Surrender at 20: Patch 5.1 Notes

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Patch 5.1 is on the way and the official patch notes have been posted!

Continue reading for the complete notes, including oodles of balance changes, new base gates, upcoming skins, summoner icon updates, the new Zz'Rot Portal item, and more!

Here's the full patch notes, this time with an introduction by Pwyff:

"Hey Summoners,

Welcome to the first patch of the year, which also makes it the first official patch of the 2015 season! While the preseason is transforming into the regular season with this patch, this doesn't mean we're done with everything thus far. In reality, the point of the preseason is for us to monitor and quash any potential "Black Cleaver" situations where singular items, champions, or strategies come to dominate the scene in unique ways. In this way, we're pretty happy with the stability of our preseason changes, so we're rolling out a few last treats (BASE GATES! VOID GATES!) to kick off the new year.

So what can you expect in patch 5.1? Well, aside from the start of the 2015 ranked season, the theme of this patch is on Jungle diversity and following up on the preseason. In terms of jungle diversity, while we haven't put all of the junglers front and center on the champion change list (we thought about it, but have stuck with alphabetical order), you can see a number of small buffs for the ones struggling along. So for this patch, check out the small changes to Elise, Evelynn, Hecarim, Nautilus, along with some new changes to Smite (two charges baby!) and a few tiny gold upgrades.

On the other end of the patch narrative spectrum, we've got a lot of followup to the 2015 preseason, including some significant power shifts for Baron Nashor, the addition of Base Gates and the Zz'Rot Portal, and some small trinket rebalancing to help out defending team vision. We're hoping these few changes continue to deepen the Strategic Diversity (there it is) of League of Legends, and will keep a close eye out for potential opportunities to continue doing so in the future.

And that's it for the first patch of the 2015 season! Good luck this year on your climb to Challenger (aim high!), and we'll see you again soon with more balance changes for the new year."

Chris "Pwyff" Tom

2015 Ranked Season

The 2015 ranked season will begin soon! Head to the announcement for more information!

Overlapping Crowd Control Effects

A few things: first, we're not turning this change on immediately. In order to properly test for its impact on specific champions, the plan is to wait a while (about a week) before enabling it. Additionally, this lets us isolate the fix so we can turn it off if we run into another unseen code bug like last time with cone spells.

Second, what is the change? Basically think of overlapping crowd control abilities each starting an individual timer when they hit an opponent. With the old way League was coded, whenever one timer finished up, the victim would be allowed a split-second to cast spells or attack before being locked up again by the second or third crowd control ability. In other words, even if you perfectly chain your disables, the enemy could occasionally flash away while still stunned.

This change should solve most of those problems with overlapping crowd control effects, although we're still aware of a few edge cases where CCed targets would be able to issue single auto attacks while transitioning between disables. So far, however, this case has been very difficult to replicate. We're going to fix those as soon as possible (think 5.2 or 5.3), but there should no longer be any times where an enemy is completely disabled through overlapping crowd control abilities and they can still use Flash in between. We'll be watching this closely after we turn it on!

BETTER SAFE THAN SORRYFixed a long-standing bug where champions with overlapping crowd control effects could occasionally use abilities (Flash, Zhonya's Hourglass, etc) when transitioning between disables. This will be turned on at a later date in the patch.

Champions

Alistar

Alistar has been updated! Check out the article if you want the full story, or below if you just want the specifics.

General

VISUALSUpdated model, textures and VFX for base and all skins

ICONSNew ability icons

SPLASHNew base splash!

Ahri

General

SPLASHAhri has received a new base splash!

Azir

Another patch, another Azir bug-fix. Jokes aside, this specific problem would Arise (heh) when Azir would issue an attack at maximum range, walk out of that range, re-enter range and issue the attack again. In effect, Azir would trick himself into thinking the soldier could attack when it couldn't, creating the illusion that it should have dealt damage. Shoutouts to NA summoner 'A Mana Potion' for helping us track this one down.

W - Arise!

NO MORE FAKE-OUTS!Fixed a bug where a sand soldier would appear to attack but fail to do damage.

Corki

VALKYRIE COSTS MORE MANA.

For a champion with such high burst potential, trade-offs needed to be made to keep Corki's high-power, high-damage lane in line. Increasing Valkyrie's mana cost allows for us to maintain an important lever that presents options to Corki's opponents: either he uses so many spells that he can't escape, or he gets forced to use Valkyrie to escape and gives you some breathing room before beginning his barrage all over again.

W - Valkyrie

COST50 mana ⇒ 100 mana

Elise

Q DOES MORE BONUS DAMAGE AGAINST MONSTERS.

With 5.1, we've decided to continue passing along love to some junglers that haven't had the greatest time thus far. With this in mind, we begin with our resident ex-top-tier-spider, Elise.

This one's pretty cut-and-dry; previously we had kept Elise's bonus damage low to curb some of her clearing power, but now that the jungle's got a much larger health pool, well, we felt we could accommodate her accordingly. While obviously not a "this changes everything!" patch note, we'll continue to keep an eye on Elise in the new season to see if she needs a little more love.

Q - Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite

MAXIMUM BONUS DAMAGE VS. MONSTERS50/75/100/125/150 magic damage ⇒ 75/100/125/150/175 magic damage

Evelynn

EVELYNN HAS MORE MANA REGENERATION WHILE STEALTHED AND RAVAGE PROCS ON-HIT EFFECTS. We'll stop shouting now.

Continuing with Evelynn, we're adopting the same 'slow-but-steady' approach as with Elise. Mana's always been a huge issue for Eve, and that's never been more clear than in a season without Spirit Stone's sustain. Doubling Evelynn's passive mana regeneration while stealthed should see her more active in fighting jungle monsters and champions alike, while adding on-hit effects to Ravage opens up unique item synergies (such as Blade of the Ruined King, Devourer Enchant, the Sheen family) to take advantage of those mid-game spikes.

Passive - Shadow Walk

MANA REGENERATION WHILE STEALTHED+1% maximum mana per second⇒ +2% missing mana per second

E - Ravage

NEWLICH BANE! BLADE OF THE RUINED KING!Strikes now apply on-hit effects

REMOVEDSORRY RYLAIStrikes no longer apply spell effects

Fizz

Previously, Urchin Strike wasn't applying sheen effects when it was used too close to his targets. Now you can Q in without fear of your spells...fizzling.

Excellent.

Q - Urchin Strike

NOW WE STRIKEFixed a bug where Fizz wouldn't proc Sheen if Urchin Strike was used too close to the target

Gnar

Boomerang Throw's cooldown refund is lower, but ranks back up to normal through ranks via Gnar!

Unlike Gnar's origins, this yordle's strong laning phase is no big secret. Pulling back on the uptime of his harass should make things more manageable in the early game, while ranking his ultimate lets him keep up with the pace of frantic late-game teamfights.

Q - Boomerang Throw

COOLDOWN REFUND ON CATCH60% ⇒ 45%

R - GNAR!

NEWTHEMATICALLY THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSEIncreases Boomerang Throw's cooldown refund on catch to 50/55/60%

Hecarim

Q costs less mana at early to mid ranks, and W's cap on monster / minion healing has been increased at all ranks.

Next stop on our 2015 Jungle Love Train is none other than the Horselord himself, Hecarim. Jungle difficulty's been rough on our little pony, and with no spirit items to keep his sustain up, he's found more time in the stable than we'd like.

Q - Rampage

COST24/26/28/30/32 mana ⇒ 20/23/26/29/32 mana

W - Spirit of Dread

MONSTER/MINION HEALING CAP60/90/120/150/180 ⇒90/120/150/180/210

Janna

Q got slightly skinnier.

Janna's the type of champion whose kit keeps her consistently powerful. Even when she fails to see widespread play competitively, she's never far from showing up and surprising the world with just how useful she can be. These days she's back to her old tricks - namely, protecting carries and disengaging teamfights for days on end - but while digging deeper we found that her Tornado's width was actually hitting much wider than the particle indicated. Refactoring it to match the visuals certainly decreases her power, but in a way that promotes the type of dodgeability she needs to not dominate the support role.

Q - Howling Gale

MISSILE WIDTH150 ⇒ 120

Jayce

Hyper Charge has been slightly reduced in its total attack damage scaling at later ranks.

For a guy so strong when it comes to long-range combat, it doesn't make the most sense that he should blow you up in close-quarters without the use of his hammer. Lowering Hyper Charge's late-game shenanigans should keep even the most fed Jayce's out there from getting too unfair. It's also unfair for him to be that good looking, but that's not something we can nerf.

W - Hyper Charge

DAMAGE PER ATTACK70/85/100/115/130% total attack damage ⇒70/80/90/100/110% total attack damage

Kalista

Though Kalista hasn't had her time to shine just yet, few out there fail to acknowledge her potential. Unlike many marksmen, Kalista's power can be harder to access due to the responsibilities of her Oathsworn to follow-up or create opportunities for her to make plays. Instead of reducing Kalista's reliance on her soulbound partner (that would be making her less unique!), we're increasing the potential rewards for successful coordination.

Passive - Martial Poise

STAY FLEXIBLEWhile Kalista still can't cancel her basic attack, she can select a different target during the first moments of her basic attack wind up

W - Sentinel

SOUL-MARKED COOLDOWN PER TARGET8 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds

SOUL-MARKED DURATION1 second ⇒ 1.5 seconds

Nautilus

When handing out post-holiday season buffs, there was no way we could leave out League's very own Anchor-man. Similar to our Sejuani changes in 4.21, we think Nautilus has acceptable weaknesses in the beginning phases, and we're not looking to change that here; rather, new scalings on his shield (remember, maximum health vs. bonus health is a significant change) makes Titan's Wrath hold pretty even - until Nautilus hits his 2nd health item, where he starts to see significant gains.

W - Titan's Wrath

BASE SHIELD STRENGTH100/150/200/250/300 ⇒ 65/70/75/80/85

SHIELD SCALING15% bonus health ⇒ 7/9.5/12/14.5/17% maximum health

Rek'Sai

Rek'Sai's a unique champion with a lot of mastery required to make full use of her piles of strategic mobility options - all of which is currently undermined (heh) by her raw strength as a duelist. While we want the queen to hold her own in a fight, holding her own in a fight against 4 people and getting out alive isn't quite what we had intended (sorry marksmen).

Q - Queen's Wrath

BASE DAMAGE15/35/55/75/95 physical damage ⇒ 15/30/45/60/75 physical damage

PER ATTACK RATIO0.4 bonus attack damage at all ranks ⇒ 0.3 bonus attack damage at all ranks

Q - Prey Seeker

RATIO1.0 ability power at all ranks ⇒ 0.7 ability power at all ranks

W - Unburrow

RATIO0.5 bonus attack damage at all ranks ⇒ 0.4 bonus attack damage at all ranks

Renekton

Reign of Anger decays twice as fast, but Q, W, and E both generate more fury when hitting champions. Cull the Meek heals based on the number of champions hit rather than raw converting damage dealt to health.

All hail the fallen king of fighters - Renekton was once the Titan of Top Lane, now pushed to the wayside by armor-stacking tanks able to weather his onslaught. To solve some of his issues without giving him the throne back, our top investiGators put fury under the microscope as well as tuning up Cull the Meek's healing.

Fury as a mechanic is designed to give Renekton a way to scale meaningfully through combat, but currently falls a little flat, often just auto-winning trades due to its generation via minions. As of 5.1, Renekton gains more Fury while fighting champions (along with new bonuses to Fury on Ruthless Predator/Dice!) but gains far less for mindlessly shoving minion waves. This keeps Renekton's strengths when fighting 1v1 (god forbid the 1v2 or 1v3) but gives more rest between his fury-charged trades while on the losing end of the lane.

Lastly, we've changed Cull the Meek to heal based on the number of champions hit rather than calculating the heal after mitigation occurs. This keeps Cull the Meek as a competitive option in the later stages of the game after the enemy team starts stacking armor which, in turn, provides a massive boost to Renekton's survivability in teamfights.

There a lot of gross numbers below, but the short of it is: +Fury hitting champs, -Fury hitting minions, +Healing on champs. King Croc is back - long may he reign. In anger (that's his passive.)

Passive - Reign of Anger

FURY DECAY RATE2 fury per second ⇒ 4 fury per second

Q - Cull the Meek

HEALING VS MINIONS5% of damage dealt ⇒ 3/4.5/6/7.5/9 (+0.04 bonus attack damage)

HEALING VS MINIONS (EMPOWERED)10% damage ⇒ 9/13.5/18/22.5/27 (+0.08 bonus attack damage)

HEALING VS CHAMPIONS20% damage ⇒ 9/13.5/18/22.5/27 (+0.12 bonus attack damage)

HEALING VS CHAMPIONS (EMPOWERED)40% damage ⇒27/40.5/54/67.5/81 (+0.24 bonus attack damage)

FURY GENERATION ON NON-CHAMPION HIT5 per target ⇒ 2.5 per target

FURY GENERATION ON CHAMPION HIT5 per target ⇒ 10 per target

W - Ruthless Predator

NEWFURY GENERATION BONUS VS CHAMPIONS10 fury

E - Dice

NEWFURY GENERATION ON NON-CHAMPION HIT2.5 fury per target

NEWFURY GENERATION ON CHAMPION HIT10 fury per target

Rumble

Haaa... Oh dear. This wasn't a massive difference, but there was one all the same that we didn't see until now.

E - Electro Harpoon

WHOOPSFixed a bug where the cooldown between Harpoon casts was shorter on Super Galaxy Rumble

Sion

Zombies already have Grievous Wounds, man.

Passive - Glory in Death

FOR THEMATIC REASONS?Fixed a bug where if Sion was killed while affected by a healing debuff (ex. Grievous Wounds), he would revive in his zombie form with reduced health

Skarner

2015 Jungle Love Train ends its 5.1 run visiting all the Skarner mains out there missing their kind. For similar reasons we've stated for Evelynn and Hecarim, Q cost reductions are here to compensate for the lack of Elder Lizard sustain, while a lower cooldown on Fracture Skarner can continue to be annoying in those late game teamfights.

Q - Crystal Slash

COST16/18/20/22/24 mana ⇒ 16/17/18/19/20 mana

E - Fracture

COOLDOWN12 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 seconds

Sona

For a champion that has her fair share of counters (ex. Leona, Blitzcrank, vocal chords), Sona's pattern lacks significant counterplay when these champs aren't present, leaving her laning phase pretty oppressive. To give her opponents more windows to counterattack, we're reducing some of her skirmishing power so she's not so obnoxuious with that harp. Etwahl, sorry.

General

BASE MOVEMENT SPEED330 ⇒ 325

Q - Hymn of Valor

POWER CHORD DAMAGE AMPLIFICATION50% ⇒ 40%

Syndra

Syndra's strength as a single-target burst-mage makes her a valuable pick considering the field of assassins she's currently facing. While we're a fan of her strength in focused pick compositions, her ability to dictate the early laning phases of would-be counterpicks makes her more of an all-rounded laner than we'd like. Weakening Dark Sphere in the first few levels and making her Scatter the Weak stun line up better visually should decrease the frustrations of her lane without curbing too much of that untapped power (hehe).

Q - Dark Sphere

BASE DAMAGE70/110/150/190/230 magic damage ⇒50/95/140/185/230 magic damage

E - Scatter the Weak

IF YOU CAN DODGE A SPHERE...Dark Spheres knocked back by Scatter the Weak are now more 'strict' in their hitbox radius

Xerath

Tooltips often contain numbers. Sometimes, we accidentally write those numbers smaller than they are. This is one of those times.

E - Shocking Orb

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, EXCEPT WHEN IT'S A TOOLTIPTooltip updated to match actual max stun duration (2.25 seconds). Actual value unaffected.

Zed

Ah, Zed. With your amazing plays topping many a competitive player's highlight reel, how could we not love you? All in all, Zed is one of the best examples of what we call a "healthy assassin" in League of Legends.

That doesn't mean there aren't problems - while Zed's ability to delete squishies with a button press and some smooth moves is going to remain intact, he has so many other additional strengths that seem to push him over the edge. Given his amazing AD stats and his waveclear, should Zed be a top-tier tower-taker? Should he have amazing clean-up when his resources are depleted? While Zed's not receiving changes in this patch, we're committed to keeping LoL's favorite playmaking ninja fun to play as, and to play against.

BALANCE IS WEAKNESSNOT FOR LONG

Mass Texture Rebalance (Part 5)

We're continuing our comprehensive pass at the game's older character textures. As with previous installments, our goal is to improve parity with newer releases and make sure everybody looks at home on the newly-updated Rift. At least two people said they're still reading this paragraph so we're gonna keep it!

TEXTURESThe following textures have been updated:

Morgana

Base, Blackthorn, Blade Mistress, Exiled, Sinful Succulence

Volibear

Base, Northern Storm, Thunder Lord

Champion Portrait Updates

We're making readability improvements to a bunch of the champion portrait icons which were added or updated over the past few months.

PORTRAITSThe following champion portrait icons have been updated:

Azir, Cho'Gath, Ezreal, Gragas, Graves, Janna, Jarvan IV, Kayle, Kog'Maw, Lee Sin, Malphite, Maokai, Orianna, Renekton, Rengar, Rumble, Shyvana, Sion, Talon, Tristana, Udyr, Vayne, Veigar, Viktor, Zilean

Summoner's Rift

Map Textures

As we discussed in our performance optimization dev blog back before launch, our artists and engineers spent a lot of time exploring aesthetic solutions that balance visual fidelity and performance. Though we've all been playing on the new Rift for a few months, the team is continuing to look for ways to improve players' experience on our flagship map. This patch, we're redoing the textures on our lowest visual settings to address feedback regarding blurriness. We'll be smoothing out some of the smallest (read: noisiest) terrain details in exchange for increased sharpness and contrast across the map. This should improve readability while providing a higher quality experience.

TOASTERS AND TOASTER OVENSVery Low and Low texture settings have been updated to be sharper and less noisy

Turret Aggro

We half promise we won't remove this patch note in the middle of the night like last time, leaving you wondering if you're seeing things. Mainly because we're pretty sure we fixed it this time.

Like 95%.

What we're saying is this note is still here, so you're not crazy. Yet.

DEJA VUFlash and other movement abilities that relocate a champion's hitbox no longer drop turret aggro if used at a certain time during the turret attack cycle

Base Gates

THERE ARE GATES.

IN YOUR BASE.

... BASE GATES.

We were experimenting with ways to give defending teams unique advantages outside of extra stats or raw strength (because that's no fun), and arrived at something a little different. The new base gates are passable by you and your allies (think of them like open terrain) but completely impassable by enemies (they function as regular walls for them).

NEWBASE GATESNow exist!

Smite

Smite now stores charges up to a maximum of 2, but has an internal cooldown of 15 seconds so you can't do silly things like double Smite things.

Right now, Smite's a pretty important ability for a lot of reasons (securing buffs, smiting other folks, farming the jungle), so we're seeing most junglers start to 'hoard' their smites as the game progresses. When you think about it, that's a pretty significant chunk of cool things a jungler misses out on (as long as Dragon or Baron are up), so we looked for potential solutions.

Like Smite charges.

NEWCHARGESHas 'em. Smite now gains charges at a rate of 1 per 60 seconds with a maximum of 1 charge at any time ⇒ 1 per 75 seconds, with a maximum of two Smite charges at any time.

NEWA COMPLICATED STARTSmite starts with 1 charge and only begins to gain additional charges at 1:40

NEWNO DOUBLE TAPPINGSmite now has a cooldown of 15 seconds

Jungle AI

Read below, there's no good summary here.

First, when we say "leash," we're talking about the moment when a monster camp either loses aggro on its target or switches to a different target (ie: when two champions 'juggle' aggro between them). So if one of those Krugs wiggles between two targets rapidly, you can expect it to hard reset pretty fast. This will have the largest impact on duo-lane partners who like to balance monster damage between them but will also affect long-range junglers who use the camp aggro range reset to take even less damage.

GO BACK TO YOUR HOME!Jungle monsters will 'hard' reset after 10 soft leashes ⇒ 5 soft leashes. Refer to the above context when we say "leashes" because it gets a little complicated.

Dragon

People were hiding wards under the Dragon, making it real tough to clear vision without poking this grumpy baddy in the eye.

NEWGET OFF MY LAWNDragon now knocks away wards when he's at (or moves to) his starting location

TOOLTIPS ARE HARDTooltip bonuses for second and fourth Dragon buffs have been swapped to accurately reflect the change we made in patch 4.21.

Baron Nashor

Baron Nashor does more reliable / automatic damage but does less with his dodgeable area-of-effect abilities. He also spawns with less health.

Right now we've noticed that Baron Nashor is just too tough of an objective in the early to mid game, especially if the enemy team can contest even lightly. While a lot of this might just be about basic tuning, we also saw that teams trying to take Baron while under pressure from enemies ended up having a lot more difficulty dodging his high-damage spells (obviously), so we're shifting some of that power around. Still, end goal? We'd like a weaker Baron so he'll be more enticing to take throughout the game.

Attack Damage Stat Changes

BASE ATTACK DAMAGE500 ⇒ 240

ATTACK DAMAGE GAIN PER MINUTE0 ⇒ 8 (capped at +310 AD after 40 minutes). Note: This counts from the start of game, not from the time Baron Nashor spawns. So when Baron first appears at 20:00, he has accumulated 20 minutes of bonus attack damage.

TOTAL ATTACK DAMAGE AT SPAWN500 ⇒ 400

Health Stat Changes

BASE HEALTH8800 ⇒ 6400

HEALTH GAIN PER MINUTE140 ⇒ 180 Note: This counts from the start of the game, not from the time Baron Nashor spawns. So when Baron first appears at 20:00, he has accumulated 20 minutes of bonus health.

TOTAL HEALTH AT SPAWN11600 ⇒ 10000

Attack Changes

MELEE ATTACK AREA-OF-EFFECT RADIUS350 ⇒ 175

MELEE BASIC ATTACK RATIO1.3 total attack damage ⇒ 1.0 total attack damage

SINGLE TARGET REAR ATTACK RATIO1.15 total attack damage ⇒ 1.0 total attack damage

AREA-OF-EFFECT REAR ATTACK RATIO1.15 total attack damage ⇒ 0.5 total attack damage

Spell Changes

NEWVOID CORRUPTION AURA RATIOBaron Nashor's Void Corruption aura now scales with 0.0 of his total attack damage ⇒ 0.05 total attack damage

NEWSPELL CASTINGBaron Nashor now casts 1 spell after every 4 or 5 basic attacks ⇒1 spell after 6 basic attacks (single target spit, melee area-of-effect, or single target rear spike)

ACID SHOT RATIO0.5 total attack damage ⇒ 0.2 total attack damage

ACID SHOT BURN RATIO1.0 total attack damage ⇒ 0.2 total attack damage

ACID POOL RATIO0.4 total attack damage ⇒ 0.1 total attack damage

TENTACLE KNOCKUP RATIO0.75 total attack damage ⇒ 0.25 total attack damage

Jungle Scaling

Upping the rewards for an efficient jungle run!

CAN'T HOLD US DOWNChampions receive less experience if the cleared monster camp is two levels ⇒ three levels lower than their own

Items

Item Exchanges

You can now quickly exchange certain items in the shop. Rules and restrictions apply.

SPEEDY SHOPPINGTrinkets, unenchanted jungle items and boot enchants can now be exchanged!

CONVENIENCE YOU CAN SEETrinkets can be exchanged with other trinkets of equal level. Cost is calculated as 100% cost of the new trinket minus 70% cost of the old trinket (its sellback value). The 120 second new trinket cooldown still applies.

NO REFUNDSExchanging Oracle's Lens (sellback: 333 gold) for another trinket (cost: 250 gold) will not refund gold

CONVENIENCE YOU CAN SMITEUnenchanted jungle items can be exchanged with another unenchanted jungle item for free! Jungle item enchants can't be exchanged.

CONVENIENCE YOU CAN...STEP ONBoot enchants can now be exchanged. Cost is calculated as 100% cost of the new enchant minus 50% cost of the old enchant. Boot cost is not factored into the exchange - this is a buff.

TROPHIES ARE CUSTOM ORDERExchange tech hasn't been built out for Rengar's Bonetooth Necklaces. Sorry, kitty.

NEW

Zz'Rot Portal

You can now build Portals which spawn little Voidspawns who explode on enemy structures.

Think of this new item as a follow-up to our original preseason promise of adding more strategic diversity to League of Legends. Specifically, the Zz'Rot Portal is designed to provide tanky dudes with a new way to opt into pushing strategies while also having enough utility to be used in other creative ways.

RECIPERaptor Cloak + Negatron Cloak + 950 gold

TOTAL COST2800 gold

ARMOR+50

MAGIC RESISTANCE+50

BASE HEALTH REGENERATION+100%

UNIQUE PASSIVEPoint Runner: Builds up to 30% Movement Speed over 2 seconds while near turrets or Void Gates.

COOLDOWN150 seconds

UNIQUE ACTIVESpawns a Void Gate at target location for 150 seconds. Every 4 seconds the gate makes a Voidspawn that travels down the nearest lane. Voidspawn explode when attacking structures. Voidspawn ignore champions and void targets (150 second cooldown.) After the third Voidspawn made by Void Gate, additional Voidspawn gain 50% of your Armor and Magic Resistance as damage.

Hunter's Machete

Back in patch 4.21 we added extra gold to Hunter's Machete and all tier 2 / tier 3 jungle items, but noted that we might have gone a little light.

Well, now that we've seen the impact of the changes, we can go just a little harder. So here we are. Design levers!

BONUS GOLD ON MONSTER KILL10 bonus gold ⇒ 15 bonus gold

Tier 2 & Tier 3 Jungle Items

See above!

BONUS GOLD ON MONSTER KILL20 bonus gold ⇒ 30 bonus gold

Stalker's Blade

Chilling Smite steals movement speed rather than just slowing for a heavy amount.

Chilling Smite's a little too effective at what it does, so we're looking for ways to reduce its power without making the ganker feel bad about the decisions they've made. Switching Smite's slow from a straight 50% kneecap to a movement speed steal means the smited champ can still dodge skillshots or get under the tower, rather than hobbling along eating all the Ezreal Mystic Shots in the world.

CHILLING SMITE50% movement speed slow ⇒ 20% movement speed steal

Guardian Angel

Just a small cost correction after we removed and revived Negatron Cloak. There's a Guardian Angel joke in here somewhere but we're not looking for it.

COMBINE COST1250 gold ⇒ 1200 gold

TOTAL COST2850 gold ⇒ 2800 gold

Infinity Edge

We've been keeping an eye on marksmen power for some time and specifically wanted to tackle Infinity Edge, the new ubiquitous AD item that's replaced Bloodthirster since patch 4.10 (wow has it really been that long?). Rather than straight chopping away damage, however, reducing IE's crit chance means we can accentuate its reliance on othercrit multiplier items in order to scale well into the mid-late game.

CRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE25% ⇒ 20%

Phantom Dancer

Your required reading for Phantom Dancer context is to read the Infinity Edge context (above) before starting here.

We can wait.

There isn't much else to add beyond the Infinity Edge context (shifting crit multipliers to mid-game items), except that we're hoping to solidify PD as a single-target focused item versus Shiv's area-of-effect power strengths.

CRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE30% ⇒ 35%

Morellonomicon

Right now Morellonomicon is a super cost-efficient item for it offers, so we're pushing it to be more on-par with its mana regeneration alternative - Chalice.

COMBINE COST680 gold ⇒ 880 gold

TOTAL COST2100 gold ⇒ 2300 gold

Trinket Changes

Yellow and blue trinket upgrades are cheaper, yellow trinket upgrades are on a shorter cooldown, red trinket upgrade is cheaper.

Just some small rebalancing on trinkets so that teams who are behind have stronger vision options to stay on the map, while aggressive upgrades (basically Red trinket) are a little less overbearing.

Greater Stealth Totem

COST475 gold ⇒ 250 gold

COOLDOWN90 seconds ⇒ 60 seconds

Greater Vision Totem

COST475 gold ⇒ 250 gold

COOLDOWN180 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds

Farsight Orb

COST475 gold ⇒ 250 gold

Oracle's Lens

COOLDOW60 seconds ⇒ 75 seconds

Howling Abyss

Howling Abyss Aura

Self healing is back to full strength on ARAM, but all healing effects on allies are reduced by 50%. Mana regeneration auras on HA are also reduced by half.

Healers on ARAM make games no fun. Nyah.

That's basically the rundown of this change, but to explain a little deeper - we wanted to help out champs who rely heavily on self-healing for their strength (Zac, Maokai) while reducing the power of pokey-heal champs who are pretty much the best in these kind of matchups (looking at you Sona).

HEALING EFFECTS AURAAll healing effects are reduced by 20% ⇒ All healing effects on allies are reduced by 50%

MANA REGENERATION AURA30% of maximum mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 15% of maximum mana per 5 seconds

Guardian's Horn

Hail Ragnarok!

HEALTH180 ⇒ 200

HEALTH REGEN+100% base health regen ⇒ +125% base health regen

COMBINE COST445 gold ⇒ 435 gold

TOTAL COST1025 gold ⇒ 1015 gold

New Player Rune Changes

Most Tier 1 and 2 runes are leaving the store, while the rest are much cheaper. Also, no more rune combiner.

We believe Tier 1 and 2 runes should be an introduction to the rune experience which new players quickly move on from as they reach level 30. Duplicating the entire 88-rune Tier 3 roster is overkill for this purpose so we're reducing the number of purchasable Tier 1 and 2 runes to 23.

As for the Rune Combiner.... it hasn't really done its original job of facilitating progression between rune tiers. Instead, it's become a bit of a trap for low-level players as well as a tool for mischief in the case of shared or compromised accounts. So, we're retiring it.

PRICE REDUCTIONSTier 1 and 2 rune prices have been standardized and significantly reduced:

- Tier 1 Marks, Seals and Glyphs: 5 IP (from 15-65)
- Tier 1 Quintessences: 15 IP (from 80-165)
- Tier 2 Marks, Seals and Glyphs: 35 IP (from 80-330)
- Tier 2 Quintessences: 100 IP (from 410-820)

KEEP IT SIMPLEThe following Tier 1 and 2 runes have received the price reductions listed above. All other Tier 1 and 2 runes are no longer purchasable, but remain usable and will not be removed from players who already own them.

- Marks
- - Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Armor Penetration, Magic Penetration
- Seals
- - Armor, Magic Resist, Health, Health Regeneration
- Glyphs
- - Ability Power, Cooldown Reduction, Mana Regeneration, Magic Resist
- Quintessences
- - Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Armor Penetration, Magic Penetration, Armor, Magic Resist, Health, Ability Power, Cooldown Reduction, Life Steal, Movement Speed

REMOVEDThe Rune Combiner has been removed. If you reach the 700-rune limit, please contact player support.

Ability Bar Updates

Thanks to your continued feedback, we've moved some more important buffs back to the center of the HUD.

Total Biscuit of Regeneration
Mana Potion
Blitzcrank's Passive - Mana Barrier duration
Cassiopeia's Q - Noxious Blast movement speed buff
Graves's Passive - True Grit stacks
Hecarim's Q - Rampage stacks
Riven's Passive - Runic Blade stacks

Classic Summoner Icon Updates

Much like skins in-game, we believe Summoner Icons are a way for players to express their identity out-of-game. As philosophy around Summoner Icons has evolved, so has our quality standard. Though our classic summoner icons (the ones granted to every account at level 1) have a bit of.... dated... charm to them, we want new players to feel like they have compelling options to choose from. We're starting the new year with four refreshed icons and will proceed based on your feedback.

VISUAL UPDATEThe Tibbers Claw, Tibbers Teddy, Sprout and Rose icons have been updated!

Bugfixes

Fixed various issues where improperly loaded textures or particle effects would display as blue squares or random icons (FLASH?!)
On-hover range indicators for many items have been restored
Crystalline Flask is no longer missing from the Laning category in the item shop
Righteous Glory is now more responsive when activated

Upcoming Skins

The following skins will be released at various times during Patch 5.1:

Challenger Ahri

El Tigre Braum

Points of interest in 5.1

Here's a brief look at a few of the new things included in patch 5.1, 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 5.1 PBE cycle and may vary from what is pushed to live.

New Champion Skins

Patch 5.1 includes a total of two new skins, Challenger Ahri and El Tigre Braum! These will be out some point after 5.1 goes to live and we'll have a full preview posts when they are released!

Challenger Ahri

975 RP - Will be a legacy skin

El Tigre Braum

1350 RP

Alistar Visual Updates

As mentioned above, Alistar is stampeding into 5.1 with visual updates, including a new splash, new ability icons, new ult vfx, and a herd of updated skin textures & models!

Mosey on over to our dedicated Alistar champion update post for a better look!

New Splash Art

In addition to Alistar's new splash art for his visual updates, Ahri has also received a new base splash!

New Ward Skins

The poro ward madness continues with three new variations, each featuring new sounds, animations, and more! The Battlecast Poro Ward, Underworld Poro Ward, and Dragonslayer Poro ward will be priced at 640 RP each. No other availability details yet.