5 things to know about League of Legends Patch 7.1, the one with nerfs and more nerfs

Poppy, Camille, Ryze, Syndra — no one’s safe.

By Pete Volk@Pete_Volk Jan 10, 2017, 2:08pm EST

It’s been a while since the last League of Legends patch. Riot Games has been on winter break for the past few weeks, and arrived back to a game with some unexpected surprises (like Ziggs bot).

Patch 7.1 is the first of the new year, and will be one of two in a “multi-patch process” to get the game together before the start of competitive play. This time around, there are a lot of nerfs, especially to high-performing champions who have been that way for a while (hello, Poppy and Syndra) or newcomers who burst onto the scene (looking at you, Camille).

Here are the five things you really need to know before stepping onto the rift on Patch 7.1. For a list of all the changes, click here.

1. Nerfs to top-tier champions

Camille, Poppy, Ryze, Syndra and Lee Sin — what do they have in common? Two things. One: unless you play them, they’ve probably been driving you up the wall in solo queue recently. Two: they’re all getting nerfed this patch.

First off, Camille, who has had one of the highest win rates of a new champion ever. Her health per level has been decreased, as has the duration of her passive shield and the duration of the knockaway of her ultimate.

Poppy’s been a terror for months now, and the addition of Courage of the Colossus has only helped. The shield she gets from her passive has been decreased from five seconds to three, and the snapcast damage on her ultimate has been decreased.

Ryze and Syndra are arguably the two strongest mid laners in the game, and have been since the end of the last competitive season. Ryze saw his Q nerfed, reducing the shield and movement speed given, while Syndra gets less damage on her W and a higher cooldown on her ultimate.

Lee Sin has also dominated his role in the jungle, specifically with the lethality of his Q->R->Q combo. His ultimate damage has been reduced, while his E no longer reveals invisible units.

2. Buffs to underperforming marksmen

One of the most common complaints about the new season patch is the weakness of the AD Carry position and the marksman class in general. Courage of the Colossus has made tanks even harder to kill, the assassin rework has provided more threats to AD Carries and we’ve even started to see the likes of Ziggs in the bot lane.

While many of these problems have to do with things other than the strength of individual marksmen, some have been struggling more than others. Draven, Kalista and Lucian have three of the four lowest win rates in at AD Carry (along with Urgot), and they’re all getting buffs.

For Draven, his Q now has base damage and will scale off his bonus damage instead of his total attack damage. The mana cost of his W has also been reduced in the later game.

Kalista has received a small quality of life update for her Rend. The spears will continue to stack even when Rend is on cooldown now, and the mana refund requirement has been reduced to one unit killed from two.

Lucian was arguably the marksmen most impacted by the preseason changes, and he’s getting two separate buffs. The damage from his passive, Lightslinger, has been increased in the early game, while the damage on his Q, Piercing Light, has been increased in the late game.

3. Jungle XP changes (again)

The jungle has been a consistent target for change over the years during the preseason, and once again this year saw a different jungle. There are plants now, and nearly all of the camps themselves were changed.

One of the results of these changes has been the jungle position being very powerful, able to gain levels very quickly for effective ganks against under-leveled opponents. There’s some more fine tuning to jungle XP in this patch, with the gist being this: the experience gained from the first clear has been reduced, but Raptors grant more experience now.

4. Elementalist Lux VFX refined

Elementalist Lux is one of the most detailed (and expensive) skins in League of Legends history, coming with 10 different forms and giving the opportunity for different experiences with it each game.

However, some of the ability animations for the skins were hard to read on-screen. The following changes have been made:

Warning indicator on R - Final Spark adjusted to be immediately visible on-cast, rather than brightening over the duration
Adjusted W - Prismatic Barrier’s shield visuals on several forms to maintain similar levels of brightness and noise
Adjusted E - Lucent Singularity’s missile to better distinguish it from Elementalist Lux’s other effects. It’s now primarily swirling ribbons of light.