It took some time but I was finally able to land a couple games with Lux in a row. On the whole, I think she’ll improve as I learn how to play her, but she requires very careful itemization and a solid team to support her playstyle.

I really love Lux’s skillset. She has a double snare, an AOE slow, a nice ult, and a damage shield for helping out the team. I felt like I always had the flexibility to either help shield my team or provide more damage by ranking up different skills each game. I also love that her ult is on a short cooldown, in part because it looks so damn cool.

Lux’s main drawback is her cooldowns. They are long. Unfortunately her AP ratios are also pretty low, so you need a lot of AP before she starts to hurt. That actually points me toward cooldown reduction – more snares, more slows, more shields – for max support. Really, it depends on your team. If you have a high damage team, you might want to think about playing a Soulstealer build. With low damage/tanky teams, though, you’re probably better off not playing her.

All of that said, her control abilities are great in a teamfight, and it’s happened several times that I’ve been able to use her ultimate twice as a teamfight drags on.

Today’s patch is big. Huge. Big McLarge Huge. Seriously though, there are a metric ton of changes this patch, including a big mechanics change to the stealth system. I’m going to leave it to you to read the patch notes in their entirety, but I’ll cover the big stuff here. To the disappointment of many, we also didn’t get the Eve rework originally scheduled for this patch.

Let’s start with the champions, shall we?

Jax is the first champion, alphabetically speaking, to get significant changes. Leap Strike now casts faster and moves Jax faster. His Empower has been reworked so that it resets the auto attack timer and only affects one unit. It caught a small damage buff and a significant increase on the AP ratio as well. His ultimate also has an active that grants additional Magic Resist based on his dodge value. I really think it’s an underwhelming change. As it stands, Jax has one cool skill – Leap Strike – and three skills that either do nothing or have no “fun factor” on use. This doesn’t change that.

Katarina got a decent buff in that her Death Lotus now slings three knives at every level. I don’t play Kat often, but when I did, I hated that I felt gimped until level 16. This should help her quite a bit, though she still suffers against all the stuns/silences now available in the game.

Miss Fortune is finally catching a nerf, though it is a small one. Bullet Time has reduced range and damage scaling, Strut got a small speed nerf, and Double Up now has shorter bounce range. It doesn’t change the fact that she wrecks the laning metagame but it’s a start.

Morgana is also getting a small set of nerfs. Dark Binding has a smaller hitbox, Black Shield has a slightly lower AP ratio, as does Soul Shackles. Soul Shackles also got a small base damage at the max rank, though I couldn’t tell you why. Does 25 damage at level 16 really matter?

Rammus is getting a set of buffs across the board. Most of his cooldowns were reduced, the mana cost on his taunt was lowered, and Defensive Ball Curl now scales with his armor. It’s not a perfect situation, considering he still gets no benefit from MR, but it’s pretty nice.

Singed, of all toons, is also getting buffed. He’ll have more base health, gain more health per level (though this may be making up for a slight reduction in base MR), and has his cooldowns slightly reduced for Fling, Mega Adhesive, and his ult. His ult lost its cast animation, so you won’t be interrupted while running.

Sivir got a strange set of buffs that almost definitely won’t return her to playability. Her ult got an attack speed buff and Spell Shield now has a shorter cooldown and returns slightly more mana. Yay?

Swain got ability power buffs across the board, a tiny increase to Torment base damage, and a buff to the mana regen from Carrion Renewal. Again, probably not enough to make him the caster you always wanted, but he should at least be better.

Teemo got some serious attention this patch, though I wonder if it’s actually enough to make him worthwhile. Here’s the rundown:

-Base movespeed increased to 305 from 300
-Base damage reduced to 47.5 from 51.3
-Damage per level reduced to 3.0 from 3.3

Camouflage
-Fade time reduced to 2.0 seconds from 3.0
-Being invulnerable will now prevent Teemo from Camouflaging. Specifically, Zhonya’s Ring and Guardian Angel’s effects will block Camouflage while they are active.
-Recalling and Teleporting will now prevent Teemo from Camouflaging

Blinding Dart
-Duration reduced to 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 from 1.5/2.0/2.5/3.0/3.5
-Cooldown reduced to 8 seconds from 10
-Blinding Dart will now cancel autoattacks in progress when the blind is applied

-Move Quick’s tooltip will now update to display the effects of cooldown reduction
-Toxic Shot per tick damage reduced to 6/12/18/24/30 from 8/14/21/28/35
-Toxic Shot on-hit damage increased to 9/18/27/36/45 from 8/14/21/28/35

Noxious Trap
-Teemo now gains a “stored mushroom” charge every 30/26/22 seconds. Maximum three charges
-Each cast requires and consumes a charge
-Time to gain a charge is reduced by cooldown reduction effects
-Time to gain next charge does not progress while you are at maximum charges
-Teemo always has two charges stored upon reviving at base
-Cooldown on placing a trap reduced to 1 second from 20
-Damage changed to 250/475/700 from 350/500/650

Obviously some big changes there, but it seems to favor an AP build for the Noxious Trap buff, which still has the problem of non-stacking damage as his primary damage source. Sure, he can get out more mushrooms, but it might not translate to a better playstyle. We’ll see.

That’s pretty much it for the big changes. There are a lot of significant tweaks in this patch that I would highly encourage you to read over. I’m also only going to mention one item below, Malady, because the others aren’t necessarily game changing and I’m sure you can sort them out.

Malady was remade to be the following:

Malady (remake)
-Recipe changed to: Dagger + Dagger + Amplifying Tome + 550 gold = 1825 total cost
-Base stats changed to +50% attack speed, +25 ability power
-Unique Passive changed to: Your physical attacks shred your target doing 20 magic damage and reducing their magic resistance by 6.
-Magic resistance reduction stacks up to 4 times.

Am I allowed to say I don’t get it? Seems like this was built specifically with Teemo in mind, maybe Twitch, Maybe Kog’Maw. Other than that, though, there aren’t many toons that benefit from the MR reduction and the attack speed. Kayle, I guess. It’s a strange item, sort of like a mini Nashor’s Tooth. I’ll be interested to see who makes the most use of this.

Remember that post I made about armor penetration? It has finally been changed! Don’t get excited, though. It’s not much. The runes were all nerfed by 15 percent, which still leaves them ridiculous at the early levels. In their place, the damage runes have been significantly buffed. Personally, I don’t see a bunch of people rushing out to get damage, but it could be good for a few toons.

That pretty much does it for this patch. Obviously there will be more to say once we get to play with the changes. Stay tuned.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Riot’s gone all out for Halloween this year, bringing us a boatload of new skins to celebrate the League of Legends equivalent to our spookiest holiday, The Harrowing. Just take a look at these skins compared to, say, the Olympic skins from earlier in the year. Remember Vancouver Amumu? Team Spirit Anivia? Now look at that Poppy skin and tell me you don’t want it. Even the Ryze skin looks badass.

All told, we have the following:
– Nosferatu Vladimir
– Lollipoppy
– Zombie Ryze
– Pumpkinhead Fiddlesticks
– Mundo Mundo

That’s in addition to the Sorceress and Spellthief Lux skins that will be in the store once the servers are up. I’m going to spend a lot of money today.

The Lux Champion Spotlight is now live and I am pumped for her release. She doesn’t just look cool, as was the case with Swain, she looks strong. I’m actually pleasantly surprised by the changes they made to her Prismatic Barrier, the skill that used to grant invisibility. It seems highly functional, though hopefully it’s not a crazy out-of-hand shield. I also loved the moment in the spotlight when Phreak caged Kennen way behind a minion. I just figured it caged an adjacent target, not that the binding kept moving. That will definitely make for some interesting gameplay.

Since I’ve been away from the game for nearly a week and a half, it’s hard to believe there’s yet another champion already on the horizon. Lux joins the League as Garen’s sister, and looks as though she fights with cattle prods. All of her skills are skillshots, though, so she seems more closely related to Ezreal than Garen.

Here’s what I could gather about her skills from around the web:

Illumination (passive): Lux’s damaging spells illuminate the target for 6 seconds. Lux’s next attack ignites the debuff, dealing 20-180 (depending on Lux’s level) magic damage to the target.

Light Binding (Q): Fires a ball of light towards a target location, binding the units hit for 2 seconds. The units take 80 magic damage. Can hit up to 2 targets with the 2nd target receiving 50 percent effect.

Lucent Singularity (W): Creates a zone that slows enemy units by 13 percent (zone lasts 5 seconds). Can be detonated to damage enemies in the area for 60 magic damage.

Prismatic Wave (E): Passive: Lux’s cooldowns are reduced by 3 percent. Active: Fires a wave to the target location and back, instantly stealthing any allied champions for 3 seconds. Lux is also struck by the wave upon return.

Final Sparkling (R): After a short delay, Lux fires a laser pulse in front of her dealing 250 damage to all enemy units in the area.

Let me just say, this is the most creative champion release in a long time. Invisibility for a whole team? Granted, it’s only three seconds, and it’s a skillshot buff, but it’s one of the most innovative things we’ve seen. The slow orb is also pretty interesting – think of it like a Gragas barrel with an AoE slow effect. On the whole, she sounds much better off than Swain, mostly because she can use all of her abilities from a safe distance.