League of Legends Patch 10.1: Major Sylas Updates

League of Legends’ tenth season is just about to be under way. The first patch of the new year is here and with it comes a variety of small changes. While some may have little impact, others could send ripples across the meta. Here we’ll go over all of the meaningful changes you should keep an eye out for in patch 10.1.

Not only do players have changes to anticipate, with ranked beginning January 10th, but a new champion, Sett, will be released next week as well. If you’re unfamiliar with him, read up on what we know about him and how he may fit into the game.

Aphelios

Base Stats

• Movement Speed DOWN from 330 to 325
• Health DOWN from 530 to 500

R – Moonlight Vigil

• Infernum Empowered AOE Damage DOWN from 100% to 75% on secondary targets.

Aphelios has been a hot topic this preseason with the general consensus being that he does too much damage for the level of required mechanics. Riot is targeting the biggest offender in his kit, the Infernum flamethrower ultimate. This in tandem with being slightly more vulnerable in lane should help to stabilize him.

Aurelion Sol

Passive – Center of the Universe

• Base Star Damage DOWN from 16-120 to 12-120 (levels 1-18)

While four damage off of his stars at level one may seem negligible, this change actually does impact Aurelion Sol’s ability to shove and roam early. Losing 25% of your base wave clear damage will hurt his lane priority and slow down Sol’s tendency to take over the map early.

Jayce

Q – Shock Blast

• Base Damage UP from 55/105/155/205/255/305 to 55/110/165/220/275/330

The notorious early lane bully has been given a mid-game boost. Top lane is one of the most volatile roles at the moment, and a champion who can take control like Jayce should be greatly valued. While this won’t change the fact that a behind Jayce is a useless one, this buff should help him remain relevant for a bit longer in game.

Mordekaiser

Passive – Darkness Rise

• Duration DOWN from 5 to 4 seconds
• Movement Speed DOWN from 3/6/9% (levels 1/6/11) to 3% at all levels

As one of the most oppressive top lane juggernauts in the game, Mordekaiser is frequently able to chase down his opponents. Losing up to 6% movement speed and 1 second of Rylai’s passive slow should help Mordekaiser’s enemies escape and contain him more often.

Nami

E – Tidecaller’s Blessing

•  Now also Empowers up to 3 Abilities (33-66% less AOE damage to non-champions)

This change will help Nami to synergize better with some of the less auto attack-oriented bot laners such as Heimerdinger. Additionally, being able to use the empowerments on abilities lets her apply slows using W. Duo lanes like Nami and Lucian will also have a faster and more brutal poke combo.

Shyvana

Passive – Fury of the Dragonborn

• Shyvana now gains 5 bonus Armor and Magic Resistance for every Dragon her team slays
• Cloud Drake now increases Shyvana’s Fury gains by 10/20/30/40%

E – Flame Breath

• Marked Target Damage Ratio UP from 3.25% to 3.75% of target’s maximum health
• Marked Monster Damage Cap UP from 100 to 150

The passive changes are a nice quality of life adjustment for Shyvana. However, they’re still situational stats that Shyvana could just not get in game. As for the E changes, AP Shyvana has been gaining traction as the favored build. These buffs will help to push her further in that direction.

Sylas

Base Stats

• Health DOWN from 585 to 525
• Health Growth UP from 95 to 115
• Armor DOWN from 32 to 27
• Armor Growth UP from 3 to 4
• Magic Resistance DOWN from 39 to 32
• Magic Resistance Growth UP from 1.25 to 1.75

Passive – Petricite Burst

• Primary Target Damage Ratio UP from 1.1 total attack damage (+0.2 ability power) to 1.1 total attack damage (0.25 ability power)
• Radius DOWN from 400 to 300 range
• Sylas now gains 60% attack speed while available
• Stacks UP from 2 to 3
• Now executes secondary target minions below 25 health

Q – Chain Lash

• Cooldown UP from 9/8/7/6/5 to 10/9/8/7/6 seconds
• Detonation Damage UP from 45/70/95/120/145 (+0.6 ability power) to 60/105/150/195/240 (+0.8 ability power)
• Detonation Minion Damage Reduction UP from 45% to 60%
• Detonation no longer slows enemies hit
• Can no longer be cast during E – Abduct

W – Kingslayer

• No longer resets auto attack
• Damage UP from 65/100/135/170/205 (+0.65 ability power) to 65/100/135/170/205 (+0.85 ability power)
• Cooldown DOWN from 14/13.5/13/12.5/12 seconds to 14/12.5/11/9.5/8 seconds
• No longer deals increased damage to enemies below 40% health
• Healing CHANGED from 75% increase if Sylas is below 40% health to up to 100% increase at 40% health
• Mana Cost UP from 40 to 70/80/90/100/110 mana

E – Abscond/Abduct

• No longer resets auto attack
• E2 Damage UP from 70/85/100/115/130 (+0.2 ability power) to 80/130/180/230/280 (+1.0 ability power)
• No longer grants a magic damage shield
• Cooldown DOWN from 14 to 14/13/12/11/10 seconds
• Lockout CHANGED from 0.2 seconds if Abduct hits to 0.05 seconds when moving after Abduct

R – Highjack

• No longer resets auto attack

Sylas received the biggest change of the patch by far. The AP bruiser has been difficult to balance since release, so Riot have essentially hit him with a mini rework. The way Sylas is played will completely shift after these changes. Basically, Sylas is now sacrificing much of his early game power in the form of base stats, wave clear, and trade potential. In exchange, he gains more survivability and damage over time in the late game. Most of Sylas’s damage has been shifted to his Q2 Detonation and his E2 Abduct, making his combos reliant on keeping targets still. However, the removal of his E buffered Q makes that prospect more difficult. Overall, these changes will take Sylas in a new direction. Whether he will be able to be utilized in certain mid or top lane matchups will have to be tested.

Varus

Q – Piercing Arrow

• Cooldown DOWN from 20/18/16/14/12 to 18/16/14/12/10 seconds
• Blight Cooldown Refund DOWN from 4 to 3 seconds

Varus was already in a very strong place. His builds have been more attack speed or critical oriented, but 1-2 seconds off of a team fight and wave clear cooldown never hurt anybody. It also opens the door for lethality and poke builds to shine brighter in the right situation.

Zyra

E – Grasping Roots

• Vine Lasher Slow CHANGED from 30% to 25%, stacking up to two times (once per plant)

This change gives Zyra another choice to optimize her gameplay. Now that using two seeds on Vine Lashers results in more crowd control, Zyra can play for either setup or poke damage when she decides which spell to use on her seeds.

Support Items

• Relic Shield and Steel Shoulderguards Lines
• Added 25/50/100% base health regeneration on each upgrade respectively
• Bulwark of the Mountain Ability Power DOWN from 40 to 25
• Pauldrons of Whiterock Attack Damage DOWN from 24 to 15
• Spectral Sickle and Spelltheif’s Edge Lines
• Added 25/50/100% base mana regeneration on each upgrade respectively
• Black Mist Scythe Attack Damage DOWN from 35 to 25
• Black Mist Scythe Health DOWN from 150 to 100
• Shard of True Ice Ability Power DOWN from 60 to 45
• Shard of True Ice Health Down from 150 to 100

There’s a lot of changes to the support item lines, but they all boil down to one major point. Supports now have more lane sustain stats that they lost with the old items in exchange for the combat stats that they gained with the new ones. It’s an interesting change that will result more laning power early, but less team fighting power later.

Prototype: Omnistone

• Cooldown DOWN from 7-3 seconds for melee, 11-7 seconds for ranged to 5-3 seconds for melee, 9-7 seconds for ranged

Riot’s latest pass at Omnistone to try and force it into viability. The downside of not being able to choose your keystone will always remain with the current design, but with enough raw numbers and AI buffs it will gain some presence. Melee mid laners like Ornn will continue to be a big proponent of this rune.

Important Bug Fixes

• Ardent Cencer’s bonus attack speed no longer activates on self-shields.

Rest in piece Ardent Censer Diana. Diana abused this item to hell and back, so Riot’s removal of the interaction will skew her builds coming into the new season.

League of Legends’ 10.1 patch will be released with the beginning of Season 10 on January 10th with Sett being available January 14th.