League of Legends: Patch 9.6 breakdown

Riot dropped the League of Legends Patch 9.6 today, so we are going to walk you through all the changes coming to the Rift!

Another Tuesday means another set of patch notes. League of Legends will once again be shaken up as Patch 9.6 hits the rift on March 20. You can check out all the changes here, but we’ll go into some more detail down below on what big changes are coming.

Champions

Aatrox

W – Infernal Chains
BUGFIX Aatrox now properly pulls targets even if they’re untargetable
R – World Ender
BUGFIX Aatrox’s passive is no longer removed when he’s reviving

Giving some nice quality of life bug fixes to Aatrox will help him a bit. He’s much stronger in pro play than soloQ, so this will probably move the needle a little bit for him.

Caitlyn

R – Ace in the Hole
DAMAGE 250/475/700 ⇒ 300/525/750

A nice QoL change to the damage of her R (50 at all ranks) but this won’t really do much to move the needle on her place in the ADC meta. Cait typically uses the ult to pick off a straggler trying to escape, so 50 extra damage will likely just overkill the target or be intercepted like it always seems to be.

Gnar

W – Wallop
COOLDOWN 15/13/11/9/7 seconds ⇒ 7 seconds at all ranks

Once again, glad that Riot is buffing Gnar in the appropriate place, his mega form, where he feels less unfair to play against. I’ll probably be regretting these words when Gnar becomes an unkillable machine and cc’s me for twelve straight seconds in fights.

Hecarim

Q – Rampage
[NEW] ANGRY: Deals 10% additional damage per stack of Rampage

Extra damage to his Q when it’s stacking is great for the pony. He loves clearing AoE camps like raptors and wolves so this will help him clear quicker.

Jayce

Base Stats
HEALTH 576 ⇒ 560
HEALTH GROWTH 95 ⇒ 90
HEALTH REGEN 7.5 ⇒ 6
HEALTH REGEN GROWTH 0.8 ⇒ 0.6

Recently Jayce has become a power pick in both top and mid lane due to his ability to dominate his lane and take over in the mid-game. Nerfs to both Jayce’s health and health regen makes bullying his lane opponent a much tougher task and we’ll probably see much less of him in Patch 9.6 as a result of these changes.

Jayce probably needed some nerfs, but for a champion who already scales super bad to be made even worse early kind of stinks. However, if they were going to make Jayce more of a “feast or famine” champ, I’m glad they’re hitting his defensive stats. Particularly, I’m happy to see him lose some of that HP regen, meaning he’ll need to invest in lifesteal (Bloodthirster or Death’s Dance maybe) if he wants to stay in longer fights.

Kayle

Base Stats
ATTACK DAMAGE GROWTH 3 ⇒ 2.5
ATTACK SPEED GROWTH 2 ⇒ 1.5
DEFAULT ADAPTIVE Ability power ⇒ Attack damage

W – Celestial Blessing
BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED RATIO +10% per 100 ability power ⇒ +8% per 100 ability power
DELAY: Celestial Blessing applies its effects after a 0.25 second delay ⇒ on cast
[REMOVED] PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT: Kayle no longer disarms herself for ~1 second upon casting Celestial Blessing (could previously be canceled by spamming right-click)

E – Starfire Spellblade
CAST TIME 0.25 seconds ⇒ Identical to Kayle’s basic attack windup
BUGFIX The basic attack portion of Starfire Spellblade’s attack can now properly crit

While Kayle has the potential to be a monster in the late game, she currently struggles to make it through the early stages of the game without falling very far behind. These changes do not aid Kayle’s rough laning phase, while also nerfing her late game power, which may see her drop down a few tiers and see very little play on Patch 9.6.

Leblanc

Q – Sigil of Malice
RATIO: 0.4 ability power ⇒ 0.3 ability power

A healthy nerf for one of the current queens of the mid lane. While reducing her Q – Sigil of Malice’s AP ratio won’t kill off the Deceiver, it will certainly make dealing with LeBlanc’s late game one-shot potential a bit less troublesome.