Official Patch 5.3 Notes Released!

Summary: 

Hi everyone! Patch 5.3 is officially shipping out and features nerfs on Ahri and Azir along with some buffs on Gragas. No nerf on Nidalee though...check out this quick summary below: 

Buffs: Diana, Gragas, Kennen, Twisted Fate, Varus, Zyra

Nerfs: Ahri, Azir, Fiddlesticks, Gnar, Kassadin, 

Tweaks: Sona

Patch 5.3 notes

BY RIOT PWYFF

Hello, Summoners.

How is everyone on this fine patch day? Good? We are good as well. Excellent.

We were taught to be polite when delivering tough news, so now that pleasantries are out of the way, here we go: back in the foreword of patch 5.2 we mentioned that 5.2 and 5.3 were going to be our Deathfire Grasp-removal patches, but now that we've been hard at work, we realized we could use an extra cycle to build confidence. So that means we've delayed a few dudes we promised would come in 5.3, including Veigar, Mordekaiser, Katarina (more on her below), and a new +120 AP item to replace the gap left in DFG's wake. We're aiming for 5.4 and are expecting to stick the landing (except maybe the new item, as it's a bigger project and might take longer!).

As an aside, we've been keeping a close eye on all champions who were affected by the passing of Deathfire Grasp and haven't seen a real impact on performance. We're not saying this to justify the removal of an item that many felt were important in their builds (in other words, we're not dismissing your feedback!), but it's an interesting tangent we wanted to explore.

While we're pretty certain at high levels the strategic removal of DFG hurt players who could utilize it properly, a proportionally equal number seem to be benefitting from finding alternative builds that don't rely on using an active. We looked into it and, given the low (low) percentage of players who use their actives, it seems there's a tipping point where replacing your DFG with a different AP item (try a Morellonomicon or two (or five)) nets roughly equal results. Once again, this is probably different at high levels of play but it's true from a broad statistical perspective, so here we are again, talking about statistics.

But we'll repeat: the reasoning behind that info-dump was not to justify the change, just to give some background on the complexities we deal with. One thing we do agree with is that there needs to be another +120 ability power item for endgame mages, and we're investigating that space as we speak. Rather, as you read.

After this long, rambling foreword, what's all this mean about this patch? Just that we're going pretty light, with changes aimed at a few outliers in competitive and normal play (oh dear Ahri). I guess you could say this patch's narrative is defined by what's not in there (hence we spent four paragraphs talking about that), but now you can charge up to 2 wards in an upgraded yellow trinket, so that's very cool. See you next patch!

 Chris "Pwyff" Tom

Bug with Sona's Base Stats

Sometimes when the skins team takes on large projects, they take a 'snapshot' of the champion's files to work on, including certain hard-coded values like base stats and movement speeds. Unfortunately, when the team finally finishes and implements the skin, those old values can be reintroduced to the game, overwriting any recent balance changes made. There have been a few cases of this happening in the past (Kayle's attack speed per level when we released Riot Kayle, Galio's Q when we released Gatekeeper Galio, etc), but rarely with so many 'reverts' to the champion. Unfortunately, Sona went through a small update during the time we were working on her skin, so she's gone back to all of her old base stats pre-champion update. While we considered shipping 5.3 with Sona disabled, we don't think the full extent of these changes merits taking her away from so many, so we're just fully communicating what's happened while we work on a bugfix as soon as possible.

Sona

BASE ATTACK DAMAGE50.04 ⇒ 52.04

BASE MOVEMENT SPEED325 ⇒ 330

BASE HEALTH482.36 ⇒ 497.6

HEALTH GROWTH STAT77 ⇒ 70

BASE MANA REGENERATION9 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 8.1 mana per 5 seconds

MANA REGENERATION GROWTH STAT0.4 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 0.65 mana per 5 seconds

Champions

Ahri

Orb's mana cost is higher, W's base damage is lower (especially at higher ranks), and W / R have lower "target acquisition range" which means they automatically move toward their targets at a lower range.

It's safe to say that Ahri's return back to her kitier, mage-ier (that is a word) roots has been a success, but her new-found mobility has left her feeling a tad overbearing. For someone that skirts the edge of fights so well, Ahri wasn't taking enough risk for the reward (less dashing in, more dashing out). Forcing this fox-girl to walk the line for her guaranteed damage makes expert use of her Orb-speed and Charm, which is where we'd like to leave her feeling - skillful and satisfying to play, but vulnerable when making mistakes.

Q - Orb of Deception

COST55/60/65/70/75 mana ⇒ 65/70/75/80/85 mana

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W - Fox-Fire

NEWDO A BARREL ROLLFox-Fire's rotation speed has been increased by ~30%. This means if Ahri's hitting a champion with Fox-Fire at maximum range, she won't have to wait as long for her other Fox-Fires to rotate closer.

DAMAGE50/80/110/140/170 magic damage ⇒ 40/65/90/115/140 magic damage

ACQUISITION RANGE650 ⇒ 550

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R - Spirit Rush

ACQUISITION RANGE700 ⇒ 600

Azir

Q's base damage is down (particularly at later levels), W's range is lower, and W's crazy tower bomb damage is much lower. Less crazy.

Hyper-carries are often defined by a weaker early to mid-game (think Tristana, Jax) as they 'ramp up' into their core items and ability scaling. Lane bullies are the reverse - powerful up-front until their less-than-impressive late-games (like Renekton or Quinn).

Enter Azir. Who is both.

As it stands, the emperor's strengths are at odds with themselves. On one hand, he's a hyper-carry with monstrous late-game damage to both champions and structures; on the other, he's a powerful lane-bully with the ability to shove even the most aggressive opposition back to base. When a champion can cover their weaknesses so well, something's gotta give.

Enhancing Azir's end-game effectiveness goes well with our intended goals for the sand mage, so we're softening his spikes to achieve a more manageable lane along with a little bump to his AD to help him last-hit when his soldiers are slacking off. Which they do. Often.

General

BASE ATTACK DAMAGE49.704 ⇒ 52

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Q - Conquering Sands

BASE DAMAGE75/105/135/165/195 magic damage ⇒65/85/105/125/145 magic damage

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W - Arise!

SOLDIER STAB RANGE~400 ⇒ ~325 (we're marking them as approximate values because they get very complicated)

TOWER BOMB DAMAGEThe tooltip values were incorrectly saying +0.6 ability power (it's actually 0.7). 90 + (15 x level) (0.7 ability power) ⇒ 50 + (10 x level) (0.4 ability power)

Diana

Moonsilver Blade now displays the number of stacks and remaining duration, W's spheres now orbit much faster.

It's been a while since Diana's fall from orbit, so we're sending a care package to tide her over. Her passive shows you how long it lasts until you need to use it, and quicker orbs on Pale Cascade give her more consistency when embodying the vengeful moon.

Passive - Moonsilver Blade

CLARITY!Now displays number of stacks and remaining duration.

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W - Pale Cascade

ORB ORBITPale Cascade's spheres now rotate at roughly double the speed

Fiddlesticks

Drain's Tether range is lower.

Drain's mechanics are simple - break the tether and you're good. Stay around, and risk losing a duel to a stick figure. Fiddlesticks can still lock you down with Terrify to ensure his success, but lowering Tether's range makes sure enemies can actually escape when he fails to scare them good and proper.

W - Drain

TETHER RANGE700 ⇒ 650

Gnar

Gnar's gotta better manage his Gnar-Bar if he wants to GNAR!! in Mega Gnar. Gnarly.

From concept to release, Gnar has always been built around his unique transformation trigger and its inherent inconsistency. Will the enemy engage because Mega Gnar's losing steam? Should we begin a fight and have Gnar transform as it begins? These are the types of questions we want his teammates to ask, and the type of situations the Gnar player to manage. When a champion based on unreliability becomes a staple competitive pick (where reliability reigns supreme), we felt like something was up.

Due to a bug since his release (oops), Mega Gnar was lasting a good bit longer than intended - discovering this, we thought it would be a good time to tighten the windows Gnar has to go crazy so we can really accentuate his highs and lows. We're not trying to make Gnar disappear, but teams should have to work a little harder than just picking Jarvan IV. Shots fired.

Passive - Rage Gene

'TIRED' DEBUFF DURATION13 seconds ⇒ 15 seconds

MEGA GNAR DURATION19 seconds ⇒ 15 seconds (as a note, the tooltip originally said 15 seconds, but it was actually 19 seconds)

Gragas

BARREL SLOWS FOR MORE.

Gragas's last round of nerfs weighed heavy on his effectiveness against minion waves, so we wanted to give him better incentives to roll out the barrel against champions. This buff's on the house.

Q - Barrel Roll

BASE SLOW30/35/40/45/50% ⇒ 40/45/50/55/60%

MAXIMUM SLOW45/52.5/60/67.5/75% ⇒ 60/67.5/75/82.5/90%

Kassadin

-10 damage on Q.

Let's talk about Kassadin. Near unparalleled mobility coupled with high damage and precise target selection has historically made Kass among the League's most resilient champions. Right now, our best method of 'gating' this guy (that is, trying to keep him from facerolling over the game) is by intentionally keeping his lane weak in the hopes of staving off what can feel like an inevitable riftwalking nightmare. While we want to preserve Kassadin's mobility-driven identity, he doesn't really have windows of vulnerability necessary for opponents to smack him in the face, meaning most fights are his to lose rather than any outplays his opponents can make.

With all of that said, this is not the change to do that. Sorry. We'll be kicking of some deeper investigations in the future (who'd have thought an ultra-mobile assassin would have game health difficulties), but for now we're just looking to tune him down. Very precisely.

Q - Null Sphere

DAMAGE80/105/130/155/180 magic damage ⇒ 70/95/120/145/170 magic damage

Katarina

Katarina finishes her attacks faster.

As we called out in the foreword, DFG's removal didn't really impact some its frequent buyers quite in the ways we expected. While we were experimenting with some compensation, one thing from our data became very clear - Katarina is still a very strong champion.

We went back to brainstorming small ways to add power to Kat, but quickly found that buffing an already strong champ might not be the right course of action. This isn't to say she's exempt from further tweaks in the future, but forcing the issue on anything other than quality-of-life changes could very likely cause more problems than it would fix.

General

IT'S COMPLICATEDAttack frame sped up slightly. This doesn't mean Katarina attacks faster, just that she completes her attacks faster.

Kennen

W now hits everyone in Slicing Maelstrom, rather than only those who'd been marked. Slicing Maelstrom also now only hits the same target every 0.5 seconds.

For someone that runs into your entire team (talk about a big risk), it's pretty lame when the difference between a game-winning 5-man stun or an over-confident failure comes down to random chance. Slicing Maelstrom's unique feel as a multi-hit storm is cool, so we're just looking for ways to amp up that electric boogaloo. Haaayaaa!

W - Electrical Surge

NEWELECTRIC BOOGALOOElectrical Surge now hits all enemies caught in Slicing Maelstrom, in addition to targets afflicted by Mark of the Storm (does not double stack, that'd be crazy)

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R - Slicing Maelstrom

SLOW DOWN KENNENFixed a bug where Slicing Maelstrom could hit the same target every 0.25 seconds, when it's supposed to only be once every 0.5 seconds

Nidalee

No power change, just some proper documentation going on right here.

Not much to see here. Last patch when Nidalee became a monster-hunter we added functionality that rooted them (because it's a huge bummer to trigger the hunt from fog of war, only to pounce and miss everything you just hunted), but we forgot to add it to the notes. This patch we remembered. Hooray! 

UPDATED 2/10/2015: We actually misrepresented this so we're going to reformat it to accurately reflect the change properly. Specifically Nidalee was able to reliably reset some of her ability cooldowns through specific mechanics, and this led to a pretty decent power spike for players who knew how to properly use it. We've since fixed the issue in 5.3.

General

WHOOPSFixed a bug where Nidalee's cooldowns were not properly set when switching from Human to Cougar form

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Passive - Prowl

UNDOCUMENTED CHANGEProwl's tooltip now properly indicates that Hunted monsters are rooted for 2 seconds

Twisted Fate

Stacked Deck builds on towers (still doesn't affect them), and Destiny sends an "On My Way!" ping when casting Gate.

We're always looking for ways to help out champions in need, so we've slipped TF a few extra cards under the table. Stacked Deck now builds up on towers so you can pressure enemies even while pushing, and Gate uses an 'On My Way!' ping a la Rek'Sai to make coordinating cross-map ganks less of a gamble. Still a gamble. Just less.

E - Stacked Deck

NEWIT'S THE LITTLE THINGSStacked Deck now builds on towers, but will not apply bonus damage

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R - Destiny

BUT WILL THEY LISTEN?Casting Gate now sends an "on the way" ping (similar to Rek'Sai's Void Rush)

Varus

R got fatter.

Varus's unique team-disengage has always been near the top of marksmen when it comes to strategic niches, and it's something we're excited to see more of. In an attempt to brighten his mood, we're amping up a bit of that reliability.

R - Chain of Corruption

MISSILE WIDTH100 ⇒ 120

Zyra

Zyra's plants now have range indicators for her.

In our never-ending Crusade for Clarity (tm), Zyra's getting hooked up with sweet range indicators for each of her plants to help her really appreciate the things they do for her. Appreciate your plants, Zyra. Please.

Q - Deadly Bloom

SPITTING DISTANCEThorn Spitters now display their range when grown

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E - Grasping Roots

LASHING OUTVine Lashers now display their range when grown

Spell Shields

We're aware this is a small nerf to Sivir and Nocturne, but this was definitely not an intended behavior.

WHOOPSFixed an issue where Sivir's Spell Shield, Nocturne's Shroud Of Darkness, and Banshee's Veil reduced damage from all sources when blocking a spell. Now periodic damage and auto-attack damage are unaffected by spell shield.

Mass Texture Rebalance (Part 7)

We're continuing our comprehensive pass at the game's older character textures. As with previous installments, our goal is to improve parity with newer releases and make sure everybody looks at home on the newly-updated Rift.

Fiddlesticks

• Base, Bandito, Fiddle Me Timbers, Pumpkinhead, Spectral, Surprise Party, Union Jack

Kennen

• Base, Arctic Ops, Deadly, Karate, Kennen M.D., Swamp Master

Mordekaiser

• Infernal, Lord

Veigar

• Base, Baron Von Veigar, Curling, Greybeard, Leprechaun, Superb Villain, White Mage

Items

Farsight Orb

Read the note please! The Farsight Ward has some unique properties.

Map vision is actually an underestimated tool that teams can use to press an advantage or come back from a deficit, but not many players think about it like that, so we're suggesting you should. Relating specifically to Farsight Orb, if your first idea was that now you can place long-distance teleport points for the most amazing ganks ever, TOO BAD. This little guy's untargetable to ally teammates to prevent just that (and free ward hops).

NEWTHE LITTLE WARD WHO COULDFarsight Orb now drops a 60 secondvisible Farsight ward with 1 hit point at the target location. This ward is untargetable by allies. Farsight Orb still provides clear vision in the area and 'tags' champions, in case you were worried it was being turned into a wimpy ward teleporter (it's just getting that as a bonus).

Greater Stealth Totem

Yellow trinket's upgrade now stores up to 2 charges.

Map vision is actually an underestimated tool that teams can use to press an advantage or come back from a deficit, but not many players think about it like that, so we're suggesting you should. Yes, we're repeating ourselves. As for Greater Stealth Totem, the change itself is straightforward - we're hoping to give some extra tools back for teams trying to recover from a deficit, and this lets them (somewhat) combat aggressive sweeping teams.

NEWI'M CHARGING MY... WARDSGreater Stealth Totem now stores up to 2 charges. Stores 1 charge per 60 seconds.

Spectre's Cowl

Health regenified.

Just giving fighters and tanks a little help when dealing with mages in lane.

HEALTH REGENERATION100% base health regen ⇒ 150% base health regen

Summoner's Rift

Baron Nashor

He's like a piece of terrain. A big, fat, purple piece of terrain you can't move through.

WALL OF NASHORBaron Nashor now cannot be walked through even with effects like Ghost or Fizz's Nimble Fighter, which grant this ability

Inhibitors

Oh dear.

SORRY MAGESFixed a bug where inhibitors weren't taking ability power to structure bonus damage (if 40% of your ability power equals to higher than your bonus attack damage, you instead deal damage equal to base attack damage plus 40% of your ability power)

Summoner Spells

Ignite

Fire's pretty distracting, man.

CAN'T GO HOME IF YOU'RE ON FIREIgnite now interrupts champions who attempt to recall while Ignited

In-Game Options

Camera Changes

NEWGET YOUR APM UPPlayers can now separately adjust keyboard and mouse camera scroll speeds

NEWMOVE THAT TERRAINAdded a "mouse button drag scroll" option, which changes middle mouse button scrolling to behave like you're physically dragging the map around (click, hold, drag the map in a direction) instead of scrolling (click, move in the direction you want to scroll).

NEWLOCKED CAMERA ARAM BUFFSAdjusted camera lock offset on Summoner's Rift and Howling Abyss based on which team you are on. This can be toggled on/off in the options menu.

Featured Game Modes

Nemesis Draft

Nemesis Draft, our next Featured Game Mode, will be released later on during patch 5.3! More information soon - keep an eye out for all the details!

Player Tooltips

We haven't talked too much in the past about player tooltips - the hovercards that appear in your friend list when you mouse over another player's name. We want player tooltips to be a convenient, accessible point of reference for basic player information, but there are a few areas we noticed we could improve upon. This update will be activated in the days following the initial patch!

Our traditional layout relied on text, simply shrinking if any attribute was missing (e.g. not all players have a ranked division). As a result, tooltips were inconsistent between players and often became bloated as more and more information was recorded. By contrast, the new design will give each data point its own space: if something is missing, that space will simply be left blank. This should make the tooltips less cumbersome to use.

Which is good, because we'll be adding them to your game lobbies.

WHO ARE YOU...When the update is activated, player tooltips will appear in game lobbies, in addition to your friends list and chat rooms

NEW...AND WHAT DO YOU WANT?Player tooltips will include "Recent Playstyle" information which indicates what champion, position and role a player has recently been playing in matchmade queues

TRUST US, THEY'RE 30Once level 30 players complete their ranked placements, their summoner level will be replaced by their current division, indicated via tier emblem and division number

Loading Screen Tips

DID YOU KNOWWe've added a bunch of random League facts to the loading screen (thanks to the community for some of these suggestions!)

Bugfixes

• Tibbers now inherits skin-specific E - Molten Shield VFX when certain Annie skins are used

Upcoming Skins

The following skins will be released at various points during Patch 5.3:

Sweetheart Annie

Heartseeker Varus

Warden Sivir

Warden Nautilus

Marauder Ashe

Marauder Warwick