Start of Ranked 2017 Season
The 2017 ranked season starts during patch 6.24!
Champions
 
Camille
Camille, the Steel Shadow, will be released later on during patch 6.24! In the meantime, learn more about League’s newest champion here:
Severed Ties
Champion Reveal
Champion Bio
Champion Insights
Inside Camille Dev
 
Akali
Passive procs on turrets.
 
When we shifted Twin Disciplines from an always-on effect to one compressed into two procs, we held off on allowing it to work on structures. This was a hit to Akali’s pushing strength, given her basic attacks against structures lost some AP scaling without reaping the benefits of the updated Twin Disciplines. We did this to maintain Twin Discipline’s combat focus for the first release of her update, ensuring we’d have a clearer read on follow-up balance needs (see: last patch’s ratio buffs). Now that things have settled a bit and we’ve had a chance to observe how all the changes are playing out, we’re comfortable giving back Twin Disciplines’ pushing potential.
Passive - Twin Disciplines
NINJA PUSHING Can now be used against structures
 
Azir
W cooldown reduced. Sun Discs deal more damage and give enemies less gold.
 
We haven’t talked much about Azir since he fell out of the spotlight about half a year ago. To quickly summarize, Azir’s got too many strengths and not enough weaknesses. This makes balance an extremely finnicky task: with no clear vulnerabilities to exploit, it’s hard to bring Azir back down once he starts picking up a lead.  
 
This patch, we’re raising Azir’s baseline effectiveness without substantially raising his poke potential. He’ll be able to reach and maintain three soldiers more quickly when going all-in on a fight, and faster soldier charges also means better access to Shifting Sands (whether for slick getaways or the Shurima Shuffle). We’re also giving some love to the Sun Disc - “temporary replacement turret” is a cool strategic strength only Azir brings to the table, but it felt a bit bad to use since it could end up as quick gold for the enemy team.
Passive - Shurima's Legacy
ATTACK DAMAGE SCALING 3 per minute ⇒ 4 per minute
ENEMY REWARD WHEN DESTROYED 100 gold ⇒ 50 gold
W - Arise!
CHARGE COOLDOWN 12/11/10/9/8 seconds ⇒ 10/9/8/7/6 seconds
 
Fiddlesticks
W damage increased early. E cooldown reduced.
 
The new jungle hasn’t been kind to Fiddlesticks, who’s lost a lot of clearing speed against buff camps and Krugs. We’re giving him back some jungling efficiency in the early game, though it’s still safe to say the new jungle’s shifted some of Fid’s clearing strength from Dark Wind to Drain.
W - Drain
DAMAGE PER TICK 60/90/120/150/180 ⇒ 80/105/130/155/180
BUFF-FIX Fixed a bug that caused Drain to not apply its final tick of damage
E - Dark Wind
COOLDOWN 15/14/13/12/11 seconds ⇒ 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 seconds
 
Fizz
Clarity improvements around how whiffed R fishes attach to enemies that step on them.
 
One of the side effects of Chum the Waters growing with distance is that when Fizz misses, the fish pick-up radius tends to be much bigger than before. That increased size exposed some shortcomings in terms of how that pick-up mechanic is displayed, so we’re making a few visual improvements.
R - Chum the Waters
CAUTION TAPE Whiffed fishes now display their attachment radius to enemies
ENTHUSIASM Whiffed fishes now visually hop onto enemies they attach to, rather than instantly teleporting onto them
IT’S DEAD, JIM Fishes that can’t attach to enemies (dropped after hitting a spell shield or when the original target dies) don’t display the attachment ring and instead flop over onto their bellies
Bugfixes
Fixed a bug where W - Seastone Trident’s cooldown wasn’t refunded if it killed an enemy champion with a post-death form (ex. Karthus, Sion)
 
Garen
Spinning shreds enemy armor after four hits.
 
Garen’s been struggling for a few different reasons, but the underlying theme is consistency. He’s vulnerable to peel by design, but even compared to other juggernauts, he loses way too much impact when the enemy team’s able to keep him at bay. This is nigh-inevitable as the game progresses: Garen doesn’t (and shouldn’t) have the tools to ignore the peel efforts of a coordinated team. But, once he’s stuck butting heads with the enemy frontliners, his threat vanishes since he has no means of piercing their durability. Given his lack of utility elsewhere (Nasus has Wither, Darius has Apprehend, etc), this often leaves Garen feeling like dead weight.
 
This change isn’t a silver bullet for Garen’s problems, but lets him better carry his weight against tankier foes when he can’t reach the Villain and gives allies a way to capitalize on Garen’s efforts.
E - Judgment
NEWARMOR SHRED Enemy champions hit 4 times have their armor reduced by 25% for 6 seconds (hits after the 4th refresh the duration)
 
Ivern
E costs more mana and slows for less.
 
Right now, Ivern is one of the most challenging champions to master. As players have climbed that curve, it’s become apparent that the wolf-cuddling jungler is pretty dang strong. His mid and late game seem about right, but the consistency of his early ganks is too damn high. Triggerseed is the main offender, with the slow providing too much consistency early on, and combined with his unique clear speed, he’s posing too much of an early threat to laners.
E - Triggerseed
COST 50 mana ⇒ 70 mana
MOVEMENT SPEED SLOW 70% at all ranks ⇒ 40/45/50/55/60%
 
Katarina
Dagger damage increased in the early/mid game.
 
Given Katarina’s focus on damage dealing, it’s a bit surprising that only one of her basic abilities (Bouncing Blade) gains substantial base damage with rank-up. Instead, a huge chunk of damage comes from champion level scaling via Kat’s new dagger mechanic. So, the Sinister Blade hits a mid-game slump: though daggers keep gaining damage with level and she gets better dagger access via lower Preparation and Shunpo cooldowns, Kat’s unable to prioritize damage itself in her skill-ups once she’s maxed Bouncing Blade.
 
In most reasonable matches, Kat hits this wall before her ability power scaling takes off, making it hard to keep pace with enemies. We’re giving her a little help while she fills out her inventory.
Passive - Voracity
WTF NUMBERS Daggers deal slightly more damage at all levels, scaling faster early but more slowly later (damage at levels 1 and 18 are roughly unchanged). The damage difference peaks at level 10 (+10 damage).
DAGGER DAMAGE (LEVELS 1 - 6) 75/78/83/88/95/103 ⇒ 75/80/87/94/102/111
DAGGER DAMAGE (LEVELS 7 - 12) 112/122/133/145/159/173 ⇒ 120/131/143/155/168/183
DAGGER DAMAGE (LEVELS 13 - 18) 189/206/224/243/264/285 ⇒ 198/214/231/248/267/287
Bugfixes
Katarina’s R - Death Lotus icon no longer lights up while dead when enemies walk near her corpse
If Katarina catches a W - Preparation dagger at the end of E - Shunpo’s cast time, the Preparation dagger’s damage no longer follows her to Shunpo’s location
If Katarina E - Shunpo’s to an ally or a dagger, Shunpo’s damage now properly transfers to the nearest minion or jungle monster if no enemy champions are in range
 
Kog'Maw
W deals more on-hit damage. E damage and ability power ratio reduced.
 
Kog’s been on the road to recovery since his un-update a few patches back. His marksman build’s been steadily climbing thanks in part to a bunch of indirect buffs (ex. Blade of the Ruined King/Guinsoo’s Rageblade last patch), and his mage build bounced back a bit too well after our first wave of follow-up in 6.21. A few light touches should get both flavors of the void puppy to a stable spot. For marksman Kog, that’s adding a small bit of oomph to his people-melting button; for mage Kog, that’s pulling some excess waveclear out of his lane phase to keep him on his toes.
W - Bio-Arcane Barrage
ON-HIT DAMAGE 2/3/4/5/6% maximum health ⇒ 3/4/5/6/7% maximum health
E - Void Ooze
DAMAGE 60/110/160/210/260 ⇒ 60/105/150/195/240
RATIO 0.7 ability power ⇒ 0.5 ability power
 
LeBlanc
Health regen down. Q damage up, but damage against minions down. E damage down.
 
Given that LeBlanc’s pre-season changes spread her (previously instant) damage out over a brief window, it’s not surprising that players have been exploring her other strengths. Two patches out, it’s safe to say LeBlanc’s shifted farther away from her assassin roots than we intended. We’re siphoning some power back into her traditional bursty playstyle while tapping down a few unexpected strengths.
Base Stats
HEALTH REGEN 8.5 ⇒ 7.4
HEALTH REGEN GROWTH STAT 0.8 ⇒ 0.55
Q - Shatter Orb
DAMAGE 55/80/105/130/155 ⇒ 55/90/125/160/195
BOUNCE DAMAGE VS MINIONS 120% ⇒ 80%
TOOLTIP FIX Shatter Orb’s tooltip now reflects the correct bounce damage against minions
BUGFIX Shatter Orb bounces no longer count as single-target spells for Spell Vamp
E - Ethereal Chains
DAMAGE 40/65/90/115/140 ⇒ 40/60/80/100/120
 
Master Yi
Alpha Strike better follows enemies that Flash away after being tagged.
 
This is a lot of text that says if Master Yi’s primary target Flashes away the moment before he reappears, Yi will follow them rather than awkwardly popping out at the spot the target just Flashed away from.  
 
Also, a bugfix we will decline to comment on.
Passive - Double Strike
STOP HITTING YOURSELF Fixed a bug where Guinsoo’s Rageblade dealt damage to Master Yi on Double Strike’s second hit
Q - Alpha Strike
CAN’T ESCAPE Alpha Strike now determines Master Yi’s ending position when damage is dealt, rather than 0.05 seconds beforehand. In other words, Master Yi more reliably ends up next to his target if the target Flashes at the end of Alpha Strike. (Alpha Strike duration unchanged)
 
Nidalee
+5.12 AD
 
Whereas last season’s Nidalee was a machine of efficiency in the jungle, she’s now struggling to complete her clears with enough strength remaining to make an impact on the game. We haven’t forgotten the balance challenges Nidalee presented in 2016, but it’s plain to see she’s now having the opposite balance problem, regardless of lingering gameplay issues. With many of her problematic mechanics removed (namely, most of her attack resets), a straightforward attack damage buff should put her head back above water as pre-season monitoring continues, without choking out the rest of the jungle roster.
Base Stats
ATTACK DAMAGE 47.88 ⇒ 53
 
Rengar
Overall Bonetooth Necklace bonuses reduced. Attack damage per level increased.
 
While his rework toned down his upfront damage, new Rengar was getting enough attack damage from Bonetooth Necklace to retain the frustration old Rengar wrought. We’re dialing back his scaling to make sure squishy champions get a response to respond to knifecat before he claws their faces off. While we were investigating his Bonetooth damage, we found a bug: it was scaling off of total, not bonus attack damage. We’re fixing that, and compensating via base attack damage scaling to avoid a double-nerf.
Base Stats
ATTACK DAMAGE GROWTH STAT 1.0 ⇒ 1.5
Bonetooth Necklace
FLAT BONUS 1/3/6/10/15 attack damage ⇒ 1/3/7/13/20 attack damage
PERCENT BONUS +2/6/12/20/30% bonus attack damage ⇒ +1/3/7/13/20% bonus attack damage
BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Bonetooth Necklace was granting % total attack damage instead of % bonus attack damage
 
Shaco
Buff-fixes for Backstab.
 
Cleaning up a few quirks where Backstab wasn’t doing what you’d expect it to.
Passive - Backstab
BETTER CRIT’ING If the attack that procs Backstab would critically strike normally, it now deals normal crit damage rather than Backstab’s reduced crit damage
THUNDERSTAB Fixed a bug where Backstab wasn’t stacking Thunderlord’s Decree
 
Shyvana
Passive can now be stacked on Howling Abyss and Twisted Treeline
 
Following up on last patch’s ability update, we’re giving Shyvana ways to earn Fury of the Dragonborn stacks on maps that don’t have elemental drakes.
Passive - Fury of the Dragonborn
HOWLING ABYSS Shyvana gains 5 armor and magic resist for each turret her team destroys
TWISTED TREELINE Shyvana deals 10% increased damage against Vilemaw and gains 5 armor and magic resist for each Vilemaw kill her team earns
 
Twitch
Passive damage decreased. W mana cost increased.
 
Like other hypercarries, Twitch’s natural enemy is the lane bully marksman (Lucian, Draven, MF). With pre-season’s shift from flat armor penetration to lethality, those lane bullies have lost a lot of early strength. Combined with the strength Twitch himself gained from the stealth update, the Plague Rat’s quickly risen to the top of bot-lane’s food chain. We’re trimming some of his early power so enemies once again have a chance to stall out his late-game scaling.
Passive - Deadly Venom
TRUE DAMAGE PER STACK 2/3/4/5/6 ⇒ 1/2/3/4/5
W - Venom Cask
COST 50 mana ⇒ 70 mana
 
Varus
Passive now scales with bonus attack speed and its duration is the same regardless of proc type.
 
When Varus has been successful in the past, it’s been by building raw attack damage and armor penetration items, rather than marksman crit builds. We want to support Varus as both a caster and a traditional marksman, so we’re making the basic-attack scaling on his passive more appropriate in the late game.
Passive - Living Vengeance
NEWBONUS ATTACK SPEED RATIO +50% bonus attack speed on champion kill/assist (halved for minion/monster kills)
DURATION 6 seconds for champion proc, 3 seconds for minion/monster proc ⇒ 5 seconds in both cases
 
Vayne
Q damage down at later ranks.
 
When we last visited Vayne, we buffed Tumble’s scaling to compensate for the strength of lane bullies. The net result of that change: Vayne (a late-game hypercarry) now has a powerful mid-game spike once Tumble is maxed and she completes her Infinity Edge + Statikk Shiv combo. With mid-game dueling mastery, Vayne no longer has to wait to scale before she becomes a dominant threat. We’re reverting Tumble’s previous buff to get her back to her late-game-focused ways.
Q - Tumble
BONUS DAMAGE 0.3/0.4/0.5/0.6/0.7 total attack damage ⇒ 0.3/0.35/0.4/0.45/0.5 total attack damage
Items
 
Rylai's Crystal Scepter
Single target and area-effect spells no longer cause a stronger slow. Cost and stats decreased.
 
Rylai’s has become a go-to item for AP bruisers utility mages AP assassins every mage. There’s nothing wrong with popular items, but when that item gives survivability and utility, it artificially decreases class variance, making characters more similar in their capabilities. We want Rylai’s to be purchased for its repeatable slow, not because it’s an optimal stat-stick. While that means toning its health and AP down to make it less generically appealing to mages, we also want the slow to be less attractive to mages who can’t reapply it consistently. We know this shift affects some champions more heavily than others, but we’d rather help those champs become less reliant on Rylai’s with future changes than tiptoe around the problems with Rylai’s itself.
BUILD PATH Needlessly Large Rod + Amplifying Tome + Giant's Belt + 515 gold ⇒ Blasting Wand + Amplifying Tome + Ruby Crystal + 915 gold
TOTAL COST 3200 gold ⇒ 2600 gold
HEALTH 400 ⇒ 300
ABILITY POWER 100 ⇒ 75
SLOW 20% for 1 second in all cases
 
Haunting Guise
It’s cheaper.
 
Liandry’s Torment is a natural pairing for Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, and many of its purchasers care primarily about that two-item power spike. Combined with the changes to Rylai’s, we are less concerned with RyLiandry’s being abused by non-core users, and thus can afford to let those core users hit their spike earlier.
BUILD PATH Amplifying Tome + Ruby Crystal + 765 gold ⇒ Amplifying Tome + Ruby Crystal + 665 gold
TOTAL COST 1600 gold ⇒ 1500 gold
Liandry's Torment
TOTAL COST 3200 gold ⇒ 3100 gold
Summoner’s Rift
Living Jungle
Plants generally behave like wards, with a few intentional exceptions.
 
In general, while activating plants uses the basic attack animations, plants shouldn’t trigger combat interactions. In other words, activating plants should feel similar to attacking wards: a tactical action that happens to be done with a basic attack. Two notable exceptions: it feels really bad to have to chase down a Draven axe or Poppy shield after triggering Blast Cone, so we’re cleaning up those interactions.
PLANTS AREN’T PEOPLE Champion passives which proc on basic attack (ex. Caitlyn’s Passive - Headhunter, Nocturne’s Passive - Umbra Blades) are no longer consumed when attacking a plant (similar to attacking turrets or wards)
DRAAAAAVEN Draven’s Q - Spinning Axe no longer bounces off plants. Instead, the duration is refreshed (similar to attacking turrets)
NOT LIKE THIS Poppy’s Passive - Iron Ambassador now bounces back to her when attacking a plant (similar to killing a unit)
Red & Blue Buffs
Duration increased. Red buff’s on-hit tick and Blue buff’s ability power scaling removed.
 
During the mid-season update, we compressed the power of Red and Blue buff into stronger, shorter versions, with the hope that contesting them could feel like a more valuable objective. However, the power-ups have made fights with the buffs in play too volatile - buffs are accelerating the damage pacing of their wielders more than they should.. We’re reverting the mid-season changes to bring these buffs back to useful - but not overwhelming - levels.
Red Buff
DURATION 120 seconds on first buff, 90 seconds thereafter ⇒ 120 seconds on all buffs
REMOVEDON-HIT TICK Basic attacks no longer deal a tick of Red Buff’s damage on-hit (but still apply and refresh the effect)
Blue Buff
DURATION 120 seconds on first buff, 90 seconds thereafter ⇒ 120 seconds on all buffs
REMOVEDABILITY POWER No longer grants +15% ability power
Red Brambleback
Red Brambleback has less magic resist.
 
Red Brambleback is too punishing for magic damage junglers to fight. While we want both buff camps to feel distinct, we don’t want one taking quite so much more health and mana to clear than the other.
BASE MAGIC RESIST 26 ⇒ 20
Krugs
Ancient Krug grants less experience on first kill.
 
There are general expectations about when junglers can hit level 3, and laners rely on those expectations to predict ganks. Some junglers can violate those expectations based on the nuances of their kits, but Krugs were giving enough experience to allow every jungler to hit level 3 on their second camp. We’re slimming the experience gains for killing the initial Krug spawn to create a better sense of consistency about when junglers can or can’t access level 3 ganks.
EXPERIENCE Ancient Krug now grants 125 ⇒ 62.5 experience on first kill
Masteries
 
Courage of the Colossus
Cooldown up at early levels. Shield bonus per nearby enemy down.
 
Courage of the Colossus is doing its job: helping champions who get in the thick of things and lay down crowd control to survive better once they’re in there. Unfortunately, it’s doing that too well. On top of that, while it should have some value in lane, it’s a bit too hard to pick a smart trade against such a fat shield every wave.
COOLDOWN 30 seconds ⇒ 45 - 30 seconds (at levels 1-18)
SHIELD PER NEARBY ENEMY 7% ⇒ 5% (25% maximum)
 
Fervor of Battle
Stacks last longer. Fewer stacks required.
 
We like Fervor’s playstyle: the longer you keep attacking, the stronger you get. Some of our pre-season changes have put that promise a bit too far out of reach: stacking takes longer and it’s harder to keep stacks up. We’re going back on a few changes to restore some of Fervor’s lost reliability.
STACK DURATION 4 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds
MAX STACKS 10 ⇒ 8
ATTACK DAMAGE PER STACK 1-6 (at levels 1-18) ⇒ 1-8 (at levels 1-18)
MAX ATTACK DAMAGE 10-60 ⇒ 8-64
Spectator Mode
Elemental drake buffs and rotating game mode objectives are now tracked in spectator mode.
 
We did some under-the-hood work to the spectator HUD, enabling us to switch up what spectator tracks as objectives. This means that for rotating game modes, you’ll see the same information in the top-of-screen tracker as the players in-game. It also means spectator’s finally caught up with mid-season’s drake changes!
DRAKE BUFF SPECTATING Each team’s Elemental drake buffs are now tracked in spectator mode
PORO KING SPECTATING For Poro King matches, charges toward summoning the Poro King are now tracked in spectator mode
NEXUS SIEGE SPECTATING For Nexus Siege matches, structure takedowns (offense) and charges toward the Obliterator (defense) are now tracked in spectator mode
League Client Update
We’ve made significant improvements to performance and stability with this patch. We’re taking steps to ensure a smooth experience for all players while continuing to re-implement missing features.  
 
For questions about the ongoing client update open beta, check out open beta FAQ.  
 
If you’re having technical issues or bugs are preventing you from enjoying the game experience, know that you still have access to your legacy client. Just click “Launch legacy client” before logging in. You can find solutions to most common issues in the Known Issues section of our support site.
New features
Below are the major updates for the League client update this patch.
 
NEWROTATING GAME MODES Rotating game modes are now available in the updated client starting with Legend of the Poro King. (Known issue: custom games do not yet support rotating game modes.)
NEWSPECTATE FRIENDS Players can once again spectate their friends’ games by right clickin them on the friends list and choosing “Spectate Game”.
NEWGAME SETTINGS IN CLIENT Players can now change their keybindings from the updated client without having to go into a game.
NEWTOASTERS ON Added a “Low-spec mode” switch in settings that lets players turn off certain animations and effects if they’re suffering from performance issues. Right now this mostly affects some minor aspects of the champ select experience, but we'll expand Low-spec mode to cover more features in upcoming patches.
NEWGIFTING NOTIFICATIONS Players will now see a notification when they receive a gift.
For those of you who haven’t yet opted into open beta, we’ll be releasing a big chunk of files (~500 MB) later on in the patch. This download (and similar downloads with our normal patches going forward) will split the updated client into smaller chunks, reducing the final download size when it’s time to deprecate the legacy client. If you’ve opted into open beta, you’ve already downloaded these files, so you’ll be pretty much unaffected.
Notable fixes
We've patched up our audio and UI components to make the entire client run faster
We made champ select run more smoothly and fixed some issues affecting the champ grid UI
We’ve added audio and visual changes to champ select to make key decision moments more noticeable
We've improved responsiveness and stability for important transition moments like the jump from the play button to the lobby, the ready check pop-up, and the champ select load-in experience
Some nasty launch problems were being caused by the new desktop icon not pointing to the right place. This has now been fixed.
Fixed an error that occasionally prevented players from selecting their rune pages in champ select
We’ve fixed various issues that were preventing players from accepting ready checks and locking in champions
Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented a player from seeing the ban animation and VO for another player
 
We’ve distributed the alpha summoner icon reward to all testers who participated in the alpha leading up to the start of open beta last month.
Queue Health Update
What does this update mean?
 
Solo/Duo Queue
Ranked Flex
Bugfixes
Malzahar’s Voidlings now properly take damage from several damage types that weren't working properly
Heimerdinger’s W - Hextech Micro-Rockets beyond the first now deal reduced damage to the Poro King (he’s now treated as a monster, rather than a minion)
The fourth hit of Kled’s W - Violent Tendencies now properly procs on-hit effects even when the bonus damage kills a unit
Launching yourself or an ally into the air via Blast Cone no longer counts as an enemy displacement effect for the purposes of an active enemy Yasuo’s R - Last Breath airborne check. In other words, you’ll pass through Last Breath rather than getting stuck in it.
Re-fixed a bug preventing Xerath’s R - Rite of the Arcane from damaging Baron Nashor if cast from too far away
When Brand’s E - Conflagration spreads to nearby enemies after hitting an ablaze target, the spread damage no longer counts as a single-target spell
Cleanse’s tooltip now indicates it doesn’t remove suppression effects
Repositioned Elementalist Lux's animated splash in Champion Select on the updated client
Elementalist Lux's Origin loading screen border is no longer obfuscated by ranked borders
Implemented colorblind improvements for Elementalist Lux's Fire and Magma form W - Prismatic Barrier shields
Fixed a few bugs with Elementalist Lux's transformation menu
Fixed a gap in Elementalist Lux's Fire form flame collar VFX
Properly synchronized the Elementalist ward skin's despawn audio with its visuals
Snow Day Bard’s singing (?) VO during his dance animation is no longer delayed
Properly synchronized Pool Party Ziggs’s audio during his idle animation when he shakes his water balloon and smacks it against his head
Jhin’s W - Deadly Flourish no longer plays Jayce’s Q - Shock Blast audio on cast if both champions are in the same game
Fixed a bug causing turrets to perpetually spam target acquisition audio and visual effects when they were unable to attack a target in range (ex. disabled by Ohmwrecker; the target becomes invulnerable with no other nearby targets)
Restored missing audio during Shadowfire Kindred’s run cycle when Lamb throws her bow in the air
Pool Party Graves’s W - Smoke Screen now properly plays its sprinkler sound effects for enemies
Fixed a spectator mode bug preventing Order of the Lotus Karma’s Mantra Q - Soulflare explosion circle indicator from displaying