League of Legends Patch 4.1 Aimed Towards New Players, Champion Refinements

League of Legends developer Riot Games has released details regarding the upcoming 4.1 patch slated to hit the game on Wednesday, and it mostly deals with fine tuning and refinements inside the game, but there are some other changes coming to the game as well. Most of them will deal with how new players are brought along with the game.

“We’ve introduced a stable roster of free champions for new players to play,” the official patch notes claim. “Our goal is to improve the way players learn to play League of Legends when they’re first starting out. These champions were picked because of how easy they can be learned and how enjoyable most new players find them.”

In addition to the stable of free champions that will be made available to new players in the coming days, the patch also adjusts a number of champions that the development team felt needed fixing.

From Riot Games:

"AniviaSummary: We’ve increased the speed of Anivia’s basic attack projectile and brought down the mana cost of Flash Frost and Crystallize. Additionally, Anivia’s ult will now have a warning effect when she is almost out of Glacial Storm’s range.We call these kinds of changes “modernizations,” where we bring a champion up-to-date with the current state of the game. Usually this means mana cost changes (typically reductions), but it also extends to playability improvements, like range indicators or gameplay improvements.GeneralBasic attack projectile speed increased to 1400 (from 1100)Q – Flash FrostMana cost reduced to 80/90/100/110/120 (from 80/100/120/140/160)W – CrystalizeMana reduced to 70 at all ranks (from 70/90/110/130/150)R – Glacial StormNow displays a warning particle over Anivia that only the Anivia player can see when she is close to the maximum range of her ultimateAnnieSummary: Pyromania’s stun duration is now shorter at earlier levels but Summon: Tibbers’ cooldown has been reduced at later levels to compensate.Annie’s a terrifying kid to play against in the early phases of the game – even before Tibbers joins the party– mostly due to her long duration stun at level 1. With these changes, we want to give Annie’s lane opponents some more room to breathe against her early threat, but we’ve given Tibbers more late game playtime to compensate. This should lessen a bit of Annie’s power without incinerating her overall strengths.Passive – PyromaniaStun duration now scales 1.25/1.5/1.75 seconds at levels 1/6/11 (from 1.75 seconds at all levels)R – Summon TibbersCooldown reduced to 120/100/80 seconds (from 120 at all ranks)EvelynnSummary: We’ve slowed down Hate Spike’s missile speed, changed Ravage’s damage from magical to physical and Agony’s Embrace now grants its shield instantly.Evelynn’s newfound strength in the preseason is partially a result of our changes to the vision system, but she’s also been blowing up enemy champions during the mid-game when she can stack Magic Penetration. Changing Ravage’s damage to physical will reduce some of Evelynn’s burst, but our core focus is on the Hate Spike change. By reducing its missile speed, Evelynn’s victims should feel more rewarded for keeping her at a distance, especially if they have some speed boosts to outrange her spikes. We also cleaned up the response time of Agony’s Embrace – it feels pretty bad for Evelynn to die before the shield but after the cast.Q – Hate SpikeMissile speed reduced to 1250 (from 2000)E – RavageDamage changed to physical (from magic)R – Agony’s EmbraceNow grants the shield instantly (instead of 0.5 seconds later after the projectiles return to her)JannaSummary: Monsoon now channels immediately on activation and the channel duration has been reduced. Additionally, we’re increasing Monsoon’s heal per second and total heal amount.Since we removed a lot of Janna’s invisible power, we can now buff up some of the cooler parts of her kit. Since Monsoon is one of Janna’s big moments in the spotlight, we decided to throw caution to the wind and buff her up with more healing potential and immediate gains.R – MonsoonNow begins channeling immediately upon activation (from an initial 0.25 second cast time)Total channel duration reduced to 3 seconds (from 4 seconds)Heal per second increased to 100/150/200 (+0.6 ability power) (from 70/110/150 (+0.35 ability power)Total heal amount increased to 300/450/600 (+1.8 ability power) (from 280/440/600 (+1.4 ability power))JinxSummary: We’ve lowered Jinx’s base health but increased her health per level. We’re also standardizing Flame Chompers! arm time, reduced its damage at earlier levels and fixing a slight bug.Given all of Jinx’s other core strengths; we’re looking to reduce some of her early game laning power.Despite Flame Chompers! taking a little longer to arm – and doing less damage at early levels –  Jinx can at least get excited about their increased reliability against champions who could use movement-based abilities to get over them (Vi, Lee Sin, etc).GeneralBase health reduced to 462 (from 500)Health per level increased to 82 (from 80)E – Flame Chompers!Standardized arm time to 0.7 seconds (from 0.5 to 0.74 seconds)Fixed a bug that would cause Chompers to sometimes not activate on champions dashing over themReduced damage at earlier levels to 80/135/190/245/300 (from 100/150/200/250/300)NasusSummary: We’re reducing Wither’s range and removing the increased Wither and Spirit Fire range granted through Fury of the Sands.We want to keep Nasus’ core strengths where they are while toning down some of his power. Reducing the cast range of Wither and removing Wither’s bonus cast range from Fury of the Sands means that Nasus must position better and make better decisions about which target to Wither, rather than “sniping” fragile opponents with long-range Withers before eating them.W – WitherRange reduced to 600 (from 700)R – Fury of the SandsNo longer increases the cast ranges of Wither and Spirit FireRengarSummary: We fixed a bunch of bugs in Savagery and tweaked Empowered Battle Roar.Rengar’s overall sustain with Empowered Battle Roar is incredibly high, especially because he can transition from a tank in the mid-game to an unseen predator in the late-game. While this is definitely a nerf to Rengar’s overall sustain, we wanted to maintain his ability to survive in a fight, so the scaling heal will remain a good choice when Rengar’s low on health. The Savagery change means that Rengar now has two seconds to pull off his empowered basic attack instead of six seconds.Q – SavagerySavagery basic attack buff (not attack speed buff) reduced to 2 seconds (from 6 seconds)Fixed multiple bugs that allowed Rengar to use Savagery more frequently than intendedW – Battle RoarEmpowered Battle Roar heal changed to 20 + (10 x level) amplified by a 1% per 1% of Rengar’s missing health (from 40 + (20 x level) health)RivenSummary: We lowered Riven’s base attack damage but increased her attack damage per level to compensate. Additionally, Broken Wings’ damage has been decreased and Valor’s shield duration was shortened.Riven’s burst damage is just too high at early levels, so we’re dulling her blade. Broken Wings scaling off total AD from bonus AD means that Riven will do better when she’s behind (because she won’t be able to buy so much raw AD), but worse when she’s far ahead. We’re reducing the duration of Valor to hit some of Riven’s flexibility in lane – if she’s going to rely on Valor’s shield to trade damage, she’ll need to commit quickly or risk losing the shield.GeneralBase attack damage reduced to 54 (from 56.7)Attack damage per level increased to 3 (from 2.7)Q – Broken WingsDamage per strike decreased to 10/30/50/70/90 (+40/45/50/55/60% total attack damage) (from 30/55/80/105/130 (+70% bonus attack damage))E – ValorShield duration reduced to 1.5 seconds (from 2.5 seconds)ShyvanaSummary: We’re lowering Burnout’s overall damage and Flame Breath’s damage at earlier levels. Dragon’s Descent also received a bug fix and the damage now matches the tooltip.Shyvana’s doing a lot of damage in the early to mid-game, even when she builds tanky. It turns out that when Shyvana can push, wave clear and out-trade opponents all at once, things can get a little frustrating. We’re cooling some of that dragon blood down to make her early bullying more manageable.W – BurnoutDamage per second reduced to 20/35/50/65/80 (from 25/40/55/70/85)Minimum magic damage reduced to 60/105/150/195/240 (from 75/120/165/210/255)Maximum magic damage reduced to 140/245/350/455/560 (from 175/280/385/490/595)E – Flame BreathDamage reduced at earlier levels to 60/100/140/180/220 (from 80/115/150/185/220)R – Dragon’s DescentDamage now correctly matches the tooltip at 175/300/425 (from 200/300/400)ThreshSummary: We made it more obvious that Dark Passage is a clickable item and gave it a small collision radius. We’re also slightly increasing the time it takes for The Box to form.Giving Thresh’s lantern a small collision radius means that he can’t cover things like minions or wards to prevent enemies from clicking them. Similarly, this also means that minions can’t accidentally cover up a lantern, and that enemies can’t block Thresh’s lantern with a bunch of wards. Instead, Thresh’s lantern will now slightly push units out of the way when it’s thrown on top of them – or if the unit can’t be moved (ie: wards or champions), Thresh’s lantern will land beside them and champions won’t be able to walk directly on top of it. Click that lantern!The increased delay on The Box’s wall formation is to clarify its use as a trapping ability when Thresh has the right position. Sometimes Thresh will just throw out The Box when walking behind a fleeing opponent to “clip” them on the edge, but Thresh should fail in those situations because he didn’t bother to have the proper positioning.W – Dark PassageNow shows indicator particles to nearby allies to indicate that it is a clickable objectLantern now has a small collision radiusR – The BoxDelay on wall formation increased to 0.75 seconds (from 0.5 seconds)YasuoSummary: We’ve smoothed out Yasuo’s gameplay overall and made Steel Tempest auto-smartcast. Additionally, Last Breath now gives maximum Flow when cast and has a slightly shortened animation.While we’re still keeping an eye on how Yasuo is performing at all levels, we wanted to smooth out his gameplay and give Last Breath more use to turn around a fight when he’s behind.GeneralNow properly applies the 10% critical strike damage reduction to Statikk Shiv critical hitsImproved the functionality of his E – Sweeping Blade to Q – Steel Tempest comboQ – Steel TempestAll casts are now automatically smart castW – Wind WallNo longer blocks friendly Syndra orbsR – Last BreathNow grants maximum Flow on castSpell animation shortened by 0.1 secondsNow less likely to be teleported out of by enemies spamming flashNow properly alerts spectators and allies when it is on cooldown"

More changes to champions, as well as all patch notes, can be found on the page linked at the top of the post.

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