As League of Legends’ growth shows no sign of slowing, Riot increasingly find themselves in Games Workshop’s boltgun metal shoes – freshening up each of their champions in turn in a continuous cycle of aesthetic and design updates. In patch 3.6, it’s the turn of Trundle of Sejuani – as well as the Proving Grounds, now relocated up north and infused with lore in its new guise, The Howling Abyss.
The new Howling Abyss map for All Random All Mid is set in the Freljord, and “kind of takes you in there to experience it for yourself”.
“With Howling Abyss, we wanted to be able to give our single-lane map, the Proving Grounds, a sense of place and story,” said Riot designer Brackhar. “So now we’ve rebooted the whole thing using all the techniques and technology that we developed with Twisted Treeline, and we’ve set it deep inside of Freljord, where an ancient battle took place far in the past.”
The developers promise “cool lore hooks” waiting to be uncovered within the map. If you want to find them, you’ll need to a) play on the thing, and b) interact with its two new voiced shopkeepers.
Riot have also taken the opportunity to introduce matchmaking support for ARAM, which they’ve noticed is “the main way [players] engaged with Proving Grounds”. What’s more, automatic ‘Leaverbusters’ support should make players think twice before dodging bad matchups – they’ll no longer be able to jump immediately back into the queue. However, players who roll a champion they really don’t want for an ARAM match will now be able to spend points accumulated during games to re-roll another.
Both Sejuani and Trundle have been dressed up with new models, updates to their stories and revised kits. Most pertinently, a reworking of Sejuani’s skills will allow players to go head-on with the largest and most tanky of initiators.
“With a powerful armor-generating passive, a potent knock-up, AoE damage and slow to go along with a tweaked version of Glacial Prison, the Winter’s Wrath is now even more angry,” promise Riot.
Troll King Trundle’s tweaks have been less fundamental: “Trundle was already pretty solid heading into the remake, so we didn’t want to change his core gameplay too much,” said his developers. That said, his ultimate now takes a percentage of his target’s magic resist, armour and health as his own, and standing in Frozen Kingdom will mean players gain increased healing from all sources.
See the full patch notes below for the rest of the changes, which see Nasus nerfed and Quinn made “more elusive”.
Lissandra
Lissandra the Ice Witch is in the 3.6 build and will be released at a later date.
Sejuani
Sejuani has been relaunched with a new model, updates to her story and a revised kit.
Frost Armor (Passive)
- Damaging an enemy with an ability or basic attack grants Sejuani bonus armor and reduces movement-slowing effects on her for a short duration
Arctic Assault (Q)
- Sejuani charges forward, knocking enemies into the air and dealing magic damage to them based on their maximum health. The charge stops after knocking an enemy champion into the air
Flail of the Northern Winds (W)
- Sejuani’s next basic attack deals bonus magic damage to her target and all nearby enemies. She then spins her flail, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies for a few seconds
Permafrost (E)
- Passive: Sejuani’s abilities and basic attacks apply Frost to enemies
- Active: Sejuani damages and slows all nearby enemies afflicted with Frost
Glacial Prison (Ultimate)
- Sejuani throws a frost-forged bola in a line. If the bola hits an enemy champion, it shatters, stunning the target and all nearby enemies. If the bola reaches its maximum range without striking an enemy champion, it shatters and slows nearby enemies
Trundle
Trundle has been relaunched with a new model, updates to his story, and changes to his kit.
King’s Tribute (previously Decompose)
- No gameplay changes
Chomp (previously Rabid Bite)
- Damage adjusted to 20/40/60/80/100 (+1.0/1.05/1.1/1.15/1.2 attack damage) from 30/45/60/75/90 (+0.8/0.9/1/1.1/1.2 attack damage)
- Now slows target by 75% for 0.1 seconds on hit
- Animation speed scales with Trundle’s attack speed
Frozen Kingdom (previously Contaminate)
- Attack speed bonus increased to 20/35/50/65/80% from 20/30/40/50/60%
- Now grants 8/11/14/17/20% increased healing to Trundle
- No longer grants tenacity
Pillar of Ice (previously Pillar of Filth)
- Now interrupts channels
- Duration reduced to 6 seconds from 6.5
Subjugate (previously Agony)
- Now deals 20/22/24 (+2 per 100 AP)% max health damage instead of 200/350/500
- Armor and magic resist drain adjusted to 20% from 15/20/25%
- Second drain effect now applies over 4 seconds and keeps the stats for another 4 seconds afterwards instead of draining over 6 seconds
Brand
Pyroclasm
- Now properly bounces to other targets after hitting an enemy affected by Blaze
Corki
Missile Barrage
- Fixed a bug where using Missile Barrage restarted the cooldown for gaining another missile
Dr. Mundo
Infected Cleaver
- Can be cast at any health value, but will not reduce health below 1
Masochism
- Can be cast at any health value, but will not reduce health below 1
Draven
In Patch 3.5, we changed Draven’s Spinning Axe to lead Draven more accurately when he was benefitting from movement speed increases. Unfortunately, these changes were very disruptive for dedicated Draven players and didn’t offer enough potential for skilled players to showcase their skill through covering long distances between throwing and catching. We decided to revert the change.
Spinning Axe
- Reverted a recent change affecting how Draven was led by Spinning Axe, restoring prior functionality
- Axe drop location will no longer be placed on the far side of impassable terrain from Draven
Ezreal
Pulsefire Ezreal
- Fixed a bug where Pulsefire Ezreal would occasionally not see gold popups for some of his last hits on targets in plain view
- Fixed a bug where Pulsefire Ezreal would play his death animation a second time if Trueshot Barrage was leveled up while dead
Fiddlesticks
Drain Life
- Fixed a bug where Fiddlesticks would not immediately attack his target after successfully channeling Drain Life
Karma
With our previous patch changes, we increased Karma’s overall usability and Mantra generation. These changes are more focused on smoothing out Karma’s early game presence by giving a damage increase to Inner Flame’s lower levels and buffing Inspire to make it far more effective at level one.
Additionally, by lowering the cooldowns of three of Karma’s abilities – including her Mantra – Karma will synergize better with Gathering Fire, allowing her to scale into late game.
Inner Flame
- Damage increased to 80/125/170/215/260 from 60/110/160/210/260
Focused Resolve
- Cooldown reduced to 16/15/14/13/12 seconds from 16/15.5/15/14.5/14
Inspire
- Cooldown reduced to 10 seconds from 12
- Movement speed bonus increased to 40/45/50/55/60% from 20/30/40/50/60%
Mantra
- Cooldown reduced to 45/42/39/36 seconds from 45
Lulu
Mana per level increased to 55 from 50
Glitterlance
- Mana cost increased to 60/65/70/75/80 from 40/50/60/70/80
Malzahar
Call of the Void
- Mana cost reduced to 80/85/90/95/100 from 80/90/100/110/120
Null Zone
- Mana cost reduced to 90/95/100/105/110 from 90/100/110/120/130
Nasus
With a 95% movement speed and attack speed reduction at max levels, Wither was completely shutting down champions reliant on auto-attacks with no opportunity for counterplay. By reducing the attack speed slow, Nasus is still effective at suppressing champions, but his victims will now have the option to turn and fight.
Wither
- Attack speed slow amount has been halved
Nunu
Consume
- No longer expends Visionary if the target dies before Consume resolves
Olaf
Reckless Swing
- Can be cast at any health value, but will not reduce health below 1
Quinn
We wanted to highlight Quinn’s great strengths as an unconventional AD carry with high cross-map mobility. As such, Quinn can now use Tag Team more reliably in and out of fights, and the additional movement speed on Heightened Senses should allow her to remain more elusive in skirmishes.
For the other two changes, we gave Blinding Assault an ability power ratio so that players can gain some additional power when building items like Trinity Force or when receiving the Baron Nashor buff. For Vault, we added a mini stun on Quinn’s target as she dashes toward them, making it more reliable as an escape.
Blinding Assault
- Now has a 0.5 ability power ratio
Heightened Senses
- Passive as Quinn now grants 20/30/40/50/60 movement speed in addition to the attack speed bonus
Vault
- Now briefly interrupts the target
Tag Team
- Maximum movement speed bonus increased to 80/90/100% from 80% at all ranks
- Base movement speed bonus increased to 20/30/40% from 20% at all ranks
- Cooldown reduced to 140/110/80 seconds from 140/120/100
- Skystrike can now be cast 1 second after activating Tag Team, down from 2.5
Rumble
Flamespitter
- No longer prevents Rumble from automatically acquiring basic attack targets
Shen
Ki Strike
- Fixed a bug that caused Ki Strike to be consumed when attacking wards
Sivir
Fleet of Foot
- Now also grants its effect when Boomerang Blade and Ricochet hit enemy champions
Thresh
Death Sentence and its passive were providing too many benefits at early levels with their high poke, burst damage, and lowered cooldowns. By moving the passive damage bonus from Death Sentence to Flay, Thresh players will now need to think strategically about how they level their skills.
Death Sentence
- Damage increased to 80/120/160/200/240 from 80/110/140/170/200
- Passive moved to Flay
Flay
- Damage reduced to 65/95/125/155/185 from 65/105/145/185/225
- Now has Death Sentence’s previous passive (bonus damage on basic attacks)
- Fixed a bug that caused the passive’s damage to be consumed when attacking wards
- Fixed a bug where Flay sometimes dealt more damage than intended
Udyr
With these changes, we wanted to accomplish a few separate things. First, we wanted to tone down Udyr’s overpowering early game Tiger Stance damage, but we also wanted to let him scale better into late game. These changes were implemented by scaling the attack damage ratios on Tiger Stance’s active damage.
Second, by changing the active damage of Tiger Stance from magical to physical, it should be more intuitive to itemize against Udyr. Additionally, it will also be easier for Udyr to itemize properly, as he will gain further benefits from attack damage focused items like Black Cleaver or Last Whisper.
Tiger Stance
- Active damage changed to physical instead of magic
- Active damage changed to 30/80/130/180/230 (+1.2/1.3/1.4/1.5/1.6 attack damage) from 30/80/130/180/230 (+1.5 total attack damage)
- Active attack speed increased to 30/40/50/60/70% from 15/20/25/30/35%
- No longer grants attack speed as a persistent effect
- New persistent effect: Basic attacks deal 15% of his total attack damage as bonus physical damage on hit
Bear Stance
- Udyr now only dashes when stunning champions
Vayne
Condemn
- Range now accurately matches her attack range
Vi
Vault Breaker
- Fixed a bug that caused Vault Breaker to become uncastable after activation
Excessive Force
- Can no longer be cast while charging Vault Breaker
Zac
Increased transparency when in brush
Zed
Previously, Zed could safely farm large minion waves with Shadow Slash by consistently resetting the cooldown of Living Shadow. These changes were intended to promote aggressive play with Zed while also creating a window for players to engage on him in lane.
Living Shadow
- Cooldown reduced to 18/17/16/15/14 seconds from 22/20.5/19/17.5/16
Shadow Slash
- Hitting minions and monsters no longer reduces Living Shadow’s cooldown
- Hitting enemy champions reduces Living Shadow’s cooldown by 2 seconds, up from 1
Items
Elixir of Fortitude is meant to be an “all-in” burst of power for players looking to take control of a situation. With its low cost, however, players were simply defaulting to it as a general starting item with no significant repercussion. Increasing the gold cost of Elixir of Fortitude aligns it better with the risky strategy it was intended for.
Elixir of Fortitude
- Cost increased to 350 gold from 250
Alongside our Elixir of Fortitude change, we wanted to tackle ultra-high sustain starts where players were beginning the game with as many health potions as possible in order to safely sustain in lane for long periods of time. However, these high sustain starts also destroy any incentive players have to interact. Manaless champions in particular benefitted from these starts, resulting in some mana-based opponents being unable to burn through the high levels of sustained HP. We will monitor starting item builds and champions that relied heavily on high potion starts, but wanted to focus on addressing passive high-sustain builds first.
Health Potion
- Limited to 5 Health Potions at a time
Mana Potion
- Limited to 5 Mana Potions at a time
- Ionian Boots of Lucidity
- Upgrade cost reduced to 650 gold from 700 (total cost is now 1000 from 1050)
Tiamat
- Combine cost reduced to 265 from 665 (total cost is now 1900 from 2300)
- Attack damage reduced to 40 from 50
Ravenous Hydra
- Combine cost increased to 600 from 200 (total cost unchanged)
The Howling Abyss
The Howling Abyss has replaced The Proving Grounds in custom games and the basic tutorial
A 5v5 All-Random queue has been enabled for matches played on the Howling Abyss
Restricted to players of level 5 or above
Players may reroll for a different champion in Champion Select for 200 reroll points
- All players have been credited with 200 reroll points
- Additional reroll points are gained by completing matchmade Howling Abyss games
- Reroll point gains increase based on the number of champions the player owns
- Reroll point count can be checked in the player profile.
Game Interface
Smart Ping
- Updated the ping icons to better match other game visuals
Item shop
- Can now be resized by dragging from the bottom right-hand corner
- Default size now determined by screen resolution
Leagues
Fixed an issue where the end of game screen would incorrectly show “League info processing” instead of updating immediately
Champion headers designed for each specific league have been added to the Leagues tab in player profiles
LP ‘clamping’ has been smoothed. Players will experience more predictable LP gains and losses as they approach 100 LP
Dodging a match in a promotional series now counts as 1 loss. This will still end your series if you were one loss away from losing it
General
Baron Nashor/Dragon
- Now immune to effects that would reduce their damage
Baron Nashor, Dragon, and Vilemaw kill messages are now bolded in chat
Twisted Treeline altar capture messages are now bolded in chat
Items with charges now display the charge counter in the inventory rather than displaying as a buff
Players will no longer see reconnect messages from the enemy team
Trundle has replaced Master Yi in the basic tutorial
Spell shields now only block one spell even if multiple spells hit the target in rapid succession
Blind Random has been added as a pick type in custom games. This mode works the same as All Random, but the enemy team’s champions will not be displayed in champion select
Players with video cards that use software vertex shaders (primarily integrated cards like those in laptops) should see a 10-40% FPS performance improvement across all maps