Season 7 of League of Legends keeps chugging along as we head into the first patch of April. Last month saw the introduction of new Galio, and he’s being played almost everywhere right now, with viability in the top lane, mid lane, jungle and support.
This week, a whole lot of champions are getting tweaks. There are pretty major changes to Amumu and Alistar, the addition of easier-to-use “highlights” in the replay system, updates to Karma’s splash art, two new skins and plenty more.
Below are just the changes: if you want more context, read the full patch notes here. For just a summary of the five most important things, click here.
Champions
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Amumu
Passive causes magic damage against the target to deal extra true damage, rather than reducing magic resist. W deals more damage and ticks faster.
Let’s face it, Amumu was the Sad Mummy for a reason. He didn't have a reliable way to use his passive and while he had some degree of amping up his fellow "friends" magic damage, he couldn't maintain it very often. We want Amumu enabling other people, so we're giving the tools to Amumu to do it doing what's he's the very best at: crying and trying to hug people. We hope Amumu will finally be able to make some friends.
[UPDATED] Passive - Cursed Touch
IS THIS LOVE :: Amumu's basic attacks ||| reduce enemy magic resist by 15/20/25 (at levels 1/7/13) >>> cause 15% of all magic damage dealt to the target to be dealt again as true damage
W - Despair
DAMAGE :: 8/12/16/16/20/24 per second >>> 10/15/20/25/30 per second
TICK RATE :: Once per second >>> Once per half-second (half damage per tick)
[NEW] AS SALTY AS THEY COME :: Despair refreshes Cursed Touch on all enemies hit
R - Curse of the Sad Mummy
[NEW] HUG THEM TO DEATH :: Applies Cursed Touch to enemies after damage is dealt
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Alistar
Passive heals all nearby allies. E cooldown reduced; empowered attack deals more damage.
Back in pre-season we gave Alistar brand new tools - our goal was to give him more uptime during teamfights and take away the option to be a heal bot during laning phase. Looking back, Ali's got the added uptime we wanted, and his healing patterns are way healthier, but he could scale better into later phases of the game. The payoff for fully stacking Trample could be higher, given how long Alistar has to stay in the thick of battle to do so, and now that the mad cow can't spam his healing we’re comfortable restoring its potentially-team-wide effectiveness.
Passive - Triumphant Roar
COW CHARITY :: Heals the nearest ally >>> Heals all nearby allies
E - Trample
COOLDOWN :: 16/15.5/15/14.5/14 seconds >>> 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 seconds
EMPOWERED ATTACK BONUS DAMAGE :: 40 + 10 per level (max. 220 at level 18) >>> 40 + 15 per level (max. 310 at level 18)
BUGFIX :: Minions affected by Trample now display the proper visual effects
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Bard
Bard gains bonus meep damage at every chime tier. Damage-only tiers removed; other tiers restructured. Bard can now hold a maximum of nine meeps.
Although Bard saw some improvement after his last buffs, it was far from enough to land him in a good spot. Bard's pretty underwhelming compared to other supports, and part of that comes from how taxing chime collection can be. So we're revisiting the payoff he gets from roaming around the map! To be clear, we’re not looking for massive power shifts: while Meeps should matter enough for Bard to leave lane for chimes, they shouldn’t compel him to abandon his lane altogether. We’re just looking to ensure Bard’s early chimes provide him enough of a bonus to exert pressure in the lane once he returns from his wandering.
Passive - Traveler's Call
[NEW] GROW YOUR MEEPS :: Meeps now gain 15 damage every five chimes in addition to other chime bonuses
YA-HA-HA! :: Chime tier bonuses restructured. All damage tiers have been removed, and every tier now grants improved utility.
YOU FOUND ME! :: Bard can now hold a maximum of <strong>nine</strong> meeps... if he collects enough chimes
EFFICIENCY :: Tiers from ||| 150 chimes >>> 105 chimes onward grant no effects aside from damage
Full list of chime tiers
5 CHIMES :: 25% slow <em>(unchanged)</em>
10 CHIMES :: +25 damage >>> +1 meep (2 max)
15 CHIMES :: +1 meep (2 max) >>> Meeps deal damage in a cone behind the target
20 CHIMES :: +25 damage >>> 7-second meep respawn
25 CHIMES :: Meep attacks deal damage in a cone behind the target >>> +10% slow (35% total)
30 CHIMES :: +30 damage >>> +1 meep (3 max)
35 CHIMES :: 7-second meep respawn >>> Damage cone size increased
40 CHIMES :: +30 damage >>> 6-second meep respawn
45 CHIMES :: +20% slow (45% total) >>> +10% slow (45% total)
50 CHIMES :: +35 damage >>> +1 meep (4 max)
55 CHIMES :: +1 meep (3 max) >>> 5-second meep respawn
60 CHIMES :: +35 damage >>> +10% slow (55% total)
65 CHIMES :: Damage cone size increased >>> +1 meep (5 max)
70 CHIMES :: +35 damage >>> 4-second meep respawn
75 CHIMES :: 6-second meep respawn >>> +10% slow (65% total)
80 CHIMES :: +35 damage >>> +1 meep (6 max)
85 CHIMES :: +15% slow (60% total) >>> +10% slow (75% total)
90 CHIMES :: +30 damage >>> +1 meep (7 max)
95 CHIMES :: +1 meep (4 max) >>> +1 meep (8 max)
100 CHIMES :: +30 damage >>> +1 meep (9 max)
105 CHIMES :: 5-second meep respawn >>> +15 damage
110 CHIMES :: +30 damage >>> +15 damage
115 CHIMES :: +10% slow (70% total) >>> +15 damage
120 CHIMES :: +25 damage >>> +15 damage
125 CHIMES :: 4-second meep respawn >>> +15 damage
130 CHIMES :: +25 damage >>> +15 damage
135 CHIMES :: +5% slow (75% total) >>> +15 damage
140 CHIMES :: +20 damage >>> +15 damage
145 CHIMES :: +5% slow (80% total) >>> +15 damage
150+ CHIMES :: +20 damage >>> +15 damage
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Camille
W no longer heals off non-champions. R duration reduced at earlier ranks.
Camille's in a much healthier spot than she was on release, but the Steel Shadow is still performing too well in certain scenarios, particularly the laning phase. As a hyper-mobile, high-damage diver, Camille is naturally potent when it comes to supporting ganks. Hextech Ultimatum is one of her strongest tools for locking down a target, but it lasts so long in the early game that opponents have almost no chance to escape their sharp demise. We’re leaving Hextech Ultimatum’s late game potency untouched, but hitting its early duration to give Camille's opponents at least a fleeting chance of living through a gank.
[C] On the flipside, we also want Camille’s opponents to have more opportunities to successfully gank her. The Steel Shadow has plenty of tools to slip away from impending ganks, but easy sustain on top of that means she still tends to survive the encounters she doesn’t manage to dodge. Meaningful damage will now better stick to Camille, allowing enemy assailants to kill her when opportunities arise, or at least push her out of lane.
W - Tactical Sweep
[REMOVED] NON-CHAMPION HEAL :: Camille no longer heals for up to 10% of her maximum health when Tactical Sweep's outer half damages minions or monsters
R - The Hextech Ultimatum
DURATION :: 4 seconds at all ranks >>> 2.5/3.25/4 seconds
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Galio
Passive damage down, Q missile ratio up, tornado zone damage down.
We're quite happy with how Galio landed on Summoner's Rift and while we're happy with how well he soaks damage and protects teammates with dedicated tank builds, he shouldn't pack such a punch without investing in ability power.
Passive - Colossal Smash
DAMAGE :: 15-100 (at levels 1-18) >>> 12-80 (at levels 1-18)
Q - Winds of War
INITIAL WINDBLAST RATIO :: 0.6 ability power >>> 0.75 ability power
TORNADO ZONE DAMAGE :: 9% target's maximum health >>> 6% target's maximum health
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Graves
True Grit no longer grants magic resist.
We're pretty confident we could just say "Graves is absurd right now, so we're nerfing him" and leave it at that, but let's dive in. Right now the cowboy is just universally strong: he deals a hell of a lot of damage, he clears well, he's tanky for a marksman... the list goes on.
Graves needs some weaknesses for opponents to exploit, and we identified True Grit’s resistance stats as an opportunity to add one. He’s now significantly more vulnerable to magic damage threats, whether you’re attacking his early game (Elise says hi!) or trying to blow him up in teamfights. How to capitalize on this is up to you, but you now have better options to deal with a Graves than spamming the ban button in champion select.
E - Quickdraw
[REMOVED] COWBOYS HATE MAGIC :: True Grit no longer grants 5/7.5/10/12.5/15 magic resist per stack (40/60/80/100/120 magic resist at max stacks)
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Jarvan IV
W base shield higher at earlier ranks, slightly lower at rank 5. W bonus shield per enemy hit now based on Jarvan IV's maximum health.
Jarvan likes to start fights, continue fights, and finish fights, diving deep into the enemy team and staying there until the fight ends. For a champion with such an in-your-face playstyle, Jarvan feels surprisingly awkward to build tanky on. We want to make building for durability feel a bit better for the Exemplar of Demacia, so we’re giving his Golden Aegis shield scaling that feels more in line with the fantasy of “giant dude who plants a flag in the enemy and claims that territory for his team”.
W - Golden Aegis
BASE SHIELD :: 50/80/110/140/170 >>> 65/90/115/140/165
BONUS SHIELD :: 20/40/60/80/100 per enemy champion hit >>> 2/2.5/3/3.5/4% of Jarvan IV's maximum health per enemy champion hit
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Jinx
E cooldown reduced at later ranks.
As champion identities have grown deeper and more distinct over time, we’ve gotten more comfortable giving marksmen a splash (or three) of utility. The rise of carries like Ashe and Jhin has given us a clearer picture of what healthy teamfight utility looks like on a marksman. And so we come to Jinx. The Loose Cannon’s damage in teamfights is on-target, but she could use a bit more late-game access to the safety and/or lockdown Flame Chompers provide. Bumping up Jinx’s utility should help bring her back into the loop.
E - Flame Chompers!
COOLDOWN :: 24/22/20/18/16 seconds >>> 24/20.5/17/13.5/10 seconds
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Kassadin
W attack fixed to no longer cancel against targets that leave its range. E cooldown reduced. R ratio increased.
Oh boy, Kassadin time. The Void Walker has always promised bonkers mobility and eye-watering damage as the game progresses, but that late-game payoff is currently feeling a bit lackluster. Buffing Kassadin has historically been a risky affair, though, so we’re being pretty cautious in our approach. Force Pulse’s lower cooldown only helps when Kassadin can quickly re-stack it (which is relatively hard during lane phase), and Riftwalk’s buff is tied to its baseline effectiveness, rather than its per-cast scaling.
W - Nether Blade
BUFF-FIX :: Nether Blade's empowered attack is no longer canceled if its target leaves range during its windup
E - Force Pulse
COOLDOWN :: 6 seconds >>> 5 seconds
R - Riftwalk
RATIO :: 0.2 ability power >>> 0.3 ability power
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Katarina
E cooldown increased at early ranks.
At the moment it's somewhat difficult to punish Katarina in the early game thanks to Shunpo’s low cooldown, even when she isn’t taking advantage of the partial reset from jumping to daggers. Increasing Shunpo’s downtime opens up more opportunities to catch Katarina out, particularly if you can force her to Shunpo back to a less-than-ideal target.
E - Shunpo
COOLDOWN :: 10/9.5/9/8.5/8 seconds >>> 14/12.5/11/9.5/8 seconds
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Lux
R refunds part of its cooldown if it kills a champion.
Lux’s problem isn’t that she doesn’t do enough damage, it’s that once she’s used her full-kit combo to snipe a priority target, she lacks the tools to finish anyone else off. So, rather than pumping more damage into her kit, we’re giving power to Luxes that set themselves up for success. If the Lady of Luminosity starts a teamfight by full-combo’ing a priority target down to zero, she’ll get to finish the fight with an actually-Final Spark, rather than running out of juice and falling back to stall tactics until the next fight breaks out.
R - Final Spark
[NEW] I'M INSANE TO BEGIN WITH :: If Final Spark kills an enemy champion, 10/30/50% of its remaining cooldown is refunded
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Nunu
Passive causes Nunu's next ability to cast at one rank higher than Nunu has leveled it. Base health and base health regen down.
There’s not much room to make interesting decisions around a free spellcast: just use it on the most expensive spell. Bam, decision made. We’re updating Visionary to offer Nunu a real choice: which ability does he need to super-cast for the fight at hand?
###Base stats
BASE HEALTH :: 598.28 >>> 575
BASE HEALTH REGEN :: 8.4 per 5 seconds >>> 7 per 5 seconds
[UPDATED] Passive - Visionary
[NEW] I CAN GO BEYOND :: Nunu's next ability is upgraded by 1 rank:
CONSUME :: +160 damage and +50 healing (<strong>Rank 6:</strong> 1140 damage and 300 healing)
BLOOD BOIL :: +1% movement speed and +5% attack speed (<strong>Rank 6:</strong> 13% movement speed and 50% attack speed)
ICE BLAST :: +40 damage and +5% movement speed slow (<strong>Rank 6:</strong> 280 damage and 65% movement speed slow)
ABSOLUTE ZERO :: +250 maximum damage (<strong>Rank 4:</strong> 1375 maximum damage)
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Rengar
Q base damage reduced at later ranks.
Rengar's still ripping and tearing his way through pro play, despite multiple visits to the patch notes. We’re following up on patch 7.5’s hits to Rengar’s early durability with tone-downs to his early damage. Lowering Savagery's numbers will lengthen his early clears out a bit, while also reducing how much upfront damage he deals when he jumps on a target. With a slower clear speed, he’ll have to work a bit harder to earn early gold leads, making him more reliant on well-executed ganks to maintain scaling momentum.
Q - Savagery
DAMAGE PER STRIKE :: 35/55/75/95/115 >>> 25/45/65/85/105 (empowered damage unchanged)
RATIO PER STRIKE :: 0.3/0.4/0.5/0.6/0.7 bonus attack damage >>> 0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5/0.6 bonus attack damage (empowered damage unchanged)
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Rumble
E recharge time increased.
Since Electro Harpoon changed to an ammo system last season, Rumble's had too easy of a time managing waves, controlling his Heat, and last-hitting from safety. (Turns out being able to pace harpoons one at a time makes the ability suuuper versatile.) We’re reintroducing some of that laning challenge, as well as giving enemies more breathing room in prolonged fights, by extending the downtime between harpoon charges.
E - Electro Harpoon
RECHARGE TIME :: 5 seconds >>> 6 seconds
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Shaco
Passive attack damage scaling down. Q base damage removed, cooldown increased. Q's ability power ratio moved to Passive.
Shaco's mini-update brought him to the fore as one of the most prominent junglers in solo queue, with some cameos in pro play to boot. He’s currently dealing a frustrating amount of damage in the instant he comes out of invisibility, considering most of it’s impossible to avoid (especially from you, AD Shaco). We’re bringing his surprise burst back down to more reasonable levels.
Passive - Backstab
[NEW] ABILITY POWER RATIO :: 0.4 ability power
ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO :: 1.2-1.45 total attack damage (at levels 1-11) >>> 1.3 total attack damage at all levels
Q - Deceive
[REMOVED] BASE DAMAGE :: No longer has 20/35/50/65/80 base damage
[REMOVED] ABILITY POWER RATIO :: No longer has an 0.4 ability power ratio
COOLDOWN :: 14 seconds at all ranks >>> 16/15.5/15/14.5/14 seconds
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Syndra
Bugfixes!
R - Unleashed Power
OVERLY UNLEASHED :: Unleashed Power's cooldown is no longer reset if the first cast was interrupted (the interrupted cast dealt no damage but still spawned three spheres)
BEATING A DEAD HECARIM :: If Syndra's target dies mid-cast, remaining nearby Dark Spheres will continue to pummel their corpse
EXISTENTIAL CRISIS :: If Syndra's target becomes untargetable during Unleashed Power, Dark Spheres that were in-flight now drop in place rather than disappearing entirely
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Talon
Q damage reduced at lower ranks.
Talon’s update gave Noxian Diplomacy extra potency against enemies within arm’s reach, and while that’s opened the door to a wider variety of decisions (and outcomes) against ranged enemies in midlane, the Blade’s Shadow is crushing melee matchups over in top. If you’ve gotta walk up to Talon to deal damage, you’re guaranteed to take an empowered Q to the face... but if you never start fights, you’ll never beat him in lane. We’re pulling Noxian Diplomacy’s damage down a bit to give melee opponents more opportunities for favorable lane trades.
Q - Noxian Diplomacy
BASE DAMAGE :: 80/100/120/140/160 >>> 60/85/110/135/160
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Volibear
R can bounce to twice as many enemies.
Whether you're a fan of armoured bears or not (who isn't?), a lot of Volibear’s abilities just aren’t satisfying to use. That's where our change to Thunder Claws is aimed: smashing enemies with giant lightning-imbued bear claws should feel goddamn cool.
R - Thunder Claws
MAXIMUM BOUNCES :: 4 >>> 8
CONNECT THE DOTS :: There's now a small delay between bounces
LIGHTNING ROD :: Thunder Claws is better at searching for additional targets before ending the chain early
Karma Splash Updates
Three of Karma's oldest splashes have been updated!
Traditional Karma
Sakura KarmaSun Goddess Karma
Summoner's Rift
Raptors
More HP, less damage
Raptors have been the most predatory camp on the Rift since their preseason update, and while some champions can quickly pop the little birds without suffering mass amounts of damage, everyone else is guaranteed to walk away covered with beak-shaped dents. We’re all for jungler clear styles favoring certain camps over others, but the discrepancy here was pretty extreme.
BASE ATTACK DAMAGE :: 16 >>> 13.33
HEALTH :: 350-612.5 (at levels 1-10) >>> 400-680 (at levels 1-10)
Magic Damage Shield UI
After your feedback last patch, we're improving the clarity on magic damage shields!
MAGIC DAMAGE SHIELD COLOR :: Kinda light pink >>> Blue-ish purple
Lifesteal Interactions
Attacking units with ward-like health points no longer grants lifesteal as if they had a normal health bar.
We already made this change to wards back in pre-season, but didn’t carry the functionality shift over to everything else that doesn’t have “real” health. Call this a consistency pass.
Affected units:
- Yorick's W - Dark Procession wall
- Malzahar's W - Void Swarm voidlings
- Illaoi's P - Prophet of an Elder God tentacles
- Kalista's W - Sentinel ghost
- Nidalee's W - Bushwack, Jhin's W - Deadly Flourish and Teemo's R - Noxious Trap traps
Rotating Game Modes
All Random is coming to Rift! Mix it up with All Random Summoner's Rift (ARSR) from 4/7/17 12:00 PT - 4/11/17 04:00 PT and 4/14/17 12:00 PT - 4/18/17 04:00 PT.
TL;DR:
- Champions are randomized from your own champ pool and the free-to-play rotation.
- All other gameplay mechanics are the same: you still get ambient gold and exp, reroll, etc.
- Mastery rewards also work the same as on regular SR: you can still earn Hextech Keys, Hextech Chests, and Mastery Tokens
Good luck (with your picks), have fun.
League Client Update
We're shipping performance improvements every patch—this time around we've further improved speed and responsiveness during champ select. Editing masteries should feel particularly faster now.
We've also added the ability to view your saved replay clips (highlights) on your profile page.
New features
[NEW] HIGHLIGHTS :: Highlights let you carve out your favorite moments from replays, saving them as a .webm video file so you can always relive your best and biggest in-game moments. You'll now see a highlights section in your profile where you can watch, rename, and delete saved clips.
Highlights are only available in the updated client. For more details, visit the Highlights section of the patch notes.
[NEW] IMPROVED MATCH HISTORY :: We added the ability to see your mastery grade and IP earned on the match history page.
[NEW] CLOSE CLIENT DURING GAME TOGGLE :: We added an optional toggle in the settings that allows players to close the client while in-game. Enabling this will improves your in-game FPS. However, it increases the amount of time it takes to return to the scoreboard screen at the end of a game.
We recommend enabling this option if you have a low-spec machine and are experiencing low FPS in-game.
Notable Fixes
- Background rendering has been made more efficient, increasing the overall speed of champ select.
- Editing masteries during champ select is much faster now.
Highlights Update
Highlights let players relive their most memorable moments from Replays. In the past, they've been difficult to watch and share, so we've incorporated your feedback to make this part of the Replays experience better. Now you'll see a Highlights section under your Profile in the updated client, where you can watch, rename and delete saved clips.
These updates to Highlights are only available in the updated client.
New features:
AT LAST, VIEW CLIPS IN CLIENT :: You can now watch Highlights under your Profile tab
LEARNING :: If you've never created a Highlight before, you'll find instructions when you first visit the Highlights section
FIND 'EM THEN SHARE 'EM :: You can now see where Highlight clips are stored on your computer
NAME YOUR PENTAKILLS :: You can now change Highlights filenames in-client
THE CHOICE IS YOURS :: You can now change the location of where Highlights and Replays get saved in the Settings menu of the client
Notable fixes:
- Fixed a bug where special characters in filenames caused a number of playback issues
Bugfixes:
- Fixed a bug where Arcade Miss Fortune was playing the wrong critical strike hit sound-effect
- If Galio disconnected while flying up during R - Hero's Entrance, he no longer loses the ability to attack units and structures after reconnecting
- Cho'Gath's R- Feast kill indicator now properly takes ability power into consideration
- Fixed a couple of bugs around using Shift + Left click as a ping hotkey
- While dead, pinging abilities that are on cooldown no longer tells allies they’re ready to cast
- Fixed a bug where Flashing right after casting E - Elastic Slingshot would change Zac's position and move the range indicator, but the damage and knock-up would still be applied in the original location
- Fixed a rare bug where Zac’s Passive - Cell Division could sometimes cause him to instantly revive (and potentially revive a second time if he’s killed again before his bloblets recombined)
- Mega Dino Gnar and Mega Gentleman Gnar’s Q - Boulder Toss boulder replacements no longer visually disappear earlier than intended
- Fixed a bug where Lucian was able to basic attack during R -The Culling if he fired an energized attack immediately before casting The Culling
- Fixed a bug where moving the camera away from Dunkmaster Darius as he was recalling would desync the sound of it
- Fixed some dark textures appearing on the scalpel in Kennen M.D.’s basic attack
- Fixed a bug where a random particle would appear when using Blood Moon Kennen’s E - Lightning Rush
- Fixed a bunch of cases where Lulu's W - Whimsy polymorph effect wasn’t properly canceling or interrupting certain effects and abilities
- Champions no longer visually fly offscreen into the sky (and take forever to reappear) if you gain vision of them as soon as certain displacement effects hit them
- If Elise casts R - Spider Form at the same time Thresh's Q - Death Sentence connects, she no longer cleanses the effect
- Fixed a bug where Vi's R - Assault and Battery</strong> and Nautilus R - Depth Charge would properly consume spell shields of champions in their path, but displace them anyway
- Fixed some busted textures on Swain’s W - Nevermove claws
- Tahm Kench is no longer able to W - Devour Red Brambleback or Blue Sentinel without first stacking his passive when enemy champions are nearby
- Fixed Ivern's R - Daisy, Wait! tooltips (the ones that appear while Daisy is active)
- Fixed a bug where some types of enemy champion damage (e.g. Ignite, Titanic Hydra, Statikk Shiv etc) didn't end Quinn's R - Behind Enemy Lines
- Headmistress Fiora's E - Bladework first hit particles no longer exceed the ruler's length.
- Fixed a bug where Leona’s model didn’t fade away during her death animation for her base and a few of her skins
- Fixed some weird interactions with spell shields locking some abilities out of use
- Restored missing particles on Dragonslayer Braum and El Tigre Braum when killing an enemy with Q - Winter's Bite
- Fixed a bug where some ammo-based abilities (ex. Teemo’s R - Noxious Trap) wouldn’t consume a charge if used at the instant a new charge was gained
- If Pulsefire Ezreal uses Q - Mystic Shot while affected by the aura buff of Sona’s Q - Hymn of Valor, he now properly uses his own VFX rather than Sona’s
Upcoming Skins & Chromas
God Fist Lee Sin will be released in patch 7.7!
Dreadnova Darius is joining Hextech Annie and Soulstealer Vayne as a Hextech Crafting exclusive skin!
