Patch 15.18

Q cooldown and mana cost decreased.

Amumu has been very sad in support for a while now and we'd like to give him some power back to add a bit of pep to his step. We think he'd be tickled pink if he could start maxing Q first, so we're leaning in that direction by giving it a lower cooldown per rank while also lowering the mana cast so he'll be able to cast two charges relatively cheaply.

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  Q - Bandage Toss

  Cooldown: 16 / 15.5 / 15 / 14.5 / 14 → 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 seconds

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  Q - Bandage Toss

  Mana Cost: 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 → 50 at all ranks

W damage decreased. R magic pen decreased.

Annie's been on fire in pro play for quite some time as is also OP for regular play with the right skill order. Her W-first-max tech is quite powerful compared to her Q max, despite it being very uncommon outside of Pro, so we're going to reduce the power of this under-the-radar tech.

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  W - Incinerate

  Base Damage: 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 → 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230

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  R - Summon Tibbers

  Magic Penetration: 15 / 17.5 / 20% → 10 / 15 / 20%

AD growth increased.

Ashe is once again finding herself near the bottom of the ADC list. We're pretty happy with her current shape with crit and some on-hit items being solid options for her, so all we're really doing here is looking to nudge her success rate up just a bit.

Passive damage adjusted.

In a similar boat as a few other mages in this patch, Aurora has been outcompeting and dominating the mid meta in Pro. We're looking to take some power out of her pro specific advantage of baseline target agnosticism without buying into high AP, as well as worsen her lane phase slightly so she is less capable of supporting her team in early skirmishes.

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  Passive - Spirit Abjuration

  Base Percent Max Health Damage: 2.5% → 1%

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  Passive - Spirit Abjuration

  Percent Max Health Damage AP Ratio: 2% per 100 AP → 2.7% per 100 AP

Attack Speed growth decreased. W damage decreased.

Azir has been at the top of his rule, especially in pro play. He's reliably able to get to a high point of power, so we'd like to reduce how effective he is when that happens by bringing down his Attack Speed growth and late-game W damage.

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  W - Arise!

  AP Ratio: + 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 / 65% AP → + 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60% AP

Q damage decreased, now deals physical damage. W bugfix. R alert sound now plays after a delay, range increased, damage decreased.

Briar's ultimate is a little too hard to hit, especially against aware players. While it's intended that the spell has high counterplay, we wanted to ensure smart Briar players are able to find situations where it is much more in their favor to land. To do this, we're delaying the global warning sound until after the 1 second cast time, which should make R much easier to hit when cast at nearby enemies from out of vision. To compensate, we're nerfing her damage a bit as she's quite strong right now and doesn't have room for a straight buff. We also took this chance to move Q back to physical damage for all you lethality enjoyers out there.

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  Q - Head Rush

  Base Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 → 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160

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  Q - Head Rush

  Damage Type: Magic → Physical

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  W - Blood Frenzy

  Bugfix: Fixed a bug where Briar would sometimes stop moving and lose her attack command when Frenzy expired

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  R - Certain Death

  Global Sound: Plays on cast → Plays after cast

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  R - Certain Death

  Damage: 150 / 250 / 350 (+ 50% bonus AD) (+ 120% AP) → 150 / 250 / 350 (+130% AP) (Note: 50% bonus AD ratio removed.)

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  R - Certain Death

  Range: 10000 → 12000

Mana increased. E damage vs poisoned targets increased.

Cassiopeia has been stagnating in the grass for a while ever since the early few patches of Noxus earlier this year. To help her out we're adding a small buff to her offensive power and early laning by giving her (twin) fangs a bit more bite.

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  E - Twin Fang

  Base Damage vs Poisoned Targets: 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 → 20 / 43 / 66 / 89 / 112

Passive and Q damage decreased.

Galio is currently one of the most dominant mid picks and has been for a few patches now. His mid-game is by far his strongest point, which has meaningfully contributed to him out competing other picks, so we're looking to bring it down to a more reasonable spot. With these changes we're looking to target both tank and full damage builds to keep his itemization between the two healthy.

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  Passive - Colossal Smash

  AP Ratio: 45% → 40%

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  Q - Winds of War

  Percent Max Health Damage per Tick: 2.5% → 2%

E damage increased.

Garen is hitting a historical low breadth (the amount of unique players), and we'd like our signature accessible top lane fighter to be more enticing for more players. We're going to buff him up by showing some love to his E AD Ratio, which should further incentivize more fighter-y runes and items.

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  E - Judgment

  AD Ratio per Spin: 36 / 39 / 42 / 45 / 48% AD → 38 / 41 / 44 / 47 / 50% AD

Passive and E abilities' damage increased. WQ movement speed increased.

Hwei has been producing fine art, but we've seen some player feedback saying that he struggles to find footing, partially due to his strength waning over gametime, which we agree with. To fix this we're buffing his AP ratios to give his art more impact as he gets gold, and giving him some higher-mastery skewed buffs that will help his WQ feel smoother to use.

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  Passive - Signature of the Visionary

  AP Ratio: 30% → 35%

• WQ - Serenity

  Fleeting Current: Base Bonus Movement Speed: 20 / 22.5 / 25 / 27.5 / 30% → 30 / 32.5 / 35 / 37.5 / 40%

• WQ - Serenity

  Fleeting Current: Bonus Movement Speed AP Ratio: +2% per 100 AP → +3% per 100 AP

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  E - Subject

  Torment: EQ - Grim Visage AP Ratio: 60% → 65%

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  E - Subject

  Torment: EW - Gaze of the Abyss AP Ratio: 60% → 65%

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  E - Subject

  Torment: EE - Crushing Maw AP Ratio: 60% → 65%

Passive QoL change. W damage decreased. E vessel duration decreased.

When we nerfed Illaoi's vessel duration, she was left in a state where she could sometimes fail to get any follow-up tentacle attacks on a newly-minted vessel in the early game. We're extending the debuff duration slightly to make it more likely that she can get her well-deserved follow-up slap, but as this has a meaningful power impact, we're also giving her a small compensation nerf. We're also delivering a nice QoL buff requested by Illaoi players: no longer will she waste her passive cooldown while channeling or travelling with Summoner Teleport.

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  Passive - Prophet of an Elder God

  QoL Change: No longer spawns tentacles during Summoner Teleport. Her passive now waits until she's done teleporting.

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  W - Harsh Lesson

  Target Max Health Damage: 4% per 100 total AD → 3.5% per 100 total AD

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  E - Test of Spirit

  Vessel Duration: 3 → 4 seconds

Q damage increased.

Piltover's poster boy hasn't been defending tomorrow very well lately, and has seen little presence in pro play despite the top lane meta being one he should thrive in. To help him out a bit we're going to give him a high skill skewed buff to make his shock blasts all the more... shocking.

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  Q - Shock Blast (Cannon Stance)

  Damage: 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 / 310 → 80 / 126 / 172 / 218 / 264 / 310

Katarina struggles in a gamemode with only 2 opponents, so we're adjusting her passive to fully reset her ultimate while giving her some more force behind her basic abilities.

Our previous Kled changes helped him out, but didn't go far enough; we're doing some follow-up work.

AP Kog'Maw has always been an off build, but is a little less viable than we think makes sense for Arena's build philosophies.

Leona has been a bit underwhelming for a while, so we are pulling back some of the previous Arena-specific changes that she has received in the past.

Base AD and Armor Growth decreased. Passive damage decreased.

Qiyana's recent buffs were quite potent, bringing her into the spotlight as arguably the strongest champion in the game and driving her ban rate up significantly. This queen has been shining too brightly, in both mid and jungle, so to take the attention off of her (and so that her players can play her) we're bringing her power down across the board.

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  Passive - Royal Privilege

  Bonus Damage: 30% Bonus AD → 25% Bonus AD

Soraka has been a top-tier enchanter for a while, so we're tapping her down slightly.

Passive damage to monsters decreased.

As players have gotten better at him, Sylas jungle has continued to rise up the ranks and now is more performant than we're comfortable with. Since we're happy with his power level in mid lane, we're simply walking back a portion of his prior jungle buffs.

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  Passive - Petricite Burst

  Bonus Damage to Monsters: 150% → 130%

Q and Q2 mana cost decreased, damage decreased. E mana cost decreased, damage decreased.

Taliyah has been no stranger to higher level play and we think the culprit is a combination of reliability and durability in her most common builds. We'd like her to be weighed down less by her high mana costs in order to make her less reliant on Tear of the Goddess. Additionally, we would also see her build more aggressively so we are lowering her base damage in order to make AP a larger portion of her power budget. We're improving her jungle modifiers as a way to offset these adjustments to mid lane.

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  Q - Threaded Volley

  Mana Cost: 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 → 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75

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  Q - Threaded Volley

  Q2 Mana Cost: 20 → 10

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  Q - Threaded Volley

  Base Damage: 56 / 74.5 / 93 / 111.5 / 130 → 55 / 72.5 / 90 / 107.5 / 125

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  Q - Threaded Volley

  Flat Damage per Rock to Monsters: 10 → 20

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  E - Unraveled Earth

  Mana Cost: 90 / 95 / 100 / 105 / 110 → 90 at all ranks

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  E - Unraveled Earth

  Detonation Base Damage: 25 / 45 / 65 / 85 / 105 → 25 / 40 / 55 / 70 / 85

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  E - Unraveled Earth

  Monster Damage Modifier: 175% → 190%

E cooldown decreased. R damage increased.

We're looking to give a bit of love to Vel'Koz who's been looking a tad weak in both main roles, with a bit more emphasis on the mid lane.

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  E - Tectonic Disruption

  Cooldown: 14 / 13.5 / 13 / 12.5 / 12 → 12 / 11.5 / 11 / 10.5 / 10 seconds

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  R - Life Form Disintegration Ray

  Total Base Damage: 450 / 625 / 800 → 450 / 700 / 925

Passive AP ratio decreased.

Volibear has clawed his way to the top of the ranks of junglers as the rest of them were brutally wounded by nerfs in the last hunt. While it's acceptable for this thunder god to be potent, his current strength is just a bit too thunderous. As such we're tapping down his AP Ratio on his passive, which should make his first item power spike less electrifying.

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  Passive - The Relentless Storm

  Attack Speed AP Ratio: 4% (up to 20%) per 100 AP → 3 (up to 17.5%) per 100 AP

With Xin Zhao's update, he lost some of his Arena tuning, we're bringing those back.

Base Health and AD decreased. E bonus movement speed and duration decreased.

Yunara has quickly risen to be the strongest marksman in the game accounting for mastery while also seeing high pick/ban priority in professional play (especially in China and Korea). In this patch we're looking to nerf her across the board, ideally lowering her priority in professional play, which should also lower her ban rate in higher levels of play as well.

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  E - Kanmei's Steps

  Bonus Movement Speed: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70% → 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50%

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  E - Kanmei's Steps

  Movement Speed Duration: 1.5 / 1.75 / 2 / 2.25 / 2.5 → 1.5 seconds at all ranks

R now Ghosts.

Zac can rarely get stuck on units in his ultimate. The original Zac ultimate allowed him to pass through units to prevent this, so we're bringing that functionality back!

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  R - Let's Bounce!

  Going Ghost: Now grants Ghosting during ultimate.

We've revisiting Bami's this patch to help keep it in line with Fated Ashes, which has seen a clear dominance between the two options.

We've revisiting Bami's this patch to help keep it in line with Fated Ashes, which has seen a clear dominance between the two options. We'd like the difference to be less decided between the two components for jungle clear power, so these buffs should help do just that.

When you find yourself forced to rush a QSS to survive an enemy Malzahar, Warwick, or just a team with heavy CC, it's still usually in your best interest to complete this item last.

When you find yourself forced to rush a QSS to survive an enemy Malzahar, Warwick, or just a team with heavy CC, it's still usually in your best interest to complete this item last. Even then, you still may feel like you're giving up more power than you can afford due to the meager stats that the item gives on completion. We're looking to make sure the item still feels appropriately tuned while keeping a focus on the active as its main strength.

Sunfire Cape has been the clearly worse option for tank junglers when compared to Liandry's, and while a meaningful amount of that difference is generated from the early clear impacts of Bami's vs.

Sunfire Cape has been the clearly worse option for tank junglers when compared to Liandry's, and while a meaningful amount of that difference is generated from the early clear impacts of Bami's vs. Fated Ashes, there is still a degree of power and excitement missing from Sunfire once completed that we want to bring to the item.