With League of Legends' 2015 ranked season of play almost upon us, Riot Games has detailed the contents of the first official update, patch 5.1.
While the preseason is transforming into the regular season with this patch, this doesn't mean we're done with everything thus far. In reality, the point of the preseason is for us to monitor and quash any potential "Black Cleaver" situations where singular items, champions, or strategies come to dominate the scene in unique ways. In this way, we're pretty happy with the stability of our preseason changes, so we're rolling out a few last treats (BASE GATES! VOID GATES!) to kick off the new year.
Patch 5.1 has two major focuses: "Jungle diversity and following up on the preseason." You'll notice in the patch notes a few slight buffs to some struggling jungle champs, including Elise, Evelynn, Hecarim, and Nautilus, as well as some changes to Smite and some small gold upgrades.
The patch also introduces some "significant" powerf shifts for Baron Nashor, the addition of Base Gates, and the Zz'Rot Portal, along with some small trinket rebalancing "to help out defending team vision."
While you can view the full patch notes here, below are a few of the highlights of patch 5.1. As a reminder, patch 5.1 won't actually release until tomorrow, January 15.
Champions
Elise
Q – Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite
MAXIMUM BONUS DAMAGE VS. MONSTERS: 50/75/100/125/150 magic damage ⇒ 75/100/125/150/175 magic damage
Evelynn
Passive – Shadow Walk
E – Ravage
NEW LICH BANE! BLADE OF THE RUINED KING! :Strikes now apply on-hit effects
REMOVED SORRY RYLAI: Strikes no longer apply spell effects
Hecarim
Q – Rampage
COST: 24/26/28/30/32 mana ⇒ 20/23/26/29/32 mana
W – Spirit of Dread
MONSTER/MINION HEALING CAP: 60/90/120/150/180 ⇒90/120/150/180/210
Nautilus
W – Titan's Wrath
BASE SHIELD STRENGTH: 100/150/200/250/300 ⇒ 65/70/75/80/85
SHIELD SCALING: 15% bonus health ⇒ 7/9.5/12/14.5/17% maximum health
Summoner's Rift
Turret Aggro
DEJA VU: Flash and other movement abilities that relocate a champion's hitbox no longer drop turret aggro if used at a certain time during the turret attack cycle
Base Gates
We were experimenting with ways to give defending teams unique advantages outside of extra stats or raw strength (because that's no fun), and arrived at something a little different. The new base gates are passable by you and your allies (think of them like open terrain) but completely impassable by enemies (they function as regular walls for them).
NEW BASE GATES: Now exist!
Smite
NEW CHARGES: Has 'em. Smite now gains charges at a rate of 1 per 60 seconds with a maximum of 1 charge at any time ⇒ 1 per 75 seconds, with a maximum of two Smite charges at any time.
NEW A COMPLICATED START: Smite starts with 1 charge and only begins to gain additional charges at 1:40
NEW NO DOUBLE TAPPING: Smite now has a cooldown of 15 seconds
Jungle AI
GO BACK TO YOUR HOME!: Jungle monsters will 'hard' reset after 10 soft leashes ⇒ 5 soft leashes. Refer to the above context when we say "leashes" because it gets a little complicated.
Dragon
NEW GET OFF MY LAWN: Dragon now knocks away wards when he's at (or moves to) his starting location
Baron Nashor
Attack Damage Stat Changes
BASE ATTACK DAMAGE 500 ⇒ 240
ATTACK DAMAGE GAIN PER MINUTE 0 ⇒ 8 (capped at +310 AD after 40 minutes). Note: This counts from the start of game, not from the time Baron Nashor spawns. So when Baron first appears at 20:00, he has accumulated 20 minutes of bonus attack damage.
TOTAL ATTACK DAMAGE AT SPAWN 500 ⇒ 400
Health Stat Changes
BASE HEALTH 8800 ⇒ 6400
HEALTH GAIN PER MINUTE 140 ⇒ 180 Note: This counts from the start of the game, not from the time Baron Nashor spawns. So when Baron first appears at 20:00, he has accumulated 20 minutes of bonus health.
TOTAL HEALTH AT SPAWN 11600 ⇒ 10000
Attack Changes
MELEE ATTACK AREA-OF-EFFECT RADIUS 350 ⇒ 175
MELEE BASIC ATTACK RATIO 1.3 total attack damage ⇒ 1.0 total attack damage
SINGLE TARGET REAR ATTACK RATIO 1.15 total attack damage ⇒ 1.0 total attack damage
AREA-OF-EFFECT REAR ATTACK RATIO 1.15 total attack damage ⇒ 0.5 total attack damage
Spell Changes
NEWVOID CORRUPTION AURA RATIO Baron Nashor's Void Corruption aura now scales with 0.0 of his total attack damage ⇒ 0.05 total attack damage
NEWSPELL CASTING Baron Nashor now casts 1 spell after every 4 or 5 basic attacks ⇒1 spell after 6 basic attacks (single target spit, melee area-of-effect, or single target rear spike)
ACID SHOT RATIO 0.5 total attack damage ⇒ 0.2 total attack damage
ACID SHOT BURN RATIO 1.0 total attack damage ⇒ 0.2 total attack damage
ACID POOL RATIO 0.4 total attack damage ⇒ 0.1 total attack damage
TENTACLE KNOCKUP RATIO 0.75 total attack damage ⇒ 0.25 total attack damage
Items
Zz'Rot Portal
RECIPE Raptor Cloak + Negatron Cloak + 950 gold
TOTAL COST 2800 gold
ARMOR +50
BASE HEALTH REGENERATION +100%
UNIQUE PASSIVE Point Runner: Builds up to 30% Movement Speed over 2 seconds while near turrets or Void Gates.
COOLDOWN 150 seconds
UNIQUE ACTIVE Spawns a Void Gate at target location for 150 seconds. Every 4 seconds the gate makes a Voidspawn that travels down the nearest lane. Voidspawn explode when attacking structures. Voidspawn ignore champions and void targets (150 second cooldown.) After the third Voidspawn made by Void Gate, additional Voidspawn gain 50% of your Armor and Magic Resistance as damage.
