It’s patch day again, a day that was supposedly going to bring some balance to the game. While I’m pleased with the nerfs Sona caught, some of the Riot posts on the forums led me to believe we’d see significant rebalancing this patch but there really wasn’t much.

That said, here’s the rundown, which, as usual, is only big picture stuff. You can read about all the little bug fixes yourselves.

Amumu got a bug fix and damage reduction to his ult, both of which look really nice. I know that Amumu is strong – anyone with an AOE disable is – but he’s often not a great pick for a team. He’s quite bad in lane, and he takes a jungling spot from your team. Granted, he’s a very strong jungler, but that leaves the enemy free to use a toon like Warwick or Shen or Udyr, all of which are strong picks as well and much less reliant on one big skill. In short, I think this is a good change.

Corki got nerfed, though not a ton. He’ll be extremely scary if he’s ahead, and I’d say, despite the nerfs, he’s still a top-tier carry. His Big Ones deal 60 percent increased damage, down from 100 percent, and Missile Barrage caught a general mana cost and base damage nerf.

LeBlanc got a buff to two of the stats that were recently hotfixed. Her ultimate now has a scaling cooldown and she gains .5 more armor per level. It’s very strange to me that she was apparently so broken she needed hotfixed but that the hotfix was apparently overkill. So why has Sona been so busted for so long? That’s another post for another time.

Lux caught some small buffs, but I don’t think it’ll be enough to make her a force in most games. Her Prismatic Barrier got a missile width increase and a slight AP buff, while Lucent Singularity has increased radius and greater slow values at all ranks. Her ultimate also now ignites her passive debuff if it’s already on the target and then reapplies the mark. Personally, I’ve never been able to make much of her passive. It’s decent against melee toons in lane, but anyone else just avoids the thing. I still think she needs some base damage buffs for her spells, even if they’re small.

Miss Fortune caught some nerfs and a strange little fix. Her auto attack missile speed is slower, though I’m not sure why. It’s not that she’s attacking slower, just that once she does, the actual bullet takes more time to land. It really makes very little sense to me. Bullet Time got some bug fixes that will result in damage nerfs and also had a significant cone width reduction. Make It Rain also got a slight damage nerf, though personally, I’d still maintain that it’s Double Up causing most of the lane problems.

Sona is probably the one place Riot delivered for me this patch. She’s still very strong, still a giant, walking Baron buff for her entire team, but she isn’t quite as easy to play. I still think her design is severely flawed, mostly because she isn’t encumbered by targeting her spells, but hey, it’s a lot better than they did on any other top-tier toon.

Here are the Sona changes:

-All aura durations reduced to 2 seconds from 3
-All aura buff durations reduced to 0.25 seconds from 1

Hymn of Valor
-Attack damage and ability power aura reduced to 6/8/10/12/14 from 8/11/14/17/20
-Mana cost increased to 65/70/75/80/85 from 55/60/65/70/75

Song of Celerity
-Active movement speed boost reduced to 8/10/12/14/16 from 8/11/14/17/20
-Mana cost increased to 65/70/75/80/85 from 55/60/65/70/75
-Aria of Perseverance mana cost increased to 65/70/75/80/85 from 55/60/65/70/75

Crescendo range reduced to 1000 from 1100

That’s pretty much it for the champions. As I said, not a lot in the way of top-tier nerfs. I think Miss Fortune is ever so slightly less problematic, as is Amumu, but Galio is still a ban, no questions asked, and you’ll probably still see Sona on the list as well. The one bright light here is that Riot has talked at length about fixing some of the frustration around the AoE metagame, so maybe those changes (which would affect every champion I’ve listed) are lined up for a later date.

I’ll have another post later this evening regarding the new item and the item changes.

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.

There you have it, folks. The proof (click the pic for a larger resolution). You’ll notice I have four kills, which is really high for the 13-minute mark, but I think I still could have hit this goal without too much trouble if I didn’t get those. Most required me to stop killing creeps, and in at least one instance, I left lane to get an assist, which was only 87 gold. I could easily have had that from the creeps I lost, if not more.

Also, you’ll notice I died. I was really excited that I might hit the 12-minute mark, so I overcommitted to try and help out our Yi (and hopefully pick Ashe off in the process). I was an easy kill.

I’ve written a decent amount about Miss Fortune’s incredible farm ability and the way she breaks the laning phase. She’s so strong I’d like to issue a challenge – see how fast you can farm up up an Infinity Edge and post your results in the comments. The game should be live – no bots, no practice – and try to include a screenshot if you can.

My current record is somewhere around the 14-minute mark. I had 4 kills and probably something like 90 creeps. At the end of the game, which was just 25 minutes long, I had 175 creeps and, as a result of my farm, 12 kills. As you can see in my screenshot (edit: screenshot was broken for some reason and won’t upload, I swear! I’ll try to get another), my timer was nearly 15 minutes, but I purchased my Infinity and my boots at the same time, and I was already running to lane. I’d say 14 minutes is a reasonable estimate. I should also point out, the game I’ve posted above gave me the idea for the challenge, it wasn’t a result of me trying. I just had a good farm and though, hey, I bet the guys at the blog would like this. My second attempt, I had Infinity somewhere just past 15 minutes and I didn’t have any champion kills (I even died twice). My own goal is to break the 12-minute barrier. We’ll see.

A couple tips for pretenders to the throne:
1 – With a good spec and runes, you don’t need to buy mana regen at level 1. Get two or three health pots and be on your way.

2 – Farm the wraith camp whenever your creeps push to tower. Your own creeps will be dying too fast to bring the enemy’s low enough to last hit

3 – Don’t rank up your boots, even if you aren’t trying to do this challenge. There’s really no need.

Good luck! Don’t forget to post your own results in the comments.

I’ve played a lot of Miss Fortune since the most recent patch, probably more than any new champion in recent memory. Her playstyle is much more enjoyable than many of the newer folks (I still just don’t get Galio) but as I mentioned in my impressions post, I think that’s because of her relative strength. After playing her some more, I realize her power actually makes her less fun.

The realization came after a game today in which I was racking up kill after kill after kill. I had been dominating the mid lane, but I wasn’t really having much fun. The reasoning is pretty simple – Miss Fortune isn’t difficult, in any way.

I prefer toons with a little bit of complexity to them. The fact that you can land Double Up without even trying for more damage than most skillshots ungeared is completely absurd. It’s also not fun. The joy of skillshot damage is landing that one hit on a guy that was about to get away. There’s also a lot of fun in dodging the hit that was about to kill you. For all the work Riot has done to reduce the RNG for toons like Gangplank, why introduce a toon whose baseline skill is an RNG for the second hit? Add to it the fact that Double Up forces you to either take damage from that big shot, or get harassed while she darts in and out of creep range from her passive. It’s not fun to play against and really, I don’t think it’s all that fun to play. I can almost hear the frustration of the other team.

I hope she gets some serious reworks. My best option is turning off her passive in combat. It’s good enough for getting across the map, it doesn’t need to so severely wreck the laning metagame, too.