League of Legends Patch 7.16 Sees Nerfs for Worlds

Patch 7.16 notes are here! Riot just posted all of the juicy details, and we’ve got everything here for you in one place.

“Hey there, friends! As we approach Worlds, our changes lean a little bit more on tweaks to make high competitive play more balanced. Along with several mid-laners getting changed, we have some other stuff such as Cinderhulk and the Ancient Coin line.

“Also, ARURF is making an extended comeback, so watch out for carpal tunnel. Bam, ultra rapid foreword. We’ll see you on the Rift.”

We’ll kick things off with champion notes, and then move on to some balancing and item changes. Let’s get started!

Champion Changes

• Caitlyn

Q deals less damage to targets beyond the first. W base damage decreased at early ranks; ratio reduced.

While recent changes to Caitlyn have focused on her late-game teamfighting* (headshots and traps), this patch is about how the Sheriff gets there. Cait’s historically had a rocky mid-game: her early strength wanes as lane phase ends, but she doesn’t hit carry status for another few thousand gold’s worth of items after that. That mid-game lull was largely erased when we smoothed out marksman item progression. We’re re-establishing it by tapping down her effectiveness prior to completing multiple end-game items.*Sidenote: even accounting for their role as Caitlyn’s ideal teamfight contributions, trap procs were hitting slightly too hard in the late-game. Hence, a flat ratio nerf.

Q – Piltover Peacemaker

PASSTHROUGH DAMAGE 67% to enemies beyond the first ⇒ 50% to enemies beyond the first

W – Yordle Snap Trap

TRAP BONUS DAMAGE 30/70/110/150/190 (+0.7 total attack damage) ⇒10/55/100/145/190 (+0.6 total attack damage)

TOOLTIP FIX: Yordle Snap Trap’s tooltip now displays the correct root duration of 1.5 seconds (actual duration unchanged)

• Fiora

Duelist’s Dance bonus movement speed increased at later ranks of Grand Challenge.

Back in 7.14 we gave Fiora’s opponents better opportunity to both retaliate as she aimed to pierce their vitals, and out-maneuver the Grand Duelist during Grand Challenge. Removing Grand Challenge’s free movement speed had the desired effect, but the hit to Duelist’s Dance left Fiora less nimble than we’d like. We’re pulling back a bit on the changes to her passive in response.

Passive – Duelist’s Dance

BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED 15/20/25/30% ⇒ 15/25/35/45%

• Kayn

Passive – The Darkin Scythe

BUGFIX: Kayn no longer gains transformation progress from ticks of Corrupting Potion, Deathfire Touch, Red Buff, or Challenging Smite. (Other periodic effects, such as Ignite, already had no impact on transformation progress.)

W – Blade’s Reach

TOOLTIP FIX: Shadow Assassin Kayn’s tooltip for Blade’s Reach now displays the proper slow duration, slow value, and bonus attack damage ratio. In-game effects are unchanged.

R – Umbral Trespass

BUGFIX-FIX: Kayn once again marks targets for R – Umbral Trespass, even when his damage is completely absorbed by a shield

• Maokai

Sapling Toss damage down at early ranks.

The Twisted Treant is simply performing too well in both the jungle and top lane. Currently Sapling Toss is both an excellent one-point-wonder and a totally lackluster option to rank up. We’re lowering its single-rank damage but preserving its maxed-out strength, giving Maokai the option to max E for super-effective saplings while making him easier to bear until that point.

E – Sapling Toss

MAX HEALTH DAMAGE 8% target’s maximum health at all ranks ⇒6/6.5/7/7.5/8% target’s maximum health

BRUSH SAPLING MAX HEALTH DAMAGE 16% target’s maximum health at all ranks ⇒ 12/13/14/15/16% target’s maximum health

• Sion

W grants more health for killing small units. R’s max damage increased.

Sion never truly recovered from midseason’s durability item changes. Through this lens, giving him the means to win back some late-game tankiness is fairly straightforward. Past that, we’re packing more punch into Unstoppable Onslaught to bring Sion’s teamfight initiation up to a more appropriately threatening level.

W – Soul Furnace

BONUS HEALTH PER SMALL UNIT KILLED 2 ⇒ 3

BONUS HEALTH PER LARGE UNIT KILLED 10 (unchanged)

R – Unstoppable Onslaught

MINIMUM DAMAGE 150/300/450 (unchanged)

MAXIMUM DAMAGE 300/600/900 ⇒ 400/800/1200

BUGFIX: Sion is now properly immune to Lulu’s W – Polymorph during Unstoppable Onslaught

Champion Changes Cont’d

• Vi

R cooldown decreased. E attack can’t be canceled.

Vi’s calling card is reliably singling out a priority target with Assault and Battery, then punching everyone around her into the dirt. We’d like to see her flex that strength more frequently as a single-target-lockdown champ in today’s jungle meta of AoE-disruption tanks and lethality-wielding assassins. As a separate feels-good change, we’re also making it easier for Vi to properly weave Excessive Force between other actions without accidentally canceling her punch in the process.

E – Excessive Force

COMMITMENT: Excessive Force’s empowered attack can no longer be canceled after Vi begins winding up

R – Assault and Battery

COOLDOWN 150/115/80 seconds ⇒ 130/100/70 seconds

BUGFIX: Vi once again ends up a short distance behind her target

• Aatrox

W third-hit effects no longer proc against wards.

Changing Blood Thirst / Blood Price to be consistent with the on-hit context above, though Aatrox comes with a few extra considerations. The Darkin Blade benefitted from his on-hit bonuses proccing on wards: Thirst is a heal and Price stacks the Blood Well. We discussed special-casing Aatrox to let W continue proccing on wards, but came up against another issue. We removed the ability to lifesteal off wards during preseason, and Blood Thirst’s heal is inconsistent with that change. This shifted the scales back toward standardizing W’s interaction with wards. While the loss of situational utility stings, it shouldn’t critically impact Aatrox’s strength since he can’t control when he has an enemy ward to attack.

W – Blood Thirst / Blood Price

WARDS AREN’T PEOPLE: Blood Thirst / Blood Price’s on-hit effects no longer proc against wards

• Jax

R third-attack effect no longer procs against wards.

Changing Grandmaster’s Might to be consistent with the on-hit context above.

R – Grandmaster’s Might

WARDS AREN’T PEOPLE: Grandmaster’s Might’s on-hit bonus damage no longer procs against wards

• Jayce

Transform on-hit effects no longer proc against wards.

Changing Mercury Cannon / Mercury Hammer’s transform bonuses to be consistent with the on-hit context above.

R – Mercury Cannon / Mercury Hammer

WARDS AREN’T PEOPLE: Jayce’s on-hit bonus effects upon switching stances no longer proc against wards

• Riven

Passive stacks no longer proc against wards.

Changing Runic Blade to be consistent with the on-hit context above.

Passive – Runic Blade

WARDS AREN’T PEOPLE: Runic Blade charges no longer proc against wards

• Cassiopeia

Mana per level increased. E base damage down, AP ratio increased.

Cassiopeia is known and picked for her ability to control her lane very well during early levels. We’re okay with her having some early kill pressure, but opting into the level 1 non-empowered “E-spam” strategy shouldn’t automatically win the lane.

Base stats

BASE MANA 375 ⇒ 334

MANA GROWTH STAT 60 ⇒ 63

E – Twin Fang

DAMAGE VS POISONED TARGETS 10/40/70/100/130 (+0.35 ability power)⇒ 15/40/65/90/115 (+0.4 ability power)

• Corki

Base attack damage decreased.

Now that Corki scales better into the late game with magic penetration, he doesn’t need to have such a strong early game.

Base stats

BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 58 ⇒ 55

• Fizz

E cooldown decreased.

When facing the enemies Fizz should excel against during early laning phase, the nimble Trickster is not faring so well so we’re giving him a bit of power in that front.

E – Playful / Trickster

COOLDOWN 18/16/14/12/10 seconds ⇒ 16/14.5/13/11.5/10 seconds

• Galio

R cooldown increased at earlier ranks; R ally damage reduction reduced at later ranks

When teams can coordinate around Hero’s Entrance (hello pro players), Galio’s playmaking becomes too consistent and too strong. We’re toning the how much he gets to do it on early game, along with his ability to make allies unkillable as the game goes on.

R – Hero’s Entrance

COOLDOWN 160/140/120 seconds ⇒ 180/150/120 seconds

ALLY DAMAGE REDUCTION 20/30/40% ⇒ 20/25/30%

• LeBlanc

Q damage against minions decreased.

While there’s more comprehensive work to be done on LeBlanc, doing so this close to Worlds risks destabilizing the entire tournament. We have plans to revisit her later on but right now, we want to tackle her how much her wave-clear gives her room to roam. The Deceiver can burst entire minion waves using Shatter Orb passive, giving her the freedom to pay a visit to other lanes or Chain her combos (heh) on her laning opponent since there are no minions around to block Ethereal Chain.

Q – Shatter Orb

MINION DAMAGE 80% ⇒ 60%

• Orianna

W base damage decreased, buffer range with Q decreased. E shield decreased.

Orianna’s strong laning phase and mid-game trades make her the best option when compared to other generalist mages. We want her to be picked for her unique properties rather than because she can brute-force everybody out through trades.

W – Command: Dissonance

BASE DAMAGE 70/115/160/205/250 ⇒ 60/105/150/195/240

BUFFERED CAST RANGE: While The Ball is moving from Q – Command: Attack, Orianna can queue up Command: Dissonance if The Ball is within275 ⇒ 75 units of Q’s target location. Spell queueing attempts from a greater distance are ignored.

WHAT? Orianna has to wait to press W until The Ball is closer to Q’s target location.

E – Command: Protect

BASE SHIELD 80/120/160/200/240 ⇒ 60/100/140/180/220

GAME-BREAKING BUG: E’s damage is unchanged, so the “75%” figure written in the tooltip is incorrect. Trust the actual damage values listed!

• Syndra

Q AP ratio reduced. E AP ratio increased.

For someone with such high burst potential, Syndra deals a bit too much sustained damage.

Q – Dark Sphere

RATIO 0.75 ability power ⇒ 0.65 ability power

E – Scatter the Weak

RATIO 0.5 ability power ⇒ 0.6 ability power

• Taliyah

Q mana cost increased.

Taliyah often gets to push her opponents in lane freely, getting to itemize straight into raw damage instead of solving the mana issues her counterparts have to deal with.

Q – Threaded Volley

COST 50/55/60/65/70 mana ⇒ 60/70/80/90/100 mana

Items changes

• Ancient Coin Line

Mana coins restore less mana.

We recently double-buffed the Ancient Coin line by increasing the gold and mana bonuses provided by coin drops, then reworking its quest reward the following patch. These changes left Coin too strong overall. We’re pulling back on the mana it provides so supports like Soraka and Sona aren’t able to keep their lane partners perpetually healthy.

MANA COIN REWARD 15% missing mana ⇒ 10% missing mana

• Enchantment: Cinderhulk

Combine cost up.

As tanks continue their return to jungle prominence, we’ve been keeping an eye on Cinderhulk. The strength Cinderhulk offers isn’t off the mark, but it’s coming online a little too early, getting tank junglers rolling faster than their non-Cinderhulk competition. Delaying Cinderhulk by a camp or so is just enough of a push to get tank scaling to a similar pace as other junglers.

COMBINE COST525 gold (2425 total gold) ⇒ 600 gold (2500 total gold)

• Duskblade of Draktharr

  Updated VFX to improve clarity.

Balancing Changes / Misc.

Rotating Game Mode

“All Random Ultra Rapid Fire (ARURF) is back from 8/11/17 12:00 PT to 8/24/17 11:59PM PT (Yes, the entire duration!) Enjoy superspeed cooldowns, infinite mana, blazing attack speeds, randomized champ select, and the return of Runeterra’s most renowned manatee.”

• Along with the points made above, we’ve also boosted gold gains, movement speed, and tenacity to keep things Rapid Fire.

• In this mode, you can spam the custom Urf emote, which replaces the Mastery emote.

• Rerolls are shared with ARAM, so using one in either mode consumes it in the other. To compensate, we’ve increased the rate you rack up rerolls for the weekend. You should stack a reroll every game or two depending on how many champs you have unlocked.

• Many non-ultimate shield scalings are down by 50%. Don’t worry, shields are still awesome.

Free to play Champion rotation:

“The Free to Play Champion rotation will always be 10% of the current champion roster. Today, that means 14 champions, up from the longstanding 10.”

Vision Ping

“This one is long coming, but we’re happy to say the “enemy vision here ping” is finally here! The ping hasn’t yet been integrated into the ping wheel – we’re looking into solutions that don’t result in the UI looking like a pizza – but the functionality has made it to live. No more allied jungler running straight past a ward on their way to try to gank your lane.”

Skin Splash Portraits

“Your champion’s portrait in the HUD now uses your skin’s splash! (This is the big circle to the left of your abilities. Kill callouts, the minimap, etc. will still use base splashes for immediate recognizability.)”