5 things to know about League of Legends Patch 6.11

Riot released patch notes for soon-to-hit Patch 6.11 for League of Legends Wednesday. After the gigantic Patch 6.9 and the less-gigantic Patch 6.10, this one's focused on balance tweaks for competitive play ahead of the start of seasons in North America and Europe. Specifically, there are many nerfs to champions that were performing at a very high level and had been dominating the competitive seasons that have already begun around the world.

You can also read the full patch notes here, but here's the important stuff:

1. Ekko nerfs

For what seems like the umpteenth patch in a row, Riot has adjusted Ekko's base damage and ratios to try and encourage building the champion towards damage rather than tankiness. But there's one change that should have a bigger impact than the rest: less consistent crowd control, which was the secret key to tank Ekko's overwhelming success.

Here are all of the changes:

2. Lucian nerfs!!!

Lucian has been an absolute freaking terror recently: his creator, Daniel Klein, told us "I'm gonna be the first to admit that he's bullshit." With the currently popular Ghostblade/Black Cleaver build, he's being played in more than 50 percent of high-elo games (Platinum and above) with a 52.86 percent win rate and has been a consistent presence in the competitive scene for months.

The damage ratio on his Q has been reduced, as have the ranges of his Q and W. Additionally, the second shot of his passive will no longer proc Runaan's Hurricane or Guinsoo's Rageblade.

3. Kindred nerfs, and a change to marks

Rounding out the list of extremely strong champions picked almost all the time in competitive play, the damage on Kindred's Q and E are reduced. However, stacks on Kindred's passive will increase Q damage by 5 per stack.

Kindred's marks system has changed as well, bringing more clarity to when things are marked and why. As noted in the patch notes:

Designed to reward the dynamic duo for taking risks and predicting their prey, Kindred's Marks feel more like a ‘cherry on top' instead of a crucial part of their damage. By allowing Kindred more opportunities to mark (while making it more necessary to claim them), we're giving them a clear path to successful scaling that doesn't include ‘viciously murdering every jungler before level 3'

Here's the new system:

Lucian, Ekko and Kindred weren't the only overperformers to get nerfed (although they were the biggest nerfs): Swain, Ryze, Nidalee and Maokai have also received performance tweaks.

4. Significant Trinity Force change

The item has received a minor rework, and now builds out of Stinger instead of Zeal. That means significantly increased attack speed (and a bump up to 20 percent cooldown reduction), but Trinity Force now no longer gives critical strike chance. Keep that in mind when you try and build it on Gangplank next time!

5. The new wrestling skins are arriving!

Yeeeeeessssssss! "El Leon" Gnar, "El Macho" Mundo and "El Rayo" Volibear were announced a few weeks ago, but now they're finally coming to a shop near you.

Five old Nidalee splash arts have been updated as well: Bewitching Nidalee, French Maid Nidalee, Leopard Nidalee, Pharaoh Nidalee and Snow Bunny Nidalee.

League of Legends Patch 6.11 should be live Thursday or Friday.