League of Legends Patch 11.7 Highlights

Champions

Alistar

Q – Pulverize

• BASE DAMAGE 60/105/150/195/240 ⇒ 60/100/140/180/220

E – Trample

• EMPOWERED BASIC ATTACK 35-290 (levels 1-18) bonus magic damage ⇒ 20-275 (levels 1-18) bonus magic damage

Alistar has been one of the most powerful supports in professional play while being no slouch in solo queue. These damage nerfs are looking to hurt his fighting potential, requiring his teammates to bring more to the table in trades and skirmishes. Since Alistar maxes Q first, he’ll find himself short 25 damage at his level 6 spike and even more as the game goes on. While not enough to force him out of the meta, his opponents should be feeling slightly safer.

Ivern

E – Triggerseed

• BASE DAMAGE 70/95/120/145/170 ⇒ 70/90/110/130/150

Ivern was the number one ranked jungler in solo queue on patch 11.6, beating out Hecarim, who has received consecutive nerfs. Losing 20 damage on his first max of Triggerseed is a massive change that will heavily impact his fighting potential. Ivern casts his shield multiple times every engagement, so he’ll be down potentially hundreds of damage throughout the mid-game.

Kai’sa

R – Killer Instinct

• COOLDOWN 110/90/70 seconds ⇒ 130/100/70 seconds

Kai’sa has remained a high priority ADC even after her early laning nerfs. Her ability to make plays and join fights from any angle is incredibly valuable for chaotic early and mid-game skirmishes. By pushing her ultimate cooldown up 20 seconds at rank one and 10 at rank two, her play-making and escape potential will have less uptime. Having more opportunities to fight and shut down this late-game monster should make her more manageable.

Lissanda

Q – Ice Shard

• BASE DAMAGE 70/100/130/160/190 ⇒ 80/110/140/170/200

Lissandra has a history of being either an oppressive wave pusher with incredible roaming and fighting potential or undershooting the bar of viability entirely. Right now, she’s closer to the latter. A 10-damage buff to her Q might not seem like a lot, but Ice Shard is a spammable spell with AOE damage and crowd control. Watch out for Lissandra cropping up more and more, crushing minion waves and champions alike.

Rell

E – Attract and Repel

• STUN DURATION 0.75 seconds ⇒ 0.5 seconds

Rell is still an incredibly strong engage support even after nerfs to her primary engage spell. While she is supposed to excel in situations where a single burst of engage is all she needs, her overall utility allows her to fight in a number of ways other champions can’t. By targeting the stun duration on her E, Rell’s instant and peeling crowd control is now less effective. Rell must now chain her abilities together more carefully to get maximum value out of her kit.

Thresh

W – Dark Passage

• BASE SHIELD 60/100/140/180/220 ⇒ 60/90/120/150/180

Whenever there is a limited number of support champions in the meta, Thresh always stands out as the jack of all trades, high priority pick. He brings a bit of everything to the table, including the unique and powerful Dark Passage. Thresh usually maxes his W second, although some games allow for a straight-up W max. Losing a whopping 40 shielding on the Lantern is definitely a big hit to his protective power without crippling his aggressive side.

Yorick

E – Mourning Mist

• Marked enemy champions and large monsters now continuously Awaken nearby graves (up to the maximum of 4)
• Mist Walkers now deal 200% damage when they leap to marked enemy champions and large monsters
• CAST PARADIGM Walk into target range to cast ⇒ If targeting outside of range, E now immediately casts to max range

Yorick has unfortunately been forgotten once again at all levels of play. Riot have decided to give him some love with these changes to his E. For those of you who don’t know how Yorick’s Graves work, he can re-cast his Q to awaken Mist Walkers when there are three or more active. Now, hitting an E will keep awakening new Graves even if there aren’t three available or his Q is off cooldown. This also means that Yorick will be able to immediately summon new Mist Walkers from killed champions and large monsters, allowing him to keep the fight going.

This change, in combination with a 200 percent damage increase to champions and large monsters marked by Mourning Mist, should give the Shepard of Souls the additional damage and effectiveness he needs to excel in optimal situations. Additionally, his old favorite Trinity Force has received a mini rework that make it better for him in every way.

Items

Essence Reaver

• TOTAL COST 2900 gold ⇒ 2800 gold
• ATTACK DAMAGE 55 ⇒ 45

Essence Reaver has become the go-to rush item for a bevy of champions. It is so good that the item is even being built by ADC’s that haven’t ever traditionally wanted a Sheen like Xayah and Draven. Cutting it’s AD by 10 should make champions that rely on raw AD scaling much more hesitant to pick this up

Everfrost

• GLACIATE DAMAGE 125 (35% AP) ⇒ 100 (30% AP)
• GLACIATE COOLDOWN 20 seconds ⇒ 30 seconds

Everfrost has successfully been brought into relevancy a bit too well. While it certainly does have a place as the crowd control heavy mage Mythic, its value was just too high across the board. Losing a bit of damage and uptime should be the last change needed to bring the three mage Mythic items in line with each other.

Lord Dominik’s Regard

• COST 2900 gold ⇒ 3000 gold
• ATTACK DAMAGE 35 ⇒ 30

Much like how Void Staff was universally rushed as a second item before the nerfs, Lord Dominik’s Regards is currently abused in the same way. The item is so efficient that it breaks its niche as an Armor stacking counter. These nerfs should fix that issue right away.

Serylda’s Grudge

• COST 3400 gold ⇒ 3200 gold

Serylda’s Grudge is now 200 gold cheaper. The number of champions who can utilize this item are low. Serylda’s is usually restricted to AD casters like Ezreal and Jayce and assassins who find themselves against the wrong champions. Still, this is a pretty sizable buff to those members of the roster.

Trinity Force

• ATTACK DAMAGE 25 ⇒ 30
• ATTACK SPEED 35 ⇒ 30
• Threefold Strike now stacks on towers
• MYTHIC PASSIVE 10% attack speed ⇒ 3 attack damage, 3 movement speed, 3 ability haste

The off-season Trinity Force rework effectively killed the item for the majority of users who lived and died by it. The focus on attack speed made building it give tons of wasted stats for champions like Gangplank, Ezreal, Yorick, Hecarim, and many more. Even characters like Jax and Wukong who do like attack speed still felt less keen on the new version.

Trading 5 percent attack speed for 5 AD is a trade that most of these champions will like. The new Mythic passive converts that excess attack speed into more amazing stats for AD Casters and brawlers alike. Finally, allowing Threefold Strike to stack on towers is literally every split pusher’s dream. Being able to stack up a whopping 30 percent base AD on a tower before jumping into a fight will open up a world of possibilities for Trinity Force users.

Turbo Chemtank

• SUPERCHARGED BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED 75% ⇒ 60%
• SUPERCHARGED SLOW 40% ⇒ 50%

Chemtank’s continued dominance has the item on the nerfing block once again. While it may seem like removing some movement speed in exchange for a bigger slow is a more neutral change, most of the champions who run Chemtank hate this. The reason is that they don’t need crowd control. Chemtank champions use the movement speed boost to apply their own forms of crowd control. For example, Udyr is just going to bear slap people after he gets to them. Skarner is just going to press R on them. This holds true for almost every single Chemtank user. Cutting the ability for these champions to get on their targets should see them all losing a noticeable bit of power.

…And those are the most important changes of League of Legends Patch 11.7! Overall, there weren’t as many sweeping changes or big adjustments as the previous patch cycles. Even so, some of the adjustments to the meta champions and items could help shake up the LoL landscape.