After staying in the PBE cycle for an extra week, League of Legends‘ Patch 7.18 is set to go live soon with the new patch notes revealed on Tuesday.

This patch took a bit longer to release due to there being a need for one 3-week period between patches at some point during the year. With that elongated patch gap behind us, League players can continue to expect their 2-week patches from here on out.

Before diving into the patch notes, Riot previewed the changes with a quick overview of what to expect:

“Worlds is coming up, so none of these changes are particularly aggressive, but we do want to make sure that some of the dominant outliers get tapped down a bit, and some popular picks who have fallen out of favor see some love. Because the stability of this patch is so important, we’re holding back on deeper changes that we’re still investigating, but we’ll be revisiting those champions and items in future patches.”

“We’re also looking at Ornn. We micropatched Ornn twice last patch, and he’s still struggling. We don’t want to overbuff him, so are primarily focusing on his usability, but we’re still monitoring player performance as prospective Ornn mains progress up the mastery curve.”

Emotes

Love ’em or hate ’em, emotes are being introduced into League of Legends in Patch 7.18.

When a tab in the player collection area of the client was spotted in the PBE that indicated there’d be a section for emotes, players were a bit divided on whether or not League needed the extra level of expression. When the emotes, some of them previewed above, were revealed, some were pleased with the style while others compared them to Facebook stickers. But if you’re not a fan of them, you can at least mute them through either the in-game scoreboard or get rid of enemies’ emotes through a setting in the options.

Everyone will receive a free “Thumbs Up” emote to get started with more details about the system below:

Collection

• CHANGE YOUR LOADOUT: Equip your emotes to your emotes wheel in the Collections tab. The emote wheel has five slots, with two extra slots for emotes that will automatically flash at the start of the game and at the end of a win.

Emoting

• LET ‘EM KNOW: Use the emote wheel ingame (bound to T by default)
• YOU ARE NOW ON MY IGNORE LIST: “Mute Enemy Emotes” option added to the menu. In game, you can also individually mute a player’s emotes in the scoreboard.
• MASTERY MUTING: The Champion Mastery emotes are becoming part of the emotes system, so the “Mute Enemy Emotes” option will also mute champ mastery emotes

Store

• YOU’VE EARNED IT: Everyone gets the Thumbs Up emote
• GET ALL THE FEELS: Expand your collection by purchasing emotes from the store’s Emotes tab. There will be 20 emotes available for launch, but we’ll be continually adding more.

Champion Changes

Azir

• R – Emperor’s Divide
  • BASE DAMAGE: 150/225/300 >>> 150/250/450

Cassiopeia

• E – Twin Fang
  • BONUS DAMAGE VS POISONED TARGETS: 15/40/65/90/115 >>> 10/30/50/70/90
  • BONUS RATIO VS POISONED TARGETS: 0.4 ability power >>> 0.5 ability power

Elise

• W – Volatile Spiderling
  • BASE DAMAGE: 60/110/160/210/260 >>> 55/95/135/175/215
  • RATIO: 0.8 ability power >>> 0.95 ability power
• E – Rappel
  • COOLDOWN: 26/23/20/17/14 seconds >>> 26/24/22/20/18 seconds

Fiora

• Passive – Duelist’s Dance
  • BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED: 15/25/35/45% >>> 20/30/40/50%
• R – Grand Challenge
  • [NEW?] RE-ADDED: Fiora once again gains Duelist’s Dance movement speed bonus while in Grand Challenge’s circle

Gnar

• Base stats
  • BASE HEALTH: 540 >>> 510

Gragas

• Base stats
  • BASE ARMOR: 29.05 >>> 26.05
• E – Body Slam
  • COLLISION DETECTION RADIUS: 210 >>> 180
  • HITBOX OFFSET RADIUS: 60 >>> 40
  • [NEW] LESS BODY SLAM: Indicator changed to more accurately reflect hitbox

Ivern

• E – Triggerseed
  • BASE EXPLOSION DAMAGE: 50/70/90/110/130 >>> 60/80/100/120/140
  • EXPLOSION RATIO: 0.7 ability power >>> 0.8 ability power

Jarvan IV

• W – Golden Aegis
  • BASE SHIELD: 65/90/115/140/165 >>> 60/85/110/135/160
  • BONUS SHIELD PER CHAMPION: 2/2.5/3/3.5/4% Jarvan’s maximum health >>> 2/2.25/2.5/2.75/3% Jarvan’s maximum health

Kalista

• R – Fate’s Call
  • COOLDOWN: 120/90/60 seconds >>> 150/120/90 seconds

 

Champion Changes (Cont’d)

Lee Sin

• W – Safeguard
  • BASE SHIELD: 40/100/160/220/280 >>> 55/110/165/220/275

Lucian

• E – Relentless Pursuit
  • COOLDOWN: 18/17/16/15/14 seconds >>> 22/20/18/16/14 seconds

Nautilus

• Q – Dredge Line
  • COST: 60/70/80/90/100 mana >>> 60 mana at all ranks
  • [NEW] HOOK CITY: Hitting terrain also refunds half of Dredge Line’s mana cost

Nidalee

• E – Primal Surge
  • MINIMUM RATIO: 0.275 ability power >>> 0.325 ability power
  • MAXIMUM RATIO: 0.55 ability power >>> 0.65 ability power

Ornn

• Passive – Living Forge
  • [NEW] SLOW DOWN: Ornn’s Masterwork upgrades are now locked until he reaches level 13
  • [NEW] Zhonya’s Paradox
    • ZHONYA’S PARADOX: Zhonya’s Hourglass can now be Forged into Zhonya’s Paradox.
    • TOTAL COST: 3900 gold (1000 gold upgrade cost)
    • ABILITY POWER: 100 (+30 increase)
    • ARMOR: 60 (+15 increase)
• R – Call of the Forge God
  • [NEW] RAM TRAVEL TIME TOWARD ORNN: 1050 >>> 1200
• Mid-Patch 7.17 Balance Updates
  • HEALTH GROWTH STAT: 85 >>> 90
  • BASE HEALTH REGEN: 7.18 >>> 9
  • HEALTH REGEN GROWTH: 0.6 >>> 0.8
  • ATTACK SPEED GROWTH: 1.3% >>> 2%
  • Q – VOLCANIC RUPTURE PILLAR SPAWN TIME: 1.25 >>> 1.125 seconds
  • WALLED-IN: Volcanic Rupture’s pillar now displaces champions who are standing on top of it when it spawns
  • WALL-TO-WALL: Volcanic Rupture’s pillar now attempts to spawn outside of a wall if it is slightly in a wall, otherwise it destroys itself
  • W – BELLOWS’ BREATH LENGTH: 500 >>> 550
  • FLARE-ON: Bellows’ Breath now flares out slightly at the end
  • W SELF-SLOW: 65% >>> 50%
  • [REM] EXCUSE ME: Ornn’s E – Searing Charge no longer knocks back opponents he charges through
  • R – CALL OF THE FORGE GOD COOLDOWN: 150/115/80 seconds >>> 130/100/70 seconds

Rengar

• Base stats
  • BASE ARMOR: 22 >>> 25

Ryze

• W – Rune Prison
  • RATIO: 0.2 ability power >>> 0.6 ability power

Rakan

• W – Grand Entrance
  • DASH SPEED: 1800 + 100% movement speed >>> 2050 + 30% movement speed
• R – The Quickness
  • COLLISION DETECTION RADIUS: 200 >>> 150
  • COOLDOWN: 120/110/100 seconds >>> 120/100/80 seconds

Tristana

• E – Explosive Charge
  • BOMB RATIO: 0.5/0.65/0.8/0.95/1.1 bonus attack damage >>> 0.5/0.6/0.7/0.8/0.9 bonus attack damage
  • 4-STACK BOMB RATIO: 1.1/1.43/1.76/2.09/2.42 bonus attack damage >>> 1.1/1.32/1.54/1.76/1.98 bonus attack damage

Rumble

• Passive – Junkyard Titan
  • CLARITY: Rumble’s Heat bar now turns orange when at or above 80 Heat

 

Item Changes

Enchantment: Cinderhulk

• HEALTH: 325 >>> 300

Spellthief’s Edge Line

• Tribute passive
  • LAST-HIT PENALTY: After last-hitting a minion, Tribute charge generation is paused for ||| 6 seconds >>> 8 seconds
• Frostfang
  • [NEW] COOLDOWN REDUCTION: 10%
• Frost Queen’s Claim
  • BUILD PATH: Frostfang + Fiendish Codex + 450 gold >>> Frostfang + Blasting Wand + 500 gold (total cost unchanged)

Gargoyle Stoneplate

• RESPECT THE RATIO: Grants bonus health equal to 40% (or 100%) of base and bonus health >>> Grants base health equal to 40% (or 100%) base health and bonus health equal to 40% (or 100%) bonus health
• ADDITION, NOT MULTIPLICATION: Gargoyle Stoneplate’s active no longer scales with Stoneborn Pact or Nunu’s Q – Consume Well Fed buff
• BUGFIX: (Re-)fixed a bugged interaction between Cinderhulk and Gargoyle Stoneplate’s active which caused the combination to grant more bonus health than intended

Knight’s Vow

• TOTAL COST: 2300 gold >>> 2200 gold
• COMBINE COST: 700 gold >>> 600 gold
• HEALTH: 350 >>> 250

 

Rotating Game Mode

Invasion sticks around for another rotation after kicking off recently, a game mode that unites a majestic army of Star Guardians to fend off wave after wave of monsters.

“Invasion continues through this patch as part of the Star Guardian: New Horizon event. Band together as the Star Guardians to protect the city from waves of monster attacks until 9/25/17 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Complete missions on a dynamic map to earn Starlight Tokens that you can transform into a New Horizon Ward and Hextech Mystery Champion (random Champion Permanent). Some missions also grant you icons with temporary Star Guardian-skinned mastery emotes that you can flash across games. All Star Guardian skins are free to play within this five-player PvE game mode.”

Bugfixes

• Aatrox now correctly keeps his W – Blood Thirst/Blood Price Empowered attack through his Passive – Blood Well revive
• Fixed a bug where Sivir’s E – Spell Shield could block Summoner Spells if they were cast at the same time as any ability
• Fizz’s R – Chum the Waters no longer attaches to spell-shielded champions at max range
• Xerath’s W – Eye of Destruction slow now correctly decays from 25% to 13% once, not twice
• Ornn’s Twisted Treeline starting recommended items are no longer more than starting gold
• Fixed a big where Ornn’s E – Searing Charge didn’t destroy Anivia’s W – Crystallize, merely made it invisible
• Fixed a bug where Fiora’s R – Grand Challenge particles were showing up when the spell had been blocked by Nocturne’s W – Shroud of Darkness
• Karma, Lulu, and Brand now correctly have recommended item pages for both mid and support
• Vi’s recommended items on Howling Abyss no longer include Dead Man’s Plate twice
• Preferred item slot functionality now correctly works in the first game that the custom item set page is used
• Fixed a Mac client bug where resizing the game window caused healthbars to become incorrectly offset
• The 2016 All-Star Ward’s health bar no longer overlaps the ward itself
• Parts of Star Guardian Ahri’s model no longer disappear when affected by Kalista’s The Black Spear
• Star Guardian Soraka no longer has lingering VFX when she cancels her recall animation
• Star Guardian Soraka’s recall SFX are once again synced with the animation
• Shields now follow Star Guardian Syndra during her recall animation
• VFX have been restored during Atlantean Syndra’s enhanced recall animation
• Heartseeker Quinn is once again swinging on her swing during her recall animation
• Dark Star Kha’Zix’s evolved E – Leap VFX are now more visible on low and very low graphics settings
• The gems on Dark Star Orianna’s ball no longer disappear when moving the camera away and back on lower graphics settings
• Blood Moon Talon’s Passive – Blade End VFX are now more visible on elevated terrain.
• Game invites are now correctly prevented by blocking
• Champion voice lines now correctly play upon entering champion select or rerolling
• Fixed a bug where changing leaders in a custom game prevented the new leader from adding bots
• Mission progress now correctly appears upon log-in

New Skins & Chromas

In addition to all the champion and item changes, several new skins and chromas will be released during the upcoming patch. 

Cassiopeia and Ashe are both set to get their skins that were previewed not too long ago, the ADC receiving a Championship Ashe skin for her continued viability and performance throughout the year. The poison-flinging mid laner will instead be getting an Eternum skin as Cassiopeia joins Nocturne and Rek’Sai in the red-and-black-colored line of skins.

As for the chromas, Ashe will also be receiving a special chroma for her Championship skin to go along with the prestigious cosmetic. The final skin and chroma addition are chromas for Primetime Draven so the egotistical ADC can look even better tossing his axes around the bot lane.