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League of Legends Patch 10.12: Varus nerfs, Elemental Drake buff, more

Isaac McIntyre
Riot Games

The League of Legends Patch 10.12 is live and we’ve got all champion balance changes, game tweaks and more for players to dig through before loading into the Rift.

League has had a few slower weeks in terms of update changes, but Patch 10.12 will see the slate ramped right back up. First up, a host of champions are set for changes, including Akali, Varus, Yasuo, and newly-reworked Volibear.

Oft-forgotten summoner spell Ghost will also be getting buffs this cycle. Runes like Guardian and Predator are also under the microscope. Finally, Infernal and Cloud elemental rifts will be changed. Here are all the details on League Patch 10.12.

Varus headlines LoL Patch 10.12 champion changes

Varus is the headlining change coming in League of Legends Patch 10.12. The CC-heavy ADC pick has been running rampant in solo queue in recent weeks, and was even picked in a mirror matchup during the 2020 Mid-Season Cup finals last week.

The marksman’s AD per level will be changed from 3.11 to 3, while his Q total Attack Damage ratio will be nerfed from 1.1 (1.65 max charge) to 1 (1.5 max charge). He will be joined in the nerf pile by Yasuo, who is having his base health hit. It will drop from 523 to 490.

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To compensate, however, the divisive champion will be getting a passive shield buff, 110-510 to 130-530. The Unforgiven’s Wind Wall is also on the chopping block: its cooldown at level one is now a lengthy 30 seconds.⁠

Ghost summoner spell set for major 10.12 buffs

This oft-forgotten summoner spell will now grant 20-40% movement speed, but will no longer ramp-up. Takedowns will add between 4-7 seconds to its duration. The spell’s cooldown has also been increased to 210, to balance the changes.

Hecarim is one of the champs set to benefit from Ghost's big buffs in LoL Patch 10.12.Riot Games
Hecarim is one of the champs set to benefit from Ghost’s big buffs in LoL Patch 10.12.

Infernal, Cloud drake map effects buffed in 10.12

The Cloud Dragon’s map effect will now give 35% out-of-combat movement speed in wind areas, and boost teams’ roaming powers. It will also cause Scryer’s Bloom plants to now appear outside base gates, and around tri-bushes.

Infernal Dragon’s influence on the map through its global Rift change will be getting a smaller tweak. Blast cones will now spawn near the Gromp camp in the jungle and at the base gates, if the randomly-rolled element is chosen.

Getting Infernal and Cloud Rifts may be even more valuable after League Patch 10.12.Riot Games
Getting Infernal and Cloud Rifts may be even more valuable after League Patch 10.12.

Make sure to check out the the full LoL Patch 10.12 notes below, courtesy of Riot Games.

League of Legends Patch 10.12 Patch Notes

AKALI

Q damage increased.

Akali’s full of cold steel and competitive potential, but we aren’t really seeing her in pro play yet. Since she’s normally limited by pro, we’re giving her some baseline effectiveness by boosting her bread-and-butter damage ability.

Q – FIVE POINT STRIKE

DAMAGE 25/50/75/100/125 (+0.65 total attack damage) (+0.6 ability power) ⇒ 30/55/80/105/130 (+0.65 total attack damage) (+0.65 ability power)

BRAND

Increased mana restore on Ablazed enemy takedowns.

Bringing up Brand’s mana restore in the hopes that it’ll punch up his mid lane status without pushing his power as a support over the line. We’re pushing this mid-favored lever way harder than ever before to see if it’s effective in making him viable there.

PASSIVE – BLAZE

ABLAZED KILL MANA RESTORE 6-18 (levels 1-18) ⇒ 20-40 (levels 1-18)

CASSIOPEIA

Base health and armor decreased; magic resist increased.

This serpent has been embracing both top and bot with open arms, and we’re primarily aiming for these changes to scale back her prowess in those lanes. With that being said, we’re softening the nerf to mid lane Cass by subtly bumping up her magic resist defenses.

BASE STATS

HEALTH 575 ⇒ 560
ARMOR 20 ⇒ 18
MAGIC RESIST 30 ⇒ 34

FIDDLESTICKS

W minion damage reduction increased.

Fiddlesticks reaped more benefits than we’d intended with our last set of buffs, so we’re trimming down his power around minion waves while taking care not to scare him off top lane.

W – BOUNTIFUL HARVEST

MINION DAMAGE REDUCTION 40% ⇒ 50%

SENNA

Bugfix on attack windup time. Passive mist wraith drop chance increased.

ADC Senna’s been in a weak spot since her last set of changes in 10.6, so we’re giving her more chances to redeem more benefits from farming. We’ve also fixed a bug that caused her to have longer auto windups while critting, which should significantly improve her crit itemization.

GENERAL

BUGFIX Fixed a bug where Senna’s crit attacks weren’t reducing her attack’s windup time correctly

PASSIVE – ABSOLUTION

MIST WRAITH DROP CHANCE 1.67% on minions Senna kills ⇒ 8.33% on minions Senna kills

TRUNDLE

Base health, mana, and mana regen rounded. W bonus movement speed decreased.

Though we took some power out of his Subjugation, Trundle is still the top troll in competitive play. We’re aiming at reducing his safe escapes from sticky situations by toning down his early mobility. Also rounding some base stats out because those decimals are as ugly as he is.

BASE STATS

HEALTH 616.28 ⇒ 616
MANA 281.6 ⇒ 281
MANA REGEN 7.508 ⇒ 7.5

W – FROZEN DOMAIN

BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED 30/35/40/45/50% ⇒ 20/28/36/44/52%

VARUS

Base attack damage growth decreased. Q damage ratio decreased.

Varus’ Lethality build is overtaking his other options, especially in pro play— and he’s just generally blighting his competition overall. This build makes him an early game powerhouse and we don’t want to take that away from him, so we’re tuning down his scaling so that he pays a fairer cost later in the game.

BASE STATS

ATTACK DAMAGE GROWTH 3.11 ⇒ 3

Q – PIERCING ARROW

DAMAGE RATIO 1.1 attack damage (1.65 maximum) ⇒ 1.0 attack damage (1.5 maximum)

VIKTOR

Q discharge damage ratio increased; shield ratio increased.

Empowering Viktor’s mid-range dueling so that he doesn’t have to solely rely on his E to be effective.

Q – SIPHON POWER

DISCHARGE DAMAGE RATIO 0.55 ability power ⇒ 0.6 ability power
SHIELD RATIO 0.15 ability power (0.24 ability power when empowered), ⇒ 0.2 ability power (0.32 ability power when empowered)

VOLIBEAR

Gameplay clarity improvements. Base mana growth and health growth increased. Q bugfixes and QoL changes. W bugfixes. R turrent disable duration, epicenter damage radius increased, and base damage increased; bugfixes.

Since release, Voli has been underperforming in his top lane, especially in higher levels of play and even with the mid-patch updates from earlier this week. Which is fine in theory since his top lane is secondary to his primary role (jungle), but the difference is just a little too wide at the moment.

So these additional changes focus on improving the fluidity of his ability casts and gameplay satisfaction, while also giving him some general baseline strength. Now, hitting abilities and outplaying your opponents should result in some tangible success (takedowns, successfully escaping, etc.)

GENERAL
IMPACT CRATERS Volibear’s E – Sky Splitter and R – Stormbringer impact craters now disperse faster
VISUAL GAMEPLAY CLARITY Improved the visual clarity of several of Volibear’s spells, including W – Frenzied Maul, E – Sky Splitter, and R – Stormbringer.
BEARS LOVE TO SING Fixed a bug that caused Volibear to hum way, way too often
ETERNALS Volibear’s Eternals are now live
BASE STATS
MANA GROWTH 40 ⇒ 50
HEALTH GROWTH 85 ⇒ 90

Q – THUNDERING SMASH

BEAR WITH IT Thundering Smash’s empowered attack can no longer be interrupted by crowd control once it’s been initiated
ATTACK SPEED SCALING Thundering Smash’s empowered attack now scales its timing with attack speed
RESET BUGFIX Volibear’s Thundering Smash reset will no longer fail if quickly recasts after being interrupted

W – FRENZIED MAUL

ANIMATION CANCEL BUGFIX Volibear will now automatically attack his target after canceling his Frenzied Maul and E – Sky Splitter animations
ATTACK BUGFIX Volibear will now continue to attack his target even after casting Frenzied Maul on them
MARK VFX Made larger and better anchored to the target’s health bar

R – STORMBRINGER

TURRET DISABLE DURATION 2/4/6 seconds ⇒ 3/4/5 seconds
EPICENTER RADIUS 250 ⇒ 300
BASE DAMAGE 250/475/700 ⇒ 300/500/700
ATTACK BUGFIX Fixed a bug that caused Volibear to automatically basic attack a target after landing via R – Stormbringer
MODEL SIZE Reduced slightly
TURRET DISABLE VFX Turrets disabled with R – Stormbringer are also now much darker to denote their status.

XAYAH

R base damage increased.

After dominating pro play for most of last season, Xayah’s been plucked from the top tiers. Buffing her R damage to reward more aggressive plays. Go on, ruffle some feathers!

R – FEATHERSTORM

BASE DAMAGE 100/150/200 ⇒ 125/250/375

YASUO

Base health decreased. Passive shield increased. W cooldown increased.

Yasuo has been outshining in bot while remaining rather lackluster in solo lanes, so we’re bringing up the cooldown on a spell that is the most effective there while giving him a little padding on his shield, since it’s easier for bot lane enemies to poke it down. We’re hoping these careful adjustments will reduce his power bot while impacting him less when he’s solo.

BASE STATS

HEALTH 523 ⇒ 490

P – WAY OF THE WANDERER

FLOW SHIELD ACTIVATION 100-510 (levels 1-18) ⇒ 115-525 (levels 1-18)

W – WINDWALL

COOLDOWN 26/24/22/20/18 seconds ⇒ 30/27/24/21/18 seconds

UPDATED APPROACH VELOCITY

Approach Velocity and Unflinching have very low pickrates and unintuitive functionality. The goal is to broaden them so more champions can use them, while also making them simpler so each rune is more understandable.

PASSIVE Gain 15% bonus movement speed toward movement-impaired allies or enemies you’ve impaired ⇒ Gain 7.5% bonus movement speed when moving toward a movement-impaired enemy champion. Increased to 15% if you were the one who impaired their movement (There is no longer a maximum range of 1000 for champions that you have CCd)

GUARDIAN

Guardian is a powerful keystone that’s been largely unpicked and ignored, despite outperforming other keystones like Aery and Aftershock on individual champions. We’re zhuzzing it up by giving players more agency over when it triggers and sharpening its intended defensive output by replacing the movement speed buff with extra strength in the shield. Altogether, we’re aiming for this keystone to still have a similar power level despite these changes, but finessed in a way that is less frustrating and more reliable to play around with. Maybe it’s time to let your guard down with this one!

TETHER RANGE 175 ⇒ 350
TRIGGER CONDITION Any damage ⇒ 90-250 postmitigation damage in the last 2.5 seconds or lethal damage
SHIELD AMOUNT 70-150 ⇒ 80-200
REMOVED MOVEMENT SPEED 20% ⇒ No longer gives movement speed

PREDATOR

While delivering on an excellent fantasy, Predator often loses sights on its prey by having a difficult cast paradigm and unintuitive optimizations. We’re attempting to broaden it from its niche role on a few junglers to making it more of a standard initiation option.

COOLDOWN 150-100 seconds ⇒ 100-70 seconds
DAMAGE 60-180 (+0.4 bonus attack damage) (+0.25 ability power) ⇒ 30-90 (+0.2 bonus attack damage) (+0.1 ability power)
I’M GOIN, I’M GOIN Active is no longer disabled for the first 150 seconds of the game.
NEWRUN, RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN Upon completion, Predator now grants 45% bonus movement speed while moving towards enemy champions at a range of 3000, including enemy champions out of vision
REMOVED CHANNEL INTERRUPTION Active is no longer interrupted if you cast an ability or enter combat (still has a 1.5 second ramp up time for damage effect and full movement speed)
NEW CHARLIE, THAT HURTS Predator now only deals damage and ends the hunt against enemy champions.
DURATION 15 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds

TASTE OF BLOOD

QoL cooldown indicator change.

INDICATOR Taste of Blood’s Icon above the player’s HUD now appears while it’s on cooldown

UPDATED UNFLINCHING

Unflinching and Approach Velocity have very low pickrates and unintuitive functionality. The goal is to broaden them so more champions can use them, while also making them simpler so each rune is more understandable.

PASSIVE Gain 10% slow resist and 10% Tenacity for each of your summoner spells on cooldown, stacking up to 20%. Gain 15% slow resist and 15% Tenacity for 10 seconds whenever you cast a summoner spell ⇒ Gain 10% slow resist and 10% Tenacity. Gain up to 20% more slow resist and Tenacity based on missing health

GHOST

Ghost has been a non-viable summoner for many champions for a long time now. Adding some power that emphasizes its strengths relative to other summoner spells with a sustained mobility effect for those using it aggressively.

NEWGHOSTING THE BUILD-UP Ghost’s movement speed now activates instantly
NEWTAKEDOWN MS EXTENSION Ghost’s increased movement speed duration now extends by 4-7 seconds (levels 1-18) when you get a takedown
MOVEMENT SPEED 28-45% (levels 1-18) ⇒ 20-40% (levels 1-18)
COOLDOWN 180 seconds ⇒ 210 seconds

Pushing the terrain a bit further in their gameplay scope.

Infernal Terrain

  • Added Blast Cones near each tri-bush near Gromp
  • Added Blast Cones by the Wolf Camp
  • Added Blast Cones in front of each base’s gates
  • Added Blast Cones in the alcoves

Cloud Terrain

  • Added Scryer’s Blooms in front of each base’s gates
  • Added Scryer’s Blooms in front of each tri-brush in the river
  • Cloud Terrain’s Speed Zones now grant 35% movement speed if you are out of combat vs. champions (increased from 20% always)
  • Clash Team names, tags, and logos will now appear on the loading screen and in-game scoreboard during Clash tournaments
  • Fixed a bug where loading screen borders weren’t accurate when queues were re-enabled
  • Fixed a bug where Kled would lose movement speed faster than intended when he lost vision of enemies
  • Hecarim’s Q – Rampage tooltip in the Collection tab has been updated to accurately reflect its latest state
  • Swain’s R – Demonic Ascension/Demonflare tooltip in the Collection tab has been updated to accurately reflect its latest state
  • Cloud Soul’s tooltip now accurately reflects its latest state
  • Rengar’s Passive – Unseen Predator‘s name and description are no longer missing in Death Recap
  • Rift Scuttler now properly plays her run animation and does not slide while Grounded
  • Bard’s Passive – Traveler’s Call‘s name and description are no longer missing in Death Recap
  • Mordekaiser no longer locks out his enemies’ Unsealed Spellbook-granted Teleport (and any Summoner Spell that’s switched out) for the remainder of the game when he stops their teleporting with R – Realm of Death
  • Fiddlesticks’ Q – Terrify now properly activates and Fears monsters when he uses W – Bountiful Harvest on them
  • When Aurelion Sol casts Q – Starsurge via the mini-map, he will now properly cast the start on the target in the map instead of the terrain directly under the mini-map (most often the right bottom corner)
  • Qiyana’s Brush-empowered Q – Elemental Wrath now properly leaves a Stealth trail when she casts it after reviving from something like Guardian Angel or Zilean’s R – Time Warp
  • Kog’Maw’s Q – Caustic Spittle in-game tooltip has been updated to correctly reflect its latest state
  • Braum’s R – Glacial Fissure ‘s VFX is no longer misaligned when the ability is cast at 0 range
  • Sion’s Q – Decimating Smash ‘s tooltip now properly indicates that his total attack damage modifier is increased when cast
  • Riven’s Q – Broken Wings ‘s tooltip has been corrected to remove the attack speed gain
  • Evelynn’s W – Allure now properly functions when cast on Baron Nashor at all ability’s levels and from any range
  • Rengar’s R – Thrill of the Hunt no longer reduces turrets’ armor
  • Nidalee’s Q – Javelin Toss now properly procs her Passive – Prowl when cast on Baron Nashor at any range
  • Ornn’s Passive – Living Forge no longer fails when the ally receiving the upgraded item dies while the missile effect is mid-air
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