League of Legends: Riot Games details major overhaul for ARAM in Patch 9.7

The All Random All Mid (ARAM) mode in League of Legends is getting a familiar facelift in Patch 9.7 while bringing game changing updates for various features to mix up the formula.

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After Riot Games collected extensive feedback from both Nexus Blitz and ARURF+, the company is going to experiment with ARAM by introducing popular aspects from those limited timed modes.

Senior Game Designer Stephen ‘RIOT_MORT’ Mortimer announced the imminent changes to the Abyss which will see the return of Butcher’s Bridge while adding in dynamic changes such as mode-specific champion buffs/nerfs and a new summoner spell.

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New Summoner Spell

Fans will be excited to take a trip back to Bilgewater, but things will be a lot different starting with the new ARAM summoner spell Backtrack. The new ability will replace barrier and give a small shield as well as escape when activated.

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Backtrack will dash a player toward their Fountain but will vary in distance for range champs as opposed to melee ones.

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The Ban System

Banning champions is coming to ARAM. Just like in Summoner’s Rift, the ban system will let each team disable five characters from champ select.

As an added measure for this experiment, banned champs will not be able to get selected via reroll either.

Quicker Games

Riot is trying to reduce the length of ARAM games across the board since it’s supposed to be a more linear League experience by nature.

To do this, minions are going to start spawning sooner while moving much quicker after 15 minutes, and those rates will get increasingly faster until it caps at 25 minutes.

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Similarly champions will deal 10% damage to structures until 15 minutes when the damage steadily increases to the 25 minute cap of 30%.

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While the patch is going to include a bevy of new or updated items like the Mariner’s Vengeance, the melee-only Ghostwalker boots, and more, the changes have all been made to give ARAM more mode-exclusive strats to make the game feel a bit more unique.

Riot Games are very aware that some of these changes are huge, which is why they are more than willing to rollback what doesn’t work at the end of 9.7 based on player feedback.

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To find the full slate of changes coming to specific Runes and Champions exclusively for ARAM, check out the notes below.

Runes Adjustment

As we did with Nexus Blitz and ARURF+, we’ve adjusted some of the numbers on various runes. Since ARAM is a shorter game mode, certain runes like Gathering Storm were just really bad choices, but now they should be viable options. In addition, there were a few runes that were really powerful in ARAM, so we’ve tuned them down. They should still be good options, but hopefully not always must-picks.

PRECISION

• Triumph: Restore 6% (from 12%) of your missing HP and grant 10 (from 20) gold
• Presence of Mind: Restore 10% (from 20%) of your max mana and 6% (from 10%) of your ult cooldown

DOMINATION

• Electrocute: Cooldown 15-10 seconds (from 25-20 seconds)
• Predator: Cooldown 100-80 seconds (from 150-100 seconds)
• Taste of Blood: Cooldown 15 seconds (from 20 seconds)
• Ghost Poro: Cooldown 25 seconds (from 60 seconds)

SORCERY

• Nullifying Orb: Cooldown 30 seconds (from 60 seconds)
• Nimbus Cloak: Cooldown 30 seconds (from 60 seconds)
• Gathering Storm: Every 7 minutes (from 10 minutes)

RESOLVE

• Grasp of the Undying: Permanent health gained is 10 (from 5) for melee, 6 (from 3) for ranged
• Conditioning: Activates at 8 minutes (from 10 minutes)
• Overgrowth: Gain 5 health (from 3) for every 8 monsters absorbed; at 80 monsters (from 120) gain additional 2.5% HP

INSPIRATION

• Magical Footwear: Gives at 8 minutes (from 10 minutes)
• Perfect Timing: Activates at 4 minutes (from 10 minutes)
• Minion Dematerializer: Initial cooldown of 2 minutes (from 4 minutes)

Champion Balance

And finally, let’s talk champion balance. With very few exceptions (ex: Shyvana’s passive) we’ve never really committed the resources to balancing ARAM because we believe champions should behave similarly on both SR and ARAM, so players don’t have to re-learn their picks on different maps. But we tested some low-complexity approaches to balance in both Nexus Blitz and ARURF+ and found them to be quite successful in making the majority of champions viable in those modes. So we’re going to apply that learning to ARAM.

Our goal is not to completely shuffle the tier list, but simply to narrow the gap between the top and the bottom. Ziggs and Sona should still be strong picks, just not “makes you want to surrender when you’re matched up against them” strong! Here’s the full list of nerfs and buffs:

NERFS:

• Ashe: -5% damage dealt
• Illaoi: +5% damage taken
• Janna: +5% damage taken
• Jhin: -5% damage dealt
• Jinx: -5% damage dealt
• Kog’maw: -8% damage dealt
• Lux: -8% damage dealt
• Maokai: -8% damage dealt & +5% damage taken
• Miss Fortune: -5% damage dealt
• Nasus: -5% damage dealt
• Sion: +5% damage taken
• Sivir: -8% damage dealt
• Sona: -10% damage dealt & -25% healing done
• Teemo: -8% damage dealt
• Veigar: +5% damage taken
• Vel’Koz: -5% damage dealt
• Yorick: +8% damage taken (doesn’t apply to Maiden of the Mist)
• Ziggs: -15% damage dealt

BUFFS:

• Akali: +12% damage dealt & -8% damage taken
• Bard: +8% damage dealt & -5% damage taken
• Evelynn: +12% damage dealt & -5% damage taken
• Hecarim: -10% damage taken
• Kindred: +10% damage dealt
• Khazix: -10% damage taken
• LeBlanc: +12% damage dealt
• Lee Sin: +8% damage dealt & -10% damage taken
• Nidalee: +15% damage dealt
• Nocturne: +5% damage dealt & -10% damage taken
• Rek’sai: +10% damage dealt & -10% damage taken
• Rengar: -10% damage taken
• Ryze: +8% damage dealt & -5% damage taken
• Sejuani: -10% damage taken
• Tryndamere: +10% damage dealt & -10% damage taken
• Warwick: -8% damage taken

These balance changes are up for evaluation just like the other tests during this 9.7 mini-event, so these exact numbers might not last. Based on the results during 9.7 and feedback from you, we’ll be making adjustments as necessary.