And we hit that period of the month once again! In the competitive scene, the Spring Split is wrapping up, things start taking form for the Summer Split, which means this is the ideal time for tons of balance changes, including the much-anticipated return of “old” LeBlanc, which pretty much is a partial revert of the changes Riot made to her during the Assassin Update two years ago.

Ahri will also be receiving substantial changes on Patch 8.8, with all her abilities being reworked, the goal being to reward more aggressive gameplay, which can be able to snowball games easier when ahead. However, to balance these significative buffs, the Nine-Tailed Fox will be losing some of her defensive abilities.

Apart from that, we have a lot of changes, ranging from pure number tuning to bug fixes and an important change to trinkets. Take a look below at the most exciting changes coming out on Patch 8.8, due to be released on Wednesday, April 18!


The Return of the Deceiver

It sounds massive, but the changes to LeBlanc are very familiar ones, with Riot finally admitting that the rework for Season 6 didn’t go as expected, meaning that her passive, her Q, and her ultimate have been completely reverted back to their pre-2016 state, meaning for example that her passive is once more the iconic Mirror Image, with LeBlanc going invisible and creating a clone - that however can’t attack - when her health drops below 40%.

Sigil of Malice applies a mark to the target - which can be popped up when using other abilities - and her ultimate mirrors the last used spell, allowing her to once more deliver deathly combos.

It took long enough, but LeBlanc finally returns to her old form - which are obviously good news, considering how unhappy the community was with the rework. Take a look at the full list of changes:

Passive - Mirror Image
WHAT IS OLD IS NEW AGAIN: When LeBlanc drops below 40% health, she becomes invisible for 1 second and creates a Mirror Image that deals no damage and lasts for up to 8 seconds
BUGFIX: Fixed a bug where an attack launched by the clone from Passive - Mirror Image could deal damage if the clone died before that basic attack landed.

Q - Sigil of Malice

NAME: Shatter Orb ⇒ Sigil of Malice
NEW SIGIL OF MALICE: Applies a mark to the target. Damaging the marked target with an ability detonates the mark to deal additional damage.
ORB BASE DAMAGE: 55/90/125/160/195 (unchanged)
ORB DAMAGE RATIO: 0.5 ability power ⇒ 0.4 ability power
MARK BASE DAMAGE: 55/80/105/130/155
MARK DAMAGE RATIO: 0.4 ability power
COST: 40/45/50/55/60 mana ⇒ 50/60/70/80/90 mana

W - Distortion

BASE DAMAGE: 40/55/70/85/100 ⇒ 85/125/165/205/245
DAMAGE RATIO: 0.2 ability power ⇒ 0.6 ability power
COOLDOWN: 18/16/14/12/10 seconds ⇒ 14/13/12/11/10 seconds
SPEED: 1600 ⇒ 1450
REACTIVATION DELAY: 0.85 seconds from initial cast ⇒ 0.2 seconds from finishing dash

E - Ethereal Chains

LATCH-ON BASE DAMAGE: 40/60/80/100/120 (unchanged)
LATCH-ON DAMAGE RATIO: 0.5 ability power ⇒ 0.3 ability power
ROOT BASE DAMAGE: 40/60/80/100/120 ⇒ 60/90/120/150/180
ROOT DAMAGE RATIO: 0.5 ability power ⇒ 0.7 ability power
COST: 40 mana ⇒ 70 mana
TETHER RANGE: 885 ⇒ 865

UPDATED R - Mimic

MIMIC: Casts LeBlanc's most recently cast spell upon pressing R
RQ ORB BASE DAMAGE: 70/140/210
RQ ORB DAMAGE RATIO: 0.4 ability power
RQ MARK BASE DAMAGE: 140/280/420
RQ MARK DAMAGE RATIO: 0.8 ability power
RW BASE DAMAGE: 150/300/450
RW DAMAGE RATIO: 0.75 ability power
RE LATCH-ON BASE DAMAGE: 70/140/210
RE LATCH-ON DAMAGE RATIO: 0.4 ability power
RE ROOT BASE DAMAGE: 140/280/420
RE ROOT DAMAGE RATIO: 0.8 ability power


Ahri 2.0

Until now, Ahri simply felt way too unrewarding to play: even after getting early leads, she was unable to transform such advantages in victories throughout the map, making the Nine-Tailed Fox fall in the meta. With that in mind, a bunch of changes rewarding aggressive play, as well as more tools to snowball leads in victories are coming out now on Patch 8.8.

She got a brand new passive, which grants extra movement speed if Ahri is able to hit a champion twice with spells within 1.5 seconds. Apart from that, mechanically-able players are receiving an extra motivation to hit her Charm, which now will provide 20% more damage from abilities for 5 seconds.

Finally, her Fox-Fire will also be much more interesting to use in duels, as it will prioritize targets affected by Charm's damage amp as well as any target recently hit by basic attacks.

The full list of changes is as follow:

UPDATED Passive - Vastayan Grace

VASTAYAN GRACE: If Ahri earns 2 spell hits against an enemy champion within a 1.5 second period, she gains 20% movement speed for 3 seconds (9-second cooldown)

Q - Orb of Deception

REMOVED NOT SO FAST: No longer grants movement speed
NEW THREE THREE HIT COMBO: If Ahri earns 9 spell hits (max 3 per cast), she gains Essence Theft, causing her next Q cast that lands to restore 3/5/9/18 (at levels 1/6/11/16) health for each enemy hit.

W - Fox-Fire

COST: 50 mana ⇒ 40 mana
NEW FOX'S CUNNING: Fox-Fire prioritizes any enemy champion affected by Charm's damage amp and the target Ahri most recently basic-attacked within the past 3 seconds
RANGE VS PRIORITY TARGETS: 725 (range vs non-priority targets unchanged at 700)
DELAY FOR NON-PRIORITY TARGETING: 0.25 seconds ⇒ 0.4 seconds (delay vs priority targets unchanged at 0.25 seconds)

E - Charm

BASE DAMAGE:60/95/130/165/200 ⇒ 60/90/120/150/180
DAMAGE RATIO: 0.60 ability power ⇒ 0.40 ability power
NEW HERE IT COMES: When Charm damages a champion, Ahri's abilities deal 20% more damage to them for 5 seconds

R - Spirit Rush

BASE DAMAGE:70/110/150 ⇒ 60/90/120
DAMAGE RATIO: 0.25 ability power ⇒ 0.35 ability power


Irelia Early Up, Ultimate Down

Following her rework’s release on Patch 8.7, Irelia becomes known as a champion who, despite excelling at the latter stages, still struggled substantially in the laning phase. To fix this, she will be receiving a boost to her base armor and an increased damage on her Q to minions.

However, her ultimate, deemed simply too strong, will be nerfed slightly, dealing less damage and having an increased cooldown.

Take a look at the changelist:

Base Stats

BASE ARMOR: 31 ⇒ 34

Q - Bladesurge

DAMAGE TO MINIONS:60% ⇒ 70%

E - Flawless Duet

BUGFIX: No longer credits Irelia for several minion kills with each cast

R - Vanguard's Edge

COOLDOWN: 120/105/90 seconds ⇒ 140/120/100 seconds
MISSILE DAMAGE: 150/275/400 ⇒ 125/225/325
WALL DAMAGE: 125/200/275 ⇒ 75/125/175


A new Active...and a new skin for Varus

Varus is on the spotlight on patch 8.8, and that for two distinct reasons: firstly, his W, Blighted Quiver will be receiving a brand new active, which will boost the damage dealt by his main damage dealing ability, Piercing Arrow, which, according to Riot, despite being “Varus' most iconic spell, but it's pretty underwhelming in many of his current builds.”

But in order to not make the Arrow of Retribution simply too OP, his bonus attack speed received on champion or minion kills will be reduced a bit.

Varus was also rewarded with the only new skin due to be released on Patch 8.8: Conqueror Varus celebrates the upcoming Mid-Season Invitational, and will cost 975RP, with part of the revenue supposedly boosting MSI’s prize pool just like Karma’s last year, but that still is to be confirmed by Riot.


Bye-bye Sweeping Lens

Moving away from balance changes, we have two very interesting changes: firstly, rejoice Supports! Sweeping Lens has been entirely removed, with the (much better) Oracle Alteration becoming the sole choice for the ones willing to remove vision instead of placing wards. Becoming now available at level one, it will be interesting to see how it can affect especially the bot-lane, where fight for vision early on in the game is a crucial aspect in order to come out ahead.

And secondly, a nice quality-of-life change when swapping trinkets: changing trinkets now retain the same percentage cooldown as the previous one, rather than simply resetting to a 120-second cooldown.


Homestart

And finally, a change for the (very) early stages: considered way too strong for defenders, the duration of homestart has been decreased by 20 seconds, and will no longer instantly fall off once a champion crosses the river, creating thus a whole new scenario for invades - and perhaps some very bloody level 1 skirmishes. Because who doesn’t like some action right from the start, right?

Take a look at all changes to Homestart:

FOUNTAIN GRANTS HOMESTART BUFF UNTIL: 35 seconds into the game ⇒ 55 seconds into the game
REMOVED  COLD FEET:  Homestart buff no longer falls off instantly after crossing the river line
NO PLACE LIKE HOME:  Homestart buff rapidly decays over 0.75 seconds after crossing the outer turret line

And that would be all for today! Let me know which changes you are looking forward the most!
League of Legends’ Patch 8.8 is expected to be deployed on Wednesday, April 18.


(Photos courtesy of Riot Games)