League of Legends patch 4.16 has been released which, among other things, brings a "sizeable" gameplay update to Cassiopeia along with a few "light" balance tweaks for a number of other champions.
"Similar to [patch] 4.15, a lot of the changes you'll see are focused on smoothing outs ome champion interactions, or just plain ol' bugfixin' goodness," Riot says.
"For all things non-balance though, we've got a little more meat for you. First up, in addition to her Gameplay Update we mentioned earlier, Cassiopeia is joined by Renekton for updates to their visuals! Follow that up with new base splash arts for the desert-dwelling duo and Akali and Orianna, and this patch is set to delight all the art fans out there."
As mentioned with the last patch, Riot has also stared patching some finished pieces of the new Summoner's Rift to the live environment in order to minimize the size and download times of the eventual Summeron's Rift launch patch. These pieces aren't usable and the update still doesn't have an official release date.
Now on to the notes. Well, at least the important ones.
The new champion, Azir, the Emperor of the Sands, will be released "a bit later" during patch 4.16.
Cassiopeia
Focusing on her new passive Aspect of the Serpent, she's now more about stacking up poisons for massive end-game scaling than being a dominant laning force. Mana costs, cooldowns, base damage and ratios have all been mixed up to compensate."
General
TEXTURE UPDATE Cassiopeia's base and skin textures have been updated
SPLASH: Cassiopeia's base splash art has been updated
VO: Cassiopeia has received all-new VO
BIO: Cassiopeia's in-client bio has been updated
NEW Passive – Aspect of the Serpent
Cassiopeia permanently gains a stack of Aspect of the Serpent for each second that she has poisoned an enemy champion, for each poisoned unit that she kills, and every time she hits an enemy champion with Twin Fang. Caps at 400 stacks.
75 STACKS: +5% ability power and Twin Fang restores 6/8/10/12/16 (+0.1 ability power) health
200 STACKS: Ability power bonus increased to +10% and Cassiopeia gains 25% cooldown reduction
400 STACKS: Ability power bonus increased to +30%
Q – Noxious Blast
BASE MAGIC DAMAGE: 75/115/155/195/235 (unchanged)
AP RATIO: +0.8 ability power ⇒ +0.35 ability power
MOVEMENT SPEED BONUS: 10/15/20/25/30%
COOLDOWN: 4 seconds
COST: 40/45/50/55/60 mana
W – Miasma
MAGIC DAMAGE PER SECOND: 25/35/45/55/65 (+0.15 ability power) ⇒10/15/20/25/30 (+0.1 ability power)
COOLDOWN: 14/13/12/11/10 seconds
COST: 40/50/60/70/80 mana
SLOW:25/30/35/40/45%
E – Twin Fang
NEW PROBABLY BUILD MANA: Now refunds Twin Fang's mana cost plus an additional 3% of Cassiopeia's total mana if Twin Fang kills a unit
KIND OF A BIG DEAL: Twin Fang's cooldown now resets on cast, rather than on hit
BASE MAGIC DAMAGE: 55/80/105/130/155
AP RATIO: 0.55 ⇒ 0.4/0.45/0.5/0.55/0.6
COST: 30/45/60/75/90 mana
R – Petrifying Gaze
SNAKE EYES: Now accurately hits units directly in front and on top of Cassiopeia.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 150/250/350 (+0.5 ability power)
COOLDOWN: 120/110/100 seconds
For all Champion tweaks and balancing changes, check out the full patch notes.
Ascension, the next Featured Game Mode, is coming "shortly after" the release of patch 4.16.
Of course, there are quite a few other changes and features in patch 4.16, so I suggest checking out the full patch notes here.
To kick off 2021, we have a glorious return to one of the best franchises…
Last summer, we got our first official look at Hogwarts Legacy. The RPG set in…
Today, it was revealed that Ubisoft would be helming a brand-new Star Wars game. The…
Housemarque shared lots of new details about their upcoming PS5 game Returnal. Today, we learn…
Huge news concerning the future of Star Wars games just broke out. Newly revived Lucasfilm…
GTA 5 is probably the biggest game of all-time. It has sold over 135 million…