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Patch 9.6 is ready to go and it’s bringing a lot of champion balance changes, as well as some back-end stuff to help improve your games.
Kayle is getting her skins updated, as per the demands of her fans, as well as tweaks to her skills to make her not-so-strong. Neeko, Ornn, and Urgot are also getting a good chunk of changes, with many other champions getting smaller balance updates and bug fixes.
This patch also will have the launch of this year’s Versus event, which also seems to be tied to April Fools. Players will be able to choose between cats or dogs, and we’re guessing there’s going to be a series of missions to get some rewards. The kitty skins of Rengar and Yorick and the doggy skins for Fizz and Corki will also launch this patch.
As usual, you can check out the full context of these notes from Riot Games here and you can peek at our tl;dr here.
Champions
Kayle
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Attack damage growth and attack speed growth decreased. W movement speed ratio decreased. Default adaptive swapped. E and W responsiveness increased.
Base Stats
ATTACK DAMAGE GROWTH :: 3 >>> 2.5
ATTACK SPEED GROWTH :: 2 >>> 1.5
DEFAULT ADAPTIVE :: Ability power >>> Attack damage
RECOMMENDED ITEMS :: Updated to include Guinsoo’s Rageblade and Blade of the Ruined King
W - Celestial Blessing
BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED RATIO :: +10% per 100 ability power >>> +8% per 100 ability power
DELAY :: Celestial Blessing applies its effects ||| after a 0.25 second delay >>> on cast
[REM] PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT :: Kayle no longer disarms herself for ~1 second upon casting Celestial Blessing (could previously be canceled by spamming right-click)
E - Starfire Spellblade
CAST TIME :: 0.25 seconds >>> Identical to Kayle’s basic attack windup
BUGFIX :: The basic attack portion of Starfire Spellblade’s attack can now properly crit
Skin Updates
RIOT KAYLE :: Updated VFX to be more wee-woo
SILVER KAYLE :: Updated VFX to be more blue da ba dee da ba dye
BATTLEBORN KAYLE :: Updated VFX to be less yellow
JUDGMENT KAYLE :: Updated VFX to be more spooOOO000OOOooky
AETHER WING KAYLE :: Added new death animation and removed robotic VO processing
Neeko
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Attack speed growth increased. W no longer procs twice in a row at very high attack speeds.
Base Stats
ATTACK SPEED GROWTH :: 1.5% >>> 2.5%
W - Shapesplitter
BUGFIX :: No longer procs twice in a row at very high attack speeds
Ornn
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W cooldown decreased. Recommended items updated. Ornn can no longer accidentally cancel E and R dashes by upgrading ally items. Q no longer expires if Ornn is mid-dash.
Recommended Items
LOOK AT MY WARES :: Now lists all Living Forge upgrades
BUILD THIS :: Recommended items updated to be better
Passive - Living Forge
BUGFIX :: Ornn players can no longer upgrade ally items mid-dash during E - Searing Charge and R - Call of the Forge God, canceling the dash
Q - Volcanic Rupture
JUST A LITTLE LONGER :: If a pillar is about to expire when Ornn casts E - Searing Charge, it now lasts until Ornn’s dash completes. For real this time.
W - Bellows Breath
COOLDOWN :: 12 seconds at all ranks >>> 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 seconds
Urgot
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Mana, mana regen growth increased. Passive no longer deals reduced damage to the same target. W shield removed; cost, cooldown, damage reduction decreased; now a permanent toggle at max rank. E now shields; damage and cost increased; cooldown decreased. R range, damage, cast time increased.
Base Stats
MANA :: 300 >>> 340
MANA REGEN GROWTH :: 0.6 >>> 0.8
Passive - Echoing Flames
[REM] NOT EVEN MY FINAL FORM :: No longer deals 10% reduced damage to enemies hit in the last 5 seconds, stacking 3 times
W - Purge
[REM] SHIELD :: No longer grants 30/60/90/120/150 (+15% bonus health) shield
COST :: 65 mana >>> 40/30/20/10/0 mana
COOLDOWN :: 17/15/13/11/9 >>> 12/9/6/3/0 (becomes a toggle at max rank)
ON-HIT DAMAGE REDUCTION :: 66% >>> 50%
E - Disdain
[NEW] SHIELD :: Grants a 60/80/100/120/140 (+1.5 bonus attack damage) (+15% bonus health) shield for 4 seconds
DAMAGE :: 60/100/140/180/220 (+0.5 total attack damage) >>> 90/120/150/180/210 (+1.0 bonus attack damage)
COOLDOWN :: 16/15/14/13/12 seconds >>> 14 seconds
COST :: 50 mana >>> 50/60/70/80/90 mana
R - Fear Beyond Death
DEATH BEYOND SIGHT :: 1600 range >>> 2500 range
CAST TIME :: 0.4 seconds >>> 0.5 seconds
DAMAGE :: 50/175/300 (+0.5 total attack damage) >>> 125/250/375 (+0.5 bonus attack damage)
Simple Changes
Aatrox
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Aatrox now pulls targets even when they’re untargetable. Passive no longer cancels when reviving.
General
BUGFIX :: Buff icons on the buff/debuff bar no longer show up as blank boxes
W - Infernal Chains
BUGFIX :: Aatrox now properly pulls targets even if they’re untargetable
R - World Ender
BUGFIX :: Aatrox’s passive is no longer removed when he’s reviving
Caitlyn
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R damage increased.
R - Ace in the Hole
DAMAGE :: 250/475/700 >>> 300/525/750
Gnar
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W cooldown decreased.
W - Wallop
COOLDOWN :: 15/13/11/9/7 seconds >>> 7 seconds at all ranks
Hecarim
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Q stacks correctly and increases damage.
Q - Rampage
[NEW] ANGRY :: Deals 10% additional damage per stack of Rampage
Ivern
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W more quickly empowers Ivern’s attacks when he enters brush.
W - Brushmaker
QUICKLY NOW :: More quickly empowers Ivern’s attacks when he enters brush
Jayce
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Health-related base stats decreased.
Base Stats
HEALTH :: 576 >>> 560
HEALTH GROWTH :: 95 >>> 90
HEALTH REGEN :: 7.5 >>> 6
HEALTH REGEN GROWTH :: 0.8 >>> 0.6
LeBlanc
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Q ratio decreased.
Q - Sigil of Malice
RATIO :: 0.4 ability power >>> 0.3 ability power
Nautilus
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Armor increased. Passive cooldown decreased.
Base Stats
ARMOR :: 35.5 >>> 39
Passive - Staggering Blow
PER-TARGET COOLDOWN :: 9/8/7/6 seconds (levels 1/6/11/16) >>> 6 seconds at all levels
Rek’Sai
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R cooldown increased late; ratio decreased.
R - Void Rush
COOLDOWN :: 100/80/60 seconds >>> 100/90/80 seconds
RATIO :: +2.0 bonus attack damage >>> +1.75 bonus attack damage
Shen
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Q damage increased.
Q - Twilight Assault
ON-HIT DAMAGE :: 5/10/15/20/25/30 (levels 1/4/7/10/13/16) >>> 10/16/22/28/34/40 (levels 1/4/7/10/13/16)
Sylas
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W base heal and heal ratio decreased.
W - Kingslayer
HEAL RATIO :: 0.45 ability power >>> 0.4 ability power
EMPOWERED HEAL :: 200% when Sylas is below 40% health >>> 175% when Sylas is below 40% health
Trundle
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W attack speed increased.
W - Frozen Domain
BONUS ATTACK SPEED :: 20/40/60/80/100% >>> 30/47.5/65/82.5/100%
Xayah
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W attack speed increased.
W - Deadly Plumage
BONUS ATTACK SPEED :: 30/35/40/45/50% >>> 40/50/60/70/80%
Zoe
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E cooldown increased; slow decreased late.
E - Sleepy Trouble Bubble
COOLDOWN :: 16/15/14/13/12 seconds >>> 20/18.5/17/15.5/14 seconds
SLOW :: 10/20/30/40/50% >>> 10/15/20/25/30%
Items
Tear of the Goddess Line
All Tear items now belong to a Tear item group, with a maximum of 1 allowed.
[NEW] WE ARE FAMILY :: If you own Manamune(/Muramana) or Archangel’s Staff(/Seraph’s Embrace), you’re unable to purchase the other (or another Tear of the Goddess)
Brawler’s Gloves
STACK AWAY :: Critical strike is no longer unique
Runes
Minion Dematerializer
Charges and initial cooldown decreased; damage bonuses increased.
CHARGES :: 6 >>> 3
BASE DAMAGE BONUS :: 4% >>> 6%
ADDITIONAL DAMAGE BONUS :: 1% >>> 3%
STARTING COOLDOWN :: 240 seconds >>> 180 seconds
Overheal
Shield conversion decreased early.
PASSIVE :: Converts 40-100% (levels 1-18) of excess healing into shielding >>> Converts 20-100% (levels 1-18) of excess healing into shielding
Bounties
Minion and monster gold bounties accrue more slowly and decrease if you lose your advantage. Scoreboard numbers no longer include base kill or first blood gold.
Minion and Monster Gold Bounties
BOUNTY VALUES :: 50 gold for every ||| 150 >>> 200 more minion and monster gold you have over the enemy team’s average
[NEW] LOST ADVANTAGE :: Minion and monster gold bounties now decrease if you lose your advantage
[NEW] VALUABLE SUPPORT :: Support item gold now contributes to minion and monster gold bounties to accurately reflect when someone is farming and also using a support item. Maybe we should start calling them income bounties?
ENEMY TEAM AVERAGE :: Enemy team’s total gold from minion and monster kills divided by 4 >>> Enemy team’s total gold from support items and minion and monster kills divided by 4.3
Many players interpret the gold numbers on the scoreboard as how much additional gold a kill is worth relative to other members of that team—in other words, just the bounty value. Since we added this visualization at the same time as minion and monster gold bounties, it’s also created a misconception that farming well immediately makes you worth hundreds more gold to the enemy team. We’re adjusting these display numbers to match the way players interpret them.
Bounty Visualization
VISUALS :: Scoreboard and chat bounty numbers now only reflect the gold value from bounties. The 300 base kill gold and 150 first blood gold values have been removed from these displays. Actual gold payout on kill unchanged.
Ability Proc Consistency
We’ve gone through the types of ability procs in the game and fixed a few inconsistencies. Now, the ability procs split into roughly three main categories: on-ability-hit, DoT & AoE, and pet damage. This work is pretty under-the-hood for the most part, but there are three major changes that’ll ensure our proc systems feel more consistent moving forward.
First, we’ve unified all on-ability-hit procs. Now, if something activates an on-ability-hit proc for one thing, it should proc all the other items and runes that do the same thing. This expands the number of abilities that can proc any of these items/runes.
For DoT and AoE effects, many abilities which fall into both camps were previously labeled as either one or the other. We went through and made sure those abilities are now properly marked as both.
Lastly, we’re making pets consistent. Moving forward, all pet attacks will share the same proc behavior. Currently, that means that all effects which proc on-ability-hit (ex. Liandry’s, Rylai’s, Luden’s) now proc off all pet attacks too. This opens the door for effects that’ll proc on-ability-hit but not on pet attacks (or the other way around), but if we cross that bridge, we’ll do so consistently for all pets.
Below is the list of abilities we directly changed to fit into one of these categories:
Combination DoT & AoE Abilities
Effects that treat DoT and AoE effects differently will go with the more restrictive classification.
- Alistar’s E - Trample
- Anivia’s R - Glacial Storm
- Fiddlesticks’ R - Crowstorm
- Jayce’s W - Lightning Field
- Katarina’s R - Death Lotus
- Kennen’s R - Slicing Maelstrom
- Lucian’s R - The Culling
- Miss Fortune’s R - Bullet Time
- Mordekaiser’s W - Harvester of Sorrow
- Morgana’s W - Tormented Shadow
- Nasus’s R - Fury of the Sands
- Rammus’ R - Tremors
- Renekton’s R - Dominus
- Rumble’s R - The Equalizer
- Shyvana’s W - Burnout
- Vel’Koz’s R - Life Form Disintegration Ray
- Wukong’s R - Cyclone
Pets
he pets listed below have been changed to all proc the same effects. (Again, that currently means all on-ability-hit effects.) Quick sidenote: Champion clones aren’t pets.
- Elise’s Spiderlings
- Shaco’s Jack in the Boxes
- Zyra’s Plants
- Mordekaiser’s Dragon Ghost (also classified as an AoE effect)
- Heimerdinger’s Turrets (turret lasers, ult turret shots, and ult turret lasers are classified as AoE effects, too)
- Malzahar’s Voidlings (also classified as basic attacks for dodge purposes)
- Yorick’s Ghouls (also classified as basic attacks for dodge purposes
- Annie’s Tibbers swipes (also classified as basic attacks for dodge purposes). The fire aura is classified as an ability hit and an AoE effect.
- Ivern’s Daisy (also classified as basic attacks for dodge purposes). The big slam is classified as an ability hit and an AoE effect.
Miscellaneous Changes
VIKTOR’S Q - SIPHON POWER :: Empowered attack portion now activates on-ability-hit procs
GUARDIAN’S HORN (ARAM ITEM) :: Damage reduction now behaves consistently against all DoT abilities
SUMMON: AERY :: Should now proc consistently off everything except non-ability DoTs such as Corrupting Potion, Scorch, and other items, runes, and buffs
YASUO’S Q - STEEL TEMPEST :: Secondary targets hit are now accounted for by runes
YASUO’S E - SWEEPING BLADE TO Q - STEEL TEMPEST :: Secondary targets hit are now accounted for by runes
Ranked
We turned off Position Ranks in North America and Korea partway through last patch and won’t be rolling them out in other regions. We want to thank all the players who tried out the Position Ranks during this time and for submitting feedback to the team.
Looking forward, we’ll be partially resetting the top of the ranked ladder when 9.6 releases. As a reminder, here’s what this entails:
MASTER+ :: Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger players become Master 0 LP
DIAMOND I-III :: Diamond III, II, and I players are demoted by one division, preserving promotion series progress and LP
DIAMOND IV :: Diamond IV players become Diamond IV 0 LP no matter what
DIAMOND I PROMOS :: For Diamond I players in series, 2 wins or losses become 1 win or loss—for example, 2–2 becomes 1–1
REWARDS :: You keep rewards, but they’ll match your new rank
GRANDMASTER AND CHALLENGER :: Grandmaster and Challenger lock until March 27 and April 3, respectively
Here are a few other changes too!
BUGFIX :: Fixed a bug that caused players in Platinum to be subject to LP decay
TUNING :: Players who choose mid as their primary position will get it more often
High-End Framerate Cap
We’ve seen reports of spikey FPS and a few visual bugs from players who use the Uncapped framerate setting. Since Uncapped is currently the default setting, tons of players are (often unknowingly) using it without coming anywhere close to 240 FPS, the next cap down. We’re changing the default FPS and doing a one-time switch for everyone currently using Uncapped to address the majority of these issues.
DEFAULT :: The default framerate cap is changing from “Uncapped” to 240 FPS
RESET :: Players who currently have their framerate cap set to “Uncapped” will have their setting changed to 240 FPS when patch 9.6 launches. You can choose to switch back to “Uncapped” if you’d like.
Missions Tracker
The missions tracker now groups missions into tabs based on event and mission type. You can navigate through tabs via a new sidebar in the tracker. If you’re a big picture sort of person, there’s an option to show all of your missions at once.
LeaverBuster
We took a pass at updating LeaverBuster to improve its accuracy and effectiveness. Overall, it’ll be more forgiving for those who are unintentionally leaving games for reasons outside of their control.
BUGFIX :: Fixed a bug where the game would sometimes fail to detect a leaver
COMEBACK INCENTIVE :: Leaver detection is slightly more lenient if your team wins the game
FORGIVE AND FORGET :: LeaverBuster now takes regional connectivity into account
THEY WON’T MIND :: LeaverBuster penalties are reduced in most Co-op vs. AI and Premade 5’s games
Bugfixes
- Arclight Brand now appropriately opens his mouth when laughing or taunting
- Fixed Lucian’s W - Ardent Blaze tooltip to mention that marked targets are briefly revealed
- Elderwood Hecarim’s recall no longer uses the base skin’s recall audio
- Traditional Karma’s E - Inspire voiceover no longer uses her base skin’s audio
- Fixed a bug where PROJECT: Ashe’s R - Enchanted Crystal Arrow was missing its VFX
- Fixed a bug where Shen was not saying his signature wind-up voiceover when casting R - Stand United
- Fixed a bug where players could cast abilities while inside the Catapult of Champions in ARURF
- Heartbreaker Vi’s W - Denting Blows’ proc glow no longer lingers on Epic Monsters
- Zed’s R - Death Mark “Unit will die to Death Mark” indicator is no longer miscalculated
- Diana’s Passive - Moonsilver Blade cleave effect no longer misses its target after dashes
- Diana’s E - Moonfall no longer draws nearby enemies in the wrong direction (away from her)
- Renekton’s W animation no longer breaks when Renekton casts it while not on full Conqueror stacks
Upcoming Skins & Chromas
- Corgi Corki
- Fuzz Fizz
- Meowrick
- Pretty Kitty Rengar
- Fuzz Fizz Prestige Edition
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The following chromas will be released this patch:
- Pretty Kitty Rengar
- Corgi Corki