Official Patch 6.13 Notes Released!

Introduction

Hey everyone! The official Patch 6.13 notes are now available with a big change to several of the support items, benefiting those with heals or shields. Meanwhile, Vladimir and Swain have been nerfed slightly, but the majority of the changes still focus around supports.

Check out this quick summary and the full scope of changes below!

Summary

Nerfs: Blitzcrank, Zyra, Irelia, Kindred, Swain, Trundle, Vladimir, Volibear

Buffs: Lulu, Thresh, Gnar, Jarvan IV

Tweaks: Tahm Kench

Item Buffs: Ancient Coin Line, Ruby Sightstone

Item Nerfs: Hextech Protobelt-01

Item Tweaks: Forbidden Idol, Ardent Censer, Mikael's Crucible

Patch 6.13 notes

BY SCARIZARD

Greetings, Summoners.

Welcome to patch 6.13, the one where supports get to have nice things, too. We’ve got a few more support changes in patches to come, but let’s focus on the here and now.

For the most part, supports aren’t really that weak. The issue is their influence can be hard to appreciate compared to more obvious things like kill streaks. In a certain light, however, perception is reality: when players believe they’re weak, they’re more reluctant to make risky - but impactful! - plays. With that in mind, our goal this patch is to sharpen support gameplaysatisfaction, making success a bit easier to observe. Better rewards for doing support things and a healthy assortment of quality-of-life improvements should make supports feel better about their place in the world.

Botlane happiness aside, we’re also taking steps to address recent warps in the top lane landscape. This means reining in overperformers (Irelia, Vladimir) and bringing up a few picks we think should have a seat at the table (Gnar, Jarvan). Whichever approach you prefer, this patch’s biggest shift to top lane is a reduction to the reliability of Teleport plays, so be sure to check those changes out below.

...On further inspection, occasionally surviving TP ganks will make support life more pleasant, so we’ve really come full circle with this introduction.

That’s all for us (now literally “us”) this patch! Go forth and experience the joy of leveling up from a ward.

 Patrick "Scarizard" Scarborough Paul "Aether" Perscheid Mattias "Gentleman Gustaf" Lehman Boka "LaBoka" Agboje

Champions

Blitzcrank

E duration decreased. R cooldown changed.

In his current state, Blitz is an unstoppable force in the bot lane. His standard pattern of engagement - hook, knockup, ult, BM - is reliably performed and extremely effective. At the same time, some aspects of Blitzcrank’s design are simply annoying, not just when facing him but when playing as Blitz as well. Some nerfs paired with the feel-good tweaks should make the Great Steam Golem less frustrating for everyone.

Q - Rocket Grab

NEWIN MY SIGHTSNow pulls enemies 75 units in front of Blitzcrank rather than directly on top of him

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E - Power Fist

DURATION10 seconds ⇒ 5 seconds

NEWNO RUSTPower Fist's empowered basic attack can no longer be canceled

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R - Static Field

COOLDOWN30 seconds ⇒ 60/40/20 seconds

NEWSMART FIELDNo longer hits monsters while Blitzcrank is out of combat

Lulu

Q damage on additional targets decreased. W grants bonus attack speed.

Historically, our previous changes to nerf solo Lulu for her competitive viability led to her support play being underwhelming. The problem lies in the fact that both mid and support Lulu value the same things: decent waveclear while enhancing and protecting allies. To be clear, we don’t want to eliminate solo lane Lulu. Players finding novel ways to explore the strengths of champions is part of what makes League of Legends great. That being said, support Lulu deserves some love as well. We’re directly enhancing what makes her a worthwhile support pick but at the same time making sure these buffs don’t spill into top and mid unchecked. This way, Lulu offers reasonable value wherever she goes.

General

BASE MANA292 ⇒ 350

BASE MOVEMENT SPEED325 ⇒ 330

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Q - Glitterlance

NEWLESS LANCE MORE GLITTERDamage now falls to 70% against targets hit beyond the first

SLOW DURATION1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds ⇒ 2 seconds at all ranks

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W - Whimsy

NEWON A WHIMNow also grants 15/20/25/30/35% attack speed for the duration

Tahm Kench

Passive changed. Q damage increased. E shield weakened. R range increased.

“OH MY GOD,” he types angrily onto his keyboard. “HOW CAN YOU BUFF TAHM KENCH?!?” We hear you, Imaginary Straw Man. Do not worry.

Many moons ago, Tahm Kench was a monster in the bot lane. Impossible to kill yet also dealing massive damage thanks to the passive on his R, the catfish/frog/demon thing was an abomination to champion diversity and basic biology. Early this season, nerfs to his Q, combined with changes to the greater ecosystem overall resulted in The Benching of The Kench. Since then, Tahm’s nerfs have proved to be too effective. In his current state Tahm Kench is both unplayed and depressingly weak. But how do we buff Tahm without dealing with the same problems he had before?

We're taking a direct shot at a part of what makes Tahm so frustrating to face, his pseudo-invincibility. Tankiness is always going to be a part of The River King, but it was a bit insane for a support to take on both members of the opposing bot lane without a care in the world. Instead, we're moving some of Tahm's power from defense to offense with the help of a changed passive. In addition, Abyssal Voyage will now get ol’ Two-Coats where he needs to go much more effectively. These buffs should more than compensate for Tahm Kench's reduced tankiness without making facing him such a rage-inducing task.

Passive - An Acquired Taste

NEWIT USED TO BE ON HIS ULTBasic attacks and abilities deal 1/1.25/1.5% (at levels 1/11/16) of Tahm Kench's maximum health as bonus magic damage. Stacks 3 times vs champions.

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Q - Tongue Lash

DAMAGE80/125/170/215/260 ⇒ 80/130/180/230/280

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E - Thick Skin

DAMAGE TO GREY HEALTH CONVERSION100% of damage taken ⇒70/75/80/85/90% of damage taken

GREY HEALTH TO HEALING CONVERSION20/26/32/38/44% ⇒25/30/35/40/45%

SHIELD DURATION6 seconds ⇒ 3 seconds

COOLDOWN16/15/14/13/12 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds

NEWLESS THICCShield no longer decays over the duration

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R - Abyssal Voyage

REMOVEDIT'S ON THE PASSIVENo longer deals 2/4/6% of Tahm Kench's bonus health as damage on attacks and abilities

CHANNEL DURATION15 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds

CAST DELAY1 second ⇒ 0.25 seconds

ENEMY WARNING TIME1.5 seconds ⇒ 1 second

RANGE4000/5000/6000 ⇒ 4500/5500/6500

Thresh

Epic monsters give two souls. W scaling changed.

Everyone knows that taking the souls of fallen enemies should be a fun and pleasant experience. For Thresh, however, collecting the souls of the damned currently doesn’t capture how awesome it is to slay epic monsters. We're making the soul hunting mini-game more rewarding and changing the scaling on Thresh's W to match. In addition, we're cleaning up some of the interactions between Thresh's hook and lantern, letting players feel a little more confident in landing their “Flash, Hook, Lantern” combo.

Passive - Damnation

NEWSOUL OF THE LORDSEpic monsters now drop two souls

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W - Dark Passage

REMOVEDAP RATIO0.4 ability power ⇒ Removed

NEWSOUL RATIONow gains +1 shield per soul collected

PLEASE CLICK THE LANTERNWhile Thresh is tethered to an enemy via Death Sentence, casting Dark Passage at an out-of-range location now throws the lantern at maximum range in the target direction, rather than causing Thresh to walk into cast range

PLEASE.If you successfully Death Sentence a target and pull towards them, lanterns slightly beyond the leash range will have a short grace period before breaking the leash

Zyra

Fixed plant AI. Increased Passive and W cooldowns.

Yet another support champion with an immensely strong laning phase, Zyra has spread like a weed through the bot lane. She should certainly be great at zoning with her plants, but right now they're a little too good at their job, targeting enemy champions before Zyra herself (never show initiative in the workplace). In addition, seeds spawn much too quickly, letting Zyra sow whenever she pleases. We're bringing her plants in line, giving other supports a chance to blossom.

Passive - Garden of Thorns

SEED SPAWN TIME11 - 6.75 seconds (at levels 1-18) ⇒ 13 - 8.5 seconds (at levels 1-18)

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Q - Deadly Spines

GMOSFixed a bug where plants spawned by Deadly Spines would automatically target enemy champions even if Zyra hadn't damaged them

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W - Rampant Growth

AMMO RECHARGE TIME17/16/15/14/13 seconds ⇒ 20/18/16/14/12 seconds

Zilean

Fixed a bug.

Fixed a bug.

R - Chronoshift

HE CAN CURE DEATHFixed a bug where Chronoshift wasn't proccing on-heal effects (ex. Ardent Censer's attack speed buff)

Gnar

Mini-Gnar range scaling up. Q returns farther. W damage up.

It’s been a season of tanky melee tops, so you’d expect everybody’s favorite sometimes-tanky-melee-sometimes-tank-shredding-ranged-top laner to be doing well. Despite this, Gnar has been out of sight all season. With top lane shifting towards mages and Trinity Force users at the moment, we don’t want to push too hard, but some usability buffs for last-hitting and kiting should help Gnar feel more consistent.

Passive - Rage Gene

MINI-GNAR BONUS RANGE400 - 485 (at levels 1-18) ⇒ 400 - 500 (at levels 1-18)

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Q - Boomerang Throw

RETURN BOOMERANG DISTANCE2500 ⇒ 3000

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W - Hyper

DAMAGE10/20/30/40/50 ⇒ 15/25/35/45/55

Irelia

R cooldown up.

Irelia exhibits a classic duelist problem: her ult is back up before you can say “didn’t she just kill me with that?” With Trinity Force’s increased cooldown reduction, this experience has moved into “she killed me twice without recalling” territory. When Irelia can ult every second minion wave to avoid fighting her opponent (or just ult her opponent to avoid letting them be alive), finding the right window in which to punish her can be a ridiculous task. Those blades can transcend the laws of physics, but they shouldn’t be transcending downtime.

R - Transcendent Blades

COOLDOWN70/60/50 seconds ⇒ 110/85/60 seconds

Jarvan IV

Increased W teamfight value.

For somebody who wants to lock as many opponents as possible into a caged deathmatch, Jarvan lacks the tankiness to survive in the fray he creates. We’re heightening Golden Aegis’ deep-behind-enemy-lines power to make sure that when Jarvan’s helping, he’s actually helping.

W - Golden Aegis

BASE SHIELD50/90/130/170/210 ⇒ 50/80/110/140/170

BONUS SHIELD PER ENEMY CHAMPION20/30/40/50/60 ⇒20/40/60/80/100

RADIUS500 ⇒ 600

Kindred

Base armor down. Armor per level up. W no longer heals, but Wolf reduces monster damage.

No stranger to the patch notes, Kindred’s back for another round of changes to address their unparalleled jungle dominance. Before we talk about the changes themselves, let’s get into a little bit of history.

While ranged junglers aren’t unheard of these days, setting out to develop a marksman jungler was no easy task. After lots of internal failures in testing, we felt it was necessary to give Kindred higher-than-average base stats and sustain (relative to marksmen) to even be able to clear their jungle. We accepted those extreme stats as necessary evils for Lamb and Wolf to be considered functional.

Fast forward to today, and we’ve clearly learned some lessons. While Kindred does possess a steep learning curve, part of that mastery is in learning how to kite the jungle monsters - meaning good Kindred players take little to no damage during their clear. That’s totally fine, but it means those ‘necessary evils’ aren’t so necessary after all. Kindred are marksmen, so they should be killable when caught out of position. Instead, Lamb and Wolf just walk around at full life and outduel just about everyone.

So that’s the deal. The changes below are all about emphasizing that weakness in Kindred while still retaining their ability to clear the jungle. The Eternal Hunters have been tough to balance before now, but we’re confident that by softening their dueling strength, we can work towards a more balanced Kindred long-term (one that isn’t nerfed in every patch consecutively, that is).

General

BASE ARMOR27 ⇒ 20

ARMOR GROWTH STAT3.25 ⇒ 3.5

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W - Wolf's Frenzy

REMOVEDHUNTER'S VIGORNo longer grants a heal

NEWWOLF GANGWolf now maims jungle monsters, reducing their attack speed and movement speed by 50% for 2 seconds

Swain

R cooldown and recast lockout up.

One of Midseason’s primary beneficiaries, Swain carries himself more like a juggernaut than a mage these days. In a world where mana management was harsh on the Master Tactician, Ravenous Flock provided a brief but powerful window of functional invincibility. With mana pools larger than ever, Swain’s ultimate is less of a ‘high moment’ and more of an extended stat-check. Similar to Maokai last season, Swain’s low-cooldown high-uptime ult leaves virtually no window for opponents to engage without getting a face full of ravens. We’re opening Ravenous Flock’s window to lean harder on Swain’s ability to accurately predict the length of his battles to succeed. Ravenous Flock will still turn Swain into a tanky monster, but baiting him into prematurely ending the effect should have very real consequences.

R - Ravenous Flock

COOLDOWN10 seconds ⇒ 20 seconds

INITIAL LOCKOUT ON RECAST0.5 seconds ⇒ 2 seconds

Syndra

Bugfixes galore.

With Syndra’s update a few patches ago, it’s clear that some of her older and harder-to-track-down bugs are holding her back from feeling effective. Syndra’s skirmishing power depends on her flow between combos, so we’re patching up some of the holes in that flow to keep her firing on all cylinders.

W - Force of Will

GET A GRIPFixed a bug where Force of Will would only grab 2 spheres at max rank based on where she clicked

BUTTERFINGERSFixed a bug where getting crowd-controlled while grabbing an object could put Force of Will on cooldown

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R - Unleashed Power

TEMPORAL AWARENESSNow continues to check for spheres during the entire cast duration, rather than only on-cast

THE SPHERES ARE INERTFixed a bug where spheres produced by Unleashed Power would become impossible to use if her target died during the cast

Trundle

Health regen down.

Trundle’s stat-sapping abilities make him very hard to fight 1-on-1. In most top lane metas, he is kept at bay by his weakness against poke and short trades. However, our recent efforts to knock down systemic sustain (like Grasp of the Undying) have made Trundle’s passive sustain stand out even more. High base health regeneration on top of his passive prevents most top laners from forcing him out of lane before his ultimate is back up again. We dig the uniqueness of his passive, but there’s no need for him to have so much additional extra health regeneration on top of that.

General

BASE HEALTH REGEN9.4 ⇒ 6

Twitch

Q doesn’t accidentally drop Twitch into stealth instantly.

While it wasn’t the easiest to trigger, ‘instantly stealthing Twitch’ was as nightmarish as it sounds. It was also entirely unintended. Bugfixed.

Q - Ambush

NOW YOU SEE MEFixed a bug where Ambush's stealth delay would instantly complete if Twitch killed an enemy champion

Vladimir

Passive ratio reverted to pre-rework. Q base damage down, but ratio up.

Vladimir’s the latest in a series of champions piling on heaps of damage while purchasing almost entirely defensive items, but with a slighttwist. Unlike Ekko or Fizz, Vlad’s at least intended to be a tanky nuisance. We don’t want Vlad to stop building defensively, we just want him to stop being so effective when that’s all he builds. We’re pulling back on some of our Midseason changes to get Vlad into a spot where he still feels like a sticky, sustained damage dealer - just not one that’s killing you with pure health items.

Passive - Crimson Pact

BONUS HEALTH TO AP RATIO1 ability power per 25 bonus health ⇒ 40 bonus health

AP TO BONUS HEALTH RATIO1 health ⇒ 1.4 health per 1 ability power

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Q - Transfusion

DAMAGE80/100/120/140/160 ⇒ 75/90/105/120/135

ABILITY POWER RATIO0.45 ⇒ 0.55

Volibear

W damage and attack speed down at early ranks.

When it comes to taking over games, Volibear’s dominated the jungle for a couple of patches now. Similar to Rammus, Voli relies on his powerful early ganks to transition into a mid-game meatshield. What’s out of line isn’t the strength of Volibear’s ganks, but his ability to keep up with his opponent’s jungle clears. We’re lowering his effectiveness when fighting monsters in the early game so teams that successfully respond to Volibear’s early aggression can maintain a meaningful lead come mid-game.

W - Frenzy

DAMAGE80/125/170/215/260 ⇒ 60/110/160/210/260

ATTACK SPEED PER STACK8/11/14/17/20% ⇒ 4/8/12/16/20%

Ziggs

More bugfixes!

Bouncing Bomb is already unique among skillshots, thanks to its defining bounce mechanic. This gives Ziggs some neat plays (bounce a bomb over a frontline to explode a squishy target), but also leaves room for some really wonky visuals when fighting bigass monsters. We’re cleaning up the bounce’s detection to help Ziggs take these objectives without feeling cheated by his bomb casts (and before you ask, yes, six-stack Cho’Gath is basically an objective).

Q - Bouncing Bomb

BUGFIXBouncing Bomb will now more consistently explode when bouncing near large units such as Baron, Dragon, and six-stack Cho'Gath

Terrain Abilities

Dynamically created terrain attempts to preserve your pathing commands.

The ability to create terrain has always come with its own set of challenges. At the forefront of these is the interactions between walls and pathing. For those who’ve luckily dodged this interaction, we’ll break it down: attempting to path through a wall (or accidentally clicking on it) will instead force your champion to look for the easiest path around that wall. While it sounds all good and logical when explained like that, it creates more frustrations than you’d expect - failing flashes, buying the enemy that extra second to escape - the list continues.

Taliyah’s wall, however, is different. Aware of this long-standing complication with created terrain, you can imagine everyone’s concern when they heard she was going to make a wall half the size of the map itself. New tech was implemented for Weaver’s Wall to help retain your pathing, and now that Taliyah’s been out for a bit (and nothing’s caught on fire), we’re comfortable applying it to existing walls. In short: if you wanted to move towards a wall to flash over it or snipe someone, your character won’t get really confused and try to walk back to base just to get to the other side.

PATH TO VICTORYNow path straight towards the dynamically created terrain, instead of trying to go long ways around it. This mimics Taliyah's Weaver's Wall (R) functionality, and now impacts Anivia Crystallize (W), Trundle's Pillar of Ice (E), Zz'rot Portal, Jarvan's Cataclsym (R), and Azir's Emperor's Divide (R).

Howling Abyss

Mordekaiser

W no longer ignores Mordekaiser’s target selection on Howling Abyss.

Sorry, Mordekaiser.

W - Harvesters of Sorrow

BUGFIXFixed a bug where Harvesters of Sorrow would always target the ally closest to Mordekaiser, regardless of who he cast it on

Taliyah

Worked ground despawns faster on Howling Abyss.

Amidst our ARAM changes last patch, we balanced a few champions whose mechanics didn’t lend themselves to the single-lane brawlfest. Taliyah’s Threaded Volley seems like a powerful tool when her opponents can’t dodge, but Worked Ground dictates that she’s gotta keep moving to pump out the damage she needs. Considering you can’t really move anywhere on Howling Abyss, we’re helping the Stoneweaver’s chances of keeping up with the rest of the pack.

Q - Threaded Volley

WORKED GROUND DURATION140 seconds ⇒ 100 seconds

Items

Ancient Coin line

Early cooldown reduction increased. Talisman of Ascension now builds out of Raptor’s Cloak instead of Forbidden Idol.

For an item that enables explosive initiation, Talisman of Ascension isn’t giving its users the tankiness they might need to survive contact with the enemy. Forbidden Idol as a component didn’t leave much room for defensive stats, so we’re replacing it with Raptor’s Cloak - a natural fit given its movement speed passive. Ancient Coin and Nomad’s Medallion are also struggling in lane, so granting them Talisman’s CDR a bit early should help them feel better.

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Ancient Coin

NEWCOOLDOWN REDUCTION0% ⇒ 5%

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Nomad's Medallion

RECIPEAncient Coin + Faerie Charm + Rejuvenation Bead + 225 gold ⇒ Ancient Coin + Faerie Charm + 375 gold

TOTAL COST850 gold (unchanged)

COOLDOWN REDUCTION5% ⇒ 10%

HEALTH REGEN50% ⇒ 25%

MANA REGEN50% ⇒ 75%

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Talisman of Ascension

NEWRECIPERaptor's Cloak + Nomad's Medallion + 450 gold

TOTAL COST2200 gold ⇒ 2500 gold

NEWARMOR0 ⇒ 45

HEALTH REGEN100% ⇒ 150%

MANA REGEN100% ⇒ 75%

NEWPOINT RUNNERBuilds up to 20% movement speed over 2 seconds while near turrets, fallen turrets, or void gates

Relic Shield line

Minion execute now scales with level.

Relic Shield’s execute establishes a simple feedback mechanic: damage low-health minions and you’ll gift a nearby ally both health and gold. However, we don’t want executes to get harder later in the game as minions get tankier. On a more case-specific note, allowing the execution of pets like Zyra’s plants removed some of the consistency of the gold share, given their significantly lower value.

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General

NOT THAT SPOILEDThe Spoils of War passive no longer executes enemy pets (ex. Zyra plants)

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Relic Shield

MINION EXECUTE200 health ⇒ 195 + (5*level) health

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Targon's Brace

MINION EXECUTE240 health ⇒ 200 + (10*level) health

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Face of the Mountain

MINION EXECUTE400 health ⇒ 320 + (20*level) health

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Eye of the Equinox

MINION EXECUTE400 health ⇒ 320 + (20*level) health

Spellthief's Edge line

Killing pets no longer puts Tribute on cooldown.

Spellthief’s Edge offers you a tradeoff: don’t farm and you can build up gold by trading with your opponents. Much like with Relic Shield, pets were disrupting Spellthief’s tradeoff as well.

TRIFLING TRIBUTE REJECTEDThe Tribute passive is no longer put on cooldown when killing enemy pets (ex. Zyra plants)

Forbidden Idol

Cost increased. Now amplifies heals and shields.

Forbidden Idol is in a pretty odd spot at the moment. With many other mid-tier items picking up a mini-power spike with the mage item rework, Forbidden Idol feels somewhat outdated in that you aren’t really any stronger when you pick it up. We wanted to give Forbidden Idol something that reflected the items it builds into. With Talisman of Ascension no longer tied to Forbidden Idol, that left us with Ardent Censer and Mikael’s Crucible. Since they both have healing components, we’re assigning Forbidden Idol the identity of “mid-tier healing item”.

TOTAL COST550 gold ⇒ 850 gold

NEWFORBIDDEN HEALING+10% bonus healing and shielding power

Ardent Censer

Cost and ability power increased. Mana regen decreased. Now amplifies heals and shields.

Moar AP for moar heals costs moar money.

COMBINE COST800 gold ⇒ 700 gold

TOTAL COST2200 gold ⇒ 2400 gold

ABILITY POWER40 ⇒ 60

MANA REGEN100% ⇒ 50%

NEWARDENT HEALING+15% bonus healing and shielding power

Mikael's Crucible

Cost increased. Now amplifies heals and shields.

To account for the new Forbidden Idol power, Mikael’s Crucible has to get a bit more expensive.

COMBINE COST850 gold ⇒ 650 gold

TOTAL COST2300 gold ⇒ 2400 gold

NEWCRUCIAL HEALING+15% bonus healing and shielding power

Ruby Sightstone

Cost decreased. Active item cooldown reduction increased.

Ruby Sightstone’s high cost and lack of combat efficacy has prevented it from being a consistent alternative support rush. Rather than add more stats to Ruby Sightstone, we’re tuning up its business with active items to create a more distinct feeling difference between the Eyestone and Ruby Sightstone routes.

COMBINE COST600 gold ⇒ 400 gold

TOTAL COST1800 gold ⇒ 1600 gold

ACTIVE ITEM COOLDOWN REDUCTION10% ⇒ 20%

Hextech Protobelt-01

Spells can no longer be cast during Protobelt's dash.

Abilities can't fire during Protobelt's dash, so they delay their effects until the dash ends. Problem is, abilities can only resolve one at a time. When they all attempt to fire at once, only the last ability cast gets to play out. The others never do anything, even though their mana cost and cooldown were incurred on-cast. This is a waste of resources at best and a thrown game at worst, so we're preventing the interaction altogether.

COMBINE COSTProtobelt's dash now disables spellcasts and channels for the duration

Wards

Wards grant experience. Attacking them no longer puts you in combat.

Wards are on the far end of strategic gameplay in League of Legends, standing in stark contrast to combat. While combat risks are typically quite apparent, ‘out of sight, out of mind’ can often describe vision rewards quite literally. We generally like to keep strategic and combat gameplay distinct, but currently clearing wards can often feel too high risk and low reward. Leaving lane to place and clear wards contributes to some of the XP drain that supports face, although other champions than supports also feel it. Losing out-of-combat bonuses just to clear a ward can make it seem like clearing a ward is disproportionately harder than defending it. We’re letting champions keep their out-of-combat bonuses while clearing wards to soften that discrepancy. With these changes, we hope to dial back a bit of the risk of ward clearing and add consistency to the reward.

NEWWARD AND PEACEAttacking wards will not trigger in-combat status for the purpose of Boots of Mobility, Cloud Drake, or Taliyah's Rock Surfing

NEWLOOKING FORWARDWards now grant 30 experience when killed (15 for blue wards)

NEWLEVEL UPFor every 150 seconds that a ward is alive, it becomes visually swaggier for the team that placed it

Global Experience Pacing

Catch-Up Experience

Catch-up experience now scales smoothly.

(Reminder: we're talking about the bonus experience granted from various sources when you’re underleveled.)

Up until now, catch-up bonuses have scaled with level difference. Sounds logical, but means you get the same bonus whether you need 1 or 1000 experience to fill your XP bar. Those bonuses drop off the moment you level up, even though you’re basically just one minion kill closer to even. This is confusing and weird to balance, so we're modernizing catch-up experience to scale continuously instead.

THIS MAKES MORE SENSECatch-up experience now scales continuously with percentmissing level, rather than remaining at a set value from level to level

IN OTHER WORDSYou now get more catch-up experience at 2.5 levels behind than 2.3 levels behind than 2 levels behind, etc.

HERE BE MATHTo accommodate the new continuous growth, catch-up experience kicks in earlier but scales less strongly

NEW

Post-Death Kill Experience

Dead champs now gain experience from nearby kills.

Life’s tough for initiators. Their job is to throw themselves into the enemy team, which often results in death even when done right. Many initiators are also tasked with target lockdown, meaning they only ‘enter combat’ with (and get assists from) a few opponents, despite paving the way for every kill in the fight. A vicious cycle emerges: initiators don’t get full teamfight experience, leaving them underleveled for the next fight, making them even more likely to die. We’re putting a stop to this to ensure initiators are rewarded - not punished - for doing their jobs.

NEWABSORBENT CORPSESChampions now continue to gain experience from nearby champion kills for ~10 seconds after death, even if they didn't participate

Early Kill Rewards

Early kills grant less experience.

Given how small low-level experience requirements are, early kills are super rewarding: a single victory can fast-track progression by up to half a level. As it so happens, early deaths are also super punishing. Early on, minion waves grant more experience than kills, and dead people miss out on a lot of it. That means early kills double dip in the rewards bowl, creating advantages two to three times larger than you’d expect. Lanes shouldn’t be decided by a single kill, so we’re toning these advantages down.

BREATHING ROOMChampion kills reward less experience at early levels, returning to pre-6.13 values around level 9

Summoner Spells

Teleport

Channel time increased. Clarity improvements for both allies and opponents.

For the power an extra champ brings to a fight, Teleport plays are generally too successful. Widening the window for enemy reaction means Teleports will more frequently fail to create advantages if teams don’t coordinate properly. At the same time, well-executed Teleport plays still deserve to be rewarded, so we’re making it easier to tell exactly where your reinforcements will come in.

CHANNEL DURATION3.5 seconds ⇒ 4.5 seconds

DROP ZONETeleport drops its caster in a random spot near the target ⇒on the side of the target closest to the caster's nexus. For example, champions now always appear behind their towers.

I SPYTeleport's visuals are now always visible (even through Fog of War) if you have vision within 500 units of the target location

NEWCOME THRUTeleport now issues a soundless “On My Way” ping at the target location

Dragons & Rift Herald

Dragons and Rift Herald no longer level up during combat.

Junglers already have enough to focus on during objective contests - all the normal teamfight stuff, plus the xpecial challenge of Smite timing (or stealing). Unlucky level-ups are one factor junglers have no way of accounting for, so the pit-denizens of the Rift have graciously agreed to stop trolling their murderers.

CLOUD 9 10Dragons and Rift Herald now wait to level up until they've been out of combat for 30 seconds

REMOVEDWARDS STOLE THISDragons no longer play level up visual or audio effects

Attack-Move

Attack-move works properly when used with move commands.

Sorry, marksmen.

BUGFIXFixed a bug where an attack-move command issued immediately after a move command to the same spot would fail to overwrite the move command

Ranked Emblems

Earn one of three different emblems winning dynamic ranked games solo, in groups, or alongside fully-stacked teams. Flaunt them on your Profile and Leagues pages.

We hear you on needing new ways to show off individual skill in ranked, and this is just a first step towards that. If you climb as a solo inhibitor-crushing machine, your emblem shows that off. Emblems change over time based on your recent wins, swapping between solo, dynamic, and team as your style evolves.

RETRO GRADEWins for emblems started being counted during 6.12, so you’ll need to have won 25 games since the start of last patch to earn one

LONE WOLFA solo emblem means the vast majority of your recent wins came from queueing alone

PARTNERS IN CRIMEA dynamic emblem means you win with parties of all sizes

#SQUADGOALSA team emblem means your wins come mostly from queuing with full teams

Ranked Tier Restrictions

Tier restrictions in Diamond and above now allows three divisions of separation between teammates instead of two.

We made it a bit too hard for top-tier players to play with friends in ranked, so we’re relaxing restrictions to allow three divisions of separation. We’ll keep an eye on things in terms of playing with friends versus flinging the door open to packs of boosted animals.

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High-tier premade skill ranges

Reminder: From Diamond V and up, premades are limited to duos or trios. The entire premade has to be within a three-division skill range of each other.

CHALLENGERChallenger / Master, Diamond I, II

MASTERChallenger / Master / Diamond I, II, III

DIAMOND IChallenger, Master / Diamond I / Diamond II, III, IV

DIAMOND VDiamond II, III, IV / Diamond V / Platinum I, II, III

PLATINUMAs before, high-Platinum players can queue with low-Diamond players based on the restrictions above. If no Diamond players are in the party, Platinum players remain completely unaffected by these changes.

Scheduled Ranked 5s

Ranked 5s queues return during scheduled windows.

We disabled ranked 5s at the start of the season because we were unsure how match quality would be affected by the addition of dynamic queue. When we limited the highest MMR players (Diamond V+) to solo, duo, or trio queues, those players had no option to play ranked as a group of five. Even among players below Diamond V, we've heard that people miss the ranked 5v5 queue so we’re bringing it back while hopefully avoiding the low population/high queue time problems the old version had by restricting it to certain time periods. Each region will have different times and days, so check out the schedule for your region in the announcement. Otherwise, this queue works exactly like the old Ranked 5s did.

DIAMOND FRIEND POWER UNLEASHEDTeams can have up to nine players, with no restrictions on which ranked tiers can join

TEAM PLACEMENTTeams must play five games to become officially ranked and placed in the appropriate tier/division

APPRENTICE JOURNEYMANPlayers can be a part of up to five different teams at any time

Bugfixes

• Fixed a few cases where Ninja Tabi weren't properly reducing damage from empowered basic attacks (ex. Ashe's Q - Ranger's Focus)
• Fixed a bug where Fiora would be locked out of Flash and Teleport if she died during Q - Lunge until casting Lunge again
• Corrected Leona’s Q - Shield of Daybreak tooltip to indicate the stun lasts 1 second, not 1.25 seconds (actual stun duration unchanged)
• Miss Fortune’s Passive - Love Tap and Shaco’s Passive - Backstab no longer apply extra stacks of Black Cleaver’s armor shred
• Champions no longer get stuck when trying to walk behind Blue Sentinel’s little rock buddy
• Fixed a bunch of cracks in the Zac Sweet Chromas on Very Low visual settings
• Fixed a bug where toggling Relative Team Color wouldn't adjust the color of existing minions
• Adjusted colors on a few of Challenger Nidalee's visual effects to improve readability
• Restored custom particles for Blight Crystal Varus's E - Hail of Arrows when the arrows land

Upcoming Skins

Deep Sea Nami will be released during patch 6.13!

Deep Sea Nami

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In addition, Soulstealer Vayne has been added as a Hextech Crafting exclusive!

Soulstealer Vayne