Patch 14.23 for League of Legends is set to bring significant updates, especially aimed at balancing champions for a broader range of players, without impacting casual gameplay negatively.
Although all the finer details of the patch haven’t been revealed yet, lead designer Phreak has already shared his main objectives for the update ahead of its patch release on the PBE servers.
Additionally, the lead gameplay designer, Phroxzon, has confirmed that the newly introduced champion Ambessa will also be receiving changes. However, these are intended solely for bug fixes and refining gameplay mechanics, rather than rebalancing her abilities.
Aurora, who dominated the Worlds 2024 tournament, is getting particular attention in the upcoming patch as developers now feel they should have made more nerfs to her before the event. To address this, her kit will see some skills nerfed to reduce her dominance in professional settings, while other abilities will be buffed to make her easier for casual players to use.
Rell, another champion with high crowd control (CC), has been more popular in professional play due to her powerful abilities. Phreak believes her CC makes her hard to counter, so the plan is to reduce her CC slightly, while also increasing her mobility and versatility to make her more accessible across all player skill levels.
League of Legends patch 14.23 early notes
Champions
Ambessa Medarda
Bugfixes planned for 14.23 including input buffering around her ultimate to make her feel more consistent
Aurora
Passive: Spirit Abjuration
- Bonus movement speed removed entirely
Q: Twofold Hex
- +50 range
- Damage increased
- Cooldown increased
- Recast goes off automatically
W: Across the Veil
- No longer gets cooldown reset on takedown
- Cooldown decreased
- Grants movement speed upon being casted
E: The Weirding
- +50 range
R: Between Worlds
- Will now grant W’s movement speed passive rather than the old Passive’s movespeed
- Duration increased
- Now the ring slows rather than trapping enemies inside
Rell
Base Stats:
- Armor and MR growth lowered slightly
- Attack speed growth increased
Passive: Break the Mold
- Armor and MR steal slightly increased
Q: Shattering Strike
- Stun duration decreased by 0.1 seconds
W: Ferromancy
- Both Crash Down and Mount Up’s stun duration has been decreased. The abilities will still knock up, but the stun tied to them is shorter
- Crash Down’s stun duration deceased by 0.2 seconds
- Mount Up’s stun duration decreased by 0.4 seconds
- Bonus Armor and MR increased: 12% >>> 15%
- Passive bonus movement speed given to horse form scaling with points in this ability
E: Full Tilt
- Passive mounted movement speed taken off this ability and placed on W
- Now makes W the best ability to max by a mile by loading many of E’s passives onto W
- Rank ups now decrease cooldown
- Now deals % max health damage with no base damage
Smolder
Base Stats:
- Base stat level scaling decreased
- Intended to make him weaker in solo lanes and take him away from being a pro play flex pick
Q: Super Scorcher Breath
- Passive scaling nerfed
- Flat damage per stack decreased
- Passive’s scaling with number of missiles decreased
- Damage on AoE blowback for tier 2 and 3 upgrades decreased: 75% >>> 50%
- Max health burn damage on tier 3 no longer scales with stacks
- Total AD scaling >>> Bonus AD scaling
- Less damage early, more damage late with items
- No longer does bonus damage to minions
- Now grants mana refund upon killing minions
- AP scaling removed
W: Achoo!
- Mana cost adjusted, lower early and higher later
- Bonus minion damage removed
- Damage split between initial projectile and explosion is now 50/50
- Bonus AD ratio: 0.5 >>> 1.2
E: Flap, Flap, Flap
- AD scaling per passive stack: 0.1 total AD per stack >>> 0.25 total AD per stack
- Flat damage per passive stack decreased
- Bonus shots per passive stack increased
R: Mooommmm!
- Now deals half damage to minions
- Cooldown decreased
Systems
Bounties
- Higher caps on objective bounties
- Faster bounty accrual for kills/assists
- Stronger devaluation of bounties on the team that’s losing
According to the official League of Legends patch schedule, patch 14.23 will go live on November 20, 2024.