League of Legends: Patch 9.6 breakdown

Nautilus

"Base Stats ARMOR: 35.5 ⇒ 39 Passive – Staggering Blow PER-TARGET COOLDOWN: 9/8/7/6 seconds (levels 1/6/11/16) ⇒ 6 seconds at all levels"

The base armor buff is actually huge, as he’ll now have one of the highest base armor levels of any champion in the game. This is particularly huge for him as a support but could allow him to duel against top laners.

The bigger change to allow him to be a top laner is here, though. Having your stun up every six seconds is going to make trading with Naut feel like hell. Remember, his W shield lasts six seconds, so he’ll be able to get two stuns off in a trade with his shield up, once to engage and again to disengage.

Neeko

"Base Stats ATTACK SPEED GROWTH: 1.5% ⇒ 2.5% W – Shapesplitter BUGFIX: No longer procs twice in a row at very high attack speeds"

The Chameleon took a heavy hit in a Patch 9.5 hot-fix that targeted her oppressive on-hit build through nerfs to AD per level, AS per level and W – Shapeshifter passive damage. Riot is now pulling back on some of these changes in Patch 9.6. By buffing her AS per level, Neeko’s on-hit build remains an option and we can expect to see her return to ranked play in some form this week.

Ornn

"Passive – Living Forge BUGFIX: Ornn players can no longer upgrade ally items mid-dash during E – Searing Charge and R – Call of the Forge God, canceling the dash Q – Volcanic Rupture JUST A LITTLE LONGER: If a pillar is about to expire when Ornn casts E – Searing Charge, it now lasts until Ornn’s dash completes. For real this time. W – Bellows Breath COOLDOWN: 12 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 seconds"

Some nice buffs for Ornn allowing him to cast W – Bellows Breath, his main trading tool, more often. Combined with the bugfix and Q change, Ornn could become a more contested top lane pick on this patch.

Giving Ornn some more power early on his Bellows Breath will help somewhat. However, he lost most of his laning power when he lost the shield on his W, so it’s unlikely this will bring him up too much.

Rek’Sai

"R – Void Rush COOLDOWN: 100/80/60 seconds ⇒ 100/90/80 seconds RATIO: +2.0 bonus attack damage ⇒ +1.75 bonus attack damage"

Rek’Sai was one of those champions that got buff after buff until finally one buff pushed her over the edge into near-OP territory. I think hitting her ult cooldown is definitely the best way to knock her down a bit, without taking her completely out of the meta. The AD scaling just means she’s a bit more incentivized to build tank but she’ll probably stick with off-tank.

Shen

"Q – Twilight Assault ON-HIT DAMAGE: 5/10/15/20/25/30 (levels 1/4/7/10/13/16) ⇒10/16/22/28/34/40 (levels 1/4/7/10/13/16)"

As a top laner, Shen struggles to trade into most of the meta champions, so I’m fine giving him a bit extra damage to his Q damage here in Patch 9.6.

Sylas

"W – Kingslayer HEAL RATIO: 0.45 ability power ⇒ 0.4 ability power EMPOWERED HEAL: 200% when Sylas is below 40% health ⇒ 175% when Sylas is below 40% health"

Yeah, that healing is still nuts (just ask the five people Bjergsen killed in that 1v5 clip at Baron). Sylas is a fun champion, but his ability to sustain on his own like he has a Soraka next to him in fights needs to be decreased.

Trundle

"W – Frozen Domain BONUS ATTACK SPEED: 20/40/60/80/100% ⇒ 30/47.5/65/82.5/100%"

Increasing the bonus attack speed early is huge for Trundle, considering he usually only puts one point into this early (maxing Q). I think this is probably bigger for jungle Trundle than top but we will have to see.

Urgot

"Base Stats MANA: 300 ⇒ 340 MANA REGEN GROWTH: 0.6 ⇒ 0.8"

HUGE changes coming here to Urgot in Patch 9.6, so let’s take them piece by piece. First, the extra mana/mana regen is a response to almost all his abilities getting hit with mana cost increases. So it’s nice to have, but I suspect he’ll still have some mana issues early (the 40 extra mana isn’t enough for one additional Q in lane).

"Passive – Echoing Flames [REMOVED] NOT EVEN MY FINAL FORM: No longer deals 10% reduced damage to enemies hit in the last 5 seconds, stacking 3 times The reduced damage on his passive is really meant to make Urgot more of a late-game menace in combination with the change to his W, as we will discuss in the moment. In lane, he wasn’t usually getting off multiple shots with his shotgun knees in a five-second span to begin with, so the reduced damage doesn’t really affect him. W – Purge [REMOVED] SHIELD: No longer grants 30/60/90/120/150 (+15% bonus health) shield COST: 65 mana ⇒ 40/30/20/10/0 mana COOLDOWN: 17/15/13/11/9 ⇒ 12/9/6/3/0 (becomes a toggle at max rank) ON-HIT DAMAGE REDUCTION: 66% ⇒ 50%"

Now at max rank, Purge will always be off cooldown to do get that bonus move speed, slow resist, attacking while moving, and damage. This means he will be able to get off those multiple procs of his shotgun knees on a single target once he hits level 11 (when the CD on each knee is five seconds) and has his W at max rank. He will, however, do less damage with this ability and he doesn’t get the shield, which should make trading into him easier with Purge on.

"E – Disdain [NEW] SHIELD: Grants a 60/80/100/120/140 (+1.5 bonus attack damage) (+15% bonus health) shield for 4 seconds DAMAGE: 60/100/140/180/220 (+0.5 total attack damage) ⇒90/120/150/180/210 (+1.0 bonus attack damage) COOLDOWN: 16/15/14/13/12 seconds ⇒ 14 seconds COST: 50 mana ⇒ 50/60/70/80/90 mana"

So instead, Disdain is the ability that will grant him the shield, while he has the cooldown and mana cost standardized. Now, the shield base does increase with levels, so it’s not completely useless to put multiple points into this, but considering the shield also scales with his bonus AD, it’s looking like this is going to be the one-point wonder ability.

One thing to note, though is the shield used to scale off only bonus health and not AD, meaning this change is going to encourage Urgots to build more damage now. Also, the base shield and bonus scaling on the shield are higher now than they were before the change, but it will be up far less often.

"R – Fear Beyond Death DEATH BEYOND SIGHT: 1600 range ⇒ 2500 range CAST TIME: 0.4 seconds ⇒ 0.5 seconds DAMAGE: 50/175/300 (+0.5 total attack damage) ⇒ 125/250/375 (+0.5 bonus attack damage)"

The range increase to Fear Beyond Death is scary. It’s now got the same range as Nocturne ultimate at level 1, meaning he can snipe you from downtown if he gets the mark on you. The change to the cast time is largely irrelevant and only matters if you use that extra .1 second window to kill Urgot in the middle of his ult (which rarely happens).

It is quite significant, though, that his damage is being changed from scaling off bonus AD to total AD. Again, this is pushing Urgot to be more incentivized to build more squishy and rely on his shield for defense after Patch 9.6 kicks in.

Xayah

"W – Deadly Plumage BONUS ATTACK SPEED: 30/35/40/45/50% ⇒ 40/50/60/70/80%"

Giving her attack speed from her W some love is probably needed, considering she’s still struggling with the new crit items. The extra 10% at level 1 will be particularly nice because it’s unlikely she’ll max W for a while.

Zoe

"E – Sleepy Trouble Bubble COOLDOWN: 16/15/14/13/12 seconds ⇒ 20/18.5/17/15.5/14 seconds SLOW: 10/20/30/40/50% ⇒ 10/15/20/25/30%"

Oh thank god, we won’t have to deal with that goddamn bubble being up every five seconds now. I also like that the slow is lessened later in the game, giving us a bit more room to maneuver and get behind an ally to block the Q we all know is coming to hit for a billion damage.