League of Legends Patch 9.17

Keeping League of
Legends Interesting

Riot has done it again, now with another patch that aims to
change a little thing or two in different parts of the game. From a player’s
perspective, this means that we get to see improvements/downgrades to different
Champions. Therefore we always get the “chills” as we see one element of our
collection is changing in different ways. Likewise any other multiplayer game
all over the Internet, even the slightest modification is a specific number
will likely change the META, completely removing/adding a champion to the “must
play” category. Most noteworthy, to avoid radical changes in League of Legends
Patches, there are lots of tests in private servers before anything goes live.

Besides the regular changes in the current roster, in this patch you’ll find improvements in the UI (User Interface), that aims to improve the aesthetic of the Game Launcher. Hence, it may not look different, but Riot needs to keep with the competition, graphical improvements are always welcome. Additionally, we get to see more bug fixes that tend to annoy the player base with unintended problems. Above all, within this patch, we get to see more “free to play” rotations each week. Indeed, the old sacred number ten for these rotations it always became the standard for League of Legends. Therefore, now with almost 150 Champions to choose from, this “free to play” feature gives us the potential to try more options before spending our hard-earned Shards.

Similarly to the previous League of Legends Patches, we get
to see more amazing skins and chromas to make our Champions a lot “prettier.”
Now, without further ado, let’s dig into every new part from the 9.17 Patch.

Patch 9.17

User Interface
Changes

“IN-GAME UI DISABLE
The in-game stat panel button that will allow players to check their Eternals
progress during a game has been disabled

PROGRESSION DISABLE
The Progression tab under Collection that will allow players to test their
Eternals and Champion Mastery progress on the client has been disabled.”

A “work in progress” feature that still needs some work to
do from Riot, the developers. Therefore, when everything seems to work with the
Eternals and Champion Mastery progress in the game, we’ll get to see this
option available to us shortly.

However, what are the “Eternals” in the first place?

“Eternals are a new
type of cosmetic that let you showcase your accomplishments in League, counting
both unique and general gameplay milestones on a per-champion basis. In-game,
you’ll see milestones “pop up” on the side of the screen as you hit
statistical checkpoints for that Eternal.”

In other words, this cosmetic feature lets you keep a record
for all the “pro skills” that you tend to show when you play League of Legends.
Furthermore, a pop-up message will surely let know to everyone on the server
that you have mastery in a specific Champion, and they should avoid any
conflicts when you’re present. Above all, even though this feature looks
impressive, currently there are lots of backlashes complains due to the “RP”
requirements to get only one.

Collection

“PORTRAIT SIZE:
Champions’ portraits are now more giant and match what’s shown in the loading
screen and Skins tab more closely, with some space for additional information
in the future.”

With this feature, we now a clear understanding of which
players in a random match like to give their support to Riot. Furthermore, with
the preview on the Eternals feature, we’ll get to see more information about
your champion’s mastery and new cosmetics.

“MASTERY CHEST BORDER
REPLACEMENT: Champion portraits no longer have a gold border to indicate that a
Mastery Chest was earned on that champion for the season. Now, pictures will
have a loot chest icon, matching what’s in the champion tooltip.”

Even though this modification is practically minuscule, we
will have more information about the progress of all the mastery chests.
Therefore, if you see a gold border, try your best to receive a tremendous
personal score at the end of the match to earn another chest in your
collection.

“FILTER OPTIONS:
Champions are now viewable in groups by different categories, including most
popular position, similar to Champion Select.”

Due to the short time that we always get to pick our
Champion in a random match, you now have more tools to search and find the
right choice. For example, you now can look at all those “Assassin” champions
that you have in your collection and counter pick teams that use characters
with low health pools.

Bug Fixes

“BLANK CHAMPION BUGFIX:
Blank champion portraits, labeled “None,” are no longer showing up in
the Champions tab.

MASTERY BUGFIX:
Mastery levels are correctly showing on the champion portraits in the Champions
tab.

TEXT BUGFIX: Fixed
some text on the Champion tab and Collection so that they do not incorrectly
wrap to the next line.”

With all these improvements, we now have lower chances to
see any UI error as the game loads all the assets. Indeed, shortly (and with
the inclusion of Eternals), everything will be sorted out and have a great
aesthetic in the game.

Champion
Modifications

Aurelion Sol

“Passive damage
decreased; AP ratio now flat; stars are no longer disabled by CC. Q cooldown
now scales; movement speed increased; star will keep up with Aurelion Sol. W
now expands stars and rotates at a decaying speed; cooldown increased early,
decreased late; cost no longer increases over time. E passive movement speed
removed; range and cooldown altered; speed now scales.”

Well, it seems that Riot doesn’t know what this Champion
truly needs to improve its performance in the game. First of all, they removed
his passive, one of the positive characteristics of Aurelion Sol. Additionally,
almost all the abilities got nerfing damage, reducing the effectiveness of the
champion on team fights. Furthermore, by changing to the “scaling” option, it
means that the early game you practically need to be hiding between the grass
as much as possible. Above all, the current position of this champion is
currently not encouraging, making it less appealing to unlock for any player’s
roster.

Galio

“Q cooldown decreased.
W min and max damage increased.”

This time around, Galio found nothing but Buffs in this
particular patch. Due to the increase of mana regen, it will have more chances
to throw more abilities to the enemy’s team. Consequently, two of its amazing
skills now have more effectiveness in the early game. Overall, it seems that
Galio has a better arsenal to throw itself in the middle of the battle and
create some chaos.

Kalista

“Base attack damage,
mana, and mana growth increased.”

On this occasion, Riot only made a little tweak in the main
stats of this champion. In contrast to the usual buffing procedure, no
cooldowns or ability damage has any modification at all. As a result, almost
all the community that already unlocked Kalista will find no difficulties in
adapting to the recent changes from this update.

Kayle

“Passive bonuses
adjusted for all four forms. Q now refunds mana; cast delay, missile speed, and
range decreased; cast time updated; enemy shred decreased, but duration
increased. E bonus damage decreased later; ratio increased; on-hit rate
updated. R cost now scales; radius increased.”

In contrast to Kalista, this specific champion became almost
entirely new (theoretically speaking). First of all, the way that her passive
works in now wholly different than before. Therefore, she reaches Arisen from
at level 6, and Aflame from at level 11. Additionally, Kayle gains more
movement speed to all directions, and the attack range improves overtime. Most
noteworthy, all of the abilities now have a “later game” mentality, which means
that they scale significantly later on if you manage to reach the 30-minute mark.

Leona

“Q cooldown decreased.”

Although it may look minuscule to remove a second in this
ability, it helps Leona a lot in the entire duration of the match. As a result,
you’ll be able to deal a lot more damage and most importantly crowd control
chances with the one-second stun. Therefore, you’ll never go wrong if you spam
Q as much as you like in the lane and between all the team fights.

Lucian

“Base AD increased.”

Even though this type of change seems a little bit
minuscule, to every Attack Damage Carry, it’s always welcome. Furthermore,
since every level, almost all the items from these types of heroes tend to
increase this powerful stat. Therefore, you’ll end up multiplying the damage of
all your right-clicks, killing everything on your path.

Neeko

“Neeko can now
deactivate her passive without taking damage or casting another ability.”

By adding more tools in Neeko’s repertoire, you’ll able to
create more chaos in the middle of a fight. Therefore, you now have the chance
to get out of any shapeshift costume by selecting yourself as the primary
target. Additionally, if you’re taking this route, the cooldown will only be
two seconds.

Pantheon

“Q Thrusts now grant
execute damage. E monster damage reduction removed.”

By applying these changes into two different abilities,
Pantheon now has a better chance to own another role in League of Legends. As a
result, in the jungle, your Q will do much damage to the low health monsters,
and E doesn’t have damage reduction anymore. Therefore, you’ll be able to deal
as much damage as possible, get the farm that you need, and kill all the
monsters that wait for you in different camps of the map.

Qiyana

“E base damage
decreased. R cooldown flattened.”

We all saw these nerfs coming from miles away. First of all,
Riot still keeps the habit of releasing overpowerful new champions to the
roster. Secondly, they kept them intact for a couple of weeks. Finally, when
the sales (unlocking) decrease, they nerf them little by little. This time
around, one of Qiyana’s core assassin ability has gotten a slight damage
decrease. Furthermore, her ultimate now only has the largest cooldown (120
seconds), in all ranks.

Ryze

“Base magic resists
increased.”

Again, we see now another little improvement in some main
stats. In contrast to Lucian, Ryze needs magic resistance a lot more than some changes
in the attack damage number. Therefore, in the late game, this particular
champion can sustain a lot more magical source damage in the middle of any team
fight.

Zyra

“R cost flattened;
cooldown decreased.”

Zyra has now an overall change to her ultimate with lots of
improvements to create a lot more damage. First of all, the cost now only takes
the lowest number (100 mana), which means that you have more chances to cast
more abilities in the late game. Additionally, there’s less cooldown time to cast
the ultimate over and over again.

Free to Play
Rotations

“In 2017, players
asked us to expand the weekly free champion rotation beyond just ten champions.
As a result, we updated our model to include 10% of the total number of
available champions to the rotation and increased the number to 14. With
Qiyana, we’re officially at 145 champions! As promised, we’re formally expanding
the number of champions to 15 in the next free-to-play rotation on the first
week of September 2019.”

Finally, after all these years (even far than 2017), we see
some improvements in the free champion rotation! This time around, we’ll able
to pick between 15 options to try out before we permanently unlock a new
element in our roster. Furthermore, it looks astonishing that we now have 145
champions to choose and practice whenever we get the chance. As a result,
finding the right spot to see the neutral ground for all these characters is
practically impossible to achieve. Still, though, Riot surprises us with every
balancing patch that we get in League of Legends. Most noteworthy, who knows
the limit of the number of champions that will arrive at the end, at the
moment, it feels like it never is going to end.

More Bugfixes

“Soraka now properly
heals herself with R – Wish for more when she is under 40% of her maximum
health.

Individual champions’
movement abilities are now correctly disabled when they’re Grounded (Zac’s E –
Elastic Slingshot, Malphite’s R – Unstoppable Force, Camille’s E – Hookshot,
Graves’ R – Collateral Damage, Thresh’s W – Dark Passage, and Fiddlestick’s R –
Crowstorm).

Rek’Sai no longer
gains a short “Can’t Be Displaced” buff if her target dies as she
starts R – Void Rush

Cleanse now correctly
clears the stun from Viktor’s AUGMENT: IMPLOSION W – Gravity Field.

Lee Sin’s Q –
Resonating Strike’s dash speed is now at its proper speed (not as slow as it
was in 9.16).

If Sylas dies
immediately after casting Pantheon’s R – Grand Starfall via R – Hijack, he will
no longer be locked out of using items and basic abilities.

Sivir’s W – Ricochet
now correctly bounces when recasting when she reaches 45% CDR by holding Spear
of Shojin or Cosmic Insight.

Statikk Shiv will no
longer hit nearby targets outside of Mordekaiser’s R – Realm of Death when the
holder attacks him within it.

When Tahm Kench dies
while using W – Devour on another unit, that unit’s HP can now properly go
below 1 HP.”

Analysis

Due to the enormous quantity of coding parameters from the
development team, and the amount of content in this game; it is almost
impossible that something may never break when new content arrives.
Furthermore, since the gaming engine has been practically the same thing all
over these years, sometimes the same bugs appear over and over again with every
patch or maintenance. As a result, the task to keep everything working
correctly and stable, it’s almost a routine for Riot. Indeed, with this League
of Legends Patch, we get to see fixes in lots of the champion’s abilities that
had unusual behaviors.

Additionally, with maintenance such as these, we hope that
this game reaches the “almost perfect” state. Making every champion functional,
and every part of the UI functional and joyful to witness.

Upcoming Skins

Elderwood Theme

Different types of lore tend to linger between all the
champions of League of Legends. Indeed, one of the exciting themes that are
available at the moment is the Elderwood saga. This time around, powerful magic
coming from the sun and the moon changed the appearance of some champions,
turning them into a wood-like creature.

Elderwood Ahri

Fables of the trickster spirit Ahri have been part of humankind’s
history for countless generations. Fair-skinned and eternally youthful, she is
portrayed as a curious, quizzical member of the Elderwood’s feyfolk… though in
recent years her heart has hardened, as she fights a growing corruption within
her ancestral home.

Elderwood Nocturne

The high corpses of the Old Gods fed the land, and in time
even the Elderwood would come to grow over their putrid rot–hiding it, perhaps,
for a time. However, the Gods never indeed died and, with the resurgence of the
Coven, one has risen again–Nocturne, the Eternal Nightmare.

Elderwood Veigar

A small number of the Elderwood’s children remain mostly
unaffected by the growing influence of the Coven, to the relief of scholars and
storytellers alike. Unfortunately, those particular children are some of the
most whimsical and dangerous, including among their number the insane goblin
Veigar and his cursed, hallucinogenic toadstools.

Infernal Theme

In this alternative universe, the Ashen Lord as taken
everything under control, creating chaos and destruction as it travels across
the world. Consequently, between the ashes, some of the champions resurface as
fire entities, following their creator’s path.

Infernal Galio

A black-hearted monstrosity leading the hellish Infernal
hordes, Galio is titanic even by the standards of his fiery kin. His steps melt
the very bedrock beneath him, swallowing entire armies without so much as a
second thought.

Infernal Shen

An Infernal warrior risen from the raging depths of the
underworld, Shen appears on battlefields in the blink of an eye, shielding his
fellow titans from even the most well-organized resistance.

Infernal Varus

The Infernal Varus rips massive gouts of magma from the
foundation of the earth, before firing them in volleys at those who would fight
back against him. Each arrow lands with the ferocity of an exploding volcano,
reducing all resistance to ash.

Upcoming Chromas

Once again, we get the chance to modify the champion’s color
palate in exchange for some Riot Points. As a result, we now can make our
compelling characters outline the accustomed forest-like theme of the main map
with colors that may let you stand out between a vast crowd. Above all, every
new skin from this League of Legends Patch has now the option to add these
chromas. Therefore, if you like to collect things like this, go free and take
all you can.

Future Changes

At the moment, there are two “main features” to focus on the
upcoming League of Legends Patches in the forthcoming months. First of all,
Riot wants to implement that “Eternals” thingy in the main game, making all
these achievements flashy and outstanding in the middle of the match.
Therefore, there may be lots of work to improve the aesthetics of the User
Interphase to make everything appealing.

Secondly, the tournament Worlds is around the corner, always
full of professional players and challenges. Hence, the development team needs
to focus on creating a middle ground for all the available champions in the
roster. As a result, we’ll get to see that the professional players try every
element in the list to create new combos and surprises to the audience.

Conclusion

Thanks to all these improvements with every League of
Legends Patch, we get to see better graphics on the UI, Champion’s balance, and
Bug fixes. Indeed, with every update that hits the servers, the development
team aims to keep the game alive through all these years. Therefore, every time
we explore the contents of any new patch note, we only hope that our favorite
champions get some improvements and dominate the META forever.

Last but not least, more than often, we get to see new skins
that tend to have outstanding art with different themes that change the
aesthetic of every champion. Hence, with this kind of content, we have the
chance to support the development team and keep the focus on the game for more
years to come.