Happy Holidays! This B-side patch brings one more round of balance changes before the end of the year! Most of the changes will be simpler buffs or nerfs, making a champ or system stronger or weaker without significantly changing decision making.
Other than those, we have some follow-up work on Drakes and Dragon Souls and an adjustment in Lethality items. We're also adding the link to the patch schedule for 2020, so you know where to go if you have any questions about when a patch is dropping in the new year.
That's it from me! This will be the last set of changes for 2019, so have a great rest of your year and see y'all again in 2020!
Alistar Rounding up some base stats. Passive heal increased.
Alistar is feeling a bit weak right now, so doing the ol' rounding up of stats and giving him some more sustain in lane.
Base Stats
Roundin'
HEALTH :[573.36]⇒ 575
ATTACK DAMAGE :[61.1116]⇒ 62
ATTACK DAMAGE GROWTH :[3.62]⇒ 3.75
Passive - Triumphant Roar
HEAL :
[20-139 (doubled to 40-278 for allies)]
⇒
25-161 (doubled to 50-322 for allies)
Aphelios Calibrum mark bugfixed; marked damage ratio decreased. Infernum R damage ratio and explosion radius decreased.
This went out yesterday in a mid-patch update, but we wanted to include it here ICYMI! We're still giving Aphelios time to settle in before deciding on any bigger changes, but it's clear that some things landed a little too strong. In particular, his Infernum-empowered ultimate is too easily attainable (and a bit too strong when attained!) and Calibrum-empowered marks are a bit too punishing for how reliable they can be. We're going to pull back on those for now.
Calibrum, the Rifle
BUGFIX : Attacks that consume Calibrum marks no longer apply on-hit effects an additional time
MARKED DAMAGE RATIO :[0.4]⇒ 0.3 bonus attack damage
R - Moonlight Vigil
INFERNUM EMPOWERED DAMAGE RATIO :[0.4]⇒ 0.3 bonus attack damage
INFERNUM EMPOWERED EXPLOSION RADIUS :[500]⇒ 400 range
Increasing Ezreal's poke damage from abilities in the midgame, due to a loss of resources from Kleptomancy's removal. We wanted to target something that resonates with his ability-flinging identity.
We've buffed Graves' stats in various ways over the past year, but he never landed exactly in the way we wanted him to. Pushing it a little further and targeting his mobility, reloading cadence, and ability to stack True Grit all in one change.
E - Quickdraw
COOLDOWN :
[18/17/16/15/14]
⇒
16/15/14/13/12
Heimerdinger W base damage decreased. Empowered E damage decreased.
Currently, Heimerdinger is too strong in lane and at powering through his enemies. This nerf should give him more options when deciding which ability to use with R by decreasing the automatic assumption to just prioritize E.
We're following up with some nerfs to Dragon Souls across the board and bringing them down to better match the strength of the Cloud Soul. The base buffs you get for killing Drakes are also weakened so that we don't have to go as strong on the nerfs to the Souls. In general, we like where the Drakes and Souls are, but they all just need to be toned down a bit and brought into line with each other.
Lethality users have been struggling a bit after the loss of Headhunter. We want to make sure their itemization still feels good, especially now that there are more options. In particular, Edge of Night has been a little weak and this should give it the oomph that it needs. (While the changes are definitely live, you may notice that the tooltip for the items in both the Shop and inventory are not updated in this patch)
Aphelios' Moonshot no longer applies on-hit effects
Kindred's VO now properly plays when she casts Lamb's Respite
Corrected Karma's Mantra-empowered Inner Flame's tooltip to its actual value (60%)
Qiyana's Edge of Ixtal/Elemental Wrath range indicator now displays the intended range when she hasn't gathered any Elements and "Enable Line Missile" is disabled
Illaoi's Test of Spirit can no longer pull spirits of targets protected by Morgana's Black Shield
Using an Oracle Lens as Evelynn will not break her camouflage from Demon Shade
Enemies that walk over an empowered Sapling will no longer gain vision of Maokai