League of Legends Patch 9.23 breakdown: The preseason patch

Top Lane Influence

Rift Herald

"Initial Spawn: 10:00 ⇒ 8:00. Respawn: 6:00. Despawn:19:30, delayed to 19:50 if in combat (unchanged). Health: 10,000-16,000 (levels 6-12) ⇒ 8,250-16,500 (levels 6-12). Attack Speed: 0.5 ⇒ 0.4 (it’s easier to poke Rift Herald’s eye before she spins around)."

Top laners have been complaining about their lack of map influence since League of Legends was first released. The top lane “island” is finally getting some help in this preseason, as they can now use their early game advantage to take an early Rift Herald and push their gold lead further, or move it to another area of the map.

Even better, they can do it twice if the first Herald is taken early enough!

"Eye Pick-Up Window: 40 seconds ⇒ 20 seconds. Eye Channel: 4 seconds ⇒ 1 second. Herald Level: Average level of all ten champions, determined on using Eye of the Herald ⇒ picking up Eye of the Herald. Health: 4000-6400 (levels 6-12) ⇒ 3180-6360 (levels 6-12). Headbutt Target Damage: 40% current heath (1600-2560), minimum 1500 ⇒ 1500-2550 (levels 6-12). Headbutt Self-Damage: 25% current health ⇒ 66% current health"

Due to the fact that you can now take two Rift Heralds in a game, plus it being easier to takedown in the early stages, it’s tower damage has been reduced depending on its level, which is determined earlier in the game as well.

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On top of that, it’s unlikely that the Herald will be able to charge twice, as it takes 66% current health damage whenever it completes a headbutt, reducing its health by a significant amount.

These nerfs have been compensated by a shorter channel time, meaning it’s much harder to disrupt and much easier to get a push started.

Minion XP

"Solo XP Melee: 58.8 ⇒ 60.45. Caster: 29.44 ⇒ 29.76. Cannon: 92 ⇒ 93. Shared XP Melee: 76.8 ⇒ 75.4. Caster: 38.4 ⇒ 37.12. Cannon: 120 ⇒ 116."

Solo XP increased, shared XP decreased. This increases the influence solo laners have on the map while decreasing the influence of the bottom lane. These are very small changes however, so don’t expect them to be too noticeable overall, just a nice push in the right direction for top and mid lane.

Turret Plating

"Bulwark Resistances: 25 ⇒ 35 armor and magic resist per third, fourth, and fifth attacker when a plate is destroyed."

With the Rift Herald changes, it’s important to keep turrets healthy in the early game. These increased resistances will make it more difficult to instantly take down a turret with a single Rift Herald charge.

This also reduces the effectiveness of a single bot lane gank resulting in a three or four-man push to take a tower before the opponents can get back to lane. This means teams should instead look towards neutral objectives and delay their rotation to top until later in the game.

Doran’s Shield

"Passive: Up to 30 health over 10 seconds when damaged by an enemy champion ⇒ Up to 40 health over 8 seconds when damaged by an enemy champion, based on missing health. 66% effective for ranged users or when triggered by AoE, DoT, or proc effects"

An option for melee top laners against annoying ranged laners (looking at you, Gnar). Now, instead of being poked out of lane and forced to miss CS, picking up a Doran’s Shield will make sustaining through the laning phase a lot easier and punish players for opting into a ranged v melee matchup blindly.

Jungle Pacing

Jungle Item XP

"Jungle items no longer grant additional XP on monster kill if you’re behind in levels (epic monsters still innately have catch-up XP though). First Camp Bonus XP: 120 ⇒ 165."

Camp Timers

"Small Camp Respawn: 150 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds. Small Camp Respawn Icons: If your team had vision of a small camp when it was killed, you’ll see a respawn icon on the minimap 15 seconds before respawn. Buff Camp Respawn Icons: Buff camp respawn icons change from gray to yellow 20 seconds ⇒ 15 seconds before respawn."

Krugs

"Base XP: 247 (217 on first clear) ⇒ 160 (Ancient Krug’s first clear penalty removed). Base Gold: 125 ⇒ 120."

Murkwolves

"Base XP: 115 ⇒ 95. Base Gold: 84 ⇒ 70."

Gromp

"Base Health: 1800 ⇒ 2100. Base XP: 115 ⇒ 135. Base Gold: 86 ⇒ 105."

Raptors

"Base XP: 115 ⇒ 95. Base Gold: 112 ⇒ 85."

This is a lot to take in and a lot to breakdown, but in a few bullet points here is what these changes mean for jungles in preseason:

• Blindly ganking without farming camps is punished a lot more harshly, especially with the removal of catch-up experience.
• With shorter respawn times, junglers have the option to perma-farm and accrue tonnes of gold and experience if their lane match-ups allow for it.
• Early experience allows junglers to hit level 3 with a single side clear, regardless of whether that side includes Krugs.
• Junglers can take over the game when ahead, so by reducing full clear experience, junglers now have to farm a lot more to gain a large level advantage over laners.

Every single change on Patch 9.23 will have a huge impact on gameplay over the next few weeks, so instead of making decisions on what’s broken already, head into solo queue and try things out yourself.

Junglers will have to relearn the game, top laners finally have an impact on the map, mid laners are still strong, and bot might finally be tuned down and prevented from 2v8ing games. But, the most exciting change of the patch has to go to the Elemental Rifts!

How excited are you for preseason games? What else do you want to be changed in preseason? Let us know in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter!