League of Legends 13.24B – Winter break changes - Arena and SR

Winter break is coming, and Riot has prepared something for all lovers of the holiday tradition of "Playing 24/7 on your break to get Gold".

Apart from Summoner’s Rift changes, which include nerfs to OP picks like Yone. We are getting much-needed balance to the returning game mode, Arena (2v2v2v2).

Although the changes are small, there’s a chance they will only impact the higher elos. The good news is that these will make happy a few mains of seem forgotten champions (Corki getting some love).

Without further ado let's jump into the changes.

Changes Trend – The Mid lane is not a happy place

Last minute nerfs for S+ picks

At least in terms of changes for the Winterbreak, mostly mid lane champions are getting nerfed.

Outliers like Orianna, Yone, Sylas and Syndra are finally being addressed (changes don’t look as harsh).

The good news are the follow-up buffs to Hwei (again), and buffs to weak picks that quite needed that end of the year bump (Naafiri and Corki).

No more Orianna – Mid nerfs Patch 13.24B

Finally...

If you have played mid-lane in the last couple of months, you would already know that the meta has been solely dominated by Orianna at the top.

Not only throughout the World Championship she was the go-to pick, but, in Masters+ she has been the reigning queen.

To change things a little bit for the winter break she’s receiving a couple of nerfs. Hopefully, these are enough for players to enjoy the game before the huge changes coming in January.

• Base Health: 600 ⇒ 585
• W Movement Speed Modifier: 30-50% (based on rank) ⇒ 20-40% (based on rank)

Syndra is another popular pick that is receiving the nerf hammer for this patch. Is a small one, only nerfing her Dark Sphere (Q) AP ratio by 10%, not much in the big scheme but can be noticeable in the highest of elos.

If you noticed, the intention is to nerf elite skewed picks.

Unlike previous picks that dominate high Elo, Sylas has success in all brackets of play.

To slow down his rampage, Sylas is receiving nerfs to his most important ability: Kingslayer (W). Only the healing part and scaling are nerfed.

Quick side note: As always at the end of the article, you can check the complete list of changes.

Lastly, Yone is getting nerfs to his Spirit Cleave's (W) Base Shield. There’s a recent subreddit post that sparked a ton of discussion in regard to Yone.

In the post, they discuss his ridiculous leniency compared to other champions, when being already a “hyper carry”.

Short Mid buffs

Remember him? Me neither but he’s receiving buffs

The terror of pro play, or at least against Azir, is receiving a substantial buff to his base stats. Are these changes move him to a better spot? Probably not, but these are nice in advance to the Item changes, which will probably make him return to the meta.

• Base Health: 105 ⇒ 100
• Passive Package Damage Per Second: 30-100 (based on level) (+200% bonus AD) (+24% AP) ⇒ 30-100 (based on level) (+100% bonus AD) (+16% AP)
• W Cooldown: 20-16 ⇒ 23-19 seconds
• W AP Ratio Per Second: 40% ⇒ 60%
• E Ability Haste: -30 ⇒ 0
• R Damage: 80-150 (+15-75% AD) (+12% AP) ⇒ 70-140 (+10-60% AD) (+20% AP)

The second champion in mid receiving a buff is Naafiri. After being overnerfed, she’s getting some power returned.

Lastly, Neeko is getting a bugfix. The bug caused her to be able to adjust certain unintentional stats using her passive transformation (not okay).

Another dog is getting buffs

Junglewick needs it

Jungle buffs for Warwick. These buffs aim to improve his ganking power to make it much more frightening, and better his time clearing the jungle.

Overall, these changes are going to give him a tiny bit of power but not make him broken whatsoever.

More buffs going his Hwei

Paintings are getting quite strong

It is fair that Hwei's release did not go as expected in terms of Winrate. In the first days, his win rate was so abysmal that just a day after he got a quick set of buffs from Riot.

The quick buffs did move the needle but his performance did not pass the 30 mark threshold. So in one last try before Riot's winter break, he received another set of changes on December 12th.

• Base Health: 550 ⇒ 580
• Base Movement Speed: 325 ⇒ 330
• Base Mana: 445 ⇒ 480
• WW Shield Timing: As soon as the cast finishes ⇒ Instantly
• WW Base Shield Values: 90/110/130/150/170 ⇒ 100/125/150/175/200
• EW Setup Delay: 0.7 seconds ⇒ 0.65 seconds
• EW Fire Delay: 0.35 seconds ⇒ 0.3 seconds
• EW Chase Range: 500 ⇒ 600
• EW Linger Duration: 1.35-3 seconds based on travel distance ⇒ 3 seconds

Source: Official League of Legends Patch Note.

These changes have skyrocketed him to a whopping 42.6% Winrate. There’s still time left for players to master the Visionary as his learning curve should take a while.

Pro players like Chovy are already getting pretty dang good at him. Expect in a mere span of weeks to see a completely different champion once players grasp his potential. Remember K’Sante at the beginning?

These are the last Summoner Rift changes for this winter break. Now let’s move over to Arena ones.

League Arena Balance changes Patch 13.24B

The glorious return

Returns for the winter break

The returned game mode brought an extensive list of QoL and additions to Arena. Not only do these improve the experience, but, they also add new layers of complexity that are great for long-term sustainability.

But as everything is in balance, not all new additions are perfect. There is a lot of tuning down made to ensure that this long holiday feels great for all the League arena lovers.

Quick summary of changes for Arena

• A huge amount of class and individual champion balance changes.
• Hexgates have been added to all four Arenas!
• Death is not the end! After a delay, you can revive your dead teammate by standing on their body!
• We've removed the Naafiri, Samira, Shaco, Virgo, Lux, Evelynn, and Jhin cameos, and we've added Sylas and Thresh cameos!
• 4 new items!
• 60 new Augments!

Moving over the changes.

Mage mains rejoice

The ultimate was too weak for 2v2 matches

According to Riot Phroxzon, the classes seem pretty balanced in terms of average placement. The only exceptions are mages, who are quite weak.

The new Revive mechanic has turned tanks into a strong class. That's why shredding/burning mage items are being buffed to help them fight this class.

Lastly, low-performing mages like Zilean, Karthus, and Neeko are getting substantial buffs. Improvements for their health and damage so they can compete in an even field.

A few outlier nerfs: Gragas, Jhin, Leona, Pyke

The Radiant Dawn was dominating too hard the Arena

Most of them aren’t huge enough to make them BAD by any means, but as I read them they seem to address frustrating gameplay issues.

One example of it is Gragas' Body Slam (E), so the damage and cooldown refund are nerfed.

Arena mechanics tweaking

Stalling comps that play around Ring of Fire are becoming too meta. Riot is addressing a few changes to make it harder and not to be a common occurrence.

Hexgate cooldowns are a thing, too low of a CD can encourage a catch-the-mouse gameplay. Which is completely fine as a strategy, but can become tiresome.

For that reason, the cooldown is being increased a bit. Goodbye to Jhin's running around all the fight.

Curses Augments are doing GREAT, but not for everyone

One thing that is getting disabled in Arena, sadly, it’s the Curses augments.

According to Riot Phroxzon, these are proven to be popular thanks to allowing champs to high-roll strategically. Turning play for late game in an intuitive and satisfying strategy, if you hit the augments.

There are drawbacks though. First, they do well in certain champions (too good even) but have the lowest average placement in others. Second, the mechanics incentivize stalling out won fights to maximize stack when they go long.

Both of these issues end up creating troublesome situations. That either allows strategies such as stalling to be warping or, simply renders useless a list of champions. For that reason, Curses are out (for now).

For more content on the latest League of Legends and TFT updates, check our News section. You can also check the best guides for your champion, or look up your stats to know what to improve or showoff!

List of changes

December 14, 2023 Arena Update

Arena Augment Changes

Due to balance issues, the following augments (Curse augments) have been removed from Arena:

• Desecrator
• Doomsayer
• Deathtouch
• Plaguebearer
• Dark Blessing

Balance Adjustments (Summoner’s Rift) - December 12th

Corki

• Base AD: 55 ⇒ 59
• AD Growth: 2.8 ⇒ 2.5
• Base Health: 588 ⇒ 610
• Health Growth: 105 ⇒ 103

• Base Health: 550 ⇒ 580
• Base Movement Speed: 325 ⇒ 330
• Base Mana: 445 ⇒ 480
• WW Shield Timing: As soon as the cast finishes ⇒ Instantly
• WW Base Shield Values: 90/110/130/150/170 ⇒ 100/125/150/175/200
• EW Setup Delay: 0.7 seconds ⇒ 0.65 seconds
• EW Fire Delay: 0.35 seconds ⇒ 0.3 seconds
• EW Chase Range: 500 ⇒ 600
• EW Linger Duration: 1.35-3 seconds based on travel distance ⇒ 3 seconds

• E Cooldown: 11/10.5/10/9.5/9 seconds ⇒ 10/9.5/9/8.5/8 seconds

• Bugfix: Fixed a bug that caused Neeko to be able to adjust certain unintentional stats using her passive transformation.

• Base Health: 600 ⇒ 585
• W Movement Speed Modifier: 30-50% (based on rank) ⇒ 20-40% (based on rank)

• W Magic Damage: 70/105/140/175/210 (+90% AP) ⇒ 65/100/135/170/205 (+80% AP)
• W Heal: 20/40/60/80/100 (+40% AP) ⇒ 20/40/60/80/100 (+35% AP) (Note: heal is still doubled at ~60% missing health)

• Q Magic Damage: 75/110/145/180/215 (+70% AP) ⇒ 75/110/145/180/215 (+60% AP)
• Bugfix: Fixed a bug that caused Syndra to lose her passive 15% bonus AP buff when revived by a Zilean ultimate or Guardian Angel.

• Q Monster Percent Health Cap: 100/125/150/175/200 ⇒ 150/165/180/195/210
• W Active Cooldown: 120/105/90/75/60 seconds ⇒ 100/85/70/55/40 seconds
• W Bonus Movement Speed: 35/40/45/50/55% ⇒ 35/42.5/50/57.5/65%

• W Base Shield: 60-80 (based on level) ⇒ 40-90 (based on level)

Arena Balance Adjustments - December 12th

• Hexgate Cooldown: 8 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds
• Grievous Wounds from Ring of Fire (per second): 15% ⇒ 20%
• newGood Luck Shielding This: Ring of Fire now reduces shielding in addition to healing.
• Plaguebearer Tick Rate: every 1 second ⇒ every 1.5 seconds
• Bugfix: Fixed a bug that caused Bread and Butter/Jam/Cheese to not grant Ability Haste to abilities whose cooldown scales with Attack Speed.

Arena Balance Adjustments - December 11th

Champions

• Gragas: E Cooldown Refund: 40% ⇒ 25%; E Base Damage: 80/125/170/215/260 >> 80/115/150/185/220
• Jhin: Percent Movement Speed on Critical Strikes: 80% ⇒ 60%. Q Damage: 70-310 (+80-120% AD) ⇒ 65-245 (+70-110% AD)
• Karthus: Added Bonus Maximum Health: 0-200 (levels 1-18). R Damage: 200/350/500 (+75% AP) ⇒ 350/550/750 (+100% AP)
• Leona: Q Cooldown: 5 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds. W Cooldown: 14-10 seconds ⇒ 14-12 seconds
• Neeko: Added Bonus Maximum Health: 0-200 (levels 1-18). Q Base Damage: 80/125/170/215/260 ⇒ 90/140/190/240/290
• Pyke: Your Cut Gold: 600 ⇒ 350; R Damage if Not Executing: 80%
• Zilean: Added Bonus Maximum Health: 0-200 (levels 1-18). Q base damage: 75/115/165/230/300 ⇒ 100/165/230/295/360

Augments and Items

• Steel Your Heart: Stack Multiplier: 4 ⇒ 5
• Stackosaurus Rex: Stack Amplification: 50% ⇒ 75%
• Spin to Win: Spin Haste: 30 ⇒ 40; Spin Damage: 30% ⇒ 40%
• Dashing: Dash Haste: 200 ⇒ 250
• Liandry’s Anguish: Maximum Agony Bonus Damage: 12% (maxed out at 4000 health) ⇒ 15% (maxed out at 4000 health)
• Dark Blessing: Cursed Power to Ability Haste Conversion: 12% ⇒ 14%
• Orbital Laser: Magic Damage per Tick: 30-90 ⇒ 40-120
• Center of the Universe: Base Damage: 10-180 ⇒ 5-160
• Sorcerer’s Shoes: 18 ⇒ 20