League of Legends Is Testing a New Passive for Lissandra

Lissandra may be getting an entirely new passive should the changes being tested for the League of [...]

League of Legends Lissandra
(Photo: Riot Games)

Lissandra may be getting an entirely new passive should the changes being tested for the League of Legends champion make it to the live servers.

The mage that's primarily played in the mid lane and sometimes makes an appearance up top currently has a passive that's become outdated considering how prevalent mana conservations options are in runes and items. Her passive periodically causes her next ability to cost no mana with her various forms of crowd control making the passive available more often assuming players can land the champ's abilities. It's essentially a lower-cooldown version of the Manaflow Band rune minus the mana regeneration effect, and it's one of the main things that Riot Games is looking to change.

"We've got some Lissandra changes in testing with the goals of giving her a more satisfying passive, a bit more power, more reason to play proactively in lane and a bit more to optimize around," Riot Meddler, the original designer for the champion, said concerning the Lissandra changes that are in the testing phase. "Still very much work in progress, and no particular release date yet."

Plans to overhaul Lissandra's passive along with other changes are followed by a discussion in mid-February when the Rioter called the passive "not interesting or satisfying" and said that Riot would explore changes for Patch 8.6. The new plan for Lissandra's updated passive removes the free ability portion of her passive while maintaining the emphasis on Lissandra's crowd control. Riot Meddler explained how the new passive would work through his Gameplay Thoughts post that also previewed balance changes for other abilities as well as the champ's base stats.

  • Passive - Old passive removed. New passive grants Lissandra bonus damage against targets she has previously impaired the movement of (slow, root, stun etc). Bonus damage scales with AP (0.2 at present), basic attacks get half the bonus damage spells do.
  • W - If it hits 3 or more targets its CD is significantly reduced and Lissandra's next spell cast costs no mana. Base CD increased somewhat, mana cost reduced.
  • Overall damage reduced somewhat on W, E and R to offset power in new passive (changes are intended to be power positive, but still need to take some damage from unempowered abilities to pay for extra damage on empowered ones).
  • Base mana regen, regen per level, starting mana increased somewhat.

Riot Meddler also gave his thoughts on how this new passive stacks up to his initial vision for Lissandra by saying that it was similar to an idea he originally had, though he added that he's hopeful for this version to work for both Lissandra and her opponents. The changes for Lissandra aren't guaranteed to ship in Patch 8.6 though and could be tweaked before being released.

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