Surrender at 20: Patch 6.2 Notes

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Patch 6.2 is on the way and the official patch notes have been posted!

Continue reading for the complete notes, including info on Jhin, details on the Shen champion update, numerous balance changes, and much more!

Here's the full 6.2 patch notes with an introduction by Scarizard:

Greetings, Summoners.

Scarizard is taking a break from the patch notes, so you get me.

Before we get to the meat of things, let's have a moment of silence for the passing of the old Mordekaiser vs. Master Yi art we stole from somewhere I can't remember.

...

And now check out that awesome new art we stole from the 2016 season update! You cangrab it as a wallpaper here, which is nice.

Getting into the mix, 6.1 and 6.2 are our 'preseason followup' patches, and we've been pretty happy with how things are trending. We're seeing some cool diversity picks in competitive games (little suspicious of that Lissandra support), a lot of major outliers are calming down (although Graves and a few others may need to be checked), and the season's start is upon us.

In light of the above, 6.2's very straightforward. The most exciting things I'd want to highlight (aside from the release of Jhin, the Shen update, and the Nunu buffs) are very 'under-the-hood' with the ward debris and wall collision detection changes. The wall collision changes are pretty important but self-explanatory, so go read the note. On the point of ward debris: we still firmly believe that there needs to be some way to learn one of the most critical (and often game-winning) systems in League of Legends, so shiny little ghost-wards is where we're at. Clarity.

And that's 6.2 wrapped up! We wish you the best of luck in your placement matches. If you're struggling, try finding some like-minded friends to rank up with - just make sure they don't owe you money or anything because if you start fighting over who threw the game at the 55 minute mark, feelings get hurt and Tyler will never pay you that $20 he owes unless you call him out publicly in the patch notes. FOR SHAME.

But seriously, find some friends and have fun! Good luck out there!

Chris "Pwyff" Tom

Champions

Jhin

Jhin, the Virtuoso, will be released the week after patch 6.2's launch! To learn more, check the following links:

Mind of the Virtuoso
Champion Reveal
Champion Insights
Jhin Q&A (Coming soon!)
Champion Spotlight (Coming soon!)

Shen

Shen, the Eye of Twilight, will be updated with the release of patch 6.2! To learn more, check the following links:

Dr. Mundo

Lowering Mundo's early power. E's damage is now lower until the last rank, and Mundo's R starts at a higher cooldown before scaling down.

What happens when a late game monster also gets to dominate early?Mundo. Our last round of nerfs in 5.24 don't appear to have bruised Mundo's pain train, so a firmer collar in 6.2 means he'll have to work harder for his end game... strength.

E - Masochism

MINIMUM BONUS ATTACK DAMAGE40/55/70/85/100 ⇒20/40/60/80/100

MUNDO SAVANTBonus attack damage still scales by +1% per 1% of Mundo's missing health (so if a dead Mundo (100% missing health) could use Masochism, he'd still gain +100% of Masochism's bonus AD, now totalling 40/80/120/160/200). This ratio is unchanged, we're just letting you know because math is hard for Mundo. Particularly dead Mundo.

R - Sadism

COOLDOWN75 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 100/85/70 seconds

Elise

Base movement speed down on both forms, lower base damage on W.

With Runic Echoes, Elise has just the tool she needs to climb the waterspout of power rankings, and there ain't no rain to wash her out.

Nihilistic nursery rhymes aside, Elise is doing well and has a decent strategic identity (early power jungler with high utility and map presence), so we're just slowing her spider roll.

General

BASE HUMAN FORM MOVEMENT SPEED330 ⇒ 325

BASE SPIDER FORM MOVEMENT SPEED355 ⇒ 350

W - Volatile Spiderling

BASE DAMAGE75/125/175/225/275 magic damage ⇒60/110/160/210/260 magic damage

Fiora

Vitals will now spawn with a little more predictability.

On release, Duelist's Dance would alternate on spawn location between either the two 'front' vitals (facing blue side) or the two 'back' vitals (the ones facing red side). This was to get some elements of play and mastery in the mix, as well as preventing pure randomness from messing with either Fiora or her opponent. At some point, however, that logic exploded and went to randomness.

We're fixing it for the reasons we just mentioned.

Passive - Duelist's Dance

DIRECTION SELECTIONRandom ⇒ Alternates between top-right and bottom-left sides

Gangplank

R's cooldown is up across the board.

We're very aware that Gangplank has a recurring guest slot on the patch notes, but he continues to be one of our highest performing champions across quite a few power metrics. To be fair, however, with each change we've gone medium to light, as we know how fickle champion viability can be in both perception and objective power. Today we're chipping down Cannon Barrage's global presence to keep it in line with other global ultimates, which should also force Gangplank to value his ult timing more carefully.

R - Cannon Barrage

COOLDOWN140/130/120 seconds ⇒ 160/150/140 seconds

Karma

W costs less mana at all ranks.

Just keeping an eye on the champions who were affected by the mana regen nerf to Frost Queen's Claim in 6.1.

Like Karma.

W - Focused Resolve

COST70/75/80/85/90 mana ⇒ 50/55/60/65/70 mana

Kha'Zix

The patch note is pretty much a summary, so go read that.

We're finding a happy medium here for Kha'Zix (and Rengar) in their ability to frontload damage as they come hurtling through the air to cuddle with the backline. This probably won't be the end of our Kha'Zix conversation, but we're currently being very, very careful with assassin tuning.

W - Void Spike

NEWBUFFERING BUGSCan now be 'buffered' mid-jump so that Kha'Zix can cast it slightly before landing

DATA QUEUEIf Kha'Zix attempts to cast both Void Spikes and Void Assault while mid-air, he'll buffer only the last one he attempted to cast (not both, that would be too much)

R - Void Assault

NEWBUFFERING BUGSCan now be 'buffered' mid-jump so that Kha'Zix can cast it slightly before landing

DATA QUEUEIf Kha'Zix attempts to cast both Void Spikes and Void Assault while mid-air, he'll buffer only the last one he attempted to cast (not both, that would be too much)

Kindred

Q mana cost up, E base damage down.

We don't want to hit Kindred's late game scaling (or they don't really function as jungle marksmanimals), so we're instead tapping down their early dueling jungle strength.

Q - Dance of Arrows

COST30 mana at all ranks ⇒ 35 mana at all ranks

E - Mounting Dread

WOLF POUNCE DAMAGE80/110/140/170/200 physical damage ⇒60/90/120/150/180 physical damage (scaling and % health damage remain unchanged)

Nunu

E is now more spammable in late game team fights, with a lower cooldown and lower mana costs (at the tradeoff of less damage).

Giving the world's most annoying little boy (and his yeti, Willump (we sincerely hope you knew that)) something more to do in late game team fights. There's potential this makes lane Nunu come back with a vengeance, and while we're not certain what that means for the median happiness score of a game of League of Legends, we can at least apologize now.

... Sorry for the yeti.

That said, we're looking forward to more gameplay montages with great music.

E - Ice Blast

COOLDOWN6 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 6/5.5/5/4.5/4 seconds

COST75/85/95/105/115 mana ⇒ 70/75/80/85/90 mana

SLOW DURATION3 seconds ⇒ 2 seconds

SLOW STRENGTH20/30/40/50/60% ⇒ 40/45/50/55/60%

BASE DAMAGE85/130/175/225/275 magic damage ⇒80/120/160/200/240 magic damage

RATIO1.0 ability power ⇒ 0.9 ability power

Poppy

Small bugfixes to clear up Poppy's interactions with her passive, as well as a quality-of-life tweak for Q.

Some small bugfixes for Poppy to keep on truckin'. We wanted to stay roughly power neutral here.

Passive - Iron Ambassador

IT'S NOT A BOOMERANGIf target dies before the shield reaches it, the shield will not return.

RUBBER ZOMBIESThe shield will now return to Poppy when it kills a champion with a zombie passive (Kog'Maw, Karthus, etc.)

BYE-BYE BULWARKWhen the shield is on the ground, it will start its outro animation earlier so Poppy knows when it's time to say goodbye (actual game time duration unchanged)

Q - Hammer Shock

COMBO BREAKERWe've improved the E-Q combo from 6.1. Hammer Shock will now only auto-aim toward your target if your mouse cursor has not moved significantly after casting Heroic Charge.

Rengar

Q's burst damage is down, but the damage buff is higher. Bola Strike now has a cast time even if Rengar is casting it mid-air. R's Exclamation Point of Death now gives a longer range warning. You'll probably still die.

Every patch has one of those changelists where you crack your neck and take a deep breath (maybe stretch a bit) before diving into...context land.

What we have is a hunter-predator with seriously awesome hair who self-identifies with some seriously painful (strategic) one-shotting power. So what that means is while we're setting the narrative forthese Rengar changes, we will probably have future ones to come. And more context.

The story here: we're looking to do two things lightly - mainly because they directly overlap with Rengar's current strategic niche. 1.) We want to give players a slightly larger window of opportunity to react (see: R change). 2.) We want to at least slow Rengar's ability to one-shot someone with his uncounterable burst combo (see: E + Q changes). As to how these work in siphoning out kitty frustration remains to be seen, but it's where we're going to start.

Also, buy pink wards. This tip has little to do with Rengar, it's just good habits.

General

KITTY CONSISTENCYWhen Rengar jumps from stealth or the brush, he now lands very slightly short of the target. Like 1/16th of a Teemo short. This will prevent overzealous Rengars who occasionally jump right on top of their target, only to throw their Bola past them.

Q - Empowered Savagery

DAMAGE SCALING50% total attack damage ⇒ 30% total attack damage

ATTACK DAMAGE BUFF+10% bonus attack damage ⇒ +20% bonus attack damage

E - Bola Strike

0.25 SECONDS TO LIVEBola Strike now has a cast time (0.25 seconds) when Rengar casts it while mid-air

HAIL MARYRengar will now properly throw his Bola Strike if he tried to do it mid-air but the targeting cursor was out of range

R - Thrill of the Hunt

EXCLAMATION MARK RANGE1250 ⇒ 1450

Tahm Kench

Passive stack duration down, and fixed a bug with Devour refunding cooldown and mana cost even if an opponent shields it.

Not trying to bench the Kench, but at least reduce some frustration when he's rolling around the court, styling on the opposition. That stack duration change is to force Tahm to be more active in his aggression if he wants to be chain-chomping.

Passive - An Acquired Taste

STACK DURATION7 seconds ⇒ 5 seconds

Q - Tongue Lash

CLARITY!The tongue hitbox indicator now lasts longer (until the tongue finishes lashing out)

W - Devour

COUNTERPLAY!Fixed a bug where Devour would refund its cooldown and mana cost if cast on a target that was spell-immune (Morgana's E - Black Shield, Fiora's E - Riposte, etc)

R - Abyssal Voyage

RATIO4/6/8% bonus health ⇒ 2/4/6% bonus health

Items

Frost Queen's Claim

Who you gonna call?

Making the Rift a less spooky place, one patch at a time. The short context here is we initially dumped all of our investigation eggs into the Frost Queen's Claim basket, but have since expanded to the two item cost reductions below. Raising the cooldown, however, encourages more careful use of the active rather than "yes."

ACTIVE COOLDOWN60 seconds ⇒ 90 seconds

SPOOKY SPRINTINGGhosts no longer move slightly faster when they can see their target.

Morellonomicon

COST DOWN?

Collateral buffs from our Frost Queen's Claim investigations. Specifically, it seems like we were overvaluing what those unique passives were doing for the item. Having cheaper alternatives should help with build diversity.

COMBINE COST765 gold ⇒ 615 gold

TOTAL COST2550 gold ⇒ 2400 gold

Athene's Unholy Grail

COST DOWN!

See above. Or we could paste the above. Which we will now do.

Collateral buffs from our Frost Queen's Claim investigations. Specifically, it seems like we were overvaluing what those unique passives were doing for the item. Having cheaper alternatives should help with build diversity.

COMBINE COST565 gold ⇒ 465 gold

TOTAL COST2800 gold ⇒ 2700 gold

The Dark Seal

Cheaper cost so you can start with a refillable potion or three health potions.

The Dark Seal was designed to be a 'limited window of power' fantasy, so we're going a little harder on that. Now the dream start is a Dark Seal + Refillable Potion, where you get first blood for some stacks and an early Corrupting Potion (and that feel-good item synergy), play arrogantly, lose all of your stacks on a failed gank, stubbornly refuse to sell your Dark Seal (even though it's like selling a Doran's Ring), double down on Mejai's, and never get past 5 stacks.

I'm not projecting, I swear.

COST400 gold ⇒ 350 gold

SOULS AIN'T CHEAPThe total price of Mejai's Soulstealer is unchanged

Cull

More base AD, more gold when hitting 100 CS.

We still like the 'greedy' premise of Cull, so we're dialing it up a bit.

ATTACK DAMAGE5 ⇒ 7

FINAL PAYOUT300 gold ⇒ 350 gold

Rapid Firecannon

Just a small bugfix where attack-moving with champions wouldn't take Rapid Firecannon's range extension into account, so they'd run up to normal range and waste it on an empowered attack.

AUTO AUTO SPACINGFixed a bug where champions would run into 'normal' attack range, even when they had an empowered attack range from Rapid Firecannon

Systems

Wall Collision Detection

Flashing over walls or placing wards over walls is now more logical and understandable. If you're reading this far, you might as well read the context because this thing's confusing, man.

This is a change that has some implications (most good) in terms of how you flash over walls or place wards over walls, so we're going to be transparent about what happened. Before this change: when someone tries to flash over or place a ward over a wall, the game tries to place you at the spot you want to go. If it can't, it starts spiraling out (don't ask why it was a spiral) before arriving at a concrete location. It then plops you at that location. Technically this is consistent, because the spiral is always the same so if you know the right spots you'll always end up where you want - it's just a matter of memorizing where. After this change: same thing, except if you can't find a home in the wall, the system checks for the closest available spot and puts you there. Period.

What this means: flashing over and placing wards over walls should be far more intuitive as to what will 'work' or not work. If something used to work and it no longer works, that's because it wasn't supposed to in the first place (insufficient range) but the system was cheating it. For those situations, you'll need to re-learn certain 'ways' of warding over walls to get consistency, but it should make a lot more sense.

YOU'RE WELCOME SCARRAPlacing wards over walls or flashing over walls is now more logical and precisely calculated. Read the context, this patch note isn't going to make sense.

Masteries

Assassin

More assassin, less "super good for junglers."

Going a little harder on that 'champion isolation' mechanic that Assassin was meant to promise, rather than it being a very strong mastery pick for junglers. Oh dear.

REMOVEDALONE IN THE JUNGLEIncreased damage is exclusive against champions

DAMAGE BONUS+1.5% ⇒ +2%

Thunderlord's Decree

Cooldown up at lower levels, and down at later levels. The grace period between hits has gone down, so you'll need to get three hits off faster to proc it.

Thunderlord's Decree being our current benchmark of satisfaction and power for keystone masteries remains the same, but that doesn't mean we can't touch it! Think of it more as keeping Thunderlord's tête-à-tête with other masteries, and so we're adjusting both sides accordingly. Right now, we're siphoning a little of Thunderlord's early dominance because it's just straight crowding out other choices. What this does mean, however, is we can buff it's late game presence with a little more excitement.

Also, that stack decay change is probably more important for lane aggression, as it means you'll need to really commit if you want to your purple lightning.

COOLDOWN20 seconds ⇒ 25 - 15 seconds (based on level)

STACK DECAY PERIOD5 seconds ⇒ 3 seconds

Windspeaker's Blessing

Tooltip correction. Windspeaker's does boost self-heals and shields, just not the bonus AR/MR.

Just a tooltip correction. For those of you wondering why we don't just make Windspeaker's provide the same AR/MR bonuses for self-heals and ally heals (or shields), the answer is Mundo. And Warwick. And Singed. And Garen. And so on.

ALSO ALISTARTooltip has been updated to reflect that, for self-heals and self-shields, Windspeaker's Blessing increases their potential but does not provide bonus magic resistance and armor

Trinkets & Vision

Ward Debris

Ward Debris now visually changes based on how long it's been debris.

One major point of feedback we've gotten on ward debris is just how useless the information is. Basically, because these things stick around for so long, you end up with a lot of 'junk' data that doesn't do much for learning habits.

This change is to streamline things. By showing clear, readable 'phases' in ward debris life, you should understand more about your enemy's vision strategy and how it evolves over the course of time. This might not sound like a very exciting feature, but it totally is. We're excited. Please be excited.

DEBRIS DURATION!300 ⇒ 240 seconds

NEWDEBRIS VISUALS!Ward Debris now:

Brightly glows in the first 10% of its lifespan!
Stops emitting flames after 30% of its lifespan has passed!
Particle visibly changes and debris shrinks after 60% of its lifespan has passed!

Sweeping Lens

Find hidden Cho'Gaths easier.

This will have very little impact when it comes to sweeping wards, but it should be more fun to 'tag' fatty champions hiding in the brush.

SCAN DETECTIONCenter to center ⇒ Center to edge

SCAN EQUALITYAlso affects Oracle's Alteration

Farsight Alteration

Blue wards now have their own unique minimap icon.

For those times when your team peppers the map with blue wards and you're trying to figure out your regular ward count at a glance but get really confused because there's 20 of them sitting in your jungle.

We got your back.

NEWMINIMAP WARD ICONIs now smaller and more lightly tinted than a regular ward icon

NEWDYNAMIC CURSOR COLORFarsight Totem now shares similar behavior with other warding actives. Your targeting cursor will now turn green when over brush and red when in terrain.

Trinkets Castable During Channels

That's certainly a functional change header.

Read what's on the box. We were actually inspired by Jhin when he was trying to self-spot for his Curtain Call (R) in playtests, but then just stopped shooting and got sad. Unfortunately in actual execution we flipped this on its head, so it was fixed for all champions except Jhin (and Xerath). We'll be getting to those two as soon as we can.

BEAUTIFUL VISIONActivating a trinket will no longer break channels - except in the case of Jhin and Xerath, which we will fix as soon as we can.

Alternative Maps

Howling Abyss

#cleannumbers

We wanted to introduce #cleannumbers to the health relic spawns on The Howling Abyss and ended up in neutral positivity because of Twisted Treeline. Long story short, one's a bug, the other's intended.

HEALTH RELIC SPAWN3:10 ⇒ 3:00 (this is intended)

Twisted Treeline

#whoops

Spillover. We'll fix this as soon as possible.

HEALTH RELIC SPAWN3:00 ⇒ 2:50 (this is a bug and will be fixed as soon as possible)

New Champ Select

As promised when we launched New Champ Select, we've been working to improve the system based on our initial live data. Before we proceed, it's worth noting that our downtime wasn't caused by bugs in New Champ Select itself (hence the relatively low number of fixes listed here). Rather, the huge influx of traffic from both New Champ Select's launch and the start of the 2016 ranked season caused New Champ Select's underlying systems to fall over.

Now that we've reinforced these systems and New Champ Select is back online, here's what's new:

Interface Improvements

Adding a few tools back into New Champ Select which weren't quite ready to go when we launched.

POOL PARTY COMPSkins are now purchasable in New Champ Select

LITERALLY BLUCIANChromas can now be selected in New Champ Select

YOU GOTTA WARD, THOUGHWard skins can now be selected in New Champ Select

Matchmaking Improvements

These changes were made pretty quickly following the initial release of New Champ Select. We're just making sure you know about them.

MATCHMAKING BALANCEImproved at all skill levels

QUEUE TIMESReduced at the top end of the MMR spectrum

PREMADE EQUALITY5-man premades are now matched up against other 5-man premades 98% of the time

Lunar Revel 2016

Lunar Revel has begun! Three new Lunar Revel skins are already available in advance of patch 6.2:

Radiant Wukong

Lunar Wraith Caitlyn (Legacy)

Lunar Wraith Morgana (Legacy)

Continue the celebration with more new Lunar Revel content coming out after patch 6.2 releases:

A new Rising Dawn ward skin and four new summoner icons
Your Lunar Revel Shop will be open from Jan. 28 to Feb. 8

Learn more and join in the revelry at the Lunar Revel 2016 site!

Bugfixes

HUD font size now properly scales with HUD settings, rather than system DPI settings. Sorry, 4k users!
Fixed a bug where Sweeping Lens's animation would play when walking into brush the enemy team swept earlier in the match
Fixed a bug where Warlord's Bloodlust's attack speed buff was lasting one second less than intended
Fixed a bug where Hecarim's E - Devastating Charge R - Onslaught of Shadows combo wasn't working properly. Hecarim can now cast E before R and will not lose the E buff
Similar to Ryze, Cassiopeia now retains her previous movement or attack command after E - Twin Fang's cast finishes
Vel'Koz's R - Lifeform Disintegration Ray no longer does a variety of strange things if cast as Vel'Koz last-hits a target
Fixed a bug where Malphite's R - Unstoppable Force would sometimes knock up and damage units at the start position instead of end position when interacting with displacement spells like Trundle's E - Pillar of Ice
Fixed a bug where displacement effects would not displace Zac during E - Elastic Slingshot's travel time
Fixed a bug where leveling up caused Graves's E - Quick Draw's armor and magic resistance bonus to become inconsistent until refreshed
Fixed the vision-granting aspects of Malzahar's Q - Call of the Void. Vision is now properly granted along the entire path and enemies hit on the edge of their hitboxes are now properly revealed.
Yasuo's W - Wind Wall now properly continues to blocking projectiles if Yasuo dies
Fixed a bug where Yasuo's third Q - Steel Tempest (and E > Q combo) could deal damage through spell shields in certain situations
Fixed a bug where Leona's E - Zenith Blade still rooted a target mid-dash even if they spell shielded the ability
Pantheon's Passive - Aegis Protection now blocks - and gets consumed by! - attacks by Annie's Tibbers and Heimerdinger's ultimate turret
Fixed many cases of on-hit effects applying even when blocked by Pantheon's Passive - Aegis Protection
Fixed a bug that caused Zyra's plant attacks to ignore a target's dodge status
Rift Herald now drops a soul for Thresh

Upcoming Skins

The following skins will be released during patch 6.2:

High Noon Jhin

Beast Hunter Draven

Beast Hunter Sejuani

Beast Hunter Tryndamere

Three additional new skins are already available to commemorate Lunar Revel -check above for details!

Points of Interest from the 6.2 PBE

Here's a brief look at a few of the new things included in patch 6.2 including things mentioned above in the patch notes and things discovered during the last PBE cycle! This coverage includes preview screen shots and video taken during the 6.2 PBE cycle and may vary from what is pushed to live.

New Champion - Jhin, the Virtuoso

Most notable in patch 6.2 is our next champion Jhin, the Virtuoso! While he won't be release immediately after the patch his, keep an eye out for our dedicated post once he is available for purchase!

Jhin, the Virtuoso

In addition to his VO, here are Jhin's special interactions with champions and buying items in the shop:

For more information, check out our 6.2 PBE cycle coverage!

Also included is Jhin's releaase skin High Noon Jhin!

High Noon Jhin

1350 RP

Shen Champion Update

With 6.2 comes Shen's champion update, including new visuals and an updated kit!

Check out Shen's updated champion spotlight for a rundown of his new kit:

As a part of Shen's new look, each of his six skins has also been updated - including new splash art for five of them!