League of Legends patch 12.22 notes: Season 13 preseason brings sweeping jungle changes

League of Legends patch 12.22 is on its way, and it’s the start of Season 13. Preseason changes will be going live in the mid-November update ahead of January’s full launch, and other balancing changes are also hitting the Rift: here’s the full patch notes.

League of Legends Season 13 is now upon players, and that means the swathe of preseason changes is going live in LoL patch 12.22. With the ranked season coming to a close, now starts the two months of testing various new features and rebalancing the game again.

With plenty of top lane and jungle changes expected, entire parts of the map will function in entirely different ways. However, Riot are also not neglecting smaller changes and things they’ve wanted to test but didn’t fit into the Season 12 schedule.

Find out all there is to know about LoL patch 12.22 below, including the early notes and expected release date.

Riot Games

LoL patch 12.22 will be a big shift for players.

When is LoL patch 12.22?

League of Legends patch 12.22 is primed to go live on November 16, 2022, right on schedule.

The twenty-second major patch of 2022 will start rolling out on Oceanic servers at 10AM AEDT, with a worldwide rollout taking place across the rest of the day.

Here’s the key timings:

• 3AM PT (NA)
• 5AM GMT (EUW)
• 3AM CET (EUNE)
• 8AM KST (Korea)

There’ll be a few hours of downtime when patching begins, and matchmaking queues will be taken offline about three hours beforehand.

LoL Patch 12.22 Contents

• Summoner’s Rift Changes
  • Champion Changes
  • Chemtech Drake
  • Jungle Changes
  • Jungle Companions
  • Lane Gold and Experience Changes
  • New and Changed Items
• Howling Abyss (ARAM) Changes

What’s changing in LoL patch 12.22?

Season 13 preseason begins with mega changes

With the Season 12 ranked run ending on LoL patch 12.21, Riot are gearing up for the big League of Legends Season 13 update. Preseason starts with LoL patch 12.22 as the developers implement the majority of changes for the next year.

Riot Games

League of Legends’ Season 13 changes will start going live on LoL patch 12.22.

This includes overhauls to the top lane and jungle ⁠— the former getting a facelift to make the role more enticing, while the latter should be easier for new players to pick up. There are a number of quality-of-life changes coming to reduce League’s learning curve somewhat too.

New items are on their way, mostly focused on bolstering the tank archetype but Rod of Ages’ return will certainly raise some eyebrows. The Chemtech Dragon is back, jungle pets have been added, and more. Be sure to check out our hub for all the changes before LoL patch 12.22.

Rakan & Lillia reclassified as melee champions

Just because preseason is starting doesn’t mean Riot is neglecting to balance the rest of the game though. The League of Legends developers are starting to ship out changes they didn’t want to near the tail end of Season 12, and it starts with a reclassification of some champions.

Rakan and Lillia, for the sake of item and rune power, have been considered ranged champions. This has made their lives somewhat more difficult as popular items like Relic Shield and Demonic Embrace, for each champion respectively, were weaker despite their short range.

However, that’s changing in LoL patch 12.22 with both champions now being classified as melee champions. Lillia is receiving a slight defensive nerf, but it is outweighed by the possibilities these buffs open up for her.

You can find the full patch notes below, complete with some massive changes for both Summoner’s Rift and Howling Abyss. While these changes aren’t quite the scale of something like Season 11’s addition of Mythic items, this pre-season patch is one of the biggest LoL patches to date.

LoL patch 12.22 notes

This patch has sweeping changes for both Summoner’s Rift and Howling Abyss (ARAM), so the notes will be separated into two sections, one for each mode.

Summoner’s Rift Changes

Champion Changes

Cho’Gath

R: Feast

• Base damage to non-champions: 1000 ⇒ 1200

Lillia

Base stats

• Now classified as a melee champion
• Base health: 625 ⇒ 605
• Health growth: 104 ⇒ 105

Passive: Dream-Laden Bough

• Healing vs Champions: 10.5-124.5 (based on level)(+18% AP) (Note: linear scaling) ⇒ 6-120 (based on level)(+18% AP) (Note: now uses stat growth multiplier)

Nunu and Willump

Q: Consume

• True damage to non-champions: 340/500/660/820/980 ⇒ 400/600/800/100/1200

Rakan

Base stats

• Now classified as a melee champion

Chemtech Drake

• When the Chemtech Drake is below 50% health, it gains 33% damage resistance and deals 50% more damage. This drake deals 100% of its total AD + 4% of the target’s health as physical damage with each attack
• When your team kills a Chemtech Drake, they will gain a stacking buff that grants 5% Tenacity and 5% Heal/Shield power
• Upon receiving Chemtech Soul, players will receive a buff that gives them 10% damage resistance and 10% more damage while below 50% health

Chemtech Rift Map Changes

Stim Fruits

• Honeyfruits are upgraded to Stim Fruits, providing the usual heal as well as a bonus shield. It also no longer slows champions consuming the fruit.

Blast Cones

• Blast cones will now blast units within their range twice as far.

Firelight Bloom

• Scryer’s Bloom will upgrade to Firelight’s Bloom, revealing a small area around the player as well as the usual cone of vision going both in front of and directly behind the direction the plant was hit from. Allies within the vision cones gain movement speed in that direction for a short duration, and enemy wards will be taken to 1 HP.

Jungle Changes

Jungle Camp Mechanics

• Marked for Death: When a large monster dies, all small monsters in their camp will be marked for death. After 10 consecutive seconds of not being in combat with a champion, monsters that have been marked for death will die.
• Own-Side Clearing Strength: Junglers now deal 20% more damage from non-true damage sources to monsters on their own side of the jungle. This increased damage will not apply when invading and clearing the enemy’s camps.
• Parting Gifts: All large monsters will now heal 27+3HP per level (increased by up to 2.25x based on missing health) and restore 15+2 mana per level (increased by up to 2.25x based on missing mana) upon takedown if you have a jungle companion. This heal/mana restoration will take the form of a projectile that fires toward the champion that last hit the monster after a 0.3 second delay.
• Soft Resets:
  • After losing all patience, instead of fully resetting, the monster will ‘soft reset’ for 6 seconds.
  • While soft resetting, the monster will path towards its camp center, regenerate 6% of its max health per second, and will ignore attackers outside of its leash range. Attacking a monster while the attacker is within its leash range will end the soft reset and restore some patience.
  • After these 6 seconds have passed without the monster being attacked, the monster will ‘hard reset’ and ignore all attackers, rapidly heal, and return to its original position.
  • Leash range for all jungle monsters except for Drake and Baron has been reduced.

Jungle Camp Gold and XP

• Lane Minion Experience: Junglers will only gain 75% experience from lane minions before their first pet evolution unless the jungler is behind the average game level.
• Large Monster Gold: All large monster gold given to non-junglers has been reduced by 15 gold.
• Large Monster Experience: All large monster experience given to non-junglers has been reduced by 15 experience, with the sole exception being the Ancient Krug (the biggest Krug) which has been reduced by 12 experience. All large monsters now give an additional 15 experience to those with a jungle companion

Blue Sentinel

• Base health: 1850 ⇒ 2300
• Base attack damage: 78 ⇒ 66
• Blue Sentinel now deals 5% of its target’s current health on hit

Red Brambleback

• Base health: 1850 ⇒ 2300
• Base attack damage: 78 ⇒ 66
• Red Brambleback now deals 5% of its target’s current health on hit

Gromp

• Base health: 1650 ⇒ 2200
• Base magic damage: 74 ⇒ 70
• Attack range: 200 ⇒ 175
• Gromp now deals 5% of its target’s current health on hit
• Gromp will no longer heal the champion that killed it upon death

Krugs

• Ancient Krug base health: 1050 ⇒ 1350
• Ancient Krug base attack damage: 74 ⇒ 57
• Ancient Krug now deals 3% of its target’s current health on hit
• Medium Krug base health: 500 ⇒ 650
• Ancient and Medium Krug death animation duration: 1.3 seconds ⇒ 1 second
• Ancient Krug no longer spawns 2 Medium Krugs when killed, now spawns 4 Mini Krugs

Murk Wolves

• Greater Murk Wolf base health: 1200 ⇒ 1600
• Greater Murk Wolf base attack damage: 35 ⇒ 30
• Greater Murk Wolf now deals 3% of its target’s current health on hit
• Murk Wolf base health: 480 ⇒ 630

Raptors

• Crimson Raptor base health: 800 ⇒ 1100
• Crimson Raptor base attack damage: 20 ⇒ 17
• Crimson Raptor now deals 3% of its target’s current health on hit
• Raptor base health: 425 ⇒ 500
• Raptor base attack damage: 10 ⇒ 7

Rift Scuttler

• Spawn time: 3:15 ⇒ 3:30
• Base health: 1050 ⇒ 1550
• Rift Scuttler no longer has a shield

Jungle Companions

Companion Attacks

• Companions will deal 20(+4% base HP)(+15% AP)(+10% AD) and will attack 1 time per second. After their owner has stopped attacking, they will attack two more times before stopping.
• Companions will heal their owner for 70% of the damage dealt before mitigation every time they attack
• Damaging a camp from a distance will prompt companions to leap toward the camp and attack

Companion Mana Regeneration

• Companions will provide their owners with an increase to mana regeneration equal to 8% missing mana + 0.1 x 8% of missing mana scaling at 1.3x per level

Companion Progression

Jungle companions will evolve twice throughout the game by acquiring treats via the following methods:

• 1 treat per large monster/champion takedown
• 1 bonus treat is stored every 60 seconds before reaching companion’s final form, changing to every 90 seconds after the final evolution is reached
• When a large monster is killed with bonus treats available, players will receive 2 treats and 50 bonus gold. 1 bonus treat stack will also be removed.

Companion Evolutions

First Evolution

• Smite damage will be increased to 900 true damage against monsters
• Smite is now castable on enemy champions, dealing 80-160 (based on level) true damage, slowing the target by 20% for 2 seconds
• The companion will visually evolve, and Smite’s icon will change to reflect the upgrade

Final Evolution

• Smite damage will be increased to 1200 against monsters and will do 50% of its damage in an AoE
• Players will become empowered and recieve buffs depending on their chosen companion
• The jungle item will be removed from your inventory
• The companion will visually evolve again, and Smite’s icon will change to reflect an even bigger upgrade

Companion Options

There are three companions to choose from as a jungler. All companions have a protection buff, which allows junglers to take 30% reduced damage from monsters while at least 2 allies are within 1300 units.

• Mosstomper
  • Mosstomper’s Courage: Gain a 75-330 (based on level) health shield after killing a monster camp or after 10 seconds out of combat. This shield will remain indefinitely. Players will gain 20% Tenacity and slow resist while the shield is present and for 3 seconds after it’s been broken

• Scorchclaw
  • Scorchclaw’s Slash: Scorchclaw will accumulate Ember stacks at a rate of 3 stacks per .5 seconds, or 100 stacks upon killing a large monster. At 100 Ember stacks, your next instance of damage against an enemy champion will slow all enemies in a 250 unit radius by 30% (decaying over 2 seconds) and deal burn damage equal to 5% of the target’s max health in true damage over 4 seconds to the primary target.
• Gustwalker
  • Gain 45% bonus movement speed when entering a brush that decays over 2 seconds after leaving the brush. This is increased to 60% for 2 seconds after killing a large monster.

Summoner Spell: Smite

• Smite’s damage has been changed to correspond with the amount of stacks your jungle companion has accumulated throughout the game.
  • Smite damage: 450/900 ⇒ 600/900/1200 corresponding with jungle companion evolution

Lane Gold and Experience Changes

• Mid Lane gold changes: All minions spawned in the mid lane will now be worth 1 less gold before 14 minutes when last hit
• Minion Experience: Minions now grant 2.15% more experience to solo champions. Minion experience when shared between multiple champions is unchanged

New and Changed Items

There’s a set of new tank Mythics, alongside the re-introduction of both Rod of Ages and Spear of Shojin, items that have been out of League of Legends for years. You can find these new items in these item changes, but, if you want a full look at their new icons and the designers’ thoughts when creating them, you can find our guide on all of these new items here.

Jak’Sho, the Protean

• 400 Health, 30 Armor, 30 Magic Resist, 20 Ability Haste
• Passive – Voidborne Resilience:
  • For each second in champion combat, gain a stack granting 2 armor and MR, up to 8 stacks.
  • At max stacks you become empowered, instantly draining enemies around you for 3% of your max health (reduced to 30% against minions and monsters) and doubling your resistances from stacks until the end of combat.
  • 60 second cooldown
• Mythic Passive: Grants all other legendary items 5 Armor and MR

Radiant Virtue

• 400 Health, 30 Armor, 30 Magic Resist, 20 Ability Haste
• Passive – Guiding Light:
  • Upon casting your ultimate you Transcend, increasing your max health by 10% for 9 seconds.
  • While transcended, you and your allies within 1200 range gain 25 non-ultimate ability haste and heal for 1.5% of your max health every 3 seconds, increased based on missing health. Healing is doubled on yourself
  • 90 second cooldown
• Mythic Passive: Grants all other legendary items 100 Health

Heartsteel

• 800 Health, 200% Base Health Regen, 20 Ability Haste
• Passive – Colossal Consumption:
  • Charge up a powerful attack against a champion over three seconds while within 700 range of them.
  • The charged attack deals 125+6% of your max health as bonus physical damage, and grants you 10% of the pre-mitigation damage as permanent max health
  • 30 second cooldown per target
• Mythic Passive: Grants all other legendary items 1% increased health and 6% increased champion size

Iceborn Gauntlet (formerly Frostfire Gauntlet)

• Cost: 2800 gold ⇒ 3000 gold
• Health: 450 ⇒ 400
• Armor: 25 ⇒ 50
• Magic resist: Removed
• Build path: Bami’s Cinder + Null-Magic Mantle + Cloth Armor ⇒ Sheen + Kindlegem + Chain Vest
• Passive – Spellblade:
  • After using an ability, your next attack is enhanced with an additional 100% base AD physical damage and creates a frost field for 2.5 seconds. Enemies that move across the field are slowed by 15% +.004% bonus health (halved for ranged users).
  • Your primary target is crippled, applying a 100% stronger slow on them and reducing their damage by 10% against you for 2.5 seconds.
  • 1.5 second internal cooldown
• Mythic Passive: Grants all other Legendary items 50 HP, 5% Tenacity, and 5% slow resist

Rod of Ages

• Gold Cost: 3200
• 60 Ability Power, 300 Health, 400 Mana
• Build Path: Catalyst of Aeons + Blasting Wand + Amplifying Tome
• Unique Passive – Eternity:
  • Restore mana equal to 8% of premitigation damage taken from champions, and health equal to 20% of mana spent, up to 15 health per cast. Toggled abilities can only heal for up to 15 per second.
  • For every 250 health or mana restored this way, gain 25% decaying move speed for 2 seconds.
• Passive: This item gains 20 health, 20 mana, and 4 ability power every minute, up to 10 times, for a maximum of 200 health, 200 mana, and 40 ability power. Upon reaching max stacks, gain a level and all effects of Eternity are increased by 50%.
• Mythic Passive: Grants all other Legendary items 5 Ability Haste

Catalyst of Aeons

• Gold cost: 1100
• Health: 225
• Mana: 300
• Build path: Ruby Crystal + Sapphire Crystal
• Unique Passive – Eternity:
  • Restore mana equal to 8% of premitigation damage taken from champions, and health equal to 20% of mana spent, up to 15 health per cast. Toggled abilities can only heal for up to 15 per second.
  • Cannot stack with Rod of Ages or Abyssal Mask due to being a unique passive

Abyssal Mask

• Gold Cost: 2700 ⇒ 3000
• Health: 450 ⇒ 500
• Mana: 0 ⇒ 300
• Magic resist: 35 ⇒ 40
• Build path: Kindlegem + Spectre’s Cowl ⇒ Catalyst of Aeons + Spectre’s Cowl
• Unique Passive – Eternity:
  • Restore mana equal to 8% of premitigation damage taken from champions, and health equal to 20% of mana spent, up to 15 health per cast. Toggled abilities can only heal for up to 15 per second.
• Passive – Unmake:
  • Curse nearby enemy champions, reducing their magic resist by 5 + 1.2% bonus health (max 25).
  • For each Cursed enemy, gain 9 magic resist.

Randuin’s Omen:

• Gold cost: 2700 ⇒ 3000
• Health: 250 ⇒ 400
• Armor: 90 ⇒ 60
• Ability haste: Removed
• Build path: Warden’s Mail + Cloth Armor + Ruby Crystal ⇒ Warden’s Mail + Giant’s Belt
• Active – Humility: Briefly slow nearby enemies by 55% for 2 seconds (60 second cooldown)
• Passive – Critical Resistance: Critical strikes deal 20% less damage to you
• Passive – Rock Solid: Reduce incoming damage from attacks by up to 5 +0.35%, capped at 40% of attack’s damage

Sunfire Aegis

• No longer a Mythic item, is now Legendary
• Gold cost: 3200 ⇒ 2800
• Health: 450 ⇒ 400
• Armor: 35 ⇒ 50
• Magic resist: Removed
• Ability haste: Removed
• Build path: Bami’s Cinder + Aegis of the Legion ⇒ Bami’s Cinder + Chain Vest
• Flametouch passive has been removed
• Passive – Immolate: Immolate damage is no longer increased by 150% against jungle monsters

Turbo Chemtank

• No longer a Mythic item, is now Legendary
• Gold cost: 3200 ⇒ 2800
• Health: 450 ⇒ 500
• Magic resist: 25 ⇒ 50
• Armor: Removed
• Ability haste: 20 ⇒ 10
• Build path: Bami’s Cinder + Cloth Armor + Null-Magic Mantle ⇒ Kindlegem + Negatron Cloak + Ruby Crystal
• Refuel passive has been removed

Aegis of the Legion

• Gold cost: 1400 ⇒ 1200

Ravenous Hydra

• Attack damage: 70 ⇒ 65
• Unique Passive – Cleave damage: 60-12% total AD (based on distance) ⇒ 60% of total AD for melee champions and 30% of total AD for ranged champions to all enemies around them
• Unique Passive – Carnivorous:
  • Gain 0.6 AD and 0.1% Omnivamp on minion kills, increased to twice that amount for champions, large/epic monsters, and siege minions. Stacks up to 24 AD and 4% Omnivamp.
  • Lose half of these stacks on death

Tiamat

• Cleave damage: 60-12% total AD (based on distance) ⇒ 50% of total AD for melee champions and 25% of total AD for ranged champions to all enemies around them

Spear of Shojin

• Gold cost: 3400
• Attack damage: 65
• Health: 300
• Ability haste: 20
• Unique Passive – Dragonforce:
  • Non-ultimate spells gain an extra [8 (+8% base AD) Ability Haste for melee champions | 6 (+6% base AD) Ability Haste for ranged champions], reduced to [4 (+4% base AD) Ability Haste for melee champions | 3 (+3% base AD) Ability Haste for ranged] for spells with immobilizing effects
• Unique Passive – Exigency:
  • Gain up to [15% melee | 10% ranged] move speed, based on your % missing health (maxed out while below 33% health)
• Build path: B.F. Sword + Kindlegem + Caulfield’s Warhammer

Turret Plating

• Gold given per plate: 160 ⇒ 175
• Armor and MR per Turret plate: 35 ⇒ 40

Communication Tools

A whole new suite of tools that can be used to communicate with teammates has been added. For a list of these tools and how to use them, you can get a full explanation here.

Howling Abyss (ARAM) Changes

Howling Abyss is getting overhauled, with a new map going live next patch (12.23). For now, though, there are some sweeping balance changes going through to try and balance out the game mode to make it a bit more fun no matter which champion you get stuck with, and to make some historically weak champions a little more viable.

Champions:

Akali:

• +20% Tenacity, +20% Energy Regeneration

Ashe:

• -20% Ability haste

Ekko

• +20% Tenacity

Elise

• +20% Tenacity

Evelynn

• +20% Tenacity

Fizz

• +20% Tenacity

Kassadin

• +20% Tenacity

Katarina:

• +20% Tenacity

Kayn:

• +20% Tenacity

Kennen:

• +20% Energy Regeneration

Kha’Zix:

• +20% Tenacity

LeBlanc:

• +20% Tenacity

Lee Sin:

• +20% Energy Regeneration

Pyke:

• +20% Tenacity

Qiyana:

• +20% Tenacity

Rek’Sai:

• +20% Tenacity

Rengar:

• +20% Tenacity

Talon:

• +20% Tenacity

Zed:

• +20% Tenacity, +20% Energy Regeneration

You can find the full patch notes here.