5.20 Patch Notes

Kindred

Kindred, the Eternal Hunters, will be released later during patch 5.20! To learn more about League's next champion, check the following links:

• Champion Reveal
• Champion Insights
• A Good Death
• Kindred Q&A
• Kindred Champion Spotlight

Azir

As part of our rescripting efforts for Azir, a change in code to Emperor’s Divide had the unfortunate side-effect of spawning the Phalanx closer to his body, reducing its effective range. We’ve tweaked the ultimate back to its original range, so you’ll have the benefit of smoother wall interactions while still scooping the assassins and back-line threats like you used to.

R - Emperor's Divide

Darius

Still going strong. We’re tuning back the reliability of top lane’s most notorious dunklord. Underneath all the raw bulk and resets are intricate elements of spacing and positioning - given the ‘blank’ space on Decimate - but they simply aren’t working as well as we’d hoped. Creating more opportunities to ‘dodge’ Decimate by taking advantage of its decreased width and Apprehend’s weaker slow means more opportunities for you to profitably retaliate before Darius achieves prime dunking position.

Q - Decimate

E - Apprehend

Dr. Mundo

Mundo’s best-in-class at going where he pleases, but his effectiveness at anything beyond that has been lacking. A few quality-of-life changes for the good doctor should improve his reliability as a threat to anyone unlucky to be in his way.

W - Burning Agony

E - Masochism

Evelynn

The introduction of Runeglaive’s done wonders for solving Evelynn’s dependence on mana... which is tricky, given the fact that Eve’s love/hate relationship with mana costs was key to keeping her in check when running down her prey. With that gate loosened substantially, adding a cost to Dark Frenzy amplifies the importance around when and how Evelynn manages her movement in combat.

W - Dark Frenzy

Fiora

Since her rework, Fiora’s risen in the ranks of solo queue and professional play alike as a truly dominating solo lane. While we chipped off some of her base stats last time around to make Fiora more exploitable in bad matchups, it appears we’ll have to go further to knock the Grand Duelist off her throne.

This patch we’re focused entirely on the reward incentives for Grand Challenge. While it makes sense for Fiora to receive a massive heal for successfully and skillfully slashing away at her opponent’s Vitals, it’s instead often used as a low-effort way to reset the fight after her team collapses on a single target. We want Fiora to provide benefits for her team, but this skewed the ability too far toward a ‘massive teamfight ult’ on a champion that’s already adept in 1v1 situations. We’re clipping its effectiveness as a ‘fire-and-forget’ ability, but keeping the greatest reward for when Fiora truly exposes her challengers.

R - Grand Challenge

Kalista

Short summary here: we found a bug with Kalista's W passive where it wasn't interacting properly with melee Oathsworn champions. We're tracking down a proper fix for the issue but do not plan to disable Kalista for the time being.

So what is the bug? Basically if Kalista marks a champion with her W passive, her melee Oathsworn buddy must hit that champion twice to trigger the passive (also: the passive won't trigger if the buff wears off before the second hit). Most melee champions won't have enough base attack speed in the early game to attack twice in the duration of a single mark, so potential workarounds include the melee champion marking the opponent first, or Kalista 'refreshing' the mark with multiple hits. Thanks for your patience as we fix this bug!

W - Sentinel

Teemo

Heads Up! Due to a mistake behind the scenes, only the tooltip for Noxious Trap’s cooldown was changed, not the actual value. As-is, only the arm time change will be in 5.20. We’ll have the CD fix in for the next patch. Sorry!

We’ll leave the Teemo jokes at the door; we recognize the scout’s not performing well after our last round of changes, so we’re stepping in to aid his swift recovery. The big idea for 5.15 was to broaden Teemo’s traps applications (trapplications?), allowing him the option to convert advantages from a solo lane to teamfights, but we drained too much power in the process. Administering a booster-shot to Noxious Trap’s arm-time and ammo count helps Teemo’s reliability across all phases of the game, no matter how you choose to terrorize your enemies.

R - Noxious Trap

Vayne

Vayne’s dominance over the current state of the game is an interesting case. On one hand, Silver Bolts’ max health % true damage and Tumble’s in-combat mobility seem like natural fits for a metagame where Juggernauts and other melee fighters roam free. On the other, for a champion that’s meant to have a weak laning phase and a high skill curve, the frequency with which Vayne’s seeing play - and succeeding - does raise a few alarms. In keeping with her identity, we’re lowering Vayne’s effectiveness in the early game relative to other marksman while still preserving her potent late-game threat against the tankier champions in League.