League of Legends Early Patch 14.2 Buffs and Nerfs Champions, Items

League of Legends Season 14 launched earlier in January and Riot Games has now released Patch 14.2 after seeing players’ concerns and critiques. Here are all of the buffs and nerfs Patch 14.2.

Author:
Olivia Richman
Publish date:
Jan 17, 2024 10:29 PM EST

Eighteen champions have been balanced in Patch 14.1 as well as some item updates. These changes were made after developers noticed some concerns after Season 14 initially launched. Patch 14.1 was dropped soon after but it wasn’t enough to stop players from expressing frustration with the game.

When Is Patch 14.2 Coming Out?

Patch 14.2 will be released on January 24, 2024. Prepare for servers to be interrupted during this time.

Patch 14.2 Full Patch Notes

Riot Games has released the full patch notes ahead of its release. Hopefully, it’s enough to satisfy League of Legends players hoping for more balance in Season 14.

Remember that some of these changes won’t make it past the PBE.

Ranked

We're making some changes to reduce how lenient tier boundary demotions are. While we think making a tier boundary is a big milestone, we also need to be demoting people more honestly to ensure the ranked system functions properly

We're also continuing to investigate some players with negative LP gains. The vast majority of these are coming from the above, where people are not being demoted properly, so their visible rank is higher than their current level of play

We're also chasing down a few cases of some Diamond1/Masters players having some negative LP gains for a short amount of time, but these only seem to be affecting a small number of accounts in large regions

Ezreal versus Baron LoL season 14 — League of Legends

Overall

After reviewing all the patch data, game time is stable and higher than 13.24 (mainly due to increasing the backdoor damage reduction and buffing towers)

Snowballing is lower than 13.24, however, burst is up (especially from AP), which is a bit counter-intuitive. We suspect because people are getting burst pretty quickly, it's easy to build leads, but harder to end and easier to throw

We're looking at moderate burst reductions as a result

Objectives have landed in a mostly decent spot; chain ganking bot vs fighting for grubs seems to be carrying real tradeoffs that teams are engaging in

Rift Herald usability is the main thing on our mind as something worth following up on here

AP

Our strategy with AP items was to increase the overall AP values that players are getting (it was unsatisfying to be 180AP at 3 items) and reduce base damages (on AP champs that have problematic tank builds) and reduce ratios (on everyone else) over time on AP champions to compensate for this, especially on the outliers. This will lead to some short term instability, but long term will be better for the AP system and champions overall

Players had also been asking for reductions in haste (game it too URF) and HP (I don't want this stat) on AP items, which also contributes to increasing burst as champions are both dealing and receiving more damage. Our goal once the system is tuned is to end up with both less burst and less AH coming from the item system

Stat Shards

I'm sure @RiotPhreak will have some notes on this in the rundown as this is one of the passion projects he's been trying to do for months 😅, but Season Start is the only reasonable time to do it

The main goal of this change is to make choices more satisfying and intuitive. While we're losing some interest in choosing armor/MR against opponents, we hope to gain more intuitive choices like early vs scaling or movespeed/tenacity vs durability. These changes are also intended to combat some of the increased burst in the game

They were intended to go out in 14.1 to counteract some of the burst increases, but had a small delay and were desynced a patch as a result

Items

Double support item (and quadra support item) are being nerfed. We're being pretty heavy handed here

Even after the buff, Stridebreaker is struggling to find its place, as is Horizon Focus when Stormsurge is so much better

Stormsurge is receiving a substantial nerf and we think it's the root cause of a lot of the increased burst

Bloodsong also appears to be the best of the support items

Finally, Frozen Heart and Riftmaker are a bit too efficient

Buffs

Almost all of the champions in the list had a core item that they had a great synergy with either removed or reworked (or in Gwen's case, overnerfed)

Everfrost, Sunderer, Tri Force, AH for Hwei, Karthus Liandrys, etc.

Nerfs

The nerfs in this list are for champions who have incredible synergies with the new items

Sundered Jax, Liandry's DoT champs, Fizz Stormsurge, etc.

Champion Buffs

Ahri

[E] Charm cooldown reduced 14 >>> 12 seconds

Camille

Base HP increased
[P] Adaptive Defenses cooldown reduced
[Q] Precision Protocol Move Speed increased

Darius

[Q] Decimate buffs:

Healing increased
Mana cost reduced

[E-P] Apprehend Armor Penetration increased

Ezreal

[Q] Mystic Shot damage increased
[W] Essence Flux damage increased
[R] Trueshot Barrage damage increased

Garen

[W] Courage duration adjusted 2/2.75/3.5/4.25/5 >>> 4 flat seconds
[E] Judgement tAD ratio increased

Gragas

Armor per level increased
HP per level increased
[W] Drunken Rage now deals 50% damage to structures
[R] Explosive Cask cooldown reduced

Gwen

[P] Thousand Cuts AP ratio increased 0.65% per 100 AP >>> 0.725% per 100 AP

Hwei

[E] Subject: Torment buffs:

Cooldown reduced 15/14/13/12/11 >>> 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 seconds
[EQ] Grim Visage fear duration increased

Illaoi

HP increased
[P] Prophet of an Elder God healing increased
Mana increased (pool or costs)

Karma

HP increased
[Q] Inner Flame AP ratio increased
[E] Inspire base shield and AP ratio increased

Karthus

[Q] Lay Waste damage increased
[W] Wall of Pain Magic Resistance reduction increased 15% >>> 25%

Shen

Base AD increased 60 >>> 64

Veigar

Base HP increased 550 >>> 580

Champion Nerfs

Blitzcrank

Base Armor reduced 40 >>> 37
[E] Power Fist tAD ratio reduced 100% >>> 80%

Fizz

[Q] Urchin Strike AP ratio reduced
[W-P] Seastone Trident adjustments:

Now deals 50% damage to structures
DoT AP ratio reduced

Jax

[W] Empower now deals 50% damage to structures
[E] Counter Strike flat damage and target's max HP damage reduced
[R-P] Grandmaster-at-Arms now deals 50% damage to structures

Rumble

[Q] Flamespitter damage reduced
[E] Electro Harpoon Magic Resistance reduction reduced

Teemo

[E] Toxic Shot on-hit AP ratio reduced
[R] Noxious Trap cooldown increased

Champion Adjustments

Nidalee

Recommended Items manually adjusted to add Lich Bane as the most recommended item

System Buffs

Horizon Focus

Range required reduced, reveal radius increased

Steel Sigil

Cost reduced 1200 >>> 1100 gold

Stridebreaker

Attack Speed increased
Cost reduced

System Nerfs

Bloodsong

Spellblade Expose Weakness damage amplification reduced

Frozen Heart

Cost increased

Riftmaker

Cost increased 3000 >>> 3100 gold

Stormsurge

AP reduced 100 >>> 90
Squall AP ratio reduced

System Adjustments

Support Item Stacking

Rune Stat Shards - PBE and 1/16 PBE

Second slot Armor and Magic Resistance shards replaced with 2% Move Speed and 10-150 HP (based on level) shards
Third slot Armor and Magic Resistance shards replaced with 60 HP and 10% Slow Resist/Tenacity shards

Unflinching - PBE

Now grants 2-10 bonus Armor and Magic Resistance while CC'd and 2 seconds after instead of Slow Resist/Tenacity based on missing HP

Experimental Hexplate

Build path changed Tunneler + Noonquiver + 600 gold >>> Tunneler + Hearthbound Axe + 700 gold (total unchaged)
Attack Speed increased 20% >>> 25%
Overdrive Attack Speed reduced 35% >>> 30%

Phantom Dancer

Build path changed Hearthbound Axe + Cloak of Agility + 1000 gold >>> Zeal + Rectrix + 800 gold (total unchanged)