Hi. Happy almost 10-year!
We're shipping some pretty big changes to Garen, Shaco, and Viktor this patch. Not big enough to be considered "rework"-level lists, these larger changelists are meant to excite the players of these champions, freshen up their kits, and lessen common pain points that have developed. We want to also make sure we're hitting the identities players expect of them and give them more viable and exciting playstyles that should appeal to current, past, and, hopefully, future players.
Other than that, we're keeping the scope of this one pretty small, as we move from focusing our work on Worlds-related preparations to finalizing changes and tuning for Preseason 2020.
Base armor and armor growth decreased.
We like the extra range from 9.19 but think he's a little too strong right now.
Passive regen more reliable. W now grants a shield instead of extra damage reduction in the first 0.75 seconds. E spins now scale with AS. R now always deals true damage; Villain passive removed.
Making big changes to our resident good guy, namely removing the Villain mechanic on his ultimate. Disliked by both Garen players and their opponents, the mechanic wasn't making his gameplay healthier and took control from Garen when choosing his targets, frequently setting him up for failure.
We're also cleaning up his passive and allowing him to gain Conqueror stacks, a Rune other juggernauts get. Garen should now feel more intuitive to play too and not so linear due to more options when considering items.
Now a ranged champion. W no longer increases attack range.
Making Ivern more approachable (and stronger!) by not forcing him to get accustomed to multiple basic attack ranges.
Passive and W damage ratios increased.
We're sharpening her niche as a bursty, engage mage while trying not to impact her pro-leaning power.
Round and round we go!
Q base damage decreased later.
Pantheon remains a top-tier pick in more skilled games. We've decreased some of his early-game damage as it's more impactful in higher-skill ranked games. Also, a bugfix!
Q base damage decreased early.
We're hitting Qiyana's trade damage, especially after she hits level 3, since it is deceptively high and is making her oppressive in the early game.
W boxes are now AoE. More early game damage, less late game damage.
Shaco's playstyle and identity have both changed considerably post-rework, and the gameplay gains have been dubious at best. He should feel empowered to interact with enemies, especially in the early game, but struggles to do so. With these changes, we’re aiming to round out the amount of damage he deals throughout the game instead of having his damage centered around his late-game one-shot potential.
Additionally, we want to support both the more common AD and the more niche AP Shaco builds as meaningfully different playstyles. So, we've changed E's damage type and moved some ratios around to encourage each build to play differently around their abilities.
QoL change for the baby girl so it's easier to know when her empowered basic attack is coming up.
Base AD increased; rounding out other stats.
Giving Varus some general, reliable power.
Q no longer scales with Viktor's mana. W Augment now grants slow to other spells. R now ticks faster and moves quicker.
Giving Viktor some love by offering him more exciting Augments for his W and R, two abilities that are generally underpowered, and decreasing some of his mana dependency.
Active shield strength increased.
Looking to broaden the uses of the Locket, especially in a meta where there are less AoE burst champions. The change will also apply to Circlet of the Iron Solari!
As of 9.20, players will no longer be able to find and add friends through social media. When clicking on the "Add Friends" icon, there will no longer be an option to click on "By Social Network" and connect to your Facebook account to find friends.
The following skins will be released this patch. Grab the League Displays app for full-res splash art!
The following chromas will be released this patch: