Patch 6.4 Notes

Ahri

Ahri's been strong for a long time, and it's not hard to see why. Her mobility, damage, and pick potential are all on the high end, playing a crucial role in her effectiveness. When assessing what areas to adjust, Charm stuck out as an area of inconsistency. While displacements (knockups and knockbacks) have always stopped movement abilities, stuns, fears and taunts do not. Charm was alone in this, and while having unique CC is definitely neat (both from a thematic and strategic perspective), it’s the fact that it’s on Ahri’s kit that we get into issues. Specifically, Ahri's intended to be a champion that uses superior damage and mobility to navigate deadly situations if she wants to emerge the victor. Instead, Ahri also happens to have the best in (and out of) class stopping power that negate some of her biggest predators with no real recourse.

E - Charm

Ashe

As a 'utility carry', Ashe's strengths lie in kiting her pursuers rather than the consistent damage output of other marksmen. Embracing that style, however, can prove detrimental (even when she’s doing it right) due to the harsh restrictions on Ranger's Focus. We don't want the punishment for a single positioning error to be so binary, so we're making it harder for Ashe to lose focus when distracted.

Q - Ranger's Focus

Caitlyn

Despite seeing success in pro play, Caitlyn’s performance in normal games has been inconsistent since her update. One explanation for this is the lack of clarity around Caitlyn’s second level-up. Pumping points into Net for the lower cooldown is by far the most popular, but snap-traps second outperform it significantly. Considering snap-traps are key to Caitlyn’s strategic identity as the best-in-class siege markswoman, we’re shifting power to encourage Cait to realize those strengths without feeling unsafe for one-pointing 90 Caliber Net.

W - Yordle Snap Trap

E - 90 Caliber Net

Ezreal

Back in 5.24 we gave Ezreal a greater reward for hitting Mystic Shot to reinforce his poke-pattern and emphasize his unique interactions with cooldown reduction. Judging by his incredible popularity and effectiveness, it seems those buffs hit the mark, with 40% CDR Ezreal becoming the norm. As a result, the frequency of Trueshot Barrages are at an all-time high, terrorizing teamfights, objectives, and minion waves alike. We like the flexibility that Ezreal's global nuke brings to the table, but when he's able to overclock his cooldowns to the point of controlling lanes and having it up for an impending teamfight, something's gotta give.

R - Trueshot Barrage

Fiora

Demacia's Grand Duelist has more than earned her title with Fiora outshining her peers in almost every way. We're not looking to take Fiora out of the arena for good, so we're focused on lowering her strength in two ways. 1.) Give opponents more windows to stick damage on Fiora, particularly when she misplays. 2.) Remove a particularly abusive priming case that heavily inflates her burst damage (see: Jayce's Hyper Charge changes way back in 4.21). Fiora's fun and flashy, but we prefer her highs to come from moments of truly skillful reactions, not hidden cooldown mechanics.

W - Riposte

E - Bladework

Gangplank

No stranger to the Bounty Board (or whatever Patch Notes are in Bilgewater), we've taken a long hard look at Gangplank to find changes that don't just feel like we're picking at threads every two weeks. This patch, it's all about taking down the consistency at which GP hits lategame.

We talk a lot about consistency and reliability (it's mentioned in these patch notes alone about 6 or so times), so let's take a context-break to dive deep. Consistency is just what it sounds like - how often you can rely on a champion pulling off a specific output. Being consistent in and of itself isn't a bad thing - Alistar or Malphite pulling off consistent initiation means that you can come to understand the value they bring as a teammate and start to build expectations around that consistency. What should I pick that goes well with this? How do I take advantage of their reliable output?

When a champion's output is damage, that's when things can get a little trickier. Are you a champion with a consistently powerful late-game, ala Vayne? Then your early game is risky. Are you a champion with consistently powerful early-game, like Lee Sin? Then your success in the late-game isn't a sure thing. It's at the intersections of power spikes and power dips (oh god what's the opposite of a spike) that much of League's interaction occurs - turning most games into 'Can I take advantage of my power before my opponent can take advantage of theirs?'

When we apply this concept to Gangplank, it's easy to see why he's been a headache to balance. Even when teams assign the appropriate amount of pressure to attempt to stunt his growth, Cannon Barrage's global range and Parrrley's plundering make it impossible to keep him off of gold, turning him into a threat no matter what you throw at him. With that in mind, chipping away at the consistency with which he can accrue that advantage (and the consistency of his barrel chains in teamfights) means that when you keep the Dead Man down, he stays down.

Q - Parrrley

E - Powder Keg

R - Cannon Barrage

Illaoi

For those who aren't in the know, there's a nasty bug where being knocked up or knocked back during Illaoi's Leap of Faith will cause her tentacles to spawn away from her... or sometimes not at all. Fixed!

R - Leap of Faith

Jhin

Nothing crazy here, just our standard post-release evaluation for new champions. Jhin's late-game strengths (thanks to Whisper's high-powered damage conversion and Curtain Call's executions) are receiving rave reviews, but most Jhin players are losing before the end of the first act (that's laning phase, for those keeping up with the metaphor). While the below section looks like a lot, it's mostly light adjustments to make up for the sacrifices the Virtuoso makes relative to other marksmen, especially around skirmishes and siege scenarios.

General

Passive - Whisper

W - Deadly Flourish

E - Captive Audience

R - Curtain Call

Katarina

We know Katarina buffs make everyone worried, but the Sinister Blade's felt pretty dull compared to her assassin peers for the better part of a season. Kat's success cases are defined by her ability to roam, but the arms-race of waveclear she's up against in midlane makes it hard to find the right moments. We're upping Kat's agency when it comes to creating favorable situations - whether through shoving to set up a sneaky side-lane gank, or just killing her opponent outright.

Q - Bouncing Blades

Kog'Maw

Since easing up on his laning-phase leash in 6.3, Kog'Maws taken revenge on his oppressors in a truly gruesome fashion. None would disagree Kog needs to be toned down, but let's go in-depth on the tactics. Toning down his attack speed might seem counterintuitive considering he's supposed to be a cute, corrosive machine-gun, but it's all about creating windows of power that are more nuanced than 'strong all the time.' Striking his core stat pushes Kog'Maw to be more careful around how he manages Bio-Arcane Barrage's uptime, as he'll be much less of a face-melting menace without it. Final note: you can consider this a two-part changelist as we dive deeper in 6.5 to see how we can get Kog to feel good about his abilities (Q and R in particular) when he's not right clicking and standing still.

General

Lucian

New season, same problems. Lucian's strengths are numerous - burst damage, sustained damage, mobility, amazing haircut - but he's never had a very well defined weakness. This leads to situations where a popular Lucian shuts out similar champions entirely (like old Graves) and hurts marksman diversity overall, simple because it's too hard to compete with his reliability.

With this change, we're cementing Lucian's weakness explicitly as 'poor damage output from range'. This puts a greater importance on his mobility tools like Ardent Blaze and Relentless Pursuit for contributing to fights and introduces greater risk to the character overall. Lucian still brings a lot to the table, but teams should be able to tailor their strategies to account for (or exploit) his uses, rather than just seeing him as the every-marksman of League.

R - The Culling

Malphite

Thanks to a mixture of preseason goodies (here's looking at you, Grasp), Malphite's putting up rock-solid performances across the board. Given Malphite's reliable lategame as a terrifying initiator, we're softening his laning phase to provide an opportunity to break up his consistency in getting there. Malphite may always be an unstoppable force, but playing against him shouldn't feel like you're caught between a rock and a hard place.

General

E - Ground Slam

Rumble

Rumble's ability to dominate mid-game with well placed Equalizers has always been gated by how strong or weak his laning phase lets him become. While we're taking care not to reinstate the flame-spitting lane oppressor of seasons past, Rumble's long due for some upgrades. We're suiting him up with a stronger fallback pattern for managing heat and last hitting, preventing Rumble from being shut down off of a few mistakes. This gives seasoned veterans and new pilots alike the flexibility to navigate tough situations to achieve Rumble's end-game fantasy of setting everything on fire.

E - Electro Harpoon

Ryze

Our last round of changes to Ryze left him feeling weak in the wake of his passive's spell-cap, so we're tossing him some love. We're still working on our long-term vision for Ryze (and continuing to monitor his state on live) but in the meantime we're letting him pack more of a punch, especially when weaving his signature combos.

Q - Overload

Shen

Jungle Shen's having a disproportionately harder time finding success than his support and top lane Shen cousins, so we're adding damage to his early clear and allowing him to control certain passive freshwater crustaceans.

E - Shadow Dash

Sivir

With so much of the overhaul to marksman itemization focused on crits, utility carries like Sivir have felt underwhelmed by the choices presented. Sivir's always traded poor dueling in favor of amazing skirmishes, so we're opting to support her unique outputs as the 'area-of-effect markswoman' in a way that makes crit feel like a more natural buy.

W - Ricochet

Tahm Kench

Hitting Tahm's damage in 6.2 put a damper on his ability to dominate everything near his mouth, but the toad's still unloading high degrees of frustration. Key to these feelings is Kench’s ability to stick onto his target, leading to feelings of helplessness when attempting to outplay the two-coated beast. Let’s be clear: It’s not Tahm’s ability to apply his CC from range that’s the issue here. Fishing for Q’s in lane is key to TK’s support pattern - it’s that the width is so generous that each lash feels less like poke and more like a death sentence. Though we’re unsticking some of Tahm’s lick, we’ve got improvements to his strategic mobility that make it easier for allies to hop in and partake in his special appetite for despair. The River King will still be able to throw his weight around, but we’d like to facilitate a little more involvement from his team to get the same results.

Q - Tongue Lash

R - Abyssal Voyage

Udyr

Though notorious for his strength with Runic Echoes, Udyr's been king of the jungle for a while, no matter what enchantment he buys. Udyr's the jungler's swiss-army knife - need to roam and chain-gank? Split push? Power farm? Objective control? He's got you covered. We're not looking to remove any one of Udyr's strengths in particular, but rather tone down his performance overall so other champions have a chance to take him down (or win, for that matter).

W - Turtle Stance

R - Phoenix Stance

Viktor

Viktor's been a strong pick on the Rift for many patches thanks to his safe and consistent laning phase. Though not possessing any mobility in the traditional sense (dashes, etc), Viktor's safety comes primarily from his single-spell range and waveclear. We’re fine with Viktor applying pressure via waveclear without fear of every gank, but laning against him is low on interaction given how easily he’s able to ignore you and laser-focus the minion line. Tuning that efficiency so Viktor’s opponents have more windows to fight back before he hits that critical break-point.

E - Death Ray

Xin Zhao

As we mentioned last patch, Xin Zhao's a fighter whose identity is linked closely to his ability to flexibly adopt different builds based on the situation. While we tailored 6.3's changes to his crit/attack damage-heavy builds, it's Xin's synergies with Guinsoo's Rageblade and Sated Devourer that's got us scared to death. Even though Sated Xin was already his most successful build before the changes, we wanted to see how he did with them before taking action. Now we’re we're specifically targeting Sated Rageblade Xin Zhao it to bring it line while we assess what follow up XZ's of all shapes and sizes (and items) need going forward.

W - Battle Cry

Boots of Swiftness

The hottest kicks on the Rift, Swifties are removing decisions when it comes to boot purchases. Now that the impact of 'more speed, cheaper cost' is well understood, we're pulling back just how much quicker they're making you. Still fast, still cheap, just not as strong.

Mercury's Treads

Merc Treads haven't been scratching the 'Buy me against hard CC' itch they're intended to for a while now. With most players opting for cheaper boots (or more movement speed), we're upping the effectiveness so Merc's are once again the go-to footwear when you're jumping head-first into a moshpit of stuns, fears, taunts, and Nautili.

Manamune

Sitting on Tear of the Goddess is a gamble - in most cases, you're going for an item that gives you very little combat effectiveness for a big payoff (once you upgrade). While the 'Tear = weak' part is holding up decently, folks who wanted Manamune found themselves putting off their sweet mana sword because there would be certain situations it would actually be harder to stack than its component gem. While the decision on when to upgrade is compelling, we don't want 'Manamune's stacking is just worse' to be the deciding factor.

Muramana

Borrowing from the Manamune section, the payoff to Tear-stacking is the promise of a huge power-spike once you've made your transformation. With Muramana, this wasn't always the case. In theory, Muramana uses your resource bar as a means of overloading your damage output - in reality, the cases where folks would burn so much of it on farming minions (or simply forgetting to toggle it on) left the item's performance lackluster.

These changes are about increasing accessibility such that you can count on the power that Muramana provides rather than chalking it up to human error why your big item purchases didn't help you win that last teamfight. The decisions around when you'd toggle it on or off are mostly kept in this iteration (vs minions: conserve mana, vs champions:FIRE EVERYTHING), and the gains to reliability outweigh the costs. Besides, Urgot's got enough to worry about without having to remember if he left the Muramana stove-light on or not.

Enchantment: Runic Echoes

By the numbers, Runic Echoes has been a more than suitable replacement for Runeglaive. Using it profitably has serious returns, gaining a leg up in map pressure over other junglers due to its high movement speed. We're happy that magic-damage dealers of all kinds are finding success in the jungle, but it's clear that the map mobility it provides is shutting out other enchantments (and the junglers who use them) from feeling like they can compete.

Iceborn Gauntlet

Thanks to the lingering slow, Iceborn Gauntlet's passive favors champions that apply it from range consistently over the fighters and tanks it was made for. We're adjusting to make armor purchases more impactful, making it about when and where you drop your ice field over how quickly and safely you can do it (after a 5-man Malphite ult, perhaps?)

Sterak's Gage

Originally intended for Juggernauts to feel good about wading into battle, Sterak's finds itself protecting marksmen from burst more often than aiding your standard beefcake. In a vacuum, this is okay - but when it starts covering the intended weakness of marksmen (that is, being soft to all-ins and assassination), the lines start to blur. By tuning down the base health, we're making Sterak’s less of a one-stop shop defensive item (as its shield scales directly off maximum health). Tank champions will continue to stack health anyway to take advantage, while squishier champs are getting both less base health and less of a shield from that fury proc.

Warlord's Bloodlust

As is, Warlord's Bloodlust has two main problems. For starters, it's incredibly narrow - while certain Keystones might restrict you to attacking so often or doing certain thresholds of damage, Warlord'sspecifically requires you to crit. While being narrow isn't always bad (Windspeaker's Blessing is fine being taken by supports only), the heavy skew towards marksmen when Fervor and Thunderlord's are alsogreat options make Warlord's superfluous (particularly when other classes could benefit from the space).

Aside from its intended audience, Warlord's has always captured a lategame fantasy while giving you nothing immediately - a tradeoff that people just aren't excited to make. These changes take a crack at killing two birds with one key-stone. Removing crit broadens its application significantly, making Warlord's especially synergistic with 'all-in' fighters like Aatrox and Olaf that capture the spirit of the Keystone's concept and giving it more reasonable scaling over the course of the game. If you like to fight to your last breath (and then some), look no further.

Expose Weakness

Like the Assassin mastery some patches back, we're adding Expose Weakness as a means to assist offensive supports. While many are perfectly happy with their Bonds of Stone and Windspeaker's Blessings, incentivizing a dip into Ferocity should appeal to the bloodthirsty supports out looking for, well, blood.