Patch 4.17 is on the way and the official patch notes have been posted!
Here's the full patch notes, this time with an introduction by Pwyff:
"Hi Summoners,
Welcome to patch 4.17, THE PATCH OF CHAMPION UPDATES. We don't have a lot of high-level balance tweaks in the mix (small taps for Nidalee, Maokai, Tristana, and Talon), but there are some cool "pump up the unique!" changes for champs who may have been lacking in that category. Much in the vein of promoting more meaningful choices, our hope is that by giving champions like Garen and LeBlanc more uniqueness (like out-of-combat health regeneration or stealthy deception), they'll be able to feel a little more interesting in their roles.
Speaking of meaningful choices, our two new gameplay updates (Viktor and Soraka) are also in 4.17, with both focused on creating a little more unique gameplay for their respective champion. For Soraka - what's it mean to be League's premiere healing / banana throwing champion? Or for Viktor - what, specifically, is a GLORIOUS EVOLUTION!? A lot of questions we can potentially answer in 4.17, so be sure to check out our new champion reveal pages for Soraka and Viktor.
Final note, we're continuing to patch out bits and pieces of the updated Summoner's Rift as we start polishing up on work. Once again, this doesn't mean you'll get to play on the updated Summoner's Rift right now, but just that you won't get hit by a mega-sized patch in the distant future. In anticipation of this, we're also rolling out some updated character textures for older champions so they can still look good when their environments change.
And that's all for now! Remember that the World Championships are happening right now, so head over to the lolesports.com page to keep up!
Chris "Pwyff" Tom
Champions
Viktor
Viktor has received a Gameplay and Texture Update, as well as a spiffy new splash! Check out the update article for all the details.
Cassiopeia
Some small buffs to Cass's mana, Q's damage scales better with AP, and E's resetting its cooldowns correctly.
We know Cass isn't doing great on the live environment, but we also want to make sure we don't react too quickly as players are learning a champion and then that champion goes on to demolish everyone(*cough* Kassadin *cough*). Still, we can give Cass a little bump as we watch her being picked up. This might be a conversation we'll revisit next patch!
General
BASE MANA 300 ⇒ 330
MANA PER LEVEL +50 ⇒ +60
Q - Noxious Blast
ABILITY POWER RATIO 0.35 ⇒ 0.45
E - Twin Fang
28.6% MORE FIXED Twin Fang now correctly resets its cooldown to 0.7 seconds ⇒ 0.5 seconds, as indicated by the tooltip
Ezreal
We fixed some longstanding clunkiness with Pulsefire Ezreal's animations in 4.16. Our bad on forgetting to list this in the last set of patch notes!
Pulsefire Ezreal
CANNONS PRIMED Smoothed out Pulsefire Ezreal's autoattack and Mystic Shot animations
Garen
Garen's going to be a lean, mean, health recovering machine.
Right now, Garen's identity is centered on his ability to run at people in a threatening way and, since we have a few people who already do that, we decided to give him a more unique strength. These buffs are to really cement Garen as a tanky sword-dude who can shrug off most forms of poke damage - that is, if he can find windows of safety to recover (more reason to hide in that brush!). You might say this gives him more perseverance. You would be correct.
Passive - Perseverance
NEWYOUR PUNY WEAPONS ARE USELESS Perseverance is no longer removed by non-epic monsters at level 11 and above
HEALTH REGENERATION 0.4% maximum health per second at all levels ⇒0.4% / 0.8% / 2.0% maximum health per second at levels 1/11/16
COOLDOWN 9 seconds at all levels ⇒ 9/6/4 seconds at levels 1/11/16
Heimerdinger
A player raised the concern that Heimerdinger (and Karma) had to casttwo spells when empowering abilities, thus ever-so-slightly delaying his ability to fight back in high-pressure situations. With this change, Heimer will be able to preemptively use Upgrade while crowd-controlled so he can immediately mash faces when he recovers. This is a repeat of the below context.
R - UPGRADE!!!
NEWEVERY SECOND COUNTS Upgrade can now be cast while Heimerdinger is disabled
Karma
A player raised the concern that Karma (and Heimerdinger) had to casttwo spells when empowering abilities, thus ever-so-slightly delaying her ability to fight back in high-pressure situations. With this change, Karma will be able to preemptively use Mantra while crowd-controlled so she can immediately mash faces when she recovers. This is a repeat of the above context.
Q - Soulflare
EXPLOSIVE DEPARTURE Fixed a bug where Soulflare's ground effect would disappear if Karma died
R - Mantra
NEWEVERY SECOND COUNTS Mantra can now be cast while Karma is disabled
LeBlanc
LeBlanc's mirror clone is more deceptive, as it spawns stealthed for a full second alongside LeBlanc, so LB can create more distance from her clone before re-appearing. W has a longer grace period to return. [ENGLISH ONLY] Brushy brushy.
Since we removed LeBlanc's silence in patch 4.10, she hasn't been in the best shape. Rather than buffing her damage (wouldn't that be fun), we're looking for healthier ways to give her some strength, like reinforcing her deceptive gameplay.
Passive - Mirror Image
NEWNOW YOU SEE ME LeBlanc now creates a mirror image after her invisibility ends ⇒ immediately
NEWNOW YOU DON'T LeBlanc and her mirror image remain invisible as long as the other is invisible (breaking the invisibility of one will break the invisibility of the other)
INVISIBILITY DURATION 0.5 seconds ⇒ 1 second
W - Distortion
JUKE CITY LeBlanc now has 3 seconds ⇒ 4 seconds to snap back to her return pad
Maokai
Maokai's currently running rampant in top lane, partially due to his ability to trade damage with most of the scrappy dudes he finds up there. Given Maokai's R is already a strong defensive ability in a team fight, we realized it probably shouldn't also have so much damage tied to it.
R - Vengeful Maelstrom
MAXIMUM STORED DAMAGE 200/250/300 >> 100/150/200 (base damage remains 100/150/200)
Miss Fortune
Strut is no longer broken by non-damaging crowd control effects, like Nasus' Wither, Lulu's Whimsy, or... the aura from Frozen Heart (sorry!).
Miss Fortune's Strut was always meant to be broken by damage (and the tooltip says this) but, for some time now, Strut also considered non-damaging forms of crowd control to be valid ways to break (like Nasus' Wither, Lulu's Whimsy or... Frozen Heart's aura (sorry!)). We've fixed that.
Passive - Strut
STEP TOStrut is no longer broken by non-damaging effects
Nautilus
Nautilus can drag himself to player-created terrain.
We already did this with Vayne, Poppy, and Gnar, and realized Nautilus should probably be able to do the same (some players also let us know! Thanks!)
Q - Dredge Line
NEWNAUTICAL EQUALITY Nautilus can now drag himself to player-created terrain (e.g. Trundle's Pillar, Jarvan's Cataclysm, Anivia's Crystallize)
Nidalee
Nidalee's basic attacks do less and she has less attack speed. Takedown scales less with AD and more with AP. Pounce now resets to a reduced cooldown if Nidalee pounces to a Hunted target (rather than swiping a Hunted target).
As a super strong lane bully, Nidalee's able to poke down her opponents fairly quickly before mauling their face as a giant cat. While we think it's cool that Nidalee has access to two completely different builds (AD and AP), it's clear her AD build is a lot stronger, especially since she can put out tons of damage without needing to land a spear / trap. Our goal here is to bring a little parity between the two builds while also, honestly speaking, reducing some of Nidalee's oppressive lane power when building AD.
General
BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 52.5 ⇒ 47.5
BASE ATTACK SPEED 0.67 ⇒ 0.638
Q - Takedown
MINIMUM ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO 1.0 ⇒ 0.75
MAXIMUM ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO 2.5 ⇒ 1.875
MINIMUM ABILITY POWER RATIO 0.24 ⇒ 0.36
MAXIMUM ABILITY POWER RATIO 0.60 ⇒ 0.90
W - Pounce
NEWFLYING CAT PROJECTILES Pounce's cooldown now resets to 1.5 seconds if Nidalee pounces to a Hunted target
KITTY RESETS Killing a unit now resets Pounce's cooldown to 1.0 seconds⇒ 1.5 seconds
NEWCOOLDOWN COUGAR Abilities that reduce Pounce's cooldown now work in combination with Nidalee's cooldown reduction stat (so at 40% CDR, a hunted Pounce gets reset to 0.9 seconds rather than 1.5 seconds)
E - Swipe
REMOVEDSWIPELESS Swipe no longer affects the cooldown of Pounce when used on a Hunted target
Rammus
Just a small quality-of-life buff where if Rammus uses Powerball to cancel Defensive Ball Curl (or vice versa), he gets 1 second of buffs overlapping instead of immediately cancelling one for the other.
Q - Powerball
OKAY While in Powerball, Rammus now cancels the ability immediately⇒ 1 second after Defensive Ball Curl is activated
W - Defensive Ball Curl
OKAY While in Defensive Ball Curl, Rammus now cancels the abilityimmediately ⇒ 1 second after Powerball is activated
Sona
While we were cleaning up some code with Sona, we accidentally reduced the cast range on her Hymn of Valor. We fixed it. Sorry!
Q - Hymn of Valor
SHARP NOTES Fixed a bug where Hymn of Valor's cast range was shorter than intended
Talon
Talon's E no longer silences, it just applies a high-intensity mini-slow.
Now that other high-burst low-counterplay assassins have been modified in some way (hello LeBlanc), Talon's one of the next dudes to step forward. Our focus with this change is not to entirely nerf Talon (although we realize this is a hit to his laning phase against certain champion matchups), rather, it's to reduce frustration when playing against him. Specifically, Talon's ability to obliterate a target of his choosing in the mid to late game without them having any say in the matter (literally) is a tough ability to balance around - especially as we've targeted other low-counterplay abilities like LeBlanc's Sigil of Silence. As an aside, this does mean that the ability name Cutthroat makes no sense from a thematic perspective, but naming it cut-ankles was less inspiring. We'll look into it.
Q - Noxian Diplomacy
A METAPHOR FOR POLITICS Noxian Diplomacy's animation now plays slightly faster (so it can feel more impactful). Actual gameplay remains unchanged.
E - Cutthroat
REMOVEDTHAT'S SOME BAD AIM, TALON Cutthroat no longer silences its target
NEWCUT-ANKLES Cutthroat now slows targets for 99% for 0.25 seconds (this is enough to sneak in one Mercy-buffed basic attack)
R - Shadow Assault
NEWA SHINY ESCAPE Shadow Assault now has a particle to indicate that Talon is hasted
Tristana
As a hyper-scaling markswoman on par with champs like Koggles or Vayne, Tristana needs equivalent weaknesses for her high potential. Up front: this change won't completely address that problem, but we did want to create more opportunities against Tristana in the early to mid game as we examine her power for the future.
R - Buster Shot
COOLDOWN 60 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 100/85/70 seconds
Yasuo
While this is a fairly innocuous bugfix for Yasuo, we wanted to take this opportunity to talk about everyone's favorite wind swordsman (to ban). While we think Yasuo's in a good spot in terms of his overarching gameplay and strategic fit, there's a good chance he's just a little strong for what he brings to the table. We're currently examining ways to add more meaningful counterplay against Yasuo but just wanted to let you know we're aware of his power.
Q - Steel Tempest
INNOCUOUS BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Steel Tempest's cooldown was slightly too low when using the E-Q combo at high attack speeds
R - ChronoshiftMass Texture Rebalance (Part 1)
Over the next couple patches we're taking a broad pass at the game's older character textures with the goal of improving parity with newer releases and making sure everybody looks at home on the Rift as its style and color palette continue to evolve.
TEXTURESThe following textures have been updated:
Ahri
- Base, Dynasty, Midnight
Akali
- Base, All-star, Blood Moon, Crimson, Nurse, Silverfang, Stinger
Ashe
- Base, Amethyst, Freljord, Sherwood Forest, Queen, Woad
Corki
- Base, Hot Rod, Ice Toboggan, Red Baron, UFO, Urfrider
Fiora
- Base, Royal Guard, Nightraven
Galio
- Base, Commando, Enchanted, Gatekeeper, Hextech
Graves
- Base, Jailbreak (for now)
LeBlanc
- Base, Prestigious, Mistletoe, Wicked
Leona
- Base, Defender, Iron Solari, Valkyrie
Nautilus
- Base, Abyssal, Subterranean
Orianna
- Base, Bladecraft, Gothic, Sewn Chaos
Xerath
- Base, Battlecast, Runeborn
Items
Elixir of Brilliance, Elixir of Fortitude, Ichor of Illumination, and Ichor of Rage
Elixirs and Ichors now intelligently scale up in stats as a character levels up with them on.
Before this patch, Elixirs and Ichors only did one "check" on your level before determining the stats they gave you. If you leveled up with an Elixir or Ichor used, however, they wouldn't intelligently scale up to your new level. We fixed that.
SMART CONSUMABLESStat buffs from Elixirs and Ichors now level up along with the buffed Champion
Dominion
Respawn Mechanics
Dominion currently has a balancing mechanic where the losing team has a shorter respawn timer than the winning team. Unfortunately, this mechanic would come into play immediately after one team took a lead. We've increased that band by a wider margin so that close games don't get so swingy but losing teams still have the potential to make a comeback.
Respawn Timers
DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACKThe respawn timer handicap now applies only if there is a point difference greater than 50
Ranked Updates
Master Tier
When we implemented Master Tier, we removed clamping from Diamond 1. One side effect of this has been that players who ride win streaks into Master incur pretty harsh LP penalties if they fall back into Diamond. This new LP loss cap is meant to soften the experience while players strive to enter - and remain in - Master Tier.
NEWLP LOSS CAPPlayers who quickly drop back into Diamond 1 after being promoted to Master Tier now retain a minimum of 50 LP
Ranked Decay
Ranked decay is meant to ensure that only the best active players can hold on to their position through a season. While this makes sense for the most competitive tiers, it just ends up as source of stress for the rest of the ladder. To that end, we've removed decay for silver and gold (bronze was already immune - we fixed a bug where this wasn't the case for promo series).
NEWQUALITY OF LIFESilver and Gold players are now immune to decay
BUGFIXFixed a bug where Bronze players who went inactive during a promo series were decaying out of their series
Ranked Duo Queue
Following a brief hiatus last patch due to a bug, we're reactivating the limiter that prevents ranked players from duo queuing with partners more than one tier above or below them.
Ranked Restrictions
We recently posted about a few new measures coming to ranked play as part of our ongoing effort to encourage positive behavior. Head to the discussion for the details!
Suggested Players
PREMADE FACILITATION The Suggested Players invite list in premade lobbies now recommends friends of friends who are currently online and available for a game
Bugfixes
- Nomad's Medallion now properly shows up under the "Other Movement Items" category
- In line with previous fixes, Relic Shield and its upgrades no longer execute Shaco boxes
- Fixed a bug where Ichor of Illumination was removing cooldown reduction when it wore off
- Fixed a number of patcher crash issues
- Fixed an issue with multitouch scrolling in the Mac patcher
- Players no longer lose access to the patcher's Repair tool after closing the menu via the 'x' button
Upcoming Skins
The following skins will be released at various times during patch 4.17:
Points of interest in 4.17
Here's a brief look at a few of the new things included in patch 4.17, including things mentioned above in the patch notes and things discovered during the last PBE cycle! Most of this coverage includes preview screen shots and video taken during the 4.17 PBE cycle and may vary from what is pushed to live.New Skins - Order of the Lotus Karma and FNATIC set
Patch 4.17 also features a total of SIX new skins! As always, I'll have a dedicated site post with full previews of the new skins up when they are released and available for purchase!Order of the Lotus Karma
Order of the Lotus Karma comes equipped with a full set of pink spell effects and is priced at 975 RP!
FNATIC Skin Set
We also have a set of skins to celebrate FNATIC's 2011 victory as our Season One champions! Each of these skins will be priced at 750 RP and they share this beautiful splash art!
- Fnatic Corki Video Preview
- Fnatic Gragas Video Preview
- Fnatic Janna Video Preview
- Fnatic Jarvan IV Video Preview
- Fnatic Karthus Video Preview
Viktor Splash, Icons, Textures, and VFX Updates
To go along with his gameplay update mentioned above, Viktor has received a new splash art and an update to all of his textures!
Check out our PBE coverage or this video preview for a better look at his base texture update and the new visual effects!
Additionally, Full Machine Viktor and Prototype Viktor also received a texture update. As Creator Viktor has a modern set of textures already he only received new visuals due to the gameplay update!
Check out updated preview videos here:
Viktor also has a new set of ability icons to go with his gameplay update!
(Passive, Q, W, E, R)
( Evolved Q, Evolved W, Evolved E, Evolved R)
( R movement, Q buff, Hex Core 1 - 4 )
Soraka New Visual Effects and Icons
Soraka's gameplay update also includes new visual effects for her passive, her Q, W, and her E!
While only Celestine Soraka deviates from her normal vfx, you can find updated previews of her skins here:
Soraka also has a new set of ability icons to go along with this update!
(Passive, Q, W, E, R)
First Batch of Texture Rebalances
The first batch of over FORTY texture rebalances are includes in this patch. The goal behind Texture rebalances is to align older champions and skins with the current art style and the upcoming Summoner's Rift Update. For more context, check out this thread.
As an example, he's a comparison between the the old Corki and the Corki texture rebalance:
As an example, he's a comparison between the the old Corki and the Corki texture rebalance:
 |
| Old on Left and New on Right |
While the extent the changes very greatly from champion to champion and skin to skin, the full list includes:
- Akali, Stinger Akali, Crimson Akali, Nurse Akali, Silverfang Akali, Blood Moon Akali
- Ashe, Freljord Ashe Sherwood Forest Ashe, Woad Ashe, Queen Ashe, Amethyst Ashe.
- Corki, UFO Corki, Ice Toboggan Corki, Hot Rod Corki, Urf Rider Corki, Red Baron Corki
- Fiora, Royal Guard Fiora, Nightraven Fiora
- Galio, Hextech Galio, Enchant Galio, Commando Galio, Gatekeeper Galio
- Graves, Jailbreak Graves
- LeBlanc, Wicked LeBlanc, Prestigious LeBlanc, Mistletoe LeBlanc
- Leona, Defender Leona, Valkyrie Leona, Iron Solari Leona
- Nautilus, Abyssal Nautilus, Subterranean Nautilus
- Orianna, Gothic Orianna, Sewn Chaos Orianna, Bladecraft Orianna
- Xerath, Runeborn Xerath, Battlecast Xerath
New Summoner Icons
Patch 4.17 brings with it a shiny new World Championship summoner icon!
We also have a set of summoner icons for each of the teams currently participating in the 2014 World Championship! There are only 15 icons as both Samsung teams share a single icon. No details on availability or if these will be permanent or temporary icons.
Misc
Cassiopeia, Akali, and Orianna have all received slight changes to their new icons from patch 4.16 Each has slight position or color changes!
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