League of Legends Patch 6.14 has a bunch of good stuff to look through. Ryze’s rework is going live; expect a ton of crazy portal shenanigans. There are also a ton of Twisted Treeline, so if you're one of the few players who dares to venture off of Summoner’s Rift, you're in luck. My personal favorite change (besides the Sona rework) are the new pings you can spam in-game. There’s a ping for ability cooldowns, finished items, vision items, health and mana resources and summoner spells.
Let’s get right into the Patch Notes!
Buffs
The silent singer, Sona has struggled to find success in a meta she should be dominating. Where other poke supports like Zyra and Nami flourish, Sona struggles to see play outside of CLG games . This rework should fix that, giving her more power in her Power Chord, healing in her Aria of Perseverance and speed in the Song Of Celerity. Crescendo now gives her abilities extra cooldown reduction, up to a maximum of 67 percent, the highest in the game.
Leona mains are going to love her new rework. Her passive deals more damage, Shield of Daybreak has a shorter cooldown and Zenith Blade roots for .25 seconds longer. Riot figured out Leona can’t really do a lot once she uses her full spell rotation and decided to amend that. Solar Flare gives Leona Incandescence for five seconds, which increases her range and damage while applying her passive (it also scales with Ability Power so get ready for some interesting top-lane Leona builds).
Annie’s bear got a bit smarter. Tibbers can now follow enemies who enter Fog of War and remembers who he’s attacking when crowd controlled.
Fiora may be dominating the pro scene, but she’s struggling to get success anywhere else. Riot is increasing her Vital damage and Lunge had higher scaling at early levels, .4 Attack Damage at rank one. She won’t be as overpowered as she was at launch, but you’ll definitely be seeing the French duelist in more of your games.
Lee Sin gets more of a shield when he Safeguards.
Lux has more damage on her passive but less on Light Binding. Unless you only play Lux , I doubt you’ll even notice the change.
Right after her rework, Poppy was everywhere. The yordle with a hammer had everything a top-laner could want: sustain, damage and the ability to initiate teamfights. Then Riot nerfed all of those key points and made her useless. To compensate, her passive shield is stronger and has a shorter cooldown. Steadfast Presence gives her five percent more speed at all ranks.
What’s the worst elemental dragon? It’s Cloud Drake and Riot finally realized it needed a buff. Slaying it now grants more out-of-combat movement speed. It will still be the worst of the four, but it’s usable.
Nerfs
Riot really did a number on Azir , the most difficult to balance champion in League of Legends . This time around, they are nerfing his sand soldiers’ damage and vision range. Arise now does less damage before level 11, but evens out closer to level 18. His soldiers lost 125(!!!!) vision range, making them only able to see what they can hit. I’m curious to see what this nerf does for competitive play, because Azir will still be top tier. Players will have to use a bit more of their brains when playing the emperor of Shurima.
The other OP mid-laner, Viktor , got some early game nerfs. His first Hex-core upgrade costs 250 gold more, but his last upgrade costs 250 gold less. It’s a good nerf, one that doesn't destroy Viktor’s identity but lowers his early game power spike. You’ll have to wait a few minutes longer before clearing whole minion waves with one laser.
Taliyah is finally starting to see some play, Bjergsen took her out over the weekend to much success . Riot is increasing her Seismic Shove cooldown, but it no longer locks her out from casting other abilities and uses Vector casting (ex: Rumble ultimate). Unraveled Earth deals 15 percent less damage when it hits the same target.
My favorite tunnel digger, Rek’Sai, got an interesting nerf. Her Tremor Sense refreshes every 1.5 seconds, so it takes double the amount of time it used to. That means, Rek’Sai will no longer be able to have full vision of the enemy team when she’s in close proximity; she will have to think about where the enemy went. This is going to knock her out of competitive play without a doubt.
Malzahar lost five base movement speed and 10 attack range. One day Riot will get League’s purple Void monster maker right.
What are you most excited about this patch? Tell us in the comments!
