Hello to everyone except those who aren't my friend.
Before we dive into the patch changes, a quick PSA-- patch 10.4 will not be going live until February 20 due to the holidays!
In this patch, we're breaking top Sona and Soraka since they're grossly overpowered in the lane. Additionally, we're making larger changes to the jungle champion pool and giving some traditionally non-jungler champions better tools to do so if they want. This way, we're diversifying the arguably small champion pool for veteran and new players. And finally, we're making Aphelios a little easier to understand not just for the person playing him, but for his opponents too.
Take this portal if you're looking for TFT's patch notes!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 mana and mana growth increased. Q base damage increased.
Jayce should now be able to cast more abilities to fend off his opponents.
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.
Base AS and AS ratio increased.
Ok.
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.
Auras now grants Sona mana at first ally tag. Q, W, and E costs increased.
I don't play her top anyways.
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.
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.
Time between stance changes decreased per Cloud Drake buff.
Udyr currently doesn't benefit at all from Cloud Drake so we're fixing that.
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.
These were all documented as mid-patch updates for 10.3, but we wanted to include them in case you missed them!
Small buffs to Exhaust as well as readability improvements.
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.
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.
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.
Attempting to broaden the rune since it's currently only being taken by ranged mages with extremely low cooldowns.
These keystones are really hard to trigger at level 1.
Getting some more satisfaction and activity out of Sunfire's pattern.
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.
The following skins will be released this patch. Grab the League Displays app for full-res splash art!
The following chromas will be released this patch: