League 10.4 update patch notes: Soraka, Sona top nerf, Aphelios balanced
Riot GamesThe League of Legends 10.4 patch is going to bring balance on the Rift in regards to the top lane Soraka and Sona meta, clearing up confusion on Aphelios in-game, and much more.
While Riot tends to release patch notes the Tuesday before it goes live on Wednesdays, this time the 10.4 update will be delayed until February 20 due to holidays.
There should be a ton of players waiting for the patch to drop since it’s going to tone down some of the strange picks that have gained traction in pro LoL while also expanding viable jungle picks for people to choose from.
Top Lane Soraka and Sona nerf
Riot GamesSoraka has been lighting up the top lane with her bananas and heals, so the devs are going to be nerfing her Q and some of her base stats while giving her W a new passive.
“Chipping away at Soraka’s top lane potency as she’s the winningest top laner at the current moment,” the Riot devs said. “We also want to keep the impact on her support lane minimal as she’s not overperforming there.”
The self heal from her Starcall Q has been gutted, while the mana cost for it has been significantly increased.
Riot GamesMeanwhile Astral Infusion will now let the champion reduce the max health cost for casting her W.
As for Sona, her basic abilities are now going to cost a lot more mana than before, so spamming her spells won’t be ideal.
But Riot is now persuading the community to use her more as a Support, since she has a new mana restore for the first ally she tags with her spells.
Meaning she’ll still be a favorite poke champ to use as long as she’s sticking with a duo, preferably in the bot lane.
Aphelios is easier to read and play against
Riot GamesOne of the biggest draws with Aphelios is his five-weapon arsenal. But whether you’re playing with or against him, it can be hard to keep track of the weapon combos that he’s using.
“He’s stressing out opponents who can’t understand what he’s doing and seems to be lacking adequate counter play at higher ranked games,” the devs explained. “Better clarity will lead to a drop in Aphelios’ performance since opponents will more frequently make correct decisions.”
Now players will be able to see which weapons he has equipped with Weapon View, making it easier to read when to engage or not.
But the devs are taking it a step further with nerfs to his kit that include changes to his Calibrum sniper and Crescendum chakram. The range to his Moonlight Vigil ultimate has also been greatly reduced.
New junglers are coming in familiar packages
Riot has noticed that there aren’t many people queuing up for Jungle these days.
To help that, they’re going to introduce better tools for popular champs to take with them to the jungle so that learning a new position doesn’t necessarily mean having to learn a new champion.
Namely Darius, Diana, Garen, Gnar, Mordekaiser, Talon and Zed are all getting some kind of buff against monsters that will give players more room to use these characters in the jungle.
Riot GamesThere are a ton of things to sift through in the 10.4 update, so check out the patch notes below courtesy of Riot.
AMUMU
Q dash speed increased. R cooldown decreased and now stops dashes.
These buffs, plus the Immolate changes (spoiler alert!) in 10.4 should help Amumu as he tries to play with the big boys.
Q – BANDAGE TOSS
R – CURSE OF THE SAD MUMMY
APHELIOS
Players can now see both of Aphelios’ guns. Calibrum no longer resets basic attack timer after consuming a mark. Crescendum sentries die faster. R range decreased.
Aphelios is the galaxy brain marksman whose kit has a billion things you have to learn, but he’s stressing out opponents who can’t understand what he’s doing and seems to be lacking adequate counter play at higher ranked games. Better clarity will lead to a drop in Aphelios’ performance since opponents will more frequently make correct decisions, but we also threw some raw nerfs with a focus on making sure opponents have successful ways to catch him and beat him up.
WEAPONS OF THE FAITHFUL
CALIBRUM, THE SNIPER RIFLE
CRESCENDUM, THE CHAKRAM
R – MOONLIGHT VIGIL
AURELION SOL
W active star damage decreased.
Like Sailor Star Maker during the time of Sailor Moon Stars, Aurelion Sol’s “Star Gentle Creator” is a little weaker this patch.
W – CELESTIAL EXPANSION
CAITLYN
Bonus AS at level 1 increased.
Sharpening (can you sharpen guns?) Caitlyn’s early game harass potential since she’s sitting in a pretty weak spot right now.
BASE STATS
GAREN
Increased Q empowered basic attack damage ratio. Increased W resistances after max from enemy kills. W shield increased.
Our goal is to bring back build diversity for Garen, specifically buffing his tankier builds while keeping his damage-oriented builds still viable. To that point, there is a change missing in this section that’s included in the Jungle Champions section instead, so look below for that!
Q – DECISIVE STRIKE
W – COURAGE
GNAR
Base MS increased. Passive Mini Gnar MS decreased. R damage ratios increased.
Similar to Garen, we have a jungle Gnar-specific change which you could find in the Jungle Champions section. But generally, we’re looking to power him up a little bit, specifically when he’s Mega Gnar, since he’s feeling a bit underwhelming even has a huge hulking monster.
BASE STATS
PASSIVE – RAGE GENE
R – GNAR!
JAYCE
Base mana and mana growth increased. Q base damage increased.
Jayce should now be able to cast more abilities to fend off his opponents.
BASE STATS
Q – TO THE SKIES!
LUX
Q damage increased; cooldown decreased early. Lux can now Flash while casting R.
Buffing support Lux to give players the option to viably take her bot lane.
Q – LIGHT BINDING
R – FINAL SPARK
RAMMUS
Base AS and AS ratio increased.
Ok.
BASE STATS
SINGED
Base health and armor decreased.
Singed was pumped up on his plant-based potion before it was cool. While his healthy libations have been letting him conquer the top lane, we’re going to make his triumphs a bit more risky by reducing his early tankiness.
BASE STATS
SONA
Auras now grants Sona mana at first ally tag. Q, W, and E costs increased.
I don’t play her top anyways.
Q – HYMN OF VALOR
W – ARIA OF PERSEVERANCE
E – SONG OF CELERITY
SORAKA
Base stats adjusted. Q self-heal, Rejuvenation heal duration, and bonus movement speed decreased; Q cost increased. W health cost decreased when Rejuvenated; heal increased later.
Chipping away at Soraka’s top lane potency as she’s the winningest top laner at the current moment. We also want to keep the impact on her support lane minimal as she’s not overperforming there.
BASE STATS
Q – STARCALL
W – ASTRAL INFUSION
SYLAS
Q damage increased later.
Sylas has been doing well after our large changes in 10.1 and we’re less worried about him taking over pro games, so we can give him some more power.
Q – CHAIN LASH
UDYR
Time between stance changes decreased per Cloud Drake buff.
Udyr currently doesn’t benefit at all from Cloud Drake so we’re fixing that.
PASSIVE – MONKEY’S AGILITY
One trend we’ve seen over the years is that new and low-MMR players pick jungle at a much lower rate than other positions—even when it’s stronger than those other positions. For 10.4, we’re approaching this problem by giving some popular champs at these skill levels better tools to jungle with, especially also because jungle has an arguably smaller champion pool than other positions. While players here will still have to contend with the learning curve of jungle as a position, they won’t have to learn to play a new champion as well. All the changes below are to ability effectiveness against monsters to avoid accidental impacts to lane strength.
As a caveat, we’re investigating other solutions to help out jungle and the satisfaction of playing the role in the future too, so look forward to seeing more from us outside of these changes.
Darius
Diana
Garen
Gnar
Mordekaiser
Talon
Zed
These were all documented as mid-patch updates for 10.3, but we wanted to include them in case you missed them!
Akali
Lucian
Yuumi
EXHAUST
Small buffs to Exhaust as well as readability improvements.
HAIL OF BLADES
Attempting to broaden Hail of Blades’ use cases since it’s currently taken specifically by junglers who can chain their CC abilities with their basic attacks.
LEGEND RUNES
We’ve seen Bloodline all too often as the dominant pick for ADCs, especially in pro, all last year. We’re slowing down all the Legend runes’ stacking for minion farming vs. champion killing since Bloodline specifically relies on stacking up. And since pros get more of their stacks from farming than kills compared to everyone else, this should be most impactful at that level of play.
PERFECT TIMING
Currently, a lot of players are taking Perfect Timing since it builds into core items on so many different types of champions (mages [Zhonya’s], AD champs [Guardian’s Angel], and tanks [Gargoyle Stoneplate]). Don’t get us wrong, we are happy to see it, but there’s much more satisfaction as a player and as a spectator when it’s used aggressively rather than defensively.
PHASE RUSH
Attempting to broaden the rune since it’s currently only being taken by ranged mages with extremely low cooldowns.
PROTOTYPE: OMNISTONE
These keystones are really hard to trigger at level 1.
UNFLINCHING
Getting some more satisfaction and activity out of Sunfire’s pattern.
Bami’s Cinder
Cinderhulk
Sunfire Cape
We’re making an adjustment to how slow resistance stacks on a champion to match Tenacity stacking. Now, slow resistance will stack multiplicatively instead of linearly. As an example of the change, two 30% slow resistance effects will now reduce slows by 51% rather than 60%.
We’ve talked a bunch in the past months about the switch to globally unique Riot Accounts and usernames. Starting later in 10.4, you’ll need to use those unique Riot Accounts, since the region selector on the login screen will disappear. When you log in, you’ll automatically be directed to the server associated with your account (so if you log in using your PBE account, you’ll be sent straight to PBE). You’ll also be able to change your language by going to the settings on the login screen (the little cog on the bottom right). Worth noting: if your account isn’t globally unique when this change goes through, you’re going to need to update it on this website before you log in to the game.
We have a new crash handling system going live this patch which will automatically collect crash data to help diagnose issues. Crash reports help us improve the game because it alerts us when something goes wrong! You can opt out of the automatic crash reports collection by clicking the Settings (gear icon) in-client. There, look under General and toggle off the option. Thanks for helping us help you! Read more about Crash Reporting on the Player Support website.
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