5 things to know about League of Legends patch 9.4

League of Legends patch 9.4 is almost here and Riot has given us a look at the changes that are on the way.

After last week’s sweeping update to AD items, this patch is a little bit lighter and mostly concerned with changing champions. Champions like Rek’Sai and Zed got some big changes, while other champs got smaller nerfs and buffs that shouldn’t upset their place in the meta too much. Karthus also got a change, but it probably isn’t the one you are expecting.

Perhaps the biggest change this patch is the reworked version of Conqueror, which is likely going to shake up builds quite a bit. Champions that used to use the rune, like Jax, might still use it, but it could open Conqueror up to a whole new group of characters.

For a full look at everything that changed you can look at the patch notes.

Rek’Sai got a sizable update

Ever since her rework almost two years ago, Rek’Sai hasn’t been quite ... right. She still makes tunnels, clears the jungle, and jumps on enemies, but she just isn’t the same as she used to be. Fortunately in patch 9.4, Riot is changing Rek’Sai in hopes of helping her out a little bit. Among these changes include quality of life updates like making her respawn burrowed, as well as more substantial updates like making her ultimate undodge-able unless a character gets extremely far away from where it was cast. While it doesn’t seem like these are quite enough to make Rek’Sai a premier jungler again, they should at least help her out a bit.

Riot Games

Karthus got nerfed ... sort of

Karthus has been an absolute terror for most of season 9. Anytime he’s in the game, fights can be swung in the blink of an eye thanks to his ultimate. Even when there isn’t a fight, squishy characters live in fear that they might suddenly fight 60 percent of their health bar missing without even seeing an enemy. As a response, Riot has elected to nerf Karthus’s Q. It’s a decision that will certainly have an affect on his overall damage, but also won’t make the ADC in your games feel much safer.

Zed’s losing the passive on his ultimate

Zed’s ultimate has a seldom discussed feature where if an enemy is executed using Death Mark, he gains a higher bonus on their attack damage. Riot’s taking that out. The idea that Death Mark was even somewhat reliant on enemy attack damage wasn’t an attractive one and largely ignored the way Death Mark was used — after all, sometimes Zed needs to kill AP champions. To compensate, Zed is getting buffs to his attack speed and the activation range of his Living Shadow, as well as a damage buff to his Razor Shuriken.

Riot Games

Conqueror nerfs are here

A change to the Conqueror rune is something that players have been asking about for a while now. The rune, which made champions like Jax and Irelia oppressively strong, is getting a full overhaul. Instead of granting extra damage after being in combat for a certain amount of time, the rune now gives extra adaptive force that stacks each time you attack. This should be a solid change for the rune, but could end up being extremely powerful on characters that rely on scaling stats and frequent attacks.

Papercraft skins have arrived

This patch is a little light on skins but they do look nice. Papercraft Anivia and Papercraft Nunu & Willump will both be joining the game with their origami aesthetic. This is a new line of skins for League of Legends, but hopefully more champions will get to join in on the paper-based fun in the future.