Greetings, Summoners,
Welcome to 8.2, the one where we make a pretty big systemic change. For the history of LoL, minions have rushed to defend their allies against any champion who hit them with a basic attack, but those same minions merely watched on as Pantheon chucked spears or Cassiopeia sank Twin Fang after Twin Fang into you. After this patch, no more. Minions now understand that targeted spells are mean, and they’ll respond just as if they were basic attacks. This is a pretty big change, so we’re headlining it here, but a full list can be found below.
With that being said, there are a few junglers terrorizing the Rift recently, and we’re taking the chance to knock them down a peg so that laners (and junglers) everywhere can feel a bit safer. Same goes for marksmen, and the names probably won’t catch you by surprise.
GLHF,



Mid-Patch Updates
1/25/2018 Balance Update
Nunu
We wanted Nunu something to do with his hands, but it turns out we gave him too much. Dialing that back so he can settle in a good place.
Q – Consume
Turret Durability
Armor and magic resist increased early.
We’ve added more and more ways to bust towers, and as a result, we’re seeing the laning phase come to an end a bit earlier than we think is sufficient. Some early resistances should help extend the laning phase.
This change went out at the beginning of the patch, it just didn’t end up in patch notes.
Patch Highlights
Champions
Ekko
Bonus Attack Speed at Level 1 added.
Ekko’s pretty close to being able to jungle effectively, and this small bump should help him get back on that path without pushing his solo laning out of line.
Base stats
Evelynn
E damage decreased.
Evelynn’s burst is too damn high.
E – Whiplash
Ezreal
Q damage decreased at early ranks.
Kleptomancy has dramatically shifted Ezreal’s power curve, making it far easier for him to get his core of Sheen/Tear of the Goddess earlier. As a result, Ezreal’s power spikes (especially Trinity Force/Muramana) show up earlier and control the game for longer. It doesn’t really make sense for him to have a safe lane phase (even bullying some laners) while also having best-in-class midgame power, so we’re tuning down his early game strength.
Q – Mystic Shot
Jinx
Base attack damage decreased at early levels. Passive no longer stacks, but uncaps attack speed while Jinx is Excited. Minigun’s attack speed no longer scales with level but scales harder with rank.
We want to accentuate Jinx’s wildcard nature by toning down her early game safety but ramping up her ability to snowball. That means upping her ability to take towers or win duels when she picks up early kills, and giving her a unique teamfight high when she gets rolling within a teamfight.
Base stats
Passive – Get Excited!
Q – Switcheroo!
Kha’Zix
Passive scaling decreased. Q scaling increased.
Kha’Zix is supposed to shine when he can isolate a target and chain his abilities on them. At the moment, the damage on his passive is a bit too high, allowing him to win nonisolated fights he probably shouldn’t. As a result, we’re shifting some power out of his passive and into his Q.
Passive – Unseen Threat
Q – Taste Their Fear
Malzahar
Q scaling decreased. R cooldown increased.
Malzahar’s burst combo is a bit too consistent so we’re lessening its frequency and overall damage.
Q – Call of the Void
R – Nether Grasp
Nunu
Nunu now additionally does bonus magic damage on basic attacks. W now also increases ability power on both targets.
Nunu just isn’t very good right now.
Q – Consume
W – Blood Boil
Ornn
Ornn is no longer unstoppable during W. R cooldown increased.
The usual counterplay to champions who stand still (or in Ornn’s case, move slowly) while they churn out sustained damage is to displace them. Being unstoppable during W – Bellow’s Breath just doesn’t leave players with much gameplay against him. His ultimate cooldown also isn’t leaving enemy teams with good windows to be aggressive, so we’re tuning it up.
W – Bellows Breath
R – Call of the Forge God
Pantheon
We’re changing the way targeted spells draw minion aggro, which has pretty significant implications for how Pantheon’s passive functions.
W – Aegis of Zeonia
Sona
Q mana cost decreased.
Our nerfs to Sona in response to the Runes overhaul went a little too far so we’re restoring some power to her ability to poke in lane.
Q – Hymn of Valor
Vayne
Attack speed per level decreased. R bonus attack damage decreased.
Vayne is just too strong right now. Fleet Footwork is giving her an easier path to the late game, and when she gets there, she’s just rolling in stats. Rather than hit her laning phase (and put most of the pressure on her opposing bot laner), we’re reducing her power in the late game.
Base stats
R – Final Hour
Items
Enchantment: Runic Echoes
Proc mana restore increased.
Most mage junglers struggle with mana—form-swappers are the main exception—so we’re looking into giving those weaker mage junglers more consistency.
Support Items
Supports spend a ton of gold—and slot space—on two items that exist largely for their role. We’re merging those items together to give supports more autonomy in their itemization.
Removed Items
Removed Sightstone. Removed tier 3 support items.
List of Removed Items
- Sightstone
- Ruby Sightstone
- Frost Queen’s Claim
- Talisman of Ascension
- Face of the Mountain
Updated Items and Quests
Quests
Frostfang
Nomad’s Medallion
Targon’s Brace
Remnant of the Watchers
Remnant of the Ascended
Remnant of the Aspect
Line Balance
Spellthief’s Edge lockout on minion/monster kill increased. Relic shield healing decreased when proc’d by ranged champion.
Spellthief’s Edge Line
Relic Shield Line
Twisted Treeline
The old support items (without wards) will remain on Twisted Treeline.
Runes
Rune Features & Bugfixes
Resolve
Aftershock
Base damage decreased. Damage health scaling decreased but now scales with bonus attack damage and ability power. Flat resistances increased but no longer amplifies resistances by a percentage.
Aftershock’s base damage is a bit too high, and it’s letting champions like Alistar or Leona run wild in early duels against marksmen. Having one mastery be so good for both durability and damage is warping interactions between tanks and squishier champions, so we’re shifting the item profile to be less about damage and more about durability. While we’re at it, we’re shifting the resistances gain from percent to flat so that divers can get in on the fun, too.
Grasp of the Undying
Ranged penalties in healing, damage, and health gain decreased.
Taking advantage of Grasp of the Undying is way easier if you’re ranged, so we wanted to make sure it was less impactful on ranged champions. However, it seems like we went too far; even champions like Gnar and Urgot don’t perform well with it.
Guardian
Cooldown increased at early levels, decreased at late levels. Shield base value and ratios increased.
Guardian is the newest in “hidden power” mechanics: Like Bond of Stone or Aegis of the Legion’s old aura, players are getting a lot of power from it, but they often don’t feel it. We want to make Guardian a little weaker (it’s overperforming), but also more noticeable (it’s underappreciated).
Inspiration
Glacial Augment
Slow amount increased.
Glacial Augment is underperforming (there is only one champion who performs best with it, and it’s Aurelion Sol), so we’re buffing it up.
Kleptomancy
Gold value of pilfered items decreased.
The gameplay of getting a lot of small, mini-use active items is cool, but too often it’s optimal to just sell everything and accelerate builds. We want to make sure that there’s a reasonable tradeoff between using those items and just cashing them in. Since Kleptomancy is also overperforming, we’re also bringing the drop rate down, especially early game and on ranged champions.
Precision
A few precision runes are pulling a bit too much power for non-keystone slots.
Coup de Grace
Last Stand
Domination
Zombie Ward
Duration down at early levels.
An early sweeper already has the potential to give snowballing junglers too much impact; Zombie Ward’s early power is only worsening that problem.
Ghost Poro
Vision radius up
Ghost poros are cute; who doesn’t want to see more people taking that rune?
Targeted Spells
Targeted damaging spells draw minion aggro.
Champions with spammable targeted spells, like Pantheon and Cassiopeia, put opposing laners in an awkward position: fight back and draw minion aggro, or just take the punishment they hand out. Changing this mechanic will make those champions a lot more intuitive to play against, as well as easier to balance.
Affected abilities
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Click to expand
Healthbar Update
Moment of death is now punctuated by a brief, team colored animation. This displays on players, epic objectives, and structures. Player healthbar animations can be toggled off in the options menu.
Ticks are more evenly spaced and readable for champions with super high health.
Scoreboard
Technically this feature came out in 7.3, but it has been bugged since. Now it’s back and functioning.
Parties
Champ Select
This will be activated at some point during Patch 8.2.
Minion Items
Minions now have items in their inventories which explain previously hidden mechanics. No mechanics have been changed.
League Displays
Bugfixes and updates to League Displays.
- Computer usernames not containing alphanumeric characters no longer cause League Displays to BugSplat on startup.
- Fixed a bug that caused wallpapers on Windows 7 to rotate too rapidly.
- Fixed an issue which caused images to load as a solid color instead of art.
- Fixed an issue where power settings weren’t functioning properly.
- Removed the Default Screensavers collection from League Displays. Now if players do not select a screensaver or wallpaper, nothing will change.
- Added a large amount of art, including updated splashes for champions like Evelynn and Twitch. We will continue to update the art selection.
- For updates in the future, you can check out our FAQ here. If you have questions or suggestions please let us know!
Bugfixes
- Janna’s R – Monsoon no longer incorrectly knocks back champions who are protected by spell shields
- Galio’s W – Shield of Durand shield now correctly returns out of combat after falling off
- Ashe’s E – Hawkshot no longer procs spell shields when flying through champions out of Ashe’s self-vision
- Jayce’s E – Thundering Blow no longer disables Flash and Hextech Flash when used on a champion with Hextech Flashtraption shortly after they have flashed
- Fixed a bug where if Aftershock had already been triggered, the owning champion’s death would cause the damage effect to apply early
- Fixed a bug where if a champion with Aftershock immobilized a champion after their death, their corpse would trigger Aftershock as normal
- Hard crowd control effects no longer incorrectly interrupt Anivia’s R – Glacial Stormchannel or Aurelion Sol’s W – Celestial Expansion when the spell applying the crowd control had been blocked by a spell shield
- Omega Squad Twitch’s Q – Ambush Camouflage VO lines have been restored
- Santa Braum is no longer missing his purchase and champion-specific taunt VO
- Star Guardian Lux’s staff is no longer missing its glow
- Ambitious Elf Jinx’s Q – Pow-Pow now uses skin-specific SFX, as opposed to base
- Star Guardian Miss Fortune’s beam VFX have been restored during her B – recallanimation
- Pentakill Olaf’s Q – Undertow once again makes a cymbal crash sound!
- Headhunter Rengar’s chromas R – Thrill of the Hunt True Sight SFX no longer persist on an enemy target
- Battle Boss Malzahar’s W – Void Swarm and E – Malefic Visions SFX have been toned down and are now less noisy
Upcoming Skins & Chromas
The following skins will be released in patch 8.2: