‘League of Legends’ Patch 7.17: Five Things You Need to Know

League of Legends Patch 7.17 is here, and while this set up changes is somewhat smaller in terms of balancing compared to previous patches, it still has plenty to look forward to.

While there were quite a few changes on the PBE that were being tested prior to this patch for champions like Yasuo, Vayne, and Malphite, several of the more ambitious buffs and nerfs have been removed for the time being. There’s a three-week gap between this patch and Patch 7.18, but with Worlds underway, you can likely expect some of the changes later on to still be more conservative.

But this patch is almost upon us, and before it goes, live, there’s a couple of important changes that you need to notice.

Ornn is Ready to Build on Summoner’s Rift

First and foremost, Ornn is ready to roll with Patch 7.17. The Frejlordian god is no stranger to areas like the Howling Abyss, but Ornn will step foot on Summoner’s Rift for the first time on Wednesday when the patch goes live.

After being tested on the PBE since his reveal Ornn has had some numbers looked at a bit more related to his powerful new abilities, He’s got enough CC to make him a strong pick in the top lane and perhaps even the jungle.

His ability to shop from wherever he chooses as well as the opportunity to upgrade one item for each of his teammates from a selected list of choices is the most innovative part of his kit though, so it’ll be interesting to see how team compositions might change around Ornn.

Hecarim Gets a Bit Spookier

Hecarim isn’t one of the junglers that’s seen most often lately, but he might see some more time in the jungle with two buffs that are shipping for the horseman in Patch 7.17.

The first change is directed to Hecarim’s Devastating Charge, his bread-and-butter move for ganking a lane. By speeding up and smashing into an enemy, he can knock them back and set up the rest of his team’s damage. The change makes it so that the movement speed duration doesn’t tick down while Hecarim is trying to go even faster with his ultimate, a change that seems fair and will give the jungler a bit of extended speed when he’s finished ulting.

The second change deals directly with his ult itself, extending the fear based on how far Hecarim travels.  From a flat fear duration of 1 second now turned into a 0.75-1.5 second, it encourages Hecarim to take those lengthy ults instead of point-blank ones.

Defend the World in the Star Guardian Invasion Game Mode

The Star Guardians have grown in numbers, and they’re bringing a brand new game mode with them to League of Legends that’s called Invasion.

Miss Fortune, Syndra, Ahri, Soraka, and even Ezreal have joined the ranks of the Star Guardians to bring the team to a total of 10 members, and all of these colorful champions will be playable in the Star Guardian Invasion game mode. Each of their Star Guardian skins will be available as well for the game mode so that you can save the world from invaders in style.

The mode is also a PvE game type, so you can easily get together a group of four friends and yourself to fend off up to seven waves of enemies that look suspiciously like other creepy crawling champions. By completing missions in-game, you can also earn special tokens that can be converted into either a special New Horizon Ward or into a mystery champion shard.

Urgot Gets a Lot Spookier

Hecarim might have gotten his fear’s duration increased if he can land an ult from further away, but Urgot is the champion that you’ll actually have to be more scared of during this patch.

Regarding Urgot’s current state, it was determined that he needed some attention to certain areas of his kit involving the reliability of his damage and his own movement-imparing abilities. His Purge now refreshed the “locked-on” status of enemies that he targets when active so that he won’t switch to a minion suddenly if a champ briefly steps out of the ability’s radius.

His Disdain dash also no longer locks him out of Purge for quite as long if he doesn’t grab a champion with it. But along with these changes, he now has one more second to do enough damage to eliminate champions with his ultimate now that the slow duration and reactivation window have both been increased to 4 seconds, so if you want do get away from Urgot, you better move quicker.

Ardent Censor Receives a Promising Nerf

The selection for item changes is pretty slim in Patch 7.17 with only two items receiving changes, but the only one with some much-deserved nerfs is Ardent Censor.

An item that’s been dominating the bot lane support role for a while now, the Ardent Censor item is rushed by supports who can use it well and are in favorable situations in as many games as possible. Even champions like Taric and Trundle – definitely not the first two that comes to mind when using the item – were working it into their builds.

The changes target both the attack speed and health drain buffs, converting each of them from their current forms to a 25 percent attack speed buff and a flat 25 value on the health drain.

With how small the patch is this time around, there aren’t too many more changes to look at in Patch 7.17, but it’s still worth digging through the notes right here to make sure you don’t miss any of the buffs and nerfs.