LoL Preseason, Patch 9.23: New Rift changes brought by Rise of the Elements

Rise of the Elements is surely one of the biggest updates that League of Legends ever received.

The Elemental Rifts bring a complete change of the Summoner's Rift, shaping the landscape of the map according to each Elemental Drake.

Side lanes were reworked, adding new brushes and crevices to play with.

Last but not least, the Drake Buffs are going to change a lot, notably thanks to the introduction of Dragon Souls and the rework of the Elder Dragon!

Elemental Rifts

• Transformation Trigger: After the second Elemental Drake dies and the third is announced
• Rift Element: Same as the element of the third drake
• Territorial: Once the map transforms, all future Elemental Drake spawns will be of that element only
• Terrain Changes: Always occur in the four jungle quadrants, centered around the buff camps, as well as in dragon pit

Infernal Rift

"New paths make opportunities for a quick flank or sidestep that your opponent isn't expecting."

• Jungle: The brush nearest to Blue and Red buffs burn away, and new pathways open up through the Blue and Red buff pits
• Dragon Pit: The entrance to Dragon pit widens

Ocean Rift

"Sneak around the jungle or look for a new ambush opportunity."

• Jungle: Most of the brush in the jungle grows larger and new Honeyfruit spawns near the buff camps. Water pools into puddles throughout the jungle, which is mostly aesthetic unless you're the Empress of the Elements or running the Waterwalking rune.
• Dragon Pit: New brush patches sprout up around the Dragon pit

Cloud Rift

"Dodge skillshots or make a swift collapse on your enemies trying to sneak a far away objective."

• Jungle: Air currents flow throughout the area around Blue and Red buffs, granting speed boosts to everyone inside
• Dragon Pit: Dragon Pit also becomes a speed boosting wind tunnel

Mountain Rift

"Extra tight spaces give opportunities for big AOE wombos and create some interesting new hiding spots with fog of war."

• Jungle: Two new bluffs of rock emerge in each jungle quadrant
• Dragon Pit: A rock formation rises in front of the Dragon pit

Side Lane Alcoves

"We're adding two new lane alcoves to the Rift, one in each side lane. We don't expect laning to fundamentally change as a result, but the extra terrain and its impact on line of sight should occasionally offer new playmaking opportunities through positioning, jukes, flanks, and ganks."

• New alcoves have been carved into the outer corners of top and bot lanes
• Biot Lane Brushes: Two long patches ⇒ Three patches, mirroring top lane

River Entrance Brush

"New brush patches near the blue buff ramps into river add new strategic and tactical options as teams approach and contest objectives."

• New brush has been added by the river entrances in both Blue buff quadrants

Elemental Drakes

Dragon Souls

Dragon Souls are a new end-game payoff for the team who wins the Elemental Drake game, a powerful reward that's similar to an Epic objective. Dragon Souls don't offer the same moment-to-moment strength as Baron or Elder buff, but they're permanent and an additional bonus on top of the drake stacks their bearers already earned.

• The first team to slay four Elemental Drakes gains a Dragon Soul matching the Elemental Rift
• Elder Dragon begins spawning after one team gains a Dragon Soul, meaning only one team can have it.
• Like Elemental Drake buffs, Dragon Souls are permanent and persist through death

Infernal Soul

• Every 3 seconds, your next damaging attack or ability on an enemy unit triggers a small explosion, dealing 90 (+0.25 bonus attack damage) (+0.15 ability power) (+0.03 bonus health) damage to the target and nearby enemies.

Mountain Soul

• After not taking damage for 5 seconds, gain a shield for 225 (+0.2 bonus attack damage) (+0.15 ability power) (+0.15 bonus health)

Ocean Soul

• Dealing damage to enemies heals you for 180 (+0.4 bonus attack damage) (+0.25 ability power) (+0.1 bonus health) and restores 90 (+0.04 maximum mana) mana over 3 seconds.
• Damage to minions or monsters regenerates with 30% effectiveness.

Cloud Soul

• Passively gain 10% increased movement speed.
• After casting your ultimate, gain an additional 30% movement speed for 3 seconds (30 second cooldown).

Elemental Drake Buffs

We're updating the buffs to be more equal in power and excitement. Stack for stack, elemental buffs are weaker than before to avoid excessively power creeping SR's buff ecosystem. With Dragon Souls adding new late game payout to Elemental Drakes, we're switching from the current frontloaded buff stacks back to a linear model. Last note: You can now get four stacks of an element if the enemy team gets the first two or three drakes (always different elements), then you get the next four (always the same element).

Infernal

• +10/17/24% attack damage and ability power ⇒ +5/10/15/20% attack damage and ability power

Mountain

• +16/23/30% bonus true damage to epic monsters and turrets ⇒ +8/16/24/32% armor and magic resist

Ocean

• 6/9/12% missing health and mana regen per 5 seconds when you haven't taken champion/turret damage within 8 seconds ⇒ 5/10/15/20% missing health regen per 5 seconds (mana regen removed)

Cloud

• +3/4.5/6% bonus movement speed (tripled while out of combat) ⇒ 10/20/30/40% ultimate CDR, ignoring the CDR cap

Elemental Drake Mechanics

With drake types going down to just one element after the Rift transforms, we're ensuring the first few you see don't double up on elements so you still experience a variety of drakes in each game.

• Spawn order: Random ⇒ The first three drakes are now always three unique elements. All subsequent drakes will be the same element as the third drake.
• Spawn Windows: 5:00 initial, 5:00 respawn until 35:00 ⇒ 5:00 initial, 5:00 respawn until one team has slain four drakes (see Dragon Soul section above)

Since the Elemental Drake buffs are a bit weaker, we're dropping the health of the first two drakes. The battle over the Dragon Soul begins heating up after that, so drakes after the first two have more health to widen the opportunity for teams to contest.

• Health: 3500 (+240 per level, minimum level 6) ⇒ 2650 (+240 per level, minimum level 6) before the Rift transforms; 4350 (+240 per level, minimum level 6) for the third drake onward

Elder Dragon

Up until now, Elder Dragon massively favored the team that was already ahead due to scaling with drake stacks (and in super long games, itself). We're removing that scaling to make room for power that's equally rewarding whether you're pressing a lead or making a comeback.

[REMOVED] Elemental Multiplier

• Elder Dragon's buff no longer increases the effects of Elemental Drake buffs by 50%

[CHANGED] Burn Damage

• 45 (+45 per Elemental Drake stack) true damage over 3 seconds ⇒ 90-270 true damage over 3 seconds (at 25:00-45:00 game time)

[REMOVED] Burning Bright

• Elder Dragon's burn no longer reveals enemies

[REMOVED] Elder Multiplier

• Taking Elder Dragon a second time no longer increases the Elemental buff multiplier to 100% or the burn damage to 135 (+90 per Elemental Drake stack)

Elder's new mechanic is an execute, sharpening its identity as the end-game teamfighting buff and making its impact much more obvious than the DoT and drake scaling it used to grant. Note that the 20% threshold looks higher than it is in practice: You'll rarely bring an enemy to exactly 19.9% before they go boom.

[NEW] Execute

• Damaging an enemy at less than 20% health causes them to die in an Elder Immolation after 0.5 seconds (no cooldown).
• Elder Immolation can't execute enemies through invulnerability effects like Zhonya's Hourglass or undying effects like Kindred's R - Lamb's Respite

Final note about how often Elder will actually show up in games. In a complete stomp, the earliest Elder can spawn is 26:00 plus time spent in combat with the drakes. But in a game that's going even or isn't seeing many objectives taken, it's also possible for Elder to never spawn.

• Spawn Rules: First dragon spawn after 35:00; 6:00 respawn ⇒ 6:00 after one team kills their fourth Elemental Drake; 6:00 respawn

Other system changes

Buff Duration

We're standardizing the duration of Elder and Baron to three minutes. Though they have different strategic strengths, both buffs should last long enough for attacking teams to gain real advantages off coordinated power plays but not so long that defenders are paralyzed for excessive lengths of time. If these duration changes make Elder too strong or Baron too weak, we'll adjust their effects accordingly.

• Duration: 210 seconds ⇒ 180 seconds

Buff Visuals

Visuals for Blue Buff, Red Buff, Red Buff's burn effect, Hand of Baron, and Aspect of the Dragon (Elder Dragon buff) have all been updated. All monster buffs are now visually cohesive, including the new Dragon Souls.

Rift Herald

With the increased importance on drakes on bot side, we're spawning Rift Herald a bit earlier and letting her respawn once so teams don't completely abandon their top laners in favor of bot lane presence. (Y'know...more than they already do.)

Rift Herald Fight

• Initial Spawn: 10:00 ⇒ 8:00
• New Respawn: 6:00
• Despawn: 19:30, delayed to 19:50 if in combat (unchanged)
• Health: 10,000-16,000 (levels 6-12) ⇒ 8,250-16,500 (levels 6-12)
• Attack Speed: 0.5 ⇒ 0.4 (it's easier to poke Rift Herald's eye before she spins around)

Summoned Rift Herald

• Eye of the Herald Pick-Up Window: 40 seconds ⇒ 20 seconds
• Eye of the Herald Channel: 4 seconds ⇒ 1 second
• Herald Level: Average level of all ten champions, determined on using Eye of the Herald ⇒ picking up Eye of the Herald
• Health: 4000-6400 (levels 6-12) ⇒ 3180-6360 (levels 6-12)
• Headbutt Turret Damage: 40% current heath (1600-2560), minimum 1500 ⇒ 1500-2550 (levels 6-12)
• Headbutt Self-Damage: 25% current health ⇒ 66% current health

Jungle Pacing

Jungle Item XP

• [REMOVED] Jungle items no longer grant additional XP on monster kill if you're behind in levels (epic monsters still innately have catch-up XP though)
• First camp bonus EXP increased: 120 ⇒ 165

Camp Timers

• Small Camp Respawn: 150 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds
• New Small Camp Respawn Icon: If your team had vision of a small camp when it was killed, you'll see a respawn icon on the minimap 15 seconds before respawn
• Buff Camp Respawn Icon: Buff camp respawn icons change from gray to yellow 20 seconds ⇒ 15 seconds before respawn

Krugs

• Base XP: 247 (217 on first clear) ⇒ 160 (Ancient Krug's first clear penalty removed)
• Base Gold: 125 ⇒ 120

Murkwolves

• Base XP: 115 ⇒ 95
• Base Gold: 84 ⇒ 70

Gromp

• Base Health: 1800 ⇒ 2100
• Base XP: 115 ⇒ 135
• Base Gold: 86 ⇒ 105

Raptors

• Base XP: 115 ⇒ 95
• Base Gold: 112 ⇒ 85

Minion XP

We're very lightly adjusting minion XP to slightly equalize the influence top and bot laners have on the game. Solo laners will level about 2% faster from minions, while duo laners (or solo laners getting non-stop jungler attention) will level about 2% slower. Put another way, every five waves adds up to an extra caster minion for solo laners and one fewer for bot.

Solo XP

• Melee: 58.8 ⇒ 60.45
• Caster: 29.44 ⇒ 29.76
• Cannon: 92 ⇒ 93

Shared XP

Divide evenly among the champions sharing XP.

• Melee: 76.8 ⇒ 75.4
• Caster:38.4 ⇒ 37.12
• Cannon: 120 ⇒ 116

Turret Plating

Slightly buffing Turret Plating durability to prevent group-and-push blowouts in the early game, especially with the Rift Herald changes in mind.

• Bulwark Resistances: 25 ⇒ 35 armor and magic resist per third, fourth, and fifth attacker when a plate is destroyed

What do you think about these changes? Are you excited to try them out tomorrow?