Hey Summoners,
A small patch means a small foreword! As 4.14 is potentially the patch we’ll be playing the World Championship on, we’re deliberately playing safe in terms of disruptive changes. While there aren’t a lot of things here, 4.14 does mark the release of Gnar, the Missing Link, much to the adoration of Yordle fans around the world. Remember to check out Gnar’s champion reveal page for more information, but we’re hoping to see true Gnar masters who can deftly adjust their playstyle according to his uncontrollable transformations. Nothing’s sweeter than hopping up in mini Gnar form and then landing in the middle of a team fight as a tanky mega Gnar. Go try him out!
Anyway, that’s all for now, so read on for the rest of our changes and context! See you next time!
 Chris “Pwyff” Tom
Champions
Gragas
Gragas has new recommended items (HELLO LICH BANE) and his E always carries him the maximum distance.
When you got a belly that big, momentum’s working against you, man.
General
E – Body Slam
Kassadin
Riftwalk now has a longer period of time before it resets its damage / mana cost stacks.
Although we want Kassadin’s iconic strength be his super mobility, we also want him to be thinking hard about when and how often he jumps around.
R – Riftwalk
Kayle
General
Kog’Maw
Koggy moves slower and R chunks champions for less.
Despite our changes in 4.13, Kog’Maw still has few weaknesses for his ultra-powerful late game identity. Since our goal is to to preserve a champion’s strategic strengths even as we reduce power, we started with Kog’s core weaknesses (low mobility) before tackling his early game strengths.
General
E – Void Ooze
R – Living Artillery
Lulu
W – Whimsy
Maokai
W’s damage has been reduced and R has a max duration of 10 seconds per cast.
Maokai’s a pretty cool dude and we’re always happy to see a magical tree beating up dragons and yordles, but having a 100% uptime on Vengeful Maelstrom doesn’t offer many windows of opportunity (otherwise known as counterplay!), and we may have overshot slightly on his base power.
W – Twisted Advance
R – Vengeful Maelstrom
Morgana
Black Shield has a lower base and R doesn’t nuke as hard.
Regardless of how she’s played (as a mage or a support), Morgana brings a lot of utility and damage to the table, so we’re looking to reduce some of her overall effectiveness. While we don’t usually talk about specific changes in the context, reducing the base value on Black Shield means support Morgana will have to choose between the defense it provides and the offensive power she gets from leveling Dark Binding, while mage Morgana will be less affected with her AP ratios compensating at rank 1.
E – Black Shield
R – Soul Shackles
Orianna
Although we really like Orianna’s complexity and high skill potential, she’s often seen as a very reliable – and safe – choice for any team who needs a well-rounded mage. These changes are to give Ori’s lane opponents a little more breathing room (especially melee) against her as she winds up for the mid to late game.
General
Rengar
R’s cooldown is longer and the warning indicator’s range is increased. Also Rengar’s prey will always have a warning indicator if he’s within range, even if he’s hiding behind a wall. Obtaining the giga-rare ‘Head of Kha’Zix’ gives Rengar more vision while stalking in brush.
While Rengar’s Thrill of the Hunt is usually quite fun for him, we’ve seen he can be a little frustrating to play against – particularly in the early game when he’s roaming everywhere, and in the late game when his prey is usually dead as they see the warning indicator. The short-form of this context would be that we want Rengar’s ganking power to… Slow Down!
General
Head of Kha’Zix
R – Thrill of the Hunt
Syndra
R no longer deals damage to untargetable champions, causing fewer opponents to rage.
Now you should be able to fully dodge a Syndra ult if you time your abilities right.
R – Unleashed Power
Thresh
Thanks to one particularly intrepid player, we’ve fixed a longstanding bug with Thresh’s Flay.
E – Flay
Xerath
R’s delay between shots doesn’t scale with cooldown reduction.
We always intended for Xerath’s ultimate to be very dodgeable in a one-on-one situation, as he should be relying on his teammates for help. While we could technically position this as a bugfix, this is a definite power reduction for Xerath, so we’re calling it a nerf fix (as opposed to a buff fix).
R – Rite of the Arcane
Zed
Death Mark now places Zed behind his prey and allows him to ignore unit collision while active, finally making him a real-er ninja.
Zed lost a lot in 4.10 with our marksman itemization changes, but he’s still performing consistently at the highest levels of play. That said, we saw we could give him some small usability buffs to help him stick to his Death Marked targets better.
R – Death Mark
Twisted Treeline, Crystal Scar & Howling Abyss
Sanguine Blade
We’re making Sanguine Blade a little more player friendly by extending that passive duration. The small shift from lifesteal to AD is just to make Sanguine Blade more promising as a high-AD item, but we didn’t want that lifesteal to get out of hand.
Post Game Lobby
We forgot to mention in 4.13 that we’ve updated the buttons in the post game lobby. The new buttons have a modernized look and feel and should help reduce misclicks. We also did a bit of cleanup this patch based on initial feedback.
Player Behavior
Suggested Players
We’re introducing Suggested Players to help fill out premade lobbies. The initial list includes players from your recent victories as well as any premades you queued together with in your last match, but over time will be expanded to include groups like honorable players, potential friends and friends of friends.
- Hosts and Captains of all matchmaking queues will now see a list of “Suggested Players” they can invite to fill out premade groups. The list includes:
- Premades you queued together with in your last match
- Team members from matches you’ve recently won
Chat Restrictions
Although 75% of players improve their behavior after just 1 set of chat restrictions, in some cases the system was handing out fewer initial restrictions than it should have, resulting in back-to-back waves of restrictions. We’ve tuned the system to be more accurate with the first wave – for example, one set of 30 instead of three sets of 10.
- The Chat Restriction system is now more accurate with its first set of restrictions, reducing instances of back-to-back restriction waves
Custom Lobby Spectating
We’ve upped the number of spectators that can join a custom lobby. This should be especially useful for local tournament scenes!
Patcher Speeds
Patching and installing have been sped up a bit. These changes are separate from the upcoming Patcher & Landing Page Refresh, which will inherit these improvements when released a bit further down the road.
Audio Engine
Now that the new engine is up and running, we’re removing old files that aren’t needed any more. This’ll clear out over half of the audio files currently stored on your computer (the new engine is slimmer than the old one!) and reduce the number of files we need to update in future patches.
Bugfixes
- Fixed a bug where the game clock would occasionally become desynchronized, causing buffs to appear to spawn too early
- Pink wards are pink again!
- Relic Shield and its upgrades no longer execute Heimerdinger’s turrets (in line with the 4.12 change which removed the execute from Yorick’s ghouls and Zyra’s plants)
- Quinn’s E – Vault no longer causes weird text to appear
- Targeting an ally with Zilean’s Q – Time Bomb no longer pops their spellshield effects
Upcoming Skins
The following skins will be released at various times during Patch 4.14:
