Matt Leung-Harrison @RiotPhroxzon Patch 14.13!

Will chat about champions tomorrow.

Domination Keystone Pass

  • This patch we’re taking a swing at differentiating Electrocute and Dark Harvest, making Electrocute more of an early game focused rune and having Dark Harvest lean more into the stacking fantasy
  • Simultaneously, there is a stretch goal to have Dark Harvest be better for laning champions by bringing the cooldown down so it can stack more quickly
  • We’re simultaneously changing several Dark Harvest users, so trying to be a bit more risk averse here

Opportunity

  • Opportunity has become the default choice for many Pro ADC’s particularly as the games are slower and they are more reliant on high impact, low frequency moments
  • We think the gap between Opportunity and other Lethality items could be reduced some, so we are nerfing the item for Ranged champions, while leaving melee intact

Kalista/Varus

  • Kalista Varus have been some of the stronger Pro champs for a while
  • At the same time, we expect Ezreal to enter the meta in a big way in 14.12 (already seeing play in 14.11) and we haven’t seen him for a while
  • We are looking at some changes to Varus to make him a little less valuable in Pro while still retaining both of his builds in some capacity
  • Right now, Lethality is clearly the best build though and we’re looking to make on-hit more competitive

Other

  • We’re choosing to nerf several of the champions who buy Fated Ashes items, as we believe the items are in a reasonable spot.
  • We’re also trying to be a bit more cautious with these changes as surrounding systems like Domination keystones are changing and we can’t rule out changing Fated Ashes at a later stage

Arena Overall, Arena balance feels like it is in a good spot, props to the team for diligent followup here. How has the experience been with 16 bans?

Our main focus with this set of changes was to audit any Arena specific buffs and nerfs to target satisfaction of abilities that are baseline weaker in the mode due to less champions or map traversal value, like Taliyah R, Kassadin E, etc.

  • Buffs: Back to Basics, Demonic Embrace, Overlord’s Bloodmail, Detonation Orb, Akali, Blitz, Yone, Azir, Corki, Heimerdinger, Kai’sa, Taliyah, Kassadin, Rek’Sai

  • Nerfs: Kha’Zix, Sylas, Pyke, Kayn, Hamstringer

  • Adjustments: Vi (making the spell have value at rank 1 again)