League of Legends patch 14.9 shakes up fighter item builds, champion hitboxes (2024)

Updated on April 25, 10:37 a.m. (GMT+8):Added more information on “easy champions” posted by Riot Phroxzon.

League of LegendsLead Gameplay Designer Matt “Riot Phroxzon” Leung-Harrisonposted a preview of LoL patch 14.9.

This patch comes after the Mid-Season Invitational 2024 LoL patch 14.8, so you can expect that it’ll have more impact on champions used in ranked.

The update targets fighter item adjustments, putting a dimmer on three of them while buffing two, and updates champion hitboxes across the board for more consistency.

How Riot Games is thinking about power creep pass in LoL patch 14.9 onwards

Power creep in gaming is defined as the gradual introduction of characters, items, or abilities that are significantly more powerful than what existed before. This can make older content and characters feel obsolete.

The game dev team will be addressing these issues according to priorities in this order:

1. Champions with outsized levels of frustration at their current power level. For example, a 10% ban rate on Zed isn’t “functional.”
2. Champions with known high mastery who are sitting over 50%. For instance, if Azir is sitting over 50%, it’s a good indicator that something is wrong with the game’s overall balance.
3. Champions who have been stale for a long time at a “high side of balanced” power level. They are technically balanced, but balanced is a wide spectrum, and they’ve been sitting on the borderline of overpowered for a while.

Riot Phroxzon identified Draven as an example who fits into the first scenario. Even though he’s not overpowered, he’s “pretty frustrating” when he is in the meta. “We’ll be monitoring his frustration closely and expect it to go down over time,” he stated.

How Riot is thinking about “easy champions” in LoL patch 14.9

Low mastery, easy-to-play champions, such as Amumu, Malzahar, and Seraphine, have maintained an average 51% win rate across the board, reported Riot Phroxzon.

The game devs give a number to their mastery curve, which is 3%. This is lower compared to champions that have a higher mastery curve of 7% but have a 50% win rate.

As a result, they are buffing these easy-to-use champions because ” it’s important that our training wheels champions feel powerful for these audiences.”

One exception this LoL patch 14.9 is Master Yi, who is actually getting nerfed because of a few factors. “Master Yi is underserving right now is how easy he is to play now for his target audience (he’s actually become a medium mastery champion for his target audience and we’d like to make him easier long term),” Riot Phroxzon explained. “It’s important that we have champions that function like this.”

LoL patch 14.9 champion buffs

• Amumu
• Karma
• Kennen
• Malzahar
• Sejuani
• Seraphine

LoL patch 14.9 champion nerfs

• Ahri
• Aurelion Sol
• Blitzcrank
• Evelynn
• Jinx
• Kassadin
• Master Yi
• Olaf
• Pyke
• Skarner
• Taliyah
• Twitch
• Urgot

Skarner

Skarner has been performing well because LoL players have learned how to optimize him in the jungle. As such, the dev team is hitting him with yet another nerf after patch 14.8’s hotfix.

“He’s turned out to be pretty Elite skewed — hard spiking on level 9, as well as optimization heavy. We’re thinking about ways to even out his skew between roles. Ideally, jungle and top are both viable, but with top having a healthy lane pattern and jungle being a primary role,” explained Riot Phroxzon.

LoL patch 14.9 adjustments

• Akshan
• Bel’Veth
• Janna
• Nilah

LoL patch 14.9 item changes

System buffs

• Death’s Dance

System nerfs

• Eclipse
• Sundered Sky
• Sterak’s Gage

System adjustments

• Hexdrinker
• Maw of Malmortius

According to Riot Phroxzon, Sterak’s Gage, Eclipse, and Sundered Sky are “dominating their slots.” After the nerfs on this patch, the dev team expects these three items to be able to compete with Black Cleaver and Death’s Dance as viable options on both heavy and light fighters.

Adjustments to Maw of Malmortius is intended to make it “less of a sharp ‘always counter'” to magic damage champions by “focusing more of its defensive power budget relatively in the shield, rather than just face tanking all Magic Damage,” wrote Riot Phroxzon.

LoL patch 14.9 addresses champion hitboxes

Riot Games admits that champion hitboxes have been inconsistent for the longest time. David “Riot Phreak” Turley leads this set of changes.

Champions will be more consistent to click on (both click to attack and select), with hitboxes that feel in line with their size.

For example, Warwick and Briar will not be Yordle sized and Viktor will not be much larger to click on than Leona, Riot Phroxzon explained.

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