League of Legends Patch 4.11 Discussion

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Patch 4.11 has hit the servers and with it comes a slew of changes to the jungle that aim to balance out the domination that aggressive junglers have enjoyed since the dawn of Season 3. Chris "Pwyff" Tom from Riot Games posted the following statement on the official League of Legends website about the changes. According to Pwyff, Riot "realized the problem was less about buffing tanky junglers to keep up and more that we lacked a strong item path for utility junglers to pick up".

Hey Summoners,

Welcome to Patch 4.11! Our big story for this patch is to bring some equality back to the jungle. In the 2014 season, popular junglers have been heavily skewed in favor of high-pressure damage dealing champions like Lee Sin, Pantheon, Kha'Zix, Evelynn, Elise, etc, and it was these dominant picks that knocked most supportive tanky junglers right out of the park. On deeper analysis, we quickly realized the problem was less about buffing tanky junglers to keep up and more that we lacked a strong item path for utility junglers to pick up. As a result, patch 4.11 will be introducing one new and one might-as-well-be-new item in the form of Quill Coat and Spirit of the Ancient Golem, both of which should cater heavily to the tanky utility-focused junglers in the game. We also went through and brought a few champions we felt needed additional love up to speed, as well as one mini-renovation for Maokai so that he could feel better about being back in the spotlight.

With the League of Legends World Championships on the horizon, we've also begun looking at high-level competitive changes we can make, like turret modifications and some reductions in dominant champion power. One champion you might be expecting to see in this category but isn't (Lucian) is still in the garage as we're thinking about the best approach to take. I'm telling you now because we want you to know that we know he's particularly strong as a well-rounded marksman (especially in competitive play), but we want to make sure we can highlight a meaningful weakness (and strength) in Lucian before moving forward.

And that's it for today's foreword! Check out the patch notes below, and remember that you can now navigate through the notes via a handy floating table of contents on the right side (desktop / laptop viewers only!). Time to dust off my Sejuani!

Chris "Pwyff" Tom

Let's start off with the champion changes that have been introduced in 4.11.

Champion Changes

Braum

Braum's Concussive Blows passive has been nerfed. Its damage has been reduced from 70 ( 10 per level) to 50 ( 12 per level). Additionally, the time available that Braum has to proc his stun has been reduced.

Riot's reasoning for the changes are displayed below:

While we're happy with how Braum does in equal matchups, he can still completely shut down a lane when he picks up a small advantage. These changes are to give a little more breathing room against this muscular shield man. As a clarification, the reduction in the debuff time to activate Concussive Blows means Braum (or his teammates) now have less time to proc the stun. It does not mean the stun lasts longer or that Braum can stun people more often (wouldn't that be terrifying)

The new passive only equalises the damage of the old one at level 12. Therefore, for the majority of the early game the passive will do less damage than its pre-adjustment rate.

Cognitive's support, Lawrence "TranceTheraphy" Amador gave us insight on how the the nerfs will affect his playstyle and popularity in the competitive scene.

When Braum was first released he was a very strong lane bully that combined high damage and defensive capabilities. Riot decided to tone him down because he was able to give free stats to himself and his protected target. The impact of Braum and his changes made it so that teams can now pick poke and sustain supports without fear of being instantly blown up with Braum's concussive blows and winter's bite. He's still a great champion for initiation and counter intiation but now you must be more weary of his durability and his reduced damage. Lastly, the biggest change in my opinion was his reduction in the debuff time to activate Concussive blows. My reason for this is that in laning phase Braum's zone pressure isn't so ridiculous anymore.

Jax

Jax has received a small hit this patch with his base health, health per level and his armour per level all being targeted. Riot's reasoning for these nerfs follows:

Even though Jax is intended to be a champ that scales well into the late game, he's currently so well-rounded that 'scaling well' ultimately turns him into an offensive brick wall with very few defensive weaknesses.

Alliance's Toplaner, Mike "Wickd" Petersen gives us the rundown on what the changes mean to Jax:

The changes to Jax aren't really that significant in my opinion. Yes, his early game is a bit weaker and his scaling is slightly reduced but overall it is quite insignificant in terms of how the game is played. Perhaps in a 1v1 a toplaner can bully out the Jax a bit easier, but in the end, there really isn't much of a difference since Jax will continue to be very strong

Kayle

Riot has nerfed Kayle quite significantly in this patch; the champion has been used quite frequently in professional play and has been the subject of numerous complaints from professional players and spectators alike. Kayle's attack speed per level has been reduced and the ability power per level gain from Righteous Fury has been halved. But perhaps the most significant change is the one that many people have been clamouring for: the cooldown on her ultimate, Intervention, has been significantly increased.

Kayle has a ton of strengths - good damage, safe laning, high utility, great wave clear, fancy wings - and not too many weaknesses. Initially we wanted to only hit Kayle's high offensive power so we could continue to emphasize her utility, but saw it just wasn't enough to reduce her fervor in a meaningful way. All of these changes, combined, should help in clipping some of Kayle's high power across the board.

To gain further insight into the changes of Kayle, we sat down with Renato "Shakarez' Perdigão, one of the Europe's most respected experts on the champions, he had this to say about the changes:

The nerfs hit Kayle pretty hard, there's no denying that.The scaling attack speed nerf and the cooldown increase on Intervention were warranted nerfs, especially the latter that gives the opponent a bigger window of time to fight Kayle when her ultimate is down.

The deal breaker however is the nerf on Righteous Fury's splash and on hit ability power ratio. Riot mentioned they wanted to give Kayle a weakness without nerfing numbers, they probably couldn't achieve that without having to rework a champion that has been changed multiple times since Beta so they went for the direct nerf on her sustained damage.

Cutting the ratio in half means her mid/ late game is severely hindered, a 0.2 Ratio basically means a 600 ability power Kayle is only adding 120 damage to her Righteous Fury, paired with the previous nerf on Reckoning's Ratio (from 1 to 0.6) it means Kayle is less of that late game Hyper Carry we're used to see.

I've been testing several builds after the nerfs and at the moment I think Lich Bane is essential, as it's the only way of giving her a power spike and some burst damage. The very popular Hurricane build, coined by many as the Korean Kayle build is something I haven't tested enough, but it loses out on more or less 100 damage per auto assuming a full build (excluding resists and penetration) which is a lot.

Other than that, something like an on hit build with items like Hurricane and Blade of the Ruined king might work out, especially seeing that the latter was buffed in terms of on hit damage (from 5% current health to 8%) and that Hurricane applies blade's damage with the bolts but it's a build that takes quite a while to spike up in terms of damage.

Overall I think it may have just been the nail in the coffin for Kayle in competitive play, however I still think she's viable for solo queue due to her high utility.

For builds I recommend either the old bursty Lich Bane build (Nashor's, Rabadon's, Lich Bane, Void Staff, Zhonya's) or something with a lot of on hit damage (Blade of the Ruined King, Hurricane, Trinity Force, Wit's End etc)

Maokai

Riot has released a major set of updates to Maokai. Arcane Smash's slow duration has been reduced but it also costs less mana, which allows the tormented tree to not run out of mana so quickly in the early levels.

His Twisted Advance has also been buffed significantly, the cast time for it has been removed and its damage now acts as a percentage of the enemy champion's maximum health. The mana and cooldown costs have all been reduced as well but the range of the spell has also been shortened.

Sapling Toss has also been reworked, with the saplings' movement speed now increasing with Maokai's bonus movement speed, the saplings now also slow the target for one second once they explode. To compensate for the massively increased utility that Riot has given them, the base damage of the saplings are being toned down.

Vengeful Maelstrom, has also been changed quite a bit. It is no longer placed on the ground as a zoning tool, but now Maokai's ultimate is a self-cast and surrounds Maokai. This change makes Maokai a much more effective counter to heavy magic damage comps.

These changes are to give Maokai more of a 'core' identity as a defensive peeling support tank who can disrupt the baddies that jump on his squishy friends. Some of you might be asking: why so much change for the tree? Old Maokai might not be the strongest jungler on the scene but he's still very capable of shutting down entire lanes in the early to mid game while not contributing much to later teamfights. These updates let us balance around new Maokai kit without bringing back the Maokai pain train of Season 2 (such nonstop reliable tower dives, wow).

For further insight into the changes into Maokai we are joined by Evil Geniuses' Stephen 'Snoopeh' Elllis who was widely known for his Maokai play during his time with Counter Logic Gaming Europe back in Season 2 of League of Legends.

The biggest strength of Maokai was his ability to peel and/or initiate and somewhat direct counter to "Wombo Combo'd" of Season 2.

While team compositions are less focused on wombo combo's nowadays and move around a lot more, Maokai being able to be mobile with his 20% damage reduction is pretty huge, especially with the rise of hyper carries such as Kog Maw, Tristana & Twitch as of late. You can start team fights with Maokai, but on your second rotation of spells you want to be looking to peel for your carries, utilizing the relatively low cooldowns (you should be stacking CDR) of his Q/W.

Skill Order: Take Q or E first (E if you can stack/want early wards.. Q for DPS on blue if it's a late prep for it).. take the other one second. For the third point get W, then 2 more points in Q before Maxing W. The reason for this it to maintain dps in the early-mid jungle rotations but to increase the snare duration of W reduce cooldown for team fights.

E → Q → W → Q → Q → R → Max R → Max W → Max Q

Items: SotG, Mobis/Tabis/Mercs, Frozen Heart, Spirit Visage/Banshees/Locket

Nidalee

Riot believes that they may have underestimated the damage that Nidalee's rework has done to her playstyle and popularity. Firstly, her base health and armor are going up, to aid her new playstyle.

Her passive is also being slightly reworked, She will now gain a 10% movement boost in all directions whilst hunting and up to 30% towards hunted targets. To ensure that Nidalee doesn't become too quick, Riot have decided to put a cap on the additional movement speed by limiting the maximum possible gain from Hunt and Bush mechanics to 30%.

The width of her spears are also getting increased and the cooldown of her traps are getting reduced, however, they will do less damage. Her pounce and primal surge are also getting slightly buffed.

Following Nidalee's Gameplay Update, we undershot on her overall power levels so we're giving her some small buffs and game flow improvements as we continue to watch players pick up on her new playstyle. These might look like a lot of changes, but they're really focused on helping Nidalee succeed at her cat games. One big goal here is to help Nidalee trigger her Hunting mechanic more reliably while not always getting her killed when she jumps into the fight.

For additional insight into the Nidalee changes, we spoke with Oleksii "RF Legendary" Kuziuta who told us the following about Nidalee's changes:

Well, traditionally Nidalee has been played as an AP champion, even the good old toplane HotShot Nidalee was more or less poke related, that was until Stanley in S2 worlds showed alternative methods and the introduction of gauntlet has allowed Nidalee to become more of a split push orientated kiter. It wasn’t a popular playstyle for an entire season but quite few who did it and had lots of experience on Nidalee got rewarded for it was me, lourlo, oasis, californiatrollz, jyarbz, lickedher and others.

It has been there for a while and it worked with gauntlet or trinity as a core item and there existed numerous build paths as well as playstyles for each matchup that allowed her to be good or decent against almost anything with the right amount of experience, making Nid top as scary pick.

However, Nid changes came to be because Nidalee made it to midalne and became so called by the community "toxic" with her spears causing an uproar about the amount of damage the spears deal and that got changed. Now she can still be played mid but us, the toplane Nidalee players, have waited for this moment to shine what we are best at, the final 4.11 buff to Nidalee solidified her as a good champion.

Now Nidalee toplane is taken as famously known "toxic" as Hotshotgg once explained in his video, a lot of the stuff is explained by "toxic" in league community, it’s only a matter of time until we see Innox or someone use it in competitive play when everyone jumps on the Nidalee hype train once again

I’m happy, because finally Nidalee top has become viable because of how the champion is balanced. Now with a slightly different playstyle, the lane matchups got better because things like Riven and Renekton are much easier to deal with now that you have pounce lvl 1. Now you are just much more of a threat, mainly because of how hunt works and a lot of people even in challenger don’t realize what it does

Gauntlet is awesome most of the time and it has been for a long time throughout the changes. The main problem that people have with it is that it doesn’t deal enough damage so Triforce is much more appealing, however gauntlet provides much greater peel.

Skarner

Skarner has had some minor nerfs to his kit as Riot feels that they may have overtuned him a bit in 4.10. It's a very minor change which shouldn't affect him too much in the jungle.

When we made changes to Skarner back in patch 4.10, we had to tune down some of his offensive power in favour of his sticky Skarner-ness. Now that the loneliest scorpion has made his way to the live game, we're seeing he's still doing a lot of damage on top of his disruptive play so we're dialling him back just a bit.

We spoke with Mattias "Gentleman Gustaf" Lehman, who has accumulated over 700 Skarner games, about this nerf:

The changes to Skarner don't seem like a big deal to me. The rework gave him visibility, but as people adjust to playing against him, the same weaknesses he had in Season 3 will come out. He still has a lot of counterplay with the Mercurial Scimitar buffs. As well, his reliance on resistances over health still makes him weak against mixed damage threats, and prevents him from cashing in on the Ancient Golem changes. His clearspeed needed a slight hit, as all of his offensive capabilities had gotten moved to his Q, allowing to out-clear most junglers early game, and use that clear speed to position better for counter-ganks.

The Nautilus, Ziggs, Vladimir, Yasuo and Zac changes were deemed too minor to be talked about by the professional players we contacted. Also, the Lucian change isn't a change.

Item Changes

Riot have introduced a number of changes in the 4.11 patch which have affected the itemization of junglers.

The problem with the old Hunter's Machete and Spirit Stone items (at least for tanky sustained junglers) was that they were too damage-focused to really help the slow and steady Maokaii and Nautilii (Maokais? Nautiluses?) of the world. As a result, these tanky dudes fell out of favor against damage-heavy junglers like Kha'Zix and Pantheon or early pressure/utility junglers like Lee Sin and Elise. While these changes may not directly shift the landscape back to equal footing, we want to at least offer a meaningful choice for those who want to play the utility tank jungler.

To focus on the changes themselves, our goal here is to 'normalize' jungle clear speeds so that even a utility jungler can clear reasonably well throughout the game - even without buying a damage item. The solution to add Sapping Barbs (and make it based off a percent of maximum health) means that once a jungler gets a Quill Coat / Spirit of the Ancient Golem, they'll be guaranteed to clear a jungle camp within a set period of time. Adding a ward to Quill Coat and Ancient Golem also gives tanky junglers a way to fight back against high-pressure junglers through superior vision control, rather than giving more stats to out-duel the duelists. Final point: Spirit of the Ancient Golem scales with bonus health, so you'll need to be building health to see bigger gains.

We spoke with H2K Gaming's Jonas "Trashy" Andersen about these changes:

The current changes to SotAG will make the diversity of viable junglers will be greater and will bring some of the S2 utility junglers back in shape.

Firstly, they buffed the item, giving it a 25% bonus health which is massive for a tank jungler, who is looking for high amount of health stats. They also gave the item 20 armor, which will be useful in two ways. First it will be very helpful in the early skirmishing against some of the popular early game junglers like Lee Sin, Jarvan etc. but it will also help you with sustaining in the jungle. A downside of the new item, is that they removed the tenacity, which will force you to go Mercs in certain situations.

Playing with the new item: Obviously when playing utility junglers compared to the popular early game junglers like Lee Sin, Elise, Eve etc is that you need to be smart and know your powerspikes. You will now have with the changes to SotAG, a huge powerspike when completing the item during the HP buff. So in early game you should try to avoid small 1v1, 2v2 skirmish if you play against stronger duelling junglers. But once you hit the item, you shouldn't be afraid of bigger fights 3v3's, 4v4's etc.

Champs that benefit with a lot with the changes: Maokai and Sejuani both scale well with HP, and will be the tanky jungler late game that brings alot of utility to your team. Sejuani's W which scales from HP is abit underrated in my eyes, and we might see a comeback of the Winter's Wrath.

With that said the popular and early game junglers with still have the edge even with the changes to SotAG, because of their early game potential, but if you can get through the early game you will eventually outclass them with your utility and cc in the mid-late game Team Fights.

Macro Strategy Changes

Riot have also introduced a fair bit of changes to the general pacing and macro strategy of League of Legends this patch:

When we talk about 'snowballing' in League of Legends, we're mainly talking about teams rolling into victories through a single skirmish or unlucky fight without having to earn their win through multiple displays of skill. Like we've mentioned in our design values dev blog about mastery, we want to ensure there are systems in place that reward the consistently skilled team who can continually make intelligent choices - even when they're behind - to win the game.

Along that line of thought, back at the start of the 2014 season we made some 'anti-snowball' changes to First Blood mechanics so that it would still give rewards but not so much as to derail a game through one unsuccessful jungle invade. We still want to make sure League has exciting potential - even after first blood - but we felt we could spice up the incentives for successful early aggression.

As for the Turret and experience range changes, we wanted to make sure that Turrets remain a safe(ish) place to be in early levels and that players in 'lost' lanes (like 2v1 lanes or completely blown out matchups), can still function later in the game. While these upgrades are aimed specifically at competitive, they also affect other levels of play as players who fall behind in lane have virtually no safe place to hide. Finally, if the enemy team has a dive-heavy jungler (ie: Pantheon, Elise, Lee Sin, etc), weak turrets can skew champion diversity such that players can only choose champions who don't rely on turrets for protection (this is particularly true for solo lanes like top and mid)

Current Ninjas in Pyjamas analyst Clement Chu talks about these changes with us:

Well I think riot is pursuing two things here, the first is to make the the game pace slightly faster, right now we see a lot of games where one team can be ahead in 6-8 kills but if objectives aren't taken and the kills are traded than the gold lead can stagnate. Now early kills can grant you an additional item buy, this will speed up lane wins especially bot lane where there is still kill potential early. It will also make coming back against winning lanes harder, since bounty is reduced.

As for the second goal I think they are trying to tackle lane swapping and make it more spectator friendly as in seeing people laning against others rather than farming jungle creeps. You have to view this change along with the increase in dragon gold. The tower thing needs more testing but I think it is to prevent early game invade into diving. We've already seen in Korean games where a 4 man can dive a 3 man with good tanking switching of the turret, it should now be impossible with the changes, so if you lane swap and move your support to the solo lane with the jungle to catch a wave you are safe. But this is a very complex change since the lane swap itself can be played very differently, and hence tower damage can be argued both ways as encouraging or discouraging depending on if you are diving/defending.

Wrapping Up

Riot's latest patch has brought a variety of changes to the game, we hope you've enjoyed the discussion of the patch. If you've enjoyed it please let us know via twitter or our comments section