AD carries are receiving some huge changes as well as a couple jungle changes in this patch.
AD Carry itemization will be completely different with new items being introduced as well as revisions to old items. Bloodthirster will be prioritized much less as the Doran's Blade offers enough % lifesteal to hold most AD carries over. In the meantime, attack speed is heavily valued, as most attack speed items have been buffed across the board.
In addition to AD Carry changes, supports have received new item paths as well, and Randuin's Omen has been nerfed which indirectly buffs AD Carries as well. Two champions, Nidalee and Skarner have been reworked.
Champions
Nidalee
With her oppressively high spear damage and catlike (maybe just cat-ish) elusiveness, Nidalee's been a contentious low-risk, low-interaction champion for quite some time. Specifically, old Nidalee's gameplay often revolved around the question of "when should I stop throwing spears?" to which the answer was typically "never."
To that end, our goals with this Nidalee gameplay update are to tone down some of her many frustration points while also giving her more options other than chucking projectiles. We also saw this as a great opportunity to cement Nidalee as a real shapeshifting huntress, which meant stronger ties from her human form to her cougar form. Additionally, by connecting Nidalee's offense with cougar form, she now has to balance her high escape potential against her ability to hunt down squishy targets ("Leap away or leap at their face?"). There's certainly more counterplay (and teamplay for those playing around Nidalee engages) when a cougar goes flying into the backline versus a single nuclear-tipped spear.
Visuals
PRETTYNew icons have been added for all abilities
CLARITYAdded a new particle to distinguish "Hunted" opponents
CLARITYJavelin Toss visuals adjusted for better readability
CLARITYBushwack ground visual indicator improved to be more noticeable
General
KITTYAll of Nidalee's cougar form abilities scale with ranks in R - Aspect of the Cougar
Passive - Prowl
MOVEMENTMoving through brush increases Nidalee's movement speed by 10% for 2 seconds, increased to 30% toward visible enemy champions within a range of 5500.
HUNTEDDamaging champions with Javelin Toss or Bushwhack marks them as 'Hunted' for 4 seconds, granting Nidalee vision of them, 30% increased movement speed toward them (within a range of 5500) and enhancing her next Takedown, Pounce, and Swipe against them.
Q - Javelin Toss
Nidalee tosses her javelin, dealing magic damage. If it exceeds her basic attack range it gains damage based on distance flown, up to a cap at 80% of its additional range.
HUNTEDApplies the 'Hunted' debuff to champions for 4 seconds
RANGE1500 units (damage caps out at 1300)
MINIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE50/75/100/125/150 (+0.4 ability power)
MAXIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE150/225/300/375/450 (+1.2 ability power)
COST50/60/70/80/90 mana
COOLDOWN6 seconds
WIDTHMissile width 60 ⇒ 30
W - Bushwhack
Nidalee lays a Bushwhack trap. When an enemy springs the trap, they are revealed in addition to taking damage over 4 seconds.
HUNTEDApplies the 'Hunted' debuff to champions for 4 seconds
MAGIC DAMAGE20/40/60/80/100 + 12/14/16/18/20% current health (+1% per 50 ability power) over the duration of 4 seconds
DURATION2 minutes
COST40/45/50/55/60 mana
COOLDOWN17/15/13/11/9 seconds
CLARITYOnly affects one target per trap
E - Primal Surge
Nidalee heals a target ally champion and grants them bonus attack speed for 6 seconds.
HEAL45/85/125/165/205 (+0.5 ability power)
ATTACK SPEED BONUS20/30/40/50/60% attack speed
COST60/80/100/120/140 mana
COOLDOWN12 seconds
R - Aspect Of The Cougar
Nidalee transforms into a vicious cougar with the abilities Takedown, Pounce, and Swipe. Rawr.
RANKSAspect of the Cougar has 4 ranks and Nidalee starts the game with 1 rank in it
COSTNo cost
COOLDOWN3 seconds
Q - Takedown
Nidalee's next attack deals magic damage. Takedown deals additional damage to targets at lower health, up to 250% total damage.
HUNTED BONUSThe first Takedown targeting a 'Hunted' champion deals +33% increased damage
UTILITYNidalee gains +75 attack range for the Takedown attack
MINIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE4/20/50/90 (+0.24 ability power)
MAXIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE10/50/125/225 (+0.6 ability power)
COSTNo cost
COOLDOWN5 seconds
W - Pounce
Nidalee lunges forward a short distance, dealing magic damage to enemies in the landing area.
HUNTED BONUSThe first Pounce directly towards a 'Hunted' champions will have up to 700 range
UTILITYKilling a unit in cougar form reduces the cooldown of Pounce to 1 second
UTILITYNidalee now pounces in the direction of the player's cursor
MAGIC DAMAGE50/100/150/200 (+0.3 ability power)
COSTNo cost
COOLDOWN5 seconds
E - Swipe
Nidalee claws at enemies, dealing magic damage in an area in front of her.
HUNTED BONUSThe first Swipe that damages a 'Hunted' champion reduces the cooldown of Pounce to 1 second
UTILITYNidalee now swipes in the direction of the player's cursor
MAGIC DAMAGE70/130/190/250 (+0.45 ability power)
COSTNo cost
COOLDOWN5 seconds
R - Aspect Of The Cougar
Nidalee transforms back into a human. Meow.
RANKSAspect of the Cougar has 4 ranks and Nidalee starts the game with 1 rank in it
COSTNo cost
COOLDOWN3 seconds
Skarner
Crystal Slash now gives Skarner Movement Speed per stack of Crystal Energy. Skarner's passive has been replaced with one that allows him to stun targets when he builds up spell hits on them.
And we're back with our second Skarner update! We've spoken at length about getting Skarner to a more exciting place since our initial changes in 4.2, but we needed to make sure we were giving him a stronger identity without bringing back his old gameplay issues (particularly his 'feast or famine' problem where he'd either succeedreally hard or he'd get squished without contributing much to a fight).
In approaching these changes, we heard a lot of your feedback about getting Skarner closer to his old role as a sticky crowd-control focused tank-bug (arachnid, whatever) and less of a damage-dealing scorpion duelist. Ultimately these changes should give Skarner a stronger identity as a disruptive tank while also giving him more opportunities to peel in a team fight, even if he's behind. We've obviously had to tune back some of Skarner's offensive powers to give him that extra annoyance, but this time around he should feel closer to his old lonesome self.
Visuals
SHINY SKARNERUpdated textures for base and all skins. Skarner also now has specular maps, making him all shiny-like
MORE SHINYAdded new particles for Skarner's W and his new passive
EVEN MORE SHINYNew icons have been added for all abilities
NEWPassive - Crystallizing Sting
CRYSTAL VENOMSkarner's damaging spells apply a 'Crystal Venom' debuff to enemy Champions and large monsters for 5 seconds
UTILITYIf Skarner lands a basic attack on a target with 3 stacks of 'Crystal Venom', he will deal an additional 20-105 magic damage and stun the target for 0.5/0.75/1 second
CRYSTAL VENOMAfter being stunned, targets cannot be debuffed by Crystal Venom for 6 seconds
Q - Crystal Slash
NEWUTILITYBasic attacks reduce Crystal Slash's cooldown by 0.5 seconds (doubled against Champions)
NEWCRYSTAL ENERGYCrystal Energy now additionally grants +3/4/5/6/7% movement speed per stack (up to 3 stacks)
BASE PHYSICAL DAMAGE25/40/55/70/85 (+0.8 attack damage) ⇒20/32/44/56/68 (+0.4 attack damage)
BONUS MAGIC DAMAGE24/36/48/60/72 (+0.4 ability power) ⇒20/32/44/56/68 (+0.2 ability power)
W - Crystalline Exoskeleton
COOLDOWN16 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 13/12.5/12/11.5/11 seconds
E - Fracture
MAGIC DAMAGE80/120/160/200/240 (+0.7 ability power) ⇒40/60/80/100/120 (+0.4 ability power)
COOLDOWN14 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 12 seconds at all ranks
R - Impale
NEWIMPALEMENTImpale consumes all stacks of Crystal Venom and deals 50/75/100 magic damage per stack consumed
COOLDOWN130/120/110 seconds ⇒ 110/100/90 seconds
Galio
Magic resistance per level for Galio has been commonly requested by gargoyle fans around the world and, given our nerf to Athene's Unholy Grail (an item typically considered 'core' on Galio), we figured we could give him a thicker skin.
General
MAGIC RESISTANCE PER LEVEL0 ⇒ 1.25
Gragas
Graggy's gotten better at drinking under fire. This change means Gragas will only have to worry about losing the damage buff if he's interrupted mid-drink, but he'll feel better about using W to tank out a brawl.
W - Drunken Rage
NEWFERMENTEDGragas no longer loses the damage reduction if he is interrupted during his drink
CLARITYUpdated tooltip to specify that the percentage damage against monsters is capped at 250
Karthus
We're following up Karthus' visual update with a couple bug fixes and late additions. We're also continuing to keep an eye the on the readability of Karthus' spells.
BUGFIXFixed a bug where Lay Waste appeared to give more vision than it actually did
BUGFIXWall of Pain's VO will no longer be interrupted by movement commands
SWAGAdded the screech of a certain bird of prey to Statue of Karthus' dance
CLARITYRequiem's visual effects are now more noticeable, so you can properly resign yourself to death
LeBlanc
No more silence. Only tears.
LeBlanc's a champion who has a lot of power associated with her character - omnidirectional movement, high burst damage, precisetarget selection, a cool hat - so it's been difficult to give her meaningful counterplay without directly hurting that identity. We're taking a more deliberate approach here because we want LeBlanc to remain an exciting champion to play and watch, but removing the silence on Q means at least her opponents can fight back when she's QRWEing (or WQREing or WRQEing for those long range fancy plays) around the fight. That said, LeBlanc will definitely stay on our radar as we track how she's performing post-change.
Q - Sigil of Malice
NAMESigil of Silence ⇒ Sigil of Malice
REMOVEDSILENCENo longer silences target
Lucian
At higher levels of play, Lucian tends to be a master-of-all-trades marksman with his strong damage in lane, high mobility, decent scaling, and general safety in teamfights. With the new AD itemization changes, however, we don't want to implement bigger modifications with so much in the air. At this point in time we do think Lucian will need some broader changes to give him meaningful weaknesses, but a reduction on W (which was designed for utility as opposed to any form of burst damage) is something we're confident is in line with our potential changes in the future.
W - Ardent Blaze
BONUS ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO0.6 ⇒ 0.3
Pantheon
As a side note, this might also affect Pantheon's ability to ignite opponents while he's falling through the air.
R - Grand Skyfall
BUGFIXFixed a bug where Pantheon could use Summoner Spells before landing. Most notably, Flash could be used before landing to reposition Pantheon's landing damage area.
Sivir
While our previous mana cost nerfs accomplished their goal of reducing Sivir's uninteractive laning, they also made her mana pool too limiting in late game team fights, which we're compensating now.
General
BASE MANA246 ⇒ 250
MANA PER LEVEL43 ⇒ 50
MANA REGEN PER LEVEL0.5 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 0.9 mana per 5 seconds
Thresh
Apparently when Thresh's basic attack was charging up from Flay, it used the wrong buff icon. This change adds... CLARITY!
E - Flay
CLARITY!Now displays the correct buff icon
Tristana
Rocket Jump is cheaper and is more forgiving to use when jumping around / over walls. Buster Shot's range scales with character level.
We're giving Trist some modernization buffs to help emphasize her high moments (STOMP THEM ALL TRIST!). For additional context, the Rocket Jump change doesn't mean you'll make every wall-jump, but it should be more forgiving when used around terrain. If you're still failing wall-jumps, get closer before jumping!
W - Rocket Jump
COST80 mana at all ranks ⇒ 60 mana at all ranks
UTILITYNow more accurately checks for nearby landing spots when jumping close to, or over, walls
R - Buster Shot
UTILITYRange now scales with level (like Draw a Bead/Explosive Shot)
Twitch
Twitch's passive does less damage per second. Twitch can now be delayed from entering stealth (through damage) for much longer than before.
We think Twitch has awesome lategame power, but he's also got a offensively strong early game on top of having a lot of safety throughout. To focus on that safety aspect, Ambush's stealth often let Twitch make an escape even when already caught out by enemies. We do think the new AD itemization changes will benefit the smelly rat, but the focus here is (mostly) to provide some additional counterplay for preventing stealth (hit him in the face!).
General
BASE DAMAGE52 ⇒ 49
Passive - Deadly Venom
TRUE DAMAGE2/4/6/8 (at levels 1/6/11/16) ⇒ 1/2/3/4/5/6 (at levels 1/4/7/10/13/16)
Q - Ambush
STEALTH TIMINGTime to stealth without taking damage now 1.25 seconds ⇒ 1.5 seconds
STEALTH TIMING WHILE BEING HIT IN THE FACEMaximum time to stealthwhile taking damage now 3 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds
Zed
R - Death Mark
BUGFIXZed no longer teleports to a random location if he Death Marks someone who is in the middle of a dash (eg: Xin Zhao's Audacious Charge, etc).
Offensive Physical Itemization
We've got some major itemization changes this patch with a specific focus on the marksman role as a whole. As we mentioned in the foreword, our goal is to open up the landscape of attack damage and attack speed item choices. In terms of specific challenges, we saw that in the 2014 season, lifesteal was quickly becoming a 'must have' stat for marksmen with Bloodthirster leading the pack. What ends up happening with BT being a dominant buy is that it both heavily favors burst-AD champions and also snowballs lanes toward who can get their BT first. Bloodthirster being the best first purchase also has a secondary effect of reducing a lot of mid to late game marksman power as they're not going for the multiplicative damage stats (crit and attack speed) to punch through the tanky dudes. We also took the opportunity to make other adjustments to items like Warden's Mail / Randuin's Omen so that they're not so straight up mean to auto-attack reliant champions.
What these changes should do is give all marksmen equal build paths forward without one being much, much better than the other. This also allows us to do two neat things:
1.) With the Doran's Blade change, marksmen can tailor their lifesteal needs by picking up multiple DBlades to sustain through the laning phase without having to always commit to an early BT or Blade of the Ruined King.
2.) We can set all end-game marksmen items to build out of a B.F. Sword with 80 attack damage as the baseline. This means when you pick up a B.F. Sword, youknow it'll build into a strong end-game item - it's just a matter of deciding which sort of defensive or offensive utility you want to get out of it.
Lifesteal Items
NEWEssence Reaver
UNIQUE PASSIVEYou gain 2-8% of the damage dealt by basic attacks as mana. This effect increases based on how much mana you are missing.
ATTACK DAMAGE+50
LIFESTEAL10%
COOLDOWN REDUCTION+10%
RECIPEVampiric Scepter + Pickaxe + 975 gold
TOTAL COST2650 gold
Doran's Blade
REMOVEDLIFE ON HITBasic attacks no longer restore health on hit
NEWLIFESTEAL3%
HEALTH80 ⇒ 70
ATTACK DAMAGE8 ⇒ 7
Vampiric Scepter
LIFESTEAL10% ⇒ 8%
Bilgewater Cutlass
LIFESTEAL12% ⇒ 8%
Blade of the Ruined King
ACTIVE ABILITYMaximum health damage now 15% ⇒ 10%
ACTIVE ABILITYActive ability now steals 30% movement speed ⇒ 25% movement speed
PASSIVE DAMAGECurrent health damage per hit now 5% ⇒ 8%
LIFESTEAL15% ⇒ 10%
The Bloodthirster
REMOVEDBLOODTHIRSTY PASSIVENo longer grants bonus attack damage or lifesteal per unit kill
NEWBLOODTHIRSTIER PASSIVELifesteal can now overheal, granting a bloody shield that absorbs 50-450 damage (based on champion level). This shield decays when out of combat for 15 seconds.
ATTACK DAMAGE70 ⇒ 80
LIFESTEAL12% ⇒ 15%
TOTAL COST3250 gold ⇒ 3500 gold
Attack Damage Items
B. F. Sword
ATTACK DAMAGE45 ⇒ 50
Infinity Edge
ATTACK DAMAGE70 ⇒ 80
Mercurial Scimitar
NEWMERCURIAL PARITYActive ability now gives the movement speed bonus to ranged characters as well
ATTACK DAMAGE60 ⇒ 80
TOTAL COST3700 gold ⇒ 3800 gold
Attack Speed Items
Dagger
ATTACK SPEED12% ⇒ 15%
COST400 gold ⇒ 450 gold
Berserker's Greaves
ATTACK SPEED20% ⇒ 25%
TOTAL COST950 gold ⇒ 1000 gold
Zeal
ATTACK SPEED18% ⇒ 20%
TOTAL COST1175 gold ⇒ 1100 gold
Wit's End
ATTACK SPEED42% ⇒ 50%
TOTAL COST2400 gold ⇒ 2500 gold
Youmuu's Ghostblade
NEWYOUMUU'S PARITYActive now lasts for 6 seconds on ranged champions as well (previously lasted only 4 seconds on ranged champions and 6 seconds on melee champions)
Recipe Cleanup
- The following items have had their recipe costs adjusted due to the Dagger and Zeal price changes, but their total price remains unchanged:
- Stinger
- Phantom Dancer
- Sword of the Divine
- Madred's Razor
- Wriggle's Lantern
- Runaan's Hurricane
- Trinity Force
- Statikk Shiv
- Blade of the Ruined King
Warden's Mail & Randuin's Omen
Warden's Mail
PASSIVEPassive Cold Steel's attack speed reduction now 15% ⇒ 10%
Randuin's Omen
REMOVEDPASSIVEPassive Cold Steel no longer reduces attacker's movement speed
PASSIVEPassive Cold Steel's attack speed reduction now 15% ⇒ 10%
Support & Ability Power Itemization
Support Items
In high level play, Mikael's Crucible was often being rushed as a primary 'core' item on most supports (beyond Sight Stone and a finished gold per 5 item), which meant long-cooldown, heavy engage teams had a lot of problems properly kicking off a teamfight if the enemy simply Mikael'd the caught target to safety. This ends up putting a lot more emphasis on teams who can 'catch' out targets multiple times (Elise, Morgana, etc) so that Mikael's is only useful for one of those cases. A Mikael's in every game also made things doubly sad for utility-focused marksmen like Ashe or Varus who bring big control abilities to the table. Our changes to Mikael's is to push it more toward a mid to late game luxury buy against heavy engage / pick team compositions but isn't so attractive as a purchase that it's found in every game.
This also lets us introduce a new mid-tier support item in the form of Ardent Censer! We're particularly excited about Censer because of all the possibilities it can bring to the support role, particularly the more defensively focused shield / heal champions like Alistar, Janna, Sona, or Soraka.
NEWArdent Censer
UNIQUE PASSIVEYour heals and shields on another unit grant them +25% Attack Speed for 6 seconds
UNIQUE PASSIVE+8% movement speed
ABILITY POWER+30
MANA REGENERATION10 mana per 5 seconds
COOLDOWN REDUCTION+10%
TOTAL COST2200 gold
RECIPEForbidden Idol + Aether Wisp + 550 gold
Forbidden Idol
TOTAL COST750 gold ⇒ 700 gold
Mikael's Crucible
TOTAL COST1600 gold ⇒ 2450 gold
RECIPEChalice of Harmony + 720 gold ⇒ Chalice of Harmony + Forbidden Idol + 870 gold
MANA REGENERATION12 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 20 mana per 5 seconds
COOLDOWN REDUCTION0% ⇒ 10%
Locket of the Iron Solari
UTILITYActive's shield amount is now calculated using the recipient champion's level if the recipient is a higher level than the item owner
Ability Power Items
With Mikael's going up in cost and offering more mana regeneration / cooldown reduction, we felt we should also take a look at Athene's Unholy Grail, a very cost-efficient item that gives pretty much everything a wave-clearing AP mid laner needs to push all day (looking at you Ziggs). The reason we chose to tune down Athene's defensive stats rather than its offensive power is to make it a little less of a 'perfect' safe pushing item so opponents can potentially find windows of engagement. The buff to Morellonomicon is just to make it feel better as a late-game item.
Athene's Unholy Grail
MAGIC RESIST40 ⇒ 25
MANA REGENERATION15 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 10 mana per 5 seconds
PASSIVE MANA RESTORATION ON KILL / ASSIST12% ⇒ 15%
Morellonomicon
ABILITY POWER75 ⇒ 80
MANA REGENERATION12 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 10 mana per 5 seconds
Summoner Spells
Teleport
We're generally happy with what the new Teleport changes are achieving, but it's a little too strong as a lane recovery ability. Particularly in competitive play we were seeing a lot of top laners constantly using Teleport as a way of stagnating the early lane rather than trying to set up for global map pressure.
COOLDOWNCooldown when teleporting to towers now 200 seconds ⇒240 seconds
Heal
With the removal of Randuin's Omen's passive movement speed debuff, we saw that Heal was giving too much additional safety when a marksmen takes on a fighter, so we're tuning Heal down just a bit.
MOVEMENT SPEED BOOSTSpeed boost duration now 2 seconds ⇒ 1 second
Exhaust
BUGFIXFixed a bug where Exhaust did not grant assists when used against slow immune targets (who are still affected by the damage reduction effect)
In addition, Phreak of Riot Games is hosting a stream to mathcraft DPS of new item paths.
Source - Riot Games