Patch 4.8 Notes

Posted on at 2:18 PM by Moobeat

Patch 4.8 is on it's way and the official patch notes have been posted!
Continue reading for the full set of notes, including changes for Soraka, the turrets & jungle monsters on Twisted Treeline, Team Builder, and more! You'll also find  Blade Queen Lissandra and River Spirit Nami listed as upcoming skins in this patch!

Here's Pwyff with the full patch notes:
"Hey Summoners,
It's a light patch! We've got some bigger projects in the oven and they've taken up a lot of our time as we figure out the right approach to take. We'll keep you updated as we go. 
Soraka's our highest visibility change in 4.8, who we've mentioned before as having an overbearing presence in solo lanes. You can read below for the full context, but we're always aware of champions who impose low interaction in lane without having meaningful weaknesses (and before anyone mentions Nidalee [who exemplifies this beyond the laning phase] or LeBlanc, they're both in the lab). 
With a quiet patch we also saw the chance to "modernize" a few champions with low impact, high value changes (Blitz buffs yesssssss). This isn't, however, a strategy we can consistently take because there are a lot of design challenges involved. Given there are champions who are objectively strong but don't have a clear identity in the current competitive landscape, 'tinkering' with them could set off a larger negative chain reaction if someone (or something) without clear weaknesses became the new hottest thing on the block. It's not to say that'll happen with a small mana cost buff, but League evolves and shifts so quickly over time, it's something we need to be aware of!
Final note, we've also got some map changes for Twisted Treeline that are focused on turrets and the jungle. For fans of the map, make sure you stay up to date before queueing up! 
Final, final note: as we mentioned last patch, we're continuing the process of patching out files for a new audio engine. The audio team recently dropped some knowledge on the forums -head to their thread for more info!
Chris "Pwyff" Tom

General


We investigated a few cases where turret aggro was behaving inconsistently. These changes should address most issues.
  • Champions can no longer drop turret aggro by entering stealth or using the summoner spell Flash
  • Turret aggro can now only be lost if a champion leaves its targeting range, dies, or enters a state of untargetability (eg: Zhonya's, Elise Rappel, Vlad pool).

Champions



Blitzcrank

Rocket Grab and Static Field cost less mana.
With popular utility champions providing additional utility beyond vision control and a body on the field, Blitzcrank needed some small upgrades to keep up. Given Blitz already has strong utility (gated by his long cooldowns), some mana cost reductions means he should be able to bring Amumu to your team more often.

Q - Rocket Grab

COST 120 mana  100 mana

R - Static Field

COST 150 mana  100 mana

Cho'Gath

Cho can eat things a little faster and from a little further away.
This is a change we've wanted to do for some time, given how sad Cho gets when his meals flash away. Basically this means Cho's Feast range will correctly match his attack range when he's at 6 Feast Stacks. Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom!

R - Feast

RANGE  150  175
CAST TIME  0.5 seconds  0.25 seconds

Kha'Zix

Evolved Wings' cooldown is now the same as Leap.
Kha'Zix is currently strong at all levels of play, but when we discovered this bug (heh), we felt the right thing would be to fix it to work as intended, even if it meant giving him a slight buff. Long term, we're still considering changes to Kha'Zix that allow him to retain his assassin playstyle without having the raw strength to brute force his way out of most situations.

E - Evolved Wings

KHA'ZIX FIX Fixed a bug where Evolved Wings had a longer cooldown than Leap - 24/22/20/18/16  22/20/18/16/14

Malzahar

Nether Grasp is cheaper. We probably don't need to summarize these.
We realize that high mobility mages are currently valued in the competitive landscape, but buffing Malz against his identity ends up flattening the role of a mage and inhibits other forms of role experimentation. Still, streamlining Nether Grasp's mana cost to be in line with other high cooldown ultimates was a change Malz could use, so we heeded the call (... of the void).

R - Nether Grasp

COST 150 mana  100 mana

Pantheon

Last patch, we made a functional change to Pantheon without documenting the change (sorry!). Before the change, Pantheon's Grand Skyfall was dealing damage a full 0.5 seconds after he visually hit the ground, which was inconsistent (not to mention weird). Visually it's confusing that Pantheon can stun opponents before he's even finished landing from Grand Skyfall, so we made the change for Clarity purposes while also affecting his power. That said, we've heard a lot of your feedback that this hampers Pantheon's ability to use Grand Skyfall effectively (or at all), and we're going to keep a close eye on him in this patch.

R - Grand Skyfall

CLARITY Pantheon can no longer cast spells until he's finished landing
BUGFIX Grand Skyfall's animation and damage now better match each other. The timing is unchanged from when the enemy indicator appears to when damage occurs, but Pantheon now visually lands 0.5 seconds later.

Soraka

Starcall does less damage and Infuse costs mana when used on an enemy.
Soraka's solo lane patterns are pretty obnoxious, as she can simply shove out opponents with Starcall while inhibiting their ability to fight back with her free Infuses. Soraka should be brought to a solo lane as someone who can consistently support her team, rather than dealing high ramping magic damage via Starcall.

Q - Starcall

DAMAGE  60/95/130/165/200  40/65/90/115/140
UTILITY If Starcall hits an enemy, Astral Blessing's cooldown is reduced by5/6.25/7.5/8.75/10%  5/8/11/14/17%

E - Infuse

NEWCOST Costs 50 mana at all levels when cast on an enemy

Udyr

E - Bear Stance

CLARITY Udyr now sees an indicator when he stuns a target that shows how long to wait before he can stun that target again

Minor Changes & Bugfixes



Nami

Q - Aqua Prison

BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Aqua Prison could interrupt certain abilities that were intended to be immune to disabling effects (e.g. Jarvan IV's Cataclysm, Malphite's Unstoppable Force)

Sejuani

Q - Arctic Assault

BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Arctic Assault would stop on collision with, but fail to knock up, really large enemy champions (Cho'Gath with 6 Feast stacks, Zac with a lot of bonus HP, large champions that were Wild Growth'd by Lulu, champions who weren't watching their diet, etc)

Twisted Treeline and Crystal Scar



Twin Shadows

NEWPASSIVE Now detects traps

Twisted Treeline


Turrets

Turrets deal more damage and ramping damage, as well as having more defenses.
Currently on TT, turrets simply aren't threatening enough to super-bruisers that stack armor and dive for their squishier teammates. While this change alone may not fix this, it's the start of us enforcing turrets as a meaningful safety zone for players on the losing team. We're also beefing up turret resists in the case of a siege - you can still 'chip' turrets over the course of a game before breaking them down in a big push, but we felt they could stay up a little longer.
NEWDAMAGE BONUS Turret basic attack damage increased by 10% (now matches Summoner's Rift turrets)
DAMAGE 'Heating Up' passive now increases turret damage by 20%  25% per shot
ADDENDUM "Heating Up" passive scales up to a total 60%  75%
DEFENSE Turrets lose 150 armor / magic resistance  75 armor / magic resistance when enemy minions are nearby

Jungle Monsters

Large Monsters have way more HP, small monsters have slightly less.
The low base health on the original jungle camps in TT cuts their threat scaling significantly, making jungling a little too easy for anyone with a small amount of Attack Damage (or in 120% of all cases, Ravenous Hydra). We'll be watching this closely as we don't want junglers to feel hyper-vulnerable, but with the recent buffs to scaling jungle experience, we felt increasing the risk/commitment of the jungle was appropriate.
BIG GOLEM HEALTH850  1250
SMALL GOLEM HEALTH550  500
BIG WOLF HEALTH650  1150
SMALL WOLF HEALTH430  400
BIG WRAITH HEALTH550  1000
SMALL WRAITH HEALTH380  350

Team Builder


  • Team Builder wins and losses are now added to total Normal wins and losses
  • Captains in Team Builder can now grant invite powers to invited friends

Upcoming Skins


The following skins will be released at various times throughout Patch 4.8:

Additional Points of Interest in 4.8

Here's a brief look at a few of the new things included in patch 4.8 either mentioned above or previewed in the 4.8 PBE cycle.


( Warning: These images are taken off the last PBE build in the cycle but may not reflect exactly what makes it to live. Be aware these are NOT part of the official patch notes. )


New Skin - River Spirit Nami & Blade Queen Lissandra

While likely not right away, the following skins are schedule to be release sometime after patch 4.8 is deployed! As usual, I'll have a full preview available once they are released.

River Spirit Nami

( Click here for screen shots from our PBE coverage or here for a video preview

Blade Queen Lissandra

( Click here for screen shots from our PBE coverage or here for a video preview )

New Featured Gameplay Mode - One for All : Mirror Mode

As seen on the PBE, 4.8 will contain files for the new One for All: Mirror Mode featured gameplay mode. OfA:MM is similar to the previous One for All mode, except it is played on Howling Abyss and the same champion is used on both teams.
( Check out our PBE coverage for more info or this PBE community beta thread. )

Udyr E Stun Cooldown Indicator

Udyr's Bear Stance ( E ) stun now has a circle indicator to show when his target can be stunned again, just like Braum's passive or Yasuo's E. The VFX are different between his base and Spirit Guard Udyr skins.
( Check out our PBE coverage for more info or this video preview )

New Summoner Icons

Two new summoner icons were included in this patch, one that seems to be for One for All: Mirror Mode and the other simply titled "Pentakill" during it's stay on the PBE.

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