Wild Rift Patch Notes 3.5

This patch Kayn and Aatrox are unleashed onto the Rift! Kayn brings something unique with his kit as he’s able to choose between two forms. Choose the “red form” and be more tanky, or choose his “blue form” and slip through the shadows to slash those squishy carries in half. One of the devs who helped bring him to our Rift wrote a mini guide about him that you can read here, if you want some tips before hopping into a game with him.

What about you? Will you take the red pill or the blue pill? Take the red pill and give into your inner darkness, maybe that’s unleashing the darkin within you or teaming up with Supervillan Jhin. Take the blue pill and you’ll be blessed with playing Yuumi in every one of your One For All lobbies. Easy choice if you ask us…*whispers* Yuumi, Yuumi, Yuumi! 

Buff Sharing is also here! You get a buff, and you get a buff, and you get a buff! Buffs for everyone! In addition to the new buff sharing mechanic, we’re also updating Smite, introducing a new jungle buff (so many buffs), “Conservation,” and making some adjustments to all our jungle monster friends. We have some new and reworked items and runes, as well as some balance updates across the map. 

In addition to these changes, we also have some adjustments to player behavior and some other quality of life updates! We still have lots of stuff to come throughout the duration of 3.5, to see what else is in store check out our latest Patch Preview!

NEW

NEW CHAMPIONS

AATROX, THE DARKIN BLADE

Once honored defenders of Shurima against the Void, Aatrox and his brethren would eventually become an even greater threat to Runeterra, and were defeated only by cunning mortal sorcery. But after centuries of imprisonment, Aatrox was the first to find freedom once more, corrupting and transforming those foolish enough to try and wield the magical weapon that contained his essence. Now, with stolen flesh, he walks Runeterra in a brutal approximation of his previous form, seeking an apocalyptic and long overdue vengeance.

Aatrox will be released on November 17 at 00:01 UTC.

KAYN, THE SHADOW REAPER

A peerless practitioner of lethal shadow magic, Shieda Kayn battles to achieve his true destiny—to one day lead the Order of Shadow into a new era of Ionian supremacy. He wields the sentient darkin weapon Rhaast, undeterred by its creeping corruption of his body and mind. There are only two possible outcomes: either Kayn bends the weapon to his will... or the malevolent blade consumes him completely, paving the way for the destruction of all Runeterra.

Kayn will be released on November 17 at 00:01 UTC.

NEW FEATURES

GALLERY SKIN SETS

Are you a skin collector like us? Ever wanted to see all your Lux skins in one place? Or see your favorite KDA besties together slaying in harmony? Now you can with the new Gallery Skin Sets feature!

• Visit the Collection tab, you’ll see the “Skin Set” tab and “Champion” tab
  • In each tab you’ll be able to view multiple skins for the same champion or skin at once
  • Some skin line will have special backgrounds
• You’ll be able to display your Skin Sets in the Display Case on your profile.
• You can also earn an exclusive title and special effect to show off in champion select if you complete an entire Skin Set.

ONE FOR ALL

Ever want to play as 5 Ahri’s chain charming an enemy? Or what about 5 Yuumi’s pouncing all over your foes with one powerful and furocious cat? Well, now you can with the arrival of One For All! Hop into a queue and vote with your teammates to pick which 5-some you’ll wreak havoc on the Rift with! 

One For All will begin on November 18 at 00:01 UTC and end on December 14 at 00:01 UTC.

PLAYER BEHAVIOR

We know how frustrating it is when players swipe up and out of your game and leave you and your team at a disadvantage. This patch we have a few new adjustments and penalties for this type of behavior:

• Added a new penalty type for players who are AFKing in game that will apply prior to queueing for a game.
  • This penalty will apply in the form of X amount of time for Y number of games.
  • When a player queues, if they have any remaining games, they will sit in queue for X amount of time before they actually begin searching for a match.
  • Only once you accept a match and play out the game will your Y number of games decrease.

We are also introducing a new feature to Ranked Queue, the Matchmaking Avoid List:

• Players in ranks Diamond and below will have the ability to add up to 3 other players to their Avoid List in the post game lobby.
• You will now have the option to add players to your Avoid List after leaving the post game lobby.
• When you add someone to your Avoid List:
  • You will no longer be matched with the Avoid Listed player on your team in the Ranked matchmaking mode.
  • The Avoid Listed player will remain on your Avoid List until the list resets.
    • The Avoid List will reset weekly every Monday.

In addition to this new penalty we’ve also made some adjustments to Remake and All Chat:

• Remake vote will now auto trigger
  • Remake will no longer require you to enter the menu and ‘start’ the Remake vote. Now, whenever a Remake vote becomes available, the vote will automatically start and appear on players’ screen.

• All Chat will be removed from all game modes starting this patch. There won’t be any changes made to team or party chat though.

We know that these are a lot of new changes in the player behavior space, so please send us your feedback!

POSITION PREFERENCE REWARDS

Starting this patch you’ll now receive missions which will grant you a reward for opting into preferring a role for which there are currently fewer players. Our goal for this update is to encourage players who see a certain role that is needed to queue up and fill it so that other players in the current queue don’t have to auto-fill.

• Only in Ranked & Legendary Queue for now, we may expand it to other queues in the future!
• You’ll see it as a daily mission that you can fulfill up to 3x a day.
• You won’t always see this mission; it will only pop up when there are certain roles needed in the queue.
• When you do have the mission, if you select that role as your 1st pick you’re guaranteed to get it.
• You won’t receive any rewards if you get a punishment in that game, like going AFK or getting detected as not playing your assigned role.
• In Ranked Queue the reward will be 40 Hextech Energy. (Ranked Fortitude)

In Legendary Queue the reward will be 4 Legendary Points.

WILD PASS

Unfourtunately, you can’t have Superheroes without Supervillians. But fourtunately for us Supervillian Jhin is making his grand entrance into this Wild Pass! You’ll be able to earn him and plenty of other goodies and you complete missions and laugh maniacally at your foes. Once you complete the Wild Pass you’ll also be able to head to the Wild Pass Emporium and exchange rewards in the order you’d like, like Ascended Supervillian Jhin!

The Will Pass will be available on November 17 at 00:01 UTC.

EVENTS

DARKIN UNLEASHED

Slipping through the shadows of the Rift to slash their foes, the Darkin are unleashed…

The Darkin Unleashed event begins November 17 at 00:01 UTC

PROMOTIONS

CRYSTAL ROSE PROMOTION

During this patch you’ll be able to dance the night away at the Crystal Rose Ball when Crystal Rose Akali, Riven, and Vi make their appearance! You’ll be able to purchase boxes in the store for Wild Cores and in each box you’ll be granted one of the following:

• Crystal Rose Akali
• Crystal Rose Riven
• Crystal Rose Vi
• Crystal Rose Mega Homeguard
• Crystal Rose Recall
• Crystal Rose Homeguard
• Crystal Rose Akali Emote
• Crystal Rose Riven Emote
• Crystal Rose Vi Emote
• Crystal Rose Bauble
• Crystal Rose Token
• Poro Coins

Each box will cost 100 Wild Cores, and you’ll be guaranteed 20 Poro Coins per box and have a chance at everything else. The drop rates for each box are:

The Crystal Rose Tokens that you earn can be redeemed at the Token Store. The items you can redeem and their token cost are as follows:

After the promotion these skins will be vaulted, and not for purchase in the store, but they may return in the future. 

The Crystal Rose promotion will be available from November 26 at 00:01 until December 7 at 23:59 UTC

The Crystal Rose Token Store will be available from November 26 at 00:01 UTC until December 7 at 23:59 UT

ABILITY CAST SPEED SCALING FOR CHAMPIONS ADJUSTMENTS

The cast speeds for Caitlyn’s Piltover Peacemaker and Xayah’s Double Daggers currently doesn’t scale well with how quickly these champs fire off basic attacks in the late game. To address this, we’re updating these abilities so that they scale with attack speed.

YONE, YASUO AND TRYNDAMERE OVERCAP CRIT SCALING

The intention with critical strike synergy passives for these melee champions is to reward them for building aggressively, particularly in their earlier purchases. However, in their current state, they’re often not able to snag other aggressive items later in the game like Bloodthirster, because of this crit cap. So, we’re giving them a payout for overcapping crit chance to open up those later slots.

ARAM CHANGES

ULTRA RAPID FIRE (URF) CHANGES

GAMEPLAY CHANGES

ITEMS

[NEW] HORIZON FOCUS

Mage players have been asking for more options in their build paths, so we’re here to deliver with a new take on Horizon Focus from League PC. You’ll find our new version to be useful for mages, especially those with reliable crowd control effects to take advantage of the stacking passive.

Build Path:

• Fiendish Codex + Haunting Guise + 700g
  • Total Cost: 2800g

Stats:

• 80 Ability Power
• 150 Health
• 15 Haste

Passive - Hypershot:

• When a non-targeted ability hits a champion at least 500 range away*, it applies one stack, and when you immobilize a champion, add 2 stacks.
  • Stacks last for 5 seconds.
  • After reaching 3 stacks, consume the stacks to deal 80 + 20% Ability Power magic damage and apply another stack.

*This is the first Patch Notes where you may notice that we’re using high precision units instead of low precision units. It's the same as what we used previously except now x100. So for example if we adjusted Exhaust’s range in low precision units it would look like this: 7 → 5 but now it will look like this 700 → 500, since we are using the new unit system.

[NEW] LORD DOMINIK’S REGARD

The current penetration options are often unsatisfying for marksmen, so we’re adding a new Last Whisper item that also offers crit chance to smooth out those awkward build paths. We’re also trying something new with the passive which should allow you to get some occasional snappy attacks in.

Build path:

• Last Whisper (1100g) + Cloak of Agility (1000g) + 1000g
  • Total cost: 3100g

Stats:

• 35 Attack Damage
• 25% Crit chance

Passive - Last Whisper:

• 16 - 30% Armor Penetration

Passive - Adrenaline:

• Your first attack on a champion after being out of combat with champions has 80% increased Attack Speed.

[REWORKED] AWAKENED SOULSTEALER

Awakened Soulstealer has been an item that has been under the radar and underutilized for a while, because of its fellow competitors in the mana category, like Seraph’s and Luden’s. To help it out, we’re moving it to the penetration category instead of the mana category and revamping the passive to make it more about aggression and snowballing.

[NEW] Build path:

• Prophet’s Pendant (1250g) + Fiendish Codex (1000g) + 750g
  • Total cost: 3000g

[NEW] Stats:

• Ability Power: 65
• Haste: 20
• Health: 150

[NEW] Unique Passive - Death Touch: 15 Magic penetration

[NEW] Unique Passive - Soulflare: Takedowns on enemy champions within 3 seconds of dealing damage to them reduce the remaining cooldowns of your abilities (including ultimates) by 20%.

Unique - Soulcharged: [REMOVED]

DIVINE SUNDERER

As a competitor to Trinity Force, Divine Sunderer has been losing a bit of its sheen. We’re buffing it up to give it the polish it deserves.

• Attack Damage: 20 → 25
• Ability Haste: 20 → 25

MORELLONOMICON

Now that we have Soulstealer in the penetration category, we can unbind Morellonomicon from that category, which will make it more accessible for enchanters and mages that don’t want to invest in only damage items. This less expensive item should be an easy way for Ability Power champions to counter healing in situations where they need it, without breaking the bank.

[NEW] Build path:

• Fiendish Codex (1000g) + Oblivion Orb (800g) + 700g
  • Total cost: 2500g

[NEW] Stats:

• Ability Power: 70
• Haste: 20

[UNCHANGED] Passive - Affliction:

• Dealing magic damage applies 40% Grievous Wounds to enemy champions for 3 seconds. If the target is below 50% health, this effect is increased to 60% Grievous Wounds instead.

[REMOVED]

• Magic penetration
• Health

YOUMUU’S GHOSTBLADE

Youmuu’s is in a decent spot power wise, but we’re making it a more attractive purchase by lowering its price a tad.

• Gold cost: 3000g → 2900g

NEW RUNES

CHAMPION RUNE REPLACED BY [NEW] SUDDEN IMPACT

Champion was a very niche rune that was only picked on very rare occasions. We’re replacing it with Sudden Impact which should allow it to be picked and used in more situations.

[NEW] Domination: Sudden Impact:

After exiting stealth or using a dash, leap, blink or teleport effect, damaging an enemy champion grants 10 Armor Penetration and 10 Magic penetration for 3 seconds (4 second cooldown).

RUNE CHANGES

[REWORKED] INSPIRATION: PATHFINDER

We are reworking Pathfinder so that it can more effectively support a roaming playstyle for junglers and Mid Laners.

[NEW] Effect:

• Gain 20 bonus movement speed in the river. When in the river while out of combat, restore 0.6% missing health or 0.6% missing mana (based on the lowest value) every 1 seconds and gain an additional 10 bonus movement speed.

[REWORKED] INSPIRATION: PHASE RUSH

Phase Rush has been underperforming since its introduction, so we’re changing Phase Rush to grant shorter cooldowns instead of slow resist. This will open it up to be a good pick for Mages who are looking for a more utility focused option, instead of just damage.

Effect: Hitting champions 3 times with separate attacks or abilities within 3 seconds,

• Grants: (Melee 40% − 60% / Ranged 30% − 50%) Movement speed and 75% Slow resistance → (Melee 40% − 60% / Ranged 30% − 50%) Movement speed, 10 Ability Haste and reduces and reduces your current basic ability cooldowns by 20%.
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Cooldown: 12 seconds

DOMINATION: BRUTAL

Brutal is lagging behind in power when compared to other Domination runes, so we are amping up its damage output.

• On-hit adaptive damage: 7 - 14 → 12 - 19

DOMINATION: ELECTROCUTE

We’re reducing Electrocute’s cooldown in the later stages of the game to fit the pacing of Wild Rift better.

• Cooldown: 20s → 20~13s

DOMINATION: SCORCH

We’re turning up the heat on Scorch by buffing the uptime and scaling its damage.

• Cooldown: 10s → 8s
• Damage: 24~38 → 28~42

DOMINATION: TRIUMPH

Players should be triumphant over enemy champions, not jungle monsters.

• Deal 5% bonus damage to targets lower than 35% health → Deal 5% bonus damage to champions lower than 35% health

RESOLVE: ADAPTIVE CARAPACE

Adaptive Carapace is currently underperforming, so we’re increasing resistances that the player gains when below 50% health.

• Resistance Bonus: 12 Armor // 12 Magic resistance → 16 Armor // 16 Magic resistance

RESOLVE: BONE PLATING

Bone Plating’s effect not working against the initial hit made it difficult to appreciate and too easy to play around for the enemy.

• Effect: Blocks damage from 3 attacks after the initial hit → Blocks damage from the triggering attack and 2 more attacks

JUNGLE

ADJUSTMENTS TO SMITE, CHALLENGER SMITE, AND CHILLING SMITE

Ever walked away from a camp assured that your DoT would finish it off, only to find that your quick maffs didn’t work out? The Smite system has always been pretty bloated, so we’ve smote down some challenging mechanics and added clearer jungle benefits. Hopefully you’ll be smitten with our new Smite.

• Challenger Smite: REMOVED

Smite:

• Active: Deal 600 true damage to a large or epic monster or minion and restore 70 (+10% total Health) health. Upgrade to Chilling Smite after 3 uses.

Passive - Jungle Expertise:

• 20% Gold / XP from jungle monsters but temporarily earn 60% less Gold / XP from minions
• 15% damage and 15% additional ability damage to jungle monsters
• Restore 40 health over 5 seconds while fighting jungle monsters
• Restore 4 mana every second while in the jungle or river

Chilling Smite:

• Against monsters or minions: Deal 800 true damage and restore 70 (+10% total Health) health.
• Against champions: Deal 38-184 true damage and steal 25% of their Movement Speed for 2 seconds.

Passive - Jungle Expertise: Same as Smite passive

[NEW] JUNGLE CONSERVATION

We’re introducing the Conservation system to make roaming and ganking less punishing to jungle players and to give junglers an opportunity to catch up when they have fallen behind.

Smite & chilling smite now grant their user the Conservation Buff:

• Every 5 seconds, the player gains 12 or 6 stacks toward their Conservation buff. The number of stacks earned is based on the gold income of the player and the player’s team.
• If the player’s team gold is lower than the enemy team’s gold by 10% or more and if the player’s gold income is lower than their allies by 5% or more, gain 12 stacks per 5 seconds.
• In any other state, gain 6 stacks per 5 seconds.

When you kill a large monster or epic Monster, you will consume all current stacks of the Conversation Buff, granting you 1 gold per stack (Max 150 Charges).

JUNGLE CAMP LEASHING

We’re reducing the attack ranges of several camps to remove an optimization where a player could stand in the middle of two camps and farm both camps at once.

Attack range adjustments:

• Crimson Raptor: 3 → 1
• Gromp: 1.8 → 0.9
• Blue Sentinel: 1.8 → 0.9
• Red Brambleback: 2.2 → 1.5

JUNGLE MONSTER CAMPS

We’re rebalancing jungle camps to make the jungle less frustrating and more accessible, especially for newer players.

[NEW] SHAREABLE RED BRAMBLEBACK AND BLUE SENTINEL

Ever wonder whether a jungle buff should go on your Jungler or be donated to an ally? To that we say, why not both?

• Red Bramblebacks & Blue Sentinels that spawn after 7 minutes will drop a second Crest of Cinders/Insight for allies.
• This shared buff will only drop if the Jungler clears the camp.
• The second Crest will stay on the ground for 45 seconds before disappearing.
• Any ally except the Jungler can pick up the shared buff by sitting in range for 2.5 seconds.
• A second Crest will not drop if the enemy team slays your Red Brambleback or Blue Sentinel.
• Evolved Crest of Cinders & Crest of Insight: Removed

RIFT HERALD

We’re reducing the Rift Herald animation duration and its cast time so that it can more consistently take down enemy turrets.

• Total summoning animation duration: 7.6s → 4s
• Headbutt against Turrets dash cast time: 2.5s → 1.75s

SYSTEM

BOUNTY MECHANISM

Ever had a game where you were doing great and a single death gave your killer 2k+ gold? Well, we’re capping the bounty system so that the price for one mistake is not as gigantic.

• Maximum bounty a player can accrue: Uncapped → 1300 Gold
• Maximum bounty gold payment for one shutdown: Uncapped →1000 Gold
  • Bounty that are not fully dropped in the first shutdown will be added to the next shutdown

CHAMPION TAKEDOWN EXPERIENCE

We’re adjusting takedown experience in the early levels to smooth the impact of early kills. We’re also delaying the start time of the experience catch up mechanic (the one that gives you more xp if you are significantly behind the average level) as it was causing some weird cases in the earlier stages of the game.

• Experience catch up activation time: 30s → 3 min
• Experience granted for champion takedown:

SKINS

Blood Moon Aatrox Releasing November 17 @ 00:01 UTC	Soulhunter Kayn Releasing November 17 @ 00:01 UTC
Crystal Rose Akali Releasing November 26 @ 00:01 UTC	Crystal Rose Riven Releasing November 26 @ 00:01 UTC
Crystal Rose Vi Releasing November 26 @ 00:01 UTC

ACCESSORIES

You can earn or purchase accessories from a bunch of different sources. Please check the relevant page in game for more information on how to get ‘em!

Baubles: Inanimate; The Drama; Under One’s Breath; Page Turner; Deadeye; Put A Ring on It

Emotes: Pew! Pew!; BANG!; I’m Waiting; They love me!; Breathtaking!; Thanks, I tried!; Stop and Smell the Crystal Roses

Icons: Darkin Your Doorstep; Nightshade Jhin; Villainous Poro; Calling Card; The City’s Bane

Rift Emblems: Vandalized; HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?; Vibrant Villainy

Icon Borders: A Nightmare Rises; Hunter of Heroes

Custom Recalls: Evading Justice; To the secret lair!; The Last Dance

Profile Borders: Supervillain Rising; Ascending Villainy

Homeguard Trails: Woosh!; Shimmering Waltz

All accessories will be released throughout the patch

EXTRA BITS

• When the Scryer’s Bloom plant detects enemies that were not in your vision, it will automatically send the “Enemy Champion Spotted” ping to your team now.
• Added music on recalls for certain skin tiers.
• Updated the skin tier gem visuals in the collection and store.
• Added more visibility to ARAM progression in the End of Game Settlement.

FREE-TO-PLAY CHAMPION ROTATION

Nov 17 - Nov 23: Kayle, Malphite, Miss Fortune, Orianna, Rengar, Soraka, Vayne, Warwick, Yuumi, Ziggs

Nov 24 - Nov 30: Ezreal, Jax, Jhin, Karma, Olaf, Renekton, Shyvana, Thresh, Twisted Fate, Yone