We’re seeing a lot of players skip Level 8 at higher ranks—which isn’t bad, just too frequent. So, we’re making going to 9 harder by 8 gold, which will actually make it cheaper going from 9 to 10 than going from 8 to 9. Overall, we’re happy with the smaller jump from 9 to 10, even in lobbies that aren’t inflated by Prismatics/Opening Encounters.

Banning some Augments that are too synergistic with their certain Opening Encounters.

This is an aura checkpoint, and you, reading this right now, have cleared with maximum aura, unlike our aura champions who used to drop their aura when they dropped to the floor (deaded). So we’re making their auras behave more intuitively—which is a buff, but don’t worry, we’ve got a compensation nerf for Taric who’s already performing quite well.

With the launch of Lore & Legends we shared the less visible rules to the Unlock system early and frequently. Well, we’ve learned a lot from Unlockables, and we’re already applying those learnings with a very small system update that addresses how often three-star 4-costs appear, which has proven too common for Unlockable units and often leaves little room for counter-play.

So, we’re adjusting Unlockable unit odds for both 4 and 5-costs to make them harder to three-star while uncontested (you’re the only one with them Unlocked), and slightly easier to two-star while contested (at least one other player has them Unlocked).

More accessible comps = more fun.

This goes out to those screenshots of players with a two-star Viego opener and only two item components.

Tempo Bilgewater play is our most dominant strategy in high elo, pushing for levels, units, and item slams to win out early game and get to Bilgewater (7) as soon as possible. It’s become a similar concept, but far far far less extreme of playing the Draven Legend from Runeterra Reforged (set 9) with its impact on lobby pacing and econ, albeit harder to access (need a lucky Twisted Fate early). Our Bilgewater changes primarily address tempo play for the trait, cutting the takedown Serpents in half. The nerfs will be far less perceptible for loss-streak disaster pirates like myself.

For a trait breakpoint so difficult to hit, Darkin (3) really isn’t doing much. We’re swinging hard here to reward your efforts in collecting the Darkin weapons.

We’re giving Ixtal some buffs that won’t exactly change the high-end of the trait. We’re making sure the less-worthwhile bait quests are now hashtag worth, to making it standard that when you cashout with over 700 Sunshards, you will be able to always get a two-star Brock (if you use your Champion Duplicators). And that’s great, cause as the age-old wisdom goes, when you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, you should always take a Brock and (hopefully) a first place.

With T-Hex safely contained in Piltover park, we’re able to buff our underperforming Invention modules. Wait, what’s that!? We’re buffing T-Hex—everyone run, get out of the park! To be continued in Units: Tier 5…

Oftentimes in the mid to late-game, Blitzcrank won’t survive long enough to cast even once. We’re giving them a Mana buff to keep rolling and prove that metal is harder than flesh.

Previously Jhin with Attack Speed builds was too good for a 1-cost, while without Attack Speed, he’d be too bad. And because two too’s don’t make a four, we’ve got a small rework for Jhin that will make him less dependent on Rageblade and better as a more universal AD item-holder.

Last patch we overnerfed Ashe and Tryndamere. We’re hoping Marc didn’t notice, but in case he did, there’s a nice buff for the pair here.

Ekko has been the dominant 2-cost of the set, being deceptively tanky with Omnivamp and benefitting a lot from our recent Zaun buffs.

As an Invoker, Orianna’s Mana buff should feel extra nice when itemized with Mana regen. Alongside how she’s easier to unlock, maybe this’ll be enough to open up a new reroll line? Only time will tell.

Some just want Diana and Leona on the same board, this is LORE & Legends, after all. Old Leona’s kit often led Diana astray, focusing on tanks that Leona marks, resulting in an optimized Diana board without Leona—sadge. But we’re finally reuniting them, as now Diana will gain increasing AP the longer Leona survives. This’ll also impact your itemization for the pair, with Diana benefitting more from things such as the Jeweled Gauntlet and the recently buffed Nashor’s Tooth, while Leona will take your greedier tank items to stay alive in the fight.

Sejuani is a tank that’s just never itemized. We’re giving her a nice buff to her shield which should make everything from Resistances to a rogue AP item better on her (notice how I said better on her and not good. Deathcap Sejuani will still not be good for your LP).

Similar to his Freljord tank counterpart, Braum is also often left unitemized as the splash units in his comps (Wukong, Taric, etc) wear all the pretty Warmogs and Vests while not even contributing to Braum’s vertical. A mighty Mana buff should raise the shield appeal of Braum and hopefully make it easier to drag that fancy Cape onto our mustached pal.

Diana’s getting reworked and rebalanced with a couple of changes to her kit (one mentioned above with our Leona change). She used to not be mana-locked (she was able to gain mana even while shielding), making her want to cast as much as possible to stack more shields. Now, she has a stronger shield, but it only exists while she is dashing (casting her ability). It’s bigger during that time, and she’s going to have a lot more AP thanks to the lady on—and/or starting—fires (Leona), but she’s going to take a while to warm up over the course of a fight.

We’ve got a decent sized Fizz nerf on the line for Fizz. Fizz has always meant to be a nuisance. He casts a lot without doing a ton of damage, but lately he’s been taking out two-star 4-cost backliners too easily and too early. We’re going hard on his damage here but doubling his Attack Speed bonus so he can get back to casting Playful Trickster, annoying more units more often, but less intensely.

With our Kai’Sa Unlock Condition update, she’s coming to your shops at Level 7 instead of 8, which means we need to give her a slight nerf, but just at one-star to account for her newfound accessibility.

For Taric, it turns out 90% Durability was essentially Ox Force (old invincibility trait) style tanking, which is not great for game health or player experience, as sometimes it would prevent almost the entirety of a consequential cast, while other times it would only block 2 or 3 autos. These highs and lows are being replaced by a more consistent, less frustrating (and slightly weaker in many cases), heal over time.

When’s the last time you saw a Sylas, Annie, Tibbers board? The SATs? I thought we were prioritizing the ACTs?

Aurelion Sol has struggled to fill the celestial-dragon sized shoes, a flying behemoth would never need. We’re reworking how he gathers Stardust to be based on his damage instead of units hit, opening up more than just Mana builds. Upgrade breakpoints have been retuned around this.

Galio is also the beneficiary of some ability retuning. Instead of having his damage scale with his MR, it will now depend on both MR and Armor. While the MR scaling was thematically resonant, we don’t want to have Galio’s itemization be as narrow (many players opting to not itemize him at all) as it has been to find success.

Remember our earlier conversation around Taric and his Ox Force style invulnerability window? Me neither, that was like one whole section ago and I can’t be bothered to scroll back up. Anyways, Kindred’s ability has been a source of frustration, over-powered moments, and lackluster casts. At such a high mana-cost, their ability could save a fight by blocking an entire cast from a Veigar or Baron, or it could just soak a few autos. This low consistency and high frustration had us overnerf them in 16.2, so today we’re back with a rework that should be a decent-sized buff in most situations. Allies will now get a meaty shield for the ability’s duration, while we’re also able to add a nice buff to both the duration and Kindred’s Eternal passive damage.

Lucian & Senna’s power source has been hard to discern. I mean Sentinel weapons are powered by belief that they will work to an extent, but that’s not great for the design of this duo unit. We’re adjusting the duo to no longer apply Black Mist to enemies, which was eating up a lot of Armor while also applying things like Burn/Wound for far too long. That also allows us to budget more power for Senna’s big blast, but not too much; we want to avoid a situation where she is deleting backliners early on in a fight, so we’re adding a damage fall-off to the blast.

With our Shyvana buffs, she should be casting more with her cone, which is great cause it will allow her to get better line-ups throughout the fight. Speaking of line-ups, I’m not sure whose were better in the new Season start cinematic, Quinn’s or Valor’s?

Previously on patch notes: T-Hex was slain in 16.2 after nearly a full patch of complete domination using three-star Caitlyns like hextech Mana batteries. T-Hex has been quiet for a full patch now, too quiet. With a small Piltover buff and a few stat buffs, T-Hex should be able to take out frontliners just as fast as before, with a few limitations—first, the cast won’t last as long without 16.1’s three-star Caitlyn Mana Regen, second, the 16.2 damage fall-off nerfs will still make his backline access limited, and third, we’re lowering his ambient Missile damage that can occasionally poke down back-liners as well. So, T-Hex is back, but your backline is not on the menu (inb4 your frontline gets gobbled up).

Ziggs with Attack Speed had far too much damage. We’re lowering the passive magic damage of his attacks to save the big pay-off for his Mega Inferno Bomb!

We’re buffing our worst performing core items and giving Nashor’s Tooth an AP buff to maintain its identity in big BOOM caster builds.

Artifacts are just a tad below where we want them to be, so we’re buffing our struggling ancient gear. As an Ornn enjoyer, all I see are Ornn buffs.

While performing well above the line at high skill, World Runes continues to struggle at low to average skill brackets. We’re at a point where nerfing this Augment would make it so deeply and unfairly a trap option at lower skills that it has become… unbalanceable. We will be bringing back World Runes in a new way in a future patch.

With new Diana/Leona and Aurelion Sol buffs/reworks, we’re adding a new Augment to help you live your Targon dreams. The mountain calls! Will you answer?