Patch Notes (1/4) — Hot Sorting Hat on Sorting Hat action every goddamned game

[Thrawn]

I'm fucking amazed nobody is running Locket jungle Udyr right now, theorycrafting wise it seems like it would be really good to me?

It's because hardly anyone runs Udyr.  I guess a dps/stun/tank/junglers that can chase and escape isn't very good in the current meta. 

[Prospero]

The heal from locket is nice in-between fights, but useless during big team brawls. I prefer Omen myself; it provides the same cooldown, health, and an AoE debuff.

[Typhon]

[...]

I'm fucking amazed nobody is running Locket jungle Udyr right now, theorycrafting wise it seems like it would be really good to me?

I used to play Udyr a great deal, and the locket was a big part of that, but it's too expensive for what you get.  It does allow endless stance dancing, but fights don't really last so long that you need endless stance dancing.  There are other items that provide better defense or offense, and since you are supposed to be in the jungle anyway, mana shouldn't be a problem.  If fights lasted longer, I think it would be worth it.

It does provide cooldown reduction, but Udyr doesn't benefit from cooldown reduction as much as defense and AD (and the ghostblade is a better item for cooldown reduction, given everything else it brings to the table).

I like wriggles + ghostblade + triforce as a core, then you decide how tanky you want to go.  When I play him lately, I've also been taking tiger earlier in the build because it allows for decent farm and provides crazy burst (with triforce) and tower demolition.  Bear + ghostblade + boots + triforce = very fast Udyr.

Who I find that the locket works really well with is Nadalee.  Helps the team, keeps you topped up with mana for the heal/speed boost, and provides a decent source of cooldown reduction.  I just wish I had more discipline to keep laying down the traps.

[Prospero]

How does a minimal health and mana regen help the team? It's better than a poke in the eye, but it's a far cry from the old locket's passive.

[Typhon]

It definitely isn't an Aegis or Starks.  Given when you are likely getting it in the game, it's extremely underwhelming.  Sorry if the way I phrased it made it seem like I thought it was good.

[Kail]

Okay, stupid question.  Got a bit of flak for picking Amumu since he's "useless" now after the nerf to AoE CC.

But, despite the "Top men are investigating it" thingy at the top of the patch notes, I'm not actually seeing anything that would impact Amumu?  Or a number of other AoE disablers (looking specifically at Kennen here)?  It's just a few (Galio, Morgana) who I'm seeing changes to.  Or did they change something in the last patch I missed?

[Thrawn]

Okay, stupid question.  Got a bit of flak for picking Amumu since he's "useless" now after the nerf to AoE CC.

But, despite the "Top men are investigating it" thingy at the top of the patch notes, I'm not actually seeing anything that would impact Amumu?  Or a number of other AoE disablers (looking specifically at Kennen here)?  It's just a few (Galio, Morgana) who I'm seeing changes to.  Or did they change something in the last patch I missed?

I think, as usual, people are just dumb and can only make game decisions based on what they read on the League forums.

[Samprimary]

New Skins in the Store

• Siren Cassiopeia
• Desperada Cassiopeia
• Santa Gragas
• Reindeer Kog’Maw
• Silent Night Sona
• Re-Gift Amumu
• Ragdoll Poppy
• Candy Cane Miss Fortune

Snowdown Showdown Spoils

• The Winter Map is back for the Showdown!
• Red and Blue Eggnog to provide Health and Mana
• Minions with elf and reindeer hats
• Festive skins
• Festive Tier 3 runes
• Festive PVP.net landing page

PVP.net v1.25.13

• Improved Leaver Buster - PVP.net will now automaticaly ban leavers.  This works similar to a 'driving points" system for driver's licenses.

• You gain ‘leave points’ by leaving games, and if you have enough leave points, you will be suspended or banned.
• You lose ‘leave points’ by having good behavior – by completing your games, and not leaving over a long period of time.

• Mastery saving has been improved

• Repseccing your masteries no longer saves an empty mastery page to the server. This means you’ll never accidentally enter the game with no masteries.
• You can now remove saved mastery points individually without having to return all your points.
• When you have unsaved changes in your rune page or mastery page, you will now be prompted to save when navigating away.

• Lowered the volume level of audio in PVP.net at all slider positions. You may want to adjust the audio levels in PVP.net as a result.
• Fixed a bug where viewing another users Champions would display your own Champions instead.  This option is now greyed out when viewing another users profile.
• Fixed a bug where the "Play Again" button would not work at the End of Game screen for arranged teams
• Fixed a bug where you could not select the "Random" marker in Champion Selection
• Fixed a bug where PVP.net would crash at certain resolutions

League of Legends v1.0.0.107
Cassiopeia, the Serpent’s Embrace

• Noxious Blast - Cassiopeia blasts an area with a delayed high damage poison, granting her increased Movement Speed if she hits a champion.
• Miasma - Cassiopeia releases a growing cloud of poison, lightly damaging and slowing any enemy that happens to pass through it.
• Twin Fang - Cassiopeia lets loose a damaging attack at her target. If the target is poisoned the cooldown of this spell is refreshed.
• Petrifying Gaze (Ultimate) - Cassiopeia releases a swirl of magical energy from her eyes, stunning any enemies in front of her that are facing her and slowing any others with their back turned.
• Deadly Cadence (Passive) - After casting a spell any subsequent spellcasts will cost 10% less for 5 seconds. This ability stacks up to 5 times.

Cho'Gath

• Rupture delay reduced to 0.75 seconds from 0.8
• Carnivore health restored reduced to 34-68 from 40-82
• Carnivore mana restored reduced to 7-15.5 from 8-16.5

Ezreal

• Base damage increased to 47.6 from 45
• Damage per level increased to 3 from 2.6
• Base attack speed increased to 0.665 from 0.658

Fiddlesticks

• Terrify cooldown changed to 14/13/12/11/10 from 12
• Terrify mana cost reduced to 65/80/95/110/125 from 65/85/105/125/145
• Drain mana cost reduced to 80/90/100/110/120 from 80/95/110/125/140
• Crowstorm mana cost reduced to 150/200/250 from 200/300/400

Garen

• Decisive Strike attack damage ratio increased to 120% from 100%
• Decisive Strike base damage reduced to 30/45/60/75/90 from 40/60/80/100/120
• Judgment

• Base damage per second changed to 60/90/120/150/180 from 30/70/110/150/190
• Scaling increased to 100% per second from 70%
• Now scales off of only bonus attack damage rather than all attack damage

[/list]

Gragas

• Drunken Rage damage reduction reduced to 10/12/14/16/18% from 10/14/18/22/26%
• Drunken Rage mana restoration changed to 40/55/70/85/100 from 50/60/70/80/90
• Explosive Cask cooldown increased to 90/75/60 seconds from 60

Katarina

• Bouncing Blades

• Now scales off of 80% bonus attack damage (instead of 100% of all attack damage)
• Base damage increased to 60/95/130/165/200
• Now has a 0.35 ability power ratio

• Death Lotus

• Base damage decreased to 40/50/60  from 50/65/80
• Now scales off of both attack damage and ability power rather than one or the other
• Now hits the closest 3 targets rather than 3 random targets
• Cooldown reduced to 60/55/50 seconds from 60

[/list]

LeBlanc

• Ethereal Chains root duration increased to 1/1.3/1.6/1.9/2.2 seconds from 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2
• Mimic cooldown reduced to 40/32/24 seconds from 40/35/30

Malphite

• Seismic Shard slow and haste changed to 14/17/20/23/26% from 10/15/20/25/30%
• Seismic Shard cast range reduced to 625 from 700
• Ground Slam mana cost increased to 60/65/70/75/80 from 60

Malzahar

• Null Zone percent of health damage increased to 5/6/7/8/9% from 4/5/6/7/8%
• Null Zone no longer has a minimum damage dealt
• Voidlings now spawn after 4 casts instead of after 5

Mordekaiser

• Mace of Spades now resets the attack timer when used
• Iron Man shield generation reduced to 20/25/30% from 30%
• Iron Man shield decay increased to 5% from 3%

Nidalee

• Fixed a bug where she would have lower base damage in cougar form than human form

Olaf

• Undertow now deal physical damage instead of magic damage
• Vicious Strikes health scaling changed to 0.5% at all ranks from 0.3/0.6/0.9/1.2/1.5%
• Vicious Strikes base damage changed to 10/17/24/31/38 from 12/18/24/30/36
• Ragnarok damage reduction reduced to 20/30/40 from 25/45/65

Pantheon

• Spear Toss base damage reduced at earlier ranks to 16/28/40/52/64 from 20/31/42/53/64
• Heartseeker Spear scaling damage reduced at earlier ranks to 20/25/30/35/40% from 24/28/32/36/40%

Poppy

• Fixed a bug with Diplomatic Immunity where the particles didn't display for their full duration at ranks 2 and 3
• Fixed a bug with Diplomatic Immunity where the tooltip didn't reflect the increase in duration when ranking up
• Fixed a bug with Diplomatic Immunity where the leveling tooltip didn't reflect the increase in duration with higher ranks

Swain

• Carrion Renewal now restores mana instantly

Twitch

• Spray and Pray

• Now fires a maximum of 5/6/7 shots
• Duration increased to 12 seconds from 6
• Now increases Twitch's attack damage by 15/25/35 instead of providing 30/45/60% Attack Speed

[/list]

Udyr

• Tiger Stance

• Initial damage is now 150% attack damage plus 40/80/120/160/200 from 180/210/240/270/300% attack damage
• Persistent effect no longer splits Udyr's attacks
• Udyr now gains half attack speed for 5 seconds after activating Tiger and half while in Tiger stance

• Phoenix Stance base damage of activation effect reduced to 10/18/26/34/42 from 15/25/35/45/55
• Phoenix Stance base damage of on hit effect increased to 50/90/130/170/210 from 40/80/120/160/200

Urgot

• Fixed a bug that was causing Urgot's auto-attack to have a slight delay when clicking a unit for the first time
• Range increased to 425 from 400
• Attack damage reduced to 51.6 from 54.1
• Attack damage per level increased to 3.6 from 3.1
• Acid Hunter

• Base damage reduced to 15/45/75/105/135 from 30/60/90/120/150
• Attack damage ratio increased to 0.85 from 0.7

• Terror Capacitor base shield changed to 80/140/200/260/320 from 80/120/160/200/240
• Noxian Corrosive Charge

• Now deals physical damage instead of magic damage
• Damage changed to 75/130/185/240/295 (+0.6 bonus attack damage) from 100/155/210/265/320
• Now reduces 12/14/16/18/20% of the target's armor instead of 10/15/20/25/30 flat armor

• Updated recommended items

Items

• Banshee's Veil

• Health reduced to 375 from 450
• Mana reduced to 375 from 400
• Magic resist reduced to 50 from 57

• Elixir of Agility

• Now grants 12-22% Attack Speed and 8% Critical Chance, reduced from 15-25% Attack Speed and 15% Critical Chance
• Cost reduced to 250 from 300

• Elixir of Brilliance

• Now grants 20-40 Ability Power and 10% Cooldown Reduction, reduced from 31-65 Ability Power and 10% Cooldown Reduction
• Cost reduced to 250 from 300

• Elixir of Fortitude

• Now grants 140-235 Health and +10 Attack Damage, reduced from 230-400 Health and +11-28 Attack Damage
• Cost reduced to 250 from 300

• Infinity Edge attack damage reduced to 75 from 80
• Innervating Locket has been removed
• Last Whisper

• Combine path changed: now requires Pickaxe and Long Sword, instead of Recurve Bow and Long Sword
• Upgrade cost increased to 700 from 500
• Now provides +40 Attack Damage and 40% Armor Penetration

• Phantom Dancer

• Upgrade cost reduced to 400 from 900
• No longer provides Dodge Chance

• Randuin's Omen

• Armor reduced to 80 from 90
• Cooldown reduction reduced to 8% from 15%

• Shurelya's Reverie

• Move speed duration increased to 3 seconds from 2
• Health regeneration increased to 30 from 25
• Mana regeneration increased to 15 from 12

• Sight Ward

• Health reduced to 1 and armor reduced to 0
• Reduced collision and spellhit sizes
• Duration reduced to 3 minutes from 4.5

• Vision Ward

• Health reduced to 1 and armor reduced to 0
• Reduced collision and spellhit sizes
• Duration reduced to 3 minutes from 3.5

• Wriggle's Lantern Ward

• Health reduced to 1 and armor reduced to 0
• Reduced collision and spellhit sizes

• Spirit Visage

• Now builds out of Kindlegem instead of Ruby Crystal
• Upgrade cost reduced to 300 from 375 (total cost increased to 1550 from 1250)
• Health increased to 250 from 200

• Sunfire Cape

• Upgrade cost increased to 800 from 700
• Passive is now unique

• Warden's Mail

• Armor reduced to 50 from 60
• Health regeneration reduced to 20 from 25

[/list]

Summoner Spells

• Flash no longer pops projectiles
• Flash cooldown increased to 255 seconds, from 240

Runes

• Flat energy, energy per level, and energy regen per level runes increased 10%
• Flat energy regen runes increased 5%

General

• Minion count on the scoreboard will now only update for Champions that you have vision of
• Solo lanes will see a slight reduction in their experience gain. Junglers and Dual lanes will be unaffected.
• Dragon no longer provides any global experience, but provides more global gold
• All turrets now provide less global experience, but more global gold
• Baron Nashor can now be debuffed with non-disables (for example, poisons)
• "Healing" due to a level up will now be adjusted by a portion of your missing health. In general, less health will mean less recovery.  Healing from Catalyst the Protector remains unaffected.
• Monster AI has been improved and will now attempt to switch to a nearby target when you leave their leash range.  Monsters can now reaggro if anyone in their camp is attacked while they are retreating.

Audio

• Vladimir - changed volume balance of spells.

[Chimpy]

So to offset the sunfire nerf they apparently buff garen's damage? 

The Spirit Visage change makes me unhappy as I don't like increases to my item costs on Taric :/

And why the hell couldn't they make a new Taric skin?

[Kail]

• Solo lanes will see a slight reduction in their experience gain. Junglers and Dual lanes will be unaffected.
• Dragon no longer provides any global experience, but provides more global gold
• All turrets now provide less global experience, but more global gold
• Baron Nashor can now be debuffed with non-disables (for example, poisons)

That... kind of looks like a big change, to me.

New "leaver buster" thing is interesting.  I'm interested to see how it pans out.

Also, lol at "we're going to nerf Locket" translating into "Locket has been removed"

[Samprimary]

well, the lead char designer had said he wanted to do as much damage to locket as he possibly could. t-t-t-total victory, I suppose.

after playing the wave of udyrs that came in the wake of the Noxia v. udyr & friends all I can say is good riddance!

[Mosesandstick]

Won't this make it harder for non-optimal junglers to jungle now? Or it could just force people in to path changes, no more golem first?

[Samprimary]

there's a lot of things that this patch is going to do; chief among them, it appears to have (finally!) overnerfed twitch and settled in some route changes. The issues that may spring up as a result of this are intended to be handled in all the subsequent patches, each of which is intending to eat at some of the ways in which gameplay is stagnating. the anti-aoe cc thrust followed by anti ranged carry followed by anti tanky dps etc etc

next one apparently has a lot to do with characters who basically shut down harrassment in lanes.

[Typhon]

Ooph! Tank Olaf took a pretty big blow on vicious strikes. (1% x 3000 = 30 AD he just lost).  I can see that they are trying to make AD Olaf playable, so I guess I won't cry too much.

Going to have to try a jungle Tiger Udyr to get a feel for the changes - the biggest being, "Tiger no longer splits the attacks".  Tiger Udyr will now receive a great deal more lifesteal back from autoattacks while in Tiger stance (making Tiger <--> Turtle dancing more attractive).  This is a big deal for Udyr because he can only take three of his abilities to level 5, and Phoenix 4 + 5 don't do enough at the end game to be worth it.  It's not clear to me that Udyr was nerfed.  He definitely was changed.

"Solo lanes will see a slight reduction in their experience gain. Junglers and Dual lanes will be unaffected." - I thought they wanted to reduce the importance of jungle?  This just seems to reduced the viability of some carries that really need early-mid game dominance... and made jungle even more important.  I don't get it.

[Thrawn]

REMOVED Innervating Locket, Made Sunfire Cape damage unique....cripes, those seems a little overboard.  So many big changes at once seems like a very bad and very annoying thing.  Seems likely to create all kinds of new imbalances.

The change I'm pissed about -

Last Whisper
Combine path changed: now requires Pickaxe and Long Sword, instead of Recurve Bow and Long Sword
Upgrade cost increased to 700 from 500
Now provides +40 Attack Damage and 40% Armor Penetration

WHY FUCK YOU WHY?  Recurve Bow was one of the reasons Last Whisper was such a good carry build, it gave you attack speed since you get none from Doran's and IE/BS/Cleaver.

[DLRiley]

looks like i won't be playing league for a couple of months unless a few champs i like get buffed lolz.

[Slayerik]

Well, I formulated my own new Udyr Jungle path for AD Tiger Style Udyr!

Smite/Ghost

Long Sword and a health Pot
Tiger Style
21/0/09

Runes: AS marks, dodge seals, armor glyphs (I will probably do cooldown), flat health quints


Start at Golems, kill them (dont use pot), level up turtle. Recall instantly home.

Buy two more pots. Kick on Ghost and run to Golem (ghost will be back in time after Lizard for gank). Kill lizard minions quickly, Use pot while taking on Golem (finishing with Smite). Kill wolves, kill wraiths, kill golems and recall. Grab Boots or another sword (working towards Brutalizer, I plan on bypassing Madreds Razors completely - seem plenty fast enough in killing shit). Boots are probably the better choice here, and maybe 1 pot.  Kill lizard, drink pot, go gank lane. Jungle till level 6 and kill Dragon. Buy AD shit, maybe some tankage.

The new effect of Tiger style synergizes well with Turtle stance. You keep some of the increased attack speed, thus more life and mana recharge on mobs. On my trial bot runs it seems pretty effective but I'll need to see it in action to really judge. Sorry, this isn't the Slay's Udyr build thread but fuck it.

[Chimpy]

Oh BTW, xmas health quints are same as non-xmas ones, but cost 1550 (500 less than usual ones).

[tazelbain]

If AoE and tanky meta are out, are we back to range carries or healing metas?

EDIT: Since it's too early too know, I guess I asking for opinions about where the new meta will go.

[Hoax]

I'm going to say its going to be emphasis on support and pocket carry or just old aoe depending on which some idiot like Elementz sees work first and posts as the BEST STRAT EVAR which are the two best metas the game has ever had and also the ones where you can run rogue strats like push or heavy mobility or european tf.

Garen got crushed, good riddance.  If the patch hurts MordK to the point where he becomes a rare specialist only champ I'll be happy as hell as well.

This could be the best patch ever, no idea, I wont get to play for another two weeks.
 
I see no reason why what was once good isn't good again.  Amumu, Annie, Ranged carry du jour and a good lane combo like say Janna + Kennen should be top tier.

[Thrawn]

I declare the new meta as Tryndamere carry all day long, whooo!

[Prospero]

The ward changes made me sad last night. I tend to be the only fucker buying them on my team, and now I have to buy twice as many. *grumble* I'm less fond of gankfest LoL.

[Typhon]

I found the ward changes completely baffling.  I still don't understand what they were trying to achieve by nerfing them.

[Chimpy]

Obviously it is to make jungling less necessary and less powerful. Oh wait. All the changes make jungling MORE powerful and MORE necessary.

[Phry]

I found the ward changes completely baffling.  I still don't understand what they were trying to achieve by nerfing them.

So that the ward can be instantly killed if you drop it by another hero before it stealths out.  Dunno why the times changed though.

[Hoax]

Official stance seems to be, buying wards was a no brainer good decision before now under any circumstances, I don't think its a great change but can't say.

[Prospero]

You can also kill the wards by using an AoE ability like Anivia's ult on them. Before you would have to leave it on for quite awhile if you knew there was a ward in the bush. Now you can just toggle it on and off and kill any wards. I imagine Singe can do the same thing by running through them with his poison on.

[Mosesandstick]

Ward's aren't magic immune?

[Prospero]

I thought they could but it looks like I'm wrong. Yay! I guess just Pantheon can randomly kill then.

[Samprimary]

the wards change is ultimately good, just a bitter pill to swallow. Before it, you could just dump a ward down anywhere at any time without any real repercussions, and any game at 1350+ elo was one in which wards were absolute no-brainers and were thus used everywhere all the time by any decent team.

Some examples as to why the meta change is entirely appropriate: before, most games against arranged teams started with them dropping a ward on our blue golem, and we would do the same. how exciting! now, that's not such a good idea, because all day after the patch we would sit by blue golem and get a free ward kill if they dropped one.

[Kail]

Well, I formulated my own new Udyr Jungle path for AD Tiger Style Udyr!

(snip)

Start at Golems, kill them (dont use pot), level up turtle. Recall instantly home.

Buy two more pots. Kick on Ghost and run to Golem (ghost will be back in time after Lizard for gank). Kill lizard minions quickly, Use pot while taking on Golem (finishing with Smite). Kill wolves, kill wraiths, kill golems and recall. Grab Boots or another sword (working towards Brutalizer, I plan on bypassing Madreds Razors completely - seem plenty fast enough in killing shit). Boots are probably the better choice here, and maybe 1 pot.  Kill lizard, drink pot, go gank lane. Jungle till level 6 and kill Dragon. Buy AD shit, maybe some tankage.

I'm pretty new at jungling, but my general route is something like:
-Start with turtle, cloth armor, 3 or 4x health potions
-Kill blue golem first, use smite when he's low, kill the two minions after golem dies.  Spamming turtle stance, I can do this with two health potions.
-kill wolves, kill wraiths, kill minigolems.  Keep levelling turtle stance when you can, otherwise whatever (generally I like tiger or phoenix)
-should be fairly high in HP after minigolem fight, go kill lizard.  Smite should be coming off cooldown, blue buff should be just wearing off, kill minions and then then smite lizard (probably have to use the third health pot here).
-kill whatever has respawned (generally wolves at this point) wander around until you can finish Mandreds.  Get blue and red buffs and get dragon.

Now, the problem is that I'm super new at jungling (never really tried it in a real game) and I'm not really sure why you'd pick one jungling "route" over the other.  I was thinking that mine was pretty good because you never have to leave the jungle until you're ready to buy something, but Slayer's has him going back to base every few kills, but he's probably killing stuff faster when he's out there.  What's the "optimal" thing you guys would look for in a jungling strat?

[Samprimary]

Hey, if anyone can dig up info on this — I know that the lol devs consider stealth obnoxious and intend to rework it. I just don't know what, if anything, they've said about the rework. Anybody know?

[Margalis]

I don't think they've said anything too specific about what the planned changes are.

I keep installing this game, playing it for a day or two, then uninstalling. The community is such a giant bunch of babies it's really hard to get any enjoyment out of it.

[Typhon]

I have seen nothing concrete on the stealth changes they are planning.

From what I have read, it seems like they are most focused on Eve - stealth that is offensive and global, as simply select the champ results in a significant impact on the other team (Shaco and Twitch are similar enough that I'm guessing they might be lumped in there as well). 

They specifically mentioned that they were fine with Akali and Teemo's versions of stealth (because they were either short-duration and localized or non-interactive).

Their statements hinted that they were considering adding an item(s) that granted stealth detection.

[Samprimary]

Ay, between that and the raping Twitch has faced over the course of this year's patches, he's practically an ex-hero.