Greetings, Summoners,
Welcome to patch 8.6, the next big patch in our little patch, big patch cycle. This time around, we’re taking a look at Duskblade and how it affects its core users. We think it brings too much power, but we wanted to make sure we gave those champions additional power if we’re stripping some from Duskblade.
Then, we’re introducing two new runes: one for champions who want to stay in fights for extended durations, and another for squishy champions who want a burst of early durability.
Finally, while we’re mostly happy with where they’ve ended up since the update, we’re still tweaking some of the mage items.
GLHF,


Patch Highlights
Mid-Patch Updates
3/21 Kai’Sa Balance Update
Base attack damage decreased. Q cooldown increased.
Last patch, we gave Kai’Sa some reactive buffs to give players more room to learn her kit. Now that players have had time to understand her strengths and weaknesses – and how to play around them – we’re pulling some of those props back out. There are other buffs shipping for Kai’Sa this patch, and we think those changes are a better direction overall for her strength profile.
Kai’Sa
Q – Icathian Rain
Duskblade Champions
Duskblade of Draktharr
Nightstalker damage decreased and equalized between ranged and melee champions. Melee basic attacks instantly kill wards disabled by Duskblade. Blackout won’t trigger during Red Sweeper.
Nightstalker is responsible for too much of the damage of its core users, making them overbearing when they can purchase it early, and underwhelming if they delay or don’t purchase the item. We’re pulling some of the strict nuking power out of the item and putting some of that strength into the item’s vision control. Some of the lost damage will also be compensated directly into the kits of its core users.
Graves
Attack damage growth and magic resist growth increased. W casts and applies vision reduction more quickly.
Base stats
W – Smoke Screen
Kayn
W and R ratios increased.
W – Blade’s Reach
R – Umbral Trespass
Kha’Zix
Q base damage down; ratio increased; bonus vs isolated targets increased. W bonus damage to monsters removed.
Q – Taste Their Fear
W – Void Spike
At the moment, the monster damage in W ties Kha’Zix to the jungle. We’d like to give him a chance to spread his wings elsewhere, so we’re swapping that power for a bigger Q buff than the Duskblade changes warrant alone.
Nocturne
R base damage increased at later ranks. R damage ratio increased.
R – Paranoia
Rengar
Q damage ratio increased. E damage ratio increased. R damage ratio increased. Several Q and E bugfixes.
While Rengar does often build Duskblade, this is also a part of our extended cleanup of Rengar after the recent Q revert.
Passive – Unseen Predator
Q – Savagery
E – Bola Strike
R – Thrill of the Hunt
Shaco
Q now grants Shaco’s next basic attack bonus physical damage.
Q – Deceive
Talon
Passive damage now continues scaling after level 11, until level 18. R ratio increased.
Passive – Blade’s End
R – Shadow Assault
Wukong
Attack damage growth increased. Q ratio increased at later ranks.
Base stats
Q – Crushing Blow
Zed
Q damage to targets beyond the first decreased. Landing multiple shurikens on the same target no longer deals reduced damage. R damage amplification increased at later ranks.
Q – Razor Shuriken
R – Death Mark
Champions
Kai’sa
Attack range increased. Passive and Q ability power ratios increased. Q range increased. W ability power ratio decreased. E cast time decreased. E movement speed increased. R radius increased.
Kai’Sa’s a new champion, and that means that players are still learning how she works—and in a lot of ways, so are we. One thing that really stands out is that? she does pretty well in the games where she gets ahead, but currently she’s struggling pretty hard to ever get leads in the first place.
The main culprit is her laning phase, where her low range makes it hard for her to get the good trades she needs, so we’re starting by minorly buffing her range. We’re also buffing the mobility her E gives, both by increasing the movement speed and decreasing the cast time, which should allow her a bit more positional freedom to choose when and where she fights.
Her ability power ratios are also way too low to fulfill her flexible itemization fantasy, and with the Guinsoo’s Rageblade changes below, we have some room to make those ratios a lot stronger.
Base stats
Passive – Second Skin
Q – Icathian Rain
W – Void Seeker
E – Supercharge
R – Killer Instinct
Lee Sin
Passive energy return increased at later levels. Q range increased. R base damage increased.
Losing Tracker’s Knife has taken away some of the consistency of Lee Sin’s playmaking potential. We’re looking to put some of that back into his kit.
Passive – Flurry
Q – Resonating Strike
R – Dragon’s Rage
Lucian
W base damage increased. R damage ratio increased.
The buffs to Press the Attack certainly helped Lucian, but he could still use some more damage.
W – Ardent Blaze
R – The Culling
Quinn
Base attack damage decreased. Attack damage growth increased. Many bugfixes and quality of life changes.
Quinn has a lot of bugs and feel-bad moments. We’re smoothing out many of those frustrations, which should lead to Quinn feeling better to play (and being stronger).
Base stats
Passive – Harrier
R – Behind Enemy Lines
Rakan
Q and R damage ratios increased.
Rakan is currently struggling when paired with most marksmen. The obvious exception is Xayah—the two lovebirds are doing pretty well together. We’re looking to make Rakan more impactful on his own without further increasing his strength alongside his partner.
Q – Gleaming Quill
W – Grand Entrance
E – Battle Dance
Xayah
Xayah and Rakan’s basic attacks no longer trigger feathers from each other’s Deadly Plumage.
As above, bringing Xayah and Rakan’s strength together down.
W – Deadly Plumage
Items
Shurelya’s Reverie
When you a support but you and your squad wanna go in.
With the removal of Talisman of Ascension, the support item landscape was missing the “everybody in” item. Since we were remaking it anyway, we took a look at who we wanted picking up this item. Ultimately, we wanted to make sure that it wasn’t super attractive to tanks (they already have Righteous Glory), but felt good on most other supports.
Abyssal Mask
Aura radius decreased; potency increased.
When we moved ability power off of Abyssal Mask and onto Banshee’s Veil, we hoped to cement Abyssal as less of a core mage item and more of a tank pickup to boost allied mages. However, the high range on its aura has made it a compelling damage option on mages that also provides defensive value intended for tanks. As a result, we’re seeing a lot of mages pick it up as a “get me through mid lane with no interaction possible” item, without paying much of a hit to their late game damage. Shrinking the aura will sharpen the intended user base to champions who want to get up close and personal.
Seraph’s Embrace
Shield mana ratio decreased. Shield duration decreased.
Seraph’s Embrace’s shield is providing too much safety for its purchasers.
Dead Man’s Plate
Slow is now magic damage instead of physical. Momentum generation tweaked.
Dead Man’s Plate is underperforming at the moment, and we’re taking a pass at giving it some love. While we do so, we’d like to sharpen its identity as the item for fighters, who really shine when they get the opportunity to maneuver around a fight laying down damage.
As such, we’re going under the hood and tweaking the way DMP generates Momentum. If you’re able to lock a target in place (hello Maokai/Nautilus) and prevent them from kiting you that much, you won’t get as much damage and you’re unlikely to get a lot of slows. On the other hand, if you’re darting around a fight (Irelia, Renekton) you’ll feel the full impact of the passive.
Hopefully, when fighters see this item, they’ll think to themselves “yes.”. When tanks see this item, they’ll think to themselves “no.”
Guinsoo’s Rageblade
Cost decreased. Attack damage and ability power decreased. Base magic damage on-hit decreased; ratio added. Physical damage on-hit added. Stack bonuses now scale with stats from other sources.
Guinsoo’s Rageblade currently has two problems: It’s only good on a select few champions, and on those champions it serves as an insane first item spike. We’re hitting both problems by changing its statline and on-hits to scale directly with other stats. TL;DR, Guinsoo’s shouldn’t be as immediately powerful of a rush item, but it fits into a few more types of builds.
Hextech GLP-800
Cost decreased.
This item is still a bit too weak.
Statikk Shiv
Energized proc damage decreased at higher levels. Lightning no longer deals bonus damage to minions.
The combination of proc damage and wave clear is allowing any marksman to be their team’s wave clear all on their own, making Statikk Shiv too dominant a pick over the other zeal items.
Rapid Firecannon
Energized proc damage increased.
We’re taking this opportunity to match the damage of Rapid Firecannon to that of Statikk Shiv, to make it a more clear choice between extra range and extra wave clear.
Summoner Spells
Ignite
Damage increased.
For a while now, Heal and Teleport have been outclassing Ignite mid lane, especially in pro play. To increase diversity in Summoner spells, we’re pushing a bit more power into Ignite.
Heal
Cooldown increased.
In general, defensive spells should have higher cooldowns than offensive spells. That is, if two opposing player uses Heal and Ignite in the same fight, there should be a window where the Ignite player has a summoner spell edge and can try and make another play. Currently, Heal’s cooldown is probably a bit too low for players to take advantage of that disparity, so we’re upping it.
Runes
NEW
Conqueror
New Precision keystone.
We wanted to introduce a keystone for champions who excel in long, drawn-out fights—especially melee champions.
Bone Plating
Bone Plating duration decreased.
Bone Plating was intended as an anti-burst rune, but thanks to its long duration it’s being used as a generic anti-damage rune. Shortening the duration should make it less generically good while preserving its anti-burst power.
NEW
Chrysalis
New Resolve rune in the Resistance row.
Many champions—especially carry-style champions—might want defensive stats to get through the laning phase, but ultimately want carry stats for the late game. This is the rune for them.
Removed Runes
Iron Skin and Mirror Shell in the Resistance row of the Resolve tree have been removed.
Iron Skin and Mirror Shell weren’t adding much to the runes landscape; they were largely just flat stats that didn’t feel compelling to a lot of characters. Now that we’ve added Chrysalis (and Bone Plating two patches ago), we can remove Iron Skin/Mirror Shell.
Rune Selection Upgrades
Twisted Treeline
Bandit passive removed. Movement speed added to Ancient Coin line of items. Many other changes.
These are just the same changes these items have gone through on Summoner’s Rift over the last 2 patches.
All Support Items
Spellthief’s Edge, Frostfang, and Eye of the Watchers
Ancient Coin
Nomad’s Medallion & Timeworn Talisman of Ascension
Relic Shield
Targon’s Brace
Timeworn Face of the Mountain
One for All
It’s back!
Get silly this season by playing the same champ as your teammates in this wacky and accelerated twist on Summoner’s Rift. One For All springs back into action from 3/30/18 at 8:00 AM PT – 4/16/18 at 11:59 PM PT.
TL;DR
- 5v5 battle on Summoner’s Rift
- You play the same champion as your teammates
- Everyone votes for their choice during champ select. Champions with at least four votes get locked in.
Updates
- Each player can now ban a champion
- New or updated champs available since last run:
- Camille
- Rakan
- Xayah
- Kayn
- Ornn
- Zoe
- Kaisa
- Many reworked champions (Swain, Urgot, Galio, etc)
Fast and Furious
- Start at level 3
- Experience and Gold gain sped up by 30%
- Dragon and Baron spawn sooner and more often
- Bonus out-of-combat move speed
STACKS ON STACKS:
- Shields now stack!
- Most buffs and debuffs stack! Some examples…
- Oriannas can now have up to 4 of The Ball floating around her using E – Command: Protect
- Each Nunu in a game can give up to 120% bonus ability power to a single Nunu using W – Blood Boil, for a grand total of 600% potential bonus ability power
- Each Nami can buff an ally with E – Tidecaller’s Blessing at the same time, resulting in three SUPER CHARGED Nami basic attacks!
- Sivir has claimed the title of The Fast, at a recorded top speed of ~2000 while all Sivirs are R – On the Hunt
- Slows don’t stack! The slows will still be put on the target, but only the strongest slow applies.
That’s it! Go forth and slam your opponents with Leap of Faith x 5, or maybe a Penta Umbral Trespass.
Honor
After popping the hood on Honor, we’re seeing that the path back from dishonor is a bit too harsh. So now it’s less steep. There are no other changes to Honor.
Parties Level Up
Voice Chat
Later this patch, your party won’t ignore your cries for help because they’ll hear you in voice chat.
Voice works for any party of two or more players. As soon as you join a friend’s party you’ll connect to voice chat automatically and remain connected for as many games as you play together.
Bugfixes
- Fixed a bug where Vi’s empowered attack from E – Excessive Force was being blocked by spell shields
- Press the Attack now correctly plays its lock-in sound when selected
- Xin Zhao no longer stops attacking after casting W – Wind Becomes Lightning
- Pinging a gold income item now displays the correct amount of gold needed to finish its quest
- Relentless Hunter’s out of combat movement speed now correctly falls off when its user is dealt damage
- Entities created by champions (Illaoi tentacles, Shaco boxes, Teemo mushrooms, etc) no longer count as wards for the purpose of placing and destroying them
- Fixed a bug where Gangplank’s basic attack, when empowered by Sona’s Q – Hymn of Valor, would detonate his E – Powder Keg barrels
- Kai’Sa now correctly swaps out Aftershock for Grasp of the Undying if she is equipped with an Aftershock rune page
- Syndra’s W – Force of Will now correctly makes Malzahar’s W – Voidlingsuntargetable while they are held
- Dark Star Jarvan IV’s VO processing has been restored
- Tyrant Swain no longer plays base Swain’s VO lines after killing an objective
- PROJECT: Jhin’s music once again plays at the beginning of the game upon first move
- Q – Blinding Dart VFX have been fully restored for Astronaut, Cottontail and Super Teemo
- Fnatic Corki’s The Package VFX are no longer misplaced when picked up
- Infernal Nasus’ Q – Siphoning Strike special stack count interaction VOs have been restored
- Game audio volume slider behavior has been restored to normal
- Various loud SFX, such as end of game banner, recall, level up, and gold collection, have been restored to their proper volume level
Upcoming Skins, Chromas & Emotes
The following skins will be released in patch 8.6:
The following chromas will be released in patch 8.6:
Renektoy (Catseye)
Renektoy (Obsidian)
Renektoy (Rose Quartz)
Renektoy (Tanzanite)
Renektoy (Aquamarine)
Renektoy (Amethyst)
Renektoy (Pearl)
Pug’Maw (Rose Quartz)
Pug’Maw (Sandstone)
Pug’Maw (Meteorite)
Pug’Maw (Citrine)
Pug’Maw (Speckled)
Pug’Maw (Pearl)
Pug’Maw (Obsidian)
Pug’Maw (Granite)
Pizza Delivery Sivir (Catseye)
Pizza Delivery Sivir (Aquamarine)
Pizza Delivery Sivir (Rose Quartz)
Pizza Delivery Sivir (Amethyst)
Pizza Delivery Sivir (Obsidian)
The following emotes will be released in patch 8.6: