World’s Patch is already out of the way, and with that now Riot’s Balance Team is free to make way more impactful changes to the game. And Oh Boy how they overdelivered in Patch 13.20.
Between the Anti-Snowball adjustments, changes to Runes/Items/Drakes, huge buffs to a few skewed pro picks (Jinx/Milio), the long-awaited Jax ASU (Art & Sustainability Update) and the K’Sante Rework, there is a lot to uncover.
Because this will be one of the biggest patches so far in this season, we have divided this article into different sections.
If you want to know which champions got buffed/nerfs and don’t care about Conqueror being gutted, you can easily skip through that.
Sections
Jax got an entire rehaul in Patch 13.20
There's a ton... - Champion changes
Beginning with the champion changes in Patch 13.20, the K’Sante rework is finally live. It’s fair to say that it was a heavy nerf directed to elite play (Masters+ and Pro Play).
In terms of Nerfs, Bel’Veth is receiving a huge adjustment to make her more of a scaling champion instead of the early ganking machine she currently is.
Into buffs, well they aren’t that big compared to the Nerfs and K'Sante rework, yet, Morgana buffs to her damage and Ultimate are looking neat to Morgana players.
Without further ado, let’s start with the Mid-lane changes.
Zed gutted and Galio is receiving another buff - Mid changes
Finally a nerf, a small one, but still a nerf
Three mids are being addressed in Patch 13.20, being Galio, Zed, and Akshan (No, Ziggs doesn’t count).
Galio’s getting a buff to its Shield of Durand (W) cooldown again and the passive shield timer is reduced too. By looking at the recent data of the patch, this change is a net positive currently, so expect to see more Galio players in the upcoming weeks.
The second change is a nerf to Akshan. Akshan has been dominating the mid-lane for quite some time, especially against mages. The change only hit his Avengerang (Q) bonus movement speed, this should make his early game less oppressive.
Last but not least in the nerfs department, Zed's Living Shadow (W) is getting its cooldown increased.
There are waves of complaints of players talking about the noninteractive way of playing against Zed, mainly against ones that build Ravenous Hydra and play like an AD caster that scales in the late game.
W buffs should make Zed players less safe in lane, but should not mean too much in the grand scheme of things.
Milio and Morgana are back! - Support changes
Fuemigos are getting some love
Only buffs for Supports, two champions are receiving changes: Morgana and Milio. Let’s start with Milio buffs.
Since Milio's addition to the game in Season 13, the Fuemigos user has been a terror to balance.
At first, he was dominating everything (Solo Queue and Competitive). That’s why, despite being new, he received numerous amount of nerfs.
In this patch, he’s finally receiving a few buffs that should make the Gentle Flame feel way stronger.
Passive - Fired Up
- On Fire: Burn damage now counts as Milio's damage even when applied through allies, allowing it to interact with a select number of items like Chemtech Putrifier. Burn damage will still grant the ally who applied the debuff the kill, preventing Milio from accidentally kill stealing confirming kills
E - Warm Hugs
- Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14 seconds ⇒ 17/16/15/14/13 seconds
- Shield Strength: 60/85/110/135/160 (+30% AP) ⇒ 60/90/120/150/180 (+30% AP)
R - Breath Of Life
- Healing: 150/250/350 (+30% AP) ⇒ 150/250/350 (+50% AP)
After a long time, Morgana is finally receiving true buffs (And massive ones). To compensate though, they are nerfing her Black Shield (E) cooldown.
- More damage, movement speed, and a longer stun in her Soul Shackles (Ultimate)
- Tormented Shadow (W) AP ratio is going up and the Monster Damage modifier is going up from 155% to 165%
Worth noting, Soul Shackles is still hitting twice so this damage buff is bigger than you think.
With these buffs, you can expect Morgana Jungle to make a comeback. You better look out for Morgana as she may be a busted pick in Patch 13.20.
Massive buffs to Jinx's Ultimate and expected Kai'Sa nerfs - Adc changes
The most OP adc in the patch
After several patches of being weak, Jinx is getting well-deserved love.
Jinx is a dangerous pick to buff, not too long ago she was dominating pro play so these changes are to test the waters.
Base Stats
- Health Growth: 100 to 105
Passive - Get Excited!
- New Effect - The 25% bonus total attack speed gained from Get Excited! on takedowns now stacks (Pentakills are coming).
R - Super Mega Death Rocket!
- Cooldown: 75/65/55 seconds ⇒ 70/60/50 seconds
- Minimum Damage: 30/45/60 (+15% bonus AD) (+25/30/35% of target's missing health) ⇒ 32.5/47.5/62.5 (+16.5% bonus AD) (+25/30/35% of target's missing health)
- Maximum Damage: 300/450/600 (+150% bonus AD) (+25/30/35% of target's missing health) ⇒ 325/475/625 (+165% bonus AD) (+25/30/35% of target's missing health)
With the Anti-Snowballing changes, Jinx should be in a way better spot.
Talking about bot pick in great spots, Ziggs is receiving a buff to his Q radius explosion.
This should make his already oppressive laning into an even more obnoxious one.
Currently, Ziggs is not as popular despite being strong, this change could end up making more ADC players willing to try him out.
Last but not least, there's the expected nerf to Kai'Sa.
Since her new Lethality build, the daughter of Void has returned in popularity so changes were necessary.
Because Riot is already nerfing Drakkthar and the build overall, Kai’Sa is receiving only a minor nerf to his early armor.
This should make her already fragile early game even more vulnerable for ADCs such as Caitlyn or Ezreal to exploit.
No more Bel'Veth early domination - Jungle changes
After terrorizing high elo, she's finally getting the nerf hammer
Only one jungle is getting addressed in Patch 13.20, and that’s Bel’Veth.
Most players are using Bel’Veth not to scale but rather to dominate the early game taking advantage of the dashes of her Void Surge (Q).
Something that the champion shouldn't be supposed to do. Riot was aware of it, so they are making changes.
Passive - Death Lavender
- AS now scales from stat progression instead of level.
Royal Maelstrom (E)
- Damage reduction is nerfed from 70 to 42-70%. Crit modifiers are allowed
- Damage is nerfed, to compensate the AD ratio is increased.
- On-hit damage is increased from 6% to 8%
Endless Banquet (Ultimate)
- True Form out of combat MS is reduced.
- Remora health down from 40-60% to 20-70%.
These changes will make her E do much more damage if you go for the crit build. With that in mind, Stridebreaker build should feel worst, encouraging Bel'Veth players to focus more on scaling.
If she somehow gets her damage build online though, Bel’Veth is going to be much more dangerous (In the right hands).
Quinn bye bye - Top changes
The perfect counter to Renekton is getting nerfed
Lastly. two champions got changes in the top lane, being the largest one the K'Sante rework. Before going to that, let's address the minor changes to Quinn.
For a few patches, Quinn has been one of the premiere picks in the top lane. Her kit alone counters most meta top lane picks such as Renekton or Aatrox.
And in case the lane does not go in her favor, her roams are among the deadliest in the game.
Due to range champions having always led to misery for most players in the top lane, Riot needed to nerf her.
Base Stats
- Base Health: 603 ⇒ 565
- Movement Speed: 335 ⇒ 330
- Attack Damage Growth: 2.4 ⇒ 2.7
With these base stats changes she should match her other long-range carries in the Top Lane companions, Vayne comes to mind.
K’Sante Rework - Everything that gutted him
In less than a year he got reworked...
K’Sante has been a headache for the balance team since its release. When the Pride of Nazumah was announced, Riot Maxw3ll designer's intention with him was to add a tank that could match the likes of Fiora or Jax.
To do this they made a champion with a high expression kit that with its ultimate could turn into an assassin and destroy the back line.
At the beginning all of this was good, the problem was that K'Sante dominated everything (Pro Play included).
That’s why despite being only released at the beginning of the year, Riot is already doing a rework on his kit.
K’Sante Rework changes
All of K’Sante’s abilities change along with a tune-down on his early base stats (compensated with scaling).
Stats
- Base Health: 610 ⇒ 570
- Health Growth: 108 ⇒ 115
- Armor Growth: 4.7 ⇒ 5.2
In terms of changes, let’s start with the passive, Dauntless Impact.
The passive of All Out Bonus Damage is being adjusted to be less oppressive on the scaling side, now the extra damage per armor and magic resistance is removed.
- All Out Bonus Damage: 35% (+20% per 100 bonus armor) (+20% per 100 bonus magic resistance) ⇒ 35%
Now into Ntofo Strikes (Q), the third Q will disable Flash during its windup, making the combo of Q+Flash impossible (Spammed by K’Sante to do nasty combos).
Lastly, the ability is nerfed a ton in the early levels especially, just the first level Q will be going down from 50 to 30, considering how much K’Sante spams this ability this is a massive nerf.
In regards to Path Maker (W), is receiving buffs to the ability overall but one thing that nerfs it is the Minimum channel time going up to 0.65 seconds.
Right now at Worlds, K’Sante is making strides.
In the second game between Team Whales (TW) vs Flying Osters (FO), Spardam TW’s top laner, did many alley-oops and was one of the main carries in the game (While being a tank).
K’Sante is fun and exciting to watch, but he should not be as impactful in pro plays draft.
System Adjustments
There are a lot of adjustments to gameplay systems, rune keystones, and much more in this patch.
List of changes
- Item changes
- Jungle Adjustments
- Anti-Snowball Adjustments
- Rune Adjustments
Item changes
There are no huge changes to items in Patch 13.20. There's the continuation to the balance of Lethality items, nerfs to Duskblade, and buffs to Youmuu's Ghostblade.
Lastly, two neat Item changes left are the ones to Blighting Jewel and Giant Slayer (Bugs fixed with compensation).
Blighting Jewel
- Total Price: 1250 gold ⇒ 1100 gold
Duskblade of Draktharr
- Ability Haste: 20 ⇒ 15
- Damage Amplification: 0-18% (at 0-70% missing health) ⇒ 0-16% (at 0-70% missing health)
Lord Dominik's Regards
- Giant Slayer Passive: 0-25% increased Physical and Magic damage against targets with more maximum health than the user (maximum at 2500 more) ⇒ 0-22% increased Physical and Magic damage against targets with more maximum health than the user (maximum at 2500 more)
- Updated Math: Passive - Giant Slayer now applies before Shields and Lifesteal are calculated
Youmuu's Ghostblade
- Spectral Shard Lethality: 3-12 (level 7-18) ⇒ 7-18 (level 7-18)
Is harder to snowball... - Jungle Adjustments
Smite
There are tons of Smite changes, let’s start with the ones more tied to the actual Summoner Spell, we will go over the Avatar upgrades later.
- Champion and pet damage reduced 20-160 (based on level) >>> 40 flat
- Damage no longer applies spell effects, this means that it will no longer trigger on-spell effects like Demonic Embrace or Liandrys burn effect
- Now has 350 unit target forgiveness vs. Epic Monsters if the cursor is not on another valid target
In regards to the target forgiveness, this will be useful in team fights around big Objectives.
For instance, if we are in the middle of a Dragon fight and your cursor is not specifically over the Epic Monster because a huge Zac is in the middle, Smite will automatically prioritize the Epic Monster giving the jungle player less room for error in those important fights.
Keep in mind that the range is only 350 units so you still need to be mindful of your cursor position.
Primal Smite changes:
- No longer grants 20% damage reduction to epic monsters while there are 2 or more allied champions nearby
This will make taking early Barons way harder, even more when you take into account the buffs to Baron Nashor’s HP
Second change is a buff to the damage to nearby monsters increased from 50% to 100%
Jungle Avatar Upgrades
According to Phreak, Junglers have the strongest role in the game given their agency on how to influence the entire map.
One advantage junglers have compared to other roles is their Jungle Companion Upgrades. In Mosstomper's case, the item Tenacity/Slow Resistance makes tank junglers much stronger in that regard, even more so when you build tenacity items and runes on top of it.
To strip them down their power, the Avatar upgrades will receive a few nerfs.
Mosstomper adjustments:
- No longer grants 20% Tenacity and Slow Resistance
- Shield increased from 60-281 (based on levels 1-18) to 180-300 (based on levels 10-18)
Gustwalker nerfs:
- Bonus Move Speed through bushes reduced from 45% to 30%
- Bonus Move Speed after killing large monsters reduced from 60% to 45%
Scorchclaw
- Scorchclaw Damage Type Requirement: Any damage ⇒ Attacks and Spells (Note: this means that Smite will no longer trigger Scorchclaw's slow and burn)
Changes to the Jungle Camps
To make the pace slower and to encourage more farming in the jungle, all Jungle Monster camps' health values will be changed. On top of it, the health scaling of camps will also pass level 11, matching other respawning sources of gold.
Overall, these changes along with the reduction of pet healing and clear camp will make junglers less impactful in the earlier stages of the game.
New Monster Health Values
- Blue Sentinel Health: 2300-4600 (levels 1-11) ⇒ 2300-6210 (levels 1-18)
- Red Brambleback Health: 2300-4600 (levels 1-11) ⇒ 2300-6210 (levels 1-18)
- Sir Gromp Health: 2050-4100 (levels 1-11) ⇒ 2050-4817.5 (levels 1-18)
- Crimson Raptor Health: 1100-2585 (levels 1-11) ⇒ 1200-2820 (levels 1-18)
- Raptors Health: 500-1000 (levels 1-11) ⇒ 500-1175 (levels 1-18)
- Greater Murk Wolf Health: 1600-3200 (levels 1-11) ⇒ 1600-3760 (levels 1-18)
- Murk Wolves Health: 630-1260 (levels 1-11) ⇒ 630-1480.5 (levels 1-18)
- Ancient Krug Health: 1350-2700 (levels 1-11) ⇒ 1350-3172.5 (levels 1-18)
- Krug Health: 650-1300 (levels 1-11) ⇒ 650-1527.5 (levels 1-18)
- Mini Krugs Health: 60-105 (levels 1-11) ⇒ 60-141 (levels 1-18)
Monster attack damage is reduced in the early game. Less healing from Champs
Jungle Companions will heal way less and the Sustain in the Jungle is nerfed.
Healing is capped at 12-45 levels 1-12, regardless of your stats.
Companion Heal per Second is calculated taking into account 70% of damage dealt. With this new cap, no matter if you deal way more than the 70% of damage dealt, you will not heal more.
This is a nerf to jungle champions that relied on the healing from pets.
The silver lining from the healing cap is that the scaling for Jungle Companion Damage is adjusted to help out tank junglers that build armor/resistances instead of health.
Lastly, the health and mana sustain numbers from killing Large Monsters are reduced to a flat %. This will force Junglers with tough clears to recall way more (Or to buy health pots).
- Jungle Companion Damage: 16 (+10% bonus AD) (+12% AP) (+10% bonus armor) (+10% bonus magic resistance) (+3% bonus health) true damage ⇒ 16 (+10% bonus AD) (+10% AP) (+20% bonus armor) (+20% bonus magic resistance) (+3% bonus health)
- Health Restored on Large Monster Kill: 30-166 (up to 2.25x based on missing health) ⇒ 12% missing health
- Mana Restored on Large Monster Kill: 19-87 (up to 2.25x based on missing mana) ⇒ 20% missing mana
Anti-Poaching and Junglers Lane Minion Experience Adjustments
The eternal fight between laners and junglers who both steal from each other camps or minions is going to be settled in this patch. Well... not completely but good moving forward.
Lane Minions Experience for Junglers
- Minion Experience Penalty Disable: 1.1 levels behind the game average ⇒ 1.5 levels behind the game average
- Minion Experience Received: 40-75% at minutes 0-14, then 100% ⇒ 30-100% at minutes 0-20
- Bugfix: Minion Experience penalty is no longer locked in whenever jungle item is finished
Anti-Poaching numbers for laners
- Jungle Item Bonus Damage to non-Epic Monsters: 20% ⇒ 42%
- Large Monster Armor & Magic Resistance: 20 ⇒ 42
- Small Monster Armor & Magic Resistance: 0 ⇒ 20
- Lane Minion Experience Adjustments for Junglers
Starting Item changes
All of the starting items are getting substantial buffs. There’s a caveat, now you are limited to building only ONE Doran’s item (This rule will not apply to Dark Seal).
Doran's Blade
- Attack Damage: 8 ⇒ 10
- Health: 80 ⇒ 100
Doran's Ring
- Ability Power: 15 ⇒ 18
- Health:70 ⇒ 90
Doran's Shield
Dark Seal
- Stack Friendly: Dark Seal is not unique with other Doran's items, so feel free to pick both up
- Health: 40 ⇒ 50
Relic Shield
- Ability Power: 5 ⇒ 7
- Health: 30 ⇒ 50
Steel Shoulderguards
- Attack Damage: 3 ⇒ 4
- Health: 30 ⇒ 50
Spectral Sickle
- Attack Damage: 5 ⇒ 6
- Health: 10 ⇒ 25
Spellthief's Edge
- Ability Power: 8 ⇒ 10
- Health: 10 ⇒ 25
Anti-Snowball Adjustments
Snowball has been a topic of discussion in the League community for years already, especially for older players who feel games are decided in the first minutes of the game.
To combat this sentiment, Riot's Balance Team is bringing a few series of changes to make Snowballing harder to encourage more scaling and team fights.
Anti-Snowball adjustments include:
- Nerfs to Dragon buffs
- Starter Item improvements
- Turret Plate gold decreases and nerfs to Runes.
Let’s start with Dragon changes.
Chemtech Drake avoided the nerfs
Most buffs are getting gutted in the early levels.
Nerfs in percentiles for each dragon stack, or the amount of times you kill specific dragons.
(According to Phreak’s Patch 13.20 Rundown) 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sau4Dnt0Rsg- 28% to Cloud drake
- 33% to Hextech drake
- 40% to Infernal Drake
- 37% to Mountain Drake
- 20% to Ocean drake
To compensate for the stack nerfs, the Dragon Souls are getting substantial buffs.
- Cloud Drake: 15% bonus movement speed ⇒ 20% bonus movement speed
- Hextech Drake: 40% base slow (30% for ranged champions) ⇒ 45% base slow (35% for ranged champions)
- Infernal Drake: 80 base adaptive damage for explosion ⇒ 100 base adaptive damage for explosion
- Mountain Drake: 180 base shield after not taking damage for 5 seconds ⇒ 220 base shield after not taking damage for 5 seconds
- Ocean Drake: 130 base heal, 80 base mana regeneration ⇒ 150 base heal, 100 base mana regeneration
Overall these changes are going to make the Drake stacking less effective and would drop the priority of playing around the bot lane because of that.
Epic Monster changes.
Rift Herald
- Local Gold reduced from 200 to 100
Baron Nashor
- Base Health: 12600 ⇒ 15000 (Note: health scaling of +180 health per minute is unchanged)
System Changes - Turrets and Respawn Timers
The most low-key important changes to Anti-Snowball are the changes to Respawn Timers.
The reduction of them will make it much harder for laners to get more advantages after making recall an enemy champion or killing them in the lane.
- Level 1 Death Timer: 6 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds (unchanged)
- Level 2 Death Timer: 8 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds
- Level 3 Death Timer: 10 seconds ⇒ 8 seconds
- Level 4 Death Timer: 12 seconds ⇒ 8 seconds
- Level 5 Death Timer: 14 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds
- Level 6 Death Timer: 16 seconds ⇒ 12 seconds
- Level 7 Death Timer: 21 seconds ⇒ 16 seconds
- Level 8 Death Timer: 27.5 seconds ⇒ 21 seconds
- Level 9 Death Timer: 30 seconds ⇒ 26 seconds
Last but not least, Turret plating golds are reduced by a ton. With Rift herald giving less gold and turret places, the income of gold coming from these sources will surely slowdown the game by a ton.
- Gold per Plate: 175 ⇒ 125
How these changes will impact you? Still is early to tell, but at least in the current numbers, we can see that scaling champions such as Aurelion Sol are finding more success.
Rune changes
Following up the trend of Anti-Snowballing, there are a few runes that are getting the Nerf hammer, especially in the early game.
Runes
Arcane Comet
- Adaptive Damage: 30-100 (based on level) (+35% bonus AD) (+20% AP) ⇒ 30-130 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)
Summon Aery
- Adaptive Damage: 10-40 (based on level) (+15% bonus AD) (+10% AP) ⇒ 10-50 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)
- Shield: 30-75 (based on level) (+35% bonus AD) (+22.5% AP) ⇒ 30-100 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)
Conqueror
- Attack Damage per Stack: 1.2-2.7 (based on level) bonus AD ⇒ 1.08-2.4 (based on level) bonus AD
- Ability Power per Stack: 2-4.5 (based on level) AP ⇒ 1.8-2.4 (based on level) AP
- Attack Damage at Maximum Stacks: 14.4-32.4 (based on level) bonus AD ⇒ 12.96-28.8 (based on level) bonus AD
- Ability Power at Maximum Stacks: 24-54 (based on level) bonus AP ⇒ 21.6-48 (based on level) bonus AP
Lethal Tempo
- Attack Speed per Stack (Melee): 10-15% ⇒ 9-13.5%
- Attack Speed per Stack (Ranged): 4-9% ⇒ 3.6-8%
Electrocute
- Damage: 30-180 (based on level) (+40% bonus AD) (+25% AP) ⇒ 30-220 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)
First Strike
- Bonus True Damage: 9% ⇒ 8%
Dark Harvest
- Adaptive Damage: 20-60 (based on level) (+ 5 per Soul) (+25% bonus AD) (+15% AP) ⇒ 20-80 (based on level) (+ 5 per Soul) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)
Fleet Footwork
- Heal: 10-100 (based on level) (+30% bonus AD) (+20% AP) ⇒ 10-130 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)
Press The Attack
- Exposed Damage: 8-12% ⇒ 8%
Taste of Blood
- Healing: 16-30 (based on level) (+15% bonus AD) (+8% AP) ⇒ 16-40 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+5% AP)
Waterwalking
- Adaptive Force: 5-30 (based on level) ⇒ 13-30 (based on level)
- Movement Speed: 25 ⇒ 10
There are still a few changes that weren’t brought up in this article. More relevant ones are the changes to the Ping Communications System and a plethora of bug fixes plus ARAM Adjustments.
To learn more about those, you can check the League of Legends Official 13.20 Patch notes.
