LoL Patch 14.2: New Champion Smolder, Karma Buffs, Jax Nerfs, Skins & More

The League of Legends season just started. With several huge changes in Patch 14.1, the excitement won't stop in the next patch. In patch 14.2 on January 24, we also got lots of adjustments, especially some significant and unique ones for Twisted Fate and Briar, but also a brand-new little dragon in the Bottom Lane. So, let's dive right into it.

When Will The New Champion Smolder Release?

January 31 (20:00 UTC), we'll be able to welcome the next and long awaited ADC in Bottom Lane: Smolder, the Fiery Fledgling! The League of Legends season just started. With several huge changes in Patch 14.1, the excitement won't stop in this one.

As already mentioned, Smolder will be the next ADC after a whole 1 and a half years since Nilah's release. Damn, time really flies. Until he gets released, though, you can check out the link below if you're interested in what he is capable of:

• LoL: New Champion Smolder Abilities Rundown

LoL Patch 14.2: Champion Changes

Patch 14.2 brings several champion changes, especially at the start of the new season. While most are quality of life improvements, there's anticipation for further adjustments as the season progresses. Notably, they aim to boost side laning potential for certain champions, adding an interesting dynamic to the game.

Champion Adjustments

AD Twisted Fate Changes

By expanding the itemization options of Twisted Fate, Riot wants him to be more versatile and encourage his AD build. While they adjust him, they still intend that his AP build will stay as his core build.

• Base Attack Speed reduced from 0.651 to 0.625
• Attack Speed per level reduced from 3.22% to 3.0%
• Passive can now critically strike → TF rolls an additional 6 sided die weighted towards 1 rather than 6
• Q bonus AD ratio added → 50%
• W Buffs:
  • Locking in 'Pick a Card' [W] now resets the auto attack timer
  • can now effect inhibitors and the Nexus
  • Blue/Red/Gold Card can now critically strike
    • Blue Card → 57.5%
    • Red Card → 35%
    • Gold Card → 25%

• E Changes:
  • Bonus Attack Speed increased from 10/17.5/25/32.5/40% to 10/22.5/35/47.5/60%
  • bonus AD ratio added → 75%
    
  • can effect turrets now at 50% effectiveness
  • 'Stacked Deck' [E] is fully stacked on spawn

Briar | Assassin Build Nerfs, Bruiser Build Buffs

Briar's Lethality build became too strong. Therefore, Riot is trying to push her from her Lethality/Crit build to a Bruiser build.

• Passive:
  • Healing amp changed from .5% per 1% missing HP to .4%(+.025% per 100/bonus health) per 1% missing health
  • Bleed tick rate adjusted from 1 second per tick to .5 seconds per tick (bleed damage and duration unchanged)

• Q Changes:
  • Now applies on-hit effects and lifesteal
  • Damage: 60-180(+80% bonus AD) physical damage changed to 60-180(+80% bonus AD)(+60% AP) magic damage
  • Shred: 10-20% armor changed to 10-20% armor and MR

• W Changes:
  • Bite Healing changed from 36-60% of damage dealt to 25-45% of damage dealt + 5% of Briar's max HP
  • W can no longer critically strike with 5-65(+5% AD) bonus damage (W can still critically strike like a basic attack for 100% total AD)

Brand VFX Update

Smolder won't be the only one igniting the rift! Brand's fiery abilities are also updated in a VFX. The following skins have been affected:

• Base Brand
• Crycore Brand
• Zombie Brand
• Spiritfire Brand
• Battle Boss Brand

If you want to check out how the VFX looks like, click here.

Champion Buffs

Riot buffs a bunch of champions that lost some power with the change in itemization for this League of Legends season. In some cases for this patch, Riot is also going to adjust champions whose new items have been heavily nerfed to make up for the loss of power.

Ahri

• E - Charm
  • Cooldown: 14s --> 12s

Camille

• Base Stats
  • Base Health: 646 --> 670
• P - Adaptive Defenses
  • 20s/15s/10s at level 1/7/13 --> 18s/14s/10s at level 1/7/13
• Q - Precision Protocol
  • Bonus Movement Speed: 20%-40% --> 30%-40%

Darius

• Q - Decimate
  • Cost: 30-50 --> 25-45
  • Missing Health per Champ: 13% --> 15%
  • Max Healing at Three Champs: 39% --> 45%
• E - Apprehend
  • Armor Penetration: 15%-35% --> 20%-40%

Ezreal

• Q - Mystic Shot
  • total AD Scaling: 130% --> 135%
• W - Essence Flux
  • bonus AD Scaling: 60% --> 100%
• R - Arcane Shift
  • Base Damage: 350 / 500 / 650 --> 350 / 525 / 700
  • bonus AD Scaling: 100% --> 120%
  • AP Scaling: 90% (unchanged)

Garen

• W - Courage
  • Damage Reduction Duration: 2s-5s --> 4s at all ranks
• E - Judgement
  • total AD Scaling per tick: 32%-40% --> 36%-40%

Gragas

• Base Stats
  • Health Growth: 109 --> 115
  • Armor Growth: 4.8 --> 5.0
• R - Explosive Cask
  • Cooldown: 120s-80s --> 100-70s

Gwen

• P - A Thousand Cuts
  • Target Max Health AP Scaling: 0.65% per 100 AP --> 0.72% per 100 AP

Hwei

• E - Subject: Torment
  • Cooldown: 15s-11s --> 12s-10s
  • EQ Flee Duration: 1s constant --> 1s-1.5s

Illaoi

• Base Stats
  • Health Growth: 109 --> 115
  • Mana: 300 Base Mana +50 Mana Growth --> 350 Base Mana +60 Mana Growth
• P - Prophet of an Elder God
  • Tentacle hit missing health heal per champion: 4.5% --> 5.0%

Karma

• Base Stats
  • Base Health: 604 --> 630
• Q - Inner Flame
  • AP Scaling: 50% --> 70%
• E - Inspire
  • Shield: 80-240 +45% AP --> 80-260 +60% AP

Karthus

• Q - Lay Waste
  • Base Damage: 43-115 --> 45-125
• W - Wall of Pain
  • MR Shred: 15% --> 25%

Shen

• Base Stats
  • Base AD: 60 --> 64

Veigar

• Base Stats
  • Base Health: 550 --> 580

Champion Nerfs

Some champions just vibed with the new items right off the bat, but some are a little bit too good, which is why Riot is looking to nerf a few of the outliers in the top tier of champions. The list is far shorter than that of the buffs, but you'll be glad to see some of the names getting nerfed for sure.

Blitzcrank

• Base Stats
  • Armor: 40 --> 37

• E - Power Fist
  • total AD Scaling: 200% ---> 180%

Fizz

• Q - Urchin Skin
  • AP Scaling: 50% --> 45%
• W - Seastone Trident
  • Passive DoT AP scaling: 40% --> 30%

Jax

• E - Counter Strike
  • Base Damage: 55-175 --> 40-160
  • Health Damage: 4% --> 3.5%

Rumble

• Q - Flamespitter
  • Base Damage over 3s: 135-195 --> 125-185
• E - Electro Harpoon
  • Shred: 12%-20% --> 10%-18%

Teemo

• E - Toxic Shot
  • On Hit AP Scaling: 30% --> 25%
• R - Noxious Trap
  • Ammo Recharge: 30s/25s/20s --> 35s/30s/25s

LoL Patch 14.2 Preview: Item Changes & System Changes

Burst has been up, while snowballing has actually decreased from LoL Patch 13.24. Riot Phroxzon explains that he thinks this could be due to the burst volatility in the game. While teams can snowball, they can also be burst down just as quick, which means snowballing isn't as strong as it once was.

Item Adjustments

• Phantom Dancer
  • Build changed: Hearthbound Axe + Agility Cloak + 1000g --> Zeal + Rectrix + 800g (total cost unchanged)

• Mikael's Blessing
  • no longer castable on minions

Item Buffs

In this League of Legends patch, Riot is going to be buffing just a few underperforming items that haven't reached their full potential just yet.

• Horizon Focus
  • Trigger Range: 700 --> 600
  • Vision/AoE Radius: 1200 --> 1400
• Steel Sigil
  • Cost: 1200 --> 1100
• Stridebreaker
  • Total cost: 3100 --> 3000
  • Attack Speed increased: 25% --> 30%

Item Nerfs

Riot is going to try and lower the amount of burst in the game and is going to nerf a few of our burst mages favorite items.

• Bloodsong
  • Damage Amp: 12% melee, 8% ranged --> 10% melee, 6% ranged
• Experimental Hexplate
  • Item Recipe: Tunneler + Noonquiver + 600g--> Tunneler + Hearthbound Axe + 700g
  • Total cost: 3000 (unchanged)
  • Innate attack speed: 20% --> 25%
  • Active attack speed: 35% --> 30%
• Frozen Heart
  • Cost: 2300 --> 2400
• Riftmaker
  • Cost: 3000 --> 3100
• Stormsurge
  • AP: 100 --> 90
  • AP Scaling reduced: 30% melee, 22.5% ranged --> 20% melee, 15% ranged

Riot is also going to be nerfing the double support item meta quite heavily in this League of Legends patch. We can expect some more support item nerfs on the rift as well, or at least how the World Atlas works, so players aren't able to abuse the item to gain more gold, especially in the bot lane.

• Support Items
  • Minion Penalty Tooltip: "This item grants reduced gold from minions if..."
    • Old: "...you kill excessive numbers of them."
    • New: "...anyone on your team with this item kills excessive numbers of them."
    • In conclusion: Double support items Bot Lane will no longer be viable.

Jungle Changes

Jungle Pets Changes

• Heal increased from 12-35 to 14-37
• Epic monster base damage cap reduced from 16-40 to 15.5
• Epic monster damage cap is now affected by the normal health, AP, AD, and resist ratios
• URF treat breakpoints reduced from 20 and 40 to 10 and 20

With the upcoming return of URF in the Summoner's Rift, Riot already started to adjust the jungle, as well as some champions. It will be quite interesting how the jungle changes turn out in the fan favorite game mode, but also Normal and Ranked games.

Infernal Drake Adjustments

The infernal map isn't making the impact Riot hoped for. Therefore, Ability Haste for each Cinder is increased.

• Ability Haste per Infernal Cinder: 0.3 --> 0.6

Rune Changes

The rune changes in Patch 14.2 are more significant than it may seem.

Rune Slots

• second slot now swaps armor and MR shards for 2.0% move speed and 10-180 bonus health shards
• third slot replaces bonus health, armor and MR shards with 65 flat hp,10% slow resist and tenacity and 10-180 bonus health shards

Unflinching

• Now grants 2-10 bonus armor and MR while CC'ed and 2 seconds after instead slow resist and tenacity based on missing HP

System Changes

Next to tons of adjustments for champions, items and runes, we also got some significant system changes for League of Legends.

Vanguard

With Patch 14.2 Riot will run diagnostic checks to see if your computer is ready for the upcoming Vanguard update, which is going to be released "in a few weeks." This means that Vanguard won't be active yet, instead it's an opportunity for you to check if you're ready for the update before it becomes a requirement. For more info, take a look at the support article on Vanguard.

Windows Min Spec Update

Riot announced that with the release of Patch 14.4 on February 21, the minimum system requirements are going to get updated as well. Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 will longer be supported for all League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics games.

MMR & Matchmaking

In the future, you'll have less protection for demoting into a lower rank tier.

• Reducing the amount of games of demotion protection
• Fixed a bug where Diamond I players received negative LP gains
• Fixed a bug where Iron II players with negative LP gains were seeded to Iron IV

Bounty Adjustments

With the adjustments on the bounty system, individual bounties for those on the losing team are getting reduced.

• Player's bounty reduction depending on team gold deficit: 20-80% --> 30-90%

LoL Patch 14.2: New LoL Skins

With the reveal of a new patch, Riot Games is of course also ready to snatch some money from you for some skins. This time, they got a new skin line up their sleeves, as well as some other pretty unique ones!

Primal Ambush

With Patch 14.2, we'll get some pretty cool furry-, I mean, Primal Ambush skins. These champs will receive one:

• Primal Ambush Vi (see above)
• Primal Ambush Sivir

• Primal Ambush Riven

• Primal Ambush Talon

These fall under the category of Epic Skins and therefore cost 1350 RP.

Other Skins

Next to the Primal Ambush skin line, we also got some unique skins for other champions.

Foreseen Yasuo

Foreseen Yasuo is a skin inspired by the cinematic "Still Here", which was released for the start of Season 14 in League of Legends. Skins that are a reference to cinematics like this one or series like Arcane got an additional special touch, letting you emotionally attach to the skins more intense. The skin will also be price at 1350 RP.

Three Honors Akshan

With Three Honors Akshan, Riot rewards players that were, who would've thought, honorable and reached Honor Level 5 in Season 13. All the skins mentioned above will be available on January 24.

Heavenscale Smolder

With the upcoming Lunar New Year, Riot will release some pretty sick Heavenscale skins together with the Lunar Revel 2024 event, which is going to be published in Patch 14.3.

While we can say hello to Smolder already in this patch, Heavenscale Smolder will be purchusable for 1350 RP about a week earlier than the other skins on January 31 together with the release of the champion.