The League of Legends 10.5 patch will attempt to, once again, further widen the jungle champion pool, bring noticeable changes to the Top lane, as well as nerfs to some of the bigger lane bullies like Ornn and Sett.
Riot has been looking at how to address the ‘zero-CS-top-lane’ strat and while they already started taking care of the issue by nerfing Sona and Soraka in 10.4, the devs are still looking for ways to get rid of the problematic playstyle.
Instead of nerfing a specific champ, they’re making bigger changes to how the lane works, specifically by changing up how turret’s behave and introducing an increase in cost per plate that should make it more of a priority to take.
Nerfs for Ornn and Sett
Ornn can win in almost any situation, even if he hard loses lane. The Fire Below the Mountain is a pivotal part of team fights and a sneaky chase-down solo 1v1 champ, but Riot are looking to implement a few balance changes to even him out.
To start, the damage when his Brittle passive procs is going to get a nerf from 12-20.5% of the target’s maximum health down to just 10-18%.
Meanwhile, the Masterwork item upgrades all got pushed back one level, so he can auto-upgrade an item at level 13 instead of 12, and for allies, that too has been pushed back by one.
Sett, however, has been a hard-hitter in both the top lane and jungle, so Riot are going to take “some swings to reduce power in both places.”
The Boss is going to have a few noticeable changes to his base stats, primarily his Armor and Health Regen that has been changed from 37 from 33 and 8 to 7, respectively.
Along with the decreased slow duration from his Show Stopper ultimate ability, the changes should give opponents a bit more confidence in harassing him when he shows up in the lane.
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“Top lane significance”
Top laners have felt like their role is either weak or negligible compared to what’s happening around the map. To fix this, Riot are going to make turret plating grant more gold, more susceptible to melee damage, and tankier from group pushes.
The goal for this is to make it more rewarding (literally) for solo-melee pushers to do their job by getting more gold out of their effort. In turn, that gold advantage can start to transition into a lane lead and more items to make them more imposing during fights.
This will also keep Top laners from roaming too much, since melee pushers can crash the wave into the turret, leading the opponent to give up a heap of gold as a consequence. Riot are still experimenting on how to make Top lane more significant, so expect more changes in that part of the map if the 10.5 changes don’t do the trick.
Eternals are here
After much controversy, explanation videos, and changes to how they work, Eternals are finally making their way to League of Legends.
“Capture, celebrate, and flex your moments of glory in and out of game on your main and track your per-game personal bests,” the Riot devs said.
Starter Series Eternals will be available for purchase with Blue Essence and the Series 1 Eternals will get an RP price.
In the patch notes, Riot stressed that there are components in LoL that might not be for everyone, a nod to the confusion and ire the devs got from the community after detailing the launch of Eternals.
In either case, they will be coming out in 10.5 and will have stat-tracking lovers well taken care of as soon as they release. Check out everything else coming in the patch notes below, courtesy of Riot Games.
Alistar
Base health increased. Passive stack gain no longer has a cooldown after Alistar roars.
Base Stats
Passive – Triumphant Roar
Amumu
R cooldown increased early – We’re pulling back on some of the power we gave him in 10.4.
R – Curse of the Sad Mummy
Bard
Passive chime damage decreased – After a history of Journeying under the radar, Bard has to be pulled back a bit due to how much he’s succeeding at high levels of play. We’re slightly reducing the impact of the Meeps’ sweet chime music.
Passive – Traveler’s Call
Blitzcrank
Base armor decreased – A small nerf since he just barely hit our triggers.
Base Stats
Graves
Base MR and MR growth increased. Q cost now flat; cooldown decreased – Graves has been weak for higher tier play, and middling for everyone else. Giving him back some of the Magic Resist we pulled off his E, as well as a buff aimed to help both his jungle and laning.
Base Stats
Q – End of the Line
Kai’sa
Q AP ratio decreased; upgraded missiles increased. W base damage and AP ratio increased, tAD decreased; upgraded cooldown refund increased – The goal of these changes are to power up Kai’Sa as she evolves, especially as she starts to specialize in either AP or AD. However, there should also be more of a trade-off based on that evolution
Q – Icathian Rain
W – Void Seeker
Kayn
Passive orb gain increased. W slow increased – Smoothing out Kayn’s transformation rules so he’s not punished due to confusion or complexity. We’re adding a slight buff to his catching ability too to overall make him easier to succeed with.
Passive – The Darkin Scythe
W – Blade’s Reach
Lissandra
Q AP ratio increased – We’re putting some power back into Lissandra’s (cold) bread and (frozen) butter ability, so enemies know they can’t just eat them willy nilly.
Q – Ice Shard
Neeko
Base AS growth and ratio increased. E AP ratio increased. R shield increased – Giving Neeko some buffs for any situation, no matter what shape she takes.
Base Stats
E – Tangle Barbs
R – Pop Blossom
Ornn
Passive empowered damage decreased; item auto-upgrade level increased; ally item upgrade available later – We’re lowering his damage a bit and reverting a prior buff that we had originally put in to ram him back into pro play. The ram’s now a little too aggressive and butting heads way too often.
Passive – Living Forge
Rammus
Base AS ratio decreased – Wasn’t actually “ok.” like we thought. Pulling back some of the power from 10.4’s buffs.
Base Stats
Sett
Base armor, health regen, and health regen growth decreased. R slow duration decreased – While he’s mostly showing off in the top lane, Sett is also showstoppingly strong in the jungle. Taking some swings to reduce power in both places.
Base Stats
R – The Show Stopper
Sivir
Q damage increased later. R minimum movement speed now scales – Sivir is on the weaker side across all games, so we’re buffing her.
Q – Boomerang Blade
R – On The Hunt
Sona
Base AD and AD growth increased. E self-movement speed increased and now flat- We’re reverting the mid-patch 10.4 changes since we decided to go forward with changes to the Tribute support question line, including Spellthief’s Edge, in this patch. All in all, that should bring her back to respectable levels in her main lane and keep her out of top lane for good.
Base Stats
E – Song of Celerity
Abilities changed
- Miss Fortune’s E – Make it Rain
- Syndra’s Q – Dark Sphere
- Varus’s E – Hail of Arrows
Last patch’s round of jungle champ pool changes went well—lots of players in the target skill range have been finding success trying the new picks out, without those picks also crushing the competition at higher parts of the ladder. Morde and Darius were the underperformers of the pack so we’re giving them a bit more help. We’re also adding Poppy to the mix: She’s actually already a decently strong jungler in the hands of some players, so she just needs a slight bump.
Darius
Mordekaiser
Poppy
Turret Plating
Turret plates grant more gold, take more damage from melee champions, and are more resilient to group pushes.
We’re changing turret plating in a few ways toward the goal of making it a more appealing top-lane objective for solo melee pushers. Since plates take more damage from melee champs, most of the top lane roster will have an easier time downing them (and an easier time securing first turret gold as a result). Increasing Bulwark resistances means group pushes won’t be as rewarding, with ‘gank bot and set up for dragon’ the most common group push case in lane phase. Higher gold value adds extra consequence to these changes. All said, the tradeoff for abandoning a lane and roaming will be literally more costly once 10.5 hits.
To ranged readers: The second and third lines even out to you dealing the same damage to plating as you did before. We just didn’t want to say “turret plates take increased damage from melee champions”.
Blade of the Ruined King
Current health damage increased for melee champions – Blade of the Ruined King has been out of fighter inventories for a while now. We’re buffing it to be a luxury option for shredding through juggernauts and tanks.
Ravenous Hydra
Lifesteal increased. Active area of effect increased, now occurs at your max attack range – Increasing Ravenous Hydra’s strength should open its appeal to more fighters and buff the ones who already pick it up. We’re also making the Crescent active work as expected for those who have longer than 125 attack range.
TITANIC HYDRA
Passive damage to targets in the cone increased – We’re buffing Titanic Hydra’s health scaling to increase the threat it presents in HP-heavy builds.
Spellthief’s Edge
Tribute procs now require a nearby ally – Removing support items from being used in solo lanes.
Spectral Sickle
Tribute procs now require a nearby ally – Removing support items from being used in solo lanes.
Boots of Mobility
Cost increased – Mobi’s heavily increase the ability to snowball in higher ranked games, allowing very strong lanes to spread their leads easily and decreasing diversity in your shoe choices. We’re making them a bit more of a premium boot to buy, instead of something you can easily get once you’re in that position.
Boots of Swiftness
Movement speed increased – Swifties are just not great right now, so we’re helping it be more competitive.
10.5 Buffs
10.5 Nerfs
Eternals are available starting in 10.5. Capture, celebrate, and flex your moments of glory in and out of game on your main and track your per-game personal bests. Starter Series Eternals are available for Blue Essence and Series 1 Eternals are available for RP.
- Renekton’s E – Slice and Dice no longer plays its on-hit audio if it doesn’t hit anything
- Perfect Timing’s Commencing Stopwatch no longer swaps item slots when it becomes a Replica Stopwatch
- Tahm Kench’s W – Devour cooldown is no longer halved when an allied champion stays inside his mouth for the full duration and no longer applies Passive – An Acquired Taste damage twice
- Rakan can no longer stack Spellbinder by casting E2 – Battle Dance on allies that are out of range
- Summoner names no longer appear out of order in Clash during scouting
- Hovering over the Ocean Drake Soul in the Scoreboard will no longer cause the game to hitch for a brief moment
- Death’s Dance last tick of stored damage now properly kills the target champion instead of leaving them at 1 HP
- Fixed a bug where the Delete button would not be togglable in Collections’ Runes tab, causing players to not be able to mass delete Rune pages
- When entering the End of Game screen, players’ Summoners name are no longer grayed out if they’re still in the lobby
- The Revive button in the Practice Tool now functions correctly and revives the champion
- Champions with Lethal Tempo equipped will now properly gain bonus attack speed after attacking enemy champions even if the target is shielded
- Casting Fiddlesticks’ W – Drain at the same time as Fiora’s W – Riposte will now properly deal damage and heal him
- Champions who are basic attacking an enemy will no longer be able to follow them as they enter Fog of War
- Quickly changing forms as DJ Sona will no longer lock her with Ethereal form’s helm
- If Sion channels R – Unstoppable Onslaught for 3+ seconds and then runs into an enemy champion, he now properly stuns the target for the intended 1.75 seconds
