Patch 6.1 Notes

Bard

Sometimes you'd chuck a cute lil' meep on over at an evildoer and their pal, only to find you didn't hit both (even if it looked like it visually). So we adjusted it. Bard Buffs

Passive - Traveler's Call

Brand

Pretty obvious that this wasn't working as intended. For all of you who've been double killed by Brand's ultimate while standing inside a minion wave, #bigsorry.

R - Pyroclasm

Caitlyn

Caitlyn seems to have landed in a good spot post-update, but there's still some awkwardness to clean up around the usability of her new-and-improved Headshot.

Passive - Headshot

W - Yordle Snap Trap

Fiddlesticks

Let's be clear, this is a small buff. We're fairly certain that Runic Echoes will benefit Fiddlesticks, but we also wanted to give this old-school kit (with those massive mana costs) a small bump in the right direction. This will probably help out Middlesticks or Supportlesticks (we stretched for that one) more than Junglesticks, but at least this offers an alternative leveling path for those who want to bounce around.

E - Dark Wind

Gangplank

As history would imply, Gangplank is a hard man to keep down. Despite chipping away at his explosive area-of-effect damage, GP remains above the curve in the laning phase thanks to Trial by Fire's incredible damage output (especially when reset with Powder Kegs). With Gangplank's hyper-scaling potential, it didn't make much sense for him to also shove opponents out of lane like he owned the place. So we're adjusting.

Passive - Trial by Fire

Jinx

Passive - Get Excited!

Q - Switcheroo!

Kalista

Even with the preseason itemization changes (which were more beneficial to casters and crit-wielding marksmen), Kalista has been working her way up the list of must-answer threats. The change we're doing is a little specific, so let's get into it: we wanted to reduce power without having a negative impact on Kalista's feel, skill gap, or general strategic identity. To go deeper: one of Kalista's staple lane harassment combos is to continuously Rend single minions + lane hits against her opponents for quick damage (and very low mana costs), so we're reducing that mana efficiency. We're still forming a more nuanced opinion of Kalista in this new season, and will keep an eye out.

General

E - Rend

Kha'Zix

With the removal of Ranger's Trailblazer, Brutalizer, and the old Last Whisper, Kha'Zix lost a lot in the transition to 2016. Our previous attempts to restore some of his former glory were well intentioned, but weren't enough to bring the bug back. 6.1's all about helping Kha'Zix achieve successful isolation without needing to increase the isolation range itself. Highlighting and enabling Kha'Zix's ability to capitalize on the missteps of his prey fits perfectly with KZ's own motto: evolve, and overcome.

Passive - Unseen Threat

W - Void Spike

E - Leap

LeBlanc

Flashy and tricky, successive nerfs to Leblanc have her feeling less-than-responsive recently. With immobile mages still on top, we're taking the opportunity return some snappiness to keep LeBlanc's foes on their toes.

E - Ethereal Chains

R - Mimic: Ethereal Chains

Miss Fortune

The bottom line is this: Miss Fortune's doing too much damage. While most of it is warranted (especially when aided by allies to combo some amazing Bullet Times), Make It Rain's increased range and synergy with Thunderlord's Decree have turned it from an area control spell to just another way to bully her opponents. That said, MF's not far off from where we'd like her laning phase to sit, so we'll be watching her this patch to make sure she hasn't walked the plank entirely.

Passive - Love Tap

E - Make It Rain

Mordekaiser

Following up our changes in 5.23, these are similarly focused on cementing Mordekaiser's pattern as a slow but terrifying Juggernaut (capital J). Weakening ability power builds in favor of more hybrid ones is the name of the game, favoring sustained threat over time instead of '1-shot comboing your soul into pieces.' Reverting some of his shield decay and W's ally-target functionality, Mordekaiser should find himself able to pick fights while solo or duo to keep on shredding.

Passive - Iron Man

W - Harvesters of Sorrow

R - Children of the Grave

Riven

Another patch, another Riven buff (I'll take words we never thought we'd type for 500, Meddler). Not much has changed since the last time we met - itemization isn't great for champions like Riven, and while her health regen increase showed promise, it didn't exactly move her as much as we'd like. Handing back some early-game strength should let her work where she shines most - without contributing to her endgame combo potential.

Passive - Runic Blade

Rumble

Piloting a literal junkyard, you almost expect Rumble to feel clunky. Alas, you can have too much of a good thing, often leading Rumble to feel like he's better left for the scrap heap than in top lane. Adjusting Rumble's specs for maneuvering in minions while upping the consistency of Flamespitter means he can focus on the complexities that really matter, like not entirely missing his Equalizer.

General

Q - Flamespitter

Teemo

Another champion that's been struggling in 2016, Teemo's woes have not gone unnoticed. The prevalence of Farsight Totem has hurt his ability to play hide-and-seek with Camouflage, while losing out on the bonus attack damage from the old masteries means he's having a harder time in lane. Tuning these while adding a bit of range to Noxious Trap go a long way toward improving his strategic ability to scout - as well as feed into his natural prey of fighters and juggernauts.

While the below changes might look like a buff and a nerf to Camouflage, the double stealth mechanic wasn't necessary (as you will now be entering stealth the moment you walk in instead of needing to stop), so you take about the same time to stealth but can also stealthwhile running. Now that's sneaky.

General

Passive - Camouflage

R - Noxious Trap

Trundle

What a difference 50 attack range makes. Every year there's a champion that perfectly benefits from most of the season's changes, and in 2016 (with better itemization and a higher importance on skirmishing), it's Trundle. We're taxing the troll's mana pool to curb some of that non-stop aggression. Quick call out on that Q nerf: with turrets being weaker this season we felt this was a good middle-ground instead of outright dulling those teeth.

Q - Chomp

E - Pillar of Ice

R - Subjugate

Elise

E - Rappel

Poppy

Just some usability to keep the Keeper of the Hammer keep on keepin' on.

Q - Hammer Shock

Thresh

Yasuo

Now all of those videos of Gold Card going through Wind Wall can be laid to rest.

W - Wind Wall

Urgot

E - Noxian Corrosive Charge

Heimerdinger

E - CH-2 Electron Storm Grenade

Enchantment: Runic Echoes

It's context time.

When we introduced the Runeglaive enchantment in Season 5 it, like the incredible Zoot Suit, was specifically tailored for its time. In development, we took a hard look at all of the existing AP junglers and tried to deliver a finely-tuned item that would enable them beyond "bundle of stats" (with Fiddlesticks as an accepted casualty. Sorry Fiddle.). At that point, our view of AP junglers was fairly narrow and our goal was definitely "solve for the present."

This season, we can take a more future-facing look at Runeglaive (now Runic Echoes). The introduction of Hunter's Talisman means we can solidify spell-casting as a core part of an AP jungler's rotation, so it makes more sense that Runic Echoes is an extension of that. Echoes should be a flat upgrade (or sidegrade, at worst) for most champions, to the point where we'll probably need to keep a close eye on the balance of that movement speed bonus. One additional issue we wanted to solve was to allow for late game scaling on an AP jungle item - something Runeglaive lacked due to its lower ratio in comparison to Lich Bane.

On the point of, "Why not both?" we'll go back to the discussion we had when we replaced Magus. Specifically, if the goal of Runic Echoes is to serve all AP junglers equivalently or better than Runeglaive, then Runeglaive either becomes another Ohmwrecker (sorry) or it's an "alternative" choice for a smaller subset of AP junglers that skews their balance on yet another axis. The question we asked was, "What do we gain by keeping Runeglaive?" and while the diversity option for a few champions was nice, we trade a lot of clarity in balance to keep two items that should functionally serve the same class.

Smite

Smite's been through an interesting transformation. Once one of League's more 'vanilla' spells, it's turned into a multi-charge, multi-augmented ability that provides tons of utility. While Smite's slowly crept up in strength, it was the introduction of Runic Echoes interaction with Smite where we finally needed to draw the line. Having an instant high-damage nuke is probably not in anyone's best interests.

Warding Totem

Once the staple trinket, Warding Totem's found itself feeling pretty mediocre compared to the Farsight Alteration. As we seek to adjust the balance between the two, dropping the lategame cooldown significantly ensures teams can access more consistent vision with a Warding Totem in their inventory.

Farsight Alteration

By contrast, Farsight's dominance tends to warp the strategic game - putting more weight on its spot use as an in-fight or pre-fight reveal, but offering very little in the way of long-term vision to control objectives or jungle corridors. Farsight's effect is powerful enough that we're confident it'll still see use for what it does, but it shouldn't feel like your default option in 100% of games.

Eye of the Oasis

If you're a support in 2016, mana regeneration's just about everywhere you look when it comes to full item builds. In the interest of providing supports with a different stat (while still keeping these items focused on spellcasting), we're trying out cooldown reduction to make them fit as smoothly as their Tier 3 brethren (Talisman of Ascension and Frost Queen's Claim, respectively).

Eye of the Watchers

If you've been watching for the context here, turn your eyes above.

Frost Queen's Claim

Ah, Frost Queen's Claim. Even if you've never bought it, you've seen it - and the army of ghosts slowing you from across the universe. While potent as a form of vision control and a playmaker for spellcasting supports, this raw stat efficiency combined with crowd control made it far more ubiquitous than is healthy (when you start to see champions like Tank Maokai buying this, you know something's up). Cutting FQC's efficiency and impairing its use as a close-range sticking/peeling tool requires more pre-meditation on the part of it's user to get the same level of crowd control. We'll continue assessing if we need to tone down that spooky.

Sunfire Cape

Sunfire's often the odd-man out when compared to its cousins: Randuin's Omen and Dead Man's Plate. We're giving it a bump to feel like a real contender when shopping for physical protection.

Guinsoo's Rageblade

Phantom Dancer

Phantom Dancer's intended niche as an item that enables you to seek out and duel champions is betrayed by losing Zeal's movement speed upon upgrading it. We'd still like it to stay on the lower end when not hunting down dance partners, but giving back some strategic movement speed should keep it more than just a phantom.

Statikk Shiv

While trying to keep the relative balance between Zeal's upgrades, we decided Shiv was lagging behind as a waveclear option. No longer!

Runaan's Hurricane

Similar to Statikk Shiv, Hurricane's getting a power boost to keep Zeal's upgrades close enough that you can use their unique effects (waveclear, teamfighting, kiting, or dueling) as the selling point, not their stats.

Rapid Firecannon

The last Zeal item to be touched, Rapid Firecannon is performing about as well as we'd expect. As we were doing our unification pass to balance the four, we saw that 8% is higher than 7%, and that simply won't do.

Lord Dominik's Regards

Last Whisper's upgrades don't have enough of a payoff, even when you'd find their unique effects useful. Now investing gold into either the Giant Slayer or Executioner's upgrade will have a little more 'oomph'.

Mortal Reminder

You can read the context for this directly above, just a reminder. A mortal reminder.

Tiamat

Ravenous Hydra

The Hydras are doing well once purchased, but often feel like they take forever to get completed. Along Tiamat's cost being shaved, a reduction in Ravenous Hydra should make them easier to complete.

Titanic Hydra

This is the same context, only more Titanic.

Death's Dance

Death's Dance is a truly unique effect that provides an even more unique fantasy: someone marked for death, doing everything they can to keep going beyond their final moments. As awesome as that sounds, DD's stat efficiency doesn't exactly set it up to support the champions and builds you'd want it to. Sizing it up to better deliver on expectations.