Elemental Drakes are getting a huge nerf on Patch 9.24b of League of Legends, the final set of changes for Season 9, which is set to hit live servers “roughly mid-week.”
Preseason 10 is wrapping up, and Riot is getting ready to send the new League changes into 2020. With a host of new items, champions, and game mechanics, this preseason has been one of the craziest in the game’s history.
As a bit of an early Christmas present for League of Legends players though, they’ve teased one final patch before the holiday break to tackle one of the game’s most powerful mechanics — Elemental Drakes.
Lead gameplay designer Mark ‘Scruffy’ Yetter gave players a rundown of the changes on December 16, mostly focusing on drakes. Having been the most important objective on the map in preseason, these balance changes aim to give players more of a reason to do other things than just fight for dragons.
Ocean buff is getting nerfed once again, with its heal dropping down to 2.5% of missing health, half of its Patch 9.23 value. The soul is also getting nerfed, with about 10% reduced scaling on the heal across the board, while taking a second longer to rejuvenate.
Infernal and Mountain buff are receiving similar nerfs to each other. They are both losing around 20% of their stat bonus value, while the bonus damage and shield that each soul grants respectively will be about 15% weaker compared to Patch 9.24. The Infernal soul damage will now also have a three second cooldown.
https://twitter.com/MarkYetter/status/1206679624719257602
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The late game Elder buff is having its total duration reduced by 30 seconds to 150 seconds, while it will also do less burn damage. The bug with Death’s Dance proccing Elder burn endlessly has also been patched out. The execute mechanic will remain unchanged.
Amongst all the nerfs though, one lonely drake will be receiving some love at the tail end of preseason. Cloud soul will be buffed to 50% bonus movement speed for six seconds, meaning that champions can really feel the impact of the buff during a teamfight or a slippery escape.
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Outside of the Elemental Drake changes, Lethality items are getting a slight buff to help make them a bit more gold efficient. Serrated Dirk is getting a bonus 5 AD added to it, with that change also passing on to Edge of Night.
Champion-wise, Heimerdinger, Shaco, and Aphelios will be receiving nerfs, while Alistar, Ezreal, Graen, Gnar, and Graves will be receiving a slight boost in the final patch of Season 9. None of the changes are too drastic, but just a slight touch to tip them closer to 50% win rate.
League of Legends Patch 9.24b is expected to come out “mid-week,” so check your clients on December 18 to see if the changes have been punched through.