League of Legends Patch 9.4 features extensive Champion nerfs, Essence Reaver changes and more – Full patch notes
League of Legends released patch notes for the upcoming Patch 9.4 on February 20 that included more nerfs to Urgot, extra tweaks to some marksmen items, fixes to many bugs, and a whole lot more.
Since the Ranked season began on January 24, players have encountered strange metas appearing in the top lane, weak bot lanes due to inefficient items, and overpowered champs that don’t seem to be getting any weaker from nerfs.
Now Riot Games are looking to remedy these problems across the board with their new patch and it seems like a lot of the previous problems have been addressed.
Looks like another round of nerfs are coming to the Top lane Urgod.
The most notable changes come with another round of Urgot nerfs, buffs to Hecarim’s early game, a quality of life improvement for Rek’Sai, and a nerf to the most dominant support in the game right now, Thresh.
Essence Reaver will, again, go under the microscope and be buffed to make it a bit more competitive.
As for runes, the 9.4 patch is solely focusing on the Conqueror since it gave players “too much immediate power” that it was not intended to have. The rune will now split 10% of damage inflicted into true damage and 10% into a heal, instead of giving 20% true damage like it was before.
The developers also felt it necessary to reiterate the changes made to the Spellthief Edge and Ancient Coin lines, which were made after strange metas in the top lane were becoming more popular in Ranked play.
Players will be feeling a lot of little changes from the 9.4 update, which will hopefully bring some much needed balance to the Rift.
For the 9.4 patch updates to Champions see below, courtesy of Riot Games.
Champion Balance Changes
Karthus
Q damage decreased.
Preseason’s changes to Dark Harvest and rune stats were more than “just a little” nice for Karthus. Now he’s everywhere and ruining your life. Less damage on Lay Waste will help opponents have a chance at fighting back. Here’s the caveat we’ll add for our “5 damage lul” change— Karthus spams his Q more often than most champs cast their abilities, so the numbers definitely add up.
Q – Lay Waste
- BASE DAMAGE 50/70/90/110/130 ⇒ 45/65/85/105/125
- BASE DAMAGE ON SINGLE TARGET 100/140/180/220/260 ⇒ 90/130/170/210/250
- BUGFIX Now procs Runes more consistently
Lucian
W cost increased; base damage decreased.
Ardent Blaze allows Lucian to rapidly max out Manaflow Band, trivializing the cost of spamming his abilities. We’re forcing more of a tradeoff if Lucian goes the Manaflow optimization route by sapping his resources faster and weakening the strength of his all-in when he does.
W – Ardent Blaze
- COST 50 mana ⇒ 70 mana
- BASE DAMAGE 85/125/165/205/245 ⇒ 75/110/145/180/215
Rek’Sai
Burrowed Q now grants Fury. Unburrowed Q ends when burrowed for more than 1 second. Rek’Sai now burrows on respawn. Tremor Sense visuals brightened. R is undodgeable.
We took a quality-of-life pass at Rek’Sai’s abilities, implementing smaller visual additions and kit revisions to help her feel better to play. Queen’s Wrath will come off cooldown earlier after clearing a camp since Rek’Sai no longer has to wait for the buff to expire before the cooldown starts, and (a couple of very specific cases aside) Void Rush is no longer avoidable.
Passive – Fury of the Xer’Sai
- NOT ORANGE BUT – Fury Bar now changes color from yellow to red when charged to max
Burrowed Q – Prey Seeker
- FAST AND THE FURY-OUS – Now grants 25 Fury to match Rek’Sai’s other abilities
Unburrowed Q – Queen’s Wrath
- CALM DOWN – Effect now ends and goes on cooldown if Rek’Sai is burrowed for more than 1 second
Unburrowed W – Burrow
- TREMOR SENSE – Tracking visuals for nearby enemies brightened
- 6 MORE WEEKS OF WINTER – Rek’Sai immediately burrows on respawn once she has at least one point in W
R – Void Rush
- GOTTA GO FAST Enemies can now only dodge Void Rush by dashing or blinking massive distances away from Rek’Sai
Sylas
Q radius increased vs champions. W heal decreased. R no longer fizzles if Sylas loses vision of his target.
Sylas has landed in a pretty good spot since release, but there are a few usability issues on Chain Lash which we want to address. These fixes (plus a small Kingslayer nerf) will offer Sylas players a more meaningful choice between maxing Q or W first.
Q – Chain Lash
- DETONATION RADIUS – 200 vs minions and monsters, 150 vs champions ⇒ 200 vs minions and monsters, 180 vs champions
- CAST RANGE INDICATOR – Now includes an indicator to show the detonation location and radius
W – Kingslayer
- BASE HEAL 50/85/120/155/190 ⇒ 50/80/110/140/170
- ICON Icon border now glows when Sylas is within the max healing threshold
- NUMBERS Kingslayer’s damage displays as a crit if Sylas’ target was within the bonus damage threshold
R – Hijack
TURRET AGGRESSION – Sylas no longer draws turret aggro when stealing an enemy’s ultimate
??? – Hijack no longer fizzles if Sylas loses sight of his target before the cast finishes
Thresh
Q cost increased; cooldown increased early.
Before Worlds, we gave Thresh some buffs that allowed him to throw his hook more often in the early game. We’re partially reverting those changes since he’s proving to be too oppressive in lane.
Q – Death Sentence
- COST 60 mana ⇒ 70 mana
- COOLDOWN 16/15/14/13/12 seconds ⇒ 20/18/16/14/12 seconds
Urgot
Q cost increased. W shield decreased, cost increased early.
We thought we had put Urgie in a good place after the last nerfs in 9.2. Alas, he’s continued to be an unstoppable force in lane with help from his low-cost shield and canisters. Urgot players will now have to choose between poking from range or shielding up to duel when spending their mana.
Q – Corrosive Charge
- COST 60 mana ⇒ 80 mana
W – Purge
- COST 45/50/55/60/65 mana ⇒ 65 mana at all ranks
- SHIELD 60/90/120/150/180 (+0.3 bonus health) ⇒ 30/70/110/150/190 (+0.15 bonus health)
Yasuo
Attack damage decreased. Q crit damage decreased.
We buffed Yasuo last midseason when Infinity Edge lost its critical strike chance and bonus crit damage. As of last patch, Infinity Edge once again has critical strike chance and bonus crit damage so we’re mostly reverting his midseason buffs (Steel Tempest gets to keep some buff since IE didn’t get all its bonus crit damage back).
Base Stats
ATTACK DAMAGE 63 ⇒ 60
Q – Steel Tempest
- CRITICAL STRIKE DAMAGE +80% ⇒ +60%
Zed
Attack speed growth increased. Q damage increased. W recast range increased; cooldown decreased. R no longer grants attack damage on kill.
The theory behind Zed’s R – Death Mark passive—kill high-AD threats to get stronger—breaks down in practice because the highest-AD target is often not the most important threat for Zed to go after. At the same time, buffs to make hunting the highest-AD target correct at all times would make Zed entirely reliant on Reaper of Shadows, preventing him from finding success in other ways. We’re removing it and giving its power back to Zed in areas he’s been struggling in, namely a better early lane and more powerful late-game splitpushing.
Base Stats
- ATTACK SPEED GROWTH 2.1% ⇒ 3.3%
Q – Razor Shuriken
- DAMAGE 80/115/150/185/220 (+0.9 bonus attack damage) ⇒ 90/125/160/195/230 (+1.0 bonus attack damage)
W – Living Shadow
- RECAST RANGE 1300 range ⇒ 1950 range
- COOLDOWN 22/20/18/16/14 seconds ⇒ 20/18.5/17/15.5/14 seconds
R – Death Mark
- REMOVEDREAPER OF SHADOWS – Zed no longer gains 5 (+5/10/15% target’s attack damage) attack damage when Death Mark earns him a takedown on a target that would grant him a higher bonus than his current one