R slow increased at lower ranks.

 Lissandra could use a bit more love as a somewhat-selfless utility mage. This patch we’re playing up her teamfight utility aspects and making her mid-game damage a bit higher without relying on gold income to get there. 

Q - Ice Shard

• Damage: 80/110/140/170/200 (+85% AP) ⇒ 80/115/150/185/220 (+85% AP)

R - Frozen Tomb

• Slow: 30/45/75% ⇒ 45/60/75%

Pyke

Base Armor decreased.

 We're lightly nerfing Pyke since he's performing a bit too well in Solo Queue. We’re reducing his durability to give his opponents more of a window to kill him before he starts roaming with Symbiotic Soles, and are specifically reducing his base armor since it’s particularly high. 

Base Stats

• Armor: 47 ⇒ 43

Rumble

Passive damage decreased.

 Rumble is the highest presence top laner in Pro and is possibly stronger in Solo Queue than his win rates suggest, particularly if he builds Riftmaker as his second item instead of Shadowflame. We are reducing the potency of his all-ins, as he already has effective tools for trading in lane through the damage and range provided by his Q and E, along with the utility and defense offered by his W. 

Passive - Junkyard Titan

• On-Hit Damage: 5-40 (based on level) (+25% AP) (+6% Target Max Health) ⇒ 5-40 (based on level) (+25% AP) (+5% Target Max Health)

Ryze

Q damage increased. R cooldown decreased.

 Ryze isn’t performing very well—he scales well but is weak early, and while he shouldn’t be too good there he could use more agency. So we’re giving him some extra Q damage to help him trade and clear a bit better, and reducing how harsh his ultimate’s cooldown is to make room for more sick plays and to give players more opportunities to learn this atypical spell. 

Q - Overload

• Magic Damage: 70/90/110/130/150 (+55% AP) (+2% Bonus Mana) ⇒ 75/95/115/135/155 (+55% AP) (+2% Bonus Mana)

R - Realm Warp

• Cooldown: 210/180/150 ⇒ 180/160/140

Senna

Q heal decreased. R shield AP ratio decreased.

 Senna’s new optimal builds (both AP enchanter and Black Cleaver) are currently overperforming. While we’re happy that she has a viable AP enchanter alternate build, it should never be dominating her itemization, so she’s receiving both some flat nerfs and taps to her AP ratios. In case you haven’t watched a video from your favorite influencer yet, let’s be clear: Go buy a Black Cleaver, it’s really good on her! 

Q - Piercing Darkness

• Heal: 40/60/80/100/120 (+80% AP) (+40% Bonus AD) ⇒ 40/55/70/85/100 (+60% AP) (+40% Bonus AD)

R - Dawning Shadow

• Shield: 120/160/200 (+70% AP) ⇒ 120/160/200 (+50% AP)

Seraphine

W Shield decreased and cooldown increased at higher ranks.

 Seraphine has finally gone from rising star to superstar, which we’re super happy about! However, she’s quite overpowered as players have come to optimize her builds and ability orders. We hoped to give Seraphine players more options in their ability orders but right now the only option is, “always max W,” so we’re tapping down W’s rank-up power. 

W - Surround Sound

• Shield: 60/85/110/135/160 (+20% AP) ⇒ 60/80/100/120/140 (+20% AP)
• Cooldown: 22/21/20/19/18 ⇒ 22

Sylas

W damage decreased.

 After reshaping Sylas to have bonus health included in his kit we’ve seen him on an unfortunate rollercoaster ride. The last patch gave him back some much needed win rate and then some. With the added flat damage to his W, passive main target damage and survivability added with last patches changes, we think he has a little bit of room to be taken out of his guaranteed damage that should land him in a great spot. 

W - Kingslayer

• Magic Damage: 75/110/145/180/215 (+70% AP) ⇒ 75/110/145/180/215 (+60% AP)

Twisted Fate

Q damage increased.

 Now that the dust has settled on AD and AP Twisted Fate, we’re pretty happy with where AD has landed as a playable alternate build with situational viability. However, AP Twisted Fate is just a bit below what we think is an appropriate power level. We’re playing up his first-maxed ability when playing AP to give him some more wave control and general damage output, even if he’s not snowballing. 

Q - Wild Cards

• Damage: 60/100/140/180/220 (+50% Bonus AD) (+85% AP) ⇒ 60/105/150/195/240 (+50% Bonus AD) (+85% AP)

Varus

Q max damage increased. E damage increased.

 Varus has escaped Pro jail and despite his recent buffs, is still underperforming. This patch we’re playing up his gold scaling with bonus AD purchases to make sure he can scale reasonably well into the late game while making him continue to build damage items in order to do so. We acknowledge that these changes will buff his lethality a bit more than his on-hit ones but currently his lethality builds are extremely weak with a significant gap between the two, so there’s room to bring them a bit closer, and we still expect Varus to always build a few attack speed items. 

Q - Piercing Arrow

• Max Damage: 15/70/125/180/235 (+125/130/135/140/145% Total AD) ⇒ 90/160/230/300/370 (+150/160/170/180/190% Bonus AD)
• Minimum damage still 2/3 of maximum damage

E - Hail of Arrows

• Damage: 60/100/140/180/220 (+90% Bonus AD) ⇒ 60/100/140/180/220 (+110% Bonus AD)

Items

Warmog’s Heart

 Despite its recent nerf, Warmog’s is still the de-facto support tank purchase. It being occasionally viable as a really good source of durability when you have enough gold is fine for tanks in general, but it’s crowding out all the other support tank items, as it’s simply too strong in too many games. An increased price point and worse roaming should both be especially support-targeted nerfs. 

• Total Gold Cost: 3100 ⇒ 3300
• Move Speed Bonus: 10% ⇒ 5%

Celestial Opposition

 Celestial Opposition has grown to be too dominant in the support item structure, especially for tank supports, so we’re taking it down a peg. We’re tackling its ability to completely lock down enemy champions and making users rely more on their base kit for that effect. 

• Slow: 60% for 2 seconds ⇒ 50% for 1.5 seconds

Runes

Absorb Life

 Though its win rate is pretty close to comparable options in Precision, we’d like if Absorb Life was a rare pick for when you really need it instead of a default pick that wins your lane through sustain. This patch, we’re making Absorb Life weak on average, meaning it should only come in when you really want to recoup health, especially late game. 

• We're adjusting the formula here with how this scales as you level as follows:
• Level 1-5: 1-5 (based on level) ⇒ 1-2 (based on level)
• Level 6-10: 6-11 (based on level) ⇒ 3-7 (based on level)
• Level 11-18: 12-23 (based on level) ⇒ 8-23 (based on level)

Cut Down

 We're walking back on our 14.11 buff to Cut Down because it no longer needs the extra push, as it's now both strong and popular. 

• Damage Threshold: Above 50% Maximum Health ⇒ Above 60% Maximum Health

Fleet Footwork

 Similar to Absorb Life, a more defensive pregame option like Fleet Footwork shouldn’t be the default rune choice for so many champions, as an overabundance of early sustain makes the game boil down to just killing minions instead of interacting with your lane opponent. What’s more, this rune makes matchups with a range disparity almost unplayable when piloted by exceptionally skilled players. This patch we’re nerfing Fleet by addressing its ability to keep out of reach of enemies and tapping down its sustain, especially for solo laners who gain a lot of exp. 

• Move Speed: 20% for 1.25 seconds ⇒ 15% for 1 second
• Heal: 5-120 (based on level) ⇒ 5-100 (based on level)