Official Patch 5.21 Notes Released

Introduction

Hey guys, looks like Patch 5.21 is out with some minor changes on the main suspects. Meanwhile, Kassadin and Cho'gath also got some love.

Zilean's new passive seems like it will allow for sneakier plays, but I'm not sure if it constitutes a true buff at the moment, so I've left it as a "Tweak". Check out this quick summary below!

Be sure to also take a look at the Preseason Sneak Peek released for a preview of next season!

Summary

Buffs: Cho'Gath, Kassadin
Nerfs: Gangplank, Mordekaiser, Riven, Veigar
Tweaks: Zilean

Patch 5.21 notes

BY SCARIZARD

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Greetings, Summoners.

Welcome to patch 5.21, the one that's finally old enough to drink. You've heard it a lot by now, but we're nearing the end of our smaller patch cycles as Preseason work nears its conclusion - busting the doors wide open on the things you thought you knew about League of Legends.

But first, Riven nerfs.

If you look beneath you'll find similar content to 5.20 and 5.19. A bugfix for Caitlyn's basic attack desync (IT'S HAPPENING), and a few power-ups for our some of our less-potent void buddies (Cho'Gath, Kassadin) while we continue to trim down our high-performing outliers (Gangplank, Mordekaiser). This patch might not be flashy, but it's wiser and more responsible. Let's go with that.

That's all for us this time! As always, check out the content below to see the specifics on all the changes (and what Zilean puts into his bottles), and we'll see you next patch. By the time you're reading this, we'll be in the full swing of announcing our seasonal changes, so we'll have lots to talk about when we see each other next. Until then, may all your bugs be fixed, and all your basic attacks synced.

 Patrick "Scarizard" Scarborough

Champions

Caitlyn

Fixed the Caitlyn basic attack bug.

Caitlyn mains rejoice: the Sheriff's basic attack animation should no longer de-sync from damage being dealt when Lulu (or Pix, to be more accurate) is in the game. We're pretty sure that was the only cause of the de-sync, but we'll be keeping an eye on Cait this patch to see if any outliers crop up.

In the meantime, go forth and last hit.

General

BLAME PIXFixed an issue where Caitlyn's basic attack animation sometimes de-synced from damage being dealt if Lulu was in the game

Cho'Gath

Feast gains more stacks on champion kills and heals when he's full.

For dedicated Cho'Gath mains, Feast can be his highest high (nomming even the heartiest of meals) and his lowest low (endlessly playing catch-up on Feast stacks if he falls behind the curve). Adding extra bonuses to Feast's success case gives Cho bigger rewards for getting aggressive hungry, as well giving him the option to top off his already massive health pool once he's full.

R - Feast

FEAST STACKS ON CHAMPION KILL1 ⇒ 2

NEWLEFTOVERSKilling a minion or monster at max stacks will now heal Cho'Gath for 90/120/150 (doubled for enemy champions)

Gangplank

Base health down, health per level up. Q costs less, but no longer refunds mana.

Gangplank's laning is as efficient as it is deadly, granting him guaranteed access to gold with little interaction available to his opposition. Sure, it just starts with a few harmless Q's for extra cash, but then it leads to a single barrel clearing the caster minions before ending in chain-barrels to vacuum entire waves. This nasty slippery slope of Parrrleys ultimately leaves GP swimming in silver serpents and big-ticket upgrades, out-statting anyone that gets in his way.

This chain of events feels pretty awesome when Gangplank's the one doing it, but often leaves his opponents scrambling to catch up. These changes provide a wrench to toss into his plans, forcing him to run out of gas (or life) for applying pressure to his farm-centric game plan. He'll still terrorize the seas (eventually), but now the responsibility of 'shutting him down' feels more realistic.

General

BASE HEALTH631 ⇒ 580

HEALTH GROWTH STAT79 ⇒ 82

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Q - Parrrley

REMOVEDBUT WHY IS THE MANA GONE?No longer refunds mana on kill

COST50 mana ⇒ 40 mana

Kassadin

W's on a shorter cooldown and has a higher ratio.

For being a late-game monster, Kassadin pays perhaps the highest price in terms of his weaknesses, often losing games outright before completing the items he needs to get rolling. We don't want to go overboard, but... here we go. Kassadin buffs.

W - Nether Blade

COOLDOWN9 seconds ⇒ 7 seconds

RATIO0.6 ability power ⇒ 0.7 ability power

Kha'Zix

Clarity. Been awhile since we said that word, hasn't it? Clarity.

Q - Taste Their Fear

TARGET ACQUIREDBase and Guardian of the Sands Kha'Zix visual indicators for isolated enemies now include a marker around the enemy target, similar to Mecha Kha'Zix

Kindred

Just addressing some bugs with Kindred while players get used to their more unique ways of stalking the jungle.

Passive - Mark of the Kindred

COLOR CODEDThe minimap icon for Kindred's marks now correctly represent ally/enemy colors. Allied Kindred hunts will always appear blue, and enemy Kindred hunts will always appear red.

NOT ALL THINGS, DEAR WOLFFixed an exploit that allowed Kindred to gain passive stacks from monsters that were not hunted.

Mordekaiser

Mordekaiser's experience share on killing units is halved.

This one's pretty simple. The experience sharing mechanic's been vital for Mordekaiser's success in a duo lane but the amount's clearly off - turning what was intended to help him survive against his ranged oppressors into something that only serves to further snowball Mordekaisers that get ahead. We're pulling back to strike a balance, seeing if we can maintain Mordekaiser as a viable pick without becoming the mandatory dragonlord he is at present.

General

MUCH BETTER THAN LORD OF DEATHTitle changed from the Master of Metal⇒ the Iron Revenant. Thanks to NA summoner Veraska for the suggestion!

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W - Harvesters of Sorrow

PENALTY FOR SHARING EXPERIENCE ON KILL0% ⇒ 50%

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R - Children of the Grave

BUGFIXJungle monsters no longer ignore Mordekaiser's Dragon ghost

Riven

R cooldown up.

Riven's a champion that's equal parts impressive and frustrating when she succeeds, turning the battle lines into a blur of knock-ups and danger pings, leaving her opponents without many options. For a champion whose 3 basic abilities are so powerful on their own, Blade of the Exile's cooldown's always been finely tuned in concert with her access to cooldown reduction. Now, however, with the growing popularity of things like cooldown runes and The Black Cleaver, it's never been easier for Riven to hit the 40% cap and start breaking the laws of physics.

Increasing the cooldown of Riven's ultimate won't move the needle too much once she reaches that point, but stretches enough of her engagement window to make a difference in the skirmishes and scraps Riven's face along the way to make-or-break her snowball.

R - Blade of the Exile

COOLDOWN110/80/50 seconds ⇒ 130/95/60 seconds

Veigar

Q and W base damage down.

Recently Veigar's dreams of crushing his opponents have become grim reality. No longer falling short on delivering the damage, he towers above the competition as perhaps the hardest scaling AP champion in League. We like Veigar's curve of amassing farm and rising to notoriety over the course of the game, so we're clipping some of his bases to rely even more on his ability to stack Baleful Strike (and your ability to interfere with that) as a focus for his success.

Q - Baleful Strike

MAGIC DAMAGE80/125/170/215/260 ⇒ 70/110/150/190/230

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W - Dark Matter

MAGIC DAMAGE120/170/220/270/320 ⇒ 100/150/200/250/300

Zilean

New passive lets Zilean donate levels. Q is more responsive.

Zilean's passive is one of those ideas that's really neat in theory, but lackluster in execution. Manipulating experience is a slam dunk thematically, what with his wisdom and time-lord status, but ran into the same problems auras typically do - they either feel incredibly weak (even when balanced), or are tuned so you can feel their effects (in which case they're overpowered). Instead of dealing with the headache of an aura that affects an already-invisible strength (experience?), he's getting a brand new one: Time in a Bottle.

In essence, Zilean's time-bottle does the same thing as the previous passive, in the sense that it gives experience to allies nearby, but splits it into clear chunks that you and your allies can appreciate. Now Zilean players everywhere can feel cool about their contributions to a team - finishing a jungler's level so he can gank with his newly-ranked ultimate, or stacking one member of your time even higher to combine with Chronoshift for time-powered carry potential.

Lastly, we've got a bunch of changes to Time Bomb to make it feel much more responsive. They may look small in practice, but we dug in to solve a large number of player-reported issues (particularly associated with usability and visual clarity) so take a gander and let us know what you think. If you weren't the biggest fan of the Zileanaire, there's never been a better time to pick him up (we'll show ourselves out).

General

FLEXIBLENow has recommended items for both AP and support playstyles

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NEWPassive - Time in a Bottle

Zilean bottles experience over time. When he has enough experience stored to finish an ally's level, he can right-click them to give both himself and his ally the amount stored.

COOLDOWN120 seconds

EXPERIENCE RATE2/3.5/5/6/12 every 5 seconds (at levels 6/11/16/18)

NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO USE THATTime in a Bottle cannot be used in combat.

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Q - Time Bomb

WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOMBBombs attach from edge-to-edge instead of center-to-center. Functionality remains the same, but should feel more predictable (especially against larger champions).

YOU DROP THE BOMB ON MEBombs now attach to allies at further distances when the bomb first lands if there are no enemies near the bomb's landing area

THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A KABOOMFixed a number of issues around Time Bomb's animation timing and visual effects when tossing

"Detonation" Spells

This bug's been a hard one to track down, but was actually fixed back in 5.20 (not this patch!). In light of recent events, we figured it'd be prudent to let you know this one's already been taken care of on live servers. Detonate to your heart's content!

BUGFIXFixed a rare bug where spells that can be "detonated" after landing at a target location (ex. Gragas' Q - Barrel Roll, Lux's E - Lucent Singularity, Ziggs' W - Satchel Charge) could stop working for the rest of the game

Items

Scrying Orb

Fixed a sneaky bug where Scrying Orb had a smaller radius after levelling up.

VISION RADIUS400 at level 9 ⇒ 550 at level 9

Report System

Building off recent updates to the Instant Feedback system, we're making two major upgrades to the clarity and functionality of the report system. First, we're refining the total number of report categories down to seven, increasing accuracy by eliminating redundant report categories. Second, reporters can now select up to three categories when submitting a report in order to more specifically describe situations where a player displayed multiple offensive behaviors in game. (Keep in mind: selecting multiple reasons doesn't increase the severity of a report and false reports can lead to penalties.)

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where certain files were being unnecessarily re-downloaded during patches
• Fixed a bug where Tibbers' E - Molten Shield damage wasn't proccing some on-spell-hit effects that Annie's shield does
• Haunted Zyra's plant attack VFX are once again appropriately spooky
• Fixed a bug that caused flickering for various particles, including Kindred's W - Wolf's Frenzy and Rek'Sai's W - Burrow tunnels

Upcoming Skins

The following skins will be released during patch 5.21:

Slayer Jinx

Slayer Pantheon

Zombie Nunu