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League of Legends patch 3.12 fiddles with skillshots, breaks third party apps

league_of_legends_3.12_patch

As a general rule, LoL players have been pretty much okay to play around with programs that change the look of their game. Zoom hacks and macros, not so much. But a quirk of Riot’s latest update means that running third party apps of any kind means risking a crash.

Elsewhere in 3.12, a tweak to skillshots ensures their targets now have a chance of spotting them before it’s too late. And gosh, so much else. I’m not saying LoL 3.12’s patch notes are long, but Mr Stretch is threatening to sue under trademark law.

“Due to some of the changes made this patch, using 3rd party applications has a higher risk of crashing your game,” write the developers. “If your game is crashing, please try updating or uninstalling any applications you use alongside League of Legends.”

So that seems to be that, unfortunately. On skillshots: apparently missiles fired from brush or fog of war have sometimes failed to register on the receiving player’s screen until landing at their feet, leaving them understandably grumpy. Riot’s fix means missiles can be spotted more quickly, giving speedy players a chance to react.

In aid of prettifying the game, Riot have updated the models and textures of Sight and Vision wards. What’s more, they’ve applied new particle effects to ranged minion attacks, including trails to show the direction they’re travelling in. That should give you a better idea of what the creeps are thinking.

Then there’snew champion Jinx, the Loose Cannon. She won’t be allowed out of her folder in your files until a “later date”, however.

See below for the rest of what’s changed. And let us know your thoughts on the third party apps thing in the comments, won’t you?

CHAMPIONS

Cassiopeia

  • Context: The cost of Cassiopeia’s Petrifying Gaze is too damn high. To remedy this, we’ve reduced its mana cost at all levels to bring it more in line with other ultimate abilities.
  • Petrifying Gaze

Mana cost reduced to 100 (from 120/160/200)

Garen

  • Garen has received a visual upgrade! Check out the full details here.

Katarina

  • Summary: Death Lotus now deals more damage at later levels, and has been kicked up a notch overall with higher AP and AD ratios. We’ve increased the channel time of Death Lotus and removed its cast time delay, meaning Katarina’s overall damage should remain roughly the same (if not higher) even if interrupted. The slightly reduced cooldown on Death Lotus means that at rank three it will take exactly three kills or assists to reset her ultimate.
  • Context: We wanted to re-focus more power and gameplay into Katarina’s Death Lotus by increasing its high-threat damage. Ultimately, we think Katarina is more fun and unique when both she and her opponents are focused on executing or stopping Death Lotus. While the increased channel duration might seem like a nerf if interrupted early (since the ability deals damage over time), we removed the cast time delay to accommodate.
  • Death Lotus

No longer has a cast time delay before channeling (previously had a 0.25 second delay)

Total damage increased to 400/575/750 (+2.5 ability power)(+3.75 bonus attack damage) (from 400/500/600 (+2.0 ability power)(+3.0 bonus attack damage))

Channel time increased to 2.5 seconds (from 2)

Cooldown reduced to 60/52.5/45 seconds (from 60/55/50)

Lucian

  • Summary: Piercing Light’s hitbox width has been reduced slightly, but it now leads its target when cast on an enemy champion. When Lucian kills someone with the first shot of Lightslinger, Lucian will always try to find another target, prioritizing the closest enemy unit to the slain target.
  • Context: Lucian’s Piercing Light can sometimes be sidestepped by its primary target without them even trying to do so. To help the ability land, we’ve added a leading mechanic to Lucian’s Piercing Light. This means that if the target just keeps moving – oblivious to the ability being cast – Lucian is now practically guaranteed to hit. However, the ability will be slightly easier to juke for players who’ve got their eye out for incoming abilities.
  • Finally, a bug in Lucian’s passive meant that Lightslinger’s second shot could sometimes hit a different target! We decided to embrace the bug and properly support it as a feature. Now, if Lucian’s target dies before the second Lightslinger round lands, Lucian will always try to find another target, prioritizing the closest enemy unit to the slain target. There are certain filters in place to prevent disrupting Lucian’s last hitting or accidentally hitting a champion under the tower.

General

  • Updated Lucian’s recommended items
  • Base mana regeneration increased to 7 (from 6)
  • Mana regeneration gained per level increased to 0.7 (from 0.65)
  • Lightslinger

When Lightslinger’s target dies before the second shot hits, the second shot will now always attempt to find another target

  • Piercing Light

Laser hit box width reduced to 100 units (from 120)

Piercing Light now leads its target by 80 units when cast on an enemy champion

Olaf

  • Summary: Olaf’s kit has been significantly overhauled, with changes to each of his skills and new opportunities for counterplay, particularly when the Berserker gets ahead. In terms of major alterations, we’ve given Undertow a minimum throw distance and a reduced slow duration, but increased its slow amount and removed the slow decay to compensate. Vicious Strikes no longer provides attack damage or spell vamp, but instead increases Olaf’s attack speed and grants bonus healing based on Olaf’s missing health . Next up is Reckless Swing. We’ve reduced its base damage and increased the cooldown, but given the ability an attack damage ratio and allowed basic attacks to lower its cooldown. Finally, we’ve added a passive armor and magic resistance bonus to Ragnarok, and made it so that activating the ult converts the defensive bonuses into attack damage. Ragnarok’s crowd control immunity has been retained.
  • Context: Old and Busted Olaf circumvented a lot of healthy interactions within the game when played well. When he got ahead, Old and Busted Olaf had everything at his disposal to take out opponents with no opportunity for counterplay, including a permanent slow (when used correctly), crowd control immunity and significant true damage while building tanky. Our core goal with these changes is to create more gameplay interaction with New Hotness Olaf so that players can react and play smart against him even if he gets ahead. We realize that these changes are fairly drastic so, as ever, we’ll closely monitor how he performs over the coming days and weeks.

General

  • Base mana reduced to 235 (from 270)
  • Undertow

Base damage reduced to 70/115/160/205/250 (from 80/125/170/215/260)

Slow percent increased to 35/40/45/50/55% (from 24/28/32/36/40%)

Slow duration reduced to 1-2 seconds based on distance traveled (from 2.5 seconds flat)

Slow no longer decays

Minimum distance added (400)

Axes now stick in walls and structures only if they would land in impassible terrain

Axes now make jungle monsters ignore unit collision (to better enable Olaf’s axe pickup play in the jungle)

  • Vicious Strikes

Mana cost reduced to 30 (from 40/45/50/55/60)

Now grants 20/35/50/65/80% attack speed

Now provides 1% extra healing for every 2.5% health that Olaf is missing

Attack damage removed

Spellvamp removed

Lifesteal retained

  • Reckless Swing

Cooldown increased to 12/11/10/9/8 seconds (from 9/8/7/6/5)

Damage reduced to 70/115/160/205/250 (from 100/160/220/280/340)

0.4 total attack damage ratio added

Health cost is equal to 40% of total damage dealt (unchanged ratio)

Health cost is now refunded if it kills the target

Basic attacks lower the cooldown of Reckless Swing by 1 second

  • Ragnarok

Cooldown changed to 120/100/80 (from 100)

Mana cost removed

Now provides 10/20/30 armor and magic resist passively

Active reworked: now removes the bonus armor and magic resist passive and grants 40/60/80 bonus attack damage while active

Olaf now turns red when Ragnarok is active

Crowd control immunity retained

Ryze

  • Summary: We’ve improved the responsiveness of Ryze’s basic attacks. Additionally, we’ve increased his base movement speed along with Desperate Power’s movement speed bonus.
  • Context: We like Ryze’s current direction as a mid-range, face-melting mobile caster, and these changes represent further iterations on that same path. Having additional base movement speed and a more responsive basic attack will also help out his laning phase.

General

  • Adjusted recommended items to incorporate Spirit Visage instead of Banshee’s Veil
  • Base movement speed increased to 340 (from 335)
  • Improved basic attack to be more responsive
  • Desperate Power

Movement speed increased to 80 (from 60/70/80)

Shen

  • Summary: Previously, Shen’s Shadow Dash reduced physical damage dealt by his taunted target, whether that damage was from an enemy ability or basic attack. We’ve altered the skill so that Shadow Dash now only reduces basic attack damage dealt by taunted champions.
  • Context: This is a fairly small tweak we brought in to clarify Shadow Dash. Previously, Shadow Dash would reduce only physical damage dealt by the taunted target, so if he taunted a Garen mid-Judgment, Shen would take reduced damage from Mr. Spin-to-win’s trademark ability and his basic attacks. However, if Shen taunted a mid-Defile Karthus, Shen would only take reduced damage from Karthus’ basic attacks. This change simplifies Shadow Dash by greatly reducing damage from just the basic attacks of Shen’s taunted enemies.
  • Shadow Dash

Shen’s damage reduction from taunted enemies now only applies to their basic attacks (previously reduced all physical damage)

Thresh

  • Summary: We’ve extended Death Sentence’s standard cooldown, but added a mechanic that reduces the skill’s overall cooldown amount whenever he lands a hook. Additionally, Thresh no longer gains mounting bonus magic damage in between chained auto attacks – he’ll need to deliberately stop attacking in order for it to start “winding up” again.
  • Context: Thresh’s laning phase can be overbearing when played correctly. We’re making these changes to punish speculative hook attempts while also rewarding precise use of Death Sentence. At early levels, landing a hook will still reduce its cooldown to below its prior cooldown level, while at later levels, landing hooks will reduce its cooldown significantly (especially when combined with cooldown reduction). We changed Flay because its passive “wind up” damage was growing even in between Thresh’s auto attacks. This reduced the importance of his powerful intermittent auto attack harass as he was still getting a small bonus from Flay’s passive even when constantly auto attacking.
  • Death Sentence

Cooldown increased to 20/18/16/14/12 (from 18/16.5/15/13.5/12)

Cooldown now reduced by 3 seconds if Death Sentence strikes an enemy

  • Flay

Passive basic attack “wind up” damage now only grows when Thresh’s basic attack cooldown completes

MINOR CHANGES AND BUG FIXES

Heimerdinger

  • H-28G Evolution Turret

Fixed a bug that caused cooldown values to be extraordinarily high under certain conditions

Karthus

  • Requiem

Warning buff on enemy champions now has a duration that matches the impact delay

Nidalee

  • Takedown

Fixed a bug that sometimes allowed Nidalee to perform Takedown from range.

Teemo

General

  • Noxious Traps are now worth 10 gold (from 0)

Yorick

General

  • Ghouls are now worth 5 gold (from 0)

ITEMS

  • Phage

Combine cost increased to 475 gold (from 375)

Total cost increased to 1350 gold (from 1250)

UNIQUE Passive – Rage: movement speed bonus now halved for ranged champions

  • Trinity Force

Total cost increased to 3728 gold (from 3628)

UNIQUE Passive – Rage: movement speed bonus now halved for ranged champions

  • Spirit of the Elder Lizard

Fixed a bug causing the item to deal less damage than intended

MAPS & GAME MODES

Summoner’s Rift

  • Context: Turns out towers have some pretty complex mechanics! Instead of forcing players to earn cryptography degrees to figure them out, we decided it might be best to add items to towers that explain their nuances.
  • Towers now have an item inventory that can be seen by clicking on them (no changes to how towers actually work). Each item in the inventory explains a specific tower mechanic.

Twisted Treeline and Crystal Scar

The following changes are for Twisted Treeline and Crystal Scar only

  • Moonflair Spellblade

Total cost increased to 2600 gold (from 2300)

Tenacity effect is no longer ranged only

Kayle

  • Context: Kayle naturally builds a lot of cooldown reduction, making her level three Intervention a little too available. Given that Twisted Treeline and Crystal Scar games are more focused on frequent skirmishes, increasing the cooldown on Intervention should force Kayle players to be more conscious of when they use their ultimate.
  • Intervention cooldown increased to 100/90/80 seconds (from 90/75/60)

Twisted Treeline

The following changes are for Twisted Treeline only

Cassiopeia

  • Context: Cassiopeia’s bonus movement speed on Noxious Blast and the high damage of Twin Fang allowed her to effectively kite and dish out damage to opponents with relative safety, particularly on Twisted Treeline. These changes should balance her out a little.
  • Noxious Blast movement speed boost reduced to 16/17/18/19/20% (from 15/17.5/20/22.5/25%)
  • Twin Fang ability power ratio reduced to 45% (from 55%)

Lulu

  • Context: We liked the Crystal Scar changes we made to Lulu’s ult in patch 3.11, and are extending Wild Growth’s cooldown changes to Twisted Treeline, too.
  • Wild Growth cooldown increased to120/110/100 (from 110/95/80 seconds)

Tryndamere

  • Context: Tryndamere went and spun himself right into our cooldown nerf machine! We’ve increased the cooldown on Spinning Slash and Undying Rage to help balance the high mobility and value they bring on TT’s smaller map.
  • Spinning Slash cooldown increased to 15/14/13/12/11 seconds (from 13/12/11/10/9)
  • Undying Rage cooldown increased to 120/110/100 seconds (from 110/100/90)

Wukong

  • Context: We’re extending the Cyclone cooldown and Stoneskin armor/magic resist changes we made to Crystal Scar Wukong in patch 3.11 to Twisted Treeline Wukong.
  • Stoneskin armor and magic resist boost reduced to 2/4/6 (from 4/6/8)
  • Cyclone cooldown increased to 120/110/100 seconds (from 120/105/90)

Co-op vs. AI

  • Zyra

Zyra Bot is now available in the Co-op vs. AI rotation

Basic Tutorial

  • Fixed a target bar bug that was showing incorrect minion health and damage

GAME MENUS

  • When playing in windowed mode, players can now interact with the game even while the options menu is open
  • While playing in windowed mode your mouse cursor will be constrained to the game window regardless if the options menu is open or not
  • Pressing F9 (default hotkey) releases the mouse from the game window so you can interact with your desktop or other applications

LEAGUE SYSTEM

  • Added notification icons in the profile that show players the number of team wins they need to claim season rewards if they’re below the threshold

REVAMPED TRADE SYSTEM

  • Summary: We’ve rebuilt the champion trade system to be more reliable when attempting a trade and more informative when you cannot complete a trade.
  • Simultaneous trade actions will be resolved automatically without breaking your trades
  • Clearer Messaging:

is busy trading. Try again when their trade is complete.

has declined your trade request.

has canceled the trade.

no longer has the champion you wanted. Try trading again.

  • You will no longer be able to request a trade with a player who doesn’t own your champion

Bug Fixes

The following bugs with the trade system have been fixed:

  • Friends list not updating friend’s current champion after a trade
  • Players rerolling during a trade and then giving one player a different champion than they expect
  • Trade icon not appearing after refusal of trade request
  • Client denying a trade request
  • Trade system displaying the wrong champion
  • Simultaneous trade requests causing trades to lock and become unavailable
  • Trade window would not time out for either player, leaving those two players unable to trade with anyone else

IN-GAME OPTIONS MENU

  • Summary: The in-game options menu has been rebuilt to be more responsive and intuitive. Keybinds are now organized in a graphical layout by action – after clicking the square you can hit any key to bind the action to it. We’ve renamed “Smart Cast” to “Quick Cast” for clarity purposes, and you can turn Quick Cast on for each hotkey with a simple toggle. Additionally, a few game-affecting options (volume, HUD scale, chat scale, etc) will preview their changes without having to save your changes, and the time to switch resolutions or to window modes has been drastically reduced. Finally, we’ve added an option to disable camera movement on revive (under the game section).
  • Reorganized the menus for clearer navigation
  • Changes are preserved across pages until you hit OK
  • Restore now defaults to a per-screen basis so you don’t clear all of your settings at once
  • You can now scroll through the menu with your mouse wheel

Hotkeys

  • “Smart Cast” has been renamed “Quick Cast”
  • It is now faster and easier to rebind your primary keys and turn Quick Cast on and off for each of them.

Interface

  • Several options such as Sound Volume, Hud Scale, and Chat Scale will preview their changes without having to save your option changes.
  • An option to disable camera movement on revive has been added to the Game section
  • The “More Options” section has been removed and its contents have been re-organized into other, more appropriate sections

Video

  • A new slider has been added to adjust all video and graphical settings to an overall quality level
  • The time required to switch resolutions or window modes has been drastically reduced.

SKINS

  • Spirit Guard Udyr

Added extra VO lines triggered by interactions with specific champions