14.21
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Patch notes
Full patch notes
Welcome to Patch 14.21, aka “the Swain patch”! We’ve got a big gameplay update to Swain, aimed at making him more self-reliant and more fun, specifically in solo lanes. Read more about him below! We’re also updating the bounty rules on Summoner’s Rift and Howling Abyss, aimed at making them activate at more intuitive times and slightly decrease their average payouts. They’ve also got lengthy sections in the patch notes if you want all the details. On the game balance side of things, we’re tweaking the on-hit space with changes to Blade of the Ruined King and Lethal Tempo, nerfing Sorc Shoes to be more comparable to other boots, and otherwise making a large number of champion changes aimed at tightening overall game balance. We’ve also got some balance changes for ARAM and Ultimate Spellbook in this patch, and an update on the Worlds Viego Border (we finally got it into the game so you can grab it and it'll be available for a little longer than normal to make up for that delay). TFT patch notes here!
“Asol is a bit too strong at the moment and could use being brought down to earth. As a scaler who reaches high heights late game, wanting to push on his early game where he’s supposed to be vulnerable so that players are correctly weak and paying the appropriate cost for the stardust scaling. Meanwhile, Singularity’s nerf is intended to disproportionately affect low MMR games, where he currently performs best.”
role | WR increase | Winrate | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|---|---|
5.04% | 50.78% 55.82% | 0.44% | 3.94% 3.5% |
“Azir is overall a bit weaker than he’s meant to be. This does not mean he’s supposed to have a 50% win rate at all levels of play, as he’s rather difficult and doesn’t have that many mains, but he’s still weak even when measuring highly practiced players. We’re delivering some simple buffs aimed at making his failure cases gentler.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
19.99% | 23.41% 3.42% |
“Brand is performing well in all of his roles, especially as a support where he comfortably skips a mana item despite not utilizing his passive restore. This shows that he doesn't care enough about mana and casts his spells too freely, so we’re targeting that freedom while also reducing some of his damage since he deals a ton of it in all of his roles.”
role | WR increase | Winrate | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|---|---|
0.86% | 49.45% 50.31% | 5.43% | 54.78% 49.34% |
“Camille is currently one of the best-performing top laners in the game and is due for a nerf. We’re taking down her damage and health in order to give more champions a fighting chance but we’d like to specifically preserve her unique anti-tank properties and most impactful abilities when doing so.”
“We were a bit cautious with how much more daring we could make Corki in the last patch but now that we have a firmer grasp on what adding substantial damage to his W does, we’re keen to do it again. Overall we’re hoping to upgrade his damage, specifically in the early game and as he earns gold with an eye to parts of his kit and game times that align more strongly with bot lane.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
26.10% | 36.13% 10.02% | |
22.96% | 24.04% 1.08% | |
18.85% | 31.37% 12.51% |
role | WR increase | Winrate | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|---|---|
4.57% | 51.67% 47.1% | 50.67% | 62.05% 11.38% | |
6.68% | 50.1% 43.41% | 49.97% | 34.4% 84.37% | |
6.20% | 51.45% 45.26% | 1.33% | 2.4% 3.73% |
“Elise has has quickly risen up the ranks as a top tier jungler, partially driven by magic damage being much more effective. We’re overall happy with her power to assassinate but she’s overall too resilient for how lethal she is.”
“Fiddlesticks is a bit too strong so we want to pull some power out. We want to preserve its most iconic abilities so we’re targeting Q, since it won’t miss that damage as much.”
“Galio is hard to deal with in lane and only gets more difficult to kill once he purchases Hollow Radiance. We’re nerfing his (almost highest in the game) base mana to increase his early vulnerability by making his casts more costly. This is also intended to make Rod of Ages more of a realistic option for him but we acknowledge it's not a massive swing in that direction.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
10.66% | 79.19% 68.52% | |
6.32% | 32.54% 26.22% |
“Gangplank has slowly been hit by a couple of systems over time and could use some power put back into him. Losing mana from Biscuits, crit system reworks, and his build losing Essence Reaver have had pretty large impacts on his laning phase. Wanting to slightly increase mana regen to compensate for Biscuits being lost and also decrease cooldown of barrels to make pre-13 Gangplank slightly more engaging.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
6.86% | 36.04% 29.18% |
“Gwen has proven to be exceptionally strong as of late and is due for a meaningful nerf. Her power curve is steeper than we’d like overall, so we don’t want to weaken her early laning phase, we do want to make sure she’s not quite so dominant late. We’d also like to nudge her builds a bit more toward skirmisher (Riftmaker, Cosmic Drive) and less toward burst mage (Shadowflame, Deathcap), which is why we’re targeting AP ratios.”
“Players have gotten much better at Hwei over the last year, so it’s finally time to nudge him down. We’d like to bring down his early lane poke with QQ flat damage, its scaling into mid and late game, and lastly want to increase the cooldown on his CC, making the decision making on which one you use more important.”
Q cooldown, mana cost, and bonus to minions reduced. Q Damage increased. Q cooldown reduction during R removed.
“Irelia is quite sad currently in both top and mid and overly reliant on waiting for her first item spike, so we’d like to buff her base kit, especially early game. We want to emphasize good ability usage, so these buffs are intended to make using her most important spell more impactful and feel better to use.”
“Kai’Sa wound up as one of the big winners from the recent item shakeup and is now a bit too strong. We’re hitting the passive AP ratio slightly and the per-stack plasma damage more meaningfully in order to make her less bound to CC supports and leave crit builds less affected.”
“Karthus got stronger when early game snowballing and magic resist were both made weaker and as a now-dominant jungler, it’s time for a nerf. We’re targeting his late game R to make his playing-against experience more fair.”
“Kassadin was a big winner from our recent reductions to early game snowball and is now too strong, so we're nerfing him. We think his early game is appropriate but that his ratios should continue to go down given AP’s new strength, so we’re targeting his Q and E ratios while preserving damage that requires him to be in melee range.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
8.01% | 37.55% 29.55% | |
5.18% | 34.24% 29.06% |
“Kayle could use some help as our late game scaling justice bringer. We’re not trying to make her become a dominant laner but the current cost of her heal makes it almost wrong to even cast. This significant cost reduction should help her earn gold and experience at a normal rate in order to reach her carry potential more reliably.”
role | WR increase | Winrate | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|---|---|
8.78% | 46.88% 38.1% | 1.04% | 1.88% 0.84% |
“For being a rather easy champion, Malphite is a bit under where we’d like him to be. Because of this we want to slightly bump him up, increasing his base health as he’s a bit lower than many of his tank counterparts.”
“Nasus has been quite strong since patch 14.19’s reduction in gold value, so it’s time for his nerf. His early sustain is quite high considering how well he scales, so we’re targeting his sustain and early damage to give his opponents more of a counterplay window before he stacks up.”
“We’re delivering some power-positive QoL changes to Nilah this patch, much like last time. The Q timeout and R lockout changes should make her smoother to play with very little power impact, while the instant E-Q is an often-requested feature that we think represents a more significant change and we’ll keep our eyes peeled for any balance follow-up required.”
“Qiyana’s not performing very well currently. Considering she almost always starts with a Long Sword, she doesn’t have the resilience to successfully lane and then push her advantages. We’re increasing her early sustain to give her more of an edge (of Ixtal) in the early game. We also want to make sure she can keep up in late game damage output, so we’re also bumping a bit of her W ratio.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
6.54% | 13.44% 6.9% |
role | WR increase | Winrate | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|---|---|
6.21% | 52.64% 46.43% | 0.19% | 1.52% 1.71% |
“Senna is currently the queen of support picks and needs to be taken down a peg in order to give everyone else some breathing room. We're targeting her armor to give physical burst damage the niche they deserve for swiftly removing long-range backliners.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
9.26% | 39.2% 29.94% |
“Sivir has languished as generically a bit weak, which we’re hoping to rectify by giving her more control over her early and mid game. For those who don’t want to do the math, these Q changes represent a buff for levels 1-12 and a slight nerf afterwards.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
7.61% | 51.69% 44.08% |
“It’s demon time! Swain is receiving a sweeping update aimed at making him much more consistent and giving him more personal agency over his successes and failures. He’s receiving this increase in personal agency largely through significant buffs to Nevermove’s accuracy and an overall shift in power from his ultimate toward his base kit. Death’s Hand will be doing about 10% more damage at long range and have a lower mana cost to make those ranged trades better. These buffs are being compensated with a small decrease to his melee range damage output, meaning Swain won’t be so strongly defined by his best and worst matchups. Vision of Empire is being compressed to not require skill rank-ups as strongly as before, primarily through front-loading the slow and reveal duration. It’s meant to still be a competitive option to max second, but should leave room for Nevermove’s increased importance. Nevermove’s changes are the most important in this patch. Its acceleration has been re-implemented with more modern missile tech, removing randomness from its travel time. Its return is now more consistent and substantially faster, providing Swain much better access to crowd control. Its damage is also being shifted entirely into the explosion, which should make it better at damaging enemy champions. This increase in expected output per cast has necessitated nerfing its cooldown and his passive healing to compensate. Demonic Ascension is meant to represent less of Swain’s overall power, allowing Swain to rely more on his stronger basic abilities. The chief nerf here is to cooldown. Though it now scales plainly with ability haste, the overall cooldown is substantially longer and the healing and damage are generally weaker. But for the Swains who are strong enough to take over games, they’re getting multiple Demonflares per ultimate! He’s not meant to access these extra casts every time he transforms, but when Swain starts really carrying, that’ll come with some extra spice. Our hope with these changes is that Swain feels like a much more well-rounded and fulfilling champion to play, a centerpiece battlemage who can wear down his opposition, sustain himself from his success, and still strategically aid his teammates across the map.”
role | WR increase | Winrate | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|---|---|
5.30% | 47.24% 52.54% | 3.69% | 22.31% 18.62% | |
6.20% | 45.12% 51.32% | 5.79% | 13.98% 8.19% | |
5.59% | 48.62% 54.2% | 11.41% | 13.48% 24.89% |
“Talon doesn’t have quite enough damage to ply his trade in mid lane, so we’re bumping his damage to give him more assassination possibilities.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
5.95% | 26.89% 20.94% |
“Taric has been one of the statistically strongest supports for a while despite not feeling like he’s winning the game for his team. He started performing even better this split, so it’s finally time for a nerf. We’re hoping to hit his most invisible sources of power so he won’t feel much different but should win a more appropriate number of games.”
role | WR increase | Winrate | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|---|---|
5.92% | 44.73% 38.81% | 0.23% | 1.29% 1.07% |
“Everyone’s favorite (or least favorite) little devil is deserving of a little bit more power. Damage doesn’t seem to be his problem, so we’re increasing W’s move speed and some health for maximum scamp-embracing shenanigans. Run you little devil, run.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
5.49% | 38.4% 32.92% |
role | WR increase | Winrate | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|---|---|
1.41% | 50.54% 49.13% | 11.90% | 53.53% 65.43% | |
1.87% | 51.59% 49.72% | 14.98% | 34.34% 19.35% |
“Viego is performing a bit too well so we're nerfing him. He's particularly strong in lower MMR when accounting for mastery, so we’re lowering his late game armor, which he currently has plenty of.”
“Volibear has been strong for a while and we're finally nerfing him. His Rod of Ages + Navori build is really interesting and unique, but his cooldowns aren't tuned around this newfound CDR access. We’re targeting his E as the frequent shielding and max health damage make him quite hard to deal with.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
7.25% | 28.34% 21.09% |
role | WR increase | Winrate | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|---|---|
0.60% | 50.7% 51.31% | 6.43% | 61.16% 54.73% | |
1.93% | 49.85% 51.79% | 6.69% | 37.39% 44.08% |
“Xayah is just a touch weak right now, so we’re bringing her up her ability to apply sustained damage.”
“Yone is a touch too powerful right now and his combat lacks a bit of counterplay. He’s receiving a simultaneous nerf via Blade of the Ruined King and a smaller buff via Lethal Tempo. With those in mind, we think a tap to his more guaranteed damage should put his power level where it’s appropriate and make him more reliant on sustained melee combat.”
“Yorick is especially dominant in lower MMR play. It’d be nice if he wasn’t so reliant on his opponents failing to realize they can one-shot my ghouls with any basic attack, so we’re pulling back some Mist Walker damage to make him less reliant on their unreliable damage output.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
5.92% | 15.43% 9.51% |
“We’re happy with the relative tuning of most AD items, but Blade of the Ruined King is currently dominating the on-hit space, taking over builds where it shouldn’t be, and generally making tanks feel bad way too quickly. While it’s fine that BoRK is clearly an anti-tank item, it does the job too well, so we’re specifically taking down some of its on-hit damage.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
23.01% | 15.61% 38.62% | |
12.46% | 34.16% 46.62% | |
9.54% | 6.44% 15.97% | |
8.95% | 29.44% 38.38% | |
6.77% | 25.49% 32.25% |
“We believe Lethal Tempo is slightly underpowered on melee champions so we're buffing its melee attack speed.”
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
35.67% | 36.84% 72.52% | |
12.75% | 50.99% 63.74% | |
6.08% | 14.63% 20.71% |
This overview only shows items, runes and champions from the patch notes.
Build | PR increase | Pickrate |
---|---|---|
42.94% | 55.27% 12.34% | |
37.65% | 37.65% 0% | |
26.10% | 36.13% 10.02% | |
23.79% | 39.01% 15.22% | |
22.96% | 24.04% 1.08% | |
21.42% | 28.83% 7.41% | |
19.99% | 23.41% 3.42% | |
18.85% | 31.37% 12.51% | |
13.30% | 39.85% 26.56% | |
13.27% | 19.15% 5.88% |
Build | WR increase | Winrate |
---|---|---|
9.32% | 65.96% 56.64% | |
9.13% | 56.71% 47.58% | |
8.36% | 55.71% 47.35% | |
8.16% | 57.4% 49.24% | |
7.82% | 48.58% 40.75% | |
7.68% | 60.23% 52.55% | |
7.67% | 65.82% 58.15% | |
7.62% | 65% 57.38% | |
7.30% | 62.2% 54.9% | |
6.95% | 63.65% 56.69% |