Patch 9.3 notes

Aatrox

Health regen increased. Aatrox no longer heals off damage to non-champions. E no longer stores charges but cools down faster than it previously charged.

Where last patch focused on dropping Aatrox's raw power, this patch focuses on exposing more weaknesses for the Darkin Blade. We're trading his ability to sustain off minions for higher baseline regen so he can't fall back as effectively on passive farming to recover from enemy aggression. Removing Umbral Dash's second charge makes Aatrox's skill check for landing all three Q hits steeper and means if enemies can bait his dash, he won't have a second one to use as an escape.

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Base Stats

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E - Umbral Dash

Akali

Health regen increased. Q no longer heals. Turrets reveal Akali through Shroud. W cooldown increased late.

First thing's first: We're removing Akali's ability to hide from turrets, which has been the most contentious part of her update. Many of you are asking why it took us half a year to get here, and the answer is that Akali depended on turret stealth to dive as effectively as other assassins. Ultimately, though, Akali has so many strengths (the ability to switch targets mid-fight without giving up kill pressure, and four forms of mobility, among others) that she doesn't need to also be a reliable turret diver. Given Akali finds better success in longer fights than other assassins, the short duration of turret dives make sense as a weakness, which they now are. The cooldown nerf is simpler: We're reducing Akali's late-game access to Shroud's defenses.

With that out of the way... Five Point Strike nerf. Akali's become blind-pickable in higher echelons of play and Q's heal is a huge part of that: PvE sustain lets Akali survive matchups where she should be getting shoved out of lane if not outright dying to aggression. We're giving her more health regen to soften the blow, but are well aware it's a power-down overall.

We'll be keeping a close eye on how Akali lands in both pro and regular play (did the W change reduce frustration? Did the Q change open up meaningful counters?) then decide on how to bring her back up. In the meantime, you can probably stop permabanning her.

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Base Stats

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Q - Five Point Strike

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W - Twilight Shroud

Camille

E no longer stuns minions or monsters.

Camille's S-tier jungle status has gotten to the point where we can't easily balance her there without causing her top lane to suffer. We're making the call to prioritize Camille top going forward, though this likely makes Camille jungle a niche pick at best.

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E - Hookshot

Cassiopeia

Q base damage decreased late; ratio increased. W damage reduced late, cost increased late.

Next verse, same as the first (well, we've actually been here twice in recent history). Cassiopeia is still too strong when fighting from extremely safe distances.

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Q - Noxious Blast

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W - Miasma

Irelia

Health growth and armor increased. Passive stack cap increased; stacks grant attack speed instead of damage; max stack bonus grants damage instead of attack speed. Q bonus minion damage increased. W reduces more physical damage but no longer reduces magic damage.

This is a companion patch to 9.2 which removed extraneous mechanics from Irelia's kit and reduced her late-game waveclear. Our goal was to give her more pronounced weaknesses and make her less broadly powerful, which we're carrying forward to 9.3. Between the two patches, enemies should feel like they have better ways to deal with Irelia, from champ select to lane to teamfights. So what are we doing this patch?

We're swapping Ionian Fervor's bonuses—now attack speed per stack, on-hit damage when fully stacked—to reduce the burstiness of her initiation combos and give enemies a wider window before her damage is fully online. (Bladesurge's minion damage is going up to offset the impact on her already-nerfed waveclear.) We're also changing Defiant Dance to a stronger anti-physical defense with no protection against magic damage to open a weakness to mages and AP assassins while strengthening her ability to counter AD threats.

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Base Stats

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Passive - Ionian Fervor

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Q - Bladesurge

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W - Defiant Dance

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E - Flawless Duet

new

Cloak of Agility

This is only first because it'd be weird to see it in Infinity Edge and Essence Reaver otherwise. Welcome back, crit cloak.

updated

Infinity Edge

Increases critical strike damage instead of partially converting crits to true damage. Grants critical strike chance instead of doubling crit chance from other sources.

We're restoring Infinity Edge's synergy with itself to make it a more immediately gratifying pickup. Removing its true damage conversion means it no longer anti-synergizes with Last Whisper, while setting its crit damage bonus to 25% rather than the historic 50% lets us maintain our original goal of mitigating the late-game squishy melting marksmen used to achieve.

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Molten Edge

(Ornn's Masterwork upgrade)

updated

Essence Reaver

Now grants critical strike chance. No longer grants mana or Essence Flare.

While the Essence Flare version of Essence Reaver unlocked a few new marksman playstyles (mainly looking at you Lucian), it disenfranchised a bunch of others like Ashe and Xayah and ultimately ended up being a better fit for fighters like Renekton and Riven. Essence Reaver is going back to being a crit+CDR item.

new

Spear of Shojin

Grants attack damage, health, cooldown reduction, and Awakened Dragon (renamed Essence Flare).

Per the Essence Reaver context, several champions make good use of Essence Flare. It's just that they're mostly not marksmen. We made a new item for them. (To those of you who saw the previous Spear of Shojin on Nexus Blitz, it ended up overlapping enough with Sterak's Gage that we decided not to move it forward.)

updated

Stormrazor

Now amplifies your Energized effects and causes them to slow the target. No longer grants a guaranteed critical strike after not basic attacking for a few seconds.

Stormrazor was created to support marksman playstyles that focus more on kiting around a fight than attacking at full uptime, but ended up becoming the predominant first item in crit builds due to its combination of early impact and crit scaling. We're keeping the idea of "occasionally super-powerful attacks" but moving it from the crit system into the Energized system so it's not just a bumper on the front of Infinity Edge builds.

updated

Phantom Dancer

Now grants a shield at low health but no longer decreases damage from the last champion you hit. Spectral Waltz now triggers on attack rather than proximity to an enemy champion.

Existing defensive options for crit marksmen (Maw of Malmortius, Guardian Angel, Mercurial Scimitar) set users far enough behind on core damage builds that they can't contribute carry-level damage in fights even though they're living longer. We're making Phantom Dancer a defensive option that fits more smoothly into crit builds.

Kircheis Shard

Zeal

Rapid Firecannon

Runaan's Hurricane

Statikk Shiv

Shiv needed a little extra buff to bring it up to the level of the other Zeal upgrades.

Last Whisper

Cost increased. Attack damage and armor penetration increased.

Making Last Whisper more effective as a component item while building into Lord Dominik's Regards or Mortal Reminder.

Lord Dominik's Regards

Mortal Reminder

Lissandra

Q cost increased late. E damage decreased late.

Much of Lissandra's status as a dominant midlaner comes from her ability to push into the enemy turret quickly and at relatively low cost, letting her consistently roam with plenty of mana to fight with. A higher cost on Ice Shard and lower damage on Glacial Path mean she'll have to invest more time and resources in mid before she can pressure other lanes.

Separate from the waveclear changes, Glacial Path's endpoint indicator is now always visible if you're close to it. This is mainly targeted at cases where Liss players could hide their endpoint inside terrain, but we're addressing the brush and line-of-sight cases as well.

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Q - Ice Shard

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E - Glacial Path

Sion

Q damage decreased. W cooldown increased early.

Weakening Sion's early lane to make bad matchups more punshing for him.

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Q - Decimating Smash

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W - Soul Furnace

Zyra

Plant damage decreased.

We took a light touch with last patch's mana regen nerf which asked Zyra to be a little more careful with her cooldowns. This patch swings harder by targeting her harass from plants which lets her keep opponents at bay even when she misses her abilities.

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General