Patch 4.13

Patch Notes v4.13

Hey Summoners,

Welcome to patch 4.13! With the World Championships on the very near horizon, we're ramping up our efforts to promote more diversity in competitive play (boy are you going to hear this a lot). While this patch might seem really big - and it is! - it's more about the breadth of changes than any deep shakeups. What that really means is we've got about 40+ patch entries, but each change alone isn't going to be very significant in isolation.

So with strategic diversity as our target in 4.13 (and this will be the same for upcoming patches leading to worlds), we've gone ahead and divided up our sections based on specific groups or themes. Under each category you can see our overarching goals and philosophies as well as deeper context on each individual champion, item, or summoner spell. Remember you can navigate through it all via our table of contents on the top right of the screen!

Included in patch 4.13 is also a gameplay update for Sona! While Sona hasn't been on the very strong or very weak ends of the support spectrum, we saw a cool opportunity to give her more meaningful (and recognizable) gameplay without heavily changing her aura-focused playstyle. We'll have more context below in her gameplay update, or you can check out the Sona gameplay update page! Regardless, on with the patch notes!

-

Chris "Pwyff" Tom

Fighters

"Most changes in the fighter category are aimed at the jungle (with a few top lane tweaks), so we'll focus the discussion there. Back in patch 4.11 we made some updates to roll the tanks back into the jungle and while we're seeing a lot of diversity in most levels of play, it's less the case in the competitive scene. Specifically, there are three early-aggro junglers (Elise, Evelynn, and Lee Sin) who are very suffocating in organized games, and their early dominance is bullying out alternative choices. Toning down these three should give others a fighting chance."

Elise
Elise's cocoon got skinnier and her rappel range got shortened

"Thanks to her strong dueling power, great objective control (both in damage and spiderling tanking), and high utility ganks, Elise's got all the right things to make her a priority pick in competitive play. You'll hear the same for Lee Sin, but when a champion has so many strengths, it's tough to choose the right direction to take them. For now, our focus is less on introducing new meaningful weaknesses for Elise, and more about reducing her consistency and reliability in getting to targets."

E - Cocoon
- WIDTH 70 ⇒ 55
- SPIDER-VISION Fixed a bug where Cocoon was providing vision longer than the stun duration (now correctly matches it)
E - Rappel
- SOME PREAMBLE Rappel now calculates its range from the ~~center of Elise to the center of the target~~ ⇒ edge of Elise to the edge of the target (this means Rappel gains about +75 range)
- RANGE ~~925~~ ⇒ 750 (~825 range if using the old targeting calculations)

Evelynn
Evelynn's Q deals less damage unless she builds more AD / AP (it scales better at higher levels). Q also costs less mana.

"Right now Evelynn's high base damage means she can go tanky while still blowing people up, so we're hoping she'll think more about her priorities with these changes. Basically if Evelynn wants to kill things quickly, she'll need to build offensively for it - if she wants to tank it out in the middle of fight, she'll have to itemize for that. Also, we know Evelynn's arguably not a fighter, but we put her here for the sake of better organization (nyah)."

Q - Hate Spike
- MAGIC DAMAGE ~~40/60/80/100/120~~ ⇒ 30/45/60/75/90
- ABILITY POWER RATIO ~~0.45~~ ⇒ 0.35/0.4/0.45/0.5/0.55
- BONUS ATTACK DAMAGE RATIO ~~0.5~~ ⇒ 0.5/0.55/0.6/0.65/0.7
- COST ~~16/22/28/34/40 mana~~ ⇒ 12/18/24/30/36 mana

Gragas
NO MORE OPEN BAR. Gragas pays mana for his drunkenness and Q deals less damage to minions.

"Way back when we gave Gragas a gameplay update, we wanted to solve the thematic problem where a big fat drunken brawler was being played as a backline mage who throws barrels for days. These changes mean Gragas works best when he's scrapping in the middle of a fight, and not hiding like a sissy."

Q - Barrel Roll
- NEW GRAGGY LIGHT Now does 70% damage to minions
W - Drunken Rage
- NEW COST Now costs 30 mana at all ranks
- COOLDOWN ~~8/7.5/6/6.5/6 seconds~~ ⇒ 8/7/6/5/4 seconds
- DAMAGE REDUCTION ~~3 seconds~~ ⇒ 2.5 seconds
- SNEAKY DRINKING Fixed a bug where Drunken Rage could be used twice in a row if Gragas was interrupted as soon as he started drinking
- BRAWLING ETIQUETTE Fixed a bug where Drunken Rage would sometimes not play the proper keg smash animation on attack
E - Body Slam
- BUGFIXED BELLY Fixed a bug where Body Slam would occasionally fail to work when Gragas leveled it first or second

Hecarim
Hecarim pays less mana for his Q and his passive scales better with being a horse

"Way back in the day, Hecarim used to have near infinite sustain in the jungle and we made targeted balance changes to address that. On re-examining, we overshot some of those nerfs."

Passive - Warpath
- WARPATHIER Hecarim gains bonus attack damage equal to ~~10/12.5/15/17.5/20/22.5/25%~~ ⇒ 15/17.5/20/22.5/25/27.5/30% of his bonus movement speed
Q - Rampage
- COST ~~24/28/32/36/40 mana~~ ⇒ 24/26/28/30/32 mana

Jax
WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP

"What this change means is that Jax will finish his attack animations a little faster but it's not a direct buff to his attack speed. It's a weird concept but basically his last-hitting is more responsive."

General
- LAMPPOST SWINGING SPEED Jax finishes his attack animation a little faster (19% to be exact)

Lee Sin
Lee's shield duration got cut in half, and Cripple no longer reduces attack speed (only movement speed)

"Like Elise, Lee Sin has a ton of strengths and few weaknesses, so it's equally tough to find the right direction to take him. In this case, after considering a lot of player feedback about Lee Sin's identity as a high-pressure early jungler who falls off late, we're maintaining that direction in our changes (specifically through the late-game falloff on his survivability and utility)."

General
- BASE HEALTH REGEN ~~6.95 health per 5 seconds~~ ⇒ 8.95 health per 5 seconds
W - Safeguard
- SHIELD DURATION ~~4 seconds~~ ⇒ 2 seconds
E - Cripple
- REMOVED NEVER SKIP LEG DAY Cripple no longer reduces enemy attack speed (only reduces movement speed)

Olaf
Olaf can use R more often at lower levels, and W's healing amp works better with missing health

"Olaf hasn't had the best time adapting to the evolving game (especially losing out on a lot of cooldown reduction + health items), so he's getting a few buffs to keep up."

Q - Undertow
- COOLDOWN ~~8 seconds~~ ⇒ 7 seconds
W - Vicious Strikes
- HEALING AMPLIFICATION ~~+1% healing per 2.5% missing health~~ ⇒ +1% healing per 2% missing health
R - Ragnarok
- COOLDOWN ~~120/100/80 seconds~~ ⇒ 100/90/80 seconds

Shen
"This was one of the toughest and longest-standing bugs to track down. Yeesh."

R - Stand United
- NEW SEE YOU IN THE LCS Fixed a bug where Shen would occasionally fail to teleport to his protected target for no reason

Shyvana
Shyvana can't double her W duration through dragon form, and her flame trail now applies damage less often (on par with W's damage tick rate)

"While we didn't want to make significant changes to Shyvana, we did make two bugfixes which should tame some of her more obscure strength."

W - Burnout
- REMOVED DRAGON TAMING Burnout can no longer be extended past its intended maximum duration through the use of Dragon's Descent
- CONTROLLED FIRE Dragon's Descent's Flame Trail now applies damage every ~~0.75 seconds~~ ⇒ 1.0 seconds (to match Burnout's damage rate)

Mages & Assassins

"Echoing back to our overarching philosophy of champion diversity, we saw a lot of opportunities for low-scope buffs to give those 'almost-there' champions. "

Kayle
Kyle's E scales slightly better with ability power, and her R is on a lower cooldown at early levels

"We're just backing up a bit from our previous Kayle changes from 4.11."

E - Righteous Fury
- ABILITY POWER RATIO ~~0.2~~ ⇒ 0.25
R - Intervention
- COOLDOWN ~~110/95/80 seconds~~ ⇒ 100/90/80 seconds

LeBlanc
I'm not re-summarizing a single line of change. You're going to have to read it. Go on.

"Without a silence, LeBlanc's even more reliant on Distortion as it lets her sneak around the map for clever ambushes."

W - Distortion
- COST ~~80/90/100/110/120 mana~~ ⇒ 80/85/90/95/100 mana

Lissandra
Lissandra can use Q more often at later levels, W's ability power ratio has gone down, but R now slows for a lot more

"I'm going to directly quote someone here: "We want to emphasize Lissandra's strengths that aren't 'stun some fool for 1.5 seconds and then burst them down.'"

In other words, we're giving this ice mage more sustained damage in the late game while also improving her battlefield control. This does mean we need to tune down some of Lissandra's burstiness (especially with Q getting a full second reduction), but overall it lets us highlight more of her unique talents."

Q - Ice Shard
- COOLDOWN ~~6/5.5/5/4.5/4 seconds~~ ⇒ 6/5.25/4.5/3.75/3 seconds
W - Ring of Frost
- ABILITY POWER RATIO ~~0.60~~ ⇒ 0.40
R - Frozen Tomb
- SLOW ~~20/30/40%~~ ⇒ 30/45/75%

Lulu
Lulu's Glitterlance slow no longer scales with ability power, and Whimsy's movement speed buff duration now scales with rank. Whimsy also costs less at later levels.

"We initially thought solo lane Lulu was a unique addition to the game, so we wanted to let her stay a viable pick in both solo and duo lanes. That said, top lane Lulu is currently shutting down a lot of diversity in competitive play and, because Lulu's solo lane and support power are tied so closely together, we had to go for changes that reduce her oppressive strengths first. As an aside, we know this isn't a great situation where we keep indirectly reducing support Lulu's power to maintain her viability as a mage, so this is something we'll have to really consider for the future."

Q - Glitterlance
- REMOVED MIGHT AS WELL BE A SNARE Glitterlance's slow decay no longer scales with ability power
W - Whimsy
- MOVEMENT SPEED BUFF DURATION ~~5 seconds at all ranks~~ ⇒ 3/3.5/4/4.5/5 seconds
- COST ~~65/70/75/80/85 mana~~ ⇒ 65 mana at all ranks

Lux
Everyone get excited for the Lux buff! At early levels this might be a slight reduction to her damage, but as soon as Lux picks up some AP, it'll start scaling much better.

"We thought Lux needed some extra help scaling into the late game, so..."

Passive - Illumination
- DAMAGE ~~10 + (10 x level)~~ ⇒ 10 + (8 x level) (+ 0.2 ability power)

Vel'Koz

"These changes better match Vel'Koz's ability visuals. We're going to blame lack of depth perception here, which really isn't his fault."

W - Void Rift
- MISSILE WIDTH 65 ⇒ 88
R - Life Form Disintegration Ray
- RANGE ~~1500~~ ⇒ 1550

Yasuo
Yasuo's passive shield is slightly shorter, Q scales less with attack speed, and W no longer gives bonus flow to E

"We've been watching Yasuo over the past few months and while we don't think he's really out of line, we did some fine-tuning to round him out. "

Passive - Way of the Wanderer
- SHIELD DURATION ~~1.5 seconds~~ ⇒ 1 second
Q - Steel Tempest
- LESS-QUICK-DRAW Steel Tempest now scales less effectively with attack speed and has a minimum cast time of ~~0.13 seconds~~ ⇒ 0.18 seconds. The attack speed needed to reach this minimum is unchanged (at 114%, or 60% from items at level 18).
- BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Steel Tempest's whirlwind was dealing instant damage in the area of a normal Steel Tempest cast as it was traveling out (this is a very minor change)
W - Wind Wall
- REMOVED LOW ON FLOW Wind Wall no longer passively grants bonus Flow from dashing

Ziggs
Less bombs in the late game

"By increasing the late game cooldown of Mega Inferno Bomb, Ziggs will have to think harder about whether he uses his R for wave clear or if he should save it for an important team fight."

R - Mega Inferno Bomb
- COOLDOWN ~~120/105/90 seconds~~ ⇒ 120 seconds at all ranks

Zilean

"Ultimately this was a change we had to make for clarity - sorry Zilean!"

Q - Time Bomb
- TECHNICALLY A SIVIR BUFF Fixed a bug where Time Bomb's explosion ignored spell shields

Marksman

"Our big philosophy here is to introduce more strategic diversity in markspeople picks. Right now a lot of competitive teams are opting for strong hypercarry marksmen like Kog'Maw, Tristana, or Twitch, and while we like the strategic power these guys (and girl) bring, their dominant status over alternatives is a big indication that they're not making early tradeoffs for late game scaling."

Graves
Graves is putting more damage back into collateral damage. We may have used this joke before, but that doesn't matter. Also Buckshot does more damage for each extra bullet hit.

"We're buffing Graves' ability to shoot people with a shotgun."

Q - Buckshot
- THIS IS GONNA TICKLE Hitting a target in the face with Buckshot deals ~~35%~~ ⇒ 40% damage for each additional bullet
R - Collateral Damage
- BASE PHYSICAL DAMAGE ~~250/350/450~~ ⇒ 250/400/550

Jinx

"We are all very excited about this change. Extremely."

Passive - Get Excited!
- NEW UNINHIBITED EXCITEMENT JINX NOW GETS EXCITED WHEN SHE CONTRIBUTES TO KILLING AN INHIBITOR!

Kog'Maw
Kog's got less base health and his Q shreds less armor / MR at lower ranks

"When we made our AD itemization changes back in 4.10, Kog'Maw got significantly stronger on top of his already strong base kit. We still want Koggles to hit his late game power, but in order to get there he needs to have a real weakness in the early to mid game. As a quick rundown on why these changes specifically: Kog's current favored item build (Trinity Force + Blade of the Ruined King) lets him build more utility / tank than traditional Infinity Edge marksmen, but he can still deal tons of damage with Q's high base shred + W's damage amp. Now he'll just take a little longer to hit that level of effectiveness."

General
- BASE HEALTH ~~524~~ ⇒ 487
- HEALTH PER LEVEL 84 ⇒ 87

Q - Caustic Spittle
- ARMOR & MAGIC RESISTANCE SHRED ~~20/22/24/26/28%~~ ⇒ 12/16/20/24/28%

Lucian
Lucian can no longer remove slows with E, and E's cooldown is up across the board

"When we made our big Lucian changes in 4.12, we had three concerns in the back of our heads: the first was that Lucian would struggle too much in the early game to hit his mid to late game power (false!), the second was that players would have difficulty adapting to the new Lucian changes (false!), and the third was that he would be a little too strong in the mid to late game so maybe our concerns didn't matter (true!).

Specifically on these changes: giving Relentless Pursuit a reset interaction with Lightslinger (and making it cost 0 mana) makes Lucian almost completely immune to slows, which leads to a lot of 'hard counter' situations where he's untouchable for a number of enemy champions. Ultimately we still want Lucian to have tons of mobility after he's picked up some cooldown reduction, but to make it a healthy mechanic he can't also shrug off any attempt to fight back."

E - Relentless Pursuit
- REMOVED OCCASIONALLY RELENTING Relentless Pursuit no longer removes slows
- COOLDOWN ~~14/13/12/11/10 seconds~~ ⇒ 18/17/16/15/14 seconds

Sivir
Sivir's R gives a longer movement speed burst at later ranks

"Sivir's an interesting champion who offers a lot of strategic power from the markswoman role, so we're amping up her unique strengths."

R - On The Hunt
- INITIAL MOVEMENT SPEED ~~2/3/4 seconds~~ ⇒ 2/4/6 seconds

Tristana
Tristana's W slows less at early ranks but more at max rank. E does less damage (especially at early levels).

"Tristana follows the same story as Kog'Maw: a hypercarry markswoman who received a few buffs through the season (when it was dominated by mid-game dudes) before exploding onto the scene when we made our AD itemization changes in 4.10. Also like Kog: we want to make sure that Trist makes a meaningful strategic tradeoff with a weaker early to mid game before transforming into a late game powerhouse."

W - Rocket Jump
- SLOW DURATION ~~2.5 seconds at all levels~~ ⇒ 1/1.5/2/2.5/3 seconds
E - Explosive Shot
- ACTIVE MAGIC DAMAGE ~~110/150/190/230/270~~ ⇒ 80/125/170/215/260

Varus
Varus' R is on a lower cooldown, especially at later levels

"Varus' core identity in the late game revolves mostly around his initiation and counter-engagement, so we're nudging that up."

Q - Piercing Arrow
- NEW CLARITY! Now shows a line indicator in addition to circle indicator while charging
R - Chain of Corruption
- COOLDOWN ~~120/105/90~~ seconds ⇒ 110/90/70 seconds

Vayne
Vayne gets more attack speed per level. The changes to Final Hour are roughly neutral, as one was a bugfix and the other was to compensate for it.

"Vayne's always been one of the best examples of a hyperscaling markswoman, as she has to pay the cost of a weak early game before being rewarded with an extremely strong late game. So we buffed that."

General
- ATTACK SPEED PER LEVEL ~~3.1~~ ⇒ 4.0
R - Final Hour
- WHOOPS Fixed a bug where Tumble had an extra +0.1 attack damage ratio while Final Hour was active (now correctly matches Tumble's AD ratios)
- COMPENSATION FOR THE ABOVE Final Hour grants a bonus ~~25/40/55~~ ⇒ 30/50/70 attack damage throughout its duration

Supports

"On to the supports! Much like our theme for junglers, there are a few 'must-pick' competitive supports in the form of Braum and Thresh (or Nami in lieu of either) that we're looking to tap down just a bit. In general, however, we feel that once we reduce the consistency of these champions, there are a lot of viable picks just waiting to spring into action."

Sona
Only you can read Sona's full gameplay update page, Summoner!

"Sona's strumming into this session with a harmonious Gameplay Update and an orchestra of new visuals! Keep time with the full symphony of changes hear here!

Not only does this Sona update give us more room to balance her in the future (old Sona's aura abilities were a nightmare, given how statistically strong they were without having much gameplay involved), but it'll also let Sona players show off their skills outside of that one clutch Flash Crescendo play. Now with these new Sona 'snuggle zones,' she'll be amplifying her friends with more impactful (and recognizable) effects.

Or, as Sona so eloquently puts it, "......""

General
- GAMEPLAY Sona has received a Gameplay Update!
- HAIR AND STUFF Models, textures and animations of Sona and her skins have been updated
- VISUALS Particle effects and ability icons have been updated
- SNUGGLE ZONES Sona's new particles now indicate the area of effect of her auras
- CLARITY Crescendo's particles have been resized to match its hitbox (area of effect unchanged)
- SHOW ME YOUR MOVES Enemies now dance 50% faster while stunned by Crescendo

Braum
Braum's passive deals a bit less damage, W costs a little more mana to use at early ranks, and R's disruption has gone down at early levels. Also people will be un-slowed from exiting Glacial Fissure much faster.

"Braum's continuing to dominate games in both high level and competitive, so we're looking to tone down his oppressive laning and stupendous disruption in early fights. Braum will still scale to the same levels (roughly) at the late game, but he won't have so much power in the early to mid to consistently snowball into it."

Passive - Concussive Blows
- BASE MAGIC DAMAGE ~~38 + (12 x level)~~ ⇒ 32 + (8 x level)
W - Stand Behind Me
- COST ~~30/40/50/60/70 mana~~ ⇒ 50/55/60/65/70 mana
R - Glacial Fissure
- FIRST TARGET KNOCKUP DURATION ~~1.5 seconds~~ ⇒ 1.0/1.25/1.5 seconds
- SLOW ~~60%~~ ⇒ 40/50/60%
- SLOW LINGER DURATION When an enemy leaves Glacial Fissure's field of ice, they'll continue to be slowed for ~~1.5 seconds~~ ⇒ 0.25 seconds

Janna
Janna's passive range has been increased, and Q now starts counting down the cooldown as it charges

"Some small buffs for Janna, given she's still very strong as a disengage support champion."

Passive - Tailwind
- RANGE ~~800~~ ⇒ 1000
Q - Howling Gale
- NEW HURRAY FOR HURRICANES Cooldown now begins when the Howling Gale begins casting, rather than when it releases
- KNOCKUP DURATION ~~0.5 - 1 second~~ ⇒ 0.5 - 1.25 seconds

Nami
Nami moves slightly slower and her W cooldown is going up by 1 second at all ranks

"We're shaving off some of Nami's less obvious power as, with Braum and Thresh both receiving nerfs, she's on the rise to being the dominant support pick in competitive play."

General
- MOVEMENT SPEED ~~340~~ ⇒ 335
W - Ebb and Flow
- COOLDOWN ~~9 seconds at all ranks~~ ⇒ 10 seconds at all ranks

Thresh
Thresh's lantern only shields the first ally it hits (and himself). The Box no longer deals additional damage to opponents for every wall they run through past the first (but still applies slows).

"As Thresh continues to be a reliable top tier support, we decided to tone down some of his less appreciated (but very strong) area-of-effect teamfight presence."

W - Dark Passage
- NEW NO GROUP FARES Now only shields the first ally to be near the Lantern. Thresh himself can still always receive the shield.
E - Flay
- BUGFIX Fixed a tooltip bug that listed Flay's slow duration as 1.5 seconds. It's actually 1 second (no actual change).
R - The Box
- REMOVED YOU'RE STUCK IN HERE WITH ME The Box no longer deals additional damage to opponents when they break extra walls beyond the first. Extra walls still apply half slow duration.

Items

Item Reorganization
Rearranged the order that item upgrades appear in the store

"We're making it a little more intuitive to purchase item upgrades in the store. If you look at the title of this patch note along with our summary, context, and the patch note itself, I think we've found four ways of saying the exact same thing."

REARRANGED THINGS We rearranged the order that items appear in the upgrade section of the store to make it more intuitive

New Search Terms
Search for Spooky Ghosts in the item shop. Do it.

"Someone made a special request for these, so we did 'em."

Searching for "Yellow" will bring up all Totems
Searching for "Red" will bring up all Lenses
Searching for "Blue" will bring up all Orbs
Searching for "Green" will bring up Sight Wards
Searching for "Pink" will bring up Vision Wards

Greater Stealth Totem
C'mon, why do you need a summary here

"Right now there seems to be no viable reason to upgrade to a Greater Stealth Totem, so we're giving players a reason to do so. Lower cooldown!"

COOLDOWN ~~120 seconds~~ ⇒ 90 seconds

Frostfang
2 less gold per 10 seconds

"As an item that's supposed to be focused on aggressive skirmishing for gold generation, Frostfang and Frost Queen's Claim both create a lot of passive gold on their own, so we're trimming that back a bit."

PASSIVE GOLD ~~4 gold per 10 seconds~~ ⇒ 2 gold per 10 seconds

Frost Queen's Claim
See above. Or below.

"I'm not repeating myself!"

PASSIVE GOLD ~~10 gold per 10 seconds~~ ⇒ 2 gold per 10 seconds

Nomad's Medallion
Now has flat Movement Speed! It's lost a bit of mana regeneration to compensate.

"This change makes the Ancient Coin / Nomad's Medallion / Talisman of Ascension line a little more attractive to pick up as a 'roaming support' and initiation support purchase while also making the coin a bit more unique as a gp10 item line."

NEW MOVEMENT SPEED +10 movement speed
MANA REGENERATION ~~7 mana per 5 seconds~~ ⇒ 5 mana per 5 seconds

Talisman of Ascension
Now has flat Movement Speed and more health regen! It's lost some cooldown reduction to compensate.

"Roughly the same as the above, so go read that."

NEW MOVEMENT SPEED +20 movement speed
HEALTH REGENERATION ~~10 health per 5 seconds~~ ⇒ 15 health per 5 seconds
COOLDOWN REDUCTION ~~20%~~ ⇒ 10%

Deathfire Grasp
Deathfire Grasp's cooldown has gone up

"Pre-warning: this context is going to get nerdy.

Deathfire Grasp amps up a lot of existing low-interaction gameplay (ie: huge burst with no opportunity to react) without adding more skill to the mix. While this is a larger problem we'll have to tackle in the future, we felt that it was important to at least increase DFG's cooldown so that it's more appropriately balanced against a lot of 'anti-burst' spells / items (ie: exhaust, heal, Zhonya's Hourglass, etc). If we don't have to worry about DFG turning a champion into a one-shot wizard (hello Lissandra), it also means we can potentially give healthy assassins better tools to work with."

COOLDOWN ~~60 seconds~~ ⇒ 90 seconds

Rylai's Crystal Scepter
AP UP, HEALTH DOWN!

"A small increase on Rylai's overall slot efficiency as an offensively oriented control item."

ABILITY POWER 80 ⇒ 100
HEALTH ~~500~~ ⇒ 400

Banshee's Veil
Banshee's Veil takes longer to recharge

"The low cooldown on Banshee's Veil's spell shield allows it to be 'up' for the arrival of every new minion wave, which makes it a little too strong in evenly matched scenarios where one team is trying to siege out the other under a tower. "

SPELL SHIELD RECHARGE TIME ~~25 seconds~~ ⇒ 40 seconds

Chalice of Harmony
Chalice of Harmony's magic resistance has gone down. It takes you more time to read this summary than it does to read the patch note. How does that make you feel.

"We're going just a little harder on Chalice of Harmony so that picking it up is more about getting the manafont passive."

MAGIC RESISTANCE 25 ⇒ 20

Sword of the Occult
We're rounding up.

"We learned how to math when we realized Sword of the Occult wasn't so hot at it."

SWORDS ARE NO GOOD AT ROUNDING UP Sword of the Occult loses ~~6 stacks~~ ⇒ 7 stacks when dying at 20 stacks

Madred's Razors
A small quality of life buff where Madred's Razors now track your stacks toward a Feral Flare

"We're adding a buff tracker so you know what you're missing out on and not sitting on a Madred's Razors for... 77 minutes (just kidding!)."

NEW FERAL TRACKING Added a buff on your buff bar showing how many stacks you have toward a Feral Flare while you have Madred's Razor in your inventory. Only displays on Summoner's Rift.

Twisted Treeline & Crystal Scar

Blackfire Torch
Increasing Blackfire Torch's cooldown to match the changes to Deathfire Grasp

"The following is going to sound very familiar if you've read our context on Deathfire Grasp:"

Blackfire Torch amps up a lot of existing low-interaction gameplay (ie: huge burst with no opportunity to react) without adding more skill to the mix. While this is a larger problem we'll have to tackle in the future, we felt that it was important to at least increase BFT's cooldown so that it's more appropriately balanced against a lot of 'anti-burst' spells / items (ie: exhaust, heal, Zhonya's Hourglass, etc). If we don't have to worry about BFT turning a champion into a one-shot wizard (hello Lissandra), it also means we can potentially give healthy assassins better tools to work with."

COOLDOWN ~~60 seconds~~ ⇒ 90 seconds

Crystal Scar

Fizz
Higher cooldown on Q and E

"Fizz's mobility and damage are a little too high for the "skirmishy" nature of Dominion. With some CDR, Fizz could jump in and out of fights with ease. Increasing his cooldowns will force Fizz to be more careful when using his mobility."

Q - Urchin Strike
- COOLDOWN ~~10/9/8/7/6 seconds~~ ⇒ 11/10/9/8/7 seconds
E - Playful / Trickster
- COOLDOWN ~~16/14/12/10/8 seconds~~ ⇒ 16/14.5/13/11.5/10 seconds

Summoner Spells

Exhaust
Reduces less damage than before, now slightly lowers target's armor and magic resistance

"This change should reduce some of Exhaust's anti-assassin power while also giving it more diversity as a multi-use summoner spell (flat armor / MR shred means it'll be super effective against low-defense assassins or marksmen!)."

DAMAGE REDUCTION ~~50%~~ ⇒ 40%
NEW ARMOR & MAGIC RESISTANCE SHRED Now shreds 10 of the target's armor and magic resistance

Heal
Less heals for all.

"As a summoner spell that affects two champions and gives a movement speed bonus, we've now realized that Heal is pretty strong. Too strong."

HEAL AMOUNT ~~95 - 475~~ ⇒ 90 - 345

Team Builder

"We've made a number of improvements to Team Builder in the months since its initial release. This patch, we're adding improved matchmaking to the list of updates!"

Team Builder is receiving a few updates in the days following the initial 4.13 deploy:
- Team Builder matchmaking now takes into account your experience with the specific champion, position and role you've selected.
- Players can now unlock new role-themed summoner icons by playing 5 games in Team Builder as a specific role

Match History Beta

"Based on your feedback, we've been adding new tools and visualizations to the Match History over the past few patches. Here are some of our recent changes!"

Color blind mode has been added
Vilemaw is now tracked as an objective for Twisted Treeline matches
A Match Breakdown section has been added, providing:
- Graphs for Champion Kills, Gold, Damage, and Wards
- Champion portrait indicators for First Blood, First Tower Destroyed, Largest Multi Kill and Largest Killing Spree
Selecting a champion in the minimap's Champion Kills view now also indicates their death locations

"While we were at it, we squashed a few bugs and inconsistencies with Match History's data tracking and reporting."

Purple team objectives are now tracked correctly for Co-op vs. AI matches
Item tooltips for matches played on previous patches now display item details specific to that patch
Fixed a few rendering bugs for matches longer than 60 minutes
Fixed a bug where item undo wasn't reversing gold spent, causing players to appear to have spent more than they earned
Clicking a match in another player's in-client match history now correctly highlights them on the web

"Lastly, while our focus is on making the Match History web experience as awesome as possible, we've added a bit more information to the client's "at a glance" match history view for players who want the bare essentials."

Item build, gold earned and summoner spells have been added to the in-client "at a glance" match history

Skin Splash Updates

"We've temporarily swapped out some skin splashes with their international counterparts to bring them more in line with our quality bar. We're committed to raising the quality of our splash art across the board, but our focus for now is on improving base champion splashes."

SPLASHES 33 old skin splashes have been updated
PERFECT SOLUTION No
TEMPORARY SOLUTION Yes

New Player Features

"As part of our continued onboarding efforts, we're experimenting with ways to help new players learn intermediate concepts outside of game. In this case, we're targeting last hitting with a gentle end-of-game tip that'll occasionally show up for lower level players, becoming less frequent as they get the hang of CSing."

New players will now sometimes see a tip at the end of game screen to introduce the concept of last hitting.

Match Loading Speeds

"Toasters rejoice!"

Improved match loading speeds by 10-30%, particularly for older machines

Bugfixes

Tooltips for Sheen, Trinity Force, Lich Bane and Iceborn Gauntlet now correctly list the Spellblade passive as having a 1.5 second cooldown (actual value unchanged)
Fixed a bug causing players to get stuck in Spectator mode at the end of a match
Fixed a few tooltip bugs with Spirit of the Ancient Golem
Fixed a bug where the game clock would occasionally become desynchronized, causing buffs to appear to spawn too early
Fixed an Undo feature bug with activatable items

"Since launching our new audio engine last patch, we've been working to fix a lot of small differences that crept in."

Howling Abyss death music is now properly controlled via the Music slider in Sound Options
Fixed a few issues where players were hearing sounds from distant areas of the map
Removed various VO lines that snuck in with the new engine
Rebalanced a number of sound effects to more closely match their old levels
Fixed a few instances where some effects were playing for too long, getting cut off, or improperly playing on top of each other

Upcoming Skins

The following skins will be released at various times during Patch 4.13: