[Patch 5.5] Bard General Discussion

Bard

Bard, the Wandering Caretaker, will be released a bit later during Patch 5.5!

Azir

Increased the range at which soldiers can attack and spears 'pass through' to hit things further. Also base attack speed up.

Recent balance changes haven't been kind to Azir, so we're giving the Emperor some love targeted at his early-game feel when it comes to commanding soldiers. While these buffs don't solve all of Azir's problems, strengthening his sustained damage should ensure he isn't totally mummified.

General

Gangplank

Weird bugs, man.

Passive - Grog-Soaked Blade

Gragas

Base mana up, damage cap versus monsters also up.

While not always thought of primarily as a Jungler, with the Buff Barge 2K15 docking at Jungle Island we thought it'd be a great time to pull back some of Graggy's stat restrictions to help drink Gromp and his friends under the table.

General

W - Drunken Rage

Karma

E - Defiance (Mantra)

Karthus

W - Wall of Pain

Kassadin

R cooldown and mana costs are down, range up slightly.

Unlike Riftwalk, we went a little too far last patch. The focus of the changes were to lower the amount of instant mobility Kassadin had access to without changing his long-term movement too dramatically - this patch, we're tuning up his ultimate to put a little spring back into his Riftstep.

General

R - Riftwalk

Lissandra

Q damage down.

In all levels of play, Lissandra can be summed up in one word: consistency. In each lane she sees play, her relative safety (thanks to her amazing waveclear) sets her up as a top-tier threat thanks to Frozen Tomb's unforgiving CC. Not wanting to over-do it, we're hitting Ice Shard as a way to tone down her damage, clear (and by extension, safety) all in one go.

Q - Ice Shard

Nautilus

W damage down, E's cooldown, mana costs, and slow duration are all reduced.

By being the cornerstone to both his offensive AND defensive ability, Titan's Wrath forces Nautilus into a playstyle that is very binary - break the shield and he's harmless, or suffer if you fail to do so. Shifting power into Riptide lets him clear faster and take more actions per teamfight, which are two key areas we thought were weighing him down.

W - Titan's Wrath

E - Riptide

Nidalee

Trap damage now deals flat magic damage rather than a lower base damage + current health damage.

With the introduction of her rework, Bushwhack's current-health paradigm existed to soften up targets for big takedowns and secure vision to play with her new Hunt passive. Now one of the hottest junglers in the scene, it's enabled her to have the fastest clears in the game. For a skill with so many different uses as-is, we're re-balancing the damage so that while still useful with ability power, doesn't trivialize fighting the toughest monsters out there.

W - Bushwhack

Rek'Sai

E - Tunnel

Shyvana

E's damage proc up!

When looking to punch Shyvana's ticket aboard the Buff Barge, we decided a more general boost to her effectiveness would suffice. Often used for her mixed-damage and innate defensive stats, we like Shy most when she actually has to punch the stuffing out of you to win fights - so that's exactly what we're reinforcing here!

E - Flame Breath

Singed

It's called "Mega Adhesive," not "Adequate Adhesive." Fling in peace, summoners.

E - Fling

Sion

Q's mana costs down, ratio slightly up. E's mana costs up at later ranks.

When it comes to Super-Tanks in top lane, we actually like what Sion brings to teams and how he interacts with opponents, with the exception of his laning phase - so we're keeping things "power-netural" for the big zombie. Shifting power from screaming at minions to dropping the chopper on frightened opponents means it requires a little more effort to win the wet-noodle-war than just never running out of mana.

Q - Decimating Smash

E - Roar of the Slayer

Skarner

Q's damage up (hey, it stacks up man), E's damage at later ranks up.

You're not the only one that misses your kind, Skarner. Another beneficiary of our focus on jungles this patch, we're aiming to give more damage back to the scorpion, especially in the later-game where his rank-ups can feel relatively poor.

Q - Crystal Slash

E - Fracture

Sona

For a while we've been normalizing mana costs on ultimates, and Sona's the recipient of the next round. Sona buffs. What a time to be alive.

Passive - Power Chord

R - Crescendo

Soraka

Q - Starcall

Tristana

Rapid Fire's cooldown is reduced by 1 second for each basic attack she lands against an Explosive Charge'd champion.

When it comes right down to it, hyper-carries amongst marksmen usually care about one thing: basic attacking. As her primary source of damage, Tristana often felt awkward about giving up DPS to cast Explosive Shot, only to have them escape before she could make use of its damage potential. Adding the cooldown incentive should make it up to her, as well as giving her things to do when she's forced to shoot the durdling brawlers and tanks that try to scrap deep behind enemy lines.

Q - Rapid Fire

Trundle

Passive range upped to match experience range. W's healing amp is now the same at all ranks, and R's been slightly buffed due to a bugfix.

What's a Tank to a King? While most of these changes are focused on bugfixes and feel improvements, we felt it wouldn't be fair to address such a large number of tanks and tank-enablers without mentioning their natural predator. Focusing on sustain and regen should let Trundle keep pace with his opponents, biding his time before he goes all-out clubbing and takes their hard-earned stats.

Passive - King's Tribute

W - Frozen Domain

R - Subjugate

Urgot

Urgot's shield now also scales with total mana, and R's cooldown has been reduced at later levels.

Urgot's going to need a lot more under-the-hood work before he can hit the big-time, but in the interim we thought he could use some help. A Mana ratio on W makes his beefy/CDR build more rewarding, keeping him active in sustained fights without adding to his snowball potential once the Acid Hunters set their sights on you. Although he has a dark, secret past, even the buff barge couldn't resist giving some love to League's original scuttle-crab.

W - Terror Capacitor

R - Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser

Varus

Cooldown now starts ticking the moment he starts charging.

More of a quality of life change, Varus players should feel encouraged to charge their arrows instead of feeling penalized.

Q - Piercing Arrow

Veigar

E's delay before walls appearing has been reduced slightly. Q is around 14% faster!

One of the larger themes for his 5.4 update was lowering reliability in favor of creating consistent high moments for master Veigar players. It appears we overshot (not a short joke), so we're dialing back to help Veigar feel less like a sitting duck when it comes to intense situations. Throw in some 'Quality of Doom' changes for Event Horizon, and the tiny master of evil should be turning tables and cackling like a super villain all the way to the nexus.

Q - Baleful Strike

E - Event Horizon

Vi

Movement speed down, R damage down at early and mid ranks.

Known for punching first (and asking questions while punching), Vi's never been good about giving her opponents much of a chance to fight back. Being one of the toughest champions to peel (combined with devastating ganks) make fighting her feel stacked - so we're draining some power from these areas to even the odds.

General

R - Assault and Battery

Viktor

E - Death Ray

Volibear

Bite a monster, get half your cooldown back. Winning!

W - Frenzy

Xin Zhao

W's base healing up at early levels, E's damage up at later levels.

As a jungler on the borderline of viability, we're giving X to the Z a bump towards his strengths (sustain and skirmishing) to help him get down to business.

W - Battle Cry

E - Audacious Charge

Zac

Chunks now reduce W's cooldown, even if he casts it slightly after he picks up a chunk. E knocks up for longer.

Smoothing out Unstable Matter's CDR mechanic and doubling E's knockup time so Zac players can feel better about doing what they've always done: throw yourself with reckless abandon into the enemy team.

W - Unstable Matter

E - Elastic Slingshot

Zilean

As with all changes that both increase complexity and skill-ceiling, Zilean saw a pretty dramatic shift last patch. While we want to give more time for players to learn how to use him effectively, this change enables his Q+W+Q combo that folks are used to.

Q - Time Bomb

Luden's Echo

IT'S HAPPENING!!!

Our new 120 ability power item is here to fill the void left by the passing of Deathfire Grasp (rest in pieces). Goals up front: we want to provide a unique item that helps out movement-focused, spell-slinging mages, like kitey Lux, bursty-train Akali, or even spell-slingy (that's a word) Karthus. Try it out and let us know what combinations work with you - we'll be keeping a close eye here as new experiments get brought out. It's also important to note that this works on spell hits, not basic attacks!

Sweeping Lens (Tier 2 Red Trinket)

When the cooldown on the upgraded red trinket was increased, we missed the fact that the middle tier red trinket now had a lower cooldown than the item it upgraded into. We changed the tooltip last patch and we're making the actual change now.

Bami's Cinder

Baby sunfire.

We've mentioned this before, but one of our goals with this 'new' tanky jungle enchant was to provide an item that not only provides valuable tank stats but also helps junglers with their early to mid game clears. We've had to be very careful in balancing champions with this new item (ie: Amumu and Sejuani probably don't need anything in addition to the new Cinder), but we're excited to see what possibilities emerge. Want to play a tank jungler? GET FIRED.

Cinderhulk Enchantment

Juggernaut has been replaced by Cinderhulk.

See above with our point regarding a tanky item that also boosts clear speeds. This is that item all grown up. It's also important to note that +25% bonus health stat. Note it. Appreciate it.

Sunfire Cape

Sunfire now builds out of Bami's Cinder instead of Giant's Belt.

Just a very small directional change to make Sunfire Cape more focused on wave clearing for tanky dudes. There's a little less health on that build path, but you can get to your area-effect burn a little faster.

Raptor Cloak

BUFFS!

Since those two item build paths are so situational, we want you to feel better about just sitting on a Raptor Cloak.

Zz'rot Portal

MORE BUFFS!

Now that we think players have good ways to deal with this (see: ability power damage to structures, etc), we're giving it some extra love. Also, please don't build this item against Nasus. Trust us.

Ohmwrecker

CASUALTY OF THE RAPTOR CLOAK BUFFS.

Righteous Glory

This item is actually very close to a healthy spot. We're just pushing it a little further so getting it earlier in the game improves its synergy with the new Cinderhulk enchantment.

Banner of Command

This item seems to actually be in a pretty healthy state. It's good for breaking delayed out sieges against an Anivia or Ziggs, and it's a strong augment to your own siege with a Baron buff. Only calling this out to note that we're still looking if it needs anything for later patches. In other words, we're just talking. Hello, how are you. We're fine.