Continue reading for complete notes, including previews of the Battle Boss skins for Brand, Malzahar and Ziggs, Pentakill Kayle, and the Loot-exclusive Lancer Zero Hecarim, the new Arcade map accents, and more!
Here's the full 7.16 patch notes (be sure to check regional editions for slight variations!):
Hey there, friends!
As we approach Worlds, our changes lean a little bit more on tweaks to make high competitive play more balanced. Along with several mid-laners getting changed, we have some other stuff such as Cinderhulk and the Ancient Coin line.
Also, ARURF is making an extended comeback, so watch out for carpal tunnel.
Bam, ultra rapid foreword. We’ll see you on the Rift.
Paul "Aether" Perscheid Phillip "Costy" Costigan Mattias "Gentleman Gustaf" Lehman Lucas "Luqizilla" Moutinho
Champions
Caitlyn
Q deals less damage to targets beyond the first. W base damage decreased at early ranks; ratio reduced.
While recent changes to Caitlyn have focused on her late-game teamfighting* (headshots and traps), this patch is about how the Sheriff gets there. Cait’s historically had a rocky mid-game: her early strength wanes as lane phase ends, but she doesn’t hit carry status for another few thousand gold’s worth of items after that. That mid-game lull was largely erased when we smoothed out marksman item progression. We’re re-establishing it by tapping down her effectiveness prior to completing multiple end-game items.
*Sidenote: even accounting for their role as Caitlyn’s ideal teamfight contributions, trap procs were hitting slightly too hard in the late-game. Hence, a flat ratio nerf.
Q - Piltover Peacemaker
PASSTHROUGH DAMAGE67% to enemies beyond the first ⇒ 50% to enemies beyond the first
W - Yordle Snap Trap
TRAP BONUS DAMAGE30/70/110/150/190 (+0.7 total attack damage) ⇒10/55/100/145/190 (+0.6 total attack damage)
TOOLTIP FIXYordle Snap Trap’s tooltip now displays the correct root duration of 1.5 seconds (actual duration unchanged)
Fiora
Duelist’s Dance bonus movement speed increased at later ranks of Grand Challenge.
Back in 7.14 we gave Fiora’s opponents better opportunity to both retaliate as she aimed to pierce their vitals, and out-maneuver the Grand Duelist during Grand Challenge. Removing Grand Challenge’s free movement speed had the desired effect, but the hit to Duelist’s Dance left Fiora less nimble than we’d like. We’re pulling back a bit on the changes to her passive in response.
Passive - Duelist's Dance
BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED15/20/25/30% ⇒ 15/25/35/45%
Kayn
More bugfixin’.
Passive - The Darkin Scythe
BUGFIXKayn no longer gains transformation progress from ticks of Corrupting Potion, Deathfire Touch, Red Buff, or Challenging Smite. (Other periodic effects, such as Ignite, already had no impact on transformation progress.)
W - Blade's Reach
TOOLTIP FIXShadow Assassin Kayn’s tooltip for Blade’s Reach now displays the proper slow duration, slow value, and bonus attack damage ratio. In-game effects are unchanged.
R - Umbral Trespass
BUGFIX-FIXKayn once again marks targets for R - Umbral Trespass, even when his damage is completely absorbed by a shield
Maokai
Sapling Toss damage down at early ranks.
The Twisted Treant is simply performing too well in both the jungle and top lane. Currently Sapling Toss is both an excellent one-point-wonder and a totally lackluster option to rank up. We’re lowering its single-rank damage but preserving its maxed-out strength, giving Maokai the option to max E for super-effective saplings while making him easier to bear until that point.
E - Sapling Toss
MAX HEALTH DAMAGE8% target’s maximum health at all ranks ⇒6/6.5/7/7.5/8% target’s maximum health
BRUSH SAPLING MAX HEALTH DAMAGE16% target’s maximum health at all ranks ⇒ 12/13/14/15/16% target’s maximum health
Sion
W grants more health for killing small units. R’s max damage increased.
Sion never truly recovered from midseason’s durability item changes. Through this lens, giving him the means to win back some late-game tankiness is fairly straightforward. Past that, we’re packing more punch into Unstoppable Onslaught to bring Sion’s teamfight initiation up to a more appropriately threatening level.
W - Soul Furnace
BONUS HEALTH PER SMALL UNIT KILLED2 ⇒ 3
BONUS HEALTH PER LARGE UNIT KILLED10 (unchanged)
R - Unstoppable Onslaught
MINIMUM DAMAGE150/300/450 (unchanged)
MAXIMUM DAMAGE300/600/900 ⇒ 400/800/1200
BUGFIXSion is now properly immune to Lulu's W - Polymorph during Unstoppable Onslaught
Vi
R cooldown decreased. E attack can’t be canceled.
Vi’s calling card is reliably singling out a priority target with Assault and Battery, then punching everyone around her into the dirt. We’d like to see her flex that strength more frequently as a single-target-lockdown champ in today’s jungle meta of AoE-disruption tanks and lethality-wielding assassins. As a separate feels-good change, we’re also making it easier for Vi to properly weave Excessive Force between other actions without accidentally canceling her punch in the process.
E - Excessive Force
COMMITMENTExcessive Force’s empowered attack can no longer be canceled after Vi begins winding up
R - Assault and Battery
COOLDOWN150/115/80 seconds ⇒ 130/100/70 seconds
BUGFIXVi once again ends up a short distance behind her target
On-Hit Interactions With Wards
It makes sense for attack reset abilities (ex. Blitzcrank’s E - Power Fist) to consume their on-hit effects when used on wards: you’re choosing to burn a cooldown to play the vision game. But you can’t choose not to use a stack- or timer-based proc (ex. Caitlyn’s Passive - Headshot) when it’s up - you’re just forced to pay an extra cost to play the vision game. This is more ‘uncontrollable punishment’ than ‘interesting tradeoff’, so we generally avoid having these effects be consumed against wards. The changes below bring a few abilities in line with this thinking.
Aatrox
W third-hit effects no longer proc against wards.
Changing Blood Thirst / Blood Price to be consistent with the on-hit context above, though Aatrox comes with a few extra considerations. The Darkin Blade benefitted from his on-hit bonuses proccing on wards: Thirst is a heal and Price stacks the Blood Well. We discussed special-casing Aatrox to let W continue proccing on wards, but came up against another issue. We removed the ability to lifesteal off wards during preseason, and Blood Thirst’s heal is inconsistent with that change. This shifted the scales back toward standardizing W’s interaction with wards. While the loss of situational utility stings, it shouldn’t critically impact Aatrox’s strength since he can’t control when he has an enemy ward to attack.
W - Blood Thirst / Blood Price
WARDS AREN’T PEOPLEBlood Thirst / Blood Price’s on-hit effects no longer proc against wards
Jax
R third-attack effect no longer procs against wards.
Changing Grandmaster’s Might to be consistent with the on-hit context above.
R - Grandmaster's Might
WARDS AREN’T PEOPLEGrandmaster’s Might’s on-hit bonus damage no longer procs against wards
Jayce
Transform on-hit effects no longer proc against wards.
Changing Mercury Cannon / Mercury Hammer’s transform bonuses to be consistent with the on-hit context above.
R - Mercury Cannon / Mercury Hammer
WARDS AREN’T PEOPLEJayce’s on-hit bonus effects upon switching stances no longer proc against wards
Riven
Passive stacks no longer proc against wards.
Changing Runic Blade to be consistent with the on-hit context above.
Passive - Runic Blade
WARDS AREN’T PEOPLERunic Blade charges no longer proc against wards
Mid-Lane Worlds Balance
We’re fast approaching the Worlds patch! (7.18, for reference.) Last patch marked the start of our preparation with light changes to 20-some champions across many positions and roles. That work continues with 7.16, and while a number of changes above fall into the Worlds prep bucket as well, we’re paying particular attention to mid lane today. It’s important to note that if we only tweaked the absolute top picks, others would soon raise as top contenders - keep that in mind if any of the names below seem to be coming out of left field. You can get the context for each champion individually below, but we wanted to let you know why we changed a bunch of mages (and Fizz) at the same time.
Cassiopeia
Mana per level increased. E base damage down, AP ratio increased.
Cassiopeia is known and picked for her ability to control her lane very well during early levels. We’re okay with her having some early kill pressure, but opting into the level 1 non-empowered “E-spam” strategy shouldn’t automatically win the lane.
Base stats
BASE MANA375 ⇒ 334
MANA GROWTH STAT60 ⇒ 63
E - Twin Fang
DAMAGE VS POISONED TARGETS10/40/70/100/130 (+0.35 ability power)⇒ 15/40/65/90/115 (+0.4 ability power)
Corki
Base attack damage decreased.
Now that Corki scales better into the late game with magic penetration, he doesn’t need to have such a strong early game.
Base stats
BASE ATTACK DAMAGE58 ⇒ 55
Fizz
E cooldown decreased.
When facing the enemies Fizz should excel against during early laning phase, the nimble Trickster is not faring so well so we’re giving him a bit of power in that front.
E - Playful / Trickster
COOLDOWN18/16/14/12/10 seconds ⇒ 16/14.5/13/11.5/10 seconds
Galio
R cooldown increased at earlier ranks; R ally damage reduction reduced at later ranks
When teams can coordinate around Hero's Entrance (hello pro players), Galio’s playmaking becomes too consistent and too strong. We're toning the how much he gets to do it on early game, along with his ability to make allies unkillable as the game goes on.
R - Hero's Entrance
COOLDOWN160/140/120 seconds ⇒ 180/150/120 seconds
ALLY DAMAGE REDUCTION20/30/40% ⇒ 20/25/30%
LeBlanc
Q damage against minions decreased.
While there’s more comprehensive work to be done on LeBlanc, doing so this close to Worlds risks destabilizing the entire tournament. We have plans to revisit her later on but right now, we want to tackle her how much her wave-clear gives her room to roam. The Deceiver can burst entire minion waves using Shatter Orb passive, giving her the freedom to pay a visit to other lanes or Chain her combos (heh) on her laning opponent since there are no minions around to block Ethereal Chain.
Q - Shatter Orb
MINION DAMAGE80% ⇒ 60%
Orianna
W base damage decreased, buffer range with Q decreased. E shield decreased.
Orianna's strong laning phase and mid-game trades make her the best option when compared to other generalist mages. We want her to be picked for her unique properties rather than because she can brute-force everybody out through trades.
W - Command: Dissonance
BASE DAMAGE70/115/160/205/250 ⇒ 60/105/150/195/240
BUFFERED CAST RANGEWhile The Ball is moving from Q - Command: Attack, Orianna can queue up Command: Dissonance if The Ball is within275 ⇒ 75 units of Q’s target location. Spell queueing attempts from a greater distance are ignored.
WHAT?Orianna has to wait to press W until The Ball is closer to Q’s target location.
E - Command: Protect
BASE SHIELD80/120/160/200/240 ⇒ 60/100/140/180/220
GAME-BREAKING BUGE’s damage is unchanged, so the “75%” figure written in the tooltip is incorrect. Trust the actual damage values listed!
Syndra
Q AP ratio reduced. E AP ratio increased.
For someone with such high burst potential, Syndra deals a bit too much sustained damage.
Q - Dark Sphere
RATIO0.75 ability power ⇒ 0.65 ability power
E - Scatter the Weak
RATIO0.5 ability power ⇒ 0.6 ability power
Taliyah
Q mana cost increased.
Taliyah often gets to push her opponents in lane freely, getting to itemize straight into raw damage instead of solving the mana issues her counterparts have to deal with.
Q - Threaded Volley
COST50/55/60/65/70 mana ⇒ 60/70/80/90/100 mana
Items
Ancient Coin Line
Mana coins restore less mana.
We recently double-buffed the Ancient Coin line by increasing the gold and mana bonuses provided by coin drops, then reworking its quest reward the following patch. These changes left Coin too strong overall. We’re pulling back on the mana it provides so supports like Soraka and Sona aren’t able to keep their lane partners perpetually healthy.
MANA COIN REWARD15% missing mana ⇒ 10% missing mana
Enchantment: Cinderhulk
Combine cost up.
As tanks continue their return to jungle prominence, we’ve been keeping an eye on Cinderhulk. The strength Cinderhulk offers isn’t off the mark, but it’s coming online a little too early, getting tank junglers rolling faster than their non-Cinderhulk competition. Delaying Cinderhulk by a camp or so is just enough of a push to get tank scaling to a similar pace as other junglers.
COMBINE COST525 gold (2425 total gold) ⇒ 600 gold (2500 total gold)
Vision Ping
This one is long coming, but we're happy to say the "enemy vision here ping" is finally here! The ping hasn’t yet been integrated into the ping wheel - we’re looking into solutions that don't result in the UI looking like a pizza - but the functionality has made it to live. No more allied jungler running straight past a ward on their way to try to gank your lane.
NEWI CAN SEE YOU“Enemy ward here” has been added as a keybinding option in the “Communication” section of the in-game Hotkeys menu! (It’s not currently bindable through the client)
BIND ME PLEASE“Enemy ward here” has no default keybinding so you’ll need to manually set one
Skin Splash Portraits
Your champion’s portrait in the HUD now uses your skin’s splash! (This is the big circle to the left of your abilities. Kill callouts, the minimap, etc. will still use base splashes for immediate recognizability.)
Things affected:
- EVERY
- SINGLE
- SKIN
Spectator Indicator Cleanup
Cleaning house on some extraneous visuals (for Spectator only).
While many UI indicators (the blue/red circles and lines) need to be super eye-grabbing for normal gameplay decisionmaking, a lot of them are adding too much visual noise for Spectator. This cleanup removes some of the less important ones.
Champion Select
The skin selection menu will now pop up as soon as you've locked your champion. No more waiting until the draft phase is over.
Free To Play Champion Rotation
The Free to Play Champion rotation will always be 10% of the current champion roster. Today, that means 14 champions, up from the longstanding 10.
Rotating Game Mode
All Random Ultra Rapid Fire (ARURF) is back from 11/8/17 08:00 BST to 25/8/17 07:59 BST (Yes, the entire duration!) Enjoy superspeed cooldowns, infinite mana, blazing attack speeds, randomized champ select, and the return of Runeterra's most renowned manatee.
Some things to note:
- Along with the points made above, we've also boosted gold gains, movement speed, and tenacity to keep things Rapid Fire.
- In this mode, you can spam the custom Urf emote, which replaces the Mastery emote.
- Rerolls are shared with ARAM, so using one in either mode consumes it in the other. To compensate, we’ve increased the rate you rack up rerolls for the weekend. You should stack a reroll every game or two depending on how many champs you have unlocked.
- Many non-ultimate shield scalings are down by 50%. Don't worry, shields are still awesome.
Join in on the insanity and GLHF, URFers.
Bugfixes
- Fixed a bug where Twitch's R - Spray and Pray dealt two instances of damage to inhibitors and the Nexus if he attacked from slightly outside his normal basic attack range
- The damaging effects of Corrupting Potion, Deathfire Touch, Red Buff, and Challenging Smite now properly count as damage-over-time effects (see Kayn’s note above for why this matters)
- Fixed a bug where Rift Herald would hit both Nexus turrets simultaneously if spawned on the mid-lane
- Fixed a bug where Irelia casting Q - Blade Surge on the other side of a wall would cause damage but not bring Irelia over the wall.
- Heimerdinger's UPGRADE!!!’d Q - H-28Q Apex Turret’s beam attack no longer breaks for the rest of its duration if its target walks out of range during the beam attack’s wind-up
- Nautilus now properly stops if he collides with player-created terrain (ex. Anivia’s W - Crystallize) created in his path while pulling himself to Q - Dredge Line’s anchor
- Snow Day Singed’s Q - Poison Trail VFX have been adjusted to be more opaque
- Omega Squad Tristana's SFX have been restored during her dance and death animations
- Omega Squad Teemo's chromas now have proper mushroom VFX during the toss and bounce animation of R - Noxious Trap
- The hand trail VFX during Omega Squad Teemo's chroma's Q - Blinding Dart has been restored
- Poro Rider Sejuani's baby poro once again runs over to Bristle during Sejuani's death. *cue sad music*
- Nightbringer Yasuo no longer faces the wrong direction during his channel animation
- Vintage load screen border for Pumpkinhead Fiddlesticks has been restored
- The “Power Up” summoner icon is now centered properly in game lobbies and player profiles
- Arcade Corki’s E - Gatling Gun visuals no longer shoot sideways when under the effect of Lulu's W - Whimsy
- Master Chef Tahm Kench once again holds his knife and fork properly during all animations, like a true southern gentleman
- Honor level-up notifications will no longer pop in matchmaking, champ select, or the Honor ceremony because that was a tilter
Upcoming Skins & Chromas
The following skins will be released during patch 7.16:
In addition, Lancer Zero Hecarim debuts this patch as a Hextech Crafting exclusive!
The following chromas will be released during patch 7.16:
Points of Interest from the 7.16 PBE Cycle
Here's a brief look at many of the new things included in patch 7.16. This coverage includes preview screen shots and video taken during the 7.16 PBE cycle and may vary slightly from what is pushed to live.
New Champion Skins
Several new champion skins are releasing in 7.16, including Battle Boss Brand, Malzahar, and Ziggs, a rocking new Pentakill Kayle, and Lancer Zero Hecarim, the latest loot exclusive skin. Look for full preview posts when the skins are released!
Battle Boss Brand
Battle Boss Malzahar
Battle Boss Ziggs
Pentakill Kayle
Lancer Zero Hecarim
Arcade Map Accent
An Arcade Map accent for Summoner's Rift will be available this cycle. This Arcade themed Summoner's Rift includes a new look for the turrets, nexus, home platform, as well as arcade minions (minions are not yet enabled)!First up, here is the full loading screen background:
As stated above, you can toggle these accents on and off in the options menu. There will also be chat message to let you know about this option.
Gallery:
Arcade Minions:
Order
Also includes Arcade themed Summoner's Rift music:Arcade Boss World Crafting
Arcade Boss World Crafting will also be available this cycle, including a virtual prize wall of rewards to craft using TICKETS. Available rewards include the Battle Boss Baron icon & event emote, and a variety of different orbs containing various loot.
- Mega Orb - 150 tickets
- Contains the Following: Legacy Skin Shard
- Chance to Contain: Mega Orb, Gemstone x2, Lancer Zero Hecarim Skin Shard
- Great Orb - 120 Tickets
- Contains the Following: Skin Shard
- Chance to Contain: Great Orb, Gemstone, Dreadnova Darius Skin Shard
- Good Orb - 80 tickets
- Contains ONE of the Following: Champion Shard, Summoner Icon, Ward Skin Shard
- Chance to Contain: Good Orb, Gemstone, Hextech Annie Skin Shard
- Battle Boss Baron Icon with Event Emote - 80 Ticket
- Key Fragment - 40.Tickets
- 10 Blue Essence - 10 Tickets
Here's the new ARCADE BARON in-game emote. This icon is attached to the previously seen Arcade Baron summoner icon from earlier this cycle.
[Gif]
The map accent and crafting will most likely be available with an arcade event, Stay tuned for more details on this in the coming week!
New Ward Skin
Feast your eyes on two new ward skins - the Pentakill ward and Arcade Poro Ward! No details on availability yet!Pentakill Ward
[Gif]
Arcade Poro Ward
New Chroma
New chroma sets will be available some time this patch for Arcade Corki and Battle Boss Blitzcrank. Each set has 8 total chroma:Arcade Corki
Battle Boss Blitzcrank
New Summoner Icons
Seven new Arcade themed icons will also be available. As usual, no details on availability yet.Finally, one of the older Arcade icons was updated to remove the black border:
[Old]
Arcade 2017 Login Theme
A new Arcade/Battle Boss login theme will be featured on the client some time this patch, featuring our three new Battle Boss skins for Brand, Malzahar and Ziggs!
[Still Image / Music]
New Esports Login Theme
A new esports login theme is also going to live - filename is "Turkey Finals 2017". No details on where this will be used.Pentakill Skin Tweaks
This cycle brings Pentakill skin texture updates for borh Pentakill Sona and Pentakill Mordekaiser. This follows Pentakill Olaf's texture tweaks from the 7.15 PBE cycle.Pentakill Mordekaiser
Pentakill Sona
Here are the updated skin spotlights for each updated skin:
In-Game Skin Portraits
As mentioned in the thread below from Ququroon, the in game portraits of each skin now show the skin splash. Note that this only effects the small circle portrait on the in-game HUD:
Here's Ququroon with more on adding skin portraits to all skins:
Please note This will need to be bound to a hotkey before it is usable. This alerts your team that an area is warded. and places a message in chat. You can find this option in Hotkeys > Communication and it is labelled "Area is Warded Ping".
Here's Ququroon with more on adding skin portraits to all skins:
"Hail, summoners!
Let's talk about in-game splashes!
Splashes,those awesome images I could never hope to draw, appear in several different places once you’re in the game itself. Many splash elements, such as the minimap, kill callouts, and scoreboard- need to remain as the base splash for gameplay clarity, quicker reads, and so on.
However, the big circle next to your abilities doesn’t serve any significant gameplay purpose. Sooooo- it’s time for another wide-sweeping change!
Voila! You’ll notice that Arcade Ahri now has her respective skin splash as her portrait, as opposed to Base Ahri, as it is on Live.
On PBE tomorrow(ish), every single skin will now show its respective splash in this slot (and only this slot).
And that’s it- short and sweet. Hit me with any questions and/or feedback you have! You're all great, and I hope you have a nice day.
FAQ!
Shouldn't this have been in five years ago or so?
Yeah, probably! :DIsn't this a feature on ultimate skins?
Yeah. We’re sensitive to removing that as a unique feature on ultimate skins, but ~800 skins stand to benefit from this.What if I think the minimap icons suck too?
Well, you’re kinda right. They aren’t made for that particular space, instead they’re teeny crops of huge assets, that are further downscaled. While skins will never have a place on the minimap (see the above reasons), there are changes we’re looking at to improve the standard iconography."
"Enemy Has Vision Here" Ping
The previously mentioned "Enemy Has Vision Here" / "Area is Warded" ping will also be goign to live this cycle!Please note This will need to be bound to a hotkey before it is usable. This alerts your team that an area is warded. and places a message in chat. You can find this option in Hotkeys > Communication and it is labelled "Area is Warded Ping".
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