Split 3 will begin on September 25, 2024, at 12:00 PM local server time
Riot Games recently revealed major updates for the upcoming third Ranked Split of 2024 in League of Legends. It will launch with patch 14.19 coming on September 25. These adjustments focus on slowing down the pace of fights, making champions more impactful than items, and improving the overall quality of experience for players. Here’s a breakdown of the key changes.
Champion Emphasis and Slower Combats
One of the most significant changes involves a global nerf to items stats, reducing the stat efficiency of almost every Legendary item by 5-15%. This adjustment aims to decrease the impact of items on gameplay, putting more emphasis on individual champions and their abilities.
Over time, players have become more skilled at farming and staying alive, leading to faster combat and more snowball in games. To address this, Riot is reducing damage output from items and prioritizing durability, making fights more strategic and less burst-heavy. This change is reminiscent of the "Durability Update" and seeks to allow more room for skill expression, rewarding positioning and careful decision-making over pure reflexes.
Item Adjustments by Champion's type
Riot has also introduced specific changes for each class to better balance itemization:
- AP Mages: Burst mages now have less ability haste but maintain high AP and magic penetration. Survivability for squishy champions against burst damage has also been reduced.
- Fighters: There’s now a clear distinction between skirmisher, diver, and juggernaut items, with varying levels of defense. Some tank items have gained health, and movement speed has been nerfed for other type of champions to give fighters an advantage in mobility.
- ADCs: AD carries (ADCs) will see lower scaling in items, with a general reduction in movement speed.
- Tanks: Tank items remain largely unchanged but are now more focused on resistances, making them more durable and effective in prolonged engagements.
- AD Assassins: These champions will experience less ability haste and item active scaling, making their individual spell casts more crucial.
- Enchanters: Items have been simplified, focusing on core supportive functions while reducing offensive capabilities like bonus movement speed and ability power.
Overall, these changes aim to reduce burst potential, enhance durability, and slow down combat for non-burst classes, in order to reach a more balanced gameplay experience.
Return of Lethal Tempo
The highly requested Lethal Tempo rune is making its return, but with a twist. It now grants stacking attack speed based on champion level, giving champions more balanced scaling without overshadowing Attack Speed items. Once reaching maximum stacks, your attacks will deal bonus damage on-hit, which scales with both your level and your bonus Attack Speed.
Biscuit Delivery Nerf
The Biscuit Delivery rune has been reworked to remove both the max mana and mana regeneration it used to provide. Instead, it now boosts max health and restores more missing health, addressing concerns about the excessive “free” mana it gave.
Quality of Experience Improvements
Several improvements are being introduced to make League of Legends more accessible, particularly for newer players:
- Item Queuing: Players can now queue item builds in the shop, and the new HUD will track gold progression toward completing items. This feature makes item purchases more intuitive, especially for less experienced players.
- Purchase Alerts: If players leave the fountain without buying items at the start of a game, a notification will appear, helping avoid early-game mistakes.
- Objective Announcements: Epic objective spawns, such as Dragons and Barons, will now trigger banner announcements, improving visibility.
- Potion Reminders: Players will receive a reminder to use potions when they are low on health and out of combat.
- Jungle Pings: A new system-generated ping will alert players when there is combat in their jungle, improving awareness of potential invades.
- Interactive Emote : A new emote ("My Bad") allows players to apologize for in-game mistakes, promoting better communication and teamwork. This will be an interactive one, the same as the fist bump currently available when pressing "U" in-game.
With tweaks to items across all roles and several quality-of-life improvements, Riot aims to make League of Legends a more skill-expressive and enjoyable experience for all players. It is also a way to make the game more accessible for newcomers.
Header Photo Credit: Riot Games
