Riot is testing bucketloads of LoL Arena changes to try and balance high-skill play

The League of Legends balance team is making a whole bucketload of changes to the League Arena metagame as the ever-popular gladiator playlist enters its final month of play before being temporarily shelved again.

These Arena changes, which were loaded onto the League PBE on Aug. 7 and are expected to go live next Wednesday, are mainly focused on balancing newer items and augments around the mode’s increasing skill level. Several outlier champions like Sivir and Shyvana will also be hit by changes to bring down their power.

“This Arena update primarily focuses on the new Augments and Items along with adjustments for high-skilled play,” Rioter Mike Breese explained today.

That doesn’t mean the whole League patch is going to be chock-full of nerfs (though there are around a dozen planned). There’ll also going to be two item buffs, two augment upgrades, and four champ buffs squeezed into the update.

Several super powerful Arena picks, not least Zed and Pyke, were notably absent from the planned changes⁠—a decision Breese was quick to address. “[Those two] are taking a hit through the Guardian’s Dirk and Lethality Stat Anvil nerfs,” the League dev said when questioned soon after on social media.

Finally, Riot is looking into a wide change for stat adjustments, with on-hit max damage taking a slight bump down when the patch arrives.

All League Arena Patch 14.16 changes

Champions

Nami

• W base heal reduced from 70-230 to 70-190, damage reduced from 75-255 to 65-205.

Ornn

• W cooldown changed from 12-10 to 10 flat.
• E bonus armor and magic resistance ratios increased from 40 to 50 percent.
• R cooldown reduced from 140-100 to 80-40.

Renata Glasc

• Q ability power ratio increased from 80 to 90 percent.
• E cooldown reduced from 14-10 to 12-8, shield ability power ratio increased from 50 to 60 percent.
• R cooldown reduced from 150-110 to 100-80.

Shyvana

• Q attack damage ratio reduced from 20-100 to 20-80 percent attack damage.
• E on-hit damage reduced from 2.5 percent (plus one percent per 100 bonus attack damage) max health to two percent (plus 0.5 percent per 100 bonus attack damage) max health, Dragon Fireball additional ratio reduced from 50 to 30 percent bonus attack damage.

Sivir

• Q attack damage ratio reduced from 90-130 to 80-100 percent attack damage.

Sylas

• W minimum health ability power ratio reduced from 30 to 20 percent, cooldown increased from 12-6 to 13-7.

Taric

• Q base heal increased from 15 to 20.
• Passive bonus armor ratio increased from 10 to 15 percent.
• E cooldown reduced from 22-16 to 19-13.

Udyr

• Q max health damage ratio reduced from three percent per 100 bonus attack damage to four percent per 100 bonus attack damage, awakened max health damage ratio reduced from six percent per 100 bonus attack damage to four percent per 100 bonus attack damage.

Xayah

• Attack speed growth increased from 3.7 to 3.9 percent.
• W Second Strike damage increased from 15 to 20 percent.
• E ratio increased from 50 to 55 percent bonus attack damage. 

Items

Black Hole Gauntlet

• Health increased from 800 to 900.
• Damage per second increased from 20-60 (plus 50 percent armor and magic resistance) to 30-100 (plus 60 percent resists).

Dragon Heart

• Removed base five percent stat increase.
• Elder Dragon now counts as a seventh Dragon Soul.

Guardian’s Dirk

• Lethality reduced from 15 to 13.

Kinkou Jitte

• Lethality ratio increased from 0.1 to 0.15 percent.
• Flat magic penetration ratio increased from 0.1 to 0.15 percent.
• Base percent increased from two to three.

Lightning Rod

• Lightning cooldown increased from 14 to 16.

Reverberation

• Health gain now happens two seconds after combat starts.
• Now only applies bonus on hits when you’re immobilized at 100 stacks.
• No longer gains stacks when hit.
• Stack duration increased from six to eight seconds.

Twin Masks

• Base stat share reduced from 15 to 10 percent.

Augments

Dual Wield

• Bonus attack speed reduced from 250 to 100 percent total attack speed.

Firesale

• Prismatic item sell value reduced from 5,000 to 4,000 plus more shopping time.

Minionmancer

• Minion buff reduced from 45 to 40 percent.

Quest: Urf’s Champion

• Critical strike chance reduced from 35 to 25 percent.
• Attack damage reduced from 100 to 90.
• Ability power reduced from 150 to 125.
• Attack speed reduced from 70 to 60 percent.
• Taking this as your second augment required takedown reduced from 15 to 13.

Stat Anvils

• Lethality shard reduced from 9-18 to 7-14.
• Attack speed shard reduced from 15-30 to 13-26 percent.
• Swift shard attack speed reduced from 11.5-23 to 10.5-21 percent.

Ultimate Roulette

• Dr Mundo reduced from 30-20 to 25-20.
• Non-Dr Mundo cooldowns reduced from 25-15 to 20-15.

System

Arena Stat Adjustments

• On-hit max damage reduced from one to 0.5 percent.

These Arena changes will go live in League on Wednesday, Aug. 14.