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Patch 6.9 Summary

Creator: PsiGuard May 3, 2016 5:12pm
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PsiGuard
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Hello and welcome to the MOBAFire Patch Summary - 6.9!

This patch is a doozy. From champion reworks to new items and major objective changes, it seems like there isn't much in League that wasn't changed in this patch in one way or another! We'll do our best to give you an overview of the changes, but we won't have much room for detail, so please feel free to check out the full patch notes for details on any changes that interest you.

As this is the patch that includes all the changes for the mid-season mage update, including many champion and item reworks, we recommend you check out the Mid-Season Magic post if you haven't already.


Champion Updates

WTF DID THEY DO TO MY CHAMPION?!
quick access for concerned players

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Vladimir
Malzahar
Cassiopeia
Zyra
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Brand
Vel'Koz
Anivia
Annie
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Fiddlesticks
Kennen
Swain
Syndra
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Veigar
Viktor
Xerath
Ziggs
-
~
~
-
Azir
Illaoi
Kindred
Nidalee
*
-
-
+
+
Rengar
Soraka
Taric
Teemo
Zac

! = Rework / Gameplay Update* = Mostly bugfix(es) and/or display changes+ = Buff- = Nerf~ = Mixed


Given the size of this enormous patch, we'll stick to talking about the really major changes to champions (i.e. reworks) and leave you to check out the smaller balance adjustments on your own. Also, be sure to check out the full patch notes or mid-season magic post for more details on these reworks.

Vladimir got a mobility boost on his Q - Transfusion and a brand new version of his E - Tides of Blood. This new ability is a charged AoE attack that hits all enemies around Vladimir, dealing increased damage based on the duration of the charge and slowing enemies hit if fully charged. Along with the additional healing effect on his R - Hemoplague, Vladimir is going to have bigger moments of power when these new effects are introduced in a fight.

Malzahar gained a new passive that protects him from damage and crowd control for 1 second when he is out of combat, as well as a new W ability that allows him to manually summon voidlings and his ultimate now deals %HP damage in an AoE. Riot's intentions with these changes are to allow Malzahar to make riskier plays and reward him for fully committing to fights rather than farming and pushing passively.

Cassiopeia had her passive replaced by a movement speed buff, but she can no longer buy boots, essentially allowing her to build 6 full combat items instead of sacrificing a slot for mobility like other champions. Another notable change is her W - Miasma now creates an arc of poison that employs a new CC type called "Grounded," restricting enemy champions from using mobility spells like Flash.

Zyra's new passive periodically spawns seedlings around her that can be turned into plants. Her new Q - Deadly Spines is a rectanglar nuke perpendicular to Zyra (similar to Call of the Void) rather than a circular AoE. These changes focus her strengths into building up thick areas of seeds that can turn into deadly plants, rather than just putting down one or two during her combo.

Brand received a major addition to his passive - Blaze, allowing it to stack up to three times on champions, detonating for 12-16% of the target's max HP in a huge AoE on the third stack. R - Pyroclasm now prioritizes champions with higher priority on champions with higher stacks of Blaze and briefly slows enemies hit. These changes vastly amplify Brand's strengths as an AoE team fighter, with skyrocketing damage potential if he can build and detonate his passive stacks on groups of enemies, though hitting his individual abilities won't hurt as much as before.

The last of the major mage reworks is Vel'Koz, who received an AP scaling on his passive - Organic Deconstruction and a mana refund on his Q - Plasma Fission based on the number of targets it killed. These changes give Vel'Koz a boost towards a strong late game, but the biggest change is that his R - Life Form Disintegration Ray no longer applies his passive, but can deal full true damage to champions that have been Researched. If Vel'Koz proc the third stack of his passive on an enemy champion, that champion becomes Researched for 7 seconds. While just popping an ultimate at the edge of a fight won't be quite as effective, the damage potential for this ability becomes enormous if Vel'Koz is able to land his initial combo on multiple champions before following up with his ultimate.


Item Changes


There are a ton of item changes in this patch, including buffs, nerfs, reworks and even brand new items! Because of the wealth of changes, here's a couple more handy charts.

WTF DID THEY DO TO MY MAGE ITEMS?!
quick access for concerned players

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Tear of the Goddess
Catalyst of Aeons
Chalice of Harmony
Lost Chapter
~
R
!
!
Fiendish Codex
Will of the Ancients
Rod of Ages
Morellonomicon
!
!
~
!
Athene's Unholy Grail
Tear Upgrades
Abyssal Scepter
Zhonya's Hourglass
!
N
N
!
Hextech Revolver
Hextech GLP-800
Hextech Protobelt-01
Hextech Gunblade

! = Rework+ = Buff- = Nerf~ = MixedR = Item removedN = New item

WTF DID THEY DO TO MY OTHER ITEMS?!
quick access for concerned players

R
R
N
!
Boot Enchantments
Enchantment: Devourer
Enchantment: Bloodrazor
Guinsoo's Rageblade
+
~
~
~
The Black Cleaver
Spectre's Cowl
Banshee's Veil
Spirit Visage
~
~
-
-
Guardian Angel
QSS & Mercurial
Maw & Sterak's
Bami's Cinder
-
+
~
-
Sunfire Cape
Enchantment: Cinderhulk
Vision Ward
Farsight Alternation
~
!
~
-
Righteous Glory
Warmog's Armor
Relic Shield Line
Spellthief's Line

! = Rework+ = Buff- = Nerf~ = MixedR = Item removedN = New item


Notable Changes



Bloodrazor is taking the spot of Enchantment: Devourer as the attack-speed jungle item, offering 40% attack speed and 3% max HP physical damage on-hit. Rather than a stacking passive that scales with jungle farm, Bloodrazor offers all of its stats right out of the gate, allowing its users to join skirmishes and team fights as soon as it's completed.
Rageblade is dropping its old AoE effect in order to pick up the Phantom Hit proc from Sated Devourer. It's also more expensive and slot-efficient, adding a Recurve Bow to its recipe. Upon reaching maximum stacks autoattacking 6 times, every other basic attack will apply on-hit effects twice.
Quicksilver Sash and Mercurial Scimitar received a seemingly innocuous nerf that heavily affects balance in regards to some key champions and abilities. The active ability of these items will now only cleanse crowd control effects, not other debuffs, so spells like Death Mark and Hemoplague cannot be removed.
One of the new Hextech items, building out of a Hextech Revolver and Catalyst of Aeons, Hextech GLP-800 grants 80 AP, 300 HP and 400 mana, as well as the passive from Catalyst which damage taken into mana and mana spent into health. The active ability fires a spray of ice bolts that explode for 100-200 magic damage and slow enemies hit.
The other new Hextech item builds out of Hextech Revolver and a Kindlegem, offering 60 AP, 300 HP and 10% CDR. The active causes the user to dash a short distance, unleashing a nova of fire bolts that deal 75-150 magic damage. Enemies hit by multiple fire bolts take 20% damage from additional bolts.


Jungle Changes


All major camps in this patch were changed somewhat, with red and blue buff timers being given to both teams 60 seconds before they respawn. There are also new minimap icons that will visually display (via a brightening icon) when these camps respawn.

The buffs themselves were also adjusted, with the first red and blue buff lasting for the normal 120 seconds, but subsequent buffs lasting only 90 seconds. Red buff now deals more damage with fast-attacking champions and the health regeneration scales with champion level, but only activates when out of combat. Blue buff provides more mana regeneration (especially to mages with large mana pools) and grants a 15% bonus to the wearer's ability power, rather than a flat increase.

The biggest changes occurred to the epic monsters, which are listed below.

Mountain Drake

Grants 10/20/30% bonus true damage to Epic Monsters and Turrets.

Infernal Drake

Permanently grants 8/16/24% increased Attack Damage and Ability Power.

Cloud Drake

Permanently grants 15/30/45 bonus movement speed while out of combat.

Ocean Drake

Restores 10% of your missing health and mana every 18/12/6 seconds.

DRAGON TYRANT

After 35 minutes, Elemental Dragons will no longer spawn. In their place, the Elder Dragon will spawn every 10 minutes.

CRUEL ULTIMATUM

For the next 120 seconds, basic attacks and spells burn the target for 45 (+45 per stack of Elemental Drake buff) damage over 3 seconds.

ELDER MASTERY

For the next 120 seconds, increases the strength of Elemental Dragon buffs by 50%.

RIFT HERALD SPAWN TIME - 4:00 ⇒ 6:00

RESPAWN - Removed

BASE HEALTH - 5000 ⇒ 8000

BASE ARMOR - 40 ⇒ 60

BASE MAGIC RESISTANCE - 20 ⇒ 50

BASE ATTACK DAMAGE - 95 ⇒ 105

BACKSTAB DAMAGE - 15% maximum health ⇒ 12% maximum health

NAME - Doom’s Eve ⇒ Glimpse of the Void

DURATION - 2:00 ⇒ 20:00

CORRUPTED BLOOD - Glimpse of the Void is not lost on death or obtaining Hand of Baron.

CORRUPTION - While no allied champions are near you, you gain 5% damage reduction against champions and continuously build charges of Corruption. At 100 charges, your next basic attack discharges all stacks of Corruption, dealing 15-270 magic damage (at levels 1-18, damage halved for ranged champions).


Pacing and Turret Changes


There's a lot of math in this section of the patch notes, so we'll keep this to an overall summary.

Overall, turrets are more durable, but mages and assassins are better able to damage turrets due to the addition of penetrable resistances. Outer and inner turrets are also more threatening, especially in long dives, and switching turret aggro will not reset the increasing damage of subsequent tower shots.

As for rewards, turrets give less global gold when they're destroyed, offering a total of 800 team gold which is more localized for outer turret kills and more globalized as you get closer to the base.

Jungle experience has also been shifted towards junglers (carriers of Smite and jungle items like Hunter's Machete and away from laners. Overall, junglers will gain more experience from camps while laners will gain less. Non-epic jungle monsters also grant experience only to their killer now, so your allies won't accidentally leech junglers' experience by being too close to the dying monsters (unless they actually kill the monster).

Finally, death timers and Homeguard speed and duration have been adjusted. Death timers in the 20-35 minute range have been reduced and Homeguard duration went from 8s to 7s while the haste strength dropped from 175% to 75-150% (at 20 and 40 minutes respectively).


Upcoming Skins


The following skins will be released during patch 6.9.



Share Your Thoughts!

That's it on our end, time to hear from you guys! What are your thoughts on the item changes? Which of the mage reworks are you excited to try out? How will you adapt your play around the new jungle bosses?

Let us know in the comments below!
Thanks to Minho for the sig!
FalseoGod
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God bless that Swain AA missile speed increase T_T Also, with Torment now giving 20% increased damage off the bat and having reduced base damage, I'm not sure what he'll want to max first anymore. He might actually go for Decrepify -> Nevermove -> Torment, since torment + decrepify reads like pretty efficient harass without requiring a lot of exposure. Exceptions would be high mobility matchups.

Way too many changes, hard to acess impact. There are some aspects I'm a bit uncertain off, as most of the majorly changed champs seemed to have base damages and ratios toned down. Not sure I'll like new Malzahar, and it saddens me that Vel'Koz has been reduced to a wiggly ult.
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New Malzahar seems a bit too strong, but it might also be me and my personal hatred for this cancer champion. Other than that, the changes seem quite nice. Not sure what the idea behind nerfing some MR items was, but w/e. Also, Herald buff was okay IMO, now it is simply humongous: if top is winning lane, this pretty much ensures the enemy won't have a chance at fighting back... will have to play more to see, however.
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teemo buffs boyz PogChamp

all hail our lord and savior

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FalseoGod wrote:
with Torment now giving 20% increased damage off the bat and having reduced base damage, I'm not sure what he'll want to max first anymore. He might actually go for Decrepify -> Nevermove -> Torment, since torment + decrepify reads like pretty efficient harass without requiring a lot of exposure. Exceptions would be high mobility matchups.

Maxing E last will also give him a lot more waveclear than before, which could change his laning phase a lot. Sounds pretty nice for both sides -- Swain gets more waveclear and AoE, his opponent doesn't take a million damage from a targeted spell every few seconds.

FalseoGod wrote:
it saddens me that Vel'Koz has been reduced to a wiggly ult.

His passive should deal more damage after you get 90 AP. He lost some base damage on his W and E, but his ult and passive buffs more than make up for that imo. You'll be rewarded a lot more for hitting comboes and less for landing one random tick of W damage.

Re4XN wrote:
Not sure what the idea behind nerfing some MR items was, but w/e.

Banshee's Veil builds out of a Negatron Cloak and is quite a bit cheaper, so that makes it more accessible to carries that need a spell shield to protect themselves.

The Spirit Visage changes are arguably a nerf, though it might be a buff for a few tanky champions with strong healing spells, or maybe if you have a Soraka on your team.
Thanks to The_Nameless_Bard for the sig!
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Wow I'm ******ed, I played Swain twice and it didn't occur to me not to max E, I was debating what should be maxed second if anything.

Just waiting for someone to update his spells on the MOBAFire database so I can properly compare them. :^)
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FalseoGod wrote:
God bless that Swain AA missile speed increase T_T Also, with Torment now giving 20% increased damage off the bat and having reduced base damage, I'm not sure what he'll want to max first anymore. He might actually go for Decrepify -> Nevermove -> Torment, since torment + decrepify reads like pretty efficient harass without requiring a lot of exposure. Exceptions would be high mobility matchups.


AA missile speed increase. Thank you Rito!

Scaling mana gain on Carrion Renewal.

Being able to place Decrepify.

Lower mana cost on Nevermove.

Mohr Ravens out of Ravenous Flock.

Digging the changes to Swain. The Master Tactician now has some options, beyond hoping he is in a decent match-up that he can get ahead in so he is big going into mid game.

Also the 750rp skins look beast.

Iron Inquisitor Kayle
Cursed Revenant Nocturne
Black Scourge Singed

Nice to see some really good looking skins at that price point.
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It should also change his matchups a lot. If you're not maxing a targetted spell (since it'll deal less damage now) that means highly mobile champs could have an edge if you misuse your initial Q cast, whereas he can bully immobile champs with more safety.

I'm not sure maxing Nevermove first is the same option, and Nevermove was already the 9/10 times 2nd maxed ability, so Decrepify by itself shouldn't give him more waveclear. AA missile speed up and Ravenous flock hitting up to 5 targets should help a lot though.

--

I'm shocked with some things I've been hearing about league state, even if not surprised: once again a major item overhaul while only looking at X champs and ignoring it's interactions with the others. Things like Orianna E healing tanks while giving a shield and mres + armor, ap assassins getting free CDR without needing to commit to a less damage-oriented path. I also think the lower ap + cost on key items like Zhonya's or Abyssal benefit mostly assassins, since they already have great base damage and get a lot from the utility.
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I always thought nevermore was the last maxed ability pre rework. But yeah the fact torment doesnt have the scaling on the damage buff makes it a nice one point wonder spell.

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I always thought nevermore was the last maxed ability pre rework. But yeah the fact torment doesnt have the scaling on the damage buff makes it a nice one point wonder spell.


It's complicated. Decrepify was by far the best bullying option versus melees after Torment, but since they nerfed Nevermove's snare duration to scale with levels it became much harder for Swain to fight ranged mages: even if you caught them, the window of opportunity to do more was shortened. It also offered much needed waveclear.

Now I'm not sure, I tried Decrepify max but it felt slightly lacklustre, and Torment did get an AP scalling buff, sitting now at 1.0. Once you finish the hextech thingy (+80 AP) + Doran's + your own ap, it should deal a solid ~300 damage at max level before you get other items. I think what they're trying to do is give Swain more engage potential/cs'ing with Q and W versus ranged matchups and tone down his tendency to bully melee matchups. An example would be Yasuo: he's much harder for Swain to deal with now since he can just E away from your Q and block your Torment, whereas in the past Decrepify was a powerful tool, specially paired with AAs, to try and force him to cast W.

For now my thoughts lie on Q max vs immobile matchups because it gives you self-peel, farm, harass and poke and E max vs mobile ones since otherwise they can play around your Q with relative ease, out trading you hard.
Thank you Tsuki for the sig!

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