League of Legends released Patch 9.20, which brings some big chances to three heroes - Garen, Shaco, and Viktor. However, for Hanna "shio shoujo" Woo over at Riot Games, the changes are not big enough for them to be considered a full rework. Riot is hoping that the changes are good enough to make players take a second look at these three champions.
Garen
Let's start with Garen. The patch makes his passive regen more reliable and is now 1.5-10.1% (levels 1-18) of his maximum health every five seconds. While his Empowered Regeneration has been removed, his Regeneration Interruption was updated to "7 seconds when hit by epic monsters, towers, or champions."
One big change is for his Villain mechanic on his ultimate, which has been removed. This is something many players have not been supportive of. Now it has been changed to Lasik, a skill which lets him get vision of the target for one second, preventing it from cancelling if the target breaks line of sight. His Judgment skills have added Alexander the Great, which grants stacks of Conqueror on each spin.
Overall Riot hopes that these changes make Garen a champion that offers more intuitive play rather than a linear experience.
Shaco
In the case of Shaco, while his playstyle has been changed, it did not give the effect expected. The changes in the new patch hope to round out the damage he deals throughout the game rather than making it focused on the late game. The change also modifies the damage type of some of his skills and moved some ratios around.
Thus, the E - Two-Shiv Poison has its damage type changed to Magic from Physical. The damage has also been increased to 70/95/120/145/170 (+0.8 bonus attack damage) (+0.6 ability power).
Viktor
Viktor received some positive changes, particularly for two abilities that have been mainly underpowered. For W - Gravity Field, instead of stunning enemies, it now slows enemies by 20% for one second for direct hits. R - Chaos Storm now moves over terrain and even continues chasing champions if Viktor already died. A more important change is for Q- Siphon Power, which no longer scales with his mana.
Other Changes
There are other changes as well that aren't limited to heroes. Players will be surprised to know that beginning with 9.20, they no longer are able to find and add friends through social media. Clicking the "Add Friends" icon no longer shows the option to click "By Social Network."
You can view more of the changes here.
