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12 years ago

DreXxiN

Patch 4.9 Notes & Saintvicious' run-down

A lot of problematic champions as well jungle snowballing has been addressed in Patch 4.9

On top of Karthus' much anticipated visual update, the strength of the champions at the top of the ladder have been toned down a notch. Braum will see some survivability and damage nerfs, while Kha'zix has received a light rework to his abilities to provide some counter-play. Meanwhile, Riot is letting some champions like Rengar settle with only slight changes to see how it works out.

Champions

Braum

We padded Braum's punches, Q does less damage at all ranks, and W gives less defensive stats (also scales less).

It's tough to pinpoint the strength of a new champion while also accounting for how quickly players adapt, and Braum was picked upvery quickly as a strong lane bully with his combined high damage and defensive power. When we want to reduce power in a champion, we first look to trim 'hidden' strengths that aren't really appreciated in their core playstyle, like Braum's W, which was giving a pile of free defensive stats to both himself and his protected target. That said, Braum's offensive strengths are also very high for a protective champion, so we also decided to trim back that 'stache.

General

BASE ATTACK DAMAGE56 ⇒ 53

Passive - Concussive Blows

BUGFIXNo longer stuns individuals when they have spell shields up

Q - Winter's Bite

BASE DAMAGE80/125/170/215/260 ⇒ 60/105/150/195/240

W - Stand Behind Me

BONUS ARMOR / MAGIC RESISTANCE20/22.5/25/27.5/30 (+14/15.5/12/18.5/20% bonus armor / mr) ⇒ 15/17.5/20/22.5/25 (+10/11.5/13/14.5/16% bonus armor / mr)

E - Unbreakable

BUGFIXWe've cleaned up a few cases where certain effects could bypass Unbreakable's active barrier

Kassadin

We reverted the W damage buff and base movement speed buffs to Kassadin from patch 4.6.

Following up on our champion update, we've been keeping track of Kassadin as he continues to become a more and more dominant force. We think we released Kassadin in a good state but then gave him a little too much strength as we saw folks struggling with the new kit. After our buffs, however, we saw a lot of players learning to play the updated Kass (and well), so we're peeling back the layers we added to get him back to a correct power level.

General

BASE MOVEMENT SPEED350 ⇒ 340

W - Nether Blade

DAMAGE40/75/110/145/180 (+0.7 ability power) ⇒ 40/65/90/115/140 (+0.6 ability power)

Kha'Zix

Q does less damage and less isolation damage. Evolved Q no longer deals bonus damage on missing health, but deals more overall damage to isolated targets. W deals bonus damage to monsters. Evolved W now slows enemies by 50% and grants sight of their location to Kha'Zix. Evolved R no longer grants damage reduction (but keeps his increased stealth duration and additional stealth charge).

Up to now, most of our changes failed to give Kha'Zix meaningful weaknesses for an assassin because evolved R's damage reduction was letting Kha'Zix force fight initiations whenever it was up while his high base Q damage was letting him take out squishy targets even when they were actively trying to prevent isolation. As an assassin, Kha'Zix should be an opportunistic killer who needs to find isolated targets to munch on while the rest of his team jumps into the mosh pit of the team fight. What Kha'Zix shouldn't be able to do, however, is directly engage a full team fight with the expectation to live while also taking out high priority targets without isolation.

With that said, our philosophy behind these changes is aimed at reducing some of Kha'Zix's many strengths while refining his core identity as an assassin. First, we pushed more power to his evolutions so that he'll have to think more about the choices he makes in life (or the game). Kha'Zix's base Q is lower compared to live, but his evolved Q is guaranteed to deal more damage to isolated targets in the mid to late game. The added power to W and its evolution was to give Kha'Zix more fallback strengths when evolving W. It's also worth pointing out that while evolved R took a significant power hit with the loss of its damage reduction, it's still offering a lot of extra mobility for Kha'Zix in a fight (doubling his stealth duration while also adding an extra charge).

We'll be watching how these changes pan out, but we're hoping to see more opportunistic Kha'Zixes (Kha'Zixi? Kha'Zii?) who seek out isolated meals in team fights but can't just jump in to scrap with the frontline while also having the mobility and explosive damage to take out the backline.

Q - Taste Their Fear

BASE DAMAGE70/100/130/160/190 (+1.5 bonus attack damage) ⇒55/80/105/130/155 (+1.2 bonus attack damage)

ISOLATION BONUS DAMAGE45% ⇒ 30%

Q - Evolved Enlarged Claws

NEWISOLATIONIf target is isolated, deal an additional 10/20/30/40/50/60/70/80/90/100/ 110/120/130/140/150/160/170/180 (+1.04 bonus attack damage)physical damage (in other words, 10 x Champion Level (+1.04 bonus attack damage))

REMOVEDEXECUTENo longer deals bonus damage based on target's missing health

W - Void Spike

NEWMONSTER DAMAGENow deals +20% bonus damage to monsters

W - Evolved Spike Racks

NEWMONSTER DAMAGENow deals +20% bonus damage to monsters

NEWUTILITYIf target hit is a champion, grant sight of their location to Kha'Zix for 2 seconds

SLOW30% for 2 seconds ⇒ 50% for 2 seconds

R - Evolved Active Camouflage

REMOVEDDAMAGE REDUCTIONNo longer grants +50% damage reduction on Stealth

Pantheon

When we made the Pantheon changes back in patch 4.7, we also introduced a bug where Pantheon could be hit by area-effect spells before he physically landed on the screen. Ultimately we made a fix that leaned more in Panth's favor, where he can 'pop' all projectiles as he jumps off screen (so that pesky Sion stun won't follow him through the sky) and remains untargetable until he physically lands. In terms of other tweaks to Grand Skyfall, we've been keeping a close eye on how Pantheon's performance has been affected by the 4.7 changes, but he's remained pretty strong in both top lane and the jungle. We're going to keep watching for now!

R - Grand Skyfall

NEWMANLY JUMPINGPantheon now 'pops' projectiles that are in flight toward him as he leaps off the screen

BUGFIXPantheon is now untargetable from the moment he leaves the ground to the moment he lands

Rengar

We're very aware of Rengar's champion-eating capabilities (unlike the poor squishy targets he's surprising), but we're going to be watching how these changes / bug fixes affect the kitty before we take any larger action.

Passive - Unseen Predator

CLARITYNext attack after leap now correctly starts when Rengar lands, rather than when he's midair

Q - Savagery

DAMAGEThe bonus damage from Savagery and Empowered Savagery can no longer critically strike. The Attack Damage portion still can.

BUGFIXFixed a bug where Empowered Savagery's bonus damage could be triggered multiple times using Unseen Predator

Rumble

Rumble had a few strange bugs that were causing his Flamespitter to deal less damage.

Q - Flamespitter

BUGFIXFixed a bug where Flamespitter was dealing less damage when Rumble was trying to set people on fire for extended periods of time

BUGFIXFixed a bug where Flamespitter dealt less damage when on purple team

Soraka

In our zeal to reduce solo lane Soraka's obnoxiousness, we kicked her a little too hard in the shins. These changes may not get her up to par, but we're committed to supporting her beyond these buffs.

Q - Starcall

UTILITYIf Starcall hits an enemy champion, Astral Blessing's cooldown is reduced by 5/7.5/10/12.5/15% ⇒ 10/11.25/12.5/13.75/15%

Minor Changes & Bugfixes

Recall Animations

BUGFIXFixed a bug where the following champions would occasionally cancel their recall animations:

Diana
Elise
Kha'Zix
Nami

Elise

E - Rappel

BUGFIXFixed a bug where the initial cast of Rappel could not be used on wards (Elise no longer needs to cast Rappel twice to descend on a ward)

Volibear

Volibuff. Buffibear? Bam, context.

Q - Rolling Thunder

BUGFIXFixed a bug where Volibear's target would not be thrown the proper distance if the throw's end position was inside of a wall or a crowd of other units

Summoner's Rift

Jungle

As we continue to keep a close eye on the jungle, we noticed that jungle monster experience rewards were going up with the average level of the map while lane minion experience didn't. On deeper analysis, we saw this inconsistency was amplifying snowballing in the game: if a jungler's team continues to pull ahead (either through ganks or just #winning), the jungler could continuously clear their monsters for additional bonus experience. Ultimately that meant the jungler of a successful team would come out disproportionately stronger than even the rest of his or her team for contributing the same amount of work. While we want to give specific junglers the gold income and capability to 'carry' their team in the mid to end game, a jungler's overall rewards are currently being amplified beyond the four other players who have had their own set of challenges to overcome. All roles should contribute to the outcome of a game, and we're committed to ensuring a jungler has the same potential (not more) as any other.

BONUS EXPERIENCEJungle monsters no longer give additional experience based on their level (to remain consistent with lane minion experience)

Twisted Treeline & Crystal Scar

Kha'Zix

We initially changed Kha'Zix's isolation damage for Dominion / TT based on his old kit, but now that additional modifications have been made, we're going to revert to his new kit to get a better feel for the overall changes.