League of Legends patch 25.S1.4 preview is now live, and Riot Games seems to be looking to bring a lot of changes to the tank by nerfing some of the more powerful tank items in the MOBA. Apart from the tank item nerfs, there will be significant adjustments to Mel along with buffs to picks like Ashe, Rakan, Teemo, Jayce, and Ekko.
Nerfs will be making their way to Lulu, Garen, Hwei, and Warwick, while Diana, Elise, and Twitch are set for slight adjustments to their kit.
Below is everything we know so far about League of Legends patch 25.S1.14
League of Legends patch 25.S1.4 pre-notes
Before moving onto the list of proposed changes it’s important to note that the LoL patch 25.S1.4 pre-notes are tentative and may not reflected in the official patch next week. Riot will first try them out in the League of Legends PBE server before shipping them with the update.
1) Champion Buffs:
Ashe
- Q total AD: 110-130% → 111-135%
- WAD ratio: 1.0 → 11
- R damage: 200/400/600 250/450/650
Ekko
- Q1 damage: 70-130 → 80-140
Gangplank
- AD Growth: 3.7 → 4.2
Jayce
- W Attack Speed now reaches 3.0 AS cap
Nautilus
- Q Base Damage: 70-250 → 85-265
Sion
- Base Armor: 32 → 36
- Base Health Regen: 7.5 → 9
Teemo (Jungle)
- E Monster Damage: 125% 145%
Yasuo
- P crit damage mod: -10% → -0%
2) Champion Nerfs:
Hwei
- QW Base Damage: 80-160 → 60-160
- WE Damage: 25-65 (+ 20% AP) → 20-60 (+ 15% AP)
- Passive AP Ratio: 35% → 30%
Kalista
- W max HP damage: 14-18% → 10-18%
Kog’Maw
- Q damage: 90-290 → 80-260
Lulu
- W Attack Speed: 25-35% 20-30%
- W Cooldown: 17-15 → 18-16
- E Base Damage/Shield Strength: 80-260 → 80-240
Twitch
- Axiom Arcanist treated as AoE damage
Warwick (top)
- Q Cost: 70-90 → 80-100
3) Champion Adjustments:
Mel
- Q missile speed: 5000 → 4500
- Q range: 1000 → 950
- W duration: 1.0 → 0.75
- W damage: 40-70% → 40-60%
- W mana: 60-0 → 80-0
- E root: 175-2.25 → 1.25-2.25
- E damage: 60-220 + 50% 60-240 + 60%
- R per-stack AP ratio: 2.5% → 3.5%
Diana
- P monster mod: 3x → 2.25x – Q damage: 60-200 70-210 – W damage: 54-198 60-204
Elise
- Human W damage: 60-240 + 95% → 60-220 + 75%
- Spider WAS: 60-100% → 60-120% – Spider W CD: 10 → 6 – Spiderling damage: 8-26 + 15% → 10-40 + 15%
When talking about the Mel adjustments, Riot states,
“For Mel, we are looking at some changes this patch to reduce her frustration, by bringing down her range and reliability slightly, lowering the forgiveness on her W a bit, now that players have had time to learn her, reducing her rank 1 root duration and making her R damage more dependent on having stacks. Mel sports a pretty low winrate on her first game in particular, but after players have played a few games, this rapidly increases.”
4) System Buffs
Mercury Treads
- Price: 1300 1250
Symbiotic Soles
- Move speed: 35 → 40
5) System Nerfs
Abyssal Mask
- Magic resist: 50 → 45
Fimbulwinter
- Shield: 100-180 + 4.5% current mana 100 + 4.5% current mana
Heartsteel
- Damage to max HP conversion: 10% → 8%
Plated Steelcaps
- Plating damage reduction: 12% → 10%
Unending Despair
- Anguish damage: 8-15 + 3% bonus HP → 0 + 3% bonus HP
When talking about the upcoming tank item nerfs Riots states,
“A lof of tanks in those times were opting into things like Thornmail 2nd item (in particular), which indicated that they don’t really have any good item choices. Being able to opt into specialized items like Thornmail 2nd sometimes is OK, but it feels pretty unsatisfying when it’s the option in most games, especially when playing against magic damage compositions. Unending Despair was reworked to be this 2nd baseline item to allow players to pivot off this foundation if an option is better (eg. MR heavy vs magic, AR heavy vs phys). From our player surveys, champs like Mundo, Kench, Skarner, K’Sante, etc. who prominently use these items and are high on “perceived strength” will be nerfed.”
6) System Adjustments
Infinity Edge
- Price: 3600 → 3450 – Attack damage: 70 → 65
When is League of Legends patch 25.S1.4 releasing?
LoL patch 25.S1.4 will be releasing on February 20, 2024. It will bring massive changes to the current tank meta, and it will be interesting to see just how it affects both pro play and standard matchmaking.
