Patches are long at times. Sometimes, we just want to know what’s going on. So down below, I’m going to quickly summarize all that was said in the recent 7.1 League of Legends patch in the least amount of words possible.
Champion Updates
Anivia
Anivia’s changes in 6.23 greatly increased the importance of Glacial Storm’s expansion mechanic. Riot is adding a visual cue to signal when the storm is fully formed.
- R flashes when it finishes expanding.
- Fixed a bug with R’s expansion time.
Camille
Let’s face it – Camille is pretty darn strong. Every champion needs room to fail, and for divers, that means being killable when they dive the backline, and lower on team-fight utility when they play it safer. As such;
- Health per level down.
- Passive shield duration down.
- R stun duration decreased.
Draven
Riot wants to restore that go-hard feeling, so we’re giving Draven some extra power where (when?) his victims will feel it most.
- Q now has base damage and scales off bonus, not total, attack damage.
- W mana cost down at higher ranks.
Kalista
The changes here are buffs for any Kalista player, since she’s had a rough pre-season, but are especially meant to ease her learning process by making Rend more straightforward.
- Rend keeps stacking while it’s on cooldown.
- Rend only requires one unit kill for its mana refund.
Karma
In light of her dominant laning strengths, Riot is reverting Karma’s base shield to its previous effectiveness, while keeping her growth throughout the game intact.
- Mantra’d W damage only ticks twice.
- Mantra’d E shield lowered.
Kennen
Riot is weighing his ultimate damage toward its later ticks so that Kennen shines when he manages to keep opponents in the storm, even after the stun wears off.
- Kennen’s ultimate damage now weighted towards the end, not the beginning.
Lee Sin
While Riot is seeking to address his strength and gank uptime (more on that below), Lee Sin has unsurprisingly found himself at the top of the list when it comes to effectiveness.
- Modernization on E.
- Toning down damage on R.
Lucian
Fervor changes and the armor penetration rework have left him feeling pretty underwhelming. Riot is raising Lucian’s power earlier in the game so he can hit his mid-game stride (and actually do something with it).
- Passive damage up at early levels.
- Q damage scaling increased.
Poppy
Tanks should excel when locking up multiple targets in a team-fight, not when smashing laners 1-on-1. Poppy has been doing both recently, and that’s not cool.
- Passive shield duration down.
- Snapcast ultimate damage halved.
Ryze
Ryze has retained his historic late-game potential, but he’s not struggling nearly enough to get there.
- Less shield and movement speed on Q.
Shyvana
Shyvana’s recent ability update has improved the gameplay issues Riot was targeting, though she’s been somewhat overbearing since then.
- W no longer deals extra damage to monsters.
Syndra
As a burst mage, Syndra should always be able to threaten high-priority targets with lethal damage at the requirement of some optimization and set-up to realize her murderous desires. If you’ve played League of Legends recently, you can probably see that’s not exactly the case these days.
- W damage and ratio down.
- Passive W bonus changed.
- R cooldown up at early ranks.
- TWISTED TREELINE EXCLUSIVE: R cooldown reduced to match Summoner’s Rift.
Talon
Now that Talon’s update has given opponents the opportunity to fight back against his kill pattern, it’s safe for Riot to give Talon better fallback opportunities to recover from an unfavorable matchup. Riot is giving League’s free-runner more room to interact safely with minions in situations where he’s relegated to farming under turret.
- Q sustain up.
- Mana regeneration per level up.
Wukong
- TWISTED TREELINES EXCLUSIVE: Passive scaling increased to match Summoner’s Rift.
Elementalist Lux VFX Changes
- Warning indicator on R – Final Spark adjusted to be immediately visible on-cast, rather than brightening over the duration.
- Adjusted W – Prismatic Barrier’s shield visuals on several forms to maintain similar levels of brightness and noise.
- Adjusted E – Lucent Singularity’s missile to better distinguish it from Elementalist Lux’s other effects. It’s now primarily swirling ribbons of light.
Items
Zz’Rot Portal
- Portal cooldown and duration reduced.
- Voidspawn health scaling down and decay rate up.
- Voidspawn structure damage up.
Summoner’s Rift Jungle Changes
Jungle Experience
We made these changes to reduce the tradeoffs of ganking, with the flipside being a reduction in late clear payouts.
- First clear experience reduced.
- Some overall clear experience funneled into Raptors.
Plants
Right now, Riot sees some room to add clarity and consistency by introducing a few quality of life changes that make the effects of plants easier to predict and read.
- Once scouted, plants continue emitting idle VFX through fog of war.
- Scryer’s Bloom: pings on champions now distinguish between player and auto pings on map.
- Scryer’s Bloom: Revealed wards reveal small auto ping.
- Honeyfruit: Pickup radius reduced.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed several cases where abilities that create objects (ex. Jarvan’s E – Demacian Standard) caused their casters to no longer be considered Isolated for the purposes of Kha’Zix’s Passive – Unseen Threat.
- Fixed a bug causing LeBlanc’s W – Distortion cooldown to reset if she cast it, allowed it to go on cooldown without re-casting it, then copied it with R – Mimic.
- Shaco’s W – Jack in the Boxes now re-stealth after being revealed once the revealing effect (ex. Sweeping Lens) expires.
- Fixed a bug causing Bard’s Q – Cosmic Binding stun to last slightly longer than intended.
- The nearby enemy knockback effect of Fizz’s R – Chum the Waters no longer knocks back spell shielded targets while still consuming the spell shield.
- Fixed a bug where, briefly after hitting a target with Darius’s E – Apprehend, Darius automatically tried to attack the target, overriding any commands issued after Apprehend was cast.
- Hecarim’s E – Devastating Charge can no longer critically strike structures.
- Fixed a bug causing enemies revealed by Frost Queen’s Claim ghosts to also reveal stealthed enemy units they walked over.
- Fixed a bug causing Duskblade of Draktharr’s ward detection radius VFX pulses to queue up while dead, then play all at once upon respawning.
- Karma’s base Mantra W – Renewal tether visuals are no longer a funky color.
- Surprise Party Fiddlesticks’s E – Dark Wind on-hit particles now properly appear when Dark Wind kills a unit.
- Program Camille’s R – The Hextech Ultimatum border no longer disappears under elevated terrain.
- The green triangle patterning on the ground during Program Camille’s R – The Hextech Ultimatum no longer fails to appear if the camera moved away during the cast time.
- Mecha Malphite’s chromas now properly put spikes on his fists for the duration of W – Brutal Strikes.
- Added missing effects for PROJECT: Ekko’s W – Parallel Convergence bonus damage versus low-health champions.
- River Spirit Nami’s right tail fin no longer disappears in several of her animations.
- Koi Nami’s chromas now properly use her skin-specific water particles during her walk animation.
- Super Galaxy Shyvana’s Dragon Form E – Flame Breath explosion no longer permanently leaves behind subtle flame effects on the map.
- Fixed a few cases where the snowflake ground decoration on Snow Day Bard’s Q – Cosmic Binding stun appeared in weird places on certain champions.
- Fixed an issue where the tails of Fire form Elementalist Lux’s dress disappeared during some animations.
- Star Guardian Lux’s wand no longer gets briefly stuck at the max range of W – Prismatic Barrier.
- Fixed a bug causing certain buff visuals (ex. Banshee’s Veil) to bounce upward during Mecha Zero Sion’s R – Unstoppable Onslaught animation.
- Realigned Mecha Zero Sion’s jet thruster particles with his model during his homeguard animation.
- Shockblade Zed’s shadow no longer loses its smoky visuals during Zed’s dance animation.
- The flower Ivern creates during his taunt animation (candy for his Candy King skin) no longer vanishes if the camera moves away and back again.
- The face of the poro in Santa Braum’s joke animation no longer mutates during the animation.
New Skins
DreadNova Gangplank
Warring Kingdoms Azir – 1350 RP
Warring Kingdoms Garen – 1350 RP
Warring Kingdoms Vi – 1350 RP
Misc
Snowdown Crafting Material Expiration
As a reminder, Snowdown Crafting materials (Snowdown Sweets and Poro King’s Treasure Chest Fragments) will disappear on Jan. 16 at 23:59 PT. Winter Chests, Snowdown Chests, Legacy Chests, and Poro King’s Treasure Chests will remain usable, but will no longer drop expired materials after that date. Make sure to finish your crafting before then.
Adam Newell is a content creator for @GAMURScom and can be contacted in ways displayed below. If you have any tips or want anything covered, be sure to let us know:
Email: adam.newell10@outlook.com
Twitter: @MonkeyKingHero
Images and info owned by Riot Games
