It’s patch day once again, this time bringing us Sona, the newest support toon to join the League. Other than Sona there aren’t many changes to the League’s champion lineup. The real changes this patch come to a couple of existing items and a new item, Shurelya’s Reverie.

I’ll let you read over the champion changes for yourself, but there are a few worth mentioning. Garen’s Courage got a small nerf, Kog’Maw’s attack speed bonuses were apparently multiplicative, so that was fixed, and Zilean’s Chronoshift now lasts 13 seconds instead of 15 and the cooldown is 180 seconds at all levels. Oh, Blitzcrank’s Power Fist now resets the auto attack timer as well. That’s really it as far as notable champion changes.

So let’s talk about the good stuff. Along with Sona, Riot’s remade Innervating Locket and added Shurelya’s Reverie to the list of support items. The new items are as follows:

Innervating Locket
Combine cost reduced to 450 from 850. New total cost is 2250.
+430 Health
+450 Mana
Unique Aura: Nearby allies gain 20 hp/5 and 9 mp/5.
Unique Passive: Reduces ability cooldowns by 10%
Unique Passive: When you cast a spell, you regenerate 50 health and 20 mana over 2 seconds. This effect has a 3 second cooldown and no longer affects allies.

Kindlegem
Recipe consists of Ruby Crystal + 425 gold
+200 Health
UNIQUE Passive: Reduces ability cooldowns by 10%

Shurelya’s Reverie
Recipe consists of Kindlegem + Philosopher’s Stone + 500 gold
+330 Health
+25 Health Regen per 5 sec
+12 Mana Regen per 5 sec
UNIQUE Passive: Reduces ability cooldowns by 15%
UNIQUE Active: Nearby champions gain 40% movement speed for 2 seconds (60 second cooldown)

The new Locket is really underwhelming. A slow regen aura? Not really really worth it for the minimal benefit it provides, to both allies and the bearer. It might be decent on Sona, but I doubt I’ll be using it. Shurelya’s Reverie, on the other hand, seems like a great item. I can’t imagine why someone would choose Locket over the new item, but maybe I’m missing something. The buff that Reverie grants is pretty huge, and could make for some tough initiation against a team that doesn’t have one. I’m also glad to see that Philosopher’s Stone has been given a new purpose. It needed something.

The other big change is that disconnected players run home if the automatic recall gets interrupted. Disconnected players also gain 1000 magic resist after a minute out of game, so no more Karthus killing level one or two players with his ult.

That’s about it. I’m hoping future patches bring some fixes to the client, but I’ll be writing more on that later.