Summoners!

The League of Legends community is growing at a staggering pace! This is fantastic, but it has required us to make some changes to ensure our community remains healthy and vibrant. 

As you know, we've been actively monitoring and moderating the forums for a few months. To continue improving your forum-going experience, we're introducing a new protective measure. 

Beginning on 8/29/11, new League of Legends accounts will be required to reach summoner level 5 before they can post in areas outside of the New Player and the Help and Support forums. This change will encourage new players to gather in areas where they can receive the most help learning the game, and will prevent those nasty trolls from spamming you with violations of the Forum Code of Conduct.

In case you're worried this will keep new members from contributing positively to the community, bear in mind only it takes a short time for a summoner to reach level 5. We feel this is a fair amount of time that will keep people from creating accounts specifically to troll and spam but won't disenfranchise new members of the community who genuinely want to become positive influences on the forums. 

As with any community improvement measure we introduce, we'll continually monitor how this change affects the community's health and gather your feedback on this new effort to maintain a healthy League of Legends community.

Summoners!

Another week begins here in Valoran, and with it come another pair of skins for some of your favorite champions of the League. If you?re one of those musical types, you?ll be pleased to know that Karthus, the Deathsinger, has put his celebrated vocal talents to work as the lead singer for Pentakill! If you?re interested in keeping current with the band lineup, the Pentakill Karthus skin for this handsome lich is your next stop! Also, with the addition of this new wardrobe change for our Karthus, we will be permanently reducing the Statue of Karthus skin from 975 RP to 520 RP!

Click on the Skins tab in the Store to purchase and unlock these new skin!

Season One will conclude with our next scheduled downtime. We have some additional important updates for you!

We wanted to let you know we're updating our Season One reward tiers to better represent and reward the competitive gamers in the community. We think the new structure provides more players with a chance to achieve higher tiered status without compromising the exclusivity of each rank. 

We made these adjustments based upon the percentage of our playerbase that we wanted to recognize at each tier. 

The new ladder reward tiers are:

• Platinum (Top 0.2%) - 1900 and above (3v3: 1700+, pre-made 5v5: 1750+): a framed summoner icon in platinum, a platinum banner in summoner profile, a platinum forum badge and a special skin for Jarvan IV
• Gold (Top 3%) - Between 1520 and 1899 (3v3: 1490-1699, pre-made 5v5: 1500-1749) : a framed summoner icon in gold, a gold banner in your summoner profile, a gold forum badge and a special skin for Jarvan IV
• Silver (Top 10%) - Between 1400 and 1519 (3v3: 1410-1489, pre-made 5v5: 1410-1499) : a framed summoner icon in silver and a silver banner in your summoner profile
• Bronze (Top 25%) - Between 1249 and 1399 (3v3: 1249-1409, pre-made 5v5: 1249-1409) : a bronze banner in your summoner profile

As we enter Preseason Two, we will be performing a graduated reset of the League of Legends ladder based on player performance in Ladder Season One. The vast majority of players (97%) will have their Elo reset to between 1100 and 1300 rating, with top and bottom performers falling anywhere between 906 and 1490 rating. Ladder gains made during Preseason Two will carry over into Season Two once it begins.

Season One will conclude with our next scheduled downtime, so be sure to work on that ladder rank quickly!

New Skins in the Store (( PICS BELOW ))

• Renegade Talon
• Crimson Elite Talon
• Demolisher Nunu
• Dragonslayer Vayne

PVP.net Store

• Added a Purchases tab that contains a history of all your purchases
• Champions tab redesigned to feature full art splashes
• Home page layout graphics updated
• Home page now features a progress indicator for content being loaded
• Filtering and search redesigned to be more visually appealing and compact
• Made several fixes and tweaks to padding/alignments/font issues throughout the store

PVP.net v1.42.34

• New landing page design
  • Now displays YouTube videos (Champion spotlight/Community Spotlight, etc). These videos can be expanded to full screen
  • Top news articles from LeagueOfLegends.com are displayed in the lower left
  • Featured and sale items from the store are now displayed in the top right
  • Redesigned the banner scroller to make it smoother
• New art and layout for the End of Game screen
• Improved messages for game invites to include game type
• Updated the design for map/game selection
• Summoner's Rift Autumn map is now directly selectable from the custom game screen

League of Legends v1.0.0.124
Talon, the Blade's Shadow

• Noxian Diplomacy: Talon viciously stabs his enemy, dealing heavy physical damage and causing them to leave a blood trail that Talon can use to track them.
• Rake: Talon fans out three blades in front of him that quickly return to him, dealing damage and slowing any target hit in either direction.
• Cutthroat: Talon leaps behind his target and silences them for a short duration, amplifying the damage of any of his follow up attacks and abilities.
• Shadow Assault (Ultimate): Talon enters stealth for a short duration, gaining a movement speed boost and sending blades that deal damage to all enemies in their path flying in every direction. Once the blades reach a certain distance, they pause and form a circle. When Talon reappears from stealth, the blades return to him, once again dealing damage to any opponent they pass through.
• Mercy (Passive): Talon's auto-attacks deal additional damage to a target that is under the influence of any crowd control effect.

Alistar

• Unbreakable Will
  • Duration adjusted to 7 seconds at all ranks from 6/7/8 seconds
  • Physical and Magical Damage reduction reduced to 50/60/70% from 75% at all ranks

Jax

• Leap Strike damage reduced to 20/45/70/95/120 from 35/60/85/110/135
• Empower
  • Damage reduced to 60/95/130/165/200 from 75/110/135/180/215
  • Empower now breaks spell shields

Kayle

• Attack damage per level increased to 2.8 from 2.5
• Attack speed per level increased to 2.5 from 2
• Reckoning
  • Now scales with bonus attack damage at a 1.0 ratio in addition to a 1.0 ability power ratio
  • Damage amplification increased to 6/7/8/9/10% from 5% at all levels

Lee Sin

• Resonating Strike will now only automatically attempt to attack champions rather than all enemies

Nidalee

• Javelin Toss
  • Mana Cost reduced to 50/60/70/80/90 from 60/70/80/90/100
  • Cooldown reduced to 6 seconds from 7 seconds
• Pounce
  • May now be affected by Cooldown Reduction
  • Cooldown increased to 4 seconds from 3 seconds
• Primal Surge
  • Mana cost adjusted to 60/80/100/120/140 from 65/70/75/80/85
  • Base heal adjusted to 50/85/120/155/190 from 60/90/120/150/180
  • Ability power ratio reduced to 0.7 from 1.25
• Swipe ability power ratio increased to 0.4 from 0.2
• Aspect of the Cougar now grants 10/15/20 armor and magic resistance instead of 10% Dodge
• Fixed several tooltip errors (especially those in Cougar form)

Orianna

• Command: Dissonance base damage reduced to 70/115/160/205/250 from 70/120/170/220/270
• Command: Protect shield ability power ratio reduced to .4 from .6
• Fixed a bug with Command: Shockwave dealing extra damage at ranks 11 and 16

Sona

• Aria of Perseverance
  • Base heal reduced to 25/50/75/100/125 from 35/70/105/140/175
  • Ability power ratio reduced to .25 from .35
  • Now grants double her passive aura bonus to her heal target and herself for 3 seconds
• Reduced the lockout time while casting Sona's songs to make them more responsive
• Fixed a bug where Hymn of Valor and Aria of Perseverance caused her to deal 20% reduced damage

Soraka

• Recommended Items updated
• Base health increased to 446 from 426
• Base health per level increased to 71 from 67
• Starcall
  • Cooldown reduced to 2.5 seconds from 3 seconds
  • Base damage reduced to 60/85/110/135/160 from 60/90/120/150/180
  • Ability power ratio increased to .4 from .25
  • Mana cost reduced to 35/40/45/50/55 from 40/50/60/70/80
  • Shred increased to 8/9/10/11/12 from 8 at all levels
  • Maximum stacks reduced to 10 from 20
  • Range increased by 30
• Astral Blessing
  • Ability power ratio reduced to .45 from .9
  • Cooldown increased to 20 seconds from 10 seconds
  • Base Heal increased to 70/140/210/280/350 from 60/120/180/240/300
  • Armor buff increased to 25/50/75/100/125 from 20/35/50/65/80
  • Armor buff duration increased to 5 seconds from 4 seconds
  • Cast range increased to 750 from 650
• Infuse
  • Ability power ratio increased to .75 from .6
  • Cooldown reduced to 10 seconds from 15 seconds
  • Silence duration adjusted to 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 from 1/1.5/2/2.5/3
  • No longer grants double Mana when casting on yourself
• Wish
  • Ability power ratio reduced to .7 from 1.3
  • Mana cost reduced to 100/175/250 from 200/275/350

Taric

• Base attack speed increased to .625 from .613
• Imbue
  • Ability power ratio reduced to .6 from 1.1
  • Cooldown increased to 20/19/18/17/16 seconds from 16/15/14/13/12 seconds
  • Basic attacks now reduce Imbue?s cooldown by 1 second (from 2) but the reduction now increases to 3 seconds when attacking an enemy champion

Udyr

• Turtle Stance
  • Heal reduced to 10/12/14/16/18% from 12/14/16/18/20%
  • Mana return reduced to 5/6/7/8/9% from 9/10.5/12/13.5/15%
• Fixed a bug with Phoenix Stance where the activation damage was counting as single target spell damage for Spell Vamp or Rylai's

Xin'Zhao

• Three Talon Strike knock up duration slightly reduced
• Audacious Charge slow duration reduced to 1.5 seconds from 1.75 seconds

General

• UI Improvements
  • New scoreboard with new art!
  • Removed upper left redundant champion info
  • Floating text is now prioritized to show important events such as being stunned or silenced much more quickly
  • Kills are now displayed as "Kill Callouts" along the right hand side of the screen and show assists
• Added a new ping functionality: You can now ping to signal your teammates to fall back
• You are now able to mute players from the scoreboard
• Improved prioritization for selection of units around towers
• Made improvements to loadtimes and frame rates for Summoner's Rift, Twisted Treeline, and Tutorials
• Toggle spells no longer cancel channeling when turned off
• Made improvements to camera panning to make it smoother
• Made improvements to how Fog of War interacts with the environment to enhance the visual display (does not affect the gameplay aspect of Fog of War)
• Fixed a bug where Champions could be pulled across the map while teleporting
• Fixed several issues where character animations would sometimes freeze
• Fixed several bugs associated with reconnecting to a game
• Fixed several bugs associated with load time crashes
• Fixed a rare bug that caused in-game crashes

League of Legends employs a wide variety of team and individual buffs to help facilitate fluid, engaging combat on both Summoner's Rift and Twisted Treeline. However, with the advent of Dominion and the significant changes to combat and strategy that accompanied it, it became clear that these same neutral buffs wouldn't be appropriate for advancing the gameplay objectives that we had in mind for the Crystal Scar. 

As a result, the Design Team set about creating a brand new set of buffs better suited to encouraging the fast-paced gameplay of League of Legends: Dominion. These new buffs came in two forms: Shrines and Relics. Relics are consumable resources that yield an individual benefit and respawn at fixed intervals. Shrines, on the other hand, provide a short bonus to any champion who enters their sphere of influence.

Health Relics

In the beginning stages of Dominion's gameplay, highly sustainable characters emerged as unusually dominant. Champions such as Garen, who are highly resistant to attrition, proved able to control portions of the map for extended periods of time. To help even the odds for other champions who lacked the same staying power, we placed Health Relics throughout the map to allow any combatant the ability to stay in the field through intelligent map control. Picking up one of the Health Relics scattered across the Crystal Scar provides your champion with an instant burst of health and mana, enabling you to keep pace with even the most sustainable opponent.
Adding these new buffs significantly leveled the playing field for champions without any deliberate anti-attrition mechanics and opened up the playing field for an increased pool of viable picks in the new game mode.

Speed Shrines

Another issue that we ran into during the initial development of League of Legends: Dominion was the profound importance of the Windmill capture point. Because this point was positioned equidistant between the two teams-- start locations, it became the natural point of contention once each side of the map had been claimed. While we wanted to the Windmill to be a focal point on the map to an extent, we also thought that it was important to avoid stalemates around this particular objective, as well as provide players with strategic options against a stronghold defense at this one point.

Therefore, to provide additional strategic options, we placed three Speed Shrines on the map. The locations of these Shrines were carefully selected to ensure that their clever use could equalize travel time between any two capture points on the Crystal Scar, whether you were moving from the Boneyard in the bottom left to the Refinery in the upper right, or just across to an adjacent point.

With the addition of Speed Shrines, players have significantly more strategic options whether they were confronted with a stalemate, or are simply looking to keep an opponent on their toes by launching a timing attack at a cross-map objective.

Greater Relics

In addition to the Health Relics and Speed Shrines, we wanted to give players a more exciting neutral objective to fight over, as well as incentivize control over the center of the map. A long, drag out fight with a powerful neutral monster, however, didn't make a whole lot of sense in the context of the fast-paced, champion-centric combat we were going for on the Crystal Scar. Additionally, while we wanted to give the center of the map of strategic significance, we didn't want to make it so that control of this zone was more important to victory than any of the individual capture points.

Therefore, we opted to add a Greater Relic, dubbed Storm Shield, at the center of the map that would provide a strong, individual buff to allow players to break a potential stalemate without providing a significant advantage to every player on the team. Obtaining the Storm Shield equips a single champion with a personal shield and a periodic damage effect on their attacks and abilities. Additionally, Greater Relics are team specific and are picked up after a brief channel time. So while players are able to contest an enemy who is attempting to claim their team's Greater Relic, they cannot in turn steal the enemy team's buff for their own advantage. 

Making Greater Relics team specific prevents one team from obtaining a snowballing lead through control of the powerful middle buffs, while maintaining their overall impact on gameplay.

The Big Picture

By stepping back and taking a more holistic look at the role that buffs played in Classic League of Legends, and the role that we'd like them to play in League of Legends: Dominion, we were able to produce a suite of new gameplay elements that helped us advance our objectives in the new game mode. The new Shrine and Relic systems ultimately proved much better suited to the faster pacing of Dominion, and the player-focused combat of the capture point gameplay. 

We believe that these new systems were integral to helping us produce a balanced and engaging new experience that all League of Legends players, from the rookies to the veterans, will really enjoy playing.

The first of the mysterious and deadly Crimson Elite--Talon, the Blade's Shadow-- has revealed himself, but Demacian Commandos beware: still more danger lurks in the shadows.

Summoners!

We're here in the Northwest paying a visit to PAX Prime in Seattle, Washington, to give our North American players their first look at Dominion, the upcoming capture-and-hold style game mode coming soon to League of Legends! If you managed to wrangle yourself a pass to this popular convention, pay us a visit at the official Riot Games booth to enter the fray in your first, high-energy skirmish on the Crystal Scar at one of our demo stations. 

If you're having trouble finding us, or if you want to start planning your day around us now, you can visit our PAX Prime Event Site , where you can view our full schedule, find us on a map of the show floor, and find out even more information about the event!

If you weren't able to make it out to PAX this year, we'll be bringing you live coverage from the show floor over at the official PAX Prime Event Site . Here you can view live streamed events, see photos from the show floor, and even get a glimpse of the crowd at the Riot Games booth in real time!

Click her to visit the PAX Prime Event site for more information on this exciting event!