Patch 12.3 notes for League of Legends
Details of changes and news for patch 12.3 in LoL.
Season 2022 is in bloom!
We’ve carefully plucked a delicate bouquet for you this patch, including several champion nerfs and a significant update to the fighter item system. This is also our first patch reacting to Pro play on the preseason meta, so there’s a lot of focus on balancing that skill bracket this week. Ahri’s champion refresh is another part of the floral mix and, last but not leaf, the rest of the Crystal Rose and Withered Rose skins will be available soon.
Patch Highlights
Crystal Rose Akshan, Crystal Rose Janna, and Withered Rose Elise will be available February 10, 2022.
Champions
Ahri
Champion refreshed. Base stats and all skills updated.
Ahri’s unique identity as a highly-mobile mage assassin has eroded over the years. Instead of a being flighty terror dashing across a teamfight, she’s limited to a single attempt at an exciting play with her R, then fishing with her E from safety for the rest of the fight. To address this, we’re refreshing her passive to offer a partial ultimate reset upon takedowns so a well-played Ahri can capitalize on favorable situations to hunt down the entire enemy team. We’ve also redistributed her abilities’ mana costs and early damage so each spell feels rewarding. To balance things out, we’re slightly nerfing her burst damage and defensive stats. (As an aside, these changes are unrelated to Ahri’s upcoming ASU.)
Base stats
Passive – Essence Theft
Q – Orb of Deception
W – Fox-fire
E – Charm
R – Spirit Rush
VFX & SFX UPDATES
Akshan
Passive damage decreased.
Akshan’s been quite strong everywhere (especially in top lane), so we’re hitting his early passive power to make his harass on melee enemies a bit less dirty.
Passive- Dirty Fighting
Amumu
Base armor decreased. E passive’s damage reduction now capped per instance.
Amumu has been too strong in Average play ever since he got a ton of new items this season. And although flat damage reduction is supposed to shine against champions like Zeri, completely negating certain attacks or abilities is a bit much—especially for an always-on passive—so we’re adjusting his E to match similar abilities.
Base stats
E – Tantrum
Brand
QoL changes on passive and R.
We’re firing up a couple of quality of life changes to make Brand’s passive a little more intuitive, while also optimizing the bounces on his ult.
Passive – Blaze
R – Pyroclasm
Caitlyn
AD growth decreased. Q damage reduced.
Caitlyn is getting banned really often in Pro play lately, likely because of her ability to shut down many popular late-scaling marksmen. Instead of curtailing her early lane bullying strengths, we’re getting on the case by nerfing her wave control and scaling instead.
Base stats
Q – Piltover Peacemaker
Bugfixes
- Fixed a bug where Caitlyn’s ult would incorrectly get a cooldown refund if she was feared during its cast
Corki
First package delayed and restock cooldown increased.
Corki’s been taking over Pro play. We’re making his lane a bit less safe and lowering his impact on the first dragon and Rift Herald fights by delaying his first package, which used to let him secure a return to combat at the speed of heat. They’ll also get restocked at a slower rate so that he can’t make special deliveries to every dragon spawn.
Passive – Hextech Munitions
Lillia
R sleep duration increased early.
We’re making Lillia’s lullaby last a little longer so she can follow up with her spells and help her teammates more consistently at early levels. Sweet dreams~ ♪
R – Lilting Lullaby
Nami
Passive initial bonus move speed increased and now decays over duration. E on-hit base damage reduced.
It’s high tide for a Nami adjustment! This should make the move speed boost on her passive much more noticeable, so you can stop taking your enchanter supports for granted. (Just kidding. Maybe.) She’s already pretty strong, so we’re balancing out this slight buff with a small nerf to her E.
Passive – Surging Tides
E – Tidecaller’s Blessing
Quinn
W passive attack speed bonus increased early. R damage ratio increased.
Although Quinn is technically flying fine, her impact has descended a bit across all skill brackets due to various system changes recently. Since she’s ended up with some headroom, we’re taking this opportunity to improve her gameplay satisfaction.
W – Heightened Senses
R – Skystrike
Senna
Passive soul drop rate for Senna’s farm reduced.
The buff to Senna’s Q last patch did make her support stronger as intended, but it also overwhelmingly increased her ADC winrate. Our goal isn’t to make ADC Senna weak, but instead to bring her two roles closer together in strength. (Before you grab a calculator, this rounds out to approximately one soul for every six minion waves.)
Passive – Absolution
TWISTED FATE
Q damage ratio increased; base damage decreased late. E bonus attack speed decreased early.
Twisted Fate seems to always have the right cards in Pro play with his global power and consistent CC. We’re cutting into his abilities’ base stats so he has to buy more AP to dish out big damage instead of opting for his usual utility builds.
Q – Wild Cards
E – Stacked Deck
Zeri
Base move speed reduced. Fully charged basic attack damage decreased. R chain lightning damage decreased and can now critically strike.
Zeri’s Trinity Force build has ended up being much stronger than expected, skyrocketing her winrate once players swapped over from crit. We’re targeting these nerfs to ideally hit her Tri Force build more than her crit ones, but because there’s some overlap, we’re compensating the latter with a bit more zap on her ult.
Base Stats
Basic Attack
R – Lightning Crash
BUGFIXES
- Zeri’s E – Spark Surge will correctly vault over Trundle’s E – Pillar of Ice and glide over Anivia’s W – Crystallize wall instead of dashing through them
- Fixed a bug where Zeri’s Q – Burst Fire would not trigger Runaan’s Hurricane’s on-hit effect if she was facing away from the target when her rounds hit
- Fixed a bug where several of Zeri’s VFX would not display correctly upon reconnecting to the game
Items
We’re making changes to the fighter system to re-establish the differences between nimbler, more fragile fighters like Fiora and less agile but beefier picks like Darius. Previously, most items were accessible to most fighters thanks to the built-in health. While this made big health-stackers happy, when lighter fighters used these generic items, it would wash out their weaknesses, making them durable yet still high-damage and high-mobility (contrary to their subclass characteristics).
Ideally with these changes, each subclass will feel like they have items tailored just for them. Lastly, we’re aware this is a pretty big shift and will be keeping a very close eye on things and almost certainly following up.
Mythic Fighter Items
For fighter Mythics, we’re shifting a couple of items from high health, all-in-one purchases into more unique and offensive options. Not all fighters should be tanky and durable, and those who should—like juggernauts—can lean on specific Legendaries for that.
Trinity Force is the exception here. We’re bumping up its health to make it match the other options in exchange for a small reduction in stacking AD. This way, the amount of health you get won’t be the main reason why you choose (or don’t choose) a certain Mythic; rather, each Mythic should have its own unique benefits to make that decision clearer and fairer.
Divine Sunderer
Deicide (Ornn Masterwork Item)
Goredrinker
Ceaseless Hunger (Ornn Masterwork Item)
Trinity Force
Infinity Force (Ornn Masterwork Item)
Legendary Fighter Items & Components
Our approach to fighter Legendaries is similar: Shift health into AD across select items. Another top priority is to move Sterak’s Gage out of being a go-to default option for all fighters. Lighter fighters should now be more intrigued by this reworked Death’s Dance, which will scale with your other AD purchases and sustain tools. It also requires fighters to be constantly active in a fight to be effective, which is something we believe is important for systemic lighter fighter survivability.
We’re also adjusting a few somewhat underpowered Legendaries that should support lighter fighters (like Maw and Ravenous Hydra). These items need to be powerful enough for lighter fighters to consider purchasing them over other options. And finally, a few component items have also been updated to round everything out.
Death’s Dance
Sterak’s Gage
Maw of Malmortius
Blade of the Ruined King
Black Cleaver
Ravenous Hydra
Hearthbound Axe
Hexdrinker
Turbo Chemtank
Our changes to Turbo Chemtank in patch 12.2 were a bandaid to bring the item back in line on dash-y champs (like Akali and Irelia) while we looked for better solutions. We’re further adjusting its stacking mechanics to make Turbo Chemtank better suited for “tanking” rather than for “turbo charging” at enemies. Emphasis on the tank, not the turbo. (These changes also apply to its Ornn Masterwork item, Turbocharged Hexperiment.)
Bugfixes & QOL Changes
- UPDATED Hextech Gates: Champions will now both visually and mechanically move along the Hextech Gates’ travel paths rather than immediately teleporting to their destination gate. This also means that active champion effects (such as Kennen’s R – Slicing Maelstrom) will travel along with and apply their effects around the champion’s traveling indicator.
- Fixed a bug where Kled’s W – Violent Tendencies‘ fourth attack would not deal its bonus damage if the ability was learned during a basic attack
- Fixed a bug where Runaan’s Hurricane would not proc correctly with Ezreal’s Q – Mystic Shot after a certain range
- Fixed a bug where killing an enemy champion with The Collector would grant Samira an extra Style stack
- Fixed a bug where the Charm icon would not appear in champion buff/debuff bars
- Fixed a bug where Kled’s Courage bar would display incorrect values upon losing Skaarl
- Fixed a bug where resource bars (like Energy or Rage bars) would sometimes get visually stuck when changing window display modes
- Varus’s Q – Piercing Arrow cancellation VFX has been restored on all skins
- Fixed a bug where Talon’s blades would briefly disappear for a frame during his R – Shadow Assault‘s VFX
- Base Darius and Base Amumu’s voiceovers have been remastered for clarity
- Fixed Battlecast Skarner’s sound effects to play correctly when he marks a minion with Crystal Venom using his E – Fracture and when he gains Crystal Charge upon triggering Crystal Venom
- The in-game FPS indicator’s update rate has been reverted for smoother reporting
- Fixed a bug where players would be able to select multiple roles in Summoner’s Rift lobbies with 5 players
- Fixed a bug where pressing the ESC key would not close the role selector in game lobbies
VFX Updates
Vel’koz
This update should make Vel’Koz’s VFX more Void-y and his hitbox indicators more accurate.
Upcoming skins & Chromas
The following skins will be released in this patch:
The following chromas will be released this patch: