Aatrox

Passive and E healing increased.

“Our goal was for Aatrox’s changes to be power neutral last patch, but he ended up a bit worse off than anticipated. So we’re back this patch to follow up with some small buffs that should keep him happy to soak up damage on the front line.”

Ahri

E charm duration decreased with rank. R cooldown increased.

“Ahri’s been a pro staple for quite some time now due to her mobility and blind pick capabilities. We want to bring her more in line with other mid lane picks going into MSI, so we’re reducing the rate of her playmaking with R so she has to play a bit more deliberately when looking to make picks and also tapping down the efficacy of E max second which has dominated Pro.”

Aphelios

Level 1 attack speed increased. Severum movement speed increased. Calibrum damage increased.

“Aphelios is doing alright in terms of power right now, but he hasn’t quite made the leap into pro play. We’re giving him a few small pro-skewed buffs to build some more faith in the weapon of the faithful himself.”

Aurora

Base MR increased. R damage increased.

“Aurora has been a champion that’s been tricky to make work in pro play, as she has a tendency to end up in the top lane when she’s viable. We still want her to be an option for MSI, so we’re giving her some mid-skewed buffs that shouldn’t move the needle too much for her in top lane.”

Azir

Base movement speed and attack speed per level decreased.

“Azir’s no stranger to pro play, but right now the emperor is standing a bit too high above his competition. We want Azir to feel slightly weaker late game and struggle a bit more in movement based match ups, so we’re doing some small tap down of his strength in these areas.”

Bard

Movement speed increased.

“Bard is just on the cusp of being viable in higher levels of play, so we’re giving him more movement speed to help him stand out a bit more as the omnipresent, roaming support that he is.”

Bel'Veth

R cast range increased.

“This patch we’re making a small QoL improvement to Bel’Veth so that she can now smoothly eat Void Corals from opponents she takes down with her E.”

Garen

E damage scaling increased.

“Garen’s adjustments last patch were overall quite successful in opening up more fighter itemization but they left him a bit weaker than we anticipated so we’re here to buff him back up. Judgment’s damage will be increased from 100 total AD and above (which is reached very early on with typical builds) and we’re fixing a long-standing bug that would prevent Garen from shredding armor. His increased appetite for bonus AD should continue to push him toward enjoying items like Spear of Shojin and runes like Conqueror.”

Gwen

Base health decreased. W cooldown increased.

“Gwen’s a bit too strong in solo queue and very potent in pro play, so we’re bringing her power level down to where it deserves to be. To ensure these are pro focused, we’re aiming this nerf at her early game which is much more impactful at the highest levels of play as opposed to solo queue where she has more ability to scale consistently.”

Jax

Passive attack speed increased.

“Jax’s long-held niche is a scaling and relentless side lane skirmisher, so we want to lean into that a bit more by giving him some more bonus attack speed from his passive. This should help him split better and effectively win longer duels in the side lane.”

Kalista

Base health decreased. Q cooldown increased.

“Kalista’s high mobility and trading makes her a fearsome lane opponent. And while we love that about her, we’re looking to reduce some of that strength so pro players have more options than just to pick or ban her every game.”

LeBlanc

E damage increased. R cooldown decreased.

“LeBlanc, like many other assassins, is a bit difficult to balance because when she’s strong, it’s quite frustrating to play against her. We’re giving her some more reserve buffs this patch so that her players get rewarded when they outplay their opponents, but without making those opponents too miserable for getting behind early.”

Lee Sin

E cooldown decreased, slow amount decreased.

“Lee Sin hasn’t been seen much in the jungle this season, so we want to give him a bit more power to move him into the pool of viable champions for pro play in MSI. We’re choosing to lean into his Tempest here, as it should help players feel like they’re able to get access to a more reliable slow more consistently which is particularly helpful in the highest levels of play.”

Mordekaiser

Q damage increased.

“Mordekaiser lost some power when his favorite magical mask was nerfed in 15.10, so we’d like to re-add some power back, specifically to his late-laning phase wave clear which has taken a bit of a dive recently.”

Neeko

Q and W damage decreased.

“Neeko has been the premier lane bully poke champion this season, so we’re looking to tune down how oppressive she can feel in the laning phase. We’re moving some of her damage from early ranks to later in the form of base damage and AP ratio, and her Shapesplitter on hit damage is slightly reduced, both of which should make her less of a threat in support where she has less gold to work with.”

Nidalee

E (Cougar Form) damage increased.

“While Nidalee has appeared in pro play more often lately, it’s often been due to her strength as a top laner. We want to put some of her power back in her ability to become an AP jungle threat, so we’re giving her some extra help to take over games once she gets rolling.”

Build pickrate increases Increase >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	7.08%	37.25% 30.17%

View all Nidalee builds

Rammus

All abilities adjusted.

“In this patch we’re giving Rammus an update with three main goals. First, we’d like to retain him as an anti-auto attack tank, but within that umbrella, allow him to be successful when tanking magic damage auto-attacks as well with the hope that he can be picked outside of last pick against full AD team comps. Second, we’d like to punch up a few of his abilities, giving him more impactful Powerballs and Soaring Slams by frontloading more of those abilities. Third, we’d like to remove some needless complexity from the champion that required exact ability sequencing that simply had a “right” answer with no room for finesse. Our hopes for this update are that Rammus will be a viable tank in more situations, still strongly in love with Thornmail, and overall “OK” in more team compositions.”

Rumble

Q damage decreased. E slow decreased.

“Rumble has been the frontrunner alongside Gwen in top lane as of late, so we’re looking to take away some of his power. For Rumble, his low cooldowns and target agnostic damage have made him a strong blind pick. We’re taking some power out of his Flamespitter and reducing the potency of his E slows, which should make him less dominant of an option.”

Samira

Passive bonus movement speed increased. Q damage increased.

“Samira's lifesteal buffs last patch succeeded in introducing Bloodthirster as a viable first option and otherwise ended up power neutral. We’re opting for a more direct buff to her early lane agency through a small bump on her most used ability’s damage, and an early game-focused buff on her ability to run down her opponents with style!”

Senna

Soul Drop chance per minion kill decreased.

“As it turns out, the biggest buff ADC Senna received back in 15.10 was players collectively building Statikk Shiv. Now that players are doing that, she no longer needs many of the ADC-specific buffs from last month. So we’re bringing her ADC-specific buffs back down to see how the dust settles with this new tuning.”

Build pickrate increases Increase >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	5.68%	16.27% 10.6%

View all Senna builds

Shen

E bonus health ratio decreased.

“Shen is one of the strongest top laners in the game, if not the strongest, and ultimately while we believe it’s good if he’s one of the better picks because he creates unique and interesting circumstances relative to other top laners, he doesn’t need to dominate matchups as hard as he currently does. We’d like to preserve his tankiness, teammate affinity, and overall dueling power, but he doesn’t need to be so bursty in later game fights, so we’re taking down some of his E scaling damage.”

Taliyah

Base MR decreased. Q damage decreased.

“Taliyah’s been rocking mid lane champions for multiple patches now with an incredibly high mastery curve, so we’re looking to bring her back down to Earth this patch by making her slightly squishier and taking a little damage off of her empowered Q’s.”

Twisted Fate

E bonus attack speed increased. R cooldown decreased.

“Twisted Fate has been sporting very low presence in all levels of play this year, and we think a bump in power alongside the recent Unsealed Spellbook changes could make him an interesting option for pro teams. We’re increasing his attack speed gained from Stacked Deck and we’re giving him a lower cooldown on his global teleport to give him some more uptime on the map.”

Build pickrate increases Increase >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	28.98%	47.15% 18.17%
	6.92%	53.73% 46.81%

View all Twisted Fate builds

Varus

Base armor decreased.

“Varus’ strength in lane combined with his ability to choose between poke and on-hit builds has made him one of the highest presence ADCs in the pro scene. We’re looking to chip away at some of his laning strength this patch to open up space for other carries to shine.”

Vi

W damage adjusted, bonus attack speed decreased. E damage adjusted.

“Vi is in an awkward spot right now where her win rate compared to her pro presence are extremely out of line with one another. Part of this disparity can be explained by an unintuitive skill order, where it’s optimal for Vi to max W second. This patch we’re looking to make fairly power neutral changes that bring E-max and W-max into more similar power levels.”

Yorick

Mist Walker bonus attack speed adjusted. Q damage decreased.

“We’re taking aim at Yorick’s late-laning phase spike this patch, where he quickly becomes unassailable until eventually falling off a cliff. We’re reducing the power of this early power spike and lightly returning some of that power into his Mist Walkers very late into the game.”

Zeri

R damage increased, chain lightning damage increased.

“Zeri’s another champion that can be shocking when she makes it into the pro scene. Since she’s all about creating those electrifying moments, we’re giving her a bit more power into her ultimate which is when she should truly shine (both figuratively and literally).”

Grasp of the Undying

“We’re pretty unhappy when Grasp of the Undying shows up as a primary feature of ranged-vs-melee lane matchups, which is a sentiment strongly echoed by the players of those melee champions. We’d like to send a pretty strong signal that ranged Grasp should not be good, without making it so terrible that the rune does nothing half the time on form-swappers. This change represents a 33% nerf to the rune on ranged users, which should pretty clearly push it out of the realm of options for purely ranged champions.”

Build pickrate changes Change >5%

Build	PR increase	Pickrate
	15.98%	47.74% 63.72%
	12.24%	34.67% 46.91%
	10.47%	47.68% 58.15%
	6.86%	14.52% 21.38%

View all Grasp of the Undying builds