Another patch day is upon us, bringing another ninja to your summoner’s pane in the form of Kennen, the Heart of the Tempest. As with every patch, there’s a host of balance changes and tweaks along with the usual skin release and random audio updates.

First, let’s talk Kennen. I’m pretty excited about him, though he probably won’t hit his stride for a couple weeks. There was more active discussion on the test realm forums about his AP ratios and skillset than I’ve seen for any of the other recent heroes so I’ll be curious to see where he ends up. For now it seems he’s somewhere in the middle of the pack with regard to viability. His ult needs some considerable work to be truly powerful (personally I say drop the CD down to Ryze levels and he’s good).

Jax is finally catching a nerf, though not to his obscene survivability. His AP ratios have been lowered across the board, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, Ninja Tabi got a small buff to both armor and dodge and Phantom Dancer caught a dodge/movespeed buff as well. I see more scary AD Jax players in my immediate future.

Other than that things mostly remained the same. Anivia got a small movespeed buff, Ryze got a little nerf, and Janna caught some much-needed love with a slightly tweaked ult to include a slow for targets who reenter the heal and some mana efficiency improvements. The Item Shop UI has been tweaked and several items have been changed, perhaps the most significant of which is Haunting Guise, which now gives lifesteal on spell damage.

Overall I think this should be a pretty sweet patch. I’ve got 7300 IP banked for the Kennen purchase and 3900 RP to spend on some new skins. Hello, Swamp Master Yod…err…Kennen.